RedHanded - Episode 44 - Sex, Drugs & Satanism: Miranda Barbour

Episode Date: May 3, 2018

A man is found stabbed to death in a small Pennsylvanian town and unbelievably a young, local couple were arrested and charged with his murder. Despite there being no clear motive it seemed an open and shut case, until the 19 year old woman confessed to being a demonically possessed, satanic serial killer - who had already killed 22 people... Vote for us in the British Podcast Awards here: https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/vote Audio mastered by Conrad Hughes   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. So, get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Her first act as leader, asking donors for a million bucks for her salary. That's excessive. She's a big carbon tax supporter. Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes carbon tax supporter. Oh yeah, check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here.

She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah, higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Red Handers. Saruti here. Before we get into this week's case, very, very quick request. There is a link in the description. If you click on it, it'll take you to the British Podcast Awards Listener's Choice. Please give us a vote. Mean the world to us. We'd really appreciate it. As Hannah said last week, there are thousands of you. Take two seconds. It would mean so much. Thanks. Now on with the show. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. Welcome to Red Handed, where this week it's not a mystery, it's a murder, and there's absolutely no question who did it.

I've changed my mind on this one about a billion times, even though the crime itself is undeniable. It's the motives behind it that are anyone's guess. On the 12th of November 2013, a young woman was making coffee in her kitchen in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, just after half eleven in the morning. She looked out of her window and saw a man face down in the alley behind her house. The man was lying in a pool of blood and was clearly dead. The man had been stabbed over 20 times and a great deal of the stab wounds were defensive. He also had ligature marks around his neck, so not only had he been stabbed, he had been strangled. When the body was moved, police discovered a black cable underneath the man's body. The man has no ID on him, so he couldn't be identified.

Sunbury is quite a small place. It has a population of just 9 and a half thousand people. But if you Google it, it calls itself a city. And maybe American cities have different qualifiers than British ones, but don't you need a cathedral to be a city? It definitely doesn't have a cathedral. And to put this in perspective, the population of Stratford-upon-Avon, so where Shakespeare was born, quiet town in Warwickshire, it's definitely not a city, but Stratford-upon-Avon has a population of 27,445 people. So Sunbury is really, really small. They didn't really have many murders, according to Corporal Travis Bremigan, the lead investigator of the Sunbury

Police Department. If there was a murder, it was really easy to suss out who the culprit was, because everybody is all up in everyone's business to the nth degree. The police knew who had beef with who. So a man they couldn't identify lying face down in a pool of his own blood in an alley was extremely out of the ordinary. And the police didn't really know what to do with themselves. But they did have one lead. The dead man's phone was still on his body.

Now, I've read that it was in his pocket and i've also read that it was just nearby but either way they find a phone and assume it to be his but the police department of sleepy sunbury were stumped by the passcode on the phone which seriously it's it's 2013 how are the actual police just like oh well this phone is of absolutely no use to us some scoundrel has put a passcode on it. But perhaps I am being a little bit unfair because the police are only temporarily perturbed by the pesky passcode and they do start working on getting it unlocked. But surely the police can just get into anyone's phone.

I really don't understand why such a big deal is made of this, but it really is. But whilst cracking the impossible passcode, the phone receives an incoming call from a frantic Colleen LaFiera, who told the police that her husband, Troy LaFiera, had not come home the night before. Troy and Colleen had a seemingly happy marriage. They didn't live in Sunbury, but in a neighbouring, even smaller town of Sellensgrove. Police go to Colleen LaFiera's house and tell her that her husband has passed away. Quick question, who identified his body? How do they just know that it's Troy just because

Colleen called the phone that happened to be near him? If finding someone's phone near a dead body counts as positive identification, then I think we're in big trouble. But what do I know? That's what I think. It just seems so weird that the police don't know who he is. He has no ID on him. This phone has showed up and a lady rings them saying her husband is missing and they're immediately like, oh, it must be this guy. But I assume that someone eventually must have identified this body as Troy LaFiera because it is him. It's just weird that they go and tell Colleen immediately that her husband is dead. Yeah. And Colleen was able to tell police what Troy had been up to the night before. So Troy had apparently been at his mother's house at a family dinner

and he had left at about 8.15pm. And this was the last time Troy LaFiera was seen alive. According to Troy's mother Harriet, Troy had spent some time on the computer after dinner and before he left. And what happened next is everyone's worst nightmare. The police checked Troy's browsing history. If I am murdered, promise me you will delete my browser history before the police can get to it. Because I just don't think I can handle that.

But technically, yes, it is perverting the course of justice. But I will thank you from beyond the grave. And this episode is proof that I told you to do it so you'd be fine. Okay, I promise to do that. Troy's browser history as yours seems to be it was pretty incriminating he had been on facebook which fine but troy had also been looking at craigslist and yes it is exactly what you think troy had been looking at sexy personal ads okay question it's 2013 why is he on craigslist looking at sexy personal ads you have

tinder at this point that's basically the same thing you don't have people selling sex on tinder i don't know he's not looking at the lonely hearts column it's sex workers advertising their surfaces right got it so not only was he looking at these ads troy had eight different email aliases he had used to contact people on the site and after sifting through a few messages, it was pretty clear that Troy LaFiera had been seeking out sex with multiple women in exchange for money. The police were sure that one of these women was Troy's killer.

