Advertise on podcast: The Compendium: An Assembly of Fascinating Things

In 1692, an enslaved woman named Tituba told a Salem courtroom that the Devil had come to her and bid her serve him. Her confession lit the fuse that would become known as the infamous Salem witch trials, the deadliest witch hunt in American history. Within months, more than a third of Salem Village had been accused, imprisoned and were awaiting trial. Nineteen people were hanged. One man was pressed to death under stones for refusing to plead. And a four-year-old girl sat in custom-made shackles while her accusers watched. But this is not really a story about witches. It is a story about mass hysteria, and how a Puritan community primed by centuries of European witch hunting, religious paranoia and moral surveillance convinced itself to kill its own neighbours on the strength of spectral evidence: testimony that someone's ghost attacked you in the night. We trace the strange true story from Cotton Mather's witchcraft playbook to the witch cake, the Devil's book, the confessions that saved lives, and the moment the accusations reached the governor's wife and the whole thing collapsed. Plus the surprising link between Salem and our home town of Norwich. Topics Included what caused the Salem witch trials Tituba's confession and why it changed everything spectral evidence and why no alibi could save you the witch cake ritual and the first three accused the arrest of four-year-old Dorothy Good Giles Corey's death by pressing and his final strategy how the accusations reached the governor's wife and ended the trials the 330-year fight to clear every victim's name the Norwich connection to Bridget Bishop Resources and Further Reading Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions - Cotton Mather, 1689, Salem Witch Trials Memorial, Salem, Massachusetts - Memorial site opened 1992 Salem witch trials - Encyclopaedia Britannica The last Salem witch has been exonerated - CNN Host & Show Info Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam CoxEditor: Giordanno Bottezini Intro Music: Alice in dark WonderlandCommunity & Calls to Action Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple PodcastsInstagram: @theCompendiumPodcastWebsite: thecompendiumpodcast.comSupport us: Sign up to PatreonSuggest a Topic: Freaky RegisterShare this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On the last morning before half term, 240 children walked into Pantglas Junior School beneath a mountain of coal waste. Minutes after lessons began, Tip 7 collapsed above Aberfan, sending liquefied spoil through homes and classrooms and killing 116 children and 28 adults. But the Aberfan disaster did not begin with the slide, and it did not end when the rescue stopped. The warning signs had been there: natural springs beneath the tip, earlier slips on the mountainside and concerns that failed to produce action. The tribunal later placed responsibility on the National Coal Board and concluded that the disaster could and should have been prevented. Told through the experiences of survivors including Phil Thomas, Karen Thomas, Jeff Edwards and Gerald Tarr, this is a story of rescue, grief, institutional failure and the lives shaped by what happened on 21 October 1966. It also follows the fight to remove the remaining tips, the controversy surrounding the disaster fund and the long silence that made healing even harder. Topics Included The final morning at Pantglas Junior School Why water beneath Tip 7 triggered the collapse The warnings and earlier slides on Mynydd Merthyr The children and teachers trapped inside the school The rescue effort and its system of whistles and silence The tribunal's findings against the National Coal Board The compensation and disaster-fund controversies The lasting trauma carried by survivors and families Resources The Aberfan Tribunal — Glamorgan Archives Aberfan Disaster 1966 — National Library of Wales digital archive The Aberfan Disaster, 1966 — British Geological Survey case study Aberfan Disaster: Lessons Learned — Institution of Civil Engineers explainer Aberfan: No End of a Lesson — History & Policy research paper Aberfan Disaster Debate, 26 October 1967 — UK Parliament Hansard Death of a Black Mountain: How the Aberfan Disaster Unfolded — HistoryExtra survivor history The Psychological Effects of the Aberfan Disaster — 33-year follow-up study Guidance to the Disused Tips Authority for Wales — Welsh Government consultation This Year Marks the 60th Anniversary of the Aberfan Disaster — Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council Host & Show Info Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam CoxEditor: Giordanno Bottezini Intro Music: Alice in dark WonderlandCommunity & Calls to Action Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple PodcastsInstagram: @theCompendiumPodcastWebsite: thecompendiumpodcast.comSupport us: Sign up to PatreonSuggest a Topic: Freaky RegisterShare this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

