This Feels Criminal: A True Crime Podcast (Formerly Killer Queens)

After nearly six years, Nikita Hand finally walked into a Dublin courtroom and faced Conor McGregor.
In Part 2, we break down the 12-day civil trial: Hand's testimony, McGregor's claim that their encounter was consensual, the CCTV footage the defense said undermined her story, the medical and physical evidence presented to the jury, and the strategies used to challenge Hand's credibility.
Then, after six hours and ten minutes of deliberation, the jury returned its verdict.
We follow what happened next—including the damages awarded, McGregor's appeals, and what the case says about the way sexual assault allegations are investigated, prosecuted, defended, and discussed.
And as McGregor attempted to stage a public comeback, we return to the part of his story that shouldn't be erased: the civil jury verdict Nikita Hand fought nearly seven years to obtain.
To be clear: This episode is based on the evidence presented in court and the public record. If you're looking for a defense of Conor McGregor, this probably isn't the episode for you.
Content warning: This episode contains detailed discussion of sexual assault, physical injuries, and trauma.

In 2018, Nikita Hand accused Conor McGregor of raping her in a Dublin hotel. Prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges—but six years later, Hand took McGregor to civil court.
The medical evidence documented extensive injuries. McGregor's DNA placed him at the scene. But prosecutors ultimately declined to bring criminal charges. Nikita Hand didn't stop there.
In Part 1, we walk through what happened that day according to the evidence and testimony, the aftermath of the alleged assault, the decision not to prosecute, and the years-long road to a civil courtroom—including the terrifying attack at Hand's home just months before the trial began.
To be clear: This episode is based on the evidence presented in court and the public record. If you're looking for a defense of Conor McGregor, this probably isn't the episode for you.
Content warning: This episode contains detailed discussion of sexual assault, physical injuries, and trauma.
Part 2 covers the trial, the verdict, and McGregor's comeback, dropping Thursday. Patrons can listen now.
🎧 Listen ad-free & early on Patreon: patreon.com/killerqueenspod
📱 Instagram: @thisfeelscriminal
📌 Subscribe so you don't miss the trial updates.
Sources: Forbes, Uncrowned, UFC.com, Parade, The Daily Beast, CBC News, The Irish Times, RTÉ, The Journal, CBS News, The Irish News, Irish Examiner, Soap Central, Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, Newsweek, The Mirror, MMA Mania, Irish Legal News, TIME, EssentiallySports, Celebrity Net Worth, ITV News

The same week Karen Read's lawsuit went public, the man at the center of it tried to avoid testifying. A month later, a furious judge accused someone of leaking his sealed medical information to the internet — ordered 32 attorneys to certify under oath they weren't responsible, and stopped just short of a gag order.
Then Read's own team fired back, arguing the entire premise was wrong.
This episode: the deposition wars playing out across three separate lawsuits, a retired lieutenant's failed fight to avoid his own subpoena, a young witness caught between a court order and Army basic training, and the timestamp discrepancy that Read's lawyers say unravels the whole leak story. Plus: what happened to the second officer at the center of this — and what any of it actually means for two police departments that would very much like this to go away.
⚠️ Content warning: this episode continues the discussion from Part 1 and includes references to the same explicit language quoted in court filings.

Karen Read walked out of her second trial acquitted. Weeks later, she filed a lawsuit that isn't about whether she killed John O'Keefe — it's about the two police departments that investigated her, and what they knew about the men running that investigation before they ever put them on the case.
This episode: the 87-page complaint Read filed against Massachusetts State Police and the Town of Canton, the decade of texts from lead investigator Michael Proctor and Canton Sergeant Sean Goode that the lawsuit calls a "cesspool of abject hatred," and the separate federal complaint — quietly incorporated into this filing — that lays out, allegation by allegation, how Read's team says the investigation itself was manufactured.
We're not re-litigating the murder case. Two juries already did that. This is about what happens after — institutional accountability, not a verdict.
⚠️ Content warning: this episode includes racist, antisemitic, homophobic, and misogynistic language quoted directly from a public court filing, including slurs.

"I did not kill the president. The doctors did. I merely shot him." That was Charles Guiteau's defense.
In 1881, a failed lawyer and preacher convinced himself he'd single-handedly won James Garfield the presidency — and that the president now owed him a job. When the reward never came, he decided Garfield had to die. In Part 2 of Founding Felons Week, Tyrella and Nikita get into who Guiteau really was and how he got there: the Oneida free-love commune that rejected him, his pattern of latching onto powerful men and then turning on them, the ten-week media circus of a trial, and the 1882 execution where he asked for an orchestra.
It ends on the grim irony of a man who spent his whole life desperate to be remembered — and got his wish, as a brain on display at the Mütter Museum.
New here? Start with Part 1 (the shooting and the nearly 80 days) before this one.
Content warning: this episode discusses an assassination, capital punishment, child abuse, and preserved human remains.