Switchblade Sisters Social Club

This week, Dee turns the piano up to eleven for a wild ride through the life of Jerry Lee Lewis - the rock’n’roll prodigy known as The Killer . A piano-pounding genius who inspired Elvis and scandalised the world, Jerry Lee’s story is one of gospel and guilt, sin and salvation - and enough scandal to fill a dozen tabloid front pages. We trace his meteoric rise from the cotton fields of Louisiana t...

Just before Christmas 1988, 22-year-old photographer Lorraine Benson vanished after leaving her work party in South London. The next morning, her body was found near Raynes Park station - beaten and strangled. As police raced to catch a killer, they uncovered chilling links to a string of sexual assaults along the same commuter line. What followed would make history: Lorraine’s murder became the f...

Ramon Abbas - better known as Hushpuppi - was one of Instagram’s flashiest influencers. Private jets, designer clothes, luxury cars... but behind all that Gucci was a global network of cybercrime. In this Dee-Brief mini-episode, Dee traces Hushpuppi’s astonishing rise from poverty in Lagos to superstardom in Dubai - and his spectacular fall, when U.S. investigators and Dubai police uncovered that...

A Christmas bonus mini! Dee revisits the real-life riddle that once gripped Britain: Agatha Christie’s 11-day disappearance in December 1926. We trace Christie’s early life and rise to 'Queen of Mystery', the personal crises that preceded her vanishing, the nationwide manhunt (with Arthur Conan Doyle and Dorothy L. Sayers in the mix), her reappearance at Harrogate’s Swan Hydropathic Hotel...

This week on Dee-Brief , Dee explores one of Indonesia’s most horrifying true-crime cases - the story of Ahmad Suradji , the so-called Black Magic Killer . For over a decade, Suradji was a respected dukun - a traditional healer - in North Sumatra. Villagers sought his help for love, fortune, and healing. But behind that reputation lay an unimaginable secret: between 1986 and 1997 he murdered 42 wo...

This week on Dee-Brief , Dee sets sail into one of history’s eeriest maritime mysteries - The Ghost Ship Mary Celeste . A fully stocked, seaworthy ship found adrift in the Atlantic… dinner still on the table… but not a single soul on board. What really happened to Captain Benjamin Briggs, his wife and daughter, and their seven-man crew when the Mary Celeste was discovered in 1872? From the alcohol...

This week on Dee-Brief , Dee saddles up and takes us back to 17th-century England for one of the most enduring legends in British folklore: The Wicked Lady of Markyate. Was Katherine Ferrers really a masked highway robber who terrorised Hertfordshire’s roads by moonlight? Or was she an unlucky heiress whose tragic life was rewritten into legend? From Civil War politics and family fortune to mythma...

This week on Dee-Brief , Dee explores one of the darkest cases to ever rock the Royal Navy - Allan Grimson: The Killer Sailor. A decorated naval instructor. A trusted mentor. And behind that disciplined façade - a sadistic killer. Between 1997 and 1999, two young sailors disappeared on the exact same date, two years apart. Both had been lured by Grimson, both were murdered with chilling precision....

This week on Dee-Brief , Dee dives into one of the most extraordinary courtroom dramas of Victorian England — the case of The Tichborne Claimant . When Sir Roger Tichborne vanished at sea, his grieving mother refused to believe he was gone. Over a decade later, a butcher from Australia stepped forward, claiming to be the missing heir — sparking one of the longest and most sensational trials in Bri...

Dee and Isla dive into one of the wildest intersections of crime and literature ever recorded: the case of Krystian Bala , the Polish writer whose debut novel Amok appeared to confess - in shocking detail - to a real murder. This is a story that combines postmodern philosophy, pathological narcissism, a jealous ex-husband, police detective brilliance, and one extremely unpleasant book we have abso...

In this week’s episode of Switchblade Sisters Social Club , Dee and Isla dive into one of the most disturbing true stories ever published in The New Yorker - the tale of a motel owner who turned his business into a real-life panopticon. Meet Gerald Foos, the man who secretly watched his guests through hidden vents in his Colorado motel attic, meticulously documenting their most private moments for...

This week, Dee and Isla take on a story that truly crosses borders - from the assassination of Sweden’s Prime Minister to a double murder in small-town North Carolina. When 40-year-old Swede Victor Gunnarsson moved to the US in search of a fresh start, he had no idea his past as a one-time suspect in the killing of Prime Minister Olof Palme would follow him. But in 1993, he was found shot dead in...

