Guest Episode: The Wild Tale of Black Jack Ketchum
While Crimes of the Centuries takes a brief summer break, enjoy a guest episode from Josh at The Wild West Extravaganza. This one’s a doozy: It’s the story of "Black Jack" Ketchum — a train robber whose criminal exploits made headlines across the American frontier. But it was his botched execution that really cemented his place in Wild West lore. This is one of those cases where the truth is no...
30m Jun 23, 2025
30m
S5 Ep16: The Siege of Sidney Street
In late 1910 and early 1911, a band of impulsive Latvian radicals fleeing persecution in Russia unleashed a wave of violence in London that left three policemen dead and part of a quiet city block in ruins. The siege that followed would not only transform British law enforcement but also mark a turning point in media history, as cameras captured the chaos in real time. "Crimes of the Centuries...
49m Jun 16, 2025
49m
S5 Ep15: The Repairman's Ruse: The Kidnapping of Alice Speed Stoll
When Berry Stoll returned from work on Oct. 10, 1934, the scene greeting him was pure chaos: His maid was tied up, his wife was missing and a terrifying pool of blood covered one of the beds. Alice Speed Stoll had been kidnapped by a smooth-talking, well-dressed man who claimed to be a phone repairman. What followed was a tense and twisted saga of ransom demands, narrow escapes, and a desperate...
40m Jun 09, 2025
40m
S5 Ep14: Breach of Trust: Inside the Legendary Loomis Fargo Heist
One Sunday morning in 1997, a security guard noticed the front fence at Loomis Fargo in Charlotte, North Carolina, was ajar. So was the warehouse door. And the vault inside was fitted with a suspicious time lock. When authorities finally opened the vault the next day, they found it completely empty, the target of one of the largest cash thefts in US history. The manhunt that followed would grip...
41m Jun 02, 2025
41m
S5 Ep13: Silenced in the South: Ruby McCollum and the Murder of Dr. Adams
In 1952, Ruby McCollum left two of her children in her car as she casually walked into a doctor's office in Live Oak, Florida, and shot Dr. C. Leroy Adams — a respected white physician and newly elected state senator. But what seemed like a clear-cut case of murder over a disputed medical bill soon unraveled into a story of power, race, sexual violence, and silence in the Jim Crow South. "Crim...
43m May 26, 2025
43m
S5 Ep12: The Stolen Cells and Silent Legacy of Henrietta Lacks
When Henrietta Lacks discovered a tumor inside of her in 1951, she turned to Johns Hopkins Medical Center for help. They examined her cells and discovered two things: First, she had cervical cancer. And second, her cells, for reasons we still can't explain, multiplied at astonishing rates, allowing doctors and pharmaceutical companies to use them to conduct all sorts of valuable research. Witho...
45m May 19, 2025
45m
Presenting: Murder True Crime Stories
Murder: True Crime Stories explores the depths of history's most notorious murders, like you've never heard before. Go beyond the crime scene as we search for the real story, and focus on the people impacted the most. Whether or not the case is solved, you'll come away with an understanding of why these stories need to be told. Murder: True Crime Stories (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/...
7m May 15, 2025
7m
S5 Ep11: Sex on the Moon: The Audacious Theft of Lunar Rocks
A band of nerdy geology enthusiasts were sure the email they received in 2002 was a hoax: The unsolicited message said that its writer was in possession of moon rocks that he was willing to sell. But moon rocks were among the most valuable objects on earth and anyone who knew anything about NASA knew that not only was owning them illegal, but it was impossible. One email recipient reached out t...
42m May 12, 2025
42m
S5 Ep10: Did Britain Hang an Innocent Man? The Murders at Rillington Place Part 2
When 25-year-old Tim Evans was hanged for killing his wife and 14-month-old daughter in 1949, few outside of his family questioned whether justice had been done. After all, Evans had at one point confessed to the crimes. But during his trial he recanted, saying that a neighbor had killed his 20-year-old wife Beryl during a botched abortion attempt. It seemed a ludicrous attempt at diversion -- ...
39m May 05, 2025
39m
S5 Ep9: John Reginald Christie and the Murders at Rillington Place
In 1953, a horrific discovery was made behind some hastily hung wallpaper in a flat at 10 Rillington Place in London's Notting Hill neighborhood: The decomposing bodies of three women. Another body was found beneath floor boards, and two more skeletons were recovered from the backyard garden. Soon, a nationwide manhunt was under way for John Reginald Christie, a man author Kate Summerscale desc...
41m Apr 28, 2025
41m
S5 Ep8: Journalist Spy: The Double Life of Pham Xuan An
As American journalists worked to cover the Vietnam War, one of their colleagues proved a valuable asset: Pham Xuan An had been born in Vietnam, and was therefore able to help his coworkers navigate the ins and outs of an unfamiliar culture. His work was praised as detailed, empathetic and unbiased. It would be years later that the truth finally came out, revealing that the journalist was in fa...
46m Apr 21, 2025
46m
S5 Ep7: Jack Kevorkian: Dr. Death or Champion of Choice?
In the 1990s, Dr. Jack Kevorkian ignited a firestorm when he began helping to end the lives of people who said they were terminally ill. Over the years, he claimed to have assisted in the deaths of more than 130 people, all while challenging police and prosecutors who vowed to stop him. His first four trials ended in three acquittals and a mistrial, but as his antics grew more daring, so, too, ...
49m Apr 14, 2025
49m
S5 Ep6: The Enduring Mystery of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
For much of their outlaw careers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid weren't the inseparable duo that Hollywood made us believe with its 1969 depiction of the pair. But the movie isn't the only reason the two are inextricably linked: The two members of the Wild West crew known as The Wild Bunch were wanted men when they opted in 1901 to disappear together. The official story is that the pair di...
44m Apr 07, 2025
44m
*BONUS* Strange And Unexplained- That Time Democracy Almost Collapsed: The Forgotten History of Smedley Butler and the Plot to Overthrow FDR
Crimes Of The Centuries is dark this week, but we hope you'll enjoy this episode of Strange And Unexplained with Daisy Eagan. In the 1930s, some shadowy figures approached a decorated and beloved Marine with a plot to overthrow the government and replace FDR with someone much more friendly to the wealthy. If only they hadn't chosen Smedley Butler to do their bidding, we might be living in a ve...
42m Mar 31, 2025
42m
S5 Ep5: How the Beverly Hills Supper Club Fire Forever Changed Civil Litigation
As the audience was settling in for an evening of entertainment in one of the swankiest nightclubs in the Midwest, a busboy approached the mic and asked everyone to exit the sprawling building. Soon, the place was engulfed. The May 28, 1977, fire at the Beverly Hills Supper Club was a deadly disaster that subsequent investigations found was not only preventable, but had been predicted, too. The...
43m Mar 24, 2025
43m
S5 Ep4: How Family Man John List Became New Jersey's Bogeyman
To outsiders, John List was a mild-mannered, church-going father of three whose oddest trait was mowing the lawn in a suit and tie. But then the bodies of his wife, mother and three children were uncovered rotting in the family's Westfield, New Jersey, home in late 1971. This was no whodunit: List left notes explaining not only what he'd done, but why he claimed he had to do it. Then he disappe...
44m Mar 17, 2025
44m
S5 Ep3: Mulholland's Deadly Dam Disaster
William Mulholland was summoned to the St. Francis Dam in San Francisquito Canyon early March 12, 1928, to inspect some leaks that workers found worrisome. Mulholland shrugged off the concerns and declared the dam -- the 19th he'd designed alone to feed water to the parched desert of Los Angeles -- perfectly safe. Hours later, the dam gave way, releasing billions of gallons of water downstream,...
43m Mar 10, 2025
43m
S5 Ep2: The Genesee River Killer
Sex workers began disappearing in the Rochester, New York, area at an alarming rate in the late 1980s. When their strangled and mutilated bodies were later discovered, it was clear they were being targeted by a sick killer with a distinct MO. It turned out that the man behind the killings, Arthur Shawcross, had already killed before. "Crimes of the Centuries (https://www.centuriespod.com/) " i...
45m Mar 03, 2025
45m
Friday Follow-Up: Charley Ross: America's First Kidnapping for Ransom
On this Friday Follow-Up, we update with information brought to us by two descendants of an important latter-day figure in the case.  After 4-year-old Charley Ross vanished in a carriage with two men who'd offered him candy and fireworks, police at first told his father to wait it out. Surely the men had no bad intentions. Then came the first ransom letter. And another. And another. In 1874, th...
43m Feb 28, 2025
43m
S5 Ep1: Twins Torn Apart: The Kidnapping of Marion Parker
When a well-dressed man approached a Los Angeles junior high school in 1927 asking for his coworker Perry Parker's daughter, the woman at the front desk should have immediately sensed something was off. Parker didn't have one daughter at the school; he had two. When the man clarified he wanted the "younger" Parker girl, that should have struck the office marm as odder still because the girls we...
