Voices for the Victims
Criminal is the first of its kind. A show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Hosted by Phoebe Judge. Named a Best Podcast of 2023 by the New York Times. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
372 most recent episodes
Visit website →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
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 robu
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
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.
Say hello on Facebook, Instagram and
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.
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 t
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
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
When Angelo Quinto died, his family said police were responsible for his death. But a lawyer told them his official cause of death would likely be something called “excited delirium.”
You can read more of Renu Rayasam's reporting on "excited deliriu
After a gang leader was murdered in San Francisco’s Chinatown, the only witnesses who would talk with the police were tourists. They looked through so-called “mug books” filled with photographs of Asian men - and pointed out a man named Chol Soo Lee.
In 1864, a 41-year-old woman named Mary Surratt was running a boarding house in Washington, D.C. One of the most famous actors in the country began visiting her – which led to her becoming known as the woman who “kept the nest that hatched the egg."
In the early 2000s, the hip hop group Silibil N’ Brains seemed like they were on the brink of becoming very famous. They had a record deal with Sony, had been on MTV, and were talking about making a TV show. But they weren’t who they said they were.
This episode is unlocked and available for everyone to listen to!
Phoebe tells a story about an uncooperative plane passenger. Plus, Lauren and Phoebe discuss what embarrasses Phoebe the most, the intentional vagueness of Criminal episode descriptio
When Mike Williams went missing while duck hunting on Lake Seminole, investigators wondered if he had been eaten by alligators. But Mike’s mother was sure something else had happened.
Mikita Brottman’s book is Guilty Creatures: Sex, God, and Murder
In 1963, Jeanne and Alan Abel traveled to Washington, DC to picket in front of the White House. They said they were part of a campaign that wanted to put clothes on animals — including the first lady’s horse.
Say hello on Facebook, Instagram and Ti
While investigating a murder, a Polish detective discovered an unusual clue – a novel that contained an odd number of similarities to the real-life crime.
David Grann is the author of The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon, and his article about K
One night in 1989, Karen Palmer got in her car with her husband and two daughters and drove away from their home in California. They didn’t tell anyone where they were going.
Karen Palmer’s memoir is She’s Under Here.
Say hello on Facebook, Instag
One day in 2011, Lindsey Schweigert’s roommate came home to an open garage, a missing dog, and an overflowing bathtub. Lindsey remembers waking up in police custody.
Ramya Nagesh is the author of A Practical Guide to Insane and Non-Insane Automatism
In 1982, Sister Helen Prejean was invited to write a letter to a man on death row named Elmo Patrick Sonnier. She told us, “I thought that all I was going to be doing was writing letters. And lo and behold, two years later, I am in that execution cha
Stories of animals really going for it.
Say hello on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Sign up for Criminal Plus to get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes of Crimin
On Christmas morning, Laura Nowlin was in her living room with her infant son. They were getting ready to leave to spend the day with family. Then, Laura heard a knock on the door. She says it sounded frantic.
Say hello on Facebook, Instagram and Ti
In 1833, a writer named Catharine Williams began working on a new book. She’d published books of poetry and about the Revolutionary War before, but this book was going to be different. It was going to be about a Methodist minister, a mill worker, and
In 1993, a family was found murdered in their home. A Maryland police spokesperson described the homicide investigation as the most “exhaustive and labor intensive” in the department’s history. And then investigators found a strange manual - written
Scott Darlington ran the post office in a village outside Manchester for four years. One day, the computer system told him there was money missing from the branch – and he was accused of theft and fraud. “I started thinking, ‘Maybe I’ve done this and
When David Hahn was 16, he started working on something that caught the attention of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the FBI.
Ken Silverstein’s book is The Radioactive Boy Scout.
Say hello on Facebook, In
The story of one day in one neighborhood in Chicago – and the people living there who try to stop ICE agents from arresting their neighbors.
Say hello on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter. Follow the show and revi
On Halloween night, in 1992, an unusual television special aired on the BBC. Nobody expected what happened next. “The technicians were looking up at the big screen in the lobby, saying to each other, ‘My God, what's going on in Studio One?’”
This e
In 1883, a sailing captain named Thomas Dudley accepted a job no one thought was a good idea: to sail a small ship called the Mignonette halfway across the world.
Say hello on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter. Fo
When Audrey Ryan’s father told her he once found 20 pounds of hash while he was fishing for scallops, she didn’t believe him. But he said that he wasn’t the only one who had found drugs in the ocean.
Audrey Ryan wrote about the Tusker for Boston Gl
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 S
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 sai
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.
We have a small favor to ask! We’ve put together
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.
Say hello on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sig
Phoebe tries to scam an English grandmother named Daisy over the phone. But Daisy isn’t just any grandmother.
Say hello on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Sign
We visited E. Jean Carroll at her house in the woods to talk about her two trials against President Donald Trump.
Say hello on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
S
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.
Say hello on Facebook, Instagram and TikT
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
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.
Say hello on Facebook, Ins
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.
Say
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.
Say hello on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter. Follow the show and review us on A
On September 15, 1983, Michael Stewart was on his way home from a nightclub 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.
Say hello on Fac
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 circulati
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
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 diff
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
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
Two years ago, we started making Criminal Plus episodes — behind-the-scenes conversations featuring Phoebe and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohrer. Today, we’re sharing some of those conversations with you — about everything from Phoebe’s jangly brace
“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.
Say hello
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.
Say hello on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter. Follow the sh
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
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 sam
Not long into his job as prison superintendent, Frank Thompson had to prepare his staff to perform Oregon's first execution in three decades. They simulated each step of the process over and over and over.
This episode was first released in 2018.
S
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.
Say hello o
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.
To listen to Part 2 right now, sign up for Crimi
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
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.
Say hello
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.”
Say hello on F
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
“Christopher Kinahan is probably the most successful and entrepreneurial criminal that Ireland has ever produced.”
Say hello on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Ap
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.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and
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.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagra
“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.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Ins
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
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.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our o
“Anything you can think of is going to be in the water.”
