This is a rerelease of an episode that originally aired September 13, 2022 with a new intro from Elyse & Jessica. The modern funeral industry capitalizes on stigmas about death, creating a deliberate air of mystery and secrecy around how funeral homes operate. We go inside the unspoken practices of morticians, and debunk some of the myths and tall tales surrounding the post-mortem process. Leave us a review -- it helps the show! :) Follow Us 30MorbidMinutes Elyse Willems Jessi...
Jun 16, 2025•46 min
Check out this episode of the podcast Petty Crimes! The rental listing said “please don’t unsnap.” Spoiler alert…she snapped. Follow Ego Nwodim on Instagram and listen to her podcast, Thanks Dad with Ego Nwodim. ... And look for new episodes of 30 Morbid Minutes, every other Monday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jun 05, 2025•47 min
Both George V and George VI succumbed to declining health and respiratory ailments. The latter, was the first royal to have his funeral televised, whereas the former's death was seemingly expedited to meet the morning headlines -- a secret unearthed fifty years after his passing. Leave us a review -- it helps the show! :) Follow Us 30MorbidMinutes Elyse Willems Jessica Vasami Music by Casey Edwards - @ComposerCasey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...
May 26, 2025•34 min
It's an apples to oranges of morbidity as Jessica and Elyse take ten random yet gruesome facts and, using their macabre expertise, rank them from least to most disturbing. Leave us a review -- it helps the show! :) Follow Us 30MorbidMinutes Elyse Willems Jessica Vasami Music by Casey Edwards - @ComposerCasey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
May 12, 2025•50 min
Buried in an instant. Preserved for eternity. What really happened in the final moments of Pompeii? Plus, Jessica reminisces about her phallic-filled tour. Leave us a review -- it helps the show! :) Follow Us 30MorbidMinutes Elyse Willems Jessica Vasami Music by Casey Edwards - @ComposerCasey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Apr 21, 2025•40 min
If you’re considering cremation as an alternative to traditional burial, we might be able to help you take things up a notch with fireworks displays containing actual human cremated remains. Did you know that there are pyrotechnic companies around the world that will memorialize your deceased loved one by firing their remains up into the sky in tiny rockets? We look into the rules and logistics behind this new post-mortem trend, and talk about the famous writer who had it done. Leave us a review...
Apr 07, 2025•31 min
In-flight medical emergencies occur about once every 604 flights, with a mortality rate of 0.3% of those incidents. While extremely rare, if someone dies, specification actions must be taken. So what happens when a plane passenger dies during a flight? Or even the pilot? We investigate. Leave us a review -- it helps the show! :) Follow Us 30MorbidMinutes Elyse Willems Jessica Vasami Music by Casey Edwards - @ComposerCasey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Mar 24, 2025•26 min
Revisiting one of our fan favorite classic episodes with a newly recorded introduction! An estimated 200 people die every year while taking a cruise. As a result, ships and their crews have developed intricate systems, code words, and protocol in the event a passenger dies on board. Still, dire complications can arise out on the open water, and not all deaths are by natural causes… Leave us a review -- it helps the show! :) Follow Us 30MorbidMinutes Elyse Willems Jessica Vasami Music by Casey Ed...
Mar 03, 2025•53 min
Karl Tanzler, also known as Count Carl von Cosel, was a radiologist in Key West, Florida who developed an unhealthy obsession for his young patients, Elena Milagro Hoyos. His obsession continued, even after Elena died from tuberculosis in 1931... Leave us a review -- it helps the show! :) Follow Us 30MorbidMinutes Elyse Willems Jessica Vasami Music by Casey Edwards - @ComposerCasey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Feb 17, 2025•31 min•Season 10Ep. 95
Did a deadly disease spark the legend of vampires? Or were bloodthirsty creatures really lurking in the shadows? We learn how the rampant spread of the "wasting disease" (tuberculosis) contributed to mass panic and vampire hysteria in the nineteenth century. Leave us a review -- it helps the show! :) Follow Us 30MorbidMinutes Elyse Willems Jessica Vasami Music by Casey Edwards - @ComposerCasey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Feb 03, 2025•39 min•Season 10Ep. 94
Slaycation brings a darkly comic, unique vantage point to chilling, thrilling and WTF? stories of vacations gone horribly wrong. Listen to this excerpt from "Ep 40 How NOT to Scuba in Aruba" and checkout the full episode available on all major podcast platforms. Just search for “Slaycation” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. 30 Morbid Minutes will return with a new episode next week! Until then, bad bye... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jan 27, 2025•18 min
Necrogamy, or posthumous marriage, involves a living person marrying someone who is dead, or two dead people being married to each other, and is legally recognized in certain parts of the world. We look into what it takes to marry a deceased person in France, and how this unusually morbid custom was codified into French law. Leave us a review -- it helps the show! :) Follow Us - @30MorbidMinutes Elyse Willems - @ElyseWillems Jessica Vasami - @jessicaaaaavasami Music by Casey Edwards - @ComposerC...
Jan 20, 2025•30 min•Season 10Ep. 93
The concept of "laughing oneself to death" has been around for centuries in folklore, myth, and media, but it CAN happen in real life, too. Laugh along with us as we cover real stories and dig into the underlying causes. Leave us a review -- it helps the show! :) Follow Us - @30MorbidMinutes Elyse Willems - @ElyseWillems Jessica Vasami - @jessicaaaaavasami Music by Casey Edwards - @ComposerCasey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jan 06, 2025•36 min•Season 10Ep. 92
A ghost ship is a lot like a Wild West ghost town. The kind with abandoned buildings and a tumbleweed rolling through. Except in this case, the town is the water, and the ship is the tumbleweed. In this episode we share some of history's eeriest ghost ship sightings that have never been explained, and which King of England swore to have seen the infamous Flying Dutchman. Leave us a review -- it helps the show! :) Follow Us: @30MorbidMinutes @ElyseWillems @jessicaaaaavasami Music by Casey Edwards...
Dec 23, 2024•31 min•Season 10Ep. 91
Remember our 'Dead Bodies of Mount Everest' episode? Well, it's time for an update! We're back with news about Jost Kobusch, the solo climber who's trying to crest Everest in its most dangerous season. Plus, a startling discovery might shed light on what happened to George Mallory and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine, climbing partners who disappeared in 1924 while trying to summit the mountain. Leave us a review -- it helps the show! :) Follow Us: @30MorbidMinutes @ElyseWillems @jessicaaaaavasami Music by...
Dec 09, 2024•38 min•Season 10Ep. 90
We investigate the culture and behaviors that have led to so many tragic deaths in professional wrestling, in and out of the ring. Joined by special guest and wrestling enthusiast, James Willems. Get 20% off + free shipping with the code MORBID at manscaped.com. Leave us a review -- it helps the show! :) Follow Us: @30MorbidMinutes @ElyseWillems @jessicaaaaavasami Music by Casey Edwards @ComposerCasey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Nov 25, 2024•38 min•Season 10Ep. 89
From Eddie Guerrero to Curt Hennig (Mr. Perfect) to Owen Hart, an unusual number of professional wrestlers have died suddenly, in their prime, statistically outpacing any other sport. We search for answers in the myriad of factors behind the squared circle's tragic losses, while looking back at some of our favorite deceased faces and heels. Joined by special guest James Willems. Watch ANSWER FOR IT! from James & Elyse Willems online, November 10th through November 17th! Digital tickets avail...
Nov 11, 2024•48 min•Season 10Ep. 88
Ever wonder what it takes to operate a haunted hayride every Halloween season? Or how Disney's The Haunted Mansion singlehandedly grew an entire subset of spooky theme park entertainment? Well, we've got answers, as 30MM explores the history of haunted attractions, and the costs behind this wildly popular yet sometimes seasonal industry. Plus, Jess and Elyse talk about their visit to Austin's House of Torment. Tickets for ANSWER FOR IT! from James & Elyse Willems on November 10th available n...
Oct 28, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 10Ep. 87
As the filming location of Some Like It Hot, the favorite vacation destination of author L. Frank Baum, and one of the last Victorian era hotels in the world, Hotel Del Coronado is famous for many reasons. It's also reportedly haunted, namely by the ghost of Kate Morgan who traveled there under mysterious circumstances in 1892. Leave us a review -- it helps the show! :) Follow Us: @30MorbidMinutes @ElyseWillems @jessicaaaaavasami Music by Casey Edwards @ComposerCasey Learn more about your ad cho...
Oct 21, 2024•47 min•Season 10Ep. 86
Ritualistic party games and Creepypastas are the subject of today's episode, as we cover The Midnight Game, a modern Internet ghost story. Plus, we analyze the psychology behind mirror illusions, and the ways our brains like to play tricks on us. Leave us a review -- it helps the show! :) Follow Us: @30MorbidMinutes @ElyseWillems @jessicaaaaavasami Music by Casey Edwards @ComposerCasey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Oct 14, 2024•36 min•Season 10Ep. 85
Like the "27 Club," the Curse of the Ninth is one of music's most infamous superstitions. Supposedly, completing a ninth symphony is essentially a death sentence. Composers go from composing to decomposing. In the ground. Dead. But how true is it, and where did it come from? Leave us a review -- it helps the show! :) Follow Us: @30MorbidMinutes @ElyseWillems @jessicaaaaavasami Music by Casey Edwards @ComposerCasey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Oct 07, 2024•40 min•Season 10Ep. 84
Tragedy struck on August 16, 1920, when during a visiting game at the Polo Grounds, home of the New York Yankees, Cleveland shortstop and all-around affable guy Ray Chapman was beaned in the head by a "spitball" thrown by submarine pitcher Carl Mays. Just 12 hours later, Chapman would be declared dead. In this episode, we cover a dark blemish on the history of baseball, the controversial "dead ball" era, and look at how the sport has changed to avoid possible fatalities on the field. Leave us a ...