46m Feb 24, 2025
46m
Introducing: CRIME HOUSE TRUE CRIME STORIES
Crime House True Crime Stories is the ultimate destination for true crime fans. Every episode features two notorious cases from that week in crime history, tied by a common theme like infamous serial killers, mysterious disappearances, tragic murders, and more. Every Monday, uncover the full stories behind the headlines as host Vanessa Richardson takes you through high-profile investigations li...
16m Feb 20, 2025
16m
S4 Ep46: The Betrayal of Anne Frank
Most people know the story of Anne Frank, the young Jewish girl who hid in a secret attic for two years with six other people to avoid the Nazis, but a question still festers 80 years later: Who turned them in and sealed their fates? "Crimes of the Centuries (https://www.centuriespod.com/) " is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab (https://www.patreon.com/grabbagcollab) exploring forgotten crimes fr...
41m Feb 17, 2025
41m
S4 Ep45: The Lysine Cartel: How an Informant (Sloppily) Exposed Archer Daniels Midland
Mark Whitacre, a high-ranking exec at the agribusiness company Archer Daniels Midland, approached the FBI with some scandalous news: His employer was part of an international cartel illegally inflating the cost of lysine, an additive used in animal feed. What Whitacre ultimately helped uncover landed more than just his bosses in prison. "Crimes of the Centuries (https://www.centuriespod.com/) ...
45m Feb 10, 2025
45m
S4 Ep44: At Any Cost: The Rise and Fall of Lance Armstrong
After recovering from Stage 4 testicular cancer, cyclist Lance Armstrong not only got his health back, but he became one of the sport's highest profile figures, winning seven Tour de France races in a row. While he insisted -- repeatedly and under oath -- that he'd earned those wins without the help of performance-enhancing drugs, one of his past teammates stepped forward to tell a different st...
45m Feb 03, 2025
45m
S4 Ep43: How Two Murders Became Three: The Story of George Stinney Jr.
In 1944, the brutal slayings of two young girls made plenty of headlines in Alcolu, South Carolina. The trial of their suspected killer garnered far less attention -- even when he was convicted and violently executed in the electric chair. That's because few people had much sympathy for the boy who supposedly confessed to the crime. Nearly a century later, however, and 14-year-old George Stinne...
44m Jan 27, 2025
44m
S4 Ep42: Aberfan's Lost Generation
Students at Pantglas Junior School had just settled in at their desks the morning of Oct. 21, 1966, when an avalanche of slurry swept through the building, trapping hundreds of children and teachers and wiping out nearby homes and businesses. Known as the Aberfan Disaster, the collapse of a colliery spoil tip ultimately killed 116 children and 28 adults. While the official cause was weeks of he...
48m Jan 20, 2025
48m
S4 Ep41: The Stealing of 'The Scream'
As the world descended on Norway for the 1994 Winter Olympics, a determined thief set his sights on a Norweigian painting he'd coveted most of his life: Edvard Munch's The Scream. The daring theft of the world-renowned painting took less than a minute and prompted an undercover sting in hopes of retrieving the masterpiece. "Crimes of the Centuries (https://www.centuriespod.com/) " is a podcast...
41m Jan 13, 2025
41m
S4 Ep40: The Murder That Scandalized Harvard
On Thanksgiving week in 1849, Boston doctor and Harvard graduate George Parkman went for a walk and never returned home. The last place he'd been spotted was near the college's medical school, where he'd stopped for a meeting with Harvard chemistry professor John White Webster. The case that unfolded not only made international headlines but it threatened the reputation of America's oldest univ...
41m Jan 06, 2025
41m
Introducing The In Between Podcast
Host Mel Barrett investigates a famous murder case that has split the community in her home state of New Hampshire right down the middle for thirty-four years. It’s a closed case, but based on what Mel uncovers this season in old police files (including surreptitiously recorded wiretaps), never before heard interviews, and a bombshell post trial interview with a juror that’s been hidden away, M...
28m Dec 30, 2024
28m
Daniel Sickles: Temporarily Insane?
Crimes of the Centuries presents one of Amber's favorite episodes from Season One. Happy holidays everyone! In 1859, two of Washington, D.C.'s highest-profile men were in love with the same woman -- and that love triangle would lead to the broad-daylight shooting of one of them just a stone's throw from the White House. The victim had been the first-born son of Francis Scott Key, author of the...
