On April 13, 1788, outrage erupted in New York City when word spread that students from the local medical school were stealing corpses from nearby graveyards, at the direction of their instructors, for classroom dissection and study. A large mob attacked an anatomy lab and then set out in search of the students and doctors believed to be responsible for defiling the bodies of their loved ones. City leaders John Jay and Alexander Hamilton were among those who tried (and failed) to calm the crowd. The unrest ultimately led to a violent confrontation between civilians and the local militia, resulting in serious injuries and loss of life. My guest is Andy McPhee, author of the new book Doctors’ Riot of 1788: Body Snatching, Bloodletting, and Anatomy in America (out June 6). We discuss the riot itself, the history of body snatching, and the moral question at its core: could stealing bodies for medical training be justified in the name of public health? The author's website: https://andymcphee.com/ The publisher's author page: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Doctors-Riot-of-1788/Andy-McPhee/9781493088058 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Among the many murder cases handled by South Carolina attorney Dick Harpootlian, one continues to stand apart: the prosecution of Donald “Pee Wee” Gaskins. A serial killer and sexual predator, Gaskins claimed to have taken more than 100 lives and is known to have murdered over a dozen people, including a young child and his own teenage niece. He killed for both revenge and gratification, using whatever methods were available - from knives and firearms to poison, suffocation, and drowning. Disturbingly, he maintained a charming persona, presenting himself as friendly and generous while privately committing the most heinous of crimes. One of his most shocking occurred on Death Row, when he murdered another inmate using an explosive device, demonstrating that his capacity for violence extended even behind bars. In this episode, I’m joined by Dick Harpootlian, author of Dig Me a Grave: The Inside Story of the Serial Killer Who Seduced the South, who prosecuted Gaskins, to share firsthand insight into the man and his crimes. The official book website: https://www.dickharpootlian.com/ or https://digmeagrave.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In January 1947, the bisected body of Elizabeth Short, completely drained of blood, was discovered in an undeveloped lot in Los Angeles. Its gruesome mutilations led to a firestorm of publicity, city-wide panic, and an unprecedented number of investigative paths led by the LAPD—all dead ends. The Black Dahlia murder remained an unsolved mystery for over seventy years.Six years earlier and sixteen hundred miles away, another woman’s life had ended in a similarly horrific manner. Leila Welsh was an ambitious, educated, popular, and socially connected beauty. Though raised modestly on a prairie farm, she was heiress to her Kansas City family’s status and wealth. On a winter morning in 1941, Leila’s butchered body was found in her bedroom bearing the marks of unspeakable trauma. One victim faded into obscurity. The other became notorious. Both had in common a killer whose sadistic mind was a labyrinth of dark secrets. My guest is Emmy-nominated producer Eli Frankel. He has spent years researching the Black Dahlia case and makes a very convincing argument for his suspect in his recently published book, "SISTERS IN DEATH: The Black Dahlia, The Prairie Heiress & Their Hunter". The Sisters In Death website: https://www.sistersindeath.com/ The author's personal website: https://www.elibfrankel.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Original Publication Date: 4/3/22 On Christmas Eve, 1900, 44-year-old dry goods store owner Frank Richardson was shot to death in his Savannah, Missouri home. Suspects included his wife Addie, his teenage lover Goldie Whitehead, and the man whom he suspected his wife of having an affair with, Stewart Fife. Kimberly Tilley makes her third visit to the podcast. Her book "Has it Come to This? The Mysterious Unsolved Murder of Frank Richardson" explores this largely forgotten murder mystery in titillating detail. More information here at the author's website: https://oldspirituals.com/ Check out the new cover here! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G3KZPMVY?crid Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On May 19, 1884, the yacht Mignonette set sail from England on what should have been an uneventful voyage. When their vessel sank in the Atlantic, Captain Thomas Dudley and his crew found themselves adrift in a tiny lifeboat. As days turned to weeks, they faced an unthinkable choice: starve to death or resort to cannibalism.Their decision to sacrifice the youngest —17-year-old cabin boy Richard Parker—ignited a firestorm of controversy upon their rescue. Instead of being hailed as heroes and survivors, Dudley and his crew found themselves at the center of Regina v. Dudley and Stephens, a landmark murder trial that would establish the legal precedent that necessity cannot justify murder—a principle that continues to shape Anglo-American law today. My guest is bestselling author Adam Cohen. His new book, published on November 18th, is called "Captain's Dinner: A Shipwreck, An Act of Cannibalism, and a Murder Trial That Changed Legal History". The author's website: http://adamscohenwriter.