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True Crime

Highway to Hell

Monte Mader

Welcome to Highway to Hell, the unique crossroads where wanderlust meets mystery. Every episode, I take you on a journey to breathtaking destinations around the globe, unveiling not just the beauty of travel but the shadows that lurk behind the postcard-perfect views. From unsolved mysteries to infamous crimes, I explore the darker tales hidden within the world's most enchanting locales. So pack your curiosity, keep your wits about you, and join us as we dive deep into the thrilling intersection of travel and true crime. Your adventure into the unknown starts now.

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  • 26 episodes
  • weekly
  • Avg 1 hr 45 min
  • English

Episodes 26

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  • Yesterday · 2 hr 50 min

    Family Business- The Hillside Stranglers

    Support the show at patreon.com/highwaytohellpodcast Does evil run in the family? Cousins Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono Jr. murdered at least 10 women and girls in the Los Angeles area between October 1977 and February 1978. They would use the "cop ruse" posing as plainclothes police officers, pull women over or approach them on the street, and take them to Buono's upholstery shop in Glendale. There they raped, tortured, and strangled their victims, then dumped the bodies on hillsides around the city. Their victims ranged in age from 12 to 28. Bianchi would eventually be arrested in washington after two more kills, tried to fake multiple personality disorder to escape before agreeing to plead guilty and testify against Buono. Buono's trial was one of the longest criminal trials in American history, running from 1981 to 1983. He was convicted of nine of the ten LA murders and sentenced to life without parole. He died in prison in 2002. Bianchi is still alive and incarcerated in Washington State. Sources: - full list on patreon ABC News. (2021). ‘City of Angels, City of Death’: Inside the hunt for Los Angeles’ string of serial killers. https://abcnews.com/US/city-angels-city-death-inside-hunt-los-angeles/story?id=81231947 Balagtas, T. (2026, July 16). All about Hillside Stranglers Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi, and the victim they spared because of her famous father. A&E. https://www.aetv.com/articles/all-about-the-hillside-stranglers-angelo-buono-kenneth-bianchi-victim-they-spared-because-of-her-famous-father Bardsley, M. (2015). Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi, the Hillside Stranglers [19-chapter feature]. Crime Library, TruTV. Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/2015/http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/stranglers/rampage_1.html Barnes, M. (Producer & Director). (1984). The mind of a murderer, Parts I and II [Television documentary transcript]. Frontline, WGBH/PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/programs/transcripts/206.html Board denies parole for Hillside Strangler. (2010, August 18). Los Angeles Times. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/08/hillside-strangler-denied-parole.html Boren, R. W. (2000). The Hillside Strangler trial. Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 33(2), 707–725. https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/llr/vol33/iss2/ Chavez, S., & Gorman, A. (2002, September 22). ‘Hillside Strangler’ dies at 67. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-sep-22-me-hillside22-story.html Chavez, S., & Gorman, A. (2002, September 23). Angelo Buono Jr. dies at 67. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2002/09/23/angelo-buono-jr-dies-at-67/5e2b4952-bb96-47a2-af4f-9cc744ffb281/ Convicted ‘Hillside Strangler’ serial killer is denied parole, will be eligible in a decade. (2025, July 10). Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-07-10/hillside-strangler-a-convicted-serial-killer-gets-denied-parole-will-be-eligible-in-a-decade Crabtree, M. (2026, July 4). The disturbing story of Angelo Buono, the ‘Hillside Strangler’ who tormented 1970s Los Angeles. All That’s Interesting. https://allthatsinteresting.com/angelo-buono Dismissal of Buono murder counts asked. (1981, July 14). Los Angeles Times, p. 1. Edwards, M. (2025, July). ‘Hillside Strangler’ Kenneth Bianchi, convicted in 1970s serial killings, is denied parole. CBS News Los Angeles. https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/hillside-strangler-kenneth-bianchi-denied-parole/ Farr, B. (1981, July 26). Prosecution memos list holes in Strangler case. Los Angeles Times, pp. 1, 3, 24–25. Find a Grave. (n.d.). Memorial pages for Dolores Ann “Dolly” Cepeda, Cindy Lee Hudspeth, Sonja Marie Johnson, Elissa Teresa “Lissa” Kastin, Evelyn Jane King, Kimberley Dianne “Kim” Martin, Judith Lynn “Judy” Miller, Beulah Mae Stofer, Lauren Rae Wagner, and Kristina Weckler. https://www.findagrave.com

  • September 14 · 2 hr 13 min

    65. The Theology of Submission and the Death of a Pastors Wife

    TW: Suicide First ever true crossover episode! Flippers meet the Hellions, Hellions meet the Flippers. This case included so much of our mutual subject matter we decided to post it on both shows. Mica Francis Miller, 30, died on April 27, 2024, at Lumber River State Park in North Carolina, roughly an hour from her home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. She had bought a handgun that afternoon and called 911 minutes before shooting herself; the Robeson County Sheriff's Office and North Carolina medical examiners ruled her death a suicide. Days earlier she had filed for divorce from her husband, John-Paul Miller, pastor of Solid Rock Church in Market Common, and police records show she contacted law enforcement at least 14 times between February and mid-April 2024.Court filings and family statements alleged years of abuse, surveillance, financial control, and nonconsensual distribution of intimate images; a December 2024 filing added strangulation allegations. Miller denied wrongdoing. On December 17, 2025, a federal grand jury in South Carolina indicted Miller on two counts, cyberstalking and making false statements to investigators, alleging he used tracking devices and unwanted communications to harass Mica from November 2022 until her death. Netflix's documentary series "Death of a Pastor's Wife" premiered August 27, 2026, renewing attention on the case and on South Carolina's protective-order law. Sources: Full list on patreon ABC News 4 (WCIV). (2026, January 12). JP Miller pleads not guilty to federal charges of cyberstalking, false statements. ⁠https://abcnews4.com/news/local/dozens-show-up-outside-florence-federal-courthouse-for-arraignment-of-jp-miller-mica-cyberstalking-lying-authorities-fbi-solid-rock-church-pastor⁠ Burroughs Funeral Home & Cremation Services. (2024). Obituary for Mica Acacia Miller. ⁠https://www.burroughsfh.com/obituary/Mica-Miller⁠ Christianity Today. (2022, September). What happens when you ask thousands of evangelical women about sex. ⁠https://www.christianitytoday.com/2022/09/sheila-gregoire-great-sex-rescue-survey-evangelical-women/⁠ Condo-World. (n.d.). History of the Sea Captain's House Myrtle Beach. ⁠https://blog.condo-world.com/history-of-the-sea-captains-house/⁠ Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. (1987). The Danvers Statement. Creepy Catalog. (2026). Death of the Pastor's Wife: John-Paul Miller's first wife says Mica's account matched her own. ⁠https://creepycatalog.com/death-of-the-pastors-wife-john-paul-millers-first-wife-says-micas-account-matched-her-own/⁠ Crime and Cask News Network. (2026, August). Father of former Solid Rock pastor John Paul Miller pleads guilty. ⁠https://crimeandcask.com/father-of-pastor-john-paul-miller-pleads-guilty/⁠ FITSNews. (2024, December 20). Mica Miller saga: Police reports fill in blanks, raise more questions. ⁠https://www.fitsnews.com/2024/12/20/mica-miller-saga-police-reports-fill-in-blanks-raise-more-questions/⁠ FITSNews. (2025, June 2). Embattled South Carolina pastor John-Paul Miller marries girlfriend. ⁠https://www.fitsnews.com/2025/06/02/embattled-south-carolina-pastor-john-paul-miller-marries-girlfriend/⁠ Gregoire, S. W. (2023, September). 10 things to know about obligation sex. Bare Marriage. ⁠https://baremarriage.com/2023/09/10-things-obligation-sex/⁠ Gregoire, S. W., Lindenbach, R. G., & Sawatsky, J. (2021). The great sex rescue: The lies you've been taught and how to recover what God intended. Baker Books. Guidepost Solutions. (2022, May 15). Report of the independent investigation: The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee's response to sexual abuse allegations and an audit of the procedures and actions of the Credentials Committee. Jane Doe v. John-Paul Miller, Reginald Wayne Miller, et al. (2025). Complaint, Horry County Court of Common Pleas. ⁠https://www.wbtw.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2025/03/JP-lawsuit-2.pdf⁠