Oct 03, 2024•37 min•Season 10Ep. 83
Back in the 1970s, a serial killer named Rodney Alcala managed to charm his way onto the hit show "The Dating Game" and even WON, but his creepy behavior off-camera raised a ton of red flags. Perhaps surprisingly, Alcala's not the only serial killer to go on a national syndicated game show. We ask why society's most notorious murderers willingly parade their identity for all to see, and get inside the psychology of Alcala and his twisted contemporaries. Leave us a review -- it helps the show! :)...
Sep 23, 2024•32 min•Season 10Ep. 82
It's with giddy, macabre glee, that we announce we are BACK for a limited run of episodes, just in time for the spooky season! Next week we kick things off with one of our usual episodes, but in this, our soft return episode, we're having a fun and fancy-free chat about what we've been up to, pulling back the curtain on indie podcasting life, and sharing some stories from Jessica's bachelorette party. Leave us a review -- it helps the show! :) Follow Us: @30MorbidMinutes @ElyseWillems @jessicaaa...
Sep 16, 2024•34 min•Season 10Ep. 81
The end comes for us all. Go to http://meundies.com/30mm for 20% off your first order, plus free shipping. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp - go to http://betterhelp.com/30MM to get 10% off your first month. Follow us on Social: https://twitter.com/elysewillems https://twitter.com/JessicaVasami Click here for the audio version: https://link.chtbl.com/30morbidminutes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Mar 19, 2024•43 min•Season 9Ep. 80
Legend has it that La Isla des las Muñecas, a dark tourism hot spot, is where a young girl was tragically found drowned to death. The dolls that decorate the island serve as both a tribute and a warning. Go to http://dietsmoke.com/shrooms and use code MORBID to get 50% off your first pack of Shroom gummies. Follow us on Social: https://twitter.com/elysewillems https://twitter.com/JessicaVasami Click here for the audio version: https://link.chtbl.com/30morbidminutes Learn more about your ad choic...
Mar 12, 2024•34 min•Season 9Ep. 79
Have you ever had something creepy happen to you or a family member that you can’t quite explain? If you’ve got a spooky story to tell, or like hearing other people’s, then this is the episode for you. Go to http://meundies.com/30mm to get 20% off your first order and free shipping. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp - go to http://betterhelp.com/30MM to get 10% off your first month. Tell us more spooky stories and morbid facts over at speakpipe.com/30morbidminutes. Make sure to tell us your n...
Mar 05, 2024•40 min•Season 9Ep. 78
How would you react if you saw a dead body that, after a year, still looked like the person had died just yesterday? What about after five years? A hundred? This type of preservation, called incorruptibility, can happen. And while some consider it a holy miracle, science tells a different story. Go to http://factormeals.com/30mm50 and use code 30mm50 to get 50% off. Follow us on Social: https://twitter.com/elysewillems https://twitter.com/JessicaVasami Click here for the audio version: https://l...
Feb 27, 2024•34 min•Season 9Ep. 77
Ever wondered what exactly differentiates a coffin from a casket? So did we! We get to the bottom of things. Six feet under, to be exact. Go to http://shadyrays.com and use code 30MM for 35% off polarized sunglasses and snow goggles. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp - go to http://betterhelp.com/30MM to get 10% off your first month. Follow us on Social: https://twitter.com/elysewillems https://twitter.com/JessicaVasami Click here for the audio version: https://link.chtbl.com/30morbidminutes ...
Feb 20, 2024•33 min•Season 9Ep. 76
A rash of creepy clown sightings reported across the U.S. sparked nationwide mass hysteria, resulting in police patrols, curfews, and locals seeing red (noses). Looking back, was this actually real terror, or case of misguided moral panic? Go to http://meundies.com/30mm for 20% off, plus free shipping. Follow us on Social: https://twitter.com/elysewillems https://twitter.com/JessicaVasami Click here for the audio version: https://link.chtbl.com/30morbidminutes Learn more about your ad choices. V...
Feb 13, 2024•31 min•Season 9Ep. 75
