CULT: Free Love, Total Control: The Oneida Community

CRIME: The Donner Party

In the spring of 1846, a group of nearly ninety American pioneers set out from Springfield, Illinois, bound for California. They were farmers, merchants, and families with young children, led by a 60-year-old man named George Donner. They expected to reach the West Coast by autumn.They never made it. After taking an unproven shortcut called the Hastings Cutoff, the party fell weeks behind schedule and was trapped by an early snowstorm high in the Sierra Nevada. By the time the first rescuers reached them in February 1847, nearly half were dead, and stories of what the survivors had done to stay alive would haunt American history for the next century and a half. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson revisits the Donner Party, the choices made in the snow, and the fights over what really happened that still haven't been settled. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes [https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes] If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com [http://crimehouseplus.com] or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social * Instagram: @Crimehouse [https://www.instagram.com/crimehouse/] * TikTok: @Crimehouse [https://www.tiktok.com/@crimehouse] * Facebook: @crimehousestudios [https://www.facebook.com/crimehousestudios] * X: @crimehousemedia [https://x.com/crimehousemedia] * YouTube: @crimehousestudios [https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios]

Introducing: Government That Doesn’t Suck

The government gets a bad rap. But the roads under your feet, the forecast on your phone, and the letter in your mailbox are all government too. Hosted by Professors Greg Jackson and Lindsey Cormack, Government That Doesn't Suck brings together the sharpest thinkers to reveal the real-world impact of American government, one episode at a time. Follow ⁠Government That Doesn’t Suck⁠ [https://pod.link/1896938110] for a new episode every other Monday. Government That Doesn’t Suck is a Rewind Studios original powered by PAVE Studios.

CULT: Free Love, Total Control: The Oneida Community

In 1848, a preacher named John Humphrey Noyes founded a religious community in upstate New York built around an idea most Americans found unthinkable. At Oneida, traditional marriage was abolished in favor of what Noyes called "complex marriage," a system in which exclusive pairings were forbidden and sexual relationships were governed by the community's leadership. Children were raised collectively. Reproduction was controlled through a program of selective breeding Noyes called stirpiculture. For more than thirty years, the Oneida Community grew, prospered, and held itself out as proof that human beings could live without sin. Then it collapsed. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson explores how one of the most ambitious utopian experiments in American history became one of the strangest, the doctrine of perfection that justified it, and what was really happening inside the community walls. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes [https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes] If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com [http://crimehouseplus.com] or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social * Instagram: @Crimehouse [https://www.instagram.com/crimehouse/] * TikTok: @Crimehouse [https://www.tiktok.com/@crimehouse] * Facebook: @crimehousestudios [https://www.facebook.com/crimehousestudios] * X: @crimehousemedia [https://x.com/crimehousemedia] * YouTube: @crimehousestudios [https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios]

CONSPIRACY THEORY: The MLK Assassination

On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 39 years old. The killing triggered unrest in more than a hundred American cities and altered the course of the civil rights movement. Two months later, a small-time criminal named James Earl Ray was arrested in London and charged with the murder. He pleaded guilty, then almost immediately recanted, claiming he had been part of a larger conspiracy. King's own family eventually came to believe him. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson revisits the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the questions that have never gone away. Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes [https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes] If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com [http://crimehouseplus.com] or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social * Instagram: @Crimehouse [https://www.instagram.com/crimehouse/] * TikTok: @Crimehouse [https://www.tiktok.com/@crimehouse] * Facebook: @crimehousestudios [https://www.facebook.com/crimehousestudios] * X: @crimehousemedia [https://x.com/crimehousemedia] * YouTube: @crimehousestudios [https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios]

Deadly Destinations: Death on the High Seas

Three separate journeys onto the water ended in death, disappearance, and unanswered questions. NBA champion Bison Dele vanished from his own sailboat in the South Pacific in 2002; cruise passenger Merrian Carver disappeared aboard a Celebrity Cruises ship bound for Alaska in 2004 while the cruise line stayed silent; and Australian mother Dianne Brimble died within hours of boarding a Sydney cruise in 2002 in a case that took nearly a decade to reach a courtroom. This is episode 2 of Deadly Destinations, a special four-part series on Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes hosted by Vanessa Richardson. Four exotic locations that should have been a dream vacation, but ended in a nightmare. New episodes drop every Sunday, and all four are available now, ad-free, on Crime House Plus. Join at crimehouseplus.com [http://crimehouseplus.com] or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social * Instagram: @Crimehouse [https://www.instagram.com/crimehouse/] * TikTok: @Crimehouse [https://www.tiktok.com/@crimehouse] * Facebook: @crimehousestudios [https://www.facebook.com/crimehousestudios] * X: @crimehousemedia [https://x.com/crimehousemedia] * YouTube: @crimehousestudios [https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios]