RedHanded
RedHanded the podcast jumps head first into all manner of macabre madness. We cover everything from big time serial killers (and those you may never have heard of), to hauntings, possessions, disturbing mysteries, bizarre whodunits and basically anything that tickles our creepy fancy. So, join us, plug in, sit back and prepare for scares.
Episodes
ShortHand: Princess Anne’s Kidnap Chaos
This week, we’re taking you back to 1974 for a rollocking royal story that The Crown won’t tell you - the time a young Princess Anne was almost kidnapped by a gun-toting loner outside Buckingham Palace, in a shower of bullets and stiff upper lips.The Anne-cident changed royal security protocols forever. But would The Firm be changing their ways? Not bloody likely.Featuring an ex-boxer vigilante,
The Murder of Rebecca Park - Part One: Cortney Bartholomew | #468
Families are complicated, but when Rebecca Park went missing while heavily pregnant with the child of her mother’s ex-boyfriend, it raised eyebrows. Rebecca disappeared on the 3rd November 2025 after going to visit her biological mother Cortney Batholomew. In the weeks and months that followed a web of lies, inheritance and manipulation bubbled to the surface through Facebook livestreams and cryp
ShortHand: The Black Death
In just seven years, the bubonic plague killed half of all Europeans – more than 50 million people. We look at its surprising origins on the Mongolian battlefield (where diseased bodies were literally catapulted at the enemy); its unstoppable spread through a terrified Europe; and how it turned cultural, religious and social life in the 14th century completely upside down.--Patreon - Ad-free &
ShortHand: Julian Assange
When Julian Assange created WikiLeaks in 2006, it was the aim of rooting out corruption and improving transparency. And its successes were unprecedented, exposing hard-kept, dirty secrets from the very highest levels of power.But somewhere along the way, something happened. And whether it was Assange’s ego that brought him down – or the institutions he had so royally pissed off – isn’t totally cl
Lindsay Clancy - Part 2: The Trial | #467
Did Lindsay Clancy kill her children? Despite what was portrayed online, this was not the question at the heart of a trial which has gripped a nation. Both the defence and the prosecution agreed, that tragically, the 36-year-old was indeed the the person who took the lives of the Clancy Children. The question was why? Was Lindsay Clancy insane and did that lead to a momentary lapse of control in
ShortHand: Joan of Arc
Jeanne D’Arc – the teenage girl guided by saintly voices to command actual French armies into actual military victories – is one of history’s best-known names. Not bad for a 13-year-old.But that's not all. This week, we take a speedy look through the bloody, Game-of-Thrones-topping madness that is the Hundred Years’ War, meet a mad king that’s convinced he’s made of glass, and find out how one gi
ShortHand: Hikikomori - Japan’s Modern Day Hermits
Societal recluses exist in every culture. But in Japan, the number of permanent shut-ins has risen to incredible levels. There are estimated to be around one million Hikikomori, or ‘modern-day hermits’, in Japan today, and the term has even been proposed to be included in the DSM-5.So what is it about Japanese culture that causes so many young men to never leave the house? Press play to join us i
Lindsay Clancy - Part 1: The Killing of the Clancy Children | #466
According to her husband Patrick, Lindsay Clancy was found laying on the ground, semi-conscious, having cut her neck and wrists, and thrown herself from a second story window in an apparent attempt to take her own life. Just minutes later, Patrick found all three of their young children barely clinging to life in the basement. They had been strangled at the hands of their own mother. None of the
ShortHand: The World's Forbidden Places