These suspicions would eventually be confirmed through Troy's phone records. On the night of November 11th, 2013, the night before he was found face down in a pool of his own blood, Troy had been texting a number with a North Carolina area code. This number was registered to a 22-year-old man named Elliot, Elliot Barber. But the number's voicemail message was a woman. The messages exchanged were clear. Troy had been soliciting this woman for sex in exchange for just $100. This woman and Troy had agreed to meet each other on the night of the 11th of November in the car park of the Susquehanna Valley Mall in Sellensgrove.

This phone number had been used to register a car in the name of Miranda Barber. And Miranda was pretty easy to track down. She was just 19 and had been married to Elliot Barber for just three weeks. The police had no files on either Miranda or Elliot, but because of the car registration, they did have their address. Miranda and Elliot also lived in Sellensgrove in a house they paid no damn rent for. The pair had only moved to Pennsylvania from North Carolina, which explains the area code, in October 2013.

So they've only been in the town for a month. They were living with Elliot's friend, Shay Dietz. The house was owned by Shay's mother, Valerie, who apparently had absolutely no problem with these two living there rent-free. Oh, I should also mention at this point that Miranda also has a baby. She has a two-year-old daughter. So Valerie is letting Elliot and Miranda and their baby live in her house rent-free. Miranda being the last person Troy had spoken to before he turns up dead

understandably puts Miranda pretty high on the suspect list. But despite this, police don't find anything incriminating at the house. Miranda and Valerie come down to the police station without too much fuss. Miranda claims that her and Elliot had been out celebrating his birthday on the 9th of the 11th of November. She said that they had driven up to Harrisburg, which is 47 miles away, and gone to a strip club, which seems incredibly romantic.

47 miles seems quite a long way to drive for a strip club, but it's his party, so whatever. And maybe that's just my tiny British mind thinking that 50 50 miles is ages perhaps it's more normal in the states and especially when you live somewhere as small as sellinsgrove maybe it is a bit more normal to drive 47 miles but i did do a survey amongst my american friends and they say it's bonkers to drive 50 miles to go to a strip club but maybe people are that desperate for boobs i don't know while they'd been at this strip club valerie had watched miranda's two-year-old daughter and both valerie and miranda said they knew absolutely nothing about the murder miranda denies knowing troy and the police at this point keep their mouth shut about the texts from miranda

on troy's phone both valerie and miranda are allowed to leave the police station police then review the cctv footage from the parking lot where Miranda had agreed to meet Troy and in the footage you can clearly see Troy's car pulling into the parking lot off the mall agreed upon in the text on the night of November 11th. Troy pulls up next to another car, gets out of his car and into the passenger seat of the other. Although you can clearly see Troy, the resolution isn't great so you can't make out who was driving the second car or even the license plate. The mystery car then drives off into the night with Troy LaFiera inside. The police trawl through the rest of the CCTV footage from the other vantage points, both in the car park and the mall itself. The camera inside the Walmart showed clear as day Elliot wandering around buying

bleach and cleaning brushes two hours after Troy LaFiera's estimated time of death. So this doesn't look good for Elliot because now the police have proof that he wasn't in fact 50 miles away in Harrisburg having a strip club birthday party with his wife after all. And on the 2nd of December, a good three weeks after the murder, Miranda is questioned by police again at the station. She maintains she knew absolutely nothing about Troy or the murders and rambles on about her alibi for ages until she's asked how she explains her phone number being in Troy's phone and the messages explicitly detailing a sex for money deal. Why is she surprised by that? She was texting him. She knew that she had messaged him and she had

sent him those messages and surely she knew that the police would have been able to recover that information. We see this all the way through. She is so indignant. It's unbelievable. If you watch the interview footage with her, it's like she thinks the police couldn't possibly be suspicious of her. Like she genuinely believes that they have no reason to be accusing her. And she finds the whole thing outrageous. Really bizarre, that level of like disconnect that she thinks that she's even a valid suspect let alone she knows she's been sending these texts she knows that she contacted him on craigslist that they were communicating via craigslist then via text the fact that she's surprised that they found that information out is really bizarre but anyway the cops at this point

have her cornered and Miranda is initially taken aback by these questions and for the first of many times she changes her story. She literally says, oh yeah, now I remember and goes on to explain that she talks to lonely men on Craigslist but never offers sex, only conversation. Miranda insists to the police that she would charge these men between $100 and $50 dollars for companionship and conversation i find it very hard to believe that anybody is paying 850 dollars for a chat that's like 700 pounds you're not paying that to have a chat with somebody she's so childlike you know like when kids lie kids lie all the fucking time and they really think that the adults won't realize

that they're lying like when i was a teacher the kids would like bare face do something in front of me and be like, no, I didn't do it and expect me to believe them over my own fucking eyes. That's how she sees the world, I think. She just thinks, oh, if I lie my way out of this, I'm going to get away with it. She's very juvenile in her thinking. I think there is an element of sort of arrested development with Miranda in the fact that it is kids lie because they think you don't have your own agency, that you don't have your own mind, that you couldn't possibly have seen it and realized that they're not telling you the truth.

