Criminal

By Criminal & Radiotopia

What's Criminal about?

Criminal is a podcast about crime. Not so much the "if it bleeds, it leads," kind of crime. Something a little more complex. Stories of people who've done wrong, been wronged, and/or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. We're a proud member of Radiotopia, from PRX, a curated network of extraordinary, story-driven shows. Learn more at radiotopia.fm.

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LAST EPISODE

Episode 174: The Loves

10.08.2021

“There is something he hasn’t been telling me and I’m about to find out what it is.” Bobby and Cheryl Love’s book is The Redemption of Bobby Love: A Story of Faith, Family, and Justice. For a transcript of this ...

Criminal episodes:

10.08.2021 Episode 174: The Loves “There is something he hasn’t been telling me and I’m about to find out what it is.” Bobby and Cheryl Love’s book is The Redemption of Bobby Love: A Story of Faith, Family, and Justice. For a transcript of this ...
09.24.2021 Episode 173: Family Money When Beverley Schottenstein’s husband Alvin died, she and her children sold their stake in his family’s business, worth an estimated 90 million dollars. Family relationships got complicated. It was hard to know who to trust. And what happened next surprised ...
09.10.2021 Episode 172: Roselle and Michael Michael Hingson was on the 78th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He says the first indication that something was wrong was the sound of a muffled explosion. Then the building began ...
08.27.2021 Episode 171: Sealand Today's episode begins with rock & roll and ends with royalty. When bands like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles were becoming popular, they weren't played much on the radio in England. The BBC controlled the airwaves at the time, ...
07.30.2021 Episode 170: Ian Manuel "The phone rang and rang and a lady picked up on the other end and I still remember the operator saying, 'You have a collect call from Ian for Debbie. Will you accept the charges?' And I remember Debbie saying, ...
07.16.2021 Episode 169: Masquerade The story of a cryptic children’s book, a real-life treasure hunt, and its very mysterious winner: “He refused to be on camera. It’s just his voice. His wife even asks that they disguise his voice, but she asks too late. ...
07.02.2021 Episode 168: 48 Hours, Part 2 This episode picks up where Episode 167 left off. We suggest you listen to them in order. When Aaron Quinn called the Vallejo police to report that his girlfriend Denise Huskins had been kidnapped, and went into the station for ...
06.18.2021 Episode 167: 48 Hours “I think it was around 3:00 a.m., and that’s when I heard a strange man’s voice waking me from sleep.” This is part one of a two-part episode. Listen to part two in our next episode. Denise Huskins and Aaron ...
06.04.2021 Episode 166: On Fire On November 12th, 2012, the Accomack County volunteer fire departments got a call. An abandoned house had suddenly gone up in flames. And then, just hours later, a second fire was reported. Then a third. Over the next few months, ...
05.21.2021 Episode 165: Unfit In August 1934, Ann Cooper Hewitt was having lunch with her mother when she suddenly felt pain in her abdomen. When she went to the doctor, he told her she would have to have her appendix removed. He never examined ...
05.07.2021 Episode 164: Sanctuary After 32 years in the United States, José Chicas was told he had to leave. He bought a plane ticket to El Salvador, but then a local church offered another option. Special thanks to Jackie Metivier. For a transcript of ...
04.23.2021 Episode 163: The Ghoul of Grays Harbor The Pacific Northwest was said to be terrorized by a serial killer in the early 20th century. Bodies were floating to the surface of the Chehalis and Wishkah Rivers. A local police chief told reporters that he believed that they ...
04.09.2021 Episode 162: I Fought the Law The song “I Fought the Law” by the Bobby Fuller Four reached number 9 on the Billboard Charts in the week of March 12, 1966. Just months later, Bobby Fuller was found dead. The mystery of what happened to him ...
03.26.2021 Episode 161: Only in Hollywood When Joan Borsten married actor Oleg Vidov, also known as “the Soviet Robert Redford,” he introduced her to beautiful Soviet animations created in Moscow’s Soyuzmultfilm studio, like Hedgehog in the Fog, by Yuri Norstein. Joan and Oleg eventually acquired the ...
03.12.2021 Episode 160: Hot Lotto In 2010, a $16.5 million Hot Lotto ticket was sold at a gas station in Des Moines, Iowa. At first, no one showed up to claim the prize. And then, a series of lawyers tried to claim the money on ...
02.26.2021 Episode 159: Spiritual Developments One Sunday afternoon, a man named William Mumler decided to take a self portrait. He said he was alone in the photography studio, but as the photograph developed he saw something very strange—the image of someone else, sitting beside him. ...
02.12.2021 Episode 158: "If it ever happens, run." “What I recall most is the way that she grabbed my wrist and, shaking a bit, she said over and over again, ‘If it happens, run. Don’t let that happen to you. Run. If it ever happens, run.’” It was ...
01.29.2021 Episode 157: The Short Life of Qandeel Baloch Qandeel Baloch grew up in a conservative village in Pakistan called Shah Sadar Din, a place where it was shocking to see a woman swimming outdoors. She ran away from home, changed her name from Fouzia Azeem, auditioned for Pakistan ...
01.15.2021 Episode 156: Sister Helen In 1982, Sister Helen Prejean was invited to write a letter to a man on death row in Louisiana’s Angola State Prison named Elmo Patrick Sonnier. She told us, “I thought that all I was going to be doing was ...
12.24.2020 Bears on Ice A day in the life of the town of Kalispell, Montana. Thanks very much for listening this year, and happy New Year. Read about other days in the Flathead Beacon's Police Blotter. For a transcript of this episode, send an ...
12.18.2020 Episode 155: Cannonball With Covid-19 shutdowns, people have been taking advantage of quiet highways to drive as fast as they can from New York City to Redondo Beach, California. They’re trying to break records set in an unofficial and secretive race called the ...
12.04.2020 Episode 154: The Night of the Party When Nathan Myers and Clifford Williams were charged with the murder of Jeanette “Baldie” Williams in Jacksonville, Florida on May 2, 1976, neither of them were worried they would be convicted. They had dozens of witnesses that could confirm that ...
11.20.2020 Episode 153: The Max Headroom Incident One Sunday night in November 1987, something very odd happened in the middle of the WGN nine o’clock news in Chicago. Sportscaster Dan Roan had been talking about the Chicago Bears, when the screen suddenly went black. Then a person ...
11.13.2020 Episode 152: The Clearwater Monster Early one morning in 1948, a phone call woke up the police chief in the small town of Clearwater, Florida. The caller said he’d seen something strange at the beach. Residents woke up that morning to find an odd set ...
