Fresh Hell Podcast

We are back on the Isle of Man for Part Two of Gef, the ridiculous little wall weasel. This week, people try to figure out what the hell is going on at Cashen's Gap. We have alleged Gef hair, footprints, photographs, zoologists, witnesses and investigators....spoiler alert: Gef is not impressed! Welcome back to Spooky Fuckery Month. Let's finish this fucking mongoose. Learn more about your ad choi...

Spooky Fuckery Month is officially here! And we're kicking things off on the Isle of Man, where, in 1931, the Irving family began hearing strange noises coming from inside the walls of their isolated farmhouse. Meet Gef, the talking, swearing, gossiping, possibly supernatural mongoose who lives behind the walls, spies on the neighbors, sings songs, makes deeply questionable claims about himself an...

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The plane had crashed. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper had been laid to rest. But the story of The Day the Music Died is far from over. In the fourth and final part of our series, we look at everything that came after February 1959: the investigation into the crash, the questions that lingered, the families and loved ones left behind, and the strange rumors and theories that starte...

This week Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper finally come together for the Winter Dance Party...the infamous tour that was badly planned, brutally cold, and exhausting almost from the moment it began. We follow them as the ping-pong across the frozen Midwest in a bus that could barely keep them warm, through breakdowns, illness, and a schedule that made very little geographical sense....

playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6weWg42qTGdvmbWZj5Rtfn?si=mRk2RXdpT7G7BJrMRCmbZw&utm_source=copy-link&pi=HYoBjLJpR8ywA February 3, 1959, would become known as “The Day the Music Died”In Part Two of The Day the Music Died, we continue with Buddy Holly’s story as his career takes off, and introduce the youngest musician who would eventually join him on the Winter Dance Party tour: Ritchi...

Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6weWg42qTGdvmbWZj5Rtfn?si=mRk2RXdpT7G7BJrMRCmbZw&utm_source=copy-link&pi=HYoBjLJpR8ywA February 3, 1959, would become known as “The Day the Music Died” But before we get to that frozen field, we need to know the people who ended up on that plane. In Part One, we look at the lives and careers of Buddy Holly and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson. We follow...

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Heinz Pohlmann has been acquitted, but Rosemarie Nitribitt’s murder is still unsolved. So in our final part, we look at Rosemarie’s famous notebook, the very real wealthy and powerful men in her life, the rumors of blackmail, missing files, a supposed murder tape, and theories ranging from jealous clients to industrial espionage. It' s been almost seventy years since the murder, and there are stil...

When Rosemarie Nitribitt's body was discovered in her Frankfurt apartment, the investigation turned into one of the biggest murder mysteries in postwar Germany. In Part 2, we look at what investigators actually knew, what they only thought they knew, why Heinz Pohlmann became their prime suspect, and why this case remains to be a mix of fact, rumor, and conspiracy theories that continues to fascin...

Long before Rosemarie Nitribitt became front-page news, she was just a little girl growing up in poverty. In Part 1, we take a look at her childhood through orphanages, foster homes, and institutions, and follow her to Frankfurt, where she would soon become one of the most infamous women in 1950s Germany. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is reincarnation real, and is it possible that people remember a life that ended more than 3,000 years ago? From the time she was a small child, Dorothy Eady insisted that ancient Egypt was her home. As an adult, she left England behind, settled in Egypt, and became known as Omm Sety, earning the respect of archaeologists for her meticulous work while claiming that she had once been an Egyptian pr...

In the second part we follow Mary through her years on North Brother Island, her legal fight against the city, her release, and the decision that would ultimately send her back into quarantine for the rest of her life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mary Mallon was simply an Irish immigrant making a living as a cook for some of New York's wealthiest families. But wherever she worked, typhoid fever seemed to follow. In the first part of our two-part series, we head back to New York at the turn of the twentieth century, where crowded streets, groundbreaking discoveries in public health, and one baffling outbreak after another form the backdrop...

In the final part of our series on Starr Faithfull, the investigation begins, and this is where the mystery begins! Why were parts of her clothing missing? Why did two autopsies reach different conclusions? What was in Starr's diary? And what role, if any, did the powerful former mayor Andrew J. Peters play after years of abusing her? In this final episode, we walk through the investigation, the e...

Starr Faithfull finally tells her family the secret she’s been carrying for nearly a decade: she has been sexually abused by a powerful and trusted relative since childhood. In Part 2, we talk about what happened after that revelation, as her family struggles to help her in an era when trauma was poorly understood and the modern ideas of treatment were more than questionable. This is Part 2 of our...

In 1931, the body of 25-year-old Starr Faithfull washed ashore on a Long Island beach. Newspapers and the public speculated whether her death was murder, suicide, or an accident. But before we can answer that question, we need to go back to the beginning: to old Boston money, political power, and the man Starr knew as "Uncle Andrew." Content note: This episode contains discussions of child sexual...

We're wrapping up our summer break series, and we're leaving murder, mystery, and historical villains behind and head into the strange world of UFO sightings, and things that definitely shouldn't have been lurking outside people's homes after dark. Or before dark. Pretty much at any time! First, we travel to Scotland in 1979 for the Dechmont Woods Incident, where a respected groundskeeper named Ro...

While Johanna recovers from surgery and Annie does her best to prevent her from immediately returning to work, we're bringing you another trip into the Fresh Hell archives. This week features condensed versions of two of our most heartbreaking cases, both were originally released as two-part episodes. First, we travel to Ashland, Kentucky in 1881, where a horrific crime on Christmas Eve left an en...

This week, we’re doing something a little different. We teamed up with Horrifying History for a feed swap, which means we’re sharing one of their episodes with you. And you know is: this one is absolute Victorian nightmare fuel. In this episode, host Brenda Ganske explores the horrifying world of Britain’s baby farming industry, a system that preyed on vulnerable women and led to neglect, abuse, a...

The Hitler Diaries are finally exposed as fake, and the fallout is spectacular! In the fourth and final part of our series, we talk about the collapse of the biggest media scandal in postwar Germany. What did the BKA find? What was the so called “Folternacht” inside Stern headquarters? And what happened to the Carin II.? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stern is now spending millions, historians are cautiously warning them, and Konrad Kujau is sitting at home frantically producing more and more volumes while simultaneously convincing everyone that this all makes perfect sense. What could possibly go wrong? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gerd Heidemann follows up on the supposed Hitler diaries and finally meets the man behind them. Money starts changing hands in ways that should probably raise a few questions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, we start a story that begins with a boat, takes a detour through a small village in East Germany, and ends up with one of the biggest media scandals in German history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1853, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria goes for one of his regular walks in Vienna. It’s something he does often enough that people know where to find him, and on that day, someone does. A young Hungarian tailor named János Libényi steps forward and tries to stab the emperor in the neck. The attack doesn’t go as planned, the emperor survives, and within seconds, two men step in and stop it. Le...