Alex Murdaugh Deleted His Phone Log the Week of the Murders

Yogurt Shop Murders Trial: Death Row on Zero Evidence

The 2001 and 2002 trials in the yogurt shop murders case are a case study in how criminal prosecution can produce convictions without physical evidence. Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott were convicted of capital murder based solely on confessions that both men maintained were coerced. No DNA, fingerprints, or forensic evidence of any kind connected either man to the crime scene. The prosecution’s strategy relied on graphic crime scene imagery to overwhelm jurors alongside the confessions. Critical constitutional violations compounded the problem. Each man’s confession was used against the other without cross-examination rights, violating the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause. The confessions contradicted each other on key details. Seven jurors later stated publicly they would not have convicted with the DNA evidence that emerged afterward. Springsteen, who was 17 at the time of the crime, received a death sentence later commuted under Roper v. Simmons. Scott, who had documented learning disabilities, received life. Part 3 of this series provides an in-depth examination of false confession psychology, interrogation methodology, and the structural mechanisms by which the criminal justice system produced death penalty convictions in the absence of corroborating evidence. A critical installment for understanding how wrongful convictions are built. 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. #YogurtShopMurders #TrueCrimeToday #FalseConfession #DeathRow #WrongfulConviction #SixthAmendment #CriminalJustice #InterrogationReform #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime

Alex Murdaugh Conviction Thrown Out: Becky Hill’s Comments Destroyed the Verdict

She was supposed to be neutral. Instead, she told jurors not to be fooled by the defense, coached them to scrutinize the defendant’s body language, and wanted a guilty verdict to sell her book. The South Carolina Supreme Court has unanimously reversed Alex Murdaugh’s convictions for killing his wife Maggie and son Paul, finding that former Colleton County Clerk Becky Hill’s interference denied him a fair trial. The court’s language is extraordinary. They called Hill’s conduct “breathtaking and disgraceful” and “unprecedented in South Carolina.” They found she was “attracted by the siren call of celebrity” and prioritized personal attention over her duty to the court. Testimony from her own colleague revealed Hill repeatedly discussed her plan to write a book and said a guilty verdict was the best path to selling it. Hill’s December 2025 guilty plea to perjury — for lying under oath about showing sealed exhibits to the press — further undermined her credibility. The five justices found that former Chief Justice Jean Toal made critical legal errors when she denied Murdaugh’s new trial motion. Toal required the defense to prove prejudice instead of requiring the State to disprove it. She asked jurors whether the comments changed their minds, violating evidence rules that protect deliberation privacy. The Supreme Court formally adopted a federal framework that shifts the burden squarely onto the prosecution once improper outside contact is established. The opinion also restricts what the State can present at retrial. The first trial featured over twelve hours of financial crimes testimony the court found excessive and unfairly inflammatory. Any second trial must be leaner. AG Alan Wilson says the State will retry. Murdaugh remains imprisoned on financial convictions while the murder case starts fresh. LINKS 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] DISCLAIMER 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. HASHTAGS #AlexMurdaugh #TrueCrimeToday #BeckyHill #MurdaughRetrial #JuryTampering #SCSupremeCourt #TrueCrime #MurdaughTrial #SouthCarolina #Justice

12 Tribes’ Founder Died. Yellow Deli Didn’t Close for a Day.

Gene Spriggs built the Twelve Tribes into a movement spanning four continents, approximately forty communities, and at least thirty-three Yellow Deli locations. He reportedly controlled what his followers ate, wore, read, and believed. He assigned marriages and forbade divorce. His teachings on race have been documented by the SPLC as white supremacist. And then his wife allegedly broke the one rule the community considered unforgivable. In this episode, Tony Brueski traces Spriggs’ arc from carnival worker to cult founder to the scandal that should have ended the Twelve Tribes — and the death that should have ended it again. Marsha Spriggs’ alleged affairs with young male disciples were reportedly covered up by Gene and privately forgiven in a closed meeting. When the truth surfaced, hundreds of members left. But the system survived. Spriggs died in January 2021 at eighty-three. He left no successor. The communities did not fracture. The businesses did not close. The Child Training Manual he wrote — 267 pages of instructions for disciplining children, authored by a man who never raised one inside the community — reportedly remained in circulation. The Twelve Tribes did not survive because of Gene Spriggs. It survived because the system he built allegedly made itself bigger than any one person — including him. And that is the most unsettling legacy a cult leader can leave behind. 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. #GeneSpriggs #12Tribes #TwelveTribes #YellowDeli #TrueCrimeToday #TrueCrime #CultLeader #HiddenKillers #CultExposed #TonyBrueski

Allen Told His Father He Was Losing His Mind Before The Delphi Confessions

Indiana has a theory for why Richard Allen confessed to the Delphi murders while sitting in solitary confinement at Westville. According to the State's appellate brief, Richard Allen found religion in his cell. He had a spiritual awakening. He decided to come clean. What the defense has documented is something else entirely. A man who lost 45 pounds in solitary. A man who tore up his legal mail. A man who ate his Bible. A man who drank from the toilet. A man who asked his own father, on a recorded phone call, how much longer he was going to be lucid. A man whose Major Depressive Disorder was documented before he ever entered Westville — and whose decline was so visible that the defense team described him as psychotic and gravely disabled. The Indiana Department of Correction's own written policy says inmates with serious mental illness cannot be kept in solitary for more than 30 days. Allen was kept there for 13 months. Defense attorney Bob Motta joins Tony Brueski for Part Two of a three-part panel on the Richard Allen appeal. They put the State's religious-conversion narrative next to the contemporaneous medical and behavioral record. They walk through what an appellate panel actually does when a confession is extracted from a man in that condition. They examine the institutional knowledge the State had before placing Allen in solitary, the policy the State broke by holding him there, and the confession the State is now trying to protect. Three judges at the Court of Appeals are reading both stories. Only one of them is going to survive review. LINKS: 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] DISCLAIMER: 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. HASHTAGS: #RichardAllen #DelphiMurders #DelphiAppeal #ReligiousConversion #BobMotta #TrueCrimeToday #AbbyAndLibby #SolitaryConfinement #CoercedConfession #TrueCrime

Indiana Never Searched One Delphi Suspect's Phone

According to Richard Allen's reply brief, Indiana investigators interviewed an alternative suspect in the Delphi murders, then allegedly recorded over the tape of that interview. His weapon was never collected. His phone was never searched. And at trial, the judge ruled that presenting him as an alternative suspect was speculative. The defense's response to that ruling is a question. How is anything speculative if nobody bothered to investigate it? That is one of three factual problems sitting inside the appellate record that Indiana's response brief refuses to engage with directly. The other two are a van timeline contradicted by FBI cell data and surveillance footage, and a confession in which Allen told his prison psychiatrist he shot Abby Williams and Libby German — when the medical examiner concluded the girls were killed with a blade. Defense attorney Bob Motta joins Tony Brueski for Part One of a three-part panel on the procedural-versus-factual collision driving the Delphi appeal. They walk through why Indiana built its appellate strategy around harmless error and procedural waiver instead of disputing the underlying record. They explain why the recorded-over interview is more dangerous in an appeal than it was at trial. They get into the selective admission of Allen's jailhouse calls — one heard by the jury, two excluded, including the call in which Allen asks his own father how much longer he can stay lucid. Three judges are reading the full record now. The State spent the appellate brief telling them not to look too closely. Whether three judges with the power to ask any question take that suggestion is the entire ballgame. LINKS: 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] DISCLAIMER: 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. HASHTAGS: #RichardAllen #DelphiMurders #DelphiAppeal #AlternativeSuspect #AbbyAndLibby #BobMotta #TrueCrimeToday #BridgeGuy #IndianaCourtOfAppeals #TrueCrime