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  • He Wore His Real Name While Stealing Millions - The Professor Ghost

    He Wore His Real Name While Stealing Millions - The Professor Ghost
    2026/09/10
    He Wore His Real Name While Stealing Millions - The Professor Ghost

    The thought of a con man who uses his real name draws a quieter, colder dread: Robert Hyams walked into Christie's in February 2002 with a forged bank document for up to £5,000,000 and still signed every lease, check, and court paper with his own name-so why did he keep daring people to trust him? What drove a University of Warwick-trained scientist to repeat frauds across countries for fifteen years while never hiding who he was?

    In this episode, we lay out the sequence of events from his 1990 bankruptcy through the Christie's scandal, showing the methods, arrests, and courtroom moments that define Hyams's career in deception; we close on the question of whether his crimes were about money or something else he couldn't stop doing.

    Person: Robert Hyams
    Date of birth: 13 May 1954
    Education: Master's degree from the University of Warwick
    Event: Christie's auction fraud, February 2002
    Court: Southwark Crown Court judgment, 20 January 2006

    - Hyams presented a forged bank document claiming spending authority of up to £5,000,000 at Christie's in February 2002.
    - His daughter won six paintings worth over £1,000,000 at the Christie's auction on his behalf.
    - On 20 January 2006 a judge said Hyams appeared to have "almost a compulsion to deceive people" after he pleaded guilty to 10 charges and asked the court to consider 77 additional offenses.
    - Between 1990 and 2005 Hyams committed repeated frauds across multiple countries, with arrests and prison sentences during that period.
    - In approximately 1992 Hyams was convicted on 19 counts of deception, sentenced to four years (reduced to one year on appeal), involving £236,000 taken from a farming community.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    20 分
  • The Man Who Hid in Plain Sight: How a Truck Painter Became a Monster

    The Man Who Hid in Plain Sight: How a Truck Painter Became a Monster
    2026/09/09
    The Man Who Hid in Plain Sight: How a Truck Painter Became a Monster

    A single swab of dried saliva sat in an evidence envelope for fourteen years before a 2001 test turned it into the most damning piece of evidence in Washington State history; meanwhile, the man it named kept painting trucks in Renton, married to his third wife and going to church every Sunday. How did fifty people die and the answer sit in a lab drawer while he lived a routine life under everyone’s radar?

    In this episode, we trace the chronology of the Green River killings, the slow failures of early investigations, and the moments that let a killer remain unremarked for decades - asking whether procedural gaps or plain invisibility allowed him to continue. Will the evidence recovered from 1987 finally explain why so many opportunities to stop him were missed?

    Person: Gary Ridgway
    Date collected: 1987
    Date of breakthrough test: 2001
    Location: Renton, Washington; Pacific Highway South; Green River
    Confirmed deaths by end of 1982: 11

    - A gauze swab of dried saliva was collected in 1987 and tested two or three times inconclusively before 2001.
    - In 2001, a new testing method turned that single swab into decisive evidence in Washington State history.
    - Gary Ridgway was born in 1949 in Salt Lake City and worked as a truck painter at the Kenworth plant in Renton.
    - On July 15, 1982, children found a 16-year-old sex worker’s body near Frager Road; she had been dead about one week.
    - By the end of 1982, the Green River Task Force had recovered victims two to three times per week and confirmed 11 deaths.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    21 分
  • He Showed Her a Passport - Then Stole Half a Million Pounds

    He Showed Her a Passport - Then Stole Half a Million Pounds
    2026/09/08
    He Showed Her a Passport - Then Stole Half a Million Pounds

    She produced a valid British passport unprompted on their first date and the man across from her used it to convince her he was who he claimed - a charmed Dr. Alexander de Arriken with a laminated identity. That single gesture led Christine Handy to lose £500,000, her home, and three years of her life; how did a fabricated identity include an apparently official passport?

    In this episode, we follow the timeline from the first morning coffee in a Cheltenham cafeteria to the wine-bar date when the passport appeared, tracing the payments, the parallel life he maintained, and the unanswered question of where that passport came from - could it have been manufactured, stolen, or obtained another way?