An entire colony of 117 men, women and children vanished without leaving behind a single body. There was no blood, no sign of an attack and no ruined settlement. Their homes had been carefully dismantled and taken away. All they left behind was one word carved into a wooden post: CROATOAN. In 1587, the colonists were stranded on Roanoke Island instead of reaching their intended home in Chesapeake Bay. Governor John White sailed back to England for supplies, leaving behind his daughter Eleanor and newborn granddaughter Virginia Dare. War, privateering and disaster kept him away for three years. By the time he returned, everyone was gone. What did Croatoan mean and where did the settlers go? Did they move inland, reach the Indigenous communities around Chesapeake, survive through trade and assimilation, or meet a more violent end? From Sir Walter Raleigh’s collapsing colonial scheme and England’s brutal relationship with local communities to hidden map symbols, hammerscale, Jamestown accounts and the infamous Dare Stones, this is the strange history behind one of America’s most enduring unsolved mysteries and the possibility that the colonists were never truly lost at all. Topics Included What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke The real meaning of the Croatoan carving John White’s three-year delay and return Virginia Dare and the 117 settlers English conflict with the Roanoac and Croatoan communities The planned move to Chesapeake Bay Archaeological evidence at Croatoan and Salmon Creek Jamestown accounts of surviving colonists The Lumbee connection and assimilation theory The Dare Stones and the hoax that followed

A trillion-dollar company. Two women who worked inside it, years apart. And the exact same warnings, ignored twice.   This episode traces Frances Haugen, the Facebook product manager who walked out with a phone full of leaked documents and wiped six billion dollars off the company's share price in a single day, and Sarah Wynn-Williams, Facebook's former global policy chief, whose tell-all memoir Careless People landed her in emergency arbitration and a gag order so strict she's legally barred from discussing her own book. We cover the Instagram research on teenage girls, the Myanmar crisis both women separately flagged, China, Cross-Check, the Capitol riot, and the 2026 courtroom reckoning that's cost Meta over seventeen billion dollars so far. One whistleblower built a legal shield before she ever spoke. The other found out, too late, exactly how exposed she'd left herself. Coincidence, or exactly the pattern you'd expect from a company this size?   Topics Included Frances Haugen's path from Google and Pinterest to Facebook's Civic Integrity team The leaked internal research on Instagram's effect on teenage girls' body image Cross-Check (XCheck) and the rules that didn't apply to Facebook's most powerful users The Capitol riot, the Facebook Files, and Facebook's rebrand to Meta Meta's 2026 courtroom reckoning: Section 230, the New Mexico and Los Angeles verdicts, and the $17.1 billion settlement Sarah Wynn-Williams' six years as Facebook's global policy chief, and the Myanmar and China allegations in her book The arbitration order and gag order that followed her memoir, Careless People Arturo Bejar's testimony, and what happened to Meta's stock price after the settlement Resources and Further Reading Frances Haugen — Wikipedia Frances Haugen's Written Testimony – the Senate Commerce Committee Sarah Wynn-Williams — Wikipedia Ex-Meta executive: — CNN Sarah Wynn-Williams accuses Meta of colluding with China — TechCrunch What the Wall Street Journal Got Wrong — Meta's official response Host & Show Info Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam CoxEditor: Giordanno Bottezini Intro Music: Alice in dark WonderlandCommunity & Calls to Action Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple PodcastsInstagram: @theCompendiumPodcastWebsite: thecompendiumpodcast.comSupport us: Sign up to PatreonSuggest a Topic: Freaky RegisterShare this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In 1980, a young porn director walked into a New York fetish club and pitched his dream project to a man he'd never met. The stranger didn't flinch. He