i don't think that way. i'd be like, this is your stop, right? right. you'd be like, what's wrong? right? right. use a fork and eat my potato chips. oh, i eat my cereal, right. no no no no, that's a definitely no. that's a no. a definite no. okay. no. angela davis steve paulson it's always a lot of fun. yes. thank you so much. all right, before we go, make sure you send us your like it or not questions or record yourself asking a question. make sure to tell us where you're from. and you could see yourself on our next show. or you can send a message or a comment for us on instagram or tiktok. we would love to hear from you. thanks for watching. like it or not i'm anna garcia right now on true crime news. gabby petito her disappearance and murder while on a cross-country trip with her fiance gripped the nation. >> rain stretching during some morning yoga.

>> and gabby became the face of missing white woman syndrome. now her father is on a mission, shining a spotlight on missing persons cases in marginalized communities, turning his pain into purpose. >> it hurts to talk about it, but it needs to be talked about. >> plus, craig titus and kelly ryan, the royal couple of bodybuilding superstars of sin city with big muscles and big money. but when dancer melissa james entered the picture, she liked the glamor of las vegas. their picture perfect marriage goes down in flames. >> that's a recipe for disaster. >> a burnt out jaguar. a body in the trunk. an unspeakable crime. welcome to true crime news. let's get right to our top story. it's a famous case that we all followed in real time. that sadly ended in tragedy. gabby petito, murdered while on a cross-country adventure with

her fiance, brian laundrie. i recently talked to gabby's father, joe, about how he is using his grief for good. >> it's only 10:00 in the morning, but it rained all afternoon yesterday. >> it's the kind of story that dominated the nation's attention. oh my god. 22 year old gabby petito, with her bright blue eyes and blond hair grabbing headlines capturing the media spotlight after being reported missing while on a cross-country camping adventure with her fiance brian laundrie. >> brian stretching during some morning yoga. >> watch the sunset through the lens of social media. things appeared magical. thousands followed their seemingly beautiful adventure of a young couple very much in love. i'm

sorry, we've just been fighting this morning, but away from social media, their reality was very different than the life they were posting. can i see your hand? this time captured on police body cam. >> we've been fighting all morning and? >> and he wouldn't let me in the car before. >> why wouldn't he let you in the car? because he told me you're ocd. he told me i needed to calm down. >> one month after that, police stop. gabby's parents hadn't heard from her for nearly a week. they reached out to brian and his parents, but got no response. gabby was officially reported missing on september 11th. hours later, her family learned that brian had returned home ten days earlier alone. intense media coverage was instrumental in the launch of a massive nationwide search. it would take weeks for gabby's body to be found in wyoming. brian and his parents refused to talk to the media or the police.

as scrutiny closed in, brian laundrie died by suicide. it would then come out that gabby had long been abused by brian. >> the four of us don't want to be here. we'd give it up in a second if she was back. >> since his daughter's death, gabby petitos father tells me he is now dedicating his life to helping other families of missing women after such a traumatic loss. i've seen families deal with this type of loss in very different ways, and i'm just curious as to each time you turn around and help another family. does that heal, or does that also open up that very, very deep wound of yours? >> that's both. it hurts to talk about it, but it needs to be talked about. >> joe petito tells me he credits the media's attention on gabby to being able to find her body, but was also made aware that it was likely because of how she looked. he was told by

many that she got the attention because of a so-called missing white woman syndrome. >> it's a real thing. you know, listen, you can hate the messenger all you want, but at the end of the day, it still doesn't change the fact that it's real. >> after learning there were more than 200,000 women reported missing of all backgrounds who don't get the same attention, joe decided to collaborate on a television series called faces of the missing. >> we're going to make sure that we highlight stories that you don't. you would not normally see on those on the weather, on tv shows, or on mainstream media. and to help solve these cases, underrepresented communities do not get the same amount of coverage as white people. >> that's just a fact. >> when it comes to people of color, that's 40% of the missing population. we're working with law enforcement, fbi, you know, we're doing everything we can and together, you included.

that's how we're going to do this. >> the grieving father says he's doing all of this in the memory of his daughter, convinced that the national attention helped locate her. >> we had so many people help us, it wouldn't be right for us to just say thank you and go about it. we have to repay that. >> up next, they were the king and queen of the bodybuilding world until their marriage and their empire went up in flames. hi, i'm ellen, i'm portia. >> we're talking to cameras that are in our living room about kind science. i used to think the more money i spent on my skincare, the more effective it would be. the better it would be, the better i'd look. but it's not true. with kind science, my skin feels cleaner. it feels more hydrated. i

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welcome back to true crime news. craig titus and kelly ryan were celebrities in the flashy fitness world of las vegas, but under all the money and the muscle, they were hiding a dark secret that would burn their whole world down. a fireball cracks the pitch black night in the desert just outside of las vegas. a jaguar is torched. the license plate registered to a famous bodybuilder, kelly ryan, and cops find a charred body in the trunk.

