Nightclub Nightmare: The Strangling of Kimberly Vaughn & the Serial Suspect Who Walked Free for Years

In this bone-chilling episode of Hidden Threads: True Crime’s Untold Stories, hosts Macky Outlaw and Jus unravel the tragic 1987 murder of 21-year-old Kimberly Tabatha Vaughn—a vibrant young woman from Alder Springs, Alabama, whose night out at Guntersville's PJ's nightclub ended in unimaginable horror. After parking her car on a humid July evening and stepping into the pulsing crowd, Kim vanished without a trace—her unlocked vehicle left behind like a silent scream. Weeks later, her strangled body was discovered in a remote, mud-choked ravine, dental records confirming the nightmare for her devastated family.

Enter Jeffrey Todd Newsome, the charming local who was spotted cozying up to Kim inside PJ's just hours before she disappeared. What starts as a flirtatious encounter spirals into a brutal strangulation, with Newsome's car mysteriously stuck in the woods—requiring a buddy's tow job at dawn. But the hidden threads run deeper: Newsome, already a person of interest in the eerie vanishing of Fran Cox (dropped off at the same club months earlier), whispers jailhouse confessions to inmates about "finishing off" a girl. Convicted in a nail-biting 1988 retrial after a hung jury, he drew life in prison—but not before dodging appeals for decades and fueling whispers of a serial predator who slipped through the cracks.

We dig into the explosive evidence: eyewitness flubs, the frantic family search, and the small-town secrets that let a monster prowl Alabama's nightlife. Packed with court transcripts, victim impact statements from Kim's heartbroken dad, and the chilling "what ifs" of unsolved cases tied to Newsome—this is rural true crime at its rawest, where one wrong turn at a bar changes everything.

Stream now—because some nights out end in graves.
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