offered $100,000 in cash and one instruction: make it spectacular. What followed was Centurians of Rome, a hardcore gay porno set in ancient Rome under the reign of twink Emperor Caligula. It featured real horses, a fisting scene and because of all the drugs, actors battling chronic erection problems. The production became so chaotic the budget ballooned to $150,000 before the money suddenly vanished along with the man who'd promised it. And that is only the start, what makes the story truly bizarre is its ending. Lloyd's of London, one of the most prestigious insurance institutions in the world, became embroiled in a court case to win ownership rights to the most expensive hardcore gay porno in history, only for the film to bomb.  Topics Included How director Chris Covino crossed his one boundary after a chance encounter in a gay fetish club The chaotic production of Centurians of Rome, from drug-fuelled set disasters to horses doing improv George Bosque's double life, from closeted homophobic school editor to fugitive bankrolling gay porn The impulsive Brink's robbery at San Francisco International Airport and the year-long manhunt that followed Lloyd's of London's courtroom battle to own a hardcore gay porno Why the most expensive gay porn film ever made was a commercial failure The tragic fates of the people behind the film, and the 2019 Hollywood movie deal

For 17 years, the Unabomber hid behind handmade bombs, false clues and the initials F.C. Then his need to explain himself gave the FBI the break it had been waiting for. Part Two turns from the bombing campaign to Ted Kaczynski himself. We trace the gifted, isolated child who entered Harvard at 16, the controversial psychological study led by Henry Murray, the anti-technology ideas that hardened into violent ideology, and the contradictions of his off-grid life in a tiny Montana cabin. When Industrial Society and Its Future was published, Ted’s brother David recognised something chilling in its language. What followed was a covert investigation, an arrest built around a Forest Service ruse, a cabin packed with evidence and a legal battle over whether any of it could be used. Even with the case closing around him, Kaczynski fought the defence designed to save his life because it threatened the one thing he still wanted the world to respect: his ideas. Topics Included Ted Kaczynski’s gifted but socially isolated childhood Henry Murray’s controversial Harvard psychology study The private crisis Kaczynski called a turning point in his life Jacques Ellul and the roots of Kaczynski’s anti-technology ideology The reality of living off-grid in the Montana cabin The manifesto and the linguistic clues that exposed him David Kaczynski’s decision to contact the FBI The search warrant, mental-health dispute and guilty plea Resources and Further Reading Unabomber case history — FBI case archive and device timeline The Unabomber Case 25 Years Later — FBI account of the linguistic investigation Theodore Kaczynski Indicted in Sacramento — US Department of Justice indictment summary Unabomber Cabin — FBI artefact history and cabin evidence United States v. Kaczynski, 239 F.3d 1108 — Ninth Circuit opinion on the plea and self-representation dispute The Ted Kaczynski Papers: FBI Files and Photographs — University of Michigan Library archive guide Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber — Alston Chase’s archival investigation Responses to Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber — participant and scholarly challenges to Chase’s interpretation Ted Kaczynski dies in federal prison at 81 — Associated Press biography and case overview Host & Show Info Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam CoxEditor: Giordanno Bottezini Intro Music: Alice in dark WonderlandCommunity & Calls to Action Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple PodcastsInstagram: @theCompendiumPodcastWebsite: thecompendiumpodcast.comSupport us: Sign up to PatreonSuggest a Topic: Freaky RegisterShare this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In 1978, a brown-paper parcel was found between two cars at a Chicago university. It looked ordinary. The professor named as the sender had never seen it before. Then it exploded. That first device began a 17-year bombing campaign that moved from university campuses to an airliner, computer shops and private homes. Sixteen bombs would kill three people and injure 23, while investigators struggled with devices deliberately built from common materials and a bomber capable of disappearing for years. What the FBI did have was strange: scrap-built