True Crime Historian

The Murder Of Sheriff Rogers At Glencoe Jump To The Ad-Free SAFE HOUSE EDITION Episode 353 takes place in late 19th century Minnesota, but plays out like a classic Western tale. You know the one, where a pair of strangers come into town, shoot the sheriff, and incite the citizenry to take the law into their own hands. Click Here To Access More WILD WESTERN Episodes Become a supporter of this podca...

The Ladies’ Man Lawyer & The Mysterious Blonde Jump To Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 151 recalls a fatal shooting on a dark country road when a pair of unemployed thugs set out to rape and plunder unsuspecting couples looking for a quiet place to canoodle. They get more than they bargained for when their mark turns out to be a well-armed attorney.  Explore More ROBBERIES GONE AWRY Become...

The Real ‘Chicago’ Murders Episode 352 explores the two murders that inspired the hit musical “Chicago,” which was based on a play by Maurine Watkins, who did some reporting on both cases as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. I’ll be joined by my colleague Susan Ferman, whose own podcast Catastrophic Calamities, will premiere next week on the Pulpular Media network. Susan will read about the case...

The Murder Of Myrtle Mellus Jump To Ad Free Safe House Edition Episode 350 relates the tale of a love triangle ending in tragedy when a Hollywood socialite is found murdered after one of her regular trysts with her young lover. There’s a lot of drinking and debauchery involved in this, and we never really get all the details of this sordid liaison, but just enough to spark the imagination. Hear Ab...

The Murder Of Bessie Little Jump To The Ad-Free SAFE HOUSE edition Episode 348 takes place in Dayton, Ohio, just up the Great Miami River from my hometown. I'm trying to come up with a name for this particular narrative trope, the murder of a woman by a man whose child she is carrying -- consequently also the murder of an unborn child. There is some question in this case if Bessie Little was actua...

The Trunk In Minnie Lee Griffin’s Basement Jump To Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 347 is a cautionary tale about what can go wrong if you get too involved in the lives of your grown children. When the widow Minnie Lee Griffin thought that her son-in-law was being pursued by a beautiful neighbor, she resorted to subterfuge to save her daughters marriage, and eventually to murder. Explore More T...

Demise Of The Whittemore Gang Jump to the Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 345 follows the end of the career of the leader of  a notorious East Coast gang that terrorized Baltimore and several New York Cities in their bloody quest for money and diamonds. The exciting narrative includes descriptions of several of the gang’s violent heists. Find More Stories About Jail Breaks Become a supporter of...

The Corruption Of Lieutenant Charles Becker. Jump to Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 116 is a story about police corruption in New York’s Tenderloin District at the turn of the last century. The Tenderloin District around Broadway was so named by the police because there was a lot of graft to be made and they were able to stop eating chuck steak and started eating tenderloin. Maybe that helped...

The Brutal Murder of Gussie Pfeiffer Jump To The Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 115 is a baffling case indeed. The body of a young factory girl who had been missing for three days is found “brutalized,” as the euphemism goes, before being murdered and her body dumped near a historic tree in the Bronx. How long had she been there? How long had she been dead? With few clues to go on, police head...

The Cleveland Kaber Conspiracy By Marjorie Wilson Jump to Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 114 Back in the golden ages of newspapers, it was common for them to publish serialized novels of romance, adventure,and intrigue, but true crime serials were not quite so common. But here is a novella-length  story published in nineteen chapters in five parts by newspapers in 1921 when Eva Kaber was stand...

The Cleveland Kaber Conspiracy By Marjorie Wilson Jump to Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 114 Back in the golden ages of newspapers, it was common for them to publish serialized novels of romance, adventure,and intrigue, but true crime serials were not quite so common. But here is a novella-length  story published in nineteen chapters in five parts by newspapers in 1921 when Eva Kaber was stand...

The Scoundrel Albert Brownlee Jump To Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 344 takes place in the Pacific Northwest and follows the career of a World War I veteran who returns to a life of crime. This fellow’s a peck of trouble, and since the Huns didn’t get him, the state of Oregon will. Find More Stories About CAPITAL CRIMES Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true...

The Scoundrel Herman Kabansky Jump To Ad-Free Safe House Edition There’s a lot of action packed into Episode 343. In addition to a drunken shooting spree and a heroic policeman, the story packs in an escape from jail, an attempted suicide, and a whole lot of courtroom and jailhouse dramatics. Find More Stories About Jail Breaks Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/t...

