Crimes of the Centuries

By Obsessed Network

History

What's Crimes of the Centuries about?

Crime is so commonplace that it takes something particularly shocking to be labelled the “crime of the century.” Even so, there are a lot of cases that have earned the distinction. In each episode of Crimes of the Centuries, award-winning journalist Amber Hunt will examine a case that’s lesser known today but was huge when it happened. The cases explored span the centuries and each left a mark. Some made history by changing laws. Others were so shocking they changed society.

4.8

1,078 ratings

Download our free app to listen on your phone

LAST EPISODE

Introducing... I Think Not!...

01.05.2023

Hey Crimes of the Centuries listeners! The Obsessed Network has as a brand new podcast from the former hosts and creators of Obsessed with: Disappeared. It's called I Think Not! Enjoy the trailer here and check out the first episode ...

Crimes of the Centuries episodes:

01.05.2023 Introducing... I Think Not! (A New True Crime Comedy Podcast) Hey Crimes of the Centuries listeners! The Obsessed Network has as a brand new podcast from the former hosts and creators of Obsessed with: Disappeared. It's called I Think Not! Enjoy the trailer here and check out the first episode ...
12.05.2022 S2 Ep42: The Case of Kirk Bloodsworth: America’s First DNA Exoneration After the 1984 discovery of 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton’s body in the woods, police began their search for a tall, muscular, curly-haired man. Kirk Bloodsworth – fitting that description – was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death. Then, he was tried ...
12.02.2022 Obsessed Fest 2023 Tickets Are On Sale NOW!!!!! Hey, Crimes of the Centuries listeners!! Tickets are on sale NOW for Obsessed Fest 2023, taking place in Dallas Texas from October 20th - 22nd. You can get all the information and tickets at obsessedfest.com - see you there!
11.28.2022 S2 Ep41: Illegal Luck: How the New Hampshire Sweepstakes Went Haywire In the summer of 1964, the first modern lottery was off to the races in New Hampshire. The “Sweeps,” as they were called, were a sensation of national interest, with lawmakers quarreling over the legality of the get-rich-quick horse race ...
11.14.2022 S2 Ep40: The True Story Behind 'Murder Ordained' Film adaptations of true crimes have to strike a tricky balance between authenticity and drama. 1987’s Murder Ordained depicts the 1983 incidents within a small town in Kansas, where the mysterious deaths of a minister’s wife and a secretary’s husband ...
11.07.2022 S2 Ep39: Soul Leaves Body: The Life and Death of Sam Cooke Singing his way through the 1950s and early 1960s, appealing to audiences across a segregated music industry, churning out hits of dreamy quality like “You Send Me” and inspirational fortitude like “A Change Is Gonna Come,” Sam Cooke was more ...
10.31.2022 S2 Ep38: The Bender Family: A Suspicious Band of Innkeepers Inside a modest cabin on the vast prairies of Kansas lived a family, or at least four individuals claiming to be one. The Benders were an odd bunch: grumpy Ma & Pa, mysteriously moody daughter Kate and John, who didn't ...
10.24.2022 S2 Ep37: Linda Hazzard, the Doctor Who Starved Her Patients to Death Dr. Linda Hazzard was an extremely unorthodox physician, a so-called "fasting specialist" who believed food to be the cause of disease. After as many as a dozen people died under her care, her sensational trial would make headlines worldwide and ...
10.17.2022 S2 Ep36: The Tragedy of Selena: Fandom Gone Too Far Selena Quintanilla was on the cusp of becoming a worldwide sensation. The Mexican American had already dominated Tejano music charts for years, but as the mid-1990s got under way, so too did her plans for an English-language album that many ...
10.03.2022 S2 Ep35: Hilma Marie Witte: Fatal Manipulation The 1981 shooting death of Paul Witte, a father of two in Indiana, seemed to be an accident: Paul's 15-year-old son Eric said he'd tripped while holding the gun, fatally wounding his dad as he napped on the living room ...
