Episode 372

Thirty-three-year-old Jason Schaefer was delivering mail on a quiet afternoon in Longmont, Colorado, when bullets assaulted him. Witnesses saw a figure run from the mailboxes, covered in a hoodie and mask, and at first, the case seemed to point in one direction. But as detectives traced Jason’s final day, they uncovered a tangled web of jealousy, custody fights, family betrayal, and secrets hiding in plain sight, all surrounding a young father who never made it home from work.Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

Jennifer Dulos, an upper-class mom of five, vanished from Connecticut on a spring morning in 2019. Two women, both from privilege, both connected to the same man, would find themselves on opposite sides of what came next. One walked away. The other stayed. As the investigation unfolded, a story emerged - one shaped by money, control, and the quiet ways power is used and abused.Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

When 33-year-old Lashaun Keith’s body is discovered in a remote Michigan hay field, detectives have almost nothing to go on. There are no eyewitnesses and no clear suspects. All they find is a single glove. Sixteen months later, that glove points them to three men, each telling a different story about the same deadly night.Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

In April of 2024, 25-year-old Megan Bodiford went missing. The search for answers would uncover a violent crime hidden in plain sight and reveal how the signs of danger were there all along.Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

The British Club was a close circle of English expats in Fleming Island, Florida. They were friends who looked out for one another like family. So when 65-year-old Sue Mauldin suddenly vanished, they knew something was wrong. What followed was a desperate race by the Clay County Sheriff’s Office to track down a man hiding in plain sight and uncover what really happened to Sue.Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

In Delray Beach, Florida, a routine traffic stop led police to a young man covered in blood. By the next morning, a body had been discovered. What followed was a tense interrogation — and a motive that felt disturbingly small compared to the violence it produced.Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

13-year-old Madeline Soto vanishes on what should have been an ordinary school morning in Kissimmee, Florida. She’s dropped off just a block away, and nothing about it feels unusual. She walks off, heading toward school… and disappears. By the afternoon, panic sets in. Calls to 911 reveal a family scrambling for answers: rechecking routes, calling friends, waiting for help that isn’t coming fast enough. She never made it to class. No one saw her arrive. Beneath the family’s lies, it’s a race against the clock to find Maddie.Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

When 25-year-old biomedical engineer Jonathan Amerault disappeared, it felt like another one of his hiking trips had gone horribly wrong. But the scene in the woods, and the female co-worker found beside his brutalized body, told a much more sinister story of love and blind rage.Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

In 2008, University of Wisconsin–Madison student Brittany Zimmermann was murdered in her apartment in the middle of the day, and then the trail went cold. An unlikely informant leads the police to search for two mystery men, a theory that would steer the investigation for years. As time passed and leads fell apart, the case slowly faded from view. Twelve years later, detectives discovered the truth wasn’t buried; it had been right in front of them all along.Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

In 2022, when 57-year-old Harold Allen was found dead in his Indiana home, the case was ruled natural. Nearly a year later, a brazen burglary and a string of buried messages bring detectives back to the same address and to Marsha Allen, the woman who said she loved him. What starts as a property crime becomes a chilling reexamination of Harold’s final days, as small-town routines, late-night deliveries, and a quiet house of secrets point to something far darker. No one is ready for where the evidence leads or what it costs.Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com