Criminal: Recent Episodes
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In 1980, posters appeared in subway stations and on telephone poles in New York City with a phone number to call. When you called it, you would hear a message: “This is Apology. Apology is not associated with the police or any other organization but rather is a way for you to tell people what you have done wrong and how you feel about it.”
This episode was originally released in 2024.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
On October 21, 1966, a woman named Lorna Middleton suddenly woke up from her sleep, struggling to breathe. The day before, a man named Alan Hencher was at work in London when he began to tremble all over. They both said they knew something terrible was about to happen.
Sam Knight’s book is The Premonitions Bureau: A True Account of Death Foretold.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
A few hours after Rachel Waters’ mother died in hospice care, police showed up at Rachel’s childhood home with a search warrant. “It had my name and the word ‘homicide’ on it.”
For more, read Madeleine Aggeler’s article, ‘Oh my God, did someone accuse me of killing my mom?’
George Dinning was emancipated in 1865, when he was 10 years old. By the time he was in his mid-thirties, he’d bought the land on which he had been enslaved. Years later, 25 white men approached the house George had built by hand and told him to come outside.
Ben Montgomery’s book is A Shot in the Moonlight.
Porcha Woodruff was eight months pregnant when she was arrested by police one morning at her home in Detroit. When she spoke with a detective at the police station hours later, she asked them, “Why am I here?”
The “body farm” at Texas State University is a place almost no one is allowed to see, because it’s one of very few places in the world that deliberately puts out human bodies to decompose in nature. We asked if we could visit, and they agreed.
This episode was originally released in 2017.
In 2008, an article in the monthly FBI bulletin argued that 911 calls could contain clues for homicide investigations. “The caller, in fact, may be the killer.”
Brett Murphy investigated 911 call analysis for ProPublica. You can find their new show, Paper Trail, wherever you listen to podcasts.
In November 2019, nineteen-year-old Zac Brettler went missing. When his parents began looking for him, they discovered that Zac had been living a double life.
Patrick Radden Keefe’s book is London Falling.
Sheriff Buford Pusser said he and his wife had come under gunfire early one morning on a country road – leading to her death. He told one reporter, “I’m pretty sure about who did it, and I’m pretty sure about where he is.”
Jason Guerrasio’s article about Buford Pusser is called ”A Bullet, A Legend, A Lie.” Oakley Dean Baldwin’s book is called “Sheriff Buford Pusser: Final Chapter.”
Ed and Bertha Briney’s unoccupied farmhouse was reportedly broken into 50 times over 10 years. They put up “No Trespassing” signs, repeatedly complained to sheriffs in two different counties, nailed doors shut, and boarded up windows – but nothing worked. So they decided to try something else.
This episode was originally released in 2022.
On January 18, 2025, Thomas Plamberger and his girlfriend Kerstin Gurtner began climbing the tallest mountain in Austria. But when they were almost to the top, they got stuck. One year later, prosecutors filed charges against Thomas for Kerstin’s death.
In 1902, twelve young men volunteered for a government experiment. They agreed to eat food laced with chemicals like formaldehyde, borax, and salicylic acid every day, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They were called The Poison Squad.
Deborah Blum’s book is The Poison Squad.
In January 1993, a lot of children started showing up at Seattle Children’s Hospital with the same unusual symptoms. Doctors didn’t know what was going on – until they realized that most of the children had recently eaten at the same restaurant: Jack in the Box.
Jeff Benedict’s book is Poisoned: The True Story of the Deadly E. coli Outbreak That Changed the Way Americans Eat.
When Fannie Davis and her family moved to Detroit in the mid-1950s, they hadn’t prepared themselves for how hard it would be. They had trouble finding steady work. So, Fannie found a way to take care of her family. She started small, but built a robust and lucrative operation… a business that a lot of people knew about but no one talked about.
Bridgett Davis’ book is The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother’s Life in the Detroit Numbers.
This episode was originally released in 2019.
On the morning of May 20, 1957, a bomb exploded under Don King’s front porch. Police got a tip that they should search the home of someone he knew – a woman named Dollree Mapp. But when they got there, she refused to let them in. Soon, her case would go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Carolyn Long’s book is Mapp v. Ohio: Guarding Against Unreasonable Searches and Seizures.
Alice and Leonard Rhinelander had only been married for a few weeks when his family lawyer came to their house and took Leonard away with him. The next time Alice saw her husband was a year later, in a courtroom.
Laura Wexler wrote about the Rhinelander trial for The New York Times Magazine.
For years, John Moore and Tanner Mansell ran shark diving tours off the coast of Florida. One day, they came across a fishing line in the middle of the ocean – with over a dozen sharks caught on it. “This looked like something very illegal going on. And we felt like if we didn’t act, these sharks would definitely die.”
On Christmas Eve in 1926, a man came running into Bellevue Hospital in New York screaming that Santa Claus had been chasing him for blocks with a baseball bat. Not long after that, he died. And then another person arrived in the emergency room. And then another. This started happening in emergency rooms around the country. And it was happening because of a plan created by the U.S. government.
