10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

The Fixer, the Photos, and the Death of Tom Merriman

In December 2020, a Solana Beach, California woman named Jade Janks drugged and killed the man she'd called her father for over two decades, then spent New Year's Day disguising his body as a pile of trash in their shared driveway. Thomas Merriman was a beloved butterfly conservationist. Jade Janks was the stepdaughter who'd cooked him dinner every night of the pandemic. Somewhere between those two facts sits a discovery on his computer that she said broke something in her permanently, and a string of increasingly desperate text messages to a man she called "the fixer" that ended up telling prosecutors almost the entire story. This is a case where the victim's public image and the killer's private allegations never got to sit in the same room together, because the woman who could have proven her own motive burned the evidence herself, on purpose, the same night he died.

🔔 Subscribe for True Crime Cases multiple times a week

Never miss a story. Subscribe to 10 Minute Murder for bite-sized true crime episodes delivered fresh every week.

Get a weekly email from me about the upcoming cases and more: 10minutemurder.com/newsletter

📱 Follow for Behind-the-Scenes Content Get exclusive case updates, research photos, and sneak peeks of upcoming episodes:
Instagram: @10minutemurder on IG
Facebook: 10 Minute Murder on FB
TikTok: 10 Minute Murder on TikTok
💬 Have a Case Suggestion? Know a fascinating case that deserves coverage? I love listener suggestions and feature the best ones in upcoming episodes. Email: joe@10minutemurder.com Website: 10minutemurder.com ⭐ Help Grow the True Crime Community
Rate & Review: Leave a 5-star review to help other true crime fans discover the show
Share: Send this episode to fellow true crime enthusiasts
Join the Discussion: Tag us in your episode reactions on social media
🎧 Want Even More True Crime? 
Check out True Crime Blueprint, also created and hosted by Joe.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/43zuDpH01HtdIrH0ShCAid?si=86b2281063334139


Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-blueprint/id1877878404

iHeartRadio: https://iheart.com/podcast/323307878
Amazon Music/Audible: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b7d5eaae-9d27-40f9-8efb-6864c2af8055
Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/show/1002664071
Podcast Addict: https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/true-crime-blueprint/6785639
Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/true-crime-blueprint-6381660
Spreaker: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-blueprint--6879387
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/1113943
Pandora: https://www.pandora.com/podcast/true-crime-blueprint/PC:1001113943

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/10-minute-murder-bingeable-true-crime-stories--4603604/support.

The Serial Killer Shrine: The Shaye Groves and Frankie Fitzgerald Case

Her bedroom walls were covered in framed photos of serial killers. Her bookshelf was stacked with true crime and gangster biographies. And when the moment came, prosecutors say she used everything she'd absorbed from years of true crime obsession to try to talk her way out of what she'd done. This is the story of a relationship that turned lethal, a woman who thought she'd studied the perfect getaway, and the digital trail that proved otherwise.

Frankie Fitzgerald, 25, was found dead from a fatal knife wound to the throat in a Havant, Hampshire home on July 17, 2022. His girlfriend, Shaye Groves, was convicted of his murder after a five-week trial at Winchester Crown Court, where forensic evidence, mobile phone data, and body camera footage dismantled her claim of self-defense.

🔔 Subscribe for True Crime Cases multiple times a week

Never miss a story. Subscribe to 10 Minute Murder for bite-sized true crime episodes delivered fresh every week.

Get a weekly email from me about the upcoming cases and more: 10minutemurder.com/newsletter

📱 Follow for Behind-the-Scenes Content Get exclusive case updates, research photos, and sneak peeks of upcoming episodes:
Instagram: @10minutemurder on IG
Facebook: 10 Minute Murder on FB
TikTok: 10 Minute Murder on TikTok
💬 Have a Case Suggestion? Know a fascinating case that deserves coverage? I love listener suggestions and feature the best ones in upcoming episodes. Email: joe@10minutemurder.com Website: 10minutemurder.com ⭐ Help Grow the True Crime Community
Rate & Review: Leave a 5-star review to help other true crime fans discover the show
Share: Send this episode to fellow true crime enthusiasts
Join the Discussion: Tag us in your episode reactions on social media
🎧 Want Even More True Crime? 
Check out True Crime Blueprint, also created and hosted by Joe.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/43zuDpH01HtdIrH0ShCAid?si=86b2281063334139


Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-blueprint/id1877878404

iHeartRadio: https://iheart.com/podcast/323307878
Amazon Music/Audible: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b7d5eaae-9d27-40f9-8efb-6864c2af8055
Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/show/1002664071
Podcast Addict: https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/true-crime-blueprint/6785639
Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/true-crime-blueprint-6381660
Spreaker: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-blueprint--6879387
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/1113943
Pandora: https://www.pandora.com/podcast/true-crime-blueprint/PC:1001113943

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/10-minute-murder-bingeable-true-crime-stories--4603604/support.

