Ep 23: Heaven's Gate: 39 Bodies, Black Tracksuits and Nike Sneakers — Inside the UFO Cult That Convinced Its Members Death Was a Spaceship | True Crime Cults

Ep 23: Heaven's Gate: 39 Bodies, Black Tracksuits and Nike Sneakers — Inside the UFO Cult That Convinced Its Members Death Was a Spaceship | True Crime Cults

The drive from Los Angeles to Rancho Santa Fe takes just under two hours. On the afternoon of March 26th, 1997, two men made that drive. One of them knew what they were going to find. The other only had half the story. The man who knew had packed a video camera on instinct. At 18341 Colina Norte, the door was unlocked. Inside one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in California, despite the warm March sun outside, were 39 deceased people lying on bunk beds in identical black tracksuits, purple shrouds pulled over their faces, and Nike sneakers on every pair of feet. Every single death was deliberate. Every single one was finished. Heaven's Gate was a UFO religious cult founded in the 1970s by Marshall Herff Applewhite — a man with a beautiful voice, a devastating charisma, and a belief that the human body was simply a temporary vehicle. That the Hale-Bopp comet passing Earth in 1997 was their signal. That death wasn't an ending. It was a boarding. This week on You're Killing Me, Shawnee covers the full story of Heaven's Gate — how Applewhite built it, who joined, why they stayed, and what it tells us about belief, belonging and the terrifying power of a person who makes leaving feel impossible. Topics: Heaven's Gate | cult | Marshall Applewhite | UFO cult | mass suicide | Rancho Santa Fe | Hale-Bopp | true crime cults | religious cult | 1997 | YKM New episodes every Monday. Follow so you never miss one.

Ep 22: Roch Thériault & The Ant Hill Kids — He Called Himself Moses and Performed Surgery Without Anaesthesia | Burnt River Ontario | Canadian Cult True Crime

In 1989, a woman named Gabrielle walked into a hospital in rural Ontario. She'd made it to the road somehow — flagged down a car, let strangers drive her somewhere with lights. Her left arm below the elbow had been cauterised. Burned shut. Someone had taken it. That someone was Roch Thériault. And Gabrielle was one of the lucky ones. From 1978, Thériault — a charismatic, volatile Quebec-born man who declared himself Moses and then God — built a commune deep in the Canadian wilderness that became one of the most brutal cult environments in North American history. What began as a survivalist religious group in Thetford Mines drew in dozens of followers, eventually settling near Burnt River, Ontario, where the real horror unfolded. For years, almost nobody outside the trees knew it was happening. This episode traces Thériault's origins, his psychological hold over his followers, the escalating violence, the escape of Gabrielle Lavallée, and the murder of Solange Boilard — the crime that finally put him away for life. ⚠️ Content warning: extreme physical abuse, sexual abuse of adults and children, graphic medical violence, procedures performed without anaesthesia. This one is serious. Come back when you're ready, or it's completely okay not to. Roch Thériault | Ant Hill Kids | Burnt River Ontario | Canadian cult | true crime Canada | cult leader | Gabrielle Lavallée | Solange Boilard | Moses cult | medical torture | cult abuse | Canadian true crime podcast | You're Killing Me

Ep 21: Kathleen Folbigg — Twenty Years in Prison for Crimes Science Says Never Happened | NSW True Crime | Wrongful Conviction Australia

In 1999, Craig Folbigg was going through boxes as his marriage collapsed. Somewhere in the house, his fourth child had just died. He was looking for something — anything — to make sense of it. He found a notebook. Then another. Handwritten diaries his wife had never shown him. He sat down and read them. Then he made a decision that would define the next twenty years of Kathleen Folbigg's life. Kathleen was convicted in 2003 of murdering three of her four children — Caleb, Patrick, Sarah, and Laura — who died between 1989 and 1999 in their New South Wales home. The case rested heavily on her diaries, on statistical improbability arguments, and on the now-discredited logic of Roy Meadow's Law: that lightning doesn't strike the same family four times. For twenty years, she was Australia's most reviled woman. Then a scientific inquiry, led by Nobel laureate Peter Doherty, identified genetic mutations in the children that could explain their deaths. On June 5, 2023, the NSW Governor pardoned Kathleen Folbigg. She had served twenty years for crimes science now says may never have happened. This episode traces the full story: Kathleen's violent beginnings — a father who murdered her mother when she was eighteen months old — four children, four deaths, a diary weaponised in a courtroom, and one of the most significant miscarriages of justice in Australian legal history. ⚠️ Trigger warnings: infant death, child loss, discussion of justice system failures. Kathleen Folbigg | Australian true crime | wrongful conviction | miscarriage of justice | SIDS | infant death | Roy Meadow's Law | Peter Doherty inquiry | NSW pardon 2023 | four babies | Craig Folbigg | CALM2 gene | Australia's worst female killer | true crime podcast | You're Killing Me

Ep 20: Taylor Parker — She Faked a Pregnancy, Then She Took Someone Else's Baby | New Boston Texas 2020 | True Crime

At Taylor Parker's gender reveal party, something wasn't right. The bump didn't look right. The dates on Facebook didn't add up. The ultrasound she'd posted at twelve weeks showed a foetus that looked nothing like twelve weeks. Guests caught each other's eyes across the yard. A medical professional couldn't stop staring. Afterwards, calls were made. Texts were sent to local hospitals. Warnings were issued. Nobody could have predicted what was coming next. On October 9, 2020, in New Boston, Texas — a small town near the Arkansas border where everyone knows your business and you've all sat in the same church pews — Taylor Parker murdered 21-year-old Reagan Simmons-Hancock, who was 34 weeks pregnant. Then she cut Reagan's baby from her womb and drove away. This episode traces everything that came before: the years of faked illnesses, fabricated pregnancies, and a pattern of deception so elaborate and sustained it defies easy explanation. It also tells you who Reagan was — a young mother with a toddler, a life, and people who loved her. This is one of the most disturbing cases we've ever covered. Not because of the violence alone — but because of everything that led to it. ⚠️ Content warning: murder, foetal abduction, graphic violence, factitious disorder, infant death. Taylor Parker | Reagan Simmons-Hancock | New Boston Texas | foetal abduction | womb raider | Texas true crime | capital murder | 2020 murder | faked pregnancy | Munchausen | true crime podcast | You're Killing Me

Ep 19: Tyler Hadley, Part 1 — He Killed His Parents With a Hammer, Then Threw a Party | Port St. Lucie 2011 | Florida True Crime

It's mid-July 2011 in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Sixty teenagers are packed into a house on Grandeur Avenue — red solo cups, warm beer, music thumping through the walls. The host is 17-year-old Tyler Hadley, and the party is everything he always wanted. His parents, Blake and Mary Jo Hadley, are in the master bedroom down the hall. Behind the locked door, underneath a pile of blood-soaked towels, is why they aren't coming out. Tyler had killed them both with a framing hammer hours earlier. Then he cleaned up, hid the bodies, and sent out the invites. Shawnee traces the story from the beginning: the suburb that promised more than it delivered, Tyler's diagnosis with Major Depressive Disorder, a cocktail of benzos, opioids and MDMA, a family trying to hold itself together, and the psychology of a teenager who felt, as he once put it, a step below everyone else. This is not a story about a monster. It's about how someone gets there — and what everyone around him missed. ⚠️ Content warning: murder of parents, drug use, teen violence, graphic crime scene detail. Tyler Hadley | Port St. Lucie | Florida true crime | parricide | house party murder | Blake Hadley | Mary Jo Hadley | teen killer | hammer murder | 2011 murder | MDD | true crime podcast | You're Killing Me