Pretty Evil | Podcast Guru

Details

Pretty Evil is a psychology-driven true crime podcast exploring the uncomfortable realities hiding behind human behavior. Each episode examines the psychological forces that shape destructive human behavior, from charismatic predators and cult leaders to institutional failures, social influence, moral panic, and the hidden mechanisms that allow harm to flourish. Through immersive storytelling and psychosocial analysis, Pretty Evil explores what these cases reveal about power, vulnerability, identity, persuasion, and the darker parts of human nature.

Recent Episodes

DeFeo Family Massacre: The Original Amityville Horror

Send us Fan Mail Before The Amityville Horror became one of America's most famous haunted house stories, six members of the DeFeo family were murdered in their beds at 112 Ocean Avenue. But the killer wasn't a ghost or an unknown intruder; It was someone who already lived inside the house. On November 13, 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. shot and killed his parents, Ronald DeFeo Sr. and Louise DeFeo, and his four younger siblings, Dawn, Allison, Mark, and John Matthew, in their Amityville, New York, ho...

55 MIN

Elizabeth Holmes & Theranos: The Turtleneck, the Voice, and the $9 Billion Lie

Send us Fan Mail Elizabeth Holmes promised to revolutionize healthcare with Theranos, a blood-testing startup once valued at $9 billion. Instead, she became the face of one of Silicon Valley's most notorious fraud scandals. How did a Stanford dropout convince investors, politicians, and major corporations to believe in technology that didn't work as promised? In this episode of Pretty Evil, we investigate the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, from the company's ambitious promise...

59 MIN

BONUS: Delusions: When False Beliefs Become Reality

Send us Fan Mail What are delusions, how do they differ from hallucinations, and what happens when someone acts on a belief that feels completely real—but isn't? In this episode of Pretty Evil: Side Notes, we're exploring the psychology of delusions, psychosis, and the complicated relationship between mental illness and criminal behavior. Following our two-part investigation into Richard Chase, the infamous Vampire of Sacramento, we're taking a closer look at one of the most misunderstood con...

31 MIN

Richard Chase: The Vampire of Sacramento (Part 2)

Send us Fan Mail Richard Chase, the “Vampire of Sacramento,” was one of America’s most disturbing serial killers. But by the time he murdered six people in Sacramento in 1977 and 1978, his severe schizophrenia, violent delusions, and increasingly alarming behavior had been documented for years. So why wasn’t anyone able to stop him? In Part Two of our Richard Chase series, we move beyond the crimes to examine the mental health system that surrounded him. Chase had been hospitalized, diagnosed...

35 MIN

Richard Chase: The Vampire of Sacramento (Part 1)

Send us Fan Mail Richard Chase, known as the Vampire of Sacramento, murdered six people in California between December 1977 and January 1978. His crimes became some of the most disturbing in American serial killer history. But what makes his story particularly unsettling is how many warning signs existed before the murders began. In Part One of our two-part investigation into Richard Trenton Chase, we examine the crimes of the Sacramento serial killer whose obsession with blood, severe psychi...

61 MIN