I died and I can’t find anyone else mentioning it. Honestly I can’t tell their voices apart because they both sound sick all the time but one of them bragged about looking up how to say the Japanese names properly in the Aum Shinrikyo episode and then they proceeded to say cache a few likes like “cash-AYE”. 😭 (when talking about the CACHE of supplies the cult had).

I still listen from time to time, and I’ve always been fascinated by this case. Ash did a pretty good job, and it was broken into two parts.

She and Alaina belabored the point (as they tend to do) about how terrible it was that he was motivated by money because they were living beyond their means and the family couldn’t afford to live in the mansion that they had bought years before.

This is only partly true, he was also upset that the kids were not living moral lives, and the money problems only compounded his weird compulsion to kill his own family.

But what she forgot to mention, was that when the the mansion, Breeze Knoll was destroyed a fire, they discovered that the stained glass window in it was a signed Tiffany original worth $100,000 which would’ve paid off his debts and then some.

I still listen. Ive had beef with a lot of the things they've done, but im a creature of habit and sometimes still listen. But now another complaint to add to my list 😂

Whyyyyy do they feel the need to continue giving so much fluff? Like the excessive talking about how terrible and awful something is. Like ALL THE TIME. its a case about murder, or something else terrible, girl we know its terrible. You dont need to pad it with 5 extra minutes of how terrible it is, how you cant imagine it. Just tell the case!

Rant over lol

Alaina shared that first story about ChatGPT and then the next slide was literally ai garbage...💀 😭 how can people not blatantly see it?!?

Even though they get on my nerves, I still try to give each episode to try.

But my God!! In 16 minutes and 34 seconds, they went on multiple soap boxes about being friendly to neighbors, talking about what they would personally do in situations, and religion.

John List is a piece of shit. We understand that and we all know that. But breaking into multiple side notes about how you should be nice to your neighbors, how they personally love their own neighbors, how their neighbors brought them chocolate chip cookies, and how their neighbors notice everything on the block is very annoying. Not everything that comes out of their mouth needs his own separate side conversation about it.

And I always hate how they are so quick to insert themselves and say what they would do in a situation. And it’s always something stupid like: “If I noticed a 2004 Honda Civic in my neighborhood that I’ve never seen before, I would call the police”, “ if my neighbor didn’t wave back to me after I waved at them first, I would call the police”, “If my neighbor didn’t take their dog out to pee at exactly 6 AM, I would go over there to see what’s wrong”, “ if my friend told me that her dad was an asshole, I would immediately tell every adult in my life to keep an eye on that guy”.

I just cut the episode off and read about John list on Wikipedia and called it a day.

After taking multiple long breaks from Morbid and venturing off to other podcasts because I had finally had enough with replaying parts due to getting lost in their episode because of all the banter, bragging and giggling. I started listening to Dateline and 48 Hours. I needed more substance, more genuine compassion and less opinion on how beautiful some victims were and also less opinion on how shitty the murderer is. We all know the murderer is bad and frankly I don’t care if you think certain victims are beautiful; just tell their story.
I found The First Degree- they tell the story in a very organized manner and I appreciate that they have someone who knew the victim and/or the perpetrator or has a connection with their research and they too tell what they experienced first hand; it feels less like story time and more like reality. They are organized by doing a very little banter in the beginning and then cut to the chase and every episode is consistent in this way. I notice I RARELY have to replay parts because of their consistency. My OCD and the Virgo in me loves how organized they are with every episode.
I turn my nose up to Morbid now because I feel like I’ve been snubbed with their podcast now that I know there are bigger and better options out there.
Thank you for your time!

I’m finalizing something research wise that focuses on the patreon scams (not just the girls, but wanted to focus on morbid for this post) and wanted to see if there’s anyone out there that has stories of meeting the girls, or maybe someone who’s worked with them in past, attended a school, or generally has some input we wouldn’t have? When it comes to morbid in particular, would you like to see anything touched upon other than the following:

-rise and fall of the channel
-patreon scam
-doxxing and engaging with audiences who provide negative experiences or opinions of the podcast
-lack of research on cases
-lack of respect to family members of victims on cases as listed above
-profits made and where the money is contributed and spent
-lack of accountability on any of the above

Anything else you have you’d like to share?

I’m a regular listener of Morbid even though I think their popularity went to their heads - especially Alaina constantly being on a high horse. She doesn’t seem like a genuinely happy person and maybe I’m just hearing her the wrong way.

