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The historical true-crime podcast that uncovers old blood with each new episode. Join us as a historian investigates history's most fascinating cases of true crime.
45 Episodes
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In 1906, the mutilated body of young sales clerk James Logan was discovered on Southern California’s grandest resort hotel, The Raymond. When an African American tailor was accused of the crime, the city’s allegiances split. Half of the city of Pasadena wanted the man condemned to death, but the other half fought to save him, believing he had been framed. Sources: Biery, Bryan. “The Princes: Pasadena’s Regal Family.” Colorado Boulevard Newspaper. 12 March, 2024. https://www.coloradoboulevard....
A sexy death mystery unfolded in 1931 New York City, when a socialite washed up on the shores of Long Island. Was her death an accident, a suicide, or foul play at the hands of the many prominent men she knew? Sources: Allhoff, Fred. “The Starr Faithfull Enigma.” Liberty. June 12, 1939. Pp. 20-23. “Five Starr Faithfull.” TIME. June 29, 1931. https://time.com/archive/6747467/the-press-five-starr-faithfull/ Goodman, Jonathan. The Passing of Starr Faithfull (Kent: The Kent State University Pre...
The first ‘Murder by Mail’ was sent to Mrs. Josephine Barnaby in 1891 in the form of an arsenic-laced whiskey bottle. When she and a friend drank the whiskey, both fell violently ill. The resulting murder trial would tear families apart for decades to come. Sources: Conrad, Barnaby. A Revolting Transaction (New York: Arbor House, 1983). Day, Martin C. Death in the Mail (Providence: The Journal Print, 1892). Galpern, Jennifer L. “Happy New Year…in April?” The Rhode Island Historical Society....
A fatal 1869 shooting at the New York Tribune led to a contentious debate about love, divorce, and women’s rights in America. Sources: Cazauran, A. R. The Trial of Daniel McFarland for the Shooting of Albert D. Richardson (New York: W. E. Hilton, 1870). Cooper, George. Lost Love: A True Story of Passion, Murder, and Justice in Old New York (Pantheon Books: New York, 1994). Ganz, Melissa J. “Wicked Women and Veiled Ladies: Gendered Narratives of the McFarland-Richardson Tragedy.” Y...
Texas authorities arrested George Hassell on Christmas Day of 1926 after his wife and her eight children went missing. George cried, “I did it,” then confessed to the murder of another family ten years prior in California. This is his story. Sources: Churchill, Marlowe J. “Hassell offered detailed confession.” The Eastern New Mexico News. 3 September, 2019. https://www.easternnewmexiconews.com/story/2019/09/04/news/hassell-offered-detailed-confession/162888.html “George J Hassell’s Murderous ...
A deadly shooting at London’s extravagant Savoy Hotel in 1923 prompted a murder trial that pitted East against West. Was the tragedy the result of a pharaoh’s curse or merely the consequence of a lover’s quarrel? Sources: Bland, Lucy. “Mme Fahmy’s Vindication: Orientalism, miscegenation fears, and female fantasy,” in Modern Women on Trial: Sexual Transgression in the Age of the Flapper (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013). Pp. 132-175 Leake, Natasha. “How a beguiling French...
Six nurses threatened to storm out of the Swope mansion in Missouri at the height of a 1909 typhoid epidemic, claiming that “people are being murdered in this house.” Was the Swope family dying of typhoid, or was it something more nefarious? Sources: Carus, W. Seth. Bioterrorism and Bicrimes: The Illicit Use of Biological Agents since 1900 (Amsterdam: Fredonia Books, 2002). Deel, Karla. Storied & Scandalous Kansas City: A History of Corruption, Mischief and a Whole Lot of Booze.(Lanham,...
Chicago crime reporters descended upon Ruth and Carl Wanderer’s Chicago home after the war hero’s wife was shot dead in a holdup at their front door. Who was the Ragged Stranger who assaulted them? And why did he have Carl Wanderer’s service weapon? Sources: Bigge, Lauren. “‘Shell Shock Treatments During World War I: A First Step Towards Modern Military Psychiatry.” National Museum of Health and Medicine. https://medicalmuseum.health.mil/index.cfm?p=media.news.article.2018.shell_shock_treat...
A boy’s shortcut through a Kentucky fruit farm in 1896 uncovered the headless body of a woman, later identified as Pearl Bryan. How did she get there? Who killed her? And where is her head? Sources: Gold, Rachel Benson. “Lessons from Before Roe: Will Past Be Prologue?”Vol. 6. Issue 1. Guttmacher Institute. https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2003/03/lessons-roe-will-past-be-prologue The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan, or: The Headless Horror. (Barclay & Co., 1896). Wilhelm, Robert. S...
The 1906 assault of a white woman in Chattanooga led to a murder and the U.S. Supreme Court’s first and only intervention in a state criminal trial. Sources: Curriden, Mark and Phillips, Leroy Jr. Contempt of Court: The Turn-of-the-Century Lynching that Launched a Hundred Years of Federalism (Faber & Faber, 1999). Hindley, Meredith. “Chattanooga versus the Supreme Court: The Strange Case of Ed Johnson.” National Endowment for the Humanities. Vol 35. No. 6. November/December 2014. https://...