components, pieces of wood, the initials F.C., a witness sketch and, eventually, a bomber who decided to start writing. Part One follows the creation of the UNABOM investigation, the long silences between attacks, the deadly return in the 1990s and the extraordinary decision to publish Industrial Society and Its Future. Then, after thousands of bad tips, one lead arrived that pointed towards a name already inside the investigation: Ted Kaczynski. Topics Included The mysterious first package bomb found in Chicago in 1978 How the university and airline attacks gave the UNABOM case its name The scrap-built bombs, pieces of wood and recurring F.C. signature The escalation from serious injuries to the first fatalities The 1987 eyewitness encounter and iconic hooded-man sketch The Unabomber’s six-year disappearance and sudden return Freedom Club and the demand to publish Industrial Society and Its Future The manifesto publication and the tip that pointed towards Ted Kaczynski Resources and Further Reading Unabomber case history — FBI Inside the FBI: The Unabomber Case — FBI podcast and transcript The Unabomber Case 25 Years Later — FBI Unabomber Bomb Shrapnel — FBI artifact Unabomber Cabin — FBI artifact The Profile of a Loner — The Washington Post Unabomber's Elusive Trail — The Washington Post To Unabomb Victims, A Deeper Mystery — The Washington Post UNABOM Major Case 75 Task Force Report — digitised 1995 BATF, FBI and USPIS task-force report Project Unabom — Apple Original podcast Host & Show Info Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam CoxEditor: Giordanno Bottezini Intro Music: Alice in dark WonderlandCommunity & Calls to Action Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple PodcastsInstagram: @theCompendiumPodcastWebsite: thecompendiumpodcast.comSupport us: Sign up to PatreonSuggest a Topic: Freaky RegisterShare this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Aileen Wuornos killed seven men along Florida's highways between 1989 and 1990, but the question at the centre of her story has never been quite as simple as whether she was a serial killer. Wuornos said her first victim, Richard Mallory, violently attacked and raped her before she shot him in self-defence. She later gave dramatically different accounts of what happened, eventually claiming that robbery, not survival, motivated the killings. Even then, her story continued to shift. Behind those contradictions was a life already shaped by abandonment, alleged childhood abuse, homelessness, sex work, violence and an intense relationship with Tyria Moore. We follow Wuornos from her brutal childhood in Michigan through the Florida highway murders, the investigation that finally identified her, Moore's role in obtaining her confession, the trial that sent her to death row, and the questions that remained when she was executed in 2002. This is the true story behind the woman Charlize Theron portrayed in Monster. Topics Included Aileen Wuornos's childhood, abandonment and allegations of abuse Her relationship with Tyria Moore Richard Mallory and Wuornos's self-defence claim Seven killings across Florida between 1989 and 1990 The fingerprint and vehicle evidence that helped identify Wuornos How Tyria Moore helped police obtain a confession Wuornos's changing explanations for the murders Her trial, death row years and execution Resources and Further Reading Aileen Wuornos – Wikipedia Monster (2003) – directed by Patty Jenkins Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003) – directed by Nick Broomfield & Joan Churchill Monster: My True Story - by Aileen Wuornos & Christopher Berry-Dee Host & Show Info Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam CoxEditor: Giordanno Bottezini Intro Music: Alice in dark WonderlandCommunity & Calls to Action Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple PodcastsInstagram: @theCompendiumPodcastWebsite: thecompendiumpodcast.comSupport us: Sign up to PatreonSuggest a Topic: Freaky RegisterShare this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In a respectable Massachusetts household in 1892, two people were hacked to death in broad daylight, and nobody in the house heard a thing. This episode traces the Borden family from Andrew's rise from nothing to a $10-million-in-today's-money fortune he refused to spend, through the locked doors, the pigeon massacre, and the property dispute that split the household in two. Then: the morning of August 4th, the two-hour gap between the murders, the botched police investigation, the burnt dress, and the trial that put actual human skulls in front of a jury. Lizzie Borden walked free. Whether