11.06.2020 Episode 151: The Many Lives of Michael Malloy In 1932, a group of men in a speakeasy in Prohibition-era New York City hatched a plan — to take out life insurance on a loner named Michael Malloy, and make his death look like an accident. They thought it ...
10.23.2020 Episode 150: 76th and Yates On May 8, 2013, a man named Timothy Jones was arrested in Chicago. He says it wasn’t until he got to the police station that he found out that he was being charged with murder. He didn’t even know someone ...
10.09.2020 Episode 149: Dr. Parkman is Missing In the mid-1800s, Harvard Medical School had a reputation for being a “den of body snatchers.” And then, in November 1849, the school’s most prominent supporter, Dr. George Parkman, went missing. He was last seen walking into the medical school ...
09.25.2020 Episode 148: Errol Morris Early in his career, Errol Morris read about a shocking series of alleged insurance crimes in a small town in Florida, which some referred to as “Nub City.” There were allegations that men and women were mutilating themselves -- removing ...
09.11.2020 Episode 147: Kids on the Case The summer after Jessica Maple finished 6th grade, she found out that her great-grandmother’s house had been burglarized. So, 12-year-old Jessica got out her notebook, looked for fingerprints, and decided she would conduct her own investigation. This week, four stories ...
08.28.2020 Episode 146: Ten Doors Tim Jenkin was a member of the ANC (African National Congress). The organization had been declared unlawful in South Africa, seen by the white minority as a threat to public order. In 1978, Tim Jenkin was charged under South Africa’s ...
08.07.2020 Episode 145: How to Sell A Haunted House In 1989, Helen Ackley decided to sell her old Victorian house in Nyack, New York at 1 Laveta Place. It didn’t go as planned. There were stories of ghosts, and the house became the center of a case that’s referred ...
07.17.2020 Episode 144: Looking Out People incarcerated in California’s San Quentin State Prison aren’t allowed to have pets — but some people, like Ronell Draper, have found ways to work around that. Meet Ronell Draper, also known as “Rauch,” plus Ear Hustle’s Nigel Poor and ...
07.03.2020 Episode 143: Knock and Announce “I didn’t do what they said I did. And it was like, I don’t know how to disprove the police. I mean, it’s my word against theirs. I don’t really stand a chance.” In 2015, the 15th Circuit Drug Enforcement ...
06.19.2020 Episode 142: Robert Smalls On May 13, 1862, in Charleston, South Carolina, a man named Robert Smalls took command of a Confederate ship called The Planter and liberated himself and his family from enslavement. As they passed the Confederate-held Fort Sumter, Robert Smalls was ...
06.05.2020 Episode 141: It Looked Like Fire On August 10th, 2014, one day after 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, Edward Crawford went to his first protest. “The people, you know, I guess they were out there to be ...
05.15.2020 Episode 140: Cowboy Bob In May 1991, a bank robber walked into a bank in Irving, Texas, and without speaking handed the teller a note that read, “This is a bank robbery. Give me your money. No marked bills or dye packs.” Witnesses reported ...
05.01.2020 Episode 139: Learning How to Forgive “I’ve been teaching law for almost 40 years. And I recently realized we don’t really teach people in law school about the tools of forgiveness that are built into the legal system.” Today, we’re talking with Harvard law professors Dehlia ...
04.17.2020 Episode 138: Starlight Tours In January 2000, the bodies of two First Nations men were found frozen in a remote area of Saskatoon, Canada. It was a place where nobody walked, especially in the winter. And then, a man named Darrell Night came forward ...
04.03.2020 Episode 137: Wolf 10 In April of 1995, wildlife biologists flew small airplanes over Yellowstone National Park, looking for two missing wolves. “They’re just gone. And that’s implausible because wolves don’t just disappear.” The missing wolves were two of 14 that had been brought ...
03.25.2020 Looking for Wolves Our other show, This is Love, is coming back on April 1. All new stories, about animals and the wild, and what happens when we take time to look around us. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up ...
03.24.2020 Phoebe Reads a Mystery Phoebe reads Agatha Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. For more, visit Phoebe Reads a Mystery on its own feed. Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/phoebe-reads-a-mystery/id1503921457 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4aqOirMxxorVMFcVRvDusi RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/PhoebeReadsAMystery
03.20.2020 Episode 136: La Brea Dave Sgt. David Mascarenas was the Dive Supervisor for the Los Angeles Police Department. He’s been diving his whole life, and prides himself on never refusing a dive, no matter how treacherous. At least until the summer of 2013, when a ...
03.06.2020 Episode 135: 527 Lime Street Just before midnight on October 15, 1990, police arrived at 527 Lime Street in Jacksonville, Florida to find the small wood-frame house on fire. A man named Gerald Lewis was standing in the front yard. He said there were people ...
02.21.2020 Episode 134: Call Russ Ewing “The police had surrounded the house. They had been there for quite a while. They didn’t want to try to rush the house because they thought he might kill one of the innocent people. But after waiting for a long ...
02.07.2020 Episode 133: Red Hair, Gold Car One day Adam Braseel got a phone call from his mother. She said that a man in Grundy County, Tennessee had been murdered, and the police thought Adam had something to do with it. Adam was charged with and convicted ...
01.24.2020 Episode 132: Herrin Massacre In the spring of 1922, the United Mine Workers of America announced a national strike. And then, that summer in Herrin, Illinois, 23 people were murdered over two days. Men, women, and children came out of their houses to watch, ...
01.10.2020 Episode 131: Sunset Mesa Debbie Schum waited a long time to receive the cremated ashes of her friend, LoraLee Johnson, from Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors in Montrose, Colorado. When she did, she felt relieved to finally take them home with her. But then, she ...
12.20.2019 Episode 130: Who's There Crime Blotter: “The Learning Center on Hanson Street reports a man across the way stands at his window for hours watching the center, making parents nervous. Police ID the subject as a cardboard cutout of Arnold Schwarzenegger.” Today, we’re looking ...
12.13.2019 Phoebe, Judge Me We are trying something different. Have a question for Phoebe? You can call into our voicemail at (919) 697-8231.
12.06.2019 Episode 129: Panic Defense In 1995, two men filmed an episode of the daytime talk show, The Jenny Jones Show. A few days later, one of the men was dead. The shooter later claimed he’d committed the murder “in a panic that he was ...

