CONSPIRACY THEORY: The MLK Assassination

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]

CRIME: The FBI's War on Black America: COINTELPRO

Between 1956 and 1971, the FBI ran a secret program called COINTELPRO, short for Counter Intelligence Program. Its targets included civil rights leaders, Black liberation groups, anti-war activists, and feminist organizers. Its methods included surveillance, infiltration, disinformation, and tactics designed to, in the FBI's own words, "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" them. For years, the program ran entirely in the shadows. Then in March 1971, a group of activists broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, stole the files, and sent them to the press. What they revealed changed how Americans saw their own government. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson tells the story of COINTELPRO, the people it targeted, the people who exposed it, and what the declassified files still tell us about the line between national security and political repression. 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]

CULT: Warren Jeffs & the FLDS

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, better known as the FLDS, was a polygamist offshoot of mainstream Mormonism that operated for decades along the Utah-Arizona border. By the early 2000s, its prophet was a man named Warren Jeffs. Under Jeffs, the FLDS tightened into something closer to total control. He assigned wives, expelled men, and arranged marriages between adult followers and underage girls. In 2006, the FBI placed him on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. Two years later, Texas authorities raided the Yearning for Zion Ranch. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson traces how a fringe religious community became one of the most abusive cults in modern American history. 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 Happiest Place You Can't Leave: The Disney Machine

Walt Disney didn't just build a theme park. He built a system of total control, and convinced the world to call it magic. Employees aren't staff, they're "cast members." Uniforms are "costumes." Guests who step out of line are escorted by plainclothes security to unmarked holding rooms. Beneath the park, a nine-acre tunnel network houses a command center monitoring over 70,000 functions per second. For 56 years, Disney ran its own government in Florida, with its own fire department, building codes, and laws, after promising the state a utopian city of 20,000 residents living under permanent corporate rule with no voting rights. That city was never built. The theme park was. Walt himself was a documented FBI informant. And then there are the myths: a frozen body beneath Pirates of the Caribbean, secret Masonic geometry, the truth about Club 33. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson separates the myths from the documented conspiracies, and asks why the most controlled environment in America keeps generating stories that sound like fiction but aren't. 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]