True Crime Historian

The Grand Mogul Of The Texas Desperados Commercial Free Safe House Edition Episode 322 relates the downfall of one of the most desperate desperados of the Old West, John Wesley Hardin, the man so mean that it is alleged he shot a fellow just for snoring. Culled from the historic pages of the Galveston Daily News, The El Paso Times, and other newspapers of the era. More WILD WESTERNS Become a suppo...

The Capture Of Hong Di  Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 321 continues our exploration of stories from the Old West, this one from a ranch near Colusa when a Chinese cook, a mere boy of 17, opens fire with a rifle during the family meal. After a flight from justice, an unlikely hero captures the fugitive, who is put on trial while a vengeful crowd gathers outside demanding the extreme penalty of...

The Earp Brothers Take A Stand Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 319 takes us on a journey to one of the most famous gunfights in Old West history, the shoot-out at the OK corral. The first two thirds relates the story from the newspaper accounts of the day, while the third act gives a first-person account from Wyatt Earp himself. Culled from the historic pages of the Tombstone Epitaph, the Arizo...

She Conversed With The Devil Ad-Free Safe House Edition Recently widowed, eager to date, her family hated of her choice of a mate. So she put poison in their water. What a mean & devilish daughter! YESTERDAY’S NEWS --Tales of classic scandals, scoundrels and scourges told from historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism... Episode 317 explores the bizarre tale of Martha Wise who...

The Mysterious Case Of Alma Tirtschke Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 315 is the sad tale of a 12 year old Aussie girl who disappeared while running errands for her family. Her body was found naked and outraged the following morning. Based on the testimony of some spurious witnesses, as you shall hear, the crown executed the owner of a wine shop near the alley. But did they get the right man? M...

The Botched Execution of Eva Dugan Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 131 concerns the murky relationship between the mysterious hired wife, a Tucson rancher, and a young man who came to stay. It’s also about the dogged chase for the fugitive conducted by a determined sheriff, but the scene that strikes me most takes place in the office of a prison warden when they confront the suspected murderer...

The Trial Of Vera Stretz  She was his dedicated love slave and "office wife," until he pushed her too far. Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 133 is the story of a scholarly young artist whose married fiance tries to take things too far. This story is performed by our late friend Emily Simer Braun, reading the reporting from Alice Cogan, ace reporter for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. More Femmes Fatal...

A Secret Crime Spree Revealed By Murder Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 313 is the action-packed story of a pair of bands who met in juvenile jail, and embarked on a short-lived but deadly crime spree through the Wyoming Valley of Eastern Pennsylvania that included two murders, a shooting to kill, several home invasions, and a general disregard and disdain for social order and the rule of law....

Bannon Buries Bodies In The Haven Barn A family of six goes missing, and the only clue is a badly misspelled letter from a post office box that doesn't exist.  Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 312 tells the story of a disappearing farming family in North Dakota, who were said to have gone out West for the health of the wife and mother. But the young man left in charge has a strange story to tell...

The Lady Bluebeard Lyda Southard Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 310 is the tale of Lyda Trueblood Meyer Southard, who is credited with killing four husbands, a brother-in-law, and her own baby. Along with a sordid marital history, this tale has the bonus of a daring prison escape and a 15-month flight from justice. Culled from the historic pages of the Honolulu Star Bulletin, the Salt Lake Cit...

Mrs. Creighton’s Cocoa And Egg Nog The epic saga of Mary Frances Creighton and her web of adultery, pedophilia, and murder. Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 307 is the epic tale of the serial killer Mary Frances Quevada Avery Creighton, who is generally credited with three poisonings, although she was acquitted in court on the first two. But 12 years later, she will find herself ensnared in a ta...

Special Triple Feature Episodes 306, 309, 311 Jerry The Wildcat Ad-Free Safe House Edition Adapted from True Detective, vol. 56 no. 4, February 1952By Jonas BayerA cowboy rolls into Miles City, Montana, on his way back home to Iowa, and stops in a local cafe to buy a fellow ranch hand a drink. When he's found later, beaten nearly to death in an alley and his roll of bills missing, officials set ou...

