Fresh Hell Podcast

Mary Mallon was simply an Irish immigrant making a living as a cook for some of New York's wealthiest families. But wherever she worked, typhoid fever seemed to follow. In the first part of our two-part series, we head back to New York at the turn of the twentieth century, where crowded streets, groundbreaking discoveries... Continue Reading →

n the final part of our series on Starr Faithfull, the investigation begins, and this is where the mystery begins! Why were parts of her clothing missing? Why did two autopsies reach different conclusions? What was in Starr's diary? And what role, if any, did the powerful former mayor Andrew J. Peters play after years... Continue Reading →

Starr Faithfull finally tells her family the secret she’s been carrying for nearly a decade: she has been sexually abused by a powerful and trusted relative since childhood.  In Part 2, we talk about what happened after that revelation, as her family struggles to help her in an era when trauma was poorly understood and... Continue Reading →

In 1931, the body of 25-year-old Starr Faithfull washed ashore on a Long Island beach. Newspapers and the public speculated whether her death was murder, suicide, or an accident. But before we can answer that question, we need to go back to the beginning: to old Boston money, political power, and the man Starr knew... Continue Reading →

The Hitler Diaries are finally exposed as fake, and the fallout is spectacular! In the fourth and final part of our series, we talk about the collapse of the biggest media scandal in postwar Germany. What did the BKA find? What was the so called “Folternacht” inside Stern headquarters? And what happened to the Carin... Continue Reading →

Stern is now spending millions, historians are cautiously warning them, and Konrad Kujau is sitting at home frantically producing more and more volumes while simultaneously convincing everyone that this all makes perfect sense. What could possibly go wrong?

Gerd Heidemann follows up on the supposed Hitler diaries and finally meets the man behind them. Money starts changing hands in ways that should probably raise a few questions.

This week, we start a story that begins with a boat, takes a detour through a small village in East Germany, and ends up with one of the biggest media scandals in German history.

In 1853, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria goes for one of his regular walks in Vienna. It’s something he does often enough that people know where to find him, and on that day, someone does. A young Hungarian tailor named János Libényi steps forward and tries to stab the emperor in the neck. The... Continue Reading →