Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast

By Blue Ewe Media

Education History

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. This is an interview show spotlighting authors and historians who have studied their subjects for years. Their stories are offered with unique insight, detail, and historical accuracy.

4.7

2,060 ratings

Download our free app to listen on your phone

LAST EPISODE

281: The Murder of William...

02.07.2023

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 ...

Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast episodes:

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 ...
09.20.2022 263: Murder & Manhunt in WW2 w/ Brendan Koerner - A True Crime History Podcast In 1944 a battalion of African-American soldiers were tasked with the horrific job of building a road through the heart of the Indo-Burmese jungle during World War II. One of the men, a private named Herman Perry, had been having ...
09.13.2022 262: The Hall-Mills Murders w/ Joe Pompeo - A True Crime History Podcast On September 16, 1922, the bodies of Reverend Edward Hall and Eleanor Mills were found beneath a crabapple tree on an abandoned farm outside of New Brunswick, New Jersey. The killer had arranged the bodies in a pose conveying intimacy.The ...
09.06.2022 261: The Red Widow: Marguerite “Meg” Steinheil w/ Sarah Horowitz - A True Crime History Podcast Paris, 1889: Margeurite Steinheil is a woman with ambition. But having been born into a middle-class family and trapped in a marriage to a failed artist twenty years her senior, she knows her options are limited.Determined to fashion herself into ...
08.30.2022 260: The 1889 Hamilton Scandal w/ Bill Shaffer - A True Crime History Podcast Robert Ray Hamilton, great-grandson of Alexander Hamilton, was a successful man in the late 1880s. Powered by family money and fame, he spent his time developing real estate and serving in the New York State Assembly. But his life came ...
08.23.2022 259: America's First Recorded Mass Shooting w/ Ellen J. Green - A True Crime History Podcast On the morning of September 6th, 1949, a twenty-eight-year-old WWII veteran and loner named Howard Unruh stepped out of his East Camden, New Jersey apartment and shot and killed thirteen people in less than twelve minutes. It was a story ...
08.16.2022 258: The Murder of Helen Clevenger w/ Anne Chesky Smith - A True Crime History Podcast On the morning of July 16, 1936, the crumpled body of nineteen-year-old college student Helen Clevenger was found by her uncle in her room at Asheville, North Carolina’s Battery Park Hotel. She’d been shot in the chest and her face ...
08.09.2022 257: Texas Ranger Company F Vs. The Conner Family w/ Joe Pappalardo The Texas Rangers in the late 1880s were a tough and colorful lot, especially the members of Company F. And while they made their livings hunting down outlaws, none proved more cunning than Willis Conner and his sons, a fugitive ...
08.01.2022 256: The 1916 Shark Attacks w/ Dr. Richard Fernicola - A True Crime History Podcast Between July 1st and 12th, 1916, a sensational series of shark attacks terrorized seaside resorts and communities along the Jersey Shore. Four people would ultimately die before the shark thought responsible was found and killed. My guest, Dr. Richard Fernicola, ...
07.26.2022 255: The Murder of Florence Small w/ Janice S. C. Petrie - A True Crime History Podcast In September of 1916 a mysterious fire consumed a cottage nestled on Ossipee Lake in New Hampshire, and when local law enforcement searched the wreckage they made a horrifying discovery. The smoldering body of Florence Small was pulled out of ...
07.19.2022 254: Lizzie Borden Revisited w/ Cara Robertson - A True Crime History Podcast In August of 1892, one of the most famous double murders in American history was committed in brutal fashion. Andrew and Abby Borden were hacked to death in their Fall River house, and their daughter Lizzie, home at the time, ...
07.11.2022 253: Tombstone, the Earp Brothers and the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral w/ Tom Clavin Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan Earp and their wives united in Tombstone, Arizona in 1879 with the intent to make their fortunes, but along the way crossed paths with a gang of lawless cowboys that included Ike Clanton, Curly Bill Brocius ...
07.05.2022 252: The Ceely Rose Murders w/ Mark Sebastian Jordan - A True Crime History Podcast The tranquility of Ohio's Pleasant Valley was forever scarred in June of 1896 when tragedy struck the Rose family. Twenty-three-year-old Ceely Rose was infatuated with neighbor boy Guy Berry. When he did not reciprocate her feelings, her family ordered her ...
06.28.2022 251: The Shooting of Chicago Cubs Shortstop Billy Jurges w/ Jack Bales - A True Crime History Podcast In the summer of 1932, with the Cubs in the thick of the pennant race, Billy Jurges broke off his relationship with Violet Popovich to focus on baseball. The famously beautiful showgirl took it poorly, marching into his hotel room ...
06.21.2022 250: The Murder of Cecil Wells w/ James T. Bartlett - A True Crime History Podcast In the early morning hours of October 17, 1953, a frightened, battered woman named Diane Wells told a horrific tale to police. She said intruders had broken into the top-floor penthouse apartment she shared with her husband Cecil, murdered him, ...
06.18.2022 249: The Whitman Massacre w/ Blaine Harden - A True Crime History Podcast In 1835 Marcus and Narcissa Whitman arrived to the Pacific Northwest, building a mission on Cayuse land near the present day Washington/Oregon border with hopes of converting members of the Cayuse tribe to Christianity. However when a deadly measles outbreak ...
