Criminal

In the spring of 1922, the United Mine Workers of America announced a national strike. And then, that summer in Herrin, Illinois, 23 people were murdered over two days. Men, women, and children came out of their houses to watch, and in some cases, to take part in the violence. Scott Doody’s book is Herrin Massacre. Special thanks to the Special Collections Research Center at Southern Illinois Univ...

Debbie Schum waited a long time to receive the cremated ashes of her friend, LoraLee Johnson, from Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors in Montrose, Colorado. When she did, she felt relieved to finally take them home with her. But then, she got a call from the FBI. It turned out that the owner of the funeral home, Megan Hess, and her parents Shirley and Alan Koch had been operating a body brokering busin...

Crime Blotter: “The Learning Center on Hanson Street reports a man across the way stands at his window for hours watching the center, making parents nervous. Police ID the subject as a cardboard cutout of Arnold Schwarzenegger.” Today, we’re looking at mistakes and misunderstandings. Like when Nate Roman returned home one evening to find his Marlborough, Massachusetts home mysteriously clean, and...

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In 1995, two men filmed an episode of the daytime talk show, The Jenny Jones Show. A few days later, one of the men was dead. The shooter later claimed he’d committed the murder “in a panic that he was being falsely accused or identified as a gay person.” We speak with Cynthia Lee, Carsten Andresen, and Paul Howard about so-called “gay panic” and “trans panic” defenses, and we discuss the murders...

World-class biathlete Kari Swenson was on an afternoon trail run in the mountains near Big Sky, Montana in July 1984 when two men blocked her path. They were Don and Dan Nichols, a father and son pair who later became known as the “mountain men.” This story was produced by 30 for 30 Podcasts from ESPN, and reported by Bonnie Ford. Find more at 30for30podcasts.com. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook an...

In 1977, a man named Robert Burns went to a funeral and shot someone, in the head, in front of 300 people. He didn’t deny it, and his lawyer, Tom Radney, didn’t deny it. Burns told a police officer: “I had to do it. And if I had to do it over, I’d do it again.” The man he’d shot was Willie Maxwell, and everyone knew who Willie Maxwell was. 6 people who had been close to him had died in 7 years—inc...

In 1930, a Cuban woman named Elena de Hoyos went to the hospital in Key West, Florida. She had a bad cough, and her family was afraid she had Tuberculosis. She met a German x-ray technician named Carl Von Cosel who claimed he could save her, using unusual methods he’d invented himself. But on October 25, 1931, Elena de Hoyos died. “Count Von Cosel,” as he called himself, wrote that a strange new k...

SPOILER WARNING: Please listen to Episode 51: Money Tree before you listen to this one. Three years ago, we spoke with Axton Betz-Hamilton about discovering that her identity had been stolen as a child. When she found out who had stolen it, everything changed. We spoke with Axton again a couple of weeks ago. She said that since our last conversation she’s been conducting an investigation, going ba...

After a crime occurs, or when someone dies, the police aren’t responsible for cleaning up. That’s not their job. The coroner takes the body, the police conduct their investigation, and then everyone leaves. But the blood, and the rubber gloves, and the uneaten food in the refrigerator are all left behind. Sandra Pankhurst didn’t like imagining that. So she decided to clean it up. She became a crim...

In 1917, 18-year-old Ruth Cruger disappeared. She’d last been seen getting her ice skates sharpened in the motorcycle shop of a man named Alfredo Cocchi. Newspapers reported that she probably ran off with a boyfriend, and New York police said that there were no clues to go on. But an investigator named Grace Quackenbos Humiston decided that she would do whatever it took to find her. She became kno...

John Buettner-Janusch was one of the first Americans to study lemurs. He held prestigious faculty positions at Yale, Duke and NYU, before surprising everyone with a series of increasingly bizarre crimes.  Peter Kobel's Book is The Strange Case of the Mad Professor. You can learn more about lemurs at The Duke Lemur Center, which Peter Klopfer and John Buettner-Janusch founded together. Say hello on...

