Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes

In the aftermath of World War I, a secretive occult group emerged in Germany called the Thule Society, blending Norse mythology, racial mysticism, and extreme nationalism into a dangerous new ideology. Its members believed in a master race descended from a mythical northern homeland, and their obsession with ancestry and bloodline would seep directly into the beliefs of the fledgling Nazi Party. Though the society itself faded, its ideas and several of its members helped shape one of history's darkest movements. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson explores the Thule Society, the toxic fusion of myth and extremism that gave it life, and the chilling way an obscure occult club helped plant the seeds of Nazi ideology.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

Since it opened in 1995, Denver International Airport has been the subject of some of the most enduring conspiracy theories in America. Built years behind schedule and wildly over budget, the airport is famous for its unsettling apocalyptic murals, a towering demonic horse statue with glowing red eyes, cryptic dedication plaques, and a sprawling network of underground tunnels. To believers, these details point to secret bunkers for the elite, headquarters for shadowy organizations, or something even stranger hidden beneath the runways. Officials insist the tunnels are mundane and the art is simply misunderstood, but the speculation has only grown over the decades, embraced even by the airport itself. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson explores the many theories surrounding Denver International Airport, the strange design choices that started it all, and the question of why one airport became a magnet for suspicion about hidden power and secret agendas.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

A History Channel original podcast brought to you by Rewind Studios, History's Greatest Mysteries examines the top theories surrounding the world's most enigmatic unsolved mysteries. If you love Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, then you’re gonna love History’s Greatest Mysteries. Each episode unpacks these puzzles with contributions from top historians, authors, scientists, and researchers. From unsolved crimes to lost and buried treasures, and the deaths and disappearances of famous figures, History's Greatest Mysteries explores possible explanations to some of the world's most confounding events. Follow the show for a new episode every Wednesday: https://pod.link/6801242598

In December 1996, 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey was found murdered in the basement of her family's home in the quiet mountain town of Boulder, Colorado, in a case that would become one of the most controversial in American history. A bizarre ransom note, a badly mishandled crime scene, and a swirl of suspicion around her own family turned a private tragedy into a national spectacle, with the media declaring the Ramseys guilty long before any evidence could. Nearly three decades later, despite endless theories and renewed DNA testing, no one has ever been charged, and the truth remains buried beneath decades of speculation. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson revisits the JonBenét Ramsey case, the investigative failures that doomed it from the start, and the way a shocking murder shattered the illusion of safety in one seemingly perfect Colorado town.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

Deep in the redwood forests of Northern California lies Bohemian Grove, a private retreat where some of the most powerful men in the world, presidents, business titans, and political power brokers, have gathered in secret for more than a century. Each summer, members of the exclusive Bohemian Club convene for two weeks of camping, revelry, and a strange opening ritual called the "Cremation of Care," performed before a towering stone owl. That secrecy has fueled decades of speculation, from rumors of occult worship to theories that world-shaping decisions are quietly made around its campfires. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson explores the mysteries of Bohemian Grove, the rituals and rumors that have made it a fixture of conspiracy lore, and the question of what really happens when the world's elite disappear into the woods with no cameras allowed.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

During the Cold War, the CIA quietly turned modern art into a weapon. Convinced that America needed to prove its cultural superiority over the Soviet Union, the agency secretly promoted abstract expressionist painters like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning as symbols of American freedom. Through a front group called the Congress for Cultural Freedom and a network of fake foundations, the CIA funneled millions of dollars into touring exhibitions across Europe, partnering with the Museum of Modern Art, all without the artists ever knowing who was funding their success. The irony was staggering: many of the painters were anarchists and former communists, President Truman thought their work was garbage, and Congress called it un-American, yet the CIA bankrolled it anyway. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the declassified operation that transformed paint splatters into propaganda, the strange alliance between spies and the art world, and the unsettling question of whether some of the most celebrated art of the 20th century rose on merit, or because a spy agency decided it was useful.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In the 1950s and 60s, at the height of the Cold War, the CIA launched a secret program called Operation Midnight Climax as part of its notorious MKUltra mind-control research. Operating out of safehouses in San Francisco and New York, agents used sex workers to lure unwitting men, then dosed them with LSD without their knowledge and observed the results through one-way mirrors. The goal was to study whether psychedelics could be weaponized for interrogation, coercion, and control. What unfolded was a chilling abuse of government power, hidden from the public for decades until investigations finally exposed it. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson investigates Operation Midnight Climax, the Cold War paranoia that drove the CIA to experiment on its own citizens, and the disturbing legacy of a program that treated unsuspecting people as test subjects in the search for a mind-control weapon.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In the late 1960s, a group of California idealists calling themselves the Brotherhood of Eternal Love set out to change the world through psychedelics, believing that LSD could bring about spiritual awakening and universal peace. Inspired by figures like Timothy Leary, the Brotherhood started as a hippie collective but soon became one of the largest drug-smuggling operations in the country, trafficking massive quantities of LSD and hashish across the globe. What began as a utopian dream drifted steadily into a criminal empire, drawing the attention of federal authorities and culminating in a sweeping prosecution. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson explores the rise and fall of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, the collision between counterculture idealism and organized crime, and the question of whether their mission was ever really about enlightenment, or just about the drugs.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In January 1996, the small Brazilian city of Varginha became the center of one of the most famous UFO stories in South American history. Multiple witnesses, including three young women, reported seeing a strange creature with a large head and red eyes lurking in the streets, while others claimed the military had captured one or more living beings and recovered a crashed craft. As soldiers reportedly swarmed the area and a young military police officer who allegedly handled a creature later died under murky circumstances, the official denials only deepened public suspicion that something was being covered up. To this day, Varginha is often called the "Brazilian Roswell." In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson is joined by Laurah Norton of One Strange Thing to investigate the Varginha incident, the witnesses who swore they saw something otherworldly, and the alleged government cover-up that turned a small city into a permanent fixture of UFO lore.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

Reddit is an endless archive of humanity’s most disturbing, bizarre, and deeply human stories. If you love Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, you are going to love CRIMES OF REDDIT with Alexis Linkletter and Sabrina Deana-Roga.Every Tuesday, one host brings a set of true-crime stories while the other reacts in real time with no prep, no spoilers asking the questions on everyone’s mind. They pull at every thread until the whole twisted picture comes into view. It’s dark, it’s messy, and the scariest part is simple: THESE ARE STORIES POSTED BY REAL PEOPLE.Follow CRIMES OF REDDIT for a new episode every Tuesday. https://pod.link/1838511303CRIMES OF REDDIT is a Crime House original powered by PAVE Studios.

