Episode 534: The Story of Laurie Bembenek and the Tragic Murder of Christine Schultz (With Special Guest Holly Madison)

In late 1916, while treating a group of patients at his psychiatric clinic at the University of Vienna, Dr. Constantin von Economo began noticing the appearance of strange symptoms that he could not account for. At the same time, in France, Rene Cruchet began noticing similarly strange and unexpected symptoms in his patients. Though the two men had never met and knew nothing of one another’s patients, they would come to learn they were both witnessing the emergence of a new mysterious disease that would soon affect millions of people around the world. The illnesses documented by von Economo and Cruchet would eventually come to be know as encephalitis lethargica, or sleeping sickness, a strange condition that caused profound lethargy, hypersomnia, and a wide range of other frightening symptoms. Between 1919 and the early 1930s, millions of people all around the world contracted the illness, with nearly half of all cases resulting in death, and many more suffering long-term effects; yet a cause of the illness has never been established and the terrifying epidemic appears to have faded from memory not long after the disease itself ostensibly disappeared.

Weirdos!! On today's episode Alaina announced the third chapter in the Wren Muller series- The Butcher Legacy . Be sure to visit to PREORDER NOW by visiting butcherlegacy.com. Order NOW to get exclusive signed editions from BN.com AND the Special Edition from Target! In the winter of 1980, wealthy socialite Martha “Sunny” von Bulow was found unconscious in the bathroom of the mansion she shared with her husband, Claus, in Newport, Rhode Island. An ambulance was called and Sunny was rushed to the nearest emergency room, but paramedics and doctors were unable to revive her and Sunny would remain in a coma until her death in 2008. At first, Sunny’s coma was a mystery to doctors, but soon suspicion fell on her husband, Claus, who appeared indifferent to her condition and was openly carrying on an affair with another woman. The family launched a private investigation and eventually turned up strong evidence they believed implicated Claus in the attempted murder of Sunny, but, as they soon learned, believing it and proving it were two very different things.

On the afternoon of August 23, 2003, Erie, Pennsylvania pizza delivery driver Brian Wells walked into the local branch of the PNC Bank and handed the teller a note warning that he had a bomb and they had fifteen minutes to hand over $250,000 or it would detonate. Unable to access the vault, the teller gave Wells all the cash on hand and he left as the employees triggered the emergency protocol.

When firefighters discovered the body of forty-year-old Terry King inside the charred remains of his Cantonment, Florida home in November 2001, they assumed the man had been asleep when the fire broke out and died as a result. Upon further inspection, investigators found that King hadn’t died as a result of the fire, but from severe blunt force trauma to his head. And even more alarming than that was the fact that King’s two boys, thirteen-year-old Derek and twelve-year-old Alex, were missing. Having occurred immediately in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Terry King’s murder could have easily been one of many tragedies lost in the fog of national trauma and grief; however, when King’s killers were arrested and identified in the days that followed, the story was so shocking, and the motive so heartbreaking, that it managed to break through the wall-to-wall coverage of the attacks.

When firefighters discovered the body of forty-year-old Terry King inside the charred remains of his Cantonment, Florida home in November 2001, they assumed the man had been asleep when the fire broke out and died as a result. Upon further inspection, investigators found that King hadn’t died as a result of the fire, but from severe blunt force trauma to his head. And even more alarming than that was the fact that King’s two boys, thirteen-year-old Derek and twelve-year-old Alex, were missing. Having occurred immediately in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Terry King’s murder could have easily been one of many tragedies lost in the fog of national trauma and grief; however, when King’s killers were arrested and identified in the days that followed, the story was so shocking, and the motive so heartbreaking, that it managed to break through the wall-to-wall coverage of the attacks.