In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Michael and Suzan Carson drifted through the American West, moving between communes, shared apartments, and marijuana farms. They changed their names, adopted a patchwork belief system of mysticism and religion, and came to see themselves as warriors in a hidden war. Between 1981 and 1983, three people were killed. A young woman found stabbed and bludgeoned in a San Francisco basement. A co-worker shot and buried in the woods of Humboldt County. And a man who stopped to help two hitchhikers, shot on the side of a California highway. The Carsons insisted their victims were witches. They held a five-hour jailhouse press conference, spoke of visions and holy missions, and framed murder as religious duty. Decades later, they have never renounced those beliefs.

This episode traces how an ordinary couple built a shared delusion powerful enough to justify killing, the damage it inflicted on children and families left behind, and why the story has been remembered as something occult rather than what it was: a case study in belief, control, and the human capacity to turn ideology into violence.

If you have a story where crime and the otherworldly intertwine, something strange, unexplained or just plain haunted, get in touch at paranormia@alwaystruecrime.com.

Paranormia is an Audio Always production.

Presented by Elizabeth McCafferty.

Written and produced by Mansi Vithlani.

Executive produced by Ailsa Rochester.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans became a city stripped to its bones. Power was gone. Tourists vanished. And for a brief moment, life in the French Quarter felt suspended outside of time. Zack Bowen, a former soldier, and Addie Hall, a poet and bartender, chose to stay. They scavenged food, cooked in the streets, drank beneath darkened skies, and were photographed by national media as symbols of defiance; young lovers riding out the end of the world together.

A year later, Addie was dead. Dismembered in an apartment above a voodoo temple. Zack would take his own life days later, leaving behind a confession and one of the most disturbing crime scenes New Orleans has ever seen.

This episode traces the arc from disaster romance to domestic horror, from Katrina’s strange, intoxicating aftermath to addiction, untreated trauma, and a relationship collapsing under the return of ordinary life. It asks why this story became framed as a “voodoo murder,” what we miss when we reach for supernatural explanations, and how catastrophe can amplify the quiet damage already living inside people.

If you have a story where crime and the otherworldly intertwine, something strange, unexplained or just plain haunted, get in touch at paranormia@alwaystruecrime.com.

Paranormia is an Audio Always production.

Presented by Elizabeth McCafferty.

Written and produced by Mansi Vithlani.

Executive produced by Ailsa Rochester.

***

Support & Resources:

This episode discusses suicide, domestic abuse, addiction, and trauma. If you or someone you love needs support, help is available:

United Kingdom:

Samaritans - Call 116 123 (24/7) or visit samaritans.org

National Domestic Abuse Helpline - Call 0808 2000 247 (24/7) or visit nationaldahelpline.org.uk

United States:

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline - Call or text 988 (24/7) or visit 988lifeline.org

Veterans Crisis Line - Call 988, then press 1, or text 838255

National Domestic Violence Hotline - Call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or visit thehotline.org

Australia:

Lifeline Australia - Call 13 11 14 (24/7) or visit lifeline.org.au

1800RESPECT - Call 1800 737 732 or visit 1800respect.org.au

Global:

International Association for Suicide Prevention

Find local helplines at findahelpline.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Christmas Eve 1945, a fire tore through a family home in the hills of West Virginia. Four children escaped. Five never came out. When the smoke cleared, there were no bodies in the ashes, no bones, and no clear explanation. In the years that followed, the Sodder family rejected the official story. They spoke of cut phone lines, a missing ladder, warnings from strangers, and a photograph mailed decades later that seemed to show one of the lost children alive. For eighty years, the case has hovered between accident and conspiracy, grief and obsession.

This episode explores the disappearance of the Sodder children and the questions that refuse to fade. It asks what happens when tragedy leaves no physical proof, when mourning turns into investigation, and when a Christmas night becomes a mystery that will not let a family, or a nation, move on.

If you have a story where crime and the otherworldly intertwine, something strange, unexplained or just plain haunted, get in touch at paranormia@alwaystruecrime.com.

Paranormia is an Audio Always production.

Presented by Elizabeth McCafferty.

Written and produced by Mansi Vithlani.

Executive produced by Ailsa Rochester.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.