Dark Psychology: The Control Game

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How can someone influence your choices without ever giving you a direct order? Dark Psychology: The Control Game explores the subtle ways control can grow through manipulation and psychological pressure until another person begins shaping what seems like your own decision. We examine the behavior behind these power dynamics and bring you closer to the patterns that make manipulation difficult to recognize. As you listen with us, you can see how influence develops when trust becomes a tool and control hides behind ordinary interaction. We publish new episodes daily so you can return to another look at the psychology behind human influence. Each episode gives you a new perspective on how control can take shape and why understanding the process matters before the pattern becomes harder to see. The most effective manipulation rarely announces itself. It works quietly until the line between your choice and someone else’s influence becomes difficult to separate, and with us you can keep looking for the moment when that line first begins to move.

  1. Oct 29

    He Watched My Life: The Neighbor Who Logged My Every Move

    The Bowl on Kellerman Ridge: Identity Buried, Husband's Lies Exposed A pale yellow ceramic bowl with a blue rim sheltered four laminated ID cards through two nights of rain-each card naming Sandra Graham-and the bowl was placed with geometric precision on a rock shelf on Kellerman Ridge. Who arranged for Sandra’s identity to be preserved like an artifact, and was it a message or evidence of a longer fraud? In this episode, we walk through the sequence of discoveries from the trail to rental agreements and forensic reports to show how a single sealed bowl opened up questions about forged documents, duplicate identities, and who controlled the record of Sandra’s life. How did a husband’s device and a purchase link him to a placement that protected those IDs from rain? Person: Sandra Graham Person: Steven Graham Person: Pamela Anderson Location: Kellerman Ridge trail Event: Four laminated identity cards found in ceramic bowl - The bowl was found at 7:41 a.m. after Sharon Crawford’s dog stopped at a limestone hollow on Kellerman Ridge. - The bowl contained four laminated identity cards-driver’s license, library card, debit card, gym card-all bearing the name and face of Sandra Graham. - A pottery seller reported a man paying cash for two matching pale yellow bowls with blue rims after asking if they were waterproof. - The trail map download in early September traced to Steven Graham’s IP address from his home device about one week before the bowl was found. - A forensic document examiner concluded a rental agreement filed in Sandra’s name had a forged signature inconsistent with known samples of her handwriting. Tired of ads? Listen to this podcast and 200+ more ad-free on OBOMEDIA. Try it free for 7 days, cancel anytime: https://obomedia.com/en/gratis?ref=desc-7196558 © 2026 Created by an independent creator of the OBOMEDIA Network. All rights reserved. This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the property of their respective creator, who is solely responsible for them, and are distributed by the OBOMEDIA Network on platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pocket Casts. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without the creator's prior written permission is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.

  2. Oct 28

    The Envelope in the Ditch: How He Stole Her Voice

    He Watched My Life: The Neighbor Who Logged My Every Move A single manila folder labeled "PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL" sat beneath Kevin Zeller's morning paper containing 41 pages of logs and surveillance photographs that tracked his departures, poker nights, and even trips to see his son - what happened next would lead to eight felony convictions. How did a newly friendly neighbor accumulate three years of meticulous records without anyone noticing, and what did it take for the truth to finally surface? In this episode, we follow the sequence of discoveries from the paper route kid finding the folder at 6:12 a.m. on April 9, 2019 to the police officer and financial crimes detective uncovering detailed handwritten logs and photos; the episode traces how routine habits became the blueprint for exploitation and asks how a community missed the warning signs. Person: Kevin Zeller Date: April 9, 2019 Location: Aldermoor Drive, Granton, Ohio Case: Folder with 41 pages of logs and surveillance photos Status: Led to a criminal case with eight felony convictions - At 6:12 a.m. on April 9, 2019 a paper route kid found a legal-size manila folder with Kevin Zeller's full name and address under his newspaper. - The folder contained 41 pages including handwritten logs detailing departure times, garbage days, poker nights, and trips toward Millhaven. - Investigator Bruce Barrett, a 12-year financial crimes detective, identified the contents as a "map of a man's life" after opening the metal-clasp folder. - Kevin Zeller had lived on Aldermoor Drive for 11 years and worked as a project coordinator at Tanner-Gould Commercial Roofing for 11 years. - The neighbor who moved in January, introduced as Leon Cole, had been invited to Wednesday poker nights within three weeks of meeting Kevin. Tired of ads? Listen to this podcast and 200+ more ad-free on OBOMEDIA. Try it free for 7 days, cancel anytime: https://obomedia.com/en/gratis?ref=desc-7196558 © 2026 Created by an independent creator of the OBOMEDIA Network. All rights reserved. This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the property of their respective creator, who is solely responsible for them, and are distributed by the OBOMEDIA Network on platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pocket Casts. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without the creator's prior written permission is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.

