Episode 278 Celibate Farmer Ruins The Romance So what happens when a bachelor farmer is determined that his 52-year-old sister stay a spinster and she falls in love with the farm hand? Nothing good, you can bet on that, especially when the bachelor farmer discovers the suitor slinking around his house. I found this story interesting not only for th…

Episode 163: Magazine #13 "The Man Who Owned Manhattan" is the story of a determined private detective who sets out to solve one of the classic con game and match wits with "the man with an educated laugh." "Love And Money: Two Motives," a tale from the 1870s about a blackmail scheme that goes way over the top. "Mister Bravo's Burgandy" by Edmund P…

Episode 162 concerns a large blond man claiming to be a good Samaritan who brings a badly-beaten man into a hospital. It sparks an intricate game of cat-and-mouse that crosses several states and one international border. Bonus Stories For Patreon Subscribers: "No Judge Or Jury," by Peter Levins, considers the case of a missing family. When the Have…

From The Archives Of The Pinkertons Episode 61 begins with a daring train robbery and tells the story of how one of America's famed detectives, the esteemed William Pinkerton, solves a series of seemingly unrelated robberies while tracking the lone bandit down. The exciting tale is told by Cleveland Moffat, a New York journalist who wrote mystery s…

Captain Tyrell's Stories Of The Secret Service Episode 59 turns again to the writing of Captain Patrick D. Tyrell, a former investigator for the Secret Service, who set down many of his adventures for a syndicated newspaper feature that ran in 1905. This is an exciting story about two related investigations. After Tyrell and his men track down some…

How Mary Rogers Murdered Her Husband Episode 179 tells the story of a sordid little plot to commit murder in 1902, set in motion by a young married woman of questionable reputation. One boyfriend helps her in her plot, another testifies against her, and when she receives her sentence, she cries for a girlfriend. Ad-Free Edition More Femmes Fatale B…

The Many True Crimes of Tillie Klimek and Nellie Koulik Episode 100, a man goes to a doctor because he’s not feeling well and the doctor says, “Sounds like arsenic poisoning,” and suddenly there are four women in jail who discovered that arsenic is more effective in getting rid of a husband than divorce. The ringleader of them all, however, not onl…

The Peoria Hallmark Sex Murder Episode 182 tells the story of a young sex fiend, whose aggressive pursuit of his nefarious goals ends up with a body in a ditch. Police find a diary he kept of his exploits, used in court as evidence... FOR THE DEFENSE! Ad-Free Edition Purchase for $3 or Listen Ad-Free With Subscription Included in the collection Cap…

The Murder Of Percy Thompson By His Wife’s Young Lover For Episode 149 we make a journey to England in the 1920s and hear about the torrid affair between a successful milliner, but unhappy wife, and a young sailor eight years her junior. She writes saucy letters to his ports of call while he’s away that seem to indicate a plan for murdering her hus…

The End Of Gordon Fawcett Hamby Episode 277 is a fascinating portrait of a cold-blooded psychopath and sociopath, an erudite Canadian seaman who allegedly traveled the world committing the most dastardly robberies. But when he goes too far and murders a friend, his conscience finally gets to him and his eight year career comes to a crashing halt an…

The Travels of Clara Elizabeth Skarin Episode 204 tells the interesting tale of a young woman who shoots her aged benefactor and loots his trunk for a poke full of gold, then goes on a spending spree to update her wardrobe. Was it self-defense (as she would claim eight months later when police finally catch up with her)? Or premeditated? That's the…

Pulp Nonfiction A celebration of the pioneers of true crime In a remote part of Florida in the 1920s, a brother and sister in business together running a curio shop and gas station are found brutally murdered. Was it a robbery gone awry? Or were there more sinister forces at work? Detectives on the case soon dig up some telling secrets. Adapted fro…

A Crossing Guard Confesses Episode 150 is the brutal tale of one of the most fiendish murders on record in California (or anywhere else for that matter) that a dogged prosecutor pins on the town’s simple-crossing guard. The man confesses four times, then retracts it at the trial. I think maybe they got the wrong maniac. What do you think? Ad-Free E…

The Scarsdale Apple Orchard Torch Murder Scandal Episode 156 is the scandalous tale that begins with the charred body of a young woman, identified only by a mole on an unburned leg. Turns out she was married. And had a boyfriend. Police solve the case quickly, but the decision of the jury is to be whether it was a crime of passion, manslaughter, or…

The Atrocities Of Albert Fish I'D TURN BACK IF I WERE YOU!!! Episode 191 is without a doubt the vilest case you'll ever hear on this program because I don't think I could find a worse one if I tried. There's a lot of evil discussed here: torture, cannibalism, and more. Consider this your trigger warning: I'd turn back if I were you! Or at least put…

The Murder Of Mary Phagan Episode 183 tells of one of the most infamous cases of an innocent man wrongly accused. When a teenage factory girl is found dead in the basement of an Atlanta pencil manufacturer, blame falls on the mild-mannered Jewish superintendent of the plant, and the jury takes the word of a drunken janitor. It’ll take 70 years for …

The Reily Mattock Murder Episode 198 is centered on one of my favorite murder tropes, the so-called “eternal triangle,” between the cranky old farmer, his fading wife, and the handsome young farmhand. Yeah, that’s not going to end well, but they might have gotten away with it if they had just put the body across the tracks. It’s all in the details.…