Tag Archives: True Crime

True Crime

The Papin Sisters

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This episode of Strange Matters presents a particularly disturbing crime that took place in the early 20th century, in France.   The story involves two sisters who worked as maids for an upper class family.  The Papin Sisters had been employed by the family for seven years, and had been described as idyllic workers.   Things weren’t as perfect as it seemed, however.   A sudden and gruesome act by the sisters would shock the country of France, and would be regarded as one of the worst crimes committed in the century.  This episode will go over the history and background of the Papin Sisters, the details of their terrible crime, and the aftermath of the event that would quickly become the top story of its time.

Click here to check out Strange Matter’s episode on the condition known as Shared Psychosis.

History, True Crime

The Fox

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Fate.  Death.  The Fox.   The various nicknames signed by a man who sent out ransom notes regarding the kidnapping of a twelve year old girl named Marion Parker.

This episode of Strange Matters discusses the terrifying and disturbing events surrounding an infamous kidnapping case that took place in Los Angeles in 1927.   A young girl named Marion Parker was abducted by a smooth talking man, right from her own school.  Meanwhile, her father would be contacted by the same man demanding ransom money.  This individual would become commonly known as The Fox.  This disturbing case would ultimately be referred to at the time as the “Crime of the Century.”  This episode goes over all the details of the kidnapping, the investigation of the police trying to figure out who the Fox was, and the tragic outcome of this dark crime.

True Crime

Sleepwalking Murders

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In this episode of Strange Matters the bizarre and unusual topic of crimes involving sleepwalking murders is discussed.  Though hard to imagine, in rare instances of homicide crimes an individual is actually capable of brutal and violent murder, all the while remaining asleep.  Though many have tried and failed to use the “sleepwalking defense” through the years, for a select few cases the actions of the killer, and the science behind the condition, do show that a person is perfectly capable of murdering others while sleepwalking.

The idea that people were capable of killing in their sleep has been around for hundreds of years, but very rarely has it been successful in defending the accused.  Many have tried to claim they were in a parasomnia state at the time they committed murder, but due to the scientific and behavioral studies of the modern world it is known their actions could not have been done while sleepwalking.  However, there are a small number of cases where the most likely and agreed upon theory is that the murderer was actually asleep during the entirety of their crime.

True Crime, Unsolved Crime, Unsolved Mystery

The Keddie Cabin Murders

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The Keddie Cabin Murders is a disturbing quadruple homicide that took place in Keddie, California.  This infamous unsolved crime involves the murder of several family members in a cabin in the late night of April 11, 1981.  This brutal murder case is notorious not just for its dark and gruesome nature, but also for the fact that many believe the investigation was a failure and the main suspects were allowed to be let go despite the large amount of evidence against them.

Sue Sharp and her five children had recently moved from the east coast to California following a troubled marriage.  Sue would rent a cabin in the sparsely populate Keddie area, a run down town in a county that had a rampant drug problem.  On the morning of April 12, Sheila,  the oldest daughter, returned to the family cabin.  Sheila never could have imagined that when the door opened she would find three bloody corpses laying in the main room.  Even more disturbing, her younger sister Tina was no where to be found.

The police investigation has been noted as being quite poor and incompetent, law enforcement missing physical evidence and ignoring other pieces that should have been looked at further.  The following interrogations of the primary suspects was handled in a confusingly half hearted way, the men who were thought to have been the culprits were allowed to simply leave without any follow up actions to their shady statements made about the crime.  To this day the mystery of the Keddie Murders is still unsolved, but the continued work into the case has many hopeful that someday we will finally get the full story on what happened in that cabin on that fateful night.