The Pandemonium Witches: Murders, Mystery, and Mayhem · TPW3MPodcast

S1.E94 - Die, Laugh, Love, & Arsenic: The Case of Nannie Doss AKA the Gigglin' Granny

·1 hr 19 min·5 clips

Nanny Doss was called the Giggling Granny, the Lonely Hearts Killer, the Black Widow, and Lady Bluebeard.

1. The Pandemonium Witches episode centers on Nanny Doss, also called the Giggling Granny, the Lonely Hearts Killer, the Black Widow, and Lady Bluebeard. 2. Kat, Rachel, M, and Meg host the show, and Kat and Rachel narrate the case while joking about research, editing, and their notes. 3. The episode asks how Nancy Hazel, born in 1905 in Blue Mountain, Alabama, became a serial killer linked to 11 murders. 4. James F. Hazel is described as a railroader who took over the family farm in 1920 and treated his children as labor. 5. The hosts say James Hazel kept the girls from school, banned makeup and dances, and tried to control Nanny and her sisters. 6. A train accident when Nanny was about 7 left her with a head injury, followed by years of headaches, blackouts, and depression. 7. Nanny's teenage reading of her mother's romance magazines and lonely hearts columns shaped the nickname she later received. 8. Charlie Braggs appears as Nanny's first husband, and she married him at 16 after four months of dating. 9. The hosts say Charlie's mother lived with them, and Nanny later wrote that the marriage felt completely controlled by her father-in-law-like household. 10. Nanny and Charlie had four daughters between 1923 and 1927: Melvina, Gertrude, Zelmer, and Florine. 11. The most striking pattern is how often the episode pairs marriages with deaths, insurance policies, and sudden moves between towns. 12. The hosts describe a 1945 death of Melvina's infant son, Robert Lee Haynes, after Nanny allegedly handled the baby during a family crisis. 13. The episode also notes a $500 life-insurance payment after Robert's death and uses that money as part of the timeline. 14. Nanny later married Arlie Lanning in 1930 after meeting him through a lonely hearts column while traveling in Lexington, North Carolina. 15. Arlie is described as an alcoholic womanizer, and the hosts say his house burned after his funeral while the insurance money went to Nanny. 16. Richard Morton and Samuel Doss bring the story to the 1953 and 1954 investigation, with the hosts describing the Diamond Circle Club, arsenic, and an autopsy. 17. The tone is conversational and joking, with side remarks about hydration stations, muted microphones, and listener comments interrupting the chronology. 18. The format mixes true-crime recap with chatty banter, research corrections, and repeated callbacks to poison, money, and family conflict. 19. Listeners who like serial-killer history, marriage scams, and 20th-century true crime will get the most from it. 20. Listeners wanting a tight, non-chatty documentary recap may skip it.

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