SERIALously - 431: Clancy Updates, Chris Watts Getting Married, Kohberger Psych Eval Released & Eugene Horsch

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

This week on Headline Highlights: Lindsay Clancy’s journals and searches shed new light on her mental state, while the defense challenged key evidence. A Michigan family of eight was found shot to death, with investigators uncovering multiple fires and missing smoke detectors. Newly unsealed records reveal Bryan Kohberger’s autism, OCD, ADHD, and ARFID diagnoses, raising questions about his future appeals. A “Philly House of Horrors” investigation uncovered missing women, weapons, drugs, chemicals, and disturbing digital evidence. Chris Watts is reportedly set to marry a woman he met while behind bars, who moved closer to him and changed her name to “Lizzie Watts”..If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow the show for weekly deep dives into the darkest true crime cases! To watch the video version of this episode, head over to youtube.com/@annieelise. .🔎Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & Perks..🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to both of my weekly true crime series 10 to Life & Serialously with Annie Elise wherever you get your podcasts on the Annie Elise Channel!🍎 Apple Podcasts | Where you can also unlock access to 100+ and growing extra exclusive deep dives.💚 Spotify🔴 YouTube🎙️ All Other Platforms.📸 Follow Annie on Socials Instagram: @_annieeliseTikTok: @_annieeliseSubstack: @annieeliseFacebook: @10toLife.⭐SponsorsNeuro Gum: For a limited time, you can get 20% off your first order at http://neurogum.com by using code: AE.Ro-GLPS: Go to http://RO.CO/AE to see if you qualify.👗 Shop Annie’s Must-Haves! ShopMY: bit.ly/AnnieElise_ShopMy Amazon: bit.ly/AnnieElise_Amazon.🫵🏻 Get Involved or Recommend a CaseAbout Annie: www.annieelise.comFor Business Inquiries: [e-mail].📚 Episode Sources ABC News | ABC 6 | Abby Blabby | CBS News | Click on Detroit | Court TV | FOX 29 | Fox 13 | Inside Edition | JustinTheNickOfCrime | NBC Philadelphia | NewsWeek | New York Post | People | Reddit | TMZ | Wikipedia | WZZM••••••••••••••••••🚨Disclaimers1️⃣ Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me. 2️⃣ Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research. 3️⃣ The views and opinions expressed in this video are personal and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the creator(s). These views are subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time and are not to be held in perpetuity. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this video and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. It is the reader’s responsibility to verify their own facts.

Hey, true crime besties, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialessly. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialessly with me, your host, Annie E. Elise, happy Thursday. Hope you're having a great week. I know it's been a wild week with the defense now up for the Lindsay Clancy trial. There is a lot going on, lots of new cases too. So we have so much to talk about today. If you're new to the podcast, Thursdays are the days where it's headline highlights, talking

through everything that's happening this week in true crime. And then earlier this week on Monday, a deep dive came out into an all new case breaking everything down, which this Monday actually was a sit-down interview I had with Chris Hansen. And I have seen it getting picked up now on like the Daily Mail, Yahoo, Hollywood Reporter, because he shares his true thoughts about the new Robert Pattinson movie. And it's a hot take. So, that episode came out on Monday and then on Tuesday another deep dive came out on my second true crime podcast feed called 10 to Life about once again a horrific family annihilator and there's it's just like hello they're left and right coming out of the woodwork right and so now we are

talking about all the headlines happening this week and as you can see if you are watching the video version of this I have the distinct honor of being joined by the founder of sun-kissed orange soda. Oh my gosh. Hello. Rude, I knew there was some sort of a dig coming. Not a dig. You look like sunshine.

That feels like a Romeo and Michelle title. It's like you're like a fanta girl. Fanta, fanta, fonta. Oh, that sounds fun. Don't you want to, fanta, fanta, just like this bright. We're kind of giving Halloween right now. Okay. And also you're kind of giving little boy prep school.

here's the thing. I am in my cardigan era. Okay. She really is. Guys, I'm being responsible. I'm growing up. I'm coming into my own. I'm wearing my cardigans. I have my natural hair color. I have short nails. Like, she's also wearing jorts that are very similar to mine. This is growth. This is growth. Okay. So how are the sales at SunKissed? Flourishing. Flourishing. How much Red 40 is in it? I was just going to say they're non-national. natural ingredients are just selling like hotcakes. We love it and we love a hot cake.

So like I said, we have a lot to talk about. We're going to talk, of course, all things, Clancy trial, updates happening there. We're going to talk about this new insane House of Horrors case that is coming out of Pennsylvania. We also are going to talk about my favorite douche canoe on the planet, Brian Coburger, because, of course, he's back in the news. You've got two of them this week. Who?

You're two douche can. news. Who? Wats? Oh, yeah. We're going to talk about Wats too. You're right. We are going to talk about Watts. Oh, God. Okay, so yeah, let me just get right into it because we have a lot to go over. When I can't believe how divided people are on the Clancy trial. Okay, I don't think there's a division anymore. I think you don't. I think I'm the minority. Well, yeah, okay, I should say, yeah, you are the minority. Yeah, I think I'm the division. No, no, no. I will say this. And actually, for all my Apple podcast listeners, I released a bonus episode yesterday where I do these bonus episodes that are not scheduled or planned. And they're called Annie Rants, where I just kind of go off the rails and start talking.

And it's not edited. It's not scripted. It's not clean. It's just like I go. And I didn't even tell you this yet, Amy. I released one yesterday all about this and about what's been happening this week in trial and some of the craziness out there. and I really like let loose. But one of the things I mentioned is that, well, yes, I am in the minority of thinking that Lindsay did do this.

