Dead Reckoning

You've probably heard about Jim Jones, the People's Temple, and the infamous mass killing at Jonestown, but did you know that all of this kicked off in San Francisco? That Jim Jones was deeply entangled with city leadership, participating in corruption and cover-ups? It's … not great! Join Courtney and Beth for the real story of People's Temple: How they settled in San Francisco, placed their cron...

Long before we had protracted, bad-faith government arguments over the political football of welfare, food, and medical aid, we had ALMSHOUSES. If you were poor, sick, or hungry in the United States, this is where you went for help. Were they great? Probably not! Were they better than the workhouses in England that sold your body after you died? Yes! Join Courtney and Beth to learn about the Almsh...

San Francisco just agreed to pay $750,000 in a settlement to a former investigator for the Medical Examiner's office, who says she was fired after she accused the office's director of throwing away a human skull. Beth and Courtney talk about the lawsuit, allegations of bullying and bigotry in the Medical Examiner's office, and the unidentified man whose remains are at the center of the story. Show...

Who were San Francisco's abortion doctors? In the second part of our look at this history, Beth introduces us to three practitioners, including a son who took up the family business after his father retired, and an iconoclastic woman who built a successful practice and never lost a patient.   Sources: "Murder. Death from an Abortion…The Body Exhumed… Result of a Post Mortem Examination… Arrest of...

Abortion was a booming business in San Francisco in the 19th and early 20th centuries. As in many parts of the country, women here sought ways to manage their lives and families, and doctors practiced often dubious procedures in an ever-changing legal landscape. In this episode, we start off with a fatal case in which a doctor went on trial for murder, and we look at the history of abortion practi...

Do you have a favorite cemetery and, if so, why is it City Cemetery, which currently lies hidden under Lincoln Park Golf Course and the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco? You know the one, with 20,000 people lying unmarked and invisible? Come with us on a journey back to the Gold Rush, where not one, but two cemeteries were closed and moved to the newest municipal burial ground, CITY CEMETER...

Steven Welch, a fifth-generation funeral director at San Francisco's Duggan's Funeral Service, joins Beth and Courtney to share what mortician life is like, both today and historically. He also dishes about the embalming job on Pope Francis, how HBO's "Six Feet Under" feels torn from the pages of his own family's life, and how cremation services leave room for funerary malfeasance. Links: Jessica...

What do you know about the bubonic plague? Probably that it killed a lot of people, it broke out in the middle ages, and rats were somehow involved. . . but did you know we ACTUALLY HAD A PLAGUE OUTBREAK IN SAN FRANCISCO? That's right, in 1900 the plague came to the city, and it wreaked havoc for 8 years. Join us for a journey through crowded tenements, racist blockades, wooden pallets full of fle...

If you got sick with a visible disease in 19th century San Francisco, you wouldn't be taken to a doctor or a hospital. You wouldn't be given chicken soup and penicillin. You'd be forcibly removed in a zinc-lined cop carriage to a set of nasty, claptrap, decrepit cottages in Potrero Hill known as the PESTHOUSE. And you guys thought Covid-19 quarantine was bad! References " Driven by Fear: Epidemics...

Do you know what happens to people when they die in poverty and estranged from family? We talk to writer and advocate Amy Shea about her book, "Too Poor to Die: The Hidden Realities of Dying in the Margins," in which she looks at how society treats poor, homeless and marginalized people in life, and how that connects to their outcomes when they die. We also chat about a resurgence of anti-poverty...

How did all those bones end up in a pit at Fort Mason? The Anatomy Act, that's how! In this episode, Courtney takes us through the history of using human cadavers to learn about medicine — whether people liked it or not. What started out as punishment for criminal acts turned into punishment for being poor. We'll talk about how this practice evolved from England to the US, from the East Coast to t...

Workers clearing lead-contaminated soil at Fort Mason in 2010 got an unpleasant surprise when they uncovered a pit full of body parts dating back to the 19th century. Beth shares the research into who these early San Franciscans were, why they were buried in a Fort Mason courtyard, and the man most likely responsible: A U.S. Army surgeon named Edwin Bentley. Sources: "Archaeology and Bioarchaeolog...

There's an unmarked cemetery in the heart of San Francisco, where hundreds, possibly thousands, of graves rest beneath the popular destinations like the Main Library, the Asian Art Museum, and the United Nations Plaza. Beth takes us through the history of this place, once called Yerba Buena Cemetery, and touches on the history of SF burials before and during the Gold Rush. Sources: "San Francisco'...

Welcome to Dead Reckoning, the podcast where death isn't the end of the story. Hosted by writer and creator Courtney Minick, and journalist and author Beth Winegarner, based in San Francisco. Produced by Carolyn Kissick and Here Lies a Story. Artwork by Dante Silliman.

Welcome to Dead Reckoning - the podcast where death isn't the end of the story.     Hosted by writer and creator Courtney Minick, and journalist and author Beth Winegarner, coming to you live from San Francisco.    Produced by Carolyn Kissick and Here Lies a Story.    Artwork by Dante Silliman.