Our 2026 listener survey is here – if you have 5 minutes to help inform the next year of RedHanded, we'd love to know your thoughts! https://forms.gle/jNhKVqtdyqoyF3ey9

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Three words, written on bullet casings, instantly changed the New York City shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson from a senseless inner-city attack, into one of the most polarising, unique and culturally important events in modern memory.

In part one of our coverage of the Luigi Mangione story, we run through the entire breakneck timeline of those first five days: the nationwide manhunt, the growing cultural phenomenon, and the arrest – where police said they unmasked the killer, and his manifesto, for the first time. And then, the madness that followed: when detached, meme-led internet thirst met one of the most febrile political discussions in the modern US.

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Imagine a building as tall as the Empire State Building, that stretches for more than 100km through the Saudi Arabian desert. Inside are nine million people – with robot maids and a giant fake moon – living in self-sufficient pods where everything they need is a five-minute walk away.

It’s part of NEOM, a futuristic megacity complex, which the Saudi government has already started building. And if you believe the PR, it’ll be a car-free, carbon-free, utopian existence – the most equitable and sustainable society in human history. But will it happen? And what is the financial (and human) cost? For our first ShortHand back in 2026, we’re looking at the most ambitious and controversial building project ever: The Line.

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When the son of Mormon family vlogger Ruby Franke turned up bound, emaciated and apparently covered in blood – it horrified the police, the internet and Franke’s millions of followers.

The uber-strict brand of parenting advice she preached on her YouTube channel, “8 Passengers”, had been drawing online criticism for years. But even her loudest detractors couldn’t know how despicable and unhinged her punishments had grown. That is, until a diary, found among evidence of torture in a windowless basement, revealed the depths of her abuse to the world.

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As RedHanded takes a festive pause, we've picked two of our favourite Patreon Bonus episodes from 2025. To get a full-length, bonus episode of RedHanded every month (plus weekly video episodes of Under the Duvet and much more besides) head to Patreon.com/redhanded and sign up. Or, head to patreon.com/redhanded/gift to buy a membership for someone else!

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Remember that time a bunch of wristband-wielding Western teens went on a mission to save the world from a megalomaniac Ugandan warlord with an army of literal children in his ranks?

Well, back in 2012, American filmmaker Jason Russell was determined to make the whole world know Joseph Kony's name.

Featuring one of the first YouTube videos to ever go viral, cringey musical numbers, unhinged memes and a big old splash of charitable scammery, in this week's bonus episode we're unravelling the bizarre story of a social media campaign that virtue-signalled too close to the sun – and ended up crashing and burning.

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Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus Episodes

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Sources and more available on redhandedpodcast.com

As RedHanded takes a festive pause, we've picked two of our favourite Patreon Bonus episodes from 2025. To get a full-length, bonus episode of RedHanded every month (plus weekly video episodes of Under the Duvet and much more besides) head to Patreon.com/redhanded and sign up. Or, head to patreon.com/redhanded/gift to buy a membership for someone else!

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When Santa Claus robbed the First National Bank in Cisco, Texas, two days before Christmas 1929 – it was just the beginning of a wilder-than-fiction festive tale.

What followed was a calamitous string of bungled carjackings, high-speed chases, oil-field shootouts, a trail of dead and injured townsfolk, and mishaps aplenty – all under a hail of gunfire from the entire town of Cisco, who in true Texas fashion were all armed to the teeth, and desperate to be the one to nail Santa…

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The important bits: At the end of this year we'll no longer be a Wondery show. New ShortHand and early-release episodes will no longer appear in Wondery+ and Amazon Music subscriber feeds after 29th December.

The good news is that ShortHand will be free for everyone and living its best life on the main RedHanded feed!

If you're reading this, you're already on our main feed and don't need to go anywhere. See you in 2026!

OJ Simpson wasn’t black, “he was OJ”. That was the narrative OJ had pushed his entire career… right up until he found himself in the dock for killing his ex-wife and a waiter. Then suddenly OJ Simpson was practically MLK himself.

Last week in our first part on “The Juice”, we told you how OJ Simpson killed Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. In Part Two, we’re going to tell you how he went to trial, with all of the evidence stacked against him – and, with the help of the “dream team”, still got away with murder.

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Orenthal James Simpson, aka “OJ”, aka “The Juice”: the single most famous man in American sporting history. By the early 90s he had not only established himself as the greatest American Football player who’d ever lived – but he had also transcended sport, turning himself into a charismatic advertising machine and national icon.

However, in June 1994, it all fell apart – when he killed his ex-wife Nicole Brown, and her friend Ron Goldman in cold blood, leaving a trail of evidence and eventually going on a highly televised (but actually pretty slow) car chase. But somehow, he got away with it. Welcome to the most American thing since apple pie: the life of OJ Simpson, and his unquestionable guilt. 

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In May 1937, a chic young woman entered an empty Paris Métro carriage. Less than a minute later, she was discovered bleeding to death with a dagger in her neck.

It’s a locked-room whodunnit that has bamboozled the French public for almost a century.

The murder of Laetitia Toureaux unravelled her dizzying double (and triple) lives as a factory worker by day, nightclub siren by night – and a glamorous undercover spy tangled up in the deadliest politics of 1930s France…

The case still remains officially unsolved: but can we solve it? Step aboard and join us as we try to crack this shadowy Parisian mystery.

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Add together a narcissistic gold-digger, a gullible gym bro and a police department with a flair for theatrics, and what do you get? The Dalia Dippolito saga.

She thought she’d hired a hitman to kill her husband. Instead, she ended up starring in a viral sting complete with a staged crime scene, hidden cameras, and the world’s least convincing crocodile tears. 

This week, we unpack the wild story of Dalia Dippolito – the wannabe black widow who fell for her own web of lies.

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