True Crime Historian

Fotheringhay Castle. Northamptonshire, England. February 8, 1587. The Great Hall has been transformed into a theater of death. A scaffold, two feet high and covered in black cloth, stands in the center. A fire crackles in the hearth, fighting the winter chill, but it does little to warm the blood of the three hundred spectators crowded into the room. They are waiting for a woman who has been a pri...

The Murder Of Joseph Smith Jump To The Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 466 is the story of John C. Elliott, the Ohio woodcutter turned political assassin who rode 500 miles to execute a prophet. Hiding as a schoolmaster, Elliott was arrested and set free by Joseph Smith himself. Discover the man history forgot. Hear More Stories About CAPERS AND CONSPIRACIES Become a supporter of this podcast:...

Madge Oberholtzer Kills The Klan Jump to the Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 461 takes us to 1925, when Indiana Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon D.C. Stevenson kidnapped and assaulted Madge Oberholtzer, who died from poison she took to escape him. Her "dying declaration" was the key evidence. His murder conviction, based on "proximate cause," shattered the Klan’s immense political power in Indiana and...

The Condemnation Of Mary Ann Cotton Jump to the Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 462 is the tale of the wicked Mary Ann Cotton, one of Victorian Britain's most prolific serial killers, exploiting the era's poverty and the new industrial life insurance market for financial gain. Using arsenic, her crimes were camouflaged by high mortality rates, as symptoms mimicked "gastric fever." Become a supp...

The Barrow Gang’s Bloody Rampage Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 460 tells the brutal story of two young lovers and their gang as they escalate from small-time robbery to a bloody, two-year crime spree across the Southwest. With an arsenal of machine guns and other deadly weapons, they left a trail of dead lawmen and merchants in a desperate flight that ended in a deadly ambush. Hea...

Kahahawai Shot In The Heart  Jump to the Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 93 takes you to the island paradise of Hawaii, not yet a state in 1932 when the wife of a naval officer stationed there is allegedly raped and beaten by four natives. A few months later, her mother, her husband and two of his enlisted men face a jury under the counsel of the famed defense attorney Clarence Darrow in a case...

The Escapes and Escapades of Winnie Ruth Judd Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 90 begins in the fall of 1931 when a Phoenix resident shows up in a Los Angeles train depot trying to claim three trunks that she had shipped there. The clerks wouldn’t let her take the trunks because of the foul odor emanating from them.  Winnie Ruth Judd said she’d go get the key so they could see there...

Or, Death of a Composer Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 86 involves the body of a songwriter and real estate speculator found tied to a chair with an expression of surprise frozen on his dead face and suspicions of suicide. - Wait. What? - Suicide tied to a chair? - The evidence is so jumbled, police are at a loss to explain, but the backstory to the incident and a foray into the wo...

From Thrill Slayer To War Hero Jump To The AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 459 unlocks the bizarre, true tale of George Harsh, the Oglethorpe "Thrill Slayer," and his partner Richard Gallogly. Bored rich kids trade philosophy for a Colt .45 and a rash of robberies that turn fatal. Harsh's journey spirals from university to death row, then from chain-gang surgeon to hero of the Great Escape. Yea...

The Trial Of Louise Vermilya Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 80. Although Louise Vermilya of Chicago was never convicted of a crime, history lays around 10 deaths at her door, mostly family members and suitors. She did go to trial once, and we’ll take a pretty close look at the drama, including a suicide attempt, that led up to her acquittal as we look at the wake of mysterious deat...

Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition For this remastered edition, I’ve dug deep into the vault and combined Episodes 7 and 77, both regarding post-Civil War vigilante action in the Ozark Mountains. The Giant Vigilante Captain Nat Kinney Episode 7. Captain Nat Kinney was a large man, both in stature and reputation, and both seemed to grow to mythic proportions among the citizens of Taney County,...

The Villisca Ax Murders Mystery  Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 69 starts with a brutal ax murder that scandalized the quiet town of Villisca, Iowa, about 2,000 souls in the summer of 1912, when a family of six and two young visitors were killed in their beds by an assailant wielding a long-handled ax, the family’s own tool, which was left at the scene. Clues were scant, and it too...

