Category 1: Infamous Killers
He was the notorious leader of a "Family" cult responsible for the horrific Tate-LaBianca murders in Los Angeles in the summer of 1969.
Who is Charles Manson?
Hosted by Sarah Koenig, this 2014 powerhouse podcast investigated the murder of Hae Min Lee and effectively launched the modern true crime boom.
What is Serial?
This 2020 Netflix docuseries sensation followed the chaotic lives of exotic zookeepers, specifically Joe Exotic and his bitter rivalry with Carole Baskin.
What is Tiger King
Also known as dactyloscopy, these friction ridge impressions left behind by human fingers are the oldest and most trusted method of physical identification.
What are fingerprints?
Over 900 people tragically lost their lives in 1978 after this fanatical cult leader forced his followers to drink poisoned flavor aid in Guyana.
Who is Jim Jones?
Known as the "Killer Clown," this Chicago-area serial killer buried most of his 33 young victims beneath the crawl space of his home.
Who is John Wayne Gacy?
Comedians Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark host this massive podcast where their signature sign-off is "Stay sexy and don't get murdered."
What is My Favorite Murder?
Evan Peters won an Emmy for his terrifying portrayal of a real-life cannibal in this controversial 2022 Ryan Murphy Netflix drama.
What is Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story?
This fundamental biological building block was first used in a forensic criminal investigation in 1986 by British geneticist Alec Jeffreys to catch a killer.
What is DNA?
This high-profile tech con artist claimed her company, Theranos, could run hundreds of medical tests with just a single drop of human blood.
Who is Elizabeth Holmes?
This charismatic serial killer escaped from custody twice in Colorado before finally being captured for good in Florida in 1978.
Who is Ted Bundy?
This wildly popular, fast-paced podcast hosted by Ashley Flowers and Britt Watraw features a name that references our canine best friends.
What is Crime Junkie?
Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez star as three neighbors who start their own podcast after a death in their wealthy New York apartment building.
What is Only Murders in the Building?
This chemical compound emits a glowing blue light when it reacts with the iron found in hemoglobin, revealing hidden bloodstains at a crime scene.
What is luminol?
He orchestrated the largest Ponzi scheme in global history, defrauding thousands of wealthy investors out of an estimated 64 billion dollars before his 2008 arrest.
Who is Bernie Madoff?
Operating in London's Whitechapel district in 1888, this unidentified killer is named after the mocking signature on a letter sent to the Central News Office.
Who is Jack the Ripper?
Hosted by Ben Kissel, Marcus Parks, and Henry Zebrowski, this comedy-horror podcast covers everything from Ted Bundy to cryptids and aliens.
What is Last Podcast on the Left?
Penn Badgley stars as Joe Goldberg, a charmingly dangerous stalker and serial killer who uses social media to track his romantic obsessions.
What is YOU?
This specific forensic field studies insects, their life cycles, and their colonization of a body to accurately estimate the time of death
What is forensic entomology?
David Koresh led this religious sect during the tragic and violent 51-day law enforcement siege on their compound outside of Waco, Texas, in 1993.
What are the Branch Davidians?
This Milwaukee killer's crimes involved cannibalism and necrophilia, leading to a 1992 trial where he was ruled sane and sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms.
Who is Jeffrey Dahmer?
This Wondery podcast details how a charismatic but dangerous neurosurgeon named Christopher Duntsch severely maimed or killed dozens of his patients.
What is Dr. Death?
This highly acclaimed HBO docuseries famously caught real estate heir Robert Durst confessing to multiple murders on a live microphone while in the bathroom.
What is The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst?
This law enforcement database acronym stands for the FBI's system that integrates local, state, and federal fingerprint records into a single digital network.
What is IAFIS? (Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System)
Shoko Asahara led this dangerous Japanese doomsday cult responsible for the horrific 1995 sarin gas chemical attack on the Tokyo subway system.
What is Aum Shinrikyo?
The movie The Silence of the Lambs based the skinning habits of Buffalo Bill partly on this real-life Wisconsin grave robber and killer.
Who is Ed Gein?
Investigator Payne Lindsey travels to small-town Georgia in Season 1 of this podcast to look into the 11-year-old cold case of teacher Tara Grinstead.
What is Up and Vanished?
David Fincher directed this brilliant, short-lived Netflix series about the early days of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit interviewing incarcerated serial killers.
What is Mindhunter?
This scientific principle states that "every contact leaves a trace," forming the absolute bedrock foundation of modern trace evidence analysis.
What is Locard's Exchange Principle?
This notorious con man impersonated a pan Am pilot, a doctor, and a prosecutor, a life story famously adapted into the film Catch Me If You Can.
Who is Frank Abagnale Jr.?
He terrorized Northern California in the late 1960s, sending complex ciphers to newspapers, one of which wasn't fully cracked until 2020.
Who is the Zodiac Killer?
Delving into the dark underworld of internet crime, this critically acclaimed podcast hosted by Jack Rhysider uncovers hacks, scams, and cyber warfare.
What is Darknet Diaries?
Filmed over 10 years, this massive Netflix docuseries follows the legal battles of Steven Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin.
What is Making a Murderer?
In an autopsy, this Latin term describes the purple-red discoloration of the skin caused by the pooling of blood in the lowest parts of the body after death.
What is livor mortis (or postmortem lividity)?
Founded by Keith Raniere, this highly manipulative self-improvement organization was exposed as a dangerous cult that branded its female members.
What is NXIVM?
Active in the 1970s and '80s, Gary Ridgway confessed to murdering dozens of women near Seattle, earning this geographic moniker.
Who is the Green River Killer?
This investigative CBC podcast focuses each season on a different missing person or cold case in Canada, beginning with the 1993 disappearance of Amber Tuccaro.
What is Someone Knows Something?
This Showtime series features Michael C. Hall as a blood-spatter analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department who lives a double life as a vigilante serial killer.
What is Dexter?
This revolutionary investigative method combines DNA profiling with traditional public family-tree research to hunt down cold-case killers.
What is forensic genetic genealogy?
This infamous French imposter gained international notoriety by successfully masquerading as a missing Texas teenager named Nicholas Barclay.
Who is Frédéric Bourdin?
Dennis Rader gave himself this four-letter acronymic nickname, standing for the exact steps of his method.
What is BTK? (Bind, Torture, Kill)
This chilling audio-documentary podcast focuses on the decades-long hunt for the Golden State Killer, heavily featuring the work of late author Michelle McNamara.
What is I'll Be Gone in the Dark?
This 2022 Hulu miniseries stars Jessica Biel as a 1980s Texas housewife who stands accused of ax-murdering her friend and neighbor, Betty Gore.
What is Candy
This is the specific term for the unique pattern of microscopic grooves and scratches left on a bullet casing by the rifling inside a firearm's barrel.
What are striations?
Members of this UFO doomsday cult wore identical black Nike sneakers and armbands before committing mass suicide in 1997 to reach an alien spacecraft.
What is Heaven's Gate?
This French-Vietnamese thief and con man, nicknamed "The Serpent," targeted Western tourists on Asia's Hippie Trail during the 1970s.
Who is Charles Sobhraj?
This deeply reported APM Reports podcast spent its second season proving the innocence of Curtis Flowers, a Black man tried six times for the same quadruple murder.
What is in the dark?
This chilling David Tennant-led British miniseries tells the story of Scottish serial killer Dennis Nilsen, who murdered boys and young men in his London home.
What is Des?
This specialized chemical process uses heated superglue vapors to coat and develop latent fingerprints on non-porous surfaces like plastic or glass.
What is cyanoacrylate fuming?
This con man masqueraded as a wealthy member of the historical Rockefeller family for decades before ultimately being convicted of murder in 2013.
Who is Christian Gerhartsreiter (or Clark Rockefeller)?