Deliver Us Some Evil

Get ready for a double-whammy Black History Month Fifty States of Murder DUSE-style extravaganza as Eli and Mel connect the dots to reveal the truth about one of the oldest and most violent cults in American history: the Black Hebrew Israelites. The first congregations were founded over a hundred years ago but the words of their prophets, Frank Cherry and William Saunders Crowdy, are at the heart of the historical revisionism that pervades modern black culture -- and cults. One such cult was that of Peter Lucas Moses Jr., a man whose family values included brainwashing, polygamy, and murder in... North Carolina!

The DUSE might be fashionably late to the Valentine's Day party, but what better way to celebrate than with a box of gas-station chocolates and your favorite podcasters! Eli and Mel get romantic with the story of Stephen Grant, a real-life Mr. Mom who had it all and still said enough is enough when he called the cops to report his wife missing on Valentine's Day, 2007. Not even a tailored pantsuit could save Tara Lynn Grant from her apron-wearing husband as he becomes the prime suspect and then hightails it out of town, turning a local mystery into a national media circus. We'll let you decide what's more disturbing, Eli's lozenge ASMR or what the cops found in the garage in... Michigan!

The natural born podcasters are back with another installment of Fifty States of Murder! The setting is the Midwestern powder keg of 1950's America when a teenaged boy with nothing to lose joins forces with his questionably-aged girlfriend and lights the fuse on a killing spree that leaves eleven people dead and a community terrorized by its own greatest fear: juvenile delinquency. Charles Raymond Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate have been elevated to cultural icons, romanticized, fictionalized, misunderstood, denigrated in the media, condemned by the courts, and ultimately became a mirror held up to the darkest aspects of American society. The forces that drove them to strike back against an unfair world hit a little too close to home even today in... Nebraska!

Fifty States of Murder puts the pedal to the metal and takes on one of the biggest cases of serial murder in American history: BTK, aka Dennis Rader. His brutal crimes went unsolved for decades as he taunted the police through cryptic letters, dropped out of sight for years at a time, and crafted a wholesome public persona. Dark humor abounds as Eli and Mel try to reconcile the antics of a man who consistently flubbed the details of his attacks while also leaving a trail of bodies behind him and was so good at living a double life he was able to fool both his family and his entire community. In fact, his identity might still be a mystery today if he hadn't gone one step too far with the cops in... Kansas!

What do mashed potatoes have to do with murder? Tune in and find out as Eli and Mel travel back in time to 1981 to investigate the family values of John Mathis, a mid-western pig farmer who may or may not have used a .22 caliber to re-enter the singles market. As a bonus for our loyal listeners Eli shares his top-secret recipe for garlic pudding. YUM! So if you're about to ride a horse into a public fountain you better make sure it's wearing pants in... South Dakota!

The wait is over! The update is finally here! Eli and Mel dive straight into the deep end as they revisit one of the first cases the DUSE covered way back in 2022: the quadruple murder of four college students in Moscow, Idaho. Sure, Eli's theory about a local cult having a hand in the brutal slayings was wrong -- very wrong -- but the truth is even harder to believe. From the bizarre story of the surviving roommates to the bungling of the investigation at every level, including the FBI, there's just nothing satisfying about this case. Bryan Kohberger took a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, and maybe he really did do it, but if you're looking for conclusive evidence you're better off watching an episode of Law & Order in... Idaho!

It's a very merry murdery Deliver Us Some Evil Christmas special! Eli and Mel slide down the chimney to share the gruesome story of one family who just didn't have what it took to get through the holidays in one piece. It might not have been a dark and stormy night back in 2013 but Christmas morning revealed something much worse than a stocking full of coal to the windy city when eighteen-year-old Alexis Valdez dialed 911. And if that's not enough to jingle your bells, Eli reaches back into his own personal history for a heartwarming story of his own, one that luckily had a different ending. So deck the halls and spike that eggnog 'cause Old Saint DUSE is coming to town in... Illinois!

The DUSE rises to #33 on the top Fifty States of Murder chart with a damning expose on the fraud, hypocrisy, dirty dealings, and general scumbaggery just beneath the surface of the country music industry. It all came as a surprise to Kevin Hughes when he took a bullet for daring to demand honesty instead of a bribe. It was 1989 and even the cops couldn't fathom corruption so deep it could cost a man his life for only a few thousand dollars. Whodunit? Find out as Eli and Mel belly up to the bar for a double shot of payola in... Tennessee!

What do you get when a rich woman goes missing, there's no shortage of suspects, but almost no evidence? The latest episode of Fifty States of Murder, of course! Eli and Mel document the unsolved disappearance of Jacqueline Levitz, a wealthy social climber who went through three husbands before vanishing in late 1995. Was she bumped off by jealous relatives? Or maybe it was one of the working stiffs she stiffed when she liquidated her husband's assets? Or was it a robbery gone horribly wrong? We're not sure of much, but we're pretty sure she never stood a chance in... Mississippi!

The DUSE waxes philosophical in our latest episode of Fifty States of Murder as Eli and Mel paint a picture of innocence lost in post-WWII America and the influence of pivotal thinkers like Soren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and of course Friedrich Nietzsche. What does existentialism have to do with murder? We're glad you asked! It took disenchanted jazz musician Melvin Rees to figure it out after he dropped out of college and turned his deep conversations about the morality of murder into a real world experiment. It was a dark time in America, and The DUSE pulls no punches, taking a hard look at our violent origins and how a man like Rees might just be more American than apple pie in... Maryland!

