DEAD Talks

Rachel’s ten-year-old daughter Kenadie got a headache on Christmas Eve. A month later, she was gone. Rachel thought that was the end, until two things happened she still can’t explain: a hummingbird in her garage, and a playing card that shouldn’t exist. Today she shares both, and how she and her husband Shane turned their loss into For11, a community helping people stay connected to the ones they...

Gary Sturgis doesn’t believe in acceptance or closure. “How do you accept the fact that you lost someone you love?” In 2013, Gary’s husband Rob was diagnosed with stage four metastatic melanoma. Gary had spent his career in a bank and suddenly became a full-time caregiver. After Rob died, he couldn’t find the support he needed, so he started a Facebook page to share his story. It grew into one of...

What do you say to someone who's grieving? According to Richard Greene, who has coached presidents and prime ministers, the answer is almost nothing. Richard is a communication strategist, TED speaker, and Tony Robbins' former attorney. He studied how Bill Clinton made everyone feel like the only person in the room, and he breaks down the listening shift that helps someone who's hurting let their...

A Catholic Priest Who Helps Souls Cross Over: Afterlife, Trauma & Grief with Father Nathan Castle (#281) What happens to people who die suddenly and traumatically, and what can their stories teach those of us still grieving? Father Nathan Castle, O.P., is a 70-year-old Dominican priest, author, and podcast host. For nearly 30 years he has had an unusual calling. More than 700 people who died in ca...

Twenty-five years after 9/11, the legal fight for answers is still ongoing. DEAD Talk host, David Ferrugio (who lost his father on 9/11) sits down with attorney John Eubanks of Motley Rice, who represents 9/11 families in the long-running litigation against Saudi Arabia, to break down where the case stands today, what evidence has emerged, why key government documents remain classified or heavily...

Jay Winuk lost his brother Glenn on 9/11. Glenn was a lawyer, volunteer firefighter, and EMT who helped evacuate his office before heading toward the World Trade Center to help. His family later learned he entered the complex, but exactly what happened in his final moments remains unknown. Jay and I reflect on 9/11 from two different perspectives: I lost my father, who was working on the 105th flo...

Twenty-five years after losing his father in the September 11 attacks, DEAD Talks host David Ferrugio sits on the other side of the microphone for one of his most personal conversations yet. World-renowned grief expert David Kessler interviews David about losing his father at just 12 years old, growing up as “the 9/11 kid,” the guilt that followed, and what it means to grieve a death the entire wo...

David sits down with Katie Pereira for a deeply personal conversation between two people who both lost their fathers on September 11, 2001. Katie was just seven years old when her father, Franco Lalama, was killed in the World Trade Center. David was twelve when he lost his father that same morning. Twenty-five years later, they compare what it was like growing up as “9/11 kids,” living with such...

Comedian Des Bishop opens up about losing both parents, why their deaths affected him so differently, and the complicated idea of ever truly “getting over” grief. Des talks about using humor to process death, recording his thoughts in the raw days after his mother died, sobriety and recovery, anxiety, masculinity, complicated family relationships, and the moment he realized that constantly turning...

Chris McKinnell, grandson of legendary paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, has spent more than 40 years investigating ghosts, hauntings, consciousness and the unexplained. But after growing up inside the world that inspired The Conjuring films, Chris came to a surprising conclusion: he doesn’t believe in demons. In this episode of Dead Talks, Chris shares terrifying firsthand paranorm...

What happens when you retire, lose your career, lose someone you love, or simply realize the life that once gave you purpose no longer does? Entrepreneur and author Jay Samit joins DEAD Talks to explore why purpose may be one of the most important factors in how we age, how we rebuild after loss, and what we do with the second act of our lives. We discuss retirement, longevity, identity, grief, mo...

He told himself he had to be strong for her. His therapist told him that was the problem. Comedian Jeff Arcuri sits down to talk about the year his wife's health scare changed how he understood what "being there" actually means — and the moment a therapist called out the one thing he was doing wrong. https://www.jeffarcuri.com/ Watch Jeff Arcuri’s new Netflix special: https://www.netflix.com/title...

One thought she was losing her mind. One heard a voice standing in a Dollar Tree. One started dreaming the future at age seven — and all three became psychics and mediums. Erika, Jasmine, and Candace join me for one of the most unexplained conversations I've ever had on this show. We go deep on their origin stories, the voices they've been hearing since childhood, what Archangel Michael actually r...