Deborah Blum’s book is The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York.
When Elzire Dionne gave birth to five identical babies, she caught the attention of reporters and doctors hundreds of miles away, the Chicago World’s Fair – and the Ontario government. Before the quintuplets were ten months old, they passed a new law: the Dionne Quintuplet Guardianship Act. “These children are our own royal family.”
Sarah Miller’s book is The Miracle and Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets.
When Cecilia Gentili was growing up in Argentina, she felt so different from everyone around her that she thought she might be from another planet. “I think that we are all aliens until we find our communities.”
This episode was originally released in 2019.
In 2006, a group of young men and teenagers were arrested under the Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act for planning to set off bombs in Toronto. They were known as the Toronto 18. One of the group’s leaders was a 20-year-old named Zakaria Amara.
Michelle Shephard wrote about Zakaria Amara for The Walrus magazine.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
One Saturday morning in 2018, the police showed up at Patience Rousseau’s door, and started asking her questions about something she’d posted on Facebook after she’d had a miscarriage.
Caroline Kitchener’s article for The Washington Post is “She said she had a miscarriage — then got arrested under an abortion law.”
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
Bow Suprasert had just returned from a trip abroad when she got a strange phone call, saying a man had been caught traveling with a passport in her name. But Bow’s passport was still in her suitcase.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In 2023, a woman named Jella got a new job. On her first day, she got in a car to go to her new office. Then she got a feeling that something wasn’t right.
Denise Chan hosts the podcast Scam Factory.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
Phoebe tries to scam an English grandmother named Daisy over the phone. But Daisy isn’t just any grandmother.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
We visited E. Jean Carroll at her house in the woods to talk about her two trials against President Donald Trump.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
Two days after Hurricane Katrina hit, people who lived in the Fischer Housing Projects were still trapped – and it didn’t seem like anyone was coming to help. So 20-year-old Jabar Gibson came up with a plan.
Joel Anderson’s article is “How A Small-Time Drug Dealer Rescued Dozens During Katrina.”
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
The summer after Jessica Maple finished 6th grade, she found out that her great-grandmother’s house had been burglarized. So, 12-year-old Jessica got out her notebook, looked for fingerprints, and decided she would conduct her own investigation. This week, four stories of kids who cracked the case.
This episode was first released in 2020.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
On October 11, 2008, an 18-year-old was shot by someone firing a gun from the back seat of a car. A couple of hours later, homicide detectives arrived on the scene. And so did the camera crew for a reality television show.
Jessica Lussenhop’s article is “A Wholly Inaccurate Picture”: Reality Cop Show “The First 48” and the Wrongly Convicted Man.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In the early 1930s, eight people settled on an uninhabited island in the Galapagos. Within five years, two were missing and two were dead.
Abbott Kahler’s book is Eden Undone: A True Story of Sex, Murder, and Utopia at the Dawn of World War II.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In 2023, two men told police the same story: each man said that his name was William Woods, and that his identity had been stolen.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
On September 15, 1983, Michael Stewart was on his way home from a nightclub in New York when police arrested him. Thirteen days later, he was dead.
Elon Green’s book is The Man Nobody Killed: Life, Death, and Art in Michael Stewart’s New York.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
Early one morning in 1948, a phone call woke up the police chief in the small town of Clearwater, Florida. The caller said he’d seen something strange at the beach. Residents had found an odd set of footprints in the sand, and a rumor began circulating that Clearwater Beach had a sea monster.
Listen to other episodes of This is Love at https://thisislovepodcast.com/.
This episode was first released in 2020.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In 1997, Eric Konigsberg received a strange voicemail from someone in prison — a hit man who had confessed to at least ten murders. Eric and the man had never spoken before, but Eric had a hunch about who it was: his uncle.
Eric Konigsberg’s book is Blood Relation.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In July 2010, a woman was on vacation with her boyfriend of six years — they were traveling around Italy in a van. One day, she was looking for a pair of sunglasses in the glove box, and she found a passport. It had her boyfriend’s photo — but a different name.
Lindsey and Jessica are part of a group called Police Spies Out of Lives.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In the late 1960s, a yogi named Swami Rama came to the United States. His followers believed he could read their minds, visit them in their dreams, and manipulate reality. Shruti Swamy was one of them.
Shruti Swamy wrote a version of this story for the June 12th issue of The Believer. You can find it at https://www.thebeliever.net/.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
John Buettner-Janusch was one of the first Americans to study lemurs. He held prestigious faculty positions at Yale, Duke and NYU, before surprising everyone with a series of increasingly bizarre crimes.
Phoebe and Lauren got to visit the Duke Lemur Center in person – hear all about it in our latest episode of Criminal Plus. Use the promo code “JOINUS” for 20% off an annual membership!