I have talked to no less than 15 experts over the last three weeks. Detectives, prosecutors, defense attorneys. In yesterday's episode, I also like talked to a very well-known defense attorney. You guys know who it is, but I'm not going to say his name. But all medical experts, every single expert I've talked to, has said there is a zero percent chance that Patrick did this. So while I'm in the minority, I'm not alone there in, like in that sense. All of these people are with me.

And yeah, I go into more of that in yesterday's episode. So if you want to ever know what unhinged Annie sounds like, all you have to do is listen to one of those rants. And you can get them either on Apple because they don't go to Spotify. They only go to Apple on the Annie Elise Plus subscription thing. You can see it right on your Apple interface on your phone on podcast. app or on Patreon as well. So, well, some of the comments already on that episode are a little well, even our own, I feel like it's so mainstream now that when people ask me about it,

obviously I share my opinion and of even our friends think that it was Patrick. I know, I know. I know. Well, let's actually start there then. Let's talk about what's going on in the Clancy trial. So starting off today, there were a lot of big things that happened last week in the trial. that I just want to touch on before we go into everything this week. Both of them gave the jury a little bit more insight into what Lindsay was thinking in the months and also even the days leading up to that horrible night in January. So first, investigators testified about journal entries

that Lindsay had written on her phone. And she was constantly making notes about how she felt, what she was thinking. And these were incredibly heartbreaking to read. You could tell she was devastated, distraught. She thought she was failing as a mother. she knew something wasn't right, she just wanted to feel well again, and in one entry, she wrote about feeling depressed because she felt like she couldn't parent her third child,

Callan, not the way that she parented her two first kids. She said that she felt less connected to him after she stopped breastfeeding, and said that she felt like she resented Cora and Dawson because they prevented her from treating Callan like her first baby. She wrote, quote, I'm sad and depressed. I'm sad that I stopped breastfeeding. I feel not as connected with cow now. I think I sort of resent my other children because they prevent me from treating Cal like my first baby, and I know it's not fair to them. I know that. I was feeling so depressed last evening when Cora and Dawson came home from school. I want to feel love in connection with all my kids. I'm also probably having a bit of an internal conflict because my whole life I've wanted to have a lot of

kids. So just having this realization of this isn't what I thought it was going to be. I'm feeling disconnected. I want to be the best mother I can be. And obviously, that's not what I'm feeling right now. And kind of just before I go into more of the journal entries, this ties into something that happened this week in the trial. One of her colleagues was up on the stand. And she testified about a day at work at the hospital because, as you know, Lindsay was a labor and delivery nurse and where a woman had come in, a patient, and she had thoughts of taking her own life and she was pregnant and taking the life of her baby as well, obviously. And this coworker of Lindsay's asked her, have you ever heard about Andrea Yates? And Lindsay was like, no, which isn't unheard of.

I mean, it's a very old case. A lot of younger people haven't heard about that. And not that Lindsay was incredibly young, but like a decade younger than me pretty much. And when the co-worker started sharing with her about the case, Lindsay started crying, saying, how could a mother ever hurt her shoulder? And so you can see. like she's just really conflicted with everything that she's feeling right now. In another note, Lindsay wrote about being terrified that something would happen to her kids or that she would do something wrong that would affect them and their development. And that reminded me a lot of Kara.

Yes. Our friend who had postpartum psychosis and ended up taking her own life, she felt the blame that what she was doing was negatively affecting her child. And again, I'm not going to go into a lot of details of that because it's nobody business, but it's awful and it's very, very real. I think that's fairly common with intrusive thoughts. Yes. You think that like you're going to harm the children or that something you're doing is causing harm to them. Yes. Then there was also an entry that had been modified just one day before the children died. In it, Lindsay wrote, medication stole my motherhood and my life. Prescription

medication stole me from my own body. And that one really stands out because given everything we've heard about her medications and her mental health throughout that throughout the trial. She knew something was going on. She knew she didn't feel right. Also, fast forwarding to this week when her mom took the stand, she had been texting her mom saying, I need you to come here, mom. Something's not right. I'm sick.

I'm having a hard time. And she even confided in the kitchen to her mom that she had thoughts of harming the children. And so the prosecutors then last week started presenting Lindsay's internet searches, which this is where things get a little bit more complicated because a Massachusetts State Police Sergeant testified that a computer inside the Clancy Home had visited a website called Suicide Methods. This was in August of 2022. Now, here's where it got conflated. Okay, they were talking about how Patrick was in Lindsay's Facebook, how he was making these searches about self-harm, methods, all of these things. And that's what everybody was running with.

When you broke down what they were saying and what the evidence outlined, it was more of a hyperlink hop. So for example, if you were looking right now at the Tupac trial, and then it took you to a link of drive-by shootings, then it took you to a link of firearms. What's the best weapon? What's a silencer? Things like that. It's like where it takes you from one thing to another, not independent searches as though you're searching for firearms. How do I get a silencer? Do they know what the independent search was? Yes. It was for the singer Tom Hall, who died by self-harm in 2021. And then it, like, linked to all of these other things. And so immediately, Lindsay's attorney Reddington pretty much pushed back on that. He said, yeah, the computer

belonged to Patrick, not Lindsay. And Lindsay was actually at the doctor's appointment for Dawson when this search happened. But it's a very controversial thing because, and not to keep referencing yesterday's episode, but this is something I talk a lot about, some of these theories that are coming out, while, yes, it's good to ask questions. It's good to push back. And try to break things apart, you have to include the whole story, not just the bits and pieces that help bolster your narrative. So like if you're going to talk about him using her Facebook account and that computer and searching self-harm and methods and all that, then tell the whole story of how he searched. Everybody come to their own conclusion. Right. He searched the singer.

