Episodes
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Farewell, From Criminalia, and Thanks for All the Crime
Thank you for joining us for the final episode of our season of stray heists AND the finale of Criminalia. This is goodbye, but it's also thank you – thank you for supporting us as we walked in and out of historical crime scenes, nefarious cocktails, and we are grateful you took this adventure…
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'America': The Stolen Golden Toilet
The plan was to keep the 18-karat-gold toilet called 'America' on display indefinitely at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. But it did go out on loan, once, to Blenheim Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the birthplace of Winston Churchill, in 2019, as part of an exhibition of…
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Mayhem, Madness, and Marshmallow the Bunny: When the World Lost Its Mind Over Beanie Babies
When Beanie Babies hit the scene in 1993, the original line of stuffed toys featured nine characters -- but that number would grow to hundreds. The brainchild of Ty Warner, and made by his company, Ty Inc., they were one of the hottest toys of the 1990s -- but they also inspired an underground...
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Piano 'Movers' Play a Felonious Tune
Just after lunch on July 14, 2013, a white van drove away from Toronto General Hospital. Its cargo? A stolen Boston Steinway baby grand piano, taken from the hospital's Peter Munk Cardiac Centre. Of the bold heist, Todd Milne, director of security operations for the hospital, told the media…
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California Nut Crimes: Nuts Cases Can Be Difficult to Crack
Tree nuts have become are a hot commodity on the black market, and thieves have been making off with shipments of California-grown nuts to cash in. Of the phenomenon, Mike Boudreaux, the sheriff of Tulare County in California’s Central Valley, stated, “It’s not your guy on the corner in the long...
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Opening the Lid on Manhole Cover Capers
In the spring of 2008, 12-year-old Shamira Fingers was walking down a street near her home in South Philadelphia when she suddenly and surprisingly fell into an open sewer hole -- the manhole cover, missing. Once a rare crime, disappearing manhole covers has become an expensive and dangerous...
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Big Syrup': The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist
"You can't prove what tree the syrup came from," stated one of the accomplices in The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist during his trial. Over the span of several months, thieves staged a multi-million dollar heist from Québec's Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve, making off with about 3,000...
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Welcome to the Season Finale of Criminalia: THE GENTLEMEN ROBBER
Stand and deliver! Welcome to the final episode of our season about highway robbery and the outlaws who preyed upon road travelers. There were plenty of flinklock pistols, plenty of executions by hanging -- and plenty of confusion over who pulled off what crime. Don't forget to join Holly and…
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The Guillotine's First Victim: French Highwayman Nicolas-Jacques Pelletier
French highwayman Nicolas-Jacques Pelletier rode and robbed the streets around 18th-century Paris, but didn't come to the attention of French authorities until October of 1791, after he was accused of a violent robbery. Among highwaymen, his crimes didn't really stand out; but what does stand out...
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Tom Cox: The 'Handsome' Highwayman Who Robbed the King's Jester
Tom Cox began his life as a gentleman with a small estate inherited from his father -- but he spent that small fortune in the blink of an eye with his, “riotous living.” Broke, Cox went to London to find work; and, he did find work, though it wasn't legal work. Tom fell in with a group of highway...
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Jonathan Wild: The Thief-Taker or Thief? Or Both?
People thought Jonathan Wild was a fine, upstanding kind of a guy: he was a thief-taker who was very good at catching criminals. The Privy Council, advisers to the Crown, consulted with him on methods of controlling crime in London. Highway robbers, a scourge on the city, feared him. But what…
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Juraj Jánošík: How a Slovak Bandit Became a National Hero
England has Robin Hood. Australia has Ned Kelly. Japan; Goemon Ishikawa. There are many legendary heroic outlaws in many cultures. Juraj Jánošík has, over the centuries, become known as the Robin Hood of Slovakia – and a symbol of Slovak resistance. Unlike some of these Robin Hood figures…
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William Davis: Farmer by Day, Highwayman by Night
William Davis led a double life. He was a successful highway robber by night, and a respectable farmer by day. Farming was honest work, but, it was also a clever way to distract others from noticing that he had another life, that he was one of the most notorious highwaymen of the 17th century. He...
