RedHanded

When countless lone travellers began to vanish without a trace along the Great Osage Trail in the early 1870s, the people of Labette County, Kansas, were gripped with fear. Soon enough, the county’s residents realised that all the victims had one thing in common: they’d all visited the Bender Inn, a small cabin run by a mysterious German family. But by then it was too late. The Benders were gone w...

The trial of Michael Peterson remains one of the most baffling we’ve ever come across. Red neurons, missing blood spatter and of course that pesky blow poke. What led the jury to land on the decision they made? Was evidence overlooked, or was this a cover-up? And finally, if Michael Peterson isn’t guilty, how and why did Kathleen really die? Follow us on social media: Instagram Twitter Visit our w...

From the outside the Petersons had it all; the perfect family, a beautiful mansion and more money than they could spend. But on 9th December 2001 all that changed, when Michael Peterson claimed to have found his wife, Kathleen, dead at the bottom of their stairs. What followed would become a bizarre tale of strange family secrets, shocking revelations and a true crime case obsessed over like nothi...

At 3 am on the 1st of December 2006, Anneli Auer phoned Finnish emergency services – to tell them an intruder was stabbing her husband to death as she spoke. Police arrived on the scene in less than 10 minutes, but it was too late, and the mysterious killer had seemingly vanished into thin air.  Judicial madness, police fuck-ups, greed, undercover lovers, Satanic child abuse rituals, DNA mix-ups,...

Vanishing in seconds when her older brother turned away, 8-year-old Sarah Payne’s high-profile disappearance gripped the nation. But as mother and father begged for answers and hoped to see their little girl again, sadly it would leave a very different legacy. This truly heartbreaking case would change the British legal system forever – not before Rebekah Brooks and ‘News of The World’ brought the...

The evidence against Chris Dawson was overwhelming from the start - so why did it take several investigations, 2 coronial enquiries and 40 years of agony for Lyon’s family for New South Wales police to even make an arrest? In our final episode on the murder of Lynette Dawson we discuss the day of her disappearance and the unfathomable lack of effort put into finding her. Not to mention why the pol...

When Lynette Dawson vanished without a trace in January 1982, her husband played the heartbroken victim. He was an abandoned father of two, with no choice but to move a 16-year-old student into the family home to help him out… This is part 1 of the strange Australian tale. Expect shocking police corruption; rampant sex abuse running wild in the high schools of Sydney’s Northern Beaches; a man who...

You asked for it – to say a huge final THANK YOU to all of you who brought us Gold in the Listeners' Choice category in this year’s BPAs, we promised you a bonus episode of your choice. And you voted in your thousands, for an episode on horrifying serial-killer scumbag, Israel Keyes. Keyes didn’t earn his place among America’s most terrifying serial killers only for his brutality, or coldness. The...

The 1984 murder of one of Motown’s biggest stars – at the hands of his abusive, alcoholic, cross-dressing Pentecostal-preacher father – stunned the industry. But despite the media frenzy, almost no justice was served… In this episode we look at Gaye’s life story, drawing a line from his early traumas to the whirlwind of violence, drugs and sex that seemed to follow him everywhere. And to tell the...

In 2010, the body of a man was discovered in a locked hotel room in Beaumont, Texas. Apart from some minor bruising on his groin, the man didn’t have a mark on him – yet he had the internal damage of a severe car crash victim.  There was no sign of forced entry or a struggle. He had no enemies, and nobody in the hotel had seen or heard a thing.  The police were at their wit’s end, and after months...

Happy Halloween Spooky B*tches! To celebrate our favourite time of year - and for getting GOLD at the British Podcast Awards - we took on one of the most demonic locations in the UK… The Ancient Ram Inn. In this audio preview of our full-length special (which is on YouTube NOW), the owner of The Ram, Caroline Humphries, tells all on the building’s dark past; we get some creepy contact through our...

’Tis the season, the SpOoKy season… And that means part two of our annual Halloween story swap, this time LIVE from Dallas, Texas!!!  Listen up as Suruthi tells you all about the aptly named Corpsewood Manor and Hannah discusses the murderous Victorian antics of Burke & Hare.  WATCH THIS EPISODE LIVE WITH THE SLIDES AT: https://youtu.be/3dnlbuxf8f8 Follow us on social media: Instagram Twitter...

