Lunchtime Crime episodes:

• July 19, 2025@LunchtimeCrime | We Demand Release of the Red Book

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  "It's time for lunch. You have the right to remain silent, but I won't remain silent. Welcome back to lunchtime crime. We usually focus on pretty hearty, simple fare here at the lunch. Murders, cons, thefts. But today's feature is definitely a little more complicated. The main ingredient is murder, but there's a lot of lot of side dishes here. Our scene is Vermont in 1919, and our body du jour is, or was, Lucina Broadwell. She was 29."

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• July 19, 2025@LunchtimeCrime | Sweet Revenge

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  "So if there was no real reason to do an autopsy, no obvious reason, poisoning could easily be mistaken for a disease and escape notice. But that was changing around 1915. Forensic toxicology had improved and there was something called the Marsh test. And this test and some other confirmation procedures allowed investigators to detect even really small amounts of arsenic in tissue and body fluids. And that set a scientific standard that was accepted as evidence in court. It was considered pretty reliable."

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• July 18, 2025@LunchtimeCrime | Immigrant = Criminal

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  "And he never returned. Later, a handyman from the Sprague household discovered him lying along a path. He'd been shot. He'd been beaten with blunt instruments, and he was barely recognizable. Now $60 and a gold watch were on his person. So that ruled out robbery as a motive, suggesting a crime with a more personal motivation of hatred or maybe revenge. Suspicion immediately fell on three brothers, the Gordons. Nicholas, John, and William. They were Irish Catholic immigrants."

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• July 18, 2025@LunchtimeCrime | Evil Twin? Or Convicted by Cliche?

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  "And they told him, you know, how to get in the house and, and what Dr. Wilson's schedule was so that he could lay in wait. Now, the prosecution's case hinged entirely on his testimony, which was inconsistent and certainly self serving because he received a plea deal with the possibility of parole instead of a death penalty. So that's a pretty good deal. There was little to none for forensic evidence linking Betty or Peggy to the crime directly."

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• July 18, 2025@LunchtimeCrime | Felled by a Madman

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  "She had been fatally beaten and decapitated and raped, and there was immediately a suspect, a neighbor, but that didn't prove to go anywhere. However, a detective saw a similarity to the murder of Marietta Ball, and this led him to a suspect from that case, a lumberjack named Joseph LePage, who had lived in Vermont and was now in New Hampshire. He was questioned in the original case and he had a reputation for accosting young women, but they thought he had an alibi."

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• July 13, 2025@LunchtimeCrime | Lefty

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  "But there's more to the story. Lefty was a gambler, a Las Vegas casino executive, an organized crime associate, and an FBI informant. He was born in Chicago and got his start gambling at Wrigley Field. And when his family acquired racehorses, he learned the finer points of winning at the track. He was a phenomenal bookmaker, and that caught the interest of certain people in Cicero, and he worked for them."

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• July 13, 2025@LunchtimeCrime | "Sister Ping" Was Queen of the Snakeheads

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  "The cargo ship carrying 286 undocumented Chinese immigrants ran aground off Queens, New York. Ten people died, and the event brought national attention to both the scale and the brutality of the human smuggling trade. Her exact role in the Golden Venture episode is debated, but authorities and rival smugglers identify her as a key investor and organizer. Her operation could be ruthless."

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• July 13, 2025@LunchtimeCrime | The Velvet Hammer Who Built Galveston

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  "It's time for lunch. You have the right to remain silent, but I won't remain silent. Welcome back to Lunchtime Crime. We've been serving up stories about nicknames this week, and who does that better than organized crime? One of the most inspired examples is Sam the Velvet Hammer Maceo. He was a Sicilian born American crime boss, entrepreneur, political power broker and philanthropist alongside his brother Rosario."

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• July 11, 2025@LunchtimeCrime | Hi-Yo Who?

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  "With the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty height of silver. The Lone Ranger. Hmm. What do you think? Some historians have suggested that Bass Reeves was the inspiration for the Lone Ranger, a masked human hero who fought injustice on the frontier. Of course, the version that we know is a white guy with a mask. The show became a sensation first on radio in the 30s and later on TV in the 50s. And there was comic books and merchandise."

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• July 10, 2025@LunchtimeCrime | The Vampire Slayer

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  "Nicknames are an intrigiing window into how we talk about the crime and criminal. So I hope you'll come back for more servings all week."

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