True Crime Historian

Father George Rapp ran the Harmony Society at Economy, Pennsylvania, by two commandments: celibacy for men whose wives he had evicted, and poverty for workers whose gold he hoarded. By 1846 the prophet was burning ledgers and stashing half a million in coin beneath his floor. He had it coming. Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podca...

The Trial and Execution of Amelia Dyer  Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 43 comes at the request of a listener across the great pond in the United Kingdom. We will be exploring the testimony from the trial of Amelia Dyer, who would take in infants and toddlers for adoption for a fee, and then murder the poor children for the profit. She is said to have once referred to herself as an...

For ten years, George Cassiday, known on Capitol Hill as the Man in the Green Hat, ran liquor to the United States Congress while four out of five of his customers voted dry. When Prohibition agents finally caught him in February of 1930, he took the hypocrites down with him. Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-hist...

The Nebraska Spree Killer Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 475 takes us on a wild ride across Nebraska with Charles Starkweather, a 19-year-old with a stolen shotgun, a 14-year-old companion who may or may not be kidnapped, and a string of dead bodies across the American plains that shocked a nation. Hear more stories about SERIAL & SPREE KILLERS. Become a supporter of this podca...

"The Merry Widow of Bicester" takes us to battle-torn England during World War II, when as if there wasn't already enough death and suffering, a jealous mistress plots to take out her man's wife. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support . You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and yo...

Born Elizabeth Bigley in a Ontario railway camp, she died Cassie Chadwick in an Ohio prison cell — and in between, she convinced the banks of northern Ohio that Andrew Carnegie was her shamefaced father and they were sitting on a gold mine. They were sitting on forged paper. The Queen of Ohio. Circa 1897–1904. Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.s...

The Reckless Reno Gang Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 92 takes place after the Civil War, when the Reno Brothers explored a new way to rob trains that inspired the James and Younger gangs. But even the wild and wily Reno brothers were no match for Allen Pinkerton and his detectives. Although it takes place in Indiana, this story has the trappings of a tale of the Old West: Daring r...

Andrew Jackson's Secretary of War spent a decade courting a married woman, arranged her husband's convenient posting to the Mediterranean, and married her six weeks before the 1829 inauguration. The Cabinet collapsed. Calhoun was destroyed. Jackson never recovered. John Henry Eaton walked away clean. Washington City's most elegant arsonist. Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Become a supporter...

Family Tragedy in Rising Sun Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 89. In a lot of these stories from the old newspapers, the press coverage and the locale itself often take on the attributes of characters in the drama. In this case, the town of Rising Sun, Indiana, seems to evolve as the story progresses. When one of the town matrons, the spinster Lizzie Gillespie is found assassinated i...

Clyde Tolson ran personnel and discipline at the FBI for 44 years — the man who hired, promoted, and silenced the agents who carried out J. Edgar Hoover's illegal surveillance campaigns. He built the compliant machine. He signed the memos. He inherited the house. History gave him the quiet burial he counted on. Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www....

The Case Of Bathsheba Spooner Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 474 takes place in 1788 when the secrets of a prosperous Massachusetts family are revealed, beginning with a dead body in the bottom of a well. By spring, four people would hang because of what came to light. One of them was a woman. One of them was pregnant. Hear More Stories About FEMMES FATALE!!!! Become a supporter of...

Wu Zetian entered the Tang court as a teenage concubine in 638. By 690, she'd murdered her way to the Dragon Throne — the only woman in Chinese history to rule as Emperor. She stuffed rivals into wine jars, built a secret police, and spent her final years afraid of house cats. Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-his...

Episode 130 Murder By Fire, by Brandon White The Abominable Mr. Yelverton, by Edmund Pearson The American Exchange Bank Robbery, By Cleveland Moffat Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support . You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can ge...

William N. Roach embezzled sixty thousand dollars from a Washington bank, fled to Dakota Territory, and returned the money just fast enough to dodge prison. Fourteen years later, a Republican civil war handed him a U.S. Senate seat nobody voted for. The Senate tried to expel him. Time said no. Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podca...

The Mysterious Death of Louise Monteabaro In Jump To The AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 20, Police Chief Henry Blake’s story stays consistent throughout, from the time he reported the incident to the judge/acting coroner to the time that the dead girl’s aunt stabbed him in the neck: Miss Louise Monteabaro used her own gun to commit suicide in the passenger seat of her car. But according to tho...

Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 22 is an exciting story that has many of the elements of classic noir: A deadly robbery, an exhaustive manhunt, a daring escape from the county jail and a tense showdown ending with a clever police ploy. In the spring of 1918, three men burst into a business meeting and steal a mere pocketful of cash, but leave three men, including one of their own, d...

Gilded Age New York. William Magear Tweed rode Tammany Hall to the top and looted the city treasury through padded bills, phantom invoices, and kickbacks buried in plaster. His crowning theft was a courthouse whose $250,000 budget swelled past $12 million. In November 1873, a jury convicted him inside it. AD-FREE Safe House Edition Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podca...

The Assassination of Huey P. Long Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 473 takes us to Baton Rouge on the night of September 8, 1935, when a quiet young doctor walked into the Louisiana State Capitol and never walked out. He left no note. No confession. No explanation. Six people who stood beside him — or over him — tell the story he never told. Hear more episodes about ASSASSINATIONS!!!...

The Complicated Romance of Fannie Brice and Notorious Nicky Arnstein  Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition In Episode 60, we take a little break from murderous mayhem for a love story with a different kind of mayhem. The world of Broadway was quite aghast when Fannie Brice, a star of the Ziegfield Follies, took up with New York gambler Julius Wilford Arnstein, better known as Nicky, whose story...

In 1869, Medal of Honor recipient Daniel Butterfield took a ten-thousand-dollar bribe from Jay Gould to leak Treasury gold sales, helping trigger the Black Friday panic that bankrupted brokers and ruined farmers across the Midwest. The man who composed Taps sold out his country and never spent a day in prison. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historia...

Turned Into A Tigress By Her Borgia Blood. How A Criminal Acrobat Makes A Living Out Of His Genuine Broken Neck. How A Little Dog Avenged The Murder Of His Master. AD-FREE SAFE HOUSE EDITION Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support . You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can...

In 1902, Kansas Senator Joseph R. Burton walked a mail fraud operator into the Post Office inspector's office and made a federal investigation disappear. The price: twenty-five hundred dollars, paid in monthly installments. The first sitting senator convicted of a felony sold his office for the price of a used carriage. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crim...

The Murder Of Captain Joseph White Jump to AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 472 takes us back to Salem, Massachusetts in 1830 when an old man dead in his bed from thirteen stab wounds. The clues: an unlocked window and a fortune that was never what anyone thought it was. The plot implicates four young men from two of Salem's best families and involves one famous and very expensive lawyer. This i...

What’s In The Package Mr. Wainwright? Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 49 is adapted from our favorite true crime pioneer, Edmund Pearson, who worked in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. He was a librarian by training and profession, but first made his mark on the true crime canon with his unique take on the Lizzie Borden crime. He wrote several books and many magazine articles, a...

The Cincinnati Tanyard Murder Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 17 is a report from Lafcadio Hearn, on of my favorite Pioneers of True Crime. Although he became better known late in his career for his books on travel and on Japanese legends and ghost stories, Lafcadio Hearn began his professional writing career as a staff correspondent for the Cincinnati Enquirer. He was such a devote...