Coldest Cases

February 17, 1932. After a 53 day manhunt across the freezing, remote land of Canada’s Northwest Territories, a trapper by the name of “Albert Johnson” is taken down by Mounties after being shot nine times. For two months, he led police officers on a chase across sprawling mountain ranges in freezing temperatures, always managing to stay a few steps ahead. Today, the Mad Trapper’s true identity remains a mystery.

In 1975, a former friend of John and Clarence Anglin reports seeing the brothers alive and well in Brazil. He even took a picture. In 2013, police in San Francisco receive a letter supposedly from an 83-year-old John. In Part Two, Lauren dives into the latest developments in this unsolved case as well as the history of failed escape attempts on Alcatraz.

June 12, 1962. On this quiet morning at the maximum-security prison on Alcatraz Island, a guard notices something strange in the cells of inmates John and Clarence Anglin. When officials try to wake the sleeping inmates, they realize something major has gone down: the Anglin brothers, along with inmate Frank Morris, have escaped, and left behind paper mache heads as a decoy. In the decades since, the world has debated their fate as this escape remains unsolved.

A governor, a mayor, and a gunsmith are named as the three top conspirators in a plot against George Washington and the Continental Army. For General Washington, the news gets worse when he hears his housemaid is possibly involved. This news all comes as British ships flock to the harbor by the hundreds, and the Revolutionary War begins.

June 28th, 1776. A member of George Washington’s Life Guard (basically America’s first Secret Service) is executed for conspiring to turn on the General and take his life in the name of Great Britain. The plot, discovered by random chance, would have irrevocably changed the course of America’s history. And according to witnesses, several other Life Guards were in on the traitorous plans.

Jack joins Lauren to discuss the crazy things we’ve learned about the mysterious life of Grigori Rasputin. Plus, hear what crazy old mystery from history Lauren is working on next.

Felix Yusupov comes up with a plan to murder Rasputin and enlists the help of several others. However, even today we don’t know how exactly Rasputin’s death came about. Lauren dives into the dramatic finish to Rasputin’s story. The dramatic end to Rasputin’s story, plus why a mysterious situation in Berlin in 1920 led to decades of rumors about some of the Romanovs surviving their grisly demise.

Just weeks after Rasputin’s murder, Russia’s Tsar Nicholas abdicated and his family ended up under house arrest. 18 months later, the entire family was murdered in the basement of Ipatiev House in cold blood. So… is there any truth to Alexandra’s claims that Rasputin was a Holy Man sent to protect her family? Lauren explores fact and fiction in Part Three on Grigori Rasputin.

Rasputin met Russia’s Tsar & Tsarina in late 1905, after a tumultuous year for the country. Despite protests from the government, the church & the people, Nicholas & Alexandra continued to give this Siberian peasant more access to the Royal Palace & Court. Part Two looks into why & how Rasputin’s influence was able to stretch as far as it did… & why Nicholas & Alexandra continued to ignore the warnings that no good would come from the situation.