Missouri Mayhem: Mystery & Murder with Mindy & Megan! · Megan Owens & Mindy Johnson

Ben Renick - The Missouri Snake Breeder Murder - New Florence, MO

January 19, 2026·1 hr 3 min·10 clips

The show opens in a hazy Missouri summer. Heat, dust, and gravel roads set the scene before the crime takes over. Outside New Florence, this is not an ordinary farm. It is a facility full of snakes, and the hosts lean into the oddity of exotic reptiles bred for collectors around the world. Benjamin Ben Brennick's murder on June 8, 2017, becomes the center of the story. The case drew national attention and left investigators with a puzzle that did not fit together cleanly. Megan and Mindy trade the timeline back and forth. One voice carries the details while the other reacts, asks questions, and helps carry the listener through the case. The episode spends time on the everyday world around the case before it turns dark. That slower setup makes the violence feel rooted in a real place rather than a crime summary. The hosts also make room for the trial. They note that the verdict surprised many people and linger on why jury decisions matter in a case like this. Lindley becomes a major point of suspicion. The conversation turns to a reported earlier attempt to kill Ben with Percocets. Family testimony about a sudden illness helps the hosts explain why that earlier episode mattered. Police and prosecutors' understanding of that report is folded into the discussion. The show keeps circling back to what people knew and when they knew it. The tone stays plainspoken and victim-centered. The hosts pause to treat the people in the story as real, not just as pieces in a puzzle. The pace is measured, with room for small detours and clarifying reactions. That approach keeps the episode conversational without losing the case. By the end, the listener has the shape of the investigation, the pressure of the trial, and the uneasy sense that this was a stranger story than it first seemed.

As heard by us

A Missouri murder story with snakes, small town texture, and a verdict that caught attention.

Benjamin Ben Brennick's murder works best when it stays close to the strange local detail of the case: a snake facility outside New Florence, Missouri, with exotic reptiles worth tens of thousands of dollars sitting in country heat and dust.

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Why you'd press play

You want a Missouri snake-breeder murder with a jury surprise.

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