Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast

By Blue Ewe Media

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What's Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast about?

Serial killers. Gangsters. Gunslingers. Victorian-era murderers. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Each week, the Most Notorious podcast features true-life tales of crime, criminals, tragedies and disasters throughout history. Host Erik Rivenes interviews authors and historians who have studied their subjects for years. Their stories are offered with unique insight, detail, and historical accuracy.

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311: Eleanor "the Blonde T...

09.20.2023

On August 4, 1933, Eleanor Jarman, her boyfriend George Dale and another accomplice attempted to rob a Chicago clothing store owner, Gustav Hoeh. Hoeh fought back and was murdered by Dale. Eleanor still received a 199 year prison sentence for ...

Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast episodes:

09.20.2023 311: Eleanor "the Blonde Tigress" Jarman w/ Silvia Pettem On August 4, 1933, Eleanor Jarman, her boyfriend George Dale and another accomplice attempted to rob a Chicago clothing store owner, Gustav Hoeh. Hoeh fought back and was murdered by Dale. Eleanor still received a 199 year prison sentence for ...
09.12.2023 310: The Rise of Terrorism in the 19th Century w/ James Crossland On January 14, 1858, Felice Orsini and his fellow Italian revolutionaries tossed his newly designed bombs at the carriage of Emperor Napoleon III, outside of the Paris Opera House. This frightening new form of terrorism would have global ramifications, inspiring ...
09.07.2023 309: Albert "Crooked Snake" Lepard w/ Lovejoy Boteler In February of 1959, Albert Lepard brutally murdered his seventy-four-year-old great-aunt Mary Young and was tried, convicted and given a life sentence at Mississippi's Parchman Penitentiary. Lepard would escape six times over fourteen years. In 1968, my guest Lovejoy Boteler, ...
08.30.2023 308: The Murder of Nell Cropsey w/ William E. Dunstan - A True Crime History Podcast On this episode of Most Notorious, we examine one of the most infamous true crime cases in North Carolina history. On a cold autumn evening in 1901 a young woman named Nell Cropsey stepped out of her house with her ...
08.23.2023 307: The Nazi Titanic w/ Robert Watson - A True Crime History Podcast Built in 1927, the German ocean liner SS Cap Arcona was the greatest ship since the RMS Titanic and one of the most celebrated luxury liners in the world. When the Nazis seized control in Germany, she was stripped down ...
08.16.2023 306: The Car Barn Murders w/ Karen Smith - A True Crime History Podcast In the early morning of January 21st, 1935 two employees of the Capital Transit Company in Chevy Chase, Maryland were cold-bloodedly gunned down. One of the men murdered was my guest's great-great uncle Emory Smith. As the police investigated the ...
08.09.2023 305: The Libby Prison Escape w/ Robert Watson - A True Crime History Podcast Award-winning author and historian Robert Watson is my guest this week. He talks about the Confederacy's notorious Libby Prison, located in Richmond, Virginia during the Civil War. Resourceful Union officers, held captive under extraordinarily brutal conditions, managed to pull off ...
08.03.2023 304: The Life & Controversial Death of Ted Healy w/ Bill Cassara - A True Crime History Podcast My guest this week is Bill Cassara, author of "Nobody's Stooge: Ted Healy". First he walks us through vaudeville performer Ted Healy's rise to Hollywood stardom, including his creation of the Three Stooges, up to his untimely death in 1937. ...
07.27.2023 303: Josie Mansfield & the Murder of Jim Fisk w/ H.W. Brands On January 7th, 1872, "Jubilee Jim" Fisk was murdered on a staircase in New York City's Grand Central Hotel. His killer (the lover of Fisk's former girlfriend Josie Mansfield) was furious at being targeted by the financier as the two ...
07.26.2023 303: Josie Mansfield & the Murder of Jim Fisk w/ H.W. Brands On January 7th, 1872, "Jubilee Jim" Fisk was murdered on a staircase in New York City's Grand Central Hotel. His killer (the lover of Fisk's former girlfriend Josie Mansfield) was furious at being targeted by the financier as the two ...