06.14.2022 248: The Murder of Pearl Bryan w/ Robert Wilhelm - A True Crime History Podcast In February of 1896 the decapitated corpse of a young woman, who would later be identified as Pearl Bryan, was discovered in the woods of Northern Kentucky. Evidence would lead investigators to two dental students in Cincinnati, Ohio named Scott ...
06.07.2022 247: The Villisca Axe Murders: The Reverend Lyn George Kelly w/ Edgar Epperly In this third and final part of my interview with Dr. Edgar Epperly, the "little minister" Lyn George Jacklin Kelly is examined as a primary suspect in the 1912 Villisca Axe Murders. Although Kelly spoke obsessively about the case and ...
05.31.2022 246: The Villisca Axe Murders: Wilkerson Vs. Jones w/ Edgar Epperly Frank Fernando (F.F.) Jones seemed to be one of the most obvious suspects in the aftermath of the horrific 1912 Villisca Axe murders. He had a contentious business rivalry with the patriarch of the slain Moore family, Josiah (Joe) Moore, ...
05.25.2022 245: The Villisca Axe Murders: Crime Scene w/ Edgar Epperly June 9th (or) 10th marks the 110th anniversary of one of the most notorious crimes in American history - the brutal axe murders of Josiah and Sarah Moore, their four children (Herman, Katherine, Boyd and Paul) and Ina and Lena ...
05.18.2022 244: The Wreck of the Ocean Monarch w/ Gill Hoffs - A True Crime History Podcast The Ocean Monarch, captained by James Murdock, was a disciplined and safety-conscious passenger ship that should have smoothly sailed from England to the United States in 1848. Not long after its departure, however, a devastating fire broke out on board, ...
05.10.2022 243: The Murder of Thora Chamberlain w/ Rod Kackley - A True Crime History Podcast On the afternoon of December 2nd, 1945, a fourteen-year-old student named Thora Chamberlain walked with friends to a high school football game in Campbell, California. A man wearing a U.S. Navy uniform pulled up beside them in his sedan and ...
05.03.2022 242: Murder on the Berwind w/ Charles Oldham - A True Crime History Podcast In October of 1905, the schooner Harry A. Berwind was intercepted off the coast of North Carolina. On board were four Black sailors, three of them alive and one dead. The survivors told conflicting stories - blaming each other for ...
04.25.2022 241: Mary Ann Cotton: Britain's First Female Serial Killer? w/ Martin Connolly Mary Ann Cotton is considered by many to be England's first female serial killer, with allegations that she used arsenic to poison over twenty people, including her children, mother and husbands in the 1850s, 60s and 70s. But was she ...
04.18.2022 240: Bath Massacre (New Edition) w/ Arnie Bernstein - A True Crime History Podcast Arnie Bernstein was one my first guests on Most Notorious, way back on episode #26, and talked about the horrifying 1927 Bath Consolidated School massacre. Since the initial publication of his book "Bath Massacre: America's First School Bombing" in 2009, ...
04.09.2022 239: Axis Sally w/ Richard Lucas - A True Crime History Podcast Mildred Gillars, known to American GIs as "Axis Sally", was one of Nazi Germany's most notorious radio propagandists. Hired by German State Radio because of her American accent and seductive voice, she finally achieved her own version of stardom after ...
04.03.2022 238: The Murder of Frank Richardson w/ Kimberly Tilley - A True Crime History Podcast On Christmas Eve, 1900, 44-year-old dry goods store owner Frank Richardson was shot to death in his Savannah, Missouri home. Suspects included his wife Addie, his teenage lover Goldie Whitehead, and the man whom he suspected his wife of having ...
03.24.2022 237: Eliot Ness Vs. The Mad Butcher w/ A. Brad Schwartz - A True Crime History Podcast My conversation about the life of Eliot Ness continues with A. Brad Schwartz. After years battling The Outfit in Chicago, Ness was hired as Director of Public Safety in Cleveland, Ohio. Tasked with ridding the city of crime and corruption, ...
03.17.2022 236: Eliot Ness Vs. Al Capone w/ A. Brad Schwartz - A True Crime History Podcast Throughout the 1920s Chicago was a cesspool of corruption and violence, due in large part to the obscene amounts of money being made through the illegal manufacture, transportation and sale of alcohol. Much of the business was being done by ...
03.08.2022 235: The Murder of Nancy Morgan w/ Mark I. Pinsky - A True Crime History Podcast In June of 1970, the body of 24-year-old Nancy Morgan was found inside a government-owned car in Madison County, North Carolina. It had been four days since anyone had heard from the bubbly, hard-working brunette who had moved to the ...
03.03.2022 234: Serial Killer David Meirhofer & the Birth of FBI Profiling w/ Ron Franscell - A True Crime History Podcast On June 25th, 1973, Suzie Jaeger was abducted from her tent while camping with her family in Montana. The FBI was baffled by the mystery, until two agents began using new profiling techniques to narrow in on a local oddball ...
02.23.2022 233: The Murder of Sarah Feinstein w/ Wayne Hoffman - A True Crime History Podcast Journalist Wayne Hoffman had been long intrigued by a family story, vague on details, about the murder of his great-grandmother Sarah Feinstein at the hands of a sniper in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Encouraged by his mother, he decided to search for ...
02.16.2022 232: The Murder of Dr. W.D. Broadhurst w/ Patrick Gallagher - A True Crime History Podcast In October of 1946, a chiropractor and rancher named Willis "W.D." Broadhurst was beaten with a wrench and finished off with a shotgun on a lonely eastern Oregon road. Investigators would soon accuse his wife Gladys of plotting the doctor's ...

Older episodes