True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews

Mackenzie Shirilla’s Family Spoke in a Fabricated Code on Recorded Calls Until Prosecutors Broke It

54 min · 27. juni 2026
episode Mackenzie Shirilla’s Family Spoke in a Fabricated Code on Recorded Calls Until Prosecutors Broke It cover

Description

Prosecutors decoded monitored prison calls in which Mackenzie Shirilla and her mother Natalie communicated using a fabricated language specifically designed to evade the institution’s recording system. The decoded exchanges reveal the nature and scope of the Shirilla family’s post-conviction conduct, including a specific request from Mackenzie to her mother that reframes the family’s role in the ongoing case. Separately, recorded calls conducted in standard English reveal Natalie Shirilla telling her daughter that prison programming is intended for “actual criminals” and referring to the family of Dominic Russo as “evil.” Steve Shirilla appeared in the Netflix documentary The Crash, stated on camera that he had no objection to his daughter’s substance use, and subsequently lost his teaching position at a Catholic school. Shirilla has accumulated thirty-six conduct violations within the Ohio Reformatory for Women and has been found guilty on thirty-two. The Ohio Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal. Every reviewing court has upheld the conviction. Parole eligibility begins in September 2037. A look back at the most compelling stories of the week. Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ [https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/] Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1] Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ [https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/] Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ [https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/] Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod [https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod] X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod [https://x.com/TrueCrimePod] This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #MackenzieShirilla #NatalieShirilla #TrueCrimeToday #TheCrash #DominicRusso #DavionFlanagan #StrongsvilleOhio #ShirillaPrisonCalls #TrueCrime #NetflixTheCrash

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13652 episodes

episode Siders Case Broke Open Over WHAT Accident?! artwork

Siders Case Broke Open Over WHAT Accident?!

Sixteen kids. One small house in Hamden, Ohio. And a discovery that had nothing to do with anyone whose job it was to notice.  Deputies in Vinton County went to that property to serve a warrant tied to something else entirely. Ohio's Attorney General has been direct about it — nobody on that call expected children to be there. The school district had zero record of any of these kids.  The oldest, eighteen years old, reportedly can't write her own name, a fact that tells you exactly how far outside every system she'd been living.  Tony Brueski works through the people who lived around that house too. Retail workers describe years of small, specific details — clothing, hygiene, unusual closing-time errands — details they can now recite in full but somehow never reported at the time. A neighbor seventy feet from the property maintains he never saw a child there across six years. A psychotherapist unpacks the mental shortcuts — the kind everyone uses — that turn a nagging feeling into something easy to ignore.  Four adults now face sixteen counts each of second-degree felony child endangering, all pleading not guilty, with no indictment returned so far.  From there the episode pulls back to the bigger, uglier machine: a mandated-reporter system that assigns duty without consequence, a funding structure built to reward states for removing children rather than finding them, and a comparable failure out of Washington, D.C., where four girls died inside a system a federal judge had watched over for nineteen years.  An accident found these kids. The episode asks what it would take for a system to do it on purpose.  Social Links & Legal Footer  Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ [https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/]  Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1]  Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ [https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/]  Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ [https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/]  Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod [https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod]  X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod [https://x.com/TrueCrimePod]  This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.  #SidersCase #VintonCounty #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #OhioCrimeNews #ChildWelfareFailure #MandatedReporter #TrueCrimeCommunity #TrueCrimePodcast #CrimeStories

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episode Siders 16 Kids: Why One Sibling Never Learned WHAT?! artwork

Siders 16 Kids: Why One Sibling Never Learned WHAT?!

There's a skill an eighteen-year-old in the Siders case never picked up, and it's not for lack of effort — her mind formed inside a house with no school, no strangers, no outside world at all. Sixteen kids, one Hamden, Ohio address, and a town of seven hundred that claims total ignorance. Tony and Robin start with the timing that makes this case so hard to sit with: silence before the arrests, then a wealth of detail after. A Dollar General employee suddenly remembered years of specifics — clothing, hygiene, the family's odd shopping hours — the moment reporters came calling. A neighbor insists six years passed without her seeing a single child. Regular delivery drivers who encountered the oldest son noticed nothing worth flagging. The Attorney General points to deliberate record-avoidance, which is accurate — but that kind of avoidance only works with cooperation from everyone nearby. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott then explains what that isolation did to the children's development. She pushes back on the AG's "almost feral" framing and describes what actually happens to a mind that grows up entirely cut off. A number of the sixteen can't communicate verbally, and Scott lays out what tends to form between siblings who've only had each other as a language source. None of them knew their life was atypical — that house was the only reality they had. Scott closes with the Turpin case as the clearest comparison point: national sympathy and freedom didn't guarantee safety for those thirteen kids either. One town's blind spot, one house's cost — this episode puts them side by side. Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ [https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/] Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1] Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ [https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/] Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ [https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/] Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod [https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod] X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod [https://x.com/TrueCrimePod] This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #SidersFamily #GarySiders #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #OhioHouseOfHorrors #16KidsOhio #VintonCounty #ChildDevelopment #TurpinCase #NobodyKnew

19. juli 202644 min
episode The Charlie Kirk Prosecutor's TMZ Mistake Cost Him WHAT? artwork

The Charlie Kirk Prosecutor's TMZ Mistake Cost Him WHAT?