In 2018, Jaimie Alexander's ruptured appendix nearly killed her. During her near-death experience, a voice spoke to her — and asked her to choose: stay or go. Most people know Jaimie from Blindspot and Thor. But this episode isn't about Hollywood. It's about the night her body started failing — and the spiritual encounter that changed the rest of her life. She's rarely opened up about this publicl...

What if nothing bad has ever happened? Not once. Not to anyone. Rabbi Manis Friedman made that claim — and then I told him about losing my dad on 9/11. What followed changed how I think about everything. Rabbi Manis Friedman — one of the most respected Jewish thinkers alive — joins the show for the second time and argues that God is not all-powerful and self-sufficient. He's infinitely vulnerable....

Everyone knows Anita Moorjani's near-death story. This conversation is about what almost no one asks — what she actually understood in that coma, and why she says fear, not cancer, was killing her. In our first episode together, Anita walked through her NDE in full — the 30-hour coma, the 360° awareness, meeting her late father on the other side. This time we go deeper: past the event and into the...

I never planned to become a psychic medium. But when I closed my eyes and said whatever came up — an apple, a pixel, ice cubes — two professional mediums couldn't explain what I was seeing. Then one time on the way home, something happened that I still can't fully rationalize. A stranger screamed my name in the street. The hosts of Medium Curious Podcast Jane Morgan and Sarah Rathke join the show...

Doctors said her mom was schizophrenic. She wasn't — she had a brain aneurysm, and it killed her 4 months later. Dr. Sylvia Kay was 2 when her grandmother kidnapped her and her brother to escape a home unraveling under grief and misdiagnosis. She didn't speak again for months. On this episode, host David Ferrugio talks with Dr. Sylvia Kay — psychotherapist and author of Lonely AF — about how child...

Vinney Tolman was declared dead, placed in a body bag, and later revived after what he says were 47 documented minutes. In this episode of DEAD Talks with David Ferrugio, Vinney shares the full story of his near-death experience and what he believes happened on the other side. He describes watching his own body from above, going through a life review, feeling an overwhelming source of love, meetin...

Dr. Amy Robbins is a clinical psychologist who bridges the clinical world with the spiritual one — and what she's uncovering is hard to ignore. 60-70% of people say spirituality was a key part of their mental health journey. Only 5% of therapists are trained in it at all. In this episode, Amy shares the after-death visit from her aunt that changed everything, why the word "psyche" literally means...

Medium Sean Collyns returns to DEAD Talks to explore one of the hardest spiritual questions: do souls choose suffering before life? In this episode, we talk about mediumship, reincarnation, past lives, spirit guides, soul purpose, free will, destiny, and what may happen right after death. Sean also shares what he has learned from connecting with thousands of spirits and why the afterlife may be le...

Elton Anderson Jr. shares the terrifying story of nearly dying from malaria while traveling alone in Brazil — and the profound near-death experience that changed his understanding of life, death, spirituality, and love forever. During the experience, Elton describes encountering spiritual beings, feeling complete oneness, and losing all fear of death. He also opens up about survival, consciousness...

Mark Normand joins DEAD Talks for one of his most honest and unexpected conversations yet. Known for his rapid-fire comedy and dark humor, Mark opens up about fatherhood, mortality, religion, emotional suppression, addiction, grief, cancel culture, and why comedy may actually be a coping mechanism. This episode explores the psychology behind humor, fear of death, masculinity, existential anxiety,...

Stanford-trained psychiatrist Dr. Paul Conti joins Dead Talks to explain why most people aren't actually living — they're just surviving, driven by unhealed trauma they can't see. We unpack how trauma rewires your brain, accelerates aging in your body, hijacks your memory, and creates the reflex of guilt and shame that keeps you stuck. Check out Dr. Paul Conti's Book: "What's Going Right" Sign Up...

What happens after we die? After studying over 1,500 near-death experiences, today’s guest, John Burke, shares the patterns, real stories, and evidence that continue to challenge what we think we know about death—and what may come after. Exclusive Offer: Build a website in minutes (no coding needed) with Squarespace. Save 10% off your first purchase using code DEADTALKS: ⁠ https://www.squarespace....