>> it appeared as though, even from the beginning, even with the body being severely damaged, that we were dealing with a female. so we expected it to be kelly ryan. >> kelly ryan, known to the fitness world as flying ryan, at one time holding the miss fitness america title, her dazzling routines wowing crowds and landing endorsement deals around the world. ryan kelly won miss fitness olympia, along with nearly a dozen other competitive titles. her magic on the mat also caught the eye of the famed bad boy of bodybuilding, craig titus. >> kelly the animal ryan titus, as the couple's passion for each other grew, so did their careers, gracing several magazine covers together. >> go the legs from the front again. >> we'll see you at. let's go.

get it up, up, up, up. >> push. from the outside, it looked like they were the perfect power couple, but there were dark secrets lingering that threatened to affect their carefully sculpted reputations. did those secrets blow up that dark night in the middle of the desert? >> based on the information that we had out at the scene, that the person we had in the trunk was kelly? >> when cops showed up at the couple's las vegas home, they were shocked. kelly ryan opens the door alive and well. in fact, she doesn't even seem bothered when the cops tell her about her torched jaguar with a body in the back. instead, she's fuming about an argument she and craig had with their live in assistant, melissa james. they tell police melissa's been stealing from them and now she's mysteriously disappeared. >> she had been there for and living with them for quite some time, and now they found out that not only is the car

missing, it's been burned, and that that melissa is most likely the person in the trunk. you would expect their reaction to be different. >> melissa james is a professional dancer, a trained ballet, hip hop and jazz instructor who grew up on stage. she opened her own dance studio in florida when she was just 19 years old. >> she loved to dance. that's all she wanted to do all her life. >> but melissa's mom says the light in her bright blue eyed girl dimmed after a bad business deal put her dance studio in jeopardy. that's when she met craig titus at a fitness competition. there was an instant connection, and he persuaded her to move to las vegas. he kind of painted a picture. >> if she could have a better career, if she went there with the dance and she she believed it. she believed that things could be better and she kept believing it. >> melissa hoped to hit the jackpot in vegas. she thought working with the super couple of bodybuilding could put her on the fast track to fame and

fortune, at least help her earn enough money to get her dance studio back. >> i think she liked just the glamor of las vegas, and as a young person, you know, why not? >> but the high life was short lived for melissa, she told her mom. promises were broken, she was never paid, and craig and kelly were often in a drug fueled state of paranoia. >> she was telling me that kelly was on some kind of drug, and she said she was really scared in the house, you know? and she said, i felt bad for her because craig was making fun of her. >> we have an extraordinary amount of evidence that drugs were being used in the house. we probably had. i don't we never counted them individually, but over 2000 needles. >> craig is a master manipulator. >> assistant district attorney robert vázquez says. according to craig, he and melissa were more than just friends. they had a brief romantic relationship. at some point when kelly found

out it was an image she couldn't shake. >> undoubtedly, if you're kelly ryan and you're living with a woman who you believe had an intimate relationship with your husband, that's a recipe for disaster, morris says. >> after living just four months with the couple, her daughter was ready to pack up and go. >> she just said that she was accusing her of stealing, and she said that really upset her because she said, you know, i consider us as friends. >> titus booked melissa a flight home for christmas. she told her mom she was done with vegas and was leaving sin city for good hours before her flight. detective kelly says melissa flexed her muscle, threatening to expose the power couple. >> i'm sure, absolutely sure that melissa was. you guys are ruined. i'm going to the police. i'm not going to be quiet about this. >> melissa's mom anxiously waited for days to hear

something from her daughter until she received a call from the las vegas coroner. >> that was just the beginning of a nightmare, because i knew when i got that call, i knew that something happened. only i thought something happened to all three of them. >> when we come back, cops pieced together melissa's final ments and the larger than life suspects make a run for it. >> watch this. it's all 100% real witness what happens to this woman's bags under her eyes in an actual time lapse? in just minutes, nothing has been doctored or tampered with. the very real problem will disappear before your eyes and hers. with a revolutionary topical formulation that works in just minutes. and the effects will last for hours and hours. over 1 million people are using this topical technique to visually reduce puffiness and bags. it

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closed captioning and other considerations for true crime news provided by. >> we're in a limestone cave letting extreme residue build up to put finish jet-dry to the test. dishwashers are designed to use jet drive to defend

against tough residues for a practically spotless shine. >> i have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, but thanks to skyrizi and clear skin, i'm all in with skyrizi. i saw dramatically clearer skin and many even achieved 100% clear skin. >> don't use if allergic, serious allergic reactions, increased infections, or lower ability to fight them may occur before treatment. get checked for infections and tb. tell your doctor about any flu like symptoms or vaccines with skyrizi. >> nothing on my skin means everything. ask your dermatologist about skyrizi today. >> we're back now with the murder of melissa james. tired of working for bodybuilding legends craig titus and kelly ryan, she was getting ready to leave las vegas behind for good, but she wouldn't make it out alive. melissa james was a professional dancer who was struggling financially. after her business shut down in florida, she moved to las vegas for a fresh start as a personal

