Criminal Broads

Marie Dean Arrington looked out her window, saw a car parked outside, and knew it was the FBI. She’d been running from the law her entire life. And for this last crime—a vanished woman, a ransom note, blood in the trunk of a car—she knew she was going to have to pay.  *** SUPPORT THE PODCAST! Become a Patron .*** Sources: “Mean Marie” by Gary Corsair , Lake & Sumter Style, 1 July 2014 “30 Days...

Defending murderers and professional jail-breakers isn't for the faint of heart, but thankfully, 1930s defense lawyer Jessie Levy was anything but fainthearted. In a world where women were almost never seen in criminal defense, Jessie and her fabulous shoes stepped up to the plate to represent some of the most notorious gangsters of the day: John Dillinger's men. Denise M. Testa , author of Defend...

Something unbelievably awful was about to happen to Bobbie Jo Stinnett. She was about to live a nightmare. But the nightmare was already with Lisa Montgomery, swirling around her, never letting up. The nightmare had molded her, turning her into the sort of person that would knock on Bobbie Jo’s door with a knife beneath her jacket.  *** SUPPORT THE PODCAST! Become a Patreon supporter . Purchase TH...

FIRST EPISODE OF 2021 IS HERE. Meet Juana Barraza, who loved wrestling and her children, who hated elderly women and her mother. Our expert for this episode is  Susana Vargas Cervantes , author of THE LITTLE OLD LADY KILLER: The Sensationalized Crimes of Mexico’s First Female Serial Killer . Also, you can preorder my new book Confident Women here , and listen to Red Flags (my latest podcast projec...

A quick state of the Criminal Broads union. This is not goodbye forever, but it is goodbye for now. PLUS, some fun (basic? obvious?) quarantine escapism suggestions. And a bit of rambling. LOVE YOU ALLLLLLLLLL. Stay in touch! instagram newsletter website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Midnight. A hospital ward. A young woman writhes in her bed in pain. But wait—here comes the night nurse, Jane Toppan, with a cool glass of water, promising to make it all…go…away… The story of Jane Toppan will chill you to your core, shake you to your bones, and remind you of the inconvenient truth that female serial killers can be just as deadly as the male ones. Want more Criminal Broads? Come...

On Halloween night, a young woman sneaks her boyfriend into her house…to kill her parents. Meet Suzane Von Richthofen, Brazil’s biggest teen girl psychopath.  Mega-thanks to Luiz Alberto Moura for the research assistance! Read his work on serial killers here . Want more Criminal Broads? Come to Caveat NYC on October 30 at 70 pm to see me the host of DIE-ALOGUE talk about female cult leaders!!! Get...

When a young black woman named Joan Little ran from her jail cell, leaving her white male guard dead on the floor—without his pants—the country couldn’t decide who, exactly, Joan Little was. The prosecution said she was a vicious seductress who’d lured the guard in specifically to kill him. The defense said she was an innocent angel who hadn’t even known he was dead. Who in the world was Joan Litt...

Why do women love true crime? Wait, no—why do people love true crime? Author Rachel Monroe comes on the podcast to deconstruct our appetite for horrifying true stories. Also covered: relating to the Manson girls, why true crime is not the same as a bowl of oatmeal, the ethics of crime scene photos, and the murky side of the victim's rights movement. Check out Rachel’s new book, Savage Appetites: F...

On the night of January 15, 1978, Kathy Kleiner opened her eyes to see the serial killer Ted Bundy standing over her bed. One year later, she stared him down in the courtroom, thinking, “ I’m standing, now, and you’re in the bed.”  This is her story, in her own words. Here’s the Vulture article about Ted Bundy that I wrote…and my profile of Kathy for Rolling Stone . *** SUPPORT THE PODCAST! Become...

Fifty years ago, a wild-eyed maniac named Charles Manson sent a gaggle of his girls into the night to murder seven people. But his most loyal girl, his second-in-command, a teenager named Squeaky Fromme, didn’t head out with the group. Since she didn’t kill for Charlie that night, she spent the rest of her life trying to prove that she was just as loyal to him—and so, long after Manson's murderess...

Tanya Nelson believed everything her fortuneteller, Ha Jade Smith, told her—until Tanya’s life spiraled out of control, and Ha couldn’t seem to help her. With that, Tanya decided that someone was going to have to pay for the wreckage that was her life. Someone was going to have to die.  *** SUPPORT THE PODCAST! Become a Patreon supporter and get a cool postcard. Support Crimibox on Kickstarter. Ge...