    Person: Christine Handy
    Person: Mark Hatton (also used names Dr. Alexander Mark Alphonsus Nathanael de Rothschild Arakan Hatton, Alexander de Arriken)
    Location: Cheltenham
    Date: June 23, 2003
    Sentence: 18 years (Crown Court)

    - Christine transferred £75,000 in December 2003 for what he said was London Business School tuition.
    - Christine owned a house valued at £500,000 before the fraud.
    - Mark Hatton was living simultaneously with another woman in Cirencester while courting Christine.
    - The other woman’s daughter was 13 years old when Hatton moved in with them.
    - The passport with the long aristocratic name was produced unprompted on the first proper date at a wine bar downstairs in Cheltenham.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    17 分
  • The Man Who Answered the Door: The Silence Behind the Plants

    The Man Who Answered the Door: The Silence Behind the Plants
    2026/09/07
    The Man Who Answered the Door: The Silence Behind the Plants

    A stranger claimed he was simply watering the plants while a dead man's car sat in the driveway, an explanation that froze Greg Seal and set off a homicide built almost entirely on absences. Routine details - five days of newspapers, a missing duvet, rugs pushed aside - became the only clues to a deliberate erasure; who left a thumbprint and bare-foot blood impressions at the sink, and why did no one act sooner?

    In this episode, we follow the timeline from Harley Walker's last normal Thanksgiving Monday through the terse Friday the thirteenth email and the first, underwhelming police response, to the moment detectives discover cleaned surfaces, hidden blood, and the small disruptions that revealed a larger violence; can the gaps in a life point to the person who took it?

    Person: Harley Walker
    Age: 72
    Location: Cabbagetown, Toronto
    Date of email sent: Friday the thirteenth
    Detective: Pauline Gray

    - Harley's car was parked in the driveway the day Greg Seal went to the house.
    - Five days of newspapers had accumulated on Harley's front step.
    - An email from Harley's address requested immediate liquidation of his entire investment portfolio.
    - A thumbprint belonging to the man who answered the door was found inside the house.
    - Hemoglobin reagent revealed bare-foot blood footprints at the kitchen sink.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    19 分
  • The Forensic Phantom: How a Fake Expert Ruined 700 Cases

    The Forensic Phantom: How a Fake Expert Ruined 700 Cases
    2026/09/06
    The Forensic Phantom: How a Fake Expert Ruined 700 Cases

    The idea that a courtroom can be deceived for decades is chilling: a man billed public funds at professional rates, presented fake PhD and BSc diplomas, and influenced roughly seven hundred criminal cases across England. How did a manufactured laboratory, purchased degrees from Rochville University, and an FBI-style sign go unquestioned for twenty-six years - and what happens to the people whose fates rested on his testimony?

    In this episode, we tell the story of Gene Morrison’s long career as a self-styled forensic expert, the small moments that allowed him to thrive in courtrooms, and the single prison phone call that triggered an investigation. What failures in verification and professional trust let this continue until 2004?

    Person: Gene Morrison
    Organization: Criminal and Forensic Investigation Bureau (CIB)
    Credential source: Rochville University diplomas
    Years active: 1977-2004 (approximately 27 years)
    Public funds received (2002-2005): at least £250,000

    - Morrison appeared as an expert witness in approximately 700 cases.
    - He received at least £250,000 of public funds between 2002 and 2005.
    - Morrison began presenting himself as a forensic investigator in 1977.
    - He subcontracted CCTV analysis to a retired filmmaker for £50 and invoiced £2,800.
    - The operation was exposed after a staff member at Strangeways Prison reported a suspicious phone call in 2004.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    21 分
  • The Night a Bite Mark Sent Ted Bundy to Death Row

    The Night a Bite Mark Sent Ted Bundy to Death Row
    2026/09/05
    The Night a Bite Mark Sent Ted Bundy to Death Row

    Fear tightened inside a locked sorority house where four women were attacked in fifteen minutes; three survived, two died, and the only physical evidence that ultimately put Theodore Bundy on death row was a bite mark smaller than a silver dollar pressed into the skin of a twenty-year-old victim. How did a single dental impression-rather than a fingerprint or an eyewitness photo-become the case-closer after years of missed chances?

