Podcast
Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes
Hosted by Crime House · EN
Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a true crime and conspiracy theories podcast about the people who take belief too far and the deadly consequences that follow.
Hosted by Vanessa Richardson, two weekly episodes unpack real stories of murderous cults, criminal cover-ups, mass manipulation, and twisted conspiracies. From Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate to CIA mind control experiments, presidential assassinations, and the Octopus Murders. This is true crime at the intersection of faith, fear and manipulation.
Follow now for new episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This is a Crime House Original, powered by PAVE Studios.
88episodes
Episodes
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CULT: The Freemasons
2d ago00:41:53Summary readyFor centuries, the Freemasons have counted kings, revolutionaries, and founding fathers among their ranks, a secret brotherhood whose rituals, oaths, and hidden hierarchies shaped the modern world. But when whistleblower William Morgan was abducted and murdered in 1826 for exposing their ceremonies, the cracks in the fraternity's noble façade became impossible to ignore. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa traces Freemasonry from medieval stone guilds to a documented Italian conspiracy that nearly toppled a democracy.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesJoin Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes ad-free and released one day early.🎧 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 SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios
SummaryCONSPIRACY THEORY: Who Drew the Nazca Lines?
4d ago00:36:36Summary readyIn Peru's scorching Nazca Valley, ancient inhabitants carved enormous animal figures into the desert floor over a thousand years ago, figures so large they can only be understood from the air. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa traces the decades-long quest to decode these mysterious formations, from the mathematician who dedicated her life to the desert to the bestselling author who claimed they were built for alien spacecraft.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesJoin Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes ad-free and released one day early.🎧 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 SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios
SummaryCRIME: Captain Phillips & the Maersk Alabama
1w ago00:40:52Summary readyIn April 2009, four Somali pirates boarded the MV Maersk Alabama in the Indian Ocean, taking Captain Richard Phillips hostage in a lifeboat standoff that gripped the world. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa examines how a routine cargo run became one of the most dramatic maritime hostage crises in modern American history. Four tense days passed before Navy SEAL snipers ended the standoff, killing three pirates and freeing Phillips.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesJoin Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes ad-free and released one day early.🎧 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 SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios
SummaryCULT: Pacific Cargo Cults
1w ago00:41:16Summary readyIn the late 19th and early 20th centuries, indigenous communities across Melanesia developed powerful religious movements in response to the sudden arrival of European colonizers and wartime military forces bearing vast material wealth. Believing this "cargo" was spiritually theirs but deliberately withheld, followers built symbolic airstrips, mimicked military rituals, and wove new beliefs into ancient traditions. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa explores how these movements were far more than misunderstandings. They were sophisticated acts of cultural resistance in the face of colonial upheaval.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesJoin Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes ad-free and released one day early.🎧 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 SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudio
SummaryCONSPIRACY THEORY: China's Bigfoot featuring Maci and Nadoly from GHOSTEAS
2w ago00:46:44Summary readyFor over 2,000 years, the Yeren, China's legendary wildman, has haunted the mountains and folklore of rural China, inspiring fear, government bans, and even a state-funded scientific expedition. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson is joined by Maci and Nadoly from Ghosteas to trace the creature's origins from ancient poetry to modern eyewitness accounts, and the researcher who spent 50 years hunting for proof. What he found raises a fascinating question: what if the monster was never a monster at all?Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesJoin Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes ad-free and released one day early.🎧 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 SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios
SummaryCRIME: Griselda Blanco the Cocaine Godmother
2w ago00:39:36Summary readyBy her early 30s, Griselda Blanco had transformed herself from a poverty-stricken Colombian girl into one of the wealthiest and most feared drug lords in history, architecting a cocaine empire that flooded Miami with violence and money. Her business acumen was matched only by her willingness to order killings, including those of rivals, associates, and even husbands. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa traces how one woman climbed to the top of a brutal industry and left a trail of bodies in her wake.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesJoin Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes ad-free and released one day early.🎧 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 SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios
SummaryCULTS: Colonia Dignidad
2w ago00:41:09Summary readyIn the Chilean wilderness, German preacher Paul Schaefer ran Colonia Dignidad, a walled commune where 300 followers lived under surveillance, forced labor, and daily abuse for decades. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa traces how Schaefer's unchecked power grew from small-town evangelist to torturer-for-hire under Pinochet's brutal regime. A single note from a 12-year-old boy finally set his downfall in motion. Contains descriptions of child sexual abuse, torture, forced imprisonment, and murder.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesJoin Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes ad-free and released one day early.🎧 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 SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios
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The Crimes that Built America | Murder: True Crime Stories
2w ago00:45:33Summary readyCrime House’s Murder: True Crime Stories presents a special series for America’s 250th Birthday: The Crimes That Built America. Listen every Monday until July 6th on Murder: True Crime Stories. Join Crime House+ to get all 4 episodes right now ad-free. To subscribe, go to crimehouseplus.com or if you are listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page.250 years ago, a brand-new country declared its independence, and in the centuries since, some of the worst crimes this country has ever seen reshaped America. Four murders. Four turning points. The crime behind Miranda rights. The case that created the FBI. The era that gave us criminal profiling. And the murder of Adam Walsh that built America's missing-children movement.
SummaryCONSPIRACY THEORY: Lemuria the Lost Continent
3w ago00:36:18Summary readyIn the mid-1800s, a British naturalist named Philip Sclater proposed the existence of a vast sunken continent called Lemuria to explain a gap in the fossil record. What began as a genuine scientific hypothesis was seized upon by occultists, racists, and spiritual movements, mutating over 150 years into a living religion practiced at the foot of a California volcano. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson traces how one man's theory about lemur fossils became the foundation for a conspiracy touching Atlantis, Theosophy, Nazism, and the New Age.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesJoin Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes ad-free and released one day early.🎧 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 SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios
SummaryCRIME: Black Bart the Outlaw Poet
3w ago00:38:01Summary readyIn 1875, a mild-mannered Civil War veteran named Charles Boles began robbing Wells Fargo stagecoaches across Northern California. He was always polite, never harmed passengers, and occasionally left handwritten poems behind. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson traces how Boles built a double life as a San Francisco socialite while becoming the West's most wanted highway bandit. After 28 robberies and years of near misses, a single laundry mark would unravel everything. And yet, his ultimate fate remains unsolved to this day.Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@ConspiracytheoriescultscrimesIf 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 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 SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios
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