Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes

Crime House’s Murder: True Crime Stories presents a special series for America’s 250th Birthday: The Crimes That Built America. Listen every Monday until July 6th on Murder: True Crime Stories. Join Crime House+ to get all 4 episodes right now ad-free. To subscribe, go to crimehouseplus.com or if you are listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page.
250 years ago, a brand-new country declared its independence, and in the centuries since, some of the worst crimes this country has ever seen reshaped America. Four murders. Four turning points. The crime behind Miranda rights. The case that created the FBI. The era that gave us criminal profiling. And the murder of Adam Walsh that built America's missing-children movement.

In the mid-1800s, a British naturalist named Philip Sclater proposed the existence of a vast sunken continent called Lemuria to explain a gap in the fossil record. What began as a genuine scientific hypothesis was seized upon by occultists, racists, and spiritual movements, mutating over 150 years into a living religion practiced at the foot of a California volcano. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson traces how one man's theory about lemur fossils became the foundation for a conspiracy touching Atlantis, Theosophy, Nazism, and the New Age.
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Join Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes ad-free and released one day early.
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In 1875, a mild-mannered Civil War veteran named Charles Boles began robbing Wells Fargo stagecoaches across Northern California. He was always polite, never harmed passengers, and occasionally left handwritten poems behind. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson traces how Boles built a double life as a San Francisco socialite while becoming the West's most wanted highway bandit. After 28 robberies and years of near misses, a single laundry mark would unravel everything. And yet, his ultimate fate remains unsolved to this day.
Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes
If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.
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In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa traces how Guy and Edna Ballard built the I AM Movement, a Depression-era spiritual empire claiming contact with immortal "Ascended Masters," and turned it into a multi-million-dollar fraud scheme. When federal prosecutors charged them with mail fraud for promising supernatural miracles they could never deliver, the Ballards fought back all the way to the Supreme Court, and won a landmark ruling on religious freedom that still shapes U.S. law today.
Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes
If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.
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Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!
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In southeastern Massachusetts, a stretch of land known as the Bridgewater Triangle has been a magnet for paranormal activity for centuries: cryptid sightings, UFO encounters, ghostly apparitions, and evidence of occult rituals. Many trace the darkness back to King Philip's War of 1675-76, one of the deadliest conflicts per capita in American history, which left the land scarred by massacre, displacement, and loss. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson explores the history, the hauntings, and whether the Triangle's strange reputation is rooted in something real or something we need to believe. With archaeological sites dating back over 8,000 years, the answers may run deeper than any single legend.
Head over to our Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Conspiracytheoriescultscrimes
If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.
🎧 Need More to Binge?
Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!
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