The opinions expressed in the following episode do not necessarily reflect those of the minds of madness podcast.

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52 year old Rick Post was bound to a chair inside the shower stall of an abandoned house.

Even if he could scream, no one would hear him. His abductors paced back and forth, flashing their instruments of torture.

He'd been in this Tijuana dungeon for five days, subjected to relentless rounds of violent beatings.

They'd also done a number on his fingers with a set of pliers.

Even the woman in the room had taken a turn with them.

Where's the money, Rick? It was the same question they'd been asking all week.

And Rick Post gave them the same answer.

What money? I didn't take any money.

It was clear they were getting nowhere. The abductors knew they couldn't keep Rick much longer.

People were looking for him, and the police would eventually close in.

Join me now, as we take a look at the unbelievable case of Richard Post, a story with all the elements of a Shakespearean tragedy, and a cast of character straight out of a blockbuster thriller.

He'll hear about jealousy, vengeance, tainted love, and paranoia, a story that veers wildly to the edge of believability, and then some.

This story starts in San Diego, California, where Rick Post was born in 1945.

San Diego is a world-class place that definitely earns its nickname as America's finest city, with near perfect weather all year round, and 70 miles of breathtaking coastline, what more could jask for?

After high school, Rick joined the army serving in the Vietnam War, and because of how well he performed on his IQ test, he was assigned to an intelligence unit, running surveillance and intercepting enemy signals.

The skills he acquired providing intelligence for the United States Army would stick with him for the rest of his life.

After the war, Rick was honorably discharged, but before long he'd hung up his own shingle as a private investigator. He named the new agency, Intellisource.

In the beginning, Rick took on the cases you'd probably imagine when you think of a PI, catching cheating spouses in the act, or performing corporate surveillance.

He was also hired to investigate missing persons cases when victims' families didn't think police were doing enough, but it was through one of those missing persons cases where he developed a new and unusual speciality, investigating seaghtanic activity.

According to Rick, it started like this. Some time in the late 1980s, a desperate woman from Los Angeles approached him about her missing six-year-old niece.

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