True Crime Historian

Crane Neck Nugent, Prohibition Trigger - The Gangster Chronicles 2.1 - YESTERDAY'S NEWS - A reading from historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism The second volume of The Gangster Chronicles explores one of the many side effects of the Great Experiment, America's Prohibition on alcohol. I’ve often contended that Prohibition made criminals out of a lot of ordinary people who just...

 Murder Under the Crab Apple Tree By Damon Runyon When a friend of mine started pitching Hall-Mills murder to me as a potential episode, I was immediately enthralled by the tale of an Episcopalian rector and his tragic affair with the choir singer, but when he told me the case hinged on the eyewitness testimony of “the pig woman,” I knew this was a story for True Crime Historian.  But it gets even...

 Panic at the Italian Hall This episode comes from the request of a listener in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan who wanted to know more about the panic disaster that took place at the Calumet Italian Hall in 1913.  We just took nice camping trip to the Keneewah Peninsula, Michigan's upper Upper Peninsula. You'd be hard pressed to find a more beautiful place in the world. The weather was sublime an...

AN EYE FOR AN EYE- A special edition of Yesterday’s News exploring the criminal justice system at its most extreme: Inflicting the Death Penalty. - This episode comes at the request of a faithful listener in Cincinnati who wanted to hear more about Anna Marie Hahn, the first woman to be executed in Ohio's electric chair. - Although ‘Arsenic Annie’ had stoically proclaimed her innocence right up un...

THE GANGSTER CHRONICLES A special edition of Yesterday’s News focusing on the notorious scoundrels of the Prohibition and Depression eras. The Final Chapter of the Dillinger Saga - The first volume of this this series has been devoted to the exploration of newspaper accounts of the trail of terror blazed by one of America’s most famous, dare I say most beloved, gangsters, John Dillinger. - From th...

YESTERDAY'S NEWSA reading from America's historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism. Luke Brannon Thwarts a Lynching - The Classic Village of Oxford, Ohio, got so riled up over a shooting in a local saloon, that they bust open the jails and drag the culprits to the local hanging tree. The tree had been  used once before, and if you go to my archives, you can hear about that tale in...

THE GANGSTER CHRONICLES 1.5A special edition of Yesterday's News focusing on the notorious scoundrels of the Prohibition and Depression eras. - We're beginning this series with newspaper accounts of the trail of terror blazed by one of America's most famous, dare I say most beloved, gangsters, John Dillinger. - From the time he was paroled from the Michigan City prison in May, 1933, to the time he...

TRUE CRIME STORY TIMEThe Sad Tale of Anna May Gamble Knapp - Around the jails and the Indiana and Ohio neighborhoods where he lived, Alfred Knapp carried the nickname “Looney” Knapp for his bizarre, often childish behavior. He spent half of his adult life in prison for petty larcenies and attacks upon young women. When he was released from the Michigan City Penitentiary in the summer of 1902, he j...

THE GANGSTER CHRONICLES 1.4- The Gangster Chronicles is a special edition of Yesterday's News focusing on the notorious scoundrels of the Prohibition and Depression eras. - We're beginning this series with newspaper accounts of the trail of terror blazed by one of America's most famous, dare I say most beloved, gangsters, John Dillinger. - From the time he was paroled from the Michigan City prison...

THE GANGSTER CHRONICLES 1.3Yesterday's News A reading from America's historic newspapers - From the time he was paroled from the Michigan City prison in May, 1933, to the time he was gunned down by police on a Chicago sidewalk 14 months later, John Herbert Dillinger was one of America's most notorious scoundrels. - In chapter one, we looked at the escape of ten convicts from the Indiana penitentia...

THE GANGSTER CHRONICLES 1.2A reading from America’s historic newspapers from the golden age of yellow journalism - Law enforcement officials and fellow bandits alike lose their lives in the hunt for the desperate criminals who escaped from the Michigan City prison and murdered a sheriff in getting John Dillinger out of jail. In the meantime, Dillinger and his companions continue their spree of may...

THE GANGSTER CHRONICLES 1.1Yesterday's News A Reading from America’s Historic Newspapers - In this first volume of "The Gangster Chronicles," we will follow the trail of terror blazed by one of America's most famous, perhaps most beloved, gangsters, John Dillinger. From the time he was paroled from the Michigan City prison in May, 1933, to the time he was gunned down by police on a Chicago sidewal...