Timesuck with Dan Cummins

Roch Thériault promised his followers healing, purpose, and a closer connection to God — but what he built in the wilderness of Canada became something far, FAR more sinister. As his control tightened, faith twisted into fear, and “treatment” became torture. This is the story of the Ant Hill Kids. A story of how belief, isolation, and absolute power created one of the most disturbing cults in modern history.

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The 500th episode! And for the 500th straight week of Timesuck, I will not be in my right mind (but is it ever right?). I'll also be sharing the story of the 2023 Leongatha, Australia Mushroom Murders, when four family members all became violently ill after eating a lunch prepared by Erin Patterson. A meal laced with death cap mushrooms. This case riveted Australia like few others in recent memory. Listen to find out why! 

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Today we explore the horrifying true story of the Radium Girls — young women told to “lip, dip, and paint” with radioactive dial paint while their employers hid the deadly consequences. What began as a factory job seen as glamorous and high-paying turned into one of the most grotesque workplace poisoning scandals in American history, leaving behind shattered bodies, corporate lies, and a legal battle that helped change worker safety forever.

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Rudolf Steiner founded the Waldorf education movement more than a century ago, inspiring thousands of schools around the world with a philosophy centered on creativity, imagination, and holistic learning! But... behind that influential educational system was a man who also claimed clairvoyant insight into Atlantis, reincarnation, and unseen cosmic beings guiding human evolution. Today we dive into the strange life, ambitious ideas, and enduring legacy of the mystic philosopher who blended occult spirituality with classrooms—and left a surprisingly large mark on the modern world.

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For years, a calm, calculating predator stalked the suburbs of Melbourne, leaving behind almost no evidence — only terrified families and a growing legend known as "Mr. Cruel." Decades later, his crimes remain unsolved, and the questions surrounding Karmein Chan’s murder still haunt Australia. This week on Timesuck, we examine one of the most chilling unidentified offenders in Australian history. Is he still out there? Or did he die after being arrested for other, similar crimes? 

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In the mid-1800s, long before the Soviet Union or Maoist China, a French political dreamer named Étienne Cabet tried to build a communist utopia... in the heart of America. What followed was a bizarre, ambitious, and often comically disastrous experiment involving disease, deception, authoritarian hypocrisy, failed frontier settlements, buying an abandoned Mormon town, and one of the strangest forgotten social movements in U.S. history.

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** NOTE! THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED BEFORE THE RECENT ATTACKS ON IRAN. (That's why I don't mention it) **  World War I turned allies into enemies and enemies into unlikely partners — and no one embodied that chaos more than Lawrence of Arabia. Was he a heroic bridge between cultures, or a brilliant pawn in Britain’s imperial game? This week’s Timesuck explores the daring raids, political deception, and lasting consequences of one man’s role in the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

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This week on Timesuck, we dive into the 4B Movement - a radical feminist movement that originated in South Korea and centers on four simple rules: no sex with men, no dating men, no marriage, and no children. Why are some Korean women reacting to by taking such extreme measures? We’ll explore how this movement formed, why it's resonated, and how this controversial movement leapt from Korean internet forums all the way to the U.S.

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A serial predator drugs women, keeps a list of victims, and somehow keeps slipping through the cracks — while the people meant to stop him sure do appear to keep looking the other way. This week, we follow one relentless prosecutor as she pulls at a thread that unravels disturbing alleged corruption, institutional failure, and a justice system that seems more interested in protecting itself than protecting victims.

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When a wife and two young children vanish, the internet’s favorite theory shows up fast: it’s always the husband. This week on Timesuck, we dig into the horrifying Chris Watts case - a story of appearances, assumptions, so, SO many Thrive supplements, and a seemingly normal man whose life imploded in the most unthinkable way.

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He was Australia’s most infamous bushranger - a working-class rebel to some, a violent murderer to others. This week on Timesuck, we dive into the brutal, myth-soaked life of Ned Kelly, his war with the police, and the armored showdown that sealed his place in history.

