Exploring what sinister stories reveal about the rest of us.

In 1939, University of Iowa graduate student Mary Tudor arrived at the Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home with an experiment. Twenty-two children were divided into groups. Some already stuttered. Others spoke normally. Six of those normally speaking children were told something that wasn't true: experts had determined they were developing a speech problem. In this episode of Pretty Evil, we revisit the infamous “Monster Study,” the controversial theory of psychologist Wendell Johnson, the young graduate student who carried it out, and the six children who wouldn't learn the truth about what had happened to them until decades later.

Robert Hansen became infamous as Alaska's “Butcher Baker,” a serial killer who abducted women, flew them into the Alaskan wilderness, and hunted them through remote terrain. Or at least that's the mythology. But I think calling what Hansen did a “hunt” gives him far too much credit. He selected women he believed society would be slow to protect. He controlled the weapons, transportation, restraints, terrain, timing, and whether anyone knew where they were. Then, he treated the helplessness he had deliberately manufactured as evidence of his own superiority. But I have a question: What does winning actually prove when you were the person who controlled the rules?

Belle Gibson had the kind of cancer story people desperately wanted to believe. She said she'd been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and given months to live. Instead of accepting that prognosis, she changed the way she ate, turned to alternative therapies, and somehow survived. There was just one fairly significant problem: Belle Gibson had never had cancer.

Stone Foltz, Timothy Piazza, Michael Deng and George Desdunes died in cases involving fraternity hazing, each under very different circumstances. What connects them is a harder question: what happens to our sense of right and wrong when belonging, tradition and group loyalty make dangerous behavior feel normal?