Get ready for another trip to the wild wild west as The DUSE books a room for you at the Murder Inn! The hostess is one heckuva cook so long as you like your steak dinner with a wink and a nod and a generous helping of arsenic. Then again, Polly Bartlett didn't target just any old traveler. She wanted a very special kind of man: the kind with too much cash, too few friends, and an eye for the ladies. Check-in is whenever you arrive, but don't bother with housekeeping. The only bed you'll be sleeping in is six feet under in... Wyoming!

The West Coast has seen its share of murderers but how many of them flagged down a cop and said hey, I'm thinking of becoming a murderer? TWICE! And how many cops, parole officers, and shrinks who encountered this guy just passed him off onto someone else? If you guessed all of them, you're right! Eli and Mel found no evidence of an actual clown car but they're sure there must have been one as the notorious Barfly Strangler, Carroll Cole, bounced from state to state, getting picked up for mail fraud, public drunkenness, and probably a few parking violations all while racking up a body count that might have numbered as many as fourteen women. What happened in Vegas didn't quite stay in Vegas when mistakes were made in... Nevada!

Fifty States of Murder rolls on -- right across that overgrown lawn your neighbors are always complaining about. That's right folks, it's time for another-pit stop on our cross-country tour: the story of William Devin Howell, a man who earned the nickname The Sick Ripper in a year-long rampage of violence and death. Eli and Mel are here to give you the facts, mock the fiction, and warn you in no uncertain terms to stay the hell away from that van in... Connecticut!

Happy Halloween from your friendly neighborhood true-crime pumpkin heads at Deliver Us Some Evil! And what better way to celebrate the spooky season in style than putting a new spin on an old story: the infamous Salem Witch Trials! If you think necks were stretched over religious hysteria, food poisoning, or something out of a Women's Studies class... well, YOU'RE WRONG. It was a land grab! Eli and Mel trace the roots of the conflict all the way back to Europe and the tangled history of kings, money lending, and real estate. It all came to a head in a little town called Salem when a family feud turned into a literal witch hunt in... Massachusetts!

What's the difference between a podcast host who researches serial killers as a hobby and a budding psychopath who researches serial killers as a hobby? Motivation? Destiny? Being in the right place at the wrong time? Seriously, we're asking you. We don't know. What we do know is that Eli and Mel have been doing the DUSE for three years! The only casualty has been a few marbles here and there, which is more than we can say for this episode's criminal mind: Israel Keyes. Raised in isolation in the Pacific Northwest, Keyes grew up an uber-religious White separatist who rapidly became the family's black sheep. It wasn't his grotesque acts of sadism that drove a wedge between them, or even his friendship with junior domestic terrorist Chevie Kehoe, but his declaration of atheism. That was the last straw. Shunned by the only people willing to put up with him, Keyes took his show on the road, criss-crossing the country to set things on fire, rob banks, kidnap, rape, torture, murder, and... fish? Yep. Fish. We may never know how many victims he took with him to the grave between Alaska, New York, Washington, Texas, Oregon, New Jersey, and Florida, but he definitely did some fishing in... Vermont!

The DUSE turns the turntables on this week's episode of Fifty States of Murder as they destroy the reputation of the one state in the union that never fails to put the capital T in capital punishment. It wasn't mercy that opened the prison door for convicted murderer Kenneth McDuff, but paperwork shuffling bean-counters who wanted to flood the streets with criminals. Can you guess what was on his bucket list as soon as he became a free man? That's right, folks, keeping a murderer behind bars just might have saved a few lives in... Texas!

Buckle up for another marathon episode of Fifty States of Murder as The DUSE takes a page from the dictionary under the word... GROSS! The case of Robert Berdella is the poster child for the ugly underbelly of the 1980's from the drug-fueled gay sub-culture that definitely wasn't its own worst enemy to the trash "journalism" of Geraldo Rivera that was determined to link every possible (and impossible) situation to the Satanic Panic. We're not opening Al Capone's vault here, but we deliver on our promise when it comes to pure evil in... Missouri!

Fifty States of Murder rolls on as Eli stumps Mel with trivia questions (seriously, aren't Warsaw and Notre Dame in Europe??) before getting too close for comfort with one of America's most notorious murderers: Gertrude Baniszewski. This chain-smoking mother of seven could have done a lot of things in the summer of 1965 -- hosted a block party, learned to crochet, started a book club for single ladies, you know, normal stuff. Instead she tortured sixteen-year-old Sylvia Likens to death. They say it takes a village, and that's just what old Gerty did, recruiting her own children and a handful of neighborhood kids to destroy the life of a girl whose only crime was not hating herself in... Indiana!

Want to get away with murder? Make sure no one can spell your name! That's the secret of New Jersey's famous freelance hit man, Richard Kuklinski, known as the Ice Man, the Devil, or that really big guy over there with the bad temper and the baseball bat. The DUSE leaves no murder behind as Eli and Mel go the distance with a marathon episode that covers everything from Kuklinski's nightmare childhood and his teenage gang angst to a web of seedy mob connections, a meet cute at a urinal with a fellow psychopath, and the famous hit man's downfall by way of hubris, betrayal, and a cop in a bad wig in... New Jersey!

The DUSE heads north for some anaphylactic shock and the tragic story of a family torn apart by mental illness and murder -- TWICE! Constance Fisher was considered "moody" back in the 1950's but today she'd be a prime target for all those pharmaceutical ads you see on TV. Paranoid? Check. Depressed? Check. Hearing the voice of God telling you to do evil things to your children? Check! Side effects may include paranoia, depression, auditory hallucinations, and cold-blooded murder in... Maine!