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Sign up for Criminal Plus to get be
Bettersten Wade searched for her missing 37-year-old son for nearly six months. Then she found out that the police knew where he was the whole time.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Acco
On September 18, 1998, an unusual ad ran in USA Today — a company called John’s Estate Sales was looking to buy a moon rock. The phone number on the ad belonged to Special Agent Joe Gutheinz at NASA.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikT
The bodies of a woman and her child were found inside a burned house on Christmas Day, 1843. An autopsy showed that they’d died before the fire even started.
Alex Hortis's book is The Witch of New York.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and T
Stories of animals really going for it.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Sign up for Criminal Plus to get behind-the-scenes b
In 1985, 160 people were sent letters saying they’d won free tickets to an NFL football game. They were told to pick up their tickets at the Washington Convention Center. When they arrived, they were greeted by cheerleaders, men in tuxedos, and team
In 1791, three men filed lawsuits in the General Court of Maryland. They were all suing the same person: the Jesuit priest who enslaved them.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice.
“Children nowadays, they make maps. And say, this is the street where the store is that we're going to rob, and this is where we're going to hide, and this is how we get away.” In the 1950s, U.S. senators were worrying about “the fifth horseman of do
In 1993, Gary Settle was sentenced to 177 years in prison. Twenty-six years into his sentence, he started helping other inmates get out of prison through something called compassionate release - a policy that allows people in prison to petition to be
In 1977, a man named Robert Burns went to a funeral and shot someone, in the head, in front of 300 people. He didn’t deny it, and his lawyer didn’t deny it. Burns told a police officer: “I had to do it. And if I had to do it over, I’d do it again.”
C
This week, part two of the Reels family story – how two brothers went to jail in an attempt to save their family land, and were held there for eight years without being charged with a crime. “I’m not going to give up. I don’t think I’m wrong, and I’m
Melvin Davis and Licurtis Reels refused to leave the land that had been in their family for generations – so they were sent to jail. They expected to be in jail for 90 days. They were there for 8 years. This week, part 1 of their story.
For more on t
Today, a personal story from Phoebe about her mother, Valentine, who died this spring.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Sign
Soon after the Berlin Wall went up, a group of students knocked on Joachim Rudolph’s door. They told him they were trying to get people out of East Germany - and they wanted his help.
Helena Merriman’s book and BBC podcast are called Tunnel 29. You
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.
Say hello on Twitter, Fa
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.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occas
One morning, two men got in a boat and sailed down a river in the Amazon rainforest. They were never heard from again.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and re
In the summer of 1975, two best friends attempted a robbery unlike any they’d ever pulled off before. Their target: the mob.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show
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.
Say hello on
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 stran
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.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The A
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 inform
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,
“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.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebo
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
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.
How are we doing? Take our survey here.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign
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 episo
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 foun
“The ingenuity of depraved human genius has culminated in the production of margarine.”
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/C
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 deal
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.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice
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.
Thi
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.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional ne
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
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 wit
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
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.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up f
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
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.
Say hello o
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.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for o
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.’”
Say hello
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.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
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 Vaniti
“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.
This episode was origin
“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 i
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,
Listen to the latest Criminal Plus bonus episode completely for free. Phoebe and Lauren hit record on the drive to visit a 100-year-old Liberal Arts Club in Tarboro, North Carolina. You’ll also hear Phoebe’s presentation to the club about the history
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.
Criminal is going back on tour this month! We’ll be telling brand new stories, live on stage. You can even g
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
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 de
“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
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
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 -
Stories of animals really going for it.
Criminal is going back on tour in February! We’ll be telling brand new stories, live on stage. You can even get meet and greet tickets to come and say hi before the show. Tickets are on sale now at thisiscrimin
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’
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.
In the early 1970s, Marty Goddard was worried about the high rates of sexual assault in Chicago. She learned from police that evidence from sexual assault cases often wasn’t collected properly — or at all. “They said, ‘We don’t get evidence.’ And thi
In the 1950s poodles were all the rage — one tabloid even reported that when a girl “makes the big time she traditionally acquires 3 things — minks, gems, and a poodle.” But one poodle in particular put the breed on the map. His name was Masterpiece…
In 1913, museums and art galleries in London received a memo from the police. It told them to be careful when they let in visitors – women might try to attack the art.
Criminal is going back on tour in February! We’ll be telling brand new stories, li
In the 1980s, Liverpool was having what journalists called a heroin epidemic. The chairman of a local organization where people would go for drug counseling told a reporter, “We are on the brink of complete catastrophe.” Then a small group of people
After a 17-hour-long interrogation, a woman confesses to a murder. But then, evidence surfaces proving that she can’t have actually done it – and that it was a false confession.
Today, we’re looking at what goes on in an interrogation room – and hear
In 1989, Helen Ackley decided to sell her old Victorian house in Nyack, New York. It didn’t go as planned. The house became the center of a case that’s referred to as “The Ghostbusters ruling.”
This episode was originally released in 2020.
Say hello
Jack Barsky was a college student in 1970 when the KGB knocked on the door of his dorm room to inquire about his plans after college. “I was told to broaden my knowledge of culture, of literature, of music, to become a well-educated person who could
Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert were once members of the radical activist group the Weather Underground. In 1981, they helped members of the Black Liberation Army rob a Brink’s armored car at the Nanuet National Bank. Their son, Chesa Boudin, was 14 m
Here's a little preview of what we’re making over on Criminal Plus! We’re having a lot of fun making these bonus episodes. In each one, Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohrer and I take your questions and talk about what’s happening behind the scenes – a
This episode continues where Episode 237 leaves off.
17 years after he shot a man, Trevell Coleman walked into a police station and tried to turn himself in. He’d never been a suspect in the case, and had kept the secret for years. He also never knew
Trevell Coleman signed with Bad Boy Records in 1998. He made it onto the Billboard charts, and was called “the latest protege of rap’s royal family.” But there was something from his past he hadn’t told anyone about – and he couldn’t let it go.
Crimi
On September 16, 1922, a reverend and a choir singer were found dead under a tree. Between their bodies was a stack of love letters. When police began investigating the murders, tabloid reporters did too, and rumors about the case began to spread qui
Jeff German was a reporter for over 40 years in Las Vegas. He spent his life covering the mafia, corruption, and murder. In 2022, he was found killed outside his home. His colleagues at the Las Vegas Review-Journal tried to figure out why he had died
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.
Iceland is one of the most peaceful countries in the world, but people there love to read about crime. Even the Prime Minister of Iceland has written a crime novel. We stopped by her office to ask why.
Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir and Ragnar Jó
A preview of what we’re making over on Criminal Plus! Hear me and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohrer taking your questions, telling stories, and talking with other producers and special guests. We’re having a lot of fun making these bonus episodes.
W
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.”
Thomas McNamee’s book is The Killing of Wolf N
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 kee
A story about religion, sex, an assassination, and silverware.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow.
Sign up for
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.
Say hello on
The UNABOM investigation was one of the longest manhunts in American history - it lasted for 18 years starting in 1978. Before the FBI started investigating Ted Kaczynski, they looked into a number of suspects, including a group of friends who loved
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.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. F
A little over sixty years ago, there were 250 prison newspapers being published on a regular basis. Today, there are 26. We visit Nash Correctional Institution in North Carolina to meet Phillip Vance Smith, II, the editor of The Nash News.
Learn more
Mary Jones could sing just like Aretha Franklin. One night, a James Brown impersonator saw her perform at a Motown tribute show - and thought he could take her on tour and trick audiences into believing she was the real Queen of Soul. Jeff Maysh tell
In 1934, a man collecting driftwood along the Lake Erie shore found a human torso on the beach. No one could figure out what had happened. Over the next several years, more bodies were discovered. Eventually, a coroner assembled something he called t
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. People call her l’Inconnue de la Seine, or the Unknown Woman of the S
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.
Kev
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.
Sa
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 of
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
“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 try
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’r
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.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikT
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.
N
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
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.”
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasi
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
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 it
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
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
Daniel Taylor was 17 years old when he was arrested for a 1992 double homicide in Chicago. But Daniel had an alibi. He was in jail at the time of the murders.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Ac
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 am
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 Smi
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
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.
Say hello on Twitt
Stories of animals really going for it.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: Apple.co/CriminalShow.
Listen back through our archives at y
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 resignin
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 f
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 us
On Halloween night, in 1992, an unusual television special aired on the BBC. Nobody expected what happened next. “The technicians were looking up at the big screen in the lobby, saying to each other, ‘My God, what's going on in Studio One?'”
Say hel
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
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 wo
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.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sig
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.
Who was behind this num
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 u
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 in
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
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.”
Chris Fabricant’s book
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,
In 2018, we talked with three of America’s most experienced trauma surgeons about what happens when someone is shot. We wanted to spend some time with that conversation again this week.
Special thanks to Dr. Amy Goldberg, Dr. David Spain, and Dr. Ron
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 bo
Pontiac Correctional Center is a maximum security prison in the small town of Pontiac, Illinois. It’s the oldest in the state - founded in 1871 - and has a reputation for being one of the most violent. There is a guard at Pontiac who some staff prais
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
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.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Ac
Miles Hargrove was in his sophomore year of college when he got a phone call that his father had been kidnapped.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Ap
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
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, "The
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 Win
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 legis
Stories of animals really going for it.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow.
We also make This is Love and Phoeb
1. Please continue. 2. The experiment requires that you continue. 3. It is absolutely essential that you continue. 4. You have no other choice, you must go on.
Gina Perry's book is Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram P
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 th
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.
Say hello on Tw
The story of two famous friends — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini — and the disagreement that ended their friendship: can we speak to the dead?
Read Rose Mackenberg's essays in Tony Wolf's book, Houdini's Girl Detective: The Real-Life Ghost-
“There is something he hasn’t been telling me and I’m about to find out what it is.”
Bobby and Cheryl Love’s book is The Redemption of Bobby Love: A Story of Faith, Family, and Justice.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our oc
When Beverley Schottenstein’s husband Alvin died, she and her children sold their stake in his family’s business, worth an estimated 90 million dollars. Family relationships got complicated. It was hard to know who to trust. And what happened next su
Michael Hingson was on the 78th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He says the first indication that something was wrong was the sound of a muffled explosion. Then the building began to tilt, and he felt the flo
Today's episode begins with rock & roll and ends with royalty. When bands like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles were becoming popular, they weren't played much on the radio in England. The BBC controlled the airwaves at the time, and some listeners
"The phone rang and rang and a lady picked up on the other end and I still remember the operator saying, 'You have a collect call from Ian for Debbie. Will you accept the charges?' And I remember Debbie saying, 'Yes, I accept.' And I just remember bl
The story of a cryptic children’s book, a real-life treasure hunt, and its very mysterious winner: “He refused to be on camera. It’s just his voice. His wife even asks that they disguise his voice, but she asks too late. The interview is already happ
This episode picks up where Episode 167 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 detecti
“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.
Say hello on Twi
On November 12th, 2012, the Accomack County volunteer fire departments got a call. An abandoned house had suddenly gone up in flames. And then, just hours later, a second fire was reported. Then a third. Over the next few months, there would be a lot
In August 1934, Ann Cooper Hewitt was having lunch with her mother when she suddenly felt pain in her abdomen. When she went to the doctor, he told her she would have to have her appendix removed. He never examined her abdomen. She later told papers
After 32 years in the United States, José Chicas was told he had to leave. He bought a plane ticket to El Salvador, but then a local church offered another option. Special thanks to Jackie Metivier.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign
The Pacific Northwest was said to be terrorized by a serial killer in the early 20th century. Bodies were floating to the surface of the Chehalis and Wishkah Rivers. A local police chief told reporters that he believed that they were dealing with “th
The song “I Fought the Law” by the Bobby Fuller Four reached number 9 on the Billboard Charts in the week of March 12, 1966. Just months later, Bobby Fuller was found dead. The mystery of what happened to him has been called “the rock and roll versio
When Joan Borsten married actor Oleg Vidov, also known as “the Soviet Robert Redford,” he introduced her to beautiful Soviet animations created in Moscow’s Soyuzmultfilm studio, like Hedgehog in the Fog, by Yuri Norstein. Joan and Oleg eventually acq
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 stran
One Sunday afternoon, a man named William Mumler decided to take a self portrait. He said he was alone in the photography studio, but as the photograph developed he saw something very strange—the image of someone else, sitting beside him. Mumler’s “s
“What I recall most is the way that she grabbed my wrist and, shaking a bit, she said over and over again, ‘If it happens, run. Don’t let that happen to you. Run. If it ever happens, run.’” It was years before Cynthia Brown understood what her great-
Qandeel Baloch grew up in a conservative village in Pakistan called Shah Sadar Din, a place where it was shocking to see a woman swimming outdoors. She ran away from home, changed her name from Fouzia Azeem, auditioned for Pakistan Idol, and eventual
In 1982, Sister Helen Prejean was invited to write a letter to a man on death row in Louisiana’s Angola State Prison named Elmo Patrick Sonnier. She told us, “I thought that all I was going to be doing was writing letters. And lo and behold, two year
With Covid-19 shutdowns, people have been taking advantage of quiet highways to drive as fast as they can from New York City to Redondo Beach, California. They’re trying to break records set in an unofficial and secretive race called the “Cannonball.
