Episode Details

On today’s episode of True Crime Time For, Woody opens with updates on Justice for Hailey and What Happened to Madison. Hailey’s case remains under review, while Woody says the Madison investigation is still moving forward and asks listeners to continue sending information to 313-RLRC-TIP.

For On This Day in Crime, Woody remembers Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Black teenager who was brutally murdered in Mississippi in 1955. Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam were charged with the murder, acquitted by an all-white jury, and later publicly admitted killing Till. Woody reflects on the racism surrounding the case and the importance of remembering that history.

Woody then turns to convicted British murderer John Sweeney, known as the “Scalp Hunter”, who died in prison without ever answering whether he had additional victims. Sweeney was serving a whole-life sentence for the murders of former girlfriends Melissa Halstead and Paula Fields, whose dismembered remains were found years apart in canals in the Netherlands and England. Police also investigated him in connection with other missing women. His former girlfriend Delia Balmer survived a violent axe attack by Sweeney and later wrote about her experience.

Next, Woody covers the murder of Star-Michael Tucker and the life sentence imposed on Charles Carson-Dowdy. Prosecutors said Tucker tried to end their relationship, after which Carson-Dowdy traveled from Alabama to Pensacola, broke into her apartment, waited for her, shot her repeatedly, and then ran over her body multiple times with her own vehicle.

In Family Matters, Woody heads to Indiana, where Adriana Velasquez is accused of intentionally driving her Honda into her husband as he left a divorce hearing on a motorcycle. Police say she struck and dragged him, then got out of the vehicle with a knife and stabbed him in the arm. She now faces attempted murder and additional charges.

Then it’s F’d Up Professionals. A Nebraska police captain and her partner are accused of leaving their two-year-old daughter alone inside a locked minivan while they went fishing. Another couple heard the child crying and called 911. The toddler was reportedly left inside for at least 28 minutes but was not injured.

Woody also covers an Indiana case involving Amy Fuller, who is accused of repeatedly striking a child in the head in a church parking lot after the child asked her for water. Witnesses told police the child was hit several times, and doctors later documented a large lump on the back of the child’s head.

Then comes one of the most satisfying stories of the episode: a 45-year-old cold case finally gets an answer.

Twenty-three-year-old Yolanda Herrera disappeared after leaving a bar in Universal City, Texas, in April 1981. Two days later, children walking to school discovered her body. Investigators preserved DNA evidence, but for decades they had no suspect.

Advances in forensic genetic genealogy eventually led investigators to Kelly Lee Brower Sr. in Arizona. Authorities say Brower’s DNA matched evidence from Herrera’s autopsy and that he subsequently confessed to the murder. Woody celebrates the detectives who refused to give up on the case—even though some of the investigators working it today were not yet born when Yolanda was killed.

Woody also discusses the massive Feeding Our Future pandemic-fraud investigation. The scheme involved federal money that was supposed to provide meals for children during the pandemic but was instead allegedly diverted through fake meal sites, fabricated records,