Then it was a hyperlink hop to different things. It wasn't independent Google searches. And so, but when people are just sharing that on social media, you see it. You, you believe it, you repost it, and you run with it, you know. And so, I don't know, it's just, that's one of the things I wanted to talk about. Prosecutors also introduced a search from Lindsay's phone where she had searched, can you treat a sociopath? Now, this happened three days before the children's death. However, the defense pointed out that there were other searches that the prosecutors weren't emphasizing, including searches for hallucinations, which was on January 19th, and intrusive on January 20th. So some people are thinking, or I guess asking the question, did she think she was a

sociopath because of the thoughts that she was having of harming her children? Like so can you treat a sociopath? Or some people are saying, of course, she knew that Patrick, like she was searching that because Patrick's a sociopath, which the truth is, we don't know why she searched that. And that's what you also have to say is fair. Bring up the question for both sides, but we don't know for a fact why she searched that, right? I was going to say either narrative could work. Either it could talk about him or if she felt truly that she couldn't be treated, would that have moved this along?

Exactly. There also were some completely normal searches in there as well. Things like pre-made goodie bags, best kids movies. And that's honestly, that's one of the things that makes digital evidence so interesting in cases like this one. Because you're getting these tiny snapshots of somebody's life, which can range from deeply concerning things to completely. ordinary things within the span of days. And for people saying, like, she was texting Patrick

that night when he was out at CVS with smiley faces and things like that, like she was fine, she was happy. He said she's a good mom. She like hearted it or whatever, put the smiley face. An active psychosis happens in a split second. I could be acting completely normal right now talking to you and then bam, it hits. So it's like, you, because, and think about that too. if there was precursors to knowing that somebody was in an active psychosis state, you'd be able to intervene. You'd be able to see that something's going on. That's not the case. And you can hide it in plain sight. Well, and how many times in self-harm situations do you hear? I was with them the day before. I just talked to them. I mean, I feel like that happens more often than not if there were

these glaring signs again, to your point, they would have been addressed. So now the jury's hearing not only what Lindsay told the people around her about her mental health, but also what she was privately writing and what she was searching for online. So this week, the prosecution rested their case. That was Monday morning. And the defense is currently now in the process of presenting their evidence. So far, they have questioned Lindsay's mom, Patrick's mom, who are both in Lindsay's corner on this. But there was one really gross thing that I saw. When Patrick's mom was on the stand, the prosecutor said, basically, I'm paraphrasing here, like, you're a Catholic woman, right. So murder is a mortal sin, right? Trying to almost imply that that's the reason that she's

standing by Lindsay because being a murder is a mortal sin. Like this weird, just like, what does that have to do with anything? Yes. And then as I said, the mom, Lindsay's mom said how she shared those text messages. She also shared how Lindsay in the kitchen, which she said Patrick was there too, how she said she's had thoughts of harming her children. And there was something that did come up that I will say, I'm not trying to make excuses for it, I do have questions about. And I don't know if you saw this. I talk about it a lot in yesterday's episode. The Apple Watch registered her resting heart rate at 57 beats per minute. And the question was, if she was moving around, killing her children, how would her heart rate be that low? She must have already been incapacitated by

Patrick and because then like her phone activity also or her Apple Watch activity abruptly stops. The health data stops sinking. Then her phone activity continues for a moment, like all of these things. I don't know the answer to that. I know that last night I was sitting on my couch or not last night, the night before. I was sitting on my couch and I looked at my resting heart rate on my aura ring and it was at 68 or so was it. Mine's always high. It's always high. So, but 57's very low. And they were saying that her heart rate throughout the day was between 80 and 90. So it is a significant significant drop. Absolutely. I mean, my husband Jeremiah, his heart rate is like, he's dead, basically. Even when he's sleeping, I think his heart rate's like 44. I'm like, you good? But here's what

I'm saying. Like, I think that is a valid question of 1,000 percent. Like, how did her heart rate drop so low before, like, as she was still supposed to be, like, you know, committing these murders and stuff? But again, bringing in more evidence. I don't know how all that stuff works to where if you take your Apple Watch off? Is there a delay in how it sinks? Is there still activity reading and it just slows down? I know even, which is totally different, but I remember I had to stop wearing my Apple Watch when I would work out because even my tattoos blocked it from reading the sensor accurately. So I would never get an accurate read. So like I'm not tech savvy and they haven't had an expert yet to clarify this. But like I don't know if then when she removed her Apple Watch on her own,

it would have some sort of delay or it would have a different reading or it would slow down. or, you know, what happened. Or if she was so heavily medicated that her heart rate dropped that low. Or if when you're in a psychosis, your body starts shutting down because your body just takes over. Remember, she described in her 2026 filing,

she described recalling, hearing voices direct her and what to do, telling her children, go to God baby. And this isn't from the night of, it's not from a couple weeks after. She recalled this this year in her, civil suit. So who knows if when your body is shutting down in that way or protecting yourself if your heart rate drops? I don't know. But I do think it's a fair question. So like,

you know, I'll give the TikTokers that for a moment. Like it's, it's fair. So the defense is continuing with their case this week. I think that they still are illustrating that this is a mental health crisis that this wasn't. I don't think they're trying to say she's not guilty, which actually before I wrap up with this segment, let me say that at the start of the defense's case, he did ask the judge to find her not guilty. However, here's where it's getting confused. People are thinking that he's saying he was asking the judge

based on the state's presentation of the case, find her not guilty of murder and all of the charges. That's not what he was saying. He was saying, the Commonwealth has now presented their case for why they think she was legally and criminally responsible for these murders. They did not meet the burden of proof for that.

