Switchblade Sisters Social Club

Marvin Gaye gave the world some of the most enduring songs of the twentieth century. Behind the unmistakable voice of I Heard It Through the Grapevine , What's Going On , Let's Get It On and Sexual Healing , however, was a life marked by childhood abuse, extraordinary success, devastating grief, addiction, financial problems and, ultimately, a shocking death. In this episode of Dee-Brief ,...

In January 1964, police arrived at a remote ranch in the Mexican state of Guanajuato and discovered eleven women being held in secret. What those women told investigators would expose a network of exploitation, violence, corruption and death that had operated for around two decades and turn the González Valenzuela sisters, better known as Las Poquianchis , into some of the most infamous women in M...

In November 2021, primary school teacher Fiona Beal told her headteacher that she and her partner, Nicholas Billingham, had tested positive for COVID and needed to isolate. It was the perfect cover story. Neither of them had COVID. And by the end of those ten days, Nick was dead and buried in the garden of the Northampton home they had shared. In this episode of Dee-Brief , Dee examines the extrao...

In the early 1980s, women began disappearing from the streets of Chicago. Some were later found murdered. Others, remarkably, survived. And the distinctive injuries inflicted upon them would eventually lead police to believe they weren’t dealing with isolated attacks at all. Their investigation led to four men: Robin Gecht, Edward Spreitzer and brothers Andrew and Thomas Kokoraleis. The press woul...

Dee-Brief: The Not So Merry Widow of BicesterThe wartime love triangle that ended in triple murder Dee explores one of Britain's most sensational murder cases of the Second World War, a story of jealousy, deception, and a relationship so unconventional it shocked 1940s Britain. When successful publisher Walter Fisher began living openly with his mistress, Florence Ransom , while his wife Dorot...

Was Ol' Blue Eyes simply well connected… or something more? Frank Sinatra sold more than 150 million records, won an Academy Award, helped define Las Vegas, and became one of the most recognisable entertainers in history. But alongside the music was another story. One involving Mafia bosses, FBI surveillance, politicians, casinos, Hollywood, and a 2,300-page FBI file . Did Sinatra simply move...

The man who was hanged for murdering someone who wasn't dead In this episode of Dee-Brief , Dee uncovers one of Birmingham's strangest and most misunderstood criminal cases. In 1806 , Philip Matsell was publicly hanged before a crowd of around 40,000 people after being convicted of murdering night watchman Robert Twyford . There's just one problem. Twyford wasn't dead. In fact, he...

The conwoman, poisoner, and "witch" who convinced people a chicken could predict the Second Coming Dee heads to Yorkshire to uncover the astonishing story of Mary Bateman - a woman remembered as The Yorkshire Witch , despite never being convicted of witchcraft. Born into poverty in the eighteenth century, Mary discovered that fear, superstition and false hope could be far more profitable...

The President who may have been killed by his own doctors. In this episode of Dee-Brief, Dee explores one of the most extraordinary assassinations in American history, and one of history's greatest medical "what ifs." When President James A. Garfield was shot by disappointed office-seeker Charles Guiteau in July 1881, many believed his fate was sealed. But modern medical experts tell...

A teenage girl vanished after a night at the fair. Nearly 50 years later, police charged a suspect, but the trial never happened. In this episode of Dee-Brief , Dee explores one of Birmingham's most heartbreaking unsolved murders. On the evening of 18 August 1961 , fifteen-year-old Jacqueline Thomas went to a travelling funfair in Ward End with friends. It should have been an ordinary summer n...

The case that may - or may not - connect to the Black Dahlia In this episode of Dee-Brief , Dee heads to 1940s Chicago to examine one of America's most infamous unsolved - or perhaps wrongly solved - murder cases: The Chicago Lipstick Murders . Between 1945 and 1946, three shocking murders terrified the city. A cryptic message allegedly scrawled in lipstick gave rise to the ridiculously nickna...

In Part 1, we told the story of how the Horizon computer system led to hundreds of sub-postmasters being accused of theft, fraud, and false accounting for losses that often never existed. In Part 2, Dee and Isla examine what happened after the cracks in Horizon became impossible to ignore. We look at the stories of some of the people whose lives were devastated by the scandal, including Janet Skin...

This is one of those cases that makes you side-eye your banking app. Because this episode isn’t about a serial killer. It’s about a spreadsheet. It’s about a computer system called Horizon .And it’s about what happens when an institution decides the software must be right… even when real human beings are losing everything. Between 1999 and 2015, nearly 1,000 sub-postmasters were wrongfully convict...

What do you get when a serial liar, suspected fraudster, manipulative nurse, and convicted murderer all happen to be the same person? This week, Dee and Isla dive into the chilling case of Malcolm Webster – the so-called "Black Widower" whose trail of deception, suspicious fires, insurance scams, fake illnesses, and attempted murders stretched from Scotland to New Zealand. From the mysterious deat...

On 18 November 1987, a small fire broke out beneath a wooden escalator at London’s King’s Cross St Pancras Underground station. It should have been a routine incident. Instead, within minutes, it became one of the deadliest fires in modern British history. Thirty-one people lost their lives, more than 100 were injured, and an entire culture of complacency was exposed. In this episode, Dee takes us...

Trigger Warning: This episode contains discussion of murder, extreme violence, mental illness, child abuse, and graphic injuries. In February 1933, police were called to a quiet house in Le Mans, France, after René Lancelin returned home to find the doors locked, the lights out, and his wife and daughter missing. Upstairs, officers discovered a scene so brutal it would shock France for decades to...

In June 2022, British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous rights defender Bruno Pereira set out on a reporting trip deep into one of the most remote regions on Earth: the Javari Valley in the Brazilian Amazon. They never came home. What began as a journey to document illegal fishing and environmental crime quickly became an international missing persons case that shone a spotlight on...

Trigger Warning: This episode contains discussion of murder, violence against women, arson, substance misuse, and graphic descriptions of injuries. Three women. Four days. One of Birmingham’s most shocking killing sprees. This week, Dee takes Isla back to Birmingham in the year 2000 to examine the disturbing case of Philip John Smith, a man described by those who knew him as a "gentle giant&q...

The Black Dahlia case remains one of the most infamous unsolved murders in true crime history. In this special second part of our conversation with retired LAPD homicide detective and bestselling author Steve Hodel, we go deeper into the evidence, controversy, and personal cost behind his decades-long investigation into the murder of Elizabeth Short. Steve originally set out to prove that his fath...

In one of the most infamous unsolved murders in true crime history, Dee takes on a case she never thought she’d cover: The Black Dahlia . On 15 January 1947, the mutilated body of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short was discovered in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. The shocking brutality of the crime, the glamour of post-war Hollywood, and the mystery surrounding her killer created a media sensation that con...

In July 2024, six foreign nationals of Vietnamese ethnicity were found dead inside a luxury suite at Bangkok’s Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel in a case that quickly became known in international headlines as the “Bangkok Cyanide Tea Party.” What initially looked like a mysterious locked-room death soon became one of the most disturbing true crime stories of the year. Thai police publicly stated that cya...

Trigger Warning: This episode contains discussion of murder, sexual violence, and extreme brutality. It’s the summer of 1975 in Colorado Springs. Sunshine, freedom, and young people on the brink of their futures. And then, over less than two weeks, three lives are taken in acts of violence so senseless, so brutal, they still haunt the community nearly 50 years later. This week, Isla brings Dee a c...

In this solo Dee-Brief, Dee dives into the haunting and unresolved disappearance of Amy Fitzpatrick, a 15-year-old Irish girl who vanished without a trace from Spain’s Costa del Sol. On New Year’s Day 2008, Amy left a friend’s house for what should have been a short, 10-minute walk home. She never made it. What follows is a case filled with unanswered questions, early investigative missteps, and a...

This week’s Dee-Brief is a solo episode while we take a short mid-season break (life has been life-ing ). But don’t worry, we’ll be back very soon with full episodes and both of us back behind the mic. In the meantime, Dee dives into one of the most shocking and brutal cases in British criminal history: The Dore Wedding-Day Murders . A joyful family celebration. A quiet, affluent suburb. And a cri...

We’re on a very brief mid-season pause (because life), but Dee couldn’t leave you hanging. So welcome back to a bite-sized Dee-Brief - short, sharp, and just a little bit scandalous. This week, we’re diving into one of history’s most iconic and controversial women: Mata Hari . Exotic dancer. Alleged spy. Wartime scapegoat? Shot by firing squad in Paris in 1917, Mata Hari’s story has been retold fo...