When Nathan Myers and Clifford Williams were charged with the murder of Jeanette “Baldie” Williams in Jacksonville, Florida on May 2, 1976, neither of them were worried they would be convicted. They had dozens of witnesses that could confirm that the
One Sunday night in November 1987, something very odd happened in the middle of the WGN nine o’clock news in Chicago. Sportscaster Dan Roan had been talking about the Chicago Bears, when the screen suddenly went black. Then a person appeared, dancing
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 woke up that morning to find an odd set of footprints in the sand, and a ru
In 1932, a group of men in a speakeasy in Prohibition-era New York City hatched a plan — to take out life insurance on a loner named Michael Malloy, and make his death look like an accident. They thought it would be easy money. But Michael Malloy wou
On May 8, 2013, a man named Timothy Jones was arrested in Chicago. He says it wasn’t until he got to the police station that he found out that he was being charged with murder. He didn’t even know someone had died. Earlier that day, a woman named Jac
In the mid-1800s, Harvard Medical School had a reputation for being a “den of body snatchers.” And then, in November 1849, the school’s most prominent supporter, Dr. George Parkman, went missing. He was last seen walking into the medical school build
Early in his career, Errol Morris read about a shocking series of alleged insurance crimes in a small town in Florida, which some referred to as “Nub City.” There were allegations that men and women were mutilating themselves -- removing hands and fe
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
Tim Jenkin was a member of the ANC (African National Congress). The organization had been declared unlawful in South Africa, seen by the white minority as a threat to public order. In 1978, Tim Jenkin was charged under South Africa’s Terrorism Act fo
In 1989, Helen Ackley decided to sell her old Victorian house in Nyack, New York at 1 Laveta Place. It didn’t go as planned. There were stories of ghosts, and the house became the center of a case that’s referred to as “The Ghostbusters ruling.” The
People incarcerated in California’s San Quentin State Prison aren’t allowed to have pets — but some people, like Ronell Draper, have found ways to work around that. Meet Ronell Draper, also known as “Rauch,” plus Ear Hustle’s Nigel Poor and Earlonne
“I didn’t do what they said I did. And it was like, I don’t know how to disprove the police. I mean, it’s my word against theirs. I don’t really stand a chance.”
In 2015, the 15th Circuit Drug Enforcement Unit in South Carolina gave a confidential in
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 enslavement. As they passed the Confederate-held Fort Sumter, Robert Smalls was
On August 10th, 2014, one day after 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, Edward Crawford went to his first protest. “The people, you know, I guess they were out there to be heard,” Ed told us.
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.” Witnesses reported that the robber was wearing a cowb
“I’ve been teaching law for almost 40 years. And I recently realized we don’t really teach people in law school about the tools of forgiveness that are built into the legal system.”
Today, we’re talking with Harvard law professors Dehlia Umunna and M
In January 2000, the bodies of two First Nations men were found frozen in a remote area of Saskatoon, Canada. It was a place where nobody walked, especially in the winter. And then, a man named Darrell Night came forward and said he had been dropped
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.”
The missing wolves were two of 14 that had bee
Phoebe reads Agatha Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. For more, visit Phoebe Reads a Mystery on its own feed. Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/phoebe-reads-a-mystery/id1503921457 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/sh
Sgt. David Mascarenas was the Dive Supervisor for the Los Angeles Police Department. He’s been diving his whole life, and prides himself on never refusing a dive, no matter how treacherous. At least until the summer of 2013, when a murder investigati
Just before midnight on October 15, 1990, police arrived at 527 Lime Street in Jacksonville, Florida to find the small wood-frame house on fire. A man named Gerald Lewis was standing in the front yard. He said there were people inside the house. What
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.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The A
One day Adam Braseel got a phone call from his mother. She said that a man in Grundy County, Tennessee had been murdered, and the police thought Adam had something to do with it.
Adam was charged with and convicted of the murder of Malcolm Burrows an
In the spring of 1922, the United Mine Workers of America announced a national strike. And then, that summer in Herrin, Illinois, 23 people were murdered over two days. Men, women, and children came out of their houses to watch, and in some cases, to
Debbie Schum waited a long time to receive the cremated ashes of her friend, LoraLee Johnson, from Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors in Montrose, Colorado. When she did, she felt relieved to finally take them home with her. But then, she got a call from
Crime Blotter: “The Learning Center on Hanson Street reports a man across the way stands at his window for hours watching the center, making parents nervous. Police ID the subject as a cardboard cutout of Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
Today, we’re looking
In 1995, two men filmed an episode of the daytime talk show, The Jenny Jones Show. A few days later, one of the men was dead. The shooter later claimed he’d committed the murder “in a panic that he was being falsely accused or identified as a gay per
World-class biathlete Kari Swenson was on an afternoon trail run in the mountains near Big Sky, Montana in July 1984 when two men blocked her path. They were Don and Dan Nichols, a father and son pair who later became known as the “mountain men.”
Thi
In 1977, a man named Robert Burns went to a funeral and shot someone, in the head, in front of 300 people. He didn’t deny it, and his lawyer, Tom Radney, didn’t deny it. Burns told a police officer: “I had to do it. And if I had to do it over, I’d do
In 1930, a Cuban woman named Elena de Hoyos went to the hospital in Key West, Florida. She had a bad cough, and her family was afraid she had Tuberculosis. She met a German x-ray technician named Carl Von Cosel who claimed he could save her, using un
SPOILER WARNING: Please listen to Episode 51: Money Tree before you listen to this one.