The Lizzie Halliday Horrors Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 305 kicks off Lady Serial Killers Month with the strange story of Lizzie Halliday, the perpetrator of at least five, maybe six murders, and once you hear about those, you’ll wonder if maybe there weren’t a few more than that. In addition to six murders, the spice in this tale includes a near-lynching and the lunatic antics of the priso...

The Racine Street Bridge Horror When 14-year-old Hattie Zinka disappeared, people feared her body would be found in the river. It wasn't, but it was just as bad. Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 303 takes us back to 1909 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where a teenage girl disappears while walking home from her married sister’s house. The area was known as a dark, dangerous place, but she’d made the journ...

The Brutal Murder Of Ethel Mae Atkins Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 301 is an especially sordid tale, and I don’t belive all of the lurid details were revealed, although many of them hinted at as police and people who knew her inadvertently reveal uncomfortable truths even as they try to protect the dignity of the victim. But I think she just went on a bender and things took a dark fatal turn...

The Brownell-Bennett Dismemberments Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 300 recounts a grisly pair of murders that are uncovered when New York City residents begin finding stray body parts around Brooklyn. The reporting isn’t terribly graphic, but there are a few ghastly descriptions. There’s your trigger warning. Culled from the historic pages of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the New York Daily News,...

Berthe Claiche’s Revenge  Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 298 relates the sad story of Berthe Claiche, whom we met briefly in episode 297 when she gave a necklace to her cellmate, Josephine Terranova. I normally like to mix things up a bit, but these two tales have a lot in common, interesting back stories about immigrants struggling to adapt to American ways, courtroom theatrics, and sympathet...

Josephine Terranova’s Revenge Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 297 is a sad story about a young immigrant woman so abused by her relatives that when the truth is revealed to her newlywed husband, he breaks off the union. The teenage bride believes she has but one recourse: To do what God commands. Culled from the historic pages of the New York World and other newspapers of the era. More Femmes F...

Crime Club Founder Found Dead Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 134 takes place five months and one city block from Episode 133, Tears Of The Weeping Willow. They are otherwise unrelated, except that both incidents begin with sexual assaults that end in murder. In this one, an up-and-coming author and recent bride makes the grave mistake of opening the door of her upscale Manhattan East Side apar...

Who Killed The Widow Short?  Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 137 is the quirky story of the death of a beloved widow in Topeka, Kansas. She was old and in ill health, and no one suspected any foul play until her caretaker--allegedly her late husband’s nephew--suddenly confessed to the crime, but then the autopsy told another story entirely. Was Fred Fanning covering for someone? Or did someone...

The Complicated Death Of Starr Faithfull Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 138 is the story that inspired the John O’Hara novel and the Elizabeth Taylor film “BUtterfield 8,” the sad, sordid tale of a beautiful girl with an evocative name and a traumatic past that put her on the road to ruin. The finding of her body on a Long Island beach led to probe deep into the social fabric of three cities o...

The Murder Of William Desmond Taylor Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 295 recaps one of Hollywood’s first and most sensational murder cases. After his death, the mysterious past life and personal entanglements of William Desmond Taylor lead in a dozen different directions, but none apparently toward a solution to the case. But there’s a reason the case aroused so much sensation. The victim's mys...

Episode 294 Ad-Free Safe House Edition  Pulp Nonfiction “I’d die before I’d let a man do anything to me,” she said. And she did. Adapted from “Joanna And The Hillbilly Lover Boy,” by George Vedder Jones, True Detective, Vol.73 No.1, May 1960 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...

A Rampage In Richmond Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 293 may start out like your ordinary love triangle gone awry, but the city of Richmond, Virginia is scandalized by the revelations that come out about the young people of their city during the shocking trial. When the flapper told the dapper young man that it was over between them, she set off a massacre. More Love Triangles Gone Awry Become...

Historic Lady Killers Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 292, in which we pay our respects to a quartet of murdered wives: Sarah Yargus, murdered by her husband John Yargus, July 13, 1849; Pauline Schmitt, murdered by her husband Germain Schmitt, January 21, 1919; Ida Jech, murdered by her husband Frederic Jech, July 22, 1930; Anna McDowell Gentry, murdered by her husband Sam Gentry, February 1, 1...