Hard Times and True Crimes

Before there were restraining orders and women's shelters galore, domestic violence victims often suffered for years in silence. This is the story of one woman and her final desperate attempt to save herself when she realized there was nowhere else to turn. Narrator : Curtis Hildreth Intro and Outro Music : Isaiah Hildreth Sources: https://www.newspapers.com/image/208805495/?terms=hughes%20fr...

Today's episode is about  the life and crimes of Father Hans Schmidt. He was executed in 1916 for murder.  Schmidt is the only priest ever to be executed in the United States. Music- Isaiah Hildreth Male Narrator- Curtis Hildreth Sources newspapers.com murderpedia wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Schmidt_(priest) https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/the-dreadful-crimes-of-the-o...

On Mother's Day 1985, a young mother and her two little girls were found dead in their home near Ft. Bragg, NC. The youngest of her daughters was left alive, alone, crying, and dehydrated in her crib waiting for a rescue. The murders bore a striking resemblance to the 1970 killings at Ft. Bragg of the MacDonald family. Investigators had to figure out if this was a copycat crime or a totally u...

Martha McKay was found murdered on her family property in Horseshoe Lake, Arkansas. Her mother was found murdered on the same property twenty-four years earlier. .  Travis Lewis was Martha's killer--the same person  convicted in the  murder of Martha's mother and cousin when he was just fifteen years old. This case is proof that sometimes lightening does strike twice.  Music Furry Lewis...

In early 1970 Capt. Jeffrey MacDonald is awakened by the screams of his wife and daughters being attacked.  He claims a group of drugged-up hippies were the intruders, but authorities quickly begin to question that claim. This conclusion to the MacDonald family murders delves into the alternative theories put forth by the defense and ends with where the convicted murderer is today.  Narrator: Curt...

At the height of the hippie culture and "Satanic Panic" in the early 1970s, a gruesome murder is committed at Fort Bragg, NC.  A pregnant mother and her two small daughters are repeatedly stabbed to death.  Her husband, Captain Jeffrey MacDonald, is also injured but survives the attack. He is able to describe the four assailants who had killed his family; drugged-out hippies chanting, &q...

Belle Gunness also known as Hell's Princess was a pig farmer in the early 1900's. She posted help wanted and lonely hearts ads in newspapers--luring men to their deaths with promises of love and wealth. Music By Isaiah Hildreth Male Narrator Curtis Hildreth Sources: newspapers.com Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men   by  Harold Schechter   wikipedia biogra...

On March 5, 1873, two women were found brutally axed to death on the secluded Smuttynose Island just off the coast of Maine. Music by Isaiah Hildreth Male Narrator Curtis Hildreth Sources: Mystery on the Isles of Shoals: Closing the Case on the Smuttynose Ax Murders of 1873 by J Dennis Robinson newspapers.com findagrave.com Fresh Hell Podcast fosters.com wikipedia.com newengland.com https://www.de...

Accident? Suicide? Or Murder? The question of "Z" Smith Reynolds' death is still not answered to this day more than ninety years later. The wealthy heir of the RJ Reynolds Tobacco fortune was shot on his sleeping porch after hosting his friend's 21st birthday party at his estate. The initial ruling was suicide. However, ballistic evidence cast suspicion on that theory, and two...

On March 1, 1922, Tennessee sent four men ( under the age of twenty) to the electric chair to pay  with their lives for the life  they took. Music by Isaiah Hildreth Male Narrator: Curtis Hildreth Sources: newspapers.com The Appalachian Storyteller wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_Motor_Car knoxnews.com https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2018/08/11/gallows-gurney-six-infamou...

Georgia Tann was a social worker whose crimes spanned three decades from the 1920s to 1950. What appeared to be benevolence on her part was actually greed and downright evil that affected many families during those years. She led a secret life and was beyond scrutiny for most of those years. Sadly she was never brought to justice for her horrible deeds. Narrator: Curtis Hildreth Intro and Outro Mu...

In 1914, Lowe Daniels lived in the Uwharrie forest. He made his living making and selling whiskey. One day he came home from a trip and out of nowhere,  shot his wife, his wife's seventeen year old sister, his seventeen year old sister and a sixteen year old neighbor boy.  After he'd finished his killing spree, Lowe took his banjo off the wall,  sat by the fire,  picked his banjo and san...

In 1966 a father in Georgia died suddenly from an apparent heart attack. He was just 39 years old. Just seven months later his 13-year-old son became sick suddenly and passed away within a short time.  Mysterious deaths continued until people became suspicious of the true cause of so many deaths in one family. Narrator: Curtis Hildreth Intro and Outro Music: Isaiah Hildreth Sources: https://en.wik...