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In this Short Suck, we dive into the Haitian Revolution - the only truly successful large-scale slave revolt in human history - where the enslaved people of Saint-Domingue rose up, burned France's “cash machine” to the ground, and then fought France, Spain, and Britain for more than a decade to create Haiti. It’s a brutal, twisty, holy shit how do we not already know this story full of battlefield genius, betrayals, and legendary speeches.

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In this episode of Timesuck, we’re heading to New Zealand to explore Gloriavale - a so-called “Heaven on Earth” founded by charismatic preacher Neville Cooper, where obedience to God somehow turned into obedience to one very, VERY creepy man. What began as a utopian Christian commune devolved into total control, forced labor,  a lot of creepy sexual stuff., and generations raised to believe submission was salvation. It’s Eden… if Eden had dress codes, unpaid work, and a cult leader who absolutely should not have been anywhere near anyone’s bedroom.

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From 1963 to 1965, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley carried out one of the most disturbing crime sprees in British history, abducting, torturing, and murdering children in and around Manchester before burying them out on the bleak, desolate moors. We break down the psychology, partnership, and pure moral rot behind the Moors Murders—and examine how two people fed each other’s darkness until it consumed innocent lives and horrified an entire nation.

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Whoo BOY! This week's episode is packed with info and stats. How did the US healthcare system get so expensive and complicated? Is it still better than some form of universal care? Throwing a lot of history and stats at you today, and comparing our model to the healthcare models of some other countries to show that there are other ways. Ways far cheaper for the average citizen that work as well as ours. So... why don't we change? 

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In this week's Short Suck, we revisit the 2006 Duke Lacrosse scandal—the case that felt like an open-and-shut story of privilege and violence… until the facts started falling apart, the DNA didn’t match, and the real rot turned out to be the rush to convict. It’s a brutal look at how media narratives, campus outrage, and a DA chasing votes can turn “everyone knows what happened” into one of the most infamous examples of what happens when due process gets trampled.

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Behind the straight-A smiles and proud immigrant-family success story of Jennifer Pan was one of the most elaborate webs of lies in modern true-crime history — and when that web finally snapped, it led straight to hired guns and a family nearly wiped out. In this episode of Timesuck, we dive into how crushing expectations, fear of failure, and years of deception turned a “perfect daughter” into the architect of a brutal home-invasion murder plot.

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In the middle of the night, a man with a messiah complex and a god-sized ego walked into a suburban Utah bedroom and stole a fourteen-year-old girl from her family. What followed was a nine-month nightmare of psychological torture, cult-style control, and one of the most chilling cases of child abduction in modern American history. This is the true story of Elizabeth Smart - and the monster who tried to make her his “wife.”

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In this week's Short Suck, we head back to the 1930s, when milk wasn’t just one of many beverages  - it was survival, income, and power. As the Great Depression crushed farmers, workers, and cities alike, a perishable staple sparked riots, bombings, deadly shootings, and even Mafia involvement across the Midwest. This is the forgotten history of the Milk Wars,  when America went to war... over cow juice.

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In the spring of 1946, a masked serial killer stalked the lovers’ lanes and quiet homes of Texarkana, leaving behind brutal murders, traumatized survivors, and a small city gripped by fear. This episode dives deep into the true story of the Phantom Killer and the flawed investigation that failed to stop him. Some monsters truly only come out at night. 

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The year-end inspirational Timesuck is here! We wrap up 2025 with the incredible true story of Chris Gardner — a man who survived poverty, abuse, foster care, and homelessness (along with his toddler son) before becoming a multimillionaire stockbroker and global philanthropist. If he could rise from that kind of hardship to build a life of purpose and generosity, what might the rest of us be capable of overcoming?

