Chet Hardin

As a journalist, I specialize in writing about bad people. This means that I've written about dirty cops, corrupt politicians, greedy preachers, murderers and thieves, but by far my favorite type of bad person is the cult leader.

My first experience with a cult leader was Keith Raniere. He was the leader of the infamous NXIVM cult in upstate New York. I started reporting on Keith back in 2006, while I was the news editor of the now-defunct altweekly, Metroland. In 2019, after Keith was sentenced to decades in prison, I worked with Toni Natalie to publish her memoir, The Program: Inside The Mind of Keith Raniere and The Rise and Fall of NXIVM.

I have a number of great stories I can share with you about my experiences with Keith and NXIVM. But of course, what I would love to share the most with your listeners is my new book, The Vampire's Cult. This is the true story of the murder of Sydney Loofe.

If you've read this far, you probably have an interest in true crime. This means you might have heard of this 2017 murder of a young woman in Nebraska, who was catfished on Tinder, strangled, and then dismembered. You might even remember how her murderer, Aubrey Trail, claimed to be a vampire who drank Sydney's blood and cut his own throat during trial.

But there is so much more to this story than anyone has ever heard.

Through exclusive prison interviews with Aubrey Trail and his accomplice, Bailey Boswell, along with unfettered access to the trial discovery, I have been able to put together a truly insane and baffling profile of two murderers and the brief, deranged little cult they started in a sleepy little town. Much of what is in my book, and that I am eager to chat about, has never been reported.

I am happy to provide you with an advance copy of the book, which will be published on August 4th by Sourcebooks.

A little more about me: In addition to my years as a weekly journalist, I have worked in construction, politics, coffee, and technology. I was born in a small town fifteen minutes outside of Pumpkin Center, Missouri. I have traveled the country, sleeping in a park in New York City and nearly falling off a mountain in New Mexico, before settling down in Saint Louis, where I live with my artist wife and any number of cats.