Spooky season is upon us once again, and that can only mean one thing: another instalment of RedHanded’s Halloween story swap! For the first of two story-swaps this year, Hannah takes us back to pasto-times Barcelona where an Epstein-esque vampiress stalks the city’s children, and Suruthi regales us with the blood-chilling mystery of the Dardeen family killings… Follow us on social media: Instagra...

In August 1982, a Kodak technician was processing some photos when he saw the image of a naked young woman appear. He took a closer look, and any excitement he may have felt quickly disappeared when he realised she had been severely mutilated… The ensuing investigation led to the conviction of Hong Kong’s first ever serial killer: Lam Kor-wan, known as the ‘Rainy Night Butcher’, or ‘Jars Killer’....

With fractured knees and savage bruises – weighing just thirty kilos – 23-year-old Anneliese Michel died in 1976 under some of the strangest circumstances imaginable. But despite looking like she’d been held and tortured against her will, she consented to all sixty-seven of the exorcisms she was subjected to. Why? Because Anneliese, her parents, and two-priests all believed she’d been possessed by...

In summer 1977, in Alexander City, Alabama, a man stood up in front of 300 mourners at the funeral of a 16-year-old girl – and shot a reverend three times in the head. When the shooter’s murder trial began, it caught the attention of the renowned author, Harper Lee, who went on to spend years researching the story for her next book. But it wasn’t the shooting that had piqued her interest. It was t...

This week, Richard Allen’s defence team dropped a 136-page document challenging the warrant that police used to search his house. But it’s not as boring as it sounds – because the bulk of this filing consists of claims that Abby and Libby were in fact killed by an Odinite, white-suprematist cult. And in doing so the defence team has revealed a lot of new information regarding the crime scene. In t...

If Seth Rich had had any other job – or if it had been any other year – his tragic death would likely have joined the 65 other unsolved murders in his part of Washington DC that year. But Seth worked for the Democratic Party – and this was the summer of 2016. And while his family tried to grieve, Seth’s story was co-opted by every side. Through social media echo-chambering and shameless self-promo...

In 1994, in the back garden of a house on Lorain Road, San Marino, California – workers accidentally unearthed a shallow grave containing dismembered human remains.  Investigators were convinced that the discovery had something to do with a charming British man who’d lived at the property a decade before. Not only had he been a member of the British royal family, a celebrated actor, a director, an...

On 13 July 2023 - after decades of corruption and inaction - police arrested 59-year-old New York architect Rex Heuermann, on suspicion of being the LISK. In this episode, we’ll look at Heuermann’s family life, his background - and delve into the 33-page bail document that offers us an in-depth look at how investigators finally caught this notorious, modern American serial killer. To vote for us a...

In 2010, Shannan Gilbert made a series of frantic 911 calls as she ran through the streets of Oak Beach, Long Island, screaming: “They’re trying to kill me”. Then she vanished.  A few months later a body was found near where Shannan, vanished - but it wasn’t her.  And neither were the next 9 sets of human remains they found along Ocean Parkway.  Now, over a decade later, with the arrest of Rex Heu...

On 21 August 2023, 33-year-old nurse Lucy Letby was handed a whole-of-life order for the murder of seven babies, and the attempted murder of six more. She is only the fourth woman in British history to receive the sentence.  And now this seemingly young, meek, slightly goofy, “vanilla” girl – whose bedroom was filled with stuffed animals – is now Britain’s most prolific child serial killer.  So wh...

In July 1981, the 40 residents of Antelope, Oregon watched on in bemusement as their rural village was descended upon by an Indian guru and thousands of his followers.  Little did they know at the time, that these maroon-robed chanting hippies and their money-loving spiritual leader would go on to overthrow the local government, attempt wide-scale voter fraud, plot to fill a plane with explosives...

School shootings are now tragically commonplace in the US. But in 1979, when Brenda Spencer opened fire on Cleveland Elementary School, it took everyone by surprise.  Killing two adults and injuring nine children – allegedly just because she didn’t like Mondays – Brenda has lived on in infamy as one of America’s first school shooters, immortalised by Bob Geldof and The Boomtown Rats. Follow us on...

At 2am, on the 3rd of May last year – inmates at Mangaung prison in Bloemfontein, South Africa, were woken up by an explosion. Word spread that Thabo Bester, the infamous “Facebook Rapist”, had set himself and his cell on fire. And all that remained after the dramatic blaze were a lighter, and a body, burnt beyond recognition. But that’s far from the end of the story.  With daily revelations from...