And I think we see that with Miranda. The fact that she's constantly surprised that people don't believe her lies really explains that. I just had this thought. I think when you're a kid, you're learning about the world purely through what people are telling you, like your parents are telling you what teachers are telling you and you take it as fact when it comes from an adult so they don't understand why an adult won't take their word as fact when all they are expected to do is take our words as facts that's a really good point i don't know she thinks that these people are stupid i think it is what you're saying i think she just thinks why wouldn't they believe me yeah mir Miranda eventually goes on to admit that she was indeed texting Troy after the police had shown her the text that they had found. And she admits that she did arrange to meet him, but that she had become nervous about the whole thing.

So she'd bottled it, stood him up and went out with her husband, Elliot, to celebrate his birthday at the strip club 50 miles away instead. So she still can't let go of this lie that they're pretending to be in Harrisburg at this strip club 50 miles away instead so she still can't let go of this lie that they're pretending to be in harrisburg at this strip club 50 miles away and you don't make alternative plans on your husband's birthday and decide not to do those and to celebrate it with him at his favorite strip club instead you just don't do that she's a terrible liar but it really comes back to her just being very juvenile and childlike it's completely transparent and And Elliot is called into the station as well and he confirms Miranda's story 100%. So they've clearly had some time to get their story straight.

The police can place Elliot in the Walmart at the Susquehanna Valley Mall on the night of the murder because he's on the Walmart footage buying cleaning supplies. But they have nothing on Miranda. They can't put her at the scene of the crime. So they acquire a warrant to search Elliot's car. The car had been recently cleaned, but upon closer inspection, there was an enormous amount of blood evidence under the passenger seat.

And we are talking a pool of it. And I don't know whether this is right, but I think it's next to impossible to clean blood sufficiently so luminol can't pick it up. And luminol is the stuff that you see Dexter spray it reacts with the iron present in red blood cells so even if blood has been in the spot years before luminol can pick it up because it works on a molecular level and i'm not sure whether there's enough bleach in the world to get rid of blood evidence completely this is the interesting thing and i was actually reading about this and left some again very suspicious google searches in my wake but apparently scientists recently discovered that

if you use a detergent containing active oxygen regardless of the material regardless of the time the blood was left on the material that if you use this type of detergent even if a brown stain remains it stops the luminol being able to detect it because it destroys the hemoglobin it destroys anything that the luminol would react with in order to give you that positive result so even if a brown stain is left that's really interesting it wouldn't be detected by current detection methods like luminol as being blood how easy is it to get your hands on active oxygen though asking for a friend isn't it just like in some of those detergents where it's like now with active oxygen and it sounds like those bullshit things oh good point you hear on like marketing ads which i just absolutely hate

they think consumers are such morons have you seen like the anti-wrinkle creams where it's genuinely like with the latest new element antichrysium it's like, and that's not, that's not a thing. That's a genuine advert. I will find it. I will post it. Anticrecium. Put it on your face. Your wrinkles will disappear. It is anticrecium. But apparently active oxygen, which sounds totally fake, is apparently a legit thing and will stop a positive result on luminol. So samples of the blood pooled under the passenger seat are sent to the lab and a few days later, they come back as a match for Troy LaFiera. Miranda Barber meanwhile senses that something is wrong. Perhaps she knew that the police were hot on her trail because on the 3rd of December at half past three in the morning Miranda turns up at the Sunbury police

station for the second time in just 12 hours. She changes her story again. But first, she tells the police how exhausted she is, like she's doing them some massive favour. And you can see this in the police tape. She talks about how offended she is, that the police suspect her and how difficult her life is and how they are taking her away from her daughter. And I think she's trying to play the sympathy card. But seriously, Miranda, they're police. They don't give a fuck about your feelings. Not when they're investigating a murder exactly she's trying everything she's trying everything at this point there's too much evidence there's overwhelming evidence that she's clearly involved in this but nevertheless despite all her lies and her attempts to gain sympathy

from the police miranda barbara confessed eventually to the killing of Troy LaFiera, but she insisted that he had attacked her and that she had killed him in self-defense. I really think that people just don't understand how difficult self-defense is to prove. It's not a get out of jail free card. It really reminds me of when people claim insanity as a defense. They don't realize how hard it is to prove insanity to prove self-defense these things are not get out of jail free cards so now we are at the third version of miranda barber's story she says that she met troy in the mall car park that he gets in the car and everything seems totally chill he then tells her to pull over to parallel park no less parallel parking is a red

flag nothing strikes the fear of god into me other than being asked to parallel park no less. Parallel parking is a red flag. Nothing strikes the fear of God into me other than being asked to parallel park. I can't do it. I've never been able to do it. If I'd been asked to do that on my driving test, I would have failed. I can't do it. Clearly, this is a very specific thing to say. So maybe he was also trying to scare her. So clearly, it's a universal fear held by people. I don't drive, so I have no idea. According to Miranda, though, as soon as the car is parked, Troy had grabbed her by the throat with one hand and put his other hand on her crotch. Miranda desperately attempts to stop him from groping her. She even told him that she was only

16 but he wouldn't stop so she grabbed a knife that she always kept in the car and repeatedly stabbed him. In this version of events, Miranda dumps the body then tells Elliot Elliot what happened, and they clean the car together. Then they go out to dinner as if nothing had happened. Miranda never implicates Elliot in the murder or the disposal of the body. He is clean-up crew at most in her story. Unsurprisingly, Miranda is arrested and charged with the murder of Troy LaFiera, and she is taken to Northumberland County Jail. On the outside, Elliot defends his wife to the press, saying she was attacked and that the only thing she was guilty of was defending herself. But as you may have noticed, there are quite a few gaping holes in Miranda's version of

the story. The most glaring being that Miranda Barber is really petite and don't forget she's only 19. Troy Lafayette was 6 foot 2, weighed 248 pounds, that is 17 stone and 7 ounces or 112 kilos. So he's a big fucking guy. He also has a good 20 plus years on Miranda. So how likely is it that she would be able to stab him over 20 times when in a car without an accomplice? Not very, I don't think, not very likely at all. The other obvious problem with this story is that it does not explain the ligature marks on Troy's neck. Strangulation doesn't make an appearance in Miranda's story at all, but we absolutely know that Troy La Fiera was strangled with the black cable found under his body. So clearly Miranda's number three story

is not the whole truth either. The police have another stroke of luck. The piece of cable had a number on it and using this number the police were able to determine which shop the cable had been bought at. Who knew you could track cable? They also pinpoint when the transaction took place and after reviewing the CCTV footage of the shop where the cable was bought. Guess who they found? Ten points, Elliot Barber. Three days after Miranda's half-assed confession, the cops went to Elliot's house,

suspecting he was much more involved than Miranda was letting on. Elliot agreed to go with investigator Travis Bredgerman. Elliot was laughing and joking with the police officers until they crossed the border into Sunbury. Remember, Travis lived in Sellensgrove. Officer Travis pointed out all the CCTV cameras as they drove through Sunbury. He explained to Elliot that they were going through those tapes looking for Miranda and the resolution on them was so good they could zoom in on anyone's face and they could easily see people inside cars.

This makes Elliot visibly uncomfortable and his whole demeanor changes. When they arrive at the station, Elliot asks if he can speak to Corporal Travis alone and if he can have a cigarette. Then he actually says, I guess this is the last cigarette I'll ever have as a free man and gives Inspector Travis the whole truth. Okay, who does he think he is? I guess this is the last cigarette I'll ever has a free man. You're not in a fucking western. He literally thinks he is though. In one of the interviews I found of him, he literally says, oh, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

He thinks he's a song lyric. Do you know what though? I again, I really think this comes back to just how juvenile both of them were. They were really just very, very young in the way they were that's the kind of thing someone like in their early teens it's like what you would put on your myspace profile exactly exactly they are that they are the myspace generation verbalized even despite his confession the fact that he tells much more of the truth now than was ever coming out before elliot does continue to deny that miranda ever offered sex money. He says it was never her intention to sleep with Troy, only to kill him.

Elliot says, I knew she was going to meet him. I was with her and I took part in the killing. He told Corporal Travis that the murder was not self-defense in the slightest. It was all premeditated. He and Miranda had planned to kill someone, anyone, so they could experience the thrill together. So on the 11th of November, he and Miranda targeted Troy after he answered Miranda's Craigslist ad. Elliot had been in the car the whole time on the backseat hiding under a blanket. He and Miranda had a code sentence. And as soon as Miranda said, have you seen the stars tonight tonight Elliot jumped from the back seat wrapped the cord around Troy's neck from behind and while he was incapacitated by the

stranglehold Miranda stabbed Troy multiple times. After the cleanup the couple went and got burgers at the Red Robin and Elliot will not shut up about how fantastic these burgers were when he's doing his confession he literally goes on a segue for about five minutes talking about how great the burgers at red robin are it's just a total level of detachment from the seriousness of what he's just confessed to that's exactly it it's this complete detachment he laughs a lot he's super pally with corporal travis and he's just totally relaxed can we just say also how much much Corporal Travis sounds like a really shit action figure? He sounds like someone who would be in Postman Pat. He sounds like a Postman Pat character. He sounds like G.I. Joe's like shit cousin. I actually think Corporal Travis does a

