PODCAST · history
Forgotten Felonies
by Forgotten Felonies Podcast
Forgotten Felonies revisits historical crimes that were forgotten—or remembered incorrectly. It’s tempting, looking backward, to fill in the gaps with conclusions that feel obvious now. But that isn’t how history works. Through original newspaper reporting, period advertisements from the years the crimes occurred, and a blend of forensic psychology and genealogical research, each episode restores context to cases history left behind—asking not only what happened, but why. .
Episodes
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Pearl Bryan, Part 6: Dead, Dead, Dead
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! Scott Jackson finally takes the stand in his own defense—and for six and a half hours, he tries to explain everything. But Scott’s testimony is only the beginning. As the trial barrels toward its conclusion, the courtroom descends into chaos: witnesses are...
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Pearl Bryan, Part 5: The People vs Scott Jackson
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! Scott Jackson’s trial finally begins in Newport, Kentucky, and after four episodes of rumors, "confessions," strange witnesses, missing evidence, and absolutely bizarre behavior, the Commonwealth finally has to put all of it together in front of a jury.…
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Pearl Bryan, Part 4: The Road to Kentucky
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! Psychics. Séances. Strange packages. Secret transmitters hidden inside jail cells. As the investigation into Pearl Bryan’s murder moves into March of 1896, Cincinnati seems to have completely lost its mind. While mystics and dreamers offer their own solutions…
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Pearl Bryan, Part 3: Everyone Has a Story
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! By the end of February 1896, the murder of Pearl Bryan had become more than an investigation. It had become a true spectacle. Detectives were chasing new leads. Reporters were printing every rumor they could find. Songs were being written, crowds were paying…
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Pearl Bryan, Part 2: The Last Days of Pearl Bryan
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! After Pearl Bryan's identity is finally discovered, investigators begin the difficult task of answering an even larger question: What happened during her final days in Cincinnati? Following newspaper accounts, trial testimony, and contemporary records, we...
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Pearl Bryan, Part 1: The Headless Woman of Fort Thomas
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! In January 1896, 23-year-old Pearl Bryan boarded a train bound for Indianapolis... and never came home. When her body was discovered in northern Kentucky a few days later, investigators didn't even know who the victim was. But once they uncovered her identity,...
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The Joyce Children: A Mystery in Bussey Woods - A Fun-Sized Felony
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! In June of 1865, fourteen-year-old Isabella Joyce and her twelve-year-old brother John packed a picnic basket, visited their grandmother, and set out for a summer afternoon in the woods outside Boston. They never returned. What followed was years of false...
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Murder by Fork: A Tragedy at Suppertime - A Fun-Sized Felony
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! A serving fork isn't supposed to be a murder weapon. In 1911, a Sunday evening argument in a Pennsylvania boarding house ended with one man dead and his wife under arrest for murder. But conflicting newspaper accounts soon turned my research into a detective...
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Halsey Coon and the House of Fire - A Fun-Sized Felony
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! A respected fire captain. A woman dying from horrific burns. A small Connecticut town searching for answers. In this Fun-Sized Felony, Monica pieces together a forgotten case from scattered newspaper accounts dating back to 1842. What she uncovered was far...
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William Hooper Young: Murder, Madness, and the Morris Canal
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! In September 1902, the body of Annie Pulitzer was discovered in New Jersey's Morris Canal, weighted down and hidden from view. The investigation quickly led police to William Hooper Young, grandson of famed Mormon leader Brigham Young and a man whose...
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The Tragic Affair at 2305 Brookside Avenue - A Fun-Sized Felony
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! Dr. Charles M. Clayton was having a great day... until he came home for lunch. Over the next few months he would shoot a man, face a murder charge, suffer a nervous collapse, accidentally hit a teenager with his car, paint the inside of a jail, and listen as a...
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Jack Vincent: Professional Bummer of the Western Frontier - A Fun-Sized Felony
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! Jack Vincent was a stagecoach driver, prospector, practical joker, hotel deadbeat, prison escapee, alleged murderer, and—according to one newspaper—a professional bummer. In 1882, Vincent shot his brother-in-law, steamboat mate John Westfall, twice in the face...
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Ellsworth Kelley and the Jones-Murray Gang - Part 2
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! By 1925, the Jones Brothers Gang had changed. Dewey Jones was no longer part of the outlaw life, Milam Jones had vanished, and Oregon Jones was back in the Oregon State Penitentiary ready to cause more trouble. After the deadly prison break that would make...
