Send a message to Monica and Olivia! In the final episode, Isabella J. Martin finally faces trial in a courtroom she cannot control. As the case unfolds, testimony forces the legal system to confront a difficult truth: Baby John was not a criminal mastermind, but a child shaped by coercion and fear. This episode follows Isabella from conviction, to imprisonment, to retrial, to re-conviction, and back to imprisonment. Then we take a look at the San Quentin prison records that reveal the extent...
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Send a message to Monica and Olivia! In the final episode, Isabella J. Martin finally faces trial in a courtroom she cannot control. As the case unfolds, testimony forces the legal system to confront a difficult truth: Baby John was not a criminal mastermind, but a child shaped by coercion and fear. This episode follows Isabella from conviction, to imprisonment, to retrial, to re-conviction, and back to imprisonment. Then we take a look at the San Quentin prison records that reveal the extent...
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! In the final episode, Isabella J. Martin finally faces trial in a courtroom she cannot control. As the case unfolds, testimony forces the legal system to confront a difficult truth: Baby John was not a criminal mastermind, but a child shaped by coercion and fear. This episode follows Isabella from conviction, to imprisonment, to retrial, to re-conviction, and back to imprisonment. Then we take a look at the San Quentin prison records that reveal the extent...
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! A burning barn in the snow finally breaks Isabella J. Martin’s control over her son. In Episode 2, Baby John is arrested—and for the first time in his life, separated from the woman who shaped every moment of his childhood. What follows is chaos inside the courtroom: Isabella acting as her son’s attorney, arguing with the judge, confessing to arson in open court, and then vanishing on the final day of the hearing. As Baby John remains silent under he...
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! In 1907, a judge’s home in Oakland, CA was blown apart by a homemade bomb. For months, the case went unsolved — until a trail of clues led not to a hardened criminal, but to a sixteen-year-old boy known as “Baby John.” Episode 1 uncovers the hidden truth behind that headline: Baby John was not a prodigy of crime, but a child raised in isolation and fear under the control of Isabella J. Martin, one of the most destructive women in California’s early legal h...
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! A young boy found himself lost in the pages of adventure-filled dime novels and couldn't get enough. Before too long he brought those adventures to life just to read about his own adventures in the headlines. Zollie Clement became the Boy Bandit by night, yet he was conniving and clever enough by day to get away with it under the noses of all who knew him. He was so good at hiding in plain sight that he got away with it for an entire decade! He robbed and ...
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! Long before candy and costumes, Halloween was a night of chaos. Young people looked forward to a night of unbridled rebellion while responsible property owners feared for their livelihood. Halloween was a night of anything-goes and, unfortunately, anything went far too often. Townsfolk and police officers simply had to brace themselves and wait for October to pass. What they'd wake up to in the morning was anyone's guess. The real question was whether...
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! This is the third and final episode in our series featuring Lane County, OR. This one takes you through the life and crimes of John Branton, older brother of Claude. When Milly Elliott met John Branton, she thought it was a love story to last through the ages. She imagined she'd be with John for the rest of her life. She wasn't wrong—she just didn't realize her life would be so short. Neither did the next wife, nor the next, and it was only through sheer l...
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! This episode is the second in a series of three covering a wild time in the history of Lane County, Oregon. Be sure to start with the previous episode, "Claude Branton and Courtland Greene - A Murder at Isham's Corral." Sheriff Withers was, by all accounts, the most beloved sheriff in the history of Lane County. He was known for being honest, fair, and kind. Even before executing Claude Branton, he was thanked by the condemned man for having treated him so...
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! Sheriff Withers had only been sheriff for 4 days when the biggest case of his career fell into his lap. The murder committed by Claude Branton and Courtland Greene was not just the talk of the town, but the whole state of Oregon took notice. Lane County had to, for the first time ever, build a gallows to execute a convicted murderer. This case takes you back in time to 1898 from the Willamette Valley, across the Cascade Mountain range, through the lava bed...
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! June 9th, 1911 brought a giant shock for the tiny community of Ardenwald, OR. A highly regarded family—William and Ruth Hill, and Ruth's children Philip and Dorothy Rintoul—who had just moved into the area were massacred in a most brutal way in their tiny cabin in the middle of the night. The detectives scrambled to find justice for this family for years but every lead fell flat. A botched investigation saw an innocent man charged for the crime. Listen whi...
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! In November of 1895, John Nelson would never have guessed that the unassuming stranger standing at his front door would turn his family's life upside down for the next several months. This story goes to show just how trusting we were back in the 1890s and how we'd open our homes to just about anyone. But just when you think you know who the villain of this story is, the plot twists and turns and you find out that your friend is actually your foe. Listen in...