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
“Anyone who went to Action Park understood you could get really messed up going there. It was part of why you wanted to go.”
Seth Porges made a documentary about Action Park, along with Chris Charles Scott. It’s called Class Action Park.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In the 1950s, a new television quiz show premiered called Twenty One. But the first episode was a disaster — so the producers decided to try something.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
The night before she gave birth, Susan Horton had a salad for dinner. The next day, doctors told her she’d tested positive for opiates – and reported her to child welfare authorities.
This episode is from our friends at the Reveal podcast. Listen to a longer version here.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
When Tabatha Trammell was 50 years old, she started studying to become a doula — a support person for pregnant women. Today, most of her clients are incarcerated. She says she always tells them her own story when she meets them: “I went down that same road. But I’m here today. And I’m going to tell you how to navigate this prison system.”
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
Not long into his job as prison superintendent, Frank Thompson was asked to write the manual on lethal injection for the state of Oregon. Capital punishment had not been implemented in more than 30 years, and no one knew how to do it. Frank had to travel around the country learning how other states do it, and he asked his staff to practice. They simulated every step, including seating witnesses in the gallery, interacting with the press, and strapping each other to the gurney.
This episode was first released in 2018.
When Jeffery Manchester escaped from prison, a lot of people weren’t surprised. But they didn’t expect what happened next. “I kind of figured he’d be on the beach with a margarita, but nope.”
This is the second part of a two-part story. To hear the first part, click here.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
Between 1998 and 2000, more than 40 stores and chain restaurants across the country were robbed by a masked man who always entered through the roof. Police couldn’t figure out where he’d turn up next.
Listen to part two of this story early by signing up for Criminal Plus.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In the midst of the 1996 race for North Carolina governor, a new candidate emerged. Her name was Jolene Strickland, and her campaign slogan was “Too Good to be True.”
Barry Yeoman wrote about Jolene Strickland for The Assembly. Tricia Romano’s book is called The Freaks Came Out to Write.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In May of 2021, the National Park Service received a call that a woman had fallen over the Grandview Overlook at New River Gorge National Park. After days of searching with rappel lines, infrared cameras, and dogs, they didn’t find anyone.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
A Toronto police officer was having an affair with a government worker – and then they found out about an elderly man who died with a large estate, and no will.
For more on the story, read Katherine Laidlaw’s piece, “The Inside Job.”
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
Right after sunset, three boats sailed towards the rice plantations on the Combahee River. Harriet Tubman knew they had to hurry – they only had six hours before the changing tide would make it very difficult to get away.
Edda L. Fields-Black’s book is “COMBEE: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War.”
“Christopher Kinahan is probably the most successful and entrepreneurial criminal that Ireland has ever produced.”
Last year, a committee of state lawmakers in Texas issued a subpoena for a man on death row to testify four days after he was scheduled to be executed. Today, what happened next in Robert Roberson’s case.
The first time Ed Newcomer went to the L.A. Bug Fair, he met a man who called himself the world’s most wanted butterfly smuggler. It took three years of undercover work for Ed Newcomer to catch him in the act.
“He stole my watch. He stole my jewelry. I stopped wearing jewelry – just to see what else he would steal.” In 2004, Ava Do met a professional pickpocket at a bachelorette party in Las Vegas. And they fell in love.
On May 13, 1862, in Charleston, South Carolina, a man named Robert Smalls took command of a Confederate ship called The Planter and liberated himself and his family from slavery. As they passed the Confederate-held Fort Sumter, Robert Smalls was said to have saluted it with a whistle, and then added an extra one, “as a farewell to the confederacy.”
Robert Smalls’ great-great-grandson, Michael Boulware Moore, tells the story.
This episode was first released in June 2020.
In 2023, police raided the Kansas newspaper where Eric Meyer worked with his mother, Joan. Seven officers also searched their home. Joan had a heart attack and died the next day.
“Anything you can think of is going to be in the water.”
Barbi Agostini and James Kane’s YouTube channel is called Let’s Get Magnetic.
Before Guantánamo Bay became the prison we know today, Marie Genard spent more than a year of her life there. She was 14.
Brandt Goldstein’s book is Storming the Court: How a Band of Law Students Fought the President—and Won.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In 1977, a new bar opened on North Wells Street in Chicago. Things weren’t as they seemed at the aptly named “Mirage Tavern.”
This story is from our friends at Snap Judgment.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
One morning, two men got in a boat and sailed down a river in the Amazon rainforest. They were never heard from again.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In the summer of 1975, two best friends attempted a robbery unlike any they’d ever pulled off before. Their target: the mob.
Tim White and Wayne Worcester wrote The Last Good Heist with Randall Richard.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
When Madison Smith went to her county attorney’s office to talk about her rape case, she knew she wanted to press charges. But the prosecutor told her he wouldn’t bring a rape charge. Then she discovered a loophole in an old Kansas law.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In 2010, a $16.5 million Hot Lotto ticket was sold at a gas station in Des Moines, Iowa. At first, no one showed up to claim the prize. And then, a series of lawyers tried to claim the money on behalf of a client they would not name. Things got stranger, and eventually investigators uncovered what has been called the biggest lottery fraud in U.S. history.
