Dark Dialogue

Robert Breininger is dead. Judith Hawkey is no longer serving life without parole. And Corey Breininger is now a father trying to live beyond the night that changed everything.

In this final installment of the Robert Breininger case, Dark Dialogue examines what happened after the dramatic aggravated-murder conviction collapsed on appeal — and how a life-without-parole sentence became an Alford plea to involuntary manslaughter.

This...

In Episode 2 of our Robert Lee Breininger series, we examine the allegations that reshaped a 2003 “accidental shooting” into a homicide prosecution nearly a decade later.

After Corey Breininger changed his story, investigators reopened the case from the ground up. This episode covers the detailed abuse allegations presented in court, the suicide-related incidents described in testimony, the coroner’s reclassification of the death f...

The Accident Everyone Accepted.

On November 3, 2003, in rural Mark Center, Ohio, 34-year-old Robert Lee Breininger was shot inside his own bedroom.

His ten-year-old son called 911.

He said it was an accident.

Law enforcement believed him. The coroner ruled the death accidental. The case closed the same day.

For nearly a decade, no one publicly challenged that conclusion.

In Episode 1 of this serialized investigative arc, Dark Dialo...

For more than a decade, the truth in the murder of Dana Satterfield existed in fragments.

A preserved rape kit. A teenage witness. A threat made in a Bowling Alley. A name investigators suspected but could not legally compel.

In this final installment of our three-part investigation, we examine:

• The role of Michael Pace and the anonymous calls that began in 1995
• The moment he finally put his name behind what he knew
• How probab...

In Part Two of our three-part investigation into the murder of Dana Satterfield, we examine the years of silence that followed her killing — and why that silence was not a failure of justice, but a deliberate act of restraint.

After the initial shock faded, Dana’s case entered a long and uncomfortable phase. Evidence existed. Biological material was preserved. Investigators were not guessing — they were waiting. What was missing wa...

Friday the 13th: Superstition, Serial Killers & the Dark Psychology of Fear

Is Friday the 13th really cursed — or are we?

In this special edition of Dark Dialogue, Angela steps into the captain’s chair and takes us deep into the myths, psychology, and real-life crimes connected to one of the most feared dates on the calendar.

From medieval religious lore and the Knights Templar to horror films and confirmation bias, we explore ...

On July 31, 1995, Dana Chyleen Fowler Satterfield, a 27-year-old salon owner and mother of two, was working late at her beauty shop in Roebuck, South Carolina — a small community in Spartanburg County where violent crime was rare and trust ran deep.

She never made it home.

In Part 1 of this three-episode true crime documentary, Dark Dialogue examines the murder of Dana Satterfield through the lens of investigative journalism, crimi...

Seventeen-year-old Sara Wisnosky was found in the Lafayette River two weeks after she disappeared from the Old Dominion University area. Part Two of The Murder of Sara Wisnosky picks up where the story became irreversible.

This episode follows what unfolded after Sara’s body was discovered: the rapid unraveling of Derek Barnabei’s carefully maintained image, his flight from Virginia under an alias, and the mounting forensic evidenc...

Seventeen-year-old Sara Wisnosky had been at Old Dominion University for only a few weeks when her life was violently taken.

In Part One of Last Seen With Him, Dark Dialogue focuses not on speculation or verdicts—but on context. Who Sara was before she became evidence. What her early college life looked like. And how a carefully constructed social persona allowed one man to move undetected through a university community.

This episo...

The word “ROC” written in blood shocked investigators and the public alike. But in Part Two of The Murder of Karen Pannell, the truth emerges not from what was written on the wall — but from what the evidence refused to ignore.

In this episode, Dark Dialogue follows the case into the courtroom, where forensic science, timelines, and witness testimony dismantled the idea of a dying declaration and exposed a carefully staged crime sc...

In October 2003, 39-year-old airline professional Karen Pannell was found stabbed to death inside her Oldsmar, Florida villa. Near her body, written in blood on the kitchen wall, was a single word: “ROC.”

At first, investigators believed they were looking at a dying message — a final act of identification left by a woman who knew she was dying. Karen’s ex-boyfriend, whose nickname was Roc, became the immediate focus.

But the eviden...

By the time the Chicago Ripper Crew finally stood before a judge, the worst of their crimes were already over — but justice was only beginning its long, uneven struggle.

In this final episode of Dark Dialogue’s Chicago Ripper Crew series, we step inside the courtrooms, parole hearings, execution chambers, and political backrooms that determined how four men responsible for some of the most sadistic crimes in Illinois history would ...

Episode 3: “The Breaking Point — Arrests & Confessions”

When Chicago police arrested Robin Gecht on October 20, 1982, they didn’t yet realize they were dismantling one of the most sadistic cults in American history. From Beverly Washington’s miraculous survival to the chain of interrogations, confessions, and forensic discoveries that followed, this episode chronicles the pivotal week when the façade of normalcy collapsed — rev...

Chicago wasn’t just terrified— it was being hunted.

In Part 2 of our Chicago Ripper Crew series, Dark Dialogue descends into the darkest chapter of the investigation: the rituals, methods, mutilations, and psychology behind a murder cult that operated in broad daylight and believed every killing was an act of worship.

Through rare survivor accounts, forensic reconstruction, and psychological analysis, this episode exposes the cold,...

Chicago, 1981. A city drowning in crime, corruption, recession — and something darker lurking beneath the surface. In this episode of Dark Dialogue, John takes Angela (and listeners) into the heart of one of the most disturbing cases in American criminal history: the Chicago Ripper Crew, a cult-like group led by Robin Gecht that turned a red van into a mobile house of horror.

From the first victim, Linda Sutton, to the escalating r...

High in the Colorado mountains, the quiet town of Guffey hid a nightmare no one saw coming. In the winter of 2001, three members of the Dutcher family were brutally murdered — not by strangers, but by teenagers under the control of an unlikely ringleader: 19-year-old Simon Sue, a self-styled commander who built his own secret “organization” and convinced classmates to kill in his name.

The Pact of Shadows explores how Sue’s delusio...

In October 2008, the quiet streets of North Canton, Ohio—a place known for safety, family, and small-town calm—were shattered by an act of horror that still defies belief.

Thirty-four-year-old Brett W. Smith was found brutally murdered and decapitated inside his own home at Evergreen Mobile Home Park. His killer wasn’t a stranger or a drifter. It was the man who lived just across the fence — William D. Perry, a neighbor whose rage ...

When a quiet September night in 2006 turned into a real-life horror film, Bannock County, Idaho, would never be the same. Filming Death: The Scream Murder of Cassie Jo Stoddart tells the chilling true story of a responsible, kind-hearted teenager betrayed by classmates who wanted to turn murder into a movie.

Cassie was just seventeen — house-sitting, caring for family pets, and planning for her future — when two of her peers, Brian...

Home is supposed to be safe — but what if the danger is already inside? In this chilling October episode of Dark Dialogue, John and Angela pull back the walls on one of the most disturbing cases in American true crime: the story of Danny LaPlante, a teenager who secretly lived inside a family’s home, watching them, tormenting them, and ultimately becoming one of Massachusetts’ most terrifying killers.

The case begins like a ghost s...