Criminal

By Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture

What's Criminal about?

Criminal is the first of its kind. A show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Hosted by Phoebe Judge. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

4.7

28,806 ratings

Download our free app to listen on your phone

LAST EPISODE

Episode 221: Lavender Scare

06.02.2023

Helen James grew up in a military family — her great-great-grandfather fought in the Civil War, her father in WWI, and her uncles in WWII. So when she enlisted in 1952, she felt like she belonged. Shortly after, she realized ...

Criminal episodes:

06.02.2023 Episode 221: Lavender Scare Helen James grew up in a military family — her great-great-grandfather fought in the Civil War, her father in WWI, and her uncles in WWII. So when she enlisted in 1952, she felt like she belonged. Shortly after, she realized ...
05.26.2023 Episode 220: Shipwrecked There’s an old sailors’ saying about the ocean at the southernmost part of the world — “below 40 degrees latitude, there is no law; below 50 degrees, there is no God.” David Grann brings us the story of what happened ...
05.19.2023 Episode 219: A Mysterious Bank In the late 1870s, a woman named Sarah Howe started a bank just for single women called the Ladies’ Deposit Company. She asked new customers to tell their friends about the bank rather than advertising in newspapers, and she promised ...
05.12.2023 Episode 218: "Did we get it right?" “What we ask jurors to do is to just absorb all this trauma and just to keep on absorbing it and not process it with anyone. Just hold it in and hold it in and hold it in.” A look ...
05.05.2023 Episode 217: The Juror In 2008, Sven Berger was chosen to serve on the jury for a murder trial. He says the sentence that he and his fellow jurors handed down “felt like a mistake right away.” Sven talked about what happened next on ...
04.28.2023 Episode 216: The Magdalene Laundries When she was 14 years old, Elizabeth Coppin was sent to a place called Peacock Lane in Cork, Ireland. It was a laundry business run by a Catholic order of nuns. Elizabeth noticed bars on its windows. Say hello on ...
04.21.2023 Episode 215: The Somerton Man In 1948, two horse jockeys were riding on a beach in Australia when they came across a man lying in the sand. There was a partially smoked cigarette resting on his jacket. He was well dressed, with a striped tie ...
04.14.2023 Episode 214: Palace of Justice – A Conversation with Benjamin Ferencz When Benjamin Ferencz was 27 years old, he prosecuted his very first trial. It's been called the largest murder trial in history, with more than one million victims. There were 22 defendants, each of them high-ranking members of Nazi Germany’s ...
04.07.2023 Episode 213: The Most Wonderful Terrible Person When Debra Miller woke up on October 8th, 1964, she was expecting to see a black Volkswagen in her family’s driveway. Instead, she saw a police car. “And I knew my father was dead.” Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and ...
03.24.2023 Episode 212: The Fasting Cure In 1911, two sisters traveled to Seattle to meet a "doctor" named Linda Hazzard. The sisters didn’t seem very sick, but when they arrived, Dr. Hazzard told them they didn’t have a moment to lose – they needed to begin ...
03.17.2023 Episode 211: Crazy Eddie In the 1980s, the discount electronics chain store Crazy Eddie was so famous, its commercials were parodied on "Saturday Night Live." So when the family business began selling its company shares on Wall Street — making millions — nobody questioned ...
03.10.2023 Episode 210: Out of the Box In 1964, one of the best javelin throwers in Australia traveled to England to see if he could qualify for the Olympics. But, because of an injury, he didn’t make the team - and he couldn’t afford a plane ticket ...
03.03.2023 Episode 209: An Impossible Crime, Part 2 This episode continues where Episode 208 leaves off. In 2001, Daniel Taylor wrote a letter from prison to a reporter at the Chicago Tribune named Steve Mills. Steve Mills spent months investigating before publishing a detailed examination of Daniel’s case ...
02.24.2023 Episode 208: An Impossible Crime Daniel Taylor was 17 years old when he was arrested for a 1992 double homicide in Chicago. But Daniel had an alibi. He was in jail at the time of the murders. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign ...
02.17.2023 Episode 207: Novak v. City of Parma In 2016, a man named Anthony Novak created a parody Facebook page of his local police department. "I just thought, 'That would be funny.'" About a month later, he was arrested. Novak is now petitioning the Supreme Court, and The ...
02.03.2023 Episode 206: The Feather Lady On October 4, 1960, Eastern Airlines Flight 375 took off from Boston’s Logan airport, and then, two minutes later, it crashed. 62 people died. Investigators couldn't figure out what had happened, and they decided to ask a scientist working at ...
01.20.2023 Episode 205: Sunset Mesa Debbie Schum waited a long time to receive the cremated ashes of her friend, LoraLee Johnson. When she did, she felt relieved to finally take them home with her. But then, she got a call from the FBI. We first ...
01.06.2023 Episode 204: They Came for the Judges When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August of 2021, they unlocked the prisons and freed prisoners, some of whom sought revenge on the women judges who convicted them. We speak with some of the judges in today’s episode. ...
12.16.2022 Episode 203: Dog in the Bed, Cat in the Bag, Camel on the Golf Course Stories of animals really going for it. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: Apple.co/CriminalShow. Listen back through our archives at youtube.com/criminalpodcast. We ...
12.02.2022 Episode 202: Across the Atlantic In February of 1910, members of the Music Hall Ladies Guild in London received a strange letter from their treasurer – a singer who went by the name Belle Elmore. It said that she suddenly had to travel to the ...
11.18.2022 Episode 201: The Tylenol Murders On September 29, 1982, Adam Janus suddenly collapsed in his home outside of Chicago. He died within hours. Later that same day, in the same house, his brother also collapsed — then his sister-in-law. All three of them had been ...
11.04.2022 Episode 200: We Interrupt This Program On a Saturday night, in February 1949, the music programming on one of the most popular radio stations in Quito, Ecuador, was interrupted with an urgent news bulletin: strange objects in the sky that looked like large disks with bright ...
10.21.2022 Episode 199: Ghostwatch On Halloween night, in 1992, an unusual television special aired on the BBC. Nobody expected what happened next. “The technicians were looking up at the big screen in the lobby, saying to each other, ‘My God, what's going on in ...
