RedHanded

Recorded under a full moon, RedHanded’s guide to all things lycanthropic tells the whole hairy story: from Ancient Greek tales of curses, through the gruesome wolf trials of the Middle Ages, all the way through to whatever yassified teen-heartthrob vibe we’ve got going on nowadays.  -- Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus Episodes YouTube - Full-length Video Episodes TikTok / Instagram

Welcome to part two of our annual Halloween story-swap, where we take turns to try and freak each other out... with the very worst stories we can unearth. This week, Hannah has the horrific true story of Tsutomu Miyazaki, Japan’s infamous ‘Little Girl Killer’ whose incel-adjacent muder spree took the lives of four young girls. Then, Suruthi tells us the terrible true tale of Vilma Trujillo, a 25-y...

At first, stories of European witch-panics were nothing more than idle gossip to the settlers of New England. But soon – faced with inexplicable blights, punishing winters, and stories of people carried off into the night by indigenous tribes – suspicions of black magic became very real indeed... Picking up where we left off in Europe, H&S explore how the madness of the witch-hunting craze mad...

In Part 2 of our special spooky series on all things witchy, we take a look at how the hag-hunting insanity spread to the British Isles: thanks to a paranoid new king and a 19-year-old, self-styled Witchfinder General. Plus: what really goes down at a witches’ sabbath, and why did women make up 90% of the thousands killed? -- Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus Episodes YouTube - Full-length Video Episo...

With Halloween fast approaching, it’s time for our annual tradition at RedHanded: a classic spooky story swap.  In this first spine-tingling episode, Suruthi takes us into the forest of Ibadan, Nigeria, to a real-life house of horrors where black magic rituals and sinister government secrets collide. Meanwhile, Hannah tells the terrifying story of Ruthie Mae McCoy and the real life Candyman – prov...

Believed for over a thousand years to be local soothsayers who used their powers for everyday charms and spells, European witches' PR machine finally turned against them in the 16th and 17th centuries: when the continent suddenly became gripped by the idea that they weren't so wholesome after all... In fact, they might just be part of a demonic army on a mission to cloud the whole world in evil. F...

Since it's October, we're revisiting one of the most sickening, spine-chilling cases we've ever covered on RedHanded ... The horrifying case of David Fuller: the so-called Monster in the Morgue. At first, police thought they were only looking for a double murderer. Nicknamed the ‘Bedsit Killer’ in the press, the suspect’s reputation for savage violence already loomed large in the town of Tunbridge...

Boiled in blood, hacked at by knives, torn apart by iron dogs… the world’s religions differ on what exactly might await sinners in the afterlife. But one thing they can all agree on is that if you were naughty on Earth, you are in for one hell of a horrible time. We take a quick tour of history’s grimmest netherzones: from freezing poison rain in the Norse Helheim, to a river of excrement, where m...

Cursing the courtroom and then slashing his own throat with a contraband shiv, Aubrey Trail had lived up to his promise, turning the trial of Bailey Boswell and himself into a complete circus. Although the pair’s bizarre relationship, full of kinks, vampires and witches, had already seen to that. Boswell and Trail had murdered 24-year-old Sydney Loofe six months previously before dismembering her...

Today we're sharing an episode from the true crime podcast Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, hosted by Vanessa Richardson and forensic psychologist Dr. Tristin Engels. Each episode, Vanessa and Dr. Engels take you deep into the psychology of history’s most chilling murderers. They blend gripping true crime storytelling, with expert analysis to uncover what drives people to kill. In this episod...

In 2013, horror blockbuster The Conjuring packed out cinemas worldwide, terrifying moviegoers with its alleged ‘true story’ of a house haunted by malevolent demons.   But the real truth behind the tale is far sketchier than we might think – with marital discord, pissed-off neighbours, and a ghost-busting power couple spearheading a very unfair smear campaign against a 19th century farmer’s wife. ...

With the release of the Amazon Prime documentary about the murder of Caroline Crouch, we're reaching into the vault to bring you H&S' coverage of this tragic case. When the body of 19-year-old Caroline Crouch was found in her attic room after an apparent home invasion – with her 11-month-old daughter crying next to her, and her puppy hanging from the bannister – the nation of Greece mourned wi...

Vanquishing demons lingering in a tainted soul might sound like a very Christian idea – but exorcisms are prevalent in almost every culture across the globe. From ancient China to modern Islam, there are hundreds of ways to free someone from the grips of an evil spirit. This week Hannah and Suruthi run down a few of the most interesting – and discuss why, before modern medicine, possession seemed...

When videos of a gruesome beheading and dismemberment surfaced on gore-fetish websites across Vietnam in 2025, the internet was shaken to its core.  Not because it was the first time anyone had seen disturbing videos online. But because this time, the victim seemed to have been actively involved in planning his own murder. But is it less of a crime if you have the victim’s consent? And could this...

Black magic, or ‘Sanguma’, is often used to explain everything from minor illnesses to sudden deaths in Papua New Guinea.  Horrifyingly, it’s also behind the recent rise of brutal witch hunts sweeping the nation. An epidemic of violence in which, predominantly, women and girls are being publicly tortured and murdered. Why? Find out on this week’s ShortHand. -- Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus Episode...

To round launch our month of spooky eps, our Halloween ShortHand covers the life and afterlife of one of the most sinister, blood-thirstiest bastards in all of human history: Vlad the Impaler, otherwise known as Vlad Dracula. We dig into the legends surrounding the savage ruler – including an al fresco lunch among hundreds of thousands of twitching, impaled enemies – and see how they tie into the...

In the early 1990s, the beach town of Guaratuba, Brazil had its very own witch hunt. It started with the mutilated body of a seven-year-old boy: Evandro Ramos Caetano...  And it would end with a coven of accused ‘black magic’ practitioners – including the mayor’s own wife and daughter – sentenced to decades behind bars for alleged child sacrifice rituals. But as shocking claims emerged of politica...

From the BBC and Westminster Cathedral to Penguin paperbacks, typeface creator Eric Gill was once lauded as the eccentric genius behind some of Britain’s most iconic visual landmarks. But behind the scenes, he was also a sex-mad monster who shamelessly abused his own daughters within the rural Catholic artisanal communes where he lived and worked… And the art world covered it all up for decades. ...

To some paedophile catchers like Chris Hansen are online superheroes, protecting children and putting predators behind bars. To others they're vigilantes who enforce their own form of justice while putting people in danger. But do they have a place in the system?  This week Hannah and Suruthi are jumping into the murky waters of self styled sting operations, hidden cameras, and entrapment to find...

Fetal abduction is incredibly rare, so it’s no surprise that it wasn’t top of the list of possible motives when a heavily pregnant 22-year-old Rebecca Park first went missing. Yet when looking back over the countless livestreams and interviews given by Rebecca’s biological mother, Cortney Bartholomew, along with Bartholomew’s husband, Bradley, the pieces quickly fall into place — a mother jealous...

From Belladonna eye drops to literally eating arsenic, human vanity has taken us to some pretty dark places in our quest to look drop dead gorgeous… But would you risk your life for the perfect makeover? In this week’s ShortHand, we’re looking at the toxic history of beauty hacks – and trust us, you do not wanna try these at home. -- Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus Episodes YouTube - Full-length Vid...

This week, we’re taking you back to 1974 for a rollocking royal story that The Crown won’t tell you - the time a young Princess Anne was almost kidnapped by a gun-toting loner outside Buckingham Palace, in a shower of bullets and stiff upper lips. The Anne-cident changed royal security protocols forever. But would The Firm be changing their ways? Not bloody likely. Featuring an ex-boxer vigilante,...

Families are complicated, but when Rebecca Park went missing while heavily pregnant with the child of her mother’s ex-boyfriend, it raised eyebrows. Rebecca disappeared on the 3rd November 2025 after going to visit her biological mother Cortney Batholomew. In the weeks and months that followed a web of lies, inheritance and manipulation bubbled to the surface through Facebook livestreams and crypt...

In just seven years, the bubonic plague killed half of all Europeans – more than 50 million people. We look at its surprising origins on the Mongolian battlefield (where diseased bodies were literally catapulted at the enemy); its unstoppable spread through a terrified Europe; and how it turned cultural, religious and social life in the 14th century completely upside down. -- Patreon - Ad-free &am...

When Julian Assange created WikiLeaks in 2006, it was the aim of rooting out corruption and improving transparency. And its successes were unprecedented, exposing hard-kept, dirty secrets from the very highest levels of power. But somewhere along the way, something happened. And whether it was Assange’s ego that brought him down – or the institutions he had so royally pissed off – isn’t totally cl...