The Deep South is a haunted landscape where dark tourism thrives, supplying spine-tingling thrills to eager visitors. But is there a darker truth behind these tales? Maddy and Anthony's guest today is Tiya Miles, author of Tales from the Haunted South. Tiya reveals how ghost tours exploit and distort the true history of slavery for profit, feeding troubling narratives.

Tiya Miles is the Michael Garvey Professor of History and Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Her latest book is Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People (Penguin 2024).

Edited by Freddy Chick. Produced by Sophie Gee. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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(Part 1/2) They could've run, but they stayed. In 1665 plague arrived in the idyllic English village of Eyam. What followed was a story of suffering and self-sacrifice.

Maddy tells Anthony the story. Today we set the scene with the outbreak of the plague in London and how the pestilence arrived, via a bolt of cloth, in the village of Eyam.

With special guest Rebecca Rideal, author of "1666: Plague, War and Hellfire".

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Today we’re exploring the grim and heroic final days of the Anne Boleyn, the thousand day queen.

We are joined by the one-and-only Dr Tracy Borman who bestselling book on this topic is Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I: The Mother and Daughter Who Changed History.

Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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We talk the ghost of Anne Boleyn, Queen of England before Henry VIII chopped off her head, with the marvellous Tracy Borman.

Where can Anne Boleyn's ghost be seen? What form does it take? And why does she haunt us so? Get ready for carriages pulled by headless horses, spooky palaces, a weird floating cylinder thing...and a single moment in history that has haunted England, and now Britain's, imagination for hundreds of years.

Tracy's new book "Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I: The Mother and Daughter Who Changed History" is out now.

Edited by Tom Delargy, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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Sex, Satanism and Scandal surrounded the Hellfire Club that operated out of a network of caves in the country estate of 18th century aristocrat Francis Dashwood. The most powerful men in the country came to Dashwood's underground lair. Rumours swirled of everything from orgies to human sacrifice and Satanic spirits. But was it all as diabolical as it seemed?

Maddy tells Anthony the story this week.

Produced by Freddy Chick and Charlotte Long. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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Some estimates have it that Amelia Dyer killed more than 400 babies. It's hard to say for sure because so few victims were recovered. She was a phantom that grew up in a very dark corner of Victorian society where helpless mothers were given with no better options but to give their babies to 'baby farmers'.

Anthony tells Maddy this painful history.

Edited and produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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Have you ever wondered what the ancient origins of witchcraft is? How did the black-hat-broomstick stereotype emerge? And what causes the waves of witch trials throughout history, right up to the present day?

Ronald Hutton is back on After Dark to discuss the history of the witch, in an episode from our sister podcast, Betwixt the Sheets.

This podcast was mixed and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. 

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The Victorians created the unsettling art of death photography - posing their deceased love ones in family portraits as if they were alive. How did they manage to make corpses strike poses? Why did they want to?

Maddy and Anthony are joined by Brandy Schillace, author of Death’s Summer Coat - What Death and Dying Cal Tell Us about Life and Living to flick through the strangest, and most moving, of family photo albums.

Edited by Tom Delargy. Produced by Stuart Beckwith. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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Did a Tudor prophetess correctly predict the English Civil War, the Crimean War, the sinking of the Titanic, World War One and the end of days? And what does she have to do with turning teddy bears into stone?

Find out as Maddy and Anthony discuss Mother Shipton's life, legend and legacy.

Written by Maddy Pelling

Edited and produced by Freddy Chick. Senior producer is Charlotte Long.

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Witch hunts blazed across Europe from the 1400s right into the 1700s. Their terror has been burned into the collective memory. But how accurate are the pictures we have in our heads?

For this episode, Anthony and Maddy are joined by Suzannah Lipscomb, host of Not Just the Tudor. She helps them delve deep into the realities of witches and witch trials in Early Modern Europe.

Edited by Joseph Knight and produced by Annie Coloe and Rob Weinberg

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For Albert Pierrepoint, execution was a family affair. His father and uncle were hangmen and from the 1940s until the late 1950s Albert was Britain's "Number One" executioner. Which meant he was the one sent to hang the Nazis who ran the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the end of the war.

Who was Albert Pierrepoint? What does it take to be able to execute hundreds of people? And what is 'The Drop'?

Edited and produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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What is spectrophilia? Well, it's a fetish for ghosts (as well as mirrors), so being turned on by anything lurking in the non-physical realm. What are the historic origins of this fetish and phenomenon? And what real life stories can be told of it?

Maddy and Anthony talked with Kate Lister, wonderful host of our sister podcast Betwixt the Sheets.

This podcast was edited by Siobhan Dale and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. 

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What lurks beneath the dark waters of Loch Ness? The legendary monster? A piece of Celtic folklore? A warning of the Nazis' rise to power? A fraudster?

Today Anthony and Maddy are examining grainy photographs, picking over descriptions of monsters and trying to work out what it all means.

Written by Anthony Delaney

Edited by Tom Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

This episode contains sound effects from Zapsplat.

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Edith Thompson was the model 1920's flapper girl. Her husband Percy was more suburban. When young Freddy Bywater entered the marriage home, things became deadly.

This week Maddy Pelling tells Anthony Delaney the story of a murder case that gripped the nation.

Written by Maddy Pelling. Edited and Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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Other countries celebrate their victories and independence. But in Britain, we celebrate a bungling terrorist from the 17th century. Why? Who was Guy Fawkes? What was the Gunpowder Plot? And why must we Remember, Remember the 5th of November?

Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney are joined by historian and author Steven Veerapen - author of (among other titles) Of Blood Descended: An Anthony Blanke Tudor Mystery: https://birlinn.co.uk/product/of-blood-descended/

Produced by Charlotte Long and Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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Can it be murder if you think you're killing a ghost? In 1804 the London suburb of Hammersmith was being terrorised by a ghost. One man set out to hunt down whoever, or whatever, this was. He almost swung from the end of a rope for his troubles.

Join Anthony and Maddy for this ghostly Halloween episode.

Written by Maddy Pelling.

Edited by Tom Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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Bodmin Jail can claim to be one of the most haunted buildings in Britain. Perhaps that's because of all the hangings that took place here. Or the postmortem punishment the jail dolled out to prisoners. Or perhaps it is because it's in Cornwall - land of giants, beasts and all things otherworldly.

Maddy and Anthony are joined by Jess Marlton, manager of Bodmin Jail, to talk about life, death and afterlife at this unique 18th century prison. Plus we have a bonus interview about the Beast of Bodmin with Ross Barnett, author of The Missing Lynx.

Produced by Stuart Beckwith and Freddy Chick, Edited by Tom Delargy, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long

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In 1727, Janet Horne of the Highland community of Dornoch became the last person in Britain to be tried and executed for witchcraft.

As the poet Edwin Morgan put it; They tarred her and feathered her, bound her and barrelled her burning in the peat-smoke, while the good folk of Dornoch paused briefly for a look.

But maybe the events aren’t quite as black and white as they seem?

Maddy Pelling tells Anthony Delaney the story this week.

Written by Maddy Pelling.

Edited by Freddy Chick. Produced by Charlotte Long.

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Today Siobhán McSweeney (Derry Girls) joins Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling for the story of the Banshee. In Irish folklore the Banshee heralds the death of a family member, usually by shrieking, or keening. Anthony tells us a story about one dying man - Charles Bunworth d.1772 - who was called to his death by a Banshee's wailing cries.

Written by Anthony Delaney.

Edited by Tom Delargy.

Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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Was ever a ship more aptly named? In 1845, HMS Terror (and its forgettably named sister ship HMS Erebus) set off from Victorian Britain. Their quest was to discover the fabled Northwest passage through the Arctic ice. The crew were heroes in waiting. Yet by the end the rules that govern life on board Royal Navy vessels collapsed into chaos and cannibalism.

Maddy tells Anthony this story about life in the Royal Navy, Arctic winters, badly written poetry, and the thin line that separates us from horror.

Written by Maddy Pelling. Mixed by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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They’re the most famous grave-robbers in the world…except they never actually robbed any graves. Discover the true story of Burke and Hare’s murderous rampage through the streets of Edinburgh, all to serve the needs of the city’s scientific minds.