really good job in this interrogation though. When Elliot's going on about Red Robin, Corporal Travis is like, oh cool, did you get the unlimited fries? Completely rolling with him to get as much as he can. So I think he handles it quite well, you're right oh 100 you have to put people when you're in that situation into total sense of comfort and ease and then they're much more likely to tell you everything they need to know but corporal travis it's like dr steve what's your well is that travis's surname no travis's first name see that's what i mean that's what's weird dr steve was my dissertation supervisor yeah i remember that's where i think it came from you text me about dr steve and i was like dr steve unless steve is his surname it's not that's not what we should call him good old

david cameron call me dave yeah it's fine shut up shut up elliot also admits to feeling absolutely no remorse when asked why they killed Troy LaFiera, Elliot says, just cause. When Travis handcuffs Elliot and puts him under arrest, Elliot just says, cool. After Elliot handed himself in,

the police searched the couple's home and found a knife covered in bloodstains hidden in the insulation in the loft. Why are you keeping it in your house? They're such fucking amateurs. The police also find a satanic bible in the nightstand. are you keeping it in your house? They're such fucking amateurs. The police also find a satanic Bible in the nightstand. That's weird. Yeah. I also think it's another classic for shock factor thing that they're doing. I don't think it's... It's got nothing to do with

anything. No, it really doesn't. Very, very juvenile. I mean, like, come on, when we were kids, we all did that. Everybody dabbled in the occult as a teenager. And if you didn't, what were you doing with your life? There is this old church in, you must know it, you're from Amersham. Clophill. Clophill. Oh my god, Clophill. It's this church that they say, basically, they turn into like a leper colony and they like move the town away from it. So it's like up this dirt path on this hill away from the town. And it's like somebody stole the roof and they say it's faced the wrong way. So it's actually a satanic church. And all these crazy people used to go up there and dig up the bodies for like potions.

This is 100% true. There are headlines on this. So the council took all of the headstones out and put them around the edge of the churchyard. So now the bodies are there, but you don't know where they are because they removed all the headstones we used to go up there and fucking like do the ouija board and shit absolutely terrifying so that's what this is that's what this is they're so immature i don't think i ever did a ouija board because my favorite teacher at school on our first day of secondary school she was like right i'm gonna tell you two things don't play on the train tracks and don't mess around with ouija boards so i never did that is outrageous I messed around with Ouija boards loads did you ever go to Clophill and

they were like if you touch it you'll be haunted forever I don't think it's in Amersham you know is it I don't think so it's near Amersham because I mean that's where I'm from it's somewhere somewhere around there then let's go let's go for a drive up there yeah definitely as long as I don't have to parallel park. The couple had also stolen Troy's wallet and they'd used the money to buy their fantastic burgers at the Red Robin. This theft meant they faced the death penalty at trial rather than just prison time because it was theft in conjunction with murder.

It was a heavier penalty. That seems crazy to me that that was the tipping point for this case that because they stole the wallet and ran off and had burgers at Red Robin, it wasn't just the fact that it was incredibly premeditated. They lured this guy there and murdered him in cold blood. That's crazy that that's the tipping point. Interesting. They have an interview with the prosecution attorney and he's saying they need an aggravated circumstance to go for the death penalty. And that's all they've got.

So they really pushed for it. And when it came came to the trial both Miranda and Elliot pled not guilty weird after they both gave confessions but to really understand this crime we have to do a little more digging into who Miranda and Elliot Barber are as people they both had rough childhoods really really rough Miranda was born in North Poleaska in 1994 her maiden name was dean and she was born with a dislocated hip which meant that she spent the first four years of her life in a full body cast and required around the clock care my god i can only imagine the damage that something like that would do to a child during those early years to be confined to a bed exactly in a full body cast that's horrific. And

understandably, this put also a huge strain on her parents. So Miranda and her sister would often stay with their aunt and uncle who lived just five houses away to give their parents a bit of a break. Uncle Rick, as Miranda called him, wasn't, however, the helpful uncle taking care of his nieces because he systematically sexually abused the two sisters. And being raped by her uncle at such a young age, we read that she was just three when the abuse started. Of course, completely and totally traumatized Miranda. Uncle Rick, though, was eventually caught and at his trial in November 1998, Judge Mary Green, during sentencing, said, I can't remember physical findings so extreme in a child's case. There

were multiple assaults and the doctor's examination proves how much pain the children were in. What an absolute piece of shit. Richard Fernandez, Uncle Rick, pled no contest to two counts of sexual abuse of a minor and he was sentenced to 14 years. What's the difference between pleading no contest and pleading guilty? Good question. Folks at home, tell us what it means. But Uncle Rick was out in just nine years, but not for long because he was quickly arrested again for possession of child pornography and sentenced to 40 years. He's scheduled for release in 2035. This is really rough, guys, so hold on. According to the court records, when Miranda's mother heard that her daughters were

being molested, she said, I can't believe it's happened again. Miranda's grandfather was a prominent leader in their local church and had abused several members of his family, including Miranda's mum when she was very young. This cycle of abuse absolutely shaped Miranda's future. In her diaries, Miranda describes feeling like there was something really bad inside her and she can't control it. Miranda wrote, I want to hurt him worse than he hurt me. Unable to handle these feelings, Miranda stopped going to school. She was drinking and taking hard drugs from the age of 12. Due to a string of suicide attempts, Miranda was in and out of North Star inpatient psychiatric facility throughout her teens. She started hanging around with a group of boys who she later claimed was members of a satanic cult,

and it seems like they just passed her around. Age 16, Miranda fell pregnant, and this prompted her to leave her old life behind and start afresh with her baby. She ends up in North Carolina and this is where she meets Elliot and she meets him when she's nine months pregnant. They met at a party and instantly bonded. Neither of them fitted in anywhere and they really seemed to take solace in each other. There was a slight complication in the form of Elliot's current girlfriend, who was also very pregnant. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along

with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show Americans. or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two

minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of of Finding I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life You can listen to Finding Natasha right now

exclusively on Wondery Plus In season 2 I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met But a couple of years ago I came across a social media post by a person named Loti It read in part

Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. But she's not a complication for long because Elliot dumps her, forgoes all access to

his child and runs off with Miranda to Pennsylvania to start again. They also get married and then they move in with Shay Dietz in Sellensgrove. According to Elliot, they made the decision to leave North Carolina because he was, get this, severely addicted to crack and he felt the only way to get clean was a new start. and he and Miranda didn't tell anyone where they were going. They just one day got up, turned their phones off and drove away. Elliot had a rough time of it too. He had been hearing voices since his childhood and from his late teens he'd also been hallucinating. One of the most frequent hallucinations was a man called Isaac who was about five foot eight and wore a leather jacket, blue jeans, and a white t-shirt.

Isaac would turn up at different junctures in Elliot's life. Elliot claims that after the murder of Troy LaFiera, Isaac appeared in the backseat of the car to tell him that he had really fucked up this time. Once the couple get to Sellensgrove, neither had a viable income, and reportedly spent most of their time watching TV shows about serial killers, which we all know there is absolutely nothing wrong with. Miranda and Elliot kill Troy LaFiera. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind. But did they do it because they watch serial killer documentaries? Absolutely not. Their motive does seem to be unclear. Did they really kill Troy just cause? In August 2014, Elliot and Miranda both changed their pleas to guilty and in return the state waived the death penalty. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

So a cut and shut case. They made mistakes, they were easily caught by the police and they went to prison for it. Other than a bit of a murky motive, nothing too spectacular about this case at all, right? Wrong. This is why the case got so much media attention and why people know the name Miranda Barber but not Elliot. While awaiting trial in Northumberland Prison, Miranda called Daily Item journalist Francis Scorella and offered him an exclusive interview. So on February 14th 2014, that's right everyone, on Valentine's Day, Scorella interviewed Miranda Barber in Northumberland Prison. And what she claimed in this interview shocked the nation. Miranda claimed that not only has she killed Troy La Fiera, but she had at least 22 more victims.

She had started killing at 14 and had not stopped. Miranda told Skurela that when she was living in Alaska, she was taken in by a satanic cult led by a man who she only referred to as Forrest. Remember the group of guys she was hanging around with instead of going to school? This was them. Forrest had placed his hand over Miranda's to pull the trigger on her first kill. Miranda claimed to have killed in Alaska, North Carolina, Texas, and Florida when her body count reached 22. She said she just stopped counting. Miranda added that she'd never hurt anyone who didn't deserve it. She mainly took down sex Texas and Florida. When her body count reached 22, she said she just stopped counting. Miranda added that she'd never hurt anyone who didn't deserve it. She mainly took down sex offenders. Almost all of her victims were men, apart from one woman who had been pimping out her children.

Miranda claimed to have tortured this woman until she promised to stop abusing her children, but Miranda said she knew she was lying and threw her into a hole in the ice. There was also a man from Texas who Miranda said she met online but who apparently thought that Miranda was 11 or 12 and she claims to have murdered him too. There was also a man she said she killed in self-defense while working as a go-go dancer at a club in Florida. In this interview Miranda talks in detail about all the people that she killed and where their bodies could be found. She added people think I'm a monster but I've done a lot of good. She claimed her murder spared hundreds of young girls from abuse. She says, quote, the justice system doesn't work. So I did what I did. And I think that this really gives us

the clearest insight into Miranda's motives for the murder that we do know that she committed. Because it's like you said, she went through this horrific abuse. She was so broken by it. She definitely didn't get any help and support afterwards. She was left to her own devices. And I think that pain manifested itself into a rage that she wanted to punish people, punish other people, punish the world for the pain that she had gone through.

