Florida crime, reported case by case.
Sun Crime State Podcast is a Florida true-crime series built around specific cases, from unsolved murders to serial killers and espionage. Its strongest episodes pair stark case facts with voices from reporters, investigators, officials, and relatives close to the damage.
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Sun Crime State Podcast follows Florida crime stories through a reporter's lens, with emphasis on cases that changed families, towns, investigations, and public memory. The show is specific by design. It names the road, the town, the victim, the agency, the suspect, the trial, and the lingering question. Recent episodes move from nationally known figures such as Aileen Wuornos and Gary Ray Bowles to regional cold cases involving Susan Perkins, Lillian Martin, Joshua Bryant, Rick Merrill, Dory Collier, Laralee Spear, and Mark Fike. Another episode tracks the George Trofimoff espionage case, showing that the show's definition of crime is not limited to murder scenes. The common thread is Florida as a place where criminal cases become civic stories. A Daytona Beach shooting alters the public meaning of spring break. A Deltona disappearance leaves detectives with answers they may never get. A Hernando County double murder is carried for decades by relatives still asking for justice. The series often brings in people who stood near the case rather than relying only on summary. Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood appears in the Daytona serial killer discussion. Vicki Sachery recalls covering the Trofimoff trial. Alicia Caldwell describes the Martin and Bryant disappearance. Kelly Davidson speaks about Rick Merrill. Sergeant A.J. Pagliari discusses the Laralee Spear case. Those voices give the show a layered texture: official record, newsroom memory, investigative pressure, and private loss. The writing and narration stay direct, sometimes blunt, and usually anchored in chronology. It can be graphic in subject matter without needing theatrical language. That restraint is part of its value. Sun Crime State Podcast suits a listener who wants case-driven Florida true crime with reporting bones, not gothic atmosphere. It is especially strong for stories where the aftermath matters as much as the crime itself: arrests after years of uncertainty, executions after long trials, and cold cases where the public record still has gaps. The result is grim, local, and unusually grounded.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants Florida true crime told through reporting, interviews, and careful case detail. It is a better fit for procedural patience than for sensational retellings.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart through its Daytona Beach News Journal reporting base and its attention to local aftermath: police work, trials, family testimony, public reaction, and unresolved leads. It treats Florida not as a punchline, but as the setting where these cases kept unfolding.
Outrageous and real FLORIDA CRIME stories. Join Daytona Beach Journal Crime Reporter Tony Holt each week for true crime stories from the "Sun Crime State" Florida is well know for its "unique" brand of criminal and Tony recounts the latest, craziest and most interesting crime stories. Dive deep into a classic or unsolved cold case with host Tony Holt on Sun Crime State.
Tony Holt witnessed Gary Ray Bowles's execution; bring your appetite for a reporter close to the case.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A measured regional case study of how a serial killer's pattern was recognized, prosecuted, and brought to its final chapter.
Gary Ray Bowles's six murders from Florida to Maryland in 1994 give this episode its grim structure, following the I-95 killer through his own descriptions of the crimes and on to the lethal injection Tony Holt witnessed at Florida State Prison.
A courtroom espionage case makes Cold War history feel close and tangible.
George Trofimoff's espionage case plays as a Cold War courtroom story with a Melbourne address and a long historical shadow. A retired U.S. Army colonel, convicted in 2001 and sentenced to life, Trofimoff was described as having passed military secrets to the KGB while serving…
A Deltona disappearance becomes darker as family history, local memory, and a later rampage reshape the case.
A Deltona grandmother and her grandson disappear from home one spring morning, and the episode treats the case as both a family mystery and a local shock.
Australian crime, remembered close up.
Sharp true crime around a very dark fire.
True crime with side-eye and velocity.
Sun Crime State examines Eileen Wuornos's connection to seven men's deaths across central Florida, beginning with Richard Mallory's 1989 shooting near Daytona Beach.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt examines the Daytona Beach serial-killer investigation after Robert Hayes was arrested for Rachel Bay’s 2016 murder near Jupiter and linked by authorities to three Daytona killings.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt examines Gary Ray Bowles, who murdered six men across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic during an eight-month stretch in 1994.
Sun Crime State reporter Tony Holt and former Associated Press reporter Vicki Sachery examine George Trofimoff, a Melbourne-based retired U.S.
Sun Crime State Episode 72 follows the 2001 disappearance of 77-year-old Lillian Martin and 10-year-old Joshua Bryant from West Seagate Drive in Deltona.
Tony Holt examines the May 9, 1981 deaths of 24-year-old Ricky Merrill and 20-year-old Dory Collier, whose bodies were found inside Merrill’s burned Chevrolet El Camino near Brooksville, Florida.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt examines the 1994 murder of 15-year-old Laralee Spear after she left her school bus near DeLand.
Tony Holt and four guests examine the March 15, 1996 shooting of 18-year-old Canadian high schooler Mark Fike at a Daytona Beach payphone.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt examines Linda Cooney’s 1992 shooting of Palm Beach tax attorney Jim Cooney during a custody dispute involving their sons.
Sun Crime State Podcast examines Jerry Michael Williams’s disappearance during a December 16, 2000 hunting trip at Lake Seminole near Tallahassee.
Sun Crime State Podcast host Tony Holt traces Ted Bundy’s 1977 escape from Glenwood Springs, Colorado, to Florida, where he killed three people and seriously injured three others during four weeks.
Tony Holt’s Sun Crime State examines Ted Bundy’s Florida crimes, earlier Washington, Utah, and Colorado cases, and his 1978 capture in Pensacola.
