True Crime Historian

The Lady Bluebeard Lyda Southard Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 310 is the tale of Lyda Trueblood Meyer Southard, who is credited with killing four husbands, a brother-in-law, and her own baby. Along with a sordid marital history, this tale has the bonus of a daring prison escape and a 15-month flight from justice. Culled from the historic pages of the Honolulu Star Bulletin, the Salt Lake Cit...

Mrs. Creighton’s Cocoa And Egg Nog The epic saga of Mary Frances Creighton and her web of adultery, pedophilia, and murder. Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 307 is the epic tale of the serial killer Mary Frances Quevada Avery Creighton, who is generally credited with three poisonings, although she was acquitted in court on the first two. But 12 years later, she will find herself ensnared in a ta...

Special Triple Feature Episodes 306, 309, 311 Jerry The Wildcat Ad-Free Safe House Edition Adapted from True Detective, vol. 56 no. 4, February 1952By Jonas BayerA cowboy rolls into Miles City, Montana, on his way back home to Iowa, and stops in a local cafe to buy a fellow ranch hand a drink. When he's found later, beaten nearly to death in an alley and his roll of bills missing, officials set ou...

The Lizzie Halliday Horrors Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 305 kicks off Lady Serial Killers Month with the strange story of Lizzie Halliday, the perpetrator of at least five, maybe six murders, and once you hear about those, you’ll wonder if maybe there weren’t a few more than that. In addition to six murders, the spice in this tale includes a near-lynching and the lunatic antics of the priso...

The Racine Street Bridge Horror When 14-year-old Hattie Zinka disappeared, people feared her body would be found in the river. It wasn't, but it was just as bad. Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 303 takes us back to 1909 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where a teenage girl disappears while walking home from her married sister’s house. The area was known as a dark, dangerous place, but she’d made the journ...

The Brutal Murder Of Ethel Mae Atkins Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 301 is an especially sordid tale, and I don’t belive all of the lurid details were revealed, although many of them hinted at as police and people who knew her inadvertently reveal uncomfortable truths even as they try to protect the dignity of the victim. But I think she just went on a bender and things took a dark fatal turn...

The Brownell-Bennett Dismemberments Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 300 recounts a grisly pair of murders that are uncovered when New York City residents begin finding stray body parts around Brooklyn. The reporting isn’t terribly graphic, but there are a few ghastly descriptions. There’s your trigger warning. Culled from the historic pages of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the New York Daily News,...

Berthe Claiche’s Revenge  Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 298 relates the sad story of Berthe Claiche, whom we met briefly in episode 297 when she gave a necklace to her cellmate, Josephine Terranova. I normally like to mix things up a bit, but these two tales have a lot in common, interesting back stories about immigrants struggling to adapt to American ways, courtroom theatrics, and sympathet...

Josephine Terranova’s Revenge Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 297 is a sad story about a young immigrant woman so abused by her relatives that when the truth is revealed to her newlywed husband, he breaks off the union. The teenage bride believes she has but one recourse: To do what God commands. Culled from the historic pages of the New York World and other newspapers of the era. More Femmes F...

Crime Club Founder Found Dead Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 134 takes place five months and one city block from Episode 133, Tears Of The Weeping Willow. They are otherwise unrelated, except that both incidents begin with sexual assaults that end in murder. In this one, an up-and-coming author and recent bride makes the grave mistake of opening the door of her upscale Manhattan East Side apar...

Who Killed The Widow Short?  Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 137 is the quirky story of the death of a beloved widow in Topeka, Kansas. She was old and in ill health, and no one suspected any foul play until her caretaker--allegedly her late husband’s nephew--suddenly confessed to the crime, but then the autopsy told another story entirely. Was Fred Fanning covering for someone? Or did someone...

The Complicated Death Of Starr Faithfull Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 138 is the story that inspired the John O’Hara novel and the Elizabeth Taylor film “BUtterfield 8,” the sad, sordid tale of a beautiful girl with an evocative name and a traumatic past that put her on the road to ruin. The finding of her body on a Long Island beach led to probe deep into the social fabric of three cities o...