This week on Switchblade Sisters Social Club , Dee and Isla saddle up for a story straight out of a movie – but this one’s all true. Meet Peggy Jo Tallas : devoted daughter, quiet cashier… and the cross-dressing Texan bank robber who outsmarted the FBI. For years, they hunted the mysterious 'Cowboy Bob' - a calm, silent, and oddly polite bandit in a Stetson. What they didn’t know was that...

fter last week’s heavy case, Dee takes us out to sea - and straight into one of the eeriest unsolved crimes in maritime history. In August 1993, the German cargo ship Bärbel was found drifting off the Danish coast: bloodstains across its decks, signs of fire, the crew missing - except for one man. When 28-year-old Russian sailor Andrei Lapa was rescued in a lifeboat nearby, carrying 60,000 Deutsch...

S5E17 Remembering Rachel Corrie  Dee and Isla take on one of the most moving and painful cases we’ve ever covered: the story of Rachel Corrie , the 23-year-old American activist who was killed in Gaza in 2003. We explore Rachel’s life, her activism with the International Solidarity Movement, and the legacy she left behind in Palestine and beyond. From her haunting diary entries to the internationa...

After weeks of heavy, murder-laden cases, Isla takes us in a different, yet still crime-ridden, direction: the audacious world of rare book forgery. We look at the incredible true story of Thomas James Wise , the celebrated 19th-century bibliophile who fooled collectors, museums, and even the British Museum itself. For decades, Wise posed as a gentleman scholar, building a reputation as England’s...

Happy recognition of the State of Palestine!  So now that most of us have some of our inalienable rights, let’s get on with the case.  In Part 1, we recounted the devastating events of the Port Arthur Massacre in Tasmania on 28 April 1996, when Martin Bryant murdered 35 people and wounded dozens more. In this follow-up episode, Dee and Isla explore what came next: the grief of survivors, the trial...

⚠️ Trigger Warning : This episode discusses gun violence and includes details of mass shootings and child victims. In April 1996, the peaceful historic site of Port Arthur, Tasmania, became the scene of one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern history. Thirty-five people were killed and 23 injured when Martin Bryant opened fire, shocking Australia and the world. In this first part of our two-...

Dee takes Isla (and you, sexy listeners) deep into one of the most bizarre and tragic cases of the early internet age: the Mark and John case. In 2003, two teenagers from Manchester – known only by the pseudonyms Mark (16) and John (14) – became caught in a web of online lies, fabricated personas, and manipulative storytelling that spiraled out of control. What began as a teenage flirtation in MSN...

In 1922, a suburban love triangle exploded into one of Britain’s most sensational murder trials. When Frederick Bywaters stabbed Percy Thompson to death, his lover - Percy’s glamorous and outspoken wife, Edith - was also accused of murder. What followed was a media frenzy: scandalous love letters read aloud in court, a prurient press, and a justice system all too eager to punish a woman who refuse...

Dee and Isla dive into one of the most infamous cases in British criminal history: the disappearance of music hall performer Cora Crippen, better known by her stage name Belle Elmore. When Cora vanished in 1910, her formidable friends from the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild refused to accept the explanations given by her husband, Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen. Their persistence led to a Scotland Yard invest...

In this week’s episode, Dee and Isla pick up where we left off in Part 1, following the chilling trail of Italian serial killer Danilo Restivo. After the disappearance of 16-year-old Elisa Claps in Potenza in 1993, Restivo managed to evade justice for years - protected by police incompetence, corruption, and his powerful family connections. But nearly a decade later, another brutal murder in Engla...

In this week’s episode, Dee takes Isla (and you, dear listeners) on a dark journey that begins in Southern Italy and stretches across decades and borders. We dive into the disturbing case of Danilo Restivo , an Italian serial killer connected to the disappearance of Elisa Claps and the brutal murder of Heather Barnett. But before we head to Potenza, we talk about some shocking recent news: a publi...

Strap in, because Dee and Isla are back to finish their deep space exploration into the world’s most meme-able tech bro. Last week, we covered Elon's chaotic childhood, rise to billionaire status, and a trail of lawsuits and eyebrow-raising behaviour. This week, it’s time for Part 2 - and it’s even messier. We get into: The Amber Heard romance  The Thai cave rescue PR disaster that had Elon ca...

In this chaotic rocket launch of an episode, Dee attempts to navigate the tangled constellation of Elon Musk’s life—spoiler: we didn’t make it in one go. So welcome to our first-ever two-parter, because it turns out you can’t cram multiple companies, multiple lawsuits, and multiple baby mamas into a single hour. Who knew? Join us for: 🚀 The early days of Elon: apartheid-era South Africa, computer...