  3. Oct 27

    The Coat on the Power Line: How Loyalty Became Leverage

    The Envelope in the Ditch: How He Stole Her Voice A sealed manila envelope with forty-three pages of Tracy Dixon’s memoir was found in a frozen ditch, and eleven days later a book by the same text sat on a library shelf under a name she never chose-how did her private voice become someone else’s? What was hidden in a four-page agreement that granted another man power to sign away her authorship, and could anyone tell where coercion ends and consent begins? In this episode, we follow the sequence of events from a road grader operator finding the envelope to investigators piecing together the relationship between Tracy Dixon and Dennis Farrell, asking whether meticulous grooming and a buried contract can effectively erase a person’s ownership of their story. Person: Tracy Dixon Person: Dennis Farrell Date: March 2019 (envelope found) Location: County Road 7, east of Millhaven, Illinois Pages: 43 - Envelope discovered at 7:40 AM on a Tuesday in early March 2019 by Wendy Walsh. - Tracy Dixon was 46 years old and had nearly 200 pages of a memoir by autumn 2017. - Dennis Farrell was 51 and presented himself as a literary agent with an office on Renner Avenue. - Tracy paid $3,000 to freelance editor Brian Wolk on Farrell’s recommendation. - The representation agreement signed in January 2018 contained a clause allowing Farrell to use any pseudonym and sign agreements on Tracy’s behalf. Tired of ads? Listen to this podcast and 200+ more ad-free on OBOMEDIA. Try it free for 7 days, cancel anytime: https://obomedia.com/en/gratis?ref=desc-7196558 © 2026 Created by an independent creator of the OBOMEDIA Network. All rights reserved. This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the property of their respective creator, who is solely responsible for them, and are distributed by the OBOMEDIA Network on platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pocket Casts. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without the creator's prior written permission is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.

  4. Oct 26

    Dry Keys, Biscuit, and the Man Who Rewrote Her Life

    The Coat on the Power Line: How Loyalty Became Leverage A child's coat snagged twelve feet up on a power line became the first visible thread of a year-long ledger totaling $41,260 written in red ink - and the single word "Owed" at the end. How did a photograph of a button on a cable turn into evidence that exposed a private, methodical campaign to take control of someone’s life? In this episode, we follow the sequence of events that began with a lineman's photograph and unfolded into discovery of financial records, personal relationships, and confessions. What choices and small gestures allowed trust to be weaponized, and what did investigators find when they pulled on that unexpected thread? Person: Ruth Myers Person: Steven Petersen Date: February 2019 Location: Coulter Mill Road Amount: $41,260 - At 6:14 AM on a Tuesday in February 2019 a lineman named Jason Ramsey photographed a child's coat wrapped around a power line twelve feet off the ground. - Ruth Myers moved through seven different foster placements between ages four and seventeen and graduated high school in spring 1998. - By 2019 Ruth worked Tuesday-Saturday as a receptionist from 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM and rented an apartment on Coulter Mill Road for $430 per month. - Steven Petersen held a foster care license in Harlan County for nine years and had fourteen children placed in his home over that time. - Investigators found an eleven-month handwritten ledger totaling $41,260 with the word "Owed" written at the end in red ink. Tired of ads? Listen to this podcast and 200+ more ad-free on OBOMEDIA. Try it free for 7 days, cancel anytime: https://obomedia.com/en/gratis?ref=desc-7196558 © 2026 Created by an independent creator of the OBOMEDIA Network. All rights reserved. This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the property of their respective creator, who is solely responsible for them, and are distributed by the OBOMEDIA Network on platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pocket Casts. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without the creator's prior written permission is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.