  • September 8 · 2 hr 24 min

    64. Crime of the Summer- the Lindsay Clancy Case

    Andy and I have bombshells about the timeline in our fireside chat on patreon.com/highwaytohellpodcast (we also tease the new studio and halloween merch) Clarify some points: **This is by no means all of the data from the trial, only what we could fit into the evidence, we talk more about things on the fireside **The timeline discrepancy comes from Patrick testifying he left at 5:15 but an email being sent from his account at 5:24 **Since this recording, a mistrial has been declared due to a hold out jury refusing to follow the law on reasonable doubt On January 24, 2023, Lindsay Clancy, a labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital for nine years, allegedly strangled her three children in the basement of the family's home at 47 Summer Street in Duxbury, Massachusetts, while her husband was out picking up takeout and a prescription she had asked him to get. Cora was 5, Dawson was 3, Callan was 8 months old. Clancy then allegedly took pills, strangled herself with a belt, cut her wrists and neck, and went out a second-story window, severing her spinal cord. In the four months before that night, at least six providers had prescribed her thirteen different psychiatric medications across more than thirty prescriptions; she was turned away by two crisis hotlines in four days, told her psychiatrist she was having intrusive thoughts of harming her children. A status hearing on whether the Commonwealth will retry her is set for September 29. Sources- full list on patreon AAMC. "Why we know so little about women's health." aamc.org/news/why-we-know-so-little-about-women-s-health ABC News. "'She was begging for help': former mother-in-law testifies." Aug 2026. abcnews.com/GMA/News/begging-lindsay-clancys-former-mother-law-testifies/story?id=135739178 ABC News. "Mistrial declared. What happens next?" 4 Sep 2026. abcnews.com/GMA/News/lindsay-clancy-jury-deadlocked/story?id=136153308 Boston Globe. "Prescribed 13 different medications." 27 Jul 2026. bostonglobe.com/2026/07/27/metro/lindsay-clancy-timeline-medications-13/ Boston Globe. "Timeline of activities on Jan. 24." 4 Aug 2026. bostonglobe.com/2026/08/04/metro/timeline-lindsay-clancy-cell-phone-records/ Boston Globe. "Surgeon, investigators testify on her injuries." 4 Aug 2026. bostonglobe.com/2026/08/04/metro/lindsay-clancy-trial-testimony-tuesday/ Boston Globe. "Mechanics of the insanity defense." 12 Aug 2026. bostonglobe.com/2026/08/12/metro/clancy-trial-structure-insanity-defense/ Boston Globe. "Googled psychosis symptoms and hallucinations." 13 Aug 2026. bostonglobe.com/2026/08/13/metro/lindsay-clancy-trial-live-updates/ Boston Globe. "Said 'Go to God' as she strangled each child." 21 Aug 2026. bostonglobe.com/2026/08/21/metro/lindsay-clancy-trial-mack-resnick/ Boston Globe. "Dueling assessments of psychosis." 21 Aug 2026. bostonglobe.com/2026/08/21/metro/lindsay-clancy-trial-live-updates/ Boston Globe. "Kevin Reddington, 'girl dad' energy." 24 Aug 2026. bostonglobe.com/2026/08/24/lifestyle/lindsay-clancy-murder-trial-kevin-reddington-insanity/ Boston.com. "What prosecutors say happened Jan. 24." 17 Feb 2023. boston.com/news/crime/2023/02/17/lindsay-clancy-timeline-january-24-duxbury-mother-children/ Brown University. "32 years of U.S. filicide arrests." 2014. archive2.news.brown.edu/2007-2015/articles/2014/02/filicide.html CBS Boston. "Case ends in mistrial after jury deadlock." 4 Sep 2026. cbsnews.com/boston/live-updates/lindsay-clancy-murder-trial-hung-jury-mistrial-verdict-watch-live-updates/ CBS Boston. "Karen Read sues Mass. State Police, Canton Police." cbsnews.com/boston/news/karen-read-lawsuit-massachusetts-state-police-canton-police/ CBS News. "Key moments from the Clancy trial." Aug 2026. cbsnews.com/news/lindsay-clancy-trial-key-moments-jury-weighs-case/ CNN. "Opening statements to begin." 26 Jul 2026. cnn.com/2026/07/26/us/lindsay-clancy-trial-opening-statements

  • September 1 · 1 hr 59 min

    63. Extreme Premeditation: The Life and Crimes of Israel Keyes

    We're so used to serial killers having a compulsion, a need, an insatiable craving that often makes them sloppy and leads to an arrest. Israel Keyes did not suffer from that reckless compulsion and may be the most calculated killer we have ever covered. On unrelated trips Israel Keyes would get a five gallon bucket and fill it with a gun, rope, plastic sheeting, anything he needed for a kill trip and would bury that bucket YEARS in advance. When he decided it was time to kill he would fly to a major airport, rent a car and drive sometimes a thousand miles, pick up his kill kit, and hunt for a random person he never met. The victim was never connected to him and neither was the location, until Keyes on a drunken night hunted too close to home. Sources ABC News. (2012, December). Alaska serial killer committed suicide with hidden razor and bedding. abcnews.com Adirondack Daily Enterprise. (2013, November). FBI thinks Keyes buried a body near Tupper Lake. adirondackdailyenterprise.com Alaska Public Media. (2012, April 19). U.S. Attorney's Office files charges against Keyes in Koenig case. alaskapublic.org Alaska Public Media. (2012, May 24). Israel Keyes attempts to flee courtroom. alaskapublic.org Alaska Public Media / KTOO. (2012, December 3–5). Keyes autopsy underway, investigations continue. alaskapublic.org Anchorage Daily News. (2012, May 24). Courtroom erupts as defendant tries to flee Alaska barista trial. adn.com Anchorage Daily News. (2012, May 26). In a more subdued hearing, Israel Keyes gets a March trial date. adn.com Anchorage Daily News. (2012, December 2). Israel Keyes dead in apparent suicide; suspected in Lower 48 deaths. adn.com Anchorage Daily News. (2012, December 3). Vermont authorities point to suspected serial killer Israel Keyes in 2011 double murder. adn.com Anchorage Daily News. (2013, November 13). FBI looks for clues linking confessed serial killer Israel Keyes to missing New Jersey woman. adn.com Anchorage Daily News. (2014, July 15). The untold story behind Israel Keyes' jailhouse suicide. adn.com Anchorage Daily News. (2018, May 18). Unsealed interviews detail two lives of Alaska serial killer Israel Keyes. adn.com Callahan, M. (2019). American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century. Viking. Federal Bureau of Investigation. FBI Records: The Vault — Israel Keyes (Parts 1–8). vault.fbi.gov/israel-keyes Federal Bureau of Investigation. Israel Keyes interview recordings, video repository, including the session of May 24, 2012. fbi.gov/video-repository/ Federal Bureau of Investigation. Seeking information regarding serial killer case [video], and the Israel Keyes travel timeline. fbi.gov Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2013). New information released in serial killer case. fbi.gov/news/stories/new-information-released-in-serial-killer-case Federal Bureau of Investigation, Anchorage Field Office. (2012, April 18). Anchorage man indicted for kidnapping and killing Samantha Koenig. archives.fbi.gov/archives/anchorage/press-releases/2012/ Federal Bureau of Investigation, Portland Field Office. (2013). FBI requests the public's assistance in case of serial killer Israel Keyes. archives.fbi.gov/archives/portland/press-releases/2013/ Miller, T. C. (2015, July 30). The FBI built a database that can catch rapists — almost nobody uses it. ProPublica. propublica.org Murder Accountability Project. Unsolved homicide data and clearance rates. murderdata.org NBC News. (2012, May). Alleged barista killer tries to escape court. nbcnews.com Rosay, A. B. (2011). 2010 Alaska Victimization Survey: Report to the Alaska State Legislature. University of Alaska Anchorage Justice Center. scholarworks.alaska.edu/handle/11122/7227 Southern Poverty Law Center. Extremist files: Aryan Nations; Christian Identity; Richard Butler. splcenter.org United States v. Keyes, No. 3:12-cr-00041 (D. Alaska 2012). courtlistener.com/docket/6823228/united-states-v-keyes/