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1942, two Abwehr German agents, including Johannes Eppler, slipped into Cairo to gather intelligence for Rommel’s desert campaign, getting help from local allies like the famous dancer Hekmet Fahmy and Anwar Sadat. Despite their efforts to infiltrate British circles, the whole operation eventually fell apart once Allied intelligence caught on. My guest, once again, is Gavin Whitehead, creator of The Art of Crime Podcast. His sixth season of the show (all about espionage) is now available wherever podcasts are heard. Gavin's website: https://www.artofcrimepodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

November 10, 1975, marked the fiftieth anniversary of the sinking of the freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald during a vicious Lake Superior storm. All 29 crew members were lost, a tragedy later memorialized in Gordon Lightfoot’s iconic song. My guest is bestselling author John U. Bacon, who shares details from his new book, "The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald". The author's website: https://johnubacon.com/ The author's publisher page: https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324094647 The author on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JohnUBaconAuthor/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the winter of 1924-1925, quiet Medina County, Ohio, was shaken to its core. Martha Wise, an ordinary farm widow with an extraordinary obsession, slipped arsenic into her family’s food and water. Three of her relatives were dead, dozens more gravely ill, and a rural community was gripped by fear. What followed was a murder investigation and trial unlike anything the Midwest had ever seen. Was Martha a cold-blooded killer, or (as she later claimed) a woman under the spell of the Devil himself? I'm joined in this latest episode of Most Notorious by Rod Kackley. He is the author of "The Murders of Martha Wise: A Shocking True Crime Story". The author's website: https://www.rodkackley.com/ Our interview about the murder of Thora Chamberlain on the Most Notorious website: https://www.mostnotorious.com/2022/05/14/the-murder-of-thora-chamberlain-w-rod-kackley/ and the Disappearance of Molly Zelko: https://www.mostnotorious.com/2025/03/22/the-mysterious-disappearance-of-molly-zelko-w-rod-kackley/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Original Pub Date: 1/14/19 On July 2nd, 1881, a disappointed and mentally unstable office-seeker named Charles Guiteau shot President James A. Garfield in a Washington D.C. train station. Over the next weeks, Garfield would linger, bedridden, as infection set in, caused by poor medical treatment, and America would wait with bated breath over whether their beloved president would survive. Meanwhile, Guiteau, the most hated man in America, would face trial and possible execution. My guest is Candice Millard, New York Times bestselling author, who discusses her book "Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President". The author's website: https://www.candicemillard.com/destiny-of-the-republic.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were two complicated men whose steadfast friendship became one of the legendary relationships of the American West. Both were flawed, and often on uncertain moral ground, yet their bond carried them through the violent world of frontier justice, culminating in a deadly conflict with the Clanton-McLaury gang in Tombstone, Arizona. It's a story of two very different men who became linked forever by circumstance and loyalty. With his new book, "Brothers of the Gun: Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and a Reckoning in Tombstone", historian Mark Lee Gardner offers a clear-eyed account of who Doc and Wyatt really were. He joins me to talk about their partnership and the lasting myths that have grown from a friendship rooted in both loyalty and survival. Mark's website: https://songofthewest.com/ More from his publisher: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/711805/brothers-of-the-gun-by-mark-lee-gardner/ Mark Lee Gardner on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3YOcr3okF0fjheNeOLpyzU Mark's Brothers of the Gun Western Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2jbh2Rl1fgD1ry8Ex1KM5W?si=4niAaWv7Tl2ESSYf_ZlnLQ Mark's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/DCNOVu3xJh6/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the early hours on a rainy autumn night in 1955, on a lavish country estate in Oyster Bay Cove, esteemed New York socialite Ann Woodward fired both barrels of her custom-made shotgun into the head of her husband, multimillionaire William J. “Billy” Woodward Jr., killing him. She mistook him for a notorious prowler who preyed on the privileged class. At least that was what the official reports stated. The police focused on catching the prowler, as they cast an impenetrable dragnet around the “Playhouse” for the elusive