So because they didn't meet that, the burden of proof for that, it shouldn't be introduced to the jury. You should find her not guilty by reason of mental health or by insanity or however you want to say it. And so that I also am seeing getting mixed up online. Like, oh, he was trying to say like mistrial or end the trial, she's not guilty. That's not what it was about. He has never argued that she did this.

And even when he had filed the stipulation trying to separate things out, they were conceding. to the fact that she did this. And while technically, yes, she can be found not guilty, that's not what's going to happen here because the trial isn't to determine who done it or what happened. It's to determine her state of mind. And that's why I think, too,

through the rest of all of the defense's case that they're presenting, that the line of questioning he's going to have, even with Patrick, is going to be very similar, like with the mothers, where it's more so to understand her mental state leading up to and at the time. It's not going to be to catch in an aha moment or create reasonable doubt that she is the one responsible. It's to talk to her state of mind when all of this happened. Well, and I mean, obviously it's easy for everyone to get caught up in this like salacious trial and they

have their own speculative thoughts. But it's like at the root of this, how do we prevent this from happening again? And when you think about the fact that she did tell so many people and she was seeking care, I think that should really be what most of the conversation is centered around. I agree. Because now it's turning into a goddamn circus. I know. And that's kind of what for me is frustrating. I mean, a lot of it.

But it's just let's figure out how we can help prevent this from happening again. And this poor woman, regardless, did not get the care she deserved. So. Well, and to that point, it's like, if everybody's arguing that Patrick did this, you're taking the spotlight away from the seriousness of postpartum. psychosis and the effects of that and the results of that. So with so many people getting swept up in the Patrick of it all, the husband did it all of this stuff, what happens when another woman is on trial a year from now or two years from now? And because the postpartum psychosis of it all was

so watered down and Patrick was the focus, they're not valuing that experience or what happened. Like you're taking away the agency from Lindsay even saying that she did this herself, you know? Well, that was my first question to you. And when this like controversy started happening, as I said, well, what, how, what's her reaction to all of this? Now her husband is the one potentially being accused from a public standpoint. And you're the one who admitted to all this. Like, well, how do you feel about all of that?

And she's obviously, I mean, I do not think there is a possibility at all that she is going to be testifying. And she hasn't spoken out on anything because why would she? She's on trial right now. She's not going to advocate for Patrick right now and do anything that could potentially. sway the jury in thinking that she, that she was mentally okay. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if once this trial wraps, if she does make a statement. Maybe she won't. I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me. Maybe trying to just be like, he didn't do this. And can we just

talk about the freaking exercise band thing and how people all over the weekend were posting the photo of his new wife at a marathon being like, oh my God, she's running and she has exercise bands tied around her waist. What a sick monster. I'm like, first of all, zoom in. It's a long sleeve shirt. You can see the seam for the cuff on it. And you think that this woman is after her husband just seemingly got away with the perfect crime and murdered his three kids to be with her. You think this woman's going to go out in broad daylight, run a marathon with this trophy or this like symbol of remembrance of my husband got away with murder. I'm going to tie the murder weapon or a version of the murder weapon around my waist and run this marathon. Like get a grin.

get a motherfucking grip. Yeah. It's crazy. Really reach in there. Yeah. Okay. So this next one that we're going to have, we have an update for is one that we talked about on headline highlights a couple weeks ago.

And there's been some more details that have come out. But it hasn't really answered many of the questions. It's actually created more questions because there's still a lot of uncertainty around this. And it's obviously just horrific. This is the case of the family of eight that were all found dead in their Michigan home after a murder self-harm unfolded on the morning of July 24th. So just as a quick recap, first responders were initially called to a neighborhood in Grand Haven

around 849 in the morning after someone reported smelling smoke in the neighborhood. And when firefighters had arrived within minutes, they couldn't find where the smoke was coming from and reportedly didn't smell the smoke either. Then at 11.46 a.m., a neighbor called 911 after seeing white smoke coming from a specific house. So of course, firefighters returned,

they put out the flames and that's when they found all eight family members dead in different bedrooms inside the home. And investigators had determined that they had all been shot. But now new details show that the fire itself was apparently much more deliberate than investigators first realized. The Michigan State Police Fire Investigator concluded that the fire was intentionally set and investigators believe that Chris Karakiewicz, the husband and father of the family, started it using gasoline, paper towels, and a lighter. The report say that the investigators found a red gas can in the kitchen that still had gas in it, along with a grill lighter on the kitchen island. Investigators also say they found multiple suspected spots where the fire was started inside the

house and that there was at least one fire in each of the six kids' bedrooms, another under the basement stairs, and another in the basement storage room. They also found partially burned and completely burned paper towel rolls, suggesting that there had been multiple areas where he tried to start that fire. Some of those fires went out because there wasn't enough oxygen, while other of those fires made complete destruction in the house.

But then there was something super eerie. The investigators noticed that several smoke detectors seemed to be missing from the home. And at least one was taken from the main floor and another was pulled from the basement wall. So obviously, when we look at this, there's the fire starters starting it in multiple rooms. Yeah, he wanted to burn all the evidence.

He removed the detector. So this was a clear plan premeditated, which is horrific. And I can't even imagine what's going through your head when you're putting fire starters in each of your six kids' bedrooms. After you just have shot them. Like, it's sick. I mean, it's, it's crazy. Yeah, it's deranged.