Anthony tells Maddy the unnerving details about the infamous 19th century serial-killing duo.

Written by Anthony Delaney. Edited by Tom Delargy. Producer is Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long

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This episode is a bloody delight: from flesh-eating fish and humiliating deaths inside sacks, to a deadly re-enactment of the Icarus myth. For a culture that is seen as an emblem of civilisation (whatever that means), the Romans expended a lot of creative energy on inventing new ways to kill people. And our guest today knows them all!

Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling are joined by the one and only Emma Southon author of A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Her new book is A History of Rome in 21 Women.

Mixed by Tom Delargy. Producer is Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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From its prehistoric origins until today, Halloween has always had the Shiver of Terror running through it. First as a pagan festival of Winter-the-Bringer-of-Death. Then as a Catholic holy day dedicated to lost Souls in purgatory. Now as a celebration of horrifyingly bad fancy dress!

Maddy and Anthony speak to the one-and-only Professor Ronald Hutton, a national treasure who is the author of too many wonderful books to list here. His latest is Queens of the Wild: Pagan Goddesses in Christian Europe.

Producer is Stuart Beckwith. Edited by Tom Delargy. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long

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Laundress-turned-murderess, Sarah Malcolm horrified Georgian London in 1733 when she was found guilty of killing three women she worked for while they slept. For wealthy Georgians this was a nightmare come true: a servant killing the household they served. Sarah became a celebrity killer and was painted by none other than William Hogarth while she sat in jail.

Anthony Delaney tells Maddy Pelling this dark history.

Written by Anthony Delaney. Edited by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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John Reginald Christie was the most notorious murderer of his era. On the outside he was every inch the Old Fashioned Englishman, respectable norms personified. But inside the walls and under the floors of his flat at 10 Rillington Place were the bodies of the women and babies he had killed.

Our guest today is Kate Summerscale, groundbreaking true-crime writer whose new book is The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place. She guides Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney through this shocking history that shows 1950's Britain's ugliest face.

Edited by Tomos Delargy, Produced by Sophie Gee, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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Introducing After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal, the podcast that takes you to the shadiest corners of the past, unpicking history’s spookiest, strangest, and most sinister stories.

Meet your hosts, historians Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling, who will be taking a look at the darker side of history. From haunted pubs and Houdini, to witch trials and weird UFO sightings.

New episodes every Monday and Thursday, from Monday 16th October.

After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal - a podcast by History Hit, the world's best history channel and creators of award-winning podcasts Dan Snow's History Hit, Gone Medieval, and Betwixt the Sheets.

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Part 4/4. By looking at the men accused of being Jack the Ripper, we uncover dark truths about Victorian society - and our own. Why were these men, most of them almost certainly innocent, singled out as monsters?

Today Anthony Delaney tells Maddy Pelling about how quack doctor Francis Tumblety, an American, became a prime suspect in the case. He is a shining example of medical malpractice but does that make him a murderer?

Written by Anthony Delaney. Edited by Freddy Chick & Tomos Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick and Charlotte Long. With thanks to the Little Dot Studios team for their voices.

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Discover the true story of Burke and Hare’s murderous rampage through the streets of Edinburgh, all to serve the needs of the city’s scientific minds. We're rerunning this early episode to mark the release of Maddy and Anthony's new documentary on History Hit TV all about Burke and Hare's story.

Anthony tells Maddy the unnerving details about the infamous 19th century serial-killing duo.

Written by Anthony Delaney. Edited by Tom Delargy. Producer is Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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Part 3/4. By looking at the men accused of being Jack the Ripper, we uncover dark truths about Victorian society - and our own. Why were these men, most of them almost certainly innocent, singled out as monsters?

Today Anthony Delaney tells Maddy Pelling about how the celebrated artist Walter Sickert became a leading suspect for many. His art is unsettling, gruesome even, but does that make him a murderer?

Written by Anthony Delaney. Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick and Charlotte Long.

