Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

For centuries, nursery rhymes have been passed down as harmless children’s songs, but their true origins are anything but sweet. It seems as though the innocent words we all remember may have been hiding nightmares all along. In this episode we’re peeling back the cute surface and digging into the dark history that’s been whispered through generations. Trust us when we say, you’ll never hear your...

Edgar Allan Poe, the master of the macabre, spent his life crafting horrors that crawled under our skin. But in October of 1849, it was his own final days that became the most chilling mystery he ever inspired. Found delirious in a gutter, wearing clothes that weren’t his, Poe left behind one last unsolved riddle... his own death. Listen to our other podcast "FEARFUL" on your podcasting app of cho...

On Halloween night in 2004, Napa Valley, a town that hadn’t seen a homicide in years, awoke to horror when roommates Adriane Insogna and Leslie Mazzara were found brutally stabbed inside their Dorset Street home. The only survivor, Lauren Meanza, escaped through the back door as the killer fled through a shattered kitchen window. Nearly a year later, DNA from rare Camel Turkish Gold cigarettes exp...

What began as a week of new classes at college in Gainesville, Florida, turned into one of the most terrifying crime sprees in American history. Within four days in August 1990, five students were brutally murdered in their own homes, their bodies arranged in scenes so disturbing they would later inspire the classic movie franchise "Scream". But behind that Hollywood legend was a real life nightma...

On June 19, 2003, police in Cheshire, England, discovered a crime scene so brutal it would haunt investigators for years. Inside a secluded outbuilding at Burnt House Farm in Tabley, 44 year-old Brian Waters had been tortured to death over a £20,000 drug debt owed to gangster John Wilson. The assault, witnessed by his own children, exposed a web of criminal ties stretching from the Netherlands’ ca...

For over a decade, Israel Keyes moved silently across America, flying into random cities, renting cars with cash, and driving thousands of miles just to kill. He buried “kill kits” years in advance packed with guns, rope, zip ties, and Drano, waiting for the perfect moment to dig them up. By the time he was caught in 2012, Keyes had murdered a young barista in Alaska, abducted and killed a couple...

For over a decade, Israel Keyes moved silently across America, flying into random cities, renting cars with cash, and driving thousands of miles just to kill. He buried “kill kits” years in advance packed with guns, rope, zip ties, and Drano, waiting for the perfect moment to dig them up. By the time he was caught in 2012, Keyes had murdered a young barista in Alaska, abducted and killed a couple...

On January 31, 2004, exactly three years after her divorce from David Larsen, 30-year-old Teri Jendusa-Nicolai arrived at her ex-husband’s Wind Lake, Wisconsin home to pick up their daughters. Minutes later, he ambushed her with a baseball bat, bound her with duct tape, and sealed her in a garbage can filled with snow before abandoning her in a storage unit across the state line in Illinois. For 2...

On a dark September night, a mother and son slipped into the Atlantic on a fishing trip that should have lasted only hours. A week later, the son was found alive in a drifting raft, while his mother had vanished into the depths without a trace. What followed was not just a search for a missing woman, but an unraveling tale of family fortune, murder, and betrayal at sea. Listen to our other podcast...

On 31 January 2019, 21 year old University of Hull student Libby Squire was refused entry to a nightclub, put in a taxi by friends, and dropped outside her home, but she never went inside. Minutes later, she was seen wandering Beverley Road, intoxicated, distressed, and without her phone or keys, before CCTV caught her getting into a silver Vauxhall Astra just after midnight. By 2:45 am she was re...

1995, when daytime talk shows ruled the afternoon. On March 6 in Chicago, The Jenny Jones Show taped a “same-sex secret crush” reveal episode. 32-year-old Scott Amedure would be telling his 24-year-old Jonathan Schmitz friend he liked him. The lights blaze, the crowd leans in, and a private moment goes public. But no one in those studio seats imagined that, days after the cameras stopped rolling,...

Between 1968 and 1969, three women left Glasgow’s famous Barrowland Ballroom and were later found murdered. Each one of them was strangled with their own stockings and left near their homes. Witnesses described their companion as a tall, red haired man who quoted scripture, a detail that earned him the name “Bible John.” Despite one of Scotland’s largest manhunts, endless speculation, and even mod...

