On today’s episode of True Crime Time For, Woody takes listeners through the disturbing story of Carl Eric “Charlie” Brandt, a killer whose known crimes began when he was only 13 years old—and whose true number of victims may never be known.
Woody opens by briefly mentioning the ongoing Lindsay Clancy trial before turning to Brandt, who was born in 1957. In January 1971, 13-year-old Brandt entered a bathroom in his family’s Fort Wayne, Indiana, home and shot his parents with his father’s handgun. His pregnant mother was killed, his father survived, and Brandt then attempted to shoot his older sister before the weapon malfunctioned.
Brandt underwent psychiatric evaluations and spent approximately a year in a psychiatric hospital. He was eventually released back to his family and was never criminally prosecuted for killing his mother. Even more remarkably, Woody explains that Brandt’s younger sisters grew up believing their mother had died in a car accident.
As an adult, Brandt eventually married Teri Helfrich Brandt and settled in Florida. But after his death, investigators would uncover an obsession with human anatomy, surgical imagery, violent material, and female mutilation—evidence that caused detectives to wonder how many women Brandt may actually have killed.
One murder became especially important: Sherry Perisho.
In July 1989, the 38-year-old woman was found near Big Pine Key, Florida. Her throat had been severely cut, her body mutilated, and her heart removed. Her remains were discovered less than 1,000 feet from Brandt’s home. According to the case history Woody discusses, Teri later recalled Brandt returning home around the time of Perisho’s murder with blood on his clothing, which he reportedly attributed to cleaning fish. Investigators eventually concluded that Brandt was responsible for Perisho’s murder.
Then came September 2004.
Brandt and Teri evacuated their Florida Keys home ahead of Hurricane Ivan and stayed with their niece, Michelle Lynn Jones, near Orlando. Days later, a friend checking on Jones discovered Brandt dead by suicide in the garage.
Inside the house, investigators found Teri and Michelle murdered. Teri had been stabbed repeatedly. Michelle had been decapitated and disemboweled, with her heart and other organs removed.
The nature of Michelle’s mutilation immediately raised a frightening question for investigators:
Was this really the first time Charlie Brandt had done something like this?
A search of Brandt’s home revealed extensive material involving anatomy, surgery, autopsies, and violent sexual imagery. Detectives began examining cold cases in areas where Brandt had lived or traveled.
Among the cases Woody discusses are Carol Sullivan, a 12-year-old who disappeared from a Florida school-bus stop in 1978 and whose skull was later recovered; Lisa Saunders, 20, who was murdered on Big Pine Key in 1988; and Darlene Toler, 38, whose mutilated body was found near Miami in 1995.
Investigators considered Brandt in connection with these and other murders, but lacked enough evidence to conclusively attribute them to him.
Brandt is tied to four known killings, but investigators have long suspected there could be considerably more.
Woody then expands the discussion to some of history’s most prolific serial killers.
Luis Garavito — “The Beast”
First is Colombian serial killer Luis Alfredo Garavito Cubillos, better known as Luis Garavito or La Bestia—“The Beast.”
Garavito preyed primarily upon vulnerable boys and young men in Colombia and neighboring countries during the 1990s. He was linked to at least 193 murders, although the true number may have been higher.
Woody discusses the staggering scale of Garavito’s crimes and his disbelief over how a killer responsible for so many children’s deaths could ever have faced the possibility of release.
Garavito died in prison in October 2023.
Mariam Soulakiotis — “Mother Rasputin”
Then Woody heads to Greece for the bizarre story of Mariam Soulakiotis, an abbess sometimes called “Mother Rasputin.”
Soulakiotis operated an abbey where wealthy women and others seeking religious or medical help allegedly surrendered money and property. She was ultimately convicted of murders and numerous other offenses, while authorities attributed many additional deaths to neglect and deprivation at the monastery.
The commonly cited figure of 177 victims includes deaths classified as negligent homicides rather than 177 individually proven intentional murders—an important distinction from the way the number comes across in the transcript. Soulakiotis died in prison in 1954.
Woody uses Brandt, Garavito, and Soulakiotis to discuss a central problem in serial-murder investigations: the number of victims investigators can prove is not necessarily the number of people a killer actually murdered.