that was justice or a masterclass in reasonable doubt is still argued over more than 130 years later — and we give you the evidence to decide for yourself, including how you can go and spend the night in the room where it happened. Topics Included Andrew Borden's fortune, and his refusal to spend a cent of it on his own family The 1891 house robbery and the household's growing paranoia and distrust The pigeon massacre and the Ferry Street property dispute that split the family in two The morning of August 4, 1892, and the unexplained two-hour gap between the murders The Fall River police's botched investigation and their first, wrongful suspect Lizzie's shifting testimony, the burnt dress, and the poison purchase ruled inadmissible The 1893 trial, the skulls brought into court, and the fast acquittal What happened to Lizzie, Emma and Bridget Sullivan afterwards — and what you can actually do at the house today Resources and Further Reading Lizzie Borden — Wikipedia Lizzie Borden House — Wikipedia Was Lizzie Borden Guilty? — Britannica Famous Trials: Lizzie Borden Famous Trials: The Inquest The Lizzie Borden Society chronology How Lizzie Borden Got Away With Murder — Smithsonian The Forgotten Borden: Who Was Emma Borden? — Lizzie-Borden.com I Slept in the Murder Room — Fodor's Host & Show Info Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam CoxEditor: Giordanno Bottezini Intro Music: Alice in dark WonderlandCommunity & Calls to Action Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple PodcastsInstagram: @theCompendiumPodcastWebsite: thecompendiumpodcast.comSupport us: Sign up to PatreonSuggest a Topic: Freaky RegisterShare this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Nasubi thought he had agreed to a private television challenge. What he didn’t know was that millions of people were already watching him, alone, hungry and completely naked. In 1998, the aspiring comedian was taken to a bare Tokyo apartment and told he had to survive entirely on prizes won through mail-in sweepstakes. No food. No clothes. No running total. To finish A Life in Prizes, he had to win goods worth one million yen. And while the door to the apartment was technically unlocked, what was keeping Nasubi hostage was the fact producers had taken his cloths and the belief that leaving would destroy his only chance at a television career. As the weeks became months, producers broadcast his most private and vulnerable moments, They published his diary and more shockingly they kept moving the finish line. The wild part is Nasubi had no idea millions of people were watching. all while he remained unaware that he was famous. This is the story of Japan’s so-called real-life Truman Show, the ethics of early reality television, and how Nasubi rebuilt a life after an experience that left him struggling to trust other people. Topics Included How Nasubi was selected for A Life in Prizes Surviving entirely through mail-in sweepstakes The weekly broadcasts and 24-hour livestream Why an unlocked door did not necessarily make Nasubi free Toshio Tsuchiya and the constantly moving finish line The live studio reveal and “My house fell down” Nasubi’s psychological recovery after the programme Fukushima, disaster relief and Mount Everest Resources and Further Reading The Contestant — Hulu documentary overview Japanese Reality Star Nasubi Recalls the Traumatic True Story Behind The Contestant — TIME interview Nasubi Explains Why He Didn’t Sue — Decider interview Human Spectacle — This American Life transcript Documentary Focuses on Man Behind a Cruelly Bizarre Japanese Reality Show — Associated Press Was This the Most Unsettling Reality TV Show Ever? — The Guardian How The Contestant Director Earned Nasubi’s Trust — Salon interview Fukushima’s Famous Actor and Entertainer, Nasubi — Fukushima and Everest interview Nasubi’s Ask Me Anything — First-person Q&A Host & Show Info Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam CoxEditor: Giordanno Bottezini Intro Music: Alice in dark WonderlandCommunity & Calls to Action Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple PodcastsInstagram: @theCompendiumPodcastWebsite: thecompendiumpodcast.comSupport us: Sign up to PatreonSuggest a Topic: Freaky RegisterShare this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On the morning of 31 October 1938, a sleepless 23-year-old walked into a room full of reporters who all wanted the same answer: had Orson Welles deliberately terrified America? The night before, his Mercury Theatre on the Air had performed The War of the Worlds as a string of fake news bulletins, and by morning the