The Brutal Crimes and Punishment of Jesse Pomeroy Jump to the AD-FREE SAFE HOUSE EDITION Episode 121 concerns one of the most heinous crimes ever committed by a teenager. Jesse Pomeroy was but 14 years old when he was arrested for abducting and torturing young boys and sent to the state reformatory. He was released after a little more than a year, …

The Brutal Murder Of Alberta Meadows Jump to the AD-FREE SAFE HOUSE EDITION Once upon a time, 1922 to be precise, Clara Phillips, a former Hollywood bathing beauty and chorus girl, decided she wanted to have a chat with a young lady she suspected of canoodling with her husband. She stopped at the dime store and bought a brand new hammer on the way.…

The Kentucky Conspiracy Jump to the Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 122 The Commonwealth of Kentucky was thrown into political turmoil over the election of its governor in 1899, and the winner's murder. The republican candidate, William S. Taylor, first appeared to win the election by a narrow margin, but the votes were challenged by his opponen…

The Diabolical Meeks Family Massacre Ad-Free Safe House Edition Scoundrels abound in Episode 337, when an ex-convict is assassinated in cold blood by the men he’s about to turn state’s evidence on. That would be bad enough, but what makes it intolerable is the fact that the turncoat’s wife and daughters are with him when the attack takes place, and…

The Campfire Cremation Of John Linn Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 336 is dedicated to True Crime Historian patron Marlene Resch, who wanted to hear a historic case from her hometown of Eugene, Oregon. So I dug around a bit and found this cowboy story which turns out to have been the first execution in Lane County. More WILD WESTERNS Become a s…

The Lumberjack And The Boatman’s Wife Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 335 tells of another scandalous eternal triangle that ends in murder. The victim this time is the husband, and both his comely wife and the illiterate man who cuckolded him go on trial for his murder. More LOVE TRIANGLES GONE AWRY Become a supporter of this podcast: https://ww…

The Crimes Of The Citrus King Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 332 tells the story of a prominent businessman and his relationship with a young woman that gets him in all kinds of hot water. But the remarkable thing about this story is how history repeats itself, and twenty years later, he finds himself in another fine mess. More FALLS FROM GRACE…

Emil Sanger’s Rage Ad-Free Safe House Edition Like all episodes of True Crime Historian, Episode 333 is a cautionary tale, this time about rage, when a normal businessman gets so heated about a squabble mixing family and business that he lays out his own ruin. I wouldn’t go so far as to say anyone was asking to be murdered, but... I’ll let you be t…

The Trial Of Arthur Sargent Ad-Free Safe House Edition Episode 334 is a simple tale: Three men go fishing on a boat, one man comes back the next day saying the other two were drowned in an accident on the pond. But was it an accident? We’d let the jury decide but for a rare motion with unusual timing by the prosecuting attorney that makes the outco…

The Brutal Murder Of Mayme Sherman A True Crime Short Story by Richard O Jones Ad-Free Safe House Edition One of the factors behind my interest in historical true crime is that my hometown of Hamilton, Ohio, seems to have a particularly rich history of crime--murder in particular, but not just murder. I’ve done several local programs about the safe…

The Saga of the Scoundrel Thomas McGehan A true crime short story by Richard O Jones Ad-Free Safe House Edition - Episode 28 takes place on Christmas Eve 1870, when three men attack a local politician with boulders and slungshots, and at least a dozen men scramble for the door while five shots pepper the faro room at the American Saloon in Hamilton…

The Atrocities Of Albert Fish I'D TURN BACK IF I WERE YOU!!! Episode 191 is without a doubt the vilest case you'll ever hear on this program because I don't think I could find a worse one if I tried. There's a lot of evil discussed here: torture, cannibalism, and more. Consider this your trigger warning: I'd turn back if I were you! Or at least put…

The Murder Of Mary Phagan Episode 183 tells of one of the most infamous cases of an innocent man wrongly accused. When a teenage factory girl is found dead in the basement of an Atlanta pencil manufacturer, blame falls on the mild-mannered Jewish superintendent of the plant, and the jury takes the word of a drunken janitor. It’ll take 70 years for …

The Reily Mattock Murder Episode 198 is centered on one of my favorite murder tropes, the so-called “eternal triangle,” between the cranky old farmer, his fading wife, and the handsome young farmhand. Yeah, that’s not going to end well, but they might have gotten away with it if they had just put the body across the tracks. It’s all in the details.…

The Real ‘Chicago’ Murders Episode 352 explores the two murders that inspired the hit musical “Chicago,” which was based on a play by Maurine Watkins, who did some reporting on both cases as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. I’ll be joined by my colleague Susan Ferman, whose own podcast Catastrophic Calamities, will premiere next week on the Pulp…

The Trial Of Rattlesnake James, The Red-Headed Bluebeard Episode 192 gets a bit epic, but it’s the story that keeps on giving, with two botched murders and moral charges to boot, and things go from crazy to crazier when they bring a pair of rattlers named Lethal and Lightning into the courtroom. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.sprea…

A Litany of Horror Episode 12 is a reading of the chilling confession of Herman Webster Mudgett, better known as H.H. Holmes, one of the most remarkable serial killers in American History. The whole nation was shocked and outraged in the waning years of the nineteenth century by the gruesome deeds of one Herman Mudgett, the arch fiend who took on t…