Murder Most Foul

“Lizzie Borden took an ax.” Nine years later in a rural town in Iowa, Margaret Hossack, mother to 10 children, raised an ax and butchered her husband, John, as he slept in their bed. Or did she? Come along as we investigate this fascinating case that has more than one parallel to the Lizzie Borden murders. Our guides are husband and wife team, Patricia Bryan and Thomas Wolfe. Their book: MIDNIGHT...

On June 25, 1973, a seven-year-old girl went missing from the Montana campground where her family was vacationing. Somebody had slit open the back of their tent and snatched her from under their noses. None of them saw or heard anything. Susie Jaeger had vanished into thin air, plucked by a shadow. “ShadowMan,” by Ron Franscell, is a pulse-pounding account of the first time in history that the FBI...

The ancient and oft quoted Hippocratic oath exhorts all doctors “to do no harm.” Technically the exact words are: “I will abstain from all intentional wrongdoing and harm.” It also states that “Neither will I administer poison to anybody.” One Victorian gentleman in England, who did not get the memo, was Dr. William Palmer, who, in the mid-19th century, although tried for only one murder, is purpo...

In October of 1997, in a quiet town in Texas, Julie Rae awoke in the middle of the night to an intruder in her house. She struggled with the man and chased him outside. She raced back into the house to check on her 10-year-old son, Joel. At quick glance, she did not see him in his bed. Fearing the intruder might have had an accomplice and Joel had been kidnapped; she enlisted help from the neighbo...

It seemed like the perfect romantic afternoon: a kayaking trip for two on the Hudson River. But it ended in tragedy when the beautiful, blonde Angelika Griswald called 911 to report her fiancé had fallen into the choppy, frigid waters. The authorities assumed it was an accident. But when the bereft bride-to-be posted videos of herself doing cartwheels on social media, shortly before Vincent’s body...

WATCH ME DIE , by Dr. Bill Kimberlin.  Provocative title? Provocative subject. In researching his book, Dr. Kimberlin not only spent time interviewing death row inmates, but also ate meals with them and, in some cases, was the last person to speak with them before they were executed. From the moment they are placed on suicide watch until the moment they are pronounced dead right in front of h...

“Bachelor #1 is a professional photographer. In his spare time, he likes skydiving, riding his motorcycle and killing women and young girls. Please welcome to the Dating Game….Rodney, Alcala.” Serial killer Rodney James Alcala murdered at least nine women and girls across the United States in the 1970s, though his true death toll could number more than 100 . He spent time in prison for sexual assa...

It was the roaring 20’s, the Golden Age of Jazz, Prohibition, bathtub gin, Eliot Ness, speakeasies, flappers and newly found sexual freedom.  Fritzie Mann was a young, beautiful club dancer with everything to live for. In 1923, her scantily clad body was found on a San Diego beach, up the road from the Blue Sea Cottage. Was it suicide or murder staged to look like Fritzie took her own life? A...

GOLDEN BOY is the tragic tale of privilege, mental disease and murder. My guest today on Murder Most Foul is Journalist John Glatt whose book “Golden Boy: A Murder Among the Manhattan Elite” takes an in-depth look at the devastating crime that rocked Manhattan’s upper class. With exclusive access to sources close to Thomas Gilbert, Jr., including his own mother, Glatt constructs the agonizing spir...

For many of us, that vintage bit from SEINELD is all we know of Joel David Rifkin, who between 1989 and 1993 terrorized NYC and its environs. Rifkin was sentenced to 203 years in prison for the murders of nine women during that time, though he is believed to have killed up to 17 victims in all. Former heavyweight boxer and decorated NYPD cop, Robert Mladinich, joins me today to discuss serial kill...

Some men think the phrase “til death do us part,” is a prescription on how to end a marriage or failing relationship. One such loser is Grant Hayes. When his relationship to Laura Ackerson, the mother of his two boys, was deteriorating, due to his drug abuse and philandering AND she was seeking custody of the boys, he decided butchering her was the obvious solution. In this episode, we delve into...

On January 15th, 1947, the body of a beautiful young woman, that of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short, was found by the side of the road in a quiet neighborhood of L.A. The body had been bisected, washed clean and the upper torso posed in an unusual way. This was the beginning of a case that captured the imagination of the world. Ms. Short was soon given the moniker “Black Dahlia” by the press. Her kill...