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Ellsworth Kelley and the Jones Brothers Gang - Part 1
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! Ellsworth Kelley became tangled up with the notorious Jones Brothers Gang — a crew of young outlaws, including the elusive Oregon Jones and 20-year-old escape artist Tom Murray, whose lives became a cycle of burglaries, highway robberies, prison escapes,...
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The Curious Disappearance of Frank E. Clark - A Fun-Sized Felony
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! In the fall of 1910, husband and father Frank E. Clark vanished from Oakland, California without a trace. His wife was left stranded in a city where she knew no one. Newspapers across California carried the story of the missing husband, while neighbors and the...
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Alfred Knapp: Five Murders and a Confession
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! A woman’s body floats more than 150 miles downriver before finally being recovered near New Albany, Indiana. By the time she is identified as Hannah Goddard Knapp, her husband—Alfred Knapp—has already confessed to murdering her. But Hannah wasn't the first—Not...
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Bertha Boronda: the Mistress of Mayhem - A Fun-Sized Felony
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! Bertha “Bessie” Boronda attacked her husband, Narciso "Frank" Boronda, in the middle of the night in their San Jose home in 1907. The newspapers called it a violent, deliberate mutilation. The court charged her with mayhem—a crime defined by the destruction of...
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Frank Caruso and the Murder of Dr. Casper Pendola - A Fun-Sized Felony
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! In February of 1927, a Brooklyn father watched his six-year-old son struggle to breathe as diphtheria tightened its grip. Desperate for help, Frank Caruso called for doctors, begged for treatment, and clung to the hope that his boy might survive. But when that...
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Jesse McClure: What Sarah Didn't See Coming
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! Years before this double homicide, there were already signs—clear, documented, and deeply concerning. Sarah saw them. Sarah lived with them. Sarah warned the authorities that he was going to kill her. But Jesse didn’t kill her. Even Sarah didn’t see this…
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200 Feet From Home: the Murder of Florence Kane - A Fun-Sized Felony
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! In 1925, 29-year-old Florence Kane stepped off a subway in Brooklyn after a night out with friends. She called her mother to say she would be home in 30 minutes. In the final stretch of just 6 blocks, the unthinkable happened; Florence never made it home. As...
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Edmund Creffield, Part 3: Revenge of the Brides
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! This is the third and final episode in our Edmund Creffield series. By the time Edmund Creffield lay dead on a Seattle sidewalk, it should have been over. The prophet was gone; the spell should have been broken. The story should have ended, but another chapter...
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Edmund Creffield, Part 2: The Bride of Christ Cult
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! This is the second episode following Edmund Creffield and the cult he began in Corvallis, OR, after her arrived in late 1902. In this episode, he was finally caught. After months in hiding, Edmund Creffield is pulled from beneath a house—filthy, frail, and...
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The Iverson Children Tragedy (1903) - A Fun-Sized Felony
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! On a quiet Sunday in October of 1903, ten-year-old Hoga Iverson noticed something wasn’t right. His sister had gone inside… and never came back out. What followed was a chain of events that no child should ever have to carry: a train ride alone to find his...
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Edmund Creffield, Part 1: The Rise of the Army of Holiness in Corvallis, Oregon
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! In the early 1900s, a young German preacher arrived in Corvallis, Oregon with a message he believed came directly from God. Within weeks, he had gathered a devoted circle of followers who called themselves God’s Anointed. Others had a different name for them:...
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Agostino Izzo: The Day the Music Stopped — A Fun-Sized Felony
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! In the Izzo household, music filled every corner of the home. Agostino Izzo had once played in the Seneca Falls Italian Band and worked as a music teacher, passing his love of music on to his children. Several would go on to perform in orchestras of their own,...
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What Jane Saw: An Intergenerational Family Tragedy in Pennsylvania (1909–1938) - A Fun-Sized Felony
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! On July 17, 1938, ten people were living in two small rooms above the Broadway Inn in Leechburg, Pennsylvania. By sunrise, three were dead and seven children were orphaned. In 1909, a young girl watched her father terrorize a Pennsylvania town with a shotgun....
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James H Coyner (Alonzo Robinson): Two names, one rope.