Well, now there's also information surfacing about the dynamic. inside the home. Now remember, Chris was fired from his job at the American Heart Association right before all of this happened. And there was a lot of speculation that maybe that was the cause and the reason behind all of this. But there was also a lot of talk about he and Mandy's marriage. And if there was any struggles that could have potentially made him snap. Well, it turns out there was something going on years earlier that people think may have played a part in Chris's mindset during all of this. Mandy had reportedly written a subreddit called as one after infidelity in 2024

about Chris allegedly cheating on her with a younger intern a few years earlier. She said that if it weren't for their children, she wouldn't have worked towards repairing the marriage and she basically forced herself to keep going because of the kids, which we obviously hear all the time. She allegedly wrote, he was divorced and older than me.

Fast forward 10 years and 5 kids, he was cheating with the intern again, the same age I was, when I was the intern. And continued with, I kept telling myself, I love my kids more than I hate my husband right now. They have no idea.

I faked it till we made it. Wow. Which is obviously very telling. She also talked about being terrified by the idea of leaving because they had six kids and that there had been major red flags in the marriage that she just chose to ignore.

And this is important because Mandy's family said that she was actually very, very private about these matters with people in her real life. So if all of this stuff was true, nobody in her life had any idea that any of this was happening. Well, that makes sense that she would go to Reddit because you know people are always on the Reddit communities. They're sharing advice. They're sharing thoughts. So it looks like she was probably looking for a community and looking for advice or commentary on her experience, but like too ashamed to go to her family about it. Which I was going to say, it kind of brings, I've had this feeling for a while now,

is I've always wondered why there's so much shame around cheating, but there is. And I've been the same way, where you were embarrassed to tell somebody that that's happening, but at the same time, why should you be embarrassed? I think it's more like embarrassed because if you choose to stay, you don't want to be judged.

And so if she wanted to stay because of her kids and she was going to tell her family he cheated, they'd be like, leave him, he sucks, like, fuck that guy. And then if she's like, no, I'm staying for my kids, she probably wouldn't want the judgment at family get together. She wouldn't want them to like treat him differently. That's my guess.

That's fair. I get that. And there's also been some unverified claims circulating on Reddit from someone claiming to be Chris's stepfather. And this person does talk about the possibility that him losing his job could have been a motive for Chris doing all of this. This person alleges that Chris sent an email shortly before killing his family and himself and then it says a lot more about his mindset when this all happened.

They claim that Chris said he was feeling like he was, quote, living behind a mask, losing his sense of self and believe that his children couldn't be happy if he couldn't financially provide for them. They said that Christopher's last words in the email he sent in his sick mind sounds like he really thought that he was actually doing the right thing. He seemed to think his children couldn't possibly be happy without the financial security that he had been providing. But then again, none of these Reddit claims have been confirmed.

So we do have to treat them just as allegations, not as facts. So the exact timeline and motive are still being investigated. And at this point, the biggest question is still what we talked about a couple weeks ago, which is why did this all happen? And again, I mean, we've talked about this in several of these family annihilator cases where it's like, why do you feel like the only option is to take out the whole family? And in this case, he's feeling the finances, but it's like, kids don't give a shit about all of that. I know. But if he, again, like, I could see where if he's the breadwinner, he has the shame that it comes with that. And I remember hearing or we talked about that there were allegations, again, not proven to be confirmed of possible embezzlement happening and that that's why he got fired.

So if it was like, not only do you no longer have an income, but you're bringing shame to your family for that, not that it's obviously excusable, but I could see where someone may get there in their mind. But why not just harm yourself? Amen. You have shame. Great. Bye. But like, what? Yes.

Yeah, million dollar question. I really don't understand that. Yeah, million dollar question. Today's episode of Serialistly is brought to you by Neuro, creator of the world's smartest gum. Now, I don't know about you guys, but getting back into a normal routine after summer, it is always a little bit of like a jolt to my system. The kids are back in school.

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All right. So now let's go into my most hated villain of all time, Brian Coburger. Brian, mother effing Coburger, who like, I'm so sick of talking about. But if you remember, back in 2025, Brian's defense said that he had a psych eval done and that he had been diagnosed with several mental health disorders and disabilities, one of them being autism. And because of that, they said that he should be disqualified from the death penalty. They also, if you listen to an episode a few weeks back, once we knew that he was trying to like throw out his plea deal and his guilty plea, I had talked about how they were resurfacing all of these diagnoses, diagnoses, whatever, however you say it,

and that I felt like it was strategic in some way to say that he wasn't fully understanding the plea at the time he accepted it. But here's where we're at. So obviously they brought in the autism diagnosis and tried to say, hey, because of this, you should remove the death penalty, which the judge was like, uh, no, bro. That's not how it works. absolutely not. But other than that, we didn't really have any other information. It seemed like it kind of came out of left field, but we didn't really know much more. However, now, Brian's

psychological eval from when that happened back in February of 2025, it has been unsealed. The evaluation was done by Dr. Rachel Lawson-Or, a clinical neuropsychologist who was hired by the defense as an expert witness to talk about his mental health. And when she was hired, the defense made it very clear that this evaluation wasn't being done to argue that Brian was mentally incapable of standing trial or understanding what he was doing, they were actually doing it because they were in this huge back-and-forth argument with the prosecution about whether Brian's mental health and developmental disabilities should be classified as mitigating or aggravating factors. So let's talk about this evaluation. According to the documents, Brian met

with Dr. Orr six times over the course of about three months so that he could do this testing and these interviews. One of the first things that Dr. Orr noted was Brian's, quote, restricted range of facial expressions saying that he had a stoic effect, which if you've seen any photo of Brian, it's always the same straight face, mean mug look except for that one disgusting, cheesy smile face where his teeth are all yellow and he looks like the fucking Joker. But he usually just has like that, you know, serial killer face. She also said that his smiles were often very slight. His social smiling was inconsistent or completely absent.

