True Crime Kidnapping

The Jan Broberg Story tells the winding tale of the Brobergs, a church-going, Idaho family that falls prey to a sociopathic neighbor who will stop at nothing to be with their young daughter. Robert Berchtold, furniture store owner and family man, coaxes his way into the Broberg’s life, meticulously building their trust and bonding with their young girls. One day, Robert offers to take their 12-year-old daughter, Jan, horseback riding, only he doesn’t return her home.

Based off Hannah Maguire and Suruthi Bala's popular podcast of the same name, RedHanded explores real-life true-crime cases to help answer once and for all if a killer is born or made.

As investigators brought out the bagged remains of several dozen young men from a small Chicago ranch home and paraded them in front of a crowd of TV reporters and spectators, attention quickly turned to the owner of the house. John Gacy was an upstanding citizen, active in local politics and charities, famous for his themed parties and appearances as Pogo the Clown. But in the winter of 1978-79, he became known as one of many so-called “sex murderers” who had begun gaining notoriety in the random brutality of the 1970s.

Lindsey always knew she wanted to be a detective. Her inspiration came after reading about the murders committed by Ted Bundy, who grew up in her hometown of Tacoma, Washington. Also seared into her memory was the 1986 murder of a young girl who'd been out for a bike ride when she went missing. The teen was later found murdered, but the case was never solved. The senseless killing of an innocent young girl would leave a black cloud over Tacoma for three decades.

Lucie Blackman - tall, blond, 21 years old - stepped out into the vastness of Tokyo in the summer of 2000 and disappeared. The following winter, her dismembered remains were found buried in a seaside cave. The seven months in between had seen a massive search for the missing girl involving Japanese policemen, British private detectives, and Lucie’s desperate but bitterly divided parents. Had Lucie been abducted by a religious cult or snatched by human traffickers? Who was the mysterious man she had gone to meet? And what did her work as a hostess in the notorious Roppongi district of Tokyo really involve?

True crime stories are everywhere - from our screens to podcasts, capturing our imaginations and haunting our dreams. It's raw, it's real, and it's a deep dive into humanity's dark side. Whether you think you've heard it all or are just getting started, "The Ultimate True Crime Trivia Book" is your next must-listen.

Verte Regresar cuenta dos historias paralelas: por un lado, la desgracia de una trágica noche en la que el crimen organizado y elementos del Ejército Mexicano, desaparecieron de manera forzada a 43 estudiantes de la Escuela Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa que estudiaban para ser maestros. Por el otro, se entrelaza la vida íntima de estos jóvenes para conocer su origen y sus sueños. Se trata de un ejercicio estético y testimonial que parte desde la ausencia para ir hacia el reencuentro, que se sumerge en la incertidumbre para resignificar la esperanza.

Oskar's school teacher raises the alarm. Oskar's mother is abroad, and he has been left in the care of friends, but has been arriving in school hungry, unkempt and with bruises on his arms, legs and body. Experienced foster carer Cathy Glass is asked to look after him, but as the weeks pass, her concerns deepen. Oskar is far too quiet for a child of six and is clearly scared of something or someone.

They’re known as the bebés robados, or “stolen babies”–children stolen at birth from their mothers and sold to wealthy families around Spain. For decades, European reporters and activists have tried to penetrate the secretive networks responsible for the crimes, typically with little success. Until now. In The Lost, veteran journalists Matteo Fagotto and Matilde Gattoni investigate the story of a woman named Ana Belén Pintado, a middle-aged woman from a small village in Central Spain.

It’s a freezing winter’s night in 1954. A baby boy, a few hours old, is left by his mother, wrapped in nothing but two sheets of newspaper and hidden amongst the undergrowth by a canal bank. An hour later, a late-shift postman is walking wearily home when he hears a faint cry. He finds the newspaper parcel and discovers the newborn, white-cold and whimpering, inside. After being rushed to hospital and against all odds, the baby survives. He’s baptised by the hospital chaplain as Richard.

What would you do if your son suddenly disappeared in Syria, and you had no idea what had happened to him? Would you contact the FBI? The State Department? Pray? Would you Google “What to do if your son disappears in Syria”? When the unthinkable happened, the answer, in the case of Ann Goodwin and her husband Tag, was: all of the above. Their 30-year-old son Sam, who was attempting to become one of the few people in history to travel to every single country on the planet, vanished in a supposed safe-zone run by the Kurds on the Turkish border.

In December 1919, Ambrose Small, the mercurial owner of the Grand Opera House in Toronto, closed a deal to sell his network of Ontario theatres, deposited a million-dollar cheque in his bank account, and was never seen again. As weeks turned to years, the disappearance became the most "extraordinary unsolved mystery" of its time.

Serial killer Gary Heidnik's name will live on in infamy, and his home, 3520 North Marshall Street in Philadelphia, is a house tainted with the memory of unbelievable horrors. What police found there was an incredible nightmare made real. Four young women had been held captive - some for four months - half-naked and chained. They had been tortured, starved, and repeatedly raped. But more grotesque discoveries lay in the kitchen: human limbs frozen, a torso burned to cinders, an empty pot suspiciously scorched....

In 2011, Catherine joined her daughter, India, at a leadership seminar for a new organization called NXIVM. Her 20-year-old daughter was on the threshold of building a new company, and they both thought this program might help her achieve her dream. But quickly, Catherine saw a sinister side to what appeared to be a self-help organization designed to help its clients become the best versions of themselves. Catherine watched in horror as her daughter fell further and further down the rabbit hole, becoming brainwashed by the organization’s charismatic leader.

College student Lauren Spierer was pursuing her dreams, joining her boyfriend at a party school eight hundred miles from home. Social and gregarious, studying fashion and rooming with friends, Lauren embraced her new adventure with the zeal of a young woman who suddenly had everything she desired. But there was a dark side that she and her inner circle kept secret. And one warm June evening, after heading out with friends, she seemingly vanished.

In the fall of 1978, teenager Theresa Allore went missing near Sherbrooke, Quebec. She wasn't seen again until the spring thaw revealed her body in a creek only a few kilometers away. Shrugging off her death as a result of 1970s drug culture, police didn't investigate. Patricia Pearson started dating Theresa's brother, John, during the aftermath of Theresa's death. Though the two teens would go their separate ways, the family's grief, obsession with justice, and desire for the truth never left Patricia.

La crónica de un secuestro real magistralmente retratado por Gabriel García Márquez. "Era, en efecto, el automóvil de Maruja. Había transcurrido por lo menos media hora desde el secuestro, y sólo quedaban los rastros: el cristal del lado del chofer destruido por un balazo, la mancha de sangre y el granizo del vidrio en el asiento, y la sombra húmeda en el asfalto, de donde acababan de llevarse al chofer todavía con vida. El resto estaba limpio y en orden."

Between 1950 and 1970, the Vatican and the American Catholic Church sent nearly four thousand Italian children to the United States for adoption into “good” Catholic homes. With the religious stigma of unwed motherhood turning families against daughters and a Church and State wanting “illegitimate” children sent abroad, mothers were lied to, given forms to sign that they didn’t understand, or even told their baby had died, all to further supply this international adoption pipeline.

Casper, Wyoming: 1973. Eleven-year-old Amy Burridge rides with her 18-year-old sister, Becky, to the grocery store. When they finish their shopping, Becky's car gets a flat tire. Two men politely offer them a ride home. Yet they were anything but good Samaritans. The girls would suffer unspeakable crimes at the hands of these men before being thrown from a bridge into the North Platte River. One miraculously survived; the other did not.

Cuando fue secuestrado, a plena luz del día, en mitad de una de las ciudades más pobladas de México, la vida del empresario Alberto de la Fuente cambió para siempre. Esta es la crónica de nueve meses de infame cautiverio dentro de una diminuta celda prefabricada. Los 290 días para elegir, una y otra vez y a pesar de todo, continuar viviendo para volver a abrazar a su familia.