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! On January 12, 1935, Amelia Earhart landed safely in Oakland, California after her historic solo flight across the Pacific. The nation celebrated progress, courage, and modern aviation. That same day, in a Mississippi post office, a man was arrested with a…
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Gone in a Moment: The Disappearance of Winifred Byrne — A Fun-Sized Felony
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! In November of 1913, three-year-old Winifred Byrne vanished from outside her family’s home on West 38th Street in New York City. Her father had looked away for just a moment—and that was all it took. What happened during the four days Winifred was missing was...
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Emily Antone and the Calls That Went Unanswered — A Fun-Sized Felony
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! In July of 1912, Emily Antone—a 38-year-old Indigenous woman—arrived at a house in Middleport, Ontario, carrying a trunk and plans to start over. She never left alive. This Fun-Sized Felony examines the murder of Emily Antone, the failures that surrounded it,...
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John Heslop and the Case That Never Closed
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! In the early hours of January 27, 1891, John Heslop was murdered inside his home near Ancaster, Ontario. He was a respected township clerk, a longtime pioneer in the area, and a man whose death sent shockwaves through the surrounding countryside. What followed...
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The Mysterious Disappearance and Return of Mabel E. Dorner — A Fun-Sized Felony
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! This is another Fun-Sized Felony. Look for a full-sized episode next week! In June of 1912, seventeen-year-old Mabel E. "Dolly" Dorner vanished, leaving her parents frantic and the newspapers full of fear. Three days later, she was quietly returned by a...
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The Attack on Richard Doherty, Jr. - A Fun-Sized Felony
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! Not every story is told in full. This frustrates us, and now it can frustrate you! (You're welcome.) The towns of Whitman and Brockton, MA, were thrown for a loop in July of 1957 when young boys were being immorally assaulted, battered, and murdered. What...
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Lorraine Clark and the Murder of Melvin: When the Headlines Hardened into Fact
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! In 1954, Melvin Clark was murdered and his body dumped into the depths of the Merrimack River. His wife, Lorraine Clark, would ultimately plead guilty—and for decades, that plea has stood as the official ending to the case. But the record tells a more...
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Baby John: The Boy Who Lived Through Fire - Part 3
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...
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Baby John: The Boy Who Lived Through Fire - Part 2
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...
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Baby John: The Boy Who Lived Through Fire - Part 1
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…
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Zollie Clement - The Boy Bandit
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…
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Protecting the Porch: Halloween Prank Horrors
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…
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Poison and Pistols: the Treacherous Deeds of John Branton
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....
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The Legacy and Murder of Sheriff William Withers
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…
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Claude Branton and Courtland Greene - Murder at Isham's Corral
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! This is the first of three episodes that take place in Lane County, OR. It was a wild time... 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…
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The Hill Family Axe Murders
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…
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Albert Applegate - Murder in a Cornfield
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...
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Hans Schmidt: The Bloodlust Priest - Part 3
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 death...
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Hans Schmidt: The Bloodlust Priest - Part 2
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! 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...
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Hans Schmidt: The Bloodlust Priest - Part 1
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! 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...
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The Traumatic Life and Vengeful Death of Charles Alma Sanders
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! 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…
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George Hassell - The Man Who Erased Two Families
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! "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...
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Asa Carey: the Bully of Westfall, Oregon
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! 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…
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The Murder of Mabel Schofield
Send a message to Monica and Olivia! 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...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Forgotten Felonies revisits historical crimes that were forgotten—or remembered incorrectly. It’s tempting, looking backward, to fill in the gaps with conclusions that feel obvious now. But that isn’t how history works. Through original newspaper reporting, period advertisements from the years the crimes occurred, and a blend of forensic psychology and genealogical research, each episode restores context to cases history left behind—asking not only what happened, but why.
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Forgotten Felonies Podcast
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How many episodes does Forgotten Felonies have?
Forgotten Felonies currently has 55 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Forgotten Felonies about?
Forgotten Felonies revisits historical crimes that were forgotten—or remembered incorrectly. It’s tempting, looking backward, to fill in the gaps with conclusions that feel obvious now. But that isn’t how history works. Through original newspaper reporting, period advertisements from the years the...
How often does Forgotten Felonies release new episodes?
Forgotten Felonies has 55 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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You can listen to Forgotten Felonies on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
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