The Captain Who Hired a Hitman: The Harding Story

On September 26, 2022, the body of 53-year-old Sacramento HVAC contractor Michael Harding was discovered inside a vacant home for sale on Glasgow Road in Burkesville, Kentucky, shot four times. The investigation that followed led Kentucky State Police, FBI agents, and detectives across three states to California Highway Patrol Captain Julie Harding and her secret partner Thomas O'Donnell, a 60-year-old amateur hitman from Napa Valley, in one of the most disturbing murder-for-hire cases of the decade.

This is a story about a 22-year law enforcement career that ended in a conspiracy, a $220,000 cash withdrawal nobody could trace, and 194 phone calls between two people who thought they had everything figured out. We follow Michael Harding from a quiet Sacramento neighborhood to an empty room in rural Kentucky where someone he had never met was waiting for him. We look at how a wiped phone, a Ring camera, a Netflix login, and one rambling call to a brand-new supervisor told investigators everything they needed to know. There is a verdict in this case. There is also a question no verdict could ever answer.

🔔 Subscribe for True Crime Cases multiple times a week

Never miss a story. Subscribe to 10 Minute Murder for bite-sized true crime episodes delivered fresh every week.

Get a weekly email from me about the upcoming cases and more: 10minutemurder.com/newsletter

📱 Follow for Behind-the-Scenes Content Get exclusive case updates, research photos, and sneak peeks of upcoming episodes:
Instagram: @10minutemurder on IG
Facebook: 10 Minute Murder on FB
TikTok: 10 Minute Murder on TikTok
💬 Have a Case Suggestion? Know a fascinating case that deserves coverage? I love listener suggestions and feature the best ones in upcoming episodes. Email: joe@10minutemurder.com Website: 10minutemurder.com ⭐ Help Grow the True Crime Community
Rate & Review: Leave a 5-star review to help other true crime fans discover the show
Share: Send this episode to fellow true crime enthusiasts
Join the Discussion: Tag us in your episode reactions on social media
🎧 Want Even More True Crime? 
Check out True Crime Blueprint, also created and hosted by Joe.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/43zuDpH01HtdIrH0ShCAid?si=86b2281063334139


Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-blueprint/id1877878404

iHeartRadio: https://iheart.com/podcast/323307878
Amazon Music/Audible: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b7d5eaae-9d27-40f9-8efb-6864c2af8055
Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/show/1002664071
Podcast Addict: https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/true-crime-blueprint/6785639
Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/true-crime-blueprint-6381660
Spreaker: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-blueprint--6879387
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/1113943
Pandora: https://www.pandora.com/podcast/true-crime-blueprint/PC:1001113943

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/10-minute-murder-bingeable-true-crime-stories--4603604/support.

The House of Horrors: Billy Mansfield's Family of Predators

In 1980, along the Florida coast from Spring Hill to Daytona Beach, a chilling pattern emerged that Detroit investigators would later connect to serial killer Billy Mansfield Jr. Six women and teenage girls vanished or were found buried beneath a mobile home in Weeki Wachee Acres, with DNA technology in 2022 finally identifying one victim as 16-year-old Theresa Fillingim after 42 years. The FBI continues searching for additional bodies as recently as June 2026.

But this story doesn't start with bodies in the ground. It starts with a father who couldn't stop touching children, a son who learned violence was normal, and a rural Florida community in the 1970s where nobody asked questions and everybody stayed quiet. You're going to meet women who went out for a drink and never came home, a teenage girl at a campground shower who became a Jane Doe for decades, and a family compound so messed up that neighbors just drove past it faster. This is about what happens when institutions fail at every level, when a kid grows up watching his dad evade prison for rape and learns that's just how the world works. We're going through the psychology, the family dynamics, the cultural moment that let predators like Mansfield operate across state lines with no database to connect the dots. You'll hear about the prison escape, the bag brothers, the woman who got away, and the brother who's still living on that property forty years later.

This case is still open.

🔔 Subscribe for True Crime Cases multiple times a week

Never miss a story. Subscribe to 10 Minute Murder for bite-sized true crime episodes delivered fresh every week.

