Episode 556: The Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders

In the early morning hours of October 8, 1964, thirty-four-year-old housewife and mother of three Lucille Miller placed a frantic call to the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department to report that there had been a car accident on remote Banyan Street and her husband had been killed. When deputies arrived at the scene, the car was still in flames and, as Lucille had described, her husband Gordon “Cork” Miller was in the passenger seat, nearly unrecognizable from the extent of the fire damage.

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.