Three years ago, we spoke with Axton Betz-Hamilton about discovering that her identity had been stolen as a child. When she found out who had stolen it, everythin
After a crime occurs, or when someone dies, the police aren’t responsible for cleaning up. That’s not their job. The coroner takes the body, the police conduct their investigation, and then everyone leaves. But the blood, and the rubber gloves, and t
In 1917, 18-year-old Ruth Cruger disappeared. She’d last been seen getting her ice skates sharpened in the motorcycle shop of a man named Alfredo Cocchi. Newspapers reported that she probably ran off with a boyfriend, and New York police said that th
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. Peter Kobel's Book is The Strange Case of the
“I never did anything wrong. I never had a speeding ticket. I think I just saved all my stuff up for just one thing.” This week, we speak with Toby Dorr – better known as the Dog Lady of Lansing Prison. She started the Safe Harbor Prison Dogs program
In the late 1800s, North Carolina was trying to build a railway system through the Western part of the state. In December of 1882, something went wrong. The Raleigh News and Observer called it “too horrible to chronicle without a shudder.” We speak w
Dan Stevenson has lived in Oakland’s Eastlake neighborhood for 40 years. He says crime has been an issue for as long as he can remember, but he isn’t one to call the police. He’s a pretty “live and let live” kind of guy. Or he was. Before he finally
One day in 1969, Paulette Cooper decided to see what she could get away with. Learn more about Paulette Cooper on her website. Here’s her 1969 Cosmopolitan piece about stowing away onboard the SS Leonardo da Vinci.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and
Amanda Hamm and her boyfriend Maurice LaGrone drove to Clinton Lake one night in 2003. The next day, DeWitt County Sheriff Roger Massey told a local newspaper, “We don’t want to blow this up into something that it’s not. But on the other side, we’ve
In our last episode we spoke Cecilia Gentili, a trans Latina who worked for many years as an undocumented sex worker. Today, we get two more views of sex work in America. We speak with a high-end escort in New York City, and take a trip to one of the
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. “Some of us find our community with our own family and some of us don’t.” Today, Cecilia runs a policy
When Philip Benight met Becky Golden, they made a promise to stick together, no matter how bad things got.
Read Ann Neumann's reporting in Harper's.
Her book is The Good Death: An Exploration of Dying in America.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Ins
In the summer of 1973, Clark Olofsson and Jan-Erik Olsson robbed the Kreditbanken in Stockholm’s Norrmalmstorg town square. They held four people hostage for six days. Swedish psychiatrist and criminologist Nils Bejerot coined the term “Stockholm Syn
This episode contains adult content. Please use discretion. When Sarah Garone was 13 years old, she received something very strange in the mail. She didn't know who it was from, or why they would have sent it. And then it happened again.
Say hello on
In 2016, Silvon Simmons was shot in the back by police officer Joseph Ferrigno. The Rochester Police Department said Silvon fired first, and charged him with attempted aggravated murder of a police officer. “My first instinct, to be honest, was they
Georgia Tann of Memphis, Tennessee bragged that she had a rigorous selection process that matched the perfect child with the perfect home.
Barbara Raymond's book is The Baby Thief.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our
It's one thing to get into an argument with a stranger on Facebook. It's another thing to try to ruin that stranger's life. In 2015, Re/Max realtor Monika Glennon discovered how far a stranger would go, when she found herself on a website called “She
When Fannie Davis and her family moved to Detroit in the mid-1950s, they had trouble finding steady work. So, Fannie found a way to take care of her family.
Bridgett Davis' book is The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother's Life in the Detroit
When Sarah Winchester's husband died, she inherited millions from the family business: the manufacture of the famous Winchester Rifle. A medium reportedly told Sarah that she would be haunted by the victims of that rifle unless she used her fortune t
In a suburb outside of Salt Lake City, a 69-year-old woman named Linda Gillman hired a man named Christian Olsen to do some repairs on her condo. After months of working together, Linda Gillman asked for Christian’s help with a different sort of proj
John "Sonny" Franzese was once described as "largely responsible for the glamorization of the Mafia over the past century.” He'd been active in the Colombo crime family since the 1960s. And then, when he was 93, he was given an 8-year sentence. The e
We speak with a man who has given thousands of people new names, told them where they would live, and warned them they could never go back home.
For more, check out Gerald Shur's book, WITSEC.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sig
On a hot summer day in 1978, a group of friends started renovating an old house in a neighborhood in Atlanta called Little Five Points. The home belonged to Carmela Aliffi and her then-husband, Bear. Carmela and her friends were steaming wallpaper of
Our second podcast, This is Love, is back. We’re sharing this first episode with Criminal listeners - we hope you like it. If you want to hear more, subscribe to This is Love in Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Learn more at www.thisislovepodca
We spend the day in a police car in Austin, Texas. For a transcript of this episode, send an email to [email protected] with the episode name and number. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter
This episode picks up where Episode 100 left off. We suggest you listen to them in order. When Martin McNally met another plane hijacker in prison, they started coming up with a plan to escape...using the very thing that got them there in the first p
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.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the s
There is nothing Richard "Racehorse" Haynes of Houston, Texas wouldn't do to win a case. He’s widely considered to be one of the most exceptional criminal defense attorneys America has ever seen. He was notorious for pulling stunts in the courtroom.
Three of America's most experienced trauma surgeons speak with us about what happens when someone is shot.
Special thanks to Dr. Amy Goldberg, Dr. David Spain, and Dr. Ronald Stewart.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for
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 th
When Tyler Wetherall was a kid, her mother and father packed up the family car and drove through the night. They were on the run from the FBI. And by the time she was 9, Tyler had learned how to communicate in codes, adapt to new countries, and to ne
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 tr
Mark Roberts has attended almost every major sporting event in the world. And he's been escorted off the field almost every time.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and
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.
To
This episode picks up where Episode 91 left off. We suggest you listen to them in order. The early 20th century's biggest murder trial, and a particular brand of "madness." Visit thisiscriminal.com to see rare photographs from Harry Thaw's trial. Cam
The story behind the face of New York's Gilded Age. For more information, check out Paula Uruburu's book, American Eve.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us
The U.S. Navy attempted to develop a shark attack repellant after many sailors were attacked during WWII. The first step was the formation of a "Shark Research Panel," which led to what we have today: the International Shark Attack File. When someone
SPOILER WARNING: Please listen to our first episode about Sheila, Episode 88: Cold Case, before you listen to this one.
