{"_":"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.","$":{"audioboom:html":"1"}}
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Being in the World Trade Centre when the second plane hit the South Tower; watching her assistant be decapitated; crawling over the bodies of her dead and injured co-workers; and becoming one of only nineteen people to survive being at or above the point of impact: these are all things Tania Head did not experience. Yet for six years, Tania (real name Alicia) was the 9/11 survivor. She inspired others, worked tirelessly for their cause, and even became a beacon of hope as the president of the Wo...
What do you do with a prisoner so unhinged that he’s been kicked out of 120 prisons to date? How have Britain’s most secure facilities dealt with a man who could explode in a frenzy of brutal violence and destruction at any moment? What happens to a man who spends more than 25 years in solitary confinement? And most importantly: now that Britain’s most infamous inmate has rebranded as an artist, poet, and man of peace, will it ever be safe to let him out? This is the story of the larger-than-lif...
In 2006, the body of Polish student Angelika Kluk was found hidden in the most unthinkable place: stuffed beneath the floorboards of a Glasgow church. The man who put her there – greyhaired handyman Peter Tobin – was about to have his own sins laid bare. And what police found would reveal a predator whose impact stretched far beyond the church walls: with vanished girls, broken families, and a raft of missed opportunities to stop a prolific offender from slipping through the cracks of the UK jus...
Recorded LIVE in New York’s Town Hall in front of a sold-out crowd, RedHanded’s Confessions Tour show takes in everything from Mormon sex scandals to intergalactic baby-making missions to save the planet. Plus: more than we ever wanted to know about our lovely audience… For the full experience, watch the slideshow on our YouTube channel: Exclusive bonus content: Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHand Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus Episodes Follow us on social media: YouTube TikTok Instagram Visit our ...
This episode tells the tragic and inspiring story of Iqbal Masih, sold into child labor at age four in Pakistan. It delves into the historical context of debt slavery, the brutal factory conditions he endured, and his remarkable escape and rise as an international activist against child labor. The hosts also explore the complexities of ethical supply chains and the controversial aftermath of Iqbal's assassination, highlighting his enduring legacy.
In 2016, ex-footballer Andy Woodward revealed on live TV that he and countless other boys were sexually abused by their former youth coach, Barry Bennell, whilst training in Manchester City and Crewe Alexandra’s acclaimed “football factories” as youngsters in the 1980s and 90s. In doing so, he blew the whistle on one of the UK’s most prolific child abusers – and triggered a scandal that went deeper than anyone could’ve imagined… Because Barry Bennell wasn’t the first – or the last – paedophilic ...
In our second and final part on Erin Patterson’s deadly beef Wellington dinner, we focus on the jaw-dropping trial. So: did she purposefully forage for death cap mushrooms, then cook and serve them to her extended family with the express purpose of giving them a slow and painful death? Did she really lie about having cancer? Or was it all just an innocent mistake? The video version of this episode will be on our YouTube channel from 31st July. Exclusive bonus content: Wondery - Ad-free & Sho...
Jeffrey Epstein – the billionaire financier-turned-serial-sex-trafficker – is back in the news, in another new guise that no one saw coming: political football. So let's take a look at what we know (and, more pertinently, what we will never know) about the so-called “Epstein files”. Exclusive bonus content: Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHand Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus Episodes Follow us on social media: YouTube TikTok Instagram Visit our website: Website Sources available on redhandedpodcast.c...
NOTE: Our update on the Epstein files will be released TOMORROW (Tuesday July 29th) to everyone. In the meantime, for all the context, here’s our two-parter in full! -- The story of Jeffrey Epstein – the billionaire financier with an industrial-scale web of child abuse implicating some of the most powerful people in the world – sounds like some half-baked conspiracy theory. But it’s all true. We tell the story from the very beginning – from Epstein’s grifting origins to sex-trafficking minors ov...
At lunchtime, a family in southeast Australia sat down for beef wellington with a mushroom duxelles, creamy mash and buttery green beans. The next morning, most of the guests would be violently ill. A week later, three of them would be dead. Only one diner was totally unaffected: the host, Erin Patterson… who later would stand trial for murder by poison mushroom. In part one of our post-trial evaluation of this case, we take a look back at that fateful lunch, and Erin’s increasingly evasive and ...
