Murder for Money
Insurance payouts, inheritances and theft as the motive for murder.
30 cases
The Security Chief
Chris Coleman guarded world-famous televangelist Joyce Meyer for a living, yet couldn't seem to protect his own family from an anonymous letter-writer's threats — until police climbed through a window of his Columbia Lake home into a scene reeking of spray paint.
Interpol's Most Wanted
In July 1996, a fishing trawler off Southwest England hauled up the fully clothed body of a man wearing a Rolex — and the watch's stopped hands, along with a maple leaf tattoo, began unraveling an international deception.
A Walking Shadow
Nineteen-year-old Myles Fukunaga worked eighty-hour weeks to keep his family afloat in 1929 Hawaii, but when the Hawaiian Trust Company came collecting back rent once again, his quiet desperation fixed on a plan inspired by the Leopold and Loeb case.
Captain Cash
London heroin dealer Ken Avery — 'Captain Cash' to the underworld — lost everything when he turned informant, so he changed his name to Ken Regan and fixed his ambitions on a wealthy Heathrow freight importer named Amarjit 'Neil' Chohan.
Arizona Torso Murder #2
Six-times-married showgirl Marjorie Orbin finally landed the comfortable Scottsdale life with art dealer Jay Orbin — then Jay vanished on the road, and a blue Rubbermaid container turned up at the edge of the desert.
Taking a Chance
Rick Chance, the windshield king of Phoenix TV commercials, arrived at a hotel-room business meeting carrying a briefcase holding more than a million dollars in jewelry — unaware of what Brandi Hungerford had planned for the evening.
The Black Widow
Lonely widower Fred Weeks proposed within days of white-haired, rosy-cheeked 'Millie' knocking on his Nova Scotia door — and on the honeymoon ferry to Newfoundland, he suddenly couldn't remember how to start his own car.
Devious Dixie
On Halloween night 1984, accountant Mel Dyson worked late at his Huntington Beach office while his common-law wife Dixie kept to her routine — a routine that, along with two men named George Ira Lamb and Enrico Vasquez, would draw hard questions from detectives.
A Glitzy Cowboy Tale
Ted Binion, heir to the Horseshoe casino fortune, buried millions in silver in a desert vault near Pahrump, Nevada — and only two people had the security codes: Binion himself and his young girlfriend's new friend, Rick Tabish.
Blue Mist #22
On a snowy January morning in 1972, eight-year-old Shelly Mickelson climbed into her trusted neighbor Robert Moorman's Chevelle for a lunch her mother never approved — the start of a story that would end at the Blue Mist Motel in the prison town of Florence, Arizona.
Like Mother, Like Son
In Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains, Cheryl Kunkle raised her son Greg Rowe on resentment and control. When sixteen-year-old Kristin Fisher refused the abortion Greg demanded and gave birth to baby Kaylee, mother and son came to share far more than a grudge.
A Heartless Mother
After her young son David died, St. Louis mother Ellen Boehm bought a new car rather than pay his $2,348 funeral bill — and seemed more upbeat than ever. She still held a $5,000 life insurance policy on each of her surviving children.
The Dinner Theater Murder
Hoping to rekindle a stagnant marriage, Steven Hricko booked a Valentine's weekend at a Maryland resort featuring a murder-mystery dinner theater show. His wife Kimberly — a surgical technologist whose job included disposing of unused drugs — was suddenly, surprisingly affectionate.
Mommy's Little Helpers
Hilma Witte's Indiana household was ruled by her husband Paul's beatings — until it wasn't. Before the story ended, a grandmother lay dead in her bed, shot with a medieval crossbow as she slept, and Hilma's teenage sons carried the secrets.
The Christmas Tree Farm Murders
Ed and Minnie Maurin, in their eighties and famous for the Christmas luncheon at their Ethel, Washington tree-farm home, were missing when friends arrived to set up the 1985 party. Inside the locked house, bank statements lay scattered across the bathroom floor.
A Bad Actor
Struggling Orange County actor Daniel Wozniak needed money for his wedding and honeymoon. His friend and neighbor Sam Herr, an Army veteran, had $62,000 in combat-pay savings — and Wozniak had written himself a script no one saw coming.
The Frame-up
Pam Hupp was the last person to see her friend Betsy Faria alive — and the newly named beneficiary of her life insurance. When Betsy's husband Russ was convicted of her murder, the story seemed over. It was only beginning.
The Millionaire
Millionaire Christopher Foster spent August 25, 2008, shooting clay pigeons and relaxing at a neighbor's barbecue with his wife Jill and daughter Kirstie. By sunrise, their Shropshire mansion, Osbaston House, was a smoldering ruin concealing the truth of his collapsing empire.
The Death Deal
Motivational speaker Jeffrey Locker was found bound behind the wheel of his station wagon in East Harlem, stabbed seven times. What led the Long Island family man to that street corner was stranger than any robbery.
The Boardwalk Murders
Kosta Fotopoulos told Daytona Beach police he had shot a burglar who put a bullet in his sleeping wife's head. But the dead intruder had stolen nothing — and had walked straight to the couple's bedroom.
Goodnight, Sugar Babe
A CSX conductor crossing a trestle bridge in Findlay, Ohio, thought the shape between the rails was a deer. It was young mother Vera Jo Reigle — and the family she trusted held the answers.
The Lonely Hearts Killers
After a ship's hatch fractured his skull, Raymond Fernandez emerged a changed and dangerous man — one who trawled the lonely hearts columns and, with Martha Beck, left a trail of widows across postwar America.
The Body Broker
Jim Stauffer donated his mother's body to Phoenix's Biological Resource Center for medical research and received her ashes ten days later. What investigators found inside the nondescript building on South 24th Street defied belief.
The Wishing Well
When Jimmy Don Beets's boat was found drifting empty on Cedar Creek Lake with his heart pills on the seat, it looked like a Texas fishing tragedy. His wife, Betty Lou, knew the lake wasn't holding the answer.
Call Me Clark
The elegant young 'baronet' handing out calling cards in San Marino called himself Christopher Mountbatten Chichester. He was really Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, a Bavarian teenager reinventing himself — and his greatest performance hid a body.
The Antifreeze Murders
A Springfield pastor called police with a chilling arithmetic: two members of the Staudte family were already dead and cremated, a third was failing fast in intensive care — and the mother at the center of it all did not seem afraid.
The Gold Digger
Retired Austin TV executive Steven Beard called 911 unable to explain why his stomach had 'blown out' as he slept. The shotgun shell at the foot of his bed pointed toward his young wife Celeste — and her friend Tracey Tarlton.
Are You With Me?
Hours after toasting a real estate deal with a Moscow Mule mixed by his wife Kouri, Eric Richins was found cold on his bedroom floor in Kamas, Utah — no blood, no struggle, and no obvious reason a healthy 39-year-old should be dead.
The Grieving Widow
Jamie Faith was walking the dog with his wife Jennifer on their quiet Dallas street when a masked gunman shot him seven times, then turned on her with duct tape. Doorbell cameras up and down South Waverly Drive caught everything.
Killing a Dead Man
Lindsay Jellett, a gentle, well-loved man of forty-one, left his Ararat care home for his daily walk on a cold May evening in 1994 and never came back for dinner. What was done to him defied belief twice over.
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