Twisted Tales with Heidi Wong

A Swedish legend of dancing with the devil. A medieval plague that made people dance to death. And a modern town haunted by a phantom attacker. Heidi Wong uncovers how real cases of hysteria, ritual, and belief inspired Midsommar and prove that madness spreads faster than any curse.If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Twisted Tales to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’...

Welcome to the first episode of Crime House's latest four-part limited series: Spooky Season. In the winter of 1803, the village of Hammersmith was convinced a ghost was stalking its darkened lanes... and armed men took to the streets to stop it. On January 3rd, 1804, excise officer Francis Smith shot and killed Thomas Millwood, an innocent plasterer whose white work clothes made him look exactly like the phantom the village feared. The case landed in London's Old Bailey with a question English law struggled to answer for the next two centuries: can a sincere but deadly mistake constitute murder?<...

A lakeside camping trip ends in blood. A quiet cabin becomes a house of horrors. And the killers were never caught. Heidi Wong tells the real stories that inspired Friday the 13th and The Strangers: the true tales of isolation, fear, and murder that haunt horror’s most famous cabins.If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Twisted Tales to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this...

Step beyond the screen and into the real-life terror behind The Conjuring Universe. Heidi explores the Perron family’s decade-long haunting in a Rhode Island farmhouse and the sinister origins of Annabelle the Doll. From ghostly apparitions to demonic encounters, these true horror stories prove that reality can be far scarier than fiction.If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Twisted Tales to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at t...

When Dathan was five, his kindergarten class released helium balloons with letters inside as a sweet lesson about connecting with strangers. But someone found his balloon... and never stopped watching him. For nearly a decade, this person photographed Dathan from the shadows, infiltrated his neighborhood, and ultimately targeted his best friend.If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Twisted Tales to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of...

Reddit is an endless archive of humanity’s most disturbing, bizarre, and deeply human stories. If you love Twisted Tales, you are going to love CRIMES OF REDDIT with Alexis Linkletter and Sabrina Deana-Roga.Every Tuesday, one host brings a set of true-crime stories while the other reacts in real time with no prep, no spoilers asking the questions on everyone’s mind. They pull at every thread until the whole twisted picture comes into view. It’s dark, it’s messy, and the scariest part is simple: THESE ARE STORIES POSTED BY REAL PEOPLE.Follow C...

In 2015, a writer named C.K. Walker posted a story to Reddit's r/nosleep forum about a boy named Sam who moves to a perfect small town in the Ozark Mountains... and slowly realizes the friendly neighbors and idyllic streets are built on decades of abduction, forced labor, and silence. When his teenage sister vanishes and his two best friends follow, Sam spends the next fifteen years unraveling a conspiracy that an entire community chose to protect.If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Twisted Tales to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-f...

In 2010, writer Matt Dymerski published a creepypasta called Psychosis: a journal written by a programmer slowly convinced that everyone he knows has been replaced by something only pretending to be them. Trapped in a windowless basement apartment, cut off from direct human contact, he begins to notice that nothing reaches him except through screens, speakers, and wires. The deeper he investigates, the more the line between paranoia and survival dissolves.Head over to our Twisted Tales YouTube channel to WATCH this episode: https://www.youtube.com/@watchtwistedtales If you’re new here, don’t forget to fo...

In 2009, a web cartoonist named Kris Straub published a short story formatted as an internet forum thread, in which a group of strangers collectively reconstruct a disturbing children's TV show called Candle Cove. One that, by the final post, they realize was never actually broadcast. The story weaponizes nostalgia and the science of false memory, turning the warmest corner of childhood into something genuinely unsettling. It then did something no other creepypasta had done: it escaped into the real world and became the exact myth it was imitating.Head over to our Twisted Tales YouTube channel to...

Andrew Erics is a twenty-five-year-old factory worker in New York City who passes his daily commute by people-watching... until he notices riders who are too still, too blank, and going absolutely nowhere. What begins as quiet curiosity slowly consumes his job, his sanity, and finally his freedom, pulling him into an impossible underground world he may never escape. And the deeper he follows, the more he transforms into the very thing that unsettled him.Head over to our Twisted Tales YouTube channel to WATCH this episode: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudiosIf you’re new he...

