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True crime documentaries have introduced us to some truly wild personalities— from obsessive superfans to cult leaders and con artists. These participants bring more chaos, weirdness, and unfiltered madness to the screen than you ever imagined. Strap in for a look at the most unhinged characters who turned true crime stories into unforgettable spectacles of human eccentricity and darkness.
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00:00Time is a ticket to soon be gone
00:06Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're looking at the most peculiar participants in true crime docs.
00:12From the overly enthusiastic and over-the-top to the truly psychopathic, there will be spoilers.
00:18Black Box tells us what happened, not why.
00:21Guess it depends on how you look at it.
00:25Eileen and Keen Umber, a killer story.
00:28The true crime craze has proven addicting to many folks at home who just can't get enough information on the
00:33cases that keep them up at night.
00:35But for this Kansas-based couple, the obsession has been taken to the extreme.
00:39The Umbers dedicated themselves to the case of Dana Chandler, a woman charged with the double homicide of her ex
00:45-husband and his girlfriend.
00:46The HBO docuseries not only details the case and its murky evidence, but focuses on how this crime has consumed
00:53the couple's life.
00:54If injustice is going on out there, I can't live over here and say, well, it doesn't affect me. That's
00:59just who I am.
01:00In God's house, there's many vessels. He made me a certain kind of vessel. I'm a sword.
01:06And the purpose of a sword is to poke and kill and do the justice part.
01:10They sold property. Keen quit his job. And the two sunk decades attempting to defend Chandler, whom they had no
01:17real-life connection to.
01:18Are they unhinged fanatics or illegal masterminds? We'll let you be the judge of that.
01:23This has never been just about Dana Chandler's innocence and a desire to see her free.
01:29Not only do we believe in our innocence, we want the true killer of Mike Siskel and Karen Harkness to
01:35be brought to justice.
01:36Father God. Love Has Won. The Cult of Mother God.
01:40It takes all kinds to make a cult, but only a special kind of megalomaniac will work their way into
01:46the upper echelons.
01:472023's Love Has Won explores the cult of Mother God and the life and death of its creator, Amy Carlson.
01:53I think she took it as like she was more God than other people were God.
02:00Greetings of love, everyone. This is Mother God.
02:03It's Mother God, also known as Mother Earth, Divine Mother, Universal Mother, White Buffalo Calf Woman. I've got lots of
02:12names.
02:13What sets this docuseries apart is the participation of so many current cult members.
02:17Jason Castillo, or Father God, was Carlson's partner at the time of her death.
02:21All these- all this energy is ours. And it belongs to us. And if you're not in right action,
02:29you're out. Period.
02:32So, guess who's the master of atoms with me?
02:38Did he really believe himself to be a deity? Were the crazy temper tantrums and crying fits something to do
02:44with the methamphetamine?
02:46And when he handed the filmmakers first-hand footage of Amy's body being carted about on his orders?
02:51Did he really think that the Galactics should have come to pick her up?
02:55It was only me and Father with Mom and FM.
02:59I drove non-stop from Oregon to Colorado.
03:03See, in higher frequency you have infinite energy.
03:05I want to get my mom back to where she wished to be.
03:09And Dad was right back there with her.
03:11Jerry Zhao.
03:12Michael Organ.
03:13Mr. Organ.
03:14Michael Organ first hit the New Zealand news for illegally clamping cars.
03:19However, his reputation as an energy vampire with a history of traumatizing anyone he comes into contact with sounded like
03:25a challenge for documentary maker David Ferrier.
03:27Well, thanks for meeting with me.
03:29I know you're in mind a little, you know, it's all very well being jocular, but this is actually the
03:34man who's helped fuel the fires of, in some cases, hatred.
03:43You know, and you must take responsibility for that or not.
03:46What begins as an investigation into a small town antiques business and its dodgy dealings becomes a draining and frightening
03:52experience for the journalist.
03:54Unhinged doesn't quite cover it.
03:56Mr. Organ is a smart one too.
03:58He knew who stole my key.
03:59The same way he knew who sent those legal threats from Jillian's email account.
04:04Um, you may have an inkling who it is, but that I'll disclose later.
04:09Whether he's getting his hands on the keys to David's house, gaslighting him, stalking, or physically assaulting him, it's all
04:15done like a master manipulator.
04:17Michael's relentless creepiness drives Ferrier to his breaking point, but he gets some fascinating footage out of it.
