True Crime Campfire

In a lot of ways, the world is smaller now than it ever has been. With a few clicks of the mouse, I can watch a live camera feed of Sydney harbor, or read a newspaper from any country I can think of. Just five hours in an airplane can get you from the US to Europe, and pretty much anyone on the planet can listen to a couple of nerds like us on a podcast. But, obviously, the world is not in fact shrinking. It is still just as vast and potentially perilous as it was in the days when no one knew what lay on the other side of the ocean, and all it takes to bring that home is to lose connection to our world of technology and information. Our story is about a man’s unimaginable journey through the ocean wilderness, driven by nothing but his wits and his will to survive.

*Registration is now open for CrimeWave 2.0! Visit crimewaveatsea.com/CAMPFIRE to get your discount code for $100 off your cabin and a private meet-and-greet with us! The cruise is Feb. 8-12, 2027.

Sources:
Jonathan Franklin, “438 Days”
Time Magazine: https://time.com/4154458/castaway-sued-cannibalism-allegations/
The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/04/castaway-story-backing-from-mexican

Follow us, campers!
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Winston Churchill once said, “Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.” That’s a nice sentiment—I mean, by and large it’s good to let failure be a learning experience, to not let it discourage you from following your dreams. But…hear me out here: What if you’re just a hot mess? What if every time you go from one failure to the next, you leave a pile of bodies in your wake? Can you be a little TOO good at failure? Should you sometimes maybe acknowledge “Hey, maybe this thing I’m trying to do isn’t one of my strengths”? I think some of the people in this week’s episode would have left the world a better place if they’d thrown in the towel.

Registration is now open for CrimeWave 2.0! Visit crimewaveatsea.com/CAMPFIRE to get your discount code for $100 off your cabin and a private meet-and-greet with us! The cruise is Feb. 8-12, 2027.

Sources:
Jon Ronson, The Psychopath Test
CBC news: https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/oak-ridge-st-thomas-psychiatric-treatment/
IFL Science: https://www.iflscience.com/canadas-dark-history-of-giving-lsd-to-prisoners-69821
Washington University: https://library.washu.edu/news/bizarre-but-true-happenings-at-the-1904-olympics-in-st-louis/
Wikipedia, "Truth serum": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_serum
CBC's "The Fifth Estate," episode "Psychiatric Treatment or Torture? The Oak Ridge Experiment"
Hidden Persuaders: http://www7.bbk.ac.uk/hiddenpersuaders/blog/happened-oak-ridge-psychiatric-unit/
Lawrence Wright, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief
Smithsonian: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-1904-marathon-became-one-of-the-weirdest-olympic-events-of-all-time-14910747/

Follow us, campers!
Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfire
https://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/
Facebook: True Crime Campfire
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truecrimecampfire/?hl=en
Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfire
Email: [email protected]
MERCH! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com

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On the surface, Blanche Taylor Moore looked like a model of small-town virtue: a devoted caregiver, a churchgoing woman, a trusted neighbor. But behind that carefully maintained image lay a wild heart with few limits on what it was capable of. Murder certainly wasn’t beyond her, and those closest to her were in the most danger, consuming their own deaths with every bite of Blanche’s carefully prepared dinners. She turned domestic intimacy into a lethal weapon.

Sources:
Jim Schutze, Preacher’s Girl 
Court papers: https://law.justia.com/cases/north-carolina/supreme-court/1994/556a90-0.html https://abc11.com/post/black-widow-killer-is-north-carolinas-oldest-woman-on-death-row/5137961/ https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-08-22-vw-1071-story.html https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/15/us/suspected-of-poisoning-her-mates-woman-is-guilty-in-friend-s-death.html

Follow us, campers!
Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfire
https://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/
Facebook: True Crime Campfire
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truecrimecampfire/?hl=en
Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfire
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MERCH! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com

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A lot of the murder cases we cover feature slow-boiling resentments, or criminal schemes hatched with an explicit target in mind. Killings by strangers are rare—and terrifying. You can just be going about your life with no idea that a predator is hunting you, a twisted mind that has no more connection to your life than a shark does. And then, out of the night, they strike. 

Join us for the chilling story of a would-be serial killer stopped after his first murder.

Stick around after the outro for a funny blooper! 

Sources:
Cold Storage, Don Lasseter
LA Times: https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/tn-wknd-et-denise-huber-20160702-story.html
Court papers: https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/2011/s064306/
LA Times: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-05-23-mn-61651-story.html

Follow us, campers!
Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfire
https://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/
Facebook: True Crime Campfire
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truecrimecampfire/?hl=en
Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfire
Email: [email protected]
MERCH! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

In the early 1990s, a beloved first-grade teacher in Pennsylvania began receiving harassing, threatening letters from an anonymous sender. Her school principal, fellow teachers, and the parents of some of her students soon began receiving them too. As the ordeal wore on, the stalker slowly escalated from taunts to vile accusations and death threats—and then, finally, violence. From early on in the case, the police thought they knew the tormentor’s identity, but it took 18 months to finally gather the evidence needed for an arrest. The trial to follow would be one of the most bizarre the state had ever seen. The case took twist after twist before reaching a conclusion nobody saw coming. 

Sources:
Forensic Files, episode "Sealed With a Kiss"
The Morning Call: https://www.mcall.com/1996/01/21/accused-stalker-says-victim-framed-her/
The Morning Call: https://www.mcall.com/1997/01/30/custodian-says-teacher-was-often-upset-testimony-continues-in-pocono-mountain-stalking-case-at-school-fellow-instructors-job-is-at-stake/
Pocono Record: https://www.poconorecord.com/story/news/2000/12/14/pm-pays-600000-to-settle/51084692007/
https://www.poconorecord.com/story/news/2000/11/04/odd-teacher-harassment-case-returns/51083383007/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&
Forensic Files Now: https://forensicfilesnow.com/index.php/2020/06/27/joanne-chambers-and-paula-nawrocki-strange-lesson/

Follow us, campers!
Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfire
https://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/
Facebook: True Crime Campfire
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truecrimecampfire/?hl=en
Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfire
Email: [email protected]
MERCH! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.