Too Close to Home Podcast

The hit song "Stairway To Heaven" isn't the only thing with that name to be forbidden; take for example the Haiku Stairs, or Stairway To Heaven, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Once the home of secret United States Navy communication facilities, the Haiku Stairs used to be a popular hiking trail until its permanent closure in 1987; however, this didn't stop 18 year old Daylenn Pua from attempting the illegal hike in 2015. What foll...

We open this closing chapter on the murder of Emmitt Till with the quick indictment of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, the individuals responsible for his brutal murder, and what David Halberstam called "the first great media event of the civil rights movement". Their subsequent acquittal and admittance of guilt in Look magazine caused tremendous outcry, led to Mamie's career in education, and influenced the actions of notable civil rig...

We pick up Emmett Till's story with his journey from Chicago to Mississippi, where he learns very quickly that life is quite different, and the sharecropping life is not for him. In a time of kids being kids, a fateful decision to visit Bryant's Grocery would lead to a sequence of events which are still discussed and debated on today. We try to find the truth as we cover Emmett's last days and the murder which sparked the flames of...

We pick up where we left off with the infamous formation of everyone's most hated wizards, the Ku Klux Klan, during the Reconstruction era; this movement sparked a rise in hate crimes and lynchings for decades to come. As we enter the Jim Crow era, we see state and local laws worsen the societal divide by enforcing racial segregation and discrimination. The Great Migration sees the movement of African Americans from the South to th...

The infamous 1955 murder of Emmett Till rocked the Mississippi Delta region, and was a strong catalyst for the later phases of the Civil Rights movement. Importantly, his brutal murder brought renewed spotlight to the history of violent persecution of African Americans. We start this story by going all the way back to the beginning of the slave trade in 1619. We later see how slavery evolves over the next couple hundred years, taki...

We have more fun cryptid surprises in store for you this week with a short yet sweet episode! Today we talk about the bipedal, wand-waving, small-town local legend by the name of the Loveland Frog! First spotted in Loveland, Ohio, the Loveland Frog is a famous and beloved mascot for its eponymous town. Remaining elusive with just a few claimed appearances since the 1950's, this amphibious wizard (likely a Hufflepuff) is sure to bri...

Imagine you are playing outside an elementary school, when suddenly a bright light flashes across the sky and crashes into a nearby hillside. When you go to investigate, you discover something terrifying... something otherworldly. We are talking about the Flatwoods Monster of West Virginia: A cryptid of an... "alien" nature. The stories surrounding this mysterious entity have captured the imagination of residents and businesses aro...

First we puff, puff, pass while providing a basic education on legal and illegal hemp qualities and strains, talk about the crackdown on drug operations with CAMP, "Campaign Against Marijuana Planting", and then we get right into the star of the show: the supposed murder of 3 trimmigrants by our boy Sassie. We follow journalist David Holthouse's investigation into that fateful night in 1993, with places and interactions which are s...

In part 2 of our series, we start by getting a lesson on biomechanics and species divergence: two things which help us understand how ol' Sassie could potentially be a real, living being. We then take a massive detour and talk about the history and criminality of marijuana, the back to the land movement of Northern California, and how the conditions of the area make it perfect for high quality cannabis cultivation. I know what you'...

Time to pass the dutchie 'pon the left hand side, and straight into the hands of probably the most famous cryptid in the world... Bigfoot, or the Sasquatch! We go way back to the beginning with the origins of the Bigfoot legend as described in Indigenous American oral history, and go forward in time to the stories and evidence presented during the modern era within the Emerald Triangle and beyond. Does Bigfoot really exist? Is it a...

We jump right into the investigation into the murders, and Lawrence is quickly identified as a number one suspect, and the search of his home yields many discoveries... some hilarious and some disturbing. Following some robbery and car chase shenanigans, Rodgers is also quickly apprehended. In the trial that comes, is it determined they are just mentally ill and didn't have their faculties about them? Or did they know exactly what ...

In this listener request series, we shed light on a little known yet brutal series of murders which occurred in the small town of Milton, Florida in 1998... one that our own Becky actually grew up in! We jump straight into the crime spree of perpetrators Jeremiah Rodgers and Jonathan Lawrence, beginning with the murder of Lawrence's cousin Justin Livingston. Following some 3D Doritos and small-town petty drama, we arrive at the day...

Just imagine for a second that you are an innocent beaver... hiding away in your dark, wet habitat... when all of a sudden, you are exposed to a beast with a voracious appetite... one that loves to eat beaver. Now get your mind out of the gutter! We are referring to the giant sloth-like cryptid: The Yukon Beaver Eater! If we stop laughing long enough, we may even talk about its history, sightings, and some science. Come join us for...

As a member of the WVHA, Rudy had unfettered access to everything involved in the concentration camp system, and it was his expertise that led him to spearhead Operation Hoess: The mass deportation and execution of Hungarian Jews. During this time, however, the Allies have successfully invaded Europe and the time of the Third Reich is nearing its inevitable end. We then touch upon the aftermath, the Nuremberg Trials, and the poetic...

With the Final Solution well underway, we first start by discussing the role of Sonderkommandos: Jewish prisoners who were responsible for the "dirty" work involved in the mass killings, and the horrors they had to perform and endure. During the miserable expansion of Auschwitz, we also take a detour into Rudy and his wife Hedwig's personal life, his scandalous "affair" with a prisoner servant, and Rudy's eventual promotion to the ...

The life of a concentration camp prisoner is something most people could never truly fathom. In part 3 of this series, we discuss a small part of what that was like; we touch upon the role of music, the conditions the prisoners and guards deal with, the advent of Zyklon B, and Hoess’ transition of Auschwitz into a death camp to answer the question to the Final Solution. We are truly fixing to enter the darkest period in the history...

We pick up Rudolph Hoess' story from his beginnings at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, to his promotion to commandant, to the chaotic construction of the "zone of interest" which would grow into the most infamous concentration camp of all time under his leadership. At this time the evil machinations within Auschwitz are starting to become underway, and prisoners come to understand exactly what "Arbeit Macht Frei" means in the...

We are beginning perhaps the darkest series we have ever produced: the rise of Rudolph Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, and the countless atrocities performed under his ever watchful gaze. In the first part of this series, we explore Rudy's idyllic yet stern childhood, the birth of his ideologies, his time as a soldier and prisoner in World War 1 and beyond, and how a developing friendship with Heinrich Himmler in the Artmanen L...

She was an enigmatic, alluring dancer and seductress who turned into one of the most unlikely and infamous spies of all time; of course, we are talking about the international woman of mystery herself... Mata Hari! Born in the Netherlands, Mata Hari carefully crafted her image and became one of the most captivating attractions in Paris. When World War 1 breaks out and she is recruited as a French spy, it unleashes a hilarious web o...