Murder cases, lake monsters and two hosts with opinions.
Hattie James and Ace split the hosting down the middle: one brings a researched story, and the other reacts, asks questions and passes judgment. The stories run from Robert Durst's arrest for shoplifting a sandwich to an 1889 creature sighting reported out of Red Bank, New Jersey, and Orson Welles fussing over sound effects.
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Truly Fabulously Monstrous is run by Hattie James and Ace, who each introduce themselves as half of the host. It is a fitting introduction for a show built on back-and-forth. In each episode one of them brings a story, and the other hears it out, cutting in with questions, jokes and verdicts. The stories fall into two broad camps. One is crime. Robert Durst appears as a multimillionaire Texas fugitive caught in Pennsylvania for shoplifting a sandwich and a newspaper, a detail the hosts turn over with open disbelief. Another case goes back to an 1870 affair between Christiana and Dr. Beard, and the hosts are clear about whom they blame: the man with the power. The moment that sticks is Christiana visiting his wife with a gift of chocolates, a gesture one host reads as extremely petty and professes to live for. The other camp is the unexplained. Lake Champlain's Champ gets a full file: a witness estimating a creature 25 to 35 feet long, a steamship said to have run into it, and P.T. Barnum offering a reward for its hide. The hosts are blunt about Barnum. Another episode gathers sea creature reports, including one from four men from Red Bank, New Jersey, in 1889, and asks whether the witnesses saw only a head and a tentacle of a giant squid. That instinct for a plain explanation shows up elsewhere too, as when the storm-calming legend of St. Nicholas prompts an aside on weather as a science of probability and pattern recognition. Holidays get their own episodes. Besides St. Nicholas, there is a Halloween special on the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast, which detours to a Dracula production where Orson Welles rejected a cabbage struck with a sharpened broomstick as much too leafy. The research is visible throughout. The hosts quote their sources, point listeners to Scientific American through interlibrary loan, and say plainly when the record has nothing more to add. The episode titles carry the same humor: 'Torsos Are The Wurst', 'Santa's Bone Juice', 'That's a Pike, Samuel'. None of it starts cold. Episodes open on personal catch-up: a cat's health scare, another cat batting a plastic toy tower across the room, a long Halloween, a household mishap. The show runs in seasons, and those openings make each episode feel like rejoining a conversation already under way.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants murder cases and monster sightings in the same feed, told by two co-hosts who chat freely, quote their sources and judge the people in their stories.
What sets it apart: Historical crime and cryptid lore share one show, backed by old newspaper and magazine accounts, some quoted aloud, while the two hosts keep up a running commentary of opinions on everyone from P.T. Barnum to a doctor who had an affair.
Welcome to Truly Fabulously Monstrous! A podcast about True Crime and Weird Stuff.
A shoplifted sandwich meets vampire Foley made with watermelon; Hattie James and Ace might be your people.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Hattie James and Ace turn St. Nicholas, storm miracles, and saintly shoes into a lively holiday debate.
Santa's Bone Juice frames holiday folklore as a brisk, curious back-and-forth between Hattie James and Ace. The episode moves from the tradition of leaving shoes out for saints into St. Nicholas, sailors, and a storm said to have stopped after he raised his hand.
An affair leaves a box of chocolates at the center of a troubling Brighton illness pattern.
An affair, a box of chocolates, and a string of illnesses in Brighton give this episode a cleanly sinister pull. It follows Christiana's intense relationship with Dr. Beard, his decision to end it, and her oddly gracious visit to his wife with chocolates from a local shop.
Champ gets a source-aware hearing, with eyewitnesses, a steamship collision, and one famously murky photograph.
Lake Champlain's Champ gets a brisk, source-minded hearing built around eyewitness accounts, a steamship collision, and a photograph said to show something rising from the water. Hattie James and Ace follow the legend as it gathers shape, from P.T.
Robert Durst's roughly $5 sandwich-and-newspaper arrest story remains bizarre, memorable, and darkly absurd.
Robert Durst's fugitive story hinges on a mistake so small it almost feels unreal: a multi-millionaire wanted for murderous crimes was arrested in Pennsylvania after trying to steal a roughly $5 sandwich and a newspaper.
Celebrity gossip meets survival-crime chaos.
Farmhouse murders, zombie powders and Breton omens.
Vanishings, killings and cold trails, laid out case by case.
One friend tells the case. The other asks why.
Truly Fabulously Monstrous uses its Christmas special to trace St.
Truly Fabulously Monstrous closes season 3 with Christiana Edmonds, the Margate-born Brighton poisoner nicknamed the "chocolate cream killer." Hattie James and Ace open with pumpkin seeds and old radio jingles before Hattie turns to the case.
Truly Fabulously Monstrous uses its Halloween recording to trace Champ, the Lake Champlain monster, through Vermont Life Magazine, 1819 newspaper reports, and a 1977 Sandra Mansi photograph.
Truly Fabulously Monstrous opens with Hattie James and Ace accidentally leaving their apartment thermostat on a hidden schedule that cycled the place through 76, 82, 78, and 86 degrees for two years.
Hattie James and Ace examine the 1938 CBS adaptation of H.G.
Ace tells the story of Mariana de Leva, born 4 December 1575 in Milan, who was placed in the monastery of St.
Hattie James tells Ace the Vermont legend of the "Frozen Folk of Farmer Morris," sourced from the 1970 anthology Mischief in the Mountains and a December 21, 1887 Argus and Patriot article.
Hosts Hattie and Ace chat about personal quirks and hair before diving into true crime and weird topics.
Hosts discuss a lesser-known true crime case involving Deborah Green and children, with trigger warnings.
Hosts Hattie and Kevin introduce their podcast about true crime and cryptids, bantering about recording late at night and explaining their weekly alternating format.