    In this episode, we lay out the sequence of events across four years and seven states that led to Bundy’s capture and conviction, focusing on the bite-mark evidence, the sheriff who had to petition court to inspect a suspect’s mouth, and the moments when the investigation could have ended earlier. What does a single piece of forensics reveal about a case built over thirty confessed murders and repeated failures by authorities?

    Person: Theodore Robert Bundy
    Date of birth: November 24, 1946
    Victim: Lisa, age 20
    Duration of attacks in sorority: 15 minutes
    Confessions: 30 murders across 7 states

    - Four women were attacked inside a locked sorority house over a fifteen-minute period.
    - The only physical evidence tying Bundy to that crime was a double bite mark on the body of a twenty-year-old woman named Lisa.
    - Bundy was born at the Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers in Burlington, Vermont on November 24, 1946.
    - He escaped from a Colorado jail by jumping from a law library window and was recaptured six days later.
    - In 1976 Bundy was convicted of Carol’s aggravated kidnapping and assault, not murder, and later identified in a 1975 lineup by Carol after she escaped a mall abduction.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    21 分
  • He Decided to Kill on New Year's - Hunting the Gay Slayer

    He Decided to Kill on New Year's - Hunting the Gay Slayer
    2026/09/04
    He Decided to Kill on New Year's - Hunting the Gay Slayer

    The first call to The Sun said there was a body in a Battersea flat and asked, almost casually, if someone could check on the dogs - a domestic afterthought that followed a man who had planned a murder down to how he'd clean the scene. Five men were found dead across London in just over three months while three separate police teams never compared notes; what drove a 38-year-old to resolve on January 1, 1993, that he would become a serial killer and hunt within a trusting subculture?

    In this episode, we tell the sequence of events from the New Year’s resolution through the killings in March-June 1993, following the killer’s methods, the staged scenes, and the police response - and ask how a pattern that should have been visible remained invisible until it was almost too late.

    Person: Colin Ireland
    Date: January 1, 1993 (decision) and March 10, 1993 (first discovery)
    Location: Battersea; Colehern Arms, Old Brompton Road, Earl's Court; Willstone; West Kensington
    Case: Five men killed across London in just over three months
    Status: Investigated by three separate Metropolitan Police teams with no cross-comparison

    - Colin Ireland resolved to become a serial killer on January 1, 1993, at age 38.
    - Peter Walker, 45, was suffocated and staged with two teddy bears; his body was found March 10, 1993.
    - Christopher Dunn, 37, was found strangled in his North London flat on May 30, 1993, labeled as a "possible accidental perverse act."
    - Perry Bradley III, 35, an American visitor, was strangled on June 7, 1993, with no defensive injuries and likely killed while asleep.
    - Ireland used gloves, cleaned surfaces, and disposed of murder weapons by dropping them from a moving train into a river.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    20 分
  • The Man Who Lived in Sealed Furniture: Fraud, Spells, Betrayal

    The Man Who Lived in Sealed Furniture: Fraud, Spells, Betrayal
    2026/09/03
    The Man Who Lived in Sealed Furniture: Fraud, Spells, Betrayal

    A house stacked with unopened plasma TVs and designer clothes became the stage for a confidence trick that stole nearly half a million pounds; the conman could never spell the single word that defined his fake life - barrister - without leaving out the second r. What did a wrapped sofa and a misspelled profession hide about how he fooled people so completely?

    In this episode, we tell the story of Stephen Clenshaw, from earlier convictions to the rented five-bedroom house in Sutton Coldfield, the train meeting that began the deception, and the trial that ended it; how did his small lies become a life built on other people's losses?

    Person: Stephen Clenshaw
    Location: Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands
    Date of arrest: 29 April 2008
    Total estimated fraud: £470,000
    Sentence: 5 years' imprisonment

    - Police found plasma televisions still sealed in their boxes and designer clothing wrapped in plastic across four bedrooms.
    - Clenshaw had defrauded an estimated £470,000 by the time of his arrest.
    - More than £250,000 of the stolen money went to online gambling and an extravagant lifestyle.
    - He was charged with 12 counts of dishonesty and changed his plea to guilty on the morning of his Crown Court trial in January 2009.
    - Clenshaw had two prior fraud convictions, one in 1995 and another in 2005, before the 2007-2008 offences.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    20 分