09.26.2022 S2 Ep34: Ramon Novarro: The Life and Death of a Screen Idol As Hollywood found its footing at the turn of the 20th century, so did a handsome young artist who'd soon be known around the world as Ramon Novarro. In his heyday, the Mexican-born actor was mentioned alongside leading men like ...
09.19.2022 S2 Ep33: Murder on the Ohio River In March of 1856, when a visibly intoxicated man of means boarded the Ohio Belle steamboat, the crew immediately worried that they were in for a bad trip. Still, they never could have predicted that the arrival of the man ...
09.12.2022 S2 Ep32: Trapping a Killer: Could a Psychic Help Catch a Serial Killer? Between 1967 and 1969, terror gripped two college towns in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, Michigan, as investigators discovered the mutilated corpses of seven young women and girls. The murderer -- called the Coed Killer by newspapers of the time -- ...
09.05.2022 The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Hey, everyone - for Labor Day, we're re-releasing this episode all about a workplace tragedy that helped spark new regulations in the US to protect workers. Enjoy the episode and we'll be back with a brand-new story next week! ----- ...
08.29.2022 S2 Ep31: Chasing a Ghost: Hunting the Killer of Chief Greg Adams The heartbreaking murder of a small-town Pennsylvania police chief seemed like an open-and-shut case in December of 1980. After all, whoever shot Gregory Adams appeared to have left a driver's license at the scene of the crime. But investigators soon ...
08.22.2022 S2 Ep30: Scandal in Arkansas: The Murder of Fern Rodgers Porter Rodgers and his family was as close as royalty as one could get in the small town of Searcy, Arkansas. He was a successful doctor working at a hospital that bore his name. But on Sept. 26, 1974, everything ...
08.15.2022 S2 Ep29: Alfred Packer: The Colorado Cannibal When a haggard Alfred Packer stumbled from the Colorado wilderness in 1874, he at first said he'd been abandoned by five traveling companions who'd left him to fend for himself. But his already-shaky story quickly changed once a search party ...
08.08.2022 S2 Ep28: The Harrowing Murders of Amelia Dyer To countless women, Amelia Dyer offered salvation: She was a supposedly married but barren woman who offered to adopt babies whose parents (usually unwed mothers) couldn't afford to raise them properly. Dyer promised to rear the "precious" babies as her ...
08.01.2022 S2 Ep27: Billy Milligan Around the same time the first Hillside Stranglers victims were found near Los Angeles, a young man was arrested in Ohio in an unrelated string of robberies and sexual assaults that would have strange bearing over the California cases. Billy ...
07.25.2022 S2 Ep26: The Hillside Stranglings Part 2 After Kenneth Bianchi was arrested in early 1979 on suspicion he was responsible for the so-called Hillside Stranglings near Los Angeles, he made an outrageous claim: He did kill 10 women in LA and another two in Washington state, he ...
07.18.2022 S2 Ep25: The Hillside Stranglings The first body discovered on a California hillside in late 1977 didn't make much news, but as the body count kept growing, so did the headlines -- and the sense of panic. The slayings, soon dubbed by the media as ...
07.11.2022 S2 Ep24: The Murder of Phil Hartman When news spread that a high-profile comedian was killed in a murder-suicide in 1998, the response was disbelief: Phil Hartman wasn't just famous for being funny. He was even better known for being a good-hearted guy. The shocking story behind ...
06.27.2022 S2 Ep23: The Easter Sunday Massacre On Easter Sunday 1937, Ethel Gedeon discovered her sister Veronica and mother Mary murdered in their New York City apartment alongside a third victim, a man who was residing in the apartment as a boarder. As police began to investigate ...
