The Compendium: An Assembly of Fascinating Things

In 1978, a brown-paper parcel was found between two cars at a Chicago university. It looked ordinary. The professor named as the sender had never seen it before. Then it exploded.

That first device began a 17-year bombing campaign that moved from university campuses to an airliner, computer shops and private homes. Sixteen bombs would kill three people and injure 23, while investigators struggled with devices deliberately built from common materials and a bomber capable of disappearing for years.

What the FBI did have was strange: scrap-built components, pieces of wood, the initials F.C., a witness sketch and, eventually, a bomber who decided to start writing. Part One follows the creation of the UNABOM investigation, the long silences between attacks, the deadly return in the 1990s and the extraordinary decision to publish Industrial Society and Its Future.

Then, after thousands of bad tips, one lead arrived that pointed towards a name already inside the investigation: Ted Kaczynski.

Topics Included

The mysterious first package bomb found in Chicago in 1978

How the university and airline attacks gave the UNABOM case its name

The scrap-built bombs, pieces of wood and recurring F.C. signature

The escalation from serious injuries to the first fatalities

The 1987 eyewitness encounter and iconic hooded-man sketch

The Unabomber’s six-year disappearance and sudden return

Freedom Club and the demand to publish Industrial Society and Its Future

The manifesto publication and the tip that pointed towards Ted Kaczynski

Resources and Further Reading

Unabomber case history — FBI

Inside the FBI: The Unabomber Case — FBI podcast and transcript

The Unabomber Case 25 Years Later — FBI

Unabomber Bomb Shrapnel — FBI artifact

Unabomber Cabin — FBI artifact

The Profile of a Loner — The Washington Post

Unabomber's Elusive Trail — The Washington Post

To Unabomb Victims, A Deeper Mystery — The Washington Post

UNABOM Major Case 75 Task Force Report — digitised 1995 BATF, FBI and USPIS task-force report

Project Unabom — Apple Original podcast

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Editor: Giordanno Bottezini
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
Support us: Sign up to Patreon
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For 17 years, the Unabomber hid behind handmade bombs, false clues and the initials F.C. Then his need to explain himself gave the FBI the break it had been waiting for.

Part Two turns from the bombing campaign to Ted Kaczynski himself. We trace the gifted, isolated child who entered Harvard at 16, the controversial psychological study led by Henry Murray, the anti-technology ideas that hardened into violent ideology, and the contradictions of his off-grid life in a tiny Montana cabin.

When Industrial Society and Its Future was published, Ted’s brother David recognised something chilling in its language. What followed was a covert investigation, an arrest built around a Forest Service ruse, a cabin packed with evidence and a legal battle over whether any of it could be used. Even with the case closing around him, Kaczynski fought the defence designed to save his life because it threatened the one thing he still wanted the world to respect: his ideas.

Topics Included

Ted Kaczynski’s gifted but socially isolated childhood

Henry Murray’s controversial Harvard psychology study

The private crisis Kaczynski called a turning point in his life

Jacques Ellul and the roots of Kaczynski’s anti-technology ideology

The reality of living off-grid in the Montana cabin

The manifesto and the linguistic clues that exposed him

David Kaczynski’s decision to contact the FBI

The search warrant, mental-health dispute and guilty plea

Resources and Further Reading

Unabomber case history — FBI case archive and device timeline

The Unabomber Case 25 Years Later — FBI account of the linguistic investigation

Theodore Kaczynski Indicted in Sacramento — US Department of Justice indictment summary

Unabomber Cabin — FBI artefact history and cabin evidence

United States v. Kaczynski, 239 F.3d 1108 — Ninth Circuit opinion on the plea and self-representation dispute

The Ted Kaczynski Papers: FBI Files and Photographs — University of Michigan Library archive guide

Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber — Alston Chase’s archival investigation

Responses to Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber — participant and scholarly challenges to Chase’s interpretation

Ted Kaczynski dies in federal prison at 81 — Associated Press biography and case overview

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Editor: Giordanno Bottezini
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
Support us: Sign up to Patreon
Suggest a Topic: Freaky Register
Share this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway.

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Aileen Wuornos killed seven men along Florida's highways between 1989 and 1990, but the question at the centre of her story has never been quite as simple as whether she was a serial killer.

Wuornos said her first victim, Richard Mallory, violently attacked and raped her before she shot him in self-defence. She later gave dramatically different accounts of what happened, eventually claiming that robbery, not survival, motivated the killings. Even then, her story continued to shift.

Behind those contradictions was a life already shaped by abandonment, alleged childhood abuse, homelessness, sex work, violence and an intense relationship with Tyria Moore.

We follow Wuornos from her brutal childhood in Michigan through the Florida highway murders, the investigation that finally identified her, Moore's role in obtaining her confession, the trial that sent her to death row, and the questions that remained when she was executed in 2002.