This episode contains descriptions of violence and may not be suitable for everyone.
Sheila Wysocki became a private investigator
In 1984, Sheila Wysocki found herself helping the police investigate the murder of her college roommate, Angela Samota. Detectives asked her to help gather information, and even sent her out to dinner with the main suspect, a man named Russell Buchan
David Dovala has lived in Casper, Wyoming since he was 19. He’s worked all kinds of cases, first as a detective and later as sheriff, but a 1973 murder stays with him. This episode contains descriptions of sexual assault and may not be suitable for e
Before he was 10 years old, Willie Bosket had skipped school, started fires, picked pockets, and stolen a car. A psychiatrist at Bellevue called him the "saddest little boy she’d ever seen.” By the time he was 16 years old, he was known all over New
In 1993, Mildred and Trevor Horn, along with their live-in nurse Janice, were found murdered in their Montgomery County home. A Maryland police spokesperson described the homicide investigation as the most "exhaustive and labor intensive" in the depa
In 1971, David Alexander went for a run in Central Park and started talking to a stranger. For our first episode of This Is Love, a story about what's possible when we bet everything on each other. We speak with David, Jody, and Julienne Alexander.
L
In the 1950s poodles were all the rage — one tabloid even reported that when a girl “makes the big time she traditionally acquires 3 things — minks, gems, and a poodle.” But one poodle in particular put the breed on the map. His name was Masterpiece.
There is a group in Durham, NC called "Parents of Murdered Children." This week, we meet three of its members.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple
In 1892, a gruesome murder took place in a small fishing village in Argentina. The police had a suspect who would not confess. What happened next would change the way murders were investigated around the world.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Inst
As a child, Lawrence Lessig was a gifted singer. His church choir director encouraged him to attend a choir camp at a prestigious boarding school in New Jersey. He was so talented that the school invited him to stay and join their official choir. He
Three mysteries we can’t stop thinking about. The first is about an impossible photo taken at a bed & breakfast in Etna, California.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show
In 1988, a man in Hickory, North Carolina named Willie Grimes was sentenced to life in prison for raping and kidnapping a 69-year-old woman named Carrie Lee Elliot. He was convicted with evidence experts would later call “junk science.” It took him 2
Helen Duncan was a famous medium who travelled around Britain in the 1940s performing séances. She claimed to speak to the dead, and even produce physical manifestations of their spirits. But when Helen Duncan seemed to know wartime secrets about the
In 1993, Gerald Boggs of Steamboat Springs, Colorado was found dead in his home. He'd been burned with a stun gun, hit with a shovel, and shot several times. The victim's wife, Jill Coit, was the primary suspect, but she had an alibi for the estimate
In 1962, brothers John and Clarence Anglin, along with fellow incarcerated person Frank Morris, managed to escape the one prison in America that was supposed to be inescapable: Alcatraz. Alcatraz is surrounded by icy waters, so the men would’ve neede
The Tennessee Walking Horse has a natural gait that's famously smooth. And, if trained in a certain way, it can perform a walk that's even more spectacular, called the Big Lick. But, there's a secret behind how, exactly, these horses are trained to d
"I keep saying 'where's the body? Kill someone,'" Marilyn Stasio told us. She reads at least 200 crime novels a year to determine which are worthy of her prestigious "Crime Column" in the New York Times Book Review. We talk with her about crime as en
In 1993, more than 1,000 levees broke along the Mississippi River, flooding thousands of acres. Most of these cases were accidents due to the river rising well above its usual levels. But in West Quincy, Missouri, there was another culprit, James Sco
At the turn of the century, Carry Nation was “America’s foremost lady hellraiser” and "the apostle of reform violence.” A radical member of the temperance movement, Carrie Nation was known for attacking saloons, bars, and pubs with a hatchet engraved
As long as 2,500 years ago, Native Americans placed the bones of their dead in giant mounds of earth in the shape of animals. The Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa was created to protect one set of these - and the bones inside. But in 2011, a n
Amber Dawn was 20 when she moved into a one-bedroom apartment in Enumclaw, Washington. On her very first night, she began to notice strange sounds. And they didn't stop.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newslet
In 1967, a very unlikely group of individuals gathered to help women quietly break the law and obtain an abortion. The first step was to call a phone number. A recording of a woman's voice would tell you what to do next.
Who was behind this number?
Shortly after David Brown was sworn in as the Dallas Chief of Police, his son shot and killed a police officer. Just before he retired as chief, 5 Dallas officers were shot and killed in what was said to be the deadliest attack for police officers si
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. Forensic Anthropologists observe decomposition in o
On a Sunday morning in 1982, in Des Moines, Iowa, Johnny Gosch left his house to begin his usual paper route. A short time later, his parents were awakened by a phone call – it was a neighbor — their paper hadn't come. His would be the first face of
Skidmore, Missouri is a very small town. In the '70s, there was only one bar, one grocery store, and one bully. Ken McElroy was so ruthless and intimidating that even police officers looked the other way. He terrorized the town for decades, until the
In 1928, Huey P. Long became the youngest Governor in Louisiana’s history. He bragged that he bought lawmakers like “sacks of potatoes, shuffled ‘em like a deck of cards.” By the time he was 39 years old, he’d made his way to the U.S. Senate. And jus
The Colorado Department of Transportation says the 420 mile markers on the state's highways were stolen so often, they had to replace them with 419.99 mile markers. Many people know that "420" represents marijuana - hence the popularity of the mile m
Kim Dadou says she wishes she had a nickel for every person who has asked why she didn't leave her abusive boyfriend Darnell Sanders. The two dated for four years and Darnell Sanders was routinely violent. But in the middle of the night on December 1
In 2014, 16-year-old Wildin Acosta left Olancho, Honduras and traveled toward the U.S. border. When he arrived, he turned himself in to border patrol agents. He was one of 68,541 unaccompanied minors who crossed the border into the U.S. that year. We
People have faked death to escape criminal convictions, debts, and their spouses. In 2007, a man named Amir Vehabovic faked his death just to see who showed up at the funeral (answer: only his mom). John Darwin faked his own death in a canoeing accid
In 2005, Teri Knight drove 650 miles on midwestern roads through Ohio, Indiana, Iowa and Illinois, pleading with the public to help her do what law enforcement and the FBI had not been able to: find the remains of her children Sarah and Philip Gehrin
In 1849, abolitionist and attorney Wendell Phillips wrote: "We should look in vain through the most trying times of our revolutionary history for an incident of courage and noble daring to equal that of the escape of William and Ellen Craft; and futu
In 2010, Michael McIntosh's son was incarcerated at the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility in the small town of Walnut Grove, Mississippi. One Sunday, Michael McIntosh went to visit his son and was turned away because, he was told, prison offic
To close out 2016, we're bringing you two lighter stories of people exhibiting everyday genius under. . . unusual circumstances. Comedian Dave Holmes' story begins with an upsetting phone call from the IRS. Then we meet a Baton Rouge attorney with a
Since 1938, a weekly African-American owned newspaper called The Evening Whirl has covered crime in St. Louis with a style all its own, using alliteration and rhyme, and often omitting the usual crime-reporting words like "accused" or "alleged." The
The Magic Castle in Hollywood has been a private club for magicians since 1963, and its walls are lined with portraits of magicians past and present. Among them is a portrait of one of the earliest American organized crime bosses and conmen, Jefferso
SPOILER WARNING: Please listen to Episode 53: Melinda and Judy before you listen to this one.