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In this Short Suck, we head into the brutal hills around Tennessee’s old Brushy Mountain prison to explore the Barkley Marathons— the nearly-impossible 100-mile ultramarathon. And we’ll meet Lazarus Lake, the cigarette-lighting, Dr Pepper-drinking madman who designed a race meant to break people, complete with secret applications, sadistic course changes, and “human sacrifices” who have almost no chance of finishing. 

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What happens when ordinary people decide the legal system isn’t enough — and to take justice into their own hands? From real-life “superheroes” to tragic misfires, from folk-hero avengers to catastrophic citizen’s arrests, this episode explores the wild, messy, often dangerous world of vigilante justice. Sometimes inspiring, sometimes horrifying, sometimes darkly hilarious, these stories reveal just how quickly “doing the right thing” can go very wrong.

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In the 1960s and ’70s, yoga teacher–turned–self-proclaimed messiah Anne Hamilton-Byrne built one of Australia’s most shocking cults—an LSD-fueled blend of New Age mysticism, stolen children, and her own delusions of divine destiny. With doctors, psychiatrists, and academics convinced she was the Second Coming of Christ, Anne created The Family, a secretive compound where kids endured years of isolation and abuse. Be VERY thankful you’re not in this CULT! CULT! CULT!

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In this Short Suck, we dive into the almost-forgotten story of The Business Plot - when a group of powerful bankers and corporate bigwigs allegedly tried to recruit one of America’s most decorated Marines, Smedley Butler, to lead a fascist coup against President Franklin D. Roosevelt. We’ll sift through testimony, shady alliances, and a very convenient death to ask: how close did the U.S. actually come to going full fascist in the 1930s?

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You read that title right. Are you familiar with the story of James Strang? A blatant con artist who converted to Mormonism shortly before Joseph Smith's assassination who used a forged letter and some "discovered" brass plates to establish himself as Smith's legitimate heir, and then convinced hundreds of followers to move to Beaver Island in Lake Michigan where they crowned him king in 1850 and formed a small army that included pirates? This true story is wonderfully bonkers. Hail Nimrod! 

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In this deeply informative episode of Timesuck, we explore the history of addiction, how different cultures have tried to understand and control it, and what modern science reveals about how it rewires the brain, hijacks choice, and reshapes identity. From ancient remedies and religious interpretations to modern medicine and neuroscience, we break down how desire becomes dependency — and why recovery is so much more than just willpower.

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We sail back to 1789 and find out why the real Mutiny on the Bounty was way less “noble sailors vs brutal tyrant” and way more “horny, possibly rapey young officer snaps on his short, cheese-hoarding, coconut-obsessed captain.” In today's Short Suck, we dig into the petty ego clashes, disastrous decisions, and deeply messed up sexual dynamics that led to one of history’s most infamous mutinies.

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Linda Hazzard - self-proclaimed “fasting specialist” and actual sadistic fraud - ran one of the most disturbing medical scams in American history. At her Washington State sanitarium, later nicknamed “Starvation Heights,” she starved countless patients under the guise of curing everything from aches and pains to cancer. Her brutal regimen of near-total fasting, daily enemas, and bizarre “massage” beatings left a trail of emaciated victims...

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In 1971, Go Ask Alice shocked parents across America - marketed as the real diary of a teenage girl swallowed alive by drugs, addiction, and death. Terrified moms and dads bought the book by the millions, used it to police their kids, and fueled a cultural panic that helped justify the War on Drugs. But there was just one problem: the entire book was a lie presented as truth...

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On January 15th, 1919, a massive molasses tank in Boston’s North End burst, unleashing a 25-foot wall of sticky destruction that toppled buildings, derailed trains, and killed 21 people while injuring scores more. Today, we follow the harrowing rescues, the landmark class-action showdown, and the reforms that changed U.S. engineering standards. A strange, darkly ironic tragedy—equal parts true-crime, industrial history... and sugary nightmare.

