True Crime Historian

The Heinous Crime Of Carl WandererAd-Free Safe House EditionEpisode 286 relates one of the most reprehensible double murders we’ve yet to encounter. They’re all reprehensible, but there’s no question that the act of Carl Wanderer was spawned by truly evil intent.More stories of "Pregnicide"Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

Episode 140.Ad-Free Safe House Edition“The Bigamist And Her Murderous Husband: The Sweetwater Double Homicide” is the sordid tale of a love octangle (or something like that) when the suspiciously widowed husband of a girl married five times without a divorce gets fed up from the legal harassment from his wife’s elderly suitor. Culled from the historic pages of the Abilene Reporter and other newspapers of the era.More Love Triangles Gone AwryBonus Stories:“The Storybook Taxi Bandit” begins with a fidgety stranger walking into an Indiana cafe, soon to be followed by an interstate manhunt. Adapted from Master Detective, April 1935.More Manhunts“Stalking The Tiger Girl” tells of a Los Angeles detective’s pursuit of a sassy, auburn-haired hold-up artist who suddenly finds repentance after her arrest. Adapted from True Detective Mysteries, November 1929.More Femmes FataleBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

Episode 193 exposes two tales, one of lust and passion, one of lust for power.Ad-Free Safe House Edition"She Shot To Kill" is composed of two stories from the 1893 Omaha Daily Bee that tells of a deadly love triangle. There's a great contrast between the first day's coverage and the second."The Woman In The Wall" comes from the vintage pages of True Detective Magazine (vol. 56, no. 4), the story of a woman so consumed by ambition that she turns on the people who helped her on her journey. But you gotta know that like most of the journeys we discuss on this show, this one's not going to end well. More Femmes FataleBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

Life, Crimes and Confession of Bridget DurganAd-Free Safe House EditionEpisode 141 conveys the confession of an Irish immigrant, young but hardened by life, who after getting fired from her housekeeping job, resolves to murder her mistress. Once she gets the idea in her head, she can’t let it go. Adapted from a sensational pamphlet published in 1867, the first act is purported to be a confession penned by the culprit’s own hands, and the second part... well, let’s just say it’s not gonna end well for Bridget Durgan.More Femmes FataleBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

The Brutal Murder Of Mayme ShermanA True Crime Short Story by Richard O JonesAd-Free Safe House EditionOne of the factors behind my interest in historical true crime is that my hometown of Hamilton, Ohio, seems to have a particularly rich history of crime--murder in particular, but not just murder. I’ve done several local programs about the safecrackers, bandits, and other notorious characters. This short story, “Bacon On The Table,” concerns the third of three “bluebeard” killers in the first decade of the 20th century. The first was the murder of Hannah Knapp by Alfred Knapp in December, 1902. This is the subject of my book, “The First Celebrity Serial Killer.” But even before this crime came to light, Samuel J. Keelor tried to decapitate his wife on Valentine’s Day, 1903. You can read more about that story in my ebook, “The Sleepwalking Slasher.”The following year, just a week after Knapp paid the ultimate penalty for his crime, Charles Victor Sherman commits the horrible crime detailed in this episode.In more recent days, Hamilton is the hometown of “the Cross Country Killer” Glen Rogers, who murdered at least five people in 1994 and 1995, and probably more than that. He is currently on death row.And perhaps the most sensational of all Hamilton stories is the Easter Massacre of 1975, in which James Urban Ruppert gunned down his mother, his brother, and his brother’s wife and eight children. But friends, this was not Hamilton’s first mass family murder, but our third. In 1925, Francis Lloyd Russell shot eight members of his family one hot summer night (see the Two-Dollar Terror “Massacre On Prospect Hill”). And in October, 1929, the barber Charlie King opened the gas pipes in his house while his wife and five sons slept, then hopped on a northbound freight train (see the Two-Dollar Terror “The Gas Fume Fugitive”).I am also descended from murderers, although their crimes weren’t in Hamilton but in various Kentucky locations. Maybe I’ll tell you about those someday.More Hometown HorrorsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

Episode 195 shows Jolly Old England is not always so jolly as we take a look at three different cases with a body count of at least four wives and one mistress."Nineteen Dandelions" by Edmund Pearson tells the story of a distinguished poisoner."The Ugly Romeo" by Frank Cipriani tells of a serial bathtub murderer."The Bungalow Murder" is the story of a married man who loved his girlfriend to pieces.Ad-Free Safe House More stories from Edmund PearsonBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