Ever thought about exploring the places on this mysterious planet where your passport won’t take you?Join for a whistlestop tour of the world’s most off-limits destinations – from radioactive wastelands to snake-infested islands, and the odd plague pit in between.Just don’t blame us if anything goes wrong…--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagr
Real People. Real Crimes. | Introducing CRIMES OF REDDIT
Reddit is an endless archive of humanity’s most disturbing, bizarre, and deeply human stories. If you love going down internet rabbit holes, you are going to love CRIMES OF REDDIT with Alexis Linkletter and Sabrina Deana-Roga.Every Tuesday, one host brings a set of true-crime stories while the other reacts in real time with no prep, no spoilers asking the questions on everyone’s mind. They pull a
ShortHand: Akhenaten - The Heretical Forgotten Pharaoh
More people know about the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten today than knew about him just 100 years after his death. But Akhentaten was no average ruler. He fundamentally changed religious worship forever, and may even have started Judaism itself. So why did he disappear from history? Was he simply forgotten to the sands of time – or did he fly too close to the ‘Aten’?--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus E
Louisiana: Axe Murders, Outlaws & Legends (ft. National Park After Dark) | #465
This week, RedHanded is joined by Cassie and Danielle from National Park After Dark for an exploration of the myths, outlaws and bloody history of Louisiana.First up: legendary “land pirate” John Murrell, the mysterious Leather Britches Smith, and the stories lurking along Louisiana’s Myths and Legends Byway.Then: between 1910 and 1912, several entire families were slaughtered with axes across Lo
ShortHand: E-Pimping – Exploitation & Abuse on OnlyFans
At first, OnlyFans seemed like a shiny new frontier for safer sex work – a platform that promised unprecedented financial autonomy for its creators. But wherever there’s sex work, there will inevitably be men who try to profit off it…And through the manosphere’s lingo of online hustle culture and misogyny, a new breed of so-called “OnlyFans managers” emerged to claim their piece of the digital-se
ShortHand: Dahvie Vanity – Juggalo Enemy #1
In 2007, child protection officers in Pinella County, Florida, spoke with a 14-year-old girl who’d been sexually assaulted by a musician she’d met on MySpace. But thanks to their failed investigation, more than 20 preteen fans would suffer the same fate.Dahvie Vanity, frontman of scene kid band Blood On The Dance Floor, spent over a decade using social media to prey on his band’s enormous preteen
The Hart Family Murders | #464
In 2018, married couple Jen and Sarah Hart accelerated their SUV over the edge of a 100ft cliff in Mendocino County, California… with their six Black adopted children in the back. The world was left in total shock. Jen and Sarah had seemed like model parents: social justice-loving lesbians who’d bravely taken in six Black children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and – according to Jen’s gushing F
ShortHand: The Great Stink
Remember the time London was overcome by a stench so foul that it shut down Parliament, and convinced terrified city-dwellers that the end was surely near?No? Well let us remind you of the grim summer of 1858: otherwise known as The Great Stink.The crisis brought about a long overdue transformation of the city’s sanitation system that formed the basis for the sewers we still use today – so thanks
Introducing “The Poet” from The Binge
Today, catch the first episode of The Poet, a new six-part true crime series from The Binge. Hosted by journalist Rachel Browne, The Poet is an investigation that drops you into Wichita, Kansas in 1977, where a woman named Ruth Finley is receiving threatening, obsessive poems from an unknown stalker – at the exact same time police are trying to track down the notorious serial killer known as BTK.
