Rebecca picks up the story with Sabato Raia’s trial. Will his self-defense strategy for shooting Nick Patenaude, Dana Matthews and Kevin Pinette pass jury scrutiny? Maureen gives NNW treatment to the Amazon Prime doc series “Debi Marshal Investigates: Frozen Lies.” Also, Maureen gives the NNW treatment to the Netflix doc How to Rob a Bank. Looking …

Ep 19 features a brief history of the sleaze publisher, Holloway House, along with a discussion of the Black authors Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines (and others) and the development of Black Pulp Fiction with crime writer, Gary Philips. Full show notes with links is available at Paperbackshow.com Music from Freesound.org.…

On a hot June night in 1997, a dispute between Portland, Maine, bar owner Sabato Raia and three acquaintances – Nick Patenaude, Dana Matthews and Kevin Pinette – ended with the three men lying dead in the street in front of Raia’s apartment house. They’d all been shot in the head. Self-defense? Or just a pissed off guy with a gun? In Part 1, Rebecc…

How did a simmering lead-up to war between England and Spain, a 16th-century government coverup, fake news about piracy, a likely hoax by a college professor, dismissal of indigenous culture, early American white Christian nationalism and misogyny (of course) influence California history and short- change Oregon? Our sister Liz, the college profess…

When Everett Savage staggered out of the woods of Fairfield, Maine, on a June day in 1958, the Augusta businessman had been missing for two days and had quite a story to tell. But it took a while for him to get to the lead – that mother of five Patricia Wing, who’d also been missing for two days, from her Oakland home, was dead in the backseat of h…

In the early morning hours of Easter in 2006, Joseph Gray was shot through the window of his living room in Milo, Maine. Several hours later, William Elliott was shot when he answered the door of his home in Corinth, Maine. What drove Stephen Marshall to kill two men he never met? The question spurred much bigger questions in Maine and beyond about…

Many members of Lori Jane Kearsey’s family didn’t consider her lost, even though they hadn’t heard from her since November 1983. But the 21-year-old left behind a daughter when she “joined the witness protection program” eight months after marrying into the powerful Massachusetts Angiulo crime family. It turns out that there was much more to her go…

Special Guest, novelist Hal Bodner, discusses the unique writer, Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995) and, in particular, her most popular novel, "The Incredible Mr. Ripley" (1955). The podcast opens with a short biography and then a more focused discussion of Ripley. Complete notes with links can be found at paperbackshow.com…

There’s no doubt that Kenneth Eugene Smith, along with another man, killed Elizabeth Sennett in Alabama in 1988, a murder paid for by her husband, Charles Sennett. But the long road to Smith’s execution, which took place in January 2024 by a new method, nitrogen hypoxia, raises troubling questions about the death penalty, how it’s administered and …

We explore the age-old question, “Am I the asshole?” with situations curated by Rebecca from the sub-Reddit world. Maureen also does an NNW on the Max docuseries Onision In Real Life. Enjoy!By maureenmilliken

Charles Terry wasn’t a good guy, especially when it came to women. He liked to beat, rape and strangle them. He was convicted for several attacks and just out of prison in 1951 when Shirley Coolen, a Brunswick, Maine, single mother was found dead, strangled in a yard on the town’s fancy Park Row. But did he do it? And how about the Boston Strangler…

In our third episode looking at the “justified” killings of Maine citizens by the state’s law enforcement agencies, we go back to one that spurred a lot of changes over the past decade, but also — spoiler! — not some of the things that really matter. Katherine Hegarty, shot in her remote Maine cabin by three officers from two different agencies on …

Ambroshia Fagre was just 18 and likely an innocent bystander when she was killed by police in Maine in February 2017, along with Kadhar Bailey, 25, who police suspected of an armed home invasion. The two were among 13 people shot by police in Maine that year, nine of whom died. Maine police have shot to death nearly 200 people since 1990. Like all …

One of Maine’s 2022 homicides was Drew McKenna, 24, accidentally shot by his older brother Shay. In 2023, the McKenna family suffered a second tragedy when the lost Shay, who was shot by police. We also update the 2023 homicide list — it’s up to 54 now, and talk about the texts dismissed by police that warned police that Robert Card was going to do…

We bring you our annual Maine homicide list with 2023’s 51 homicides, a record year and more than twice the average annual number. Even without the Lewiston shootings that killed 18, it was the worst year for homicide in Maine in decades. The list wasn’t yet available from the Maine Department of Public Safety, but that wasn’t going to stop use. We…

This episode covers (briefly) the history of Bantam paperbacks with a specific focus on the Western and the author Louis L'amour. Full show notes and transcript can be found a paperbackshow.com. Music is from uppbeat.io and is licensed.By Ricky Lee Grove