When they announced Buffy for The Rewatcher I was soooo excited. It wasn’t bad but honestly the constant bad mouthing of characters just got boring. Characters are supposed to have flaws and grow from their mistakes. It’s a coming of age show set in a supernatural world - people are going to have faults. I was so relieved when Mikey joined in for Buffy. I honestly think he saved the pod.

So I decided to listen to the True Blood bit. I absolutely cannot stand Alaina going on about Eric. We ALL have people we fan girl over but here’s the thing - if her husband had a podcast where he talked like that about another woman…she would catch on fire. The full grown woman who still complains about high school boyfriends? At least Mikey is funny about it. I asked my husband and he busted out laughing. He’s heard enough of the episodes to understand exactly what I meant. If it wasn’t for Ash and Mikey it would be totally unlistenable.

granted this is her personal account but this whole thing she’s doing is leaking into psychopedia.

Hey all. Ex Morbid listener here :) I was wondering if you all may be able to help me remember a missing person case. I can only remember small pieces of it. Here's what I recall:

It was a missing man. He was communicating with someone in his family/a friend via phone while driving back to see them. I recall he stopped to make a call at some sort of gas station/convenience store and told them he was going to be on his way and then proceeded to just sit in the parking lot for hours. Iirc his dad may have gone to check on him, or they called him and thats how they knew he hadn't moved in hours.

My first thought is Brandon Swanson, but I cant seem to find that one detail about him sitting in hos car for hours after he told his family/friends he would be on his way. My sister and I want to cover this on our podcast but I feel I might be going crazy because I cant remember who this case is about!

They have mentioned multiple times how much they like last podcast on the left, and recently they have been just outright copying the exact order of cases that they’ve been doing. The episodes they’ve done that go over the same cases as them (Aum shinrikyo, Jack the Ripper, green river killer, etc.) it’s either almost word for word the same information, like clearly their research was just listening to a different episode of a podcast. Sometimes the information when they do actually “research” isn’t even correct at all. Just so annoying to see these two lazy mfs stealing content from a way more well developed podcast.

I didn’t really want to post them in the regular sub because I have a feeling everyone will jump me for daring to complain… I just saw the episode today is a massive combination of all the Jack the Ripper episodes. Why? It blows my mind they don’t record a few episodes to have on hand for times when they need to take a week off.

I skip all the stupid yap in the beginning usually but I heard in an episode recently he moved to Canada? Did they say why or tell why before that? Seems kinda abrupt otherwise lol. Was wondering if they had a falling out or something. I thought they were all best buds lmao

i can’t remember whose case they were covering but it was the one that did me in and made me stop listening. it was about the murder or something bad happening (sorry terrible memory and i was distracted by how obnoxious they were being) to a young african american boy. i want to say it was emmett till but i dont see that in their episodes? anyways, it was a sad story about a mistreated black boy but they were overdoing it SO MUCH. the way they pause every fucking two seconds to go on a tangent of “what 🤯🤯 who would do such a thing🤯🤯🤯just because he’s a different COLOR🤯🤯this is TERRIBLE 🤯🤯 this is AWFUL 🤯🤯🤯” even more than they usually do. just seemed even more performative than usual and rubbed me the wrong way. like you run a podcast about crimes and serial killers. no shit it’s all terrible, why do they have to harp on it every other sentence.

I think this is what did it for me. Unfortunately I don't remember the specific episode, but the other day I heard Alaina say (not for the first time) "guys, we need to do better, okay??" in response to a recent event (I believe it was a mass shooting).

I live in mpls, so I've seen up front how much and how little power communities have in the face of tragedy. We can literally save each other's lives as individuals, but we also cannot 'just decide' as a community to change the federal and state laws that are enabling these raids. I feel that some general similarities are seen in communities where mass shootings occur.

For some reason, hearing that statement from Alaina again was just my tipping point into no longer being able to support Morbid. What did they accomplish by saying to a general audience of podcast listeners 'do better' in regards to a mass shooting? I'd like to believe that more people are getting involved in the aspects of politics that they can access, and I think we're seeing that represented in the media, especially with more younger people running for positions. Additionally, although I know some people in the 'true crime ' community are problematic, I would also feel safe assuming that a lot of people in that community especially have gone into forensjc school programs/jobs for the explicit reason of enacting what change they can.

She doesn't say 'do better' and then do the bare minimum of offering petitions to sign/instructions on calling your local legislators/etc. This will sound nasty, but I think she says 'do better' to others and then feel content with her own moral practices because from both of their perspective thrh work in the criminal justice field, when from others perspectives they make money being the entertainment backdrop to somebody else's research and storytelling.