  • August 25 · 1 hr 53 min

    62. The Jersey Devil

    How prejudice, misogyny and a kangaroo in bat wings created a monster. Support the show by becoming a hellion at patreon.com/highwaytohellpodcast The legend is rooted in the Pine Barrens, the million-acre stretch of sandy pine forest across southern New Jersey. The legend begins in 1735 when a woman remembered only as Mother Leeds went into labor with her thirteenth child. Exhausted and cursing her fertility, she cried, "Let this one be the devil." The child was born normally, then twisted before the midwife's eyes into something with a horse's head, leathery bat wings, cloven hooves, and a forked tail. It shrieked, beat its way up the chimney, and vanished into the pines. Historically this woman was likely Deborah Leeds wife of Japhet Leeds, who records show had 12 children. But the creature was likely born from politics, not a woman crying out in pain and frustration, exhausted by pregnancy and birth. Daniel Leeds, a colonial almanac publisher, broke with his Quaker neighbors and printed astrology and occult lore. They branded him "Satan's Harbinger."(great metal band name) His son Titan (also great name) continued the feud and was mocked by Benjamin Franklin, who jokingly predicted Titan's death, then insisted his ghost lingered on. The Leeds family crest bore a wyvern a winged, clawed dragon. A hated family, a devilish reputation, and a monster on the coat of arms fused over generations into the "Leeds Devil," renamed the Jersey Devil only in the twentieth century. Its most famous week came in January 1909, when hundreds of sightings and mysterious hoofprints swept New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Schools and factories closed, armed posses combed the woods, and a Philadelphia showman, Norman Jefferies, cashed in by exhibiting a painted kangaroo fitted with fake wings. The Jersey Devil was born from a colonial grudge, regional prejudice, and a curse on a woman who would DARE to not want to have more kids. SOURCES (full sources on Patreon) Brian Regal and Frank J. Esposito, The Secret History of the Jersey Devil: How Quakers, Hucksters, and Benjamin Franklin Created a Monster (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018) — the foundational scholarly work, and the source for the Daniel Leeds / Titan Leeds / wyvern / Franklin argument. Brian Regal, “The Jersey Devil: The Real Story,” Skeptical Inquirer, November 2013. W. F. Mayer, “In the Pines,” The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. III, May 1859 — first known print appearance of the “Leeds Devil.” Caleb Pusey, Satan’s Harbinger Encountered, 1700. Daniel Leeds, An Almanack for the Year of Christian Account 1687; The Temple of Wisdom for the Little World, 1688; The Trumpet Sounded Out of the Wilderness of America, 1699. Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1733–1738 editions — the Titan Leeds death prediction and the “ghost of Titan Leeds” sequence. Japhet Leeds will, 1736, Burlington County records — twelve named children. Encounter 1 (Nelson Evans, 1909): Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and allied Philadelphia press, January 19–20, 1909, Geoff Tibballs, The World’s Greatest Hoaxes (2006) — Norman Jefferies, Jacob Hope, and the Arch Street Dime Museum kangaroo. Robert E. Bartholomew on the 1909 flap as mass hysteria seeded by regional legend. Jeff Brunner, Humane Society of New Jersey — the sandhill crane hypothesis. Henry H. Goddard, The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness (1912); Elizabeth Kite, “The Pineys” (1913); Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (1981), on the retouched photographs. John McPhee, The Pine Barrens (1968). Weird NJ magazine, Jersey Devil reader files — three decades of submitted first-hand accounts.

  • August 18 · 2 hr 36 min

    61. The Warrens & The Conjuring Empire

    Our longest episode EVER. The ultimate deep dive on The Warrens, their history and their conjuring Empire! Ed and Lorraine were born in a factory town in Conneticut just 19 weeks apart. For both of them, a significant moment at 5 would help shape the course of their future. A chance meeting at a movie theater led to their marriage and the occult awakening and the Satanic Panic in the US would enable them to release books, cases, work a lecture circuit and become some of the most famous figures in the paranormal world. But how much of it was true? Was it God or was it money? How do you reconcile the devoted catholic couple with an alleged 40 year affair and a contract clause that said they cannot be depicted having affairs or sexual contact with minors? Thats oddly specific. SOURCES: Books and First-Person Accounts Anson, Jay. The Amityville Horror: A True Story. Prentice Hall, 1977. Brittle, Gerald. The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren. Prentice Hall, 1980. — the authorized biography; the core text of the mythology. Brittle, Gerald. The Devil in Connecticut. Bantam, 1983. — the Glatzel/Arne Johnson case; pulled from print after the 2007 lawsuit. Curran, Robert, with Ed and Lorraine Warren. The Haunted. St. Martin's, 1988. — the Smurl case. Garton, Ray, with Ed and Lorraine Warren. In a Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting. Villard, 1992. — the Snedeker case. Read alongside Garton's later public statements about how it was written. Hall, William J. The World's Most Haunted House: The True Story of the Bridgeport Poltergeist on Lindley Street. New Page, 2014. Lasalandra, Michael, and Mark Merenda. Satan's Harvest. Dell, 1990. — Maurice Theriault, by two Boston Herald reporters. Perron, Andrea. House of Darkness House of Light: The True Story, Vols. 1–3. AuthorHouse, 2011–2014. Playfair, Guy Lyon. This House Is Haunted: The True Story of the Enfield Poltergeist. Souvenir Press, 1980. Sawyer, J.F. Deliver Us From Evil. 1973. — the first book about the Warrens. Notably contains no mention of Annabelle. Warren, Ed and Lorraine. Ghost Hunters (1989), Werewolf: A True Story of Demonic Possession (1991, with Robert David Chase and William Ramsey), Graveyard (1992), Ghost Tracks (2004). State of Connecticut v. Arne Cheyenne Johnson, Danbury Superior Court, 1981. Judge Robert Callahan presiding. Trial opened Oct. 28, 1981; manslaughter conviction Nov. 24; sentenced Dec. 18. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Arne_Cheyenne_Johnson Dengrove courtroom sketch collection, Arne Cheyenne Johnson — University of Virginia Law Library — https://archives.law.virginia.edu/dengrove/writeup/arne-cheyenne-johnson Glatzel v. Warren, Brittle, iUniverse, and William Morris Agency, 2007 (dismissed) — https://www.religionnewsblog.com/19687/devil-in-connecticut Adams County (PA) Coroner's ruling on the death of Dan Rivera, July 2025 — cardiac, natural — https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dan-rivera-paranormal-investigator-died-tour-anabelle-doll-suffered-he-rcna229144 WPC Carolyn Heeps's signed statement, Enfield, 1977 — reproduced in Playfair; summary of police involvement at http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/07/police-officers-involved-in-enfield-case.html Lanning, Kenneth V. Investigator's Guide to Allegations of "Ritual" Child Abuse. FBI Behavioral Science Unit, 1992. — for the Satanic Panic context. Wilmer, William H. "Effects of Carbon Monoxide upon the Eye." American Journal of Ophthalmology, 1921. — the 1921 haunted-house/CO case. Vardy, Tom, et al. "The Warrens." World Religions and Spirituality Project, Jan. 19, 2023. — https://wrldrels.org/2023/01/19/the-warrens/ — the single best scholarly overview. "The Demonologist and the Clairvoyant: Ed and Lorraine Warren, Paranormal Investigation, and Exorcism in the Modern World." DIG: A History Podcast, Oct. 3, 2021. — https://digpodcast.org/2021/10/03/demonologist-and-the-clairvoyant/ — source for the gender analysis.