This episode was first published in 2021.
Two men turned in the winning catch at a Lake Erie fishing tournament. But when the tournament director squeezed one of their fish – he felt something inside.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
Phoebe: Are there a lot of spies in this country today?
Scott: Far more than people can probably even imagine. You can’t rule anybody out. You never know what it is that motivates people to do this.
For 17 years, Ana Montes was quietly sharing information with the Cuban government while working as a U.S. defense intelligence analyst.
Scott Carmichael’s book is True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes, Cuba’s Master Spy. Jim Popkin’s book is Code Name Blue Wren – The True Story of America’s Most Dangerous Female Spy and the Sister She Betrayed.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
Hunters in the Everglades used to kill millions of birds every year for their feathers. In 1902, a man named Guy Bradley was hired to stop people from shooting the birds – but it wasn’t easy. “If you’re working alone in the wilderness, no witnesses, and the people that you’re going up to are armed, it’s really dangerous.”
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
“There was a saying I heard a few times: ‘under the influence, above the law.’ And I think that describes the mindset of a certain type of fraternity guy.”
Max Marshall’s book is Among the Bros: A Fraternity Crime Story.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In the 1980s, Pablo Escobar smuggled four hippopotamuses into Colombia for a zoo on his ranch. Today, there are over 160 hippos in the country. “It’s like hippo paradise here. They have water and food all year long. They have no predators…They can do whatever they want.”
Listen to Jorge Caraballo’s Radio Ambulante episode about narco tours here.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In 1967, a 24-year-old named Leslie Arnold escaped from prison. The FBI looked for him for years. And then, in 2022, a U.S. Marshal got a message from his son.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
On the afternoon of June 23rd, 1972, Martin McNally walked into the St. Louis airport with a wig, a sawed-off rifle, and a plan.
Special thanks to Danny Wicentowski. Learn more at the Riverfront Times: “The Final Flight of Martin McNally.”
This episode was originally released in 2018. To hear the second part of this story, “The Fox,” click here.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
When Karen Bethea-Shields was in college, she heard a judge say, “No way in the world a Black woman can get raped.” A few years later, in 1975, she helped successfully defend Joan Little—a Black woman—who became the first woman in the U.S. to be found not guilty of murder using the defense that she used deadly force to resist sexual assault.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
“The ingenuity of depraved human genius has culminated in the production of margarine.”
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
The Lawrence H. Woodward funeral home in Brooklyn has been run by one family for generations, and has handled many funerals for victims of violent crime.
When we visited, one funeral director told us, “I don’t think people understand when you’re dealing with a victim who’s been shot – we see these things. It’s a mental toll on the person that has to now look at this gunshot victim and put them back together.”
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
When JonRe Taylor was called for jury duty in 2007, she voted ‘not guilty’ on every charge. But the defendant was convicted and sent to prison anyway.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In 1989, three people confessed to participating in a murder. Eventually, a total of six people were arrested. But when DNA tests were run on crime scene evidence almost 20 years later – the results showed that none of them had been there at all.
This episode picks up where our last episode left off. If you haven’t heard the first part yet – we recommend going back and listening to that first. It’s called Type B.
Joe Duggan and Catharine Huddle’s 2009 Lincoln Journal Star series is called Presumed Guilty.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
Six people were arrested for a murder in Nebraska. Some said they couldn’t remember details of the crime, or being there at all – but then they began to have dreams about it.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
When we last spoke with Trevell Coleman, he was waiting to hear back about his clemency application. And then, in December of last year, his lawyer got a phone call.
We shared Trevell’s story in two episodes we released last fall. They’re called The Confession Part 1 and 2.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In 1991, two police officers stopped Tupac Shakur for jaywalking. He said he was knocked unconscious during his arrest, and sued the city of Oakland for 10 million dollars. His lawyer says many of the police brutality cases he’s worked on started with jaywalking stops.
Peter Norton’s book is Fighting Traffic.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In 1980, posters appeared in subway stations and on telephone poles in New York City with a phone number to call. When you called it, you would hear a message: “This is Apology. Apology is not associated with the police or any other organization but rather is a way for you to tell people what you have done wrong and how you feel about it.”
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
When he was 14 years old, Ron Bishop testified in a murder trial. Decades later, he told an investigator everything he said on the stand was a lie – and that it was just what he was told to say.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
When people started saying that John D. Rockefeller Jr. was responsible for the deaths of two women and 11 children near a coal mine in Colorado, he decided to do something unusual. He hired “the father of public relations.”
Scott Martelle’s book is Blood Passion: The Ludlow Massacre and Class War in the American West.