A confession, a suspect who turned himself in, DNA on the rifle — the case against Tyler Robinson in the Charlie Kirk killing had every element of a lock. Then the state's own prosecutor started talking to TMZ. The deputy county attorney handling the death-penalty prosecution discussed the strength of the evidence, violating the pretrial publicity order a judge had set. That judge responded by holding him in civil contempt of court. The defense asked the court to remove the death penalty as punishment for the breach. The judge said no to that request but expanded the jury pool and ordered the prosecution to cover the defense's legal costs — a decision that follows the case into every hearing left. That's only one part of this episode. A theory has picked up real traction claiming Robinson isn't the man who killed Charlie Kirk — that the actual shooter is still free. Tony puts both leading versions of that theory against what's actually in the record: the confession note recovered under Robinson's own keyboard, DNA on the rifle, engraved shell casings matched to a tool found in his home, and a surveillance trail that places him on campus and in the woods where the weapon was found. He also answers the anomalies fueling the second-shooter version — the missing rooftop casings, the second bullet lodged in another building, the ATF's failure to match the fatal round. None of this is mockery — a case this chaotic in its early hours earns real questions. But the answers hold, and the one that damages the conspiracy most isn't forensic at all. It's a decision Robinson's own defense attorney made over five days of hearings, with his client's life on the line. Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ [https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/] Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1] Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ [https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/] Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ [https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/] Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod [https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod] X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod [https://x.com/TrueCrimePod] This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #CharlieKirk #TylerRobinson #TrueCrimeToday #TrueCrime #Prosecutor #TMZ #ConspiracyTheories #SecondShooter #UVU #CourtWatch

Yesterday49 min
episode Nolan Wells' Phone Revealed WHAT To His Mother? artwork

Nolan Wells' Phone Revealed WHAT To His Mother?

Nolan Wells' case keeps circling back to one object: the phone his mother opened after his death, looking for the last day of his life. What she found — or didn't — is the thread True Crime Today is pulling apart today, using the Nolan Wells timeline as it's actually been reported, not the version that went viral. The 18-year-old football player from Ocean Springs, Mississippi traveled to Horn Island with friends over the holiday. His friends returned. He was found in the water two days later. From there, the accounts split. A young woman says Nolan told her he was heading back to the boat. His friends say he told them the opposite — that he was staying on the island with her. Someone's account doesn't hold up, and it hasn't been resolved. Former prosecutor and defense attorney Eric Faddis joins to unpack what it means that the sheriff declared no foul play before the autopsy, toxicology, and digital evidence were finished — and why the district attorney agreeing to present this case to a grand jury signals more than any press statement did. Messages the family says were deleted from the phone are now with the FBI. A viral video once treated as proof turned out to be something else. And with roughly two hundred people on a remote island with no cameras or cell service, the entire evidence base depends on footage nobody's turned in yet. Tony Brueski, Robin, and Eric Faddis break down the contradictions, the phone, and what a real investigation still owes this family. Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ [https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/] Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1] Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ [https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/] Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ [https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/] Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod [https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod] X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod [https://x.com/TrueCrimePod] This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #NolanWells #HornIsland #TrueCrimeToday #TrueCrime #OceanSprings #MississippiCase #NolanWellsCase #TrueCrimeCommunity #JusticeForNolan #WhatHappenedToNolan

Yesterday56 min
episode Siders Family: Sheriff Said Livestock Live Better Than THIS artwork

Siders Family: Sheriff Said Livestock Live Better Than THIS

That's the line the Vinton County sheriff used after his deputies walked into a five-room house on Ohmer Street in Hamden, Ohio, looking to serve a misdemeanor warrant and instead found sixteen children living inside. Some couldn't speak. Some couldn't read. None had ever been enrolled in a school. The Ohio Attorney General went further, calling the conditions "pure evil" and saying another day could have ended in deaths. Four adults are now charged with sixty-eight felony counts of child endangerment, with a grand jury still to come and more charges possible. The AG's choice of the word intrafamilial is the kind of detail that tells you the full picture isn't public yet. What's striking is how the system missed this for eighteen years straight. Sixteen children, all born in hospitals, arriving roughly once every thirteen months — and not a single medical professional ever flagged the pattern. Ohio's 2023 rollback of homeschool oversight meant no school system ever came looking either. And Elizabeth Siders, one of the four now facing charges, was married herself at fifteen, with a judge's sign-off, in a state with no minimum marriage age on the books. Tony breaks down the case for the True Crime Today audience: the warrant that accidentally exposed it, the institutions that had every opportunity to catch it sooner, and the uncomfortable question at the center of it — whether the state that approved Elizabeth Siders' marriage at fifteen bears some responsibility for what happened to her children two decades later. Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ [https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/] Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1] Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ [https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/] Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ [https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/] Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod [https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod] X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod [https://x.com/TrueCrimePod] This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #SidersFamily #GarySiders #TrueCrimeToday #TrueCrime #OhioHouseOfHorrors #VintonCounty #16KidsOhio #ChildEndangerment #ElizabethSiders #SystemFailure

Yesterday42 min