Enjoy the figgy pudding, fireworks, airing of grievances, or however else you celebrate! Here are some recommendations on what to watch to get you through until our next episode in two weeks. Happy holidays!By maureenmilliken

Miriam Stoltz was found shot in the head on a cold February afternoon in the woods in New Hampshire, where she’d lain for 15 hours before being found by a runner. The next day, Roger Whittemore was found dead in Miriam’s Windham, New Hampshire, backyard, shot, stabbed and beaten. Miriam wasn’t expected to recover, but she did. And her memories of w…

Check out the full show notes at paperbackshow.com. Note that the music for this episode is licensed from upbeatio.By Ricky Lee Grove

Racial injustice on the high seas and in the courts plays out in a 1905 mass murder on a cargo ship, the Harry A. Berwind. Captain ER Rumill and three other crew members, all but one of them white, are killed, leaving just black crew members Henry Scott, Arthur Adams and Robert Sawyer to explain. The case ultimately involved two presidents and the …

Presumption of guilt. Consciousness of guilt. The magical shell casing. Testilying. Giving the dogs credit. These are just some of the lessons learned as we wrap up discussion on the Logan Clegg murder case after Maureen spent more than three weeks in the courtroom covering it as a journalist. We also disscus the latest mass shooting in the U.S., w…

Episode 15 of the Paperback Show looks at another classic paperback: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson published by Popular Library in paperback in 1963. The first part of the show introduces the concept of the classic paperback and shares a short bio of Shirley Jackson while she was writing The Haunting of Hill House. The second part o…

Andrew Denton had made it clear he wanted to die. Sidney Kilmartin, living in Manchester, Maine, 3,000 miles away from Denton’s home in England, was determined to make sure that would happen. In December 2011, Kilmartin mailed Denton a deadly dose of cyanide. What happened next tangled up the legal system for years. Rebecca tells the story. Maureen…

We’ll have Episode 148 of Crime & Stuff up shortly. But in the meantime, we have some exciting news! After a nearly four-year hiatus, our other podcast Groovy Tube: The Crimes of the Brady Bunch, is returning Nov. 6. Haven’t listened? Nows the time to catch up.By maureenmilliken

The first of an occasional series on Classic Paperbacks: those paperbacks that have had a huge influence on popular culture around the world. In ep 14 of the Paperback Show we look at the remarkable book Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. Published in 1963 in paperback (originally published in 1946) it is considered to be one of the top 10 …

In this episode, we look at the life and work of celebrated private eye novelist, Ross MacDonald (aka Kenneth Millar) who wrote from the late 1940s into the early 1980s. He was the first mystery novelist to be reviewed on the front page of the New York Times book review and his work paralleled the rise of the paperback. His detective, Lew Archer, w…

No one knows why Fred Spencer was in his friend and apartment-mate’s room on the afternoon of April 28, 1973. One thing quickly became clear — he didn’t come out alive. The outcome of the University of Maine graduate student’s case would have widespread tragic implications for decades to come. Maureen presents. Also, Rebecca does a Negative Nellies…

No one in Belfast, Maine, who knew James Cummings liked him very much. But was it OK for his wife, Amber, to shoot him to death as he slept? Turns out, it very well may have been. Rebecca explains. Maureen gives an NNW review to the audio version of the book “Vanished in Vermillion,” by Lou Raguse.By maureenmilliken

When Amie Riley disappeared from a Manchester, New Hampshire, bar on August 15, 2003, her boyfriend, mother and friends were frantic, but police weren’t. Not even a little bit. Eight months later, when her remains were found, the investigation led to an imperfect justice. In fact, you could say someone got away with murder. Maureen presents. Rebecc…

When police visited James Cameron’s house in Maine in 2007 and took his computer, among other things, most people figured there was just one crime he was likely being investigated for. And they were right – child porn. That was the beginning of a long legal circus orchestrated by the man who until his arrest was one of the state’s top drug prosecut…

In June 2021, we brought you Gerald Goodale Part 1, the 1988 murder of Geraldine Finn. At the time her killer, Goodale, had just been arrested for the 1987 murder of Janet Brochu. His case has finally gone to court, so we we bring you Goodale’s first murder, one that could’ve been solved before he went on to kill Geraldine Finn. Rebecca has an upda…

Lillian MacDonald was just doing her job, passing out the pay envelopes on July 12, 1930, when she disappeared from her Portland, Maine, place of employment. Her grisly murder wasn’t the only injustice that happened to her as the case unfolded. Rebecca presents. We also share some feedback from “Old Growth Murder” documentarian Tom Olsen, after we …

People will say that in 1980, Rosie Ruiz “came out of nowhere” to win the women’s race in the Boston Marathon. But it soon became clear she came out of the crowd a half mile from the finish line. In the week that followed, it was revealed she also didn’t finish the October 1979 New York Marathon, despite her recorded 2:56.31 finishing time. As more…