For homicide detectives, their chance of solving a murder is cut in half if they don’t get a lead within the first 48 hours.Adapted from the hit A&E true crime series The First 48, Crime House Studios brings you the podcast that drops you inside that critical window: the interrogations, the dead ends, and the breakthroughs that crack a case wide open. Each week, we revisit a landmark investigation from the franchise, pairing its signature investigative depth with immersive, long-form storytelling built for your ears.Real detectives. Real cases. Real stakes. New episodes every Th...

In 1976, Soviet cosmonaut Boris Volynov endured a catastrophic solo stint aboard the Salyut 5 space station: contaminated air, a crumbling support system, and a rescue that nearly ended in disaster. The creepypasta "The Devil's Cosmonaut" takes that real mission and asks one quiet question: what if it wasn't just the air? Built on documented failures, classified silence, and the psychological terror of absolute isolation, this story blurs the line between breakdown and haunting in ways that are hard to shake.Head over to our Twisted Tales YouTube channel to WATCH this episode: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios<...

No End House is a creepypasta about a nine-room haunted attraction that promises five hundred dollars to anyone who makes it through... a feat no one has ever accomplished. What begins as a cheesy Halloween gimmick quickly escalates into something deeply personal, as each room targets its visitor's most specific and private fears.Head over to our Twisted Tales YouTube channel to WATCH this episode: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudiosJoin Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are th...

In 1981, a plain black arcade cabinet appeared overnight in a Portland, Oregon arcade. No logo, no artwork, just a name glowing in pale green letters: Polybius. Players reported migraines, memory loss, and night terrors, and mysterious men in suits came to collect data from the machine before it vanished without a trace. The story stayed buried for nineteen years until a single internet post turned it into one of gaming's most enduring urban legends.Head over to our Twisted Tales YouTube channel to WATCH this episode: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudiosJoin Crime House+ to...

In early 2001, a recreational caver named Ted documented his obsessive attempt to break through a sealed passage deep inside a cave... and what he found on the other side became one of the internet's earliest and most disturbing horror stories. Presented as a real personal account with photographs and journal entries, Ted the Caver predated modern creepypastas and convinced countless readers it was true. The story builds from physical claustrophobia to something far darker: unexplained sounds, a dog's terror, a screaming passage, and a presence that may have followed Ted home.Head over to our Twisted Tales...

Crime House’s Murder: True Crime Stories presents a special series for America’s 250th Birthday: The Crimes That Built America. Listen every Monday until July 6th on Murder: True Crime Stories. Join Crime House+ to get all 4 episodes right now ad-free. To subscribe, go to crimehouseplus.com or if you are listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page.250 years ago, a brand-new country declared its independence, and in the centuries since, some of the worst crimes this country has ever seen reshaped America. Four murders. Four turning points. The crime...

In September 2010, a college student bought a used copy of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask at a garage sale, and discovered a save file named BEN belonging to a boy who had drowned years before. What started as glitchy gameplay quickly became something far more sinister: a presence that manipulated the game, invaded his computer, and refused to be deleted. Ben Drowned is the creepypasta that redefined internet horror... and it may have been watching you all along.Head over to our Twisted Tales YouTube channel to WATCH this episode: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios<...

In August 2017, New York-based cartoonist Adam Ellis began documenting a haunting on Twitter: a dead boy named David, a dented skull, and a rocking chair that moved on its own. What started as a unsettling dream spiraled into months of photos, videos, and unexplained events that millions followed in real time. Unlike anonymous creepypastas, Ellis put his real name and face on every post, blurring the line between performance and paranormal experience.Head over to our Twisted Tales YouTube channel to WATCH this episode: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudiosIf you’re new here, don’t fo...

In the summer of 2012, a teenager's camping trip on remote Alabama woodland turns into something no one can explain. What begins with strange smells and figures standing motionless in the dark escalates when the group realizes there's an extra person in their group... without anyone noticing. The horror isn't a monster in the woods. It's a creature already inside the room. Head over to our Twisted Tales YouTube channel to WATCH this episode: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Twisted Tales to never miss a case! For...

In 2018, an anonymous user posted a photograph of an empty yellow room on 4chan — no caption, no story, no name. A year later, two paragraphs turned that image into one of the most elaborate horror mythologies the internet has ever produced. What followed was a global phenomenon: hundreds of levels, thousands of contributors, and a teenage filmmaker handed a feature film deal by A24. Head over to our Twisted Tales YouTube channel to WATCH this episode: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Twisted Tales to never miss a...