07.19.2023 302: The Murders of Stringbean and Estelle Akeman w/ Taylor Hagood David "Stringbean" Akeman was a singer, clawhammer banjo player and an early Grand Ole Opry star, known for his lanky build and comedic personality. And as a cast member of the nationwide television show Hee-Haw, he was at the height ...
07.12.2023 301: Dick Turpin w/ James Sharpe - A True Crime History Podcast Dick Turpin is one Britain's most famous criminals, a murderous highwayman whose nefarious deeds became romanticized decades after his execution. My guest is James Sharpe, who shares Turpin's story and dispels some of the myths that have grown around the ...
07.04.2023 300: American Privateers w/ Eric Jay Dolin Happy Independence Day to all of my American listeners, as we finally reach episode 300! A slight deviation this week from the typical true crime tragedy and disaster content - my guest is best-selling historian Eric Jay Dolin, author of ...
06.28.2023 MoNo Encore: Black Dahlia Suspect George Hodel w/ Steve Hodel In this first ever episode re-release, Erik revisits his 2016 interview with New York Times Bestselling author Steve Hodel, author of "The Black Dahlia Avenger". Hodel explains why he believes that the 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, aka the Black ...
06.20.2023 299: Art Thief & IRA Militant Rose Dugdale w/ Anthony M. Amore - A True Crime History Podcast My guest this week is bestselling author Anthony M. Amore, director of security and chief investigator at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. He shares the story of Rose Dugdale, an Oxford educated former debutante who rejected her wealthy and privileged ...
06.13.2023 298: Machine Gun Kelly & the Woolverton Kidnapping w/ Kevin E. Meredith On a chilly January night in 1932, a wealthy industrialist named Howard Woolverton was snatched from his car by kidnappers. When he was released unharmed the next day, his apparent lack of concern for the capture of his abductors led ...
06.06.2023 297: The Murder of Barbara Finch w/ Steve Kosareff - A True Crime History Podcast At about 11 pm on July 18, 1959, Dr. Bernard Finch and his girlfriend Carole Ann Tregoff arrived at the Finch home in West Covina, California with a plan to murder his wife Barbara and make her death look like ...
05.31.2023 296: The Atlanta Ripper w/ Jeffrey Wells - A True Crime History Podcast In the years following the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot, a wave of terror rocked the city. Over twenty black women were brutally murdered, often in a fashion that mimicked the infamous Jack the Ripper murders twenty years earlier. My guest ...
05.26.2023 295: Murder & Lynching in Early 1900s Tennessee w/ Kimberly Tilley Chattanooga, Tennessee, 1906. When a young white woman is assaulted in a dark cemetery, the town erupts. Despite questionable evidence and a flawed trial, a black man named Ed Johnson is convicted of the crime and sentenced to death. Before ...
05.17.2023 294: The Ill-Fated Voyage of HMS Wager w/ David Grann - A True Crime History Podcast My guest this week is award-winning writer David Grann, whose new book, "The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder", is currently number one on the New York Times Hardcover Non-Fiction Best Sellers list. It's the tale of HMS ...
05.09.2023 293: The Star Route Scandal w/ Shawn Francis Peters - A True Crime History Podcast In the 1870s and 80s the nation was embroiled in a sensational scandal. Corrupt politicians, post office officials and others conspired to defraud the United States Post Office out of millions of dollars. It was only under the watchful eye ...
05.02.2023 292: Confidence Men, Corruption & the Klan in 1920s Denver w/ Alan Prendergast Philip Van Cise faced a double threat when he became Denver's district attorney in 1921. He quickly discovered that a massive bunco ring was operating unimpeded in downtown Denver, fleecing unsuspecting rubes out of enormous amounts of money. In addition, ...
04.25.2023 291: Anastasia: Mystery & Myth w/ Greg King & Penny Wilson - A True Crime History Podcast For decades following the horrific 1918 execution of the Romanov family, many hoped against hope that one or more of the children had escaped the bullets and bayonets of the Bolsheviks. And when a young woman came forward with an ...
04.18.2023 290: Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse & the Battle of the Little Bighorn w/ Mark Lee Gardner On June 25, 1876, in the valley of the Little Big Horn, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, and the warriors who were inspired to follow them, fought the last stand of the Sioux, a fierce and proud nation that had ...