Amy Westervelt’s podcast is called Drilled.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
Sultan Alam was the first Pakistani officer to join the traffic department of the Cleveland Police in the UK. He was harassed at work and complained to his senior officers about it. Then his coworkers showed up at his house to arrest him.
For almost thirty years, Adolfo Kaminsky lived quietly, forging documents for people all over the world. It started when he was 18.
Sarah Kaminsky’s book is Adolfo Kaminsky: A Forger’s Life.
As the famous English actor William Macready was preparing to go on stage in New York, over 300 police officers were placed in and around the theater. “But the head of the police said, ‘I don’t know that that’s going to be enough people.’”
Karl Kippola’s book is called Acts of Manhood: The Performance of Masculinity on the American Stage, 1828–1865.
In the early 1920s, painters at a watch dial factory in New Jersey started to get sick. No one could tell them why.
Kate Moore’s book is called The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women.
In 1974, musician Connie Converse drove away from home and was never heard from again.
Howard Fishman’s book is To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse. Martha Wainwright’s cover of “One By One” is on Vanity of Vanities: A Tribute to Connie Converse. Julia Bullock’s album is Walking in the Dark. You can find Connie Converse’s music at http://connieconverse.com.
“I never did anything wrong. I never had a speeding ticket. I think I just saved all my stuff up for just one thing.” We speak with Toby Dorr, who started a prison dog training program in 2004. That’s how she met John Manard.
Toby Dorr’s memoir is Living With Conviction.
This episode was originally released in 2019.
“The police had surrounded the house. They had been there for quite a while. They didn’t want to try to rush the house because they thought he might kill one of the innocent people. But after waiting for a long time, I asked the police: ‘Let me see if I can talk to the guy.’”
For decades, TV news reporter Russ Ewing stood beside more than 100 people — at their request — as they surrendered to the police.
Thanks to CBC Licensing.
This episode was first released in 2020.
In May 1991, a bank robber walked into a bank in Irving, Texas, and without speaking handed the teller a note that read, “This is a bank robbery. Give me your money. No marked bills or dye packs.”
Check out Skip Hollandsworth’s Texas Monthly article, “The Last Ride of Cowboy Bob.”
This episode was first released in 2020.
A conversation with a 911 operator about what happens on the other end of the line – and the day she heard her daughter’s voice on the phone.
Martin Abramowitz knew that his father had worked at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, but he always thought he hadn’t been there the day the building caught fire and 146 workers died. Then he found out that a man with the same name as his father had testified at the factory owners’ trial.
See photos of The Triangle Fire Memorial here.
This episode picks up where 48 Hours, Part 1 left off. We suggest you listen to them in order.
When Aaron Quinn called the Vallejo police to report that his girlfriend Denise Huskins had been kidnapped, and went into the station for questioning, a detective told Aaron that he didn’t believe him. When Denise was released after being held captive for about 48 hours, police didn’t believe her either. It soon became clear that the police viewed Denise and Aaron as suspects, not victims.
Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn’s book is Victim F.
This episode was originally released in 2021.
“I think it was around 3:00 a.m., and that’s when I heard a strange man’s voice waking me from sleep.”
This is part one of a two-part episode. Listen to part two in our next episode.
Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn’s book is Victim F.
This episode was originally released in 2021.
In 2016, the FBI attaché in Pretoria, South Africa, got a phone call from a woman asking the FBI to investigate the death of her friend, Bianca Rudolph. Bianca had died on a hunting trip in Zambia’s Kafue National Park, but her friend didn’t think it was an accident.
Ken Eto worked for the Chicago Outfit for 30 years. He was known as the mob’s bolita expert, bringing in millions of dollars a year for them. But in 1983, they turned on him.
Dan O’Sullivan wrote about Ken Eto for Chicago Magazine and Epic Magazine – you can read his piece here.
Today we meet “Genius Grant” winner Andrea Armstrong. In 2019, she started the Incarceration Transparency Project to identify and make public how many people were dying behind bars in Louisiana. The project also documents conditions inside the state’s prisons and jails – what Andrea Armstrong calls “secretive spaces of confinement.” She’s said: “Too often, the how and why a person in prison dies is kept secret from everyone, including the person’s family.”
When a young woman showed up at a boarding house in Manhattan, she said her name was Nellie Brown – but that was all she seemed to remember about herself. Soon, people became scared of her. Someone went to the police: “I want you to take her quietly.”
Stacy Horn’s book is Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York.
Travis Russ’ upcoming play is The Gorgeous Nothings.
In 1916, two British soldiers were held captive in a remote prisoner-of-war camp. People said the camp was escape-proof. One day, one of the soldiers received a postcard from his aunt in England, suggesting they try experimenting with a Ouija board. When reports of ghosts started circulating around the camp, the two soldiers had an idea.
Margalit Fox’s book is The Confidence Men.
Iceland is one of the most peaceful countries in the world, but people there love to read about crime.
In April of 1995, wildlife biologists flew small airplanes over Yellowstone National Park, looking for two missing wolves. “They’re just gone. And that’s implausible because wolves don’t just disappear.”
