In 1983, nine men stood in a field in Idaho and swore an oath.

Eighteen months later, one of them was dead in a burning house. The rest were in federal custody.

The FBI called it a victory.

They were wrong.

This is the story of what happens when ideology becomes identity. When grievance becomes theology. When ordinary people become capable of extraordinary violence.

Every fact is documented. Every source is public record.

We'll show you exactly where the bodies are buried, and what's still moving.

Next in Episode Two: The Machine. In 1983, radicalizing someone took a compound, a congress, and years of patient work. In 2025, it takes an algorithm and forty-five minutes. How did we get here?

Three episodes. One question: How does it keep happening?

Before dating apps, before social media, there was a man who hunted through a modem.

John Edward Robinson known online as Slavemaster. He used contracts, kindness, and the illusion of consent to trap women seeking connection.

What police found on his farm wasn’t just murder… it was an archive.

This is the chilling, fully-solved true story of how trust became a weapon and how the internet learned its first hard lesson.

A few days after Christmas, a quiet Midwestern town wakes up to a nightmare.

A wife is found dead.

A husband calls 911 in panic.

And a friend steps forward… smiling.

What follows is a true crime story so twisted it feels scripted but every word is real.

The Widowmaker is the chilling case of Pam Hupp, a woman who didn’t look like a monster, didn’t act like a killer, and didn’t run when the blood was spilled. Instead, she stayed close. She testified. She lied. And for years, she got away with it.

This episode of File 187 peels back the layers of deception, wrongful conviction, and calculated murder revealing how the justice system failed, how an innocent man lost years of his life, and how a killer nearly walked free by hiding in plain sight.

This isn’t just a true crime podcast.

It’s cinema for your mind.

Put the lights down.

Sit back.

And maybe don’t trust the friend offering you a ride home.

File 187: The Widowmaker

Executive Producer: Joe McReynolds

Narrated by Dan Kewley

File 187: Satan’s Carnival peels back the panic, the headlines, and the faith-fueled fear that gripped a Midwestern town convinced the Devil came to visit on Halloween week.

A traveling carnival rolls into the quiet farm town of Auburn, Indiana lights, music, and strangers promising a weekend of fun.

By the time the Ferris wheel stops turning, a young waitress has vanished, and what’s left behind in a muddy field looks more like a ritual than a robbery.