A fire broke out around midnight on  Christmas Eve in 1945 at the Sodder house in Fayetteville, West Virginia. Five of the  Sodder family's ten children didn't make it outside with the rest of their family. George Sodder, their father tried desperately to save them but it was to no avail.  At first everyone believed the children  died in the fire.  However,  no skeletal remains were ever...

During a snowstorm in early 1972, a Boone, NC family is shockingly murdered in their own home. At first, it appears to be a robbery gone bad, but upon further inspection, that theory does not seem to add up. It was a crime that went unsolved for fifty years. Narrator: Curtis Hildreth Intro and Outro Music : Isaiah Hildreth Episode Sponsor: The Table - Asheboro, NC Sources: Pickens, Cathy - True Cr...

Lowell Lee Andrews was a bright  university student, and beloved son of a Kansas farmer. On Thanksgiving day in 1958, he would shock his community by murdering his  family in order to get his inheritance. Sources: In Cold Blood    by  Truman Capote murderpedia.com newspapers.com findagrave.com wikipedia Podcast- Fresh Hell Podcast- Once Apon a Crime https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/nov/28/crime_...

 In the Spring of 1927, Reverend  Tom 'Thunderbolt'  Pardue traveled to the tobacco growing town of  Reidsville, North Carolina  to hold a revival in the big  McCollum  tobacco Warehouse. One night after the service, he was met by a beautiful young lady whose heart had been pricked by his message on the subject of confession. She had a confession to make. She had committed murder. She ha...

In 1981,  Hollywood darling Natalie Wood invited friends to spend the after-Thanksgiving weekend with her and her husband Robert Wagner on their yacht Splendor .  Most invitees declined due to bad weather but current co-star Christopher Walken joined them.  The weekend was booze-filled leading to arguments among the three. Tragedy struck when Natalie disappeared from the boat and the next morning...

In 1892, in the town of Fall River, Massachusetts, a wealthy older couple was axed to death in their own home in broad daylight. Almost immediately their thirty-two-year-old daughter, Lizzie Borden,  is suspected of the brutal murders. The tales surrounding this event are varied, and conspiracy theories abound. The whole gruesome crime is memorialized in books, TV, movies, songs, poems, and now po...

Countess Elizabeth Bathory is in The Guinness Book of World Records for being the most prolific serial killer in the western world.  She is alleged to have killed more than 600 virgins in order to drink their blood and bathe in it, in order  to preserve her youth. But who was Elizabeth Bathory  really? Join us today as we untangle fact from fiction. Sources: Music By Isaiah Hildreth Male Narrator...

Beginning in 1983, a group of four nurse aides began a killing spree that lasted for over six years. It began with a "mercy killing" but soon escalated into murder.  The mastermind of the group came up with horrendous methods of torture for troublesome patients and the total number of victims is estimated to possibly be in the hundreds. Narrator: Cutis Hildreth Intro and Outro Music: Isa...

If you  were a child of  the 70's and 80's , did  your  parents ever check your Halloween candy for poison or razor blades? If so,  rumors surrounding  the story in today's episode might have had something to do with that. Music by Isaiah Hildreth Male Narrator Curtis Hildreth Sources newspapers.com findagrave.com https://www.aetv.com/real-crime/the-man-who-killed-halloween https://...

On the night of November 20, 1901, Nell Cropsey vanished from her family's home in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Thirty-seven days later her body was found floating in the Pasquotank River. There was only ever one real suspect but did authorities  get it right? Sources: Music by: Isaiah Hildreth Male Narrator: Curtis Hildreth newspapers.com Ella Maude: The Story of an Unsolved Crime   By Ni...

When a house fire in Pleasant Garden, NC is determined to have been started by arson, and a resident is found inside dead from a gunshot, the sheriff's department has its work cut out for it. Friends, family, and fellow church members of Patricia Blakely Kimble begin to point fingers and demand answers. None can believe that anyone would want to hurt the devout Christian woman who was kind to...

In 1877,  47 year old Thurza Bowman died a violent death. An autopsy revealed she had been poisoned by strychnine. Suspicion would immediately fall on her husband. After many conflicting testimonies and two trials, Thomas Bowman was sentenced to hang in Asheboro, North Carolina in 1879. Did Thurza Bowman  get justice or was her husband wrongfully convicted? Episode researched by Ricky Allred and D...