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Why do people lie even when telling the truth would be easier? Why Humans Lie explores the psychology behind deception, hidden motives, self-protection, manipulation, social pressure, and the small distortions...
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Why do people lie even when telling the truth would be easier? Why Humans Lie explores the psychology behind deception, hidden motives, self-protection, manipulation, social pressure, and the small distortions people use every day to shape how others see them.
Each story and idea examines what happens beneath the surface of a lie: the fear of consequences, the desire for approval, the need for control, or the instinct to protect a version of ourselves. By looking at human behavior, emotional patterns, and the choices that lead people away from honesty, the podcast turns an ordinary act into a revealing window into how the mind works.
If you have ever wondered why someone hid the truth, changed their story, or convinced themselves of something that was not entirely real, Why Humans Lie explores the psychology behind those moments—and what they reveal about human nature.
show less
Each story and idea examines what happens beneath the surface of a lie: the fear of consequences, the desire for approval, the need for control, or the instinct to protect a version of ourselves. By looking at human behavior, emotional patterns, and the choices that lead people away from honesty, the podcast turns an ordinary act into a revealing window into how the mind works.
If you have ever wondered why someone hid the truth, changed their story, or convinced themselves of something that was not entirely real, Why Humans Lie explores the psychology behind those moments—and what they reveal about human nature.
Episodes & Posts
Episodes
Posts
Transcribed
6 OCT 2026 · He Trained Her to Doubt: The Notebook That Ruined a Counselor
Fear and controlled revulsion: a spiral notebook hidden in a tree exposed a therapist who had spent thirteen months teaching a patient to mistrust her own mind - and it was a pale yellow cardigan that led a paperboy to the pages. What was written in that notebook, and why had it been stashed eight feet up a tulip poplar, would ultimately dismantle a counselor's practice and reveal how he erased a woman's certainty. Who decided to hide those notes, and what did they hope to prove?
In this episode, we tell the sequence of discoveries from the morning Vernon Patterson found the cardigan to the moment Crystal Farrell read the entries that named her and a dollar amount. The episode follows the routines, the sessions, and the evidence that shifted one nurse's steady life into doubt - and asks whether the notes themselves were a record or a weapon.
Person: Crystal Farrell
Person: Ross Donnelly
Date: June 11 (discovery), thirteen months prior (therapy began)
Location: 14 Creekside Loop
Case: Notes in therapist's notebook revealing fabricated session details
- A 14-year-old paperboy named Vernon Patterson found a pale yellow cardigan knotted eight feet up a tulip poplar at 14 Creekside Loop at 6:14 AM on June 11.
- Crystal Farrell, 52, had lived at 14 Creekside Loop for 11 years and worked overnight as an LPN at Callison Regional Medical Center.
- Crystal attended 31 therapy sessions over 13 months with Ross Donnelly, who billed for 46 sessions during that period.
- Inside Donnelly's canvas bag Crystal found a dark blue spiral notebook with 41 pages; page 37 contained a reference to her (initial and bluebird sweater) and the figure $11,000.
- Donnelly had been licensed in Tennessee for 6 years, was 44 years old, and marketed his practice near Callison Regional to hospital staff. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.
© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
Transcribed
5 OCT 2026 · She Followed Her Garden Gate - Stranger Watched, Then Vanished
The calm click of a garden gate marked a ritual that ended abruptly: a handbag found dry and centered in a drainage easement, mud untouched for four feet in every direction, and no footprints. Who cultivated the patient, five-month campaign that led a 44-year-old gardener to drive away and never return?
In this episode, we lay out the timeline and the digital and physical traces left behind as investigators pieced together what happened to Debra Erickson; how an online friendship, a shared seed account, and a suspicious utility truck converged into a question: was this disappearance the result of deliberate coercion or something more sinister?
Person: Debra Erickson
Age: 44
Location: Sycamore Terrace, Morrow Falls
Last verifiable transaction: April 18 (greenhouse supply store)
Missing reported: after April 22
- A handbag belonging to Debra was located in a drainage easement off Aldrich Mill Road at 4:20 AM, dry and centered with no footprints within four feet.
- Debra lived alone in a pale green house on Sycamore Terrace for 11 years and gardened every Saturday and Sunday at 6:30 AM from April through October.
- Beginning December 2018, Debra exchanged messages with a woman calling herself Rhonda Myers; by February they used a private messaging app and opened a shared seed-purchasing account.
- Debra deposited $240 into the shared seed account; Rhonda controlled the login and never matched the amount.
