Picture this: A fight breaks out on the campus of Kentucky State University. One particular college student is in danger, so his father shows up to protect him. But what begins as protection quickly escalates into gunfire. By the end of the night, one student is dead, and another is critically injured.

Then, in a twist of fate that defies almost every expectation of justice, the man who pulled the trigger walks free – while the father of the deceased student is the one who ends up behind bars.

This is a case that forces us to ask uncomfortable questions about self-defense, accountability, and how the justice system decides who is allowed to claim fear – and who pays the ultimate price for it. Listen now to hear the full story.

This episode is rated a 4 (on my Serious Crime Scale).

On April 1, 2008, 21-year-old Skye Budnick — a junior at Central Connecticut State University — boarded a one-way flight to Japan. She traveled alone. She packed lightly. And after she landed, she seemingly vanished without a trace. Her family searched desperately. They made two separate trips across the world, navigating a country they didn’t know, chasing leads, holding onto the hope that someone, somewhere, had seen Skye. But years later, Skye has never been seen again. She never came home. She never returned to American soil. Listen now to hear the full story.

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale).

After Labor Day weekend in 2005, 17-year-old Taylor Behl returned to the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University eager to resume her freshman year. Away from home for the first time, Taylor was embracing the independence and excitement of college life. But when more than 24 hours passed without anyone hearing from her, concern quickly turned to alarm – and those closest to her knew something was terribly wrong.

Listen now to hear the full story.

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale).

When a beloved college student and aspiring beauty queen was found dead inside her apartment in a quiet Arkansas town, investigators quickly locked in to one single suspect – a person who insisted that the police had it all wrong. And when a jury agreed, delivering a stunning acquittal, police were forced back to square one in the hunt for her killer. Listen now to hear the full story.

After Texas A&M student Brianna Aguilera was found dead following the University of Texas vs. Texas A&M football game, police were quick to point to suicide. But her family is pushing back and saying there has to be more to the story, and they are calling for an independent investigation. Listen now to hear the full story.

Welcome to Campus Crime News. On Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2025, pharmacy student Ariel Spillner visited her friend, Jamica Mills, for Jamica's 32nd birthday. But the quiet celebration took a dark turn when both friends were shot, leaving Ariel to succumb to her wounds. Listen now to hear the full story.

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale).

After a night of birthday celebrations and heavy drinking, three friends stumbled back to a tiny high-rise apartment just outside of Washington, D.C. But within just a few hours, one of them would be dead, while the other two would have no memory of what happened, or how. Listen now to hear the full story.

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale).

Imagine losing your father from a heart attack when you’re only 11 years old; losing your stepfather from an apparent suicide a few years later at 16, and then waking up in the hospital at 20 years old, only to be told that you were poisoned by the one person you trusted most in the world. While this might sound like the plot of the next horror film to hit theaters, it was a terrifying reality for college student Ashley Wallace. Listen now to hear the full story.