Hey readers,

Each week, I comb through dozens of articles, magazine features, old newspaper archives, and other sources to find compelling true crime stories.

Until now, I’ve collected these links for my own research, but starting this week, I’ll be sharing reads I find particularly compelling or interesting.

You’ll find a few free gift links to otherwise paywalled pieces so you can read them in full. If you enjoyed this issue and would like to get more, let me know here.

As always, thanks for reading.

— T.G.

The search for 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard, which began on October 14, is focused around a three-day road trip her mother, Ashlee, took through four states.

Her mother returned to California without Melodee and has since offered no clear explanation as to why. Investigators say Ashlee used wigs and swapped license plates along the way, and she’s now been arrested on a separate false imprisonment charge as the FBI and local authorities retrace her travels.

➜ Read the full story

In 1994, 14-year-old Tanya Marie Frazier went missing after summer school in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. The case has been cold for more than 30 years, but new DNA analysis tied evidence from the murder to Mark Anthony Russ, a man with a long record of violent offenses.

The breakthrough brought Tanya's family back into heavy memories they’ve carried for decades. Seattle Police Department detective Rolf Norton, who spent ten years on Tanya’s case, said the time “to take a victory lap” isn’t here—there’s still a lot of legal maneuvering to be done.

➜ Read the full story (New York Times — free gift link)

An anonymous D.C. woman who survived a stabbing in 2004 learned this year that the man who attacked her has now been charged with the 1999 killing of Susan Noelle Cvengros, a connection that was uncovered through long-lost DNA evidence.

The new charge forces her back into memories she thought she’d buried, and raises questions about why George Mudd wasn’t stopped sooner.

➜ Read the full story (Washington Post — free gift link)

Tennessee’s probation system has a built-in gap that stops in-person supervision once a violation warrant has been issued. After several women were killed during that stretch of no oversight, ProPublica traced how that pause left high-risk offenders unsupervised, and why the state’s rules failed the victims who had already asked for help.

➜ Read the full story

Investigators in Alameda County, California, say they’ve finally named those responsible for Zachary Jackson’s 1993 shooting death: his ex, Veronica Fonseca, and her then-boyfriend, Anthony Fox.

The case sat frozen for decades until fresh tips added up and pushed detectives back into the background of Jackson, who was a dad of two when he was killed. Both suspects were arrested in different states this month.

➜ Read the full story

More than 60 years after 9-year-old Carol Ann Dougherty was raped and murdered inside a Pennsylvania church in 1962, investigators named her killer.

William Schrader, a man whose life left a long trail of abused children, died in 2002, but is now “definitely linked” to Carol’s murder. The break came from old evidence and a confession he shared with his stepson years before he died.

➜ Read the full story

Included in his new book, She Kills: The Murderous Socialite, the Cross-Dressing Bank Robber, and Other True Crime Tales, is Skip Hollandsworth’s “Poisoning Daddy,” his 1996 account of how, and why, 16-year-old Marie Robards murdered her father for a surprising reason.

➜ Read the full story (Texas Monthly — free gift link)

Debbie Dorian murder: Tonight’s 20/20 episode covers the 1996 murder of 22-year-old Debbie Dorian and the DNA mistake that let her killer hunt other women for years. The episode tracks how investigators finally pinned the crimes on Nickey Duane Stane, who wasn’t identified in Debbie’s murder until 2019.

➜ Preview the episode

Golden State Killer book: Sacramento County DA Thien Ho just released The People vs. The Golden State Killer, his inside account of the decades-long pursuit of Joseph DeAngelo. The book pulls back the curtain on the investigation, including interrogation details never shared before, while spotlighting the survivors who refused to let the case go cold.

"I wanted to focus this book really on the generation of law enforcement officers that never gave up the search for him and on the victims and survivors who found their voices," Ho said.

➜ Check out the book: Bookshop.org | Amazon

The Carman Family Deaths: A new Netflix documentary digs into the 2016 disappearance of 54-year-old Linda Carman, and the open-water rescue of her son Nathan.

It was a strange case to begin with, and quickly spiraled into suspicions of murder and a years-long fight over money, motive, and truth. The doc is based on an excellent 2021 WIRED article from Evan Lubofsky, who’s interviewed in the new film.

➜ Watch the trailer

The Mushroom Tapes: Australian writers Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper, and Sarah Krasnostein discuss the case of Erin Patterson, who’s serving a life sentence after being convicted of murdering three relatives via poisonous mushrooms.

The Mushroom Tapes isn’t a traditional true crime book—it can feel closer to a podcast at times—but that’s also what makes it a unique read.

➜ Read the review

Without Consent: In her latest book, author Sarah Weinman revisits the 1978 Greta Rideout trial, the first marital-rape case in the U.S. She tracks the long, uneven fight to recognize a married woman’s right to her own body.

The NYT review of Without Consent: A Landmark Trial and the Decades-Long Struggle to Make Spousal Rape a Crime praises Weinman’s focus on the women behind the laws, all while pointing out how many of the same prejudices continue to shape courtroom outcomes today.

➜ Check out the book: Bookshop.org | Amazon

On November 13, 1977, Sonja Johnson, 14, and Dolores Cepeda, 12, were abducted in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Their bodies were found a week later, and they were eventually determined to be victims of Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono Jr.—the Hillside Stranglers.

➜ Read: Homicidal cousins and the Hillside Stranglers case: A trial that nearly did not happen, Los Angeles Times

➜ Listen: Hillside: The Investigation and Trial of the Hillside Strangler, Last 5 Percent Media

➜ Watch: Hillside Stranglers: The Deadly Cousin Duo, Real Crime (YouTube)

➜ Deep read: The Hillside Stranglers by Darcy O'Brien