True Weird Stuff is the award-winning podcast hosted by Sheri Lynch. Surprising, odd, bizarre - and sometimes insane. Always true. Let us tell you a story…
Today's True Weird Stuff - Unholy City He called himself "The Comforter" and "The Emancipator." William E. Riker was a religious cult leader who preached what he called, "The Perfect Christian Divine Way," the belief in celibacy and racial and gendered segregation. In the 1920s and 30s, he purchased 200 acres of land to establish a town built on white supremacy. He called it...the Holy City. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Today's True Weird Stuff - The Boy From Mars James Leininger said he used to be a Navy Pilot whose plane was shot down during WWII. Ryan Hammons remembered his life as former actor Marty Martyn. Boriska Kipriyanovich claimed he was a Martian who was reborn as a human. Researchers have spent decades studying the one thing they have in common: all three believe their soul was reincarnated and could describe their past lives in great detail. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Today's True Weird Stuff - Charlie No Face Raymond Robinson was only 8 years old when he was severely injured in an electrical accident. The incident left him so disfigured that he spent the rest of his life avoiding being out in public during the day...choosing only to go on long walks under the cover of darkness. Stories spread of an elusive, disfigured man wandering the streets late at night...and so began the legend of Charlie No-Face. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Today's True Weird Stuff - Ballsy Dr. Leo Stanley was the chief surgeon at San Quentin State Prison from 1913 to 1951. His horrific, pro-eugenics legacy included performing inhumane surgeries on inmates as a way to rehabilitate them...from thyroid removal to transplanting testicular glands from executed prisoners to living inmates. His belief in surgical cures for criminal minds made him a medical Frankenstein. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Today's True Weird Stuff - Hungry Puppet Ronald William Brown was a Christian TV puppeteer; he was also a pedophile, sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for the hundreds of lewd and disturbing images of children in his possession. But his desires were much darker than wanting to abuse children. Ronald William Brown discussed in detail his desire to torture, murder, and eat them. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Today's True Weird Stuff - Skinned This is the story of a wallet made from human skin. The journey of Antoine LeBlanc to America in search of a better life. The rage of being screwed over by his bosses, the Sayres...and in return, murdering them in cold blood. And a town so outraged they executed LeBlanc, and used his remains to create keepsakes. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Today's True Weird Stuff - Flat Tire, Lonely Road In 1973, Dionisio Yanca arrived at a hospital in Bahia Blanca in a state of total amnesia. Days later, as he regained his memory, he retold his extraordinary experience: a bright light consumed the area around him as three humanoid beings approached him on the side of the road at night and took a sample of his blood. Dionisio even recounted his story multiple times while under hypnosis. Some people would kill for the chance to encounter alien lif...
Today's True Weird Stuff - The First War On Christmas Imagine living in a world where people hated Christmas...so much so that they banned people from celebrating it. We're not talking about some grumpy, green-colored mean one, or a cold-hearted miser. These were Puritans in Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 17th Century...people like Governor William Bradford and Reverend Increase Mather. Their hatred of Christmas showed no restraint, these folks made the Grinch look like a saint. See omnystudio....
Today's True Weird Stuff - Cursed Christmas Ghost In the late 1800s, May Yohé had it all: a successful musical theatre career. A handsome, royal husband. A lavish, extravagant lifestyle. And then...it was all gone. If you're the superstitious type, you'd believe she was yet another victim of the most famous jewel in the world. Passed down to her husband, Lord Francis, those who've inherited it have suffered great misfortune. That's the power of the curse of the Hope Diamond. See omnystudio.com/l...
Today's True Weird Stuff - Beamed Up In 1943, the USS Eldridge, a U.S. Navy ship, allegedly teleported from Philadelphia to the waters of Norfolk, Virginia. Some claim that during this experiment some men on the ship disappeared permanently…while others reappeared, with their bodies fused into the metal of the ship. Was this a real government cover-up, or does teleportation only exist in the minds of those who boldly go where no man has gone before? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy inform...
Today's True Weird Stuff - The Red Crown You’ve heard of Bonnie and Clyde. But before one of the most infamous crime sprees in American history came to a bullet-riddled end, Bonnie, Clyde, and their cohorts foundthemselves cornered by the law in a motel in Parkville, Missouri. With no other choice but toshoot their way out, this is the tale of The Barrow Gang at The Red Crown. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Today's True Weird Stuff - Sweet Baba When you think of serial killers, the most notorious ones come to mind: Ted Bundy. Jack The Ripper. Jeffrey Dahmer. But an accomplished chemist, a woman known as Baba Anujka, earned her reputation by concocting a “love potion” that was used to kill as many as 150 people. In the words of Bell Biv DeVoe…”That girl is poison.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Today's True Weird Stuff - Mother & Ghost Decades before an old, rundown haunted house in Indiana was torn down, it was the beautiful home of Dr. and Mrs. Wilson, and their son, Aesop. In 1861, Aesop lost his life while serving in the Civil War. His grief-stricken mother had her son's casket returned home and kept it in the house for 12 years. Was the house haunted by Aesop's ghost? Or was it haunted by sorrow, because a mother's love never dies? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy infor...
Today's True Weird Stuff - Room 1046 A man named Roland T. Owen checked into the Hotel President in Kansas City, Missouri on January 2, 1935. Days later, he was found in his hotel room, beaten and stabbed, blood all over the walls. Hotel staff had several strange encounters with Roland during his stay, but nothing that suggested he was in danger. With no clues, besides discovering that Roland T. Owen wasn't his real name, detectives embarked on solving the mystery of the terrible events...in Roo...
Today's True Weird Stuff - Swing That Axe In 1922, Andreas and Cäzilia Gruber, their daughter Viktoria Gabriel, Viktoria's children Cäzilia and Josef, and the family's maid Maria Baumgartner were all found brutally murdered at their farm known as Hinterkaifeck. There were no clues for a motive. No usable DNA evidence. Any leads investigators had over the years led only to dead ends. The killer has never been found. The Hinterkafeck murders are the definition of a cold case. See omnystudio.com/li...
Today's True Weird Stuff - Unmarked Graves The Florida School for Boys, also known as the Dozier School, operated from the year 1900 until 2011. This reform school had notorious history of abuse: beatings..torture…even murder of students by staff. Many believe over 100 bodies were buried on school grounds. To this day, those who survived, and the loved ones of those lost, fight for justice for those unmarked graves. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Farmer To Fork Cannibalism has a deeply unsettling history across various cultures and time periods, from the desperation of the Donner party in 1846, to a man in 2018 who killed and ate parts of a farmer, and used the remains to create artwork. Yes, cannibal art is a thing…but it’s usually art about cannibalism, not art made BY cannibals. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Today's True Weird Stuff - Don't Lose Your Head How did William Guldensuppe become the most famous man in New York in 1897? It was all thanks to the fiendish antics of his lover, Augusta Nack, and her side piece, Martin Thorn. They lured Guldensuppe into a murderous trap. His body parts were scattered across the city. This love triangle was sure to make…HEADlines. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Today's True Weird Stuff - The Swimmers In 1982, Russian Navy divers were conducting a military exercise 50 metres deep in Lake Baikal when they noticed something observing them. Tall, humanoid creatures with silvery silhouettes lingered; a sight that would terrify even the toughest soldier. 7 divers entered those waters that day…only 4 survived. What lurks below in the world’s oldest lake? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Today's True Weird Stuff - The Bishop's Dungeon Bishop Vladimir was at the center of significant rumors during his tenure in San Francisco in the late 1800s: arson...financial recklessness...death threats. But it wasn't until 1891 when his bitter rivals uncovered something truly heinous: a dungeon full of abused and tortured children. Bishop Vladimir wasn't just a religious leader...he was a wolf in sheep's clothing. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Hammer Time Love is a beautiful thing, but jealousy is an ugly monster. That's why American showgirl Clara Phillips stalked her imagined rival and beat her to death with a hammer...because she loved her man so much. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Today's True Weird Stuff - Moon Struck Ever look up at the night sky and wonder, what is the moon? Has the moon always been there? That humble, dusty little satellite that hangs in our night sky and has inspired everything from love songs to werewolves to snack cakes, but until fairly recently, we had no real idea what the moon really is, or why it’s even here. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Today's True Weird Stuff - Wild West Pearl Forced to work in a brothel as a young girl, Pearl Hart rebelled and ran away. She broke all the hearts and she broke all the rules, and once she even broke out of jail. And then she got an idea…let’s rob a stagecoach. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Today's True Weird Stuff - Don’t Let Them In A child you’ve never met – a complete stranger – approaches you and asks for help. What would you do? In 1996, reporter Brian Bethel encountered two children whose presence consumed his soul with fear. Some believe it’s paranormal; others believe it’s a prank. But one glance is all it takes..from the black-eyed kids. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Today's True Weird Stuff - Killer Crush and the Incel Bryan Kohberger is sitting in a jail cell awaiting trial on charges of first-degree murder in the horrific stabbing deaths of four college students at the University of Idaho. And he’s at the center of two perplexing and bizarre phenomena: one, the adoration and infatuation of female fans. As crazy as that sounds, right? And two, Kohberger is an incel – as in, involuntarily celibate. Forensic psychologist Dr. Carole Lieberman breaks it down f...
Today's True Weird Stuff - Ice Pick to The Brain What if there was a quick and easy outpatient procedure that promised to cure whole list of ailments? Insomnia, post-partum depression, a nervous stomach, headaches…All easily fixed with the minimally invasive tap tap tap of an icepick hammered into an eye socket. Not a Saw movie – it was medicine in America. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Today's True Weird Stuff - Pig Lady Haunting Forbidden love, deception, murder…and a mystery that has remained a mystery for more than a hundred years. The double homicide of a married preacher and his equally married mistress. From the eerie crime scene to the complete circus that was the trial, this is a story where there can be no justice. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Today's True Weird Stuff - Talking SETI with Dr. Seth Shostak When it comes to aliens, you probably either think an invasion is imminent, or that the government is running a massive disinformation campaign to conceal military technology. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Seth Shostak, the senior astronomer for the SETI Institute. SETI as in, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. No tinfoil hats, no wild theories…just the facts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Today's True Weird Stuff - We The People If you had to shout out some of the founding fathers of the United States of America, chances are your go-to guys would be George Washington. Thomas Jefferson. Benjamin Franklin. But there was another architect of American independence...the guy who coined the phrase, “We the people”. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Today's True Weird Stuff - The Bone Wars Once upon a time, there were two men who lied and tricked and undermined each other every chance they got. They weren’t warriors or soldiers...kings or conquerors. They were a couple of paleontologists...both hellbent on being the world’s authority on dinosaurs. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