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The Life and Death of the Laughing Highwayman: Jerry Abershawe
Never confused with the legend of Robin Hood or a 'gentleman robber' among highwaymen, there was really nothing to admire about Jerry Abershawe. He was a thief and he was a cold-blooded killer – several times over. Ruthless and intimidating, he was a "nightmare for travellers on those approach...
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The First and Final Crimes of Jocelin Harwood
Jocelin Harwood was a highwayman who committed such “Barbarous Murders” – and he was just so ...wow – that his fellow criminal associates betrayed him and gave him up to the authorities after they couldn't stomach his depraved behavior the night of his final crime. Described as "a degenerate…
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The Tale of Highway Robber William Spiggot and His Death
William Spiggot was an 18th century English highwayman and the leader of a gang of at least eight men. While he may have started out as an apprentice cabinetmaker in London, he didn't end up following his family's legit path in life, instead deciding on a more... felonious one - as a robber,...
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Scoop: John Nevison Was Not Dick Turpin and Dick Turpin Was Not John Nevison
John Nevison was a very good highwayman, though you may not recognize his name. And that's largely because his crimes have, over the years, gotten attributed to the stories of other notorious highway robbers, notably Dick Turpin – who hadn't yet been born when Nevison was prowling the roads....
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The Adventures of Robber Lewis: Counterfeiter/Robber/Jailbreaker
Though dealing in counterfeit currency may have been David 'Davy' Lewis' first criminal efforts, he eventually added highway robbery as a lucrative gig – and that's when he gained the nickname, Robber Lewis -- and as a highwayman, he also came to be known as the “Robin Hood of Pennsylvania". Was...
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Joan and Edward: The Bonnie and Clyde of Highway Robbery
Joan Phillips was a known beauty with an artful and cunning mind -- and both her looks and the famiy's money attracted the attention of many suitors – suitors that Joan wasn't interested in. But all that stuff about engagement, marriage, and relationships changed when Joan met Edward Bracey, the...
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Not Every Tom, Dick, and Harry Were Highwaymen; But These Were
This is the tale (and legend) of the Dunsdon brothers: Thomas, Richard, and Henry – yes, a real life Tom, Dick and Harry. Known as the Burford Highwaymen, they terrorized the locals between Glouster and Oxford. But the crime the brothers are best known for committing actually had nothing to do…
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Claude Duval: The First Gallant Highwayman
Some highwaymen were straight-up thugs. But some, like Claude Duval, were highwaymen who were polite, chivalrous, and sometimes portrayed as a version of Robin Hood – although none of them gave their loot to those less fortunate. Opinions differ among biographers and historians when it comes to...
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Lady Ferrers: An Heiress Turned Highwaywoman
English gentlewoman and heiress named Lady Katherine Ferrers who, as a highwaywoman known as The Wicked Lady, terrorized England in the mid-1600s. Her legend persists nearly 400 years after her death -- though it may be a bit embellished.
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Welcome to the Season Finale of Criminalia: COLD CASES
Welcome to the final episode of our season about cold cases -- unsolved crimes, where the perpetrator was never identified and there are no active leads. Whether it’s murders, robberies, or kidnappings, this season was full of all types of unresolved crimes. There were plenty of investigations…
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The Tragedy That Inspired AMBER Alerts
Amber Hagerman had long brown hair and freckles. She liked playing with her Barbie dolls, and was a Girl Scout. But on the afternoon of January 13, 1996, everything changed. Amber, age 9, was abducted while riding her pink bicycle in an abandoned Winn-Dixie parking lot in Arlington, Texas; only...
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A Tennis Tragedy: The Murder of Andrea Buchanan
It was her smile, everyone said, that was the first thing you noticed about Andrea Buchanan. People called her "Miss Personality," and spoke of her as being a “free spirit with much energy and vitality.” Andrea was a rising professional tennis star who was murdered, at age 26, while she was…
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The Unsolved Murder of Jean Townsend
Twenty-one-year-old Jean Townsend's body was discovered the morning of September 15, 1954, around 7 a.m., in an empty lot just 600 yards from where she lived on Bempton Drive in South Ruislip. She had spent the evening at a party with friends at a nightclub called the Pyramid Club, not far from…
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Cleveland's 'Torso Murders': Who Was the 'Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run'?
