Although there are plenty of disturbing personalities on social media, few are as vicious, and as influential, as Andrew Tate.

Tate, who began his career as a professional kickboxer, rose to prominence in the late 2010s as a social media influencer and self-described misogynist. On TikTok, his videos have been viewed billions of times, mostly by young men. 

Over the last couple of years, as Tate’s influence has spread, a growing body of evidence has emerged that his digital empire wasn’t just corrosive – it may have been criminal. In 2023, Romanian authorities charged Andrew Tate, and his brother Tristan, with rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal organization to sexually exploit women. 

But before any of that came to light, two journalists received a tip about Tate back in 2019. That tip would send Jamie Tahsin and Matt Shea on a four year odyssey into the bizarre and disturbing subculture of Andrew Tate’s manosphere, which they document in their new book Clown World. 

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In 1989, on a quiet night in Beverly Hills California, Jose and Kitty Menendez were gunned down in their living room.

At first, police thought Jose – a hotshot entertainment executive – had been involved in some shady business dealings. But it wasn’t long before we learned what really happened: Jose and Kitty had been murdered by their own sons. 

The trials of Lyle and Erik Menendez captivated the world, and ultimately ended with both brothers being sentenced to life without parole.

Today, more than 35 years after the killings, the Menendez brothers have come back into the public consciousness, in part because new evidence has emerged that could lead to the brothers walking free. 

Before all this though – before the brothers were even considered suspects – a Miami Herald reporter named Robert Rand flew to Beverly Hills to write a profile on the late Jose Menendez. That fateful trip resulted in Rand being swept up in one of the most shocking murder trials of the 20th century. 

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On Oct. 3, 1980, a bomb exploded outside the Rue Copernic synagogue in Paris, killing four people and injuring 46.

The attack sparked outrage and protests against anti-semitic violence. But as weeks turned to years, the investigation went nowhere.

Finally, French investigators named Hassan Diab, a Lebanese-Canadian professor, as its main suspect. 28 years years after the attack, Diab was charged and extradited from Canada to France. But did the police arrest the right person?

Alex Atack and Dana Ballout from the podcast, The Copernic Affair, join Crime Story.

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Michael Jackson might be the most famous pop star of all time. With more than 500 million records sold, it’s hard to overstate his impact on popular culture, and on the generation of fans who grew up with his music.

His strange personal life became part of his mystique. He occasionally slept in an oxygen chamber, and he collected exotic animals, including a pet monkey named Bubbles. But there were darker stories as well. Stories about him abusing young boys.

In 1993, Jackson was publicly accused of molesting a child. In 2003, there was another accusation, and this time he was arrested.

Despite all of this, Jackson’s fans remained fiercely loyal to him right up to his death in 2009. 

Then, in 2019, director Dan Reed released a documentary called Leaving Neverland that profiled two men who alleged they had been abused by Jackson. The documentary was a watershed moment. For the first time, it seemed like people might finally be willing to reckon with who the King of Pop really was, and the things he might have done.  

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In the summer of 2021, Tabatha Pope and her boyfriend were living out of a cheap motel, struggling to make ends meet. Then, she found an affordable apartment just outside downtown Houston, and it seemed like her luck was finally turning around. 

But when she moved in, something wasn’t right. There were buckets on the floor filled with a thick, red substance that looked a lot like blood, and crimson stains on the walls. It was clear that something terrible had happened here. And as she learned more, Tabatha came to a disturbing conclusion: the perpetrator may have been the person she thought was her landlord.

In a feature for New York magazine, Ian Frisch recounts the surreal story of Tabatha Pope’s nightmare on West Clay Street. 

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In real life, bank robberies are not nearly as sexy and dramatic as the movies make them out to be. They're usually poorly planned acts of desperation. Tony Hathaway was desperate, but he was smart. By the time he was caught - he'd pulled off thirty robberies in just over a year. This week on Crime Story, Josh Dean from the podcast, Hooked, explores why Tony Hathaway became one of America's most prolific bank robbers.

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In 2015, Larry Driskill confessed to a murder he swears he did not commit. There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime, and he didn’t know the victim, a 29-year-old woman named Bobbie Sue Hill. And yet, ten years after her murder, Driskill found himself in a police station describing how he disposed of her body in a creek in Parker County, Texas. 

The man sitting across from Driskill was James Holland, a Texas Ranger who later became known as a “serial killer whisperer" for his ability to procure seemingly impossible confessions from serious criminals. After interrogating Driskill for hours, Holland was convinced he had the right guy. But in the podcast, Just Say You’re Sorry, reporter and host Maurice Chammah reveals just how wrong he was.  

This week on Crime Story, Maurice Chammah on the confession that sent an innocent man to prison. 

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In Ringgold, Georgia, Alvin Ridley was something of a local bogeyman. He rarely left his house and, when he did, he was always by himself. 

So when Alvin called 9-1-1 to report the death of his wife – a woman that no one had ever heard about, let alone seen – the town was shocked.

Quickly a narrative began to emerge: Alvin Ridley had held this woman captive for more than thirty years. And then, he’d strangled her.

It didn’t take much for the citizens of Ringgold to believe it. And, before long, police came to the same conclusion and charged Alvin with first degree murder.

But there was one person who came to Alvin’s defence: a down on his luck attorney named McCracken Poston, who would become Alvin’s biggest defender – and his friend. 

In his memoir Zenith Man: Death, Love, and Redemption in a Georgia Courtroom, Poston recounts his experience representing Alvin Ridley, and tells the story of one of the strangest trials in Georgia history. 

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When someone is attacked, especially in their home, the victim usually knows the person hurting them. And in the 2002 murder of a woman named Marlyne Johnson, the police charged her daughter-in-law, Sophia Johnson, with first degree murder. The whole ordeal tore two families apart because not only was Sophia charged with killing her mother-in-law, but the main witness against her was her own brother.

Amory Sivertson dives back into the case in her new podcast, Beyond All Repair. She joins Crime Story now. 

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When Derrick Johnson was a toddler, he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. He never developed the ability to speak. Instead, he would communicate with his eyes and his hands, and his family would do their best to interpret his gestures.

That was until they met a Rutgers professor named Anna Stubblefield.

Anna thought that with the right technique and coaching Derrick could learn to say exactly what was on his mind.

But what began as an attempt to expand Derek's horizons quickly turned into a nightmare. One that ended with Derrick’s family accusing Anna of sexual assault.

In his documentary Tell Them You Love Me, director Nick August Perna explores Anna and Derrick’s relationship – and the complicated questions it forces us to confront.

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