Norway’s Black Metal music scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s brought together young men who, giving themselves nicknames like Necro Butcher and Hell Hammer, aimed to shock and act out more than make music, But the hijinks gave way to arson, suicide and murder, with the band Mayhem and its pschopathic leader Euronymous at the center of the sto…

The crime of looting indigenous ancestral sites in the U.S. and around the world goes back centuries. Professor Liz makes a special guest appearance to school us on how archeological looting has led to murder in her adopted home state of Oregon. She also briefly updates the Michael Francke case, and Maureen updates the latest sanctions agains the c…

Episode 133 told part of the story of what led police to arrest Logan Clegg in the April 2022 double murder of Djeswende and Stephen Reid in Concord, New Hampshire. With the release of the 25-page Concord Police Department affidavit filed in support of his arrest, we learn so much more, including stories from people who may have crossed his path at…

The second-to-the-last time Bob Maze heard from his wife Rita, she was on her way home to their Great Falls, Montana, home from visiting relatves in Helena, 90 minutes away. The last time he heard from her was 10 hours later and she was calling from the trunk of her car after being attacked and abducted. Rita was later found dead in the trunk in Sp…

You may have heard the Brian Walshe — arrested Jan. 17 on charges her murdered his missing wife, Ana — was once convicted of fraud “for selling two fake Andy Warhol paintings for $80,000.” That’s like saying the Titanic took on a little water. Walshe’s Warhol fraud was a long con that spanned five years, had multiple victims, involved several piece…

Arnold Nash was a “career criminal.” He was also a career escape artist from the Maine State Prison System. And the funny thing was, he was escaping because he wanted to stay incarcerated. His crimes escalated as his need to be in prison grew, until someone lost a life. Rebecca tells the story. We also update Episode 24, finally, “the Fitbit murder…

Thirty people died of homicide in Maine this year (not including the two perpetrators in murder-suicides), the most recent on Christmas Day. That’s the most since 2008, when there were 31. While the state’s drug problems get a lot of attention — as they should — 2022 Maine homicides show that, as always, nowhere are Mainers in more danger of being …

I read a lot of paperbacks in 2022, but these four titles stood out. In this episode of the Paperback Show, I share why I liked the books, a bit about the authors, and the specific edition I read. The four titles are My Cousin Rachel by Daphne. Du Maurier, Bugles in the Afternoon by Ernest Haycox, The Great White Space by Basil Copper and Black Eas…

When Djeswende and Stephen Reid were shot while out for a walk in the woods in Concord, New Hampshire, police said the public was not in danger, even though they didn’t know who did it and didn’t have solid leads for weeks. But it turns out the public WAS in danger, from a man whose history of violence and illegal gun possession didn’t stop him fro…

Azita Jamshab, 29, and newly divorced was ready to move from Maine to Las Vegas and start a new life. But her insurance agent, who was also the beneficiary on her life insurance policy, had a different plan. Rebecca presents. Maureen updates Episode 72, the Cocoanut Grove fire, and Episode 125, Katahdin Kills and Doesn’t Care, and takes the NNW mac…

Episode 11 contains a short biography of noted mystery writer James Mallahan Cain (1892 - 1977) along with a general summary of his books published in paperback. The second half of the show is a discussion with regular guest, Richard Brewer, on Cain's masterpiece - Double Indemnity. In addition to discussing the book, we also compare it to the bril…

The Lady in the Dunes case — a murdered woman found in the dunes of Cape Cod on July 26, 1974 — may have gone cold shortly after she was found, but the case lived on in New England as an enduring mystery, and then became an internet sensation. When she was finally identified on October 31 as Ruth Marie Terry, whose Tennessee family had been looking…

Michael Allen had been living large in the nine years since 1988, when he’d won $5.8 million in the lottery. The problem was, he didn’t really know who his friends around town in Lewiston, Maine, were. Then one night, two of them lured him to a motel room… he didn’t live to see the morning. Rebecca reports. We also give the Discover+ show “Real Lif…

When Ashling Murphy was attacked and killed in broad daylight by a stranger on a well-used path in Tullamore, Ireland, shock and anger reverberated across the small country. Her murder renewed vows that attitudes toward women in Ireland had to change. But where’s the same outcry when women and children are killed by a man who isn’t a stranger? You …

Full show notes including reference materials, music credit and links are available at paperbackshow.comBy Ricky Lee Grove

Miss us already? We’re taking a short break, but we’ll be back the first week of October with an exciting new episode. Thanks for all the support and thanks for listening. Meanwhile, check out our “More Stuff” page, where we’ve posted some of the video footage we discussed in Episode 128.By maureenmilliken

Full show notes to Episode 9 can be found at paperbackshow.comBy Ricky Lee Grove