Fresh Hell Podcast

On Halloween night in 1957, Peter Fabiano was shot and killed at his front door in North Hollywood, California, after answering what he thought was another late-night trick-or-treater. His lasts words: “Isn’t it a little late for this?” The murder of Peter Fabiano would become known as the Trick-or-Treat Murder, or the Halloween Murder, and […]

We are back on the Isle of Man for Part Two of Gef, the ridiculous little wall weasel. This week, people try to figure out what the hell is going on at Cashen's Gap. We have alleged Gef hair, footprints, photographs, zoologists, witnesses and investigators....spoiler alert: Gef is not impressed! Welcome back to Spooky Fuckery...... Continue Reading →

Spooky Fuckery Month is officially here! And we're kicking things off on the Isle of Man, where, in 1931, the Irving family began hearing strange noises coming from inside the walls of their isolated farmhouse. Meet Gef, the talking, swearing, gossiping, possibly supernatural mongoose who lives behind the walls, spies on the neighbors, sings songs,...... Continue Reading →

The plane had crashed. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper had been laid to rest. But the story of The Day the Music Died is far from over. In the fourth and final part of our series, we look at everything that came after February 1959: the investigation into the crash, the questions...... Continue Reading →

This week Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper finally come together for the Winter Dance Party...the infamous tour that was badly planned, brutally cold, and exhausting almost from the moment it began. We follow them as the ping-pong across the frozen Midwest in a bus that could barely keep them warm, through breakdowns,...... Continue Reading →

playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6weWg42qTGdvmbWZj5Rtfn?si=mRk2RXdpT7G7BJrMRCmbZw&utm_source=copy-link&pi=HYoBjLJpR8ywA February 3, 1959, would become known as “The Day the Music Died”In Part Two of The Day the Music Died, we continue with Buddy Holly’s story as his career takes off, and introduce the youngest musician who would eventually join him on the Winter Dance Party to...

February 3, 1959, would become known as “The Day the Music Died” But before we get to that frozen field, we need to know the people who ended up on that plane. In Part One, we look at the lives and careers of Buddy Holly and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson. We follow Buddy from...... Continue Reading →

Heinz Pohlmann has been acquitted, but Rosemarie Nitribitt’s murder is still unsolved. So in our final part, we look at Rosemarie’s famous notebook, the very real wealthy and powerful men in her life, the rumors of blackmail, missing files, a supposed murder tape, and theories ranging from jealous clients to industrial espionage. It' s been...... Continue Reading →

When Rosemarie Nitribitt's body was discovered in her Frankfurt apartment, the investigation turned into one of the biggest murder mysteries in postwar Germany. In Part 2, we look at what investigators actually knew, what they only thought they knew, why Heinz Pohlmann became their prime suspect, and why this case remains to be a mix...... Continue Reading →

Long before Rosemarie Nitribitt became front-page news, she was just a little girl growing up in poverty. In Part 1, we trace her childhood through orphanages, foster homes, and institutions, and follow her to Frankfurt, where she would soon become one of the most infamous women in 1950s Germany.

Is reincarnation real, and is it possible that people remember a life that ended more than 3,000 years ago? From the time she was a small child, Dorothy Eady insisted that ancient Egypt was her home. As an adult, she left England behind, settled in Egypt, and became known as Omm Sety, earning the respect...... Continue Reading →

In the second part we follow Mary through her years on North Brother Island, her legal fight against the city, her release, and the decision that would ultimately send her back into quarantine for the rest of her life.

Mary Mallon was simply an Irish immigrant making a living as a cook for some of New York's wealthiest families. But wherever she worked, typhoid fever seemed to follow. In the first part of our two-part series, we head back to New York at the turn of the twentieth century, where crowded streets, groundbreaking discoveries...... Continue Reading →

n the final part of our series on Starr Faithfull, the investigation begins, and this is where the mystery begins! Why were parts of her clothing missing? Why did two autopsies reach different conclusions? What was in Starr's diary? And what role, if any, did the powerful former mayor Andrew J. Peters play after years...... Continue Reading →

Starr Faithfull finally tells her family the secret she’s been carrying for nearly a decade: she has been sexually abused by a powerful and trusted relative since childhood.  In Part 2, we talk about what happened after that revelation, as her family struggles to help her in an era when trauma was poorly understood and...... Continue Reading →

In 1931, the body of 25-year-old Starr Faithfull washed ashore on a Long Island beach. Newspapers and the public speculated whether her death was murder, suicide, or an accident. But before we can answer that question, we need to go back to the beginning: to old Boston money, political power, and the man Starr knew...... Continue Reading →

The Hitler Diaries are finally exposed as fake, and the fallout is spectacular! In the fourth and final part of our series, we talk about the collapse of the biggest media scandal in postwar Germany. What did the BKA find? What was the so called “Folternacht” inside Stern headquarters? And what happened to the Carin...... Continue Reading →

Stern is now spending millions, historians are cautiously warning them, and Konrad Kujau is sitting at home frantically producing more and more volumes while simultaneously convincing everyone that this all makes perfect sense. What could possibly go wrong?

Gerd Heidemann follows up on the supposed Hitler diaries and finally meets the man behind them. Money starts changing hands in ways that should probably raise a few questions.

This week, we start a story that begins with a boat, takes a detour through a small village in East Germany, and ends up with one of the biggest media scandals in German history.

In 1853, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria goes for one of his regular walks in Vienna. It’s something he does often enough that people know where to find him, and on that day, someone does. A young Hungarian tailor named János Libényi steps forward and tries to stab the emperor in the neck. The...... Continue Reading →

This week we’re in January of 1919, in Boston’s North End. People are still recovering from the First World War and the 1918 flu, the area is packed with people, noise, and a molasses tank that never should have been there in the first place. 

When we first started Fresh Hell, people kept asking us to cover the Boston Molasses Flood. So…here we are. And because Annie researched this one, we’re not taking the direct route. Part 1 is less about the disaster itself and more about everything that led up to it, because as always...none of this happened in...... Continue Reading →

After everything he survived as a child at Spiegelgrund, Friedrich ends up back in prison in the 1970s, where he is sent for a psychiatric evaluation. It's hard to believe what would happen next! This is the part of the story where things don’t resolve neatly, and where the idea of justice becomes complicated, delayed,...... Continue Reading →