When Amy Loughren started working as a nurse at Somerset Medical Center, she did everything she could to hide the fact that she had a heart condition. And then, another nurse named Charles Cullen discovered Amy’s secret. He told her that he would keep it, but she didn’t know that he was keeping his own secret too.
In the summer of 1917, 16-year-old Elsie Wright took a photograph of her 9-year-old cousin, Frances Griffiths. It was the first photograph she’d ever taken — and it became the source of a mystery that lasted for most of the 20th century.
The investigation into the Unabomber was one of the longest manhunts in American history. Over 18 years, the FBI looked into a number of people, including a group of friends who loved Dungeons & Dragons.
In the summer of 1984, a local newspaper reporter outside of Manchester, England, got a tip from the police. A foot had been found in a nearby bog.
A little over sixty years ago, there were 250 prison newspapers being published on a regular basis. Today, there are 26. We talked with the editor of one of them.
Mary Jones could sing just like Aretha Franklin. One night, a James Brown impersonator saw her perform at a Motown tribute show and got an idea. “He thought he would take her on the road, and tell everyone that she was the real Aretha.”
A Cleveland man collecting driftwood along the Lake Erie shore found a human torso on the beach. No one could figure out what had happened.
When a toymaker and a doctor teamed up to make the world’s first CPR doll, they decided to make the doll’s face look like one specific woman – a woman who they thought had drowned.
As recently as 1965, if you had a medical emergency, the people who showed up at your door would be volunteer firefighters, police officers, or undertakers with a hearse. Today, the story of how a group of Black men from Pittsburgh changed that.
Helen James grew up in a military family — her great-great-grandfather fought in the Civil War, her father in WWI, and her uncles in WWII. So when she enlisted in 1952, she felt like she belonged. Shortly after, she realized she was being watched.
Today we talk to one of the members of the U.S. Air Force impacted by a campaign to remove LGBTQI+ employees of the U.S. government in the 1950s.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
There’s an old sailors’ saying about the ocean at the southernmost part of the world — “below 40 degrees latitude, there is no law; below 50 degrees, there is no God.”
David Grann brings us the story of what happened when five British warships set off on a secret mission to steal a ship filled with treasure. They’d have to sail around the very bottom of South America — at 56 degrees south.
David Grann’s book is The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In the late 1870s, a woman named Sarah Howe started a bank just for single women called the Ladies’ Deposit Company. She asked new customers to tell their friends about the bank rather than advertising in newspapers, and she promised she could almost double their money.
Today, the story of the woman running a Ponzi scheme before Charles Ponzi was even born.
“What we ask jurors to do is to just absorb all this trauma and just to keep on absorbing it and not process it with anyone. Just hold it in and hold it in and hold it in.” A look at what happens during and after a trial – and how some courts are trying to help jurors.
In 2008, Sven Berger was chosen to serve on the jury for a murder trial. He says the sentence that he and his fellow jurors handed down “felt like a mistake right away.”
Sven talked about what happened next on the podcast Heavyweight, and today, we’re sharing that episode with you.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
When she was 14 years old, Elizabeth Coppin was sent to a place called Peacock Lane in Cork, Ireland. It was a laundry business run by a Catholic order of nuns. Elizabeth noticed bars on its windows.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In 1948, two horse jockeys were riding on a beach in Australia when they came across a man lying in the sand. There was a partially smoked cigarette resting on his jacket. He was well dressed, with a striped tie and polished shoes. And he was dead.
No one could figure out who he was.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
When Benjamin Ferencz was 27 years old, he prosecuted his very first trial. It’s been called the largest murder trial in history, with more than one million victims. There were 22 defendants, each of them high-ranking members of Nazi Germany’s death squad.
Benjamin Ferencz died last Friday, April 7, at the age of 103. He was the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials. Today, we’re sharing our conversation from 2018.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
When Debra Miller woke up on October 8th, 1964, she was expecting to see a black Volkswagen in her family’s driveway. Instead, she saw a police car. “And I knew my father was dead.”
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In 1911, two sisters traveled to Seattle to meet a “doctor” named Linda Hazzard. The sisters didn’t seem very sick, but when they arrived, Dr. Hazzard told them they didn’t have a moment to lose – they needed to begin her treatment right away.
A few months later, one of the sisters wrote a letter to her old governess. “I am wonderfully better in fact,” she said, “getting stronger by leaps.” But her handwriting was messier than usual, and her sentences ran together and overlapped.
You can find Gregg Olsen’s book, Starvation Heights, here.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In the 1980s, the discount electronics chain store Crazy Eddie was so famous, its commercials were parodied on “Saturday Night Live.” So when the family business began selling its company shares on Wall Street – making millions – nobody questioned its success.
Gary Weiss’ book is Retail Gangster: The Insane, Real-Life Story of Crazy Eddie.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In 1964, one of the best javelin throwers in Australia traveled to England to see if he could qualify for the Olympics. But, because of an injury, he didn’t make the team – and he couldn’t afford a plane ticket home. So he came up with an idea while working a cargo job at Heathrow Airport: “I saw them shipping animals. And I thought, well, if the dogs can survive it, I could.”
Episode transcript will be posted as soon as it is available.
This episode continues where Episode 208 leaves off. In 2001, Daniel Taylor wrote a letter from prison to a reporter at the Chicago Tribune named Steve Mills. Steve Mills spent months investigating before publishing a detailed examination of Daniel’s case as part of a series called “Cops and Confessions.” Daniel told us, “To have someone finally say that they believed me changed my whole life.”
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
Daniel Taylor was 17 years old when he was arrested for a 1992 double homicide in Chicago. He was charged alongside seven other Black men. But Daniel had an alibi. He was in jail at the time of the murders.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In 2016, a man named Anthony Novak created a parody Facebook page of his local police department. “I just thought, ‘That would be funny.'” About a month later, he was arrested. Novak is now petitioning the Supreme Court, and The Onion submitted an amicus brief in support of his case. Their brief is written as a parody of an amicus brief.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
On October 4, 1960, Eastern Airlines Flight 375 took off from Boston’s Logan airport, and then, two minutes later, it crashed. 62 people died. Investigators couldn’t figure out what had happened, and they decided to ask a scientist working at the Smithsonian for help. Roxie Laybourne’s investigation helped launch a whole new field of science that changed aviation and forensics.
Special thanks to the Smithsonian Institution Archives, for letting us share audio of Roxie Laybourne.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
Debbie Schum waited a long time to receive the cremated ashes of her friend, LoraLee Johnson. When she did, she felt relieved to finally take them home with her. But then, she got a call from the FBI.
We first aired this episode in 2020. Earlier this month, Megan Hess and Shirley Koch were sentenced for their crimes. We’ve included updates about the case in this version of the episode.
To learn more, check out Elena Saavedra Buckley’s article, “‘None of this happened the way you think it did.’”
Episode transcript will be posted as soon as it is available.
When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August of 2021, they unlocked the prisons and freed prisoners, some of whom sought revenge on the women judges who convicted them. We speak with some of the judges in today’s episode.
Thanks to Marzia Babakarkhail, Basira Qazizada, Zarghuna Kargar, and Patricia Whalen.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
Stories of animals really going for it.
Episode transcript will be posted here as soon as it is available.
In February of 1910, members of the Music Hall Ladies Guild in London received a strange letter from their treasurer – a singer who went by the name Belle Elmore. It said that she suddenly had to travel to the United States, and that she was resigning from her position.Several weeks later, at the Music Hall Ladies Guild fundraising ball, Belle's husband arrived with a date. And she was wearing Belle's brooch.
On September 29, 1982, Adam Janus suddenly collapsed in his home outside of Chicago. He died within hours. Later that same day, in the same house, his brother also collapsed — then his sister-in-law. All three of them had been healthy. Nobody could figure out what was going on. Stacy St. Clair and Christy Gutowski...
On a Saturday night, in February 1949, the music programming on one of the most popular radio stations in Quito, Ecuador was interrupted with an urgent news bulletin: strange objects in the sky that looked like large disks with bright lights were using a powerful ray to destroy a nearby city.
On a Saturday night, in February 1949, the music programming on one of the most popular radio stations in Quito, Ecuador was interrupted with an urgent news bulletin: strange objects in the sky that looked like large disks with bright lights were using a powerful ray to destroy a nearby city.
On Halloween night, in 1992, an unusual television special aired on the BBC. Nobody expected what happened next.
In the winter of 1803, residents outside of London reported strange encounters with a ghost. Some said it looked like Napoleon Bonaparte, or a horse without a head. Others said the ghost breathed fire and smoke. By Christmas, there was a “full-scale phantom panic.” Shortly after the New Year, one man decided he’d stop the...
In the winter of 1803, residents outside of London reported strange encounters with a ghost. Some said it looked like Napoleon Bonaparte, or a horse without a head. Others said the ghost breathed fire and smoke. By Christmas, there was a “full-scale phantom panic.” Shortly after the New Year, one man decided he’d stop the...
Ed and Bertha Briney’s unoccupied farmhouse was reportedly broken into 50 times over 10 years. They put up “No Trespassing” signs, repeatedly complained to sheriffs in two different counties, nailed doors shut, and boarded up windows - but nothing worked. So they decided to try something else.
Ed and Bertha Briney’s unoccupied farmhouse was reportedly broken into 50 times over 10 years. They put up “No Trespassing” signs, repeatedly complained to sheriffs in two different counties, nailed doors shut, and boarded up windows - but nothing worked. So they decided to try something else.
In March of this year, a biologist working in a nature preserve in Florida saw an alligator swimming along a canal with something in its mouth. When she looked closer, she realized it was a human arm.