and that the way that he would furrow his eyebrows during lighter conversations sometimes made things feel awkward. Which that's pretty much in line with everything we heard from the TA, from people who encountered Brian, that he was like this awkward guy. He's a creep. Yeah, a creep. She also said that Brian had several, quote, atypical social behaviors, things like lack of gestures,

atypical tone and cadence when talking, awkward interaction, and an overall lack of fluidity in conversations. He apparently also had an inconsistent. inconsistent understanding or acknowledgement of humor, often redirected conversations back to his own experiences, and sometimes gave odd or short responses to questions. And then there was one detail that I think we all have heard and know about Brian by now. Dr. Orr noted that he occasionally had a, quote, intense gaze. She also described him as having, quote, impulsive tendencies throughout the evaluation, saying that he broke the rules during the evaluations, that he would

rush through certain tasks, and kind of like he thought he was in charge, which again, very much is in line with everything we heard about during his schooling. And interestingly, a lot of these same behaviors weren't just noticed by Dr. Orr, his parents and his two sisters also described a lot of the same issues during their interviews with her. They said that they had tried social coaching with Brian and repeatedly gave him social feedback, essentially trying to teach him how to act in certain social situations, but apparently it didn't really change things. So all of this ultimately ended with Dr. Orr diagnosing Brian with Level 1 autism, OCD, ADHD, and ARFID, which is avoidant restrictive food intake disorder. But those weren't the only diagnoses that were mentioned. Dr. Orr also

said that Coburger had met the criteria for four other diagnoses at some point in the past, developmental coordination disorder, an unspecified depressive disorder, anorexia nervosa, and opioid use disorder. Now, this didn't really surprise me when I read that because we know that he was a past heroin addict and that he was also very overweight at one point and that he lost all that weight, he became obsessive over it, that he was running all the time, he would do those late night runs, all these things trying to stay very lean and thin. But here's where I think that things could get interesting going forward. Like I said earlier, Brian and his team didn't claim that these diagnoses made him incapable of understanding what was happening in the court process. I mean,

in fact, he specifically signed in the plea agreement that he understood what the plea meant. He clearly knew the stakes. But I can't help but wonder. Because now that we have this evaluation laying out his history, the diagnoses, his developmental issues, and his family also saying that he struggled with these things basically his whole life, I wouldn't be shocked if some version of this comes back up during his post-conviction relief process. And that is what I said, literally a year ago when they started floating the ADHD, the AFIB or AFR-I-D, whatever, all of these things. I was like, oh, this feels like it's laying the foundation for an appeal coming or to try to get ahead of it to lay the, like, again, lay the foundation of why he wasn't in his right state of mind

or why he couldn't have understood what he was accepting or why he did accept it because he's so socially awkward and all of these things. And then sure enough, as we know a few months ago, the post-conviction relief came up, which is basically a precursor to an appeal, if you will. And now the evaluation is getting unsealed. So feels strategic and intentional. And so I don't think it's necessarily going to be like, and I didn't know what I was doing type argument. But I think it's fair to ask, could he eventually say that some aspect of his mental health did affect his decision making or his ability to fully communicate with his attorneys? kind of playing into that whole ineffective counsel argument.

I don't think anything is beyond Brian Coburger at this point. I think he is being a little pussy shit in jail. And he can't. Yeah, and he can't hack it. And people are threatening him. And he thinks life would be cushier on death row. So he's trying to do what he can to either get fully exonerated or to go to death row and live a better life.

So we're just going to have to wait and see what happens. So do you think the purpose of this evaluation? being pushed by his defense is obviously it'd be great if he was exonerated from their standpoint, but do you think it's mainly to try to push him out of the death penalty? Like which are they going to argue further? No, no, no. Or he wants the death penalty. Or I'm sorry, for the death penalty.

Like, because I mean, you have ADHD, you suffered from an eating disorder. That doesn't necessarily mean anything that you're talking about the crime that he committed. Right. Probably. I think that he probably wants the death penalty now. I think that life in prison without parole is horrible for him and that he's like, I'd rather have a cushy life on death row until ultimately getting hit by the firing squad, which pass me the gun.

I was going to sooner rather than later. Okay. So this next one has been all over the news. And I know that you guys have messaged Annie and myself about it. It's known as the Philly House of Hors. And it's absolutely horrific. And so we're going to get into it. there's a lot of twist and turns on this one.

And so I'm sure you're probably going to do a deep dive on this one. I'm literally making notes right now as you're speaking. Perfect. Because this one, it's like every new detail. I feel like we always say this and I'm a broken record. But every single detail that comes out, it just keeps getting more and more horrific. And also so many questions about what actually happened here. So back on June 19th, a federal park ranger noticed a black BMW was parked in an area that

it wasn't supposed to be. And when he approached the vehicle, he said he heard a woman in the passenger seat say, you're going to hurt me. The driver was later identified as 44-year-old Eugene Horsch, and the ranger noticed that both Eugene and the woman had sores on their bodies, were moving, kind of twitchy, leading the ranger to suspect they were probably using drugs. The ranger also reportedly saw a butane lighter, tweezers, and multiple pairs of scissors around the front seat. So because of this parking violation, what he had overheard from this woman,

and the suspected drug activity, the ranger asked them for identification. A records track showed that the BMW was registered to Eugene, and the woman allegedly provided an ID with the name Blair Tonzelli. Now, the problem was, she wasn't Blair. Blair was actually a woman who had been reported missing in 2023. The woman told police that Eugene was the one who had given her that ID, and they were both then taken into custody.

