Hey weirdos, hosted by “sisters” Alaina Urquhart and Ash Kelley, Morbid: A True Crime Podcast has been in production since May 2018. Its maiden episode was on the riveting Golden State Killer case. 467 episodes later, the girls have parlayed a hobby into a successful venture, ranked among the top 20 podcasts in the United States on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. They have expanded to live tours, merchandise, and Alaina even published her first novel, The Butcher and the Wren — which, not surprisingly given their popularity, became a New York Times bestseller.
Morbid combines comedy in its telling of true crime cases — a combination which may seem highly unlikely to the uninitiated — but Urquhart and Kelley manage it swimmingly, as do multiple other podcasters. In fact, true crime comedy podcasts have seen a surge since the inauguration of the genre, indisputably started by Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff of My Favorite Murder in 2016.
But for my purposes today, I’m focusing on Morbid to bring you the 10 best episodes of the popular podcast to date.
Episode 20: “David Parker Ray, aka The Toy Box Killer”
This case is the absolute winner for most morbid true crime case. Alaina and Ash cover it with sensitivity and — as with every episode — well-deserved and scathing vitriol for the perpetrator. All while somehow simultaneously making us laugh our butts off.
David Parker Ray was suspected of kidnapping, torturing, and killing upwards of 60 people. Never convicted of murder, however, some of his victims escaped and told harrowing tales of being drugged and held against their will. Eventually convicted of kidnapping and torture in 2001, Ray died in prison a year later.
Episode 27: “The Survival Story of Mary Vincent, Patron Saint of Bada**ery”
The story of Mary Vincent is the case any fan of true crime worth their salt knows like the back of their hand. In 1978, 15-year-old Vincent was hitchhiking from Berkley, California to Las Vegas when she was picked up by a man she described as looking like Santa Claus. What followed was a terrifying night culminating in Vincent’s arms being severed by her attacker. She would endure a courtroom threat from her attacker to “finish her off,” acquiring and learning to live with prosthetic arms, and eventually her attacker was released from prison.
The fact that Vincent even survived her attack is either a miracle or a testament to her strong will, and she now is an artist, a college graduate, and mother of 2. Respect.
Episode 95: “The Senseless Murder of Rebecca Schaeffer”
Rebecca Schaeffer was a young, successful actress living in West Hollywood in 1989 when a young man became obsessed with her — who after seeing her on the sitcom My Sister Sam, starring Mork and Mindy‘s Pam Dawber — shot her on her doorstep.
A “mini-Morbid” episode, we get Ash’s hilarious heavy metal chant at the beginning (if you know, you know). The girls have endless sympathy for Schaeffer — of course — and at one point Ash makes a joke that her own profanity is so severe because she “was raised in an Irish pub.” So relatable.
Episode 99: “The School Bus Kidnapping of 1976”
According to Alaina, this episode is “not like gruesome, it’s more like – slightly disturbing, but it has a happy ending.” So that sets the stage for exactly to what extent we will be upset by this story, and whether we should continue. A good tip, because when most of us hear “children” and “school bus” on a podcast called Morbid – we might get a little bit squeamish.
Also known as the 1976 Chowchilla kidnapping, the incident involved a school bus full of 26 children and their driver (Frank Edward “Ed” Ray) being kidnapped at gunpoint by 3 perpetrators hoping to hold the children for ransom. With Ray’s determination and the help of one of the older children (14-year-old Michael Marshall), the group managed to escape to safety after some 16 hours in captivity. So yeah, you could call that a happy ending.
Episode 110: “What Happened To Alissa Turney?”
A story of grief and frustration, the case of Alissa Turney turned into the song that never ends for her little sister, Sarah Turney.
On the morning of May 17, 2001, Alissa’s stepfather, Michael Turney, took her to her last day of junior high, and then picked her up at lunchtime. Later that day, Sarah found a note in her room, saying that she was running away from home. Sarah never believed that her sister ran away, and knew that her father Michael held the key to her disappearance. The mystery is still not officially solved to this day, and as I write, Sarah — along with Alissa’s friends — are testifying against Michael in the landmark case, re-opened by a TikTok video.