The Murder Of William Desmond Taylor Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 295 recaps one of Hollywood’s first and most sensational murder cases. After his death, the mysterious past life and personal entanglements of William Desmond Taylor lead in a dozen different directions, but none apparently toward a solution to the case. But there’s a reason the case aroused so much sensation. The victim's mys...

Episode 294 Ad-Free Safe House Edition  Pulp Nonfiction “I’d die before I’d let a man do anything to me,” she said. And she did. Adapted from “Joanna And The Hillbilly Lover Boy,” by George Vedder Jones, True Detective, Vol.73 No.1, May 1960 Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support . You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the...

A Rampage In Richmond Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 293 may start out like your ordinary love triangle gone awry, but the city of Richmond, Virginia is scandalized by the revelations that come out about the young people of their city during the shocking trial. When the flapper told the dapper young man that it was over between them, she set off a massacre. More Love Triangles Gone Awry Become...

Historic Lady Killers Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 292, in which we pay our respects to a quartet of murdered wives: Sarah Yargus, murdered by her husband John Yargus, July 13, 1849; Pauline Schmitt, murdered by her husband Germain Schmitt, January 21, 1919; Ida Jech, murdered by her husband Frederic Jech, July 22, 1930; Anna McDowell Gentry, murdered by her husband Sam Gentry, February 1, 1...

Six Dead At Erland’s Point Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 139 is the gruesome story of a home invasion, circa 1934, a case that seemed so random that it took over a year to crack one of the most brutal mass murders witnessed by the Pacific Northwest. The small-town police are at first presented as in over their heads, but they remained dogged in their pursuit, and justice will be served. Event...

Episode 165: Ad-Free Safe House Edition "Murder By Dynamite," by Stewart Whitehouse. An explosion in the mens room of a department store sets off a wave of copycats, including one plot to murder a young lawyer by booby-trapping his car with dynamite. More Big Booms "Terror in La Paz," by Manuelo Martino, is our first trip to South America with the story of a clever serial killer and master of disg...

AKA The Lipstick Killer And His Imaginary Accomplice Episode 291 Ad-Free Edition Hang onto your seats, folks, this one is another wild ride down psychopath lane. Folks in a nice Chicago neighborhood are scandalized when a string of murders go from fearsome to gruesome. Police get their man--or men, depending on how you look at it--almost by accident when the culprit is arrested for another crime....

The Unexpected Crimes of Nurse Toppan Episodes 29 and 30 Ad-Free Safe House Edition History contains many cases of nurses who turned out to be killers, but there may not be one as bizarre as the case of Jane Toppan, one of the first "angels of death" on record. Because she had such a cheerful disposition, people called her “Jolly Jane,” and so were completely surprised when she was arrested for th...

Pulp Nonfiction: A Celebration Of The Pioneers Of True CrimeA Safe House Exclusive Ad-Free Safe House Edition Orphaned at an early age, Pauline Campbell had worked hard for her goal, until a killer ended her dream. Her murder seemed the work of a fiend with a grudge against nurses, then a teenager stepped forward with a shocking clue. Adapted from True Detective, Vol. 56 No. 4, February 1952 More...

The Pearce Insanity Plot Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 289 is a scandalous story that shook two Midwestern cities in the late 1930s when a woman came forward with a bizarre tale of abduction, adultery, assault, addiction and absconsion. That’s why I’m putting this story on my A-list. More Prison Breaks Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--...

Murder Of The Mythical Helen Johnson Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 288 goes out to True Crime Historian patron Aisha B., who requested a murder from her hometown of Pleasanton, California. Although a lot of these historic stories have humorous elements when considered in modern light, I don’t normally treat them as comedies. There may or may not be any actual murders in this one, but there ar...

The Ridde Of The Grinning Skull She led police to the body of her husband, but when she saw the mocking skull they dug up, a second murder came to light. By Frederic O. Schultze Ad Free Safe House Edition   Adapted from True Detective Mysteries, V. 7; No. 4; July, 1927 Episode 287 is a first person account from a police reporter who admits to unethical snooping in trying to get to this story. But...

The Heinous Crime Of Carl Wanderer Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 286 relates one of the most reprehensible double murders we’ve yet to encounter. They’re all reprehensible, but there’s no question that the act of Carl Wanderer was spawned by truly evil intent. More stories of "Pregnicide" Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/suppor...