Murderess Podcast

🎙 Episode 96: Clara Harris — “The Other Woman”
Part 2 of a multi-part series

She wore perfection like armor.
But beneath the surface, something had shifted.
Cologne. Late nights. A quiet phone call in the next room.

In Part 2 of the Clara Harris story, host Sidney Smith walks us deeper into the unraveling. As Clara’s suspicions grow, a hidden truth begins to surface—one that threatens everything she’s built. With a marriage on the line and dignity slipping through her fingers, Clara hires a private investigator. What they uncover at a Nassau Bay Hilton sets the stage for one of the most infamous moments in true crime history.

📍 Location: Friendswood, Texas → Nassau Bay, Texas
📅 Key Dates: Early 2002 → July 23, 2002
👥 Central Figures: Clara Harris, David Harris, Gail Bridges, Lindsey Harris
🧠 Themes: Betrayal, control, image, emotional unraveling, surveillance, confrontation
📖 Next Episode Preview: Part 3- "The Mercedes and Murder: Caught on Camera"

🎧 Murderess Podcast is written and hosted by Sidney Smith
🎙 Produced in partnership with Sidney Smith Cre8tiv, LLC and the You Hear Good Things podcast network
📅 New episodes every Thursday

🔗 Find past episodes, merch, and tour dates:
https://www.sidneysmithcre8tiv.com

🎧 Stream the show on your favorite platform:
Spotify | Apple Podcasts | iHeartRadio

📱 Follow Sidney on social:
Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter → @sidneysmithcre8tiv

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

Support the show

🎙 Episode 95: Clara Harris — “Cracks in the Perfect Wife”
Part 1 of a multi-part series

Before the headlines…
Before the Mercedes…
Before the betrayal that would define her name—
Clara Harris built a life people envied.

In this first installment, host Sidney Smith takes us back to Bogotá, Colombia, where Clara’s story begins—with tradition, ambition, and a vision of the American dream. From top of her dental class to the polished image she curated in suburban Texas, this is the story of a woman determined to hold it all together. Until it started to fall apart.

📍 Location: Bogotá, Colombia → Friendswood, Texas
📅 Key Dates: 1968–1999
👥 Central Figures: Clara Harris, David Harris, Lindsey & Brian Harris
🧠 Themes: Identity, perfectionism, assimilation, family dynamics, emotional repression
📖 Next Episode Preview: Part 2 - "The Other Woman"

📚 Official Sources Used:
– Blood Will Tell: The Murder Trials of Clara Harris by Aimee Maddern
– Court transcripts and sentencing documents (Texas District Court Archives)
– Friendswood PD investigation files and arrest records
– Contemporary news coverage (Houston Chronicle, ABC13, and KHOU)
– National coverage and trial analysis (Dateline NBC, CourtTV, and CNN Archives)
– Retrospective profiles in Texas Monthly and People Magazine
– Oral interviews and background sources cited in Snapped (Oxygen Network)

🎧 Murderess Podcast is written and hosted by Sidney Smith
🎙 Produced in partnership with Sidney Smith Cre8tiv, LLC and the You Hear Good Things podcast network
📅 New episodes every Thursday

🔗 Find past episodes, merch, and tour dates:
https://www.sidneysmithcre8tiv.com

🎧 Stream the show on your favorite platform:
Spotify | Apple Podcasts | iHeartRadio

📱 Follow Sidney on social:
Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter → @sidneys

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

Support the show

Here’s a sneak peek from our latest Murderess bonus episode on Patreon.

Hear the full epilogue, exclusive to Murderess supporters, now on Patreon.

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

Support the show

🎙 Episode 95: Winnie Ruth Judd — “The Truth That Never Made Trial”
Part 5 of a multi-part series

For forty years, Winnie’s story was buried beneath headlines, half-truths, and courtroom omissions.
But journalist Jana Bommersbach wasn’t content with the official version.
In this final installment, host Sidney Smith guides us through the suppressed affidavits, silenced eyewitnesses, and political forces that kept Jack Halloran out of the courtroom—while Winnie stayed locked inside one.

From institutional records to late-life confessions, this isn’t just about a cover-up.
It’s about power, silence, and what happens when the truth shows up four decades late.

📍 Location: Phoenix, Arizona
📅 Key Dates: 1971 parole + 1933–1970 suppressed details
👥 Central Figures: Winnie Ruth Judd, Jack Halloran, Jana Bommersbach
🧠 Themes: Corruption, gendered justice, institutional complicity, media reframing
📖 Next Arc Preview: Stay tuned for our next case—a crime just as twisted, and just as forgotten.

Official Sources Used:
– The Trunk Murderess: Winnie Ruth Judd by Jana Bommersbach
– Trial transcripts from the Arizona State Archives
– Historical coverage from The Arizona Republic, Phoenix Gazette, and True Crime Magazine
– Police reports and internal memos (Phoenix PD archives)
– Arizona Historical Society psychiatric records and oral histories
– Private correspondence, parole filings, and witness interviews (1933–1971)
– Coverage of her 1969 arrest and Halloran revelations via Arizona Highways and AP wire archives

🎧 Murderess Podcast is written and hosted by Sidney Smith
🎙 Produced in partnership with Sidney Smith Cre8tiv, LLC and the You Hear Good Things podcast network
📅 New episodes every Thursday

🔗 Find past episodes, merch, and tour dates:
https://www.sidneysmithcre8tiv.com

🎧 Stream the show on your favorite platform:
Spotify | Apple Podcasts | iHeart Radio

📱 Follow Sidney on social:
Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter → @sidneysmithcre8tiv

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

Support the show

While you wait for tomorrow’s next chapter in the Winnie Ruth Judd series, here’s something a little different. This 9-minute clip is from Running In Slow Motion, a podcast I host with my wife, Tamra. We talk life, love, and everyday chaos—with honesty and laughs along the way. In this short clip, we get into: Dutch Bros or Starbucks?

If you dig it, follow Running In Slow Motion wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Tuesday.

Find all episodes where you get your fave pods.

Murderess returns Thursday morning with Part 5.

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

Support the show

🎙 Episode 93: Winnie Ruth Judd — “The Girl Who Kept Escaping”
Part 4 of a multi-part series

She was sentenced to death.
 Then quietly declared insane.
 And for the next 40 years, Winnie Ruth Judd slipped through the cracks—sometimes literally.

In this chapter of the story, host Sidney Smith guides us through life behind the locked doors of Arizona State Asylum:
 overcrowded wards, heavy sedation, and a woman slowly fading into the background.
 But Winnie didn’t stay silent. She ran.
 Again and again.
 Until one day, she ran so far she disappeared into a whole new life.

From her early breakouts to her six-year reinvention as Marian Lane, this episode isn’t just about escape—
 it’s about identity, invisibility, and the way the world treats women it calls “mad.”

📍 Location: Phoenix, Arizona → Los Angeles, California
📅 Key Dates: 1933–1969
👥 Central Figures: Winnie Ruth Judd, Jack Halloran, Arizona State Asylum staff, “Marian Lane”
🧠 Themes: Justice, punishment vs care, gendered insanity, institutional failure
📖 Next Episode: Part 5 – "The Fight for Parole"

Official Sources Used:
– The Trunk Murderess by Jana Bommersbach
– Arizona State Archives psychiatric and parole documents
– Phoenix PD records and case files
– Historical news coverage (1933–1971)
– Retrospective reporting in True Crime Magazine, Arizona Highways, and the Arizona Republic
– Halloran family correspondence and oral histories (AZ Historical Society)

🎧 Murderess Podcast is written and hosted by Sidney Smith
🎙 Produced in partnership with Sidney Smith Cre8tiv, LLC and the You Hear Good Things podcast network
📅 New episodes every Thursday

🔗 Find past episodes, merch, and tour dates:
https://www.sidneysmithcre8tiv.com

🎧 Stream the show on your favorite platform:
Spotify | Apple Podcasts | iHeartRadio

📱 Follow Sidney on social:
Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter → @sidneysmithcre8tiv

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

Support the show

🎙 Episode 92: Winnie Ruth Judd — “Trial by Reputation”
Part 3 of a multi-part series

She stood trial. But not just for murder.
For being herself—a woman, a mistress, an enigma.

In this chapter of the Winnie Ruth Judd story, host Sidney Smith examines a courtroom where justice took a backseat to perception.
The trial was swift. The defense was hollow.
The evidence? Incomplete.
And yet, the outcome was inevitable.

From the press spectacle to the silent protection of Jack Halloran, Part 3 explores the systems that failed—and the one card that changed everything.

Was she delusional?
Or discarded?
Was this justice served—or a reputation destroyed?

📍 Location: Phoenix, Arizona
📅 Key Dates: Early 1932 – Trial & Sentencing
👥 Central Figures: Winnie Ruth Judd, Jack Halloran, Judge Speakman, Dr. George B. Pratt
🧠 Themes: Misogyny, media bias, courtroom failures, public spectacle, the weaponization of “insanity”
📖 Next Episode: Part 4 – “Escape Attempts and Echoes”

Official Sources Used:
– The Trunk Murderess by Jana Bommersbach
– Arizona State Archives trial transcripts
– Phoenix PD case files
– Historical news coverage (1931–1933)
– Psychiatric and parole documents (AZ Historical Society)
– Halloran family archives

🎧 Murderess Podcast is written and hosted by Sidney Smith
🎙 Produced in partnership with Sidney Smith Cre8tiv, LLC and the You Hear Good Things podcast network
📅 New episodes every Thursday

🔗 Find past episodes, merch, and tour dates:
https://www.sidneysmithcre8tiv.com

🎧 Stream the show on your favorite platform:
Spotify – https://spoti.fi/4e3ncIh
Apple Podcasts – https://apple.co/42A11UK
iHeart Radio – https://ihr.fm/3SRT7BS

📱 Follow Sidney on social:
Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter → @sidneysmithcre8tiv

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

Support the show

🎙 Episode 91: Winnie Ruth Judd — “Two in the Trunk”
Part 2 of a multi-part series

Two women are dead.
One is missing.
And a pair of leaking trunks has turned a quiet train station into a national crime scene.

In this chapter of the Winnie Ruth Judd story, host Sidney Smith takes listeners deeper into the blood-soaked aftermath: a bullet-riddled bedroom, a burning incinerator, and a missing mattress no one can explain.

From the shifting details in Winnie’s story to the silence surrounding Jack Halloran, Part 2 unpacks the moment when this case stopped being private—and became a spectacle.

Was it self-defense?
Was it a cover-up?
Or was something darker hiding beneath that brown traveling suit?

📍 Location: Phoenix, Arizona → Los Angeles, California
📅 Key Dates: October 18–22, 1931
👥 Central Figures: Winnie Ruth Judd, Agnes Anne LeRoi, Hedvig “Sammy” Samuelson, Jack Halloran
🧠 Themes: Sensationalism, fragile truth, missing evidence, gendered assumptions
📖 Next Episode: Part 3 – "Trial by Reputation"

Official Sources Used:
– The Trunk Murderess by Jana Bommersbach
– Arizona State Archives trial transcripts
– Phoenix PD case files
– Historical news coverage (1931–1933)
– Psychiatric and parole documents (AZ Historical Society)

🎧 Murderess Podcast is written and hosted by Sidney Smith
🎙 Produced in partnership with Sidney Smith Cre8tiv, LLC and the You Hear Good Things podcast network
📅 New episodes every Thursday

🔗 Find past episodes, merch, and tour dates:
https://www.sidneysmithcre8tiv.com

🎧 Stream the show on your favorite platform:
Spotify – https://spoti.fi/4e3ncIh
Apple Podcasts – https://apple.co/42A11UK
iHeart Radio – https://ihr.fm/3SRT7BS

📱 Follow Sidney on social:
Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter → @sidneysmithcre8tiv

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

Support the show

🎙 Episode 90: Winnie Ruth Judd — “The Woman in the Brown Suit”
Part 1 of a multi-part series

She was described as frail. Pretty. Melancholic.
 But behind the soft voice and quiet eyes was a woman unraveling—torn between love, illness, and rejection.