intruder. However, as with many other aspects of Billy and Ann’s social circle, things were not always as they appeared. Retired detective Jerry Aylward, author of "Murder on the Gold Coast: The Killing of William Woodward", discusses with us the uncomfortable truths behind one of the Gold Coast’s most notorious murders. The author's website: https://www.jerryaylward.com/ The author's Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jerry-Aylward/author/B0841NGVSZ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest is Chris Pouy, who shares an astonishing true story of love, betrayal, and murder on this latest episode of Most Notorious. His grandmother, Zoya Fyodorova, was a celebrated Russian actress who fell in love with an American naval officer, Jackson Tate, in 1945. It was a forbidden romance that led to the birth of Chris’s mother, Victoria. Zoya was imprisoned for nearly a decade before reuniting with her daughter, who later moved to Connecticut after marrying Chris's father, another U.S. Navy captain. During Zoya's preparations to defect and join her family in the United States, she was mysteriously murdered at her kitchen table in December of 1981. Chris's website: https://whoischrispouy.com/ Chris on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-pouy-3b56334a The Admiral's Daughter on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/admirals-daughter-Victoria-Fyodorova/dp/0440003660 BBC Outlook: Murder in Moscow: https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/w3ct6xcs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just off the old Natchez Trace, in the quiet woods of Tennessee, stands a broken marble column marking the grave of Meriwether Lewis. The monument was meant to honor one of America’s greatest explorers, but its shattered form also reflects a life cut short under circumstances that remain unsolved more than two centuries later. In 1804, Lewis and Clark led the Corps of Discovery across thousands of miles of uncharted wilderness. They mapped rivers, documented new species, and forged fragile relationships with Native Nations, returning home as national heroes. Yet only a few years later, while traveling east on government business, Lewis stopped at a frontier inn called Grinder’s Stand. Before dawn, gunfire rang out. By morning, the celebrated explorer was dead. From the start, the explanation was contested. Some, including Thomas Jefferson and William Clark, believed Lewis had taken his own life after years of depression, financial trouble, and lingering illness. Others pointed to inconsistencies in the testimonies, the absence of eyewitnesses, and the violence of the scene to argue that he was murdered. Over the years, theories have ranged from robbery on a lawless road to political assassination, while modern scholars have even suggested his death may have been linked to malaria or another untreated disease. In this episode, we retrace Lewis’s final journey along the Natchez Trace and examine the testimonies left behind. We look at the evidence for suicide, the motives for murder, and the generations of speculation that have kept this mystery alive. We also consider the more recent efforts by Lewis’s descendants to exhume his body, hoping that modern science might finally answer the question that has haunted his legacy: how did Meriwether Lewis really die? Southern Gothic: The Podcast Step into the world of the unknown and unravel the dark history, and infamous legends of the American South. Join us as we journey into the heart of this rich and fascinating region, uncovering its ghostly stories, haunted places, and eeriest tales through captivating storytelling, in-depth historical research, and an immersive audio soundscape. From the Bell Witch of Tennessee to the haunted Waverly Hills Sanatorium, the ghostly tales of the Myrtles Plantation, the Curse of Lake Lanier and beyond, get ready for an unforgettable experience that brings history to life and uncovers the truth behind classic tales of the paranormal. Follow Southern Gothic on your favorite podcasting app today! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In November 1856, Dublin was shaken by the murder of George Little, chief cashier at the Broadstone railway terminus. He was found in his office, beaten and with his throat cut, thousands of pounds worth of gold and silver left untouched and the door locked. The investigation gripped the public, filled with twists and unusual developments, including a phrenologist who later inserted himself into the main suspect's life. In this episode, we speak with Thomas Morris, author of "The Dublin Railway Murder: The Sensational True Story of a Victorian Murder Mystery". Thomas walks us through the case and explores what it tells us about crime and policing in Victorian Dublin. More about the author and his book here: https://www.thomas-morris.uk/the-dublin-railway-murder/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