10.07.2022 Episode 198: The Hammersmith Ghost In the winter of 1803, residents outside of London reported strange encounters with a ghost. Some said it looked like Napoleon Bonaparte, or a horse without a head. Others said the ghost breathed fire and smoke. By Christmas, there was ...
09.23.2022 Episode 197: Mantrap Ed and Bertha Briney’s unoccupied farmhouse was reportedly broken into 50 times over 10 years. They put up “No Trespassing” signs, repeatedly complained to sheriffs in two different counties, nailed doors shut, and boarded up windows - but nothing worked. ...
09.09.2022 Episode 196: Hungryland In March of this year, a biologist working in a nature preserve in Florida saw an alligator swimming along a canal with something in its mouth. When she looked closer, she realized it was a human arm. Say hello on ...
08.19.2022 Episode 195: The Procedure In 1967, a very unlikely group of individuals gathered to quietly break the law and help facilitate abortions. They established a phone number. When you called it, a recording of a woman's voice would tell you what to do next. ...
08.05.2022 Episode 194: The Divorce Colony This episode picks up where Episode 193 left off. We suggest you listen to them in order. Blanche Molineux visited her husband while he was in prison for murder to keep up what she called the “ghastly pretense.” But eventually, ...
07.22.2022 Episode 193: A Ring and a Bottle In 1895, Blanche Chesebrough moved into a small apartment in Gramercy Park, in New York City. She brought a portrait of her parents, a vase for flowers, and her piano. She later said, “music had been my one absorbing interest,” ...
07.08.2022 Episode 192: The Devil’s Hole Pupfish There is a cave in the middle of the Mojave Desert called Devil's Hole. It's home to a small iridescent blue fish, called the Devil's Hole pupfish - and you can't find them anywhere else in the world. There are ...
06.24.2022 Episode 191: The Sailor's Teeth In 1982, forensic dentists examined the teeth of thousands of sailors stationed on an aircraft carrier called the USS Carl Vinson in Newport News, Virginia. It’s been called “the largest dental dragnet likely in U.S. history.” Chris Fabricant’s book is ...
06.10.2022 Episode 190: Day In, Day Out When Laura Coates decided to become a prosecutor in Washington, D.C., she was told that the job would be “human misery.” She says she remembers thinking, “If there's one person in the justice system who could do something about human ...
05.27.2022 Episode 189: The Doctors In 2018, we talked with three of America’s most experienced trauma surgeons about what happens when someone is shot. We wanted to spend some time with that conversation again this week. Special thanks to Dr. Amy Goldberg, Dr. David Spain, ...
05.13.2022 Episode 188: John & Trooper For 10 years, Detective John Reilly and his horse Trooper were the only mounted team assigned to Central Park. They rode the same route every day. John says Trooper didn’t like change. “If you changed the route, he got mad.” ...
04.22.2022 Episode 187: 427 Emails Pontiac Correctional Center is a maximum security prison in the small town of Pontiac, Illinois. It’s the oldest in the state - founded in 1871 - and has a reputation for being one of the most violent. There is a ...
04.08.2022 Episode 186: The Magpie When Shigeru Yabu was 9 years old, he and his family were incarcerated at Heart Mountain Internment Camp, along with thousands of other Japanese and Japanese American families. One day, Shigeru discovered a baby magpie that had fallen out of ...
03.25.2022 Episode 185: The Princess One night in 1817, a woman appeared in the village of Almondsbury, in England. No one could figure out who she was. But everyone wanted to solve the mystery. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our ...
03.11.2022 Episode 184: Ransom Miles Hargrove was in his sophomore year of college when he got a phone call that his father had been kidnapped. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and ...
02.25.2022 Episode 183: Breaking into the F.B.I. In 1971, a woman visited an F.B.I. office in Pennsylvania. She identified herself as a college student interested in learning about opportunities for women in the F.B.I. None of that was true. She was there “to see whether there were ...
02.11.2022 Episode 182: The Midnight Slider In 2013, a small boat called The Midnight Slider was found floating empty in the waters off of Isle Madame in Nova Scotia. "Murder is not something that occurs in this neck of the woods very often," says Jake Boudrot, ...
01.28.2022 Episode 181: Pappy, Another Round When it comes to Kentucky bourbon, Pappy Van Winkle is among the most exclusive. You can’t get it unless you’re exceptionally lucky, exceptionally wealthy, or willing to break the law. The Pappy frenzy has the police, bartenders, and even the ...
01.14.2022 Episode 180: The Boycott 15 years after the Supreme Court ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education, many schools across the South were still segregated. Some school districts actively blocked desegregation. North Carolina passed legislation authorizing tuition grants to ...
12.17.2021 Episode 179: A Splendid Newfoundland, Cursing Birds, and the Fashion Fox Stories of animals really going for it. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe ...
12.03.2021 Episode 178: "The experiment requires that you continue." 1. Please continue. 2. The experiment requires that you continue. 3. It is absolutely essential that you continue. 4. You have no other choice, you must go on. Gina Perry's book is Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of ...
11.19.2021 Episode 177: Palace of Justice When Benjamin Ferencz was 27 years old, he prosecuted his very first trial. There were 22 defendants, each of them high-ranking members of Nazi Germany’s death squad. The entire world was watching. Today, we take a look at the Nuremberg ...
11.05.2021 Episode 176: The Red Flag In 2006, a man named William Ramsey went to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida for a life-saving liver transplant. It was a success, and so when his health started to decline after the procedure, doctors couldn't figure out why. ...
10.22.2021 Episode 175: Ghost Racket Crusade The story of two famous friends — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini — and the disagreement that ended their friendship: can we speak to the dead? Read Rose Mackenberg's essays in Tony Wolf's book, Houdini's Girl Detective: The ...
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. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook ...
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 ...

