Laura Richards: What Gabby Petito, “Dirty John,” and Keith Raniere Have in Common

A Little Bit Culty

Sarah Edmondson & Anthony “Nippy” Ames

True Crime, Society & Culture, Education

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This episode is sponsored in part by Betterhelp.

What do serial killers, cult leaders, and domestic abusers have in common? According to criminal behavior analyst Laura Richards, quite a lot. In this powerful conversation, Laura explains the concept of coercive control—the psychological abuse tactic often at the core of these crimes—and how it plays out across intimate relationships, cults, and high-profile cases.

Laura spent a decade at New Scotland Yard investigating rape, murder, and abduction. She went on to found the Homicide Prevention Unit and Paladin, the world’s first national stalking advocacy service. Her work helped reduce the murder rate in the UK by 58 percent and led to coercive control being criminalized there. Now, she’s fighting for similar legal reforms in the U.S.

In Part 1 of our conversation, Laura offers insight into the behaviors and warning signs she sees in the cases of Gabby Petito, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, “Dirty” John Meehan, British serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, Larry Ray (of the Sarah Lawrence cult case), and NXIVM’s Keith Raniere.

This episode gives you a new lens for spotting red flags—and a deeper understanding of how abusers manipulate power and control, so major trigger warning for sexual assault, murder, and domestic violence this week.

For more, check out Laura’s podcasts Crime Analyst and Real Crime Profile, find her on IG @laurarichards999 or visit thelaurarichards.com.

Also… let it be known that:

The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. Nobody’s mad at you, just don’t be a culty fuckwad.

Check out our lovely sponsors

Join ‘A Little Bit Culty’ on Patreon

Get poppin’ fresh ALBC Swag

Support the pod and smash this link

Cult awareness and recovery resources

Watch Sarah’s TEDTalk

CREDITS:

Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames

Production Partner: Amphibian.Media

Writer & Co-Creator: Jess Tardy

Associate producers: Amanda Zaremba and Matt Stroud of Amphibian.Media

Audio production: Red Caiman Studios

Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs.
0:04.8	Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand,
0:12.4	marketing tools that get your products out there. Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time.
0:17.4	From startups to scaleups, online, in person, and on the go. Shopify is made for
0:22.8	entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup.
0:29.7	This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical,
0:34.0	medical, or mental health advice. The views and opinions express do not necessarily reflect
0:37.8	the official policy or position of the podcast and are not intended to malign any religion
0:41.7	group, club, organization, business, individual, anyone, or anything. I'm Sarah Edmondson.
0:56.0	And I'm Anthony Nippy Ames.
0:57.9	And this is A Little Bit Calti.
1:00.7	Cults are commonplace now.
1:02.1	From fandums to fads, we're examining them all.
1:04.5	We look at what happens when things that seem like a great thing at first go bad.
1:08.9	Every week we chat with survivors, experts, and whistleblowers
1:12.0	for real culty stories told directly by the people who lived through them, because we want
1:16.7	you to learn a few things that we've had to learn the hard way. For example, if you think you're
1:21.3	too smart to get sucked into something culty, you might be prime recruitment material, and who
1:25.7	knows, you could already be in a cult.
1:28.2	If you're not aware of your programming, you're probably being programmed.
1:31.4	So keep listening to find out.
1:33.2	We'll talk about all sorts of topics on the show, but be aware.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -6 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Sarah Edmondson & Anthony “Nippy” Ames, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Sarah Edmondson & Anthony “Nippy” Ames and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.