Chico Mendes was a Brazilian rubber tapper who became one of the world's most important environmental activists, organizing peaceful resistance against the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. By the 1980s, he had drawn international attention to the violent clash between cattle ranchers clearing the forest and the communities who depended on it to survive. His activism made him a global symbol of the fight to save the Amazon, and it also made him a target. In December 1988, Mendes was shot and killed outside his home by a rancher's family, a murder that exposed the deadly stakes of standing between profit and preservation in the Brazilian frontier. His death sparked international outrage and made him a martyr for the environmental movement. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson tells the story of Chico Mendes, the movement he built in the heart of the Amazon, and the land and power struggles that cost him his life.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

Founded in the Brazilian Amazon in the 1930s, Santo Daime is a religion that blends Catholicism, indigenous tradition, and African spirituality around a single sacred sacrament: ayahuasca, a powerful psychedelic brew. During hours-long ceremonies, devotees drink the bitter tea, sing hymns, and describe profound visions, healing, and spiritual enlightenment. The faith has spread far beyond Brazil, drawing followers around the world and sparking legal battles over the religious use of a substance banned in many countries. But alongside the devotion come questions about its rigid structure, the intensity of its rituals, and the line between spiritual practice and something more controlling. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson explores the origins of Santo Daime, the sacred brew at the center of its worship, and the debate over whether it is a legitimate religion, a healing tradition, or something closer to a cult.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

According to the Bible, the Ark of the Covenant was a gold-covered chest built to hold the Ten Commandments, an object of such immense divine power that it could level cities and strike down anyone who touched it. Then, sometime after the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem, it vanished from history. For thousands of years, the question of what happened to it has fueled legends and obsessive searches, with some claiming it lies hidden in a church in Ethiopia, others pointing to secret chambers beneath Jerusalem, and still others insisting it sits locked away in the vaults of the Vatican. Faith institutions have guarded its mystery for centuries, neither confirming nor denying what they may know. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson explores the legend of the Ark of the Covenant, the competing theories about where it ended up, and the enduring belief that one of history's most powerful relics may still be out there, waiting to be found.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In December 2017, billionaire pharmaceutical founder Barry Sherman and his wife Honey were found dead in their Toronto mansion, their bodies posed beside the indoor pool, each hanging from a railing by a belt. Police initially suggested a murder-suicide, a theory the couple's family furiously rejected. As private investigators and a second autopsy revealed the truth, the case was reclassified as a targeted double homicide, the work of someone who had carefully staged the scene. Barry had built the generic drug giant Apotex into a fortune worth billions, leaving behind a tangle of lawsuits, business rivalries, and family disputes. Years later, despite a massive reward and one of the most high-profile investigations in Canadian history, no one has ever been charged. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the killing of Barry and Honey Sherman, the botched early investigation that cost crucial evidence, and the web of money, power, and suspicion surrounding a murder that remains unsolved.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

Founded in Spain in 1928, Opus Dei is a Catholic organization built on discipline, secrecy, and the belief that ordinary life can be a path to holiness. Officially recognized and championed by the Vatican, it has counted powerful politicians, judges, and business leaders among its members. But critics, including many former members, describe something far more troubling behind the devotion: rigid control over members' daily lives, pressure and isolation in recruitment, and the practice of corporal mortification, where the most committed members inflict physical pain on themselves as a form of spiritual discipline. Supporters call it a faithful expression of Catholic tradition, while detractors call it a cult operating with the blessing of the Church. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the secretive organization at the heart of the Catholic Church, the line between devotion and control, and the question of how much influence Opus Dei really wields inside the Vatican.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

For nearly a decade, the Sicilian Mafia ran the largest heroin pipeline in the world, hiding it inside something as ordinary as the neighborhood pizza parlor. Morphine was bought in Turkey, refined into heroin in Sicily, smuggled into the United States, and sold through family-owned pizzerias across the American Northeast, while the profits were laundered through banks in New York, the Bahamas, and Switzerland. The operation moved an estimated $1.65 billion in drugs before the FBI, aided by an undercover agent who had spent years embedded inside the Bonanno crime family, coordinated arrests across four countries in a single day. The trial that followed lasted seventeen months, one defendant was murdered before it ended, and the star witness became the first made man in history to break the Mafia's code of silence. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson unravels the Pizza Connection, the vast criminal network hidden behind storefront counters, and the investigation that brought it crashing down.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudiosIf you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In November 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper boarded a commercial flight in Portland, Oregon, told a flight attendant he had a bomb, and demanded $200,000 and four parachutes. After releasing the passengers in Seattle, he ordered the crew back into the air, then lowered the plane's rear stairs and leapt into the freezing night somewhere over the Pacific Northwest. He was never seen again. The hijacking exposed just how little security existed in the early days of commercial aviation, when passengers boarded without screening and a man in a suit could carry a bomb onto a plane unquestioned. Despite one of the longest investigations in FBI history, no one ever identified him or recovered his body, and only a small portion of the ransom money was ever found. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson revisits the only unsolved skyjacking in American history, the security gaps that made it possible, and the enduring question of who D.B. Cooper really was and whether he survived the jump.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In the 18th century, England's most powerful men, politicians, aristocrats, and intellectuals, gathered behind closed doors for a secret society known as the Hellfire Club. Founded by the wealthy rake Sir Francis Dashwood, the club met in candlelit caves and a converted abbey, where members reportedly indulged in drunken feasts, mock religious ceremonies, and rituals that scandalized polite society. Rumors swirled of devil worship, orgies, and occult rites performed by men who ran the country by day and mocked God by night. But how much of the legend was real, and how much was the inevitable myth that grows around extreme privacy and unchecked power? In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson explores the most notorious secret society of Georgian England, the elite circle that operated beyond the reach of law or church, and the truth hidden beneath centuries of scandalous rumor.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In 1483, two boys, the 12-year-old King of England and his 9-year-old brother, were placed in the Tower of London by their uncle, who had sworn to protect them. In 1483, two boys, the 12-year-old King of England and his 9-year-old brother, were placed in the Tower of London by their uncle, who had sworn to protect them. Instead, he declared them illegitimate and crowned himself King Richard III. The princes were seen playing in the Tower gardens that summer, and then they vanished. Their uncle had the clearest motive, but so did his closest ally and the man who later overthrew him, leaving three suspects and no confession. In 1674, workers found the skeletons of two children beneath a Tower staircase, bones now sealed in a Westminster Abbey tomb that has repeatedly been denied DNA testing. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines one of the oldest cold cases in history, the three suspects who all had reason to want the boys dead, and the mystery modern science could finally solve if anyone would open the tomb.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In the autumn of 1888, a killer stalked the impoverished streets of London's Whitechapel district, murdering and mutilating at least five women in a matter of weeks. The press dubbed him Jack the Ripper, a name drawn from a taunting letter supposedly sent by the killer himself, and the city descended into panic. The murders exposed the squalor and desperation of Victorian London's East End, where poverty, overcrowding, and inequality left women with few options and little protection. Despite one of the largest manhunts of the era, police never caught him. More than 130 years later, the list of suspects has grown to include everyone from local butchers to royalty, and the case remains the most famous unsolved murder mystery in history. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson revisits the Whitechapel murders, the fear that gripped a divided city, and the endless theories about the identity of the man who was never caught.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

For more than a century, the Yakuza have operated as Japan's most powerful organized crime syndicates, hiding in plain sight with corporate offices, business cards, and fan magazines. But beneath the legitimate front is a world bound by ritual, absolute loyalty, and a rigid hierarchy that mirrors the devotion of a cult. New members are initiated through sacred sake ceremonies that bind them to a boss as a kind of father, severing ties to their own families. Those who break the code perform yubitsume, slicing off a fingertip to atone. Full-body tattoos mark a lifetime of belonging that few ever escape. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines how Japan's criminal brotherhoods turned obedience into a religion, the rituals that keep members in line, and how a syndicate of tens of thousands operated for decades as something between a corporation and a cult.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