04:22I wonder who we're talking about, eh? Because you and I know we both know who we're talking about.
04:27Tanya Haddix, Chimp Crazy.
04:29Owners of exotic pets, or at least the illegal kind, are usually at least a little different.
04:342024's Chimp Crazy, as the title suggests, definitely features some characters.
04:40I've had a relationship with the federal government over exotic animals.
04:47So when you called me and said, be the point person, get inside and see what was going on.
04:54I mean, that's right up my alley.
04:56It's main focus is Tanya Haddix, who first indulged her fascination with chimps when she began volunteering part-time at
05:03Connie Casey's Missouri Primate Foundation.
05:05In the opening of the documentary, Haddix insists that the bond between a chimp and their owner is much deeper
05:11than that between a human mother and her child.
05:13Human children are meant to grow up and build bonds with other people in society, but not chimpanzees.
05:21Look at that little chimp.
05:24Their mother is their whole life.
05:28And a primate feels that way about you because you become their mother.
05:33The contrast between Tanya's discussions of Tonka the Chimp and Tonka's general appearance and demeanor is the most unhinged part
05:39of this doc.
05:40That, or the part where she hides him overnight in a hotel bathroom.
05:44Because he is my kid. He is my kid.
05:47Even though I didn't naturally bore him, Tonka is a humanzie.
05:52Half human, half chimpanzee.
05:55But his preference is the human side.
05:59Kendra Licari. Unknown Number. The High School Catfish.
06:02This Netflix series was all about the big twist.
06:05And yes, we're gonna spoil it. You've been warned.
06:08I really didn't know what to say.
06:10Brad got back a hold of me and said,
06:14The only phone number on all these pages out of everybody who sent me that matches is Kendra's phone number.
06:20And I said,
06:22It's not her.
06:23When teenager Lauren Licari's text message tormentor turns out to be her own mother, we were pretty shook.
06:29Kendra took part in the documentary herself as one of the tucking heads.
06:33She seemed like a nice, normal lady.
06:35Not the kind of person who would send threatening sexual and abusive messages to her own daughter.
06:40As many as 40 or 50 times a day.
06:42Sometimes it was an hour a day or eight hours a day.
06:47I let it consume me.
06:50Turns out she had even left her job and was sitting at home hour after hour cyberbullying teenagers.
06:55But apparently it wasn't personal.
06:58Kendra treated the whole thing fairly unseriously.
07:00Even agreeing to reenactments.
07:02Kinda hard to get your head around.
07:04I think it was a Cyber Munchausen's case.
07:06She wanted her daughter to need her in such a way that she was willing to hurt her.
07:16And this is the way she chose to do that.
07:20Kevin Curtis, The Kings of Tupelo.
07:22A Southern crime saga.
07:23Crime documentarians attract those fascinated with the macabre.
07:27But sometimes all we need are small town feuds and crazy characters.
07:31The unhinged highlight of Kings of Tupelo is Kevin Curtis.
07:34A former Elvis impersonator turned conspiracy theorist.
07:38Out of vision.
07:40Ladies and gentlemen.
07:42In 1935, two babies were born in Tupelo, Mississippi.
07:47Conceiving of an Elvis tribute act featuring Elvis and his brother who died at birth was wacky enough.
07:52But once Curtis gets into the world of conspiracy theories, the wild revelations come thick and fast.
07:57Got a great job.
08:00And a beautiful family.
08:02You've come so far and look at you now.
08:06Then I found a severed head.
08:07The whole f***ing world hated me.
08:09Is his local hospital harvesting organs?
08:12Probably not.
08:13Did he send poison letters to the president?
08:15No, he was framed.
08:17Was he framed by his rival Taekwondo instructor James Everett Dusky?
08:21Maybe.
08:22Is Dusky on reflection even more unhinged?
08:25Possibly.
08:26But we can't include him because he didn't actually participate in the documentary.
08:30No amount of analysis can get me to 100% confirmation.
08:33Which leaves me with just a bunch of unanswered questions.
08:37Patrick Pespas, Telemarketers.
08:40Not all the peculiar participants featured in this list are the bad guys.
08:44Pat Pespas is a case in point.
08:46A quirky character, but a good egg.
08:48How do you feel about the camera?
08:49Is it a friend?
08:49It's my friend.
