The death of Molly Young in 2012 erupted into a social media firestorm, spreading all sorts of misinformation and rumor, leading to caustic disagreements–but also raised so many questions about what happened, a dozen years later, the investigation remains open and the conversation continues. Thus, what actually took place when 22-year-old Molly Young died—and what are the controversial aspects of the case the State’s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor’s Report seemed only to exacerbate? And where does the case stand today?   If you are having a mental health, substance use, or suicidal crisis, call 988.  Visit www.crossingtheline.biz to contact investigative journalist and host M. William Phelps, get more information about the show, updates to cases, and more.  And don't forget to subscribe to Phelps's #1 hit podcast PAPER GHOSTS wherever you get your favorite shows. M. William Phelps is the New York Times best-selling author of 46 nonfiction books and winner of the Excellence in (Investigative) Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. Phelps has written for numerous publications, including the Providence Journal, Connecticut Magazine and Hartford Courant. Diversifying his talents, Phelps consulted on the first season of the hit Showtime cable television series Dexter and has executive produced and starred in over 350 hours of true crime television. All of which gives him a confluence of expertise and experience to bring to true crime fanatics. Phelps grew up in East Hartford, Connecticut, and now splits his time between Tolland County and N. Stonington, CT. In July 2017, he published his definitive, 10-year project about Happy Face Killer, Keith Hunter Jesperson, DANGEROUS GROUND: My Friendship with a Serial Killer.

Few true-crime cases over the past 20 years can be considered iconic. When Natalee Holloway went missing on a high school class trip to Aruba in 2005, the story became a 24/7 news sensation. Natalee’s murder remained unsolved until late 2023. Phelps goes through the case–including the nauseating bloviation by the likes of Nancy Grace and the rest of the cable TV talking heads–and reveals the conclusion of this high-profile true-crime story that broke the internet and, in many ways, set the standard for what we see and hear today.  Visit www.crossingtheline.biz to contact investigative journalist and host M. William Phelps, get more information about the show, updates to cases, and more.  And don't forget to subscribe to Phelps's #1 hit podcast PAPER GHOSTS wherever you get your favorite shows. M. William Phelps is the New York Times best-selling author of 46 nonfiction books and winner of the Excellence in (Investigative) Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. Phelps has written for numerous publications, including the Providence Journal, Connecticut Magazine and Hartford Courant. Diversifying his talents, Phelps consulted on the first season of the hit Showtime cable television series Dexter and has executive produced and starred in over 350 hours of true crime television. All of which gives him a confluence of expertise and experience to bring to true crime fanatics. Phelps grew up in East Hartford, Connecticut, and now splits his time between Tolland County and N. Stonington, CT. In July 2017, he published his definitive, 10-year project about Happy Face Killer, Keith Hunter Jesperson, DANGEROUS GROUND: My Friendship with a Serial Killer.

After 60-plus years, two unsolved murders in the San Fernando Valley heat back up when a rookie Los Angeles Police Department Cold Case detective is handed the files and realizes the answers were there the entire time. What’s more, those two homicides are only the beginning, as it appears a sadistic serial killer is at work. Phelps speaks with the detective, Rachel Evans, and gets the inside track on a serial murderer who cannot escape time, technology, and the sheer determination of an incredible investigator.    Visit www.crossingtheline.biz to contact investigative journalist and host M. William Phelps, get more information about the show, updates to cases, and more.  And don't forget to subscribe to Phelps's #1 hit podcast PAPER GHOSTS wherever you get your favorite shows. M. William Phelps is the New York Times best-selling author of 46 nonfiction books and winner of the Excellence in (Investigative) Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. Phelps has written for numerous publications, including the Providence Journal, Connecticut Magazine and Hartford Courant. Diversifying his talents, Phelps consulted on the first season of the hit Showtime cable television series Dexter and has executive produced and starred in over 350 hours of true crime television. All of which gives him a confluence of expertise and experience to bring to true crime fanatics. Phelps grew up in East Hartford, Connecticut, and now splits his time between Tolland County and N. Stonington, CT. In July 2017, he published his definitive, 10-year project about Happy Face Killer, Keith Hunter Jesperson, DANGEROUS GROUND: My Friendship with a Serial Killer.

In Rochester, New York, a young housewife and young mother is found brutally murdered in her bed. Her husband, an executive at Kodak Eastman Company, is at work. A local criminal steps up and confesses to the murder. But 40 years later, the case takes a different turn--one you’d never expect--after a renowned pathologist questions the the time of death. Visit www.crossingtheline.biz to contact investigative journalist and host M. William Phelps, get more information about the show, updates to cases, and more.  And don't forget to subscribe to Phelps's #1 hit podcast PAPER GHOSTS wherever you get your favorite shows. M. William Phelps is the New York Times best-selling author of 46 nonfiction books and winner of the Excellence in (Investigative) Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. Phelps has written for numerous publications, including the Providence Journal, Connecticut Magazine and Hartford Courant. Diversifying his talents, Phelps consulted on the first season of the hit Showtime cable television series Dexter and has executive produced and starred in over 350 hours of true crime television. All of which gives him a confluence of expertise and experience to bring to true crime fanatics. Phelps grew up in East Hartford, Connecticut, and now splits his time between Tolland County and N. Stonington, CT. In July 2017, he published his definitive, 10-year project about Happy Face Killer, Keith Hunter Jesperson, DANGEROUS GROUND: My Friendship with a Serial Killer.