06.20.2022 S2 Ep22: Sam Sheppard When the county coroner arrived at Sam Sheppard's house in July of 1954, the pathologist was certain the case was open-and-shut: Sheppard, a headlines-courting doctor and serial philanderer, clearly had murdered his 31-year-old wife, Marilyn. Sheppard faced not one but ...
06.13.2022 S2 Ep21: The Heartbreaking Slayings of Nancy, Melissa, and Angela Newman When three members of the Newman family were discovered slain in 1987, residents of Anchorage, Alaska, flew into a panic. Though murders weren't rare there, the slayings were brutal and the potential suspect list uncomfortably long. The case marked the ...
06.06.2022 S2 Ep20: Arthur Fried and the 'Kidnap Years' The Great Depression sparked a desperation in people that led to an epidemic of kidnappings nationwide, including the 1937 abduction of Arthur Fried, a married father of one whose father owned a sand-and-gravel company. As crime writer Sarah Weinman helps ...
05.30.2022 Rebecca Schaeffer: The Slaying of a Starlet We're taking a break for the holiday, so we wanted to feature an episode from our first season you may not have heard yet. We'll be back with a new episode next week! As actress Rebecca Schaeffer rushed around her ...
05.23.2022 S2 Ep19: The Reid Technique and the Wrongful Conviction of Darrel Parker You've probably heard of the controversial Reid interrogation technique designed to extract confessions from suspects, but did you know that the case that put that technique on the map actually elicited a wrongful confession? Rabia Chaudry, co-host of the true ...
05.16.2022 S2 Ep18: Patty Cannon's Murderous Gang: Selling People for Profit With the issue of slavery dividing America in the early 1800s, Patty Cannon told neighbors curious about the Black people they spotted secreted across her property that she was helping them escape into freedom. In reality, she was leader of ...
05.09.2022 S2 Ep17: George Remus: Lawyer, Bootlegger, Killer Pt. 2 Pharmacist-turned lawyer-turned bootlegger George Remus had been making headlines for years as one of the richest men in America thanks to his illegal booze-selling operation during the start of Prohibition. Come 1927, however, his legacy was threatened with another title: ...
05.02.2022 S2 Ep16: George Remus: Lawyer, Bootlegger, Killer Pt. 1 Defense lawyer George Remus started to notice a new kind of client in 1919 and 1920: the bootlegger. He also noticed that those bootleggers always paid handsomely in cash. Remus, who had a background in pharmaceuticals, decided he wanted in, ...
04.25.2022 S2 Ep15: The Great Train Robbery: A Brilliant Success or Sloppy Failure? One of the biggest crimes of the 20th century was the type of heist we usually associate with the 1800s: a train robbery. In August 1963, at least 16 people managed to steal more than $7 million from a train ...
04.22.2022 S2: Introducing… Let The Women Do The Work with Gillian Pensavalle This show has a bone to pick true crime podcasts. Where are all the women’s perspectives? The detectives, the witnesses, the movers and shakers of any case are not always dudes. So let’s widen our framework, shall we? On Let ...
04.18.2022 S2 Ep14: The Murder of "Diamond Bessie" When the body of a beautiful and well-dressed woman was discovered in 1877 outside of Jefferson, Texas, residents recognized her immediately -- even though they didn't know her real name. She'd been christened through gossip as "Diamond Bessie" thanks to ...
04.11.2022 S2 Ep13: Don't Say His Name: A Serial Killer Out for Notoriety It's because of revisionist history that Paul John Knowles might be better known to some listeners at the Casanova Killer, but don't be fooled: This serial killer deserves no romanticization. Knowles went on a murder spree in 1974 that's been ...
04.07.2022 S2: What Lurks Inside the Walls: Hidden Rooms (From "Strange & Unexplained”) Hey, fam!! Season 2 of the Obsessed Network Original Podcast "Strange & Unexplained With Daisy Eagan" launches today! In case you aren't familiar, “Strange & Unexplained” is a podcast about all the things that make us wonder. Each week host ...
