True Crime Brewery · Tiegrabber Podcasts

Murder in the Suburbs

·1 hr 23 min·5 clips

Doreen McArdle calls 911 after finding Fred Jablin’s body in the driveway.

True Crime Brewery opens with listener discretion and a short beer review before turning to the case. Fred Jablin lives on a quiet suburban street in Richmond, Virginia. He is a respected professor and a devoted father. He steps out for his morning newspaper, as he does every day, and is ambushed in his front yard while his three children sleep upstairs. The hosts frame the killing as a story that sounds almost too strange to believe. The investigation keeps circling back to Piper Roundtree. She is Fred's ex-wife, a former attorney, and a mother of three. Their divorce and custody battle ended years earlier, but the resentment did not. The episode treats that history as the center of the suspicion around Fred's death. It also follows the practical work of the response. Neighbors hear gunshots. Doreen and Bob come outside and try to make sense of what they are seeing in the driveway. At first, the shape near the house could almost pass for a Halloween decoration. Then Bob gets close enough to see Fred's face and clothing, and the reality of the scene settles in. Doreen calls 911 again. Officers return quickly and find no pulse. The street fills with squad cars, an ambulance, and crime scene tape. Police notice footprints in the wet grass leading away from the body. The hosts use those details to rebuild the morning step by step. The episode stays close to the neighborhood layout, the family's routines, and the specific places where the killing unfolded. It also notes that the case has been covered in numerous books and adapted into a 2011 film. The show closes on the kind of listener interest that keeps the case in circulation.

As heard by us

A domestic murder case shaped by a suburban setting, family conflict, and a careful timeline.

True Crime Brewery treats Fred Jablin's killing as a careful domestic true crime case, moving from the morning shooting in Richmond, Virginia, back through a bitter divorce and custody fight involving Piper Roundtree.

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Why you'd press play

You want a suburban murder case that starts with an ordinary morning and ends in a bitter family reckoning.

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