What Happened To Pregnant Erica Bader At The Hands of 8 Strangers In The Woods?
True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews
Tony Brueski
4.2 • 612 Ratings
🗓️ 8 December 2025
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
According to Erica's family, she was homeless when she moved into the apartment. She had nowhere else to go. Her stepmother told reporters the people living there were "total strangers" to Erica when she arrived. Within a week of moving in, Erica was texting loved ones asking for help. By March, a friend saw bruises on her face during a video call and reported it to police. On April 6, family members called for a welfare check. Officers responded but couldn't locate her. They advised the family to file a missing persons report. That report was never filed.
Six months later, Erica was found dead.
Her family alleges she was physically abused, held against her will, sexually assaulted, and killed while pregnant. Police have not confirmed those details or released cause of death. A week after her body was discovered, nearly 50 neglected animals were removed from the apartment in what the RISPCA called a "horrendous" hoarding situation.
Five suspects are being held without bail. Three others were granted $30,000 bail each. Court dates are scheduled for December and February. The investigation is ongoing, and the family says they won't stop fighting until they get justice for Erica.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Hidden Killers with Tony Bruske. |
| 0:03.0 | Here now, Tony Brucey. |
| 0:07.0 | On October 27th of 2025, someone walking through a wooded area in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, found a body. |
| 0:16.0 | A young woman, 24-year-old Erica Bader. |
| 0:24.2 | And investigators determined almost immediately that she hadn't died there. Her body had been moved, dumped, left in the trees like garbage. |
| 0:35.0 | The trail led back to a small apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island's smallest city. |
| 0:41.0 | About a square mile of densely packed housing just north of Providence. |
| 0:46.2 | And what police found there and who they found living there would result in eight arrests, five people. |
| 0:53.7 | Now face murder charges. |
| 0:55.4 | All eight face kidnapping and conspiracy charges. |
| 0:58.3 | And according to Erica's family, the people who allegedly killed her were strangers to her |
| 1:03.3 | when she moved in just months earlier. |
| 1:06.9 | Her stepmother Crystal Smith put it bluntly to reporters, |
| 1:10.5 | they're just some random people. |
| 1:13.4 | They were like total strangers to her. |
| 1:16.9 | So how does a 24-year-old woman end up living with strangers who allegedly hold her captive, |
| 1:22.1 | abuse her, and ultimately kill her? |
| 1:25.8 | That's the question at the center of this case. And the answer, as much as we |
| 1:30.5 | have one right now, says a lot about what happens when someone falls through every crack in the |
| 1:36.2 | system, we pretend exists to catch them. Erica Bader had been homeless on and off since childhood. |
| 1:43.8 | Her aunt told the Boston Globe that Erica |
| 1:46.0 | experienced homelessness as a kid and again as an adult as recently as two years before her death. |
... |
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