Murders & Minivans

About Murders & Minivans

Murders and Minivans explores the world of true crime through the lens of everyday motherhood. Each episode takes listeners deep into cases ranging from notorious murders to overlooked crimes, offering thorough research, thoughtful discussion, and fresh perspectives. Alongside these stories, the hosts reflect on the realities of parenting, family life, and the unique challenges of raising kids in today’s world.

Publisher

Tali & Stephanie

Category

true crime

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

29 Sept 2025

Latest episode

26 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

63 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   26 Oct 2026

   A Halloween Special: Two Scary Stories

   No case this week. For Halloween, Tali and Stephanie each wrote an original horror story, and we’re reading them to you. Two stories. Two buildings. Two sets of rules. Sitting Up (written and read by Tali) It’s 1987. A home health nurse takes on a new patient in Pell’s Crossing: Miss Iris Ashby, 96, who lives alone in a 41-room house at the top of the hill. Every house in town faces the river. That means every house has its back to the Ashby place. Iris has rules. Don’t go above the second floor. Keep the lamp lit. Never come up the hill after dark. Then Iris dies, and the town needs someone to sit up with her until morning. It has to be someone from away. No Recording Permitted (written and read by Stephanie) Two struggling podcasters land the scoop they’ve been waiting for. They get first access to the Rubaker Hotel, an Arkansas resort turned fake cancer retreat where human remains were found on the grounds decades ago. The caretakers mail them the rules. Audio only. Stay on the path. Don’t open the bathing chamber. Stay out of the cellar. Only one of them reads the whole letter. Both stories are fiction. Pell’s Crossing and the Rubaker Hotel are not real places. Please don’t go looking for them.

2. 

   21 Oct 2026

   The Bend School Shooting, Michelle Parker’s Ex-Fiancé Charged, and Two 1960s Cold Cases Solved

   This week on Bad News Good News, Tali brings the bad news and Stephanie balances it out. On October 15, a 16-year-old shot through the locked doors of Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, and targeted a special education classroom. He killed three children, ages 5, 8, and 11, and 25-year-old teacher Meghan Lambert. A 7-year-old student and a 54-year-old teacher were critically wounded. Five-year-old Rhoam Summer is believed to be the youngest person killed in a U.S. school shooting since tracking began in the 1960s. One teacher slowed the shooter by throwing her phone at him and fighting him. A community member, identified by his family as Kaylub Giamanco, followed the shooter inside and shot him. Police say the shotgun was bought by the shooter's mother. The motive is still under investigation. Tali also looks at how school shootings and gun laws in the U.S. compare with Canada. In Pennsylvania, Metallica Rose Harrison, 27, is charged with two counts of criminal homicide. Her husband, Charles "Chaz" Harrison, and their 3-year-old son were found stabbed to death in their room at the Great Wolf Lodge in the Poconos. Resort staff say the knives found in the room were not a type the lodge keeps. She is due in court next month. Then Stephanie brings the good news. In November 1960, 8-year-old Gloria Kowalewicz was abducted while walking to church in Chicago. She was murdered, and her case went unsolved for 65 years. Investigators now say DNA and fingerprint evidence identified a suspect: Thomas F. McInerney Jr., a former Chicago homicide detective who died in 2006. He was never charged. In June 1962, brothers-in-law Charles Hale, 71, and Lester McCollum, 67, were murdered on their property near Battle Ground, Washington. On October 13, the Clark County Sheriff's Office announced that preserved DNA and fingerprint evidence had identified two suspects, Barton Stebbins and Walter Stain. Both have since died. It is the oldest cold case the office has ever resolved. And in Orlando, police have arrested Dale Smith Jr., 55, nearly 15 years after his former fiancée, Michelle Parker, disappeared. Michelle, a 33-year-old mother of three, vanished on November 17, 2011, after dropping her twins off at his home. That same day, an episode of The People's Court featuring the two of them aired. Smith is charged with second-degree murder. Police credit new evidence and advances in forensic technology. Michelle's remains have not been found. Content note: Metallica Rose Harrison and Dale Smith Jr. have been charged, not convicted, and are presumed innocent. Thomas F. McInerney Jr., Barton Stebbins, and Walter Stain died before they could be charged, so the evidence against them will never be tested in court.

3. 

   19 Oct 2026

   Amityville: The DeFeo Murders and the Truth Behind The Amityville Horror

   In November 1974, Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr. walked through his family’s home at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York, with a hunting rifle and shot his parents and four siblings as they slept. Thirteen months later, George and Kathy Lutz moved into the same house with three kids and a dog. They lasted 28 days. What they said happened next became The Amityville Horror: a bestselling “true story,” a hit movie, and more than 40 films with Amityville in the title. Flies in December. Green slime oozing from the walls. Red eyes in the window. A pig named Jodie. This week, we go into that house twice. First in 1974, to tell the story of the DeFeo family and the night they were killed. Then in 1975, to walk through everything the Lutzes said happened inside. After that, we hold it all up against the paperwork: the court filings, the weather records, the priest’s sworn affidavit, and the defence lawyer who told People magazine the whole story was created over many bottles of wine. In this episode: The DeFeo family, their mob connections, and Butch’s violent home life The suspicious robbery and the fight just days before the murders November 13, 1974, and the question people still ask: why didn’t anyone wake up? Butch’s confession, his insanity defence, and the trial The Lutz family’s 28 days at 112 Ocean Avenue Ed and Lorraine Warren, the séance, and the “ghost boy” photo Jay Anson’s book, the 1979 movie, and the lawsuits that followed William Weber’s hoax claim and what the records actually show Butch’s ever-changing stories from prison What the Lutz kids say now and what became of the house

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

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Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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