13 O’Clock Episode 533: The Aurora Theater Shooting

5 Nov 2026 / Jenny Ashford / Leave a comment

On July 20, 2012, a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises at the Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, became the scene of one of America’s most horrifying mass shootings. Twenty-four-year-old James Eagan Holmes, a former neuroscience graduate student, entered the crowded auditorium and opened fire, killing 12 people and injuring 70 others. As investigators uncovered months of meticulous preparation, disturbing writings, and evidence of severe psychological deterioration, troubling questions emerged about Holmes’s mental health, his motives, and whether warning signs had been missed. His 2015 trial centered on a controversial insanity defense, exposing the complex relationship between psychiatric illness and criminal responsibility. Ultimately convicted on all 165 counts, Holmes was sentenced to life in prison without parole. The Aurora theater massacre remains a haunting case of calculated violence, missed opportunities for intervention, extraordinary courage, and the devastating consequences for victims, survivors, and an entire community.

Audio version:

https://archive.org/download/episode-533-the-aurora-theater-shooting/Episode%20533_%20The%20Aurora%20Theater%20Shooting.mp3

Video version:

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13 O’Clock Episode 532: A Medley of Halloween Murders

29 Oct 2026 / Jenny Ashford / Leave a comment

On the surface, Halloween is a night of costumes, candy, and harmless scares, but these real cases reveal a far darker side of the holiday. From the 1957 “Trick-or-Treat Slaying” of Peter Fabiano by a masked shooter, to nine-year-old Lisa French’s murder while trick-or-treating in 1973, the unsolved 1981 execution-style double murder of Ronald Sisman and Elizabeth Platzman in Manhattan, the rape and killing of Sister Tadea Benz that same year, Karl Jackson’s 1998 death over an egg-throwing prank, the 2004 Napa stabbings of Leslie Ann Mazzara and Adriane Insogna, and the 2010 Liske family massacre in Ohio—these stories show how the holiday has repeatedly become a backdrop for robbery, rage, obsession, and calculated violence.

Audio version:

https://archive.org/download/episode-532-a-medley-of-halloween-murders/Episode%20532_%20A%20Medley%20of%20Halloween%20Murders.mp3

Video version:

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13 O’Clock Episode 531: The San Ysidro McDonald’s Massacre

22 Oct 2026 / Jenny Ashford / Leave a comment

On July 18, 1984, one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history unfolded at a McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro, a community near the Mexican border in San Diego, California. Forty-one-year-old James Oliver Huberty, an unemployed security guard with a history of troubling behavior, entered the crowded restaurant armed with an Uzi semiautomatic carbine, a shotgun, and a handgun. Over the next 77 minutes, Huberty indiscriminately fired at customers, employees, and people outside the restaurant, killing 21 people, including children, and wounding 19 others. Police surrounded the building but initially struggled to determine what was happening inside, and the massacre finally ended when a SWAT sniper fatally shot Huberty. The attack shocked the nation and was, at the time, the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in modern American history. The tragedy raised serious questions about police response procedures, access to firearms, and the warning signs preceding acts of mass violence, while leaving a lasting legacy of grief in the San Ysidro community.

Audio version:

https://archive.org/download/episode-531-the-san-ysidro-mc-donalds-massacre/Episode%20531_%20The%20San%20Ysidro%20McDonald%27s%20Massacre.mp3

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13 O’Clock Episode 530: The Virginia Tech Shooting

15 Oct 2026 / Jenny Ashford / Leave a comment

On April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech became the scene of one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history when 23-year-old student Seung-Hui Cho opened fire in two separate campus buildings, killing 32 students and faculty members before taking his own life. The attacks shocked the nation and raised disturbing questions about missed warning signs, failures in campus security, mental health intervention, and gun laws. As investigators pieced together Cho’s troubled history and the events leading up to the massacre, criticism mounted over the university’s delayed response and the opportunities that might have prevented the tragedy. We examine the events of that devastating morning, the investigation, the public reaction, and the lasting impact of a shooting that forever changed Virginia Tech and the conversation surrounding campus safety in America.

Audio version:

https://archive.org/download/episode-530-the-virginia-tech-shooting/Episode%20530_%20The%20Virginia%20Tech%20Shooting.mp3

Video version:

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13 O’Clock Episode 529: Stephen Morin – The Forgotten Serial Killer

8 Oct 2026 / Jenny Ashford / Leave a comment

Stephen Peter Morin was a prolific and elusive American serial killer whose crimes stretched across multiple states during the 1970s and early 1980s. A master of disguise who traveled under numerous aliases—including Rich Clarke, Ray Constantine, Robert Fred Generoso, Thomas David Hones and Andrew Ireland—Morin repeatedly slipped through the gaps between law-enforcement jurisdictions while committing kidnappings, sexual assaults, and murders. He was ultimately convicted of killing Carrie Marie Scott in Texas, Janna Bruce in Corpus Christi, and Sheila Ann Whalen in Colorado, while investigators suspected him in several additional deaths, including those of Cheryl Ann Daniel and Susan Belote. Estimates of his possible victim count once reached 30 or more, although those numbers were never proven. His final crime spree ended in December 1981 after he abducted Texas mother Margy Palm, whose attempts to reach him through religion apparently persuaded him to release her and indirectly led police to his capture. Morin received three death sentences and was executed by lethal injection in Texas on March 13, 1985. Despite the scale of the investigation surrounding him, his shifting identities, scattered crime scenes and uncertain victim count have left him far less remembered than many other American serial killers of the era.

Audio version:

https://archive.org/download/episode-529-stephen-morin-the-forgotten-serial-killer/Episode%20529_%20Stephen%20Morin%20-%20The%20Forgotten%20Serial%20Killer.mp3

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13 O’Clock Episode 528: Britain’s Wakefield Prison, aka Monster Mansion

1 Oct 2026 / Jenny Ashford / Leave a comment

Wakefield Prison in West Yorkshire is one of Britain’s most notorious high-security prisons, known by the tabloid nickname “Monster Mansion” because of the number of infamous killers, sexual offenders and other high-risk prisoners who have been held there. Its history stretches back more than 400 years, from an Elizabethan house of correction to a modern long-term prison housing men serving some of the country’s harshest sentences. Over the decades, inmates have included Harold Shipman, Robert Maudsley, Levi Bellfield, Ian Huntley, Roy Whiting, Robert Black and atomic spy Klaus Fuchs. Beyond its notorious population, Wakefield also reflects the wider history of British punishment, including Victorian prison reform, political prisoners, extreme isolation, aging inmates and the challenges of managing dangerous and vulnerable prisoners within an aging institution.

Audio version:

https://archive.org/download/episode-528-britains-wakefield-prison-aka-monster-mansion/Episode%20528_%20Britain%27s%20Wakefield%20Prison%2C%20aka%20Monster%20Mansion.mp3

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13 O’Clock Episode 527: Murderer Audrey Marie Hilley

24 Sep 2026 / Jenny Ashford / Leave a comment

Audrey Marie Hilley was an Alabama murderer whose crimes involved arsenic poisoning, elaborate deception, and a bizarre attempt to assume a new identity. In 1975, she poisoned her husband, Frank Hilley, whose death was initially attributed to natural causes. Four years later, she began poisoning her teenage daughter, Carol, who survived after doctors discovered arsenic in her system. As investigators uncovered evidence of Audrey’s crimes, she fled Alabama, eventually resurfacing under an assumed identity and later pretending to be her own fictional twin sister. Her extraordinary scheme unraveled when she was recognized and arrested in Vermont in 1983. Convicted of her husband’s murder and the attempted murder of her daughter, Hilley received a life sentence plus 20 years. In 1987, she escaped while on a brief pass from prison and was found dead several days later after suffering from exposure to the elements.

Audio version:

https://archive.org/download/episode-527-murderer-audrey-marie-hilley/Episode%20527_%20Murderer%20Audrey%20Marie%20Hilley.mp3

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13 O’Clock Episode 526: Serial Killer Maury Travis

17 Sep 2026 / Jenny Ashford / Leave a comment

Maury Travis was a St. Louis-area serial killer believed to have murdered multiple women between 2000 and 2002, primarily targeting vulnerable women involved in sex work or struggling with drug addiction. Investigators connected a series of killings in Missouri and Illinois through DNA evidence, but Travis remained unidentified until he mailed a taunting letter and computer-generated map to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, directing authorities to another victim’s remains. Investigators traced the online map activity back to Travis, leading to his arrest in June 2002. A search of his Ferguson, Missouri, home uncovered restraints, apparent blood evidence, newspaper clippings, and disturbing videotapes documenting the captivity and abuse of women. Travis claimed that one body was his seventeenth victim, although his true victim count remains uncertain. Just three days after his arrest, he died by suicide in jail, preventing a trial or full confession. Decades later, forensic advances have continued to identify previously unnamed women believed to have been among his victims, leaving the Maury Travis case an unsettling example of serial murder, digital forensics, and the long struggle to restore identities to forgotten victims.

Audio version:

https://archive.org/download/episode-526-serial-killer-maury-travis/Episode%20526_%20Serial%20Killer%20Maury%20Travis.mp3

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Episode 523: Lockerbie Disaster – The Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103

27 Aug 2026 / Jenny Ashford / Leave a comment

The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988, remains one of the deadliest and most controversial terrorist attacks in modern history. A bomb hidden inside the Boeing 747 exploded at approximately 31,000 feet, killing all 259 people aboard and 11 residents on the ground. What followed was an enormous international investigation involving Scottish police, the FBI, intelligence agencies, forensic experts, and thousands of pieces of evidence scattered across hundreds of square miles. Suspicion initially focused on Iran and the PFLP-GC before investigators ultimately accused Libyan intelligence operatives of carrying out the attack. Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted in 2001, although questions about eyewitness testimony, baggage evidence, and the bomb’s timer have fueled controversy ever since. Libya later accepted responsibility for the actions of its officials, while new charges against alleged Libyan bomb-maker Abu Agila Mas’ud have kept the case alive nearly four decades later. Lockerbie is not only the story of a terrorist bombing, but also of disputed evidence, international politics, aviation-security failures, grieving families, and a search for justice that has continued for generations.

Audio version:

https://archive.org/download/episode-523-lockerbie-disaster-the-bombing-of-pan-am-flight-103/Episode%20523_%20Lockerbie%20Disaster%20-%20The%20Bombing%20of%20Pan%20Am%20Flight%20103.mp3

Video version:

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13 O’Clock Episode 520: The I-70 Killer

6 Aug 20267 Aug 2026 / Jenny Ashford / Leave a comment

For 29 terrifying days in the spring of 1992, an unidentified gunman traveled through Indiana, Kansas, and Missouri, targeting employees inside small retail stores near major interstate highways. Armed with a distinctive .22-caliber pistol, the man known as the I-70 Killer murdered six people—Robin Fuldauer, Patricia Magers, Patricia Smith, Michael “Mick” McCown, Nancy Kitzmiller, and Sarah Blessing—while stealing only small amounts of money. Witnesses described a thin, reddish-haired man with heavy or drooping eyelids, but despite composite sketches, ballistics evidence, possible links to later crimes in Texas and Indiana, and a renewed multiagency investigation, his identity remains unknown. More than three decades later, the I-70 Killer case remains one of America’s most disturbing unsolved serial-murder mysteries.

Audio version:

https://archive.org/download/Episode-520-The-I-70-Killer/Episode%20520_%20The%20I-70%20Killer.mp3

Video version: