← Twisted Tales with Heidi Wong
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Hi Crime House community. It's Vanessa Richardson. Exciting news. Conspiracy theories, cults and crimes is leveling up. Starting the week of January 12th, you'll be getting two episodes every week. Wednesdays we unravel the conspiracy or the cult, and on Fridays we look at a corresponding crime. Every week has a theme. Tech, bioterror, power, paranoia, you name it. Follow conspiracy theories, cults and crimes now on your podcast app because you're about to dive deeper, get weirder, and go darker than ever before.
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This is crime house.
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A podcast host murdered by an obsessed fan. A celebrated journalist killed aboard a submarine. A woman stabbed to death by her fiance just weeks after appearing on his podcast. They were just doing their jobs, telling stories, seeking them out and sharing their lives. They never imagined that it would lead to their untimely deaths. Welcome to Twisted, a Crime House original. I'm Heidi Wong. Every week I'll take you deep into the true stories behind horror's biggest legends. From vengeful ghosts to bloody slashers to alien encounters and more, these real life accounts are guaranteed to keep you up at night. But scary stories aren't any fun if you're telling them alone. If you've ever had a haunted moment or a twisted tale of your own, I want to hear about it. Drop it in the comments. The creepier the better. Today I'm talking about Kevin Smith's bizarre 2014 body horror film, Tusk. The movie follows a podcaster who travels to Canada to interview a mysterious old man with incredible stories to tell. Sounds harmless enough, right?
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No.
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This podcaster ends up trapped in a nightmare of surgical mutilation as the old man attempts to literally transform him into a walrus. It's grotesque, darkly funny, and totally out of pocket. Here's the thing, though. Tusk might not be real, but stories about interviews gone wrong, they very much are. So if you're a journalist, a creator, or anyone who conducts interviews for a living, listen up, because you never know who you're sitting across from. And by the time you realize the truth, it might already be too late.
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So how did Tusk even happen? That was my first thought when I saw it. Well, buckle up, because the origin story is almost as weird as the film itself. In 2013, filmmaker Kevin Smith was recording an episode of his podcast with his longtime producing partner, Scott Mosier. For this episode, they were scrolling through the weird corners of the Internet looking for bizarre content to talk about. That day, they were browsing Gumtree. It's basically the UK version of Craigslist. And let me tell you, it has all the same energy. Tons of normal listings mixed with some truly unhinged stuff. And that's when they found it. An ad posted by someone in Brighton, England, that read like something out of a fever dream. A retired man claimed he spent three years alone on St Lawrence Island, a remote region in the UK. According to the man, he lived there with a walrus named Gregory, who was his closest companion and friend. Now, the man was living in a large house overlooking a park, and he was lonely. He wanted that connection again. So he was offering free rent. Completely free, no charge whatsoever. There was just one small detail. The tenant would need to wear a walrus costume that he'd constructed for about two hours a day. They'd need to be the walrus, not speaking in human voices, only making walrus sounds. They'd also have to catch and eat the fish and crabs that he would throw to them. Pretty much what you would expect out of a Craigslist ad. Smith and Mosier couldn't believe what they were reading. Was it real? Was someone actually this lonely and this weird? They spent the entire podcast episode riffing on the ad, imagining what kind of person would answer it, what would happen if you actually moved in with this guy. The comedy potential was endless. But was it real? Turns out the ad was a hoax created by a poet and prankster named Chris Parkinson. He posted it just to see how people would react to get a rise out of them. Mission accomplished, I'd say. But Kevin Smith didn't care that it was all fake. His mind was already racing with possibilities, and he kept coming back to the idea of old British hammer horror movies. British hammer movies were these films from the 50s and 60s with creepy mansions, mad scientists, and theatrical violence. Gothic, twisted, super unsettling. Think the Curse of Frankenstein, horror of Dracula, and the Mummy. Smith knew he wanted to create that same vibe. So he asked himself, what if the old man's plan was darker than having someone dress up as a walrus? What if he wanted to surgically transform them into an actual human walrus hybrid? And just like that, Tusk was born. The movie follows a podcaster named Wallace. He hosts a controversial podcast where he interviews weird people and makes fun of them. He's kind of a jerk, honestly. Well, one day he sees an ad from a retired sailor named Howard who lives in Manitoba, Canada, and he says he has tons of incredible stories about his life at sea. Wallace goes to Howard's isolated mansion to visit. They sit down over tea, and Howard tells Wallace all about his life as a sailor. His friendship with a walrus that saved his life. His philosophical musings on the nature of humanity. Wallace is eating it up. This is gonna make insane content. But he should be careful what he wishes for. That tea that Howard gave Wallace, it was drugged. When Wallace wakes up, he's strapped to a wheelchair, and when he looks down, he sees that one of his legs has been amputated. Howard tells him way too calmly that he's going to transform Wallace into his old friend the walrus. Over the course of the film, we watch Wallace's whole horrifying transformation. His limbs are removed and fused together, and his body is sewn into a walrus suit made from human and animal skin. By the end, he can barely speak because he also has his tongue surgically removed. So he can be more of a realistic walrus. I guess so he can only really make guttural walrus sounds. It's body horror at its most disturbing. Mutilation, transformation violation. It makes you squirm just watching it. And it's all played completely straight. No winking at the camera, no ironic distance. Just pure, unsettling commitment to the concept. After Tusk came out, critics were divided. Some called it brilliant and Daring others said it was unwatchable trash. But there was one thing that everyone agreed on. It was deeply unsettling. Now, the idea of surgically modifying someone into an animal, that's just Kevin Smith's twisted imagination at work. But killers modifying human remains, that's happened before. As awful as it is, there's lots of examples out there, but one case stands out. It's pretty much inspired every mad scientist and body horror villain in cinema. Even their name has become synonymous with grotesque human experimentation. That's right. I'm talking about Ed Gein. On November 16, 1957, police in Plainfield, Wisconsin were investigating the disappearance of a local store owner named Bernice Worden. She was last seen with ed Gein, a 51 year old handyman who lived on a farm outside town. When police arrived at Gein's property, they were just there to ask him some routine questions. But when they went inside to look for him, what they found made them physically ill. Bernice Worden's body was hanging upside down in a shed, gutted like a deer. And that was just the beginning. Inside the main house, officers discovered a horrifying lampshades and chairs made from human skin, bowls made from skulls, a shoebox full of female genitalia, human faces that could be worn as masks. Most disturbing of all, Gein had created a full woman suit, an actual body suit made from the preserved skin and body parts of women. He would wear it and pretend to be his dead mother. After police discovered all this, Gein knew that he'd been caught. He didn't try to deny what he'd done. He confessed to killing two women, Bernice Worden and a tavern owner named Mary Hogan, who disappeared three years earlier. But Gein said that most of his collection had come from a different source. He'd been robbing graves for years. Gein had been visiting local cemeteries at night, digging up recently buried bodies, specifically women who'd resembled his mother, and bringing them home. He'd then spend hours carefully removing their skin and body parts for his print projects. When asked why he did it, Gein's explanation was chilling in its simplicity. After his domineering mother had died 12 years earlier in 1945, he'd become obsessed with the idea of literally becoming her, or at least becoming a woman that resembled her. After Gein's story went public, the case became a media sensation. This wasn't just murder. This was something that seemed to come from the darkest corners of human psychology. Gein was found mentally incompetent to stand trial and spent the rest of his life in a psychiatric institution. He died in 1984. But his legacy that lives on in horror cinema forever. Ed Gein inspired multiple horror films, including Psycho's Norman Bates, Leatherface's Human Skin masks in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Buffalo Bill's Woman suit in the Silence of the Lambs. The idea of someone repurposing human bodies for their own twisted purposes has become a staple of the genre. Tusk takes that concept and cranks it up to 11. Because Howard doesn't kill Wallace, he transforms him, reshapes him into something else entirely. Sure, it's rare and extreme, but the idea behind it is all too human. It's about a storyteller becoming a victim. And sadly, that's not new. In March 2023, a woman named Zori Sadegi was living in the city of Redmond, Washington, about 15 miles northeast of Seattle. 