08:50That's shit crazy.
08:51Yeah, that's it.
08:52It's because you're acting that way.
08:53The camera is your best friend.
08:562023's Telemarketers tells the story of two unlikely crusaders on a quest to expose the
09:01corruption at the top end of the dodgy call center they work for.
09:07At the office, there's chaos all around, including the animals on the loose and staff getting busy in the bathrooms.
09:12There's no background checks.
09:14There's no drug testing.
09:16Dudes flip out at the drop of a hat and you just gotta deal with it.
09:20CDG is just like anything you can ever imagine in a gangster film right in front of you.
09:26At one point, Pespas is filmed on the phone, his customer service head firmly on his shoulders despite being high
09:32as a kite.
09:33He shows the same kind of dedication in his search for the truth, even chasing down interviewees with a box
09:38full of brisket in hand.
09:40Can you believe that?
09:41I didn't know what to do.
09:43I had like barbecue in my hands.
09:45I couldn't talk because of food in my mouth.
09:48Frederic Bourdin, the imposter.
09:50If you asked me, I would say no, not for a second did she believe I was her brother.
09:55She decided I wasn't gonna be her brother.
09:59It's like I woke up in a place where a lie is even bigger than what I did.
10:06You know, it's...
10:08They pretended as much as I did.
10:11Frederic Bourdin was a French confidence trickster, most famous for impersonating a missing American boy, Nicholas Barclay, back in the
10:1890s.
10:19In 2012, his insane story was made into a documentary movie, featuring interviews with the boy's family, as well as
10:25Bourdin himself.
10:25Director Bart Layton described Bourdin as a man with a childlike quality about him.
10:30He can be very charming, and at other times he can be quite repellent.
10:33I wanted the media's attention so that I would make Nicholas even more real.
10:38That people would really believe that I'm Nicholas.
10:42And they would love me even more for that.
10:46We get to see plenty of him in the imposter, and the straight down the camera interview style makes every
10:51little laugh or admission of guilt appear even more unhinged.
10:54Barclay wasn't the only missing child Bourdin impersonated throughout his life, begging the question, what exactly is wrong with him?
11:01I didn't give a damn what other people were thinking, or what they were feeling. I care about myself. Just
11:08about myself.
11:08Issei Sagawa. Interview with a cannibal.
11:11The most unhinged thing about this interview with Issei Sagawa is that it exists.
11:16In 2010, the self-professed cannibal took part in a documentary where he casually discussed the murder and cannibalization of
11:22a human being as if he were commenting on the weather.
11:42Thanks to a loophole in the law, Sagawa was never imprisoned for his crimes. If anything, he profited from them.
11:48Throughout the film he makes no effort to hide or minimize what he did.
12:03His mild attempts at justification are along the lines of, my parents were repressed when
12:08he came to talking about sex.
12:10The whole thing is just short of unbelievable and too horrible to think about too deeply.
12:35Before we continue, check out this single from SoundMojo's audience, Songs from Iran, reimagining
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13:05Everyone, primarily Joe Exotic, Tiger King, Murder, Mayhem, and Madness.
13:10Back in 2020, we were all searching desperately for anything that might keep us entertained.
13:15Enter Joe Exotic and the cast of Tiger King.
13:18The people who worked for Joe were misfits, and they were a family.
13:21It was a place where all these misfits could come together and be with the king of misfits
13:29who reigned over them.
13:30A collector of exotic animals and owner of a private zoo, Joe seemed much too comfortable
13:35threatening animal rights activists with death, or talking about an employee with torn off limbs.
13:40He was eventually convicted for hiring a hitman to murder his big cat conservationist nemesis,
13:46Carol Baskin.
13:46And this was at the point where we'd heard some recorded phone calls and conversations
13:51between Mr. Gerritsen and Mr. Maldonado Passage, indicating that there was, in fact, a plot coming together.
13:58Joe is an erratic, larger-than-life figure with a memorable image and numerous eccentricities.
14:04Other participants in the show display their fair share of unhinged behavior, but Joe is
14:08the most memorable.
14:09He might not be a great person, but he does make great TV.
14:13I'm gonna try and get some good shots, so make sure y'all get me some promo pictures in
14:18there.
14:19No, I want you up front with a steel camera.
14:22Have you ever come across any truly unhinged characters in your favorite crime docs?
14:25Tell us the craziest in the comments.