The Compendium: An Assembly of Fascinating Things

A respected historian. A flat full of dolls. And a discovery that turned a cemetery investigation into something far darker.

This bonus feed-swap episode is a special cross-promotion with our friends over at Fringe Beyond Limits, who bring us their take on Anatoly Moskvin, the Russian historian and linguist better known as the Doll Maker. In 2011, police investigating grave desecrations in Nizhny Novgorod searched Moskvin’s apartment and found what appeared to be life-sized dolls. They were, in fact, mummified remains taken from local cemeteries, dressed, arranged, and treated as if they were still alive.

What makes the Anatoly Moskvin case so unsettling is not only the crime itself, but the belief system behind it: a fixation on cemeteries, burial rituals, resurrection, and the idea that the dead were calling out to be cared for. It is a strange true crime story about obsession, delusion, grief, and the uncomfortable line between punishment and psychiatric treatment.
Topics Included

Anatoly Moskvin and the Doll Maker case

the 2011 Nizhny Novgorod grave desecration investigation

the mummified bodies found inside Moskvin’s apartment

Moskvin’s fascination with cemeteries and burial rituals

the childhood story linked to his fixation on death

the use of clothing, wigs, glass eyes, and music boxes

the psychiatric evaluation and paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis

the impact on victims’ families

debates around justice, mental illness, and cemetery security

Fringe Beyond Limits

Hosts:  Frank, Brie and Lynette

Website: https://fringebeyondlimits.com/

Listen on Spotify: Fringe Beyone Limits

Listen on Apple: Fringe Beyons Limits

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
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
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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DashCon 2014 was supposed to be Tumblr’s great real-world fandom convention. Instead, it became one of the internet’s most infamous event disasters: a chaotic weekend of guest cancellations, volunteer confusion, a sudden $17,000 hotel panic, the Welcome to Night Vale fallout, and one tiny ball pit that became a meme so powerful it practically achieved sentience.

Today we unpack how DashCon went from sincere community dream to public internet humiliation. We’ll trace the Tumblr culture that made the convention possible, the amateur planning and budget fantasy that made it unstable, and the disastrous decisions that turned a fandom gathering into a cautionary tale about what happens when online enthusiasm meets real-world logistics.

Was DashCon a scam, a failure of good intentions, or simply catastrophic incompetence with a ball pit attached? Today, we dive into the failed Tumblr convention that became internet history.

Topics Include

tumblr culture before it spilled across the wider internet

how dashcon went from fandom fantasy to real convention

the $17,000 hotel panic and the welcome to night vale fallout

why the ball pit became the meme that outlived the event

the difference between bad intentions and catastrophic incompetence

Resources and Further Reading

DisasterCon: how a fan convention’s big dream became a nightmare - The Verge

The inaugural DashCon 2014 did not go as planned - The Daily Dot

DashCon organizers tell their side of the con disaster story - The Daily Dot

DashCon - Fanlore

The Story of Dashcon - Youtube (Sarah Z)

The Failure of Dashcon - Youtube

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
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
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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Taylor Parker had already been caught in one impossible lie: she claimed she had given birth on the side of a highway, but doctors quickly realised she had not been pregnant at all. 

In Part 2 of the Taylor Parker case, we go behind the fake pregnancy and into the years of deception prosecutors said led to the murder of Reagan Hancock and the death of Braxlynn Sage. This is the part of the story where the scattered lies start to form a pattern: invented illnesses, fake inheritances, forged paperwork, spoofed phone calls, false identities, and a relationship with Wade Griffin built inside a world Taylor had manufactured around him. 

Then the story moves into the crime scene, the investigation, and the Taylor Parker trial, where prosecutors argued this was not confusion, panic, or a tragic misunderstanding, but calculated deception carried to its most horrific conclusion. A restrained but deeply unsettling true crime story about fantasy, control, and the moment a lie becomes too dangerous to survive.   

 

Topics Include 

the Taylor Parker case part two

the fake pregnancy and Wade Griffin deception

forged paperwork, fake identities, and invented inheritances

Reagan Hancock and the final escalation

the foetal abduction of Braxlynn Sage

Jessica Brookes’ discovery of the crime scene

Taylor Parker’s changing explanations after arrest

the trial evidence and death sentence

jailhouse schemes and fake confession letters

why Reagan and Braxlynn remain the centre of the story

Resources and Further Reading 

Parker v. State of Texas - Justia

Taylor-Parker-Probable-Cause-Affidavit - Document Cloud

Texas woman sentenced - CNN

 

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
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
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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A woman is pulled over on a Texas highway with a newborn baby in her lap, covered in blood, claiming she has just given birth behind the wheel. But when Taylor Parker reaches hospital, the story begins to fall apart. 

In part one of the Taylor Parker case, we follow the strange and escalating trail of fake pregnancy claims, inheritance lies, family sabotage, burner phones, alleged threats, arson, a multimillion-dollar ranch deal and a relationship with Wade Gryphon that becomes tangled in one impossible story after another. At the centre of it all is Parker’s need to keep the people around her believing that her fantasy life is real. 

But while Taylor and Wade are counting down to the arrival of “Clancy Gale”, another young woman, Reagan Hancock, is preparing for her own baby. And by the time the truth emerges, this true crime story has already crossed into something far darker: a foetal abduction case that no one around Parker saw coming. 

Topics Included 

Taylor Parker and the fake pregnancy claim

Wade Gryphon and the relationship at the centre of the story

The alleged Blackburn Syrup inheritance

Shona Prior and the mother-daughter sabotage narrative

Fake documents, messages, phone calls and threats

The Pecan Point ranch deal

Pregnancy doubts, ultrasounds and the gender reveal

Reagan Hancock and her connection to Taylor

The roadside birth claim on Highway 82

The discovery that the baby was not Taylor’s

Resources and Further Reading 

Parker v. State of Texas - Justia

Taylor-Parker-Probable-Cause-Affidavit - Document Cloud

Texas woman sentenced - CNN

 

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
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
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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Marilyn Monroe is one of the most recognisable women who has ever lived, but the version the world fell in love with was, in many ways, built in a studio. 

Today, we trace how Marilyn Monroe emerged from Norma Jean’s unstable and abusive childhood to become the Hollywood icon everyone thinks they know. We follow her early modelling career, her studio-made voice, and the blonde bombshell image she spent years trying to outrun. But there is a darker side to this story too: the marriages, the power struggles, and the myths that shaped her final years. Marilyn Monroe’s story is what happens when public fantasy grows far bigger than the woman forced to carry it. 

Topics Include 

norma jean’s childhood, foster homes, and abuse

how marilyn monroe was made by hollywood

the breathy voice, the bombshell image, and studio control

joe dimaggio, arthur miller, and public fascination

jfk, conspiracy theories, and the final unraveling

Resources and Further Reading 

Marilyn Monroe - Encyclopaedia Britannica

Marilyn Monroe - FBI Vault

Marilyn’s Method - The Criterion Collection

Host & Show Info 

Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox

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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Share this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway.

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
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
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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