  • August 11 · 1 hr 59 min

    60. The Dyatlov Incident

    What could possibly cause experienced hikers to cut their way out of a tent, WALK half clothed to the treeline, and die from the elements? **Special thanks to our patreon supporters for making this show possible patreon.com/highwaytohellpodcast** In January 1959, ten students from the Ural Polytechnical Institute set out on a Category III ski trek through the northern Urals, led by 23-year-old Igor Dyatlov. One member, Yuri Yudin, turned back due to back sciatic pain, leaving nine to camp on February 1 on the slope of Kholat Syakhl, "Dead Mountain." He would be the only person to survive. When searchers reached the site on February 26, the tent had been cut open from the inside, as if the climbers fled to escape. Boots, coats, and equipment remained within. Footprints led 1.5 kilometers downslope toward a treeline — people walking, not running, some barefoot, some in socks. Two bodies lay under a cedar in their underwear beside a dead fire. Three more were found between the cedar and the tent, apparently trying to climb back. The last four surfaced in May, buried in a ravine under four meters of snow. Two had crushed ribs; one had a fractured skull. The examiner compared the injuries to a car crash and noted the absence of corresponding external trauma. How is that possible? Dubinina was missing her tongue and eyes, later explained by months of decomposition in running water. Trace radiation on clothing traced to one hiker's job at a nuclear plant. Soviet investigators closed the file citing a compelling natural force the group could not overcome, then classified it. Six decades of theory followed: military tests, infrasound panic, the KGB, the paranormal. In 2021, Gaume and Puzrin modeled a delayed slab avalanche — triggered by cutting a tent platform into wind-loaded snow, small enough to leave no debris, and capable of causing internal injuries without surface damage. The rest is exposure, darkness, and exhausted people making survivable-seeming choices in −25°C. But what about the military tests? Sources (full source list on Patreon) The 1959 criminal case file — Sverdlovsk Oblast Prosecutor's Office, Feb–May 1959. Roughly 400 pageshttps://dyatlovpass.com/case-files Autopsy protocols of Boris Vozrozhdenny — forensic medical expert, Sverdlovsk Oblast. First five bodies examined March 1959; the four from the ravine on 9 May 1959.https://dyatlovpass.com/autopsy Genrietta Churkina, criminalistic examination of the tent — case file, 16 April 1959. The finding that the principal cuts were made from inside. Vladimir Levashov, radiological report — chief radiologist, Sverdlovsk city sanitary-epidemiological station, 27 May 1959. Beta contamination readings on Dubinina's sweater and Kolevatov's trousers and sweater waistband. The hikers' diaries https://dyatlovpass.com/diaries The recovered camera films — five cameras, including the negatives found in Lev Ivanov's private archive in 1997 and donated to the Dyatlov Foundation.https://dyatlovpass.com/photos "Vecherniy Otorten" (Evening Otorten) No. 1 — the group's satirical camp newsletter, dated 1 February 1959. Surviving only as an investigator's transcription in the case file. Lev Ivanov, "The Enigma of the Fireballs" — Leninsky Put, Kustanai, Kazakhstan, November 1990. The lead investigator's account of being ordered to omit the sightings, and his apology to the families.https://dyatlovpass.com/enigma-of-the-fireballs Russian Prosecutor General's Office reinvestigation, 2019–2020 , 11 July 2020.https://dyatlovpass.com/prosecutors-investigation TASS — "Prosecutors say avalanche killed Dyatlov group in Urals in 1959" (July 2020)https://tass.com/emergencies/1177345 Gaume, J. & Puzrin, A. M. — "Mechanisms of slab avalanche "Communications Earth & Environment 2, 10 (2021). Published 28 January 2021.https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-020-00081-8DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-020-00081-8

  • August 4 · 1 hr 45 min

    59. YES, NO, GOODBYE- The History of the Ouija Board

    Get episodes ad free and support the show at patreon.com/highwaytohell The Spiritualist movement swept America, enticing people to entertain the question, "can we truly talk to the dead?". The Fox Sisters in 1848 entranced interest with their rapping phenomena in Hydesville, NY. Beleivers in contact were already using talking boards, alphabet cards, taple tipping and planchette writing by putting a heart shape platform on casters that held a pencil and wrote form the spirit guides. The Civil Wars mass casualties increased the demand for any way for people to talk to their lost loved ones. "Can they hear me?". Soon the planchette would be combined with an alphabet board to make translating the writing more efficient and meet the increased demand. In 1890, a group of Baltimore investors: businessman Elijah Bond, attorney Charles Kennard, and others, with employee William Fuld would soon file a patent for a "talking board." Legend holds the Patent Office demanded a demonstration, and the board correctly spelled out the skeptical examiner's name; the patent was granted in February 1891. The name's origin is disputed. The company claimed it was Egyptian for "good luck"; the likelier story is that Bond's sister-in-law Helen Peters, a medium, asked the board what it wished to be called, and it answered "Ouija." A name similar to the author's name and likeness she wore in a locket. Fuld would eventually take control of production, and through aggressive manufacturing and litigation against rivals became synonymous with the board. He died in 1927 after falling from the roof of his Baltimore factory — a building he said the board had told him to construct. His family ran the business until selling to Parker Brothers in 1966; Hasbro acquired it in 1991. For decades the board was harmless parlor entertainment, spiking in popularity during wartime and the 1960s occult revival. In 1973, The Exorcist recast it as a portal for demonic possession, and evangelical anxiety hardened that reputation permanently. Science attributes its operation to the ideomotor effect, described by physiologist William Carpenter in 1852: unconscious micro-movements by participants who genuinely believe they aren't pushing. Blindfold experiments reliably reduce the board to gibberish. But then there are stories of unexplainable things, terrifying things, things the board shouldnt... couldnt know. Is it real? Sources: Condensed for Character space Deep history & belief — E.B. Tylor, Primitive Culture (1871, animism); archaeology of Sungir, Paviland, Göbekli Tepe; the Epic of Gilgamesh; Egyptian Book of the Dead & "Letters to the Dead"; 1 Samuel 28 & Deuteronomy 18; Homer's Odyssey Bk. 11. The bridge & Spiritualism — Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell (1758); Mesmer; Andrew Jackson Davis; the Fox sisters & Maggie's 1888 confession; Blavatsky & Theosophy; Conan Doyle vs. Houdini; Society for Psychical Research. Tarot — Court de Gébelin's Le Monde primitif (1781); Etteilla; Éliphas Lévi; the Golden Dawn; the 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith deck & Pamela Colman Smith. Ouija — Smithsonian Magazine (Linda Rodriguez McRobbie) · historian Robert Murch · The Strong National Museum of Play · Baltimore Magazine · Time · The Conversation · Atlas Obscura (Pearl Curran) · UBC ideomotor study (Rensink, Gauchou & Fels, 2012) · The Lineup & True Ghost Tales (Zozo) · Wikipedia & Skeptical Inquirer (Roland Doe / Ronald Hunkeler). Dates and figures are drawn from secondary sources — double-check anything you quote on air.

  • July 28 · 2 hr 1 min

    58. The Butcher Baker

    Please support the show, get ad free episodes and bonus content at patreon.com/highwaytohellpodcast Robert Hansen was born in Estherville Iowa to Danish immigrant parents. His father, was a baker and very domineering. Hansen had a pronounced stutter, acne scars and experiences social rejection and humiliation. As retaliation for this humiliation, and for the rejection of young women who would bully him, in 1960 he burned down a school district bus garage in Pope County. He was arrested but only served 20 months during which is first wife left him. Good call. Ladies if he's burning buildings down, you can't save him. Once released, he would be responsible for a string of petty thefts. He would relocate to Anchorage Alaska in 1967 with his second wife and two children and opened a downtown bakery. It was a new place and new start. He was able to build a public identity as a respectable career man, family man, and most impressively in Alaska- a trophy bowhunter. Even with assault convictions in 1971 and 1972 didn't ruin his livelihood or reputation. Because how dare men be held accountable and ostracized from society for sex crimes???? Then between 1971 and 1983, Hansen would abduct, rape and kill women, mostly dancers and sex workers, knowing full well that the transient nature of Anchorage would protect him and provide alibis and lack of suspicion. He method was horrific. As a pilot, he would fly his victims to the Knik River valley and other bush country, release them... and hunt them. On June 13, 1983, 17-year-old Cindy Paulson escaped in handcuffs at Merrill Field as Hansen loaded her onto his plane. She ran to police and reported it- they didn't believe her. WHY DON'T WOMEN REPORT??? Bodies had been surfacing since 1980 including: unidentified "Eklutna Annie", Joanna Messina, Sherry Morrow, and Paula Goudling. An FBI behavioral profile FINALLY persuaded a judge to issue a warrant. The October 1983 search recovered victims' jewelry hidden in the attic, firearms concealed behind his headboard, and an aviation chart marked with roughly twenty small Xs, a map of his own graves. Ballistics matched shell casings from two scenes. In February 1984 Robert would plead guilty to four murders and was sentenced to 461 years plus life without parole. He confessed to 17 killings and more than 30 rapes, guiding investigators to burial sites. He died in custody on August 21, 2014. Sources: • Walter Gilmour & Leland E. Hale, Butcher, Baker: The True Account of an Alaskan Serial Killer (1991; reissued Open Road Media, 2016). Gilmour was an Alaska State Trooper involved in the case • Leland E. Hale, "Butcher Baker" case blog, lelandhale.com/butcherbaker (co-author's ongoing primary-source chronology, including confession-transcript excerpts, the Cindy Paulson statement, the alibi collapse, and the grave-site map). • UPI Archives, Feb. 28, 1984 — sentencing wire reports ("Sentenced to life plus 461 years"). • Anchorage Daily News — contemporaneous reporting and Aug. 21–22, 2014 obituaries/coverage. • Alaska Department of Public Safety / Alaska State Troopers — press releases, incl. the 44 Oct. 22, 2021 identification of "Horseshoe Harriet" as Robin Pelkey (genetic genealogy, Alaska Bureau of Investigation Cold Case Unit with Parabon NanoLabs). • FBI Behavioral Science Unit profile (John E. Douglas, with James Horn), October 1983. • Wikipedia, "Robert Hansen" and "Murder of Eklutna Annie" (used to locate primary citations); Charley Project / Doe Network (Emerick, Thill); Find A Grave (Futrell). • The Frozen Ground (2013, dir. Scott Walker) is a dramatization, not a source of fact — named/altered characters. Used for cultural context only.