The  Drummond AffairAd-Free Safe House EditionBook a bunk at The Safe House and have access to the largest repository of True Crime Historian episodes available on the WWWs.Episode 283 is adapted from the classic pages of True Detective (Vol. 4; No. 6, UK edition) with an international tale of mystery. When the bodies of a titled British couple and their young daughter turn up dead in a camping site on the farmlands in the shadow of the French Alps, a determined investigator is determined to find the culprit. Could it be a notorious deserter from the Foreign Legion? Does the peasant family  that found the body know more than they are telling? Is the whole town of Lurs in on the secrets behind the brutal deaths? Was the family assassinated for a secret? Or is this the result of an espionage caper gone wrongBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

The Saga of the Scoundrel Thomas McGehanA true crime short story by Richard O JonesAd-Free Safe House Edition-Episode 28 takes place on Christmas Eve 1870, when three men attack a local politician with boulders and slungshots, and at least a dozen men scramble for the door while five shots pepper the faro room at the American Saloon in Hamilton, Ohio, the hometown of True Crime Historian Richard O Jones. One of the bullets kills the politician, Thomas Myers, but in their haste none of the gamblers see who fired the shot. The blame falls on the leader of the gang of thugs who attacked Myers, his political rival Tom McGehean. At his trial, the famed former Congressman, exiled Copperhead, and gubernatorial candidate, Clement Vallandigham literally gives his life for McGehean's defense.Read-Along (more or less. It's not the exact same text)More Hometown HorrorsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

The Atrocities Of Albert FishI'D TURN BACK IF I WERE YOU!!!Episode 191 is without a doubt the vilest case you'll ever hear on this program because I don't think I could find a worse one if I tried. There's a lot of evil discussed here: torture, cannibalism, and more. Consider this your trigger warning: I'd turn back if I were you! Or at least put the kids to bed and plug in your ear buds. Keep this between us.Ad-Free EditionBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

The Murder Of Mary PhaganEpisode 183 tells of one of the most infamous cases of an innocent man wrongly accused. When a teenage factory girl is found dead in the basement of an Atlanta pencil manufacturer, blame falls on the mild-mannered Jewish superintendent of the plant, and the jury takes the word of a drunken janitor. It’ll take 70 years for the truth to come out.Ad-Free EditionBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

The Reily Mattock MurderEpisode 198 is centered on one of my favorite murder tropes, the so-called “eternal triangle,” between the cranky old farmer, his fading wife, and the handsome young farmhand. Yeah, that’s not going to end well, but they might have gotten away with it if they had just put the body across the tracks. It’s all in the details.Culled from the historic pages of the Hamilton Journal-News and other newspapers of the era.Ad-Free EditionBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

The Real ‘Chicago’ MurdersEpisode 352 explores the two murders that inspired the hit musical “Chicago,” which was based on a play by Maurine Watkins, who did some reporting on both cases as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. I’ll be joined by my colleague Susan Ferman, whose own podcast Catastrophic Calamities, will premiere next week on the Pulpular Media network. Susan will read about the case of Beulah Annan, who became Roxy Hart on stage. I will read the case of Belva Gaertner, who became Velma Kelly.Culled from the historic pages of the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News, and other newspapers of the era.This episode includes a reference to a fellow murderess Sabela Nitti, whose story you can hear about in True Crime Historian 230, The Ugly Duckling Murderess.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

The Trial Of Rattlesnake James, The Red-Headed BluebeardEpisode 192 gets a bit epic, but it’s the story that keeps on giving, with two botched murders and moral charges to boot, and things go from crazy to crazier when they bring a pair of rattlers named Lethal and Lightning into the courtroom.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

A Litany of HorrorEpisode 12 is a reading of the chilling confession of Herman Webster Mudgett, better known as H.H. Holmes, one of the most remarkable serial killers in American History. The whole nation was shocked and outraged in the waning years of the nineteenth century by the gruesome deeds of one Herman Mudgett, the arch fiend who took on the pseudonym H.H. Holmes as he prepared his famous "Castle of Death" in downtown Chicago. He was arrested for an insurance fraud in November 1894, but his string of murders, perhaps 200 in all, were soon revealed. He was convicted of one capital crime in Philadelphia, and while he awaited execution, he penned a confession detailing 27 murders that was published in newspapers across the country. He would recant this confession before he hanged, but really, you can't make this stuff up.Ad free Patreon edition with subscriptionBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

A Terrible Reign of MurderAbout the murders that inspired Martin Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon"Episode 214 digs deep into the files of the FBI and one of its early successful investigations during the tenure of J.Edgar Hoover, when the Bureau of Investigations looked into the murder of as many as 60 to 70 Osage Indians. The file includes a report by Agent Frank Smith as well as statements by informants who helped break the conspiracy. True Crime Historian welcomes guest reader Susan Ferman as Katherine Cole, one of these informants.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

YESTERDAY’S NEWS -- Tales of classic scandals, scoundrels and scourges told through vintage newspaper accounts from the golden age of yellow journalism...The Gillooly/Lannon AffrayEpisode 443 tells the story of the first officer to be killed in the line of duty in Kokomo, Indiana. But was the violent action against him provoked, or spurred on by a notorious local gang? The question divided the growing Indiana town.Culled from the historic pages of the Kokomo Saturday Tribune, the 1882 History of Howard County, and Jackson Morrow’s 1909 History of Howard County.We offer a special thanks to the staff at the Howard County Library’s genealogy room and listener Anthony R Jones, no relation, who saw the mobile production unit outside that library, where I was engaged in research on another matter. After I got his message telling me to look into the Mollihan gang, I dug around and came up with this episode.Residents of the Safe House can take a deeper dive into Kokomo’s criminal past in the case file posted at www.patreon.com/truecrimehistorian. ***A creation Of Pulpular MediaAlso from Pulpular Media:Portals to Possibility, an improvised mock-talk show that proves you don’t have to be human to be good people. Visit pulpular.com/portals2 for a brand-new episode.Catastrophic Calamaties, Exploring the famous and forgotten disasters of the 19th and 20th centuries. What could go wrong? Everything! Some listeners choose to support this podcast by checking in at the Safe House at www.patreon.com/truecrimehistorian, to get early access, exclusive content, and whatever personal services you require.Some listeners don’t want to pledge monthly support but just want to send a few bucks this way. You can do that at www.buymeacoffee.com/crimehistorian. You can also subscribe to a $5 monthly or $50 annual membership!***Musical contributors include Nico Vitesse, Lucia La Rezza, Joyie, Danielle Mo, Dave Sams, Rachel Schott and David Hisch.Some music and sound effects licensed from podcastmusic.com.Media management by Sean Miller-JonesRichard O Jones, Executive ProducerBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

The Mysteries Of Belle GunnessEpisode 308 examines the strange story of Belle Gunness, which came to light only after her house burned down with her body presumably inside and a dozen or so bodies buried in the yard. There’s a lot of conjecture and debate about this case still going on today.Culled from the historic pages of the Chicago Tribune, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, and other newspapers of the era. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

YESTERDAY’S NEWS --Tales of classic scandals, scoundrels and scourges told from historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism...The First Mrs. KinkeadEpisode 258 tells the sad story of a nurse who fell in love with her patient. If you can believe her story, she may have been led on a bit, maybe outright deceived by his promises of marriage. But then, he marries another and the nurse turns stalker.For your delight and indignation***Opening theme by Nico Vitesse.Incidental music by Nico Vitesse.Closing theme by Dave Sams and Rachel Schott, engineered by David Hisch at Third Street Music.Media management by Sean R. JonesProduction assistance by Emily Simer BraunRichard O Jones, Executive ProducerBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

Episode 256 we return to the mother of all murder mysteries, the case of Lizzie Borden in commemoration of the 125th anniversary of the verdict in her sensational trial, June 20, 1893. We again turn to the godfather of American True Crime, Edmund Pearson, the librarian who wrote slyly humorous takes of famous murder cases. His landmark essay, simply titled The Borden Case, makes up the first 119 pages of Pearson’s Studies in Murder, from which this episode is adapted.Bewilderment and indignation***A creation Of Pulpular MediaOpening theme by Nico Vitesse.Incidental music by Nico Vitesse.Closing theme by Dave Sams and Rachel Schott, engineered by David Hisch at Third Street Music.Media management by Sean R. JonesProduction assistance by Emily Simer BraunRichard O Jones, Executive ProducerBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

The Avondale HorrorEpisode 231 is a dark, dark tale of what happens when the population doesn’t die fast enough to keep the medical schools supplied with cadavers for dissecting: The resurrectionists start hitting people over the head to hasten the process and get their points. The reporting also includes some interesting stories about the craft of the grave robber.Culled from the historic pages of the Cincinnati Enquirer and other newspapers of the era.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.