Once again join Angela and her special guest, her husband, Tony for our two year anniversary show! In this episode we rank the most horrible humans from all of the episodes from the second year of the Horrible Humans in History podcast and reveal our choice for the most horrible human that we have covered during our first two years.

Helene Jegado was a 19th-century French domestic servant who used her role as a cook to poison the people around her with arsenic. Operating in rural Brittany during a time of limited medical knowledge, she was able to evade suspicion for years as victims died from mysterious illnesses. Eventually, patterns of death led to investigation, exhumation, and arrest. Convicted of multiple murders, she was executed in 1852. Her case remains one of the most disturbing examples of a serial poisoner operating within trusted domestic spaces.

This episode traces the life of Charles Manson from a neglected and unstable childhood through years in reform schools and prison, where he learned manipulation, developed a fixation on control, and nurtured dreams of fame through music. After his release in 1967, he exploited the vulnerability of disillusioned young people in California’s counterculture to build the Manson Family, using charisma, drugs, and psychological domination to position himself as a prophetic authority. His apocalyptic “Helter Skelter” ideology ultimately drove followers to commit the shocking 1969 Tate and LaBianca murders, crimes Manson orchestrated despite not personally carrying out the killings. The episode explores how investigators uncovered the conspiracy, the sensational trial that followed, and Manson’s life sentence in prison, concluding with his death in 2017 and the enduring legacy of a man who sought power, fame, and meaning through manipulation and violence.

This episode explores the rise and reign of Gezo, the powerful and deeply controversial King of Dahomey, tracing his life from a violent royal childhood through a calculated coup and into decades of war, terror, and exploitation. It examines how Gezo modernized Dahomey’s military, broke free from foreign domination, and built a fear-based state funded largely by the Atlantic slave trade, while ordinary people paid the price through raids, enslavement, and ritualized execution. Through public sacrifice, political purges, and relentless warfare, Gezo ruled by spectacle and intimidation, leaving behind a legacy that blends military brilliance with profound human suffering and raises hard questions about power, violence, and the cost of empire.

In this episode of HHH, we explore the chilling rise of Irma Grese — one of the most infamous female perpetrators of the Holocaust. Born into poverty and emotional turmoil in rural Germany, Irma’s troubled childhood and early exposure to Nazi ideology helped shape her rapid transformation from farm girl to feared SS guard. We follow her teenage radicalization, her ambition-driven entry into the concentration camp system, her relationships with SS officers, and her ascent to power at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, where survivors described her brutal beatings, selections for the gas chambers, and sadistic treatment of prisoners. At just 22 years old, Grese became the youngest woman executed for war crimes, leaving behind a legacy that forces us to confront how ordinary people can become instruments of extraordinary evil.

In this episode of HHH, we dive into the chilling true story of William Palmer, the Victorian doctor infamously known as “The Prince of Poisoners.” Born into respectability, Palmer built a double life fueled by gambling addiction, mounting debt, and calculated betrayal. We explore his troubled upbringing, reckless young adulthood, suspicious family deaths — including his wife Ann, his brother Walter, and multiple children — and the infamous poisoning of his close friend John Parsons Cook. From manipulated evidence and destroyed poison bottles to one of the most sensational murder trials in British history, this episode uncovers how Palmer used medicine as a weapon, how he nearly escaped justice, and why his case forever changed forensic toxicology and criminal investigations.

Mao Zedong rose from a rural childhood to become one of the most powerful — and destructive — figures of the 20th century. As the founder of the People’s Republic of China, Mao reshaped an entire nation through revolution, ideology, and absolute control. But his grand social experiments, including the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, led to catastrophic famine, widespread violence, and the deaths of tens of millions. In this episode, we trace Mao’s rise to power, his manipulation of loyalty and fear, and the devastating human cost of a leader who believed history itself would bend to his will.

Mao Zedong rose from a rural childhood to become one of the most powerful — and destructive — figures of the 20th century. As the founder of the People’s Republic of China, Mao reshaped an entire nation through revolution, ideology, and absolute control. But his grand social experiments, including the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, led to catastrophic famine, widespread violence, and the deaths of tens of millions. In this episode, we trace Mao’s rise to power, his manipulation of loyalty and fear, and the devastating human cost of a leader who believed history itself would bend to his will.

Queen Ranavalona I ruled Madagascar for more than three decades through fear, isolation, and uncompromising authority. Rising from relative obscurity after the sudden death of her husband, she seized the throne by eliminating the rightful heirs and consolidating power with ruthless efficiency. Her reign was marked by violent suppression of Christianity, devastating military campaigns against coastal rivals like the Sakalava, widespread forced labor, and the deadly use of poison trials that claimed tens of thousands of lives. While her policies preserved Madagascar’s independence during a peak era of European imperialism, they also led to severe population decline and immense human suffering. Ranavalona remains one of history’s most polarizing rulers — a protector of sovereignty to some, and a tyrant whose legacy is written in blood to others.

In this episode of HHH, we dive into the life and crimes of Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer—one of the most prolific serial murderers in American history. We explore his troubled childhood, his escalating violence throughout the 1980s, and the decades-long investigation that struggled to identify him as he blended seamlessly into suburban life. From his disturbing methods and chilling confessions to the breakthrough DNA evidence that finally exposed him, this episode traces Ridgway’s path from an unremarkable truck painter to a predator responsible for dozens of deaths. Ultimately, it’s a story about the victims he targeted, the system that failed to protect them, and the forensic advances that finally brought their killer to justice.