Claim OwnershipRay William Johnson: True Story Podcast
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The Official Podcast of Ray William Johnson, storyteller and comedian. Tune in for the best stories of True Crime and Pop Culture.
437 Episodes
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Jean-Claude Lacote and Hilde Van Acker were a Belgian couple who became internationally notorious after the 1996 murder of British businessman Simon Dale, a crime they committed in Knokke-Heist before fleeing the country and vanishing for more than two decades. Skilled con artists, they slipped through Europe, the United States, South Africa, Brazil, Mauritius, and Ivory Coast while living under fake identities, running fraud schemes, and even raising a daughter on the run.
Jenny Cataldo spun a long, emotional hoax by pretending she had terminal cancer, complete with shaved-head photos, fake medical stories, and tearful updates that pulled friends, coworkers, and strangers into her invented struggle. Over several years she accepted money, gifts, and donations from people who genuinely believed they were helping her survive, until inconsistencies in her claims triggered suspicion and investigators discovered there was no cancer diagnosis at all.
Sabrina Taylor spent years weaving a sympathy-soaked lie, pretending she had multiple sclerosis and a stack of other crises so she could drain more than half a million dollars from friends and online acquaintances who believed they were helping her stay alive, stay in school, or rescue family members who didn’t actually exist. Beginning around 2013, she told people she needed money for MS treatments, tuition, and emergency bailouts, even forging documents to keep the illusion afloat, all while spending the cash on travel, shopping, and luxury items.
1In 2025, Michael Scaletta-Teates of Washington state goes to great lengths to pretend to be a police officer- outfitting his car with red and blue emergency lights, wearing a ballistic-style vest and badge, and appearing at crime scenes.
Albert Johnson Walker was a Canadian financial adviser who stole over $3 million CAD from clients in the late 1980s, then fled Canada in 1990 with his teenage daughter Sheena to avoid prosecution. While living in England under false names, he manipulated and ultimately stole the identity of a British man named Ronald Platt, even convincing Platt to move to Canada, which left the identity available. When the real Platt returned to England in 1996 and threatened to expose him, Walker murdered him in Devon, weighted the body with an anchor, and dumped it at sea.
Pam Hupp is a Missouri woman at the center of one of the most notorious wrongful-conviction cases in the U.S. in 2011, after her close friend Betsy Faria was brutally stabbed to death, Hupp- who had secretly made herself the beneficiary of Betsy’s $150k life-insurance policy just days earlier- helped steer police toward Betsy’s husband Russ Faria, who was wrongly convicted and imprisoned for nearly three years before being fully exonerated; when investigators began refocusing on Hupp in 2016, she staged a fake kidnapping plot to frame Russ again and instead murdered Louis Gumpenberger, a cognitively impaired man she lured with a fake Dateline acting job.
Andrew and Alecia Schmuhl’s case is one of the most shocking and bizarre crimes in recent Virginia history: after Alecia was fired from her law firm, she and her husband spiraled into desperation and rage, culminating on November 9, 2014, when Alecia drove Andrew- dressed in an adult diaper, latex gloves, and a fake badge- to the home of her former boss, Leo Fisher, in McLean. Posing as law enforcement, Andrew forced his way inside, tased and zip-tied Leo and his wife, Susan, then tortured, stabbed, and slashed their throats using a kitchen knife while demanding passwords and information, all while Alecia waited outside in the getaway car. Miraculously, both victims survived and gave police detailed descriptions that led to a short car chase and the Schmuhls' arrest minutes later, with Andrew still wearing only the diaper.
Timothy McVeigh was a Gulf War veteran whose growing hatred of the federal government- fueled by the Ruby Ridge standoff, the Waco siege, militia-movement ideology, and The Turner Diaries- led him to plan and execute the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
Apparently we need to get into the pigeon racing business 😳-Arlan Galbraith known as The Pigeon King, ran one of Canada’s strangest and most devastating Ponzi schemes, convincing hundreds of farmers across Canada and the U.S. to buy expensive breeding pigeons with promises that he would buy back the offspring at a guaranteed profit. Galbraith claimed he was building a massive pigeon-meat and racing-bird industry, but no such market existed, and the only money coming in was from new farmers joining the scheme.
