It was about 2 AM when I realized the Lobster Trap Murder case wasn't what I thought it was. I'd been reading court documents for hours—the victim, the violence, the assumptions. But then I got to the transcripts about the accomplice who got dragged in. She wasn't a criminal. She was trying to help someone she thought cared about her. Bad choices in a moment of misplaced loyalty destroyed her life.

That's what you don't hear on Wednesday mornings.

This week, instead of a case, I'm pulling back the curtain on True Crime Cases You Haven't Heard. How my background as a police dispatcher, morgue technician, 30-year investigative journalist, surveillance photographer, and search-and-rescue pilot (callsign: FIRE DEMON 1) shapes every episode. Why I obsess over court documents instead of trusting summaries. What 20-60 hours of research actually looks like. Why listeners tell me they sat in their driveway because they couldn't stop listening until they knew what happened.

Plus: what's coming next, including cases about emergency response failures and institutional protection of predators.

No AI narration. No sensationalism. Just documentary storytelling with the receipts to prove it.

This episode: 25 minutes of what really goes into the work.

After 14 brutal months in a Colombian maximum-security prison, 71-year-old fashion designer Nancy Gonzalez stood before a federal judge in Miami for sentencing. Her crime? Smuggling handbag samples made from exotic leather to meet Fashion Week deadlines.

In this conclusion to Nancy's story, prosecutors compared her to a "cocaine kingpin" and argued she deserved years in federal prison. Her defense attorneys called it selective prosecution—pointing out that the luxury retailers who sold her bags for thousands of dollars faced no charges, no investigations, and no accountability.

What happened in that courtroom divided everyone who heard it.

Judge Robert N. Scola sentenced Nancy to 18 months—below federal guidelines but still devastating for a woman who'd already lost her son, her business, and her freedom. Meanwhile, 300 Colombian women who depended on her for employment lost their jobs. The couriers she recruited now carry federal convictions. And the retailers? Business as usual.

This episode explores the sentencing hearing, the character letters, the personal tragedy, and the three competing truths that all exist simultaneously: Nancy broke the law. The fashion industry created impossible conditions. And selective prosecution is real.

Was justice served? Or did the wrong people pay the highest price?

📁 Download complete court transcripts, sentencing memoranda, and character reference letters at TrueCrimeUnheard.com

🔍 Research Opportunity: Help investigate luxury retailers' exotic leather sourcing policies at tapyournews.com/tc-research

All facts verified through federal court documents and official records.

Host: Steve Rhode - 30-year investigative journalist, former police dispatcher, SAR pilot

New episodes every Wednesday. Case updates Tuesday & Saturday.

July 2022. Colombian federal agents arrest Nancy Gonzalez—a luxury fashion designer whose handbags were sold at Bergdorf Goodman, Saks, and Neiman Marcus. The charge: wildlife smuggling. But here's what makes this case unforgettable: Nancy went to federal prison while the retailers who sold her bags faced zero consequences. This is True Crime Cases You Haven't Heard—and Part 1 reveals how an empire was built on endangered reptile skins, who knew what was happening, and why only one person paid the price.

🔍 RESEARCH OPPORTUNITY: Want to be part of the show? This episode includes an investigative assignment. Go to TrueCrimeUnheard.com and click Submit Research—you could be featured in Part 2.

All details in this episode come from court documents, official records, and sworn testimony. Full source links at TrueCrimeUnheard.com.

Ashley Grayson Murder-for-Hire Case Summary:

Social media influencer Ashley Grayson was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for conspiracy to use interstate commerce facilities in commission of murder-for-hire. The 2022 case involved three targets: business rival Derricka Harwell, ex-boyfriend Patrick Tate, and TikTok critic Sherell Hodge. Olivia Johnson recorded the plot on FaceTime, leading to Grayson's arrest and conviction in Memphis federal court.

Key Facts:

• Federal murder-for-hire conviction (18 U.S.C. §1958)
• Five-minute recorded FaceTime call as primary evidence
• $10,000 cash payment captured on surveillance
• Trial held March 2024; sentencing October 2024
• Documentary true crime podcast with court transcripts

Resources: 📄 Download official source docs on the episode page or sign up for episode alerts at TrueCrimeUnheard.com 💬 Have feedback or questions? Use the comment form at TrueCrimeUnheard.com

When Adult Victim 1 punched through a metal door with her bare hands and climbed a fence to freedom, she set in motion a reckoning that would expose a decade-long pattern of violence.

In this final episode of our three-part series on Negasi Zuberi, we take you inside the federal courtroom where justice was finally delivered. But what the jury never heard during trial—and what prosecutors revealed at sentencing—changed everything.

Court documents show that Zuberi's 2023 kidnappings in Klamath Falls, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, were not isolated incidents. In 2017, at age 23, he was convicted of sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl. Four years later, in 2021, he was convicted in California of assault for soliciting sex from another 16-year-old and beating her in a remote area of Alameda County.

At that 2021 sentencing, a California judge warned Zuberi directly. According to court records, the judge expressed concern about the pattern of behavior and feared something "really, really bad" might happen if Zuberi didn't change course. He was sentenced to probation.

Two years later, Adult Victim 2 reported her kidnapping to Klamath Falls police. Officers struggled to make contact. Evidence wasn't collected. That two-month delay gave Zuberi time to finish building the concrete cell that would imprison Adult Victim 1.

This episode explores the courtroom testimony, the victim impact statements that brought federal marshals to tears, and the life sentences that ensure Zuberi will never walk free again. We examine what happens when systemic failures are finally confronted—and when survivors' voices are finally heard.

This is the story of how justice catches up.

🎧 **This is Episode 3 of 3** in "The Cell" series. If you haven't heard Episodes 1 and 2, start there for the complete story.

📄 All details in this episode come from federal court documents, trial transcripts, and official records. Full source links and case files available at TrueCrimeUnheard.com.

💬 Have questions or feedback? Use the comment form at TrueCrimeUnheard.com/contact—your question might be featured in a future episode.

✉️ Sign up for episode alerts at TrueCrimeUnheard.com (sent 2x weekly)

On May 11, 2023, Adult Victim 2 walked into the Klamath Falls Police Department with bloodied clothes and a detailed account of her assault by Negasi Zuberi. Officers were reluctant to follow up. They didn't collect the evidence.

For the next two months, Zuberi made documented trips to Home Depot, purchasing concrete blocks, lumber, insulation, and deadbolts. His own security cameras captured him building. Amazon records show leg irons and handcuffs. GPS data placed him surveilling potential victims. By July 15, when he drove 450 miles to Seattle to kidnap Adult Victim 1, the concrete cell was ready.

This is the story of what happened between those two kidnappings—the construction phase, the digital trail, and the system failure that gave a predator exactly the time he needed.

In the final episode: The trial, the verdict, two jail escape attempts, and the haunting question—what happened to Quinn and June, the women on his targets list?

This is True Crime Cases You Haven't Heard—storytelling-first true crime about overlooked cases with deep institutional and legal dimensions.

All details in this episode come from court documents, official records, and sworn testimony. Full source links at TrueCrimeUnheard.com. https://truecrimeunheard.com

On July 15, 2023, a woman escaped from a five-ton concrete cell in Klamath Falls, Oregon—punching through metal doors until her hands were bloody.

This is Episode 1: The Escape. All details from court documents and official records. Full case files at TrueCrimeUnheard.com.

In May 2024, Graceland was 24 hours from foreclosure—all because of a forged signature from a woman who'd been dead for 18 months.

Lisa Jeanine Findley, a 54-year-old con artist from Missouri, nearly stole Elvis Presley's mansion using fake companies, burner phones, and Microsoft Word in a $2.85M extortion attempt that shocked Memphis.

Host Steve Rhode shares his personal connection to Elvis's death, then unravels how Findley impersonated three different people in panicked emails to CBS News, created companies 6 years after they supposedly made loans, and was still shredding evidence when the FBI knocked on her door.

From fake cancer diagnoses to claiming Nigerian scammers framed her, this case reveals what happens when decades of small cons escalate into one massive delusion.

Because this isn't fiction. It's True Crime Cases You Haven't Heard.

Features exclusive analysis from the series' criminologist on the psychology of fraud, plus a bonus conversation exploring how someone convinces themselves they can steal an American icon.

Episode highlights:

• The email meltdown where one woman argued with herself as three people
• The company created 6 years after it supposedly made a loan
• The shredder still warm when FBI agents arrived
• Why spelling "Chancery" wrong might have saved Graceland

All details from court documents, official records, and sworn testimony.

You can download case files on the show episode page at TrueCrimeUnheard.com.