When the man of her dreams broke up with her — twice — Brenda Delgado turned to cyberstalking and staging “chance” run-ins to keep him in her life. But she couldn’t stop him from moving on. When Ricky Paniagua started dating another woman, Brenda began plotting a murder.

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Fifteen-year-old Kirsten Costas was popular, athletic, and a cheerleader. She was everything fellow classmate Bernadette Protti wanted to be. And when Bernadette couldn’t get the attention she wanted from Kirsten, she killed her.

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Over the ages, arsenic has had many lives — beauty fad, household product, medical prescription… and weapon of choice wielded by killers everywhere from Alabama to ancient Rome. Brine your turkey, knead your dough, and listen to our Thanksgiving Special on the regime-changing, assassination-aiding King of Poisons.

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When they met in 1911, she was a teenage beauty from a wealthy Chilean family, and he was an American businessman twice her age who dazzled her. But while Blanca Errázuriz was known as “the flower of the Andes,” Jack de Saulles had a more sordid reputation — and it would wind up costing him everything. 

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For years, Tommy Gilbert Jr. felt like his friends, his parents, and even his doctors were conspiring against him. So in the spring of 2014, he illegally obtained a gun. And months later, he would use it when he went to his parents house for a final discussion about his finances.

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Thomas Gilbert Jr was a young socialite who was used to getting what he wanted. But somewhere along the way, his mind began to betray him. All of his personal and professional failures weighed on him. Somebody would have to pay the price.

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Between the relentless accusations and physical assaults, the early 2000s were a dangerous time to be living in the Polk household. No one knew that more than their three kids, all caught in the middle of their parents’ tempest. On October 13th 2002, it all came to a head. 

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In the 1990s, the Polk marriage descended into a slow-motion implosion. Susan’s resentment of her husband was growing, and it only intensified after he introduced her to a new therapeutic technique: RMT, or recovered memory therapy. Now, she had access to memories she’d never confronted before. And she didn’t like what she was seeing.

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Dr. Polk decides once and for all how far he’ll go to manipulate Susan into staying with him. They marry in the winter of 1981. As the decade progresses, their joy over the birth of their first son, Adam, turns to dread as they’re swept into the hysteria of Satanic Panic. But in that dread, Susan finds her purpose.

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Twenty years ago, a heinous crime unfolded in a California pool house. The seeds of it were planted in the 1970s, when the Bay Area’s rising star in adolescent therapy, Dr. Felix Polk, met a new patient: 15-year-old Susan Bolling. They took a shine to each other almost immediately. But as he blurred the boundaries of their doctor-patient relationship, both their lives would be thrown into chaos.

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