Postmormon Postmortem

Mormonism gave you a complete universe, with charts, diagrams, and a plan for everything. Leaving can dismantle all of it at once. Postmormon Postmortem is hosted by Hannah and Jess, two women who left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and wanted more honest conversations about what comes after. We cover Mormon history, doctrine, culture, true crime, institutional harm, religious trauma, and the messy work of rebuilding a life outside the church. Whether you're freshly out, years removed, or trying to understand someone you love, you're in the right place.

Postmormon Postmortem is a religion podcast hosted by Hannah and Jess, with 77 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Hannah and Jess hosts Postmormon Postmortem, a religion show with 77 episodes published.

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  Episode #82

  The Mormon Glow: Can You Identify A Mormon By Their Face?

  Aug 19, 202622 minS1

  Can people really identify Mormons just by looking at their faces? In 2010, psychologists Nicholas Rule, James Garrett and Nalini Ambady found that both Mormons and non-Mormons could classify Mormon faces at rates slightly better than chance…. which left them with a new question: what exactly were people seeing? Hannah walks Jess through the experiments, including the follow-up tests that removed different parts of the face, and the researchers’ attempts to explain the so-called “Mormon glow.” We get into perceived health, skin information, spirituality, and the Mormon belief in a visible “brightness of countenance.” Then, of course, there’s the way LDS media is going to spin it. Full source list available on Patreon

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  Episode #82

  Jared Bridegan Murder: Shanna Gardner, Mario Fernandez Saldana & the Mormon Connection

  Aug 17, 202619 minS1

  The murder of Jared Bridegan involves his ex-wife Shanna Gardner, her then-husband Mario Fernandez Saldana, and Mario’s former tenant Henry Tenon. And Mormonism runs all the way through the case. Shanna grew up in the wealthy Mormon family behind Stampin’ Up!, served a mission, and married Jared in the Salt Lake City Temple. During their marriage and bitter divorce, religion became intertwined with family money, custody, their children’s church involvement, and their increasingly hostile relationship. Then, on February 16, 2022, Jared was shot and killed after stopping to move a tire placed in the road in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. His two-year-old daughter was sitting in the back seat. In this Mormon Monday, Hannah and Jess get into the Gardner family money, Shanna’s departure from the church, Jared’s continuing Mormonism, the custody fight, Mario Fernandez Saldana, Henry Tenon, the $10,000 in checks, Bishop Scott Currie, Kim Jensen’s messy police interviews, the funeral potatoes texts, and the prosecution’s alleged murder-for-hire case. Mario Fernandez Saldana’s trial began today, August 17, 2026. Shanna Gardner’s trial is scheduled to follow, and we’ll be following the Mormon pieces as the cases unfold.

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  Episode #78

  Joseph Smith's Childhood Trauma and the Making of a Prophet

  Aug 16, 20261h 26mS1

  At seven, surgeons cut into Joseph Smith's leg without anesthesia. At seventeen, an angel told him where to dig. A psychiatrist, a historian, and a surgeon trace the line between the two. Hosts Jess and Hannah open a two-part series on Joseph Smith's childhood, drawing on three psychobiographical studies: Robert Anderson's psychoanalytic reading, Dan Vogel's "pious fraud" framework, and William Morain's trauma-and-dissociation reading. Covered: the 1813 leg surgery, the Smith family's repeated financial collapse, years of treasure-digging, the 1826 court hearing, Alvin's death, and the gaps between Joseph's own First Vision accounts. This isn't a takedown — it's a case study in how a traumatized child became a man other people needed to believe in. Support the show: buymeacoffee.com/postmormonpostmortem Ad-free listening from $2/month: patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem TikTok & Instagram: @postmormonpostmortem postmormonpostmortem.com New episodes every Sunday at 9 AM.

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  Episode #80

  Family Annihilators: Power, Control, and the Haight Family Murders

  Aug 15, 20261h 17mS1

  If you grew up Mormon, you already know what a “good family” is supposed to look like: temple marriage, church service, a successful provider, children in the pew, and problems kept inside the home. The Haight family murders in Enoch, Utah force a harder question: what happens when a man treats his family as part of his identity, status, and control? On January 4, 2023, Michael Haight killed his wife, Tausha Haight, her mother, Gail Earl, and all five of his children — Macie, Briley, Ammon, Sienna, and Gavin — before killing himself. The case left behind an unusually detailed record: police interviews, child-abuse investigations, texts from the children, internet searches, financial and employment information, Michael’s recordings, and a handwritten note centered on grievance, reputation, and his lifelong pursuit of the “ideal of an eternal family.” Using the research on family annihilation, we examine the patterns that show up again and again in these cases — grievance, coercive control, threatened identity, family breakdown, masculinity, and the belief that a wife and children are extensions of the man at the center of the family. The Haight case also brings Mormon ideas about the eternal family, priesthood authority, reputation, forgiveness, and public image into the frame.

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  Postmormon Postmortem

  Ward Cookbooks: Funeral Potatoes and Mormon Women's Recipe Networks

  Aug 12, 202629 min

  Every ward had one — spiral-bound, typed on a typewriter, funeral potatoes on page whatever. But the story behind the ward cookbook goes back further than the 1970s nostalgia object it's remembered as. From pioneer-trail survival recipes to a 1907 cookbook from a New Zealand mission, to the "Relief Society network" that spread identical Jell-O salads and potato casseroles between wards with zero contact — decades before the Mormon Church built an actual correlation department to standardize anything else — this is the story of an organic, decentralized system of women's labor that's never once been treated as an institutional achievement. In this episode of What Do You Know Wednesday, Jess and Hannah dig into where the ward cookbook tradition actually comes from, how it got commercialized (and turned into Olympic pins), how it ended up on Netflix, and why it's still happening today — new moms getting handed fresh copies of ward recipe books with zero institutional prompting. Subscribe for new episodes every week postmormonpostmortem.com Follow us: @PostMormonPostmortem Support the show: Patreon and Buy Me a Coffee

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