Nightmares

In October 2013, fourteen-year-old Abby Hernandez vanished on her walk home from school in rural New Hampshire. Months passed, searches faded, and a letter arrived that changed how the public understood her disappearance. When Abby finally came home, the truth forced a reckoning with certainty, judgment, and what survival actually looks like when escape is not possible.

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When an 83-year-old woman is found dead inside her quiet Old Greenwich home, investigators start piecing together the final months of her life, and the unraveling of her son, Erik Soelberg. What first appears to be a private family tragedy reveals a disturbing descent shaped by isolation, certainty, and a voice that never challenged his fears. This episode examines how belief hardens, reality fractures, and how one ordinary house became the setting for an irreversible outcome.

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It's March 2006 in Villa Park Illinois and nineteen-year-old Rose thinks she’s found an escape, until a woman vanishes and the search starts pointing somewhere darker. As detectives close in, Rose is forced to replay every late-night call, every story, every “coincidence,” realizing the truth was being rehearsed right in front of her. By the time the case breaks, Rose understands she was never just a witness…

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Thirteen-year-old Thad Phillips fell asleep on his couch—and woke up in a nightmare. Trapped in a decaying house with a smiling teen and sinister intentions, he would spend two harrowing days fighting to survive when all hope seemed lost.

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James Rackover looked like someone who had it all. He had style, status, and a last name that carried weight. But the truth behind the image was darker. When a man goes missing after a night in Manhattan, investigators start to uncover the kind of past James hoped no one would find. He wasn’t who he said he was. And he wasn’t done breaking the rules.

Get commercial free access to over a decade of Sword and Scale's true crime podcasts at http://swordandscale.com