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! This is the 3rd and final part of the Hans Schmidt series. In this episode we: Explore the investigation into Dr. Muret's true identity, and then reveal his real identity!Discuss what may have happened to Anna Aumuller's baby, as well as her cause of deathReveal the outcomes of both Dr. Muret's and Hans Schmidt's trialsMuse over some thoughts into Hans Schmidt's pathology...and discuss a "true crime" book about this case that turned out to be fictional.His...
Send us a text Part 2 of our Hans Schmidt series takes us back to the 1800s in Germany for a look at Hans's childhood and the relatives that came before him. Listen in as we unpack the "clews" from the newspapers and the trial transcripts that might just give us insight into why Hans committed the murder and dismemberment of Anna Aumuller in September of 1913. This is the episode where we expose all of the dirty secrets that he was keeping when he arrived on America's shores in the summer of ...
Send us a text This is Part 1 of a very in-depth tale that is dark and twisted. (You can't say we didn't warn you!) When pieces of a lady washed ashore along the banks of the Hudson River in 1913, investigators had no idea just what a nightmare had been unearthed. The whole thing really began across the ocean decades earlier and now it was there at their feet in New Jersey and, ultimately, New York City. In this episode you'll hear about the gruesome discovery of the few body parts that...
Send us a text Life wasn't easy for the Mormon refugees flooding into Mexico in 1885, and it was downright terrifying when they fled back out during the Mexican revolution in 1912. Life seemed to be especially hard for one man in particular who was born in Colonia Diaz and he took it out on his family for the rest of his life. When the law wouldn't help them or their mother, a few of his children figured they'd have to help themselves—with deadly consequences. Join Monica and Olivia to find o...
Send us a text "No one ever lived who loved children more than I did." These are the words spoken by a man who laughed and joked when recounting the murders of 11 children—all of whom saw him as their father figure. George Hassell was a special type of family annihilator who would extinguish his family when he found them to be inconvenient in some way. If his family became an obstacle, they simply had to go and he would move on as if nothing had happened. While these murders still happen toda...
Send us a text The wild west was alive and well in Westfall, Oregon in 1912. Asa Carey was a mean son of a gun who couldn't stay away from the saloons. Whoever decided he'd make a good town marshal clearly wasn't thinking straight! Asa had his own ideas when it came to meting out fair punishment and he wound up on the wrong side of the bars, himself, more than once. Saloon music featured from 1905: "Down Where the Sweet Potatoes Grow" by Collins & HarlanSaloon music featured from 19...
Send us a text In 1899, Mabel Schofield was a 21-year-old young woman with big dreams and the whole world ahead of her. She had a great head on her shoulders, she had plans for her future, and she was going places. That is, until, some unscrupulous fellow with a selfish plan of his own snuffed out her life without a care in the world. Even the chief of detectives threw his hands in the air and gave up, but the good people of Des Moines, Iowa would not rest until the mystery was solved. It see...
Send us a text A dashing young count and his beautiful countess come through town and promise to teach you how to be as beautiful as they—for a fee, of course. Promises are made, money exchanges hands, and then the charming royals simply vanish! Was it a dream or were you duped? Come back with us to 1908 when Viggo met Nora and their cross-country crime spree began! This story is a continuation of Episode 5: The Tragic Tale of Kate Van Winkle. Nora Holstein-Rathlou first came to our att...
Send us a text Kate Van Winkle was born in 1860 and died in 1936. Her life was full of tragedy and despair fit for the silver screen. It's a story stranger than fiction and, until now, has been forgotten to time. Did Kate purposely shoot Dr. Collins that morning? We'll never know for sure, but at least we have unearthed this incredible story and have even brought a small amount of justice to some souls beyond the grave.
Send us a text Lucinda Mills was a loving mother to 14 children and too many grandchildren (and great grandchildren!) to count. She loved them all and they loved her. Why, then, did so many stand by on that cold February day in 1933 while her son put her on a makeshift altar and used her in a religious ritual to show that he could bring someone back to life? That did, after all, require murdering her first. Listen in as we talk about what makes family cults unique and unravel some interesting...
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! In the final episode, Isabella J. Martin finally faces trial in a courtroom she cannot control. As the case unfolds, testimony forces the legal system to confront a difficult truth: Baby John was not a criminal mastermind, but a child shaped by coercion and fear. This episode follows Isabella from conviction, to imprisonment, to retrial, to re-conviction, and back to imprisonment. Then we take a look at the San Quentin prison records that reveal the extent...
