Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast

In 2019, 18-year-old Berfin Ozek from Turkey was brutally attacked with sulfuric acid by her ex-boyfriend, Casim Ozan Celtik, who told her "if I can't have you, no one can". The assault left her permanently disfigured and partially blind.

Charlize Theron’s father, Charles Theron, was legally shot and killed by her mother, Gerda, in self-defense on June 21, 1991, after he violently attacked his family. Charles, a chronic alcoholic, returned to the family’s South Africa home in a drunken rage.

Andrés Escobar was a Colombian national team defender tragically murdered in Medellín on July 2, 1994, just days after accidentally scoring an own goal against the United States at the FIFA World Cup. The own goal contributed to Colombia's shocking early elimination from the tournament and sparked widespread outrage, deeply compounding the tension already driven by the nation's political chaos and cartel violence.

The story of James Farthing centers on a dramatic turn of fortune where a historic lottery win was immediately followed by a cascade of serious legal troubles. In April 2025, Farthing, a Kentucky resident with a prior criminal record, made history by winning a massive $167.3 million Powerball jackpot, the largest ever in the state. However, just days after claiming the prize and publicly promising to turn his life around, he was arrested at a hotel bar in Florida for battery on a law enforcement officer. Over the following year, Farthing's legal spiral worsened with multiple additional arrests in Kentucky, including charges for a 100-mph hit-and-run crash, witness intimidation, and a burglary charge involving his ex-girlfriend.

The Kenneth Noid story is a bizarre and tragic piece of fast-food history involving a 1989 hostage situation fueled by extreme paranoia. Domino's Pizza was running a highly successful advertising campaign featuring "The Noid," a claymation character who tried to ruin pizzas, alongside the slogan "Avoid the Noid." Kenneth Lamar Noid, a 22-year-old man from Georgia who suffered from severe mental illness, became convinced that the commercial campaign was a personal attack directly mocking him. Believing the company was out to get him, he entered a local Domino's restaurant, held two employees hostage for over five hours, and demanded $100,000 and a getaway car.