Older episodes

Criminal

What's Criminal about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Criminal episodes:

Episode 174: The Loves

Episode 173: Family Money

Episode 172: Roselle and Michael

Episode 171: Sealand

Episode 170: Ian Manuel

Episode 169: Masquerade

Episode 168: 48 Hours, Part 2

Episode 167: 48 Hours

Episode 166: On Fire

Episode 165: Unfit

Episode 164: Sanctuary

Episode 163: The Ghoul of Grays Harbor

Episode 162: I Fought the Law

Episode 161: Only in Hollywood

Episode 160: Hot Lotto

Episode 159: Spiritual Developments

Episode 158: "If it ever happens, run."

Episode 157: The Short Life of Qandeel Baloch

Episode 156: Sister Helen

Bears on Ice

Episode 155: Cannonball

Episode 154: The Night of the Party

Episode 153: The Max Headroom Incident

Episode 152: The Clearwater Monster

Episode 151: The Many Lives of Michael Malloy

Episode 150: 76th and Yates

Episode 149: Dr. Parkman is Missing

Episode 148: Errol Morris

Episode 147: Kids on the Case

Episode 146: Ten Doors

Episode 145: How to Sell A Haunted House

Episode 144: Looking Out

Episode 143: Knock and Announce

Episode 142: Robert Smalls

Episode 141: It Looked Like Fire

Episode 140: Cowboy Bob

Episode 139: Learning How to Forgive

Episode 138: Starlight Tours

Episode 137: Wolf 10

Looking for Wolves

Phoebe Reads a Mystery

Episode 136: La Brea Dave

Episode 135: 527 Lime Street

Episode 134: Call Russ Ewing

Episode 133: Red Hair, Gold Car

Episode 132: Herrin Massacre

Episode 131: Sunset Mesa

Episode 130: Who's There

Phoebe, Judge Me

Episode 129: Panic Defense

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