What does it mean when a woman commits a crime and attributes her actions to PMS? We revisit the first use of the "PMS defense" in this country, back in 1981. What have we learned about the science of PMS since then? Last year, the American Psychiatric Association classified a form of PMS (Premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD) as a mental disorder in the DSM-V. How can the scientific community study severe premenstrual symptoms without perpetuating the utterly unscientific idea that menstruating women aren’t mentally competent or liable for crimes they commit?

We talk to lawyer Stephanie Benson who used PMS as a defense for her client Shirley Santos after Santos was charged with assault and endangering her children.

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We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.

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In March 1964, a 35-year-old African-American woman named Johnnie Mae Chappell was walking along the side of the road in Jacksonville, Florida. Four white men were driving around listening to the local race riots on the radio. They had a gun on the dashboard. As they passed Chappell, one of the men leaned out the car window and shot her to death. As the police investigated, evidence began to mysteriously disappear, making it impossible to punish the men who admitted to committing the crime.

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We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.

Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop. 

Episode transcripts are posted on our website.

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Crime victims are often put under the same scrutiny as the accused. Not only for their version of events, but sometimes for how they look and talk, too. We meet a man whose trial hurt worse than his assault.

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We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.

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Episode transcripts are posted on our website.

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On April 13, 2014, former KKK member Frazier Glenn Cross pulled into a Jewish Community Center and ambushed William Corporon and his grandson Reat Griffin Underwood, killing both. He then killed another woman named Terri LaManno a short distance away. 

What does the family left behind do when they are thrust into a national spotlight? How do they figure out what to disclose and what should be private?

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We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.

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Episode transcripts are posted on our website.

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Every year for the past few years, tens of thousand of flytraps have gone missing – from the wild, from gardens, from nurseries. And, really, nobody knows where they go. What’s cropped up in rural North Carolina is essentially a Venus Flytrap crime ring — with lackies, middle men, and a mysterious end buyer who’s perpetuating the market.

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We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.

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Episode transcripts are posted on our website.

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There are plenty of things we don't share with our mothers. Dark, sad things. Unless of course, you both speak the same dark language. Kathleen Vernon is a coroner in Albany County, Wyoming, the youngest ever, in fact. But she didn’t come to this preternatural curiosity just on her own; the business of death runs in the family.

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We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.

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With the advent of the Inkjet printer, counterfeiting money became as simple as a trip to Staples. By the year 2000, there were 72 million of these homemade dollars in circulation. The real question is… who was behind them all?

Today, we talk to a woman who “made” her own money.

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For nearly a century we've been trying to read someone's truthfulness by the way they act. Be it through machines, or our own intuition. The police have tried. The FBI has tried. The CIA has tried. But the fact is… most of their efforts just don't work. 

Are we doomed to ignorance? Maybe not.

We talked to forensic psychologist Andy Morgan about the difficult truth regarding the industry around lying.

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We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.

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In 2001, Kathleen Peterson was found dead in her home. Her husband Michael Peterson was convicted of her murder. A curious neighbor, a lawyer named Larry Pollard, had a different theory.

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We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.

Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.

Episode transcripts are posted on our website.

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