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True Weird Stuff

Now! Media

True Weird Stuff is the award-winning podcast hosted by Sheri Lynch. Surprising, odd, bizarre - and sometimes insane. Always true. Let us tell you a story…

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27 episodes
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Avg 1 hr 16 min
English

Episodes 27

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#185
October 9 · 1 hr 42 min
Your Beautiful Ankle - The Bizarre History of Ankle Beauty Contests
Today's True Weird Stuff - Your Beautiful Ankle - The Bizarre History of Ankle Beauty Contests Once upon a time, a woman's ankle was considered so alluring that entire beauty contests were devoted to finding the prettiest pair. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, ankle beauty contests became a bizarre sensation, with women hiding behind curtains while judges inspected, measured, and sometimes even caressed their feet and ankles. It's a forgotten chapter of history that's equal parts hilarious, creepy, and utterly unbelievable. Get 15% off OneSkin with the code TRUEWEIRDSTUFF at https://www.oneskin.co/trueweirdstuff #oneskinpod #sponsored
#184
October 2 · 1 hr 31 min
For the Lady, a Lysol Douche
Today's True Weird Stuff - For the Lady, a Lysol Douche Today, you use Lysol to clean the kitchen or disinfect the bathroom. But for decades, it was marketed to American women for something far more intimate. Behind vintage ads promising “feminine hygiene” and marital happiness was a coded message about birth control at a time when contraception was restricted or illegal. Women were encouraged to douche with Lysol, even as its caustic ingredients caused burns, serious injuries, and death.
September 25 · 1 hr 41 min
Deadly Belle - The Serial Killer Who Lured Men to Her Murder Farm
Today's True Weird Stuff - Deadly Belle - The Serial Killer Who Lured Men to Her Murder Farm Known as one of America’s most notorious female serial killers, Belle Gunness lured wealthy bachelors to her farm in Indiana, took their money, and buried their dismembered bodies. But when her farmhouse burned to the ground in 1908, investigators were left with one chilling question: Did Belle Gunness die in that fire, or did she pull off yet another deadly deception?
September 18 · 1 hr 27 min
Tilt-A-Whirl: From a Kitchen Table to the American Midway
Today's True Weird Stuff - Tilt-A-Whirl: From a Kitchen Table to the American Midway Long before the Tilt-A-Whirl became a fixture of carnival midways across America, it began with a strange little experiment involving an inventor, his young son, a wooden chair, and a kitchen table. Discover the surprisingly weird history of the iconic carnival ride, from Herbert Sellner’s original 1920s invention to the family tragedies and lasting legacy that made the Tilt-A-Whirl an American amusement park classic.
September 11 · 1 hr 35 min
Olney House of Horrors: The R.C. and Eugene Horsch Serial Killer Mystery
Today's True Weird Stuff - Olney House of Horrors: The R.C. and Eugene Horsch Serial Killer Mystery A routine arrest near Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell lead police to a decaying house filled with hidden compartments, mysterious chemicals, fake IDs, and possible connections to multiple missing women. At the center of the investigation are Eugene Horsch and his late father, R.C. Horsch, a pornographer, counterfeiter, fugitive and author who once described himself as a serial killer. Did Philadelphia police stumble onto a house of horrors hiding decades of murder, or does the disturbing evidence point to something else?
September 4 · 38 min
Revisiting Bloody Benders: America’s Killer Family (Airdate 9/4/2026)
Today's True Weird Stuff - Revisiting Bloody Benders: America’s Killer Family (Airdate 9/4/2026) For pioneers traveling the lonely Kansas prairie, the Bender family's roadside inn seemed like a welcome refuge from the hardships of the frontier. Then, travelers started disappearing. As suspicion turned toward the seemingly ordinary family, one of America's most chilling frontier mysteries began to unfold. By the time authorities arrived, the Benders had already disappeared, leaving behind countless questions surrounding this serial killer family.
August 28 · 48 min
Revisiting Charlie No-Face - The Tragic Truth Behind the Green Man Legend
Today's True Weird Stuff - Revisiting Charlie No-Face - The Tragic Truth Behind the Green Man Legend For decades, teenagers in western Pennsylvania whispered about a faceless figure walking the roads at night. They called him Charlie No-Face, or the Green Man. But behind the urban legend was Raymond Robinson, a real man horribly injured in a childhood electrical accident, who chose the cover of darkness because daylight brought cruelty, fear, and stares.
August 21 · 1 hr 18 min
Revisiting Rest In Peace: The Church Built Over a Pit of Corpses
Today's True Weird Stuff - Revisiting Rest In Peace: The Church Built Over a Pit of Corpses In the 1800s, London was running out of room for the dead. At Enon Chapel, bodies were crammed beneath the church floor while worshippers gathered above the stench of decay. As overcrowded graveyards became a public health nightmare, George “Graveyard” Walker exposed the horrors hiding beneath the city’s chapels and burial grounds.
August 14 · 54 min
Revisiting Hammer Time - The Hollywood Love Triangle That Ended in Murder
Today's True Weird Stuff - Revisiting Hammer Time - The Hollywood Love Triangle That Ended in Murder In 1922, former showgirl Clara Phillips became convinced her husband was having an affair with 19-year-old Alberta Meadows. What followed was one of Los Angeles’ most sensational crimes: a jealous confrontation, a claw hammer, and a murder so brutal the press gave Phillips a chilling nickname: the “Tiger Woman.”
#176
August 7 · 1 hr 7 min
Revisiting Teenage Nazi Hunters - The Sisters Who Became Nazi Assassins