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Happy Veteran's Day! George S. Patton was a war-winning, poetry-writing, reincarnation-believing chaos machine. The Allies needed him. The Nazis feared him. His bosses… tolerated him. From heroic battlefield leadership to slapping hospitalized soldiers and creating international incidents with his mouth, Patton lived louder than almost anyone in uniform. This is the story of Old Blood-and-Guts: genius, troublemaker, and one of the toughest sons of bitches in U.S. military history.

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He was brash, beautiful, bold, flawed, and unapologetically himself. From Olympic gold to global fame, Muhammad Ali’s story is one of rebellion, redemption, and relentless courage. This week, we dive into the life of “The Greatest” - a man who fought not just opponents in the ring, but racism, war, and even his own failing body. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee… and rumble, young meatsack, rumble.

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Happy Halloween, Meatsacks! The conclusion of our Halloween week fictional horror! In this conclusion to yesterday's release, Duncan Briggs just wants his life to return to what it was before he'd ever heard of AR Innovations. But we all know that's not going to happen, right? Instead, the new ride he's on keeps getting wilder.

This episode was scored by Logan Keith. We recommend listening with headphones to experience the full effect of all the creepy background noises. If you like this episode, please let us know wherever you rate and review podcasts. 

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Hello again Meatsacks! The beginning of our last bit of Halloween week fictional horror! This one was originally released back in July. In this first of two parts,  we meet a man, Duncan Briggs, who agrees to participate in a paid scientific study to make a little cash to get his wife something nice for her birthday while he's in-between jobs. And then things get.... weird. Enjoy!

This episode was scored by Logan Keith. We recommend listening with headphones to experience the full effect of all the creepy background noises. If you like this episode, please let u...

Hello Meatsacks! Time for more Halloween week horror! This one was, as you can guess, released the week before yesterday's story, from this past May. And in it, we head to the tropical jungle of Vietnam's Annamese mountains. When on a dark, rainy night in January of 1968, PsyWar Detachment Six was conducting black ops meant to terrify and break the spirits of the Viet Cong.  Enjoy!

This episode was scored by Logan Keith. We recommend listening with headphones to experience the full effect of all the creepy background noises. If you like this episode, please let us k...

Time for another Halloween week Nightmare Fuel! This one is from this past May. And in it, we head to Upstate New York's Woodhull Mountain, where Gabe and Hassan see a very strangely placed house on the side of the hill while out on a hike. When Gabe enters the house, he leaves behind our world, and enters a space outside of it - a dark and mysterious space dedicated mostly... to pain.  Hope you like it!

This episode was scored by Logan Keith. We recommend listening with headphones to experience the full effect of all the c...

This isn't a mistake, meatsacks! I've been wanting to show you some of the new fictional content I've been working on for awhile now. And the week of Halloween seemed like a great time to do it. This week, I'll be sharing five of my favorite Nightmare Fuels with you here on the Timesuck feed, staring with this story I wrote back in March. It's 1989 and a pawn shop owner has found some chilling home video footage of two film students investigating an urban legend set inside a local abandoned insane asylum. Hope you like it! 

This e...

In the mid-1990s, the quiet backwoods of southwest Florida became the hunting grounds of a sadistic killer the media would dub “The Hog Trail Killer.” What began as a routine hog hunt quickly spiraled into one of the most gruesome investigations in Florida history - a string of bodies found in the woods, all bound, mutilated, and left to rot. This week, we look at Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., the man accused of turning Charlotte County’s wilderness into his personal killing field, and explore the chilling possibility that he’s connected to even more victims — the mysterious Fort Myers...

From ghostly prankster to urban legend, Spring-Heeled Jack terrorized Victorian London with blue flames, metallic claws, and impossible rooftop leaps—so much so that a Ripper-era letter in 1888 claimed his name. This Short Suck traces the 1838 panic through hoaxes, aristocratic “bets,” and mass hysteria to ask what Jack revealed about a rapidly modernizing empire’s fears. Along the way, we connect the legend’s cultural footprint to later monsters—think Dracula—and even to cape-and-cowl vigilantes.

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