42m Dec 23, 2024
42m
S4 Ep39 Part 2: Claus von Bülow's Two Trials of the Century
We are bringing you part two of the "Sunny" von Bülow story as a Bonus episode! When heiress and socialite Martha "Sunny" von Bülow was found unresponsive on the bathroom floor, her husband seemed awfully quick to pull the plug when doctors declared her comatose. Suspicions only grew when investigators discovered that Claus von Bülow had a mistress who'd given him an ultimatum to leave Sunny o...
36m Dec 17, 2024
36m
S4 Ep39: The Decades-Long Death of "Sunny" von Bülow
To outsiders, Claus and Martha "Sunny" von Bülow seemed an idyllic couple on the upper echelons of high society, but those who knew them best were growing increasingly concerned in the late 1970s when Sunny began having health scares that doctors couldn't figure out. Claus said his wife was a depressed alcoholic, but Sunny's children and maid weren't so sure. Things took a tragic turn after Chr...
42m Dec 16, 2024
42m
S4 Ep38: The Nazi Plunder of World War II
We all know Adolph Hitler as a mediocre artist-turned-genocidal dictator, but did you know that he pulled off the greatest art heist the world has ever seen? As World War II unfolded across Europe, Hitler directed his Nazis to steal countless masterpieces from every country they traversed. He kept his favorites, while others were hidden in castles and salt mines to be unearthed after the war en...
55m Dec 09, 2024
55m
S4 Ep37: Escape from Alcatraz
The morning of June 12, 1962, alarms sounded at the federal prison on Alcatraz Island when guards conducting a head count came up three inmates short. In the prisoners' beds were decoy heads that bought the men enough time to escape the supposedly inescapable prison known as The Rock. The trio -- Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin -- had used handmade tools to dig tunnels and cr...
44m Dec 02, 2024
44m
S4 Ep36: Brink's Heist: The Ultimate Caper
On January 17, 1950, a throng of men wearing superhero Halloween masks stormed into the headquarters of Brink's in Boston, Massachusetts, and made off with nearly $2.8 million. For years, the case baffled federal authorities, who spent 10 times the amount stolen working to solve the crime. "Crimes of the Centuries (https://www.centuriespod.com/) " is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab (https://www...
47m Nov 25, 2024
47m
S4 Ep35: Firefighter-Turned-Arsonist John Leonard Orr
As a series of brush and building fires baffled most firefighters in the Los Angeles region, John Orr of the Glendale Fire Department seemed amazingly skilled at identifying the cause of each blaze. He was so skilled at his job, in fact, that he was routinely asked to train other firefighters. Turned out, though, there was a sinister reason for Orr's success. "Crimes of the Centuries (https://...
42m Nov 18, 2024
42m
S4 Ep34: The Monster of Florence
Between 1968 and 1985, eight sets of lovers were murdered during new moons in the Tuscany region of Italy. The mysterious and brutal slayings terrorized the region, made international headlines and fueled countless theories -- including one that the Monster of Florence and America's Zodiac Killer were one and the same. "Crimes of the Centuries (https://www.centuriespod.com/) " is a podcast fro...
47m Nov 11, 2024
47m
S4 Ep33: The Unholy Rise and Fall of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker
As high-rolling televangelists, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker built a Christian media empire that included a theme park, broadcasting network and ministry funded by faithful viewers who believed the Bakkers when they said God would reward their investments 100-fold in this life and even more so in the next one. Then the feds got involved. "Crimes of the Centuries (https://www.centuriespod.com/) " ...
52m Nov 04, 2024
52m
S4 Ep32: How the 1919 World Series Blackened the Chicago White Sox and American Sports
In the wake of the 1919 World Series between the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds, disturbing rumors began to swirl that sparked an investigation: Did members of the White Sox club -- including legendary "Shoeless Joe" Jackson -- conspire with professional gamblers to rig the outcome of the series? "Crimes of the Centuries (https://www.centuriespod.com/) " is a podcast from Grab Bag C...
51m Oct 28, 2024
51m
S4 Ep31: You Have the Right to an Attorney ... Thanks to Clarence Earl Gideon
A poor drifter named Clarence Earl Gideon had faced more than his share of legal run-ins over his lifetime, but when he was arrested in 1961 for allegedly stealing some drinks and quarters from a bar, he insisted he wasn't guilty -- and asked for an attorney to help him prove it. At the time, though, Florida law only provided defense lawyers in capital cases. After his conviction, Gideon sought...
43m Oct 21, 2024
43m
FRIDAY FOLLOW-UP: Sex, Lies, and Murder: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, and Harry Thaw
On this Friday Follow-Up, we tweak one of our earliest episodes after Amber's later research uncovered that an aspect of this case has been wrongly reported for decades. It was one of the most salacious stories the country had ever heard: A famous architect had been gunned down in front of an audience of hundreds by a man who said he was defending his wife's honor. It so happened the wife was t...
49m Oct 18, 2024
49m
S4 Ep30: The Pastor and His Mistress: The Scandalous Hall-Mills Murder
The town of New Brunswick, New Jersey, was rocked by the discovery of two bodies beneath a crabapple tree in September 1922. The remains belonged to Edward Hall, a local pastor, and Eleanor Mills, a member of the church's choir. The two were found entwined beneath the tree -- an odd positioning considering they'd both been married to other people. Suspicion soon fell as the lovers' spouses, tur...
45m Oct 14, 2024
45m
S4 Ep29: Col. Tom Parker: The Fraud Who Made Elvis Presley
Music legend Elvis Presley never knew it before he died, but the man he trusted with his career and money was not who he said he was. Col. Tom Parker had been born in the Netherlands, not in Huntington, W. Va., as he'd claimed. Parker -- born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk before arriving in the U.S. illegally -- upended the music industry with the unorthodox contracts he demanded, which lined his ...
53m Oct 07, 2024
53m
Crimes Of The Centuries presents: The Burden
Crimes Of The Centuries is dark this week, but if you liked last week's episode on former Detective Louis Scarcella, we think you'll like season one of The Burden. The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains and shines a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are...
17m Sep 30, 2024
17m
S4 Ep28: From 'Closer' to 'Crooked': NYC Detective Louis Scarcella's Fall from Grace
When Det. Louis Scarcella retired in 1999, he was a New York City hero. He had closed dozens of homicide cases during his decades-long run as a cop nicknamed 'The Closer' for his ability to get suspects to confess to him. Years after he retired, however, one of his highest-profile cases got another look, and a judge exonerated the man convicted. Then came another overturned conviction and anoth...
41m Sep 23, 2024
41m
S4 Ep27: From Hero to Traitor: How Benedict Arnold Slid into Infamy
Before Benedict Arnold's name became synonymous with 'traitor,' he had been hailed as a hero of the American Revolutionary War. His rise from militiaman to trusted ally of George Washington was the stuff of legends. But instead of being honored with, say, his likeness on American currency, he committed an act of treason so heinous that his name is still hurled as an insult to this day. "Crimes...
45m Sep 16, 2024
45m
S4 Ep26: How the Horrifying Murder of Adam Walsh Changed America
In 1981, a 6-year-old boy accompanied his mother to a Sears department store, where she left him for mere minutes in the toy department. Two weeks later, the boy's head was discovered in a ditch. Learn how the horrifying case -- and the South Florida police department's decades-long bungling of it -- changed parenting in America. "Crimes of the Centuries (https://www.centuriespod.com/) " is a ...
58m Sep 09, 2024
58m
S4 Ep25: The Clutter Family: The Case Behind Truman Capote's In Cold Blood
The horrific killing of four members of the Clutter family in 1959 led author Truman Capote to write In Cold Blood, the book credited with launching true crime as a genre. But how much of what Capote wrote was as "immaculately factual" as the author led the world to believe? "Crimes of the Centuries (https://www.centuriespod.com/) " is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab (https://www.patreon.com/gr...
45m Sep 02, 2024
45m
S4 Ep24: How Catherine of Aragon Changed Europe
The Catholic Church lost its grip on England largely thanks to a woman who refused to quietly let her husband trade her in for a younger model. Catherine of Aragon's impact on Europe has lasted for centuries, and it all began with a single crime: bigamy. "Crimes of the Centuries (https://www.centuriespod.com/) " is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab (https://www.patreon.com/grabbagcollab) explorin...
49m Aug 26, 2024
49m
S4 Ep23: Cassie Chadwick: The Impostor Heiress of the Gilded Age
Cassie Chadwick of Cleveland wasn't who she said she was. Even she admitted that -- though in her version, she wasn't the con artist daughter of a Canadian farmer, but rather the illegitimate daughter of Andrew Carnegie, America's wealthiest man. She used that lie to bilk businessmen, bankers and entire institutions out of boatloads of money, earning her place in history as one of the Gilded Ag...
39m Aug 19, 2024
39m