On April 2, 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis fled Richmond with the entire Confederate treasury, a fortune in gold ingots, silver bricks, and coins guarded by teenage Navy midshipmen on a train heading south into a collapsing nation. Five weeks later, when Union soldiers finally captured Davis, almost all of it was gone. The War Department told the public the missing treasure was worth $13 million, a number historians say was invented to turn every former Confederate into a hunted man. The truth was far more complicated, with records showing most of the money was paid to soldiers and spent along the way. But the legend never died. Wagons were raided in Georgia, deathbed confessions pointed to buried caches no one ever found, and treasure hunters are still searching 160 years later. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson follows the trail of the lost Confederate gold, the myth the government built around it, and the question that still drives people into the woods with shovels: where did it all go?Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

A young British teacher in Tokyo is stalked and murdered by a man who evaded police for two and a half years. An experienced hunter on a dream African safari is shot dead in her cabin — and her husband collects nearly five million dollars in life insurance. And four elite American climbers are seized at gunpoint in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, becoming hostages in a war they never knew existed. This is episode 4 of Deadly Destinations, a special four-part series on Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes hosted by Vanessa Richardson. Four exotic locations that should have been a dream vacation, but ended in a nightmare. New episodes drop every Sunday, and all four are available now, ad-free, on Crime House Plus. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

On the evening of April 14, 1865, just five days after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, President Abraham Lincoln attended a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington. He was shot in the back of the head by an actor named John Wilkes Booth and died the following morning. But the murder at Ford's Theatre was not a lone gunman's act of revenge. That same night, across the city, other men were carrying out coordinated attacks on the Vice President and the Secretary of State, all part of a wider Confederate conspiracy aimed at decapitating the federal government in a single stroke. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson tells the story of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the men who plotted it, and the night that altered the course of Reconstruction before it began.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In 1854, an adventurer named George Bickley founded a secret society with a singular goal: build a slave empire stretching from the American South through Mexico, Cuba, and the Caribbean. He called it the Knights of the Golden Circle. Within a few years, it had grown into a powerful underground network that pushed secession, seized federal arsenals, and intimidated unionists across the South. Some historians have linked it to early plots against Abraham Lincoln, four years before John Wilkes Booth finished the job. When the war ended, the Knights didn't disband. They went underground, reportedly burying millions in gold across the South to finance a second Civil War that never came. Treasure hunters are still digging. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the secret society that helped start the Confederacy, may have helped kill a president, and left behind a trail of buried gold that no one has fully accounted for.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In 1802, a journalist reported that President Thomas Jefferson was keeping an enslaved woman named Sally Hemings as a concubine and had fathered her children. Jefferson said nothing. His family denied it. America's most prominent historians dismissed the story for nearly two hundred years.But Hemings' own descendants told a different story, one passed down through generations of oral history that the white historical establishment refused to take seriously. Did the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence have a secret family with a woman he enslaved? And if he did, why did it take the country so long to admit it? In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson revisits one of the most contested questions in American history, and the family that refused to let it go.Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

Three people sought refuge in remote wilderness — and never made it home safely. A young American woman vanished without a trace in Nepal's Himalayas, a serial killer preyed on hitchhikers along an Australian highway, and two men were murdered deep in the Amazon for exposing illegal activity. This is episode 3 of Deadly Destinations, a special four-part series on Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes hosted by Vanessa Richardson. Four exotic locations that should have been a dream vacation, but ended in a nightmare. New episodes drop every Sunday, and all four are available now, ad-free, on Crime House Plus. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In the spring of 1846, a group of nearly ninety American pioneers set out from Springfield, Illinois, bound for California. They were farmers, merchants, and families with young children, led by a 60-year-old man named George Donner. They expected to reach the West Coast by autumn.They never made it. After taking an unproven shortcut called the Hastings Cutoff, the party fell weeks behind schedule and was trapped by an early snowstorm high in the Sierra Nevada. By the time the first rescuers reached them in February 1847, nearly half were dead, and stories of what the survivors had done to stay alive would haunt American history for the next century and a half. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson revisits the Donner Party, the choices made in the snow, and the fights over what really happened that still haven't been settled.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesIf you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In 1848, a preacher named John Humphrey Noyes founded a religious community in upstate New York built around an idea most Americans found unthinkable. At Oneida, traditional marriage was abolished in favor of what Noyes called "complex marriage," a system in which exclusive pairings were forbidden and sexual relationships were governed by the community's leadership. Children were raised collectively. Reproduction was controlled through a program of selective breeding Noyes called stirpiculture. For more than thirty years, the Oneida Community grew, prospered, and held itself out as proof that human beings could live without sin. Then it collapsed. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson explores how one of the most ambitious utopian experiments in American history became one of the strangest, the doctrine of perfection that justified it, and what was really happening inside the community walls.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesIf you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 39 years old. The killing triggered unrest in more than a hundred American cities and altered the course of the civil rights movement. Two months later, a small-time criminal named James Earl Ray was arrested in London and charged with the murder. He pleaded guilty, then almost immediately recanted, claiming he had been part of a larger conspiracy. King's own family eventually came to believe him. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson revisits the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the questions that have never gone away.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesIf you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

Three separate journeys onto the water ended in death, disappearance, and unanswered questions. NBA champion Bison Dele vanished from his own sailboat in the South Pacific in 2002; cruise passenger Merrian Carver disappeared aboard a Celebrity Cruises ship bound for Alaska in 2004 while the cruise line stayed silent; and Australian mother Dianne Brimble died within hours of boarding a Sydney cruise in 2002 in a case that took nearly a decade to reach a courtroom. This is episode 2 of Deadly Destinations, a special four-part series on Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes hosted by Vanessa Richardson. Four exotic locations that should have been a dream vacation, but ended in a nightmare. New episodes drop every Sunday, and all four are available now, ad-free, on Crime House Plus. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

Between 1956 and 1971, the FBI ran a secret program called COINTELPRO, short for Counter Intelligence Program. Its targets included civil rights leaders, Black liberation groups, anti-war activists, and feminist organizers. Its methods included surveillance, infiltration, disinformation, and tactics designed to, in the FBI's own words, "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" them. For years, the program ran entirely in the shadows. Then in March 1971, a group of activists broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, stole the files, and sent them to the press. What they revealed changed how Americans saw their own government. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson tells the story of COINTELPRO, the people it targeted, the people who exposed it, and what the declassified files still tell us about the line between national security and political repression.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesIf you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, better known as the FLDS, was a polygamist offshoot of mainstream Mormonism that operated for decades along the Utah-Arizona border. By the early 2000s, its prophet was a man named Warren Jeffs. Under Jeffs, the FLDS tightened into something closer to total control. He assigned wives, expelled men, and arranged marriages between adult followers and underage girls. In 2006, the FBI placed him on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. Two years later, Texas authorities raided the Yearning for Zion Ranch. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson traces how a fringe religious community became one of the most abusive cults in modern American history.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesIf you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

