True Crime Historian

The Murder Of Myrtle MellusJump To Ad Free Safe House EditionEpisode 350 relates the tale of a love triangle ending in tragedy when a Hollywood socialite is found murdered after one of her regular trysts with her young lover. There’s a lot of drinking and debauchery involved in this, and we never really get all the details of this sordid liaison, but just enough to spark the imagination.Hear About More FALLS FROM GRACEBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

The Murder Of Bessie LittleJump To The Ad-Free SAFE HOUSE editionEpisode 348 takes place in Dayton, Ohio, just up the Great Miami River from my hometown. I'm trying to come up with a name for this particular narrative trope, the murder of a woman by a man whose child she is carrying -- consequently also the murder of an unborn child. There is some question in this case if Bessie Little was actually pregnant. But the point is, somebody thought she was.The word I came up with: Pregnicide.Explore More Stories Of PregnicideBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

The Trunk In Minnie Lee Griffin’s BasementJump To Ad-Free Safe House EditionEpisode 347 is a cautionary tale about what can go wrong if you get too involved in the lives of your grown children. When the widow Minnie Lee Griffin thought that her son-in-law was being pursued by a beautiful neighbor, she resorted to subterfuge to save her daughters marriage, and eventually to murder.Explore More Trunk Murders!!Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

Demise Of The Whittemore GangJump to the Ad-Free Safe House EditionEpisode 345 follows the end of the career of the leader of  a notorious East Coast gang that terrorized Baltimore and several New York Cities in their bloody quest for money and diamonds. The exciting narrative includes descriptions of several of the gang’s violent heists.Find More Stories About Jail BreaksBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

The Corruption Of Lieutenant Charles Becker.Jump to Ad-Free Safe House EditionEpisode 116 is a story about police corruption in New York’s Tenderloin District at the turn of the last century. The Tenderloin District around Broadway was so named by the police because there was a lot of graft to be made and they were able to stop eating chuck steak and started eating tenderloin. Maybe that helped dull the foul taste of corruption in their mouths. The trouble starts when gambling house operator Herman Rosenthal gets double crossed by his business partner, Charles Becker, who happens to also be a police lieutenant. Rosenthal is so upset, he decides to name names in front of a grand jury. Yeah. That’s not going to end well.More Falls From GraceBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

The Brutal Murder of Gussie PfeifferJump To The Ad-Free Safe House EditionEpisode 115 is a baffling case indeed. The body of a young factory girl who had been missing for three days is found “brutalized,” as the euphemism goes, before being murdered and her body dumped near a historic tree in the Bronx. How long had she been there? How long had she been dead? With few clues to go on, police head to the mountains upstate, and to the sea, and who knows where else to find the elusive man the press called “a human gorilla”.Explore More ManhuntsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

The Cleveland Kaber ConspiracyBy Marjorie WilsonJump to Ad-Free Safe House EditionEpisode 114Back in the golden ages of newspapers, it was common for them to publish serialized novels of romance, adventure,and intrigue, but true crime serials were not quite so common. But here is a novella-length  story published in nineteen chapters in five parts by newspapers in 1921 when Eva Kaber was standing trial for leading a plot to murder her invalid husband. It’s a crazy, crazy story of Italian assassins, fortune tellers, and Pinkerton detectives conspiring with amateur spies to bring an elaborate murder plot to light.More Stories With PinkertonsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

The Cleveland Kaber ConspiracyBy Marjorie WilsonJump to Ad-Free Safe House EditionEpisode 114Back in the golden ages of newspapers, it was common for them to publish serialized novels of romance, adventure,and intrigue, but true crime serials were not quite so common. But here is a novella-length  story published in nineteen chapters in five parts by newspapers in 1921 when Eva Kaber was standing trial for leading a plot to murder her invalid husband. It’s a crazy, crazy story of Italian assassins, fortune tellers, and Pinkerton detectives conspiring with amateur spies to bring an elaborate murder plot to light.More Stories With PinkertonsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

The Scoundrel Albert BrownleeJump To Ad-Free Safe House EditionEpisode 344 takes place in the Pacific Northwest and follows the career of a World War I veteran who returns to a life of crime. This fellow’s a peck of trouble, and since the Huns didn’t get him, the state of Oregon will.Find More Stories About CAPITAL CRIMESBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

The Scoundrel Herman KabanskyJump To Ad-Free Safe House EditionThere’s a lot of action packed into Episode 343. In addition to a drunken shooting spree and a heroic policeman, the story packs in an escape from jail, an attempted suicide, and a whole lot of courtroom and jailhouse dramatics.Find More Stories About Jail BreaksBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

A Bloody Riot In BirminghamJump To The AD-FREE SAFE HOUSE EDITIONEpisode 342 is dedicated to listeners Paula Wellman and Marcie Braden, who along with the Historic Birmingham Facebook group suggested this case and provided me with tons of research. It is a double tragedy, a brutal family murder followed by a massacre in the city streets as a diligent sheriff flexes the strong arm of the law.Find More Stories About CAPITAL CRIMESBecome 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

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 Edition

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.

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.

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 subscription

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.

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.p