Crime To Burn

Episode 93 On December 30, 1903, Chicago gathered for a matinee performance at the Iroquois Theater—a venue that had opened just five weeks earlier and was widely promoted as one of the safest, most modern theaters in the country. It was advertised as “absolutely fireproof.” It was anything but. In this episode of Crime to Burn, we examine the Iroquois Theater Fire, one of the deadliest single-bui...

Episode 92 In the conclusion of Samarcand, we turn away from the fire itself and examine what happened after sixteen teenage girls were arrested — and what the justice system did when it realized it had no good options left. With Samarcand no longer able to house them, the state faced a question it wasn’t prepared to answer: What do you do with traumatized, rebellious, and violently angry teenage...

Episode 91 Sixteen girls. Multiple fires. A system built to control them — and a desperate act that forced the nation to look closer. In this episode, we step inside the walls of the Samarcand Reform School for Girls in North Carolina, where young women lived under harsh discipline, forced labor, and relentless institutional oversight. On the night they began setting fires, they weren’t just strik...

Episode 90 In the final installment of our deep dive into the deadly world of Sarah Hartsfield, we unravel the last threads of a case that spiraled from chaos to calculated cruelty. This episode pulls together the full picture of Sarah’s violent history, her pattern of manipulation, and the chilling timeline that led investigators—and ultimately a jury—to label her actions for what they were. We b...

Episode 89 In Part 2 of our deep dive into the life and crimes of Sarah Hartsfield, we follow the tangled threads back to the beginning. Because before the alleged poisoning, before the string of dead or endangered husbands, before the Dateline episode… there was a childhood already splintered by chaos. This week, we explore: Sarah’s early life — the patterns that began long before her first “I do...

Episode 88 Sarah Hartsfield didn’t weave a web of silk — she wove a web of control. A web of manipulation. A web she masked with charisma and charm until it finally snapped under its own weight. In October 2025, a jury convicted Sarah Hartsfield of murdering her husband, Joseph Hartsfield, after deliberating for just one hour. One hour — despite the fact that the physical evidence was thin, the in...

Episode 87 Hidden beneath the hills of northeast New Mexico lies a ghost that industry left behind. Dawson was once a model mining town — a company-built community boasting schools, golf courses, and an opera house. Phelps Dodge called it progress. But twice, in just ten years, that progress went up in smoke. In 1913 and again in 1923, massive explosions ripped through Dawson’s coal mines, killing...

Episode 86 In the early hours of November 1st, 1970, celebration turned to catastrophe when a fire tore through the Club Cinq-Sept near Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, France. Within minutes, 146 young people were dead — trapped behind padlocked exits, a full-height turnstile, and flammable décor that turned the dance floor into a death trap. This wasn’t just a fire — it was the inevitable result of greed,...

Episode 85 Each October, the city of Detroit braced for three nights of chaos known as Devil’s Night—a grim tradition of arson and destruction that peaked in the 1980s with hundreds of fires set across the city. But behind the headlines and the flames lies a story of resilience, strategy, and a community that refused to burn. In this episode, we take you inside the rise and fall of Devil’s Night—h...

Episode 84: In this week’s bonus episode of Crime to Burn, April sits down with author Arnie Bernstein to discuss the 1927 Bath School disaster, the investigation that followed, and what it takes to responsibly tell true stories of mass violence nearly a century later. Together, they explore how the bombing changed one American town — and why its echoes still shape today’s conversations about just...

Episode 83 This week on Crime to Burn, we’re doing something a little different. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and this episode honors the extraordinary courage of Judy Malinowski — a woman whose strength changed the law and gave victims of domestic violence a voice that could never again be silenced. Judy was burned alive by her abuser and spent nearly two years in the hospital, f...

Episode 82 In this episode, we follow the fallout of the Cameron Todd Willingham case — a story that didn’t end at the execution chamber. When fire scientist Dr. Gerald Hurst sounded the alarm that the arson evidence used to convict Willingham was based on junk science, Texas had a choice: pause and reevaluate, or push forward and protect its image. It chose the latter. We’ll unpack how political...

Episode 81 A fire, a flawed science, and a state that still hasn’t learned. In 1991, Cameron Todd Willingham was convicted of setting the house fire that killed his three young children. Despite a mountain of later evidence debunking the “arson indicators” used against him, Texas executed Willingham in 2004—long after leading fire scientists warned that the case rested on junk science. Two decades...

