Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast

Close to midnight on May 17, 1951, four north Alabama lawmen drove to a bootlegger’s home to serve an arrest warrant. Before the clock struck twelve, the bootlegger lay dead in front of the house he shared with his wife and eight children, and three of the four officers were also dead. Afterward, a sixteen-year-old boy would face a series of trials that would divide a county and thrust the state o...

My guest today is Dr. Amy Helen Bell, author of "Under Cover of Darkness: Murders in Blackout London". She shares accounts of the terror, tragedy and crime experienced by Londoners during the blackout and the blitz in 1940s wartime Britain. More about the author here: https://amyhelenbell.com/ Interested in revisiting the serial killers mentioned in this episode? John Reginald Christie: https://ww...

My guest this week is award-winning journalist Ken Fortenberry, author of "Flight 7 Is Missing: The Search for My Father's Killer". He walks us through the ill-fated flight of Pan Am's luxurious "Romance of the Skies", a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser that mysteriously crashed into the Pacific Ocean in November of 1957. Forty-four people were killed, including his own father, who copiloted and navigated...

(Original publish date: 6/7/22) In this third and final part of my interview with Dr. Edgar Epperly, the "little minister" Lyn George Jacklin Kelly is examined as a primary suspect in the 1912 Villisca Axe Murders. Although Kelly spoke obsessively about the case and even confessed to the murders, many believed that the confession was the result of mental illness and police coercion. Dr. Epperly al...

(Original Publish Date: 5/31/22) Frank Fernando (F.F.) Jones seemed to be one of the most obvious suspects in the aftermath of the horrific 1912 Villisca Axe murders. He had a contentious business rivalry with the patriarch of the slain Moore family, Josiah (Joe) Moore, intensified further because Moore was having an affair with his daughter-in-law. However there was no direct evidence linking him...

One of my absolute favorites! This is the first of a three part interview I did with Dr. Ed Epperly about the notorious 1912 Villisca Axe Murders. (Original publish date 5/23/2022) This episode is sponsored by Strawberry .me. Get a $50 credit when you use our link: https://strawberry.me/notorious On June 9th (or) 10th, 1912, America experienced of the most notorious crimes in its history - the bru...

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Jenny Maxwell was one of Hollywood's "it girls", appearing in countless television shows and films. Arguably her most memorable role was that of Ellie Corbett in Elvis Presley's 1961 movie "Blue Hawaii", where she stole every scene she was in. But despite her professional success, her personal life was a mess, much of it due to alcohol, drugs and wild Hollywood p...

Late one evening in the summer of 1922, Henry Wilkens burst through the doors of the emergency room covered in his wife's blood. But was he a grieving husband or a ruthless killer who conspired with bandits to have her murdered? To find out, the San Francisco police turned to technology and a new machine that had just been invented in Berkeley by a rookie detective, a visionary police chief, and a...

On February 8, 1911, the Scott Mausoleum, a symbol of wealth for the Scott and Strong families in Erie, Pennsylvania, was desecrated by unknown vandals, coined by nationwide papers as ghouls. With the inside of the mausoleum heavily damaged - and a body missing - the crime set off shockwaves throughout the country during a time in which grave robbery, extortion and murder reigned supreme. Hundreds...

On April 15, 1973, the body of Virginia Olson was discovered near the campus of the University of North Carolina-Asheville in an area known as the Botanical Gardens. She had been raped and stabbed to death in horrifically brutal fashion. Police would investigate this crime for decades, and even hone in one one particular suspect, but it still remains unsolved today. My guests are brothers Brian Sa...

This is the first episode of Airship's new series about John Gotti on their American Criminal podcast. "Living in poverty as a young kid, John Gotti takes up mafia work very early on. He knows that the Gambino family is his ticket out, and he's willing to do whatever it takes to climb the ranks. Even if it means killing a guy." For more information about the podcast visit Airship's American Crimin...

Louis Ferrante is back on the show, sharing more of his extensive research into the history of the American Mafia. In volume two of his trilogy, called "Borgata: Clash of Titans", he focuses on the Mafia during the height of its power in the 1960s and 70s. In our interview he talks about the origins of the animosity between the mob and Bobby Kennedy, and how he believes Bobby's pressure led to his...

On a cold winter day in 1832, Sarah Maria Cornell was found dead in a quiet farmyard in a small New England town. When her troubled past and a secret correspondence with charismatic Methodist minister Reverend Ephraim Avery was uncovered, more questions emerged. Was Sarah’s death a suicide...or something much darker? Determined to uncover the real story, Victorian writer Catharine Read Arnold Will...

