Histories And Mysteries

Teenage runaways tend to share several key characteristics -- unhappy family lives, histories of victimization and substance abuse, past encounters with the law. Happy kids rarely run away. So why did Andrew Gosden, a smart kid with a loving family and no real troubles, walk out of his house on the morning of September 14th, 2007 never to return?

Humanity has used and cultivated plants for their medicinal, stimulant, and hallucinogenic properties for thousands of years. It was only in the modern era that we first learnt to isolate the organic compounds within those plants and to unleash their true potential. We have been living with the consequences both good and bad ever since. Join us this episode as we discuss the development of methamp...

Long before the discovery of Susan "Genie" Wiley, feral children like Victor of Aveyron fascinated various thinkers and illuminates, because they offered a glimpse of what it means to be a human without society. What modern neuroscience reveals about people who grow up without language is that it permanently alters their cognitive development in profound and unusual ways. From cases like those of...

What happens when you grow up without light, sound, or social interaction of any kind? What does that kind of extreme deprivation do to the developing brain of a child? These were the questions that faced researchers upon the discovery of Susan Wiley, known as "Genie", a deeply abused child who had spent most of her life locked in a small room with only her paranoid father's outbursts and furtive...

Before Rice Crispies, before Frosted Flakes, before Tony the Tiger and Toucan Sam, there was John Harvey Kellogg a famous Seventh Day Adventist doctor and one of the most eccentric figures of the 20th century. John Harvey Kellogg was part of a revolution in how the world understood health, promoting healthy diet, regular exercise, and temperance in drugs and alcohol between mutilating children's g...

The death of a parent is always hard, but especially when you're the one who stabbed them. In our second and final episode on the Baekeland family, we explore the aftermath of Barbara Baekeland's murder, follow Antony Baekeland's journey through the penal system, and discover that Brooks Baekeland is literally the worst, even in a story about parent-child incest and matricide.

Barbara Daly Baekeland: socialite, model, high society wife, and loving mother. Very, VERY loving. Barbara was devoted to her son, Tony, from the day he was born, leading to an obsessive, mutual co-dependence. Their relationship was far from perfect - Barbara was disappointed in her son's homosexuality and determined to cure him. Both experienced mental health issues, especially Tony, who was even...

Louis XIV of France, the archetypal king of the age of absolute monarchy, ruled France for over 70 years, presiding over one of her greatest golden ages and the height of her affluence and influence. His lesser known brother, Philippe d’Orleans, due to an accident of birth, lived forever in his brother’s shadow, the inevitable loser in a lifelong sibling rivalry. Philippe, however, was not an easy...

In our second episode on the curious case of Grace Marks, a sixteen year old Irish servant girl accused of murdering her employer and his housekeeper, we review the confession of her co-accused, James McDermott, the aftermath of their trial, and the broader effect of the case on class relations and Canadian society. Join us this week for courtroom drama, graphic descriptions of the bowel movements...

In 1843, Upper Canada was rocked by a grisly crime that would later be adapted into a Margaret Atwood novel and a CBC television show -the wealthy Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery were found murdered, and their servants Grace Marks and James McDermott stood accused of the crime. To this day, Grace Marks remains one of the most controversial figures in Canadian history. Was she a...

1942, World War II, the Pacific Ocean Theatre -- American bombers conduct a daring raid on several major Japanese cities, sneaking through Japanese defenses and shaming Imperial Command. In retaliation, scientists at the Noborito institute came up with an ingenious plan to attack the American homeland. The world's most dangerous party favour, bomb-laden balloons. Join us this week for WWII shenani...

In 1978, five friends left a basketball game in Chico, California, to make the fifty mile drive back to their homes in Yuba County. They never arrived. Four months later, the bodies of four of the men were found at a forestry camp in the woods, starved and frozen, surrounded by untouched food and fuel. This week, we examine the details of one of America's most disturbing unsolved incidents, learn...

In the early days after the discovery of a radioactive isotope with the apparent ability to treat cancer, radioactivity became the big new health craze. Before there was kale, before there were cleanses and colonics, there was Radium, and we put it in everything from chocolate to lipstick. Radium had another fascinating property: it glowed in the dark, which led to its use on compasses, airplane i...

Joshua Abraham Norton, an Anglo-Jewish immigrant to the United States, was a successful business man and member of well-to-do San Franciscan society. He made his fortune selling supplies to the men and women who came to the city seeking their fortune in the 1849 Gold Rush, but lost it all in an unwise attempt to corner the local rice market. Norton reemerged in 1859 with a letter to the editor of...

Alexander Grant was a high-achieving sophomore at Boston College when he turned up dead in a creek during spring break under mysterious circumstances. Despite having no history of mental illness and no drugs in his system, security footage from the night Alexander died captured him breaking into a medical office half-naked in the middle of the night. What happened to Alexander? Join us this week f...

In the early years of the Great Depression, farms are struggling, wheat prices are falling, and an invading army comes closer, pushing the farmers of West Australia to desperation. The Emu are coming, and This Means War. Credit to Marc Anderson for recordings of Emu vocalizations. Credit to Constable Matthew Creek of the Royal Australian Air force for "Last Post".

At age 4, Barbara Newhall Follett was a budding literary prodigy. At age 14, she was a successful author with rave reviews and two books to her name. And at age 25, she stormed out of her house with $30 in her pocket and was never seen or heard from again. This week, we'll learn about the life of one of the most brilliant minds of her generation, get a glimpse into Jessica's mysterious childhood a...

In 1819, an Irish farmer by the name of Alexander Pearce was sentenced to seven years penal transportation to Van Dieman's Land in Australia for the theft of six pairs of shoes. After a few months at the tender mercies of the prison authorities at Macquarie Harbour, Pearce and seven others decided to escape into the wild, inhospitable lands of the island of Tasmania with few resources beyond their...

On an August night in 2013, 26-year-old Brandon Lawson got into his truck after an argument with his wife and drove off, intending to spend the night at his father's house. He never arrived. His truck was reported abandoned on the side of the road, and Brandon made increasingly panicked phone calls to his family, saying he was somewhere nearby and bleeding. It's the call he placed to 911, though,...

During the 20th century, the country of Canada suffered a peculiar scourge: two thieves as dashing as they were dangerous, men whose mothers had raised them to have manners, but not, apparently, a firm respect for the law. In this episode we discuss Bill Miner, an old school stagecoach robber who made the jump to robbing trains, and Ken Leishman, Manitoba folk-hero/heart-throb and Canada's flying...

Canada: a lovely country of Mounties and moose, of maple syrup and muskegs, of public healthcare and regular human sacrifices to an ancient, vengeful god known only as "Wayne Gretzky." But what evil shifts just beneath the surface? What sinister thugs lurk in the shadows of the Canadian criminal underworld? Get ready for sap thieves and Big Motherfuckin' Loonies in this week's episode on multi-mil...

In 1989, Janel's home province of New Brunswick was paralyzed with fear when a convicted killer made a daring escape from a maximum security prison. The killer, Allan Legere, began a 7-month reign of terror to get back at his hometown, securing his place as one of Canada's deadliest - but generally unknown - serial killers. Join us to hear a discussion of Legere's crimes, a probably-too-detailed e...

A Russian doctor develops appendicitis in the Antarctic. A rural mother goes into labor hours away from help. An egotistical surgeon decides to one up his colleagues. They find themselves forced to the most extreme of acts: Self administered abdominal surgery. If this doesn't alienate you, listeners, nothing will! Featuring the stories of Leonid Ivanovich Rogozov, Evan O'Neill Kane, and Ines Ramir...

Asha Degree was a bright, timid and perfectly ordinary 9-year-old girl until Valentine's Day of 2000, when she got up in the middle of the night, grabbed a backpack full of her things, and took off into a ferocious rainstorm without a coat or a hat. In the eighteen years since her disappearance, there have been few sightings of Asha, and even fewer clues to tell us why she left or what happened to...

Rich, talented, and dedicated to his passions, everything seemed to be going right for 20th century artist Han Van Meegeren. Of course, that's not accounting for treason charges, Nazis, and an opium habit that just won't quit. Tune in to learn more about art-forger turned folk hero Han Van Meegeren and to hear Jessica utterly destroy her throat trying to pronounce his name.