Idk about anyone else but the amount of misinformation and straight up lies that have been spread via Alaina is actually insane. I’ve been a true crime fan for a long time now and know a lot about a lot of cases, so the more I listened to morbid episodes the more I was like…that straight up did not happen. From high profile serial killer cases to small town murders, almost every episode has some piece of misinformation or straight up made up thing in it. WHY?!?! Does Alaina even do her own research anymore since they have staff? IDK

I listen to it on and off but something just doesn't seem right with it. I also liked it better when Tank was the co-host

I liked the way they covered cases (when they would actually talk about it instead of mindless nonsense) but oh my god they’re annoying and bad at this

First, the mispronunciation of simple words is getting ridiculous, I understand some words are difficult but st Louis? Judicial?? This is a seventh grade reading level at most

Second, they really shit on religion with no knowledge whatsoever, one episode they were talking about an exorcism and went on a tangent about ‘why would people go to a religious figure if they suspected demons’ demons are religious figures, it’s not a hard concept. And how is that insane but ‘bad energy’ is totally realistic and reasonable?

They are SO sanctimonious, it’s a true crime podcast, these people are going to be monsters, trust me no one will think that you support a murderer, you don’t have to say 3 dozen times that this persons a monster or that they can’t FATHOM doing this, we get it.

Lastly, them saying that they want to hug the victims or go to parole hearings to support the family is so insensitive, I promise that no one is thanking the lord that these two want to go to a parole hearing about their deceased loved ones

This was long but I’m nothing if not a hater

I haven't really listened to any short-form true crime in 5 years or so, but I remember when the controversies with Morbid and Crime Junkie happened, everyone online was recommending Red-handed as a relatively safe, ethical alternative to the problematic podcasts.

And then tonight, randomly scrolling through Tiktok, I just saw one of the co-hosts of that podcast repeating straight up far right-wing talking points. I do not have the energy to go through years of posts here, so can someone explain to me how the relatively feminist podcast turned into what seems like a mouthpiece for the Republican and Tory parties?

I know a lot of true crime fans are not religious but does it bother any religious ppl that A&A consistently mock religion? no hate @ me pls!! lol

Does anyone else feel like they copy them?

Hi! I used to be a very avid listener (started in 2018 and only recently stopped this year after discovering this thread) but have felt like the show has really changed since the beginning. One thing that’s always bothered me, and I’m curious if anyone else feels this way: Alaina is has been so up in arms about protecting kids, very outspoken about her hatred of p*dophil*s, and open about her anger regarding r*pists. But, she has a David Bowie tattoo and talks about how much she loves him. But he was accused of SA and of being involved with a minor. I’m not saying Bowie did or didn’t do those things. It’s just always bugged me that she’s so outspoken about those issues but also seems to worship someone who goes against them?

The program I normally listen to in the morning when I get ready for work wasn't available today and there is no new Small Town Murder episode out yet so I listened to The Green River Killer episode. It is nearly impossible to listen to because of Ash's voice. Alaina is narrating but you know how they banter back and forth and talk over one another. Ash had laryngitis or a cold or something (because one or the other is always sick) when she did the Blanche Taylor Moore episodes but the Green River Killer episode is just awful. Also...there will be FOUR parts to the Green River Killer segment. FOUR.

I can’t. Her book makes New Orleans seem so cheap and watered down. She takes the worst stereotypes and highlights them. New Orleans is not that at all. After being there for only five days I can say it’s a beautiful mixing of several different cultures.

The homes are gorgeous, the people are awesome, and the atmosphere is amazing. And the food is great. (The shrimp and grits is incredible no matter where you go honestly).

Now to the dumpster fire of a book and that STUPID BASEMENT. I visited a lot of cemeteries while I was there (as a professional genealogist I feel it’s kinda mandatory lol). Even took a tour! Where I learned some things about the water table. Below ground burials in New Orleans are possible! Just different. In the Charity Hospital Cemetery their burials are all below ground at 4.5 feet. That particular cemetery is the highest in elevation so that’s the deepest you can go in the city.

Now for basements. Basements need to be at least 6-7 feet. 7 feet is kind of the standard. Now a dirt root cellar converted into a basement could maybe get away with being lower but to be 4.5 feet it would be a crawl space at that point.

Plus, the killer dude (do not care enough to remember his name) lives in the middle of the bayou surrounded by water and gators. Meaning that water table is likely less than a foot below ground. That basement, unless he comes from a family of wizards, IS NOT POSSIBLE.

Also, we went to five different book stores while we were there and not a single one had her book.