The producers of The Curious Case of Natalia Grace have six other bizarre and disturbing stories lined up for Investigation Discovery, and the docuseries The Curious Case Of… will delve into each one, starting on Monday (January 13) night at 10/9c.
These are “some of the most shocking true crime cases and unbelievable scandals,” according to the network, which adds that The Curious Case Of… will “go inside these real-life cases exposing bizarre secrets, shattered lives, and twisted motives.”
Guiding us through the sordid sagas is Beth Karas, the former New York City assistant district attorney who served as a legal analyst in the Natalia Grace series. “Led by Karas, with her extensive legal expertise and insight, each gripping story will uncover deceit, greed, and manipulation and offer key access to shocking, firsthand accounts — proving the truth is much more chilling than fiction,” ID says.
Here’s what we already know about the cases covered by all six episodes…
“Bam Margera” (January 13)
The series premiere details the sobriety journey of Jackass star Bam Margera amid a conflict between BJ Courville, a lawyer and YouTuber interested in Margera’s case, and Lima Jevremovic, a tech entrepreneur who became Margera’s legal guardian.
A New Jersey Law Journal article from 2022 provides more context, reporting that Courville had been sued for allegedly using YouTube to disparage Jevremovic’s guardianship of Margera. The suit claims Courville accused Jevremovic of using the guardianship to co-opt Margera’s assets. Online legal records, however, indicate the suit has been dismissed.
“The Girl Who Died Twice” (January 20)
This episode revisits the case of Mary Day, previously chronicled on CBS News’ 48 Hours. Day, who allegedly grew up with an abusive stepfather, disappeared from her home in Seaside, California, in 1981, at age 13. In 2002, police in Phoenix, Arizona, found a woman they said was Mary Day during a routine traffic stop.
The DNA was a match, but her biological sisters had doubts that this “Phoenix Mary” was actually their sibling. Plus, a police team using cadaver dogs found a young girl’s shoe buried in the family’s former backyard, and retired homicide detective Mark Clark couldn’t shake his hunch that Phoenix Mary, who died in 2017, was an impostor, per 48 Hours.
“The Orphan Impostor” (February 3)
A man named Nicholas Rossi faked his own death in 2020 and traveled to Scotland to escape rape charges in Utah’s Salt Lake County and Utah County. But he was busted at the Glasgow hospital where he was receiving treatment for COVID-19 after employees recognized his tattoos from Interpol images, according to BBC Scotland News. Rossi then claimed that he was actually an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight, that he had never been to the United States, and that he’d been framed by someone who gave him the tattoos while he was unconscious in the hospital.
Rossi, whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian, was extradited to the United States in January 2024, and he’s scheduled to face trials for the Salt Lake County and Utah County cases this year, according to KTVX.
“The Funeral Home of Horrors” (February 10)
The next episode details the case of Jon and Carie Hallford, the co-owners of Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose, Colorado. The Hallfords pleaded guilty to corpse abuse charges in November 2024 after prosecutors alleged they stored bodies in a building without electricity and gave customers dry concrete instead of cremated remains, as CBS Colorado reports.
After the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office fielded reports from neighbors who had noticed a foul smell, investigators found 190 improperly stored bodies in the building. Court documents alleged that the Hallfords used customers’ payments and government loans to pay for luxury items, cosmetic procedures, and vacations.
“The Doomsday Cat Cult” (February 17)
Ex-followers of the purported prophet Sheryl Ruthven claim that her organization — which operated a nonprofit cat shelter operation called Eva’s Eden in Washington and then Tennessee — was an abusive cult and that Ruthven professed to be a reincarnated Mary Magdalene who would create a new Eden after an upcoming apocalypse, as Nashville Scene reported in 2016. (Eva’s Eden denied the claims at the time.)
Caring for cats, sometimes by the dozen, was a requirement in Ruthven’s organization, since Ruthven told followers that cats carried the 144,000 souls mentioned in the bible’s Book of Revelation and that those souls would rescue Ruthven’s faithful in the post-apocalypse world.
“Jodi Hildebrandt” (February 24)
“Therapist Jodi Hildebrandt’s crusade against masturbation drives a wedge between couples in crisis,” Investigation Discovery says in a synopsis of the Curious Case Of… season finale. “She forms a dark alliance with Mormon mommy vlogger Ruby Franke, but a horrifying 911 call exposes the depths of their bizarre beliefs.”
When Franke was charged with four felony counts of child abuse and was sentenced to one to 15 years of prison time for each count, Hildebrand received the same charges and sentence, according to USA Today. Hildebrand, Franke’s business partner, is the former clinical mental health counselor behind a counseling business called ConneXions Classroom, which has spurred cult allegations for its extreme parenting methods, the newspaper adds.
The Curious Case Of…, Series Premiere, Monday, January 13, at 10/9c, Investigation Discovery
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