There were plenty of jobs for women in WW2: nurse, ambulance driver, factory worker. But then there were the other jobs, the ones no one really talked about. Spy. Resistance fighter. Killer. These are the stories of five women—Nadezhda Popova, Vitka Kempner, Noor Inayat Khan, Nancy Wake, and Lyudmila Pavlichenko—who fought the Nazis. They terrorized them from the sky, blew up their trains, endured...

Meet Irma Grese. She likes boys, girls, movies, makeup, and sadistic torture. She hates her dad, but loves Adolf Hitler. This is horrific story of the story of how propaganda—and a large dose of teenage boredom—transformed an unskilled peasant girl into one of the Holocaust’s most successful concentration camp guards.(Become a Patreon supporter .) Sources: The Beautiful Beast: The Life & Crime...

History remembers them as beautiful booze-hounds. Hollywood turned them into fame-hungry starlets. But who were these murderesses, really? With Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi, author of UGLY PREY: An Innocent Woman and the Death Sentence That Scandalized Jazz Age Chicago , we dive into the stories of Belva Gaertner and Beulah Annan, the most infamous lady killers of 1920s Chicago. What did the press get...

The story behind New York’s first-ever female detective! In 1896, Isabella Goodwin was a quiet, hard-working police matron who wrangled murderesses, made up the prison beds, and earned about half of what her male coworkers did. As far as she knew, she’d be a police matron forever…until one day, a gruff captain called her over to his desk and asked if she’d like to take a crack at going undercover....

Juanita Spinelli ran a gang of embarrassingly awful Northern Californian crooks who could barely rob enough gas stations to stay afloat. And yet three years after forming her gang, she was walking toward the gas chamber, while citizens across the country clamored that it wasn’t right to execute a woman. (Become a Patreon supporter for rewards and bonus content! And here’s the slideshow of Californ...

In 1982, Kazuko Fukuda strangled her coworker, changed her name, and went on the run—for fifteen years. She was playing a game of chicken with the law, trying to stay free until the statute of limitations for her crime ran out. To do this, she had to go under the knife. (Become a Patreon supporter for rewards and bonus content!) Sources: Crime stats for Japan and the US: The Japanese Industrial Sy...

The victims of Jack the Ripper, the most famous serial killer in the world, are known to us mostly by their autopsy photos. On the conclusion to our WOMEN OF JACK THE RIPPER series, historian Hallie Rubenhold comes on the podcast to illuminate the rough and tragically brief lives of Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elisabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly—the canonical five. Hallie...

We remember Jack the Ripper as a man who did the brutal work of a typical male serial killer, de-feminizing his victims by hacking up their bodies. But in this two-part series, let’s take a look at the women who circle around the Ripper legend. First up, the admittedly controversial and kinda odd theory that perhaps Jack the Ripper is the wrong nickname for the killer—perhaps, some writers insist,...

Victorian women were expected to be wives and mothers—not killers. Enter Adelaide Bartlett. In her middle-class Victorian world of green wallpaper, taxidermy, and submissive wifehood, the beautiful Adelaide was an enigma. Was she telling the truth about her husband’s weirdness? Was she really as good as she seemed? And most importantly: did she do it? (Become a Patreon supporter for rewards and bo...

In 1930s New York, a single man ruled the entire city with extortion, racketeering, and a healthy dose of murder. Nobody could take him down—until a black girl from Atlanta decided to try her hand at it. It was the match of the century: the lawyer, Eunice Hunton Carter vs. the mobster, Lucky Luciano. Only one of them would walk out of that courtroom unscathed.  Learn more about your ad choices. Vi...

Once upon a time, in 1930s Texas, a girl named Blanche fell desperately in love with a boy named Buck. She thought they had a shot at a good life together, but everything went off the rails one night when Buck’s brother and his brother’s girlfriend—Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker—showed up drunk at their door. Before long, Blanche was swept up in the on-the-run world of Bonnie and Clyde, terrified...

In 1960s Melbourne, a lot of very wealthy people found themselves wondering if there was more to life, and wouldn’t you know, a gorgeous yoga teacher was there to tell them: yes, yes there is. But this yoga teacher with her warm, appealing aphorisms would soon become a voracious cult leader with a penchant for pretending like she was the best mama in the world. This is the story of Anne Hamilton-B...

At the end of the 1970s, body after dead body began appearing on the streets and sidewalks and parking lots of Miami. Many of those bodies were linked to the Colombian cocaine trade, which was in turn linked to one incredibly powerful woman with a love of gangster movies and a penchant for drive-by shootings. Meet Griselda Blanco: the Black Widow, La Madrina, the Godmother of Cocaine.  Learn more...