A Bloody Riot In Birmingham Jump To The AD-FREE SAFE HOUSE EDITION Episode 342 is dedicated to listeners Paula Wellman and Marcie Braden, who along with the Historic Birmingham Facebook group suggested this case and provided me with tons of research. It is a double tragedy, a brutal family murder followed by a massacre in the city streets as a diligent sheriff flexes the strong arm of the law. Fin...

The Degradation Of Sassy Springer Jump To Commercial-Free SAFE HOUSE Edition Episode 340 tells of a double murder--one intentional, one accidental--arising out of an unusual love triangle, a married wealthy Denver socialite and two men, both of whom were her lovers, neither of them her husband. Does that make it a love quadrangle? MORE LOVE TRIANGLES GONE AWRY Become a supporter of this podcast: h...

Scandal At Reynolda Jump to the AD-FREE SAFE HOUSE EDITION Episode 338 weaves the tale of mystery surrounding the shocking death of the youngest son of the tobacco king R.J. Reynolds when he is found dead in the family’s palatial North Carolina home. Although the coroner immediately ruled it a suicide, other officials felt differently, and suspicion fell on the young man’s new bride and his best f...

The Australian Aviatrix And Her Suitors Jump To The AD-FREE SAFE HOUSE EDITION Episode 341 tells the scandalous story of one of Miami, Florida’s most sensational murders when a young writer is found dead in a sleeping porch, a bullet in his head and two suicide notes on the table. Public interest is high because the other two sides of the fatal triangle are two world-famous, record-holding aviator...

The Murder Of The Butcher Pops Wagner  Jump To The AD-FREE SAFE HOUSE EDITION Episode 117 tells the story of sweet 16-year-old Lena Theresa Neinstedt, known as Terry, a pretty eighth-grade dropout with a habit of stealing government checks out of neighborhood mailboxes. A wild child of the streets of New York, young Terry also had a habit of carrying a knife -- to keep the wolves from pawing her,...

Episode 118 Jump To The AD-FREE SAFE HOUSE EDITION " Murder For Two Dollars And Forty-Five Cents " tells the story of how a newsboy finds the clue solving a professional (well, sorta) murder. " The War Hero's Love Letters Sentenced Him To Die " (14:26) ties in the murder of a theater tycoon with a bit of romantic intrigue. " Love And The Counterfeiters " (28:07) is the exciting tale of, well, coun...

A Double Dose Of Arsenic Jump to the AD-FREE SAFE HOUSE EDITION Episode 119 tells the sordid tale of Edith Carew, an English society woman living as an expatriate in Japan, who goes to trial for poisoning her husband. The the press couldn’t help but compare it to the case of Florence Maybrick, which took place a few years earlier in Liverpool. More Cases Of POISON Become a supporter of this podcas...

The Brutal Crimes and Punishment of Jesse Pomeroy  Jump to the AD-FREE SAFE HOUSE EDITION Episode 121 concerns one of the most heinous crimes ever committed by a teenager. Jesse Pomeroy was but 14 years old when he was arrested for abducting and torturing young boys and sent to the state reformatory. He was released after a little more than a year, due either to the pleading of his mother or some...

The Brutal Murder Of Alberta Meadows Jump to the AD-FREE SAFE HOUSE EDITION Once upon a time, 1922 to be precise, Clara Phillips, a former Hollywood bathing beauty and chorus girl, decided she wanted to have a chat with a young lady she suspected of canoodling with her husband. She stopped at the dime store and bought a brand new hammer on the way. Yeah. That's not going to end well. This episode...

The Kentucky Conspiracy Jump to the Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 122 The Commonwealth of Kentucky was thrown into political turmoil over the election of its governor in 1899, and the winner's murder. The republican candidate, William S. Taylor, first appeared to win the election by a narrow margin, but the votes were challenged by his opponent, William Justice Goebel,  who eventually won the...

The Diabolical Meeks Family Massacre Ad-Free Safe House Edition Scoundrels abound in Episode 337, when an ex-convict is assassinated in cold blood by the men he’s about to turn state’s evidence on. That would be bad enough, but what makes it intolerable is the fact that the turncoat’s wife and daughters are with him when the attack takes place, and his assailants don’t care. Become a supporter of...

The Campfire Cremation Of John Linn Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 336 is dedicated to True Crime Historian patron Marlene Resch, who wanted to hear a historic case from her hometown of Eugene, Oregon. So I dug around a bit and found this cowboy story which turns out to have been the first execution in Lane County. More WILD WESTERNS Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com...