Curator 135

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In the early 1890's Samuel Minshall left Chicago in search of a better opportunity in Pentwater, Michigan. Pentwater was a small, up and coming village in Western Michigan along the shores of Lake Michigan. 

There he met William Sands who promised him enough work to support his family. That promise was broken and it drove Minshall mad. He couldn't stand to see the rich get richer while his family struggled to make ends meet.

So he took action. Horrible, murderous action. 

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In 1964 three elderly siblings were brutally beaten, robbed and left in a closet to die. Learn about the Parsons; William, Hilda and Lenore, their lives and what led up to the unsolved murders that are still on the Livonia Police Department's Cold Case list sixty years later.  

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In 1982 Kimberly Louiselle disappeared from Livonia and was found deceased weeks later in a wooded area of state-owned land miles away.  The following year, one day shy of exactly a year, Christina Castiglione went missing while in Livonia. She was also found deceased later on in a remote area near Howell. 

From the start, police knew that the two cases were likely the work of the same man. It took 40 years and a group of college kids from Michigan State University to make it official. 

Listen to Episode 71 to learn about these two cases that took over the news in Southeastern Michigan in the early eighties. It's the beginning of the 'Suburban Crime' series on Curator135.  

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The crew of the Essex left Nantucket on a whaling expedition in August of 1819. They knew that they might be at sea for as long as three years but they had no idea what they were about to encounter.

Find out how 20 men survived a whale attack that sunk their ship only to be forced into three small boats in the middle of the ocean. 

What happens when starvation hits? When your fresh water supply is drained? Or when madness sets in? 

This is a reading of Owen Chase's book Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex. 

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In the early 1940s, a well-liked man was brutally murdered in his home while his wife recovered from hip surgery in a nearby hospital. There were no signs of forced entry, plenty of cash around the home, and every door and window was locked from the inside. So who did it? And more importantly, where did the assailant go after the murder? 

The house quickly gained the reputation of being haunted as neighbors noticed lights going on and off and the silhouette of a man being seen numerous times. 

It would take Denver, Colorado detectives nearly 10 months to get to the bottom of it and when they did, they wished they hadn't. 

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The games of the Third Olympiad were the first Olympics to be held on American soil. After St. Louis wrestled away the chance to host the games from Chicago, they lumped the event in with the Louisiana Purchase Expo and World Fair. 

The Olympic Marathon, an event that everyone looked forward to, was a mess from start to finish. Full of comedy, danger, and cheating. Travel back in time with Curator 135 and learn about all of the shenanigans that took place. 

It got so bad that the International Olympic Committee tried to have marathons removed from further Olympic games. 

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The early 1920's was a time that saw numerous vessels vanish in the Atlantic Ocean. The Carroll A. Deering didn't vanish, but its crew did, and then washed up on the dangerous Diamond Shoals off the coast of North Carolina.

Was it mutiny? Captain Wormell and his first mate did not get along and everyone knew it. German U-boats were a thing of the past, and so were pirates, right? Was it Russians? Or the work of the not-yet-known Bermuda Triangle? 

We may never know. The Carroll A. Deering (along with the nearby disappearance of the S.S. Hewitt) may go down as one of the greatest unsolved mysteries ever. 

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Arthur "Gypsy Bob" Harper (b. 1880) was one of Michigan's most notorious criminals. Murder, theft, and assault were part of his everyday life outside of prison. Luckily he only spent 15 of his 73 years out in the world. The rest of his time was spent locked up in various prisons in New York, Missouri, Illinois, and Michigan. 

Even that didn't stop him from committing heinous crimes. 

Let's learn about the man who holds the record for the most consecutive years in solitary confinement and the most tattoos.

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What happened at the Attica Maximum Security Prison in September 1971 should have changed how prisons were run forever.  Unfortunately, the 'tough on crime' 80's and 90's erased any of the steps that were taken. Find out what went on during the four days inside of Attica as Governor Nelson Rockefeller battled from afar to win back the prison... at any cost. 

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What are some of your Christmas-time family traditions? Elf on the Shelf? Boots on the windowsill? Hiding brooms? KFC?

Curator135 looks at some of the strange but mostly meaningful Christmas traditions around the globe. Come along for a wild ride, and learn about everything from scaring children to radishes to straw goats. 

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