ShortHand: Gladiators
Watching slaves being ritually hacked to pieces may not seem like many people’s idea of a great day out. But 2,000 years ago, Romans turned up in their thousands to watch exactly that. So, with Gladiator back on our screens, we set out to find the truth behind the spectacle – and it’s even bloodier than the movies could ever allow.So what exactly happened in the gladiatorial games? Were there rea
The Golden State Killer - Part 4: Joseph James DeAngelo | #463
Joseph James DeAngelo is a burglar, a killer, and a rapist. A vile man with a proclivity for terrorising and sexually violating women. But that wasn’t everyone’s perception of the elderly man who was arrested in the yard of his suburban Sacramento home. To his daughters he was a loving father, to his employers he’d been a reliable worker, and to the wider community he was just another sleepy old
ShortHand: Cannibalism
What could drive a person to eat another human being? Well, as it turns out, humankind has actually been surprisingly open to a little cannibalistic carpaccio.From funeral traditions where families gather to gobble up their loved one as a mark of respect; to a European craze for drinking liquefied, mummified human brains (plus a surprising number of societies who just really liked the taste) – he
ShortHand: Cursed Films
For almost as long as we’ve made films, we’ve made horror films – but what happens when the terror isn’t just on screen? Movie-making lore is riddled with stories of bizarre accidents on set, creepy coincidences and even murders, all of which can give rise to cult followings and, in some cases, rumours of a curse over the whole production. From Indian ghosts to demonic hauntings, we run through a
The Golden State Killer - Part 3: The Dark Arts of DNA Databases | #462
To find the most prolific and violent serial rapist and killer the state of California had ever seen, took over fifty years, and some ethically questionable methods. Public DNA databases were trawled without their users consent, samples were entered under false pretences, and hundreds if not thousands of people had their rights violated. But, they did eventually catch their man, and walk him up t
ShortHand: Kapustin Yar – Russia's Area 51
For decades, the Soviet Union’s top-secret testing site Kapustin Yar didn’t appear on any maps. It was so top-secret, the government relocated an entire town just to make sure none of its residents ever discovered it.But in the aftermath of the Cold War, stories began to emerge about what the Soviets had really been up to in that remote, arid stretch of land in southern Russia…From rumours of cra
UPDATE: Will Bryan Kohberger Actually Get A Trial?
Bryan Kohberger is now claiming his innocence in the Idaho Student Murders. And he wants a trial to prove it. A year after admitting to the horrific murders of University of Idaho students Kaylee Gonçalves, Maddie Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin back in November 2019, Bryan Kohberger has done yet another U-turn by seeking to withdraw his guilty plea. In a petition claiming his lawyers faile
ShortHand: Roanoke
When 90 men, 17 women, and 11 children disappeared without a trace – leaving behind nothing but a single cryptic word carved into a tree – it began a mystery that’s lasted centuries.From bloody battles with Native American tribes to Elizabeth I’s private pirates – we get to the bottom of the disappearing colonists of Roanoke Island.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Vid
The Golden State Killer - Part 2: I’ll Be Gone In the Dark | #461
Michelle Eileen McNamara dedicated her life to closing the net on the man she called “The Golden State Killer’. A man whose prolific spree of violent home invasions, rapes, and murders was so large and covered such a vast geographical area several law enforcement agencies failed to realise it was all one man.Join us in part 2 of our 3 part series on The Golden State Killer, as we discuss how Mich
ShortHand: The Bling Ring
What happens when a group of fame-obsessed teens with a passion for fashion go for a shopping spree in their favourite stars’ wardrobes?You get the Bling Ring: the unlikely architects behind a string of burglaries in the Hollywood Hills in the mid-2000s, targeting celebs from Paris Hilton to Orlando Bloom…Until those Ugg-booted cat burglars finally ran out of lives. Behind the TMZ headlines lay a
ShortHand: Lili’uokalani - The Last Queen of Hawai’i
America the beautiful: from sea to shining sea! (...Plus a bunch of random islands 2,000 miles away in the Pacific Ocean.)The story of why these seven Polynesian islands became part of the US of A is a wild one, taking in a slew of sweet-toothed sugar barons, a pinch of rampant colonialism, and one heroine who refused to let her culture die. When a white militia surrounded the palace of Queen Lil
The Golden State Killer - Part 1: A Horror Beyond Belief | #460
The Golden State Killer, The Easter Area Rapist, The Visalia Ransacker, and The Original Night Stalker. All pseudonyms for a man who committed one of the largest and most prolific sprees of home invasions, rapes, and murders, in American history.For over ten years one man held a vice like terror across the entire state of California, committing over 120 burglaries, at least 51 rape and 10 murders
ShortHand: Alcatraz – Escape from Devil's Island
When the night guards passed Frank Morris’s cell, in San Francisco’s “inescapable” island super-prison, Alcatraz, he seemed to be sleeping soundly. But what they saw was a dummy head made of plaster, soap and real human hair. And Morris was already making his way to the shore – and his homemade raft, stitched together using 50 prison raincoats.This week we look at the history of the US’s big bad
FROM THE VAULT - Richard Chase: The Vampire of Sacramento - Parts 1&2
As part of our virtual road trip around North America inspired by the 2026 World Cup, we're revisiting some of our most classic cases. This week we stop off in
Sacramento, to revisit on of the single most disturbing individuals we have ever covered Richard Chase - The Vampire of Sacramento.
Clinical vampirism, terrifying delusions and paranoid schizophrenia. This week the girls enter the bloody w
ShortHand: The Space Race
The idea of human beings floating in space used to feel as likely as time travel. But after WWII, the world’s two strongest superpowers had to find a way of outdoing each other that didn’t involve the total eradication of the human race. So they decided to race to the stars instead.Here’s how that ideological moonshot became a reality.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length
Juana Barraza: Mexico's Notorious 'Little Old Lady Killer' | #459
When elderly women started being murdered around Mexico City in the early 2000s, it sparked the nation’s first ever serial killer manhunt…But the fearsome monster targeting the city’s beloved grandmas? She was actually (gasp!) a woman. The search for the so-called “Mataviejitas” – The Little Old Lady Killer – was hampered by media hysteria, clueless (and maybe corrupt) coppers, and one gigantic m
ShortHand: Cajun Cryptids
Louisiana has more than its fair share of real monsters hiding in its deep, dark bayous. So, settlers’ nightmares about what else was hiding there – spiced up with African folk beliefs, plus Cajun and Creole folklore and a dash of Haitian voudou – quickly became a rogues’ gallery of gruesome monsters that couldn’t exist anywhere else.From a grim scaly monster, born in a voodoo ritual from the dev
FROM THE VAULT - The Staircase: Michael Peterson - Parts 1&2
As part of our virtual road trip around North America inspired by the 2026 World Cup, we're revisiting some of our most classic cases. This week we stop off in North Carolina, to revisit the infamous staircase of Michael & Kathleen Peterson...From the outside the Petersons had it all; the perfect family, a beautiful mansion and more money than they could spend. But on 9th December 2001 all th
ShortHand: The Men Who Stare at Goats & The Psychic Arms Race
If someone told you they could read your mind, levitate, walk through walls, or make your heart explode in your chest, you’d probably say they were crazy.But for over 30 years, the US government spent tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money attempting to create psychic super soldiers of the future, with all those skills and more. This is the ShortHand on Jim Channon, and the First Earth Bat
Robert ‘Willie’ Pickton – Part 2: Canada’s Most Evil Murderer | #458
After the search of Vancouver’s missing women finally brought them to the gates of Robert ‘Willie’ Pickton’s grisly pig farm, Canadian police faced the gigantic task of bringing the country’s most prolific serial killer to justice. But with much of the evidence literally eaten by the pigs, how much would be left to piece together this puzzle? And even long after the cell doors clanged shut on old
ShortHand: The Real Pocahontas
Long before the ‘90s cartoon version painted with all the colours of the wind, a real Native American woman named Pocahontas inspired a romantic tale that would endure for centuries…But how much of her story is fact – and how much is a convenient colonial fiction?Featuring gold-hunting colonists, grisly cannibalism and more than a splash of imperialist violence, let’s just say the true story isn’
FROM THE VAULT - Lizzie Borden: High-Society Hatchet Homicide | #384
As part of our virtual road trip around North America inspired by the 2026 World Cup, we're revisiting some of our most classic cases – with a stop in Massachusetts sparking spooky memories of our visit to the Lizzie Borden house...The brutal hatchet murders of Andrew and Abby Borden are still among the most infamous and hotly debated cases in true-crime history.Truly springing from the pages of
ShortHand: What If Yellowstone Erupted?
