Author Archive

Kyle Risi

Host and writer for The Compendium podcast.

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115 total106 episodes9 blogs

Episodes Blogs

EP 158Episode 158

7 April 2026

Julia Child: Mastering The Art Of Being Loud, Brilliant, And Right

Julia Child became a culinary icon long after most people assume their life’s path is fixed. This episode follows the unlikely road from wartime government work and post-war Paris to the cookbook and...

EP 157Episode 157

31 March 2026

H. H. Holmes: The Man Who Built Murder Into Architecture

H. H. Holmes rose from cadaver fraud and insurance scams to become the killer at the centre of Chicago’s Murder Castle legend. This episode follows the vanished victims, the Benjamin Pitezel scheme, t...

EP 156Episode 156

24 March 2026

Biosphere 2: The Grand Experiment That Could Not Breathe

Built in the Arizona desert to prove humans could survive inside a sealed world, Biosphere 2 became one of the strangest science experiments ever attempted. Eight people went in. Oxygen fell, food ran...

EP 154Episode 154

10 March 2026

Nellie Bly: From 10 days in a mad house to 72 days around the world

Nellie Bly set out to get herself committed to Blackwell’s Island asylum for the clinically insane, hoping to expose the horrors rumoured to exist inside. What followed was her infamous exposé, Ten Da...

EP 153Episode 153

3 March 2026

The 2019 eBay Stalking Scandal: When Tech Giants Become Stalkers

When EcommerceBytes published criticism of eBay in 2019, you might expect a tense PR response. What followed instead was a harassment campaign so petty, so disproportionate, and so deranged it became...

EP 152Episode 152

24 February 2026

West Memphis Three: Paradise Lost, Justice Lost, Innocence Lost

The West Memphis Three case is not just a murder story. It is a story about panic, a coerced confession, and a justice system so determined not to look foolish that three teenagers were condemned whil...

EP 151Episode 151

17 February 2026

McMillions: When America’s Biggest Game Stopped Being a Game

For years, McDonald’s Monopoly looked like a harmless fast-food gimmick: peel, hope, lose, repeat. But behind the little stickers was a quietly industrial fraud, with stolen winning pieces, fake victo...

EP 150Episode 150

10 February 2026

Chowchilla Bus Kidnapping: The Day a School Bus Vanished

In July 1976, a school bus carrying 26 children disappeared from a quiet California town and ended up buried in a quarry a hundred miles away. The Chowchilla bus kidnapping became one of the most shoc...

EP 148Episode 148

27 January 2026

Elizabeth Smart: Kidnapped by a Prophet

In 2002, 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was taken from her bedroom by Brian David Mitchell, a self-styled prophet whose delusions, violence and mobility helped stall the search. This episode follows the...

EP 147Episode 147

20 January 2026

Hillside Strangler: Murder in the Shadows of Los Angeles

In late 1970s Los Angeles, young women began turning up on the hillsides around the city: naked, strangled, brutalised, and dumped with a kind of casual cruelty that made the whole thing feel even wor...

EP 146Episode 146

13 January 2026

Bobby Dunbar: The Missing Child Case Solved by a Century-Late DNA Test

In 1912, four-year-old Bobby Dunbar vanished during a family trip to Swayze Lake in Louisiana, setting off a huge search through swamp, mud and alligator country.

EP 145Episode 145

6 January 2026

Lucy Letby: Did She Really Kill These Babies?

A neonatal unit descends into crisis as accusations of murder, medical error, and systemic failure collide around nurse Lucy Letby. This episode examines the events inside the Countess of Chester’s ne...

True crime

Biosphere 2: Why the Experiment Could Not Breathe

Eight people sealed themselves inside Biosphere 2 to prove humans could survive in a closed ecosystem. Falling oxygen, failing crops, and media scorn soon turned the grand experiment into a fight to breathe.

Kyle Risi24/03/20267 min read

True crime

Morgan Metzer: The True Story Behind Gaslit by My Husband

Morgan Metzer survived what looked like a random home invasion, only for the truth to reveal something far more chilling. This is the real story behind Gaslit by My Husband - a case of coercive control, gaslighting, and psychological abuse that ended in a staged act of terror.

Kyle Risi17/03/20266 min read

Incredible People

Nellie Bly: 10 Days in a Mad House to 72 Days Around the World

Nellie Bly did not become famous by playing safe. She faked madness to enter Blackwell’s Island asylum, exposed the cruelty inside, and then turned herself into a global sensation by racing around the world in just 72 days. It is a story of nerve, performance, and one woman refusing to stay where society put her.

Kyle Risi10/03/20267 min read

True crime

Lucy Letby: What Really Happened?

This article is a factual Lucy Letby case explainer focused on timeline clarity, court context, and the core questions readers are trying to understand.

Kyle Risi06/01/20266 min read

headline announcing the discovery of the baby

The Lindbergh Baby America's Most Infamous Kidnapping

In the early 20th century the case of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping shook America.

Kyle Risi24/08/202411 min read

Julie d'Aubigny The Scandalous Bisexual Sword-Fighter

Julie d’Aubigny or more famously known by her stage name La Maupin, was born around 1673 into a world that seemed determined to mold her into a conventional woman of her time.

Kyle Risi15/08/20245 min read

Gypsy Rose Blanchard and the Astonishing Murder of Dee Dee

The increddible story of Gypsy Rose is as tragic as it is bewildering. On the surface, she appeared to be a severely ill young girl, devoted to her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard.

Kyle Risi12/08/20243 min read

Jennifer Fairgate body in her hotel room

True crime

The Unsolved Mystery of Jennifer Fairgate The Woman with No Past

This guide explains the Jennifer Fairgate mystery for readers seeking a clear timeline, verified evidence, and the strongest theories still debated today.

Kyle Risi08/08/20243 min read

The Courageous Survivors: Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus

The Monster of Cleveland, Ariel Castro's House of Horrors

The Monster of Cleveland is the moniker given to the man also known as Ariel Castro, lived in the heart of Cleveland, Ohio.

Kyle Risi25/12/20235 min read

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