Walt Disney didn't just build a theme park. He built a system of total control, and convinced the world to call it magic. Employees aren't staff, they're "cast members." Uniforms are "costumes." Guests who step out of line are escorted by plainclothes security to unmarked holding rooms. Beneath the park, a nine-acre tunnel network houses a command center monitoring over 70,000 functions per second. For 56 years, Disney ran its own government in Florida, with its own fire department, building codes, and laws, after promising the state a utopian city of 20,000 residents living under permanent corporate rule with no voting rights. That city was never built. The theme park was. Walt himself was a documented FBI informant. And then there are the myths: a frozen body beneath Pirates of the Caribbean, secret Masonic geometry, the truth about Club 33. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson separates the myths from the documented conspiracies, and asks why the most controlled environment in America keeps generating stories that sound like fiction but aren't.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesIf you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

Three tropical destinations, three true crimes: in Aruba, 35-year-old Robyn Gardner vanishes from a beach with a travel companion who later tries to collect her life insurance... and is never charged. On Thailand's Koh Tao, British backpackers Hannah Witheridge and David Miller are found murdered at dawn, and the convictions that follow are disputed worldwide. In Bali, nine young Australians are arrested for heroin smuggling after their own government tips off Indonesian police, leading to two of them being executed by firing squad. This is episode 1 of Deadly Destinations, a special four-part series on Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes hosted by Vanessa Richardson. Four exotic locations that should have been a dream vacation, but ended in a nightmare. New episodes drop every Sunday, and all four are available now, ad-free, on Crime House Plus. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

On the morning of August 5, 1962, Marilyn Monroe was found dead in the bedroom of her Los Angeles home. She was 36 years old. The Los Angeles County Coroner ruled her death a probable suicide from an overdose of barbiturates, citing her long history of insomnia, depression, and substance use. But almost immediately, the official story began to fray. Inconsistencies in the timeline, conflicting accounts from the people closest to her, and Monroe's well-documented ties to some of the most powerful men in America turned a tragic death into one of the most enduring mysteries of the twentieth century. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson revisits the final hours of Marilyn Monroe's life, the doctors and confidants who were near her that night, and the theories that have refused to die in the six decades since.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesIf you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

Behind a windowless brownstone on the Yale campus known only as "the Tomb," fifteen students are tapped each year to enter one of the most powerful and secretive brotherhoods in American history. Its alumni have included three U.S. presidents, CIA directors, Supreme Court justices, and titans of finance and media. Founded at Yale in 1832, Skull and Bones has operated by a strict code of silence ever since. Members swear lifelong oaths, perform rituals in private, and confide their deepest secrets to one another before carrying those secrets into government, business, and intelligence. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines how a single Yale society built a network that quietly shaped the American century, and why critics argue the line between an elite club and something far more controlling can be thinner than it looks.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesIf you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In the summer of 1776, as the Continental Army braced for a British invasion of New York City, a network of loyalist conspirators bribed five of George Washington's own elite bodyguards to murder him. Governor William Tryon orchestrated the scheme from a ship in New York Harbor, funneling money through the city's mayor to a gunsmith recruiter... and nearly pulling it off.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesJoin Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes ad-free and released one day early.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

On the night of March 5, 1770, British soldiers opened fire on a crowd of colonists on King Street in Boston, killing five men and wounding several others. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa examines how propagandists like Paul Revere transformed a chaotic street confrontation into a rallying cry that helped ignite the American Revolution. What really happened that night, and how much of what we know was shaped by those with something to gain?Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesJoin Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes ad-free and released one day early.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

For centuries, the Freemasons have counted kings, revolutionaries, and founding fathers among their ranks, a secret brotherhood whose rituals, oaths, and hidden hierarchies shaped the modern world. But when whistleblower William Morgan was abducted and murdered in 1826 for exposing their ceremonies, the cracks in the fraternity's noble façade became impossible to ignore. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa traces Freemasonry from medieval stone guilds to a documented Italian conspiracy that nearly toppled a democracy.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesJoin Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes ad-free and released one day early.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In Peru's scorching Nazca Valley, ancient inhabitants carved enormous animal figures into the desert floor over a thousand years ago, figures so large they can only be understood from the air. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa traces the decades-long quest to decode these mysterious formations, from the mathematician who dedicated her life to the desert to the bestselling author who claimed they were built for alien spacecraft.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesJoin Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes ad-free and released one day early.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In April 2009, four Somali pirates boarded the MV Maersk Alabama in the Indian Ocean, taking Captain Richard Phillips hostage in a lifeboat standoff that gripped the world. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa examines how a routine cargo run became one of the most dramatic maritime hostage crises in modern American history. Four tense days passed before Navy SEAL snipers ended the standoff, killing three pirates and freeing Phillips.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesJoin Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes ad-free and released one day early.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, indigenous communities across Melanesia developed powerful religious movements in response to the sudden arrival of European colonizers and wartime military forces bearing vast material wealth. Believing this "cargo" was spiritually theirs but deliberately withheld, followers built symbolic airstrips, mimicked military rituals, and wove new beliefs into ancient traditions. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa explores how these movements were far more than misunderstandings. They were sophisticated acts of cultural resistance in the face of colonial upheaval.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesJoin Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes ad-free and released one day early.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudio

For over 2,000 years, the Yeren, China's legendary wildman, has haunted the mountains and folklore of rural China, inspiring fear, government bans, and even a state-funded scientific expedition. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson is joined by Maci and Nadoly from Ghosteas to trace the creature's origins from ancient poetry to modern eyewitness accounts, and the researcher who spent 50 years hunting for proof. What he found raises a fascinating question: what if the monster was never a monster at all?Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesJoin Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes ad-free and released one day early.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

By her early 30s, Griselda Blanco had transformed herself from a poverty-stricken Colombian girl into one of the wealthiest and most feared drug lords in history, architecting a cocaine empire that flooded Miami with violence and money. Her business acumen was matched only by her willingness to order killings, including those of rivals, associates, and even husbands. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa traces how one woman climbed to the top of a brutal industry and left a trail of bodies in her wake.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesJoin Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes ad-free and released one day early.🎧 Need More to Binge?Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In the Chilean wilderness, German preacher Paul Schaefer ran Colonia Dignidad, a walled commune where 300 followers lived under surveillance, forced labor, and daily abuse for decades. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa traces how Schaefer's unchecked power grew from small-town evangelist to torturer-for-hire under Pinochet's brutal regime. A single note from a 12-year-old boy finally set his downfall in motion. Contains descriptions of child sexual abuse, torture, forced imprisonment, and murder.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesJoin Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes ad-free and released one day early.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In the mid-1800s, a British naturalist named Philip Sclater proposed the existence of a vast sunken continent called Lemuria to explain a gap in the fossil record. What began as a genuine scientific hypothesis was seized upon by occultists, racists, and spiritual movements, mutating over 150 years into a living religion practiced at the foot of a California volcano. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson traces how one man's theory about lemur fossils became the foundation for a conspiracy touching Atlantis, Theosophy, Nazism, and the New Age.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesJoin Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes ad-free and released one day early.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In 1875, a mild-mannered Civil War veteran named Charles Boles began robbing Wells Fargo stagecoaches across Northern California. He was always polite, never harmed passengers, and occasionally left handwritten poems behind. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson traces how Boles built a double life as a San Francisco socialite while becoming the West's most wanted highway bandit. After 28 robberies and years of near misses, a single laundry mark would unravel everything. And yet, his ultimate fate remains unsolved to this day.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesIf you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa traces how Guy and Edna Ballard built the I AM Movement, a Depression-era spiritual empire claiming contact with immortal "Ascended Masters," and turned it into a multi-million-dollar fraud scheme. When federal prosecutors charged them with mail fraud for promising supernatural miracles they could never deliver, the Ballards fought back all the way to the Supreme Court, and won a landmark ruling on religious freedom that still shapes U.S. law today.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesIf you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In southeastern Massachusetts, a stretch of land known as the Bridgewater Triangle has been a magnet for paranormal activity for centuries: cryptid sightings, UFO encounters, ghostly apparitions, and evidence of occult rituals. Many trace the darkness back to King Philip's War of 1675-76, one of the deadliest conflicts per capita in American history, which left the land scarred by massacre, displacement, and loss. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson explores the history, the hauntings, and whether the Triangle's strange reputation is rooted in something real or something we need to believe. With archaeological sites dating back over 8,000 years, the answers may run deeper than any single legend.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesIf you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In 2011 and 2012, a small crew of men systematically drained nearly $19 million worth of maple syrup from the world's only strategic reserve, barrel by barrel, night by night, and replaced it with water. Vanessa Richardson of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is joined by Ashley and Ricky from Crime Salad to trace how a government-sanctioned monopoly, a decade-long grudge, and almost no warehouse security made the most audacious commodity theft in Canadian history possible. No guns, no masks. Just forklifts, burner phones, and a black market network stretching from rural Québec to buyers in New England.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesIf you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, host Vanessa Richardson traces Breatharianism from its fringe origins to a worldwide movement that has been linked to at least six deaths. Beginning with con man Wiley Brooks in the 1980s and culminating with Australian guru Jasmuheen, whose 21-day fasting plan killed three people in under two years, the episode examines how a pseudoscientific belief system survived scandal, criminal trials, and a failed televised experiment to keep attracting followers. Contains descriptions of death by starvation and neglect, and the physical and emotional abuse of a child. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In 1954, the CIA orchestrated a covert coup that removed Guatemala's democratically elected president, Jacobo Árbenz, at the behest of Cold War anxieties and the United Fruit Company's political influence. What looked like a communist threat to Washington was, in reality, a land reform program that dared to challenge American corporate power in Central America. In this episode, Vanessa untangles how Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes intersect in Operation PBSUCCESS, a blueprint for covert intervention whose consequences destabilized the region for decades. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In 1929, Peter Kürten terrorized the German city of Düsseldorf in a months-long killing spree that claimed at least nine lives, including those of young children. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa traces how decades of abuse, sadism, and unchecked violence forged one of history's most disturbing serial killers: a man so controlled in his charm that he evaded capture for years. Contains descriptions of murder and extreme violence, sexual abuse including the abuse of children, and animal cruelty. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In November 1996, a group of teenagers calling themselves the Vampire Clan drove from Kentucky to Eustis, Florida, and beat Richard Wendorf and Ruth Queen to death in their own home. Their leader, 16-year-old Rod Ferrell, believed he was a 500-year-old vampire named Vesago. But beneath the mythology was a deeply traumatized kid who had mastered the art of making lonely people feel chosen. In this episode, Vanessa traces how neglect, abuse, and an obsession with supernatural role-play created the conditions for two senseless murders. Contains descriptions of murder and extreme violence, sexual abuse including the abuse of a child, animal cruelty, and self-harm. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In 1892, as tuberculosis ravaged the small town of Exeter, Rhode Island, a grieving family made a desperate decision: they exhumed the body of 19-year-old Mercy Brown, convinced the dead were feeding on the living. What followed became one of the most well-known cases of vampire hysteria in American history, a moment when fear and superstition filled the gaps that medicine could not. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson explores the Mercy Brown case, the tuberculosis panic that fueled it, and how grief can turn a community toward the unthinkable. How far will people go when science has no answers and the people they love keep dying? Follow Hidden History with Dr. Harini Bhat wherever you listen to your podcasts: https://play.megaphone.fm/k9kh4ftdtagplino7jodyw Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In May 2001, 24-year-old Chandra Levy vanished from Washington, DC, and all eyes turned to the married Congressman she'd been secretly dating. But while Gary Condit stonewalled investigators and dominated headlines, a man who had already attacked two women in Rock Creek Park may have gone unnoticed for years. The investigation spanned a decade, produced a conviction, and then unraveled entirely on a prosecutorial technicality. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In May 2001, 24-year-old Chandra Levy, a government intern from Modesto, California, vanished from her Washington, DC apartment without a trace, leaving behind her wallet, half-packed suitcases, and no sign of a struggle. When her parents combed through her phone records, one number appeared more than almost any other: a sitting US Congressman with every reason to keep their relationship hidden. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson traces Chandra's life, her ambitions, and the secret affair that put her at the center of one of the early 2000s' biggest political scandals. Was the truth buried by power, or lost in the chaos of a nation about to change forever? Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In November 2022, four University of Idaho students, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin, were stabbed to death in their off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho. The suspect, Bryan Kohberger, was a PhD criminology student who had been circling their house for months and who pled guilty without ever explaining why. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the evidence, the investigation that led to Kohberger's arrest, and the unanswered questions that still surround the case. When a killer offers no motive, what does justice really look like for the families left behind? Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

On August 4th, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were found hacked to death in their Fall River, Massachusetts home, and their daughter Lizzie became the prime suspect almost overnight. In an era when wealthy young women were above suspicion, the case exposed a fractured family, a botched investigation, and a media frenzy that convicted Lizzie long before she ever saw a courtroom. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson revisits one of America's most infamous unsolved murders, the evidence that pointed toward Lizzie, and the questions that still linger more than 130 years later. Was justice served, or did the real killer walk free? Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In 1979 and 1980, three young women, Doreen Levesque, Barbara Raposa, and Karen Marsden, were brutally murdered in Fall River, Massachusetts, in killings linked to a small satanic cult led by pimp Carl Drew. Investigators built their case around a web of unreliable witnesses, psychic confessions, and a star witness whose story kept changing. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the Fall River cult murders, the fractured investigation, and how satanic panic shaped both the narrative and the courtroom. The trials sent some perpetrators to prison, but left at least one murder officially unsolved, and questions about who truly led the violence remain unanswered. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

