Serial Napper | True Crime for the Chronically Tired

On July 19, 2025, nine-year-old Melina Frattolin was supposed to be returning home to Montreal after a week-long vacation in the United States with her father, Luciano Frattolin. But that evening, Luciano called 911 from upstate New York with a terrifying story. He claimed that two men in a white van had kidnapped Melina from the side of the highway. Police launched an urgent search, issuing an Amber Alert and stopping vehicles matching the description. But as investigators tried to retrace Luciano's movements, they began finding inconsistencies in his account. The following afternoon, Melina's body was discovered in a remote wooded area near Ticonderoga, New York. What followed was an investigation involving cellphone records, surveillance footage, handwritten notes, and evidence that raised serious questions about what had happened during the final hours of Melina's life. Sources: https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/07/frattolin_redacted.pdf https://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/current/3dseries/2026/2026_05235.shtml https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/documents-show-police-zeroed-father-frattolin-case-21335399.php https://troopers.ny.gov/node/24481 https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/montreal-father-faces-judge-daughter-s-killing-22476316.php https://www.mynbc5.com/article/luciano-frattolini-trial-day-5/73299407 https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/documents-show-police-zeroed-father-frattolin-case-21335399.php  https://winnipeg.citynews.ca/2026/08/15/her-daughter-never-came-home-the-hours-before-the-death-of-melina-frattolin/ https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/police-issue-amber-alert-9-year-old-abducted-lake-20777199.php/ https://apnews.com/article/daughter-drowned-adirondack-region-luciano-frattolin-pleads-19b1df205cbab3dea98e9ccf85ff137a https://toronto.citynews.ca/2026/10/14/father-set-to-be-sentenced-in-new-york-for-the-murder-of-nine-year-old-montreal-girl https://infonews.ca/news/7810536/her-daughter-never-came-home-the-hours-before-the-death-of-melina-frattolin/ https://www.collingwoodtoday.ca/national-news/father-charged-with-murder-in-new-york-in-death-of-montreal-nine-year-old-10968833 https://www.yahoo.com/news/melina-frattolin-father-hid-9-175313545.html Follow me here: ► YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@SerialNapper/ ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/serialnappernik/ ► Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/SerialNapper/ ► TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@serialnappernik  *Go Ad-Free on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SerialNapper * Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In December 1997, a fire tore through a Philadelphia home. Ten-day-old Delimar Vera was believed to have died in her crib, leaving her family devastated. But her mother, Luz Cuevas, never stopped questioning what happened that night. Six years later, at a child's birthday party, Luz noticed a little girl who looked remarkably familiar. The resemblance was unsettling, but it was one tiny detail that made her wonder whether the impossible could actually be true. What followed was an extraordinary investigation involving five strands of hair, DNA testing, and a woman with a troubling connection to the night of the fire. For the final episode of *Serial Nightmare*, we're revisiting the story of Rapunzel through the real-life case of Delimar Vera, a little girl whose disappearance was only the beginning of a much more complicated story. Sources: https://www.ranker.com/list/bizarre-true-crime-twists/chrissy-rose?fbclid=IwAR0qev8Z5bqknM-RQqWZAjL1dLcOmnS0wvjOh2FNA9gmouQP7RPKhpjm0XE https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2004/03/21/murky-details-cloud-girl-s-return/  https://www.reddit.com/r/mrballen/comments/vslejy/delimar_vera_1998_stolen_years_a_baby_who_was/  https://phila.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?GUID=A64C0F8A-17BB-4BAC-B1AC-4A7943ED46F0&ID=1227921 https://time.com/archive/6737931/back-from-the-blaze/ https://puertorico-herald.net/issues/2004/vol8n12/LittleGirlFound.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/03/03/a-mothers-instincts-borne-out/5a932e90-773b-4609-9d65-3db46cdf93fd/ https://www.inquirer.com/philly/hp/news_update/20080725__Little_Girl_Lost___Lifetime_movie_based_on_kidnapping_of_Feltonville_baby.html https://www.firehouse.com/home/news/10526350/woman-in-pennsylvania-kidnap-arson-case-surrenders https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5914b4f4add7b0493476fa35 https://puertorico-herald.net/issues/2004/vol8n12/LittleGirlFound.html https://phila.legistar.com/ViewReport.ashx?GID=30&GUID=9BD121DE-1315-466B-9B11-EA3EDCBCFDC3&ID=1276386&M=R&N=Text&Title=Legislation+Text https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/oct/24/i-was-thought-to-have-died-in-a-house-fire-at-10-days-old-in-fact-i-was-kidnapped Follow me here: ► YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@SerialNapper/ ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/serialnappernik/ ► Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/SerialNapper/ ► TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@serialnappernik  *Go Ad-Free on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SerialNapper * Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1940, a woman in Key West, Florida, made a horrifying discovery. Her sister, Elena, had been dead for nine years, but her body wasn't where the family believed it had been buried. It was inside the home of Carl Tanzler, a man who claimed he'd been destined to love her. Carl had met 20-year-old Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos while she was receiving treatment for tuberculosis. When she died in 1931, he refused to let her go. Two years later, he secretly removed her remains from a