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...
56m Dec 09, 2024
56m
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
S4 Ep22: The Largest Art Heist in American History
When several men dressed as cops entered the Isabella Gardner Museum in March of 1990, the nighttime security detail didn't think much of it -- until one of the "officers" handcuffed the guards' wrists and announced, "This is a robbery." Thirty-four years later, theories abound about who was behind the largest -- and most mystifying -- art heist in American history. "Crimes of the Centuries (h...
42m Aug 12, 2024
42m
S4 Ep21: Sex, Lies and a Government Conspiracy: The Tuskegee Syphilis Study
In 1932, hundreds of men in Tuskegee, Alabama, signed up for something they'd never had much access to: healthcare. The best part? It was free. Told for decades they were being treated for "bad blood," the participants were never informed they had tested positive for syphilis and were being studied by the US government to see how the disease progressed in Black men who were blocked from receivi...
47m Aug 05, 2024
47m
S4 Ep20: Terror in Munich: The 1972 Olympic Games
After Munich, Germany, was named the host of the 1972 Olympic Games, organizers were determined to highlight the country's softer side after the horrors of World War II. This was, after all, the first Olympics to be held in Germany since 1936's Berlin Games, during which Hitler used the festivities to spread propaganda and Nazi ideology. Unfortunately, Munich's "softer side" went beyond a subdu...
43m Jul 29, 2024
43m
S4 Ep19: The Time Mobile, Alabama, Sentenced a Man to Death For Stealing $1.95
When a handyman from Mobile, Alabama, was accused of stealing $1.95 from a woman who employed him in 1957, no one could have guessed the fervor it would cause, not just nationally but overseas. Jimmy Wilson was sentenced to death for the theft in a case that threatened America's reputation on a global scale. "Crimes of the Centuries (https://www.centuriespod.com/) " is a podcast from Grab Bag ...
37m Jul 22, 2024
37m
S4 Ep18: The Pimlico Poisoning: The Trial of Adelaide Bartlett
Soon after London bade farewell to 1885 and welcomed the new year, a woman named Adelaide Bartlett roused her sleeping house with screams. Her husband, Edwin, who had seemed to have turned a corner on his recent illness, was dead. Housemates who arrived in a panic immediately noticed a chemical smell in the room that suggested Edwin hadn't died of natural causes. The case, which would soon be d...
43m Jul 15, 2024
43m
From Grab Bag Collab: The Catalyst
Hey, Crimes of the Centuries listeners! COTC is dark for the next two weeks, but as a special bonus, here is another episode of The Catalyst, a true-crime podcast that publishes every other Friday exclusively to patreon.com/grabbagcollab. U.S. Air Force, Stalking, and Camping Trips. This is the story of The Boy Scout. Dive deep into the upbringing and backstories of individuals who committed h...
36m Jul 01, 2024
36m
S4 Ep17: The Falcon and the Snowman
In the 1970s, an aerospace firm in Redondo Beach, California, had the clever idea of handing over access to highly classified spy satellite secrets to a 20-something named Christopher Boyce. It didn't end well. Boyce and his high school buddy -- a drug dealer named Daulton Lee -- soon began selling that classified info to the Russians in a scheme that's still regarded today as one of the most d...
42m Jun 24, 2024
42m
S4 Ep16: The Lonely Hearts Club Killers
After World War II stole a great many men from their loving wives, Lonely Hearts clubs were all the rage for lonely widows looking for love. A number of them thought they'd met their soul mates when they traded letters with a man calling himself Chris Martin who was so devoted to his family, he often had his sister in tow. In truth, those unsuspecting women were communicating with Ray Fernandez...
39m Jun 17, 2024
39m
S4 Ep15: Randy Ayers: The Case of the Lookalike
Randy Ayers was a 17-year-old high school senior when he was spotted at school and identified as the man who raped and tried to kill a 15-year-old girl in November 1981. It would take nine agonizing years -- and an unsolicited confession from a serial killer -- before Randy's case would change how prosecutors in Hamilton County, Ohio, treated eyewitness identification. "Crimes of the Centuries...
