Histories And Mysteries

When Roland T. Owen was discovered bound, stabbed and bludgeoned from a so-called "fall in the bathtub", investigators realized early on that they were dealing with a strange case. But an abandoned necktie label, a serious of mysterious phone calls, and a 5-dollar bill wrapped in a newspaper would turn this into one of America's weirdest cold cases. Join us for a conversation on the ultimate fate...

On January 2nd, 1935, a man by the name of Roland T. Owen, checked into room 1046 of the Hotel President in Kansas City, Missouri, with aught but a hairbrush, a comb, and a tube of toothpaste. His behaviour during his stay was peculiar, bringing him to the attention of several members of hotel staff. His strange actions and his even stranger death remain unsolved, over 80 years later.

It's time for fakes, fraud, forgery! Today we talk about the high level art market and its propensity for fraud, the techniques used to fool the experts, and noted British forger, Shaun Greenhalgh.

There's nothing quite like a family road trip - especially one fueled by shared psychosis and paranoid delusions! Today we discuss two road trips that quickly went right off the rails: the Australian Tromp family and Swedish twins Sabina and Ursula Eriksson. Tune in for more Folie a Deux, more murder, and helpful and not-so-helpful hallucinations. Get some milk.

King Charles II of Spain, a frail, disabled man doomed to rule the kingdom his family fought so hard to acquire. His time in power largely served to delay the inevitable end of the Habsburg line and the outbreak of the Spanish War of Succession.

Oh, happy Habsburgs: one of the most successful royal dynasties in European history, best known for inbreeding itself into extinction. One fine scion of this noble family, the last of the Spanish Habsburgs, was Charles II, known as Charles the Hexed for all the horrifying ways his family's genetics ruined his life and his face. Today we're talking inbreeding, morganatic marriage, and the oft under...

Christine and Lea Papin were ordinary, underpaid French maids, right up until the day they brained their employers with a pewter jug and plucked out their eyes with their bare hands. The sisters have gone down in history as one of the most dramatic examples of 'folie a deux', a poorly-understood phenomenon where madness becomes contagious. Tune in this week for discussion of folie a deux, an expla...

Juan Pujol Garcia, the most important double agent of WWII, riffs his way into becoming a British Agent, puts his library card to good use, and maybe even saves the day -- D-Day that is. Tune in for fake informants, fake widows, and very real confusion about pre-decimalization British currency.

It's World War II, the British have cracked the Germans' infamous enigma code and are on the verge of launching an assault on the beaches of Normandy. Their success hinges on a intricate web of deception and misinformation woven by talented double agents, key among them Agent Garbo -- a shadowy figure whose true identity remained unknown to the general public long after the war was over. Tune in t...

From 1993 until 2009, a mysterious female serial killer roamed Europe, involving herself in everything from triple homicides to bar brawls. Who was the so-called Phantom of Heilbronn, and why haven't you heard of her before? Stay turned to find out, because that's how podcasts work. We'll also be talking about female murders, the reason Jessica can't lead Girl Scouts, and Janel's unsettling sexual...

Edinburgh Scotland, 1828, an acute shortage of medical cadavers leads to a lucrative underground trade in bodies stolen by grave-robbers and other crimes yet more sinister. Tune in for dubious medical ethics, dubious journalistic ethics, human-leather book-bindings and people pickles.

What do rural Indian villagers, middle-class Japanese baby boomers and 19th century Inuit women have in common? They all suffered from culture-bound psychological disorders not found anywhere else in the world, and we're talking about all of them in this podcast. Join us as we discuss people who get pregnant with puppies, the national Japanese marriage crisis, and the daredevil women of Greenland.

William Lyon Mackenzie King is back, and this time, we're talking about his seances with dead dogs, his strange feelings for Hitler, and his true, patriot love of lying to Quebec. Also listen as Jessica describes her trouble with faces, and Janel single-handedly disqualifies herself from ever becoming the Governor General of Canada.

In the first episode of FF&F ever actually recorded, we take a look at some of the bizarre people chosen to govern over Canada's endless acres of snow. In particular, we're talking about the life of William Lyon Mackenzie King. Did he erect a gigantic statue on parliament hill to honour his fallen gay lover? Probably. Probably yes.

In 2003, Baltimore-based attorney Jonathan Luna was found dead in a creek eighty miles from his home, covered in thirty-six stab wounds from his own penknife - and that's not even the strange part. Stick with us as we try to unravel this cold case involving forgotten glasses, an unguarded tub of cash, and the intricacies of the United States toll road system.

We're back from our break, and this week we're looking at some of history's funniest, silliest and most soul-crushingly depressing last words. Whether it's death row inmates narrating their own headlines, beloved children's authors using foul language, or comedians reminding us that funny people are dead inside, we've got all the hot quotes you'll want to steal on your own deathbed.

Will we finally learn the ultimate fate of Maura Murray in part two? Definitely not, but you will learn what Maura left behind at the accident site, where she keeps being sighted, and who she called at four o'clock in the morning the night of her breakdown. Also, Janel reveals where she does all her street fighting, and Jessica composes a horrifying alphabet book.

In part one of this two-part series, we take a look at the unsolved case of Maura Murray, a nursing student who lied to her faculty, packed up her birth control and some textbooks, and disappeared from the scene of a car accident several states away from home.

This week, we're taking a look at the lighter side of dictator Muammar Gaddafi - specifically, his fight with New York City over a tent, his horrifying obsession with an American Secretary of State, and his attempt to disband a European nation. We also learn that Jessica giggles at dicatators, Janel needs to drink water while podcasting, and both of us like the word "shitlord".

This week, we delve into the ongoing feud between the Melvin and Marriott crime families of Nova Scotia. Before the story is over, we'll cover firebombed widows, crimes against pizza, colostomy bags, insects that eat their own entrails, and the practical physics of penis helicoptering. Janel also battles a cold. Unsuccessfully.

Libertarians love her, but who was the real Ayn Rand? In this episode, we talk about Ayn Rand's love affairs with much younger men, reveal her lifelong vendetta against health warnings on cigarettes, and accidentally coin the word "egotesticle".

In this episode, we talk about murder-for-lobster, a 40-year blood feud that existed in one man's head, and a weaponized pile of horse manure visible from space - all in Canada's maritime provinces. We also say several unkind things about PEI. Sorry.