cemetery, reconstructed her body using wire, wax, and other materials, and kept her inside his home for years. But the discovery of Elena's remains was only the beginning of another disturbing chapter. As newspapers turned Carl into a tragic romantic figure, thousands of strangers lined up to see the woman at the centre of his obsession. For this episode of Serial Nightmare, we're revisiting the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty through one of the strangest true-crime cases in American history. Sources: https://www.kwahs.org/exhibit/ghosts-of-east-martello https://www.monroecounty-fl.gov/DocumentCenter/View/22013/20180116---Historic-Jail---Historical-Structural-Report---Final-Report google.com/url?q=https://www.keyslibraries.org/post/october-6-2026 https://www.ripleys.com/stories/carl-tanzler Follow me here: ► YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@SerialNapper/ ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/serialnappernik/ ► Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/SerialNapper/ ► TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@serialnappernik  *Go Ad-Free on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SerialNapper * Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In November 2010, a mother, her two children and a family friend seemingly vanished from a home in Apple Valley, Ohio. The investigation would lead police from an abandoned pickup truck to a stranger in a parking lot, a trail of unusual purchases, and eventually a small house in Mount Vernon, unlike anything they expected to find. Inside, the floors were covered in leaves - and somewhere in the house, police made a discovery that completely changed the case. For this episode of Serial Nightmare, we're returning to the dark forests of Hansel and Gretel through the disturbing crimes of Matthew Hoffman, a case involving a house in the woods, a trail investigators had to follow, and two siblings whose story would end very differently from the fairy tale. Sources: https://abcnews.com/US/bodies-missing-people-found-ohio-police/story?id=12184250 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ohio-girl-found-alive-bound-no-word-on-others/ https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/columbus-oh/tina-herrmann-10670725 https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/legacyremembers/tina-herrmann-maynard-obituary?id=9269815 https://vindyarchives.com/news/2010/nov/13/authorities-seeking-4-missing-from-home/ https://abcnews.com/US/missing-ohio-family-prompts-college-lockdown-search/story?id=12139637 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ohio-family-mourned-murdered-mother-son-friend-remembered-ahead-of-funerals/ https://www.aetv.com/articles/killer-matthew-hoffman-victims-in-tree  https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/ng/date/2010-11-18/segment/01 https://tfpl.sfo2.digitaloceanspaces.com/Newspapers/Times-News_2010-11/PDF/2010_11_21.pdf https://www.wosu.org/news/2010-11-19/bodies-of-three-missing-knox-county-residents-found https://www.thehour.com/norwalk/article/Bodies-of-missing-Ohio-family-found-8297265.php https://legalclarity.org/the-tina-herrmann-murders-rescue-trial-and-aftermath/ https://websleuths.com/threads/oh-two-women-child-killed-13yo-abducted-apple-valley-10-nov-2010-9.120603/page-16 Follow me here: ► YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@SerialNapper/ ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/serialnappernik/ ► Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/SerialNapper/ ► TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@serialnappernik  *Go Ad-Free on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SerialNapper * Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if the miracle everyone wanted came with a price no one bothered to tell you about? At the beginning of the twentieth century, radium seemed almost magical. It was rare, extraordinarily valuable and celebrated as a scientific breakthrough that could transform medicine, consumer products and even something as ordinary as a watch. During World War I, young women were hired to paint luminous numbers onto watches and military instruments using radium-based paint. The jobs were coveted. The pay was good, the work was considered glamorous, and the women were taught a simple technique to keep their tiny brushes sharp: Lip. Dip. Paint. They were told it was safe. Then the women began getting sick. Teeth loosened. Jaws deteriorated. Bones fractured. Mysterious illnesses appeared years after some of them had left the factories. When the women began questioning whether their work was responsible, they found themselves fighting not only for their lives, but to be believed. Sources: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/tuesday-ferry-boat-survivor-radium-girls-author-no-possum-drop-and-more-1.2941016/remembering-mae-keane-the-last-of-the-radium-girls-1.2941019 https://www.buzzfeed.com/authorkatemoore/the-light-that-does-not-lie  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRkeghENceY https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/madame-curies-passion-74183598/#:~:text=Marie%20extracted%20pure%20radium%20salts,purified%20and%20converted%20into%20chlorides. https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2018/01/04/the-radium-girls-at-the-national-archives/ https://www.dolphin-geoscience.ca/resources/death-by-numbers-the-mysterious-illness-of-the-dial-painters https://home.nps.gov/articles/000/b-reactor-health-physics-exhibit-an-order-for-safety.htm Follow me here: ► YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@SerialNapper/ ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/serialnappernik/ ► Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/SerialNapper/ ► TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@serialnappernik  *Go Ad-Free on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SerialNapper * Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices