Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast

Ephren Taylor II rose to fame as a self-proclaimed "teenage tycoon," building a massive public profile as a financial guru and "social capitalist" who supposedly earned his first million by age 16. Leveraging this manufactured persona and his status as a minister’s son, he launched a "Building Wealth" tour that targeted African American megachurches, including Bishop Eddie Long’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. Under the guise of Biblical, "risk-free" investments in small businesses and sweepstakes machines, Taylor orchestrated a $16 million Ponzi scheme that defrauded over 400 people of their life savings.

Marjorie Ann Orbin was a former Las Vegas showgirl convicted of the 2004 murder of her husband, Jay Orbin, a successful jewelry dealer.

Leon Jacob was a failed medical resident in Houston who, along with his girlfriend, veterinarian Valerie McDaniel, orchestrated a plot to hire a hitman to murder both of their ex-partners. Motivated by a desire to prevent his ex-girlfriend from testifying in a stalking case against him and to resolve McDaniel's custody battle, Jacob offered cash and luxury watches to an individual he believed was a contract killer but was actually an undercover officer.

Jonathan Crupi was a Brooklyn high school English teacher who, on July 5, 2012, murdered his wife and fellow teacher, Simeonette Mapes-Crupi, in their Staten Island home.

In 2005, Amy Bosley made a frantic 911 call reporting that an intruder had broken into her Kentucky home and shot her husband, Bob Bosley, while their two young children were asleep nearby. However, investigators quickly grew suspicious of her story after finding bullet casings in the washing machine and evidence that she had staged the break-in by breaking glass after the shots were fired. The true motive was revealed to be financial: Amy had embezzled approximately $1.7 million from their family roofing business and was desperate to hide the theft from both her husband and the IRS, who had scheduled a meeting with Bob for that very morning.