Since 2022, at least thirteen people connected to American scientific and defense research have died or disappeared under circumstances that have drawn scrutiny from the FBI, Congress, and the White House. Some cases have clear explanations — a revenge killing, a system failure, a man lost to grief — but others remain genuinely unsolved, with no confirmed sightings and no answers for the families left behind. Vanessa Richardson examines every name on the list, the skeptics who see pattern-seeking over evidence, and the real human cost when tragedy becomes a conspiracy theory. This episode includes discussion of suicide. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In 1993, David Holthouse was working on a remote cannabis farm in California's Emerald Triangle when two panicked men burst into his cabin claiming three workers had been killed in the fields—torn apart by Bigfoot. Holthouse fled the next morning and spent 25 years trying to forget what he heard. But as an investigative journalist, he couldn't let it go. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson follows Holthouse's search for the truth behind the alleged murders. His investigation takes him deep into the Emerald Triangle, a region known as "The Black Hole" for its staggering rate of disappearances and unsolved crimes. What he uncovers isn't a cryptid tale—it's a story of racial violence, greed, and terror in one of America's most lawless communities, where the legend of Bigfoot was weaponized to mask something far more sinister. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In the late 19th century, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn emerged in Britain as a secretive society devoted to ritual magic, mysticism, and hidden knowledge. Drawing in artists, writers, and intellectuals, including figures like Aleister Crowley, the group promised spiritual enlightenment through a structured system of occult teachings. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the origins of the Golden Dawn, its belief system, and the influential members who helped shape its legacy. As the order grew, internal rivalries and power struggles began to fracture the group, exposing tensions beneath its secretive surface. The Golden Dawn remains one of the most influential occult organizations in modern history, leaving a lasting impact on mysticism, magic, and esoteric traditions. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In the 1960s, residents of Point Pleasant, West Virginia reported sightings of a strange, winged figure with glowing red eyes, a creature that would become known as the Mothman. As encounters spread, so did fear, with witnesses describing eerie experiences and unexplained phenomena surrounding the sightings. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the origins of the Mothman legend, the wave of reports that gripped the town, and the theories that attempt to explain what people believed they saw. From misidentified animals to supernatural warnings, the story quickly expanded beyond a local mystery. After the tragic collapse of the Silver Bridge in 1967, some began to believe the sightings were connected, transforming the Mothman into a symbol of omen and prophecy. Decades later, the legend continues to blur the line between folklore, fear, and unexplained events. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In 1926, famed evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson vanished from a California beach, sparking a nationwide search and fears that she had been kidnapped or killed. Weeks later, she reappeared with a dramatic story of abduction, claiming she had escaped from her captors in the desert. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson, the investigation into her claims, and the intense public reaction that followed. As authorities began to question her account, conflicting evidence and witness testimony fueled suspicions that the kidnapping may have been staged. The case became a media sensation, blurring the line between crime, scandal, and spectacle, and leaving behind one of the most controversial and debated stories of the early 20th century. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In the 1970s, a small, radical group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army emerged in the United States, promoting a mix of revolutionary politics, anti-capitalist ideology, and violent action. The group gained national attention after the kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst, a crime that quickly escalated into a media spectacle. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the origins of the Symbionese Liberation Army, its leadership and belief system, and the events that transformed it from a fringe movement into a national headline. As the group carried out robberies and issued political statements, questions grew about coercion, indoctrination, and the true nature of Hearst’s involvement. The story of the SLA remains one of the most controversial intersections of cult dynamics, political extremism, and crime in modern American history. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In 1932, the infant son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped from his family’s home in New Jersey, setting off a massive search that captivated the nation. As the investigation unfolded, the case drew unprecedented media attention, intense public scrutiny, and a wave of speculation about who was responsible. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the Lindbergh kidnapping, the evidence that led to the arrest of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, and the trial that followed. While authorities presented the case as a straightforward crime, others questioned the handling of the investigation, the reliability of key evidence, and whether all aspects of the case were fully explored. Decades later, the Lindbergh kidnapping remains one of the most debated cases in American history, with lingering theories about possible accomplices, investigative missteps, and whether the full truth was ever uncovered. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In 15th century France, Gilles de Rais rose to prominence as a decorated nobleman and military commander who fought alongside Joan of Arc during the Hundred Years’ War. But after her death, his life took a dark turn, and rumors began to circulate about disturbing activities taking place on his estates. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the rise and fall of Gilles de Rais, the investigation that led to his arrest, and the shocking allegations of murder, abuse, and occult practices that emerged during his trial. As testimony mounted, the case revealed a series of crimes that stood in stark contrast to his status and reputation. His story remains one of the most infamous and unsettling cases in medieval history, a chilling example of how power, secrecy, and violence can collide behind closed doors. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In the 20th century, a secret society known as the Priory of Sion claimed to protect a hidden bloodline tied to Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, a revelation that, if true, would rewrite the foundations of religious history. The group alleged that this lineage had been preserved for centuries and concealed from the public by powerful institutions. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the origins of the Priory of Sion, the documents that brought it to global attention, and the man behind its most controversial claims. As the story spread through books and media, it blurred the line between historical theory and elaborate hoax. Was the Priory of Sion a genuine secret society guarding a hidden truth, or a myth that spiraled far beyond its origins? Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In 18th century France, a series of brutal killings terrorized the rural region of Gévaudan, leaving dozens dead and an entire population gripped by fear. Witnesses described a massive, wolf-like creature with strange features, and as the attacks continued, panic spread from isolated villages to the royal court of King Louis XV. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the mystery of the Beast of Gévaudan, the widespread manhunt that followed, and the competing theories about what was really behind the killings. From rogue predators to coordinated attacks and folklore shaped by fear, the case quickly blurred the line between reality and legend. Was the Beast a single animal, multiple attackers, or something more deliberate hiding in plain sight? More than two centuries later, the story of Gévaudan remains one of history’s most chilling and debated mysteries. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In the 1980s, “Freeway” Rick Ross rose from the streets of Los Angeles to become one of the most powerful drug traffickers in the United States, building an empire that helped fuel the crack cocaine epidemic. Years later, explosive allegations surfaced claiming that the drug pipeline supplying Ross was connected to CIA backed operations tied to the Nicaraguan Contras. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the rise of Freeway Rick Ross, the controversy sparked by journalist Gary Webb’s “Dark Alliance” investigation, and the enduring claims that U.S. intelligence agencies may have played a role in one of America’s most devastating drug crises. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In 1989, University of Texas student Mark Kilroy traveled to Matamoros, Mexico for a spring break trip that would end in one of the most disturbing cult crimes in modern history. When Kilroy vanished after a night out with friends, authorities uncovered a shocking network tied to drug trafficking, ritual sacrifice, and a violent group known as the Narcosatanists. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the cult led by Adolfo Constanzo, the beliefs that fueled its brutality, and the investigation that exposed a chilling intersection of organized crime and ritual murder. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

Gary Webb was an award winning investigative journalist who ignited a national firestorm when he published the “Dark Alliance” series, reporting that a CIA connected drug network had helped fuel the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles. His reporting made him a hero to some and a target to others, as major newspapers challenged his findings and pressure mounted inside his own newsroom. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the rise and fall of Gary Webb, the controversy surrounding his investigation, and the events leading up to his death in 2004. Was Webb a journalist destroyed for exposing a dangerous truth, or the center of a story that spiraled far beyond the evidence? Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the story of Bob Lazar, the man who claimed he worked on reverse engineered alien spacecraft at a secret site near Area 51. Since coming forward in 1989, Lazar has fueled one of the most persistent UFO conspiracy theories in modern history. Lazar alleged that the U.S. government possessed extraterrestrial technology powered by an unknown element and was attempting to weaponize it. His detailed descriptions of a hidden facility known as S 4 and advanced propulsion systems captivated believers and skeptics alike. Supporters point to his technical knowledge as proof. Critics highlight inconsistencies in his education, employment history, and past legal troubles. This episode explores the origins of Lazar’s claims, the investigations that followed, and why his story continues to shape the conversation around UFO disclosure decades later. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In this special episode Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Christie Wallace and Heather McKinney from Sinisterhood, introduce The Raëlians cult. In the 1970s, a French journalist claimed he was contacted by extraterrestrial beings who revealed that humanity was scientifically created by an advanced alien race. From that encounter, the Raëlian Movement was born, blending UFO belief, sensual freedom, and a futuristic vision of human destiny. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the rise of founder Claude Vorilhon, known as Raël, and the group’s teachings about the Elohim, cloning, and eternal life through science. As the movement spread internationally and made headlines with controversial claims of human cloning, critics challenged its credibility and internal practices. This episode explores how a message of cosmic origins and technological salvation evolved into one of the most unusual and debated new religious movements of the modern era. Stay tuned for the end of the episode for an extended conversation between Vanessa, Christie, and Heather about the The Raëlians. Follow Sinisterhood with Christie Wallace and Heather McKinney wherever you get your podcasts. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson investigates Area 51, the secretive military base in the Nevada desert that has become ground zero for UFO sightings, alien rumors, and government cover-up claims. Originally established during the Cold War to test experimental aircraft, the facility’s extreme secrecy helped spark decades of speculation about what might be hidden behind its guarded perimeter. From reported sightings in the skies above Nevada to whistleblower stories of reverse engineered spacecraft, Area 51 has evolved into a cultural phenomenon. Declassified documents confirm the development of top secret spy planes, yet for many, official explanations have never fully quieted suspicion. This episode traces how a classified airbase became the centerpiece of modern UFO conspiracy theories and explores why Area 51 remains one of the most enduring symbols of secrecy and mistrust in American history. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

75 years after the Rosenberg trial gripped the nation, its legacy still sparks debate about justice, fear, and political power. In Part 2 of this two-part special, Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes turns to the courtroom battle that would cement Julius and Ethel Rosenberg’s place in history and ignite decades of controversy. Vanessa Richardson is joined again by Carter Roy, host of Murder: True Crime Stories, to break down the prosecution’s strategy, the defense’s uphill fight, and the testimony that shaped the jury’s decision. Against a backdrop of anti-Communist hysteria and the looming threat of nuclear annihilation, the case raises urgent questions about due process, loyalty, and the influence of public opinion. As the verdict is delivered and the sentence shocks the world, the fallout reverberates far beyond the courtroom. Public protests, international appeals, and lingering doubts ensure that the Rosenberg case endures as one of the most polarizing chapters of Cold War history. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

At the height of Cold War paranoia, one American couple stood accused of betraying their country in a case that would divide a nation. Marking the 75th anniversary of the Rosenberg trial, Part 1 of this two-part special from Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes examines the explosive investigation that placed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg at the center of an alleged atomic spy ring. Vanessa Richardson is joined by Carter Roy, host of Murder: True Crime Stories, to unravel the earliest cracks in a story shaped by fear, ideology, and the race for nuclear dominance. As the United States grappled with the threat of Soviet expansion, whispers of stolen secrets and hidden allegiances began to fuel a rapidly intensifying manhunt. What began as quiet suspicion soon escalated into sweeping accusations, mounting pressure, and a tightening circle of scrutiny around family and friends. The tension reaches a breaking point with a pivotal arrest, a moment that reshapes the investigation and sets the stage for one of the most controversial espionage trials in American history. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the 1972 disappearance of House Majority Leader Hale Boggs and Alaska Congressman Nick Begich, whose small plane vanished over the Alaskan wilderness during a campaign trip. As a powerful Louisiana politician and member of the Warren Commission, Boggs had publicly questioned aspects of the JFK assassination investigation, a fact that later fueled conspiracy theories about political motives behind the crash. Begich, a rising political figure in Alaska, was also aboard the aircraft along with an aide and the pilot. Despite one of the largest search and rescue operations in U.S. history, no wreckage was ever recovered. This episode traces the political careers of Boggs and Begich, the events leading up to the doomed flight, the massive search effort, and the enduring mystery that continues to spark debate about one of America’s most puzzling unsolved aviation disappearances. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the so called 241 Plot and the rise of Alaska militia leader Schaeffer Cox, whose anti government ideology and armed network drew national attention in 2011. Cox, a self described constitutionalist, built a following rooted in sovereign citizen beliefs, apocalyptic rhetoric, and deep distrust of federal authority. Prosecutors alleged that he and his associates plotted violent retaliation against law enforcement officers and federal officials, referring to their plan as “241” in online communications. As undercover informants infiltrated the group, recordings captured discussions of weapons, ambush tactics, and revolutionary fantasies. This episode traces Cox’s ascent within the militia movement, the cult like dynamics that formed around his leadership, the federal investigation that dismantled the group, and the broader implications of extremist ideology in modern America. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, one of the deadliest industrial disasters in American history. When a blaze broke out on the upper floors of a New York City garment factory, locked doors, inadequate fire escapes, and overcrowded working conditions trapped hundreds of immigrant workers inside. One hundred forty six people, most of them young women, lost their lives in a tragedy that shocked the nation. As investigations revealed widespread labor violations and corporate negligence, public outrage ignited sweeping workplace safety reforms. This episode traces the events of that devastating day, the courtroom battles that followed, and the lasting impact the fire had on labor laws, worker protections, and the American labor movement. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the rise and fall of the Pullman Company Town, a planned industrial community built outside Chicago in the 1880s. Created by railroad magnate George Pullman, the town was designed to provide workers with housing, stores, churches, and strict moral oversight under corporate control. While promoted as a model society, Pullman tightly regulated daily life, wages, and behavior, fostering criticism that the town functioned less like a community and more like a paternalistic social experiment. When economic downturn led to wage cuts without reduced rents, tensions erupted into the violent Pullman Strike of 1894. This episode explores the structure of the company town, the power dynamics at play, and how corporate control over workers’ lives fueled one of the most significant labor conflicts in American history. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the 2022 destruction of the Georgia Guidestones, a rural monument that had long been at the center of global conspiracy theories. Erected in 1980 and inscribed with ten guiding principles for humanity, the massive granite structure was viewed by some as a call for unity and sustainability, and by others as evidence of a secret plan for population control and global governance. For decades, the Guidestones attracted speculation about the New World Order, elite agendas, and hidden messages. This episode traces the origins of the monument, the rise of conspiracy theories surrounding it, the explosion that brought it down, and the cultural forces that turned a roadside landmark into a lightning rod for suspicion and outrage. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the mystery and speculation surrounding Stonehenge, the prehistoric stone circle that has puzzled historians for centuries. Built thousands of years ago by Neolithic communities, the monument’s massive stones and precise alignments have fueled theories about lost civilizations, sacred geometry, ley lines, and hidden knowledge. As archaeological discoveries shed new light on how Stonehenge was constructed and used, alternative interpretations continue to thrive in books, documentaries, and online forums. This episode traces the origins of these conspiracy theories, explores the evidence behind the monument’s construction and purpose, and unpacks why Stonehenge remains one of the most debated and mysterious ancient sites in the world. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the 1978 kidnapping and murder of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro, a crime that unfolded at the height of Italy’s “Years of Lead.” As Moro worked to unite rival political factions and reshape the country’s future, he became a target for the Red Brigades, a left-wing terrorist group determined to derail his vision. Held captive for 55 days, Moro pleaded for negotiation while the Italian government refused to bend, ultimately sealing his fate. This episode traces Moro’s rise, the brutal mechanics of his abduction, the political calculations that left him abandoned, and the lasting consequences of a decision that changed Italian history forever. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson investigates Operation Gladio, a secret Cold War program that saw the U.S. and its allies establish covert “stay-behind” armies across Western Europe to resist a potential Soviet invasion. But when that invasion never came, questions began to surface about what these shadow forces were actually used for. From political assassinations and terror attacks to military coups and state-sanctioned violence, this episode explores the documented history of Gladio, the testimony of intelligence officials, and the conspiracy theories that allege these secret armies were turned against civilians in the name of anti-communism. As facts blur into speculation, the story raises an unsettling question: what happens when weapons built for defense are left without an enemy? If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, host Vanessa Richardson examines the chilling bioterrorism attack that terrorized the United States in the weeks following September 11, 2001. As letters laced with deadly anthrax spores moved silently through the U.S. mail, journalists, postal workers, and government employees became unsuspecting targets—leaving five people dead and an entire nation gripped by fear. Vanessa breaks down how the attacks unfolded, why the mail system became a weapon, and how investigators navigated years of false leads, public panic, and scientific breakthroughs to identify the culprit. It’s a haunting look at paranoia, power, and how one person exploited national trauma to carry out the most infamous bioterror attack in American history. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson, joined by The Final Hours hosts Sarah Turney and Kourtney Nichole, unpack the rise and collapse of the Rajneesh Movement, a New Age cult that transformed a remote stretch of rural Oregon into a powerful and deeply disturbing experiment in control. What began as a promise of spiritual enlightenment and communal living under the guidance of guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh quickly devolved into paranoia, political manipulation, and violence. As the cult’s leadership consolidated power, its members carried out election interference, intimidation campaigns, and ultimately the largest bioterror attack in U.S. history. This episode explores how idealism gave way to authoritarian rule—and how a quest for utopia ended in criminal chaos.Listen to and follow The Final Hours with Sarah Turney and Kourtney Nichole wherever you listen to podcasts: https://play.megaphone.fm/zl8pwmgtteoqb01h_o7oww If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

