Just The Tip-Sters: True Crime Podcast

Latest Episodes:

87. Sounds Like Light Shattering Darkness - Jennifer Ertman, Elizabeth Pena And The Quest For Justice Jun 18, 2019

Show notes

Recently a Tip-Ster from Boston - "Tip-Ster Jennifer" - brought a case to Melissa's attention that she had not been aware of - the 1993 murders in Houston Texas of 14 year-old Jennifer Ertman and 16 year-old Elizabeth Pena. The facts of the case are among the most gruesome and disturbing Melissa has ever encountered - but more than the horror of the crimes themselves were two compelling side-stories...one is that Tip-Ster Jennifer was a friend of Jennifer Ertman at the time she was murdered...and the other is the awe-inspiring story of Jennifer Ertman's dad, Randy who, along with his wife and the family of Elizabeth Pena, waged a crusade not only to find the killers, but once they were caught, to change the laws to give victims' families higher standing in the judicial system - things we take for granted today like victim impact statements and the right for families to remain in the courtroom even when other family members are testifying. Tip-Ster Jennifer calls in from Boston on this episode to talk about the gut-punching details of the murders - and the heroic passion of the families left behind. SPONSORED BY KLEANSPA BATH & BODY - Prepare to smell delicious! Go to www.kleanspa.com and get 15% off your total order by entering Promo Code TIPSTERS at checkout!

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86. Sounds Like A Father's Love - Finding Chase Allen Lackey - With Special Guest Craig Lackey Jun 11, 2019

Show notes

On the last day of June in 2017, Craig Lackey got to watch his 25 year-old son Chase compete in a ballgame in his home town of Houston, Texas. After the game, Craig hugged his son and told him he'd had a great game - and Chase, a dazzlingly cheerful, happy young man and friend to all who knew him, told his dad he loved him. That was the last time Craig saw his son. The next day, Chase was seen walking his dog outside his apartment near the Houston Beltway - and then he vanished. And no one - not Chase's family, his friends, his neighbors, and most especially not the police - have a clue what happened to him. On this episode Melissa is joined by Craig Lackey, who discusses his dedication to finding his son and the frustration of dealing with nearly two straight years of not knowing what the police are doing - or if they're doing anything at all - to find the son he loves. SPONSORED BY KLEANSPA BATH & BODY - Prepare to smell delicious! Go to www.kleanspa.com and get 15% off your total order by entering the Promo Code TIPSTERS at checkout!

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85. Sounds Like The Cops Don't Trust Us - The Closed (Minded) Search For Peter Chadwick Jun 04, 2019

Show notes

By all appearances, Peter Chadwick is a pretty rotten human. A millionaire British ex-pat living in an exclusive Southern California enclave with his wife and three sons, he suddenly disappears, along with his bride, one day in October 2012. Early the next morning 911 operators some 100 miles away in San Diego get a call from Chadwick, who claims his wife had been killed the previous day, and that he'd been...well...kidnapped...or something...by the killers. Let's just say the police didn't buy any of it, and just a few days later when his wife's body was found (under astounding circumstances), he was charged with First Degree Murder. Flash forward two-plus years later when, out on bail and on the eve of trial, Chadwick takes a powder. And no one has been able to find him. Anywhere. But it gets worse - and possibly much worse. In this episode Melissa shares not just the frustration - but the outrage - of how the police have completely controlled the information on the case while blocking access to the general public that might allow concerned citizens help catch Peter Chadwick - and for no apparent reason other than they simply don't trust the citizens they've been sworn to serve. Buckle up - Melissa is more than just a little worked up about this - and you will be too.

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84. Sounds Like A DNA Conundrum - The GEDMatch Opt-In Policy May 28, 2019

Show notes

It's been just over a year since the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, the alleged Golden State Killer, who was captured through an ingenious ploy by law enforcement, which registered the then-unknown killer's DNA under a dummy name on GEDMatch, a public DNA-based genealogy website. That sample led to distant relatives of DeAngelo who had registered their DNA on GEDMatch. From there, detectives pared down a list of those relatives until DeAngelo's DNA was confirmed to be a match with that of the murderer. In this past year alone, at least 50 arrests in other cases around the country have resulted from law enforcement's use of this form of DNA comparison. Recently, in a move obviously aimed at averting litigation, GEDMatch announced that henceforth no GEDMatch client's DNA can be used by law enforcement unless the client "opts-in" to such use. This policy applies even to the more than one million clients that existed prior to the policy change. In this episode, Melissa discusses the challenges this decision - and others likely to follow by other DNA testing sites - poses to police everywhere trying to solve murders where DNA exists but no DNA match can be found through traditional means.

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83. MURDERTIZER - Sounds Like San Joaquin Strangeness - Satwant And The Abandoned Big Rig May 26, 2019

Show notes

In this special Memorial Day Weekend MURDERTIZER (an appetizer of murder!), Melissa takes a look at a case not even a month old. One that is seemingly solved...or is it? On May 15, 2019 sheriff's deputies in Merced County (in California's San Joaquin Valley) were alerted to a big rig parked on the side of a major Interstate highway. Unlocked. With its motor running. With the driver's wallet and cell phone inside. Strange? Yes. But wait. The driver's body was found several days later in a canal two miles downstream from where the truck was found. Okay, that's NOT necessarily strange. But when Melissa starts piecing together some incredibly...er...COINCIDENTAL facts about the driver's name, she gets us all (especially Producer Mark) into the Freakout Zone. Take 30 minutes out of your holiday weekend to freak out a little bit yourself and join Melissa on a wild ride up the I-5.

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82. Sounds Like 39 Years Of Frustration - The Tynong North And Frankston Murders May 21, 2019

Show notes

This week, in a tip-of-the-cap to her growing band of Tip-Sters in Australia, Melissa focuses on one of the most agonizingly maddening murder mysteries our brethren Down Under still have no answers for - the 1980-1981 killings of six women in the southeastern suburbs of Melbourne. Known simply as the Tynong North and Frankston Murders (based on the two locations where the bodies of the victims were found and the general areas in which they lived), the six slayings were originally treated as two separate serial killer matters. Six women - aged as young as 14 and as elderly as 75 - three in each of the two areas - fell to the killer or killers in a less-than-two-year period. And then they simply stopped. Was it because police had focused on the identity of someone they pegged to all six murders but just couldn't formally pin them on him - and he was disciplined enough to end his spree? Join Melissa as she digs in to the tragedy and crazy-making details of these still-unsolved crimes - and the now-85 year-old devout Christian gentleman who may - or may not - hold the key that would unravel the entire mystery.

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81. Sounds Like You're Not Getting Your Deposit Back, Sir - Helle Crafts And The Wood Chipper May 14, 2019

Show notes

Say True-Crimers, here's a couple of brain teasers for the next time you want to stump a fellow Murder Maven: What was the investigation covered in the very first episode of "Forensic Files"? Or how about this: What was the first "no body" murder trial to result in a conviction in the State of Connecticut? Well surprise! The answer to both questions is the same - it's the gruesome-yet-freakishly-weird 1986 case of Helle Crafts, whose husband, Richard, was convicted of killing her in their Newtown Connecticut home, throwing her body in a brand new Westinghouse freezer purchased just for the occasion, chopping her frozen body parts into bits with a brand new Stihl chainsaw (obviously this was someone who insisted on quality brand-name products), then renting a wood chipper to shred those bits and send them flying into nearby Lake Zoar. Yep, you guessed it - the Cohen Brothers didn't invent the - let's call it the "Wood Chipper Paradigm" - when they wrote the screenplay for "Fargo" - Richard Crafts thought up the idea all by himself some 10 years before Steve Buscemi's leg protruded out of that famous chipper on movie screens across America. And unlike the movie, the real-life case featured Dr. Henry Lee - one of Melissa's monument-worthy heroes. Join her as she re-tells the truly bizarre tale of one man's epically brutal - and monumentally stupid - attempt at avoiding divorce.

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80. Sounds Like A Mess In Queens - The (Possible) Murderer Of Karina Vetrano May 07, 2019

Show notes

The brutal strangulation death of Karina Vetrano in the Howard Beach neighborhood of Queens New York in August 2016 seemed like a slam-dunk, easy-to-solve crime at first blush. The 30 year-old beauty had been killed while jogging in the late afternoon, her body dumped just a few yards off the running path in Spring Creek Park. But then things got not so slam-dunk. And fast. Police followed empty lead after empty lead. The touch-DNA found on the young victim's body could not be matched in any database - and the case went cold for six months. Then, through what can only be described as a complete fluke of a train-of-thought hunch by a police officer in a completely different jurisdiction, 20 year-old Chanel Lewis was arrested after a DNA swab matched that of the DNA found on Karina's body. Shortly thereafter, Lewis confessed to the murder in a videotaped police interview. Seems like cops were back running toward the hoop unchallenged again, right? Not so fast. In the following 14 months, right up to April 2018, the road to justice in this case ran into a bizarre series of courtroom mishaps, alleged jury misconduct and a mystery letter to the defense team that makes this case - though officially now "solved," one that the locals in Queens still wonder about. And it ain't over yet. Join Melissa as she conveys the twists and turns of this intriguing and tragic case.

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79. Sounds Like A Shroud Of Silence On Murder Mountain - With Special Guest Vikki Joseph Apr 30, 2019

Show notes

On June 21, 2014 Jeff Joseph - a Southern California cannabis entrepreneur who had opened a marijuana growing operation some 700 miles to the north, was on his way back to his farm when he disappeared seemingly off the face of the planet and hasn't been seen or heard from since. Sadly, Jeff's story is just one of literally hundreds of missing persons in Humboldt County, where - as detailed in the recent documentary series "Murder Mountain," to this day a cloak of deadly secrecy encompasses the entire region. On this episode, Melissa discusses Jeff Joseph's disappearance with Jeff's sister Vikki Joseph, a brave and dedicated warrior for her brother who is relentless in demanding answers - even in the face of terrified, closed-mouthed locals and law enforcement that seems to block the truth at every turn.

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78. Sounds Like One Year Later: A Golden State Killer Update - And More! Apr 23, 2019

Show notes

How about an update on the prosecution of one of our most fascinating topics - the Golden State Killer? One year after the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, Melissa has the latest on the (possibly politically-motivated) legal strategies happening in this continually mind-bending saga. Plus: It's been a crazy week at Tip-Ster Central, with updates on three (3) (count 'em!) additional previously-covered cases hopping over the transom just in time for this week's episode --- such as the latest on the incredible (s)hero and DNA sleuth Barbara Rae-Venter...the search to find what happened to Kentucky high schooler Randy Sellers...and the further adventures of murder-for-hire slimebucket James Fayed Plus much more (including Melissa's battle with the 23 & Me test kit!). A fascinating hour of catch-up and insight.

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