Episodes

  • Osama Bin Laden: Psychopathy, Power And The Price Of Belief (Part 1)

    Osama Bin Laden: Psychopathy, Power And The Price Of Belief (Part 1)
    Aug 31 2025
    This month marks 24 years since the 9/11 attacks on America — the deadliest terror strike since Pearl Harbour. To mark the anniversary, Psycho Killer investigates the rise and fall of Osama Bin Laden. Was he a religious zealot, a freedom fighter, or a psychopath? Perhaps all three.

    Using the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R) and the Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality (CAPP), Simon Ford and Jacques Morrell apply two clinical tools to Bin Laden’s life and legacy. The result? More than one conclusion — and a portrait of a man whose blend of belief, power, and manipulation shaped the world we live in today.

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    25 mins
  • The Lobotomist – Part 2: Power, Damage & Denial

    The Lobotomist – Part 2: Power, Damage & Denial
    Aug 24 2025
    Explicit – contains surgery details.

    Walter J. Freeman II thought he was a revolutionary. And in a way, he was. He operated during three revolutionary decades of the twentieth century – years that saw the coming of nuclear power, antibiotics and mankind's first tentative steps into space. But his technique was more medieval than post-modern. The cutting edge of his trademark instrument was the point of an icepick – or at least, a wicked-looking tool derived from one. Yet, here was an individual who convinced himself he was doing humanity a service, while all around, patients were wheeled away on gurneys with their humanity neutralised.

    Was Freeman mad, bad, psychopathic... or just deluded? And where does the dividing line fall that separates those traits? Indeed, can they be separated, or do they seep into each other, like blood seeping into bandages, until all we see is crimson? The red mist of a horror too awful to comprehend – a physician sworn to not harm, acting with official sanction in a way that no physician should.

    In the second part of The Lobotomist, we answer that question as dispassionately as we can, despite the trail of bodies and tortured souls the good doctor left in his wake. What tools do we have to comprehend the incomprehensible paradox of Walter J. Freeman II? Was he well-meaning, misguided, or something much darker? Ladies and gentlemen, take your seats, because the jury is in.


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    17 mins
  • Aimee Betro: American 'Hitwoman' Jailed For 30 Years Over Failed Birmingham Revenge Plot

    Aimee Betro: American 'Hitwoman' Jailed For 30 Years Over Failed Birmingham Revenge Plot
    Aug 23 2025
    An American “hitwoman” is starting a 30-year prison sentence in the United Kingdom for trying to murder her lover's business rival. Aimee Betro, from Wisconsin, flew to the UK in August 2019 and spent more than two weeks in the country before trying to shoot the man outside his home in Birmingham—Simon Ford reports.

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    3 mins
  • The Lobotomist: Walter Jackson Freeman II — Part 1: Ice Picks & Ego Trips

    The Lobotomist: Walter Jackson Freeman II — Part 1: Ice Picks & Ego Trips
    Aug 17 2025
    Explicit – surgery details

    The story of Walter J. Freeman II is as disturbing as it is bizarre. He pioneered the transorbital lobotomy, a radical and, to modern minds, barbaric form of brain surgery. Freeman left behind him a trail of devastation – shattered lives and a body count that reached the hundreds. Yet it took the authorities two decades to come to their senses and stop him.

    During those years, he worked with official approval at institutions across the United States. He even became a travelling sales-surgeon, peddling his procedure like snake oil, driving from state to state in a vehicle that came to be known as the 'lobotomobile'. His patients, which we would now call victims, included the rich and famous. Some gave consent. Others did not.

    Until his death, Freeman insisted he had altruistic intentions. He wanted to cure the incurable with his ground-breaking surgical technique. He tried to send people back to their families the way they used to be, before mental illness took hold. That is the case for the defence. The prosecution alleges that Walter J. Freeman II was something darker. That his motives were far from selfless. That he was, in fact, a psycho killer of the first order.

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    20 mins
  • The Bizarre Journey of Henri Landru’s Severed Head

    The Bizarre Journey of Henri Landru’s Severed Head
    Aug 10 2025
    Step inside one of true crime’s strangest afterlives. In this bonus episode of Psycho Killer: Shocking True Crime Stories, we follow the grisly journey of Henri Désiré Landru’s severed head—from the guillotine in 1920s France to its eerie display in Hollywood’s infamous Museum of Death.

    Landru, known as the “Bluebeard of Gambais,” was convicted of murdering at least ten women and a teenage boy during World War I. But what happened to his head after the blade fell is a mystery tangled in rumour, lost records, and bizarre twists.

    Was it preserved for science, smuggled as a macabre trophy, or simply passed from collector to collector? Join us as we explore the historical trail, the ethical questions, and the unsettling fascination with turning killers into curiosities.

    Acknowledgements
    KCAL News (2015). 'The Museum of Death is filled with lively exhibits – if you don't faint.' Available on YouTube.

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    7 mins
  • Snowtown Killer To Walk Free: James Vlassakis Granted Parole After 26 Years

    Snowtown Killer To Walk Free: James Vlassakis Granted Parole After 26 Years
    Aug 7 2025
    An Australian serial killer has been granted parole after almost three decades behind bars. James Vlassakis was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 26 years for committing four of 11 murders in South Australia between 1992 and 1999.

    The case became known as "the bodies in the barrels" serial killings, because the dismembered bodies of the victims were found in barrels of hydrochloric acid in the vault of a disused bank in Snowtown, a remote community 93 miles north of Adelaide.

    As Simon Ford reports, Vlassakis was jailed with three other men after one of the longest and most publicised trials in Australian legal history.

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    3 mins
  • Psycho Killer Presents: The Detective's Files – True Crime Tales With Jacques Morrell (Episode 1)

    Psycho Killer Presents: The Detective's Files – True Crime Tales With Jacques Morrell (Episode 1)
    Aug 5 2025
    Psycho Killer's Jacques Morrell. Thirty years as a copper, first on the beat, then a major crime detective, specialising primarily in homicide.

    In this new true crime series, Jacques opens his casebook to reveal gripping stories from a lifetime investigating murders, cold cases, and criminal minds. From serial killers to psychopaths, he shares behind-the-scenes insights into real police work and the psychology of killers.

    The Detective’s Files offers a rare glimpse into the dark heart of crime, told by someone who’s seen it all. Subscribe now for must-hear true crime stories, interviews, and expert analysis from the front lines of justice.

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    31 mins
  • Henri Désiré Landru: French Serial Killer, The Bluebeard Of Gambais (Part 2)

    Henri Désiré Landru: French Serial Killer, The Bluebeard Of Gambais (Part 2)
    Aug 3 2025
    Explicit

    In our last episode, we met Henri Désiré Landru: serial seducer, swindler, and killer — a man who lured lonely women to his villa at Gambais and turned them into ash.

    Now, the net is closing. In this second instalment of The Bluebeard of Gambais, we follow the tenacious detective who pursued Landru across a war-torn France — and finally brought him to justice.

    We’ll take you inside the courtroom where Landru stood trial for eleven murders — and the public couldn’t look away.

    With forensic precision and historical rigour, we examine the evidence, the gender politics, and the media frenzy that gripped a nation. From the witness box to the guillotine — this is true crime at its most shocking.

    You'll find our back-catalogue of gripping episodes on Spreaker and wherever you get your true-crime podcast fix.

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    25 mins