This Feels Criminal: A True Crime Podcast (Formerly Killer Queens)

When 21-year-old University of Utah student Lauren McCluskey ended a brief relationship, she had good reason to believe she'd caught the warning signs early.
The man she'd been dating had lied about his name, his age, and his criminal history. Lauren ended the relationship immediately.
But he didn't leave her alone.
What followed was a terrifying escalation of stalking, harassment, extortion, and repeated attempts to get help — ending less than three weeks later with Lauren's murder on the campus where she lived and went to school.
Lauren's case leaves behind an agonizing question: when we look back after someone has been killed, the warning signs can seem painfully obvious. But are they actually obvious before the violence happens?
In Part 1, we begin Lauren's story and ask a much bigger question: Can we tell which abusive relationships are most likely to turn deadly?
Because if we can identify danger before someone is killed, that changes the question of what we should be doing about it.


🧵 New to This Feels Criminal? Start with The TFC Essentials—our curated collection of the episodes that best capture what this show is all about. Join our email community and get instant access: https://thisfeelscriminal.link/essentials
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Music provided by Steven Tobi
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After researching dozens of studies, court decisions, and primary sources, we discovered the answer wasn't nearly as simple as we expected.
Do men receive more justice than women?
Are women taken less seriously?
Or are different myths shaping how we perceive different victims?
In Part 2, we examine what the research actually says about victim credibility, gender stereotypes, reporting, prosecution, and sentencing—and why the evidence challenged some of our own assumptions.
Because the biggest surprise wasn't whether gender matters.
It was how it matters.


🧵 New to This Feels Criminal? Start with The TFC Essentials—our curated collection of the episodes that best capture what this show is all about. Join our email community and get instant access: https://thisfeelscriminal.link/essentials
 
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Smalls: Head to Smalls.com/QUEENS for 60% off your first order plus free shipping and free treats for life.
Rula: Rula patients typically pay $15 per session when using insurance.  Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at https://www.rula.com/queens #rulapod

© 2026 Killer Queens Podcast. All Rights Reserved
Audio Production by Wayfare Recording
Music provided by Steven Tobi
Logo designed by ⁠Ingrid at Penguin Designing⁠

A Facebook post comparing the murder of Calum Simpson to violence against women raised a question we couldn't stop thinking about:
Do we treat violence against women differently than violence against men?
At first, the answer seemed obvious.
Then we started reading the court records.
In this episode, we tell Calum Simpson's story—from the night he met two strangers to the evidence presented in court—and explain why one social media post sent us down a much bigger investigation.
This is Part 1 of a two-part series.
In Part 2, we leave the courtroom and follow the research to see whether the evidence actually supports what we thought when we started.
🧵 New to This Feels Criminal? Start with The TFC Essentials—our curated collection of the episodes that best capture what this show is all about. Join our email community and get instant access: https://thisfeelscriminal.link/essentials



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© 2026 Killer Queens Podcast. All Rights Reserved
Audio Production by Wayfare Recording
Music provided by Steven Tobi
Logo designed by ⁠Ingrid at Penguin Designing⁠

Michelle Hadley spent 88 days in jail waiting to stand trial.
Then the evidence changed everything.
In Part 2, we follow the digital trail that unraveled the prosecution's case and exposed an elaborate web of fake accounts, fabricated messages, and deception hiding in plain sight.
But this isn't just a story about catfishing.
It's about confirmation bias, tunnel vision, and what happens when investigators become so convinced they've found the right suspect that every new piece of evidence seems to prove they're right.
We thought this was a story about obsession.
It turned out to be a story about assumption.
New here? Start with the cases that define This Feels Criminal. Grab our curated guide to the stories that best capture what This Feels Criminal is all about: exploring the bigger questions every case leaves behind.
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Audio Production by Wayfare Recording
Music provided by Steven Tobi
Logo designed by ⁠Ingrid at Penguin Designing⁠

When Angela Diaz tells police she's being stalked, terrorized, and targeted through a series of increasingly disturbing messages, the evidence seems to point in one direction.
Michelle Hadley.
Ian Diaz's ex-girlfriend.
But as investigators build their case, one question keeps getting harder to answer: Who is Lilith?
In Part 1, we trace the bizarre campaign of emails, fake identities, and escalating threats that convinced police they had found the person responsible. Along the way, we ask a bigger question:
How much of an investigation is driven by evidence... and how much is driven by the story everyone already believes?
Part 2 is available now for members of the TTTTY Committee on Patreon, or drops Thursday wherever you listen.
Want access to our first 45 episodes? Grab em here! We've made them available for free to anyone who signs up! Remember, these episodes were recorded when we had no idea what we were doing, so just keep that in mind. The audio isn't the quality we would want to put out now, but the cases are on point! Visit killerqueens.link/og to download and binge all the archived episodes today!
 
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© 2026 Killer Queens Podcast. All Rights Reserved
Audio Production by Wayfare Recording
Music provided by Steven Tobi
Logo designed by ⁠Ingrid at Penguin Designing⁠