Get a weekly email from me about the upcoming cases and more: 10minutemurder.com/newsletter

📱 Follow for Behind-the-Scenes Content Get exclusive case updates, research photos, and sneak peeks of upcoming episodes:
Instagram: @10minutemurder on IG
Facebook: 10 Minute Murder on FB
TikTok: 10 Minute Murder on TikTok
💬 Have a Case Suggestion? Know a fascinating case that deserves coverage? I love listener suggestions and feature the best ones in upcoming episodes. Email: joe@10minutemurder.com Website: 10minutemurder.com ⭐ Help Grow the True Crime Community
Rate & Review: Leave a 5-star review to help other true crime fans discover the show
Share: Send this episode to fellow true crime enthusiasts
Join the Discussion: Tag us in your episode reactions on social media
🎧 Want Even More True Crime? 
Check out True Crime Blueprint, also created and hosted by Joe.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/43zuDpH01HtdIrH0ShCAid?si=86b2281063334139


Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-blueprint/id1877878404

iHeartRadio: https://iheart.com/podcast/323307878
Amazon Music/Audible: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b7d5eaae-9d27-40f9-8efb-6864c2af8055
Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/show/1002664071
Podcast Addict: https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/true-crime-blueprint/6785639
Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/true-crime-blueprint-6381660
Spreaker: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-blueprint--6879387
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/1113943
Pandora: https://www.pandora.com/podcast/true-crime-blueprint/PC:1001113943

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/10-minute-murder-bingeable-true-crime-stories--4603604/support.

Blood in the Rocket City: The 1998 Franklin Family Massacre

On March 10, 1998, seventeen-year-old Jeffrey Brendan Franklin attacked his own family inside their home at 1305 Camelot Drive in Huntsville, Alabama, killing his parents Gerald and Cynthia Franklin and critically wounding three of his four younger siblings with a sledgehammer, hatchet, butcher knife, and a mechanic’s rat-tail file. The Huntsville Police investigation led by detective Mac McCutcheon, the journals and Satanic writings recovered from Jeffrey’s bedroom, the prescription psychiatric medications he had been taking, and Alabama’s pursuit of the juvenile death penalty turned one afternoon into one of the most studied family-violence cases of the late twentieth century.

You always hear about cases like this happening in the bad part of town, and this one happened in the part of town where every dad worked for NASA. Camelot was a subdivision in the safest stretch of Rocket City, Alabama, and it sat at the center of the wildest convergence of late-nineties American chaos you can think of: pediatric Prozac, the Satanic Panic, a cop who was also a Baptist preacher, and a global human rights fight that helped reshape American law four years later. This is the story of an honors-track American family, the seventeen-year-old who came home from school first, and the quiet that settled over a brick house on Camelot Drive that nobody on the cul-de-sac has ever fully shaken.

🔔 Subscribe for True Crime Cases multiple times a week

Never miss a story. Subscribe to 10 Minute Murder for bite-sized true crime episodes delivered fresh every week.

Get a weekly email from me about the upcoming cases and more: 10minutemurder.com/newsletter

📱 Follow for Behind-the-Scenes Content Get exclusive case updates, research photos, and sneak peeks of upcoming episodes:
Instagram: @10minutemurder on IG
Facebook: 10 Minute Murder on FB
TikTok: 10 Minute Murder on TikTok
💬 Have a Case Suggestion? Know a fascinating case that deserves coverage? I love listener suggestions and feature the best ones in upcoming episodes. Email: joe@10minutemurder.com Website: 10minutemurder.com ⭐ Help Grow the True Crime Community
Rate & Review: Leave a 5-star review to help other true crime fans discover the show
Share: Send this episode to fellow true crime enthusiasts
Join the Discussion: Tag us in your episode reactions on social media
🎧 Want Even More True Crime? 
Check out True Crime Blueprint, also created and hosted by Joe.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/43zuDpH01HtdIrH0ShCAid?si=86b2281063334139


Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-blueprint/id1877878404

iHeartRadio: https://iheart.com/podcast/323307878
Amazon Music/Audible: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b7d5eaae-9d27-40f9-8efb-6864c2af8055
Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/show/1002664071
Podcast Addict: https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/true-crime-blueprint/6785639
Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/true-crime-blueprint-6381660
Spreaker: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-blueprint--6879387
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/1113943
Pandora: https://www.pandora.com/podcast/true-crime-blueprint/PC:1001113943

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/10-minute-murder-bingeable-true-crime-stories--4603604/support.