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? -- Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus Episodes YouTube - Full-length Video Episodes TikTok / Instagram...
Jun 04, 2026•52 min•Ep. 453
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 under surveillance from the FBI and CIA. Marilyn Monroe was the tainted American Dream. Could someone so...
Jun 02, 2026•33 min•Ep. 212
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 Episodes YouTube - Full-length Video Episodes TikTok / Instagram...
May 29, 2026•29 min•Ep. 211
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 fanbase knew all too well that this wasn’t the truth. -- Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus Episodes YouT...
May 28, 2026•1 hr•Ep. 452
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 die? -- Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus Episodes YouTube - Full-length Video Episodes TikTok / Instagr...
May 26, 2026•21 min•Ep. 210
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 clues behind some of the biggest cases in history. New episodes of Clues drop every Monday. Clues i...
May 25, 2026•1 hr 25 min
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 & Bonus Episodes YouTube - Full-length Video Episodes TikTok / Instagram...
May 22, 2026•23 min•Ep. 209
“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 experiment of “the Olympics – but everyone can take whatever substances they want” has struggled to get ...
May 21, 2026•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 451
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 Episodes YouTube - Full-length Video Episodes TikTok / Instagram...
May 19, 2026•33 min•Ep. 208
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 potential for a retrial. -- Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus Episodes YouTube - Full-length Video Episodes Ti...
May 15, 2026•25 min•Ep. 207
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 Murdaugh murders are not one story; they are a seemingly endless web of lies, entitlement, and confusi...
May 14, 2026•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 10053
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 behind Bone Valley. And, the bigger question: if not Leo, then who? -- Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus ...
May 14, 2026•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 450
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 Gong want to achieve? What do we make of their claims of torture, at the hands of the Chinese gover...
May 12, 2026•27 min•Ep. 206
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. This is the ShortHand. -- Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus Episodes YouTube - Full-length Video Episodes ...
May 08, 2026•24 min•Ep. 205
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 Episodes YouTube - Full-length Video Episodes TikTok / Instagram...
May 07, 2026•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 449
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, and every other celebrity you could think of felt lucky to set foot on its gigantic dance floor. Bu...
May 05, 2026•28 min•Ep. 204
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 main lwa – or spirits – of vodou? And how can an offering of black coffee, rum and cigars help you ...
May 01, 2026•24 min•Ep. 203
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 managed to escape a lifetime of abuse. -- Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus Episodes YouTube - Full-length Vid...
Apr 30, 2026•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 448
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 wasteland? (And, what makes insects go on a sex-crazed, amphetamine-fuelled rampage until their literal...
Apr 28, 2026•28 min•Ep. 202
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 & Bonus Episodes YouTube - Full-length Video Episodes TikTok / Instagram...
Apr 24, 2026•30 min•Ep. 201
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 some of America’s biggest financial institutions, in her bid to secure multi-million-dollar loans… And...
Apr 23, 2026•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 447
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 galleries and collectors in the world. In the process they made millions of dollars, and created a scandal...
Apr 21, 2026•28 min•Ep. 200
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 of AnonIB and leaked-nude “collectors”: users who hoard and circulate explicit images without the sub...
Apr 17, 2026•25 min•Ep. 199
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 want her dead? -- Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus Episodes YouTube - Full-length Video Episodes TikTok...
Apr 17, 2026•49 min•Ep. 446
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 happened. The press hung on his every word, quoting him as the most powerful black man in Europe. By the...
Apr 16, 2026•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 445
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 circumstances all tipping the balance on some seriously sketchy odds, you’d better grab a life jacke...
Apr 14, 2026•26 min•Ep. 198
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 & Bonus Episodes YouTube - Full-length Video Episodes TikTok / Instagram...
Apr 10, 2026•28 min•Ep. 197
The lead suspect in the Gilgo Beach Killings - 62 year old former architect Rex Heuermann - has now pleaded guilty . So, with a trial off the table in the Long Island Serial Killer saga, join us for an update on what investigators found that finally nailed Heuermann - forcing him to confess. Then stick around and revisit our two-part episode on this harrowing case that haunted Long Island for decades. Plus, join us on next week’s Under the Duvet - over on Patreon - for a look at the impact this ...
Apr 09, 2026•2 hr 12 min•Ep. 10053
When Rhode Island native Nicholas Rossi found himself wanted by the FBI and Interpol for a string of assaults and large-scale frauds, he didn’t just run away. He faked his death, fled to Scotland, disguised himself as a wheezing British academic called Arthur Knight, and went on the attack – loudly claiming his innocence in wilder and wilder TV appearances across the international press. And that isn’t even the half of it. Before the story finally wrapped up a few months ago, Rossi’s winding tal...
Apr 09, 2026•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 444
With Netflix's new documentary on the modern fundamentalist Mormon church coming out today – we thought it was the perfect time to revisit our episode on Warren Jeffs's FLDS, to give some much-needed context... Last week, we looked at the formation of the ultra-obedient, bigamist Mormon cult, the FLDS – in which plural marriage to pregnant preteen girls is just the tip of the fundamentalist iceberg. In this second part, we look at how its new prophet, Warren Jeffs, took his so-called religion to...
Apr 08, 2026•47 min•Ep. 10052
