Crime&Stuff

Helen Jewett was smart, attractive, savvy and ambitious. Unfortunately, it was the 1830s and, born Dorcas Doyon and raised as an orphan servant girl in Augusta, Maine, she didn’t have a lot of options. And the lack of options all came crashing down when she was murdered in her bed in New York City in 1836. While it happened nearly two centuries ago, as the story plays out, it could’ve...

We’ve wicked had it with people looking at some accomplished white guy and saying “a guy like that wouldn’t kill his wife (or family).” No, this isn’t about Jeffrey MacDonald, though Mo does give an impassioned defense of Joe McGinnis and “Fatal Vision,” and then, yes, we look at another case where a guy “who couldn’t have done something like t...

It’s easy to blame the internet for teenager Bianca Devins’ murder in Utica, N.Y. in 2019. After all, like most kids her age, she was all over it — on social media, on gaming sites. Meeting people, many of them predatory. But what it really comes down to is good old-fashioned toxic masculinity, misogyny and people around her and her killer not seeing the huge red flags hitting them in...

On December 19, 1959, the Walker family — dad Cliff, mom Christine, 4-year-old Jimmy and 2-year-old Debbie — were found murdered in their remote Osprey, Florida, house. Some 61 years later, no one has been charged. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some very interesting suspects… Also, we update the Breonna Taylor case (Episode 77) and Rebecca does an NNW rated of the book she r...

Mark Hoffman seemed like a nice guy, and as a collector of, and dealer in, historic documents, particularly those relating to the LDS church, he really had a knack for finding just the right pieces. Then the bombings started… We also look at domestic violence stats and myths in a Maine-ish mini, and Mo shreds, um reviews, “Blood Runs Cold.”

That’s right, listeners! Time for one of our classic summer update episodes. We catch you up on the Yoga Twins, our Episode 1 stars, all the way through Ghislaine Maxwell, with lots in between including some impassioned rants, as always. And check out our new logo!

Susan Taraskiewicz was working at her dream job, one she had to fight to get, as ramp crew supervisor at Boston’s Logan Airport. But there were other people who weren’t so happy about it. Then one night, she left to get sandwiches for the crew and never came back. Her beaten and stabbed body was found the next morning in the trunk of her car. That was 1992 and now, 28 years later, her...

When Steven Fortin attacked Maine State Trooper Vicki Gardner on a lonely stretch of Interstate 95, he couldn’t have known that it would lead him being convicted for the murder of Melissa Padilla, in New Jersey. Also, the new “Unsolved Mysteries.” How does it stack up to the old one? We give it the NNW rating treatment.

Maybe the world is shocked that socialite predator fugitive Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire, but we’re not. Not even a little bit. The Granite State has a long history of real-life fugitives heading thinking they can hide there. So while the world says, “Why New Hampshire?” we say, “How coul dit not have been?” We also update Noah Gaston’s prison...

From Breonna Taylor to Atatiana Jefferson to Eleanor Bumpurs and more, the number of Black women killed by police is mind-blowing, particularly those killed in their own homes. It’s all for no good reason. We try to at least take a look at the tip of the iceburg and shine a ittle light on it. Our Negative Nellie Reviews this epiosde continue the conversation, about race, white privilege and...

It was the 1950s, Norman Horton was gay, couldn’t tell anyone, he lived in small-town upstate New York, wasn’t doing well his first year at college and his father wouldn’t get off his back. So there was only one thing he could do about it… Also, we update the case of Nancy Crampton Brophy (Episode 55, you remember, she wrote a blog post about how to murder your husband, and...

Louise Chaput planned to spend a November long weekend hiking in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. She’d barely gotten out of her car when she was dead, brutally murdered in the woods off a lonely trail. Nearly two decades later, the crime is still unsolved. We also update Jans Soering (belatedly), from Episode 48; Dan Gellers, from Episode 41; and the Negative Nellies rate “How t...

No one in their Maine town was very fond of Jack, but they liked his wife, Jackie, who owned a popular waterfront restaurant in the beautiful coastal town. Then Jack was killed. And Jackie did it… We also give a brief update to the case of Nancy Crampton Brophy [Episode 55] and inflict our NNW rating on the book “If You Tell,”

Our special guest Dr. Elizabeth Milliken (aka sister Liz) explores one of Oregon’s enduring unsolved crimes. Sourcing and other information will be available at crimeandstuffonline.com as of Feb. 4.

On Nov. 28, 1942, the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire in Boston killed 492 people. Those deaths were preventable. You’d think people would learn, right? But flash forward to Warwick, R.I., February 2003…

For our third anniversary episode we dip into the Maine well and come up with … well, you can probably guess. Can you believe it’s been three years?  

Shele Danishefsky was fed up with her unemployed (except for those professional backgammon tournaments), abusive husband. Unfortunately, two days before she was going to make sure he didn’t get access to her $5 million in assets in their divorce, she had an accident in the bathtub… Funny how many women with bad husbands that happens to.

It could probably only happen in Maine: a couple beekeepers, a couple lobstermen, a family feud, a $6,000 load of honey, and someone ends up dead. Was Leon Kelley’s murder in self defense? We discuss.

It’s a little scary, isn’t it, how many guys would’ve gotten way with how many murders if DNA testing hadn’t come along. Roy Melanson is one of them. Also, on our Negative Nellies Watching ratings, we take a big step back and say “Whoa, we were wrong!” I know!

Updates, we have updates. Wondering about Todd Koehlhepp, Ayla, murders on the Appalachian Trail, Maine’s domestic violence murders, bad bad Uber drivers, little Frankie the dog, the romance writer turned murder suspect, and more? We’ve got it all for you right here.

Constance Fisher, a young Waterville, Maine, mother, was found not guilty by reason of insanity after she killed her three children in 1954. Eventually she was well enough to go home to her husband, Carl, where they started a new family…

Helen Bailey was a successful author, but suffering from the sudden death of her husband. Then Ian Stewart came along, and thing started looking up. Until Helen, and her little dog Boris, disappeared…

In Part II of our loosely related celebrity slaying series, we look at the life and death of Bonny Lee Bakley, whose final of her many marriages, to actor Robert Blake, turned out to be the one that killed her.  

Our latest episode is Part 1 of a two-part look at two loosely connected celebrity homicides. In this one, we discuss the shooting death of Dag Drollet by Christian Brando, Marlon Brando’s son. It’s a sad story of celebrity privilege, some really bad handling of mental health issues and more. Sorry we’re so late with this by the way — the good news is it’s mostly beca...

Janet Baxter was killed on a cold November night in Maine in 1976 during a quick trip to the A&P to get some cold medicine. When her murder was finally solved 22 years later, the man who did it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise. It turns out Baxter was just one of five people he was convicted of or suspected of killing. Serial killer? Family annihilator? Or just a hot-head? We discu...