Older episodes

Criminal

What's Criminal about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Criminal episodes:

Episode 221: Lavender Scare

Episode 220: Shipwrecked

Episode 219: A Mysterious Bank

Episode 218: "Did we get it right?"

Episode 217: The Juror

Episode 216: The Magdalene Laundries

Episode 215: The Somerton Man

Episode 214: Palace of Justice – A Conversation with Benjamin Ferencz

Episode 213: The Most Wonderful Terrible Person

Episode 212: The Fasting Cure

Episode 211: Crazy Eddie

Episode 210: Out of the Box

Episode 209: An Impossible Crime, Part 2

Episode 208: An Impossible Crime

Episode 207: Novak v. City of Parma

Episode 206: The Feather Lady

Episode 205: Sunset Mesa

Episode 204: They Came for the Judges

Episode 203: Dog in the Bed, Cat in the Bag, Camel on the Golf Course

Episode 202: Across the Atlantic

Episode 201: The Tylenol Murders

Episode 200: We Interrupt This Program

Episode 199: Ghostwatch

Episode 198: The Hammersmith Ghost

Episode 197: Mantrap

Episode 196: Hungryland

Episode 195: The Procedure

Episode 194: The Divorce Colony

Episode 193: A Ring and a Bottle

Episode 192: The Devil’s Hole Pupfish

Episode 191: The Sailor's Teeth

Episode 190: Day In, Day Out

Episode 189: The Doctors

Episode 188: John & Trooper

Episode 187: 427 Emails

Episode 186: The Magpie

Episode 185: The Princess

Episode 184: Ransom

Episode 183: Breaking into the F.B.I.

Episode 182: The Midnight Slider

Episode 181: Pappy, Another Round

Episode 180: The Boycott

Episode 179: A Splendid Newfoundland, Cursing Birds, and the Fashion Fox

Episode 178: "The experiment requires that you continue."

Episode 177: Palace of Justice

Episode 176: The Red Flag

Episode 175: Ghost Racket Crusade

Episode 174: The Loves

Episode 173: Family Money

Episode 172: Roselle and Michael

Other shows like Criminal: