Morbidology

The intellectually disabled are among the most vulnerable within the community. While many can lead normal lives, including holding down a job and raising a family, there are a number that sadly suffer in silence and need that extra bit of help. In an ideal world, those that struggle mentally would have a mentor or a guardian that have their very best interests at heart and assist them with their...

Redlands is a tranquil city in San Bernardino County, California. It’s known for its gracious Victorian homes, the Lincoln Shrine, acres of orange groves and low crime rate. While many surrounding cities are rife with gang violence and random street violence, residents of this bucolic city like to think that they inhabit an oasis. But throughout the 1990s, a wave of youth violence rocked the city...

Lancashire is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is made up of beautiful and lush countryside and charming villages. One of the most gorgeous villages in the area is arguably Helmshore. This quaint village has the River Ogden running through it and the majority of the homes are brick faced and nostalgically attractive. In 2016, however, a jealous obsession was brewing in Helmshore, one...

Mass shootings have become such a part of American life that a simple word can evoke them from the nation’s collective memory. For example, Columbine, Sandy Hook and Luby’s. One thing you’ll notice about almost all mass shootings is that the perpetrator is male. Female mass shooters are rare. Female mass shooters that target their place of employment are even rarer. But in Goleta, California, in 2...

During the 1960s, hitchhiking was a common occurrence in Britain as well as across the United States and Canada. It was seen as an easy and cheap way to get from place to place and maybe meet some new friends along the way. While the Moors Murders happened between 1963 and 1965, many Britons felt as though this was a terrible one-off and it didn’t deter them from hitchhiking. While nowadays, a chi...

Bermuda is a British dependent territory in the North Atlantic Ocean, just around 590 miles off the United States Coast. It isn’t a third-world country or a struggling developing nation. It has the one of the highest per capital incomes in the world. In 1996, it had a population of around 60,000 and prided itself on its low crime rate, white sandy beaches and golf courses. Because of this, Bermuda...

Just as families across the world were settling down to celebrate Easter Sunday with their loved ones, a brutal crime scene was being discovered in Fresno, California. East Park Circle Drive was affluent neighborhood in Southern California. The half-a-million-dollar homes were well-kept and their gardens well-manicured. The murders stunned the community and highlighted the fact that violent murder...

Colchester is a town in the county of Essex. It is known for being a market town and holds one of the most popular markets in North Essex. In 2014, the small town was rocked by two extremely brutal murders and the investigation to catch the killer was one of the biggest carried out by Essex Police. The town was held on edge as the spectre of a serial killer loomed over. Sales of stab proof vests r...

Potsdam is a small college town in New York of around 9,400 residents. It is located around 20 miles from the Canadian border and has an active downtown strip from the 1950s which morphs into the usually combination of strip malls and chain stores. It is predominantly white. In 2010, it was almost 90% white and less than 3% black. On the 24th of October, 2011, a young boy lay dead on his apartment...

In the grim lifestyles of homeless youths, instant and transitionary friendships are as routine as day and night. In the late 1980s in Sydney, New South Wales, a group of transient youngsters drifted in and out of each other’s lives just as easily as they drifted around Sydney’s streets and the city’s rail system. Studies have indicated that a common characteristic of young violent offenders is th...

One of the most terrifying things in the world for young African American men is knowing that certain people can feel threatened by you, simply by existing. Black blindness is a phenomenon that makes white cops see an imaginary gun on an African American man during a routine traffic stop. Sometimes, it can go hand in hand with the Stand your Ground Law. In 2012, the Tampa Bay Times found that thos...

For a lot of students, middle school is the place for a number of big changes in their life: a new campus, new teachers and even new friends. It is also a time when a lot of teenagers try to find out who they truly are and experimenting in any direction is completely normal. However, sadly middle school can also be a place where bullies target those who they feel are not conforming to the expected...

Almost every single day, children pay for the bad choices that adults make. They’re left to die in hot cars. They’re sent into foster care while their parents make their way through the prison system. They’re left in sleazy motels while their guardian tries to get their next drug fix. They’re sexually abused or beaten by a relative supposed to care for them. Sometimes the simple proximity to bad d...

Chuck E. Cheese's has long been a place where parents take their children for a good and affordable time. This simple restaurant is complemented by arcade games, amusement rides and animatronic displays. It is synonymous with family fun. But on a crisp winter night in Aurora Colorado in December of 1993, this family style restaurant was the scene of a mass shooting that highlighted just how easily...

The internet provides a cloak for monsters with nefarious thoughts and ideas. It provides these seedy characters easy access to freely consume our homes, thoughts, and lives. Social media is virtually an invisible world. A place where people can choose to be whatever – or whoever – they want to be. Of course, the internet can be a fantastic place for children and teenagers to explore their interes...

It’s said that your teenage years are the most formative years of your life. They’re the years for finding yourself. Yeah, we’re all familiar with that cheesy cliché. But then there was Devon Guzman from Easton, Pennsylvania. At just 19-years-old, Devon knew exactly who she was. Openly gay, she drove around with a rainbow flag on the bumper of her car, always attracting an unamused glance from the...

The death penalty. It’s easily one of the biggest debates in America. Even today. Now those who agree with the death penalty like to imagine that the state never gets it wrong. However, that’s just not the case. It is better that ten guilty people go free than one innocent person be killed for a crime he did not commit. The case of Carlos DeLuna is not a lesson in justice, but injustice. It truly...

The case of Shawna Forde is a bizarre and tragic tale which highlights the dangers of militia groups. She first began making headlines in 2009, when she claimed to have been targeted for a series of violent incidents in Everett, Washington. According to Forde, she was the victim of Mexican drug cartel retribution for her Minutemen activism. The Minuteman Project began in 2004, allegedly in a respo...

As human beings, we all have ambitions and goals. For a number of people all across the world, their life’s ambition is quite simply to have a large family. In a perfect world, babies are born into hard-working families that do their best to provide for them a loving home and a stable environment. But what about those that are seen as nothing more than a source of income? Mick Philpott first saw h...

Lying south of Bega in New South Wales, Australia, is the tiny hamlet of Kalaru. In 1997, it only had around 400 residents, living among the green pastures of prime south-coast dairy country. It’s a tight-knit community where everybody knows their neighbor. There are no fancy houses, hotels or restaurants, just modest homes, a service station, and a caravan park. Surrounded by bushland and beaches...

If you’re driving along Interstate 80 at the Utah-Nevada border, or as its commonly called “cowboy corridor," your eyes will be drawn towards a massive neon cowboy, waving suggestively into the sun. This cowboy’s name is Wendover Will and he has been welcoming gamblers to West Wendover, Nevada, for almost 7 decades. West Wendover is a small city that has thrived under a lucrative gambling industry...

For a number of serial killers, sometimes the act of murder just isn’t enough to satisfy them. Some taunt the police in letters. Some call family members to tease them. Some take to the media to stir up emotions. Such cat-and-mouse messages often satisfy the killer’s desperate ego and heighten their sense of control over the world. They want recognition and attention for their crimes But sometimes...

The Connecticut town of Cheshire has a suburban and homely feel. It looked like it belonged on a pretty postcard. Residents of this quaint town take care of their homes and keep their lawns well manicured. Historically, it was a farming town with a number of small family-run farms. But then in 2007, a random home invasion took a sinister turn and ended with the murders of two young girls and their...

The day before Jeff Hall was murdered, his 10-year-old son, Joseph Hall, proudly showed a family friend a leather belt emblazoned with an SS emblem. “Look what my dad got me,” he said. Unbeknownst to anybody at the time, Joseph would murder his Nazi father the very next day. Show Notes: https://morbidology.com/morbidology-the-podcast-07-jeff-hall/ Audio Credit: Ever Mindful Kevin MacLeod (incompet...

Over a 16-month period, beginning in the spring of 1971, an elusive killer targeted young African American girls in Washington, D.C. Seeing as the unidentified killer disposed of the bodies near busy freeways in both the District of Columbia and in Prince, he was dubbed “The Freeway Phantom.” Show Notes: https://morbidology.com/morbidology-the-podcast-04-the-freeway-phantom/ Audio Credit: Ever Min...