This is the true story behind the woman Charlize Theron portrayed in Monster.

Topics Included

Aileen Wuornos's childhood, abandonment and allegations of abuse

Her relationship with Tyria Moore

Richard Mallory and Wuornos's self-defence claim

Seven killings across Florida between 1989 and 1990

The fingerprint and vehicle evidence that helped identify Wuornos

How Tyria Moore helped police obtain a confession

Wuornos's changing explanations for the murders

Her trial, death row years and execution

Resources and Further Reading

Aileen Wuornos – Wikipedia

Monster (2003) – directed by Patty Jenkins

Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003) – directed by Nick Broomfield & Joan Churchill

Monster: My True Story - by Aileen Wuornos & Christopher Berry-Dee

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Editor: Giordanno Bottezini
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
Support us: Sign up to Patreon
Suggest a Topic: Freaky Register
Share this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway.

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In a respectable Massachusetts household in 1892, two people were hacked to death in broad daylight, and nobody in the house heard a thing.

This episode traces the Borden family from Andrew's rise from nothing to a $10-million-in-today's-money fortune he refused to spend, through the locked doors, the pigeon massacre, and the property dispute that split the household in two. Then: the morning of August 4th, the two-hour gap between the murders, the botched police investigation, the burnt dress, and the trial that put actual human skulls in front of a jury.

Lizzie Borden walked free. Whether that was justice or a masterclass in reasonable doubt is still argued over more than 130 years later — and we give you the evidence to decide for yourself, including how you can go and spend the night in the room where it happened.

Topics Included

Andrew Borden's fortune, and his refusal to spend a cent of it on his own family

The 1891 house robbery and the household's growing paranoia and distrust

The pigeon massacre and the Ferry Street property dispute that split the family in two

The morning of August 4, 1892, and the unexplained two-hour gap between the murders

The Fall River police's botched investigation and their first, wrongful suspect

Lizzie's shifting testimony, the burnt dress, and the poison purchase ruled inadmissible

The 1893 trial, the skulls brought into court, and the fast acquittal

What happened to Lizzie, Emma and Bridget Sullivan afterwards — and what you can actually do at the house today

Resources and Further Reading

Lizzie Borden — Wikipedia

Lizzie Borden House — Wikipedia

Was Lizzie Borden Guilty? — Britannica

Famous Trials: Lizzie Borden

Famous Trials: The Inquest

The Lizzie Borden Society chronology

How Lizzie Borden Got Away With Murder — Smithsonian

The Forgotten Borden: Who Was Emma Borden? — Lizzie-Borden.com

I Slept in the Murder Room — Fodor's

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Editor: Giordanno Bottezini
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
Support us: Sign up to Patreon
Suggest a Topic: Freaky Register
Share this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway.

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Nasubi thought he had agreed to a private television challenge. What he didn’t know was that millions of people were already watching him, alone, hungry and completely naked.

In 1998, the aspiring comedian was taken to a bare Tokyo apartment and told he had to survive entirely on prizes won through mail-in sweepstakes. No food. No clothes. No running total. To finish A Life in Prizes, he had to win goods worth one million yen.

And while the door to the apartment was technically unlocked, what was keeping Nasubi hostage was the fact producers had taken his cloths and the belief that leaving would destroy his only chance at a television career. As the weeks became months, producers broadcast his most private and vulnerable moments, They published his diary and more shockingly they kept moving the finish line. The wild part is Nasubi had no idea millions of people were watching. all while he remained unaware that he was famous.

This is the story of Japan’s so-called real-life Truman Show, the ethics of early reality television, and how Nasubi rebuilt a life after an experience that left him struggling to trust other people.

Topics Included

How Nasubi was selected for A Life in Prizes

Surviving entirely through mail-in sweepstakes

The weekly broadcasts and 24-hour livestream

Why an unlocked door did not necessarily make Nasubi free

Toshio Tsuchiya and the constantly moving finish line

The live studio reveal and “My house fell down”

Nasubi’s psychological recovery after the programme

Fukushima, disaster relief and Mount Everest

Resources and Further Reading

The Contestant — Hulu documentary overview

Japanese Reality Star Nasubi Recalls the Traumatic True Story Behind The Contestant — TIME interview

Nasubi Explains Why He Didn’t Sue — Decider interview

Human Spectacle — This American Life transcript

Documentary Focuses on Man Behind a Cruelly Bizarre Japanese Reality Show — Associated Press

Was This the Most Unsettling Reality TV Show Ever? — The Guardian

How The Contestant Director Earned Nasubi’s Trust — Salon interview

Fukushima’s Famous Actor and Entertainer, Nasubi — Fukushima and Everest interview

Nasubi’s Ask Me Anything — First-person Q&A

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Editor: Giordanno Bottezini
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
Support us: Sign up to Patreon
Suggest a Topic: Freaky Register
Share this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.