Happy New Year everyone! This Most Notorious Encore episode revisits my conversation with Alan Logan, originally released on May 19, 2021. Most of us are familiar with the critically acclaimed film called Catch Me If You Can, based on the autobiography of legendary confidence man Frank Abagnale. It's the story of a brazen teenage imposter who through charm and intellect was able to pass as an atto...

On a frigid day in 1843, Amasa Sprague, a wealthy Yankee mill owner, left his mansion to check on his cattle. On the way, he was accosted and beaten beyond recognition, and his body was left facedown in the snow. What followed was a trial marked by judicial bias, witness perjury and societal bigotry that resulted in the conviction of twenty-nine-year-old Irish-Catholic John Gordon. He was sentence...

Unwanted and neglected from birth, Barbara Graham had to overcome the odds just to survive. Her beauty was both a blessing and a curse—offering her too many options of all the wrong kind. Her innate sensitivity left her vulnerable to the harsh realities of the street, where she was left to fend for herself before she reached double digits. Her record of petty crimes spoke to a life that constantly...

South-east England, 1740s: War and heated politics bring the old practice of smuggling to new and dangerous heights. Violent gangs of smugglers terrorize communities and confound government attempts to stop them. The most famous of these, the Hawkhurst Gang, operate like a modern drug cartel fueled by illegal tea. They threaten witnesses and authorities, brandish weapons in public, and fight battl...

On Christmas night, December 25, 1843, in a serene village on Staten Island, shocked neighbors discovered the burnt remains of twenty-four-year-old mother Emeline Houseman and her infant daughter, Ann Eliza. In a perverse nativity, someone bludgeoned to death a mother and child in their home—and then covered up the crime with hellfire. When an ambitious district attorney charges Polly Bodine (Emel...

My guest this week is John Oller, author of the new book "Gangster Hunters: How Hoover's G-men Vanquished America's Deadliest Public Enemies". He walks us through the evolution of J. Edgar Hoover's Bureau in the early 1930s, highlighting some of the unsung federal agents that battled America's Depression Era bank-robbing outlaws and the pivotal crimes that helped shape the country's most storied l...

On this month's Most Notorious Encore episode, we revisit the "Autumn of Terror" with a popular interview first released on 11/21/2019, five years ago today.   One of the world's most preeminent Ripperologists, Tom Wescott, author of "The Bank Holiday Murders" and "Ripper Confidential" is my guest on this episode of Most Notorious. His extensive research into Jack the Ripper/Whitechapel murders gi...

Summer 1948. In the scenic, remote river town of Oregon, Illinois, a young couple visiting the local lovers’ lane is murdered. The shocking crime garners headlines from Portland, Maine, to Long Beach, California. But after a sweeping manhunt, no one is arrested and the violent deaths of Mary Jane Reed and Stanley Skridla fade into time’s indifference. Fast forward fifty years. Eccentric entreprene...

In early 1900s Indiana, John Terrell was the wealthiest man in Wells County, thanks to oil discovered on his farm. But when his youngest daughter, Lucy, became pregnant and entered into a forced marriage to abusive Melvin Wolfe, Terrell’s life and fortune unraveled in a tumultuous spiral of murder, a dramatic trial, and a descent into madness. My guest is Stephen Terrell, who has a very personal c...

In December of 1883 Peter Lazier, a traveling farm implement salesman, was shot in the heart during the botched robbery of a farmer and his wife in Prince Edward County, Ontario. Two men would be arrested and tried for the murder, but would the sparse evidence against them lead to freedom, prison or the gallows? My guest is Robert J. Sharpe, author of "The Lazier Murder: Prince Edward County, 1884...

Absinthe is a drink that has been both romanticized and demonized over the centuries. While the spirit was a favorite of avant-gardists like Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh and Baudelaire, it was also thought to be hallucinogenic and the catalyst for violent crime. My guest is Evan Rail, author of "The Absinthe Forger: A True Story of Deception, Betrayal, and the World’s Most Dangerous Spirit". He tell...

We revisit an interview from February 2020 in this Most Notorious Encore episode. In late October of 1928, authorities in the small town of Lake Bluff, Illinois discovered a grisly scene in the village hall basement. They found a young woman named Elfreida Knaak, naked, horribly burned and barely clinging to life, next to a furnace. From that point on, investigators would uncover a bizarre story,...