Campus Killings
Campus Killings is a Bi-Weekly true crime podcast that debuts on September 17, 2022, and releases new episodes every other Saturday. Campus Killings is hosted by Dr. Meghan Sacks and Dr. Amy Shlosberg (Women & Crime, and Direct Appeal podcasts). In each episode, Meghan and Amy dive into some of the most shocking and tragic murders to happen on school grounds, and provide their analysis as both Educators and trained Criminologists. They discuss what went wrong, and what could have been done differently to prevent the tragic outcome. As criminologists, Meghan and Amy teach, research, write and podcast about victims, offenders and the issues surrounding our criminal justice system-and each have over 20 years of experience working in the system in various capacities such as law enforcement, mental health and offender reentry. Campus Killings is researched and written by Jessica Bettencourt (DNA: ID, and Missing Persons podcasts) It’s produced by Mike Morford of AbJack Entertainment (Criminology, and The Murder in My Family podcasts) Follow Campus Killings on social media- On Facebook: facebook.com/Campuskillings On Twitter: twitter.com/CampusKillings
University of Utah track and field star Lauren McCluskey had everything going for her. Until she met Melvin Shawn Rowland at a club, and started dating him. Melvin told Lauren he was just 28, and a college student like her. But he was really 37, had a child – and had done ten years in prison for a sex crime. When Lauren broke up with Melvin, she started receiving bizarre and then concerning texts, and then the sextortion started. Lauren went to the campus police for /episode/index/show/e6fe732b-452c-495e-a3f2-035ca51c038c/id/27461346
Episode 18 Cheri Jo Bates
In 1966, Riverside City College student Cheri Jo Bates was viciously stabbed 42 times and nearly decapitated in an alley after leaving the school library. Police discovered that her car had been deliberately disabled, and concluded that her attacker had deliberately sabotaged it in order to get to her. The case was thoroughly investigated, but had started to cool when an anonymous confession letter arrived – claiming responsibility for the murder in great detail. /episode/index/show/e6fe732b-452c-495e-a3f2-035ca51c038c/id/27461349
In 2009, pharmacology graduate student and soon-to-be bride Annie Le went to her research lab in the basement of a medical research facility at Yale University. She never left. She was finally found on her wedding day, stuffed into a tiny hole behind a wall panel in the laboratory building locker room. Investigators knew that her killer had to be someone with access to the facility – someone who, like Annie, was affiliated with Yale. And it was not long before they homed in /episode/index/show/e6fe732b-452c-495e-a3f2-035ca51c038c/id/27461355
In 2013, a shocking crime rocked the town of Danvers, Massachusetts.Colleen Ritzer, a beloved math teacher at Danvers High School was found savaged, raped and buried under leaves off the cross country path behind the school. Police followed the clues and quickly apprehended her killer–a 14 year old student. Philip Chism had no record, no behavioral problems, and no known motive to kill his algebra teacher–but he followed Colleen into a women’s bathroom and cut her /episode/index/show/e6fe732b-452c-495e-a3f2-035ca51c038c/id/27461361
In 1987, Penn State senior Dana Bailey was the victim of a man police believe was stalking her. He watched her from an adjacent building, and one night he scaled rooftops and climbed into her apartment and murdered her. Dana was found posed in a sexually suggestive manner, and police believe her killer did this so he could enjoy his handiwork. Anonymous letters and calls from tipsters kept investigators busy, but police never had any good suspects in this case – every l /episode/index/show/e6fe732b-452c-495e-a3f2-035ca51c038c/id/27461364
The 1998 disappearance of Suzanne Lyall, who was known to many as Suzy, is one of the better-known missing persons cases. Suzy was a studious and industrious student at SUNY-Albany who was abducted after taking a bus back to campus from work on the night of March 2nd. No evidence of Suzy was ever found again – except for the strange appearance of her work ID in a parking lot, and someone using her ATM card to withdraw $20. Suzy’s boyfriend was a prime suspect i /episode/index/show/e6fe732b-452c-495e-a3f2-035ca51c038c/id/27461367
In 2008, 22 year-old Liette Nicole Martinez who went by Lola, a graphic design student at New Mexico State University, was studying at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne Indiana as part of an exchange program. In April of that year, Lola was found dead in a bloody crime scene in campus housing in Fort Wayne. Lola had been brutally stabbed to death and her killer also threw boiling water on her. The shocking discovery was made by one of Lola's roommates. Polic /episode/index/show/e6fe732b-452c-495e-a3f2-035ca51c038c/id/27461370
In 1995, Irvine, CA police found a man brutally hacked to death and dumped along a roadside. There was reason to believe that he had been abducted by a team of people in Santa Ana. Inquiries led to the name of a young college student who told investigators he had raped her – but they could not connect the rape to the murder. Until, in 2012 – they arrested Professor of Psychology Norma Patricia Esparza – the rape survivor – for his murder. Esparza’s stor /episode/index/show/e6fe732b-452c-495e-a3f2-035ca51c038c/id/27461373
Sheree Warren left her job in Salt Lake City on a mild October evening in 1985.
She told a coworker she was headed to meet her estranged husband, Charles
Warren, at a car dealership. But she never made it, Sheree vanished. When her
car mysteriously surfaced weeks later, hundreds of miles away in Las Vegas, no
one could say how it got there.
When a young mother disappears under unexplained circumstances, police
always turn /episode/index/show/e6fe732b-452c-495e-a3f2-035ca51c038c/id/27461376
In May 1968, the murder of University of Wisconsin – Madison first year student Christine Rothschild shocked the campus of 33,000 students. Studious and quiet Christine was unhappy at UW, and hoped to transfer – but two days before she was due to leave, she was murdered in a brutal and sadistic case of overkill. Her brazen killer waylaid her in broad daylight, and arranged her in a gruesome tableau that resulted in him being termed a psychopath. Christine’s c /episode/index/show/e6fe732b-452c-495e-a3f2-035ca51c038c/id/27461379