Episodes

  • The Murder Cult

    The Murder Cult
    Mar 24 2026
    On May 20, 1999, South Australian police forced open the vault of a disused State Bank building in the small farming town of Snowtown, roughly 90 miles north of Adelaide. Inside they found six black plastic barrels containing the dismembered, acid-soaked remains of eight people. Two more bodies were later excavated from a backyard in Salisbury North, and two earlier deaths were subsequently linked to the same killers. In total, twelve people were murdered between August 1992 and May 1999 in and around Adelaide's northern suburbs.

    The killings were orchestrated by John Justin Bunting, a charismatic and deeply manipulative man who used a self-styled crusade against pedophiles and homosexuals to justify sustained torture and murder. Bunting recruited Robert Joe Wagner as his primary enforcer and groomed teenager James Spyridon Vlassakis into an active participant. A fourth man, Mark Ray Haydon, assisted in the storage and transport of bodies and rented the Snowtown bank building where the barrels were hidden.

    The twelve victims were Clinton Trezise, Ray Davies, Suzanne Allen, Michael Gardiner, Vanessa Lane, Thomas Trevilyan, Gavin Porter, Troy Youde, Frederick Brooks, Gary O'Dwyer, Elizabeth Haydon, and David Johnson. Most were friends, neighbors, or family members of the killers.

    Many were intellectually or physically disabled, suffered from mental illness, or were receiving government welfare. The killers tortured their victims to extract financial information, recorded their voices to create cover stories, and continued collecting their welfare payments after death, stealing approximately $97,200 AUD.The investigation was driven by the disappearance of Elizabeth Haydon, which led to surveillance of Mark Haydon and the tracking of welfare fraud tied to several missing persons. Bunting, Wagner, and Haydon were arrested on May 21, 1999. Vlassakis was arrested five days later and became the prosecution's key witness after pleading guilty to four murders.

    he trial of Bunting and Wagner lasted nearly twelve months, the longest in South Australian history. On September 8, 2003, Bunting was convicted of eleven murders and sentenced to eleven consecutive life terms without parole. Wagner was convicted of ten murders under identical conditions. Haydon received 25 years for assisting with the disposal of bodies.

    More than 250 suppression orders were imposed on the case and not lifted until 2011.Haydon was released on parole in April 2024. Vlassakis was initially granted parole in August 2025, but the decision was overturned in December 2025. Bunting and Wagner will never be released.

    If you’re drawn to real criminal investigations, cold cases, and the details that don’t always make it into the official report, make sure you’re following The Guilty Files wherever you listen.

    Turn on automatic downloads so you never miss an episode — because each case unfolds in two parts, and the truth is rarely found in just one.If you value careful analysis, real law enforcement insight, and true crime without the sensationalism, consider leaving a five-star rating and written review.

    It helps more than you know and allows us to keep bringing these case files to light.

    Until next time —The facts matter.
    The details matter.
    And the truth is often redacted.
    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 14 mins
  • The Casey Anthony Murder Trial

    The Casey Anthony Murder Trial
    Mar 17 2026
    In the summer of 2008, a two-year-old girl named Caylee Marie Anthony vanished from her home in Orlando, Florida, and her mother Casey didn't tell a soul for thirty-one days. Instead of calling police, Casey went clubbing, got a tattoo that read "Bella Vita," stayed with her boyfriend, posted party photos on social media, and spun an elaborate web of lies about a fictional nanny named Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez who she claimed had taken her daughter.

    When Casey's mother Cindy finally forced the truth into the open with a frantic 911 call, investigators discovered that virtually everything Casey had told them was fabricated — the nanny didn't exist, the job at Universal Studios was fiction, and the coworkers she named were imaginary.

    Forensic evidence painted a devastating picture. Air samples from the trunk of Casey's Pontiac Sunfire revealed chemical markers of human decomposition and shockingly high levels of chloroform. Cadaver dogs alerted on the trunk and on a spot in the Anthony family's backyard. A hair with postmortem root banding consistent with Caylee's was recovered from the trunk. Computer searches on the family's home computer included terms like "chloroform," "neck breaking," and "fool-proof suffocation methods," the last of which was conducted on the very day Caylee was last seen alive.

    On December 11th, 2008, a meter reader named Roy Kronk discovered Caylee's skeletal remains in a wooded area on Suburban Drive, less than a quarter mile from her grandparents' home. Her body had been placed inside a black trash bag and a canvas laundry bag, and three overlapping pieces of duct tape were found adhered to the lower portion of her skull. The chief medical examiner ruled the death a homicide but could not determine an exact cause of death due to the advanced state of decomposition.Casey was charged with first-degree murder and faced the death penalty.