The End Begins At Coffeyville Jump To The AD-FREE SAFE HOUSE EDITION Episode 458 concludes our three part exploration of the infamous Dalton Gang. With the law breathing down their necks and increasing the guards on trains, the gang needs to find a new way to raise money to finance an exile to South America. In desperation they attempt a double bank robbery in a town where they are well known. Wel...

The Awful Crimes of the Northcott Family A missing boy returns from a cross country walkabout, but the mother says it's not him. Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 episodes from the dusty vault, plus content not available anywhere else on the Internet, direct access to the Boss...

Seven Dead at Taliesin Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition In Episode 46, we relive a somewhat famous crime involving the noted architect Frank Lloyd Wright and the night that his apparently crazed butler -- yes, the butler did it! -- slaughtered seven people at Wright’s Wisconsin rural home he named Taliesen after the ancient Welsh poet, and built as a hide-away for himself and the love of his...

Roadhouse Of No Return Jump To The AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 40 takes a look at the legend of a Kansas family that killed at least 11 visitors to their roadhouse in the early 1870s. They aroused suspicion by choosing as a victim a well-known physician, whose family soon pulled out all stops in a search until they uncovered his body, along with 10 missing travelers, on the Bender property....

Train Robberies Bring Troubles Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 457 continues a three-episode exploration of the infamous Dalton Gang, who terrorize the Plains states near the end of the nineteenth century. In this episode, the gang strikes it rich with a big haul, and some want to retire, but getting out of the country isn't the piece of cake they thought it would be. Hear more WILD WESTERNS! B...

The Early Days Of The Electric Chair This is a combination of two early episodes with a common theme. The Shocking Death Of William Kemmler: The First Electric Execution Jump to AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 19. Following the brutal murder of his common law wife Tillie Ziegler in Buffalo, New York, March, 1889, the rough character William Kemmler said he was glad he did it was was happy to ha...

The Fall from Grace and Tragic Murder of the Rev. Gaylord V. Saunders Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 38 tells the sordid tale of a Methodist minister suffering from a midlife crisis and in losing his faith falls into the path of sin and degradation. It gets so bad, that his beleaguered wife offers a young man a $10 bill to find someone to kill her husband before he kills her. This...

The Bothamley Murder Mystery Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 37 is the story of an 1883 murder that appeared in newspapers across the country in 1905 as "The Bothamley Murder Mystery" under the byline of Captain Patrick D. Tyrrell, who at that time had retired from a career as a detective in the United States Secret Service. His job was mainly to hunt down counterfeiters, but he ach...

From Law To Outlaw JUMP TO AD-FREE SAFE HOUSE EDITION With Deep-Dive Research and Episode Transcripts For Rent-Paying Scoundrels Episode 456 begins a three-episode exploration of the infamous Dalton Gang, who terrorize the Plains states near the end of the nineteenth century. Part One, From Law To Outlaw, tells how Bob Dalton and his brother Gratton made the great fall from grace, from U.S. Marsha...

The Curious Murder of Mary Ekhart  Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 35 goes deep on a case mentioned in my book “The First Celebrity Serial Killer,” as one of the murders Alfred Knapp confessed to.  Mary Ekhart, a young woman from Dayton, Ohio, separated from her husband and went to live in Cincinnati, where she had a lead on a job in a candy factory. A few days later, her body was f...

The Awful Death Of Elsie Sigel Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition Episode 33 is the sad tale of Elsie Sigel, a pretty young girl from a prominent New York family, went to work as a missionary in Manhattan’s Chinatown. In the summer of 1909, police found Elsie’s body packed in a trunk in an apartment above a chop suey joint. Hear more stories about TRUNK MURDERS!!! Become a supporter of this po...

The Strange Death Of Edith May Thompson Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 23 revolves around a friendship between a socialite and an erudite, seemingly scholarly man who came to live in her hometown on the eastern shore of Maryland. The residents of Talbot County were shocked beyond belief when a pair of crab trappers pull the body of the newly-married young woman from the Chesapeake Bay and the...

Tea With Aunt Carrie Jump To The Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 455 takes place down under when the friends and relatives of Caroline Grill of New South Wales begin falling dead from rat poisoning. I can’t quite figure out if Auntie Carrie is stupid or crazy like a fox. You tell me. Hear FIFTEEN More Tales of POISON Murderers Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast...