True crime with rough edges and strange turns.
Mysterious Circumstances follows odd cases where the official story leaves room for doubt. Episodes move between missing-person mysteries, organized crime, JFK assassination research, paranormal claims, and candid interviews with people tied to murder investigations or historical disputes.
PRESS PLAY
Mysterious Circumstances works from the premise that some stories stay unsettled because the facts point in too many directions at once. The show is strongest when it sits inside that uncertainty. A case like the death of David Glenn Lewis becomes more than a missing-person file: it becomes a tangle of distance, timing, family statements, legal pressure, police suspicion, and a detective relationship that adds another layer of unease. The host does not present the material as polished courthouse narration. The delivery is loose, blunt, and personal, with room for side comments, doubt, and frustration. That same approach carries into organized-crime stories, including John Willis’s path through Boston’s Chinese criminal circles and the unusual trust that placed him close to power. The show also spends time with people who bring a specific lens to complicated material. Matt Murphy talks through murder prosecution, cold cases, serial killers, and investigative realities from the legal side. Larry Hancock examines Oswald as a person at the center of the JFK assassination story rather than as a flat symbol. Rizwan Virk broadens the show’s territory with simulation theory, multiple timelines, jinn, gray alien stories, and avatar-based ways of thinking about reality. Collier Landry’s appearance shifts the focus toward surviving the aftermath of murder and turning experience into advocacy. Stephen Rossmore adds a medical reading to John Dillinger autopsy questions and conspiracy angles. These interviews give the show a wider range than a standard true-crime feed. It can be grim. It can also be speculative, argumentative, and oddly casual in the same hour. The connective tissue is a preference for cases with loose ends: unresolved deaths, disputed identities, strange motives, paranormal claims, and official explanations that invite another pass. The show’s roughness is part of the product. It feels less like a scripted documentary and more like sitting through a long conversation with someone who has stacks of notes, strong instincts, and no interest in sanding everything smooth. That format will not suit listeners who need tight editing or a detached institutional voice. It will suit listeners who want mystery, crime, history, and fringe possibility handled with suspicion, curiosity, and a willingness to talk through the uncomfortable parts.
Made for: For listeners who like unsolved cases, crime history, conspiracy research, and paranormal possibility presented in a candid conversational style. It is best for audiences comfortable with dark subjects and loose, adult-toned discussion.
What sets it apart: Mysterious Circumstances moves easily between case narration and long-form interviews, giving legal, personal, medical, historical, and speculative angles room to breathe. Its appeal is the mix of skepticism, messiness, and willingness to follow weird evidence without forcing a clean answer.
***EXPLICIT LANGUAGE*** -Crime/Mysteries/Paranormal/History- - A podcast that dives deep into the unsolved and interesting, with an unpolished and unscripted “pirate radio” style. If you like a conversational style podcast about mysterious stuff, you'll love this!! From 'PODCAST MAGAZINE' : Host Justin Rimmel does a solid job of making listeners feel like we are in the room with him while he shares particularly weird cases he comes across. If old-fashioned true-crime stories are your thing, you will certainly find them on Mysterious Circumstances, too. Justin also does a good job of being a bit skeptical when covering cases. While he doesn’t discount anything paranormal from the start, he do…
Oswald can share your rabbit-hole shelf with shape-shifting aliens, and Justin will happily make the introductions.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A 1,600-mile disappearance, a dead detective, and motives that never quite settle.
The Death of David Glenn Lewis sits with a disappearance that never finds one steady shape. In February 1993, his wife and daughter came home to find him gone; hours later, a hit-and-run victim was found 1,600 miles away, though 11 years passed before that man was identified as…
Matt Murphy brings prosecutorial clarity to a harrowing discussion of Rodney Alcala's attack on Tally Shapiro.
Matt Murphy brings a prosecutor's eye to murder cases, moving from cold cases and no-body prosecutions into the Rodney Alcala case without losing the practical thread.
A loose, pointed reconsideration of Oswald, from Japan and the Marines to the early push for a lone-assassin report.
Oswald remains the unsettled center of this episode, as Larry Hancock returns to the years and habits that shaped the questions around him. The conversation follows Oswald through his Marine service in Japan, where barroom talk and a growing interest in Russia opened into…
A speculative conversation links multiple timelines, jinn traditions, and a strange gray-alien transformation story.
Mysterious Circumstances moves into speculative territory as John talks with the author of The Simulation Hypothesis and The Simulated Multiverse.
A compact look at the white Boston native who rose inside Chinese organized crime.
John "White Devil" Willis is the kind of true-crime figure who immediately stands out: a Boston native who said he was the only white person inside Chinese organized crime, with an FBI agent framing that status as extraordinarily rare.
ABC Audio's Theranos fraud series that also introduces its other true-crime podcasts.
LA Times reporter Christopher Goffard traces con man John Meehan's fraud, abuse, and its Bravo TV adaptation.
A podcast exploring unsolved mysteries and paranormal cases in a conversational, unscripted style.
Mysterious Circumstances tracks David Glenn Lewis, a 39-year-old Texas judge and attorney from Dumas, who disappeared in January 1993 and was later identified as a John Doe in Yakima County, Washington.
Matt Murphy, a former Orange County homicide prosecutor and current ABC News legal analyst, talks with Mysterious Circumstances about murder trials, cold cases, and his book The Book of Murder.
Rizwan Virk says the real split is between NPC and RPG versions of the simulation.
Mysterious Circumstances asks Larry Hancock, author of The Oswald Paradox, to revisit Lee Harvey Oswald through original sources, Marine records, and accounts from Russia and Dallas.
John Willis, born May 11, 1971 in Dorchester, went from a troubled home to Boston's Ping On crew and a rare role inside Chinese organized crime.
Host Justin Rimmel interviews Collier Landry, subject of the documentary A Murder in Mansfield, about his perspective on the case.
A faith-based, music-focused podcast that inspires and encourages listeners through God's Word and positive messages.
Host discusses an interview with a retired doctor about the John Dillinger death conspiracy, exploring autopsy findings and alternative theories.