This Feels Criminal: A True Crime Podcast (Formerly Killer Queens)

Six months in jail. Three months actually served. That's what former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner received after being convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious Chanel Miller. In another case, Candon Dahle received 180 days in jail following years of sexual abuse of a child. Different cases. Different circumstances. But both raise a question we can't stop thinking about: Why does the future of the person who committed sexual violence so often become part of the conversation about what punishment is appropriate? In Part 1, Tyrella and Nikita revisit the Brock Turner case, Chanel Miller's powerful...

How do you prove who ordered a murder when the people behind it never directly speak to the killers? The murder of Florida State law professor Dan Markel led investigators from two hired killers to Katherine Magbanua, Charlie Adelson, and eventually Donna Adelson. But connecting the evidence to the people accused of arranging the murder would take years, an elaborate FBI undercover operation, secretly recorded conversations, and multiple trials. In Part 2, Tyrella and Nikita break down the FBI's infamous "bump" operation, the Dolce Vita restaurant recording, Katie Magbanua's changing testimony, and Charlie Adelson's extraordinary extortion...

Dan Markel was a Florida State University law professor and father of two when he was shot in his own garage in Tallahassee, Florida, in July 2014. What initially looked like a mysterious murder would become one of the most shocking murder-for-hire cases in Florida history. At the center of the investigation was the wealthy Adelson family: Dan's ex-wife Wendi Adelson, her brother Charlie Adelson, and their mother Donna Adelson. As investigators followed surveillance footage, phone records, financial transactions, and a trail of connections between Miami and Tallahassee, a disturbing question emerged: Who wanted Dan Markel dead badly...

The Caleb Flynn murder trial centered on one question: who killed Ashley Flynn? Caleb Flynn said an intruder broke into their Ohio home and shot his wife while he slept—but investigators said the physical and digital evidence told a different story. We reconstruct Caleb's account of the Ashley Flynn murder against the damaged garage door, missing 9mm handgun, Apple Watch, AirPods, 911 call and police interviews; examine the real holes in the investigation and the questions surrounding Alleigha Botner; and break down the defense closing argument, the State's rebuttal and the jury's guilty verdict.   ...

Hours before Ashley Flynn was shot twice in the head in her Ohio home, her husband, Caleb Flynn, was secretly messaging his mistress, Alleigha Botner: "February 16th. Day I'll never forget." "You're about to be free." "I choose you." We break down the Caleb Flynn affair, more than 100,000 messages between Caleb and Alleigha, their disturbing conversations about Ashley dying, and the escalating relationship that prosecutors said led to Ashley Flynn's murder. Part 2 is available now Early and Ad-Free for Patrons! 🧵 New to This Feels Criminal? Start with The TFC Essentials—our curated collection of th...

Plastic surgeon Tomasz Kosowski was accused of murdering attorney Steven Cozzi, whose body has never been found. Then Kosowski made an extraordinary decision: he would represent himself in his own first-degree murder trial. There is no body. No autopsy. No eyewitness to Steven's killing. And no definitively identified murder weapon. So how do you prove a murder happened at all? In Part 2 of the Tomasz Kosowski case, we follow the forensic trail prosecutors say connects Steven's blood from the law-firm bathroom to Kosowski's truck, garage and car — and the digital evidence they used to...

Florida plastic surgeon Tomasz Kosowski was locked in a bitter legal battle when attorney Steven Cozzi disappeared from his law firm — leaving behind his phone, wallet, keys, and a bathroom covered in blood. Investigators say the man responsible was Kosowski, who had been locked in a civil lawsuit against Cozzi's clients. But what police uncovered after Steven disappeared went far beyond a courtroom grudge: surveillance footage, a suspicious wagon, a remote dumpster, more than $280,000 in cash — and what investigators described as a "murder bag" inside Kosowski's car. Steven's body has never been found. In P...

A fake delivery driver. A fake church member. A fake Guinness World Records rep. A fake raffle. An AI deepfake. According to Bricks & Minifigs, these weren't just YouTube stunts—they were pieces of an alleged racketeering enterprise. In Part 2, we dig into BAM's 95-page lawsuit against Reckless Ben, the RICO allegations, the arrests and protective order, disputed claims about police conduct, the viral "Mormon Mafia" theory, and the court order that temporarily forced Ben's videos offline. Then, after lawsuits, millions of views and an eventual settlement, we come back to the question that st...

In an attempt to help his dad sell his valuable Star Wars LEGO collection, Bryan Mansell places them on consignment with his local Bricks & Minifigs store. The store changes hands. And somewhere along the way, a huge portion of the collection becomes impossible to account for. Enter YouTuber Reckless Ben. What starts as an attempt to help a family recover their LEGO quickly turns into fake businesses, undercover stunts, a fake religion, a forged "contract," small claims lawsuits, police showing up—and eventually, arrests. But there's something millions of viewers didn't know when Be...

TW: Child Murder Part 2 picks up exactly where we left Jessica. What happened that night — and everything she did afterward — would take her all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and raise a question most people assume they already know the answer to: do police actually have to protect you, even when you have a court order in hand? Nikita — an attorney herself — takes us through how the Court got there, what the justices actually decided, and the reasoning behind a ruling that still shapes what we expect from police today. Then we widen...

Jessica Gonzales did everything the system told her to do. She got a restraining order against her estranged husband. Colorado law said police had to enforce it — the word "shall" was written right into the statute. So when her three daughters went missing on the night of June 22, 1999, Jessica called Castle Rock police. And called them again. And again — nine times over the course of ten hours, showing officers the order and telling them exactly where her husband was. Each time, she was told to wait. This episode kicks off a new Question Arc: if we c...

By 2024, Mica Miller was leaving her marriage. She was documenting what she said was happening to her, working with an attorney, seeking legal protection—and telling friends she was afraid. Then, on April 27, Mica called 911 from a state park in North Carolina. Hours later, she was dead. In Part 2 of our coverage of Death of a Pastor's Wife, we walk through Mica's final weeks, the day of her death, the investigation and extraordinary aftermath. And the question from Part 1 follows her outside the church: What happens when someone finally recognizes coercive control and as...

Mica Miller was 13 when she first met John-Paul "JP" Miller—the pastor who would eventually become her husband. Long before their relationship became romantic, JP had already become her pastor, mentor, trusted adult, and spiritual authority. In Part 1 of our coverage of Netflix's Death of a Pastor's Wife, we trace their relationship from its beginning through the disturbing allegations about what Mica experienced behind closed doors. But Mica's story raises a much bigger question: What happens when coercive control has the language of God behind it? We're talking spiritual abuse, submission and "helpmate" th...

In Part 2 of our coverage of the Lindsay Clancy trial, we hear from Lindsay's family, the hospital chaplain who spent hundreds of hours with her after the deaths of her children, and Dr. Phillip Resnick—a nationally recognized forensic psychiatrist and expert on filicide who evaluated Lindsay and concluded she was not criminally responsible. Then the Commonwealth calls three psychiatric experts of its own in rebuttal. They ultimately agree with prosecutors on the question that matters most: Lindsay was criminally responsible. But getting there produces some of the most surprising testimony of the entire five-week tr...

For weeks, the Commonwealth built its case against Lindsay Clancy. But as witness after witness took the stand, some of the testimony began to complicate the story prosecutors had laid out for the jury. In Part 1 of our coverage of the Lindsay Clancy trial, Tyrella walks Nikita—who hasn't been following the trial day-to-day—through the Commonwealth's case from opening statements through the end of its case-in-chief. Lindsay does not dispute that she killed her three children, Cora, Dawson, and Callan. The question at the center of this trial is whether she was legally criminally resp...

For years, Duane "Keffe D" Davis publicly told versions of the story of Tupac Shakur's murder—in interviews, a documentary, and even his own memoir. Now those statements are at the center of the prosecution's case against him. But Keffe D's defense has a pretty unusual response: you can't believe him because he's "full of crap." In Part 2, we break down the opening statements in Keffe D's murder trial and the dramatically different stories being presented to the jury. Prosecutors say Keffe D orchestrated Tupac's killing as retaliation for the beating of his ne...

Nearly 30 years after Tupac Shakur was shot and killed on the Las Vegas Strip, a man is finally on trial for his murder. On September 7, 1996, Tupac and Death Row Records founder Suge Knight were leaving the Mike Tyson fight in Las Vegas when a white Cadillac pulled alongside their BMW and someone opened fire. Tupac was hit four times. Six days later, he died at just 25 years old. For decades, theories about his murder have implicated rival gangs, the East Coast–West Coast rap feud, Suge Knight, Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, and more. But the ca...

In the weeks before Lauren McCluskey was murdered, the danger wasn't invisible. The stalking. The lies. The escalating threats. The extortion. The repeated contact after the relationship ended. Lauren reported what was happening, asked for help, and kept trying to protect herself. So if the signs were already there, why wasn't anyone able to recognize what they meant? In Part 2, we step back from Lauren's case to ask the bigger question we've been working toward: Can we actually tell which abusive relationships are most likely to turn deadly? We look at...

When 21-year-old University of Utah student Lauren McCluskey ended a brief relationship, she had good reason to believe she'd caught the warning signs early. The man she'd been dating had lied about his name, his age, and his criminal history. Lauren ended the relationship immediately. But he didn't leave her alone. What followed was a terrifying escalation of stalking, harassment, extortion, and repeated attempts to get help — ending less than three weeks later with Lauren's murder on the campus where she lived and went to school. Lauren's case leaves behind an ag...

After researching dozens of studies, court decisions, and primary sources, we discovered the answer wasn't nearly as simple as we expected. Do men receive more justice than women? Are women taken less seriously? Or are different myths shaping how we perceive different victims? In Part 2, we examine what the research actually says about victim credibility, gender stereotypes, reporting, prosecution, and sentencing—and why the evidence challenged some of our own assumptions. Because the biggest surprise wasn't whether gender matters. It was how it matters. <p...