On Christmas Eve 2008, a quiet suburban home in Covina, California, filled with laughter, tamales, and generations of the Ortega family, became the scene of one of the most shocking mass murders in American history.
A knock at the door.
An eight-year-old girl runs to answer, excited to see Santa Claus.
What followed was gunfire, terror, and a deliberately set inferno that claimed nine lives and scarred survivors forever.
This is the true story of Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, a man unraveling in silence and the night he turned a family’s most sacred tradition into annihilation.
We walk through the planning, the attack, the chaos, the aftermath, and the lingering echoes that still haunt Knollcrest Drive seventeen years later.
Warning: This episode contains detailed accounts of mass murder, arson, gunshot injuries, and profound trauma. Listener discretion is strongly advised.
Sources & Further Reading
March 10, 1963.
An onion field on the edge of Bakersfield becomes the final stop for a young LAPD officer whose only crime was believing in mercy.
In this episode of Chasing the Dark, we walk into the quiet rows where dawn arrived too late. We trace the hours after a routine traffic stop spiraled into terror, betrayal, and irreversible loss. Two men run. One officer falls. And the earth bears witness.
This is not a story told through headlines or courtroom transcripts alone. It’s a descent into fear, moral fracture, and the unbearable weight of survival. A meditation on duty, cowardice, and what it means to live when your partner does not.
The onion field remembers.
And so do we.
🎧 Listener discretion advised.
Eight nurses. One killer. A night carved into the darkest corners of true-crime history.
On July 13th, 1966, serial killer Richard Speck stepped into a South Side Chicago townhouse and turned it into a slaughterhouse. What unfolded inside those walls was not just murder—it was domination, terror, and slow, methodical brutality. One by one, the women were corralled, tied, silenced, and forced to face the kind of violence that leaves claw marks on history.
This episode drags you deeper than the headlines ever dared:
into the gasping fear inside that cramped dormitory…
into the thud of bodies hitting the floor…
into the whispered prayers that were swallowed by the walls…
and into the cold, calculated cruelty Speck carried out as if he were moving through a nightmare he had rehearsed.
With unfiltered reconstruction, psychological breakdowns, survivor insight, and a minute-by-minute retelling, we expose the savage heart of one of America’s most infamous murder cases—a night where mercy didn’t exist and hope died room by room.
Step inside the townhouse.
Feel the silence.
And walk through the horror—one breath at a time.
This is Chasing the Dark — where infamous murder cases, serial-killer profiles, and untold stories come alive. Listener discretion is strongly advised.
Step into the shadows of 1947 Los Angeles, where dreams were bright... and the darkness was merciless. In this haunting episode of Chasing the Dark, we unravel the life, death, and lasting mystery of Elizabeth Short - the woman the world would come to know as The Black Dahlia.
From her final days to the gruesome discovery that stunned the nation, we follow the investigation, the suspects, the lies, and the legends. And in the end... we explore who may have truly killed her, and why her story refuses to rest.
Listen closely. Some whispers never die.