In this opening chapter of the Winnie Ruth Judd story, host Sidney Smith takes listeners into 1931 Phoenix, Arizona—where class, power, and gender collided inside a small house on Brill Street.

From whispers behind closed doors to a man who never looked down far enough to see the damage he left behind, this is the slow burn of a crime that hadn't happened yet… but was already leaving bruises.

📍 Location: Phoenix, Arizona
📅 Lead-Up to Crime: Summer–Fall 1931
👥 Central Figures: Winnie Ruth Judd, Agnes Anne LeRoi, Hedvig “Sammy” Samuelson, Jack Halloran
🧠 Themes: Isolation, female rivalry, unchecked privilege, deteriorating mental health
📖 Next Episode: Part 2 – "The Trunks and the Train"

Official Sources Used:
– The Trunk Murderess by Jana Bommersbach
– Arizona State Archives trial transcripts
– Phoenix PD case files
– Historical news coverage (1931–1933)
– Psychiatric and parole documents (AZ Historical Society)

🎧 Murderess Podcast is written and hosted by Sidney Smith.
🎙 Produced in partnership with Sidney Smith Cre8tiv, LLC and the You Hear Good Things podcast network.
📅 New episodes every Thursday.

🔗 Find past episodes, merch, and tour dates:
https://www.sidneysmithcre8tiv.com

🎧 Stream the show on your favorite platform:
Spotify – https://spoti.fi/4e3ncIh
Apple Podcasts – https://apple.co/42A11UK
iHeart Radio – https://ihr.fm/3SRT7BS

📱 Follow Sidney on social:
Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter → @sidneysmithcre8tiv

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

Support the show

🎙 Episode 89: Dena Schlosser — “The Hymn, the Knife, and the 911 Call”
 Standalone Episode

She was a stay-at-home mom in the suburbs of Texas.
 But on a quiet Monday morning in 2004, Dena Schlosser placed a 911 call that would haunt the nation—telling dispatchers she’d cut off her infant daughter’s arms “because God told her to.”

This week, host Sidney Smith takes listeners inside one of the most chilling cases of postpartum psychosis ever tried in an American courtroom.

From unmedicated delusions to courtroom silence, and from a not guilty verdict to a public outcry when she resurfaced at a Walmart—this is the story of Dena Schlosser.
 And the baby girl named Margaret… who never saw her first birthday.

📍 Location: Plano, Texas
📅 Date of Crime: November 22, 2004
👶 Victim: Margaret Elizabeth Schlosser (11 months old)
⚖️ Verdict: Not guilty by reason of insanity
🏥 Sentence: Committed to psychiatric care; released under outpatient supervision

Official Sources Used:
– Texas court transcripts: State of Texas v. Dena Schlosser
– Collin County DA’s office & public statements
 – 911 audio, police records, and psychiatric evaluations
 – News reporting from WFAA, NBC Dallas-Fort Worth, CBS Texas, Fox News, The Boston Globe, Associated Press

🎧 Murderess Podcast is hosted by Sidney Smith.
🎙 Produced in partnership with Sidney Smith Cre8tiv, LLC and the You Hear Good Things podcast network.
📅 New episodes every Thursday.

🔗 Find past episodes, merch, and tour dates:
https://www.sidneysmithcre8tiv.com

🎧 Stream the show on your favorite platform:
Spotify - https://spoti.fi/4e3ncIh
Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/42A11UK
iHeart Radio - https://ihr.fm/3SRT7BS

📱 Follow Sidney on social:
Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter → @sidneysmithcre8tiv

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

Support the show