- A single-cab utility truck with a removable magnetic sign and a woman matching Rhonda’s description was seen near Sycamore Terrace one week before Debra’s last sighting. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.
© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
Transcribed
4 OCT 2026 · He Rewrote Her Life: The Planner That Stole Her Identity
The idea of someone quietly building a second version of your mind should feel impossible - and yet a twelve-dollar spiral planner dated April 2022, written in Kathleen Walsh’s hand but found in an apartment she had not occupied for eleven months, proves it happened. How did pages she authored become the battleground for another person's calculated takeover?
In this episode, we lay out the sequence of events, the relationships, and the small traces that reveal how one man inserted himself into Kathleen’s routines and records; we follow the discovery from a planner on a floor to a DNA match on a discarded water bottle that began to unravel everything. Can an intimate habit like meticulous note-keeping be weaponized to erase the real version of a person?
Person: Kathleen Walsh
Event: Planner dated April 2022 found in empty apartment
Person: Richard Lawson
Location: Colby Avenue building, Dellmore, Ohio
Evidence: Water bottle DNA match to case five years old and four counties away
- Kathleen Walsh graduated from Alderton State in 2017 and worked as a graphic designer at Trestle Creative by age 28.
- Kathleen kept a physical planner and detailed notes; she moved out of the Colby Avenue apartment in April 2022 and had not returned to write in that planner.
- Richard Lawson met Kathleen at a September 2021 group dinner and was described as 34 and recently arrived from Columbus.
- A maintenance override code for the Colby Avenue service entrance showed fourteen entries during the eleven months after Kathleen vacated the apartment.
- A water bottle found in a utility closet on Colby Avenue was bagged, sent to a lab, and matched to DNA from a case five years earlier located four counties away. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.
© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
Transcribed
3 OCT 2026 · The Quiet Saboteur: How a Coworker Erased a Man's Life
The most chilling betrayal is quiet, bureaucratic, and believable: a sealed banker's box held six years of manufactured failures and a laminated badge stamped with an expired date - and a man had been out of full-time work for over three years with no explanation. This episode tracks how a coworker built a parallel paper identity, drained a credit line, and left a trail that made a stable fifty-four-year-old look like he had collapsed; what was the motive behind so much patient, precise erasure?
In this episode, we follow the timeline of events as they emerged from the box, interviews, and financial records to show what unfolded between two colleagues over nearly a decade, and ask how a career can be dismantled without obvious confrontation.
Person: Jason Fisher
Person: Chad Padgett
Date: March 9, 2019
Location: Coburn Street warehouse
Status: Out of full-time work since November 2015
- A jogger named Harvey Novak found a sealed banker's box on March 9, 2019 at 6:15 AM outside the Coburn Street warehouse.
- The box contained performance warnings and disciplinary files covering six years and had a laminated employee badge taped to the lid with an expiration date three years past.
- Jason Fisher had been out of full-time work since November 2015 and was fifty-four in 2019.
- Chad Padgett joined Aldermoor in 2010 at age forty-one and initially reported to Fisher, but reversed that relationship within a year.
- A commercial lease on Dunmore Road was signed in 2012 in Jason Fisher's name with Chad Padgett as guarantor; the office was later confirmed to be occupied by Padgett and the attached business credit line was maxed out by 2014. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.
© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
Transcribed
2 OCT 2026 · He Rewrote Her Reality: The Man Who Stole an Old Woman's Life
Cold facts hid the slow theft: a purse left upright in fourteen-degree frost with $83 inside, an 81-year-old woman asking only when “Randy” would return, and $11,000 siphoned in small, unremarkable transfers over eight months-how did one man make a whole household accept a rewritten reality?
In this episode, we follow the timeline of events from the morning a purse was found on Tillman Road to the discoveries that exposed a pattern of manipulation and financial control. We trace how a thirty-eight-year-old handyman became indispensable, how signatures and prescriptions raised doubts, and how investigators finally pieced together the question at the center of the story: who engineered this slow unraveling?
Person: Dorothy Petersen
Person: Rebecca Petersen
Person: Randy Weber
Date: February 9, 2019
Amount: $11,000
- The purse was found upright on a meter pad in fourteen-degree air with a brass clasp intact and $83 in cash.
- Dorothy Petersen was eighty-one years old and living on Tillman Road; her granddaughter Rebecca was twenty-two.
- Randy Weber, age thirty-eight and from Delton, entered the household in spring 2018 presenting as a handyman with an expunged 2011 misdemeanor for check fraud.
- A durable power of attorney signed by Dorothy was executed by October 2018 and later flagged as inconsistent with her established handwriting.
