30 Morbid Minutes
Journey into the morbid, macabre, gruesome and unexplained, with comedians and friends Elyse Willems and Jessica Vasami. Covering topics like: untimely deaths on cruise ships, sleep paralysis demons, celebrity death hoaxes, obituary bandits, pesky cursed objects, spontaneous human combustion, zombie apocalypses, the Victorian obsession with death, screaming mummies, the Dark Forest alien paradox, medical malpractice, good old-fashioned cannibalism, and so much more. Episodes on Mondays. ***Featured in Apple Podcast's New & Noteworthy 2022.***
Episodes
July 28, 2025 • 27 mins
Cemeteries and graveyards aren’t actually the same thing. An important distinction that probably doesn’t matter much… if you’re dead. In this episode, we examine the historical and practical differences that set these two bone yards apart.
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30MorbidMinutes
Elyse Willems
Jessica Vasami
Music by Casey Edwards - @ComposerCasey
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July 14, 2025 • 37 mins
Ever wonder what happens after a crime scene gets cleared? When the cops leave, the body’s been removed, and the yellow tape comes down? What happens to all the... mess? The blood, the broken glass, the smell?
Well, someone has to clean it up. And that job falls on a very specific group of people, known as trauma cleaners or biohazard cleanup crews. Learn what goes on behind-the-scenes in this morbid and messy profession.
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June 30, 2025 • 44 mins
This is a rerelease of an episode that originally aired July 19, 2022 with a new intro from Elyse & Jessica.
Exploring the origins of the modern tombstone and what the future of memorial monuments might hold. Plus, we break down the anatomy of epitaphs, and share some of history’s most bizarre and funny ones.
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Elyse Willems
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June 16, 2025 • 46 mins
This is a rerelease of an episode that originally aired September 13, 2022 with a new intro from Elyse & Jessica.
The modern funeral industry capitalizes on stigmas about death, creating a deliberate air of mystery and secrecy around how funeral homes operate. We go inside the unspoken practices of morticians, and debunk some of the myths and tall tales surrounding the post-mortem process.
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June 5, 2025 • 46 mins
Check out this episode of the podcast Petty Crimes!
The rental listing said “please don’t unsnap.” Spoiler alert…she snapped. Follow Ego Nwodim on Instagram and listen to her podcast, Thanks Dad with Ego Nwodim.
... And look for new episodes of 30 Morbid Minutes, every other Monday.
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May 26, 2025 • 33 mins
Both George V and George VI succumbed to declining health and respiratory ailments. The latter, was the first royal to have his funeral televised, whereas the former's death was seemingly expedited to meet the morning headlines -- a secret unearthed fifty years after his passing.
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30MorbidMinutes
Elyse Willems
Jessica Vasami
Music by Casey Edwards - @Compo...
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May 12, 2025 • 50 mins
It's an apples to oranges of morbidity as Jessica and Elyse take ten random yet gruesome facts and, using their macabre expertise, rank them from least to most disturbing.
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30MorbidMinutes
Elyse Willems
Jessica Vasami
Music by Casey Edwards - @ComposerCasey
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April 21, 2025 • 40 mins
Buried in an instant. Preserved for eternity. What really happened in the final moments of Pompeii? Plus, Jessica reminisces about her phallic-filled tour.
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30MorbidMinutes
Elyse Willems
Jessica Vasami
Music by Casey Edwards - @ComposerCasey
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April 7, 2025 • 31 mins
If you’re considering cremation as an alternative to traditional burial, we might be able to help you take things up a notch with fireworks displays containing actual human cremated remains. Did you know that there are pyrotechnic companies around the world that will memorialize your deceased loved one by firing their remains up into the sky in tiny rockets? We look into the rules and logistics behind this new post-mortem trend, an...
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March 24, 2025 • 25 mins
In-flight medical emergencies occur about once every 604 flights, with a mortality rate of 0.3% of those incidents. While extremely rare, if someone dies, specification actions must be taken. So what happens when a plane passenger dies during a flight? Or even the pilot? We investigate.
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30MorbidMinutes
Elyse Willems
Jessica Vasami
Music by Casey Edwards - @ComposerCasey
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March 3, 2025 • 53 mins
Revisiting one of our fan favorite classic episodes with a newly recorded introduction!
An estimated 200 people die every year while taking a cruise. As a result, ships and their crews have developed intricate systems, code words, and protocol in the event a passenger dies on board. Still, dire complications can arise out on the open water, and not all deaths are by natural causes…
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February 17, 2025 • 31 mins
Karl Tanzler, also known as Count Carl von Cosel, was a radiologist in Key West, Florida who developed an unhealthy obsession for his young patients, Elena Milagro Hoyos. His obsession continued, even after Elena died from tuberculosis in 1931...
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30MorbidMinutes
Elyse Willems
Jessica Vasami
Music by Casey Edwards - @ComposerCasey
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February 3, 2025 • 39 mins
Did a deadly disease spark the legend of vampires? Or were bloodthirsty creatures really lurking in the shadows? We learn how the rampant spread of the "wasting disease" (tuberculosis) contributed to mass panic and vampire hysteria in the nineteenth century.
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Elyse Willems
Jessica Vasami
Music by Casey Edwards - @ComposerCasey
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January 27, 2025 • 18 mins
Slaycation brings a darkly comic, unique vantage point to chilling, thrilling and WTF? stories of vacations gone horribly wrong. Listen to this excerpt from "Ep 40 How NOT to Scuba in Aruba" and checkout the full episode available on all major podcast platforms. Just search for “Slaycation” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
30 Morbid Minutes will return with a new episode next week! Until then, bad bye...
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January 20, 2025 • 29 mins
Necrogamy, or posthumous marriage, involves a living person marrying someone who is dead, or two dead people being married to each other, and is legally recognized in certain parts of the world. We look into what it takes to marry a deceased person in France, and how this unusually morbid custom was codified into French law.
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January 6, 2025 • 36 mins
The concept of "laughing oneself to death" has been around for centuries in folklore, myth, and media, but it CAN happen in real life, too. Laugh along with us as we cover real stories and dig into the underlying causes.
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Elyse Willems - @ElyseWillems
Jessica Vasami - @jessicaaaaavasami
Music by Casey Edwards - @ComposerCasey
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December 23, 2024 • 30 mins
A ghost ship is a lot like a Wild West ghost town. The kind with abandoned buildings and a tumbleweed rolling through. Except in this case, the town is the water, and the ship is the tumbleweed. In this episode we share some of history's eeriest ghost ship sightings that have never been explained, and which King of England swore to have seen the infamous Flying Dutchman.
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December 9, 2024 • 37 mins
Remember our 'Dead Bodies of Mount Everest' episode? Well, it's time for an update! We're back with news about Jost Kobusch, the solo climber who's trying to crest Everest in its most dangerous season. Plus, a startling discovery might shed light on what happened to George Mallory and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine, climbing partners who disappeared in 1924 while trying to summit the mountain.
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November 25, 2024 • 38 mins
We investigate the culture and behaviors that have led to so many tragic deaths in professional wrestling, in and out of the ring. Joined by special guest and wrestling enthusiast, James Willems.
Get 20% off + free shipping with the code MORBID at manscaped.com.
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@ElyseWillems
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Music by Casey Edwards
@ComposerCasey
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November 11, 2024 • 48 mins
From Eddie Guerrero to Curt Hennig (Mr. Perfect) to Owen Hart, an unusual number of professional wrestlers have died suddenly, in their prime, statistically outpacing any other sport. We search for answers in the myriad of factors behind the squared circle's tragic losses, while looking back at some of our favorite deceased faces and heels. Joined by special guest James Willems.
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