In March of this year, a biologist working in a nature preserve in Florida saw an alligator swimming along a canal with something in its mouth. When she looked closer, she realized it was a human arm.
In 1967, a very unlikely group of individuals gathered to quietly break the law and help facilitate abortions. They established a phone number. When you called it, a recording of a woman's voice would tell you what to do next.
This episode picks up where Episode 193 left off. We suggest you listen to them in order. Blanche Molineux visited her husband while he was in prison for murder to keep up what she called the “ghastly pretense.” But eventually, she couldn’t keep it up anymore, and bought a train ticket to a place called...
In 1895, Blanche Chesebrough moved into a small apartment in Gramercy Park, in New York City. She brought a portrait of her parents, a vase for flowers, and her piano. She later said, “music had been my one absorbing interest,” and that she wasn’t interested in getting married. But eventually, she agreed to anyway. When she returned home from her honeymoon, she learned her husband was suspected of murder.
There is a cave in the middle of the Mojave Desert called Devil's Hole. It's home to a small iridescent blue fish, called the Devil's Hole pupfish - and you can't find them anywhere else in the world. There are fences, cameras, and motion sensors for security. In 2016, three men rammed the fences and broke in.
In 1982, forensic dentists examined the teeth of thousands of sailors stationed on an aircraft carrier called the USS Carl Vinson in Newport News, Virginia. It’s been called “the largest dental dragnet likely in U.S. history.”
When Laura Coates decided to become a prosecutor in Washington, D.C., she was told that the job would be “human misery.” She says she remembers thinking, “If there's one person in the justice system who could do something about human misery, surely, it's the powerful prosecutor.” After four years, she quit.
In 2018, we talked with three of America’s most experienced trauma surgeons about what happens when someone is shot.
For 10 years, Detective John Reilly and his horse Trooper were the only mounted team assigned to Central Park. They rode the same route every day. John says Trooper didn’t like change. “If you changed the route, he got mad.” And then in 2019, they both retired at the same time.
There is a guard at Pontiac Correctional Center who some staff praise for being tough and having their backs. But other staff and people in the prison say she is known for abuse. The Department of Corrections and State Police obtained 427 of the guard’s emails, revealing the conversations she’d had with other staff when it seemed like no one was looking.
When Shigeru Yabu was 9 years old, he and his family were incarcerated at Heart Mountain Internment Camp, along with thousands of other Japanese and Japanese American families. One day, Shigeru discovered a baby magpie that had fallen out of its nest. He named her Maggie. “That bird walked up my arm all the way to my shoulder, and we looked at each other, eye to eye.”
One night in 1817, a woman appeared in the village of Almondsbury, in England. No one could figure out who she was. But everyone wanted to solve the mystery.
Miles Hargrove was in his sophomore year of college when he got a phone call that his father had been kidnapped.
In 1971, a woman visited an F.B.I. office in Pennsylvania. She identified herself as a college student interested in learning about opportunities for women in the F.B.I. None of that was true. She was there “to see whether there were security alarms before we could decide if we could break in.”
In 2013, a small boat called The Midnight Slider was found floating empty in the waters off of Isle Madame in Nova Scotia. “Murder is not something that occurs in this neck of the woods very often,” says Jake Boudrot, editor of the The Reporter, “There’s always been a tradition of taking care of families, watching out, looking out for one another.”
When it comes to Kentucky bourbon, Pappy Van Winkle is among the most exclusive. You can’t get it unless you’re exceptionally lucky, exceptionally wealthy, or willing to break the law. The Pappy frenzy has the police, bartenders, and even the Van Winkle family themselves wringing their hands. According to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, sales of the most expensive American whiskeys have basically doubled since 2016, when we first looked into Pappy Van Winkle. We decided to find out what's happening now.
15 years after the Supreme Court ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education, many schools across the South were still segregated. Some school districts actively blocked desegregation. North Carolina passed legislation authorizing tuition grants to white private schools, sometimes called "segregation academies." Members of the KKK held rallies in North Carolina, describing desegregation as "anti-Christian" and "communistic." When the Federal government pressured school boards to comply or lose their funding, many responded by shuttering Black schools and assigning Black students to formerly all-white schools. It was called "one-way desegregation."
In a very rural part of North Carolina, Black students and their families decided to fight back.
- Please continue.
- The experiment requires that you continue.
- It is absolutely essential that you continue.
- You have no other choice, you must go on.
When Benjamin Ferencz was 27 years old, he prosecuted his very first trial. There were 22 defendants, each of them high-ranking members of Nazi Germany’s death squad. The entire world was watching.
Today, we take a look at the Nuremberg trials and their role in defining international law after World War II.
This episode originally aired in 2018—this version includes an update with Benjamin Ferencz, who celebrated his 101st birthday earlier this year.
In 2006, a man named William Ramsey went to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida for a life-saving liver transplant. It was a success, and so when his health started to decline after the procedure, doctors couldn't figure out why.