Forty years after the murder of Sherri Rasmussen, Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes examines how her case became a lasting symbol of systemic failure and delayed justice. Vanessa and Carter explore the cold case revival, the explosive evidence uncovered decades later, and the uncomfortable implications for law enforcement accountability. Why did it take so long for the truth to emerge—and what does that delay reveal about power and protection within institutions? On this milestone anniversary, the case forces a hard reckoning with how justice can be compromised—and what it takes to finally set it right. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

Marking the 40-year anniversary of Sherri Rasmussen’s murder, Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes revisits a case defined by power, proximity, and unanswered questions. Vanessa is joined by Carter Roy, host of Murder: True Crime Stories, to break down the earliest moments of the investigation—and the assumptions that steered it off course. From a rushed burglary narrative to overlooked personal motives, the discussion explores how institutional loyalty and perception may have clouded the search for truth. Four decades later, the origins of this case still raise disturbing questions about who was protected—and why. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

Ira Einhorn was a celebrated counterculture figure, environmental activist, and self-proclaimed guru who helped promote the very first Earth Day—until his carefully crafted image unraveled. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson tells the chilling story of how Einhorn’s ego, manipulation, and hunger for control led to the brutal murder of his ex-girlfriend, Holly Maddux. From his rise as a charismatic leader to decades on the run across Europe, this episode exposes how ideology can mask abuse, how followers can become accomplices, and how one man used the language of peace and progress to hide a deadly crime in plain sight. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

From “clean diesel” cars to recyclable products that aren’t, greenwashing has shaped how corporations sell sustainability—often at the planet’s expense. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson traces the history of greenwashing from the Industrial Revolution to modern climate pledges, exposing how companies have used advertising, deception, and shifting blame to appear environmentally responsible while continuing to pollute. Featuring scandals like Volkswagen’s emissions fraud, oil industry cover-ups, and the rise of “net-zero” promises, this episode asks a critical question: are corporations saving the planet, or just selling us the illusion that they are? If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

On May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot in broad daylight in St. Peter’s Square—an attack that stunned the world and left behind decades of unanswered questions. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson investigates the gunman, Mehmet Ali Ağca, his ties to far-right extremist groups, and the tangled web of theories surrounding who truly ordered the assassination. From Cold War intrigue and alleged KGB involvement to apocalyptic prophecies tied to the Secrets of Fátima, this episode explores how faith, politics, and paranoia collided in one of the most mysterious assassination attempts in modern history—and why the truth may never fully be known. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In the 1980s and 1990s, a secretive spiritual order spread across Europe and Canada, promising enlightenment, cosmic destiny, and rebirth among the stars. Instead, it led to one of the most disturbing cult tragedies in modern history. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson investigates the Order of the Solar Temple, its charismatic leaders Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret, and the blend of New Age beliefs, Catholic ritual, and apocalyptic prophecy that drew hundreds of devoted followers. As paranoia, financial exploitation, and staged “miracles” spiraled out of control, the group’s teachings culminated in coordinated murders and mass deaths that claimed 74 lives across two continents. This is the haunting story of how faith, secrecy, and manipulation turned belief into catastrophe. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

A string of high-profile killings involving tech leaders sparked fears that Silicon Valley’s elite were being hunted—but the truth is far more complicated. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the so-called “Tech Bro Murders,” unpacking the brutal deaths of entrepreneur Fahim Saleh, Cash App co-creator Bob Lee, and rising tech leader Pava LaPere. Through each case, the episode reveals how personal relationships, misplaced trust, misogyny, and systemic failures—not wealth alone—led to devastating violence. It’s a sobering look at how ambition, power, and proximity can turn deadly behind the glossy image of the tech world. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

What if reality isn’t real at all? In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson explores Simulation Theory — the unsettling idea that our world may be an advanced computer program. Tracing the concept from ancient philosophy and science fiction to modern thinkers like Nick Bostrom and today’s tech leaders, this episode examines why millions believe we’re living in a simulation, the so-called “glitches” people claim as proof, and the dangerous consequences when the theory blurs the line between belief and violence. Is this a harmless thought experiment… or a worldview with real-world consequences? If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In December 1969, the Rolling Stones set out to create the West Coast’s answer to Woodstock — a free concert meant to celebrate peace, music, and the spirit of the era. Instead, the Altamont Speedway Free Festival descended into chaos. With the Hells Angels hired as security, a massive, unruly crowd, and mounting violence throughout the day, the event spiraled toward tragedy. When 18-year-old Meredith Hunter was killed during the Stones’ set, Altamont became a symbol of the counterculture’s dark turn. In this episode, Vanessa Richardson recounts the disastrous planning, escalating tensions, and fatal chain of events that transformed a landmark concert into one of rock history’s most haunting cautionary tales. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios

In the summer of 1969, a fringe commune led by ex-convict Charles Manson unleashed a wave of brutality that stunned the nation and marked the violent end of the 1960s counterculture. In this episode, Vanessa Richardson traces Manson’s path from a troubled childhood to the creation of his devoted “Family,” revealing how he manipulated vulnerable followers with drugs, apocalyptic prophecy, and promises of revolution. As the Tate-LaBianca murders terrorized Los Angeles, investigators uncovered a chilling web of control, delusion, and orchestrated violence that made Manson one of history’s most notorious cult leaders. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios