An Unexpected Witness: The Murders Of Kevin Butler & Larry Bird
True Crime with Elli Mac
12/01/25
•8m
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On Christmas Eve 2001, in the quiet suburb of Pleasant Grove, Texas, Kevin Butler was getting ready to meet a friend for dinner. But he never arrived.
When his friend went to his home to check on him, he walked into a nightmare—Kevin had been bound, beaten, stabbed, and brutally murdered.
When police arrived, it was immediately clear that a violent struggle had taken place.
Feathers were scattered across the floor. Droplets of blood marked areas they shouldn’t have. And in the kitchen lay Larry Bird, Kevin’s beloved white-crested cockatoo, dead on the tile with one leg severed.
What had happened to Kevin...and to his fiercely loyal pet? This is the story of how a slain cockatoo became an unexpected witness—and ultimately helped solve his owner’s murder.
Previous Episode
The 10-Year-Old Who Shot His Dad: Accident Or Murder?
November 24, 2025
•47m
On November 3rd, 2003, a 911 call came from Mark Center in Defiance County, Ohio. The caller was 10-year-old Corey Breininger.
Corey was hysterical and told the dispatcher that his father had been shot in the head after a gun went off accidentally. He said he didn’t know there was a bullet in the chamber.
Corey then confirmed that his stepmother, Judith, wasn’t home and that he hadn’t contacted her yet. It was just him and his father in the house. The dispatcher then walked him through CPR.
When police arrived around 4:00 PM, they found 34-year-old Robert Breininger dead in his bed from a single gunshot wound to the head.
Officers spoke with Corey, who they described as broken and crying. Corey pleaded with the officers, saying, “Save my dad, he’s my best friend.”
Corey explained that he and his father had been talking about hunting and gun safety.
As his father was showing him how to use the gun, Corey was handing the weapon to his dad. Corey said that his finger was on the trigger and the safety was off. He claimed his father then pulled the trigger and set the gun off.
But what had truly happened that day? And was Robert Breininger’s death genuinely an accident?
Next Episode
He Targeted A 13-Year-Old Boy: The Rupperswil Murders
December 8, 2025
•22m
On the morning of December 21st, 2015 — just four days before Christmas — neighbours in the quiet village of Rupperswil, a small community in the Swiss canton of Aargau, noticed smoke rising from a single-family home on Hintergasse. At first, people assumed it was just a kitchen fire or some kind of accident.
But when firefighters forced their way inside, what they found shocked even the most seasoned emergency responders.
Inside the home were four bodies. Bound. Stacked. Murdered. It was immediately clear: this was no accident — this was a crime scene.
The victims were 48-year-old Carla Schauer-Freiburghaus, her sons Davin (13) and Dion (19), and Dion’s girlfriend Simona Fäs (21).
Just hours earlier, a terrified Carla had been captured on CCTV withdrawing money from two different ATMs, her fear unmistakable on camera.
So what had happened inside that house? What terror had this family endured? This peaceful village of 5,000 was about to become the center of one of the worst crimes in Swiss history...
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