🎙 Episode 99: Megan Huntsman — “The Garage of Secrets”
Part 1 of a multi-part series
April 2014. A quiet Utah neighborhood. A garage filled with boxes that look like ordinary storage. Inside one of them — a discovery that would unravel eighteen years of silence.
In Part 1 of the Megan Huntsman story, host Sidney Smith takes you inside the moment Pleasant Grove police opened box after box, finding six infants hidden in plain sight. Through the voices of detectives, neighbors, and family members, this episode examines the life of a woman described as “tiny, quiet, secretive,” and the decade-long pattern of secrecy and addiction that turned a suburban home into a mausoleum.
📍 Location: Pleasant Grove, Utah
📅 Key Dates: 1996–2006 (murders), April 2014 (discovery & arrest)
👥 Central Figures: Megan Huntsman, Darren West, Detective Dan Beckstrom, Joyce Huntsman, Pleasant Grove community
🧠 Themes: Secrecy, addiction, infanticide, community denial, the hidden vs. the ordinary
📖 Next Episode Preview: Confession and sentencing. How Megan’s story collapsed in the interrogation room, and why the courtroom struggled to comprehend her crimes.
🎧 Murderess Podcast is written and hosted by Sidney Smith
🎙 Produced in partnership with Sidney Smith Cre8tiv, LLC and the You Hear Good Things podcast network
📅 New episodes every Thursday
🔗 Find past episodes, merch, and tour dates:
https://www.sidneysmithcre8tiv.com
🎧 Stream the show on your favorite platform:
Spotify | Apple Podcasts | iHeartRadio
📱 Follow Sidney on social:
Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter → @sidneysmithcre8tiv
Official Sources Used:
– Utah County Court records & sentencing documents (2014–2015)
– Detective Dan Beckstrom testimony at sentencing (2015)
– KSL.com coverage: 6 life terms in prison for woman who killed newborns (2015)
– Associated Press reporting on guilty plea & sentencing (2014–2015)
– The Salt Lake Tribune coverage (2014–2015)
– New York Daily News & Daily Mail contemporaneous reporting (2014)
– Fox 13 Salt Lake City coverage (2014)
– Huffington Post & national wire service reports (2014)
– Interviews and public statements from Joyce and Jamie Huntsman, Darren West, and Pleasant Grove neighbors