Sun Crime State Podcast examines Ma Barker and Fred Barker, including the FBI's four-and-a-half-hour 1935 gunfight at an Ocklawaha house containing 641 bullet holes.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt covers Raymond Roberts Jr.’s alleged AK-47 shooting of Daytona Beach officer Kevin Hurd and the 1989 Palm Coast murders attributed to Louis Gaskin.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt updates listeners on Daytona Beach’s Damon Kemp case, Biscayne Park police corruption, and the sentencing of Mickey Chardae Lewis before examining the 2009 Jupiter Thanksgiving massacre.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt examines Gerald Stano, a former Daytona Beach News Journal employee linked by investigators to 88 homicide cases across Florida, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt covers Cesar Sayoc's arrest after at least 13 explosive devices were mailed to critics of President Trump.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt reports on Luis Toledo’s conviction for killing 28-year-old Yesenia Suarez and her two children, whose bodies remain missing after searches covering roughly 90 square miles.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt covers the arrest of 62-year-old Port Orange substitute teacher David Lee Davis and revisits the 2002 Dollar General killings of Janice Schneider and Danielle Beauregard in Deltona.
Sun Crime State, hosted by Tony Holt of the Daytona Beach News Journal, examines two Daytona-area sexual assaults reported eight days apart and the 1978 abduction and killing of 12-year-old Carol Lynn Sullivan.
Tony Holt examines the murders of Richard and Marilyn Cunanan, who disappeared on September 10 fifteen years apart in Central Florida.
Sun Crime State examines the September 2, 1991 arson at Stormy's Seafood Restaurant in New Smyrna Beach, where firefighters Doug Sapp and Mark Allen Wilkes died during a flashover.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt examines the 1990 Gainesville student murders, when Danny Rowling killed five students at the University of Florida and Santa Fe Community College and was later executed in 2006.
Tony Holt's Sun Crime State examines the 1927 killing of Flagler County Sheriff Perry Hall during a moonshine arrest in Roy, Florida.
Sun Crime State Podcast’s “On the Trail of the Granny Killer” examines Edwin Bernard Caprat III and five 1993 homicides plus one attempted homicide involving elderly victims in Hernando County, Florida.
Tony Holt of the Daytona Beach News-Journal examines the August 6, 2004 Deltona Massacre, in which six people were killed at 3106 Telford Lane.
Sun Crime State examines James Terry Colley Jr.'s recommended death sentence after the August 27, 2015 killings of Amanda Colley and Lindy Dobbins in Mirabella, northwest of St.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt reports on a Daytona Beach motel shooting, a St.
Sun Crime State examines a Virginia arrest linked to the Orange City death of Hilda Bailey, including Matthew Barber's reported jailhouse confession and alleged attempt to flee in Bailey's car.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt examines the 2016 killing of Maria Marquez Rivera near Ormond Beach, the Boca Raton shooting of five-year-old Jacob Walsh, and the 2005 stabbing of Brian Sweat in Gainesville.
Sun Crime State reporter Tony Holt examines the 1990 rape and killing of 88-year-old Whitney Gunn in New Smyrna Beach and the indictment of Lynn Eugene Young 28 years later.
Tony Holt examines Paul Pryor's resentencing after he admitted killing 17-year-old Ellen Clancy in a Daytona Beach apartment on May 23, 1979.
Tony Holt's Sun Crime State examines Michael Shaver's remains being found beneath a concrete slab in Claremont and the unsolved status of his wife's case.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt examines Gloria Williams's 1998 abduction of eight-hour-old Kamiyah Mobley from a Jacksonville hospital and her 18-year sentence after 18 years missing.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt covers Heriberto Feliciano's May 29 shooting of Jesse Coggins outside a Little Caesars in Holly Hill and the 1989 Tampa Bay murders of Joanne, Michelle, and Christy Rogers.
Sun Crime State examines a South Daytona case in which 37-year-old Joe McCaskill was convicted of third-degree murder and aggravated child abuse after four-year-old Keandre Coleman suffered fatal injuries.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt examines Dorothy Singer’s conviction for killing her husband, Charles “Butch” Singer, whose body was found beneath a john boat in 2017.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt covers the 2000 disappearance of Michael Williams, whose wife Denise Williams was indicted for first-degree murder after authorities found his remains 17 years later.
Sun Crime State examines the 1992 Daytona Beach Taco Bell robbery in which Jeffrey and Anthony Farina attacked four employees, killing 17-year-old Michelle Van Ness and injuring three others.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt examines the 1996 Fort Myers murder of band director and Marine Corps veteran Mark Schwiebes by members of the Lords of Chaos.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt reports on the 1990 Palm Beach County killer-clown investigation, including DNA hair samples and the 2017 arrest of Sheila Keene Warren.
Sun Crime State examines Keandria Cook's reduced South Daytona carjacking sentence from 20 years to 11 after a courtroom reaction video received more than one million views.
Tony Holt covers Noor Salman’s acquittal after jurors deliberated about 12 hours over three days on charges tied to the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre.
Sun Crime State examines the 1988 killing of 31-year-old Kim Cherie Howe near a dirt road in Rockledge, Florida, and the investigation led by Corporal Jeff White.
Sun Crime State Podcast's "Killer Comes To Terrytown - Ep 30" examines the 2000 Tarrytown killings of Margarita Ruiz and Hope Wells, witnessed by Paige Wells and her one-year-old brother.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt examines Rick Crawford’s arrest on a federal charge involving an undercover operation and then revisits the 1991 killing of Edgewater dentist Norman Larzalier.
Sun Crime State host Tony Holt reports on Stephanie Peterson Ferry, a New Smyrna Beach teacher accused of sexual contact with a 14-year-old student and exchanging explicit photos.
This episode covers the surge in school threats after the Parkland shooting and revisits a 2008 double murder case.