The Compendium Podcast

An Assembly of Fascinating Things

The Compendium is a weekly variety podcast that explores stories from the darker corners of true crime, historical events and incredible people.

Each week we serve up one complete story, researched properly, told from beginning to end, and packed with the details you’ll want to tell somebody else later.

Illustrated portraits of The Compendium hosts Kyle Risi and Adam Cox
2023Launched
1M+DownloadsAs of September 2026
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Facebook's Social Reckoning: Whistleblowers Frances Haugen & Sarah Wynn-Williams
The Compendium PodcastOctober 13, 2026
169
01:32:4784.96 MB

Facebook's Social Reckoning: Whistleblowers Frances Haugen & Sarah Wynn-Williams

Two women worked inside Facebook years apart, and both tried to warn the world about the exact same harms. One of these women became a household name, the other got a gag order. This episode tells both stories side by side, and asks whether Meta's $1...

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Three listener favourites. No commitment ceremony required.
Taylor Parker: Part 1, Fake Pregnancy, Inheritance Lies and a Foetal Abduction Case
The Compendium PodcastJune 09, 2026
156
01:02:2757.18 MB

Taylor Parker: Part 1, Fake Pregnancy, Inheritance Lies and a Foetal Abduction Case

The Taylor Parker case centres on a woman who convinced people around her that she was pregnant while also building a wider story of inheritance disputes, family sabotage and threats. In this first part of the episode, those lies escalate until Parke...

West Memphis Three: Paradise Lost and What Really Happened in Satanic Panic
The Compendium PodcastFebruary 24, 2026
141
01:32:2984.68 MB

West Memphis Three: Paradise Lost and What Really Happened in Satanic Panic

The West Memphis Three case is a brutal lesson in how Satanic Panic logic, pressure, and a false confession can steamroll evidence. Even after release via an Alford plea, the fight for full exoneration - and answers - refuses to die.

Space Cadets: Famous Hoaxes and the Reality TV Fake Space Mission
The Compendium PodcastNovember 11, 2025
126
01:19:0672.42 MB

Space Cadets: Famous Hoaxes and the Reality TV Fake Space Mission

A reality show convinces contestants they’ve been launched into space, pulling off the most audacious hoax in British TV history. We explore how producers engineered the illusion—and why the participants believed it.

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Why the compendium?

Stories worth
losing an hour to.

The best stories do something to you.

They make you laugh. They make you angry. They send you down a rabbit hole. They leave you thinking, how the hell did I not know about this?

That’s what we’re always chasing.

Remarkable people. Strange moments in history. Scandals, disasters, mysteries and stories that sound completely made up until you realise they actually happened.

We go deep enough to make them matter, but never so deep that they stop being fun.

No padding. No dragging one story across ten episodes. Just fascinating stories, told with curiosity, humour and all the strange little details that make you want to immediately tell someone else about them.

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LATEST EPISODES
Centurians of Rome: The Heist Behind the Most Expensive Gay Porno Ever Made

Centurians of Rome: The Heist Behind the Most Expensive Gay Porno Ever Made

In 1980, a young straight-porn director called Chris Covino walked into a New York City fetish club and met a man who introduced himself as J.R. Lewis. Over the course of that conversation, Lewis agreed to fund something Covino had always fantasised ...

Unabomber Part 1: The Biggest Manhunt in FBI History
The Compendium PodcastSeptember 26, 2026
167
01:07:3361.85 MB

Unabomber Part 1: The Biggest Manhunt in FBI History

Before Ted Kaczynski was a name on the news, the Unabomber was an anonymous figure who could vanish for years and return with a more lethal device. Part One follows the hunt from the first 1978 package bomb to the manifesto that finally made his anon...

Unabomber Part 2: The Manifesto That Exposed Ted Kaczynski
The Compendium PodcastSeptember 26, 2026
168
01:11:3365.52 MB

Unabomber Part 2: The Manifesto That Exposed Ted Kaczynski

Ted Kaczynski stayed hidden for 17 years, but the manifesto he believed would justify his crimes ultimately revealed him. Part Two follows the man behind the Unabomber from Harvard and the Montana wilderness to his arrest, legal battle and guilty ple...

