A Glimpse of Hell: Recent Episodes
Rachel Jay & Matthew Ducza
Crime is fascinating. Join us in our discussions of people on the outskirts of humanity who abandon its morals and laws. Hosted by Rachal Jay and Matthew Ducza.
Emmett Till was an African American adolescent who was savagely beaten by two grown men, shot and thrown into a river. His 'crime', depending on the source, was whistling or flirting with the white storekeeper who worked at a general store in remote Mississippi where Emmett was visiting relatives. Almost as shocking as the murder itself was that Emmett's two killers were acquitted by a jury and later gave an interview openly discussing their crime. This episode is as much a discussion of the times in which this horrible crime occurred as the incident itself.
“Lizzie Borden took an axe
Gave her Mother Forty Wacks
When she saw what She had done
She gave her father forty one”
A catchy rhyme, but even if Lizzie Borden were guilty of hacking her father and step mother, of which she was acquitted, these lines do not match the details of the mysterious case at all. Available on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts
Atlanta, Georgia 1913. A girl, not even fourteen, was murdered and dragged through a basement in the pencil factory where she worked. Her hair and face and body were covered in dirt and dust. The factory Director was prosecuted for the girl's murder, his fate determined largely because he was Jewish. His death sentence was eventually commuted to life in prison because evidence did not hold up to scrutiny. That was not acceptable to an elite group of law and government officials who organised an elaborate raid on the prison where the Jewish industrialist was being held. They brought him out of prison to a remote forest and lynched him from a tree. The following day crowds came to stare at the hanging body and pictures were taken as if the corpse were a local tourist attraction, which it was effectively. That is the story of Leo Frank and Mary Phagan.
Georgia Tann was a monster responsible for removing thousands of babies from their parents. Sometimes Tann kidnapped babies herself. Other times one of her many accomplices tricked parents into thinking that their babies were dead using falsified records. Tann stopped at nothing to continue bringing in new children for her highly profitable adoption scheme, adopting out children to elite families all over America while climbing the social ladder in Tennessee. Her clients often included movie stars like Joan Crawford, ignorant of their adopted baby's origins and willing to hand over huge sums of money in desperation to become parents.
King Leopold II of Belgium (1835-1909) outdid Hitler himself in causing atrocities. Not only did he cause millions more deaths than the Holocaust, but every drop of blood spilled on Leopold’s behalf was done in a country that he himself never set foot. In the lead up to the Scramble for Africa Leopold organised a core group of global powers to enable him to establish the Congo Free State. The State was branded as a selfless mission for establishing civilisation, Christianity and freedom of global trade in central Africa. The reality was that Leopold had hoodwinked the international community into enabling him absolute power over a resource rich land, particularly of ivory and rubber, that was not even Belgium’s, but Leopold’s own private colony. The king created a chain of command that forced the native community to unsustainably exploit its resources through a system of executions, ransom and maiming. Notoriously the guards were required to provide a hand as proof of a kill for every bullet used. All wastage of cartridges was punished and consequently many hands were severed from living persons.
He, although even gender is uncertain, is the most famous of all serial killers. Yet we do not know who the killer is. The title Jack the Ripper came from an unethical journalist who wrote a false letter claiming to be the Whitechapel murderer and the name stuck. Of the cases that are linked to him with reasonable certainty, all five of Jack the Ripper's victims were impoverished sex workers living in one of London's poorest regions. Their hard lives met even worse fates when they were strangled and clumsily butchered. London was one of the most modern cities in the world when the murders occurred in 1888. But the height of commerce, expanding education, transport and strength of the Royal Navy were of little aid to the impoverished Whitechapel district, dominated by cheap pubs and brothels, where society's perceived enemies were left out of sight whenever possible. Jack the Ripper has inspired writers and filmmakers for more than one hundred years now with the concept of a sadistic murderer stalking the streets at night. Despite some interesting research in DNA technology the true culprit will probably never be known without any reasonable doubt. More is known about Jack the Ripper's victims than Jack himself, unlike many other notable murderers, sadly that is the only positive that can be drawn from this story. Available on Youtube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
We apologise for any disruptions in audio caused by our needing to record remotely to comply with COVID conditions.
Jim Jones cared about himself and nothing else. His destructive tendencies and the compulsion to exploit others led to him being responsible for the single largest cause of deliberate American death until 9/11 more than two decades later. From the beginning Jones took hold of any platform that he could use to fuel his vanity. During Jim's childhood through the Great Depression religion was his passion and he became notorious in his community for the funerals he would give for animals. Jones' love for theatrics would carry on into adulthood when he used staged faith healings and mind control tactics to pull large congregations by deceit into the unique blend of cult and communism that he developed. He pulled almost a thousand faithful into a new town in Guyana, named after himself, to escape increased attention from authorities and the press about the culture of abuse, corporal punishment, blackmail and corruption he led in his church. Conditions were brutal enough on their own. But he forced all residents to go through suicide drills in anticipation of laying down their lives in 'revolutionary suicide' in protest against enemies that were at best grossly exaggerated. Eventually the threat of mass suicide came through in 1978. Jones could have been one of the greatest civil rights activists who ever lived had he used his skills with politicians and the general public to not serve selfish needs. It was not to be.
The pen is mightier than the sword they say. If that is the case then Adolf Eichmann, one of they key bureaucrats responsible for organising the Holocaust, abused the pen’s power to its fullest extent.
We apologise for the poor audio quality. At the time of recording Covid restrictions forced us to record remotely.
Ted Bundy is without doubt one of the most evil individuals to have ever existed. A murderer, rapist and necrophile, Bundy took the lives of approximately thirty women by conservative estimates. He was the stereotype of the sadistic murderer who appeared to almost everyone on the surface to be the perfect boy next door. A law student with good looks and the gift of charm, even when all the overwhelming evidence was presented against Bundy there were still plenty of young women who were attracted to the accused murderer they saw standing in the dock and were willing to say so to the news cameras.