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PODCAST

Crime To Burn

A true crime podcast where we explore the dark sooty landscape of crimes involving fire including arson and criminal negligence. Join us as we explore what really happened in some of the most horrific criminal fires in history. Hosted by April and some guy that’s seen Backdraft at least twice.

true crime documentary

All Episodes

37:20

Pizza, Powder & Pyrotechnics: The Boy that Bombed the...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/08/11

Episode 73In the late 1980s, Florida’s Gulf Coast was a powder keg of cocaine, cash, and violence. In this episode, we dive into the wild case of Jeff Matthews — a drug kingpin whose ego was as big as his rap sheet, and whose grudges were… explosive. When a federal investigation started closing in, Matthews didn’t just lawyer up — he plotted bombings. One of his alleged targets? A Fort Myer's Florida fire marshal. And somehow, in the tangled web of suspects, an innocent-sounding pizza joint landed

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01:01:31

Built to Burn: The Untold Conspiracy of the Beverly...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/08/04

Episode 72 Was it arson—or was it a tragic accident? In the final installment of our five-part series, we walk through the evidence from the perspective of a fire protection engineer. We’ll dissect the fire’s behavior, ignition theories, the official investigation, and what was left out—and we’ll finally ask the big question: does the science match the story we were told? From code violations and wiring issues to survivor testimony and suspected cover-ups, this episode brings it all together. If

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17:49

Emergency Bonus Episode - The Murder of Paul Clifford...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/07/28

Episode 72 (Emergency Bonus Episode) This is not a regular episode. This is a plea for action. In 2024, Paul Clifford was brutally murdered—his body set on fire in an act of unspeakable violence. Now, the Pima County Attorney’s Office is preparing to offer plea deals that could allow 2 people accused of murdering him to walk with barely a slap on the wrist. Paul’s wife, Christina Clifford, is speaking out. In this urgent bonus episode, she shares her story—and her outrage. With court decisions

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41:48

Built to Burn: The Untold Conspiracy of the Beverly...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/07/28

Episode 71 What if the official story is a lie? In this episode, you’ll hear from someone who was there that night—an employee who worked the wedding reception in the Zebra Room just hours before it ignited. For decades, she stayed silent. But now, she’s ready to talk. And what she has to say could rewrite everything we thought we knew about the fire. She says the investigators were hiding something. She says this fire wasn’t an accident. And she saw the warning signs with her own eyes. Part 4 takes

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47:23

Built to Burn: The Untold Conspiracy of the Beverly...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/07/21

Episode 70As smoke begins to creep into the Cabaret Room, the audience still doesn’t realize the nightmare unfolding just beyond the doors. In this episode, we follow the chilling timeline from the moment busboy Walter Bailey issues his warning—largely ignored—to the split-second decisions that determine who makes it out, and who doesn’t. We also dive into the club’s architectural failures, the inadequate exits, and the chaotic evacuation as hundreds of patrons tried to flee a room never designed

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42:58

Built to Burn: The Untold Conspiracy of the Beverly...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/07/14

Episode 69The Beverly Hills Supper Club wasn’t built to burn—but it sure wasn’t built to last either. In Part 2, we peel back the velvet curtain to reveal a firetrap disguised as Kentucky’s swankiest hotspot: no sprinklers, no fire alarms, a patchwork of unpermitted construction, and enough aluminum wiring to make an electrician weep. We walk you through the timeline leading up to the fire—starting with strange heat in the Zebra Room during a wedding reception—and follow the flames as they race

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45:18

Built to Burn: The Untold Conspiracy of the Beverly...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/07/07

Episode 68On May 28, 1977, the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky went up in flames, claiming the lives of 165 people. The official ruling? Accidental fire. But decades later, that conclusion is still under scrutiny. In Part 1 of this explosive new series, we begin unraveling the story from the ground up: the layout of the building, the overlooked warnings, and the dangerously overloaded showrooms. As a fire protection engineer, I’ll walk you through the facts—because when a fire

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46:39

Culture on Trial: The Wrongful Conviction of Han Tak Lee

Crime To Burn ·

2025/06/30

Episode 67In 1989, a fire at a religious camp in Pennsylvania claimed the life of 20-year-old Ji Yun Lee. Her father, Han Tak Lee, a Korean immigrant with no criminal record, was swiftly arrested, tried, and sentenced to life in prison. But what seemed like a clear-cut arson case quickly unraveled into a cautionary tale of flawed fire science, cultural bias, and the dangers of rushing to judgment. In this episode, we examine how prosecutors built a case on burn patterns and cultural ignorance—and

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53:59

Obedience to Ashes: Cults, Chaos and Criminal Fires -...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/06/23

Episode 66 The story of the Lords of Chaos comes to a close in this final installment. After the murder of Mark Schwebes, the cracks begin to show. Confessions spill. Arrests are made. And the twisted empire Kevin Foster built starts to collapse under the weight of its own violence and paranoia. In this episode, we follow the unraveling—how a confession born of manipulation ultimately led to the group’s downfall, how law enforcement closed in, and how the trials exposed the devastating consequences

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50:25

Obedience to Ashes: Cults, Chaos and Criminal Fires -...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/06/16