37m Jun 10, 2024
37m
S4 Ep14: Voyage of the Damned: The M.S. St. Louis
The 937 passengers aboard the M.S. St. Louis had every reason to be optimistic as they left Hamburg, Germany, on May 13, 1939. After years of their rights being slowly stripped away, the Jewish men, women and children felt lucky to be sailing off to start anew in Cuba. But once they spotted their destination, a new nightmare began. "Crimes of the Centuries (https://www.centuriespod.com/) " is ...
40m Jun 03, 2024
40m
S4 Ep13: Kidnapped and Buried Alive: The Nightmare in Chowchilla
When 26 California schoolchildren and their bus driver failed to show up after a swimming trip on the penultimate day of summer school, authorities launched a search that grew much more frantic after the school bus they'd been traveling in was discovered hidden in 20-foot-tall bamboo. What happened next shocked and befuddled the nation. "Crimes of the Centuries (https://www.centuriespod.com/) ...
36m May 27, 2024
36m
S4 Ep12: The Tsavo Man Eaters
In 1898, a pair of killers stalked a worksite in the Tsavo region of Kenya. They evaded blockades and booby traps to torment hundreds of men who'd simply signed up to do a job but instead found themselves marked as prey for a seemingly unstoppable deadly duo. "Crimes of the Centuries (https://www.centuriespod.com/) " is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab (https://www.patreon.com/grabbagcollab) exp...
37m May 20, 2024
37m
S4 Ep11: Marie Noe and Her Cradle of Death
In the 1960s, after losing all 10 of the babies they'd conceived, Marie Noe and her husband, Arthur, became the most famous bereaved parents in America, with most of the deaths attributed to "crib death," later called Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). After a journalist revisited the case in 1998, investigators took another look at the mysterious series of deaths, prompting Marie Noe to shar...
39m May 13, 2024
39m
S4 Ep10: The Walk of Death: Howard Unruh
On September 6, 1949, 28-year-old World War II veteran Howard Unruh ate the breakfast his mother made him, then armed himself with a Luger pistol and walked calmly through his Camden, New Jersey, neighborhood, shooting everyone in sight. He told police afterward he'd had a kill list of specific people he'd felt had wronged him, but by the end of his 12-minute rampage, 13 would be fatally wounde...
37m May 06, 2024
37m
S4 Ep9: The Monster of Wall Street
While the grift he deployed had been named for another man, Bernie Madoff took the concept of a Ponzi scheme and pumped it full of steroids, allowing it to keep him -- and plenty of others -- filthy rich for literally decades. In the end, Madoff bilked some $65 billion from thousands of clients, all while maintaining such a sheen of respectability that he was charged with helping write the very...
42m Apr 29, 2024
42m
S4 Ep8: Charles Ponzi's Scheme
Italian-born Charles Ponzi had grown up hearing from his mother that he was destined for greatness, so it was no surprise to her when she visited him in America to find him wealthy beyond her wildest dreams. Ponzi had come up with a get-rich-quick scheme that he insisted was legal. To his credit, it took federal authorities a good seven months to figure out how it wasn't. In this episode, meet ...
42m Apr 22, 2024
42m
S4 Ep7: The Los Angeles Times Bombing
In the midst of nationwide bombings that pit union backers against anti-union bosses, an explosion at the Los Angeles Times building crossed a line that changed everything. At 1:07 a.m. on Oct. 1, 1910, a blast tore through the Times building, killing 21 people. Times officials immediately blamed organized labor, which ultimately bore out: Not only were three union-affiliated co-conspirators co...
38m Apr 15, 2024
38m
S4 Ep6: How the Assault of Recy Taylor Shaped Civil Rights Tactics
In September 1944, a 24-year-old married woman named Recy Taylor was walking home with friends from church when a carload of seven men stopped her. Forced into the car, Recy, a Black woman, was repeatedly raped by six white men at gunpoint, then tossed roadside with a warning: Tell anyone about this, and you're dead. Recy ignored the threats and her tale soon galvanized activists throughout Ala...
