Welcome to...
Something Wicked
In this Bonus Series, Martin talks us some of history's most bizarre crimes and criminals, each with a folkloric twist...
Episode 1: The Werewolf of Bedburg
Martin and Eleanor discuss the ghastly crimes of Peter Stumpp.
They begin with the centuries-long period known as The European Werewolf Panic, the horrific means whereby Peter Stumpp was executed, the even more horrific things he did to deserve such a grisly end.
Plus they chew over other tidbits including succubi, cannibalism and transformative magic garments...
Episode 2: The Blood Countess
Martin and Eleanor explore the dark life of Elizabeth Bathory, the "Blood Countess."
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They begin discussing the 16th century penchant for stories of witches, magicians and the occult, and the context in which Bathory lived in Renaissance Hungary.
Next, they chat about her "Black Knight" husband, and the litany of crimes which earned Bathory the title of "Most Prolific Female Serial Killer in History..."
Episode 3: The Red Barn Murder
Martin and Eleanor discuss a ghostly murder that took the Victorian world by storm.
They chat about the life of William Corder and his lover, Maria Marten, whose ghost returned after she was killed to help solve the crime.
With a case that travels from Suffolk to London and involves a book bound in human skin, a haunted skull, an electrocuted cadaver, and mobs of people stripping the murder site and grave of the deceased for mementos, join us for a chat about this salacious murder which also birthed the most successful play of the mid-19th century...
Episode 4: The Candy Man
Martin and Eleanor chat about the life and crimes of Ronald O'Bryan, a.k.a. 'The Candy Man.'
They begin by chewing over the Satanic Panic, ideas of Halloween Sadism, the 'Mad Poisoner' trope and its roots in the Industrial Revolution, Urban Legends around food contamination and more.
Then they dig into the life, crimes, and media storm which surrounded O'Bryan himself, a wildly incompetent optician - and murderer - whose grisly acts on a rainy Halloween night saw him christened both 'The Candy Man' and 'The Man Who Killed Halloween.'
Episode 5: Hans Trapp
Martin and Eleanor dig into the legend of the Christmas Scarecrow, Hans Trapp.
They set the scene by talking about life in the Holy Roman Empire during the 15th century. Then it's time to recount the truths and some of the likely fictions surrounding this legendary Christmas bogeyman.
For example, did he really do a deal with the devil for power? How many people died when he flooded Weissenburg and its abbey? What about all the baby-eating?
And why might it be wise to wear a big skirt and keep an eye on scarecrows during the festive season?
Episode 6: Alice Kytler
Martin and Eleanor conjure up the wild life story of the first witch condemned in Ireland.
They begin by discussing the history of Kilkenny within Ireland's five historic counties, then explore how a young Flemish immigrant managed to become one of the richest women in 13th century Leinster.
With a bizarre biography including several court cases, four dead husbands, and allegations of macabre magical practices, her story then collides with that of a mad bishop hell-bent on punishing anyone who fails to recognise church authority.
A man who, by chance, has just graduated from the Pope's brand new course in witch hunting...
Episode 7: Gilles De Rais
Martin and Eleanor explore the life of the knight thought to have inspired the Bluebeard fairytale, also known as "the first serial killer."
They start by discussing the state of France when Gilles de Rais was born, from the reign of 'Charles the Mad' and the Hundred Years War to the specifics of de Rais' brutal childhood.
Next they explore how he ascended to and within the French court, becoming an ally of Joan of Arc, Marshal of the French Army, and how his post-war life descended into crime, occultism, unhinged extravagance, and murder.
Lots and lots of murder...
Episode 8: Burke and Hare
Martin talks us through the ghastly crimes of Burke and Hare - with a side serving of the history of medicine!
We start by chatting through the headlines of the Burke and Hare killing spree, including the Enlightenment-era craze for celebrity surgeons and 'anatomisation.' We then discuss how Scotland's fraught religious history enabled leaps forward in natural philosophy, necessitated the invention of things like 'mort safes,' and how ideas like Humorism and Sensibility had their roots in Ancient Mesopotamian and Ancient Egyptian concepts like 'Flow Theory,' curses, and exorcism.
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After chatting through Ancient Greek and Roman developments in medicine, including the Hippocratic Oath, and Medieval concepts like Leechbooks, we then loop back to the popularity of "operating theatres" - places where surgeries were performed for paying customers - and how the profit motive drove demand for corpses. Ideally ones that were still warm. And why this, in turn, inspired Burke, Hare, and the surgeon Robert Knox, to make some ghastly leaps in logic, the consequences of which were still being felt well into the 20th century...
Episode 9: Catherine Monvoisin
Martin and Eleanor explore the history of the 17th century mass murderer and sorceress La Voisin!
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We start by chatting through the history of poisoner rings and life in the times of Louis XIV, "the Sun King." We then discuss the rise to power of Catherine Deshayes, a penniless child fortune-teller on the streets of Paris, who married jeweler and silk merchant Antoine Monvoisin and began her ascent to the upper echelons of French society.
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After chatting through some of the potions and services 'La Voisin' provided, which eventually came to include child sacrifice, with dig deeper into the darker side of her life: her many colourful associates, how her ceremonies and arcane arts left thousands dead, empowered one of the most infamous royal mistresses in all of history, and how, when it all began to unravel, hundreds of people ended up implicated, exiled, or executed.
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From lesbian assassins to masters of disguise, kidnapped alchemists to poisoned clothes, it's a story so wild it didn't end when its subject was tried for witchcraft and burned at the stake, connecting to legends like that of The Man in the Iron Mask and much more besides...
Episode 10: H. H. Holmes
Martin and Eleanor explore the truly wild life and genuinely abominable crimes of H.H. Holmes, America's first serial killer.
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We start by chatting through how communication technology in the 19th century created a much more anonymous society, one in which a man born Herman Webster Mudgett in New Hampshire could grow up and skip across national borders, and between over a half dozen states, to assume new identities and commit both audacious acts of fraud and ghastly murder sprees for over 20 years without getting caught.
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From his many wild money-making schemes to the construction of his custom-built 'Murder Castle' into which he lured and dissected his victims - thought to number up to 200 people - we dig into the details. What is actually known about what he did, what is speculated upon, and how the "yellow journalism" of his time made Holmes a folk hero - all before the truth started to emerge about his grisly journey to incarceration and, ultimately, the hangman's noose.
Episode 11: La Quintrala
Martin takes us back to colonial South America for a tale of mass murder, witchcraft, sex, torture, and Jesus's ghost peering disappointedly down upon the sinful...
We explore the salacious legends of Chilean aristocrat Catalina de los Ríos y Lísperguer, better known to the world as La Quintrala – a flame-haired beauty with a reputation as a witch, seductress, and mass murderer who, to this day, is seen as a scion of familial evil.
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With her story encompassing several different flavours of murder, the torture and killing of hundreds of enslaved people, government corruption, bewitchment, earthquakes, private militias and more, it's a legend that beggars belief.
And for good reason, as, despite what you might read about La Quintrala on the internet, there's a massive gap between what the historical record tells us she did and the narratives we know today, all of which paint her as a sex-crazed monster, sadist, and Devilish bogeyman feared in Chile and Peru alike.
Episode 12: Jack the Ripper
For the Three Ravens 2024 Halloween Special we've pulled out all the stops and are talking about the most infamous serial killer in history, Jack The Ripper!
We start by chatting through what London was like in 1888, including the boom in crime fiction that had culminated in the creation of Sherlock Holmes, the city's 58 daily newspapers, and the horrendous wealth divide between the Victorian rich and poor.
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Then it's on to the Whitechapel Murders themselves, including some extremely distressing details and fringe cases, such as the grisly deaths of Martha Tabram and Emma Smith which predated the so-called 'Canonical Five' Ripper victims.
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We also detail the lives of the women who were slain, as well as the awful ways in which they died, discussing what Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly had in common, the escalating nature of their killer's crimes, and how exactly the police responded to the challenges the case presented.
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From the 'Dear Boss' and 'From Hell' letters to the methods Scotland Yard and the Metropolitan Police used to try and catch the killer, the case's links to antisemitism and the Freemasons, to details of the lead suspects and subsequent theories of the crimes which have developed across the 20th and 21st centuries, it's a wild and horrifying ride.
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