S2-E31 Investigative True Crime Podcasts You Should Check Out; Ashley Flowers Really is So Supernatural!!

Perhaps you're bored with your current playlist or maybe you're just looking for your next binge-worthy show . You've come to the right place . Each week , I feature new and newly discovered podcasts that all of our eclectic listeners want to hear more about .

This week , I'll be sharing two new podcasts with you , plus great insights into several other shows that I've selected for Season 2 , episode 31 . And although we always have a variety of shows that we share with you , there is an emphasis this week on investigative programs .

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Please give a crap by clicking on the sponsor's link in our show notes and go even greener , starting today . Alrighty , then let's get on with the show . Welcome to our news highlights and updates segment .

In the news for this episode , ashley Flowers , the host and creator of Crime Junkies and the Deck , to name just two programs , has reinvented her Supernatural podcast and , like its original podcast , so Supernatural deals with unexplained occurrences that could be interpreted as , hmm , otherworldly events .

I heartily recommend so Supernatural to everyone who's like me and is drawn to stories about voices from the other side , ghosts , real spiritual connections , ufos and alien visitations , cryptids and much more . Congratulations , ashley , on a great refresh and show . Here's the trailer from so Supernatural .

But before we begin , I have to tell you why I'm here , because I've missed this show like so , so much . And for anyone new listening , if you don't know me , I mostly talk about crime . Like , hi , it's kind of my thing , Nice to meet you .

But there is a whole nother side of me that loves aliens and time travel and paranormal stuff , basically anything weird or unexplained . And that's what this show is . Call it a passion project , one where I explore stories of the paranormal UFOs , bizarre legends and what it all says about what lies beyond our realm .

And now that so Supernatural is back , you can expect more wild stories and some fun surprises in the coming episodes , but for now I just want to stop the small talk and jump in , if that's okay with all of you .

It's a supernatural series about a young woman who inherits a house in the Parkdale neighborhood of Toronto , and she inherits this house from a family member that she never knew she had . Sounds kind of suspicious , don't you think ? If you're a fan of the supernatural and haven't listened to it yet , all I have to say is this is your lucky day .

Written by Emily Kellogg and Alexuting on the Parkdale Haunt feed on September 27 , 2024 . And like Parkdale Haunt , it takes place in Toronto and there's at least one overlapping character , and that is the psychopathic realtor Austin Bird . And like the Parkdale neighborhood of Toronto , season four takes place in Woodbine , a newer area in the same beautiful city .

At the time of this recording , the information is sparse , almost secretive . Here's a clip from the city .

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Follow Skirting Danger wherever you , listen to your podcasts and check out our posts on Instagram , facebook and X , formerly known as Twitter .

This week I fell down the rabbit hole and didn't see daylight until I listened to all eight episodes of Hysterical , a true investigative podcast by Pineapple Street and Wondery . It's a recent podcast that started this past July and ended in late August of this year .

Hysterical involves a mystery illness with severe symptoms that afflicted at least 25 people 24 females and one male in a small town in upstate New York in 2012 .

After extensive investigation by authorities and medical experts , one question still lingered Was it real , or were those affected by this mystery illness , which in many ways mimicked Tourette's syndrome , actually suffering from some form of mass hysteria ?

Anytime a firm diagnosis proves elusive and all medical and clinical tests prove negative , the debate between a real illness and an imagined one isn't unusual . Some skeptics routinely cite the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 as a prime example of mass hysteria in America .

Others refer to an event that happened in 1994 , after a beautiful 31-year-old woman with terminal cancer was rushed to the ER in severe pain . Several female nurses were treating her when suddenly many of them became dizzy and extremely nauseous .

In fact , their symptoms were so severe that several of them ended up becoming patients themselves , with one staying in the hospital for two weeks . Unfortunately , the cancer patient died soon after this event , and after many tests that all came back negative , the affected nurses were collectively diagnosed with mass hysteria .

Needless to say , they were confused and more than a little bit resentful . Like most women , I view these types of diagnoses through a filtered lens . It stems from being all too aware of the history of women and hysteria .

During the Victorian period , for instance , which lasted until the early 20th century , a husband could commit his wife to a mental institution because she was too emotional , aka hysterical , depressed or suffered from being strong-willed .

And even in the not-so-distant past , when a physician couldn't find a physical reason for a woman's complaints , they often attributed it to her imagination and recommended psychiatric care . Were they right Sometimes ? Were they always right ? Nope , should a man ever tell a woman to calm down ? Not if they're smart .

It's also why I was on the fence about a mass affliction with facial and body tics eye blinking , grimacing and grunting that affected 23 girls , one boy and one female nurse . Naysayers maintained it was the result of mass hysteria because , as some so-called experts pointed out , belief is always more powerful than truth .

But , countering that conclusion , many citizens cited a mass poisoning that occurred when a train derailed in the 1970s and thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals poisoned their water table , at least two factories that dumped toxic chemicals into an area canal , ironically called the Love Canal , that caused severe , sometimes lethal , health problems , plus the seven natural

gas wells that surrounded this school , where most of these health events occurred . Whether you agree with the conclusion or not , hysterical is an excellent show with insightful and in-depth reporting . The narrator that you're about to hear is Dan Taberski , who was the writer , director and the investigative journalist who was tasked with unraveling this mystery .

Then there was the question of why just girls so far ?

The note was anonymous and we still know nothing about the messenger , except they clearly had a sense for the drama of the moment . But the note said basically , if you're looking for the cause of the outbreak , go back farther .

Go back to something that happened 40 years ago , to an event that was huge at the time but that everyone seems to have forgotten it was December 6 , 1970 .

And if poisons are bubbling up from the ground beneath your feet , why would you ever believe the people telling you ? It's all in your head .

It's time for our favorite segment , where I review two podcasts that I am absolutely over the moon about , and I think you will be too .

Before I get going with my first review , I just want to say that , as a journalist , I have been reporting on different topics for health , beauty and lifestyle for longer than I care to admit , but that's softball reporting when you compare it to investigative journalism , and even though I didn't get involved in the latter , I am still a fan of that genre .

It's one of my favorite types of movies , novels , podcasts , you name it . That's why , when I discover a well-done investigative podcast , I'm generally hooked right away , and this is why the podcast I'm going to be talking about today , hooked , took me by surprise .

I'm constantly scouring podcast news sites to find compelling new , or at least newish , shows to bring to you . But Hooked , which is an Apple original show with investigative journalist Josh Dean and if you ever look up Josh's body of work , anything that he's involved in , you know I'm there .

But oddly , hook dropped in 2021 , and somehow it slipped completely off my radar . To be honest , I was really shocked because I wasn't familiar with Hook until I started looking for podcasts that had to do with opiates , started looking for podcasts that had to do with opiates After the surprise started wearing off . Like me , I didn't know about that .

I reminded myself . With over 350,000 podcasters , I was fortunate to have found it at all . Hooked is about a man named Tony Hathaway , the most prolific bank robber in American history . But who Tony was before he turned to crime and how he views his exploits today will definitely surprise you . Fyi , tony didn't grow up as an abused and neglected child .

He wasn't raised in poverty . He didn't graduate from petty theft to burglary before robbing banks . In fact , the only life altering event he ever experienced was severely injuring his back , having two back surgeries . Having two back surgeries and being prescribed opiates to help him deal with the pain .

Tony's story that was eventually turned into the Hooked podcast unfolded over three years of prison interviews and , even though what I'm about to tell you will sound bizarre , tony comes off as an affable suburban dad as he tells about robbing 30 banks within a 30-mile radius of his home and how much fun it was to do it .

And despite having no criminal experience prior to becoming hooked on opiates , he also relates how he managed to stump several police departments and the FBI before finally being apprehended .

I also enjoyed this podcast because , in true Josh Dean style , hooked also provides an intimate view of addiction , the opioid crisis and how , under certain circumstances , no matter how respectable we are and how many degrees we've earned , we could become hooked on opiates , just like Tony and millions of other Americans . Here's a clip from the show I'm Josh Dean .

I wanted to find someone who was gifted , I guess , at robbing banks and I stumbled across a small thing in the Seattle newspaper Local man robs 30 banks . Damn , I thought that's a lot of banks , like an in the record books kind of number Seemed like exactly the kind of story I was looking for , maybe even better .

So I wrote to Tony , who was in prison at the time , and when he finally got back to me by email his response left me kind of speechless . Not sure how much of my story you're familiar with . He wrote , but in short , I worked for a very large commercial airplane company .

It wasn't just a tall tale about some ingenious bank robber . It was about a middle-aged dad with a comfortable career who became an ingenious bank robber . That's one hell of a midlife crisis . How does that happen ?

In his very next email , tony summed up his saga I guess you could call it as a quote painful story about a guy who pretty much had it made and lost it all because he became addicted to pain medication that he was prescribed by his family doctor .

Now , I'm not saying that all companies are villains , but there are certainly bad actors out there and , unfortunately , unless they're caught , it is the area people who pay the price . In the case of Buried the Last Witness witness . The poison chemical is called polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs .

It's a toxic , fire retardant chemical or group of chemicals , I should say , that were used in everything from paint to paper to being used for insulating fluids and electrical equipment like transformers and capacitors .

They were also used in , of all things , microscope oils and electric appliances like refrigerators and television sets , until they were banned in most countries in the late 1970s and the early 1980s . The first series of Buried was a terrific investigative podcast that was done by environmental reporters Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor . It was a hit podcast .

I know I listened to it twice . I haven't mentioned it on my show yet but I will in the future .

The second series , buried the Last Witness , the same pair of environmental reporters team up , but this time with Welsh actor Michael Sheen , and together explore a shocking story of the PCBs and how this particular chemical impacted lives , families and homes in the UK .

Whether or not it was planned I don't have any inside information on it it ended up going international when the team went to America , went to the deep south , where this chemical was also being manufactured , and discovered some heinous activity an ultimate triumph of the people who lived in that area .

Back in 2017 , michael Sheen was scrolling the internet when he saw a reference to this man called Douglas Gowan , a former National Farmers Union consultant , who had become concerned about the impact of PCBs leaking from landfill sites in South Wales , and how he spent years trying in vain to blow the whistle on the egregious behavior of the companies responsible for

producing these chemicals . For producing these chemicals Buried Last Witness is really a testament to human spirit , human determination , bravery and the ability of even people who do not have a lot of clout they're not famous , they're not politicians to make changes for the good .

Here's another thing I didn't know In the story of this chemical . There was a witness who stood in the way .

If you haven't had a chance already , please make sure to follow our podcast and if your heart is so moved , leave us a five star rating . Thank you so much for supporting us and listening to our program . We will see you next week and you know I love you . Bye .