assistant to a very successful bodybuilder. but tragedy would strike only a few months after her move. maura james beautiful daughter melissa was the charred body found in the back of kelly ryan's torched jaguar. maura knew she was unhappy but never suspected she'd be in danger. >> she was on the phone with me, constantly upset because this is, you know, things are not as they said it was going to be. and i can't do this. and i want to have my own place. i don't want to live here. >> the home she desperately wanted to leave behind became a haunting crime scene for detectives. melissa was found in that trunk in the middle of the desert, but her horror started here. inside craig titus and kelly ryan's home. police say it began with kelly zapping melissa with a taser gun and using this kind of ticker tape from the gun itself. cops claim they were

able to trace each time the taser was used. >> we knew the exact moment in time that the taser was fired five times. that time matched up with the time that craig titus was on his cell phone. so we believe that craig titus was in another room, not with melissa and kelly, o'kelly says after enduring 50,000v of electricity, tiny melissa had to fight off titus 242 pounds of pure muscle. >> in a violent rage. >> there's a bathrobe tie that was around her neck. there was also speaker wire that was wrapped around her neck as well. at autopsy, there was evidence of strangulation possibly being involved. her entire head was encircled with duct tape. >> the coroner's report also reveals a toxic level of morphine injected into melissa's leg. titus and ryan tell cops they did not kill melissa, claiming she injected herself,

causing a fatal overdose. >> that was version number two. when kelly and craig claimed that melissa died from an overdose in their car in their garage, and they thought their two friends would support that. >> instead, those friends called police and said craig reached out in the middle of the night, claiming they found melissa dead. craig then handed them a mysterious duffel bag. >> there was a taser gun, a stun gun and some other things, police say. >> titus then called on another friend, this guy anthony gross, to help him get rid of melissa's body. >> i think like a lot of other people in this case, you know, anthony was a little bit starstruck by craig titus and craig used that to his advantage to manipulate anthony gross to convince him to follow him to the desert and then give him a ride back after he left the car with melissa's body in the trunk on fire. >> on this surveillance video,

you can see gross walking into a convenience store at 340 in the morning, just a few miles away from where the jaguar was torched in the desert at about the same time, not far away. this video inside a walmart shows kelly using her credit card to buy seven bottles of lighter fluid. outside, craig pulls the jaguar up front and he helps kelly load the lighter fluid in the back seat. because detectives say melissa's body was already in the trunk after the jag was torched. oh, kelly says in their mad dash to escape, anthony gross left a key piece of evidence behind. >> it was a clean flashlight that was sitting here on the on the side of the road. that became significant later, when we were able to find out that anthony gross was involved, detectives checked his credit card and found gross had just bought that same make of

flashlight. >> that was enough to haul gross in for questioning. but when cops went back to craig and kelly, they were gone. >> we found that craig had traded in his truck for a brand new viper truck, so it didn't match the vehicle description that we knew he had. >> a nationwide manhunt is launched, the fbi is called in, and then detectives get a tip and track the power couple to an area just outside boston. swat officers are seen on security video, moving in and arresting kelly in a beauty salon. while she was getting her nails done, craig was arrested a few blocks away. their capture sent shockwaves through the bodybuilding community. >> it was like devastating. everybody just could not believe what we were hearing. >> craig titus accepted a plea deal for second degree murder, kidnaping and arson. he was sentenced to 21 to 55 years behind bars. kelly ryan cut a plea deal for arson, assault and

battery with a deadly weapon. she was sentenced to 6 to 26 years. and incredibly, she only served six years and is on probation until 2026 for his cooperation in the investigation, gross was given a probationary sentence but was never incarcerated. melissa's mom believes everyone who played a role in her daughter's death should rot in prison. >> you know, i don't want to live my life constantly being bitter or angry or anything like that because, you know, it's not going to bring melissa back. and she wouldn't want me to live like tha >> we'll be right back. >> we're in a volcano to test finish ultimate against tough, burnt on stains. finish ultimate breaks them down, cuts grease and boost shine for the ultimate clean. even on the toughest

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>> on the next true crime news. peaceful tubing river trip turns into a chaotic confrontation. >> what is he on? oh my god, oh my god, what the. >> when a man goes on a stabbing

spree injuring five people and killing a teen, i saw isaac's hair. and it was him. was it self-defense or premeditated murder? >> there are lots of people that came on to me. >> the startling clues uncovered in the cell phone video on the next true crime news. for the latest breaking crime news, go to true crime news.com. watch more exclusive content on our youtube channel. listen to our podcast and follow us at my true crime news. that's it for today's true crime news. i'm anna garcia. see you next time, everyo . (suspenseful music) - what did police know about julie? - julie's mother reported that julie was supposed to be picking her daughter up and that was the last she has heard from her. (suspenseful music) - she was leaving with a man named james. (suspenseful music continues) nobody had ever heard of him. (suspenseful music) - he was stalking her and so we told her,