The Compendium Podcast

Aileen Wuornos is remembered as one of the most notorious female serial killers in American history, the woman Charlize Theron played in Monster and the press dubbed the Damsel of Death. The truth underneath that label is much harder to sit with. She...

Fyre Festival promised the most exclusive party on earth: supermodels, private jets and music on a Bahamian island. What it delivered was rain-soaked tents, no water, and a cheese sandwich that became one of the internet's most infamous images.

Ed Gein, the so-called Butcher of Plainfield, is remembered as one of America's most notorious killers, yet only two of his murders were ever confirmed. This is the true story of the quiet Wisconsin handyman, the mother who shaped him, and the horror...

Princess Diana thought she was marrying into a fairytale. By the honeymoon, she needed a memo to have lunch with her own husband. This is Princess Diana before the icon, the lonely childhood, the strange chaperoned courtship, and a royal marriage tha...

Genie Wiley was the child hidden from the world for thirteen years before her rescue became a test case for language, trauma, and the ethics of scientific research. This episode follows her abuse, rehabilitation, and the systems that failed her after...

Somerton Man is one of Australia’s most enduring mysteries: an unidentified body found on Somerton Beach in Adelaide in 1948, a hidden scrap of paper reading “Tamám Shud”, and a trail of clues that only got stranger.

Bob Lazar claimed he worked at Area 51’s hidden S-4 facility reverse-engineering alien craft powered by Element 115. This episode follows the 1989 George Knapp broadcast, Lazar’s story, the credibility questions and the UFO lore it helped send mainst...

DashCon 2014 was Tumblr’s infamous failed convention: a ball pit, guest cancellations, and a frantic $17,000 cash appeal that turned fandom excitement into internet legend. We trace how a dream of bringing online community into real life collapsed in...

A fake pregnancy, a roadside birth lie, and years of calculated deception sit at the centre of Part 2 of the Taylor Parker case. This episode follows how Taylor’s manufactured world of forged paperwork, invented crises, and false identities led prose...

The Taylor Parker case centres on a woman who convinced people around her that she was pregnant while also building a wider story of inheritance disputes, family sabotage and threats. In this first part of the episode, those lies escalate until Parke...