12. The Exploitation of the Dionne Quintuplets

SURPRISE EPISODE!!! A special Saturday treat because you deserve it, baddies. Elizabeth Holmes was just 19 years old in 2003 when she founded what would become a multi-billion dollar health technology company. This company, called Theranos, acquired over 700 million dollars in investments from venture capitalists and private investors which was meant to be used towards the research and development of a diagnostic tool that would revolutionize the healthcare industry for the better. This tool – called “The Edison” was a portable analysis machine that could test blood for several different conditions, illnesses, and diseases with only a few drops of blood from a finger prick. The goal was to make blood tests more convenient, affordable, and accessible, relieving a significant burden off of the healthcare system and giving patients direct access to personalized healthcare. Great! What an excellent idea! It’s no wonder that so many people wanted to invest in Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos way back at it’s conception, but they could not have predicted that they were funding and enabling one of the most manipulative con-artists of all time – who would stop at nothing to be successful - even if that meant lying her way to the top and putting hundreds of patient lives in jeopardy. Keep up to date on all things Historically Bad: Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@historicallybadpodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Website:⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.historicallybadpodcast.ca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Patreon:⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.patreon.com/HistoricallyBadPatreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Contact us: ⁠[email protected]⁠ Historically Bad is created and produced by Tabitha Festa and Carly Sullivan. Case Sources: HBO Documentary: The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley Book: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou Hulu miniseries: The Dropout starring Amanda Seyfried https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-exclusive https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/05/12/78345169.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110618093924/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,732595-2,00.html https://www.vice.com/en/article/wjm3eb/theranos-founder-elizabeth-holmes-comes-from-a-bakers-yeast-empire https://www.businessinsider.com/the-dropout-what-is-real-elizabeth-holmes-theranos-differences-show-reality#holmes-actually-bought-a-siberian-husky-as-theranos-collapsed-19 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/15/blood-simpler https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/03/226452/phyllis-gardner-elizabeth-holmes-professor-interview-the-inventor https://www.inc.com/magazine/201510/kimberly-weisul/the-longest-game.html https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medical-devices/safeway-severs-ties-theranos-as-350m-deal-collapses https://www.engadget.com/2014-11-18-walgreens-blood-tests.html https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20131113005513/en/Theranos-and-Walgreens-Expand-Diagnostic-Lab-Testing-to-the-Phoenix-Metropolitan-Area https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7Be_6NEPQE https://www.integrityline.com/expertise/blog/elizabeth-holmes-theranos/ https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58336998 https://www.wsj.com/articles/DJFVW00120151015ebafa9go1 https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elizabeth-Holmes https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/technology/elizabeth-holmes-guilty.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/07/business/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-interview.html https://www.theweek.in/news/world/2022/01/04/timeline-the-rise-and-fall-of-theranos-founder-elizabeth-holmes.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/07/tech/theranos-rise-and-fall/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/07/tech/elizabeth-holmes-prison-release-date/index.html https://www.npr.org/2023/05/30/1178728092/elizabeth-holmes-prison-sentence-theranos-fraud-silicon-valley https://apnews.com/article/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-prison-reporting-date-9fd718cd012d49f68c654bad89abb0ed https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/literary/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-john-carreyrou https://www.forbes.com/profile/elizabeth-holmes/?sh=739c019547a7

We're back Baddies and this time, we are covering the famous Bermuda Triangle. Spoiler… It’s Literally Just Water (or is it?).The Bermuda Triangle refers to a region in the Western North Atlantic where several ships and aircrafts famously disappeared under puzzling circumstances. Among the most well-known cases are the USS Cyclops, a U.S. Navy ship that vanished without a trace in 1918, and Flight 19, a group of five U.S. Navy bombers that disappeared during a training mission in 1945. While theories range from navigational errors to unusual weather patterns, (and even aliens and other dimensions), the Triangle remains one of the most talked-about maritime mysteries in modern history. Dive in as we unpack one of the world’s most dramatic 2 million square miles of ocean. Yes, planes disappeared. Yes, ships vanished. No, it’s probably not a portal to another dimension (but we’re not ruling out the ocean being petty). We break down the science, roast the myths, and try very hard not to get lost ourselves.

Surprriissee Baddies! We're back with a brand new episode! When a fire broke out at a farm in LaPorte, Indiana, in 1908. a disgruntled farmhand was immediately suspected of arson and the murders of Belle Gunness and her three children. But when investigators were forced to look deeper by a desperate man searching for his missing brother, they discovered a chilling web of disappearances and a trail of dead bodies leading to the identification of one of the most notorious female serial killers in American history. Join Carly and Tab as they unpack the dark secrets of the Black Widow of LaPorte/ the Mistress of Murder Farms and how she was able to operate undetected for years, hiding in plain sight. This episode includes discussions of violence and murder, including violence against children. Please listen with care.

In 1996, Canadian businessman Adam Walsh was the owner of one of the highest valued junior mining companies in North America, which had several major mining companies bidding for shares and many mutual fund companies and independent investors piling money into stock. Bre-X was sitting on once of the greatest gold discoveries of the century, a deposit in Busang, Indonesia with an estimated 200 million oz of gold (worth roughly 300 billion dollars today) ready to be tapped into. But when one of the invested mining companies sent their own geologists to perform due diligence at the mining site, they didn’t find any gold. Instead, an investigation was launched into what is now known as the biggest mining and gold scandals of all time and one of the truest examples of fraud in history.

Jonestown became internationally infamous when, on November 18, 1978, a total of 918 people died at the settlement in a mass poisoning and group suicide at the nearby airstrip in Port Kaituma; and at a Temple-run building close to Georgetown, Guyana's capital city. The name ofthe settlement became synonymous with the incidents at those locations. During this massacre, a significant number of people died of cyanide poisoning and were injected against their will. In fact, all but two people died via poisoning withapproximately one third of the victims being children. Jones and some Peoples Temple members’ referred to the act as a "revolutionary suicide". The poisonings in Jonestown followed the murder of five other individuals,including U. S Congressman Leo Ryan with the murder-suicide committed by Four other Temple members inGeorgetown at Jones' command. To this day, the Jonestown massacre is known as the largest group suicide mission to have ever taken place and prior to the terrorist attacks of 911, Jonestown marked the single greatest loss of Americanlives in one day due to a non-natural disaster. Keep up to date on all things Historically Bad: Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠@historicallybadpodcast⁠⁠⁠Website: ⁠⁠⁠www.historicallybadpodcast.ca⁠⁠⁠ Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠www.patreon.com/HistoricallyBadPatreon⁠⁠ Contact us: [email protected] Historically Bad is created and produced by Tabitha Festa and Carly Sullivan. Case Sources: https://listverse.com/2024/03/10/top-10-most-heartbreaking-facts-about-jonestown/ https://www.nytimes.com/1979/03/15/archives/excerpts-from-transcript-of-tape-describing-the-final-moments-at.html https://time.com/6989360/cult-massacre-jonestown-hulu-doc/Bbc.co.uk“Jonestown: the world’s biggest mass suicide” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones The documentary Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle (2018). Right answers mostly “Jonestown… don’t drink thekool-aid” The docuseries “Cult Massacre: One Day in Jonestown”