And I think that's the motive, isn't it? Surely. She was filled with rage and she couldn't get at fucking Uncle Rick because that piece of shit is in prison so who are the substitutes who can she project her rage onto but she didn't actually kill them though i think with that guy troy lafayette she projected her rage onto him she could get to him she'd made excuses it's like we see in all killers they

make excuses for themselves they'll justify their actions they don't want as a monster to themselves they'll say this guy accepted this maybe i told him I was 16 and he was still okay with it. Therefore, he deserves to die because he is an abuser and he would go on to do this to somebody else. She rationalized it. But the rest of these kills, the 22, she didn't do them. But I think it's what she wanted to do is that she just wasn't together enough to commit the murders that she wanted to do. I think that's what it is. She fantasizes about her being the hero. I don't think she can tell the difference between fantasy and reality. She sees herself as this hero, as this vigilante who goes out and kills these people. The elaborate

stories, this woman pimping out her child, this man who sexually abused me when I was working as a dancer here, this guy who came on to me here. Like she's painting them as the criminals, painting herself as the hero. And I don't think she can honestly tell the difference between what's real and what's not anymore the press totally lost their fucking shit the police originally took her claims quite seriously because she had killed troy and it was not too much of a stretch to believe that she could have killed other people but the police found absolutely no evidence to support miranda's serial killer credentials the fbi were called in and they couldn't find jack shit either this jailhouse interview is what earned miranda the nickname the real life dexter which was bestowed

upon her by our absolute favorite nancy grace and i think this must be a reference to her only killing bad people but she is so far from a Dexter. She makes too many mistakes. And this is a classic example of the press jumping on a story because it's got a snappy headline. Just look how easily Miranda was caught for Troy's murder. Could a teenager really have been picking people off all over the country without making mistakes over a four year period? And also, how is she getting around? Because Alaska andas are as

far apart as you can get the journalist who takes this interview francis scrolla he says oh we just can't be sure whether she's telling the truth and that he's run data searches in the area that miranda talked about and they do have unsolved missing persons cases oh there are missing people in alaska like excuse me while i fall off my fucking chair like just because there are missing people does not mean she killed them what a ridiculous thing to claim to just be like oh well there are missing people so we can't be sure she didn't do it she didn't do it he wants it to be true he wants it to be true he wants to have the exclusive scoop on this but it's not fucking there's no way there's just no way but like so many more rumors about miranda are spread than truths

because a lie will get halfway around the world before the truth has got its trousers on. And also think of it. She's a young woman who's already killed a man and been convicted of it in cold blood. And then now she's claiming to have killed 22 others. That is like... Yeah, it's going to sell papers. Dream story for a journalist. But Elliot claimed to fully believe Miranda's murderous claims,

despite the fact that we don't, the police didn't, the FBI didn't. No one did, apart from the journalists and Elliot, because he said he was convinced that she was possessed by a demon, a demon they both called Super Miranda. Super Miranda would only come out sometimes, but Elliot was convinced that she was more than capable of killing 22 people. Again, it's kind of that manifestation of all of that rage and that pain. And I'm sure she did have an element of a different side of her personality to who she was most of the time because of what had happened to her, what she'd been through and not being able to adequately deal with that and cope with it.

Miranda also acknowledges Super Miranda saying there is something inside me. It goes off like a switch. I call it Super Miranda. It's dark. It's violent. It's like another person. And it's not uncommon for victims of severe abuse, sexual or otherwise, to disassociate totally from themselves to escape it, even creating other personalities. And I do think that it's probably likely that Miranda's alter ego, Super Miranda, was created as a result of the abuse that she suffered at the hands of Uncle Rick. It does make sense. She must have felt so helpless when that was happening to her as a child. Did she create this alternate reality for herself where she takes down bad guys? She's the

hero. She kills people who do what Uncle Rick did to to her i think that's the thing that makes the most sense it makes sense to me that the only demon miranda was possessed by was the demon of sexual abuse her father dean told the new york daily news that miranda lives in a fantasy world and has a long history of extreme manipulation and dishonesty good one dad shut the fuck up clearly you can look at it as extreme manipulation and dishonesty, but you can also, like, she's just so damaged. Like, I think you're absolutely right. I think she doesn't know where the line is between this fantasy world and reality.

Miranda's mother and sister went on Dr. Phil to defend her, and I have, I really don't think Dr. Phil is any better than Jerry Springer. He's a real piece of shit. Is exploitation TV at its best? Oh, definitely. You know, on Jeremy Kyle, the family to go on, they get offered six weeks of free therapy

as a follow-up. So they open up a massive can of worms, all of these people who've had terrible, terrible lives. They get six weeks of therapy. They open up all of these things they've repressed and then they're just shoved out into the world on their own. It should be shut down. It's absolutely horrific.anda's mother and sister believe that this murder was all elliot's idea that he manipulated miranda into the murder and

she loved him so much that she went along with it i don't think that i don't think that's true i don't buy that what makes me think elliot could be the ringleader is just because of how casual he is in interviews that's the only thing that makes me think he planned all of this. Sometimes I don't know whether it was him or whether it was her that was the ringleader. I don't think there was necessarily a ringleader. I think these two young people who were incredibly damaged by their past lives, he's clearly got issues. He's having visual and auditory hallucinations since childhood. He's not okay. She's definitely not okay and i think they thought this will be the answer to our solutions but i think the idea of luring a man who

