467 - Russian Wizards, Witches, and Folk Magic, Oh My!

On May 19th, 1977, 20-year-old Colleen Stan was hitchhiking from her home in Eugene, Oregon, to a friend's birthday party in the little Northern California town of Westwood. She was picked up in Red Bluff, California by a young couple, Cameron and Janice Hooker, who were out for a drive with their infant daughter. What followed was one of the most outrageous and lengthy periods of captivity I've ever heard of. Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [email protected] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In 1933, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had his secret police goons round up hundreds of thousands of former farmers and he sent them into Siberia to create labor camps where they would be forced to work. Many would die along the way, including the over 6,000 unfortunate enough to end up on Nazino Island, where innocent people were dumped with no food other than raw flour, no clean water, no shelter, no medicine, and no protection from each other. Starvation and desperation quickly led to cannibalism, mutilation, and death.For Merch and everything else Bad Magic related, head to: https://www.badmagicproductions.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In the mid-1990's, convicted rapist Moses Sithole went on a murderous rampage in South Africa. He would blame his sadistic crimes on being falsely imprisoned for a rape conviction in 1989 for which he would serve four years. But he wasn't, of course, falsely convicted. He had been raping woman after woman after luring them out into a secluded area with the promise of a new job. The same con he would later use to lure nearly 40 women to their deaths in 1994 and 1995. Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [email protected] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In many ways, America's modern obsession with true crime began on March 1st, 1932, when the 20th-month-old-son of the most famous man in America, aviator Charles Lindbergh, was kidnapped from his fortress of a home. The press would cover the subsequent investigation and trial of the man responsible like the press had never covered a crime before. There was so much public interest in this case, that Charles and his wife would literally leave the country to avoid the public's intense and overwhelming interest in their lives. Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [email protected] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

If you were lucky enough to have gone to New Jersey's Action Park before it closed in the '90s, you probably have the scars to prove it. This place was WILD. And while I understand why there are no longer parks around like it today, I also really, really wish I could've been there. This is a fun one! Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [email protected] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I have long dismissed whisperings of secret Satanic pedophile networks. But, it turns out there truly is an international group associated with a kind of Satanism reminiscent of 1980's Satanic Panic. It's called 764. It exists online. It's growing larger, seemingly, by the day. It's very real. And it's extremely terrifying.For Merch and everything else Bad Magic related, head to: https://www.badmagicproductions.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Times Square Killer didn't just kill in Times Square. Richard Francis Cottingham committed at least six murders in New York State between 1972 and 1980, plus an additional thirteen murders in New Jersey between 1967 and 1978. While he primarily targeted sex workers, he also kidnapped women and girls as young as thirteen off of the street. Today we both look at his crimes and also, explore the interesting and seedy history of Times Square, site of his most gruesome killings. Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [email protected] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Did you know that roughly a million people in Russia today make their living as some kind of wizard, witch, or folk healer? And that some of the most popular TV programs in Russia in the '90s were presentations of psychic healers and self-proclaimed sorcerers? Russians have a long history of believing in magic, with old Slavic spiritual beliefs surviving Russia's past Christian takeover thanks to Russia's system of dual beliefs. Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [email protected] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You'll be hard pressed to find a man who stood for his convictions more firmly than John Brown. John was an white abolitionist willing to do more to end slavery than any other man - of any color - in America in the 1850s. It wasn't enough for John to speak out against slavery, or to help freed slaves find freedom through the Underground Railroad. John felt that if slaveowners weren't willing to immediately free their slaves and renounce their ways, they deserved death. And he felt called by God to send them directly to their graves. For Merch and everything else Bad Magic related, head to: https://www.badmagicproductions.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Philadelphia's Holmesburg prison, before it was officially shut down in 1995, had been a house of horrors for much of its history. In addition to being grossly overcrowded and its prisoners being subjected to sometimes lethal abuse by prison officials... for over two decades - from 1951 to 1974, Dr. Albert Kligman performed wildly unethical medical experiments on its prisoners. Inmates were burned, infected with incurable diseases, exposed to radiation, carcinogens, and more without their informed consent. These atrocities and more earned the prison the nickname of The Terrordome.Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [email protected] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.