True Crime of the Historical Kind Podcast

Few figures in history have inspired more myths, rumors, and legends than Grigory Rasputin. To some, he was a holy man blessed with miraculous healing abilities. To others... he was a manipulative fraud whose negative influence helped bring down an empire. The truth, as it often is, lies somewhere in between... Related reading: Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs By Douglas Sm...

As travelers continued vanishing along the Osage Mission Trail, suspicions slowly began to gather around a lonely cabin on the Kansas prairie. In Part II, we follow the unraveling of the Bloody Bender mystery...from the disappearance of Dr. William York, to the manhunt that followed, and the legends that blurred the line between history and folklore. *Some of the links here are Amazon affiliate li...

Before it became one of the most disturbing cases in American frontier history, the Bender homestead was simply a stop along a remote stretch of prairie. In this first episode, we trace the historical movements unfolding in Kansas...From the Homestead Act of 1862 to the travelers of the Osage Mission Trail, to understand the world the Bender family lived in and what might have motivated them in th...

Marie Antoinette had already been judged long before she ever stood trial... In Part III, we follow the final collapse of the monarchy as the Revolution turns towards the guillotine for justice.   Marie Antoinette, once a symbol of excess, is now destitute, at the mercy of the people she used to rule... *Some of the links here are Amazon affiliate links. If you buy through them, I may earn a small...

Marie Antoinette’s role was clear: produce an heir, secure the dynasty, and stabilize the Bourbon monarchy. She did her duty...But France was unraveling. In Part II, we trace the years between the birth of her children and the Women's March to Versailles. As the financial crisis deepens and The French Revolution takes shape, the queen becomes the perfect representative for a nation past the point...

Before she became a symbol of excess, hatred, and revolution, Marie Antoinette was a child shaped by diplomacy. In this first episode, we trace her life back to Vienna, where an Austrian archduchess was raised not for personal fulfillment, but to serve the political needs of empire. From her childhood under the watchful eye of Empress Maria Theresa to her marriage into the French Bourbon dynasty a...

From 1933 to 1934, the Barrow Gang’s crime spree escalated into something far more violent... And far more desperate. In Part II, we follow Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow through their final months on the run: the deadly shootout in Joplin, Bonnie’s devastating injuries, the collapse of the gang, the Eastham prison break, and the relentless pursuit led by Texas Ranger Frank Hamer. As the net tight...

Before they became infamous, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were just two young people trying to survive in a broken system. In Part I, we step back into the desperate world of 1930s Texas during the Great Depression...when poverty, failed banks, and harsh prison conditions helped isolate and radicalize a generation.  From Clyde Barrow’s early run-ins with the law, the brutal realities of the Texa...

In the aftermath of the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857, the violence faded from view...but the consequences did not.  In Part III, we examine what followed the destruction of the Baker–Fancher party in southern Utah Territory. Tracing the fate of the surviving children, the immediate efforts to manage the massacre narrative, and the long delay before accountability was pursued.  This final chap...

 In early September 1857, the Baker–Fancher party found themselves trapped in a remote mountain valley in southern Utah, under siege and running out of options. What had begun as suspicion and rumor had now turned deadly.  In Part II, we follow the final days at Mountain Meadows... the failed negotiations, the desperate decisions, and the massacre itself. We examine how fear, obedience, and silenc...

In the late summer of 1857, a well-equipped wagon train of emigrants known as the Baker–Fancher party rolled into Utah Territory on their way to California... They were exhausted, hopeful, and unaware that they were arriving during one of the most dangerous moments in early Mormon-American history. What followed would become one of the most shocking and disputed tragedies of the nineteenth century...

In Part II, we examine the final hours of the Romanov family in Ekaterinburg...what unfolded in the basement room, why the execution became so chaotic, and how the hidden jewels sewn into the grand duchesses’ clothing affected the brutal scene. We follow the cover-up that followed, the search for the bodies, and the decades-long mystery surrounding the investigation. 

* You may hear a bit of audio distortion toward the end. I'm traveling for the holidays, but I still wanted to bring you this week’s episode! Thanks for understanding!  Before revolution swept Russia into chaos, the Romanov dynasty was at a crossroads. Nicholas II inherited a vast empire he was never fully prepared to rule, and the entire family found themselves at the center of a storm they could...

 The murders of Andrew and Abby Borden shocked Fall River...but the trial that followed would capture the entire nation.  In Part II, we step inside the packed courtroom to unravel the evidence, the contradictions, and the spectacle that turned a family tragedy into America’s first true “media crime.” Through Victorian criminology and social ideas of gendered crime, we follow how Lizzie Borden wen...

Long before the murders that made her a household name, Lizzie Borden lived in a world shaped by Victorian rules. The strict gender expectations, family duty, and an obsession with reputation. Fall River’s elite valued quiet conformity, and the Borden household embodied those values almost to a fault. But under that stillness, resentments were simmering. Money, inheritance, a strained step-mother...

 In Part II, of the Witch Trials in Würzburg... Terror reaches a new height. The city’s prisons overflow, and families vanish overnight. Even noble blood can’t save you when suspicion becomes divine truth. We’ll trace how fear turned systematic.... and read the chilling letters left behind by those condemned. How could an entire city lose itself so completely in the name of righteousness? Amazon.c...

In the early 1600s, the city of Würzburg stood at the crossroads of faith and fear. As famine, plague, and war closed in, suspicion took root... and soon, neighbor turned against neighbor. Witch trials spread like wildfire across Franconia, fueled by rumor, zealotry, and the iron grip of the Counter-Reformation. 

It's London in 1888...Fear has already gripped the East End. In the wake of the “Double Event,” the hunt for Jack the Ripper intensifies, but the killings only get worse, and theories seem to multiply. In this episode, we trace the investigation through the early days until modern times. We’ll explore the suspects who seem to have been hiding in plain sight.

Before the murders began, London was already unraveling. Poverty, overcrowding, and disease turned Whitechapel into a place of desperation...The uneasy mix of empire, industry, and inequality paved the way for darkness. Part I explores the world of late Victorian London and the real lives of the women who became the victims in this story. This isn’t just the tale of a killer, it’s the story of the...

As tensions in Tombstone reach a breaking point, uneasy truces give way to open threats. In Part II, the line between law and vengeance begins to blur, and the cost of order grows dangerously high... True Crime of the Historical Kind’s 'the-tombstone-blood-feud' books on Goodreads (4 books)

Tombstone was a boomtown built on silver, ambition, and blood in the wild west. The Earps arrive in a town teetering between law and lawlessness where fortunes rise fast, grudges run deep, and a single spark could ignite a war.

Edward Plantagenet, the 17th Earl of Warwick, was born into royal power...and forgotten behind the walls of the Tower of London. Living in the shadow of his infamous cousins, the missing Princes in the Tower, his story unfolds during the infamous Wars of the Roses. Yet, his life was more than a footnote to their mystery. As the last male Plantagenet with a considerable claim to the English throne,...

In Part II, the walls close in. The disappearance of two royal children would echo through five centuries of history. We trace how politics, rumor, and legacy intertwined to shape one of England’s most enduring legends  *Some of the links here are Amazon affiliate links. If you buy through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you: The Princes in the Tower by Phillipa Langley htt...

 In a tumultuous medieval England, two young princes vanished inside the Tower of London... and history has never stopped asking what happened to them. Part I explores the turbulent backdrop of the Wars of the Roses, the family rivalries between Lancaster and York, that shook the English throne, and resulted in the rise of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the man who would become Richard III. *Some of...