In Part II of the murder that sparked a revolution, the Chamber of Peers investigates Duke Praslin for his wife’s brutal slaying. Sources: “ASSASSINAT DE MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE PRASLIN.” L’Ami de la religion, vol. 134. Paris. 1847. Eubule-Evans, A. “Letter to the Editor.” The Spectator, No. 3,396. 29 July, 1893. P. 16Greville, William Henry. Henry Greville’s Diary (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1883). Gronek, Oceane. “Small family murder at the Duke of Choiseul’s.” Chateau Blandy. https://...
In 1847, servants of Paris’s Hotel Sebastiani rushed to help Duchess Praslin after hearing her screams. This is part one of the murder that sparked a revolution. Sources: “ASSASSINAT DE MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE PRASLIN.” L’Ami de la religion, vol. 134. Paris. 1847. Eubule-Evans, A. “Letter to the Editor.” The Spectator, No. 3,396. 29 July, 1893. P. 16 Greville, William Henry. Henry Greville’s Diary (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1883). Gronek, Oceane. “Small family murder at the Duke o...
In 1929, a Kansas City housewife shot and killed her husband after a game of bridge. Twelve male jurors would decide her fate as newspapers across the country printed “post-mortems” of the fatal hand that led to his death. You have a limited offer you can use now, that gets you up to 48% off your first subscription or 20% off one-time purchases with code OBLOOD20 at checkout. You can claim it at: https://www.magicmind.com/OBLOOD20 Sources: Hill, Kate. “Nelly Gone: KCQ Traces the Kidnappi...
Countess Caterina Sforza was raised in the Renaissance court of Milan and survived the assassination of her father and husbands. She then proceeded to confront Cesare Borgia and his father, Pope Alexander VI. Who would win: the papacy or a woman? Get 45% off the Magic Mind bundle with my link: https://www.magicmind.com/OLDBLOODJAN #magicmind #mentalwealth #mentalperformance Sources: Allison, Charlie. “One Wrong Foot: An Alternate History of the Siege of Forli.” Sea Lion Press. 2...
On January 11, 1902, 15-year-old Nora Fuller responded to a nanny wanted advertisement in the San Francisco Examiner. She called her family an hour later, saying that she was hired and at the man’s home. When Nora never returned home, her brother visited the address to find it was a vacant lot. Sources: Dowd, Katie. “A want ad leads to an empty house–and a shocking murder that rocked San Francisco.” SFGATE. 17 October, 2016. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Nora-Fuller-missing-San...
A man murdered a woman in rural Pennsylvania after claiming she had cursed him with black magic. How did this region become known as the Hex Belt? And how could such a tragedy occur as recently as 1934? Sources: “A Look Back in History: Practice of witchcraft among PA Dutch rarely accurately portrayed to public.” Reading Eagle. 22 August, 2021. https://www.readingeagle.com/2018/08/01/a-look-back-in-history-practice-of-witchcraft-among-pa-dutch-rarely-accurately-portrayed-to-public/ Karlsen, C...
Edith Thompson faces the death penalty for her lover’s crime. How many deaths will there be before this affair ends? Sources: Blackburn, Jack. “Edith Thompson: posthumous pardon over husband’s murder a step closer.” The Times. 7 March, 2023. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/edith-thompson-posthumous-pardon-over-husband-s-murder-a-step-closer-s729dpg0q Lusher, Adam. “Laid to rest at last: Edith Thompson, victim of a ‘barborous, misogynistic’ death penalty.” 22 November, 2018. In...
A night out on the town turns deadly after a love triangle unravels in 1920s London. Sources: Blackburn, Jack. “Edith Thompson: posthumous pardon over husband’s murder a step closer.” The Times. 7 March, 2023. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/edith-thompson-posthumous-pardon-over-husband-s-murder-a-step-closer-s729dpg0q Lusher, Adam. “Laid to rest at last: Edith Thompson, victim of a ‘barborous, misogynistic’ death penalty.” 22 November, 2018. Independent. https://www.independe...
In 1889, a father discovered his daughter dead at the home of Dr. Etienne Deschamps, a dentist-surgeon and hypnotist. Was the death truly an accident? Or was it, as most of New Orleans believed, a murder? Sources: Castellanos, Henry C. New Orleans As it Was: Episodes of Louisiana Life (New Orleans: L. Graham & Son., 1895). Meletio, Donna M. “Leona Queyrouze (1861-1938) Louisiana French Creole Poet, Essayist, and Composer.” 2005. Louisiana State University, PhD dissertation. ...
In 1940, a principal snapped and went on a shooting spree at his Southern California junior high school. Who or what was to blame? Sources: Barer, Burl and Frank Giradot Jr.. A Taste For Murder (Denver: Wildblue Press, 2016). Ban, Thomas A. “Bromides” International Network for the History of Neuropsychopharmacology. 24 October 2013. https://inhn.org/inhn-projects/drugs/bromides Church, John. Pasadena Cowboy: Growing up in Southern California and Montana, 1925 to 1947 (Novato: Conover-Patter...
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