Meet Romana Didulo: alleged cult leader and self-proclaimed 'Queen of Canada’

In the rural prairie town of Richmound, Saskatchewan, an abandoned school becomes the unlikely stage for a 21st-century crisis. When Romana Didulo, a cult leader who calls herself “Queen of Canada,” arrives with her followers and turns the school into her royal court, the town is thrust into a surreal standoff.Investigative journalist Rachel Browne uncovers how online extremism bleeds into everyday life and divides the town. As threats escalate and officials hesitate, a retired schoolteacher is thrust into leading an improvised resistance. The new podcast The Cult Queen of Canada tells a story about polarization, power vacuums, and what happens when a small community becomes the testing ground for extremism in modern Canada. Listen to the podcast here. Read Rachel Browne's coverage of the story for The Walrus, here.

Kelly Harnett has a passion for practicing the law. But, when she started, her office didn’t look like what you would expect. It wasn’t in a law firm or a courthouse. Her office was a maximum security prison.Harnett was there because she had been convicted of second degree murder – a crime she insists she did not commit.This week on Crime Story, Anna Sinfield, host of the podcast The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer, introduces us to Kelly, and shares her amazing story.Listen to The Girlfriends: The Jailhouse Lawyer here.

In 2004, 16-year-old Daniel Yuen left his home in New Jersey and travelled to San Bernardino, California to enrol in a so-called "tough love" bootcamp. Daniel had been struggling with depression for years. Desperate for help Daniel’s family was promised that the CEDU Running Springs facility would help their son. Instead, he vanished.In the podcast Lost Kids from USG Audio, journalist Josh Bloch dives into the world of teen bootcamps. He talks to one family about their search for their missing son and discovers one bootcamp's ties to one of America's most dangerous cults. He joins us today on Crime Story to help make sense of it all. You can listen to Lost Kids here.

The Sunday Magazine is a lively, wide-ranging mix of topical long-form conversations, engaging ideas and more.In this episode, host Piya Chattopadhyay speaks with Gisèle Pelicot about her public rape trial and her thoughts on becoming a feminist hero. The Sunday Magazine also interviewed Gisèle’s daughter, Caroline Darian last year. You can find that conversation here.More episodes of The Sunday Magazine are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/TSMxCS

The 1985 massacre at Whitehouse Farm is one of England's most notorious cases. But did police get it right? Five members of the Bamber family were found dead in their home, alongside the murder weapon and an open Bible. Suspicion quickly turned to the police's star witness and apparent heir to the family fortune, Jeremy Bamber. Today, Bamber has been in prison for over 40 years.Journalist Heidi Blake grew up with this story. She thought she knew it well, until she began her own investigation. This week on Crime Story, Heidi Blake shares the story at the core of her new podcast In the Dark: Blood Relatives from The New Yorker. She tells us how the evidence she uncovered casts doubt on the conviction of one of the U.K.'s longest serving prisoners. You can listen to In the Dark: Blood Relatives here. 

On March 3, 1993, three people were brutally murdered in Silverspring, Maryland: single mother Millie Horn, her young son Trevor, and his nurse, Janice Saunders. There were no fingerprints. The killings were targeted and quick. The killer seemed to know what they were doing - almost like they had read a book about it. Well, it turns out, they had. Ten years earlier, Paladin Press published a book called 'Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors'. It detailed how to kill and get away with murder. Despite attempts to have the book taken off shelves, many argued that the first amendment to the U.S.constitution meant it had a right to exist. This week on Crime Story, Jasmyn Morris joins us to talk about the podcast Hit Man. She explains how a book became evidence for murder, the fight to take it off the shelves and the mysterious author behind the murderous manual.You can find Hit Man here.

If you were in the Yorkdale Shopping Centre in Toronto on December 17, 2022, you might have come across a very normal scene: a group of teenage girls hanging out. They were rowdy and obnoxious, like most teens having fun. Some of them would eventually head to a house party, but for eight of the girls, their night would end much differently. Those eight girls ended up arrested for the murder of Kenneth Lee in what would later be deemed a "swarming attack."The news shocked the city. What happened? How could this have happened? Journalist Inori Roy wrote about this case for The Walrus. She's here to make sense of that night.

If you’re a true ‘true crime’ fan then you probably know who Kristi Lee is. She’s the creator and host of Canadian True Crime. For nine years and across hundreds of episodes, Kristi has dug deep into some of Canada’s most infamous, unsolved or current cases, uncovering lesser known facts and working with victims and their families to tell their story the right way. This week on Crime Story, Kristi Lee on what it takes to make her hit show. 

Quincy Cross is in prison for the murder of Jessica Currin. In August of 2000, Jessica’s body was discovered behind a middle school in Mayfield, Kentucky. Her clothes were ripped. She was bruised, beaten and her body burned. For years, it looked like the case would go unsolved. Until a woman named Susan Galbreath started digging around. Susan had an unlikely connection to the case: she said God had instructed her to solve Jessica’s murder. And while she followed God’s plan, the police began following her lead. From the beginning, all Susan could focus on was Quincy Cross. Eventually police set their sights on four other people as well. But after listening to the new podcast, Bone Valley: Graves County, you really start to doubt almost everything anyone says about this case. Because, despite a mission from God, this case may actually be built on a testimony of lies. This week on Crime Story, Kathleen sits down with the host and producers of Graves County, Maggie Freleng and Rebeca Ibarra.

Robert Roberson has been scheduled to die three times. In 2003, Roberson was convicted of capital murder for the death of his two year old daughter, Nikki. Prosecutors argued that the blunt force trauma to her head was caused by someone shaking her. Roberson has been in prison ever since. If the Texas Attorney General gets his way, Roberson will be the first person in US history put to death for a case of shaken baby syndrome. But a growing number of advocates, including the detective who arrested him, say the state would be killing an innocent man. They say Roberson’s case is based on junk science.This week on Crime Story, Maurice Chammah from The Marshall Project discusses the ongoing legal battle to save Roberson's life.