43m Apr 08, 2024
43m
From Grab Bag Collab: The Catalyst
Hey, Crimes of the Centuries listeners! COTC is now part of Grab Bag Collab, a Patreon-based podcasting network. You can find our other shows available at http://patreon.com/grabbagcollab Alcoholism, multiple husbands and boarding houses. This is the story of The Landlady. Dive deep into the upbringing and backstories of individuals who committed history's most notorious crimes, shedding light...
37m Apr 01, 2024
37m
S4 Ep5: Winnie Ruth Judd: The Trunk Murderess
When luggage leaking blood arrived at a Los Angeles train depot in 1931, the woman who'd traveled with the items feigned ignorance -- and then disappeared, leading to a nationwide manhunt that captivated the nation. Because one of the two victims found inside the Winnie Ruth Judd's trunks had been dismembered -- and because both she and the victims were beautiful women -- the case generated hun...
41m Mar 25, 2024
41m
S4 Ep4: The Texas Tower Sniper
The morning of Aug. 1, 1966, 25-year-old Charles Whitman called his wife's boss to say she'd be out, then did the same for his mother. After killing the two women, he climbed atop the observatory tower at the University of Texas and relentlessly began picking off pedestrians below in an attack unlike any before witnessed in America. "Crimes of the Centuries (https://www.centuriespod.com/) " is...
33m Mar 18, 2024
33m
S4 Ep3: The Cold-Blooded Killing of the Candy Man
Every parent has worried about their children hauling home tainted candy on Halloween, but not everyone knows where that fear originated. On Halloween in 1974, an 8-year-old boy named Timothy O’Bryan was granted one pick from his basket before bed — and soon after downing the contents of his Pixy Stix, he went limp in his father’s arms. The investigation threw parents into a panic, prompting to...
41m Mar 11, 2024
41m
S4 Ep2: The Disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa
Notorious labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa had for decades been a polarizing figure, with his ties to organized crime investigated as early as 1957 by future U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy. A jury tampering conviction eventually took him out of official power, but Hoffa worked tirelessly behind the scenes to reclaim his position -- until his disappearance in 1975. Despite countless theories ...
36m Mar 04, 2024
36m
S4 Ep1: Dr. Satan of Occupied Paris: Marcel Petiot
Living in Occupied Paris during World War II was utter chaos, with the Gestapo police constantly changing rules, kidnapping people from the streets and sidelining the Parisian police. A physician named Marcel Petiot claimed to be among the brave men and women working for the Resistance — a group determined to help smuggle endangered people to safety, far from the reach of the Third Reich. But w...
39m Feb 26, 2024
39m
From Grab Bag Collab: Introducing The Catalyst
Hey, Crimes of the Centuries listeners! COTC is now part of Grab Bag Collab, a Patreon-based podcasting network. You can find our other shows available at patreon.com/grabbagcollab
39m Feb 23, 2024
39m
S3 Ep42: Uncovering the True Story of the Tulsa Massacre
For years, the violence that occurred in the area known as "Black Wall Street" in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921 was remembered as the "Tulsa Race Riot" - when it was even remembered at all.  But that name, promoted by the media and government officials, was at best a misleading description of what we've now started to reveal over the past few decades as a massacre perpetrated on a thriving Black com...
38m Feb 11, 2024
38m
S3 Ep41: The Death of Bob Crane: A Television Star's Secret Life
Handsome and charismatic, the actor Bob Crane led the cast of the hit sitcom "Hogan's Heroes" for six seasons from the mid-sixties into the beginning of the next decade.  The show ended in 1971, and Crane began traveling the country in a touring play.  When he was found dead in his hotel room in Arizona in 1978, was it due to a secret life that he kept hidden from public view? "Crimes of the C...
43m Feb 05, 2024
43m