- Eleven thousand dollars moved out of the joint bank account over eight months in small transfers designed to stay below automatic flagging thresholds. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.
© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
Transcribed
1 OCT 2026 · He Stole Her House, Her Church Money - And Kept a Log
A slow, patient theft unfolded in plain sight: a volunteer treasurer lost $214,000 and her inherited house after a man who kept a written timing log carefully dismantled her life. How did a charm offensive, blueprints rolled to a specific diameter, and a bank account closed eleven days before a deposit add up to a calculated disappearance of someone’s security?
In this episode, we tell the sequence of events that led from a chance meeting at a diner to a missing trust fund and an unexpected divorce filing, following the people and moments that enabled the crime. What mistakes, signals, or choices allowed the theft to proceed unnoticed until the bank teller stopped typing?
Person: Connie Price
Event: Deposit of $214,000 attempted January 9, 2019
Location: Millhaven, Ohio
Person: Gordon Snyder
Date: Marriage February 2018
- $214,000 was the exact amount Nancy Lewis brought to deposit for her church’s building fund.
- The account into which the funds had been placed had been closed 11 days before January 9, 2019.
- Connie Price married Gordon Snyder 14 months before the 2019 bank visit, in February 2018, with 14 people attending.
- Gordon Snyder visited the diner on three consecutive Tuesdays in October 2017 mapping routines before meeting Connie.
- Connie inherited roughly $40,000 in savings and her family house after her mother’s death in spring 2016. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.
© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
Transcribed
30 SEP 2026 · A psychologist wrote his partner's dementia diagnosis sixteen months before reporting him missing
A single clinical evaluation, signed by a licensed psychologist and found sealed in a tote bag with the missing man’s wallet, claims a sixty-two-year-old was in early-stage cognitive decline-yet the file’s metadata shows it was created in March 2018, sixteen months before the missing-person report. How could a diagnosis exist long before anyone close to him noticed symptoms, and what did that document allow to happen to his life?
In this episode, we recount the timeline from a December morning on the Crestfall Nature Trail to the missing-person report and the discovery of sealed documents; we describe the people, the evidence found in the woods, and the contradictions that raised the first questions investigators asked about authority, trust, and reality. What did the paper trail really mean for Randy Simmons?
Person: Randy Simmons
Person: Leon Owens
Date: March 2018 (file metadata creation)
Date: November 14, 2019 (clinical summary date)
Location: Crestfall Nature Trail
- A dog groomer named Rebecca Morgan found a canvas tote bag wedged between roots forty feet into the brush.
- Inside the tote bag were Randy Simmons’s leather wallet, credit cards intact, driver’s license, and $43 in cash.
- A psychiatric evaluation on psychiatric practice letterhead signed by Dr. Leon Owens described Randy as presenting with early-stage cognitive decline.
- The evaluation’s metadata shows it was created in March 2018, the same month Leon Owens moved into Randy’s house on Granger Lane.
- Leon Owens filed the missing-person report for Randy on November 23, 2019, nine days after the clinical summary dated November 14, 2019, was sealed in the tote bag. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.
© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
Transcribed
29 SEP 2026 · When Ordinary Photos Become Proof: The Nanny's Hidden Evidence
A chill of control hides inside a sealed zip‑lock pouch that spent months at the bottom of the Menas River yet stayed perfectly dry - forty‑one ordinary four-by-six photos of beaches, birthdays, and kitchens that became proof of something far more calculated. Who replaced a young woman’s life with staged images, and why was dryness the first clue investigators noticed?
In this episode, we follow the sequence of events from the discovery by Norman Keller on November 9, 2019 through the threads linking Laura Simpson’s isolated live‑in nanny life to Steven Chambers’ repeated access to her room and to Ridgeway Copy and Print production logs. How did routine, habit, and a daily pill for a sick terrier become the hinges of manipulation and evidence?
Person: Norman Keller
Date: November 9, 2019
Person: Laura Simpson
Person: Steven Chambers
Location: Ridgeway Copy and Print, Merchant Avenue
- Forty‑one photographs were found inside a sealed zip‑lock pouch recovered from the Menas River.
- Norman Keller had run trotlines on Cutter’s Bend for eleven years when he found the bag.
- Laura Simpson was twenty‑three in September 2018 and worked as a live‑in nanny on Sycamore Trace.
- Steven Chambers worked at Ridgeway Copy and Print for three years and logged thirty‑one personal print jobs between March and July 2019.
- Biscuit, Laura’s six‑year‑old terrier, required crushed thyroid medication twice daily at 7:00 AM and 4:00 PM. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.
© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
Transcribed
28 SEP 2026 · He Loved Me, Then He Took My Life Savings: The Surveyor's Binder
Fear that someone you trusted can erase your life savings with a smile - a leather-bound binder, thirty feet into a tree line, held the only concrete trace: a wire transfer for $240,000 dated October 9, 2019. How did a licensed financial advisor turn affection into access, and why did a surveyor walking a culvert become the case's crucial witness?
In this episode, we tell the sequence of events from the binder on the culvert to the emptied account, outlining the relationships, the paperwork, and the single moments that allowed the theft to happen - and we ask how a year of careful trust-building can be weaponized so cleanly.
Person: Roy Andrews
Person: Ryan Cooper
Amount: $240,000
Date: October 9, 2019
Location: Renner Township
- A land surveyor, Todd Stein, found a leather-bound financial portfolio thirty feet inside the tree line on a county road culvert.
- The binder's cover had gold leaf reading "Roy Andrews" and contained a wire transfer authorization for $240,000.
- Roy Andrews was 48 years old in fall 2019 and had received $240,000 from his mother's estate in March 2019.
- Roy transferred the $240,000 into a Cooper-managed account in May 2019 and later signed a discretionary authorization form by September 2019.
- On October 7, 2019, Ryan Cooper visited Roy's apartment for about four to five minutes and later, on October 9, $240,000 was moved out and converted into cryptocurrency within six hours. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.
© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
Transcribed
27 SEP 2026 · The Man Who Made a Second Diane: Inside an Identity Trap
A perfectly dry, double-knotted plastic bag buried in a septic tank held Diane Sharp's Ohio license, bank card, loyalty card, and $43 in cash - yet Diane was alive, twelve miles away at her twin sister's house. How did someone spend more than a year constructing a second legal version of Diane that could sign documents and redirect money without anyone noticing?
In this episode, we tell how routine details - a Wednesday at 4:55 p.m., choir rehearsals, a post office box - become the threads of an identity deception. Listen to learn how financial isolation, perception manipulation, and erosion of self-trust combined to create a living forgery, and what unravelled it.
Person: Diane Sharp
Person: Sandra Sharp
Person: Roger Whitley
Location: 114 Fennel Road
Event: P.O. box application submitted in person on a Wednesday at 4:55 p.m.
- Diane’s Ohio driver’s license, a bank card, a loyalty card, and $43 were found sealed in a bone-dry plastic bag in a septic tank.
- Diane was born in February 1986 and is the younger twin, twelve minutes younger than Sandra.
- Diane worked six years as a billing coordinator at Millhaven Regional Medical Center and sang soprano at First Lutheran Church, rehearsing Wednesdays 7-9 p.m.
- Diane married Roger Whitley in June 2018; two months later an electronic change-of-address redirected her bank statements to a P.O. box she never rented.
- Sandra saw a woman answering to Diane’s name at the Millhaven DMV in early January 2019, after the DMV had updated Diane’s license address to the P.O. box. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.
© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
Why do people lie even when telling the truth would be easier? Why Humans Lie explores the psychology behind deception, hidden motives, self-protection, manipulation, social pressure, and the small distortions...
show more
Why do people lie even when telling the truth would be easier? Why Humans Lie explores the psychology behind deception, hidden motives, self-protection, manipulation, social pressure, and the small distortions people use every day to shape how others see them.
Each story and idea examines what happens beneath the surface of a lie: the fear of consequences, the desire for approval, the need for control, or the instinct to protect a version of ourselves. By looking at human behavior, emotional patterns, and the choices that lead people away from honesty, the podcast turns an ordinary act into a revealing window into how the mind works.
If you have ever wondered why someone hid the truth, changed their story, or convinced themselves of something that was not entirely real, Why Humans Lie explores the psychology behind those moments—and what they reveal about human nature.
show less
Each story and idea examines what happens beneath the surface of a lie: the fear of consequences, the desire for approval, the need for control, or the instinct to protect a version of ourselves. By looking at human behavior, emotional patterns, and the choices that lead people away from honesty, the podcast turns an ordinary act into a revealing window into how the mind works.
If you have ever wondered why someone hid the truth, changed their story, or convinced themselves of something that was not entirely real, Why Humans Lie explores the psychology behind those moments—and what they reveal about human nature.
Information
| Author | OBOMEDIA ENTERTAINMENT |
| Organization | OBOMEDIA ENTERTAINMENT |
| Categories | Mental Health , Drama , True Crime |
| Website | - |
| creators@obomedia.com |
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