After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal

First of two episodes on the Salem Witch Trials. We begin the story as accusations are made throughout the town of Salem and a climate of fear is palpable. Maddy Pelling takes Anthony Delaney into the most famous witch trials of all time. Written by Maddy Pelling. Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Charlotte Long. Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released...

Harry Houdini was the greatest magician that ever lived. He was also the greatest ghostbuster ever, exposing countless spiritual mediums as frauds. Why? Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney are joined by Efram Sera-Shriar, historian of the occult and author of " Psychic Investigators : Anthropology, Modern Spiritualism, and Credible Witnessing in the Late Victorian Age" . Get ready for the moving sto...

The life of Joseph Merrick, the man they dared to call "The Elephant Man", will fill you with pain and anger. He was treated so cruelly by society that he found becoming a freak show exhibit preferably to the life available to him elsewhere. Yet alongside darkness there is light and love in his story, and a sense of his own indomitable spirit throughout it all. Visit https://www.changingfaces.org....

When a series of mysterious disappearances and gruesome murders happened on the American Frontier in the 19th century, fingers started to point in the direction of not one murderer…but a family of killers. As the case unraveled, their grisly crimes cemented their place in history and earned their nickname as the 'Bloody Benders'. Joining Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney this episode is Susan Jonu...

It's one of the most infamous trials in American history, Lizzie Borden's story is breathtaking even today. In 1893 she was accused of using an axe to murder her father and step-mother. The case obsessed America and despite evidence against her, Lizzie was let off. Was that justice? Maddy Pelling tells Anthony Delaney the story today. Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Produ...

The unclaimed dead of New York City's streets and rivers were once brought to the notorious New York Morgue. It's a history that has never been studied before, full of dark stories and buried secrets. Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney are joined by Cat Byers who is a writer and historian based in Paris currently finishing a PhD on the Paris Morgue and the never-before-studied New York Morgue....

How did Marie Antoinette, last Queen of France, spend her final days before the guillotine took her head? Did she ever really stand a chance? Anthony Delaney takes Maddy Pelling on a journey back to the French Revolution's reign of terror to meet icon of history Marie Antoinette. Written by Anthony Delaney. Edited by Tomos Delargy, produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long. Enjoy...

"The internet is full of dark and wicked things" said a police chief after a shocking crime by two children claiming to be acolytes of the Slenderman. Today we unpick the origins of Slenderman - the internet's scariest creation - and link it back to the pre-internet urban legend of the Mothman. Strap in for a wild ride! Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney are joined by Ceri Houlbrook, folklorist and...

In 1860 Britain was rocked by the brutal murder of 3-year-old Francis Kent inside his family home. Scotland Yard sent their finest but when a teenage sister, Constance Kent, was accused there was outcry. How could a well-mannered young lady be guilty of murder? It was a crime against class and gender to suggest such a thing. The detective was sent packing, but was he right all along? Anthony Delan...

There really was a secret society called the Illuminati that aimed to create a New World Order. This is true story of the Illuminati and how they were transformed into the world's first conspiracy theory by the French revolution. Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney are joined by Michael Taylor whose new book is called  Impossible Monsters: Dinosaurs, Darwin, and the War between Science and Reli...

In 1810 a valet called Joseph Sellis was found dead in St James's Palace. All eyes turned to his master the Duke of Cumberland, fifth son of George III. The scandal that would follow hounded the Duke for decades. Maddy Pelling tells Anthony Delaney this story about royal scandals and the freedom of the press that rings a lot of bells today! Written by Maddy Pelling, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senio...

Untimely deaths followed the opening of Tutankhamun's tomb by Howard Carter. Coincidence or ancient curse? When the tomb of King Tutankhamun was sealed more than 3000 years ago, it was rumoured to be protected by a curse, which would ruin the life of anyone who disturbed the pharaoh's final resting place. A mere two weeks after the tomb was discovered in 1922, one of the explorers died from a fata...

It's America's greatest ghost story: the 1817-1821 haunting of a rural family by a mysterious entity—sometimes violent, sometimes mischievous, even offering marriage advice. Poltergeist? Witch? Hoax? Or pure legend from the beginning? Maddy Pelling tells Anthony Delaney the story this week. Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long. Enjoy unlimited access...