But the episode ends on a far more hopeful note.
Modern DNA Is Reopening the Past
Woody celebrates the extraordinary advances in forensic DNA testing and investigative genetic genealogy, which are allowing law enforcement agencies to identify victims and suspects in cases that once appeared impossible to solve.
And one of his examples is breaking news.
The final unidentified victim of Keith Hunter Jesperson, the “Happy Face Killer,” has finally gotten her name back.
She is Lydia Jane Wade McWhorter, a 26-year-old Texas woman whose body was found along Highway 95 near Blythe, California, on August 30, 1992. For decades, investigators knew her only as “Claudia,” the name Jesperson used when discussing her murder.
The Riverside County District Attorney announced on August 27, 2026, that DNA testing had finally confirmed McWhorter’s identity after investigators located a maternal relative. Her sisters had spent decades not knowing what happened after she disappeared from Texas.
Jesperson had already confessed to killing her and pleaded guilty to her murder in 2010. What DNA finally accomplished was something equally important:
It gave Lydia her name back.
Woody also revisits the 45-year-old murder of Yolanda Herrera, whose case was recently solved through advanced DNA analysis and genetic genealogy. Authorities arrested Kelly Lee Brower Sr., 68, in Arizona after DNA linked him to evidence preserved from Herrera’s 1981 autopsy. Authorities say Brower subsequently confessed.
Woody gives additional examples of modern forensic science identifying victims and suspects decades after crimes occurred, emphasizing how much investigative technology has changed since the beginning of his own law-enforcement career.
He closes with one of RLRC’s enduring messages: Never give up. Never surrender.
For families who have waited years—or decades—for answers, advances in DNA mean a cold case does not necessarily have to remain cold forever. And Woody hints again that movement is coming in cases RLRC itself has been working.
True Crime Time For, Real Life Real Crime, Woody Overton, Charlie Brandt, Carl Eric Brandt, Teri Brandt, Teri Helfrich Brandt, Michelle Lynn Jones, Sherry Perisho, Carol Sullivan, Lisa Saunders, Darlene Toler, Florida serial killer, serial killer, Luis Garavito, Luis Alfredo Garavito Cubillos, La Bestia, The Beast, Mariam Soulakiotis, Mother Rasputin, Keith Hunter Jesperson, Happy Face Killer, Lydia Jane Wade McWhorter, Yolanda Herrera, Kelly Lee Brower Sr., investigative genetic genealogy, forensic genealogy, DNA cold case, cold case solved, unidentified victims, true crime podcast
- Carl Eric “Charlie” Brandt
- Murder of Brandt’s pregnant mother
- Teri Helfrich Brandt
- Michelle Lynn Jones
- Sherry Perisho
- Suspected additional Brandt victims
- Carol Sullivan
- Lisa Saunders
- Darlene Toler
- Serial-killer victim counts
- Luis Garavito / La Bestia
- Mariam Soulakiotis / Mother Rasputin
- Investigative genetic genealogy
- Keith Hunter Jesperson
- Happy Face Killer
- Lydia Jane Wade McWhorter identification
- Yolanda Herrera cold case
- Kelly Lee Brower Sr.
- Modern DNA technology
- Cold-case investigations
- Charlie Brandt almost certainly left investigators with unanswered questions. His known history began with the killing of his mother at 13, while the extreme mutilation in his later crimes led investigators to examine numerous unsolved murders.
- A serial killer’s confirmed victim count and actual victim count can be very different. That distinction is central to Woody’s discussion of Brandt and other prolific killers.
- Lydia Jane Wade McWhorter finally has her name back after 34 years. DNA confirmed the identity of the woman investigators had known only as “Claudia,” closing the final unidentified-victim case associated with Keith Hunter Jesperson’s convictions.
- Yolanda Herrera’s case reinforces the same lesson: evidence preserved in 1981 became powerful enough to identify a murder suspect decades later because forensic science finally caught up with the evidence.
- Woody ends on the hopeful side of true crime: technology keeps improving, evidence remains evidence, and families who have waited decades can still get answers.
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