04.11.2023 289: What Happened to the Princes in the Tower? A New Suspect w/ M.J. Trow In the summer of 1483 Edward and Richard, sons of the deceased King Edward IV, disappeared from the Tower of London, where they were being held by the recently crowned Richard III. There are countless theories about their fate. Some ...
04.04.2023 288: The Angel Makers of Nagyrév w/ Patti McCracken - A True Crime History Podcast From World War I through the 1920s a midwife known as Auntie Suzy readily supplied arsenic to women in a small Hungarian village. The women, who would become known as "the Angel Makers", used the poison to murder their husbands ...
03.29.2023 287: The Mysterious Disappearance of Bobby Dunbar w/ Tal McThenia In 1912, four-year-old Bobby Dunbar went missing in the Louisiana swamps. After an eight-month search that electrified the country and destroyed Bobby’s parents, the boy was found, filthy and hardly recognizable. A wandering piano tuner was arrested and charged with ...
03.21.2023 286: George Hearst w/ Matthew Bernstein - A True Crime History Podcast In the third season of the acclaimed HBO series Deadwood, one of the most villainous characters in a show full of villains was introduced. Ruthless mining magnate George Hearst arrived, eager to seize control of the richest mine in town ...
03.14.2023 285: The Last Voyage of the Karluk w/ Buddy Levy - A True Crime History Podcast In the summer of 1913, the wooden-hulled brigantine Karluk departed Canada for the Arctic Ocean. At the helm was Captain Bob Bartlett, considered the world’s greatest living ice navigator. The expedition’s visionary leader was a flamboyant impresario named Vilhjalmur Stefansson ...
03.07.2023 284: The Murder of Bobby Franks (Leopold & Loeb Revisited) w/ Penny Wilson & Greg King On the afternoon of March 21st, 1924 a horrific crime shook the city of Chicago (and the entire country). Bobbie Franks, on his way home from school, was kidnapped and murdered by two teenage boy geniuses named Nathan Leopold and ...
02.28.2023 283: The Murder of Maggie Sheffield w/ Kelly Sullivan & the Homestead Strike w/ Paul Kahan I've combined two of my shorter interviews into one episode this week. First up, Kelly Sullivan, author of "Murder at Rocky Point Park: Tragedy in Rhode Island's Summer Paradise" joins me to talk about the 1893 murder of little Maggie ...
02.14.2023 282: The Life & Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe w/ Mark Dawidziak Edgar Allan Poe is, of course, one of America's most iconic writers. Many credit him with inventing or popularizing multiple literary genres, including mystery, horror and detective fiction. But the real Poe has become distorted over the years - transformed ...
02.07.2023 281: The Murder of William Desmond Taylor w/ William J Mann - A True Crime History Podcast In early 1922, Hollywood was in damage control. The recent "Fatty" Arbuckle manslaughter and rape case had brought unwanted scandal to the motion picture industry, so when Paramount Pictures director William Desmond Taylor was found murdered in his home on ...
01.31.2023 280: The Murder of Sally Cochran w/ Leslie Lambert Rounds - A True Crime History Podcast On a cold winter night in January of 1833, a teenage farmhand named Abraham Prescott crept into the bedroom of his employers, Chauncey and Sally Cochran, and smashed their heads with an ax. Their neighbors in the town of Pembroke, ...
01.25.2023 279: Was Christopher Marlowe Murdered? w/ M.J. Trow - A True Crime History Podcast Christopher "Kit" Marlowe is considered one of the greatest playwrights of the Elizabethan era, but was also known as a hothead, a scoundrel and a member of the secretive School of Night. When he was stabbed through the eye at ...
01.17.2023 278: The Murder of Journalist Don Mellett w/ Thomas Crowl - A True Crime History Podcast The July 1926 murder of the editor of the Canton, Ohio, Daily News, Don R. Mellett, was one of the most publicized crimes in the 1920s. For less than a year, Mellett was the editor of the Daily News, owned ...
01.10.2023 277: The True Crime Case That Inspired Hitchcock's "The Wrong Man" w/ Jason Isralowitz In January 1953, a New York City musician named Christopher “ Manny” Balestrero was wrongly arrested for armed robbery, misidentified by eye witnesses. What followed was a nightmarish ordeal that completely devastated him and his family. Alfred Hitchcock was so ...