  • July 21 · 1 hr 27 min

    57. Herb Baumeister

    Herbert Baumeister was born in Indiana in 1947 and grew up in a middle-class family near Indianapolis. Even as a young man he showed troubling signs, and he spent time in a mental institution as an adult. Still, he built what looked like an ordinary life. He married Julie Saiter in 1971, raised three children, and ran a chain of successful thrift stores called Sav-A-Lot. To neighbors and customers, he seemed like a respectable businessman and family man. Behind that image was a double life. In the early 1990s, Baumeister began visiting gay bars in Indianapolis under the name "Brian Smart." He lured men back to Fox Hollow Farm, his large estate in Westfield, Indiana, while his wife and children were away. There he strangled them, and he buried and scattered their remains across his wooded property. The first hint of trouble came in 1994, when one of his sons found a human bone in the yard. Baumeister brushed it off as a medical skeleton. The truth surfaced through a survivor. A man who had escaped went to police and helped them connect the disappearances to "Brian Smart," who was eventually identified as Baumeister. In 1996, while he was away, his wife allowed investigators to search the farm. They uncovered thousands of charred bone fragments, the remains of at least eleven men. Baumeister did not stay to face the case. He fled to Canada and, on July 3, 1996, shot himself at a provincial park in Ontario. He left a suicide note that mentioned his failing marriage and business but never confessed to the killings. Investigators later suspected he may also have been responsible for a series of unsolved murders in which bodies were dumped along highways in Indiana and Ohio. Because he died before any trial, much about his crimes remains uncertain. Efforts to identify his victims from the recovered remains have continued for decades, giving names back to some of the men lost at Fox Hollow Farm. Sources Full list on patreon Jenny Labalme, "Suicide note mentions marriage, business but not bones," The Indianapolis Star, July 6, 1996 (pp. 1–2). — The three-page suicide note's contents. (Anchor contemporary source for the death.) The New York Times, July 1996 — Quoting Hamilton County Sheriff's Sgt. Kenneth C. Whisman that the note "did not mention the deaths or remains." (Exact headline/date/URL not independently verified — fetch blocked; attribution confirmed second-hand.) Associated Press wire, early July 1996 — Breaking discovery / body-count coverage ("bodies found on Westfield estate"). People, "While Julie Was Away," Dec. 23, 1996 (Richard Jerome & Fannie Weinstein) Indianapolis Monthly, Dec. 1996 — Julie Baumeister's own first-person essay. Reuters / Indianapolis Star-News wire (c. 1996–1999) — Dr. Stephen Nawrocki, "Our minimum number at the site is 11. There could be more."; Det. Bill Clifford on the DNA signatures. Detective Mary Wilson's 12-page handwritten memo, dated June 27, 1996 — Obtained via public records and published by WRTV (Vic Ryckaert), "Forgotten at Fox Hollow," 2023. WRTV / WCPO, "Forgotten at Fox Hollow" (Vic Ryckaert), 2023 — the memo and case documents from the Hamilton County Sheriff Fannie Weinstein & Melinda Wilson, Where the Bodies Are Buried (St. Martin's, 1998) Rob Graves & Richard Estep, The Horrors of Fox Hollow Farm (2019) Stephen Nawrocki et al., "A Taphonomic Analysis of Human Cremains from the Fox Hollow Farm Serial Homicide Site" University of Indianapolis Human Identification Center (Dr. Krista Latham) — remains curation/analysis; Latham's "marginalized in life… in death" quotes. Encyclopedia of Indianapolis, "Herbert R. Baumeister" (indyencyclopedia.org) — timeline, the Sept. 12, 1996 first-four IDs, "concluded he was responsible." Indianapolis Monthly, "Unburying the Truth," Eve Batey (Dec. 2024; updated Nov. 4, 2025) — Jellison's "eight gay men from Indianapolis, what do we care?" and "blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls from Carmel or Fishers" quotes; the Livingston landline detail.

  • July 14 · 1 hr 30 min

    56. Lights Out Volume 1

    Today a little palette cleanser! After some heavy true crime and hauntings we wanted to do an episode sharing claimed in person paranormal encounters. If you'd like to submit a story- submit to info@montemader.com

  • July 7 · 1 hr 46 min

    55. The Worlds Most Haunted Places Part 2

    As always special thanks to our hellions supporting us on patreon! patreon.com/highwaytohellpodcast This episode closes the two-part countdown of the most haunted places on earth, covering the top five. We open in Edinburgh, Scotland — a city that sealed off its medieval streets and built a new city on top of them, leaving the original closes and vaults intact beneath the surface. The South Bridge Vaults, rediscovered in 1985, have been the subject of one of the most rigorous paranormal studies ever conducted. From Scotland we go to Bohemia, Czech Republic, and Houska Castle — a 13th-century structure with no water source, no town to protect, and no trade route to control, built in the middle of dense forest with outer walls that face inward. It was built over a hole in the ground that medieval sources describe as a gateway to the underworld. The chapel sits directly above the sealed pit and contains a fresco of St. Michael painted deliberately left-handed — in medieval Catholic iconography, the hand of the Devil. In County Offaly, Ireland, Leap Castle earns the third spot. It is the site of a massacre carried out in the castle's own chapel during a feast, and the murder of a Catholic priest at the altar by his own brother during Mass. In 1900, renovation workers discovered a concealed oubliette off the Bloody Chapel — a spiked pit containing the remains of an estimated 150 people. An elemental is also present: a creature the size of a sheep, moving on all fours in a human manner, with a human face, black empty eye sockets, and a smell of sulfur and decay that arrives before it appears and lingers after it's gone. Number two, Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania — 51,000 casualties in 72 hours across six square miles of farmland in July 1863. The most paranormally documented site in the United States. At dusk in the Wheatfield, where 6,000 men fell in a single afternoon, figures in period clothing have been reported walking in opposite directions. We close at number one: Poveglia Island where plague victims were quarantined and burned across three centuries of epidemic — 1348, 1630, and the waves between. The soil is documented at approximately fifty percent human ash and bone fragments. An estimated 160,000 people died there. The bell that was removed from the hospital tower, still rings SOURCES Wiseman, Richard. "Hauntings and Psychology." University of Hertfordshire study, Paranormality: Why We See What Isn't There. Macmillan, 2011. Historic Environment Scotland. Edinburgh Castle site documentation and architectural history. Edinburgh: HES Burke and Hare: Bailey, Brian. Burke and Hare: The Year of the Ghouls. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 2002. Ottokar II of Bohemia and Houska Castle construction: Žemlička, Josef. Království v pohybu (The Kingdom in Motion). Prague: NLN, 2014. SS Ahnenerbe occult research division: Pringle, Heather. The Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust. New York: Hyperion, 2006. O'Carroll clan history and Leap Castle: Simms, Katharine. From Kings to Warlords: The Changing Political Structure of Gaelic Ireland in the Later Middle Ages. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1987. The oubliette at Leap Castle: Ryan, Sean. Personal accounts and estate documentation. See also: Costello, Con. A Most Delightful Station: The British Army on the Curragh of Kildare, Ireland. Collins Press, 1996. Chamberlain and Little Round Top: Trulock, Alice Rains. In the Hands of Providence: Joshua L. Chamberlain and the American Civil War. University of North Carolina Press, 1992. Venice plague epidemics and the lazaretto system: Cohn, Samuel K. Cultures of Plague: Medical Thinking at the End of the Renaissance. Oxford University Press, 2010. Poveglia Island quarantine history: Norwich, John Julius. A History of Venice. New York: Knopf, 1982. Psychiatric care in early 20th-century Italy: Foot, John. The Man Who Closed the Asylums: Franco Basaglia and the Revolution in Mental Health Care. Verso, 2015.

