In early 2019, John McGuire and his girlfriend, Amanda McClure, were living in Minnesota and doing drugs — mostly meth — pretty heavily. But the two were without steady jobs, so the money soon ran out, and when the money ran out, so did the drugs.

Dope sick from withdrawal, without any money or anywhere to go, Amanda got the idea that they could drive down to West Virginia and stay with her father, Larry McClure, Sr. Amanda had been estranged from her father most of her life, and was raised by adoptive parents. Why she chose to go to…

Thursday, NBC’s streaming service Peacock dropped its miniseries Dr. Death, a fictionalized retelling of the story of Dr. Christopher Duntsch based on the Wondery podcast series of the same name.

For those who might not be familiar, here’s the nutshell version: between November 2010 and June 2013, the neurosurgeon who touted himself as the best in the Dallas, Texas, area performed 38 spinal surgeries, many of which were routine, minimally invasive procedures. Of those 38 surgeries, 33 were severely botched, including four people who were left paralyzed and two who were killed.

The Peacock miniseries, like the podcast it is…

When 24-year-old Sydney Loofe didn’t show up for her work shift the morning of Nov. 16, 2017, her co-workers knew something had to be wrong. Normally Loofe was a dependable, responsible woman. When she didn’t answer phone calls or messages from her friends and family, they immediately called the Lincoln, Nebraska, police.

Police went to her home, but nothing seemed out of place, and there was no sign of a struggle.

Next, they looked at her digital records. The last thing she posted online was a selfie with the caption, “Ready for my date.”

Further digging revealed that she had…

The Crescent Hotel, a beautiful old Neo-Gothic hotel atop a hill overlooking the artsy tourist town of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, bills itself as “the most haunted hotel in America.”

But what might be more interesting than the ghost stories is a very real story of greed, fraud, and murder that took place there in the late 1930s. Because the story of Norman Baker and his “cancer hospital” is far weirder - and more tragic - than any ghost story.

A Brief (ish) History of Norman Baker

Baker was born in Muscatine, Iowa, the youngest of 10 children. …

When former reality-TV star and “family values” lobbyist Josh Duggar was arraigned on April 30, he was charged with one count of receiving child sexual abuse materials (AKA “child pornography”) and one count of possessing it. Department of Homeland Security investigators testified that Duggar had dozens of these images on his work computer, downloaded from the dark web and carefully hidden inside a second, password-protected operating system.

At his pre-trial hearing, the investigators described the images as “in the top five, worst of the worst” that they had ever had to watch. …

It was early December 1927 when several residents of the small Texas town of Farwell descended on the Hassell farm just outside of town. George Hassell was selling off most of his and his family’s things so that he could raise money to follow his wife, Susie, and their eight children to Blair, Oklahoma.

But many were interested in more than just bargain farm equipment and used clothes. The Hassells’ friends and neighbors were curious — or suspicious — about how quickly Susie and the kids had left. She hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, or even said goodbye.

The Hassells…

Celebration, Florida, was designed to be a kind of nostalgic utopia. Located on the outskirts of Orlando, the town was established by part of the Walt Disney Corp. to resemble a kind of idealized suburb of the 1950s. Its homes and neighborhoods were designed according to the principles of New Urbanism, with compact, walkable downtowns and plenty of public parks and squares. Disney’s new “town” (really a private development where only landowners can vote) would be free of the “purgatory of fast growth and fast food” and other blights plaguing big cities. …

March 12, 2004: Officers are called to a scene on West Hammond Avenue in Fresno, California, where a heated argument over custody is breaking out. Once there, officers speak to Ruby Ortiz and Sofina Solorio, along with some family members who are with them. They are worried to the point of panic, claiming their children are being held captive inside the run-down office building. They are adamant that the man inside — their uncle, Marcus Wesson — is going to hurt their children.

So the police knock on the door to speak to Wesson and try to resolve the issue…