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The wounds that Christ received on the cross - the stigmata - have had a strange afterlife, reappearing on the flesh of followers from St Francis of Assisi right through to the present. The stigmata are most commonly found on young women and are often accompanied by other miracles. What can this strange history teach us?

Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney are joined today by Kristof Smeyers author of Supernatural Bodies: Stigmata in modern Britain and Ireland

Edited and produced by Freddy Chick and Stuart Beckwith. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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Part 2/4. By looking at the men accused of being Jack the Ripper, we uncover dark truths about Victorian society - and our own. Why were these men, most of them almost certainly innocent, singled out as monsters?

Today Anthony Delaney tells Maddy Pelling about Aaron Kosminski, a Polish Jew living in Whitechapel who later became suspected of being Jack the Ripper. It's a story of immigration and antisemitism; of mental illness and of an effort to use DNA to link Kosminski to the crime.

Written by Anthony Delaney. Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick and Charlotte Long.

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Ned Kelly is a murdering, bank-robbing, Australian folk hero. What is the true history of this mythic figure? And how did an outlaw - or bushranger - rise up to become a symbol for a new nation?

Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling are joined by Dr Meg Foster, research fellow at the University of Technology, Sydney and award winning author of Boundary Crossers: the hidden history of Australia's other bushrangers.

Edited and produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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Part 1/4. By investigating the men accused of being Jack the Ripper, we uncover dark truths about Victorian society - and our own. Why were these men, most of them almost certainly innocent, singled out as monsters?

Today Anthony Delaney tells Maddy Pelling about how Prince Albert Victor, grandson to Queen Victoria, became suspected of being Jack the Ripper. It's a story of Victorian masculinity and how our twentieth century relationship with monarchy helped ferment baseless accusations.

Written by Anthony Delaney. Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick and Charlotte Long.

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Queen Victoria was synonymous with grief and the Victorian cult of death. Yet her own funeral wasn't that at all. Today Dan O'Brien explains to Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling how to bury a Queen like Victoria.

Dr Dan O'Brien is a of historian of undertakers and funerals in Eighteenth Century England and researcher at the Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath.

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The colonists of Roanoke Island in the 1580's were the very first English people to try to establish a permanent settlement in America. They completely disappeared. The only clue was the word 'CROATOAN' carved into a tree where they had been. What happened?

Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney are joined today by Misha Ewen, author of The Virginia Venture: American Colonization and English Society, 1580-1660 and lecturer in early modern history at the University of Sussex.

Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick and Charlotte Long.

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The myth of the Minotaur has endured thousands of years for good reason... it's hard to forget! Today, Maddy Pelling tells Anthony Delaney the story of King Minos of Crete, the monster in his maze, and the son of Athens that comes to kill it, thanks largely to the cunning of Princess Ariadne.

Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Charlotte Long.

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It was beyond Biblical in its horror. Around half of all Europeans are estimated to have died in the Black Death. Death ravaged towns and villages, castles and hovels. What did it feel like to live through this darkest of histories? Bestselling author Helen Carr guides Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling through disease, death and self-flagellation! Helen's new book on the fourteenth century, Sceptred Isle, will be out next May.

Edited by Max Hennessy and Tomos Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick. The senior producer is Charlotte Long.

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Edgar Allan Poe was a poster boy for the macabre whose work thrilled readers throughout America and beyond. How did he end up in a gutter in Baltimore, delirious, and wearing clothes that were not his own? Maddy Pelling takes Anthony Delaney through the mysterious death of a mysterious man.

Written by Maddy Pelling. Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Charlotte Long.

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A skull a day! People ate people in the name of medicine across Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Charles II kept powdered skull in a bag on his belt and mummified corpses were the greatest cure of all... but why? Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney visit the apothecary with guide Hannah Slajus, whose PhD was on human ingredients in medicinal remedies in seventeenth century.

Edited by Max Hennessy. Produced by Freddy Chick. The senior producer is Charlotte Long.

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Picture a serial killer in your mind’s eye. What do you see... Is it your gran?

Today is the story of one of America’s most notorious female serial killers: Nannie Doss, aka the Giggling Granny. She killed 11 people, four of which were husbands. This lead to her also being known as the Lonely Hearts Killer, due to her supposed search for love.

This is an episode from our sister-podcast Betwixt the Sheets with host Kate Lister. Kate was joined by Tori Telfer, author of Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History.

Produced by Sophie Gee. Mixed by Stuart Beckwith. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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The second part of our story on the Salem Witch Trials. Anthony Delaney takes Maddy Pelling inside the courtroom as unbelievable stories of witchcraft are told and a terrifying power dynamic reveals itself, which ultimately ends in innocent souls being sent to their deaths.

The drama is brought to life thanks to the acting talents of Carolina Hoyos, Jessica Reagan and Don Wildman.

Written by Anthony Delaney. Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Charlotte Long.

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First of two episodes on the Salem Witch Trials. We begin the story as accusations are made throughout the town of Salem and a climate of fear is palpable. Maddy Pelling takes Anthony Delaney into the most famous witch trials of all time.

Written by Maddy Pelling. Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Charlotte Long.

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Harry Houdini was the greatest magician that ever lived. He was also the greatest ghostbuster ever, exposing countless spiritual mediums as frauds. Why?

Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney are joined by Efram Sera-Shriar, historian of the occult and author of "Psychic Investigators: Anthropology, Modern Spiritualism, and Credible Witnessing in the Late Victorian Age".

Get ready for the moving story of Harry Houdini, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and a son's love for his mother that would not die even after she was gone.

Edited by Ella Blaxill. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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The life of Joseph Merrick, the man they dared to call "The Elephant Man", will fill you with pain and anger. He was treated so cruelly by society that he found becoming a freak show exhibit preferably to the life available to him elsewhere. Yet alongside darkness there is light and love in his story, and a sense of his own indomitable spirit throughout it all.

Visit https://www.changingfaces.org.uk/ to learn more about living with visible difference today.

Written by Anthony Delaney. Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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The violent death of Captain James Cook, British explorer, on a Hawaiian beach in 1779 has become the stuff of legend. Should we believe the story that's been handed down? How should we remember a man who means so many different things to so many different people?

Anthony Delaney tells Maddy Pelling the story of the Final Days of Captain Cook.

Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick and Charlotte Long.

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When a series of mysterious disappearances and gruesome murders happened on the American Frontier in the 19th century, fingers started to point in the direction of not one murderer…but a family of killers. As the case unraveled, their grisly crimes cemented their place in history and earned their nickname as the 'Bloody Benders'.

Joining Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney this episode is Susan Jonusas, historian and author of 'Hell's Half-Acre: The Untold Story of the Benders, A Serial Killer Family on the American Frontier'.

This episode was edited by Tomos Delargy and produced by Freddy Chick. The senior producer is Charlotte Long.

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It's one of the most infamous trials in American history, Lizzie Borden's story is breathtaking even today. In 1893 she was accused of using an axe to murder her father and step-mother. The case obsessed America and despite evidence against her, Lizzie was let off. Was that justice?

Maddy Pelling tells Anthony Delaney the story today.

Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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The unclaimed dead of New York City's streets and rivers were once brought to the notorious New York Morgue. It's a history that has never been studied before, full of dark stories and buried secrets.

Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney are joined by Cat Byers who is a writer and historian based in Paris currently finishing a PhD on the Paris Morgue and the never-before-studied New York Morgue.

Edited and produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast

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How did Marie Antoinette, last Queen of France, spend her final days before the guillotine took her head? Did she ever really stand a chance? Anthony Delaney takes Maddy Pelling on a journey back to the French Revolution's reign of terror to meet icon of history Marie Antoinette.

Written by Anthony Delaney. Edited by Tomos Delargy, produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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"The internet is full of dark and wicked things" said a police chief after a shocking crime by two children claiming to be acolytes of the Slenderman. Today we unpick the origins of Slenderman - the internet's scariest creation - and link it back to the pre-internet urban legend of the Mothman. Strap in for a wild ride!

Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney are joined by Ceri Houlbrook, folklorist and lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire.

Edited by Tomos Delargy, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.