Between 1968 and 1969, three women left Glasgow’s famous Barrowland Ballroom and were later found murdered. Each one of them was strangled with their own stockings and left near their homes. Witnesses described their companion as a tall, red haired man who quoted scripture, a detail that earned him the name “Bible John.” Despite one of Scotland’s largest manhunts, endless speculation, and even mod...

Ted Ammon was a self made Wall Street success, a man who built his fortune through savvy deals and a relentless drive. But his bitter divorce and his estranged wife’s new romance with a hot-tempered electrician set the stage for tragedy. When Ammon was found bludgeoned to death in his East Hampton home, investigators unraveled a story as tangled as it was deadly. Our other podcast: "FEARFUL" - htt...

From the mid 1980s through the late 1990s, Futoshi Matsunaga lived by deception, posing as a businessman, scamming millions, and using electrocution, starvation, and fear to bend people to his will. At his side was Junko Ogata, once a gentle preschool teacher, gradually broken down into his accomplice and forced to take part in murders that claimed nearly her entire family. By the time police fina...

Easter is meant to be a celebration of life and renewal, but in 1975, one Ohio family never made it past dinner. In less than five minutes, 41-year-old James Ruppert gunned down his mother, brother, sister-in-law, and eight children in what became known as the Easter Sunday Massacre. The killings were so brutal that investigators described blood dripping through the floorboards into the basement....

On March 19, 2024, 40 year old teacher Ashley Smiley came home from school with her daughter, Carly. Within an hour, Ashley was dead, and Carly was accused of pulling the trigger. What followed was a chilling investigation into how a straight A student with a bright future could spiral into violence against the very people who loved her most. Our other podcast: "FEARFUL" - https://open.spotify.com...

On June 28, 2015, Dr. Teresa Sievers cut a family trip short to return home to her patients, unaware that death was waiting for her inside her house. The well-respected doctor, wife, and mother was murdered in a savage attack that left investigators stunned by its ferocity. As detectives sifted through the evidence, suspicion crept closer to home, eventually exposing a chilling plot masterminded b...

In the quiet suburb of Perris, California, neighbour's thought the Turpin family was just a little unusual. No one imagined that inside the walls of their home, thirteen children were wasting away in chains, deprived of food, education, and even sunlight. Their shocking rescue in 2018 would reveal a nightmare hidden in plain sight and the extraordinary bravery of the daughter who finally broke fre...

Seventeen year old Ashley Reeves left her Illinois home one April afternoon in 2006, telling her parents she had a job interview. In reality, she was on her way to meet a teacher, Sam Shelton, a man who had crossed lines and pulled her into a secret relationship. By nightfall she was missing, and within days, the search would uncover a brutal betrayal, an attack in the woods, and one of the most r...

In the early hours of February 15, 2003, a small crew of Italian thieves pulled off what seemed impossible, they broke into the world’s most secure diamond vault in Antwerp, Belgium. They slipped past ten layers of high tech security without triggering a single alarm, making off with millions in gems, gold, and cash. It was the kind of heist you’d expect in a Hollywood script, but this one was rea...

Shakira Spencer longed for friendship, but what she found instead was betrayal of the darkest kind. In September 2022, police forced their way into her West London flat and uncovered a scene so grim it stunned even seasoned detectives. The investigation that followed revealed months of cruelty, control, and torture at the hands of the very people she once called friends. Our other podcast: "FEARFU...

From the mid 1970s to the early 1980s, the streets of northern England became the hunting ground for a man whose weapon was as unremarkable as it was deadly, a hammer. In just five years, he butchered thirteen women and brutally attacked at least seven more, slipping past the largest manhunt in British history time and again. Known to the world as the Yorkshire Ripper, his reign of terror was fuel...

From the mid 1970s to the early 1980s, the streets of northern England became the hunting ground for a man whose weapon was as unremarkable as it was deadly, a hammer. In just five years, he butchered thirteen women and brutally attacked at least seven more, slipping past the largest manhunt in British history time and again. Known to the world as the Yorkshire Ripper, his reign of terror was fuel...

In the heart of Dublin, a night of drinking and drugs spiraled into unimaginable violence. By morning, Farah Swaleh Noor was dead, his body hacked apart and dumped into the Royal Canal by sisters Linda and Charlotte Mulhall. Most of his remains were recovered, but his head and other parts were never found. What followed was a grisly investigation that gripped the nation, haunted the city, and ceme...