Today's True Weird Stuff - Revisiting Teenage Nazi Hunters: The Sisters Who Became Nazi Assassins Freddie and Truus Oversteegen were teenage girls who exploited society's tendency to underestimate them, turning innocence into one of the most effective weapons against the Nazi occupation. Their courage, deception, and deadly missions remain among the most extraordinary stories of WWII.
#175
July 31 · 1 hr 5 min
Revisiting Ballsy: The Prison Doctor Who Experimented on Thousands of Inmates
Today's True Weird Stuff - Revisiting Ballsy: The Prison Doctor Who Experimented on Thousands of Inmates At California's San Quentin Prison, Dr. Leo Stanley believed crime could be cured through surgery. Over the course of decades, inmates became subjects in a series of bizarre and disturbing experiments involving forced sterilizations, gland transplants, and testicles taken from executed prisoners. Stanley claimed he was advancing science. Others saw something far more sinister: a prison doctor using human beings as laboratory specimens.
July 24 · 1 hr 13 min
Revisiting Human Product 12 - The Man Secretly Injected With Plutonium
Today's True Weird Stuff - Revisiting Human Product 12 - The Man Secretly Injected With Plutonium In 1945, Ebb Cade survived a car accident near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, only to become part of a secret experiment. Without his consent, doctors injected him with plutonium to study how radiation moved through the human body. Also known as "Human Product 12,” Cade became the first of 18 victims of one of the most disturbing human radiation experiments in American history.
#173
July 17 · 1 hr 3 min
Revisiting The Enema King: Louis XIV's Strangest Obsession
Today's True Weird Stuff - Revisiting The Enema King: Louis XIV's Strangest Obsession Louis XIV was known as the Sun King, but history gave him another, far less majestic nickname. At Versailles, doctors prescribed them for everything from headaches to digestive problems. Convinced that enemas were the key to good health, Louis XIV received them by the thousands, making enemas both a medical treatment and a status symbol.
#172
July 10 · 1 hr 19 min
Revisiting Shock Doc - Inside Bellevue’s Horrific Child Psychiatry Experiments
Today's True Weird Stuff - Revisiting Shock Doc - Inside Bellevue’s Horrific Child Psychiatry Experiments Dr. Lauretta Bender became one of the most controversial child psychiatrists in America. At Bellevue Hospital, she used electroshock therapy on children diagnosed with childhood schizophrenia. Her work became tangled in the dark history of government-backed mind control research and society's terrifying faith in experimental psychiatry.
#171
July 3 · 30 min
Revisiting Corpse Medicine - When Doctors Prescribed Human Remains
Today's True Weird Stuff - Revisiting Corpse Medicine - When Doctors Prescribed Human Remains Before modern medicine, some cures came from the grave. For centuries, Europeans swallowed powdered skull, drank human blood, and consumed ground-up mummies in the belief that the dead could heal the living. It sounds like folklore, but corpse medicine was once accepted as a real treatment for everything from headaches to epilepsy.
#170
June 26 · 1 hr 12 min
Revisiting King of Quacks: The Greatest Medical Fraud in American History
Today's True Weird Stuff - Revisiting King of Quacks: The Greatest Medical Fraud in American History Curtis Howe Springer claimed to be a doctor. He wasn't. He also claimed to be a minister. That was questionable, too. Yet somehow he convinced thousands of people to trust him with their health, their money, and their dreams. Selling miracle cures from his desert empire, Springer built a fortune on deception and became one of the most successful medical frauds in American history...the self-crowned King of Quacks.
#169
June 19 · 1 hr 25 min
Revisiting The Baroness: The Galápagos Murder Mystery Nobody Solved
Today's True Weird Stuff - Revisiting The Baroness: The Galápagos Murder Mystery Nobody Solved The Galápagos Islands were supposed to be an escape from the world. But for a handful of European settlers, jealousy, betrayal, and suspicion turned their isolated paradise into the setting for one of history's strangest mysteries. When the self-proclaimed Baroness of this remote island suddenly vanished, everyone became a suspect.
#168
June 12 · 1 hr 5 min
Revisiting Unholy City: The Cult Leader Who Built His Own Town
Today's True Weird Stuff - Revisiting Unholy City: The Cult Leader Who Built His Own Town His followers called him a prophet. Everyone else called him dangerous. In the hills of California, cult leader William E. Riker built a community known as Holy City...a town founded on racial segregation, strict control, and his own twisted interpretation of Christianity. What began as a religious movement grew into one of the strangest cult compounds in American history.
#167
June 5 · 1 hr 36 min
The Phantom Barber
Today's True Weird Stuff - The Phantom Barber In the summer of 1942, paranoia gripped the town of Pascagoula, Mississippi. An unknown intruder began sneaking into homes at night, not to steal valuables, but to cut the hair of sleeping children. As the attacks escalated into violence, mass hysteria took hold. A shadowy figure called “The Phantom Barber” terrorized families, then suddenly vanished without a trace.
#166
May 29 · 1 hr 37 min
Bloody Bishop
Today's True Weird Stuff - Bloody Bishop In 1976, a respected U.S. diplomat named William Bradford Bishop murdered his wife, mother, and three sons. He drove their bodies 275 miles to a swamp and set them on fire. Bishop vanished soon after, abandoning his car near the Great Smoky Mountains. He spent nearly 42 years on the FBI’s Most Wanted list and was never captured. No one knows if he died in those mountains…or if he simply became someone else.

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