Dark Origins

The movie Black Christmas, a cult classic, was inspired in part by a murderer dubbed The Lipstick Killer (because of a message the killer wrote in lipstick on a wall at the crime scene). The Lipstick Killer ended up being blamed for three murders, one of which was very different than the others. And a boy named William Heirens would be accused of being the Lipstick Killer, despite any evidence tha...

On this episode we talk about three cases that made headlines over the past year. This includes deaths of over 400 people in the Shakahola Forest Massacre in Kenya, the completion of the trial for a woman who killed her friend with eye drops in order to steal more money from her, and the tragic disappearance of Nancy Ng in Guatemala during a yoga retreat. Sources: Gordon, Anna. “Kenyan Doomsday Cu...

Lindsay Hawker was a beautiful, ambitious young woman working as an English teacher in Tokyo when she caught the eye of a deranged individual who lived in the area. He asked her to give him an English lesson, which she apprehensively agreed to. After telling her roommates she was leaving to meet him at public cafe, she vanished. She had left his name and address on a note for her roommates so poli...

When Alice Crimmins children went missing from their hoe in NYC, she thought her husband may have kidnapped them to spite her. He denied taking the children and offered to come help her find them, before the pair called police. Unfortunately a lack of leads and a lot of misogyny made the police focus on in on Alice almost immediately. Unfortunately, the children’s bodies would be found in differen...

Alisha Allen rushed over to her friend, Tynisha Ysais’, house after hearing she may have been assaulted earlier in the day. As she approached the complex she noticed a man walking around completely naked and covered in blood. Thankfully she was able to flag down a passing police officer to alert him to the strange man. Officers approached the man, who clearly had a meaty substance stuck to his fac...

The movie Candyman had many inspirations. It’s believed that one of them was the murder of a woman named Ruthie Mae McCoy - a middle aged lady who lived alone in a unit in Grace Abbott Apartments, the most dangerous building within the dilapidated ABLA housing projects. Ruthie Mae was very close to moving out of her apartment, because she was not doing well living there. She had become very isolat...

Thank you so much for being patient with us! I'm so sorry for our unintentional break. We have been moving, and it has taken up all of our time. We should be able to get back on our regular schedule now! Long-haul trucker, Devin Williams, left for his route from Kansas to California like usual. He was very familiar with it since he had done it so many times. He made it to California with no proble...

On this episode we discuss the inspiration behind the movie “The Afflicted."  Theresa Knorr was a newly single mother of six children who began severely abusing the five children who still lived with her. She isolated her kids and refused to let them go to school, allowing her horrendous abuse to go unseen. She focused the majority of her rage on her two oldest daughters because she was jealo...

We've decided to do bonus episodes where we talk about current true crime news in a more informal/conversational style. In this episode we talk about the arrests Rubi Franke of 8 Passengers and her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt for child abuse. We also talk about the sentencing of Lucy Letby, the British nurse who was found guilty of killing seven babies and trying to kill six other babies. Ho...

Cindy James, a recently-divorced nurse from British Columbia, begins living alone for the first time in her adult life. About a month into her new living situation she begins receiving terrifying calls. The caller starts leaving notes for Cindy, on her car or at her house and his behavior escalates quickly. He vandalizes her property, breaks into her house, and physically attacks her several times...

In 2000 a Polish man named Dariusz Janiszewski was kidnapped, starved, tortured, and murdered. The case quickly went cold and the murderer, Kristin Bala, almost got away with it... until he published a book about it, titled Amok. Bala changed many details in the book, but the similarities seemed too obscure to be merely coincidence. Using the book as a roadmap to murder, investigators were able to...

Sometimes life imitates dark art, leading to dire consequences. We discuss two cases of men who perpetrated crimes that imitated scenes from movies and tv shows. The first story is about a case that resembled a scene from Kill Bill Vol. II and the second is about a man who became obsessed with acting out a scene from Breaking Bad. Both cases were instances of domestic violence. They share many sim...

This week we discuss a lesser known cult that brutally tortured, sexually assaulted, and killed some of it's own members. Lead by a man named Michael Ryan, the group was a white supremacist doomsday cult that stockpiled tons of property that they stole from farms throughout the midwest. Michael convinced the group that he was possessed by the Archangel Michael and that he had a direct line to God...

Folie à deux, french for "madness of two," is a condition where two or more people share the same delusions. The phenomenon usually occurs between people who are very close to one another, like tight-knit families or siblings. The Taiwanese movie Incantation is supposedly inspired by a family, the Wu family, who experienced folie à deux. They believed they were all possessed by different deities a...

After John Powell's death in Drake Hospital, they send his body off for an autopsy. The law in Ohio at the time mandated autopsies for anyone who died from an accident. They thought that John had died from complications related to a motorcycle accident, but the medical examiner realized that was not the case as soon as he opened his stomach. He detected a bitter almond smell, prompting him to run...

Tiffany Cooke was on the phone with her father when all of a sudden she heard several popping noises. She stayed on the line hoping her father would come back to the phone, but she was eventually greeted by her brother instead. He told her he had to make another call before abruptly hanging up on her. He proceeded to call 911 to tell them that he had just shot his parents. His defense wanted to us...

This is not a regular episode of Dark Origins. We want to use our platform to help whenever possible, and we know our listeners would care about these cases. You've likely seen the breaking news about the disappearance of Carlethia Russell, which we briefly cover in the beginning. There isn't much information about her disappearance so far, but we cover all of the information that has been release...

In 1972 a plane filled with an amateur Rugby team, their friends and family, a woman on her way to her daughter’s wedding, and the flight crew got in a crash in the Andes Mountains. Some passengers passed away in the crash, but others were forced to survive for the next 72 days in the wilderness of the Andes Mountains with barely any food, water, or other necessities. They were forced to eat the b...

On June 30, 2003, fourteen year old Jodi Jones left her house to meet up with her boyfriend, Luke. When Jodi missed her curfew, her mom figured she was still with Luke. After calling him, she found out that Jodi never showed up. They all met up to look for her, and it didn't take long before they found her. She had been brutally murdered and left behind a high wall along the path she took to get t...

This episode discusses the real inspiration behind the Mai Tai Killer from American Horror Story Season 11. The Last Call Killer, Richard Rogers, is thought to be responsible for the murders of at least four men in NYC, but he was only convicted of two (and he likely committed more than four). Rogers plucked men from piano bars in New York City under the cover of night and rampant homophobia. The...

When Suzanne, a kind and caring sixteen-year-old girl, befriends her old babysitter, things turn dark quickly. The babysitter introduced Suzanne to her friends, who all began bullying her. They took advantage of Suzanne's kindness and her desire for connection. After a big fight, Suzanne left to stay with her stepdad, but the group manipulated her into returning. As soon as she stepped foot inside...

In this episode, we talk about the murder of Mary Rogers and how it inspired Edgar Allen Poe. Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is widely considered to be the first modern detective novel, spawning a hugely popular genre that still stands strong today. He wrote a sequel called "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt," which Poe used as an artistic exercise in trying to solve the real-life murder of Mary R...

*I'm so sorry but we had to reupload due to technical issues. This is the new upload!* In this episode, we dive into the story of Alferd Packer and the five men he killed and cannibalized on an expedition to find gold. We discuss his crimes, capture, and multiple confessions. We also explain the most popular theories about his motive and intent. There have been many movies and books that his story...

In this episode, we cover the case and trial of Larry Nassar from my perspective as a survivor. There are hundreds of survivors of Nassar, so I am only one of many. Nassar's trial was the inspiration for S19E14 of Law and Order SVU, so we briefly talk about that episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since this is a bonus episode, we did something a little different than usual. Instead of diving into the inspiration behind a movie, book, etc. we talk about the brutal murders of two beautiful women. One of the women, Margarette Eby, was a music professor who started a city-wide music festival so she technically created a laswithtistic legacy. The other woman, Nancy Ludwig, was a diligent flight...