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Natalia Grace: The Orphan | #305 Jul 06, 2023

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In 2009, the horror movie Orphan told the story of a couple who take in a creepy child from a Russian orphanage who – spoiler alert – turns out to be a psychopathic adult woman.

And just a year after the film’s release, real life seemed to echo fiction when the Barnetts, a wealthy American family, adopted a 6-year-old girl named Natalia Grace from Ukraine…Only to abandon her and flee to Canada within just 3 years.

Why? Because according to the Barnetts, Natalia – who had a rare form of dwarfism – wasn’t a little girl at all. She was actually a 22-year-old woman dead-set on killing their whole family.

In this hotly-disputed case, we explore the allegations, the evidence, and how one girl found herself at the centre of one of the weirdest true-crime mysteries in recent memory.

Let’s just say that in this story, nothing is quite as it seems…

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The Richardson Family Murders: Groomed to Kill | #304 Jun 29, 2023

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Violently stabbed to death in their own home, the bodies of Debra and Marc Richardson showed signs of a desperate struggle. Upstairs lay the body of their 8-year-old son, Tyler. Their 12-year-old daughter, Jasmine, was nowhere to be found.

Believing they were investigating a brutal home invasion, police launched a race against time to find the missing girl…

What they uncovered instead was a deeply disturbing case involving manipulation, fantasy, and a relationship that should never have existed – between a vulnerable tween goth and her allegedly centuries-old werewolf ‘boyfriend’.

Tried alongside 23-year-old predator Jeremy Steinke, Jasmine Richardson became the youngest person ever convicted of multiple murder in Canada, in a case the country would never forget.

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Antony Gignac: Prince of Fraud | #303 Jun 22, 2023

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How did a Colombian-born orphan become one of the most audacious con artists the United States has ever seen?

Starting his shapeshifting career in Michigan at the age of just 12, Anthony Gignac transformed himself into a Saudi prince and spent three decades conning society’s elite out of millions…

Until one day in 2017, when he ordered the wrong entrée at a restaurant – and a schoolboy error brought down one of history’s most notorious swindlers.

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The Grenfell Tower Fire: Failed By The State | #302 Jun 15, 2023

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On 14th June 2017, a catastrophic fire engulfed Grenfell Tower, a high-rise residential building in West London.

72 people died, including 18 children. The tragedy became one of the darkest days in recent British history.

But worst of all? A damning public inquiry found that the disaster – and the loss of life – was completely avoidable.

This is the story of how decades of government corruption and corporate greed led to the deaths of 72 innocent people: with an outraged community demanding justice.

To support those still affected by the Grenfell tragedy, we’ve donated a portion of our ad revenue from this episode to the Grenfell Foundation.

To find out more, please follow this link: https://www.grenfellfoundation.org.uk/fundraising

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Tupac & Biggie Part 2: Rivalry, Revenge and Gangster Rap Murder | #301 Jun 08, 2023

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In our second instalment exploring one of music’s biggest true-crime mysteries, we turn the spotlight on Christopher Latore Wallace – better known as Biggie Smalls, or the Notorious B.I.G.

Lyrically gifted, privately educated and no stranger to a little crack dealing, Biggie became the face of the prestigious East Coast rap scene at the height of its deadliest era.

So what really happened to Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls? As H&S find out, sometimes the simplest explanation is the most likely…

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FROM THE VAULT - Kathleen Folbigg & Patricia Stallings: Mothers Not Killers | #257 Jun 05, 2023

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With the news that Kathleen Folbigg has finally been pardoned, we wanted to help you revisit this case, and Kathleen's incredibly tragic story by re-uploading our episode from August 2022.

The theory “1 sudden infant death is a tragedy, 2 is suspicious and 3 is murder” has pervaded criminal investigations for decades – so when Kathleen Folbigg’s daughter, Laura, became her fourth to die mysteriously, Kathleen found herself labeled “Australia’s Worst Female Serial Killer”. Today the girls delve into two unbelievable miscarrriages of justice – mothers wrongfully convicted of killing their children – which highlight the immense challenges of the intersection between science and justice in the courtroom.

And discover how a series of bizarre circumstances and medical anomalies could have led to the deaths of 5 babies and the imprisonment of two women.

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Tupac & Biggie Part 1: Hip-Hop's Deadliest Feud | #300 Jun 01, 2023

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In the 1990s, hip-hop’s most legendary beef turned deadly.

As the East Coast-West Coast rap feud spiralled out of control, Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. became targets in a war driven by clashing egos, heated rivalry and gang violence.

Within six months of each other, both were killed in drive-by shootings. No one has ever been convicted for their murders.

In the first of our two-part series, we’re lifting the lid on Tupac Shakur: poet, provocateur, and poster boy of the West Coast hip-hop scene, who met his end in a blaze of bullets in Las Vegas.

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Episode 299 - La Maison de L'Horreur: The Dupont de Ligonnès Family Murder May 25, 2023

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When five members of the cheery, churchgoing Dupont de Ligonnès family were found dead at their home in Nantes – buried in the garden with small Catholic relics – a million questions erupted from neighbours, family and friends.

But for the police, only one question mattered: where was the sixth? Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès was nowhere to be found. And as they dug into his past, they uncovered a story that’s obsessed the nation of France for years: one of an ancient aristocratic dynasty, of international espionage, and a crime scene that, decades later, still refuses to add up…

TRIAL UPDATE & REUPLOAD: Episode 180 - Lori Vallow: Doomsday May 22, 2023

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To make sure that none of you miss out we've updated our episode on Lori Vallow to include an update on her trial! Listen to this episode and this week's episode of ShortHand for the full scoop.

47-year-old mum of 3, Lori Vallow was convinced of two things; she was a god and the world was ending. Her job was to prepare her people for the second coming of Christ, in July 2020...

But even as her behaviour became increasingly erratic, and even as those around her started to die in mysterious ways, and even when 2 of her kids - J.J. and Tylee - vanished, it took a shockingly long time for the alarm to be raised.

By which point, it would be far too late for the missing children...

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Episode 298 - Papa Doc: Haiti’s Vodou Dictator May 18, 2023

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What kind of leader would say of his own people that they are “meant to suffer”? Well, maybe a savage despot who claimed to be the master of the dead – a powerful sorcerer who could use vodou to raise murderous zombies at will, read minds, and even assassinate a US president…

Francois Duvalier, known as ‘Papa Doc’, is one of the most ruthless dictators of the 20th Century, responsible for the deaths of an estimated 60,000 people, and a reign of terror that tragically reverberates through Haiti to this day.

This week Hannah and Suruthi find out how the first nation to be founded by slaves gave way to brutal Black nationalism, black magic, and decades of public savagery.

Note for Wondery+ or Amazon Music subscribers downloading our early-release episode: our ShortHand on Haitian Vodou is out on 16 May!

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