  • July 1 · 1 hr 19 min

    54. The Worlds Most Haunted Places Part 1

    Today we start a two part series on the most haunted places in the world. This is the bottom 5 of the top 10. Little bit different format here with each individual place having its own haunted story and mini travel itinerary. Hoia-Baciu Forest in Romania — a 295-hectare forest outside Cluj-Napoca where locals refuse to enter, a circular clearing where nothing grows, and fifty years of documented reports of time loss, physical symptoms, and disappearing photographs. From there we move to Bhangarh Fort in Rajasthan, India, where the Archaeological Survey of India has posted an official government sign prohibiting entry after sunset — one of the only paranormal-adjacent access restrictions at any heritage site in India — and where the ruins of a once-thriving town of tens of thousands have sat completely abandoned since the early 18th century with no adequate historical explanation. In France, we spend time at Château de Brissac in the Loire Valley, where an eighteen-year-old woman named Charlotte de Brézé was murdered by her husband in 1476, whose killer was protected from prison by his friend the king, and who has been appearing in the castle's north wing ever since. At Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, we examine 141 years of absolute solitary confinement — a Quaker reform philosophy that Charles Dickens called torture in 1842 — and what 75,000 people left behind in those cellblocks. We close in Japan at Aokigahara Forest, the Sea of Trees at the base of Mount Fuji, examining the forest's centuries-long association with death, the documented impact of a 1960 novel on its modern history, and what it means to a search volunteer named Kenji who enters it every spring. Part Two covers places five through one. SOURCES Sift, Alexandru. Field documentation of Hoia-Baciu Forest. Babeș-Bolyai University, 1960s–1970s. Archaeological Survey of India. Official access restriction signage, Bhangarh Fort, Alwar District. Government of India, Ministry of Culture. Abul Fazl. Akbarnama. Trans. H. Beveridge. Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1902–1939. Commynes, Philippe de. Mémoires. c. 1490–1498. Dickens, Charles. American Notes for General Circulation. Chapman and Hall, 1842. Chapter 7. De Tocqueville, Alexis, and Gustave de Beaumont. On the Penitentiary System in the United States. Trans. Francis Lieber. Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1833. Grassian, Stuart. "Psychiatric Effects of Solitary Confinement." Washington University Journal of Law and Policy. Vol. 22, 2006. Matsumoto, Seicho. Kuroi Jukai (黒い樹海). Kobunsha, 1960. Miyaji, Naoaki, et al. "Lava Flow History of Fuji Volcano." Bulletin of the Volcanological Society of Japan. Vol. 49, 2004. Foster, Michael Dylan. The Book of Yokai. University of California Press, 2015.

  • June 23 · 1 hr 21 min

    53. Real Life Horror: The Case of Junko Furuto

    TRIGGER WARNING: We typically don't have trigger warnings since it is a crime podcast, but this episode is ESPECIALLY graphic in topics of kidnapping, torture, and sexual assault. Not appropriate for young listeners. NEW: Fireside behind the scenes fireside chats available now at patreon.com/highwaytohell podcast with EVERY episode. Get ad free episodes 5 days early and then bonus chats on release day. In November 1988, 17-year-old Junko Furuta, a high school student in Misato, Saitama, Japan, was abducted by a group of teenage boys led by Hiroshi Miyano, a youth with yakuza connections. She was held captive for roughly 40 days in a house in the Adachi ward of Tokyo in the home of one of her captors, whose own parents were living in the same building and reportedly did not intervene. During her captivity, Junko was subjected to relentless and brutal abuse by four primary perpetrators and others who came and went. She died in January 1989 from her injuries. Her body was concealed in a concrete-filled drum and abandoned, which gave the crime its common name in Japan: the "concrete-encased high school girl murder case." The legal fallout drew lasting outrage. Because all four main offenders were minors under Japanese law, their identities were initially protected and they were shielded by the juvenile justice system, which prioritized rehabilitation over punishment. The sentences struck many as shockingly lenient given the severity of the crime. Ringleader Hiroshi Miyano received the harshest term at around 20 years, while the others received far shorter sentences... roughly five to ten years, five to nine years, and five to seven years respectively. Prosecutors and the public viewed the outcomes as wholly inadequate, and all four were eventually released back into society. The aftermath deepened public anger. At least one offender reoffended, including a conviction tied to a violent attack years after his release. Some married and built ordinary lives, reportedly disclosing their pasts to their spouses; one died in 2021 after years of illness and isolation. The case became a touchstone in Japanese debates over juvenile sentencing, victims' rights, and whether protections afforded to young offenders can fail to deliver justice for catastrophic crimes. Decades later, Junko Furuta's name remains a symbol of those unresolved tensions, and her case is still cited whenever Japan revisits how it treats minors who commit grave offenses. Sources: Murder of Junko Furuta — Wikipedia Junko Furuta: Examining the Light Sentences of Her Killers — HowStuffWorks Where Are Junko Furuta's Killers Now? — ComingSoon The Junko Furuta Murder Case: Justice Revisited — Tokyo Weekender Junko Furuta Killer Again on Trial — Tokyo Reporter The UK's Grooming Gangs and the Lessons Never Learned — Al Jazeera Rotherham Grooming Gang Scandal — Al Jazeera Brock Turner Sentence — CNN Ethan Couch Sentencing — BBC Heisei Yakuza: Burst Bubble — ResearchGate Street Youths, Bosozoku and Yakuza — Office of Justice Programs Japanese Juvenile Law — Wikipedia Criminal Majority in Japan — European Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies Tokyo Ghost Hunting — Metropolis Japan Haunted Places in Japan — TripXL 7-Day Tokyo Itinerary — Rakuten Travel

  • June 16 · 1 hr 48 min

    52. Bring Me The Beauties

    In the early 1980s, Hoyt Richards was on track to become the world's first male supermodel. He worked campaigns for Ralph Lauren, Versace, Cartier, Burberry, and Valentino all while being part of a cult that would consume 2 decades of his life. On a Nantucket beach in 1978, 16-year-old Richards met Frederick von Mierers: older, charismatic, and full of Eastern philosophy, astrology, and talk of the universe's hidden architecture. Von Mierers victims would later say he could make you feel special, seen... and he pulled attractive, vulnerable people into his orbit. His cult was called Eternal Values, and von Mierers claimed he was an alien "walk-in" spirit, reincarnated from the giant star Arcturus, sent to Earth to prepare a chosen few for the apocalypse he predicted would arrive in 1999. Those who followed him completely, he promised, would be saved by a UFO. The rules were strict: restrictive vegetarian diets, mandatory tanning sessions, total celibacy, and absolute financial surrender. Members slept on futons on the floor, communally, regardless of what they earned outside. Anyone who challenged him faced "slamming sessions" which were group rituals where von Mierers and loyal members screamed insults and tore the dissenter apart psychologically until they submitted. He sold gems, readings, and stole his followers salaries. Von Mierers died on February 4, 1990, from AIDS-related complications, at his North Carolina compound. He was 43. His followers didn't know he had the disease until after his autopsy a final betrayal for a man who preached celibacy. A Vanity Fair exposé on his gem fraud appeared the same month he died, too late to prosecute him. Biographical and Background Reporting (2026) "Who Was Frederick von Mierers? All About the 'Bring Me the Beauties' Cult Leader." Biography.com, 2026. "'Bring Me The Beauties': New Docuseries Explores 'Eternal Values' Cult." Rolling Stone, 2026. "'Bring Me the Beauties': Inside the Alien Sex Cult HBO Documentary." Variety, 2026. "The Untold Saga Behind an Infamous Male Supermodel Cult." The Hollywood Reporter, 2026. "The True Story Behind 'Bring Me the Beauties' and the Eternal Values Cult." Time, June 1, 2026. "Who Was Eternal Values Founder Frederick von Mierers?" A&E, 2026. "Who Was Frederick von Mierers? How Did He Die?" The Cinemaholic, 2026. "What Was Eternal Values Leader Frederick von Mierers' Cause of Death?" Distractify, 2026. Hoyt Richards — Wikipedia. "How Did Male Model Hoyt Richards Escape the Cult?" Primetimer, 2026. "Where Is Hoyt Richards Now?" MEAWW, 2026. Living Cult Free — Hoyt Richards biography. "Fabio Helped Me Escape From a Cult." MEL Magazine / Medium. "Hoyt Richards: Model Behavior." Nantucket Magazine. "Why An 'Alien Walk-In' Cult Leader Convinced Elite '80s Models To Flee The Apocalypse." International Business Times UK, 2026. Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult — Wikipedia. Series overview, crew, and episode structure. Ruth Montgomery — Wikipedia. Background on the "walk-in" concept and Aliens Among Us (1985). New Age — Wikipedia. History, belief structure, and cultural penetration of the New Age movement. HIV/AIDS in New York City — Wikipedia. Statistical and historical context. "The AIDS Epidemic in the United States, 1981–Early 1990s." CDC Museum Online. Billy Baldwin (decorator) — Wikipedia. Out on a Limb — Wikipedia. Shirley MacLaine (1983) and the mainstreaming of New Age belief. "Supermodel." Encyclopædia Britannica. Cultural and commercial context of the 1980s modeling industry. Robert Jay Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. W. W. Norton, 1961. The foundational academic framework for understanding cultic control systems. Steven Hassan, Combating Cult Mind Control. Park Street Press, 1988. The BITE model (Behavior, Information, Thought, Emotional control) referenced in Chapter Three.