04.04.2022 S2 Ep12: Mary McKnight: Surrounded by Death After her niece Ruth died in her care, Mary McKnight -- herself a grieving mother -- worried that the shock would kill her sister-in-law, so she gave her something to calm her nerves. But Gertrude died within the hour, and ...
03.28.2022 S2 Ep11: Buck v. Bell: When the Courts Decided Who Could Have Kids A young woman named Carrie Buck was not only deemed too unfit to raise her daughter in 1927, but the U.S. Supreme Court declared she was too stupid to procreate, period. And that decision, sparked by the so-called eugenics movement, ...
03.14.2022 S2 Ep10: Terror at the Tewksbury Almshouse Almshouses in the 19th and early 20th centuries were meant to help society's most vulnerable, but in the 1880s, one in Tewksbury, Massachusetts was accused of such shocking treatment that the governor ordered a months-long investigation that dominated headlines nationwide. ...
03.07.2022 S2 Ep9: Ken McElroy: Murder in the Town Square Ken McElroy was killed outside, in broad daylight, with some 60 witnesses watching -- and yet no one copped to having seen a thing. McElroy, who'd long been known as a town bully in Skidmore, Missouri, was shot dead in ...
02.28.2022 S2 Ep8: The Mobster and the Movie Star: The Murder of Johnny Stompanato The Roberts murder discussed in last week's episode wasn't the only murder tied to "Peyton Place," the fictional town depicted in Grace Metallious' 1956 book. Just after Hollywood legend Lana Turner earned an Oscar nomination for her role in the ...
02.21.2022 S2 Ep7: The Peyton Place Murder When the groundbreaking book "Peyton Place" hit bookshelves in 1956, the murder tale at its center was so scandalous that many stores banned it outright. But the truth is that author Grace Metallious ripped that tale from the headlines -- ...
02.14.2022 S2 Ep6: Carl Panzram: Forgotten Monster Carl Panzram had a rough life growing up, so he decided to make life hell for everyone around him -- especially innocent young boys. When Panzram finally owned up to his crimes, his confession was so outlandish that authorities thought ...
02.07.2022 S2 Ep5: The Bludgeoning of Edwin Burdick The most popular motives for murder are money and sex. That's as true today as it was in 1903 when Edwin Burdick was found brutally bludgeoned in the den of his home. Soon, the nation would learn that Burdick was ...
01.31.2022 S2 Ep4: Too Scandalous for the Papers: The Hix-Snook Case Theora Hix was an enigma to those who knew her. She was witty, intelligent, and ambitious, but fiercely secretive. So when she turned up dead in the summer of 1926, investigators at first had no idea who might have been ...
01.24.2022 S2 Ep3: Murder at Road Hill House When a beloved 3-year-old boy went missing, only to be discovered soon after in an outhouse with his throat slit, suspicion at first settled on the child's nursemaid in a London-area town in 1860. After local police failed to find ...
01.17.2022 S2 Ep2: The Galvanizing Murder of Emmett Till A fun-loving Chicago teenager convinced his mom to let him visit relatives in Mississippi over the summer of 1955. Three days after his arrival, 14-year-old Emmett Till was viciously murdered. Because his mother insisted that the world see the violence ...
01.10.2022 S2 Ep1: The Cleveland Torso Murders On a crisp fall morning in 1935, two young boys made a grisly discovery in Kingsbury Run, an area in southeast Cleveland, Ohio. The boys, ages 16 and 12, had been playing catch but lost control of the ball. To ...
10.04.2021 S1 Ep42: The Osage Nation Murders When members of the incredibly wealthy Osage Nation started dropping dead of mysterious ailments in 1920s Oklahoma, few people in state power paid it much mind. After all, many of those who could do something about it were benefiting from ...
09.27.2021 S1 Ep41: Richard Biegenwald: The Jersey Shore Thrill Killer It's possible no one would have known that Richard Biegenwald was a serial killer if he hadn't shown a dead woman's body to a friend he wanted to enlist as a murderous protege. Once police started digging into Richard Biegenwald, ...

Older episodes