newspapers claimed the country had come apart. Families fleeing their homes. Switchboards jammed. People begging for gas masks as Martians supposedly wiped out New Jersey. But the panic might be the biggest illusion of all. Kyle takes Adam through Welles's rise from child prodigy to radio wonder, the frantic last-minute rewrite that almost nobody behind the scenes believed in, and the missing station break that let listeners think it was real. Then comes the twist: the ratings suggesting hardly anyone tuned in, the study that quietly falls apart under scrutiny, and the newspapers with every reason to make radio look dangerous. This is the strange true story of how a broadcast everyone expected to flop became the most famous in radio history, and how a nation talked itself into believing it had been fooled. Topics Included what actually happened during the 1938 war of the worlds broadcast how orson welles went from child prodigy to radio star the last-minute rewrite the cast thought would flop why the missing station break made listeners think it was real the fake news bulletins and the Grovers Mill landing the reports of gas masks, fleeing families and jammed switchboards the ratings and the study that undercut the mass hysteria how newspapers amplified the panic to attack radio how the broadcast made Orson Welles more famous, not less

In 2016, five members of the Tromp family fled their farm in a single car, leaving behind their passports, credit cards and mobile phones. Why they fled remains one of Australia's greatest modern mysteries—a mystery that not even the Tromp family can fully explain. Over the following week, the family scattered across two states. One son, Mitchell, abandoned the journey and caught a train home. Two daughters, Riana and Ella, stole a car near the Jenolan Caves before reporting their own parents missing more than 100 miles away. Riana was later found catatonic in the back of a stranger's pickup truck. Their mother, Jacoba, turned up wandering the streets of Yass, while their father, Mark, disappeared into bushland. Today, we retrace the family's bizarre road trip, examine the many theories—from contaminated water and cults to supernatural cave spirits—and explore the explanation psychologists keep returning to: “folie à deux”, the rare condition in which one person's delusions spread to those closest to them. It's a remarkable true story about just how fragile—and contagious—the human mind can be. Topics Included what happened in the Tromp family disappearance the empty farm, the abandoned passports and the missing Peugeot the frantic drive north and the phone thrown from the window the Jenolan Caves and the folklore surrounding them why the family scattered one by one across two states Riana found catatonic in a stranger's pickup the theories, from farm chemicals to cults to cave spirits folie à deux and the science of shared psychosis the Eriksson twins and other real cases of shared delusion how the Tromps were found and what they said afterwards Resources and Further Reading Riana Tromp speaks about bizarre roadtrip in first interview - news.com.au Transcript of Mitchell and Ella Tromp speaking to the media on Sunday - The Age Folie à deux - Wikipedia Ursula and Sabina Eriksson - Wikipedia Tromp family - The Daily Telegraph Host & Show Info Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam CoxEditor: Giordanno Bottezini Intro Music: Alice in dark WonderlandCommunity & Calls to Action Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple PodcastsInstagram: @theCompendiumPodcastWebsite: thecompendiumpodcast.comSupport us: Sign up to PatreonSuggest a Topic: Freaky RegisterShare this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ruth Ellis was the last woman hanged in Britain, but the six shots she fired outside a Hampstead pub were only the final act of a life shaped by violence, class and men who controlled the choices around her. On Easter Sunday 1955, the 28-year-old nightclub manager shot racing driver David Blakely in front of witnesses. She confessed, told the Old Bailey that she had intended to kill him and was convicted in minutes. Yet behind that clean legal answer sat years of domestic abuse, a miscarriage, a trial with no modern defence of diminished responsibility and another man whose possible role would remain disputed for decades. The Ruth Ellis case became a defining story in British true crime and the debate over capital punishment. In July 2026, King Charles III granted her a posthumous conditional pardon, replacing the death sentence with life imprisonment without overturning her conviction. Seventy-one years after the hanging, the question is no longer whether Ruth pulled the trigger. It is whether Britain ever understood what brought her to that pavement, or who may have helped put the gun in her hand. Topics Included Ruth Ellis’s life in post-war London’s nightclub scene Her violent relationship with racing driver David Blakely The Easter Sunday shooting outside The Magdala in Hampstead Ruth’s confession and rapid murder trial at the Old Bailey Desmond Cussen and the disputed origin of the murder weapon Why domestic abuse did not provide an effective defence in 1955 The case’s place in Britain’s debate over capital punishment The meaning of Ruth Ellis’s 2026 conditional pardon

A man falls from a New York hotel window. The CIA calls it suicide. Decades later, the story starts to look much darker. MKUltra is one of the most disturbing secret programmes in CIA history: a Cold War attempt to find out whether drugs, hypnosis, interrogation, sensory manipulation, and psychological pressure could break the human mind and reshape it. At the centre is Frank Olson, a biological warfare scientist who was secretly dosed with LSD at a CIA retreat and died days later after falling from Room 1018A of the Hotel Statler. But Olson’s death is only one part of the story. This dark history moves from Nazi research and Operation Paperclip to Project Bluebird, Project Artichoke, Sidney Gottlieb’s LSD experiments, Donald Ewen Cameron’s psychic driving, Operation Midnight Climax, destroyed records, congressional hearings, and the questions that still refuse to die. Because MKUltra was not just about mind control. It was about secrecy, power, and what governments are willing to do when “national security” becomes the magic phrase that makes human rights disappear. Topics Include what MKUltra was and why the CIA created it Frank Olson’s death at the Hotel Statler Cold War brainwashing fears and Project Bluebird Project Artichoke and CIA interrogation experiments Sidney Gottlieb and CIA LSD testing Donald Ewen Cameron and psychic driving Operation Midnight Climax destroyed MKUltra records and surviving financial files Rockefeller Commission and Church Committee revelations the unresolved questions around modern influence and control Resources and Further Reading Project MKULTRA, Research in Behavioral Modification - U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence MKUltra - Wikipedia Operation Paperclip - Wikipedia Sidney Gottlieb Testimony - National Security Archive DNI Denies CIA Raided Tulsi Gabbard’s Office - Newsweek James E. Erdman III Testimony - Homeland security Host & Show Info Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam CoxEditor: Giordanno Bottezini Intro Music: Alice in dark WonderlandCommunity & Calls to Action Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple PodcastsInstagram: @theCompendiumPodcastWebsite: thecompendiumpodcast.comSupport us: Sign up to PatreonSuggest a Topic: Freaky RegisterShare this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Two sisters made a pact to stop speaking to the world, together they build a private language, wrote strange fiction, and ventured out into a life crime spree that ended with them being locked inside Broadmoor, Britains most notorious psychiatric hospital. Now to the world as The Silent Twins, June and Jennifer Gibbons, became one of Britain’s strangest and saddest true stories. Born to Barbadian parents and raised in Wales, the girls withdrew after years of speech difficulties, bullying, racism, and a bond so intense it became impossible to escape. They spoke only to each other, moved almost as one. Isolated from the world the twins poured their real personalities into plays, diaries, poems and novels, including June’s cult outsider book The Pepsi-Cola Addict. But the world outside their bedroom eventually came calling. Alcohol, boys, vandalism and arson led to court, psychiatric evaluation, and a sentence to Broadmoor Hospital that the twins badly misunderstood. What followed was more than a strange true story. It was a dark history of selective mutism, institutional failure, media sensationalism, and a final pact that seemed to end only when Jennifer Gibbons died. Topics Included June and Jennifer Gibbons why the Silent Twins stopped speaking selective mutism and twin language bullying, racism and isolation in Wales Kathy Arthur and the attempt to separate the twins The Pepsi-Cola Addict and the twins’ writing the 1981 crime spree and arson charges Broadmoor Hospital and institutional failure Marjorie Wallace and the campaign to help them Jennifer Gibbons’ death and June’s life afterwards