Episode 65In Part 2, the Lords of Chaos escalate from chaos to carnage. What began as vandalism and firebombs takes a darker turn when Kevin Foster declares war—not just on authority, but on anyone who stands in his way. As their plans spiral, the group bombs a Coca-Cola plant and stalks their high school band director, Mark Schwebes, ultimately ambushing him at his front door. In this episode, we unravel the events that led to Schwebes’ murder, the manipulation tactics Kevin used to turn fear into

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43:09

Obedience to Ashes: Cults, Chaos and Criminal Fires -...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/06/09

Episode 64Obedience to Ashes, Part 1 It started with friendship. With a promise of belonging. With a charismatic—yet deeply flawed—leader. But beneath the surface of this group of misfit boys, something much darker was brewing. In Part 1 of this series, we examine how Kevin Foster recruited the teens who would become his self-proclaimed militia: the Lords of Chaos. We explore how this band of rebels ended up on the wrong side of the razor-thin wire separating camaraderie from cult. A warped

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42:36

Exploding Pants: A Chemical Criminal Saga

Crime To Burn ·

2025/06/02

Episode 63The Pants, the Plot, and the Pickle Rain: Sodium Chlorate's Wild Ride This week on Crime to Burn, we celebrate our one-year podiversary with an explosive tale—literally. From flaming trousers and banned weedkillers to accidental city-shaking disasters caused by petty crime, we trace the chaotic path of sodium chlorate: the chemical that just couldn’t stop stealing the spotlight. We cover: The fiery fashion faux pas that haunted New Zealand farmers The whiskey heist that accidentally

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41:14

The Girls are Gone - The Case of Ashley Freeman and...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/05/26

Episode 62 The Finale. For over two decades, Lorene Bible has chased whispers through rural Oklahoma—across backroads, into burned-out houses, and deep into the shadows of fear and corruption. In this final chapter, we follow her relentless pursuit as it collides with rumors of meth, murder, and men who believed themselves untouchable. We’ll trace the steps of private investigators blocked by politics, uncover the objects that linked killers to the crime, and examine how a mother—just a mother—did

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37:53

The Girls are Gone - The Case of Ashely Freeman and...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/05/19

Episode 61Whispers. The town of Welch, Oklahoma was full of whispers after the bodies of Danny and Kathy Freeman were located in the burned out Freeman home. Whispers about drugs, wrongful deaths, police involvement, intentionally botched investigations, and whispers about where the girls were and who had taken them. The whispers swirled around allegations related to Shane Freeman's death after a Craig County Sheriff's Deputy shot him on a rural Oklahoma road nearly a year before. The whispers

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37:13

The Girls are Gone - The Case of Ashley Freeman and...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/05/12

Episode 60In the early hours of December 30, 1999, a mobile home in Welch, Oklahoma went up in flames. Inside, the bodies of Kathy and Danny Freeman were discovered—but their daughter Ashley and her best friend Lauria Bible were gone. In this episode, we unravel the tangled first 24 hours of the case that would come to haunt two families and an entire community. From missing evidence to missteps in the fire investigation, we explore how two teenage girls vanished into the smoke—and why it took

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01:08:43

Behind the Byline: An Interview with Liliana Segura

Crime To Burn ·

2025/05/05

Episode 59 In this special episode of Crime to Burn, we go beyond the headlines with investigative journalist Liliana Segura of The Intercept, one of the first reporters to dig into the troubling details of the Michelle Taylor arson case. From flawed forensic science to systemic failures in the justice system, Liliana shares what drew her to the story, worrisome problems about the crime lab she learned while reporting, and why this case matters far beyond one woman’s conviction. If you've ever

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45:32

Science Fiction - The Forensics that Framed Michelle...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/04/28

Episode 58When Michelle Taylor lost her son in a tragic house fire, she thought the nightmare couldn’t get worse. She was wrong. Fueled by junk science, broken forensics, and a crime lab running on expired credibility, the prosecutors turned a grieving mother into a murder suspect. Twelve debris samples. Twelve false positives. And a justice system more interested in closing a case than finding the truth. This is the story of how bad science—and worse judgment—can burn an innocent life to the

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44:15

The Happy Land Social Club Fire - New York City

Crime To Burn ·

2025/04/21

Episode 57An illegal nightclub in the Bronx was the scene of the largest mass murder in US HIstory at the time it occurred in 1990. A scorned lover went to the club to persuade his ex-girlfriend to take him back and when his attempts were unsuccessful, he did the unthinkable. With a bottle he found in the street and a dollar worth of gasoline purchased at a nearby gas station, he returned to the club and committed an arson attack that would claim 87 lives. What could drive a man to such drastic

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46:43

The Ghost Train Fire at Luna Park in Sydney,...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/04/14

Episode 56 This is the finale of our coverage of the Sydney Ghost Train fire that took 7 innocent lives. Was the fire accidental as the original inquest determined or was it arson and murder orchestrated to allow a greedy man to get control of the valuable real estate the park occupied? While the circumstantial evidence pointing to corruption is very convincing, just how high did the corruption extend into Sydney's government? Some allege that it went all the way to the top and in this episode, we

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52:09

The Ghost Train Fire at Luna Park in Sydney,...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/04/07

Episode 55This week we continue our coverage of the Ghost Train fire that occurred in July of 1979 at Luna Park in Sydney, Australia. The fire ultimately claimed 7 lives and investigators initially told the public it was an accidental electrical fire. However, an electrical engineer showed up at the inquest explaining that there was no way this fire was an electrical fire. Many people believe it was intentional arson arranged by an organized crime boss that wanted the valuable real estate upon

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