  • June 9 · 1 hr 31 min

    51. The Haunting of Anneleise Michel

    In 1952, a devout Catholic girl was born in a small Bavarian town. By 1976, she was dead at 23, weighing 66 pounds, after 67 exorcism sessions conducted by two Catholic priests while a medical diagnosis went untreated. Her name was Anneliese Michel. You probably know her as Emily Rose. At 16, Anneliese began experiencing seizures and was diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy and depression. She was hospitalized multiple times. But the psychiatric medications weren't working, or she believed they weren't, and she began to experience visions of demonic faces during her prayers. She grew convinced she was possessed. Her deeply Catholic family agreed. In 1975, Bishop Josef Stangl of Würzburg granted permission for a formal exorcism under the Roman Ritual. Father Arnold Renz and Father Ernst Alt began conducting sessions at the Michel family home in Klingenberg am Main. One to two sessions per week, each lasting up to four hours. They recorded everything on cassette tape. Forty-three tapes survive. On them you can hear Anneliese screaming, growling, barking like a dog, and speaking in voices that identified themselves as Lucifer, Cain, Judas Iscariot, Nero, Adolf Hitler, who argued in Bavarian dialect, and a disgraced 16th-century priest named Fleischmann. Her parents stopped consulting doctors at her request. On July 1, 1976, Anneliese Michel died of malnutrition and dehydration. The priests and her parents were tried and convicted of negligent homicide in 1978 and sentenced to six months suspended. The court was clear: she was mentally ill, not possessed. Her grave in Klingenberg am Main has become a Catholic pilgrimage site. Buses come from across Europe. People leave notes requesting her intercession. She was 23 years old. SOURCES — Anneliese Michel Wikipedia — Anneliese Michel — comprehensive overview with primary source citations All That's Interesting — The Real Story Behind Emily Rose — detailed narrative account Goodman, Felicitas D. — The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel (Doubleday, 1981) — the only full-length scholarly book on the case; Goodman was an anthropologist who analyzed the tapes Fortea, Fr. José Antonio — Catholic theological perspective on the case Find a Grave — Anneliese Michel Memorial — grave location and documentation The Local Germany — "Fire Resurrects Devil Talk in Exorcism Town" — reporting from Klingenberg am Main Medium / History Retold — "The 67 Exorcisms of Anneliese Michel" — detailed timeline of sessions EBSCO Research Starters — Anneliese Michel — academic summary Transcript of Exorcism Sessions — partial transcripts available via Scribd (translated from German) German court records — Landgericht Aschaffenburg, Case No. 1 Ks 4/77, verdict April 21, 1978 — conviction of Josef Michel, Anna Michel, Fr. Arnold Renz, and Fr. Ernst Alt for negligent homicide RTD — "How a Girl Believed to Be Possessed Underwent 67 Exorcisms" — biographical detail Dark Holme Publishing — The Exorcism That Ended in Death — medical and legal analysis

  • June 2 · 1 hr 14 min

    50. The I -5 Killer

    Title: The I -5 Killer The I-5 Killer Randall Brent Woodfield seemed, on the surface, like everything America admired. A gifted athlete from Oregon, he was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in 1974 — only to be cut before the season and later arrested multiple times for indecent exposure, a pattern the NFL had quietly noted. Despite early warning signs, Woodfield drifted in and out of trouble throughout the late 1970s, until the winter of 1980–81, when a killing spree erupted along the Interstate 5 corridor from California through Oregon and Washington. Over roughly four months, Woodfield committed a string of robberies, sexual assaults, and murders targeting women — often at fast food restaurants and rest stops along I-5. His victims were shot execution-style. Investigators eventually connected him to at least 14 murders, though some estimates run as high as 44. The break came when a survivor identified Woodfield by his distinctive physique — he often wore tape over his face — and investigators matched him through handwriting, physical evidence, and witness testimony. Woodfield was arrested in March 1981. In 1981 he was convicted of the murder of Shari Hull and sentenced to life plus 165 years in the Oregon State Penitentiary. He was subsequently convicted on additional charges, adding decades more to his sentence. DNA evidence later linked him to several cold cases he was never charged with. He remains incarcerated today, his parole denied repeatedly. Ann Rule's definitive account of his crimes, The I-5 Killer, remains one of the most cited true crime books written about him. Sources for Reference: 1 The I-5 Killer by Ann Rule (Amazon) (https://www.amazon.com/I-5-Killer-Ann-Rule/dp/0593441370) — the primary book-length account of Woodfield's life and crimes 2 The I-5 Killer — Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/239848.The_I_5_Killer) 3 Randall Woodfield: The 1-5 Serial Killer by Blake Simpson (Amazon Kindle) (https://www.amazon.com/Randall-Woodfield-1-5-Serial-Killer-ebook/dp/B0D5BWH841) 4 Randall Woodfield — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Woodfield) 5 The I-5 Killer — Wakefield Books (https://wakefieldbooks.com/book/9780593441374) 6 The I-5 Killer — Bellingham Public Library (https://bellingham.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S150C585053) 7 The I-5 Killer — Chicago Public Library (https://chipublib.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S126C2398317) 8 The I-5 Killer — Glenview Public Library (https://glenviewpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S202C215696) 9 Randall Woodfield: The 1-5 Serial Killer — Apple Books (https://books.apple.com/us/book/randall-woodfield-the-1-5-serial-killer/id6503261153) 10 The I-5 Killer Revised Edition (Amazon) (https://www.amazon.com/I-5-Killer-Revised-Ann-Rule/dp/0451165594) 11 Oregon Department of Corrections — Inmate Records (https://doc.oregon.gov/) 12 FBI Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) — Cold Case DNA Matching (https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/violent-crime/vicap) 13 Oregon State Archives — Court Records, State of Oregon v. Woodfield (https://sos.oregon.gov/archives)

