A quiet night in a small Alabama town ended in a brutal, fiery betrayal that shocked the nation. He wasn’t just a victim of a crime; he was a man targeted for the simple truth of who he loved.

Billy Jack Gaither was a well-liked, hard-working man who lived a quiet life in Sylacauga until a chance encounter at a local boat ramp turned into a horrific nightmare. This week, we examine the 1999 gay murder case that stripped away the veneer of small-town safety and exposed a deep-seated hate that demanded a reckoning. Billy Jack’s story became a catalyst for change in the American legal system. We dive into the queer history of the Deep South to look at how a community heals when one of its own is taken by senseless violence.

Hosted by Jordi and Brad, Beers With Queers brings chilling crimes and true crime with a queer perspective to light, all with a cold one in hand. Press play, grab a drink, and join us as we honor Billy Jack’s memory and uncover the darkest corners of LGBTQ+ true crime.

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A selfie of a beautiful couple posted to Instagram. A whispered secret exposed. And a queer icon found stabbed to death just 24 hours after lawmakers passed a massive anti-LGBTQ bill.

When Georgian transgender model, actor and influencer Kesaria Abramidze posted a photo to her Instagram that publicly acknowledged her relationship, some say it triggered a fatal rage in her closeted partner, leading to her stabbing in her Tbilisi apartment. That killing came just one day after Georgia’s parliament passed a sweeping anti-LGBTQIA+ bill that critics say entrenches stigma and emboldens hostility toward queer people, fueling fear that what might have been dismissed as domestic violence is actually entangled with state-sanctioned dehumanization of LGBTQIA+ lives. In this episode we explore who Kesaria was, the significance of that selfie and the dynamics of her relationship, and how her death became a flashpoint in ongoing debates about queer history, hate, and justice in a country where anti-LGBTQIA+ laws and rhetoric are on the rise.

Hosted by Jordi and Brad, Beers With Queers brings chilling crimes, queer stories, and twisted justice to light all with a cold one in hand. Press play, grab a drink, and join us as we uncover not just a murder, but the cultural forces that shaped it.

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A secret love. A world at war. And a queer bond Nazi history nearly erased.

In 1943 Berlin, a Jewish resistance fighter and a Nazi officer’s wife risk everything for a forbidden love that defied hate, ideology, and the very machinery of genocide.

In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day we bring you an incredible true queer love story.

Lilly Wust, a mother of four married to a German soldier, never expected to fall for Felice Schragenheim, a Jewish woman in hiding whose hidden resistance work put her life on the line. Through flowers, poems, and letters signed Aimée and Jaguar, their love blossomed in secret homes, cafes, and wartime streets — illuminating queer history in the darkest shadows of the Third Reich. Their story, captured in Aimée & Jaguar, reveals queer identity under persecution, the brutality of Nazi antisemitism, and the courage it took to love out loud in a world built on fear.

Hosted by Jordi and Brad, Beers With Queers brings chilling crimes, queer stories, and twisted justice to light, all with a cold one in hand.

Press play, grab a drink, and join us as we uncover the untold queer love that survived hate and changed history.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On November 30, 2013, in Portland, Maine, police discovered the bodies of two men inside an apartment near Deering Oaks Park. One of them was 22-year-old Matthew Rairdon, a graduate student and aspiring educator. The other was Patrick Milliner, his former partner. What initially appeared to be an isolated tragedy soon revealed a devastating case of intimate partner violence that unfolded quietly—without police reports, restraining orders, or public warning signs.

In this episode, we examine the documented relationship between Rairdon and Milliner, the weeks leading up to their breakup, and the final hours before the murder-suicide. Using police records, court findings, and contemporaneous reporting, we trace the investigation, the unanswered questions, and the systemic failures that left friends and family grappling with how this could have happened. Above all, this episode centers Matthew Rairdon—his life, his future, and the loss that reshaped a community—while confronting the uncomfortable reality that not all violence announces itself before it strikes.

You are Not Alone, Help is avaiable if you or someone you know is experiencing DV. Please visit the website below for more details.

https://www.dvafoundation.org/

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What starts as a casual encounter ends in a shattered sense of safety, when an online date becomes the bait for a chilling crime spree in the heart of London. Two men used Grindr to get into gay men's homes, leaving victims robbed, violated, and forever changed.

In a disturbing UK case of 2024–2025, 22-year-old Rahmat Khan Mohammadi and 21-year-old Mohammed Bilal Hotak built fake profiles on the gay dating app Grindr to target unsuspecting men, arranging meetups at their London homes and then tricking them into unlocking their phones to play music on YouTube before stealing phones, cash and personal data and mobile banking apps.. The Metropolitan Police uncovered a pattern of 35 burglaries and 20 related frauds affecting at least 22 victims, revealing how digital trust can be weaponized. This episode digs into the crime of the future, the human cost behind the headlines, the trauma left in the wake, and what this case says about safety, vulnerability and connection in queer spaces.

Hosted by Jordi and Brad, Beers With Queers brings chilling crimes, queer stories and twisted justice to light with heart and honesty. Press play, grab a drink and join us as we explore how a night out online turned into a sobering true crime with a queer perspective.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A crew member vanishes without a trace on a cruise where magic should meet the sea, and the official explanation raised more questions than answers. A video of her last distressed phone call was her last known moment alive, and a family still demands truth from the deep.

When 24-year-old Rebecca Coriam, a young British cruise employee working aboard the Disney Wonder, disappeared from the vessel in March 2011 off the coast of Mexico, her absence ignited one of the most baffling unsolved maritime mysteries in LGBTQ+ true crime history. CCTV captured her distressed on a crew phone early one morning, then nothing—no body, no confirmed sighting, and no clarity about what happened next. As her parents pressed for answers, questions swirled about botched procedures, jurisdictional loopholes, and whether the cruise line’s priority was reputation over justice, leaving a haunting gap in queer history where a vibrant life should still be. This episode digs into the discomforting shadow cast by international waters and the unresolved disappearance that still echoes across the oceans.

Hosted by Jordi and Brad, Beers With Queers brings chilling crimes, queer stories, and twisted justice to light, all with a cold one in hand. Press play, grab a drink, and join us as we uncover the darkest corners of LGBTQ+ history.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A trusted priest with a collar and a gun walked into a funeral home, and two lives were cut down in cold blood, shaking a small Midwestern town to its core. What was Father Ryan Erickson hiding behind his vows and sacred duties?

In February 2002, life in Hudson, Wisconsin was upended when funeral home director Dan O’Connell and his young intern James Ellison were found shot to death in broad daylight. The case went cold for years, until shocking leads surfaced pointing to a charismatic Catholic priest whose life of rigid conservatism, secrets, and misconduct may have masked something far darker. In this LGBTQ+ true crime podcast episode, we unpack how allegations of abuse, a failure in both the system and the church, and a double homicide intersect with broader questions about power, identity, and justice in small town America. True crime with a queer perspective isn’t just about the mystery, it’s about the systems that let these horrors persist.

Hosted by Jordi and Brad, Beers With Queers brings chilling crimes, queer stories, and twisted justice to light, all with a cold one in hand. Press play, grab a drink, and join us as we uncover the darkest corners of LGBTQ+ true crime history.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A celebrated playwright at the height of fame, Oscar Wilde became fodder for scandal and ruin when he chose love over self-preservation. His brilliant career was extinguished in a courtroom where his queerness became the weapon used to destroy him.

In 1895 Victorian England, homosexuality was not just taboo, it was a crime, and Oscar Wilde’s passionate affair with Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas drew the wrath of Bosie’s father, the Marquess of Queensberry. What began as a libel suit against that father’s public accusation of “posing as a sodomite” thrust Wilde into a nightmarish legal spectacle that exposed his private life to the world’s prying eyes. As the libel case collapsed, the evidence gathered was turned over to authorities, leading to multiple trials for gross indecency under laws that criminalized queer intimacy. Newspapers and courtroom spectators dissected Wilde’s love, his works, and the very phrase “the love that dare not speak its name,” turning a queer history moment into a public obsession. Hostile judges, invasive testimony, and Victorian moral panic culminated in a devastating conviction, years of hard labor, and exile in France, where Wilde’s health, reputation, and family were forever altered. This episode examines the personal cost of queer desire under oppressive laws and the cultural backlash that followed one of the most infamous queer trials ever.

Hosted by Jordi and Brad, Beers With Queers brings chilling crimes, queer stories, and twisted justice to light, all with a cold one in hand. Press play, grab a drink, and join us as we uncover the darkest corners of LGBTQ+ history.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.