“I never did anything wrong. I never had a speeding ticket. I think I just saved all my stuff up for just one thing.” This week, we speak with Toby Dorr – better known as the Dog Lady of Lansing Prison. She started the Safe Harbor Prison Dogs program in 2004, and that’s how she met John Maynard. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Fo...

In the late 1800s, North Carolina was trying to build a railway system through the Western part of the state. In December of 1882, something went wrong. The Raleigh News and Observer called it “too horrible to chronicle without a shudder.” We speak with Gary Carden, George Frizell, and Al Fisher about the Cowee Tunnel disaster. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasion...

Dan Stevenson has lived in Oakland’s Eastlake neighborhood for 40 years. He says crime has been an issue for as long as he can remember, but he isn’t one to call the police. He’s a pretty “live and let live” kind of guy. Or he was. Before he finally got fed up and took matters into his own hands. We update one of our favorite episodes about “the Buddha of Oakland” with news and additional intervie...

One day in 1969, Paulette Cooper decided to see what she could get away with. Learn more about Paulette Cooper on her website. Here’s her 1969 Cosmopolitan piece about stowing away onboard the SS Leonardo da Vinci. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also ma...

Amanda Hamm and her boyfriend Maurice LaGrone drove to Clinton Lake one night in 2003. The next day, DeWitt County Sheriff Roger Massey told a local newspaper, “We don’t want to blow this up into something that it’s not. But on the other side, we’ve got three children who are dead. None of us know exactly what happened.” If you’d like to learn more about the case, Edith Brady Lunny has written a b...

In our last episode we spoke Cecilia Gentili, a trans Latina who worked for many years as an undocumented sex worker. Today, we get two more views of sex work in America. We speak with a high-end escort in New York City, and take a trip to one of the only legal brothels in the country – the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, where we speak with Alice Little. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign u...

When Cecilia Gentili was growing up in Argentina, she felt so different from everyone around her that she thought she might be from another planet. “Some of us find our community with our own family and some of us don’t.” Today, Cecilia runs a policy reform organization called Trans Equity. She’s active in efforts to decriminalize sex work in New York, and to repeal SESTA-FOSTA. Say hello on Twitt...

When Philip Benight met Becky Golden, they made a promise to stick together, no matter how bad things got.  Read Ann Neumann's reporting in Harper's.  Her book is The Good Death: An Exploration of Dying in America. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts. Sign up for Criminal Plus t...

In the summer of 1973, Clark Olofsson and Jan-Erik Olsson robbed the Kreditbanken in Stockholm’s Norrmalmstorg town square. They held four people hostage for six days. Swedish psychiatrist and criminologist Nils Bejerot coined the term “Stockholm Syndrome” to describe the response of the hostages. Bank robber Clark Olofsson told us, “It was fun.” Special thanks to Terence Mickey of the podcast Mem...

This episode contains adult content. Please use discretion. When Sarah Garone was 13 years old, she received something very strange in the mail. She didn't know who it was from, or why they would have sent it. And then it happened again. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/C...

In 2016, Silvon Simmons was shot in the back by police officer Joseph Ferrigno. The Rochester Police Department said Silvon fired first, and charged him with attempted aggravated murder of a police officer. “My first instinct, to be honest, was they shot this guy and now there’s a coverup.” - Liz Riley, Special Assistant Public Defender, Monroe County Public Defender’s Office. Say hello on Twitter...

Georgia Tann of Memphis, Tennessee bragged that she had a rigorous selection process that matched the perfect child with the perfect home. Barbara Raymond's book is The Baby Thief. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts. Sign up for Criminal Plus to get behind-the-scenes bonus epis...

It's one thing to get into an argument with a stranger on Facebook. It's another thing to try to ruin that stranger's life. In 2015, Re/Max realtor Monika Glennon discovered how far a stranger would go, when she found herself on a website called “She’s a Homewrecker.” Special thanks to Kashmir Hill, at Gizmodo. https://gizmodo.com/when-a-stranger-decides-to-destroy-your-life-1827546385 For a trans...