Episode 122: “The West Memphis Three Part 1”
Victims of the 1980s “satanic panic” era of our conscious, Jessie Misskelley, Jr. – 17 years old, Jason Baldwin – 16 years old, and Damien Echols – 18 years old were convicted of the murder of three 8-year-old boys – Steve Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers. Feeling pressure from the citizens of West Memphis — as well as the local media — detectives hastily pinned the crime on the most convenient suspects and never looked back.
Multiple documentaries have released on the story, and a dramatized movie version starring Reese Witherspoon. To this day, the case of the West Memphis Three still remains unsolved.
Episode 142: “Maria Elena Milagro De Hoyos, The Unwilling Corpse Bride”
Definitely one of the more bizarre stories on this list, the case of Maria Elena Milagro De Hoyos and her doctor — Georg Carl Tänzler — took place in Key West, Florida in the 1930s. Tänzler — a married father of two — became obsessed with Maria, a young tuberculosis patient, and showered her with gifts. She eventually died, and Tänzler snuck into her tomb and stole her body. He then proceeded to live with her body, dress her up and even put makeup on her. This required an extensive taxidermy process, and he kept De Hoyos as his bride from 1933-1940, when he was arrested and later released. After De Hoyos’ corpse was examined, it was placed on display in a local Miami funeral home – where nearly 7,000 people came to view it.
Episode 151: “The Mysterious Death of Tamla Horsford”
In a case that will seemingly never be solved, the story of 40-year-old Tamla Horsford begins with an adult slumber party in Cumming, Georgia in 2018. Tamla — and seven other women — partied and drank at the house of one of the women, and stayed the night to avoid drinking and driving. The next morning, Tamla was found dead on the lawn. There are many suspicious aspects to this story, among them, the statements gathered by the witnesses. Alaina and Ash had the transcripts — which are public domain and easily attainable — and Alaina’s reading of one of the partygoers in particular, one Jeanne Meyers, is absolutely hilarious. And she’s not embellishing – it’s word-for-word. Meyers is obviously nervous, so she becomes severely verbose, a fact which should have been a red flag to investigators, but was overlooked like every other important clue in this case.
Episode 366 & 367 “JonBenet Ramsey” Part 1 & Part 2
The case of JonBenet Ramsey is one of those stories that many fans of the genre would say was the case they cut their teeth on. That is to say, the first case they found themselves obsessed with.
On Christmas Day, 1996, six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was not in her bed in the morning. Her parents found a ransom note on the stairs of their palatial Boulder, Colorado home. Police were notified and the body of JonBenet was later found in the basement of the home by her father. The investigation was botched in multiple ways and the killer was never found. Every piece of evidence only raised more questions. Why would someone leave a ransom note, and a dead body?
In some ways, the story is familiar. JonBenet’s mother, Patsy, was criticized for not reacting the way the public — and media — expected a grieving mother to react. This is an aspect similar to the story of Azaria Chamberlain, a baby who disappeared in 1980 from the Uluru park in Australia in 1980. This case illustrated how public sentiment can sway the outcome of a jury trial, and wrongfully convict parents of murder based on optics, rather than actual evidence.
In the case of Azaria Chamberlain, however, the parents were exonerated and the baby was found to be abducted by a dingo. In the case of JonBenet, we may never know what happened.
Episode 359: “The Club Kid/Party Monster Murder”
In the tragic story of Andre “Angel” Melendez, Andre — the son of Columbian immigrants — became a club kid in 1990s New York, and was murdered by his own tribe. The story was sensationalized in the 2003 McCauley Caulkin movie, Party Monster.
The film’s prime focus was the life and times of club kid Michael Alig, the sociopath who murdered Andre in a fit of rage over drugs, and Andre is treated more like a tertiary character in the story.
The body of Andre was then kept in the apartment of the murder scene for several days, while Alig and his roommates continued to casually live their lives until they were eventually caught. Alig was convicted of manslaughter in 1997. He served 17 years and later died of a drug overdose.