It’s a gorgeous Saturday afternoon in a suburb of Detroit during the summer of 1985. Teenager Shawn Moore heads to the store on his bike for a soda. After he fails to return home, a frantic search ensues … as a man dubbed the "Real Norman Bates," the fictional serial killer from the classic film "Psycho," is discovered trolling the area for victims.

Two young women go missing along the Jersey Shore in the early 1980's. An eighteen-month search produces no leads. Then a woman walks into a local police station and begins talking—and a new search leads to a grisly discovery and several more victims.

In late 2023, one of Keith "Happy Face Killer" Jesperson's Jane Doe victims was identified. Phelps speaks with death investigator Emily Speed, who worked on the case along with Phelps for many years. In this special hybrid episode of two podcasts, "Death Calls" with Emily Speed and "Crossing the Line," Phelps and Speed discuss how the case evolved over almost 30 years and how, finally, she was identified.

A teenage girl goes missing in a small Minnesota town. Police are baffled. Her large family of nearly a dozen siblings are mortified. Weeks turn into months, there’s no sign of her. Then a series of revealing events occur, tipping off police that ‘Stranger Danger,’ such a prevalent Public Service Announcement at the time, scaring kids from coast to coast, is likely more smoke than fire, and the culprit might be closer than anybody thinks.

In this first episode of the 2024 season, Phelps discusses several recent, alarming developments in the Long Island Serial Killer case, the implications they will have on the true crime genre, and, most importantly, the Long Island serial killer's victims’ families.

Your favorite true crime podcast, CROSSING THE LINE WITH M. WILLIAM PHELPS, is back with all new episodes beginning February 22, 2024.  Enjoy, share, and post the latest trailer. Check out www.crossingtheline.biz for more information. Subscribe to the show wherever you get your favorite podcasts, so you don't miss a new episode.

Phelps speaks with Lauren Fields’ mother, Shantell, about the surprising cause and manner of death in Lauren’s case. He also digs into the Brenda Rawls death - another woman found dead after a date - the very same night, just down the road from where Lauren died - whose family was also never informed of her death by the police.

You might have heard about this case: A woman, Lauren Smith-Fields, TikTok influencer, model and college student studying physical therapy, invites a Bumble date over to her apartment in December 2021 and winds up dead … police say accidental, family says suspicious … and yet the manner of death is only half the story. What happened inside Lauren’s apartment on the night she died, and the next day, will have your jaw on the floor, wondering what is going on in the world of law enforcement investigation in some of the country’s largest cities. In the first of this two-part Crossing the Line, Phelps digs in deep and talks to Lauren’s family.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A beloved woman in a posh Connecticut town goes out for a jog, same as she does every day. Along that route is an immense estate owned by the puppeteer, Caroll Spinney, who played the iconic “Big Bird” and “Oscar the Grouch” characters on Sesame Street. After failing to return, police searching for the woman find a literal blood trail leading directly to Big Bird’s estate … and an immaculate Chinese pagoda on the property. Soon, all eyes are following that bird—and yet neither he - nor the woman - are anywhere to be found.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When problems between a wealthy woman, her son and his wife begin to get ugly, people turned a blind eye. But when Rebecca Cornell catches fire one night and dies, the case is re-opened after a ghostly appearance convinces local lawmakers it wasn't just an accident.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When a young college student’s car was abandoned on the side of a busy midwest highway in 1992, police figured it was a runaway case. Nine days later, she was found brutally murdered, nearly 500 miles away in another state. What happened to Tammy Jo Zywicki? Hear the story when PAPER GHOSTS returns with a new season on February 1. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Conrad Roy died by suicide on a hot July night in 2014. But what is the true story behind “the girl from Plainville”, who faced a judge on manslaughter charges after texts reveal she might have had urged him to take his own life? Phelps digs into the social and legal aspects of this high-profile case, featured in a special Hulu series.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When a tipster starts calling in to a California tip line saying he knows where bodies are buried, eyebrows are raised. But after cash payouts for info on several missing women, suspicions arise that an actual serial killer might just be phoning in his own murders. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

During the late 1980s in the Frankford section of Philadelphia, women were murdered one after the other, with the brutality of a serial killer so exceptionally grotesque, he is compared to Jack the Ripper. Phelps goes deep into his psychology, in an episode surely not for kiddos. Buckle up. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

43-year-old Liz Romero of Waco, Texas goes missing in early April 2022. Her family and friends are concerned almost immediately. The case cools before a tip comes in. And the horror of what transpired becomes everyone’s worst reality.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A mother loses custody of her kids to her violent and abusive ex. Did the government go one step further and effectively sanction her murder? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.