Not Today

February 20th 2016, Jason Dalton was driving for Uber when he went on a random, deadly shooting spree in Kalamazoo, Michigan, killing six people and critically wounding two others between picking up regular fares. He later blamed mind control for his actions, saying the app took over his body and made him do it.

Both Emma Carey and Johnny Korthuis experienced terrifying accidents while skydiving and BASE jumping and miraculously survived. Emma Carey fell from 14,000 feet, strapped to an instructor who was unconscious before she hit the ground and Johnny Korthuis' parachute malfunctioned after he jumped from a 500 foot bridge over a body of water.

For nearly 400 years, the Colosseum in Rome served as an arena for brutal public spectacles, including deadly gladiator combats, exotic animal hunts, public executions, and even mock naval battles. The arena was a mix of enslaved prisoners of war, condemned criminals, and volunteer fighters hoping to gain fame and fortune. On any given day, 80,000 spectators packed into the stadium to witness the...

At 13-years-old Paul Martin Andrews was asked by a man in a van to help him move some furniture, which he happily agreed to do. However when Martin was taken nearly 30 miles away from his home and brought into the woods, he realized something was very wrong. The man had Martin follow him deep into the woods and jump into a small box that was buried underground. After nearly a week in a box Martin...

In August 2016, the Tromp family mysteriously fled their successful berry farm in Silvan, Australia, on a spontaneous "off-grid" road trip without phones, credit cards, or passports. Over a six-day period, they split up, and were eventually found scattered across multiple states in paranoid, catatonic, or agitated states.

On Saturday June 8th 2019, Maike Hohnen took his son, 7 year old Julian Hohnen, and best friend Steven Jaecocke on what was supposed to be an overnight fishing trip off the coast of Queensland Australia. Around 1:30AM Maike was woken up to the boat very swiftly taking on water and within a matter of minutes the boat went down. Maike, Julian, and Stephen were left stranded in the ocean with no life...

Judy Buenoano was an American serial killer who poisoned two of her husbands with arsenic, attempted to kill her fiancé, and murdered her own son. Driven by greed, she collected substantial life insurance payouts after each murder. She was the first woman executed in Florida in 150 years and the first to die in the state's electric chair

On September 29th 2016, 45 year old Elizabeth Wettlaufer voluntarily reported herself as a serial killer to Toronto Police. Wettlaufer injected her victims with fatal doses of insulin because she believed God was telling her to. Her victims were elderly and vulnerable, ranging in age from 75 to 96.

Harry Houdini was a Hungarian-born American magician and escape artist, renowned as the "Handcuff King" for his death-defying escapes. He became world-renowned for escaping from handcuffs, straitjackets, milk cans, and locked chests, often while submerged in water. While his death was not a direct result of his performances, he had a few terrifying brushes with death and another magician who attem...

In this Listener story episode we discuss almost falling into an upside down volcano, a parent who was held at gunpoint, very creepy characters in Disneyland Paris, and more!

The Word of Life Christian Church began as a tiny bible study led by self proclaimed prophet, Jerry Irwin. Eventually the bible study progressed into a fully fledged cult with around 80 members at its peak. When the paranoid and power-hungry Jerry Irwin suddenly died, his eldest daughter Tiffanie took his place. As the leader, Tiffanie subjected the group to extreme isolation, control, and abuse w...

22-year-old Hannah Pettey, a married mother of two from Alabama, suffered debilitating pain and lost more than 45 pounds as her health rapidly declined. As doctors worked to figure out what was causing the months of Hannah’s pain, they concluded someone had been poisoning her and whoever it was, they were probably pretty close to her.

In 2003 Ken Jones spent four agonizing days in the frozen wilderness of Romania’s Transylvanian Alps, dragging himself to safety after getting hit by an avalanche that left him with a shattered pelvis and broken femur.

Janie Lynn Ridd and her roommate Rachel Booth had been best friends for 25 years, but when Rachel began getting mysteriously sick leading to multiple hospitalizations, she discovered that Janie allegedly tried to purchase an extremely dangerous strain of anti-biotic resistant bacteria to poison her with. And even worse, that wouldn’t have been Janie’s first attempt at Rachel’s life over the past y...

On January 6, 1994, U.S. Olympic figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was attacked at the Cobo Arena in Detroit, just before the national championships. An unknown assailant attacked Kerrigan as she left skating practice, hitting her with a metal pipe, targeting the knee on her landing leg in an apparent attempt to knock her out of the upcoming Winter Olympics. The event turned into a massive scandal when...

In July of 2013, 19-year-old musician, Jessie Blodgett, was found strangled in her own bed, with no signs of forced entry. Jessie was loved by everyone who knew her, so friends and family had no idea who could have committed this intimate crime. The case took a surprising turn when, soon after Jessie’s murder, detectives got a call from a neighboring town that a man wielding a knife attacked a you...

While on a week-long diving expedition in Komodo National Park, James Manning, Charlotte Allin,  Kath Mitchenson, Lauren Pinel and Helena Naradainen resurfaced to find their dive boat missing. When they saw the boat return, they tried to flag it down, but the boat didn’t notice them. An hour later, the divers were horrified to see the boat speed away, leaving them stranded in the middle of the oce...

In this episode we'll be discussing some terrifying phrogging stories including a man hiding in a young girls closet and weird occurrences in a college house that lead the guys living there to believe it may be haunted!

In September of 2015, Isabel Eriksson was drugged, kidnapped, and locked in an inescapable bunker. When she woke up, she found her date, Martin Trenneborg, sitting in the room with her. His plan was to keep her and several other women there for years.

On July 30, 1945, The USS Indianapolis was struck by two torpedoes from a Japanese submarine, which took down the ship in only minutes. Of 1,195 crewmen, ~900 entered the water, facing sharks, painful dehydration, and exposure for nearly five days before they were finally rescued. It was the U.S. Navy's single worst loss of life at sea.

Dean Faiello worked in construction before being employed at a day spa, where he became skilled at hair removal. In 1996, he began his own practice, SkinOvations , from an office on Park Avenue. The medical spa offered blood vessel removal, electrolysis, laser hair removal, laser skin treatments, tattoo removal, and facials. Faiello was fraudulently practicing medicine as a dermatologist when he w...

Joanne Lees and her boyfriend Peter Falconio thought they were taking the trip of their dreams but it would sadly end in a tragedy so massive the whole world would know their names. While driving down an isolated road in Australia's outback in 2001, Peter was flagged down by a mysterious driver and was shot and killed on the side of the road. The man attempted to abduct Joanne but she managed to e...

After attempting to take a leisurely self-guided tour of the ancient Mayan ruins in the jungle on Cozumel island, Ken Wilson became hopelessly lost when he split up from his group and lost track of the trail. By the time Ken had realized he didn't recognize his surroundings he was already deep in the jungle and too far away for anyone to hear his calls for help. Every step he took brought him deep...

Let's close out 2025 with some bone chilling survivor stories that our listeners wrote in, including a close call with a famous serial killer, a terrifying encounter at an empty gas station, a run-in with an escaped convict, a nasty electric scooter accident, and more!