12.31.2022 276: What Happened to Louis Le Prince? w/ Paul Fischer - A True Crime History Podcast In the late 19th century, inventors were rushing to perfect and patent motion picture devices, and leading the race was a Frenchman named Louis Le Prince. In September of 1890 Le Prince said farewell to his brother in Dijon and ...
12.22.2022 275: The Mysterious Disappearance of Joan Risch w/ Stephen Ahern - A True Crime History Podcast On October 24th, 1961, one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in Massachusetts history began when housewife and mother Joan Risch vanished from her home. Investigators were perplexed by a kitchen floor smeared with blood, a telephone receiver ripped from the ...
12.13.2022 274: California's McGlincy Murders w/ Tobin Gilman - A True Crime History Podcast On the morning of May 27, 1896, the peaceful township of Campbell awoke to shocking news. Six people were brutally murdered at the home of Colonel Richard P. McGlincy, one of the town’s most respected citizens. The suspect, James Dunham—the ...
12.06.2022 273: Chicago's Iroquois Theater Fire w/ Troy Taylor - A True Crime History Podcast On December 30th, 1903, over two thousand people were packed into Chicago's brand new Iroquois Theater for a matinee performance of Mr. Bluebeard, starring comedian Eddie Foy. Little did theatergoers know, however, that the owners of the theater cut corners ...
11.29.2022 272: Did Lee Harvey Oswald Assassinate JFK Alone? w/ Gerald Posner For almost sixty years, the Kennedy assassination has occupied the hearts and minds of Americans. Hundreds of books have been written about the fateful day at Dealey Plaza in November of 1963, often offering elaborate and convoluted conspiracy theories about ...
11.15.2022 271: The Acid Bath Murderer w/ Gordon Lowe - A True Crime History Podcast In the years following World War II, serial killer John George Haigh committed five perfect murders, using sulphuric acid to dissolve his victims into soup. His sixth murder, however, was hastily done, and led to his arrest, a trial and ...
11.09.2022 270: The Old West's "Bandit Queen" Pearl Hart w/ John Boessenecker On May 30, 1899, history was made when Pearl Hart, disguised as a man, held up a stagecoach in Arizona and robbed the passengers at gunpoint. A manhunt ensued as word of her heist spread, and Pearl Hart went on ...
11.02.2022 269: Return to Uluru w/ Mark McKenna - A True Crime History Podcast In 1934 South Australian policeman Bill McKinnon is sent to investigate a murder and make arrests in the so-called "dead heart" of the country. After some of his Aboriginal prisoners escape, he tracks one of the unarmed men to a ...
10.26.2022 268: Vengeance, Tragedy & Murder on the Arkansas Delta w/ Denise White Parkinson In 1931 a young woman named Helen Spence, part of a houseboat community along Arkansas' White River, shocked everyone when she stood up in a local courtroom and shot to death the man on trial for murdering her father and ...
10.19.2022 267: The Murder of Athalia Ponsell Lindsley w/ Elizabeth Randall In the winter of 1974 Athalia Ponsell Lindsley was in the midst of a bitter feud with her neighbor, Alan Stanford. The feud ended in brutal fashion on January 23rd when she was murdered in broad daylight on the front ...
10.11.2022 266: The Murder of Betsy Aardsma w/ David DeKok - A True Crime History Podcast On Nov. 28, 1969, Betsy Aardsma, a 22-year-old Penn State graduate student, was stabbed to death in the stacks of Pattee Library. The case remains officially unsolved, but my guest David DeKok thinks that he knows who murdered Betsy. He ...
10.04.2022 265: The Murder of Olga Duncan w/ Deborah Holt Larkin - A True Crime History Podcast In November of 1958 a pregnant nurse named Olga Duncan disappeared from her suburban California apartment. Police quickly suspected Olga's mother in-law Elizabeth Duncan, a domineering and manipulative woman who was incensed that her son Frank had married Olga without ...
09.28.2022 264: The 1938 War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast w/ A. Brad Schwartz A. Brad Schwartz, who entertained us with Eliot Ness stories in back-to-back episodes earlier this year, returns to talk about the notorious October 30, 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds, directed by Orson Wells. The young and up-and-coming ...

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