Any moment now, we might experience an explosion that emits the power of 1,000 atomic bombs every second. An explosion so fierce that it would reduce the world’s most powerful country to an ash-covered wasteland – and, if it was feeling particularly gnarly, could lead to the extinction of the entire human race.This week we take a look at just how royally f***ed we’d be if the world’s largest abov
Robert ‘Willie’ Pickton – Part 1: The Pig Farm Killer | #457
For years, women were vanishing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside…But the police refused to admit it.In the first of a two-parter on the grisly crimes of Robert ‘Willie’ Pickton, we uncover the investigation into the missing women, the community whose cries for help went unheard, and the systemic failures that kept the authorities from discovering what was really going on at the pig farm from he
ShortHand: Spontaneous Human Combustion
People who seem to have suddenly burst into flames – leaving just a pile of ash, a foot or skull, and a puddle of strange grease – have left biologists and police stumped for hundreds of years. And as recently as 2010, a medical examiner in the UK was forced to write ‘spontaneous combustion’ on a real death certificate.But there are some very strong scientific theories, and they are… unpleasant.
ShortHand: Tutankhamun's Curse
The gold-lined, intact tomb of Tutankhamun is without a doubt the most important archaeological discovery in Egypt's history. But what if Tutankhamun, the teenage God King, took something in return? After the young Pharaoh was found, several people connected to his discovery died in “mysterious circumstances”, including the man who had financed the whole operation. Was this King Tut’s price for g
Royal Scandal: The Murder that Shocked Buckingham Palace | #456
Tom Cressman’s brutal murder – beaten with a cricket bat by the ex-royal dresser to Sarah Ferguson, the ex-Dutchess of York – was a truly British tragedy.Jane Andrews’s act of violence dominated the headlines in the UK, and for good reason. The obsessive social climber had spent a lifetime getting herself into rooms with some of the richest and most influential people in the country. All she had
ShortHand: How To Live to 100
Reliably living to 100 years old – a once unthinkable goal – is slowly creeping closer to becoming a reality. But there’s a catch: we’re still not entirely sure how it works…On the one hand, a healthy, stress-free, and activity-rich lifestyle (with a bit of actually-rich thrown in for good measure) does seem to have a legitimate effect on your mortality. However, some people seem to be able to ri
ShortHand: So You’ve Fallen Out of a Plane…
You’re free falling towards the ground at 120mph, and below you all you can see is an expanse of open wilderness. What are you going to do? Had you not listened to this ShortHand, you’d most likely panic and die. Luckily for you though, we’ve decided to give you a comprehensive (without assuming any legal responsibility) guide to what to do if you find yourself in a spot of bother.From the best w
Barbara Daly Baekeland: Maternal Incest & Murder | #455
They say money can’t buy happiness…And that certainly proved true in 1972, when Tony Baekeland – heir to the Bakelite plastic dynasty – plunged a knife into his mother Barbara’s heart in their London penthouse.But behind the lurid headlines lay a trail of dysfunctional family secrets, taboo mother-son incest and twisted DIY conversion therapy: all washed down by a toxic cocktail of wealth and exc
ShortHand: The Church of Kardashian
From crypto scams to ‘diet tea’, intellectual property fraud and everything in between, clan Kardashian has set the blueprint for turning followers and influence into cold, hard cash.This is the run down on how Kim, Kylie, Kris and the rest of the gang have put their fame to work – and how a small “community church” in Los Angeles allows them to keep their finances well behind closed doors...--Pa
ShortHand: The Men Who Stare at Goats & the Psychic Arms Race
If someone told you they could read your mind, levitate, walk through walls, or make your heart explode in your chest, you’d probably either say they were crazy or wait to hear the punchline, and you’d be right to do so.But for over 30 years, the US government spent tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money attempting to create psychic super soldiers of the future, with all those skills and m
The Pulse Nightclub Shooting | #454
When Omar Mateen stepped into Orlando’s Pulse nightclub and fired into the crowd, 10 years ago this week, it was the start of three hours of unimaginable terror for the city’s gay community. The Islamic State claimed responsibility. The FBI rushed to explain it. The media searched for answers.But as investigators uncovered Mateen’s history, the picture only got more complicated. There were zero c
ShortHand: The Princes in the Tower
Back in 1483, two young princes mysteriously vanished from the Tower of London…And more than 500 years later, we’re still arguing about what happened to them. Were Edward V and his little brother Richard murdered on the orders of their dastardly uncle, Richard III? Or did they secretly survive – becoming pretenders to the throne amid the bloody War of the Roses?From Tudor propaganda to academic s
FROM THE VAULT - The Murder of Rachel Nickell | #285
Netflix's new drama 'The Witness' and documentary 'The Murder of Rachel Nickell' have brought Rachel Nickell's case back into public attention. For the true story behind the murder that rocked the UK, we've resurfaced our episode from February 2023.--Rachel Nickell’s brutalised body was found on Wimbledon Common with her two-year-old son Alex wiping her bloodied face and begging her to 'wake up'.
