Families Who Kill

When a car bomb kills Daphne Caruana Galizia on the beautiful Mediterranean island of Malta, the hunt for her killers exposes secrets with consequences that go far beyond its shores. In the aftermath of her death an international team of journalists comes together to continue her work. Along the way they start to uncover clues that might lead to her killers. From Wondery, comes a new story about power, corruption and one woman’s fight for the truth. Hosted by investigative reporter Stephen Grey...

On May 4, 2001, Bonny Lee Bakley was found fatally shot in a car on a dark North Hollywood street. The prime suspect was her husband, famed actor Robert Blake. But Bonny, a longtime con artist, had plenty of enemies. She left behind a trail of men she’d scammed, and she had a volatile relationship with Christian Brando, the troubled son of movie star Marlon Brando.  Not since the O.J. Simpson case had the eyes of the nation been so fixated on a homicide...

Santa Barbara cops chase Carl Taylor and his wife all the way back to Texas, where Carl and his wife are cornered and arrested. Sherman and his wife are arrested back in California. During the trial, Carl and Sherman, once close partners, turn on each other, each saying the other pulled the trigger. Carl mounts an insanity defense, claiming he was not of sound mind during the killing spree. The family’s brutal saga comes to an end. See Privacy Policy at https://art19...

After their murder in Portland, the police probe begins to tighten like a vise around the McCrarys. They stop the killings and move to Santa Barbara, CA, to focus on armed robberies. As Sherman’s alcoholism spirals out of control, Carl attempts to rob a large supermarket on his own but screws it up and winds up shooting a patrolman at the scene...

An intriguing debate emerges: Were the McCrarys, in a technical or criminological sense, serial killers? Or were they spree killers, or something else? Experts debate the similarity of the McCrarys’ killings to those of John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, and Andrew Cunanan. The family heads to the Pacific Northwest, where Carl and Sherman kidnap and kill a bizarrely nonchalant young hippie named Cynthia Glass...

Carl and Sherman, now accompanied by Sherman’s son Danny, kidnap a young couple, Forrest and Jena Covey, from a Mesquite grocery and ruthlessly murder them in an old barn. In harrowing testimony from Carl, we learn how Forrest was killed first as Jena was forced to look on. Jenna Covey’s niece recounts the brutalizing effects her aunt’s murder had on her father and her family in general...

Carl, Sherman, and the fam head to the peaceful suburban community of Lakewood, Colorado, and strike again — this time robbing, raping, and killing 20-year-old donut shop cashier Leora Looney. As police circle the McCrary family they skip town and return to their homebase of Athens, Texas. A razor-sharp young detective, Joe Fanciulli, is on their scent, but his efforts are hindered by glacially slow 1970s police forensics. See Privacy Policy at https://art19...

Lifelong petty thieves Carl Taylor and Sherman McCrary, facing heat in their hometown of Athens, Texas, gather their family and take to the highways in search of criminal opportunities in the American West. In Utah, Carl and Sherman’s small-time cons suddenly escalate when they rob and kidnap 17-year-old Sheri Martin from a Winchell’s Donut Shop, killing her in the Nevada desert. The men’s bloodthirst is awakened. See Privacy Policy at https://art19...

In the era of some of the most heinous serial killers of all time, one murderous family went curiously unnoticed: The McCrary family. Led by a psychopathic patriarch and his cunning son-in-law, this Texas clan roamed the country and his cunning son-in-law, this Texas clan roamed the country robbing, kidnapping, and killing up to 20 people, most of them people taken from donut shops...