Aileen Wuornos: The Murders, the Self-Defence Claims and the Woman Behind Monster
The Compendium PodcastSeptember 26, 2026
166
01:20:1773.51 MB

Aileen Wuornos: The Murders, the Self-Defence Claims and the Woman Behind Monster

Aileen Wuornos admitted killing seven men, but spent years changing the explanation for why she did it. Behind the woman portrayed in Monster lies a complicated story of trauma, murder, contradictory confessions and a first killing that remains centr...

Lizzie Borden: Did She Get Away With Murder?
The Compendium PodcastSeptember 22, 2026
165
01:08:5063.02 MB

Lizzie Borden: Did She Get Away With Murder?

In 1892, two people were hacked to death in a respectable Massachusetts home, and the only real suspect walked free after a trial that still divides opinion. Kyle and Adam dig into the evidence, the myths, the rhyme that got the numbers wrong, and th...

Nasubi: The Real Life Truman Show
The Compendium PodcastSeptember 15, 2026
164
01:16:4570.28 MB

Nasubi: The Real Life Truman Show

An aspiring comedian enters a sweepstakes challenge and unknowingly becomes one of Japan’s biggest television stars. Nasubi’s 15-month ordeal reveals how an unlocked door, an unseen audience and a desperate hope for fame can turn entertainment into e...

The Tromp Family Mystery: The Australian Family Who Fled Their Own Minds
The Compendium PodcastSeptember 08, 2026
163
01:05:5760.39 MB

The Tromp Family Mystery: The Australian Family Who Fled Their Own Minds

In 2016, five members of the Tromp family fled their farm in a single car, leaving behind their passports, credit cards and mobile phones. Why they fled remains one of Australia's greatest modern mysteries—a mystery that not even the Tromp family can...

Ruth Ellis: The Last Woman Hanged in Britain
The Compendium PodcastSeptember 02, 2026
Patreon Exclusive

Ruth Ellis: The Last Woman Hanged in Britain

Ruth Ellis became the last woman hanged in Britain after shooting her lover, racing driver David Blakely, outside a Hampstead pub on Easter Sunday 1955. The facts that secured her conviction appeared brutally simple: she waited for him, fired six tim...

MKUltra: The Dark History of CIA Mind Control and Frank Olson
The Compendium PodcastSeptember 01, 2026
162
01:32:2184.56 MB

MKUltra: The Dark History of CIA Mind Control and Frank Olson

MKUltra was the CIA’s secret Cold War programme built around drugs, hypnosis, interrogation, and the dream of controlling the human mind. This episode follows Frank Olson, LSD testing, Operation Midnight Climax, Donald Ewen Cameron, destroyed files, ...

Genie Wiley: Dark History of the Child Hidden From the Whole World
The Compendium PodcastJuly 14, 2026
161
01:25:0777.94 MB

Genie Wiley: Dark History of the Child Hidden From the Whole World

Genie Wiley was the child hidden from the world for thirteen years before her rescue became a test case for language, trauma, and the ethics of scientific research. This episode follows her abuse, rehabilitation, and the systems that failed her after...

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Meet the freaks responsible.

Kyle Risi
Kyle RisiThe RingmasterDoes the research.
Adam Cox
Adam CoxThe WildcardHears it for the first time.

One brings the story. One brings the reactions.
Nobody brings adequate supervision.

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“The Compendium has done a good job establishing itself among a growing number of nerdy British buddy podcasts.”

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“A perfect mix of knowledge, storytelling and genuine curiosity. More of this, please.”

Richard Cox

“I binged the entire back catalogue in a week. Completely hooked from the first episode.”

Sarah Flaxman

“Brilliantly researched and genuinely laugh-out-loud funny. A rare combination.”

Jill

“The only podcast my whole family agrees on. Endlessly interesting every single week.”

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