The Joe Rosebrook case centers on a long-simmering grudge, a murder-for-hire plot, and a catastrophic case of mistaken identity that went unsolved for nearly a decade. Rosebrook, a small-time Ohio fraudster and chop-shop operator with a habit of retaliating against people he believed had crossed him, sought revenge against a man named Daniel E. Ott- someone he blamed for exposing one of his earlier scams. The murder contract passed through several intermediaries until it reached Chad Testerman, who located the wrong Daniel Ott.
Samantha Azzopardi is an Australian serial con artist whose crimes span more than a decade and multiple countries, built almost entirely on elaborate false identities.
In 2009, Michael Jackson died of an overdose at his Los Angeles home. A powerful anesthetic propofol had been administered by his personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray. In a highly publicized 2011 trial, Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
Actress Winona Ryder was caught stealing more than $5,000 worth of designer clothing and accessories from Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. Security detained her after observing her cutting sensor tags and walking out with the merchandise, leading to her high-profile arrest and a media frenzy that dominated early-2000s pop culture.
In July 2001, German couple Daniel and Manuela Ruda- deeply involved in Satanic and vampire-themed beliefs- lured their friend, 33-year-old Frank Hackert, to their apartment in Witten and brutally murdered him in what they described as a ritual killing. Manuela had filed her teeth into fangs and slept in a coffin, and Daniel claimed he’d received a vision of the number 6667, which he believed meant they should marry on June 6 and kill themselves on July 6 after offering a human sacrifice to Satan.
Yareni Rios-Gonzalez was involved in a reported road-rage incident in Weld County, Colorado, on September 16, 2022, after a man called 911 claiming she tailgated him and pointed a firearm. Police pulled her over near Platteville, where officers from two departments handcuffed her and placed her in the back of a patrol SUV that one officer had parked directly on railroad tracks. While officers searched her truck, a freight train approached; body-cam video shows Yareni screaming for help moments before the train slammed into the police vehicle, critically injuring her and leaving her with a traumatic brain injury, broken bones, and requiring surgery.
Devan Schreiner, a former USPS worker from Longmont, Colorado, was locked in a turbulent custody battle with her ex-boyfriend, postal carrier Jason Schaefer, the father of their young son. Their relationship had soured after years of conflict, and shortly before the murder she was fired from the post office following an undisclosed “incident.” Prosecutors said Schreiner became enraged when Jason sought increased custody, and on October 13, 2021, she ambushed him on his mail route, shooting him as he sat in his postal truck.
Leonardo Notarbartolo was the mastermind behind the 2003 Antwerp Diamond Heist, one of the most ingenious burglaries ever pulled off. Working with a crew of elite Italian thieves, he spent over a year posing as a diamond trader to gain access to the Antwerp Diamond Center, a building considered nearly impenetrable thanks to its multilayered security
John Orr was a respected Glendale, California fire captain and arson investigator who spent nearly a decade secretly setting the very fires he was supposed to prevent. Between 1984 and 1991, Orr ignited hundreds possibly thousands of fires.
Rafael Pérez was an LAPD officer whose crimes detonated the largest police-corruption scandal in Los Angeles history. A member of the elite Rampart Division CRASH unit, Pérez spent years planting guns, framing suspects, falsifying reports, beating civilians, and even shooting unarmed people- including paralyzing 19-year-old Javier Ovando, then lying to send him to prison.
Ronnie O’Neal III committed one of Florida’s most shocking family murders on March 18, 2018. His son miraculously survived, crawled out of the burning house, and later testified against his father in court.
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RIP Christina Grimmie.
This girl is very disturbed.
This was first originally uploaded on TikTok. #RayWilliamJohnson