(Orig pub date 8/15/23) In the early morning of January 21st, 1935 two employees of the Capital Transit Company in Chevy Chase, Maryland were cold-bloodedly gunned down. One of the men murdered was my guest's great-great uncle Emory Smith. As the police investigated the list of compelling suspects grew, but a powerful cover-up appeared to be in play, ultimately preventing the perpetrators from facing justice.  Former forensic detective Karen Smith joins me today to talk about her extensive personal investigation into this 88-year-old cold case, and she shares some of the shocking evidence she uncovered during her research. Karen is the host of the popular podcast "Shattered Souls", available wherever podcasts are heard.  Shattered Souls at Apple Podcasts: ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shattered-souls/id679462887⁠ Shattered Souls at Spotify: ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/4ny3a6GvvVkMGPz0TTZRpP⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In "The Scientist and the Serial Killer: The Search for Houston’s Lost Boys", investigative journalist Lise Olsen tells the gripping true-crime story behind the “Lost Boys” murders in 1970s Houston, when more than two dozen teenage boys were murdered at the hands of Dean Corll, nicknamed the “Candy Man”, and his young accomplices. Through years of investigation, research and interviews, Olsen follows forensic anthropologist Sharon Derrick’s quest to identify the victims and bring them home. The author's website: http://www.liseolsen.com The author on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liseolsenauthor/ The author on Twitter/X: https://www.x.com/lisedigger The author on Bluesky Social: https://bsky.app/profile/liseolsen.bsky.social Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In November 1926, Cecelia Gullivan, treasurer of the Cone Automatic Machine company of Windsor, Vermont, was brutally killed in her home. Local police quickly arrested Cone Automatic machinist John Winters on suspicion of the crime, and the trial that followed was sensational and swift. Convicted of murder, Winters’ appeal brought in an unexpected ally: America’s most famous defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, who took the case after Winters’ family called in a favor promised decades before. My guest is former Chief Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court, Jeffrey L. Amestoy. He is the author of "Winters' Time: A Secret Pledge, a Severed Head, and the Murder that Brought America’s Most Famous Lawyer to Vermont". Link to the book through the Vermont Historical Society's website: https://vermonthistory.org/vermont-history-winters-time-clarence-darrow-jeff-amestoy The author's Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jeffrey-L.-Amestoy/author/B01FC3Q07Q Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Victorian London is often remembered for the Ripper murders, yet at the same time another equally chilling series of slayings unfolded. Between 1887 and 1889, the dismembered bodies of four women appeared along the Thames. The river itself became the killer’s cover, its tides and hidden corners serving as a macabre dumping ground. Overshadowed by the Ripper’s reign of terror, the Thames Torso Murders remain one of England's darkest unsolved mysteries. My guest is Sarah Bax Horton, author of the award-winning book "Arm of Eve: Investigating the Thames Torso Killer". She shares with us who she believes the killer was and why he might have did what he did. The author on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahbaxhorton The author on Twitter/X: https://www.x.com/horton_bax Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The small Southern California island of Coronado rarely makes news for violent crime. But in the spring of 1975, World War II widow and retired librarian Ruth Quinn was murdered, execution-style, in her cottage. Her death sent a shock wave through the community. The granddaughter of Jujubes and Jujyfruits creator Henry Heide, Ruth was found fully clothed with her shoes on, in her bed, dead from two gunshot wounds. To this day, her murder has never been solved, but whispers about her brother, her son and even a local petty thief still swirl. Author Taylor Baldwin Kiland sifts through the dirt for the facts about Ruth’s life and her untimely end in Coronado. Her book is called "Murder of the Jujube Candy Heiress: A Coronado Cold Case". More about the book at the author's website here: https://taylorkiland.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

(Orig pub date: 2/15/22) In October of 1946, a chiropractor and rancher named Willis "W.D." Broadhurst was beaten with a wrench and finished off with a shotgun on a lonely eastern Oregon road. Investigators would soon accuse his wife Gladys of plotting the doctor's murder with the help of his young cowhand and her lover, Alvin Williams. Stunning details of her deception would be revealed during the trial, including accusations that she was a bigamist who had left multiple husbands in her wake. My guest is Patrick Gallagher, whose family connection to this story led him on a personal journey to learn more about this compelling and mostly forgotten case. His book, titled " 'TIL DEATH DO US...': A True Crime Story of Bigamy and Murder" is available for purchase here: https://www.amazon.com/TIL-DEATH-DO-US-Bigamy/dp/1952225167/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices