After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal

In 1860 Britain was rocked by the brutal murder of 3-year-old Francis Kent inside his family home. Scotland Yard sent their finest but when a teenage sister, Constance Kent, was accused there was outcry. How could a well-mannered young lady be guilty of murder? It was a crime against class and gender to suggest such a thing. The detective was sent packing, but was he right all along?

Anthony Delaney tells Maddy Pelling the story...

There really was a secret society called the Illuminati that aimed to create a New World Order. This is true story of the Illuminati and how they were transformed into the world's first conspiracy theory by the French revolution.

Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney are joined by Michael Taylor whose new book is called Impossible Monsters: Dinosaurs, Darwin, and the War between Science and Religion and who is working on a full...

In 1810 a valet called Joseph Sellis was found dead in St James's Palace. All eyes turned to his master the Duke of Cumberland, fifth son of George III. The scandal that would follow hounded the Duke for decades.

Maddy Pelling tells Anthony Delaney this story about royal scandals and the freedom of the press that rings a lot of bells today!

Written by Maddy Pelling, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

Untimely deaths followed the opening of Tutankhamun's tomb by Howard Carter. Coincidence or ancient curse? When the tomb of King Tutankhamun was sealed more than 3000 years ago, it was rumoured to be protected by a curse, which would ruin the life of anyone who disturbed the pharaoh's final resting place. A mere two weeks after the tomb was discovered in 1922, one of the explorers died from a fatal mosquito bite. This wasn't the en...

It's America's greatest ghost story: the 1817-1821 haunting of a rural family by a mysterious entity—sometimes violent, sometimes mischievous, even offering marriage advice. Poltergeist? Witch? Hoax? Or pure legend from the beginning?

Maddy Pelling tells Anthony Delaney the story this week.

Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original...

"You've got to pick a pocket or two" says Fagan to Oliver Twist about the foggy streets of Victorian London where poverty and oppression abounded. Today we look at the every day crimes of Victorian London from pickpockets on omnibuses to the trauma of domestic violence with the help of Drew Gray, author of Nether World: Crime and the Police Courts in Victorian London.

Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentarie...

Would you have gone? Would you have drunk with the condemned? Paid your way into their prison the night before? Public executions in London were big business with hundreds of thousands carousing through the streets alongside the condemned as they went from Newgate prison to Tyburn's infamous gallows. It was a grisly performance but one that many revelled in. Perhaps you would have too.

Anthony Delaney takes Maddy Pelling out for...

Do you dare try? The Ouija board was invented in 1890. It was an idea lifted from Spiritualist devices for communicating with the dead. Find out the spooky origin story of the Ouija board and our attempts to pierce the veil between the worlds.

Today's guest is Brandon Hodge - leading expert and collector of talking boards. https://www.mysteriousplanchette.com/

(And here's his candy store! https://www.bigtopcandyshop.com/)

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What if a leisurely visit to the Palace of Versailles transported you back to the court of Marie Antoinette — would you believe it or question your sanity?

This is the story of two English women from St Hugh's College, Oxford University, who in 1901 believed that they slipped back in time to the 1790s and came face-to-face with one of the most famous figures of history.

Anthony Delaney tells Maddy Pelling the story this week.

This is the dark history of the last people to be executed for witchcraft in England. In 1682, Temperance Lloyd, Mary Trembles and Susannah Edwards, from the town of Bideford in the South-West of England, were tried and hanged as witches. They were convicted on the flimsiest of evidence under the cynical eye of uncaring authorities. Their fates encapsulates the turmoil of the seventeenth century and its deadly consequences.

Our ...

The so-called 'Genius' Killer was a murderer who seemed to be both philosopher and psychopath, whose brain was one of the largest ever recorded. But was Edward Rulloff really as smart as all that?

Maddy tells Anthony the story of a husband who murdered his wife and child, killed an innocent shop clerk in a petty theft, and still somehow managed to convince the world he was a 'genius'.

Edited and produced by Freddy Chick. Seni...

Convicts, illegal dissections, disease, all taking place on ships described as "Wicked Noah's Arks" where conditions were even worse than in notorious prisons like Newgate. Transportation to Australia awaited those who survived, and they counted themselves the lucky ones. Today it's the dark history of the Prison Hulks.

Our guest is Dr Anna McKay from the University of Liverpool who researches the lives and experiences of p...

The Enfield Poltergeist is Britain's most infamous haunting - set in the late 1970s on the outskirts of London, it continues to be told and retold. Most famously in the film The Conjuring 2.

But this is a real piece of history about a real family and a young girl, Janet, who became the focus of newspapers, paranormal investigators and - if we believe what we're told - a malevolent poltergeist.

Written by Anthony Delaney.

E...

On Christmas night 1843 a mother and child were found murdered inside their burned out home. Suspicion fell on one Polly Bodine. Over the next three years, Polly became the most infamous person in America in a blockbuster series of murder trials that gave birth to a monster - tabloid justice.

Our guest today is author Alex Hortis whose book The Witch of New York: The Trials of Polly Bodine and the Cursed Birth of Tabloid Justice...

Mutineers, manhunts, uninhabited tropical islands and...SHIPWRECKS! The second part of the story of the Mutiny of the Bounty is even wilder than the first. This time we follow HMS Pandora as it hunts down the mutineers, and uncover the incredible story of how a group of mutineers and Polynesians escaped to the uninhabited island of Pitcairn.

Written by Maddy Pelling.

Edited and produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Cha...

Why are the Knights Templar surrounded by myths and legends? Is there any truth to the tales of the Holy Grail or that the Knights survived? Why does this medieval order, which disappeared in the 14th century, continue to enthral us today?

To uncover the real history of the Knights Templar we are joined by Dan Jones - historian, author, podcaster and host of This Is History, whose new series The Iron King is all about man who de...

At exactly the same time as Jack the Ripper, another serial killer terrorised London. Just like Jack the Ripper, all their victims were women - their dismembered bodies left floating in the Thames. This is the dark history of the Thames Torso Murders, a case which asks questions about what crimes we choose the remember and what ones we try our hardest to forget.

Written by Maddy Pelling. Edited by Peter Dennis. Produced by Fredd...

Garden gnomes have a secret life all of their own. If you don't believe us, then go ask Paris Hilton.

Today we discover the hidden history of garden gnomes and meet the eccentric aristocrat - Sir Charles Isham - who firmly believed that the mountains of the world really filled with little folk with pointy red hats and pickaxes.

Our guest is Twigs Way author of Garden Gnomes: A History.

Edited by Tomos Delargy, Produced by ...

1847 was the darkest year in the spiralling horror of the Great Irish Famine. It is known in Ireland as 'Black '47'. The British Government withdrew its support, leaving famine and disease to stalk the land. Those who could leave Ireland did, sailing on board 'Coffin Ships'.

Today Anthony concludes his two-part history of the Great Irish Famine with the help of special guest Professor Christine Kinealy, Director of Ireland's Gre...