  5. Oct 25

    The Scale, the Saturdays, and the Trainer Who Quietly Took Her Life

    Dry Keys, Biscuit, and the Man Who Rewrote Her Life A dog named Biscuit was found at a frozen creek with a full, completely dry set of keys clipped to his harness - in a world of frost that single detail meant the keys had been touched after the freeze. A bank account opened in Tracy Norris's name, gas purchases forty miles away, and a forged signature point to a methodical deception; how did one man systematically erase the life Tracy had built and who else had he used before? In this episode, we follow the timeline from the morning Biscuit was found through the twenty-seven-day investigation and the pieces of evidence that emerged, and we ask how the forged accounts, fitness data, and a hidden notebook reveal a constructed reality and its unraveling. Person: Tracy Norris Person: Paul McCarthy Date: January 9, 2019 Location: Calloway Creek trail outside Harwick, Ohio Duration: 27-day investigation - Biscuit, a border collie mix, was found wearing a harness with a full set of dry keys on January 9, 2019. - Tracy Norris lived at 14 Pembrook Lane for 22 years and was 54 years old at the time. - Paul McCarthy moved into Tracy's life by fall 2017 and had a drawer in her bedroom by March 2018. - In August 2018 a checking account was opened in Tracy's name at a north Harwick bank branch using a prepaid contact number. - Transactions from the fraudulent account included gas purchases 40 miles from Harwick and a motel in Bexley timed during a choir rehearsal Tracy attended. Tired of ads? Listen to this podcast and 200+ more ad-free on OBOMEDIA. Try it free for 7 days, cancel anytime: https://obomedia.com/en/gratis?ref=desc-7196558 © 2026 Created by an independent creator of the OBOMEDIA Network. All rights reserved. This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the property of their respective creator, who is solely responsible for them, and are distributed by the OBOMEDIA Network on platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pocket Casts. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without the creator's prior written permission is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.

  6. Oct 24

    When Your Work Vanishes: The Slow Theft of a Man's Mind

    The Scale, the Saturdays, and the Trainer Who Quietly Took Her Life Cold facts: a scale left at an open door with zero on its display, no footprints in fresh snow, and a woman gone from her apartment for nearly thirty minutes - how did the scale arrive without a trace, and what did the zero mean? The detail that the scale read 0.0 and had no snow on it will linger as the central, unresolved clue. In this episode, we follow the sequence of ordinary choices and tiny measurements that reshaped one life, tracing daily rituals, visits to an eighty-one-year-old grandmother, and the training regimen that turned caring into control. What did a morning weight and a steady stream of data do to Julie's world, and why did she leave with one bag? Person: Julie Bell Date: December 9, 2019 Location: Pinewood Garden Apartments, Unit Four Person: Melvin Duncan Event: Daily morning weigh-ins beginning December 2018 - The scale given to Julie was digital and accurate to the tenth of a pound and began daily use in December 2018. - Julie was 22 years old when she left her apartment on the morning of December 9, 2019. - Janet Schmidt, a meter reader, found the front door open at exactly 7:44 AM on December 9, 2019. - Julie visited her grandmother every Saturday for about two hours; her grandmother, Edna Bell, was 81 with advanced macular degeneration. - Within the first six weeks of training, Melvin Duncan sent Julie approximately 200 text messages. Tired of ads? Listen to this podcast and 200+ more ad-free on OBOMEDIA. Try it free for 7 days, cancel anytime: https://obomedia.com/en/gratis?ref=desc-7196558 © 2026 Created by an independent creator of the OBOMEDIA Network. All rights reserved. This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the property of their respective creator, who is solely responsible for them, and are distributed by the OBOMEDIA Network on platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pocket Casts. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without the creator's prior written permission is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.