Melinda Dawson found out on the same day in 1998 that her adoptive mother had been killed and that her own husband Clarence Elkins was being charged with th
When Melinda Dawson was seven years old, she learned that she was adopted under suspicious circumstances. As she got older and had children of her own, she tried to learn something about her biological parents. And when she went to the county courtho
SPOILER WARNING: Please listen to Episode 51: Money Tree before you listen to this one.
While working on our last episode, we became curious about the nature of psychopathy -- how it is defined, and what to do if someone close to you meets the criter
When Axton Betz-Hamilton was 11 years old, her parents' identities were stolen. At that time, in the early 90s, consumer protection services for identity theft victims were basically non-existent. So the family dealt with the consequences as best the
To celebrate Criminal's 50th episode, we check in with some of our most memorable guests including Fran Schindler from Episode 17: "Final Exit," Dan Stevenson from Episode 15: "He's Neutral," Corporal Scott Foster from Episode 29: "Officer Talon," an
In November of 1988, Robin Woods was sentenced to sixteen years in the notoriously harsh Maryland Correctional Institution. In prison, Robin Woods found himself using a dictionary to work his way through a book for the first time in his life. It was
2008 was an exciting time to be a Harry Potter fan. The final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, had been released. Movies were on the way. And author Melissa Anelli was at the center of it all, running a popular fan site called The Leaky Ca
Shortly after Meridy Volz moved from Milwaukee to San Francisco, she received a phone call from a friend asking her to take over a small bakery business. Meridy agreed to run the bakery, but she only wanted to sell one thing: pot brownies. Her browni
There are more tigers in captivity in America than wild tigers in the entire world. The exact number of captive tigers in this country isn't known, because many of them live in people's backyards or unaccredited zoos, and the legality of their owners
As a law student, Bryan Stevenson was sent to a maximum security prison to meet a man on death row. The man told Stevenson he'd never met an African-American lawyer, and the two of them talked for hours. It was a day that changed Stevenson's life. He
Not only was John Frankford a famous horse thief, he was also a notoriously good escape artist. People thought no jail was strong enough to keep him, but then in 1895 he was sentenced to Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary. At Eastern State, Fr
In 1979, a group of labor organizers protested outside a Ku Klux Klan screening of the 1915 white supremacist film, The Birth of a Nation. Nelson Johnson and Signe Waller-Foxworth remember shouting at armed Klansmen and burning a confederate flag, un
People have been giving each other "the finger" since Ancient Greece. The first documented use is said to be a photograph from 1886 in which the pitcher for the Boston Beaneaters extends his middle finger to the camera (ostensibly to the rival New Yo
Since 1965, there's been an unsolved murder in Houston, Texas. The main suspect, Charles Rogers, managed to disappear and police were never able to find him. The case is still considered open. In 1997, a couple of forensic accountants named Hugh and
When it comes to Kentucky bourbon, Pappy Van Winkle is among the most exclusive, according to food writer Brett Anderson. The bourbon is prized for its wheat base and special barrels for aging, handpicked by Julian Van Winkle III, the president of Ol
In 1983, three men were prepared to plead guilty to the violent sexual assault of Elizabeth Daniel in Anderson, South Carolina. Defense attorneys did not want their clients to go before a jury, so they arranged a plea deal. This left the sentencing i
Jane Toppan was born in Massachusetts in 1857. She attended the Cambridge Nursing School, and established a successful private nursing career in Boston. Said to be cheerful, funny and excellent with her patients, nothing about "Jolly Jane" suggested
In 2010, an eighth-grader brought a loaded gun to a middle school in Hastings, Minnesota. We speak with Jake Bullington and Emma Bolters, two students at the school, and Mark Zuzek, the principal, about the hours in lockdown.
Read Jake Bullington's e
The 500-year-old Treaty Oak in Austin, Texas was once called "the most perfect specimen of a North American tree." But in 1989, Austin's city forester John Giedraitis realized that the Treaty Oak didn't look so good, and began to wonder whether someo
As a young woman in the 60s, Andy Austin talked her way into a job as a courtroom sketch artist in Chicago. She spent 43 years sketching everyone from disgraced governors to John Wayne Gacy, and says she only made someone look bad on purpose once.
Se
Michael Ross was the first person in Connecticut to be sentenced to death since 1960. He claimed that he wanted to die in order to atone for what he had done. One journalist spent twenty years trying to figure out whether or not his remorse was real.
Sgt. David Mascarenas is the Dive Supervisor for the Los Angeles Police Department. He's been diving his whole life, and prides himself on never refusing a dive, no matter how treacherous. At least until the summer of 2013, when a murder investigatio
Ed Crawford had never been to a protest until he heard about the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Robert Cohen, a staff photographer with the St. Louis Post Dispatch, ended up taking a photograph of Ed that would be seen around the wo
When we're kids, we have ideas of what we want to be when we grow up -- movie star, doctor, astronaut. But what if we dream of being like Butch Cassidy, Jesse James, or John Dillinger? And what happens when you're not a kid anymore but you're still o
In 2005, Danny Egipciaco had the opportunity to participate in a robbery of a drug supplier's stash house. He was told he'd take home between $100K-200K. In the end, the robbery never happened, so why has Danny spent the last ten years at Fort Dix Co
Corporal Scott Foster of the Hillsborough, NC Police Department worked closely with his K-9 partner, Talon, for many years. They located weapons and narcotics, tracked suspects through dark woods, and went home together after work. But when Talon was
Patti Hammond Shaw is a transgender woman. She's legally female on her birth certificate and driver's license, and has been since 1993. But when she was arrested in 2009, male officers strip-searched her in front of male detainees, and held her overn
In the early 90s, a wealthy magazine publisher was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 18 months in a minimum security prison in Louisiana. But white collar criminals weren't the only people living there, and the other people inside had basically bee
In July of 2002, Philadelphia Homicide Detective Pat Mangold was called to the scene of a gruesome murder on the Schuylkill River. When he wasn't able to determine the victim's identity, he expected the case to remain unsolved. But then, out of the b
More than eighty years ago, a North Carolina family of nine posed for a Christmas portrait. Two weeks later, all but one of them had been shot dead. (See the portrait here.) Today, we bring you the story of the Lawson family of Stokes County.
Thanks
In February of 1896, a little boy discovered a woman's headless body in a farmer's field in Fort Thomas, Kentucky. No one knew who she was, or what had happened. Newspapers carried headlines like "Hunt for the Head" and "Headless Horror." Quickly, th
The Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona has the largest collection of petrified wood in the world. The beautiful wood is more than 200 million years old, and visitors to the park often take a little piece home with them as a souvenir. But steal
Hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of rare books have been disappearing across America since the late 90s, and haven't resurfaced in the marketplace. They've just vanished, never to be seen again. But unlike most thieves, this thief is motivated
Julius Robinson had killed for revenge before, and so when his sister was brutally murdered in her sleep last year, he says he planned to "get" the killer. He felt like his family expected him to get revenge, because that's what he'd always done, bot
Karen Miller met a man named Gil Harper on Facebook. They started flirting. The flirtation grew more serious. Eventually, they planned to meet in real life. Gil would travel from London to meet Karen for her birthday. With his arrival just a few days
Sandie Alger is a 71-year-old woman with a very long rap sheet. She was in and out of prison throughout the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, and upped her game each time she got out. Prison, she says, is where you move "up the criminal ladder, just like the corp
This episode won a “Best Documentary” award at the Third Coast International Audio Festival.
Police officer John Edwards was patrolling a quiet neighborhood in Bellaire, Texas when he saw an SUV driven by two young Black men, including Robbie Tolan.
No one disputes that it's against the law to take another person's life, but is it against the law to sit with someone and watch while they die by suicide? We meet an elderly woman named Fran Schindler who sneaks around the country as an "exit guide.
On July 17th, 1889, the residents of Clayton County, Iowa woke up to news of the worst crime in their history. A Civil War veteran John Elkins and his young wife Hattie had been murdered in their bed in a grisly attack. Their two children escaped to
Dan Stevenson has lived in Oakland's Eastlake neighborhood for 40 years. He says crime has been an issue for as long as he can remember, but he isn't one to call the police on drug dealers or sex workers. He's a pretty "live and let live" kind of guy
In June 2014, authorities released information about a massive child pornography ring being conducted in North Carolina. Four suspects had already been arrested, and the police were asking the public for help finding a fifth suspect. But they didn't
Raymond Chandler is often called the greatest American crime novelist, famous for murder mysteries like The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely. He's the subject of several biographies, and his correspondence and manuscripts are archived at Oxford. But
In 1999, most of America's tech hysteria centered around Y2K. But at that same time, a teenager in Canada named Mike Calce was messing around in chat rooms, meeting hackers, and learning tricks. At 15, he decided to put his knowledge to the test. To
In 1977, a mild-mannered aeronautical engineer sideswiped a parked car in Compton, CA. When he stopped his car to survey the damage, a man named Leon Moore opened the driver-side door, shoved him over, and started driving. He said, "I'm about to save
Working as a reporter for a TV station in New Hampshire, Kevin Flynn was covering the capture and arrest of a female serial killer named Sheila LaBarre. As he grew more and more obsessed with LaBarre’s story, Flynn decided to write her a letter. She
What does it mean when a woman commits a crime and attributes her actions to PMS? We revisit the first use of the "PMS defense" in this country, back in 1981. What have we learned about the science of PMS since then? Last year, the American Psychiatr
In March 1964, a 35-year-old African-American woman named Johnnie Mae Chappell was walking along the side of the road in Jacksonville, Florida. Four white men were driving around listening to the local race riots on the radio. They had a gun on the d
Crime victims are often put under the same scrutiny as the accused. Not only for their version of events, but sometimes for how they look and talk, too. We meet a man whose trial hurt worse than his assault.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagr
On April 13, 2014, former KKK member Frazier Glenn Cross pulled into a Jewish Community Center and ambushed William Corporon and his grandson Reat Griffin Underwood, killing both. He then killed another woman named Terri LaManno a short distance away
Every year for the past few years, tens of thousand of flytraps have gone missing – from the wild, from gardens, from nurseries. And, really, nobody knows where they go. What’s cropped up in rural North Carolina is essentially a Venus Flytrap crime r
There are plenty of things we don't share with our mothers. Dark, sad things. Unless of course, you both speak the same dark language. Kathleen Vernon is a coroner in Albany County, Wyoming, the youngest ever, in fact. But she didn’t come to this pre
With the advent of the Inkjet printer, counterfeiting money became as simple as a trip to Staples. By the year 2000, there were 72 million of these homemade dollars in circulation. The real question is… who was behind them all?
Today, we talk to a wo
For nearly a century we've been trying to read someone's truthfulness by the way they act. Be it through machines, or our own intuition. The police have tried. The FBI has tried. The CIA has tried. But the fact is… most of their efforts just don't wo
In 2001, Kathleen Peterson was found dead in her home. Her husband Michael Peterson was convicted of her murder. A curious neighbor, a lawyer named Larry Pollard, had a different theory.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up f