Episode 397: The Murder of Sherri Rasmussen

In November's BONUS EPISODE, Ash and Alaina deep dive into the cinematic masterpiece/disaster/fever dream known as Twilight. Yes, THAT Twilight. The one where a 100-year-old immortal creature gaslights a teenager into thinking she smells weird. Buckle up weirdos!

On today's episode we are joined again by our friend Aliza Kelly, host of Horoscope Weekly: Astrology with Aliza Kelly, to take a cosmic deep dive into one of history’s most chilling mysteries: The Whitechapel Murders. We explore what the stars might reveal about the shadowy figure who terrorized Victorian London. Could astrology shed light on the motive of the crimes? The psychology of the killer? Or even help narrow down which of the many suspects might have fit the Ripper’s celestial profile? From the eerie fog of Whitechapel to the astrological markers seen repeated in the charts of key figures in this prolific case, this episode blends true crime and the metaphysical in a way only Morbid and Aliza can.

After an intense manhunt that lasted several days, investigators arrested Richard Speck, a twenty-four-year-old unemployed drifter with a criminal history. There was a strong amount of evidence that linked Speck directly to the murders, including his own confession, so when he went to trial, his lawyer tried unsuccessfully to argue Speck was not legally sane at the time of the murders. Unfortunately, the truth was something far worse: Speck killed eight women for no reason whatsoever.

In the early morning hours of July 14, 1966, Chicago police responded to a call about a woman screaming for help at a townhouse in Chicago’s Jeffery Manor neighborhood. When they arrived, they found student nurse Cora Amurao outside the home she shared with eight other student nurses, all of whom had been strangled or stabbed that night by an unknown intruder, while Cora hid underneath her bed.

When Phil and Clara Dandy first saw the house on McMahon Road in Hinsdale, NY, in the spring of 1970, they thought they’d found the home they could spend the rest of their lives in. Since the mid-1960s, the Phil, Clara, and their four children had been vacationing in rural western New York, and the house represented everything they loved about the tranquil region of the state. Within the span of a few months, they’d bought the house and that summer, they began their new life in the country. Unfortunately for the Dandys, their new slower pace of life didn’t last long. Within a few months of moving into what would become known as The Hinsdale House, the family was besieged by disembodied voices, inexplicable sounds, and the presence of ghostly apparitions. In time, what began as bizarre occurrences and disturbing encounters became a daily battle for the health and safety of Phil, Clara, and their children.