33 year old Zori hosted a podcast aimed at Farsi speaking people trying to break into the tech industry. It was smart, impactful, and important. Slowly but surely, she built a community of dedicated listeners who relied on her insights to improve their own lives. But one of Those people, a 38 year old truck driver from Texas named Ramin, wasn't tuning in because he wanted to switch careers. He was listening to Zoe's podcast because he was obsessed with her. According to court documents, the two initially struck up what seemed like a normal online friendship. They'd messaged back and forth about the podcast, about life, just casual conversations. But then something shifted. Romin started sending more and more messages. A lot more. And in November 2022, Zuri realized this wasn't normal. She politely asked him to leave her alone. But Ramin didn't stop. She blocked his phone number, so he got a different phone number and kept texting. She blocked all of his social media accounts, so he created fake accounts and kept messaging. This guy could not take no for an answer. My guy, take a hand. One day, he sent 82 messages through a single app. 82 in voicemails. Ramin would cry and beg Zuri to pick up the phone. He threatened to burn himself. He said he'd burn the tree in front of her house. He demanded she either delete her Instagram account or make it public so that he could see what she was posting. It was clear Romin wasn't just a fan anymore. He was a stalker and a dangerous one. And the harassment didn't end with Zawary either. Between November and February, Ramin started contacting her husband, Milad Nazari. Ramin also reached out to her friends, her neighbors. He booked rooms at hotels near her house just to be close to her. He'd park on her street, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. Then, In December of 2022, about a month after Zuri told Ramin to stop stop contacting her, he showed up at her house and left flowers on the doorstep. Zori called the police, and they took a report, but nothing changed. Ramin kept sending gifts through February 2023, kept messaging, kept calling. On March 2, a warrant was finally issued for his arrest. Ramin was charged with one count of misdemeanor stalking and two counts of telephone harassment. The next day, a judge granted Zory's request for a restraining order. She described Ramin as having bursts of anger and being completely delusional. In her filing, Zuri said he has said many times that nothing short of his own death would make him leave me alone. So I would like the order to last as long as possible. Ramin was ordered to surrender any weapons he had from his home and stay away from her. But there was one big problem. He lived out of state in Texas, and police weren't able to serve him the order in person. What, so he never knew about it? Or if he did, he didn't care. And he was about to escalate things to a deadly new level. The next week, Ramin drove from Texas to Washington. That's more than 2,000 miles. On March 10, 2023, he broke into Zuri's home in Redmond and shot and her husband. Both were killed. Zoary's mother was in the house and managed to escape calling 911 from a neighbor's home. When police arrived, they found Ramin dead from a self inflicted gunshot wound. Redmond Police Chief Darnell Lowe said it was the absolute worst outcome for a stalking case. And here's the thing that makes this so heartbreaking. Zori had done everything right. She asked Ramin to stop. She blocked him. She documented everything. She'd gone to the police. She'd filed a protection order. She followed every piece of advice we give to stalking victims. And still, he found a way to kill her. All because Zoe hosted a podcast. All because one listener decided she was his. And sadly, there are other stories like hers.
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Welcome to our ugly home. Reddit is back for a historically hideous season. It's our 100th ugly house. This place is mayhem. That is impressive. And if these walls could talk. Do you cry a lot?
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I do.
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They'd have a lot to say. What in God's name is this pit. Don't get too close if you've seen the show. I'm scared of that. Ugliest House in America Season premiere Wednesday at 8 on HGTV.
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On August 10, 2017, a Swedish journalist named Kim Wall was in Copenhagen, Denmark, preparing for the next chapter of her life. Kim was 30 years old, accomplished and fearless in her reporting. She'd written for the New York Times, the Guardian, the Atlantic, Time magazine and Vice. Kim had reported from war zones in remote locations all over the world. Her work focused on identity subcultures and social justice. One friend described her as someone who looked for quirky stories, but with a bigger narrative, the kind of journalist who would find meaning in the unusual. On that day in August, Kim and her boyfriend Ol Stobie were planning a going away party. They were moving to Beijing in less than a week, but where Kim would continue her freelance work. But earlier that year, Kim had reached out to a Danish inventor named Peter Madsen. She wanted to interview him about his amateur space program. It was the exact kind of unique, offbeat story that she loved. A self taught engineer building submarines and rockets in Denmark. It doesn't get better than that. 47 year old Madsen had built the submarine himself, a 60 foot vessel called UC3 Nautilus. He was charismatic, eccentric and he co founded an amateur space program called Copenhagen Suborbitals. Kim had been trying to arrange an interview for months. Then on the afternoon of August 10, just six days before her move to Beijing, Matson finally responded. He sent her a message in English. The ship is ready and in good shape. Just waiting for the Wired reporter. Kim had mentioned she might pitch the story to Wired magazine. So that's how he referred to her. Kim responded, amazing. I'm only a few minutes away. She left her apartment and headed to the harbor. The plan was simple. A two hour interview trip in the waters near Copenhagen. She'd be back in time for the going away party. She boarded the submarine at around 7pm Kim texted her boyfriend pictures of the submarine. Her last message that went out after 8pm local time was in hindsight, she chilling it, said, I'm still alive. She probably meant it as a joke. You know, I'm on a submarine with a stranger, but don't worry, I'm fine. But after that silence. When Ol couldn't reach Kim later that night, he started to worry. He looked for her, called her phone repeatedly. At 1.43am, six and a half hours after she boarded, he called the police to report her missing. The next morning, the Nautilus was spotted in a bay southeast of Copenhagen. It was sinking. Rescue teams rushed to the scene and pulled Madsen from the water. He was alone. The submarine sank shortly after. But where was Kim Wall? Madsen's story kept changing. First, he said he dropped her off safely on land after the interview, just left her at a dock somewhere and sailed away. The police. Police were not buying it. They didn't know what happened to Kim yet, but they were sure that Madsen was involved, so they arrested him. Then his story changed. He said Kim had died in an accident when she was hit by a heavy hatch cover on the submarine. He'd panicked and buried her at sea. Then the story changed again. Now he claimed that Kim had inhaled poisonous exhaust fumes while he was above on deck. He tried to save her, but couldn't. While detectives were trying to get a straight answer out of Madsen, Kim's family and boyfriend were getting desperate. Search and rescue teams worked around the clock, but there was no sign of her. Then, on August 21, 11 days after Kim disappeared, her loved ones got the news they'd been dreading. A cyclist had found Kim's torso washed up on a beach. It had been weighed down with metal, an obvious attempt to keep it from resurfacing. But it had broken free and floated to the shore. And it only got worse from there. A Postmortem examination found 15 stab wounds on the torso, mostly concentrated in the groin area. There were no signs of blunt force trauma to the skull. So the hit by a hatch story was a lie. There were no signs of exhaust fumes in her lungs. So these. That had to be fake, too. What really happened was far more brutal. Over the following months, more of Kim's remains were found in the water around Copenhagen. Her head, her legs, her arms. They had been weighed down the same way as her torso, tied to metal objects to keep them from surfacing. Investigators also made another disturbing discovery. Videos on Matson's computer. They were of women being tortured hours before Kim boarded the submarine. Matson had terms like beheading girl and agony. On his phone, he'd watched a video of a woman having her throat slit. Matson denied these videos were his. He claimed that someone else must have put them on his computer. But the evidence was overwhelming. In March 2018, his trial began. It was one of the most high profile cases in Danish history. International media covered every moment of it. Prosecutors argued that Madsen had killed Kim as a part of a sadistic sexual fantasy, that he lured her onto the submarine specifically to murder her Madsen's defense tried to say it was an accident, that he'd only dismembered her body to dispose of it. But the jury didn't believe them. And on April 25, 2018, Peter Madsen was convicted of premeditated murder, aggravated sexual assault, and desecrating a corpse. He was sentenced to life in prison, one of only 25 people in Denmark serving that sentence. For two years, he maintained his innocence. He appealed the conviction. He gave interviews claiming he'd been wrongfully accused. But in September 2020, in a Danish documentary called the Secret Recordings with Peter Madsen, he finally admitted the truth. When asked directly if he killed Kim Wall, he answered, yes. There is only one who is guilty, he said, and that is me. Peter Matson will spend the rest of his life behind bars. But Kim's legacy lives on. Kim Wall's family and friends established the Kim Wall Memorial Fund to support female journalists. Kyle covering culturally important stories around the world. Every year on the anniversary of her death, people around the world participate in a memorial run in her honor. Her parents publish a book about her life called A Silenced Voice. But none of that brings Kim back. She went to interview an inventor aboard his submarine. She thought she was safe. She thought it was just another story. Quirky, but ultimately harmless. But then she never came home. Kim trusted a stranger and paid with her life. But our next story, it hits much closer to home. Our next case is so recent that it's still making headlines as I record this. In August 2025, a 30 year old woman named Ali Lauren, which is an alias given to her by news outlets, was living in Perth, Australia with her fiance, 32 year old Tobias Nuttall. Tobias was a podcaster. He co hosted a show called Waking World with a British man named Dale Penny. On the show, they covered things like the occult and spirituality, JFK's assassination, MKUltra, COVID 19, all the things that people make up conspiracy theories about. According to its Apple podcast description, the show was where reality gets a reality check. They also had guests from time to time. In July, Ally joined Tobias and Dale on Waking World. She talked openly about growing up in New Zealand, moving to Australia as a child when her parents wanted a better life for their family and her experience working in the sex industry. During that episode, Tobias told listeners they'd recently gotten engaged. He also praised Ali's vulnerability. He said, Ali has been really, really awesome in terms of the level of transparency that goes into something like this. He sounded proud, happy, completely in love. Six weeks later, on August 20, 2020, five police received a call at 12:30pm There was a serious incident at a home on Reed street in Basendene, a suburb of Perth. When officers arrived, they found Allie Lauren. She suffered serious stab wounds. She was rushed to Royal Perth Hospital in critical condition, but it was too late. She ultimately died from her injuries. Tobias was arrested at the scene and charged with Ali's murder. He was covered in blood. On August 22, he appeared in Perth Magistrate Court. He spoke only to confirm his name. He did not enter a plea. He has remained in custody since then and as of this recording, his case is still moving forward. His co host Dale Penny, addressed the situation in a later episode. His voice was shaky, clearly in shock. Dale said Toby had been charged with a very, very serious offense over in Perth and it involves obviously his partner, his girlfriend that we had on the podcast. I know very little about it. Dale went on to describe how they met two years earlier, when Tobias was working as a barista. They bonded over shared interests and spirituality in the occult. But Dale also shared some disturbing revelations with his listeners. He said Tobias family hadn't approved of his relationship with Ali. He claimed that Tobias spends most of his time probably on amphetamines of some nature. Zori Sadeghi had worked hard to build an audience. One listener became obsessed. Even though she knew the danger, and even though she did everything that she could to protect herself, he still still found a way to kill her. Kim Wall planned to interview an eccentric inventor for what should have been a routine story. She was an experienced journalist who reported from war zones. She never imagined that the true danger was hiding in plain sight. Ali Lauren appeared on her fiance's podcast, trusting the man she planned to marry. Six weeks later, she was dead and in Tusk. Wallace is a podcaster who traveled to interview a strange old man with incredible stories. He thinks he found great content for his show. Instead, he becomes the content, surgically mutilated and transformed into something unrecognizable. The movie is absurd, grotesque and deeply unsettling. But it taps into a real fear that anyone in the storytelling world understands what happens when you invite the wrong person into your life, when you trust someone that you shouldn't. Because when you're a journalist, a podcaster, a content creator, you're constantly putting yourself out there. You're talking to strangers, you're building relationships with people you've never met face to face. Zori Kim and Ali did what we were all told to do in the digital age. Put yourself out there, build community and connect with people. And that vulnerability made them visible, made them accessible, made them targets. As someone who tells stories for a living, these cases resonate with me on a deeper level. It's hard to come to terms with the fact that you never know who's listening. So keep sharing, but stay vigilant. And no matter what, stay far, far away from Craigslist Ads by Walrus Obsessed Old men. Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of Twisted Tales, a Crime House original. I'd love to hear from you. What did you think about today's stories? And honestly, I want to know. Would you have answered the walrus ad if you thought it was real? Be honest, leave a comment or review wherever you're tuning in. And make sure to follow Twisted Tales so we can keep building this community together. I'll be back next week with another unbelievable true story. Until then, stay curious and remember, there's no reason to fear the dark unless you try to hide from it.
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Looking for your next listen? Hi, it's Vanessa Richardson and I have exciting news. Conspiracy theories, cults and crimes is leveling up starting the week of January 12th 12th. You'll be getting two episodes every week. Wednesdays we unravel the conspiracy or the cult, and on Fridays we look at a corresponding crime. Follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen.