Betsy Boss Podcast

Join the Betsy Boss hosts for a whirlwind adventure with a “cult following” - it’s the story of NXIVM (pronounced “Nexium” for all you fans of the purple pill) and its manipulative mastermind leader, Keith Raniere. Join us to learn how the self-help group became a cult and recruited everyone from Hollywood royalty to actual royalty in a time not so long ago. We’ll also discuss how you can be anything you want (including a record holder in the Guinness Book) if you just believe in yourself, wear a sweatband and play a ton of intramural-level volleyball. Even now that Raniere is in the clink, he’s got mindless drones around the world ready to perform tasks on demand.

Betsy Boss returns for its Season 2 Premiere with something brand new to the show - an interview of a fabulous Philadelphian woman who’s making a difference through social media! The Instagram page is called @watchoutphilly and it seeks to provide a forum for Philadelphia’s womxn to come together and warn one another about potentially dangerous people committing street harassment and other dangerous acts against womxn. The Instagram page acts as a liaison between police, survivors and witnesses, providing a support system and, when necessary, relaying critical information to law enforcement. Through her work, @watchoutphilly’s curator has assisted Philadelphia’s police in arresting a particularly harmful street harasser who would likely have gone unpunished without the reporting and community of her page. She has high aspirations and even higher potential, and she’s absolutely someone to WATCH OUT for!

It’s part 2 to our mischief night/Halloween spectacular and we’re serving up more than tricks and treats - we’ll be doling out the details of what we think is the most interesting part of this case: the aftermath. And speaking of scary, we’ll be giving our own impressions of the pre-election nervous energy that plagued the country before we learned who our new president elect would be! When we’re done, M&M won’t just make you think of the Mars candy; you’ll be thinking of our girl Martha Moxley!

Whether you call it mischief night, goosey night, moving night or something else entirely, you know that October 30th is a night filled with fun, friends and pranks. But on the night before Halloween, 1975, Martha Moxley had an evening that was anything but fun - and it wasn’t because she got her house teepeed with toilet paper! We’re “teeing up” a haunting tale for Halloween that’ll have you shaking in your boots. Though many have their theories, there was only one murderer. Do you know who it was? If this was a game of Clue, would you be scamming after Skakel with the Six Iron or longing for Littleton in the lounge? Don’t worry, even though this episode has a lot of tricks, it’ll still be a treat. Rush(ton Skakel) to iTunes or Spotify to listen now!

The 90s were a chaotic time. Fat was out and thin was in, and to get thin everyone knew what you had to do: replace ice cream with frozen yogurt! Too bad the frozen yogurt, devoid of fat content, was loaded with sugar and just as many calories as the full-fat stuff! In any event, if you were a cool teen in the 90s, you worked at a yogurt shop. If you were really cool, you had sleepovers scheduled every weekend. And if you were ice cold, you had both. The teens in this story were cool enough to have the jobs and the plans, but sadly not the adult supervision that could have saved them from their frozen fate. This terrifying tale shows what happens when you combine fire and ice: you get an explosive story. Tune in to help us solve the mystery: who committed the yogurt shop murders?

It is often the goal of our shows to educate our listeners on certain topics or people, but this podcast is intended to make you “SMART” by sharing the story of kidnapping victim, Elizabeth Smart. Smart says she has not only survived but also thrived after she was discovered and escaped from her captors. But what kept Elizabeth quiet when she was held only a few miles away from her family home? How did her kidnappers get away with taking Elizabeth to parties, stores, and roadsides? We’ll use this episode to delve into the complicated world of brainwashing and mind control, and to provide clarity as to how this terrible crime was committed. We will also share a Philadelphia original story of a 7-year-old girl who escaped certain death using nothing but her teeth, her legs, and a little Philly grit.

Today on Betsy Boss, we delve into the mystery surrounding the death of the People’s Princess, Princess Diana. Was her death an unfortunate accident or are the conspiracy theories correct in claiming that there was more to the story? Of all the questions we ask ourselves about the late Princess Diana, the most pressing and perhaps the most vexing is, of course, was she an Eagles fan? Many say that Lady Di’s fascination with and sporting of the Eagles name was just a color preference, but in all sincerity, we at Betsy Boss think the answer must have been yes. Fly Eagles Fly.

A real-life “Gone Girl” or an actual kidnapping? Betsy Boss is taking you on a journey to decide! When Denise Huskins’ boyfriend gave his account of her disappearance, police thought his story sounded “all wet.” The police didn’t waste any time in putting out an inflammatory statement to the media about how shameful the apparently-fake kidnapping was. But once they adjusted their goggles and took a “deep dive,” investigators realized that the “whale of a tale” was just crazy enough to be true. Sadly, it took another attempted kidnapping by the same band of Scuba Steves for the cops to understand that they would have been “swimming” in evidence if they only took the time to look for it! Join Betsy Boss “10,000 leagues under the sea” to investigate Denise’s kidnapper - the ultimate “Moby Dick!”

If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably realizing how far down the rabbit hole Betsy Boss has gone on its #1 suspect, George Hodel. But this tale was far from over after Part I, because this is one murder mystery that isn’t (Elizabeth) Short. In Part I, we told you about Elizabeth Short and her big city dreams of becoming a star. We told you that those dreams were cast asunder when Elizabeth was ruthlessly and symbolically murdered. In Part II, we’ll tell you who we think did the crime, and why he didn’t do the time. Get ready for a Hollywood-worthy story to shake the ages!

Why so serious? Allow the Betsy Boss ladies to introduce you to the first rule of murder mysteries; “it’s never a mannequin!” Just like there were two halves of Elizabeth Short discovered after her vicious murder and hemicorpectomy, there are two parts to this episode. In the “top half” we’ll discuss Elizabeth Short’s early life, her hunger for fame and why she was given the nickname “Black Dahlia.” We also discuss how Elizabeth’s body was discovered, the way it was staged, and what the handling and positioning of the body might tell us about the murderer. Brace yourself for the “bottom half,” when we’ll discuss suspects; we’ll let you in on who we think killed the Black Dahlia, and why he was never brought to justice.