Category: Dateline

In 1993, 31-year-old nightclub owner Robert O’Dubaine was murdered in his apartment in the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago. Robert’s girlfriend’s brother was found guilty of killing him, but years later he sought clemency because he claimed he’d been manipulated into murdering Robert by someone who may have killed before.

In 2007 35-year-old Nichole Payne and her son 16-year-old Austin Taylor Wages were found dead in their home in small-town Quitman, Texas,. At first, cops thought it was a murder-suicide, but soon investigators became convinced that it was only staged to look that way.

53-year-old Karen Lange was jogging at Pendleton River Parkway on August 9, 2013 when she was brutally attacked by a man wielding a metal pipe. She somehow survived after laying there unconscious for 13 hours. There is surveillance tape footage of her assault, and police were also able to locate part of the weapon. They analyzed the DNA on the metal object, and made a shocking discovery: there the same similar DNA present at the scene of a murder of a hotel maid the year before.

Shapearl Wells’ son 22-year-old Courtney Copeland died from a gunshot wound on March 4, 2016. After he was shot in the back of the neck, he had supposedly still been alert enough to drive himself around the corner to a police station for help. An ambulance was called, and his heart stopped on the way to the hospital. It’s still a mystery who shot Courtney, or what exactly happened the day he died. His mother Shapearl Wells is not giving up the fight to find out the truth. She has made waves with her award-winning podcast Somebody about the subject, and the heartbreaking case will be examined on Friday night’s Dateline episode The Story of Somebody.

Tonight’s Dateline episode titled “The Pink Gun Mystery” is centered around a twisted love triangle turned deadly. In 2014 the body of 32-year-old Robin Spielbauer was found in a ditch. Her ex-husband’s wife Katie Phipps was initially accused of the murder, partially because her pink handgun was the murder weapon. Someone else besides Katie had access to this pink gun: Jeremy Spielbauer, Katie’s husband and Robin’s ex.

At first, people thought Vietnam veteran Robert McClancy, who suffered from PTSD, had taken his own life. It took a while, but eventually, the truth was unraveled: he was murdered by his wife and his best friend, who went to great lengths to make Bob’s death look like a suicide so they could pocket his veteran’s benefits and live life without him.