Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield

Sixteen children were found inside a rural Hamden, Ohio home in conditions officials described as “pure evil,” and four adults inside the family are now charged: Gary Siders Sr., 73; his wife, Christina Siders, 67; their son, Gary Siders Jr., 36; and his wife, Elizabeth Siders, 33. In this episode of Drop Dead Serious, Ashleigh is joined by retired Riverside County Detective Thomas Salisbury, the detective who helped rescue the 13 Turpin children from their California house of horrors, to discuss why he believes the Ohio case may be even worse and what investigators may be doing now.

Explosive new lies are surfacing in the Lynette Hooker investigation after sources with knowledge of the case said evidence shows Lynette made it back to the couple’s sailboat before she vanished. Now, Brian Hooker’s story about the dinghy, the dry bag, the missing passports, the so-called helpless float to Marsh Harbour, and his alleged search for Lynette are all facing new scrutiny. In this episode of Drop Dead Serious, Ashleigh Banfield speaks with Lynette’s friend Blaine Stevenson about the new boat evidence, Brian’s alleged lies, the missing passport mystery, and Facebook messages Brian sent to one of Lynette’s childhood friends in the days after she vanished.

Bombshell new evidence in the Lynette Hooker investigation suggests Brian Hooker’s story about what happened the night his wife vanished in the Bahamas was a lie. According to Lynette Hooker’s family, she did not fall off the back of the dinghy as Brian claimed. Instead, sources with knowledge of the investigation say evidence shows Lynette made it back to the couple’s sailboat, Soulmate, where there were signs of a fight, evidence of foul play, and evidence that Lynette was dead on board.

Just days after Nancy Guthrie vanished, a fake Bitcoin ransom scammer tried to exploit her family’s worst nightmare. Five months later, on July 2, Derrick Callella, a 42-year-old man from Hawthorne, California, pleaded guilty after prosecutors said he sent Bitcoin-related ransom messages to Nancy Guthrie’s family after she vanished and after an earlier ransom demand had already been made. Derrick Callella is expected to receive 5 years probation, not prison, when he is sentenced on Sept. 10.
In this episode of Drop Dead Serious, Ashleigh Banfield is joined by former homicide prosecutor Matt Murphy, author of The Book of Murder and host of the podcast In The Well on MK True Crime, to discuss whether this punishment fits the crime and what the case could mean for scammers who target grieving families during active criminal investigations.

The Nancy Guthrie case just got even more confusing, as the FBI is now pushing back on reports that every alleged ransom note tied to Savannah Guthrie’s missing mother was fake. Reuters reported that FBI sources believe all of the ransom-related messages are bogus, but TMZ’s Harvey Levin says his FBI contacts are telling him something very different: that some of the original ransom demands may still be considered potentially legitimate. 
In this episode of Drop Dead Serious, Ashleigh Banfield breaks down the chaos over the Nancy Guthrie ransom notes, the FBI’s new statement saying the case is still being investigated as a kidnapping for ransom, the role of the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, and why the alleged messages sent to media outlets have become such a critical and controversial part of the investigation. Ashleigh is joined by James Hamilton, former FBI Supervisory Special Agent and founder of Hamilton Security Group, to discuss how investigators evaluate ransom demands, why different FBI sources may be giving different assessments, and what this latest twist means for the search for Nancy Guthrie.
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