The Twilight Zone , an icon of the early days of television, that, thanks to streaming services and YouTube, lives on. It was such a popular small screen show that in 1983 it made it to the big screen. Twilight Zone: The Movie traded on the successful format of the TV show. Hey, if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. The movie was divided into 4 free-standing vignettes about the same time length as a T...

Kelsey was a young beautiful pilot, accomplished to the point that she trained pilots for the Air Force. Patrick Frazee, a charismatic cattle rancher. They met on Tinder and two years Later they had a beautiful daughter and were planning a wedding. The beginning of a storybook life together. That is until Thanksgiving 2018 when something went horribly wrong. Rod Kackley chronicles the heartbreakin...

One..Two…Three! Go! It started out as a joke. But on July 6th 2012 high school friends Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf lured another friend, Skylar Neese, to an isolated area near Morgantown, West Virginia and savagely stabbed her to death. Skylar’s last words? “Why? Why? Why?”

In 1958 19-year-old Charles Starkweather went on a two- week murder spree that paralyzed a nation. Ten innocent lives were lost including that of a two-year-old girl, who was the half-sister of his companion 14-year-old Caril Ann Fugate. A question remains. Was Caril Ann a willing accomplice or a hostage?

In the late 1970’s, four young women went missing around the Michigan State University campus, in East Lansing. All four women subsequently were found dead. Were the brutal murders connected? Was there a serial killer on the loose in Lansing Michigan? 40 years later, retired Police Sergeant Rod Sadler answers that question for us, as he discusses the case, which is the subject of his latest book,...

Satanic worship, animal sacrifice, ritual ceremonies all part of the rise of Satanic Cults in the late 60’s and early 70’s. This phenomenon created a “Satanic Panic.” The murders of 3 young women involved in the sex trade in Fall River, Massachusetts came to be part of this “Satanic Panic” and became the most sensational criminal case to come out of the Spindle City since Lizzie Borden.

On June 13th 2011, a young woman was found hanging from the balcony of an historic mansion. She was naked, her feet were bound, her hands tied behind her back and a gag in her mouth. Suicide, perhaps. Murder staged to look like a suicide, maybe. To help us sort out the mystery is award winning journalist and author of DEATH ON OCEAN BOULEVARD, Caitlin Rother who joined me for this episode of Murde...

The first line of Charles Dickens beloved Christmas Carol reads: “Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.” Make no mistake, O.J. Simson murdered his ex-wife and a virtual stranger in 1994 and was acquitted of the crime by a jury of his peers. If you disagree, you probably won’t want to stick around, although I hope you will.

On Monday September 4th, 1989, the police in Warwick, RI were called to a home in the working-class community of Buttonwoods. Inside lay three bodies. That of Joan Heaton and her 2 daughters, Jennifer 10 and Melissa 8. The victims were stabbed a total of 63 times. The bodies were discovered by Joan’s mother and her sister. When the detectives went in what they saw literally sickened them. There wa...

We are all familiar with the term “Life imitating Art” but often Art imitates Life. Edward Theodore Gein, also known as the “Butcher of Plainfield” or the “Ghoul of Plainfield”, was an American convicted murderer and body snatcher who has been cited as the inspiration behind Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal masterpiece, PSYCHO. Mr. Gein is the subject of this episode of Murder Most Foul.

Today we have something a little different on Murder Most Foul. It is a murder/ghost hunting/crossover episode. In 2006, Robert Graves and his wife, Vicki, bought FOX HOLLOW FARM in rural Indiana. It had been the home and killing grounds of Herb Baumeister, who in the early 1990s killed and buried in the woods nearby at least 11 gay men. Paranormal Investigator, Richard Estep and his team, investi...

Serial killer, Theodore Robert Bundy, was executed in the Florida electric chair on January 24th, 1989. Over 30 years later, his infamy has not faded. Author Kevin M. Sullivan, arguably a Bundy expert, has written not just one, but six books covering every detail of this monster’s short life and the numerous families and survivors he still affects to this day. Mr. Sullivan joined me for this episo...

On July 10, 1981, Ken Rex McElroy was shot to death on the main street of Skidmore, Missouri. Forty-five townspeople watched. His wife, sitting next to him in the truck, identified the gunman. Despite three Grand Jury investigations and an FBI probe, no indictments were ever issued, no trial held – and the town of Skidmore has protected the killer with silence ever since. “In Broad Daylight: A mur...