ShortHand: The Secrets of Göbekli Tepe
The 1994 excavation of curious buried ruins in southeastern Turkey might have chucked a big rock through the window of archaeological history – shattering everything we thought we knew about our ancient ancestors.With its intricate carvings, and towering megaliths built long before the wheel or even written language, Göbekli Tepe could rewrite the story of civilisation. But who built it? And why?
David “D4vd” Burke - Part Two: The Arrest & Trial | #453
Two chainsaws and a paddling pool; a very public relationship; along with a litany of texts and Discord messages, all pointing to one thing: David “D4vd” Burke killed Celeste Rivas Hernandez. In the eyes of the public, it was that simple.And yet, it took prosecutors seven months to arrest and charge Burke with Celeste Hernandez’s death, even after her body was found decomposing in his car. Why?--
ShortHand: The Death of Marilyn Monroe
Naked, clutching the telephone receiver, and with a stomach full of prescription meds, Marilyn Monroe was pronounced dead at 4:25am on the 5th of August 1962. Today, a century after her birth, the iconic “blonde bombshell” is still one of the most famous people who has ever lived. She epitomised Hollywood: the fame, the fortune, and the chaos. Rumours placed her in bed with two Kennedys – and und
ShortHand: The Ku Klux Klan
The KKK are the OG far-right trolls: one of the most evil groups in US history, and the best-known purveyors of white racism in the United States. They have been responsible for countless deaths and acts of discrimination – but where did it all begin? And what do wizards and dragons have to do with it? This is the ShortHand. --Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video Epis
David “D4vd” Burke - Part One: The Killing of Celeste Rivas Hernandez | #452
Dismembered and stuffed into the “frunk” of David “D4vd” Burke’s Tesla: 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez's body was found more than four months after she visited the up-and-coming singer’s house in the Hollywood Hills. Immediately, the story exploded across the internet.Burke had always maintained that he’d only met Celeste once, and that he didn’t know that she was underage. However, Burke’s
ShortHand: Harambe
Shot and killed in front of a crowd of terrified onlookers, Harambe, a western lowland gorilla, will go down in history. His death – seemingly while trying to rescue a small boy who had fallen into his enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo and Biological Gardens – caused ripples across the world.On the ten year anniversary of his death, we try to answer the million-dollar question: did Harambe need to
A Rising Cyclist Shot Dead | Presenting Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
She was days away from a major race. A rising star in cycling. Then, she was found shot to death in a friend's apartment.We're sharing an episode of Clues, a true crime podcast hosted by Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore. Each week, Morgan and Kaelyn take you deep into the world of the most notorious crimes, uncovering the hidden details, analyzing the overlooked evidence, and following the trail of
ShortHand: Nestlé & the 'Baby Killer' Scandal
What if we told you that the brand responsible for some of your favourite foods and drinks, has also been accused of being responsible for the deaths of over 10 million babies? Yes, you read that correctly. Nestlé, the biggest food and beverage company in the world, is also at the heart of one of the most heinous corporate crime cases in history. This is the ShortHand.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bo
RedHanded x The Upshot: The Enhanced Games | #451
“Juiced to his gills” on a combination of testosterone, steroids, and god knows what else, three times Olympic medalist James Magnussen put on over 30 lbs of lean muscle in just a few months, risking his health, his reputation and his legacy, all in an attempt to break the 50m freestyle world record, and launch the ‘Enhanced Games’ into history books. Yet, two years later, the classic thought exp
ShortHand: Anne Boleyn – The "Great Whore" Queen
Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, changed the course of English history – despite being queen for just 1,000 days before her beheading at the Tower of London. And despite being one of the most infamous and influential figures ever to sit the throne, people still get Anne wrong. This is the Tudor ShortHand.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok
FROM THE VAULT – ShortHand: Mandy Matney – A Murdaugh Update
In 2024, a year on from RedHanded’s episode on the Murdaugh Family Murders, we had the great pleasure of talking to Mandy Matney, the foremost independent expert on the Murdaugh family and their rampant trail of destruction through South Carolina.Mandy filled us in on everything that happened since we last checked in – including Stephen Smith’s death being re-classified as a murder and the potent
FROM THE VAULT – The Murdaugh Family Murders | #287
BREAKING NEWS: Alex Murdaugh WILL face a new trial. A South Carolina court has overturned the 2023 murder convictions of ex-lawyer Alex Murdaugh. Five out of five Supreme Court judges ruled that he deserved a new trial because the jury had been unfairly biased against him.Listen to our full episode from 2023, to get the full story on one of the most sprawling true crime cases out there…--The Murd
Leo Schofield – Part 2: The Wrong Man | #450
As wrongful convictions go, the trial of Leo Schofield – who stood accused of killing his young wife Michelle Schofield – had it all: bias, speculation, and pure fabrication. And through the years, through a combination of bad luck and bad representation, Schofield stayed behind bars.In this second part, we look at how this cold case finally warmed up, thanks in no small part to the journalists b
ShortHand: Shen Yun: The World’s Most Entertaining Cult
Critically lauded dance troupe, or sinister, human-trafficking, brainwashing, child-abusing cult? However you slice it, there is a lot more going on to Shen Yun than the glitzy public posters let on.This week we open the curtain on Shen Yun, and the cult behind it, Falun Gong – whose founder Li Hongzhi believes he can levitate, predict the future and read his followers’ minds. So: what does Falun
ShortHand: Rabies
A deadly virus that causes hydrophobia, frothing at the mouth and delirious aggression might sound more like science fiction than real life. But that’s what awaited 15-year-old Jeanna Giese when she was bitten by a rabid bat in 2004. This is the history of one of the oldest and most deadly viruses known to man – and how a 15-year-old girl and her doctor managed to overcome it, against all odds. T
Leo Schofield – Part 1: Murder in Bone Valley | #449
When the body of 18-year-old Michelle Schofield was found in a canal in Bone Valley, Florida, the police quickly closed in on her guitar-playing, heavy-metal husband, Leo Schofield.Leo claimed to be innocent, but investigators couldn’t shake the fact that Leo’s own father had been the one to discover Michelle’s body - after receiving “a message from God”…--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYo
ShortHand: Studio 54
Party favours full of drugs, a hose-down rubber sex balcony, and Bianca Jagger on a real horse. It’s often said that the brightest flames burn for the shortest time – and by god did Studio 54 burn bright. Under the helm of Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, 254 West 54th was the single coolest place on the planet – and set the blueprint for exclusive nightclubs to this day. Bowie, Warhol, the Jaggers
ShortHand: Haitian Vodou
Zombies, incantations and dolls full of pins… the version of voodoo that most of us get has been suffused with decades of Hollywood magic, and a dusting of light xenophobia.But the reality of Haitian vodou is much more complex – and way more fascinating. So, how did slaves reconcile their own folklore and religions, with the Catholicism that colonisers were forcing down their throats? Who are the
Katie Beers: The Girl In The Bunker | #448
Trapped in a soundproof underground bunker, sleeping in a coffin-shaped box, abused and forced to watch news footage of her December 1992 disappearance on a loop, 10-year-old Katie Beers wondered if she’d ever see the world outside her makeshift prison ever again…But one thing her captor didn’t know? Katie was a survivor. This is the story of a little girl who fought against the odds – and manage
ShortHand: How Likely is a Zombie Apocalypse?