Episode 80 On November 18, 1947, a fire tore through Ballantynes department store in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 41 people and changing the nation forever. It remains New Zealand’s deadliest fire disaster — and one that exposed shocking negligence. In this episode, we retrace the events leading up to the blaze, the chaos of the evacuation, and the devastating aftermath. We’ll look at how ov...

Episode 79 In Part 2 of our Bath School Massacre series, we step back from the timeline to ask the harder questions: what drives an otherwise rational man to the brink of ruin—and what finally pushes him over the edge? We’ll uncover just how long, and how meticulously, Andrew Kehoe had been planning his attack, and the unsettling foresight that made the tragedy possible. From there, we confront th...

Episode 78 On May 18, 1927, the quiet farming town of Bath, Michigan, was shattered by the deadliest school massacre in U.S. history. Long before Columbine, Sandy Hook, or Parkland, one man wired an entire school with explosives — and changed the way America would understand mass violence forever. In this episode of Crime to Burn, we dig into the life and mind of Andrew Kehoe — a farmer, a school...

Episode 77 In this episode of Crime to Burn, we revisit the devastating fire at Greybeard’s Tavern in Jacksonville, Florida, and the deeply flawed arson case that followed. Randal Wagoner, a local truck driver, was arrested and charged with both arson and murder after the fire claimed the life of Katherine Johnson. What first looked like an open-and-shut case unraveled. Investigators leaned on exp...

Episode 76 In the finale of The Flora Four: Between Rumors and Reality, we bring the story full circle. Nearly a decade after the fire that claimed the lives of four young sisters in Flora, Indiana, we examine why this case remains unsolved — and who really benefitted from the official arson ruling. From conflicting investigator depositions to shifting fire science, we uncover how shaky evidence a...

Episode 75 In Part 2 of The Flora Four: Between Rumors and Reality, we dig into the tangled web of suspects, motives, and unanswered questions surrounding the fire that claimed the lives of four young sisters in Flora, Indiana. From Gaylin Rose’s boyfriend Colten Creasy to the complicated history of Jennifer Dean (a.k.a. Jennifer Barnes, Jennifer Miller), we examine the relationships, rumors, and...

Episode 74 On November 21, 2016, a fire tore through a home in Flora, Indiana, claiming the lives of four young sisters: Keyana, Keyara, Kerriele, Kionnie. Nearly nine years later, the case remains unsolved, mired in contradictions, unanswered questions, and a community still searching for justice. In this episode of Crime to Burn, we sift through the layers of rumor and fact surrounding the Flora...

Episode 73 In the late 1980s, Florida’s Gulf Coast was a powder keg of cocaine, cash, and violence. In this episode, we dive into the wild case of Jeff Matthews — a drug kingpin whose ego was as big as his rap sheet, and whose grudges were… explosive. When a federal investigation started closing in, Matthews didn’t just lawyer up — he plotted bombings. One of his alleged targets? A Fort Myer's Flo...

Episode 72 Was it arson—or was it a tragic accident? In the final installment of our five-part series, we walk through the evidence from the perspective of a fire protection engineer. We’ll dissect the fire’s behavior, ignition theories, the official investigation, and what was left out—and we’ll finally ask the big question: does the science match the story we were told? From code violations and...

Episode 72 (Emergency Bonus Episode) This is not a regular episode. This is a plea for action. In 2024, Paul Clifford was brutally murdered—his body set on fire in an act of unspeakable violence. Now, the Pima County Attorney’s Office is preparing to offer plea deals that could allow 2 people accused of murdering him to walk with barely a slap on the wrist. Paul’s wife, Christina Clifford, is spea...

Episode 71 What if the official story is a lie? In this episode, you’ll hear from someone who was there that night—an employee who worked the wedding reception in the Zebra Room just hours before it ignited. For decades, she stayed silent. But now, she’s ready to talk. And what she has to say could rewrite everything we thought we knew about the fire. She says the investigators were hiding somethi...

Episode 70 As smoke begins to creep into the Cabaret Room, the audience still doesn’t realize the nightmare unfolding just beyond the doors. In this episode, we follow the chilling timeline from the moment busboy Walter Bailey issues his warning—largely ignored—to the split-second decisions that determine who makes it out, and who doesn’t. We also dive into the club’s architectural failures, the i...