  • May 27 · 1 hr 31 min

    49. "No Humans Involved"- Green River Killer

    Apologies this episode is late! We had a major tech issue that showed our podcast no longer existed on our dashboard but all is well and recovered! Thanks for your patience Thank you to our supporters on patreon.com/highwaytohell Between 1982 and 1998, Gary Leon Ridgway murdered at least 49 women in and around Seattle and Tacoma, Washington, making him one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. Most of his victims were young women, many of them sex workers or runaways, whom he picked up along the Pacific Highway South corridor. He strangled them, dumped their bodies in wooded areas, and for nearly two decades, walked free. The investigation was hampered from the start by institutional indifference. Law enforcement operated under an unofficial but widely understood attitude known as NHI — "No Humans Involved" — a designation applied to cases involving sex workers, homeless individuals, or drug users. Victims in these categories were deprioritized, their cases worked less aggressively, their families given fewer resources. Detectives who did push for more attention were often met with bureaucratic resistance. The assumption that these women had placed themselves in danger, that their deaths were somehow less urgent , allowed Ridgway to keep killing for sixteen years. He was finally arrested in 2001 after DNA technology linked him to several victims. In 2003, Ridgway pleaded guilty to 48 murders in a deal that spared him the death penalty in exchange for helping locate the remains of still-missing victims. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Sources: Sources: Green River Killer Research Rule, Ann. Green River, Running Red. Free Press, 2004. Smith, Carlton & Guillen, Tomas. The Search for the Green River Killer. Penguin, 1991. Prothero, Mark & Smith, Carlton. Defending Gary. Union Square Press, 2006. King County Superior Court, Case No. 03-1-00175-9. Guilty Plea & Sentencing Documents, 2003. King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. Statement of Defendant on Plea of Guilty, 2003. Washington State Attorney General's Office. Green River Task Force Investigative Records. Washington State Archives. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Gary Ridgway Case Files. FBI Vault, vault.fbi.gov. King County Medical Examiner's Office. Victim Autopsy & Identification Records. King County Public Records. The Seattle Times. Green River Killer Archive, 1982–2003. seattletimes.com. The Tacoma News Tribune. Green River Killer Coverage Archive. Seattle Weekly. "The List" Investigative Series on NHI Classification and Victim Deprioritization. FBI National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. Serial Murder: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives for Investigators. U.S. Department of Justice, 2008. Criminology & Public Policy Journal. "Policing Sex Work." Various authors. Violence Against Women Journal. "Vulnerability and Victimization: Street Sex Workers and Violence." Various authors. Green River Killer: Mind of a Monster. Investigation Discovery, 2019.

  • May 19 · 1 hr 32 min

    48. Rehabilitation Imitation- Jack Unterweger

    Thank you so much for all of the kind comments, likes and shares. It truly means so much to us! If you'd like ad free episodes, travel itineraries and first dibs on merch please join us as a HELLION at patreon.com/highwaytohellpodcast He was born in 1950 in a small Austrian town called Judenburg, the son of a waitress turned occasional prostitute and an American GI he would never meet. Raised by a violent, alcoholic grandfather, Jack Unterweger learned early that the world was cruel. By twenty-three he had a record running through theft, pimping, and rape. In December of 1974 he lured an eighteen-year-old named Margret Schäfer into a Bavarian forest, beat her, and strangled her with her own bra knotted in an elaborate ligature beneath her chin. Austria sentenced him to life. Inside prison, he taught himself to write. Poems came first, then a memoir, Purgatory, that became a literary sensation. Elfriede Jelinek and Günter Grass championed his release as proof that art could save a soul. In 1990, after fifteen years, he walked free. He became a celebrity. He wore white suits, drove a Mustang, and hosted a TV show on Austrian state television. He was even commissioned to write about a string of unsolved murders of sex workers across Austria — murders he himself was committing. In June 1991 he flew to Los Angeles to study American policing of prostitution. Three women died there in a single week, strangled with their own bras in the same unmistakable knot. A retired detective from his 1974 case recognized the signature. Fibers, receipts, hotel records, and a ligature found nowhere else in any criminal database closed around him. He fled to Miami, where the FBI arrested him in February 1992. At his 1994 trial in Graz he was convicted of nine murders across Austria, the Czech Republic, and California. That night, alone in his cell, he braided his shoelaces and tracksuit drawstrings into the same ligature he had used on his victims, and hanged himself from the bars. He was forty-three. Because Austrian law treats a conviction as final only after appeal, he died, in legal terms, a man presumed innocent. Sources Leake, John. Entering Hades: The Double Life of a Serial Killer. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. The definitive English-language account. Leake had unprecedented access to the Austrian investigation files and interviewed key figures including Ernst Geiger. Newton, Michael. The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. Checkmark Books, 2000. Well-sourced entry on Unterweger with citation of primary Austrian records. Documentary: Devil and the Angel Documentary: Lustmord (ORF/BBC) Austrian public broadcaster documentary. Der Standard / Die Presse Archives (Austria) — Austrian national newspapers digital archives covered the investigation and trial exhaustively.. derstandard.at / diepresse.com FBI: Serial Murder — Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives — Serial offender behavioral analysis relevant to the Unterweger case study. Haller, Reinhard. Forensic psychiatric testimony, Graz trial, 1994. Published accounts of Haller's analysis appear in Entering Hades and Austrian legal literature. Geberth, Vernon J. Practical Homicide Investigation, 4th ed. CRC Press. Reference for the signature analysis and ligature-knot methodology used in the cross-continental identification. YouTube Archive Search: "Jack Unterweger" used for documentary clips and news segments Unterweger, Jack. Fegefeuer (Purgatory). Jugend und Volk, 1983. His autobiographical novel.

  • May 12 · 1 hr 52 min

    47. Metal AF: Music, Satanic Panic, Hype & Hauntings

    Between roughly 1980 and 1995, the United States experienced one of the largest collective delusions in its modern history. A significant share of the public, along with police departments, prosecutors, social workers, and clergy, came to believe that an organized network of Satanic cults was ritually abusing children, sacrificing infants, and operating in plain sight through churches, daycares, and rock-and-roll records. No credible evidence for such a network has ever been found. The trials, convictions, and shattered lives, however, were entirely real. The era was shaped by the lingering shadow of the Manson Family and the Jonestown massacre, the rapid expansion of televangelism, the political ascent of the Christian Right, and an unprecedented entry of mothers into the workforce that placed millions of American children, for the first time, into institutional daycare. Into this anxious moment came the therapeutic vogue of recovered memory, Geraldo Rivera's 1988 NBC special Devil Worship: Exposing Satan's Underground, and a daytime talk-show ecosystem that elevated occult conspiracy to the status of public health crisis. We then turn to the role of popular music. Heavy metal became the panic's most visible scapegoat. Ozzy Osbourne was sued over the lyrics of "Suicide Solution." Judas Priest was tried in a Reno courtroom over allegations of subliminal backmasking. The acronym "Knights in Satan's Service" was retroactively imposed on KISS. In 1985, the Parents Music Resource Center, co-founded by Tipper Gore, led Senate hearings that produced the Parental Advisory label still in use today. We trace the panic's intellectual foundation to three books. Michelle Remembers (1980), co-authored by psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his patient and future wife Michelle Smith, introduced the template of recovered Satanic ritual abuse and has since been thoroughly discredited. Satan's Underground by Lauren Stratford was exposed as fabrication by the evangelical magazine Cornerstone in 1989. Mike Warnke's The Satan Seller, marketed for nearly two decades as the testimony of a former Satanic high priest, was similarly debunked. Each was promoted by churches, sold through Christian bookstores, and circulated to law enforcement as reference material. Finally, we examine the cases. The McMartin Preschool trial, which ran from 1984 to 1990, remains the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history and produced no convictions. Kern County, Fells Acres, Little Rascals, Wenatchee, and the 1994 conviction of the West Memphis Three followed similar patterns: coached child testimony, suggestive interview techniques, and prosecutions driven by belief rather than evidence. Witch trials anyone? Further Reading & Sources Stanley Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972) Lawrence Wright, Remembering Satan (1994) — the Paul Ingram case Debbie Nathan & Michael Snedeker, Satan's Silence (1995) Richard Beck, We Believe the Children: A Moral Panic in the 1980s (2015) Richard Ofshe & Ethan Watters, Making Monsters (1994) Jon Trott & Mike Hertenstein, "Selling Satan," Cornerstone (1992) Mara Leveritt, Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three (2002) Damien Echols, Life After Death (2012) Jack & Janet Smurl with Robert Curran, The Haunting (1988) Indianapolis Star, "The Exorcisms of Latoya Ammons" (2014) — official DCS records Noreen Gosch, Why Johnny Can't Come Home (2000) David Frankfurter, Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History (2006) Timothy Leary, The Politics of Ecstasy (1968) Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth (1970) Jimmy McDonough, Shakey: Neil Young's Biography (2002) — Altamont context Howard Sounes, 27: A History of the 27 Club (2013) Martin Wall, Aleister Crowley: The Beast in Berlin (2016) — Page/Crowley connection Peter Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (1998) — counterculture context

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