  7. Oct 23

    He Bought Her Grief: How a Stranger Stole a Widow's Life

    When Your Work Vanishes: The Slow Theft of a Man's Mind Fear that your memory will be gaslit away-this episode opens with a leather portfolio found in a church van that carried an eight-year-old architectural rendering overwritten with someone else's calculations, and prosecutors later called the case a methodical dismantling of professional identity. How did a single altered sheet of paper become proof of a years-long campaign to erase a man's work and sense of reality? In this episode, we tell the sequence of events that led from partnership to erasure, following the career of a drafter-turned-developer and the relationship that preceded his undoing. Listen to learn how a portfolio, a rendering, and changing credits set the stage for the question at the center: who rewrites the past to steal a person's future? Person: Lloyd Allen Brooks Event: Portfolio discovered in church van Date: November 2019 (discovery), rendering dated September 2011, overwriting ink dated no earlier than 2018 Location: Dellworth (Canal Row district), Sycamore Bend Case: Federal fraud case involving altered project documents - A leather portfolio monogrammed L.A.B. was found in a church van at the Hargrove Avenue shelter loading bay. - The portfolio contained an architectural rendering dated September 2011 with original load calculations in Lloyd's hand. - Someone whited out Lloyd's calculations and wrote "P.O. concept development, Q3 2011" in a different hand. - A forensic document examiner dated the overwriting ink to no earlier than 2018, seven years after the original paper stock. - By the time the portfolio surfaced in November 2019, Lloyd had already lost his firm, income, and sense of what was real. Tired of ads? Listen to this podcast and 200+ more ad-free on OBOMEDIA. Try it free for 7 days, cancel anytime: https://obomedia.com/en/gratis?ref=desc-7196558 © 2026 Created by an independent creator of the OBOMEDIA Network. All rights reserved. This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the property of their respective creator, who is solely responsible for them, and are distributed by the OBOMEDIA Network on platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pocket Casts. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without the creator's prior written permission is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.

  8. Oct 22

    The Briefcase That Rewrote a Marriage-Found With Tomorrow's Signatures

    He Bought Her Grief: How a Stranger Stole a Widow's Life Fear of intimate betrayal tightens in the chest: a stranger lived with a widow, changed her bank address, and left a library book, bifocals and a wire transfer slip on a log to signal a theft that wasn't forced. The case pivots on one verifiable fact - the widow had never been to that reservoir - so how did he dismantle her life without breaking a single lock? In this episode, we lay out the chronological facts of what happened to Wendy Boyd and the actions of Kevin Hensley that preceded and followed his move into her neighborhood, asking how routine kindness became a two-year plan of access and control. Person: Wendy Boyd Person: Kevin Hensley Date: February 9, 2007 Date: October 19, 2009 Location: Harlow Reservoir - On October 19, 2009, Patricia Odom found a cardigan, a library book on grief, cracked bifocals, prescription hand cream, and a wire transfer confirmation on a log at Harlow Reservoir. - The wire transfer confirmation showed $47,000 withdrawn from an account at Dunmore Federal Credit Union. - Wendy Boyd had lived on Clement Street in Dunmore for 22 years and was 61 years old after her husband Douglas died February 9, 2007. - Kevin Hensley signed a month-to-month lease on March 2, 2009, and moved into Clement Street one day after submitting a change-of-address on Wendy’s credit union account on September 3, 2009. - Wendy volunteered every Wednesday from 2 to 5 p.m. at Dunmore Federal Care Center and had not missed a single shift in three years until October 14, 2009, when she failed to appear. Tired of ads? Listen to this podcast and 200+ more ad-free on OBOMEDIA. Try it free for 7 days, cancel anytime: https://obomedia.com/en/gratis?ref=desc-7196558 © 2026 Created by an independent creator of the OBOMEDIA Network. All rights reserved. This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the property of their respective creator, who is solely responsible for them, and are distributed by the OBOMEDIA Network on platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pocket Casts. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without the creator's prior written permission is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.

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How can someone influence your choices without ever giving you a direct order? Dark Psychology: The Control Game explores the subtle ways control can grow through manipulation and psychological pressure until another person begins shaping what seems like your own decision. We examine the behavior behind these power dynamics and bring you closer to the patterns that make manipulation difficult to recognize. As you listen with us, you can see how influence develops when trust becomes a tool and control hides behind ordinary interaction. We publish new episodes daily so you can return to another look at the psychology behind human influence. Each episode gives you a new perspective on how control can take shape and why understanding the process matters before the pattern becomes harder to see. The most effective manipulation rarely announces itself. It works quietly until the line between your choice and someone else’s influence becomes difficult to separate, and with us you can keep looking for the moment when that line first begins to move.

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