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When Dr. Michael Mastromarino lost his license to practice dentistry, he found a new calling in a dark corner of the medical world, modern-day grave robbing. He and his crew of organ and tissue harvesters set up a vast network to collect and sell as much bio material as they could find. Too bad none of the families of the deceased knew about it.

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Before Jack Idema became a tour boat captain in Mexico, the self-described super soldier moved to Afghanistan where he started a private prison. He ran it out of his rented townhouse and his team, Task Force Saber 7, used it to detain and interrogate suspected terrorists. Idema told everyone who asked that he worked for the US government. Problem was.......he didn't.   

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When Swedish journalist Kim Wall began writing a story on amateur rocket building in Denmark, there was no way for her to know that it would lead to her death....inside a submarine. The bizarre circumstances and surreal conclusion captured headlines around the world. 

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Using military-grade weapons and gear, two bank robbers turned the streets of North Hollywood, California into a war zone. For nearly 45 minutes, Los Angeles police faced one of the most violent and prolonged gun battles they had ever experienced. The police may have had them greatly outnumbered, but the gunmen had the police completely outmatched. As if taken right from a Hollywood movie, the drama was captured live on camera and quickly had a nation glued to the TV. This was reality television on a whole new level and would go on to forever change the way law enforcement operates in the US. 

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This episode is a little different. It's a collection of bizarre stories not quite long enough for their own episodes, but are so strange that they deserve a place in the podcast. Most importantly, these stories were submitted by listeners like you! From a cross-dressing voodoo priest with major relationship issues to a Vatican cocaine-fueled orgy, these true crimes are truly bizarre. Enjoy!

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The situation would have seemed absolutely normal had it not been for the location. Two women, casually walking together, both carrying bags. CCTV cameras followed the women on their precarious journey, six lanes of speeding cars and trucks just a few feet on either side. Without warning, the women jumped over the guard rail and ran straight in to the fast lane. One of them was immediately hit by a red sedan, and in the seconds of chaos that followed it’s amazing that the other was untouched. As the sound of screeching tires stopped, the one just hit by a car in the fast lane stood up and brushed herself off. Amazingly she had sustained only minor injuries in what should have been a fatal collision. When the police arrived, the situation appeared to be calm and under control. As the women chatted with an officer who stood between them and the highway, one of them suddenly made a dash into traffic. The officer managed to quickly grab a hold of her green jacket and, at least for a moment, was able to hold her back. She slipped out of her jacket and into the path of an oncoming transport truck. A moment later, the other woman, wearing a hat that read “Time to believe”, also inexplicably ran straight into traffic. The extraordinary events left authorities baffled. Incredibly, the strange and horrifying incident on the highway pales in comparison to what happened next.

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In the early morning hours of August 14, 2011, police were called to an apartment complex to investigate a reported assault. They arrived to find a man in the parking lot growling and hissing and wearing nothing but boxer shorts. When police attempted to restrain him the man took off running. As he tried to escape, he scaled two tall fences which, according to officers, he did with minimal effort. The man was cornered shortly after and taken into custody. Minutes before police arrived on scene, the man had broken into the apartment of a total stranger. The only occupant awoke to the sounds of hissing and growling right next to her and the moment she opened her eyes, the mostly naked intruder began biting her neck. Running for her life, the terrified woman was picked up by a passing car. As police were arresting the attacker, he yelled repeatedly that he did not want to feed on humans. When authorities put him in a jail cell, he told officers that they had to keep him handcuffed for their own protection. An officer was quoted saying, “He was begging us to restrain him because he didn’t want to kill us. He said he needed to feed.” He told them that he was a 500 year old vampire.

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As people in Chicago gathered around their TVs for the nightly news, sportscaster Dan Roan was reporting the day’s highlights when the screen suddenly went black. Seconds later, a new image appeared on the screen. There was no sound and viewers were no longer looking at Dan Roan. They were now looking at a strange figure in a rubber mask, sunglasses, a brown jacket, tie, and white shirt. Behind the figure was a corrugated metal sheet moving up and down giving the amateur effect of a 3D background. The figure moved erratically from side to side, back and forth, as if laughing hysterically. The lack of audio only added to the weird spectacle. It lasted for half a minute before station engineers were able to regain control of the broadcast. Two hours later their screens once again lost reception and turned black. The creepy masked figure took over the airwaves again. This time however, there was audio and what happened over the 90 seconds that followed is still described as one of the most bizarre television hacking crimes in broadcasting history.

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25 year-old Terra Newell parked her car on the top level of her apartment building’s lot. Collecting her dog and purse, Terra exited her car and walked to the rear. The 5'2" tall Terra was immediately confronted by the 6'2" tall man who had been a few spots over only moments earlier. The large man put one of his hands over her mouth revealing a long knife in the other. He stabbed at her repeatedly, slicing deep into her forearm and another into her chest. She was able to knock the knife from his grip and the blade landed within her reach. Blade in hand, Terra went into all-out survival mode and attributed the popular TV show The Walking Dead for her sudden kill-or-be-killed mentality. She began stabbing wildly at the man, inflicting 13 wounds in all. If she learned one thing from the end of the world zombie show, she understood that the only way to kill a zombie is to destroy the brain. The final strike went right through his left eye, the long knife driven deep into his brain. As the man lay unconscious and convulsing on the parking lot pavement, the injured Terra called her mother and said “I’m really really sorry. I think I killed your husband.”

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One day in October 1997, several police stations across the US received phone calls from a youth center in Spain. The caller identified himself as the director of the facility and stated that a teenage boy from America was there asking for help. The police in the US put the caller in touch with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The caller from Spain went on to give a brief physical description of the boy and asked if there were any missing teenagers matching their records. The agent checked the database and provided the caller with the name of a teenage boy who had been reported missing several years earlier. The descriptions were similar enough to be a possible match, so the case details were sent over right away. Not long after the file arrived, the center for missing children received a follow-up call from the person claiming to be the director of the youth facility. He told the agent that the missing boy in the file and the scared boy standing in his office were in fact the same. When the call ended, the man calling himself the director studied the missing boy’s file carefully. It wouldn’t be long before he would have to convince the world that he was the missing teenager.

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