The press nicknamed the killings, 'the Torso Murders'. They called the killer, who had murdered, dismembered, and decapitated at least a dozen people, 'The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run', an area of Cleveland where most of the victims were found. The majority have never been identified -- and...
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Who Killed the Sheriff Who Killed Billy the Kid?
Las Cruces, New Mexico, newspapers reported on March 1, 1908: "Pat F. Garrett ... fulfilled his own prophecy ... that he would die with his boots on. Garrett was killed ... between 10 and 11 o'clock on the road to his Bear Canyon ranch at a point five miles from [Las Cruces]." Best known as a...
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The Mysterious Disappearance of Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce was an American Civil War veteran, and he was also a writer: he was one of the most famous journalists of the late 19th century; he was a literary critic, a poet and a short story writer (primarily exploring themes of war, death, and the general absurdity that is life). And he is...
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The Phantom Killer: The Unsolved Texarkana Moonlight Murders
Texarkana was a bit of a bustling town back in 1946, but it wasn't a particularly dangerous town. But beginning in February that year, a series of brutal attacks occurred over a span of 10 weeks. Three victims were seriously wounded and five were killed; and they were all attacked at night. Let's...
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The Death of Robert Pakington: England's First Murder By Gun
It was early morning, about 6 a.m., on November 13, 1536, when Robert Pakington, a London merchant, was fatally shot while on his way to attend early Mass. It was the first recorded firearm crime in London's history, and a crime that has never been solved -- though there are some theories to talk...
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The Lovers' Lane Murders of Rev. Edward Hall and Mrs. Eleanor Mills
Edward Hall, a minister, and Eleanor Mills, a member of his choir, were found together, dead, on an improvised 'lovers' lane' near an abandoned farmhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in September of 1922. Edward had been a popular minister at St. John’s Episcopal Church, and was the husband of...
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The Murder of Mabel Greenwood
This is the story of the unsolved death of Mabel Greenwood; who killed her, and why no one knows what really happened 100 years later. The prime suspect in the case? Harold Greenwood, her husband of more than 20 years, was arrested on June 17, 1920, accused of fatally poisoning her. Let's look at...
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Elma Sands and the Manhattan Well Murder
If there had been true crime podcasts in the year 1800, this sensational murder trial would have been a hot topic under discussion: a young woman was killed just before Christmas in New York City, on the night she was to elope with her lover. The prime suspect was Levi Weeks, her presumptive...
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Who Shot Belle Starr, Outlaw Queen of the Old West?
Belle Starr, 'Petticoat Terror of the Plains', once said of herself, quote, “I regard myself as a woman who has seen much of life.” On the American frontier, she was thought of as “a demon with a bloody knife between her teeth and a pistol in each hand terrorizing whole communities and making...
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The Chicago Tylenol Murders and Their Aftermath
Tylenol has been for decades the best-selling, non-prescription pain reliever in the United States. It used to come as gelatin capsules, pills that were possible to open, and that meant anyone could remove its active ingredient, acetaminophen, and replace the contents with ... anything else. And...
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Was Jeannette DePalma's Death an Occult Sacrifice, a Crime of Opportunity, or Something Else?
On August 7, 1972, Jeannette DePalma disappeared in Springfield, New Jersey, four days after her 16th birthday. That afternoon, she told her mom she was going to see friends, but when she didn't return later that evening, her mother called the police; the police discovered she never made it to…
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Welcome to the Season Finale of Criminalia: PARTNERS IN CRIME
Welcome to the final episode of our season about partners in crime -- some of whom were criminal duos, some of whom worked in gangs, but, unlike what we've found in some of our previous seasons, most of these people were absolutely guilty as charged. This season had quite a variety of crimes and...
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The 'Last of America's Classic Train Robbers' Weren't Train Robbers at All
“Two gaudily-dressed 'Brooklyn cowboys' attempted a desert train robbery”, reported the Associated Press on November 25, 1937. Henry Loftus and Harry Donaldson have been referred to as, "the last of America's classic train robbers," but the pair weren't professional criminals. This is the story…
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Prohibition Outlaws: The Rise and Fall of the Kimes-Terrill Gang
Led by Matthew Kimes and Ray Terrill, the Kimes–Terrill Gang were known for successfully pulling off some very high-profile bank robberies -- but they may have been better known for their daring prison escapes. In the lore of their gang it's said that each member swore a blood oath promising to...
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Serial Killers on the American Frontier: "Big" and "Little" Harpe
Herman Webster Mudgett of New Hampshire, better known by the alias H.H. Holmes, was responsible for anywhere from 20 to 200 killings before he was apprehended in 1894, and is known as one of America’s first serial killers. But ... not THE first. That title -– at least on record -- belongs to the...
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Samuel Green and William Ash, the 'Terrors of New England'
When the priest asked, "Are you penitent, my son?", Samuel Green, with the rope around his neck and standing at the gallows, said with a smirk, "If you wish it." On their best days, Samuel Green and William Ash were burglars, highway robbers, and counterfeiters. On their worst; violent murderers....
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The Reluctant Blanche Barrow: Bonnie Wasn't the Only Dame in Clyde Barrow's Gang
In the Ambush Museum in Gibson, Louisiana, hangs a copy of a poem written by a woman named Blanche Barrow, and it reads: "Across the fields of yesterday / She sometimes calls to me / A little girl just back from play / the girl I used to be / And yet she smiles so wistfully / once she has crept...
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Where Prohibition-era Gangsters Went to Hide: The Farmer's Farm
'Pretty Boy' Flloyd. John Dillinger. The Barkers. A lot of well-known gangsters emerged in the 1920s and 1930s; all of them criminals known as 'public enemies' to the government, and highly sought after by authorities, as you can imagine. But lesser known are the hideouts these criminals used --...
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The Black Widows of Liverpool: Sisters Catherine Flannagan and Margaret Higgins
When Catherine Flannagan and her younger sister Margaret moved to Liverpool from Ireland in the late 1800s, they were among the tens of thousands of poverty-stricken Irish laborers and their families who left Ireland during the potato famine to find work in Britain during the Industrial…
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The Trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian immigrants who were – controversially – convicted of murdering Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter, a security guard and a payroll clerk, during an armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Massachusetts. About a century…
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Did Mary Blandy Know the 'Love Powder' She Gave Her Father Was Arsenic?
Mary Blandy was desperate to marry, but none of her suitors met the stringent standards set by her father -- until she met William Cranstoun, son of a Scottish peer. But her engagement to him turned out to be her downfall; William was already married. When it was divulged, her father did not...
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Verne Sankey and Gordon Alcorn and Their Depression-Era Kidnappings
When Verne Sankey told his wife he and his gang were planning a kidnapping, he said, if “I don’t come back, don't identify my body.” Verne and his accomplice, Gordon Alcorn, were a pair of Depression-era outlaws whose successful high-profile kidnappings of Haskell Bohn, heir to Bohn…
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The Story of Suburban Chicago Booksellers and Bank Robbers, Jeff and Jill Erickson
On January 9, 1990, a bank robber nicknamed the Bearded Bandit entered the First Nationwide Bank in Wilmette, Illinois, disguised with a false beard, a baseball cap, dark sunglasses, and driving gloves. He carried a gun and police radio scanner, and threatened bank employees that he'd, ”blow…
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Public Enemies No. 1 and 2: Bank Robbers Bennie and Stella Dickson vs. the G-Men
A man walked into the Corn Exchange Bank at Elkton, South Dakota, on the afternoon of August 25, 1938, and announced, quote, “This is a holdup.” Bennie and Stella Dickson were Depression-era bank robbers and outlaws who successfully stole what authorities then estimated to be more than $50,000…
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About this show
Humans have always committed crimes. What can we learn from the criminals and crimes of the past, and have humans gotten better or worse over time?
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