On Wednesday 2 July 2025, a jury found Sean Combs NOT GUILTY of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy – his two most serious charges, which carried a potential sentence of life in prison. He was found guilty on lesser charges of transportation to engage in prostitution. So, despite all the clear evidence of guilt, how did the jury come to this decision in just two days of deliberation? We take a closer look at how the trial went down, what part Cassie Ventura played, and where the defence ...
This week, Constance Marten and Mark Gordon were found GUILTY of gross negligence manslaughter. So, on top of our rereleased episode from last year, here is everything you need to know from the bizarre retrial: unbelievable revelations about Mark Gordon's past crimes, an answer on Constance's mysterious 'fall' from a balcony, and more delays and fired barristers than we ever thought possible. -- When the body of a weeks-old baby was found in a plastic bag in a shed, covered in soil and rubbish, ...
The report into Kennedy's assassination brought in a new era of mistrust in the government... and that was just the beginning. Because if you look for even a second – the official version just doesn't add up. In this second part, we take a closer look at Lee Harvey Oswald's shaky history, meet JFK's other worst enemy (the Mafia), and, finally decide: what do we think really happened that day? Exclusive bonus content: Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHand Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus Episodes Follow...
This week in a shocking twist Bryan Kohberger accepted a plea deal for the brutal murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin. In this update – taken from this week's Under the Duvet on our Patreon – we discuss what evidence the prosecution had, why he accepted this deal that will see him die behind bars, and if justice was really served. This episode also includes a re-release of our 2023 episode. Watch the YouTube video of this update here! Exclusive bonus conten...
Who shot JFK is irrelevant, how many people shot him is the real question. Once you have decided there was more than one shooter, the fate of the world is sealed forever. This is the original conspiracy theory, the dawn of the tin foil hat era. The assassination of the President in broad daylight, in front of hundreds, it had everyone asking questions. Questions that went totally unanswered by the Warren Commission, tasked with proving that a lone nutcase shot JFK and that the CIA had nothing to...
“I am a paedophile… and I’m very happy about it.” The thousands of handwritten entries in the so-called ‘black notebooks’ of France’s worst ever child sex offender revealed more than 30 years of horrendous abuse. In devastating detail, they described acts carried out on young patients in his work as a surgeon, in hospitals across western France. He is likely to have abused more than 400 children. The notebooks also showed just how many blind eyes were turned in that time, and how, at home, he de...
Party girl Tiffany Cole had always relied on the kindness of strangers – including her former neighbours, Reggie and Carol Sumner. This frail older couple helped Tiffany out as if she were their own daughter… And she repaid their kindness by digging their grave. Literally. Tiffany claimed it was all her boyfriend’s idea, and she never meant for the Sumners to get hurt. But how did a boneheaded robbery plot by a bunch of party rats go so terribly wrong? And crucially: how much did Tiffany really ...
With Scientology’s biggest poster boy back on the big screen, the church is ramping up the recruitment drive. And to make sure you STAY AWAY from this sinister, star-studded sci-fi cult posing as a world religion, we’re rereleasing our two-parter as a bumper bonus episode... -- Hannah and Suruthi peer under the slippery stone of Scientology’s sinister origins. They track the life of founder L. Ron Hubbard, from the birth of Dianetics, to the constantly shifting goalposts of engrams, and of cours...
Melanie McGuire was a beautiful young nurse who wouldn’t hurt a fly. So when her husband’s chopped-up remains were found in three separate suitcases in the Chesapeake Bay, she suddenly had a lot to answer for… Was this petite New Jersey mum capable of killing her husband and disposing of his body in such a gruesome way? Or was this – as she claimed – a huge Sopranos-style stitch-up? Sex, drugs and luggage: this week’s case is one you won’t wanna miss. Exclusive bonus content: Wondery - Ad-free &...
Who was The Zodiac? Did he kill Cheri Jo Bates? And how did three hobbyist cryptographers crack his ‘impossible’ code 50 years after it was written? These are just a few of the questions we answer in our final episode on The Zodiac Killer. Join us as we try to conclude the inconcludable, cold case that has haunted California for half a century. Exclusive bonus content: Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHand Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus Episodes Follow us on social media: YouTube TikTok Instagram Vis...
Last week we left you with the absolutely massive cliffhanger of a 408-character cipher, which in theory contained valuable information on the Bay Area’s most infamous killer “The Zodiac”. But first it needed to be solved. And amazingly it wasn’t cracked by the police, or the FBI: it was solved by a 41-year-old history teacher and his wife, and we’re going to tell you exactly how they did it. In this week’s episode, the Zodiac’s killing spree continues – claiming the lives of young lovers Bryan ...
Violent attacks, sadistic taunting, and uncrackable puzzles; in some ways “The Zodiac” laid the foundations for every murderous TV psychopath and movie villain of the next half-century. For our 400th episode we decided to dedicate three whole episodes to the potentially the most famous serial killer in history: how he operated, how his puzzles were solved, and who he might have been. In part one we’re going to tell you everything you need to know about the Zodiac’s first four victims: David Fara...
When her sister-in-law never returned from a trip to India, Sarbjit Kaur Athwal knew exactly what had happened: her mother-in-law had made no secret of her plan to “get rid of” Surjit – the outspoken thorn in the family’s side. But Sarbjit also knew what she was up against: a strict code of honour; the threat of shame and total rejection by her community – and the certainty that if she stepped out of line, it would be her turn next. Exclusive bonus content: Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHand Patr...
With the release of a new Netflix documentary on the Wests, we dove into the archive (way way back to episodes 27 and 28) to get you up to date with our in-depth two-parter on one of the UK's most infamous cases. -- Incest, rape, murder and torture dungeons; the girls take on one of Britain's most notorious serial killer couples - Fred and Rose West. Over a span of 25 years this pair of sexual sadists carried out unspeakable evil in their cellar at the now infamous 25 Cromwell St, and when the t...
ShortHand is released weekly for Wondery+ and Amazon Music subscribers. Listen exclusively and ad-free every Tuesday on Wondery+ through Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And depending on where you are in the world, ShortHand is included with your Prime Membership on Amazon Music. -- What happens when humanity’s mouthpiece of God, the holiest man on earth, The Pope, passes away? First and foremost a man bonks him on the head with a centuries-old little hammer to make sure he’s really gone. From there ...
In our second part of the Pre-Diddy saga, we take a closer look at the accusations you need to know about – and the 99 problems it could cause for some of his closest associates... With all the sensational stories swirling around this case, we separate fact from fiction, and find out that the truth is always wilder than the headlines: from ‘MVP bags’ containing ‘power banger sex machines’, to the involvement of some of music’s biggest names. So what do Justin Bieber, Usher, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Glori...
As the trial we’ve all been waiting for finally approaches, we bring you the full rundown on the self-proclaimed “bad boy for life” – and the hundreds of accusations, from victims as young as nine years old, that threaten to jail the music mogul for the rest of his days. Before we find out which “well-known figures” are likely to be accused alongside Sean Combs (aka P Diddy aka “Love”) here is everything you need to know: from his explosive beginnings on the hip hop scene with Bad Boy Records; t...
When the Countess of Lucan burst into a West London pub drenched head-to-toe in blood, it instantly sparked a national obsession. Lord Lucan – the suave, speedboat-racing, professional-gambling aristocrat – was wanted for the murder of their housekeeper, Sandra Rivett. And he had disappeared without a trace. This week, we sift through the theories on Britain’s most famous fugitive (from the bonkers to the actually quite credible) to try to get to the bottom of the nation’s favourite murder myste...
They say Brazil is not for amateurs. And that’s certainly true in the crime-stricken city of Manaus, where Wallace Souza – a charismatic TV host and congressman with a flair for the dramatic – built up an army of fans with his hard-hitting news coverage in the early 2000s. But was his bonkers daytime TV show, Canal Livre, just a smokescreen for his own shady criminal empire? And how far would Wallace go to increase his show’s already killer ratings? Grab your bug spray and join us for another ex...
The adopted princess of a wealthy Spanish family, 12-year-old Asunta Basterra Porto seemed destined to thrive under the devoted care of her parents Rosario and Alfonso. But beneath the surface, sinister secrets were taking root – including clandestine druggings, creepy family photos and one seriously twisted marriage. Had these callous parents cast aside the daughter they chose? An investigation dogged by accusations of bias would only muddy the waters further... Join us this week as we explore ...