And officers say that when he was taken into custody, officers found a switchblade knife, a glass pipe in his pocket, and inside the car they found two loaded guns, including one with an obliterated serial number, another switchblade, a cattle prod, a collapsible baton, handcuffs, drugs, and a fake DEA badge.

So this guy was packing a lot of illegal stuff. Now, after Eugene was arrested, investigators then went to his house with a search warrant, and inside that house, that's where they found things that at the moment nobody can explain. Inside, they found ammunition, drugs, a marijuana growing operation worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and another gun. Then in the basement, they found what is being described as a large amount of various chemicals, including a 55-gallon drum with connections to water lines, which I'm not super familiar what that could possibly be. I was going to ask you if you knew that. Probably to get rid of a body. If it's connected to a water line, like maybe acid, maybe it's like mixing chemicals.

I didn't know if it was like explosive related or... Maybe I would imagine to dispose of evidence. That's my guess. I don't know. So more than 20 containers holding unknown substances were taken to a lab in Chicago for testing and analysis. An investigators still don't know exactly what the chemicals were used for, but officials say they determined that if some of them were mixed together,

then it would have become very, very dangerous. So obviously not a good situation. Then investigators also found a handwritten note allegedly referencing Ted Bundy and methods for, quote, disposing of trash. And so this is where everything really escalated. Police kept digging and that's when they found more than 600,000 images, 70,000 videos and more than 10,000 pages of writings,

manuscripts, and drawings across multiple digital devices and hard drives. It's giving Dugger. Yeah. Yeah. 600,000 images. So on the first hard drive that the detectives examined, they found photos and videos from inside the home that showed two women, Maribel Fressis and Gabrielle Emerando.

And they both appeared to be dead. But when investigators figured out who was in these photos, that's when the whole situation changed and just turned really dark. Because both of these women had been missing for years. 27-year-old Maribel was last seen in February of 2018, and 22-year-old Gabrielle had been missing since September 2012. Now, their bodies have not yet been found, meaning the medical examiner can't issue a cause of death or death certificates, but investigators believe that both women have died based on what they have uncovered so far. Investigators have said that of all the evidence they are working through, it's extremely graphic and dark,

and they've only gone through 5 to 7% of the photos and videos. far. Now, as for Eugene himself, he is in custody on federal charges connected to firearms and the fake federal credentials, and he has not yet been charged in connection with any of the missing women or with any death investigation at all. And what's interesting is that he has also carried a pretty lengthy criminal history himself. In January of 2004, he was convicted of aggravated assault and aggravated battery by vehicle and sentenced to two to four years. Then in February of 2014, he was convicted of possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance and sentenced to another two to four years in prison. Then finally, last year, in November of 2025, he was

convicted again a possession with intent to distribute. So this guy is no stranger to the criminal system. Eugene's attorney has since raised one very interesting point about the evidence found inside the home, though. His attorney says that Eugene's father had lived there for a very long time and had a quote very interesting past. So I was seeing this as obviously teeing this up too. It's not his fault. So that brings us to Raymond Charles Horsch. Raymond was a photographer and filmmaker,

but his work was described as dark and often focused on women in sadomasochistic settings. So just for anyone that's not familiar with sadomasochism, it's basically getting pleasure often from something sexual, either giving pain or receiving pain. And so it sounds like these photos were dealing with women. BDSNM. Yeah.

There's another part of Raymond's history that becomes especially important here. His ex-wife, Amy McHale. Raymond and Amy were married from 2004 to 2008, and Amy disappeared in 2016. And the home is currently the center of this whole investigation and was reportedly the last known location of Amy McHale. So there's a lot of missing women here, obviously. and they're uncovering all these images, photos,

all of which are very dark. And then we've got the sun and this mysterious woman who is in the car with an ID of somebody who is also missing another woman. And that's where all of this just gets, of course, very convoluted and unsettling because investigators are still working through this enormous amount of evidence

and they've only gone through a very small, tiny part of it. And so far that evidence has already, like we said, allegedly shown two women who appear to be dead to other women who are still missing. But then again, Eugene has not been charged with any of these crimes or disappearances. So right now, the investigation is of course ongoing and will bring you updates as they come.

But from what I read and from what I've seen, this house was not, the police had been there before, mainly for drug charges. So I don't know what the extent of a search there was or when they went there to arrest him last fall for those drug charges if they had any other suspicions because it feels like had they gone inside the home they probably would have recovered some of the stuff or at least had some

questions to further that investigation i don't know what are your thoughts it depends what was on the search warrant and yeah what they were able to actually collect and look for yeah but that's probably why they haven't charged yet too they need more evidence but it just always surprises me that these people who have been in trouble before so openly do things that they're not allowed to. Like if you are someone who's hiding all these secrets in your house, why are you going somewhere and parking where you're not supposed to with paraphernalia out in the open? It's just, is that just because you feel like you're never going to get caught? Probably. They probably feel untouchable, I would imagine, to a degree. Well, I hope that these families of these missing girls

finally get some answers because I would imagine they've just, I mean, could you imagine after all these years finally, maybe potentially getting some answers? I know. All right. Well, to another douche canoe on my list, Chris Watts, didn't think that name was going to come up anytime soon. But we need to take a moment and talk about this. The news started coming out last week and I didn't need to just like pause, sit with it, research it, figure out what the hell was really going on here. But apparently Chris Watts is going to be a married man again. He's going to the chapel. Going to the chapel. Now as a reminder, you all know Chris Watts. If you don't, he's currently serving most. multiple life sentences at Dodge Correctional Institution in Wisconsin from murdering his pregnant wife, Shanan, their two little girls, Bella and Cece, and his unborn child, Nico, who Shanan was pregnant with. And he apparently has applied to now marry a woman that he met while behind bars. I wonder what Nicole Cassinger thinks of that. Her name is Lizzie Henderson.

Now, Lizzie is 39 years old, originally from Ohio, and according to reports, she and Chris have been together for about 15 months. In fact, she has visited his 23 times, which those aren't little quick, you know, wave through the glass type visits. These are reportedly contact visits, which these visits can last up to three hours. So some people have said that conjugal visits aren't allowed at this particular prison. So these contact visits are apparently kind of the ones like you see in movies or TV shows where they have a room full of tables. You're sitting across from the table.

You're talking. You're able to sometimes like hold a hand. Maybe you can hug. Maybe you can't. But you can sit face to face rather than through the glass. However, they, like I said, usually you can still hug, kiss at the beginning and the end of the visit, but like not during the whole visit. So apparently she's so serious about this that she and her mother actually moved from Ohio to Wisconsin so that they could be closer to him. Which, I don't know.

That seems so bizarre to me that your mother's even signing on unless for some reason she's elderly and Lizzie is her caretaker. And so she has to move with her. Otherwise, does the mom support this? I don't know. I have a lot of questions. Now as for who Lizzie is, Lizzie has a real estate license in Wisconsin, but she also has been reportedly working at a grocery store right now. And when Lizzie was asked about this relationship, she acknowledged that people might think that, yeah, you know, hello, it's weird. Why would you be marrying this family annihilator? But when she was asked how the two of them met, she said, how things began is between me, him, and God.

which we all know that Chris has claimed to find the Lord in all of this. So who the hell knows what's going on? Now Lizzie apparently isn't waiting around for Chris to officially become her husband before embracing his name because this month she applied for a confidential name change. And those records are sealed so we don't actually know what name she requested, but hello, I think we can all take a pretty good guess. But relatives say that she's been going by Lizzie Watts within her family. And her siblings have also confirmed that she changed.

her name online to Lizzie Wads, which even if you want to marry him, why are you trying to take that last name when it is synonymous with one of the most brutal murders that the country has seen in recent years? She was even photographed earlier this month wearing rings on her left ring finger, like an engagement ring and a wedding band together on that finger. And here's where things get even more uncomfortable and strange. When Lizzie was asked how she feels about what Chris did to Shanan and the girls, she said, how I feel about it. He knows. knows. He knows how I feel. I don't know all the people involved, but I would want to respect them, which, what the hell does that even mean? She also described the murders as, quote,

something harsh for anyone to experience. Harsh is an understatement. He killed his wife, his pregnant wife, and his two daughters, then stuffed his daughters in an oil container and buried Shanan's body. I think that's more than harsh. That's, like, what are you even talking about? Now, this isn't really the first time we've even heard about women being interested in Chris Watts while he's been sitting in prison. There has been some weird like fandom around him for years. And we've talked about this phenomenon before. It's happened with people like Bundy, Brian Coburger, Wade Wilson, these men who are accused or convicted of horrific crimes, yet somehow develop these groups of like fan favorite women who are just fascinated and enamored

with them and love them. They defend, them. They believe they're misunderstood. They think that they are the one who can somehow change them. And I guess that's kind of the obvious question here. Is Lizzie just another one of those women? Maybe. But what's interesting is that Chris reportedly had several women reaching out to him before this relationship ever happened. According to reports, an inside source said that Chris initially started responding to the letters because he was bored. He had nothing else to do. Then, as certain women started standing out and getting his attention, he kept in touch with them. And eventually, according to this source, some of the letters back and forth became racy. Women started sending him photos,

selfies, things of them and lingerie, stuff like that. So the person basically summed it up by saying, there are a lot of women who think that Chris is handsome and misunderstood. And because he's in protective custody and isn't exactly popular with the other inmates, the letters have become his main outlet. So in other words, he's sitting in prison, bored as shit, has nothing to do. Women are sending him letters, love letters, photos, and he's apparently getting his ego stroked from it. Which honestly, when you look at the situation from that angle, it does make you wonder how much of this relationship is a genuine connection versus how much of it is just her filling this void for him, boosting his ego and like companionship for him because he's so

board. Because let's remember, this guy is never getting out of prison. He's going to spend the rest of his life in prison. Yet somehow, eight years after murdering his wife and daughters, we're now talking about Chris Watts potentially becoming somebody's husband again. And that is a terrifying thing to think about. So don't send me the wedding registry. I mean, how is that allowed that you can even receive nude or racy photos? It's not fully nude. It's just like, yeah, like anything. They shouldn't be allowed to have photos or any of that stuff. And you shouldn't be allowed to get married. Yeah, but.

I mean, and also, like, what's in it for her? Maybe she really is a delusional. Of, like, being married to Chris Watts. Or maybe she's delusional and thinks she really does love him. But let's just say he was the most amazing person in the world and not in jail, but somewhere else that he would never get out of. Like, why would you marry someone that you could never have a real relationship with? If you think it's true love.

I don't know. Crazy. I know. It is crazy. All right, guys, thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of Headline Highlights. I will be back with you first thing on Monday with an all new deep dive into a case. But don't forget, there are three episodes right now. You can go back and binge. Monday, the Chris Hansen episode, which is on this main feed.

Tuesday, another family annihilator deep dive on my 10 to Life feed. And then yesterday, either via Apple or Patreon, where I go off on a rant, all things, Lindsay and Patrick Clancy. So you've got a lot. You can go binge this weekend. All right. Thank you so much. And until the next one, be nice.

Don't kill people. Don't marry Chris Watts. And I don't know. Keep your smoke detectors installed. Yeah. Keep your smoke detectors installed. And let's see what the fuck happens with Brian Coburger. Yeah.

All right. Bye.