    The trial began in May of two thousand eleven and became a wall-to-wall media sensation rivaling the O.J. Simpson case.

    The prosecution argued that Casey killed Caylee to free herself from the responsibilities of motherhood. The defense, led by Jose Baez, countered with a bombshell claim that Caylee had drowned accidentally in the family pool and that Casey's father George had helped cover it up. Baez also alleged that George had sexually abused Casey since childhood, conditioning her to hide trauma and maintain a facade — though no evidence was ever presented to support either claim. On July fifth, two thousand eleven, the jury returned verdicts of not guilty on all felony charges. Casey was convicted only of four misdemeanor counts of lying to law enforcement.

    The verdict shocked the nation and ignited a firestorm of public outrage. Jurors later explained that while they found Casey's behavior deeply troubling, the prosecution could not establish a definitive cause of death, and the lack of direct physical evidence linking Casey to a murder created reasonable doubt they could not overcome.

    Casey was released from jail twelve days later and disappeared from public life. In the years that followed, she gave a handful of interviews in which she maintained her innocence, blamed her father, and expressed no clear remorse.

    A Peacock documentary in two thousand twenty-two gave her a platform to tell her version of events, but it was met with widespread skepticism. The case led directly to the passage of "Caylee's Law" in Florida, making it a felony for a parent to fail to report a missing or deceased child.

    No one has ever been held criminally responsible for Caylee Marie Anthony's death.

    If you’re drawn to real criminal investigations, cold cases, and the details that don’t always make it into the official report, make sure you’re following The Guilty Files wherever you listen.

    Turn on automatic downloads so you never miss an episode — because each case unfolds in two parts, and the truth is rarely found in just one.If you value careful analysis, real law enforcement insight, and true crime without the sensationalism, consider leaving a five-star rating and written review.

    It helps more than you know and allows us to keep bringing these case files to light.

    Until next time —The facts matter.
    The details matter.
    And the truth is often redacted.
    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 17 mins
  • The Lost Women Of Alaska

    The Lost Women Of Alaska
    Mar 11 2026
    Alaska is the largest state in the union. It is also one of the deadliest places in America to be an Indigenous woman. Alaska Native people make up roughly one-fifth of the state's population but account for more than sixty percent of its recorded homicide victims. Four of the ten American cities with the highest per-capita rates of missing and murdered Indigenous women are located in Alaska.

    And for decades, a quiet, unspoken policy within the Anchorage Police Department — known internally as NHI, or "no human involved" — ensured that the women most at risk received the least protection.This episode is the story of what that policy made possible, and what a community of determined women did about it. In 2017, Brian Steven Smith — a South African national living in Anchorage — was arrested after a woman brought a memory card to police containing footage of him torturing and murdering thirty-year-old Kathleen Jo Henry, an Alaska Native woman he'd picked up near a Walmart and brought to a midtown hotel where he had maintenance access.

    During his interrogation, Smith voluntarily confessed to a second murder — that of Veronica Abouchuk, fifty-two, an Alaska Native woman from the village of Stebbins whose remains had been lying near Earthquake Park for more than a year. He was convicted in February of twenty-twenty-four on all fourteen counts and sentenced to two hundred and twenty-six years in July of twenty-twenty-four.But the case didn't end there.

    Photographs recovered from Smith's devices showed a third woman — appearing dead or unconscious, with blood visible, a man's foot standing over her body. Those photographs sat in a case file for five years. It took a community advocate digging through sentencing documents to find them and publish them. Within hours, the family of Cassandra Boskofsky, missing since August of twenty-nineteen, recognized her. Smith was never charged in her death. Her remains have never been found.

    In September of 2024, her family held a presumptive death hearing and a civilian jury of six ruled her death a homicide — the only official acknowledgment her family has ever received.Also discussed in this episode: the NHI designation and the testimony of former APD officer Michael Livingston, who spent twenty-eight years on the force and is now a full-time MMIP advocate; the missed opportunity when a woman named Alicia Youngblood told police in 2019 that Smith had confessed a murder to her, and police did nothing; the question of Ian Calhoun, a man prosecutors believe probably knew about at least one of Smith's murders and who has never been charged; and the HBO and Investigation Discovery documentary series "Lost Women of Alaska," executive produced and narrated by Octavia Spencer, which premiered February twenty-fifth, twenty-twenty-six.

    There are two rewards currently outstanding. Five hundred dollars for information leading to the recovery of Cassandra Boskofsky's remains, and five hundred dollars for information leading to the arrest of Ian Calhoun. If you have information, contact the Anchorage Police Department or reach out through MMIP advocacy networks in Alaska.

    If this episode moved you, share it. Subscribe. Leave a review. And if you have a case you'd like us to cover, reach out at brian@paranormalworldproductions.com.

    If you’re drawn to real criminal investigations, cold cases, and the details that don’t always make it into the official report, make sure you’re following The Guilty Files wherever you listen.

    Turn on automatic downloads so you never miss an episode — because each case unfolds in two parts, and the truth is rarely found in just one.If you value careful analysis, real law enforcement insight, and true crime without the sensationalism, consider leaving a five-star rating and written review.

    It helps more than you know and allows us to keep bringing these case files to light.

    Until next time —The facts matter.
    The details matter.
    And the truth is often redacted.
    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 16 mins
  • The Murder Of Gary Farris: The Redacted Report

    The Murder Of Gary Farris: The Redacted Report
    Mar 8 2026
    If you listened to our full episode on the Gary Farris murder earlier this week, you got the whole story. The life, the marriage, the murder, the trial, the verdict. But this episode isn't a recap. This is The Redacted Report, and we're going deep into the lesser-known, verified details that most people never heard about.

    We break down how a three-hundred-pound man was reduced to just thirty-three pounds of remains on that burn pile, and what that destruction meant for the forensic team trying to build a murder case. We dig into the crime scene details that flew under the radar, including the smell of citronella and tire marks found near the smoldering pile, the nine separate DNA swab points collected from a Kubota tractor, and the fact that despite blood being found throughout the house, not a single drop was recovered at the burn pile itself.

    We cover the revolver a former daughter-in-law said Melody once showed her inside a basement credenza drawer, and the stunning moment mid-trial when a cousin called the sheriff's office to report a thirty-eight Special missing from her home after watching testimony on Court TV.

    We get into Scott Farris blaming his mother within thirteen minutes of law enforcement arriving, his six separate 911 calls on Melody in the year between the murder and the arrest, and the paramedic who recalled Scott telling her he knew what a burned body looked like from his service in Iraq.

    We explore the secret beach trip Gary was planning without Melody's knowledge, Gary's own legal assistant testifying that the couple's marriage was visibly crumbling from the outside, and the revelation that Rusty Barton was dating another woman in Tennessee while carrying on his affair with Melody. We also cover the gunshot-decibel test investigators conducted by firing a thirty-eight caliber pistol at a mannequin, a juror's chilling theory that Melody marched Gary to the burn pile at gunpoint, and the fact that Gary Farris didn't receive a proper memorial until seven years after his death.

    Every detail in this episode is sourced from trial testimony, court records, and verified press reporting. No fiction. No speculation. Just the facts they left out of the headlines.

    If you’re drawn to real criminal investigations, cold cases, and the details that don’t always make it into the official report, make sure you’re following The Guilty Files wherever you listen.

    Turn on automatic downloads so you never miss an episode — because each case unfolds in two parts, and the truth is rarely found in just one.If you value careful analysis, real law enforcement insight, and true crime without the sensationalism, consider leaving a five-star rating and written review.

    It helps more than you know and allows us to keep bringing these case files to light.

    Until next time —The facts matter.
    The details matter.
    And the truth is often redacted.
    Show more Show less
    28 mins
  • The Body On The Burn Pile

    The Body On The Burn Pile
    Mar 3 2026
    He was a small-town kid from Tuscumbia, Alabama, who dreamed of becoming a lawyer and made it all the way to the top. Gary Wayne Farris built a thirty-year legal career, raised four children, and settled his family on a stunning ten-acre farm in Cherokee County, Georgia.

    His grandchildren called him "Big Daddy," and he was the kind of man who'd hand you his credit card before you even finished asking for help.But behind the beautiful farmhouse on Purcell Lane, a thirty-eight-year marriage was rotting from the inside out. Secret affairs. Financial warfare. A wife who texted a friend that she hoped her husband would die "alone and a gruesome death."

    And a family so fractured that when the unthinkable finally happened, a mother and her own son would point fingers at each other across a courtroom.On July 5, 2018, Gary's remains were found smoldering in a burn pile a hundred yards from his home. What started as a possible accident became a murder investigation the moment a .38 caliber bullet was found lodged in his rib cage. The gun was never recovered. The body was burned beyond recognition.

    And everyone in the family had a reason to want Big Daddy's money.In this episode, we cover the full story — Gary's rise from a middle-class Alabama household to managing partner at one of the South's most respected law firms, the slow collapse of his marriage to Melody Walker Farris, her affairs with at least two men, the damning cell phone evidence that placed her alone on the property when Gary's phone was moving between the house and the burn pile, and the chilling phone call where she told her lover "he's on the burn pile" before anyone had even discovered the body.

    We walk through the nearly year-long investigation, Melody's arrest in Tennessee where she'd fled to be with her boyfriend, the five-year wait for trial, and the explosive eighteen-day courtroom battle in October 2024 where the prosecution called thirty-six witnesses and introduced over twelve hundred pieces of evidence.

    We break down the defense's case that son Scott Farris was the real killer, the jury's initial deadlock, and the guilty verdict on all five counts that sent Melody Farris to prison for life.

    This one's got everything — money, betrayal, buried secrets, and a family destroyed beyond repair.

    If you’re drawn to real criminal investigations, cold cases, and the details that don’t always make it into the official report, make sure you’re following The Guilty Files wherever you listen.

    Turn on automatic downloads so you never miss an episode — because each case unfolds in two parts, and the truth is rarely found in just one.If you value careful analysis, real law enforcement insight, and true crime without the sensationalism, consider leaving a five-star rating and written review.

    It helps more than you know and allows us to keep bringing these case files to light.

    Until next time —The facts matter.
    The details matter.
    And the truth is often redacted.
    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 10 mins
  • TGF 090 Lewis Lent: The Redacted Report

    TGF 090 Lewis Lent: The Redacted Report
    Feb 27 2026
    This episode of The Redacted Report is a companion piece to our full deep dive on the Lewis Lent case released earlier this week. If you haven't listened to that episode first, we strongly recommend starting there, as this isn't a recap. This is where we dig into the overlooked, lesser known, and rarely discussed facts surrounding Lewis Lent and the investigation that brought him down.

    We examine the disturbing specifics of Lent's so-called master plan as documented in Massachusetts court records, including his description of the multi-compartment confinement system he was constructing and the chillingly clinical victim profile he laid out for investigators.

    We explore how his terminology for interim victims reveals the calculated progression of a predator who was actively transitioning from impulsive kills to long-term captivity.The episode also covers the remarkable coincidence involving Detective Owen Boyington and his daughter Amy, both of whom apprehended criminals on the same day in January of nineteen ninety four.

    We look at the lasting impact on the Shallies family, whose decades of scrutiny following Lent's arrest is a story that rarely gets told, and the twenty twenty four return to their property by investigators still searching for Sara Anne Wood. We discuss the evidentiary significance of the duct tape match that connected the Bernardo murder scene to Lent's vehicle three years later, the legal technicality that means Lent has never served a single day in New York for Sara Wood's murder, and the heartbreaking words of Jamie Lusher's father at the twenty thirteen press conference.

    We also break down Lent's mental health defense strategy, including the alter ego he conveniently named after his own middle name, and why prosecution psychologists argued he was faking every bit of it.If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of Sara Anne Wood or Jamie Lusher, please contact the New York State Police Troop D Headquarters at 315-366-6000.

    If you’re drawn to real criminal investigations, cold cases, and the details that don’t always make it into the official report, make sure you’re following The Guilty Files wherever you listen.

    Turn on automatic downloads so you never miss an episode — because each case unfolds in two parts, and the truth is rarely found in just one.If you value careful analysis, real law enforcement insight, and true crime without the sensationalism, consider leaving a five-star rating and written review.

    It helps more than you know and allows us to keep bringing these case files to light.

    Until next time —The facts matter.
    The details matter.
    And the truth is often redacted.
    Show more Show less
    23 mins
  • TGF 089 Lewis Lent

    TGF 089 Lewis Lent
    Feb 25 2026
    For seven years, Lewis Lent worked as a janitor at a movie theater in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He volunteered his time helping the blind. He studied the Bible and became an ordained minister. He mentored neighborhood kids who called him "the Big Brother." And behind that mask of kindness, he was hunting, abducting, and murdering children across the northeastern United States.In this episode, we trace the full story of Lewis Lent from his troubled childhood in rural upstate New York through his nomadic years drifting across Florida, New Mexico, and the Northeast, to the horrific crimes that would eventually define him.

    We cover the nineteen ninety abduction and murder of twelve year old Jimmy Bernardo from a Pittsfield strip mall, the nineteen ninety two disappearance of sixteen year old Jamie Lusher in Westfield, Massachusetts, and the nineteen ninety three kidnapping, rape, and murder of twelve year old Sara Anne Wood in Sauquoit, New York.We also tell the story of the girl who stopped him. Twelve year old Becky Savarese, who faked losing her breath and slipped out of her backpack to escape Lent at gunpoint on a frozen January morning in nineteen ninety four. Her courage and quick thinking cracked open cases that had gone cold for years and ended a predator's reign of terror.

    This episode covers the massive multi-state investigation, the three day interrogation that produced Lent's chilling confessions, his so-called "master plan" to imprison children in a hidden room in his apartment, and the courtroom proceedings that put him away for life.

    We also examine the thirty year search for Sara Anne Wood's body, a search that continues to this day because Lewis Lent refuses to tell her family where he buried their daughter.

    If you have any information about the whereabouts of Sara Anne Wood or Jamie Lusher, please contact the New York State Police Troop D Headquarters at 315-366-6000.

    If you’re drawn to real criminal investigations, cold cases, and the details that don’t always make it into the official report, make sure you’re following The Guilty Files wherever you listen.

    Turn on automatic downloads so you never miss an episode — because each case unfolds in two parts, and the truth is rarely found in just one.If you value careful analysis, real law enforcement insight, and true crime without the sensationalism, consider leaving a five-star rating and written review.

    It helps more than you know and allows us to keep bringing these case files to light.

    Until next time —The facts matter.
    The details matter.
    And the truth is often redacted.
    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 14 mins
  • TGF 088 The Frenchman Bay Six: The Redacted Report

    TGF 088 The Frenchman Bay Six: The Redacted Report
    Feb 20 2026
    Six teenage boys left a house party in Pickering, Ontario, in the early hours of March 17, 1995, and vanished without a trace. Durham Regional Police settled on a theory almost immediately — the boys stole a boat, went joyriding on the frigid waters of Lake Ontario, and drowned. Case closed.

    Except it wasn't. Not even close.In this episode, we go beyond the official narrative and dig into the facts that never made the headlines. The details that got buried, ignored, or actively suppressed.We examine why Jay Boyle called his girlfriend at 1:30 a.m. and told her he was coming to her apartment — only to never arrive. We break down the surveillance footage that only captured three of the six boys at the marina, while the other three were never seen on camera at all.

    We look at evidence suggesting Danny Higgins, the youngest of the group, may not have even been with the others when they disappeared.We cover the two girlfriends who called police at 3:30 a.m. to report the boys missing — and were dismissed. The 36-hour delay before any real search began. The sidescan sonar contract that was lined up and then cancelled by Durham Police without explanation. The "unsinkable" boat that was never found. The gas can that turned up on the wrong side of the lake with no water inside it after nearly two weeks adrift. We reveal the three unidentified strangers caught on the marina's surveillance tape just minutes after the boys — who were never investigated.

    The critical dockside camera that went offline at 2:21 a.m. at the worst possible moment. And the surveillance footage that Durham Police told a private investigator didn't exist — until his third access to information request proved otherwise.We walk through the 1998 discovery of red jeans and human remains in the Niagara River that matched Jay Boyle's description — a discovery the Boyle family wasn't told about for 15 years. The bureaucratic nightmare that followed. The broken chain of evidence. And the forensic results that raised more questions than they answered.

    This episode is built on the 13-year investigation of private investigator Bruce Ricketts, who worked this case pro bono until his death in January 2024, and on the documented record he left behind. The boys: Jay Boyle (17), Chad Smith (18), Robbie Rumboldt (17), Jamie Lefebvre (17), Michael Cummins (17), and Danny Higgins (16).The case remains open.

    The boys are still classified as missing persons.Anyone with information is asked to contact the Durham Regional Police Service at 1-888-579-1520, ext. 2511.

    If you’re drawn to real criminal investigations, cold cases, and the details that don’t always make it into the official report, make sure you’re following The Guilty Files wherever you listen.

    Turn on automatic downloads so you never miss an episode — because each case unfolds in two parts, and the truth is rarely found in just one.If you value careful analysis, real law enforcement insight, and true crime without the sensationalism, consider leaving a five-star rating and written review.

    It helps more than you know and allows us to keep bringing these case files to light.

    Until next time —The facts matter.
    The details matter.
    And the truth is often redacted.
    Show more Show less
    31 mins