Rage-inducing viruses that spread through bites; a flesh-eating fungus that controls its host like a puppet; deadly pathogens trapped for millennia in Arctic ice… sometimes nature is more gruesome than fiction.From the Walking Dead to the Last of Us, stories of contagion are never far from our screens. So what are the closest real-life scenarios that could turn our world into a full-on zombie was
ShortHand: The Byford Dolphin Incident
Somehow, perhaps the worst deep-sea diving disaster in history – one that led to two men being crushed, three men boiling to death, and one man being liquified and shot out of a five-inch hole – happened above sea level.How? Well, join us off the coast of Norway for a little explosive decompression – and find out what can happen when the pressure of diving just gets too much…--Patreon - Ad-free &
Anna Delvey: The Fake Heiress Who Scammed New York | #447
In the summer of 2017, 26-year-old Anna Sorokin was arrested in Manhattan with a stack of unpaid hotel bills and fraudulent loan requests in her wake. She’d been calling herself Anna Delvey: an uber-wealthy German heiress. In reality? She didn’t have a penny to her (fake) name.Armed only with an untraceable accent and a passion for fashion, Anna tried to pull the designer wool over the eyes of so
ShortHand: Wolfgang Beltracchi - The Greatest Art Fraud in History?
Tens of millions of dollars flowed onto the canvas from the tip of Wolfgang Beltracchi’s brush. His talent? Unquestionable. His methods? Perfect. His ability to recreate the works of other artists? The greatest there has ever been.Alongside his wife Helene, Wolfgang Beltrachhi sold an unknown number of paintings, passed off as the work of 20th-century artists, to some of the most respected galler
Michael X - Part Two: The Murder of Gale Benson | #446
Mystery, mayhem, and death followed Michael X all the way back to Trinidad.Hacked to death and left in shallow graves, the bodies of Gale Benson and Joseph Skerritt were found at Michael X’s house. Whispers of black magic and rumours of espionage rippled through the island.How could a young, wealthy British socialite like Gale Benson end up buried alive in the Caribbean? And why would Michael X
Shorthand: The 2014 Celebrity ‘iCloud Leaks’
Intimate and explicit images of A-list celebrities – that’s what the world woke up to on the 31st of August 2014. “The Fappening” saw thousands of leaked celebrity nudes dumped onto 4chan, Reddit, and Twitter. It gave unprecedented access to the most overtly private images anyone could imagine – but how on earth did it happen? This week on ShortHand we’re taking a deep dive into the grubby world
Michael X - Part One: British Black Power | #445
Malcolm X was a true revolutionary, Michael X was an imposter.This con man realised that politics was a lot easier than poetry and rose to the top of the British Civil Rights Movement. All the while violently exploiting the Windrush generation he claimed to be fighting for.John Lennon and Leonard Cohen were his biggest fans. They donated thousands to Michael X's projects that never actually happe
ShortHand: Would You Survive The Titanic?
On the night of 14th April 1912, the ‘unsinkable’ RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and sank into the icy depths of the Atlantic Ocean – killing almost all of its passengers. But the real question is: would you make it through that fateful night? In this special 114th-anniversary ShortHand, we walk through your realistic chances of survival after boarding the doomed ship… And with your sex, class and
Shorthand: Helios 522 - ‘The Ghost Plane’
When two fighter jets came to check on the unresponsive Helios Flight 522, they were stunned at what they saw: all 115 passengers, lying motionless in their seats. Even worse – the pilot’s seat was empty, and the co-pilot lay slumped over the control panel. The commercial plane was drifting along at 34,000 feet, on autopilot – and fuel was running out. This is the ShortHand.--Patreon - Ad-free &a