"You've got to pick a pocket or two" says Fagan to Oliver Twist about the foggy streets of Victorian London where poverty and oppression abounded. Today we look at the every day crimes of Victorian London from pickpockets on omnibuses to the trauma of domestic violence with the help of Drew Gray, author of Nether World: Crime and the Police Courts in Victorian London. Enjoy unlimited access to awa...

Would you have gone? Would you have drunk with the condemned? Paid your way into their prison the night before? Public executions in London were big business with hundreds of thousands carousing through the streets alongside the condemned as they went from Newgate prison to Tyburn's infamous gallows. It was a grisly performance but one that many revelled in. Perhaps you would have too. Anthony Del...

Do you dare try? The Ouija board was invented in 1890. It was an idea lifted from Spiritualist devices for communicating with the dead. Find out the spooky origin story of the Ouija board and our attempts to pierce the veil between the worlds. Today's guest is Brandon Hodge - leading expert and collector of talking boards. https://www.mysteriousplanchette.com/ (And here's his candy store! https://...

What if a leisurely visit to the Palace of Versailles transported you back to the court of Marie Antoinette — would you believe it or question your sanity? This is the story of two English women from St Hugh's College, Oxford University, who in 1901 believed that they slipped back in time to the 1790s and came face-to-face with one of the most famous figures of history. Anthony Delaney tells Maddy...

This is the dark history of the last people to be executed for witchcraft in England. In 1682, Temperance Lloyd, Mary Trembles and Susannah Edwards, from the town of Bideford in the South-West of England, were tried and hanged as witches. They were convicted on the flimsiest of evidence under the cynical eye of uncaring authorities. Their fates encapsulates the turmoil of the seventeenth century a...

The so-called 'Genius' Killer was a murderer who seemed to be both philosopher and psychopath, whose brain was one of the largest ever recorded. But was Edward Rulloff really as smart as all that? Maddy tells Anthony the story of a husband who murdered his wife and child, killed an innocent shop clerk in a petty theft, and still somehow managed to convince the world he was a 'genius'. Edited and p...

Convicts, illegal dissections, disease, all taking place on ships described as "Wicked Noah's Arks" where conditions were even worse than in notorious prisons like Newgate. Transportation to Australia awaited those who survived, and they counted themselves the lucky ones. Today it's the dark history of the Prison Hulks. Our guest is Dr Anna McKay from the University of Liverpool who researche...

The Enfield Poltergeist is Britain's most infamous haunting - set in the late 1970s on the outskirts of London, it continues to be told and retold. Most famously in the film The Conjuring 2 . But this is a real piece of history about a real family and a young girl, Janet, who became the focus of newspapers, paranormal investigators and - if we believe what we're told - a malevolent poltergeist. Wr...

On Christmas night 1843 a mother and child were found murdered inside their burned out home. Suspicion fell on one Polly Bodine. Over the next three years, Polly became the most infamous person in America in a blockbuster series of murder trials that gave birth to a monster - tabloid justice. Our guest today is author Alex Hortis whose book The Witch of New York: The Trials of Polly Bodine and the...

Mutineers, manhunts, uninhabited tropical islands and...SHIPWRECKS! The second part of the story of the Mutiny of the Bounty is even wilder than the first. This time we follow HMS Pandora as it hunts down the mutineers, and uncover the incredible story of how a group of mutineers and Polynesians escaped to the uninhabited island of Pitcairn. Written by Maddy Pelling. Edited and produced by Freddy...

Why are the Knights Templar surrounded by myths and legends? Is there any truth to the tales of the Holy Grail or that the Knights survived? Why does this medieval order, which disappeared in the 14th century, continue to enthral us today? To uncover the real history of the Knights Templar we are joined by Dan Jones - historian, author, podcaster and host of This Is History, whose new series The I...

At exactly the same time as Jack the Ripper, another serial killer terrorised London. Just like Jack the Ripper, all their victims were women - their dismembered bodies left floating in the Thames. This is the dark history of the Thames Torso Murders, a case which asks questions about what crimes we choose the remember and what ones we try our hardest to forget. Written by Maddy Pelling. Edited by...