A cigarette, three matches, and a rubber band. For most of the 1980s, that was all it took for a serial arsonist to burn his way across California and vanish before the smoke was even spotted.

Most of the fires destroyed property. One destroyed a family. A fire at a crowded hardware store in South Pasadena killed four people, including a child, and was quietly ruled an accident, letting the man responsible keep going for years.

Melissa opens a two-part story on the hunt for one of the most prolific arsonists in American history. And the truth about who he was is something almost nobody saw coming.

Ep. 120 | Burning Desires | Murder Unscripted | September 2026 | Part 1 of 2

Hosted by Ed Hydock & Melissa Spivey | A Darkcast Network Production

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409

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murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com | @murderunscripted

Shoreline, Washington, 1995. Firefighters knock down a small apartment fire and find a woman's body inside. One month later, 50 feet away, it happens again.

Two ordinary, kind women were murdered in nearly identical attacks by a man who brought nothing with him. He used the victims' own belongings, disabled their smoke detectors, and set the fires to erase himself completely. For two years, it worked.

Ed opens September’s “Burning Desires” (a month of arson cases) with the story of how one piece of evidence that survived the flames finally brought Renee Powell and Barbara Walsh's killer to justice.

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409

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murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com | @murderunscripted

Her degree says nuclear physics but her work changed the way cold cases are solved. ⬇️

To close out our Killer Connections block, Ed and Melissa sit down with the woman whose name has come up all month long: Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick. Before forensic genetic genealogy was a headline, before it was even a field, Colleen saw a different way to use DNA.

She founded Identifinders International, helped turn distant relatives into the key that unlocks decades-old cold cases, and became a legend in true crime genre along the way.

In this insightful conversation, Colleen discusses the road from physics to the front lines of cold case work, the cases that never left her, and where this science goes next.

Ep. 118 | Killer Connections Finale | Murder Unscripted | August 2026

Hosted by Ed Hydock & Melissa Spivey | A Darkcast Network Production

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409

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Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership

murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com | @murderunscripted

Billings, Montana, November 1973. Cliff and Linda Bernhardt set their dinner table for three and welcomed a guest they trusted. By the next morning, the young couple were dead, and the killer had staged the scene in a way so strange it would puzzle investigators for the next 45 years.

Cliff had survived the jungles of Vietnam. He didn't survive dinner at his own table.

Melissa covers Week 3 of Killer Connections: a bizarre 1973 cold case, decades of dead ends, and the genetic genealogy breakthrough that finally gave the Bernhardt family a name.

Ep. 117 | Killer Connections | Murder Unscripted | August 2026

Hosted by Ed Hydock & Melissa Spivey | A Darkcast Network Production

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409

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Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership

murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com | @murderunscripted

On the morning of May 2, 2001, Leslie Preer -- a warm, generous 48-year-old woman who her family said saw the world through rose-colored glasses -- didn't show up to work in Washington DC. Her boss drove to the family home in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Her husband Sandy met him there. When police arrived, they found Leslie on the bathroom floor, under the running shower, having suffered a brutal attack.

From the beginning, investigators focused on Sandy. He failed a polygraph. His behavior seemed odd. The couple had debt, arguments, a history of tension. But the male DNA found at the scene and under Leslie's fingernails was never his. Sandy was never charged. He was also never cleared. In 2017, sixteen years after Leslie's murder, Sandy Preer died -- still, in the eyes of many in his community and even Leslie's own family, a suspect.

In 2022, two female cold case detectives picked up the file with fresh eyes, refused to accept Sandy's guilt, and campaigned to get the case approved for forensic genetic genealogy through Othram, a Texas lab specializing in advanced DNA sequencing. The results pointed to a surname: Gligor. A Romanian family with deep roots in Chevy Chase -- and a connection to Lauren, Leslie's daughter, that nobody had looked at closely enough.

Getting the suspect's DNA without alerting him required ingenuity. When he landed at Dulles Airport in June 2024, detectives had bottles of water waiting. He drank. He left. They collected the bottle. The DNA matched the evidence from Leslie's home, definitively and completely.

Melissa covers the full story: Leslie's life and family, the decades of wrongful suspicion, the two detectives who cracked it open, and the interrogation scene that has to be heard to be believed. Sandy didn't live to see his name cleared. Lauren did. And she had 23 years worth of things to say at sentencing.

Hosted by Ed Hydock & Melissa Spivey | A Darkcast Network Production

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409

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murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com | @murderunscripted

35 years cold. 6 cells worth of DNA. One pink-haired genealogist. ⬇️

Roxanne Wood was murdered in her home in Niles, Michigan in February 1987. Her husband Terry was never charged, but he was never cleared either. For 35 years, a small town called him "Slash" to his face. The real killer was a stranger who lived a few miles away and had never been in the case file.

The case was cracked by genetic genealogy using a DNA sample so degraded that experts called it unsolvable, and a genealogist named Gabriella Vargas who disagreed. She built a family tree back to the 1820s and came up with a name in four days. An undercover trooper bummed a cigarette off the suspect outside a laundromat to get the confirmation sample. The match was one in billions.

Ed covers the full story... Roxanne's victimology, the cold case, the genealogy work, the exoneration, and an ending that will stay with you. The perfect first episode to kick off August's Killer Connections block.

LISTEN ON AUDIO:

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She brought dogs into the courtroom! Listen to find out how.

Most true crime content is about catching the bad guy. This episode covers what happens afterwards - specifically, the moment a child has to walk into a room full of strangers and say out loud what happened to them.

Courthouse facility dogs sit with victims and witnesses (many of them children) during forensic interviews, depositions, and testimony. They reduce cortisol. They increase accuracy. They make the impossible feel possible. And in most courtrooms, the jury never even knows they're there.

To close out the Dog Days of Summer block, Ed and Melissa sit down with Dr. Celeste Walsen - co-founder and Executive Director of the Courthouse Dogs Foundation, the organization that coined the term, built the field, and has been MU's charity partner from the beginning.

Watch til the end to see Celeste take part in a round of "Paw & Order." It gets good!

Learn more and donate: https://www.courthousedogs.org

LISTEN ON AUDIO:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 20% of every membership goes directly to Courthouse Dogs Foundation 🐾

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#MurderUnscripted #CourthouseDogs #TrueCrime

Frances Fritts was murdered in a house fire in Brenham, Texas in 1994. Her husband Charles walked out without a scratch. He had $800,000 in insurance lined up, a girlfriend abroad, and a Mercedes ad running in the local paper.

Investigators had plenty of motive. What they needed was proof the fire was set deliberately. That proof came from two dogs named Samantha and Jager - hydrocarbon-sniffing K-9s who alerted to accelerant in the ruins of the Fritts home and helped put Charles away for life. And when the defense challenged their evidence in court, the Texas Court of Appeals made history. Fitts versus State, decided in 1998, became the case that put arson dogs in Texas courtrooms permanently.

Melissa covers Frances's case and the remarkable legal legacy it left behind - including a note from the heart about a victim she couldn't find enough about, and the reason she still needed to say her name.

LISTEN ON AUDIO:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409

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SUPPORT THE SHOW:

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20% of every membership goes to Courthouse Dogs Foundation 🐾

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If you knew Frances Fritts, please reach out to murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com. We would love to tell her story properly.

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#MurderUnscripted #FrancesFritts #TrueCrime