may be deemed as doing something sexually inappropriate meeting women on craigslist and this is the easiest way she could find him and lure him there and killing him fits much more for me with the mo of what miranda would have wanted to do yeah where does this luring him with sex and then killing him in the car really fit into elliot's past this fits much more for me into miranda's story yeah and people do say that elliot was completely under miranda's spell i don't buy that either i hate when people say that and also if it's true why did he let her hand herself in surely he would have fallen on his sword if that was the case if he was the guilty one if that was the case i feel like he would her hand herself in? Surely he would have fallen on his sword if that was the case. If he was the guilty one, if that was the case, I feel like he would have handed himself in. And that would have made more sense than a petite 19-year-old taking down a 42-year-old giant man.

Absolutely. He says she absolutely could be responsible for 22 other murders. If anything, it's Miranda that doesn't implicate Elliot in her story. He fully implicates her. So I don't buy that he's under her spell. They wanted to do this together. They thought this would bring them some sort of absolution, some sort of resolution. Of course, it was never going to do that. But they're damaged and troubled. And it's really, it's tragic all round. It is tragic. And also they're significant mental disorders. And they weren't undiagnosed. She's been in and out of inpatient facilities

for her whole teenage years she was on multiple medications for schizophrenia and bipolar disorders as well as depression elliot's been diagnosed as well but their mental health disorders are completely ignored in the trial process that's shocking it is isn't it i think because there was so much media attention around this case they were just like just get them in prison as soon as we can and remember this is in fucking 2013 this isn't like in the 70s when we could make the usual excuses we make for the fact that these things were overlooked this is unbelievable what were their lawyers doing well they were just state defenders but as soon as satanism is brought into anything in any way people automatically lose their minds but i do think their mental instability is probably what bound them so

closely together because Miranda had Super Miranda and Elliot had Isaac. So there were two Mirandas and there were two Elliots. So maybe that's why they fell so magically in love with each other and ran off at the drop of a hat because they found the mirrors of themselves in each other. Miranda's daughter was placed in foster care and this is the final twist in the tale. Whilst talking to journalist Jill Burke, Miranda claimed that the murder of Troy LaFiera was a setup. She wanted to get caught and that's why she left Troy's phone behind. Miranda said that she wanted to go to prison so her child would be put in foster care and be raised by people who were more fit to be parents than her.

She said her only regret was taking Elliot down with her. Miranda also admitted to Joe Burke that she had not killed those 22 people. She had only given that interview because when she was first in prison, she was placed in isolation in a suicide smock with no mattress or toilet paper for 47 days. This prompted her to make up the whole story, claiming, if you treat me like an animal, I'll show you an animal. Do I believe that Miranda killed over 22 people? No, I think it's pretty obvious by this point that we don't believe that. Do I believe that this whole murder was a scheme to get her child put into foster care? I don't think so. Like, why wouldn't you just put your child up for adoption? And also, if you remember earlier, she's trying to use her child as a a sympathy ploy for saying you're trying to take me away from my child by implicating me in this murder and also i think this just ties in perfectly with the profile of miranda barber

she's in jail she killed this person she knows that she's being vilified for this this is the best way to this is the only way she can think of, to once again cast herself as the hero. That's exactly it. That's exactly what she's doing. I was a victim of this abuse. I acted out like this. I was sent to prison after I murdered this man, but I only did it so that my child would be saved and sent to foster care. I don't believe that that's true. And also I think maybe this is a huge generalization, but if you are abused as a child, would you want your child, who she clearly loves, taken away from her and put into the hands of strangers that she doesn't know how they'll treat her?

As unfit a parent as she thinks she is, there is no evidence whatsoever there was abuse taking place. I don't think she thought she was an unfit parent at all. I think she thought she was going to get away with it. I think she thought she was going to get away with it, And I think it's what she genuinely wanted to do. I think she had visualized herself as this hero. She was living in a fantasy world. And she thought that maybe killing these men would bring her some sort of comfort for the pain that she clearly still felt because of what happened to her as a child. There's so many questions that this story throws up. And the only thing we can be sure of is that Miranda and Elliot Barber

are deeply disturbed individuals. And whatever their reasoning, they murdered Troy LaFiera in cold blood. And their motive can only be guessed at. If you want to find out more about this case, there is a really great documentary about it on BBC iPlayer right now, if you're in the UK. If you're not, I'm sure you can find it somewhere else. Let us know what you think. Please tweet at us, send us a message on Instagram at RedHandedThePod, and join our Facebook group, which is super duper active.

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Nicola H., Kimberly Carpenter, Amanda Threckhold, Eva R5, Stephanie Smith, and George Nova. Thank you so much, guys. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time. Tell your mates. See you next week. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection.

Claudian Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up.

But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is the rise and fall of Diddy. Listen to the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus.