Old Blood

As the rest of the world unfurled their newspapers to read about the sinking of the Titanic, Argentines opened their papers to learn of a tragedy closer to home. A father discovered his three-year-old boy murdered and abandoned in a vacant home. The baby was only one casualty in a wave of attacks against the children of Buenos Aires.

Sources:

Beran, Arantza Margolles. "La Triste Felicidad de Cayetano Godino." la cantera de babí. 31 December, 2013. http://www.amargolles.net/?p=3255

Brookes, Elisabeth. "Cesare Lombroso: Theory of Crime, Criminal Man, and Atavism." Simply Psychology. 20 July, 2021. https://www.simplypsychology.org/lombroso-theory-of-crime-criminal-man-and-atavism.html

Dovio, Mariana. "El Instituto de Criminología y la 'mala vida'  entre 1907 y 1913." Anuario de la Escuela de Historia Virtual. 16 November, 2013. https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/anuariohistoria/article/view/8389/9260

"El Petiso Orejudo." Historia Hoy. 15 November 2018. https://historiahoy.com.ar/el-petiso-orejudo-n538/

"El 'Petiso Orejudo', el primer asesino en serie de Argentina" BBC News Mundo. 11 December, 2012. https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias/2012/12/121211_argentina_asesino_en_serie_petiso_orejudo_vh

Moreno, Maria. El Petiso Orejudo (Tusquets Argentina, 1994). 

Rettew, David M.D.. "Nature Versus Nurture: Where We Are Now." Psychology Today. 6 October, 2017. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/abcs-child-psychiatry/201710/nature-versus-nurture-where-we-are-now

Rivas, Ricardo. "'El Petiso Orejudo'  Crónica trágica de un niño enfermo en el arrabal de la Tierra." La Nacion. 22 December 2019. https://www.lanacion.com.py/gran-diario-domingo/2019/12/22/el-petiso-orejudo-cronica-tragica-de-un-nino-enfermo-en-el-arrabal-de-la-tierra/

Smith, Anna. "What is the difference between sociopathy and psychopathy?" Medical News Today. 6 July, 2021. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/psychopath-vs-sociopath#aspd

"What is Epigenetics?" Center for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/genomics/disease/epigenetics.htm#:~:text=Epigenetics%20is%20the%20study%20of,body%20reads%20a%20DNA%20sequence.

Zapiola, Maria Carolina. "Niños asesinos de niños: el caso del Petiso Orejudo." Open Edition Journals. July 2006. https://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/2827

Music: Dellasera by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

After an elderly woman was discovered brutally murdered in her upscale Glasgow apartment, police charged a 38 year-old Jewish-German immigrant with her murder. The arrest sparked a century-long battle for justice and was championed by the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle.

Sources:

"The Case of Oscar Slater." National Records of Scotland. https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/learning/features/the-case-of-oscar-slater

"Correspondence of Oscar Slater, the Jewish Prisoner Championed by Arthur Conan Doyle." Carpe Librum Books. https://www.carpelibrumbooks.com/correspondence-of-oscar-slater-the-jewish-prisoner-championed-by-arthur-conan-doyle

Doyle, Arthur Conan.

The True Crime Files of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Berkley Prime Crime: New York, 2001.) https://archive.org/details/truecrimefilesof0000doyl

The Case of Oscar Slater (Hodder & Stoughton: New York, 1912.)

Fox, Margalit. Conan Doyle for the Defense: How Sherlock Holmes' Creator Turned Real-Life Detective to Free a Man Wrongly Imprisoned for Murder (Random House: New York, 2018.)

"Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Case of the Wrongfully Imprisoned Man." Medium. 21 June, 2018. https://medium.com/s/story/sir-arthur-conan-doyle-and-the-case-of-the-wrongfully-imprisoned-man-dc5eb26b0331

Hunt, Peter. Oscar Slater: The Great Suspect (Carroll & Nicholson: London, 1951.)

Kilday, Anne-Marie. "‘Circumstances of Unexplained Savagery’: The Gilchrist Murder

Case and Its Legacy, 1908–1927." Fair and Unfair Trials in the British Isles, 1800–1940:

Microhistories of Justice and Injustice. Ed. David Nash and Anne-Marie Kilday. London:

Bloomsbury academic, 2020. 137–175. Bloomsbury Collections. 21 Jan. 2022.

dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350050976.ch-007>.

McPherson, Hamish. "The Oscar Slater Frame-Up: How a Murder Trial Changed Scots Law." The National. 10 October, 2017. https://www.thenational.scot/news/15585823.the-oscar-slater-frame-up-how-a-murder-trial-changed-scots-law/

Roughead, William. The Trial of Oscar Slater (William Hodge & Company: Glasgow, 1915.)

Toughill, Thomas. Oscar Slater: The Mystery Solved (Canongate Books Ltd., 1994). 

Whittington-Egan, Richard. The Oscar Slater Murder Story: New Light on a Classic Miscarriage of Justice (Neil Wilson Publishing, 2011.)

Music: Dellasera by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

When the LA Times exploded in 1910, a labor war erupted in Los Angeles. At stake was nothing less than the future of their city.

This is part two of the two-part episode, Battle for Babylon: The LA Times Bombing.

Sources:

Blum, Howard. American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century (New York: Crown Publishers, 2008).

Butler, Kirstin. “When California’s Water Wars Turned Violent” PBS: American Experience. March 24, 2022. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/flood-desert-california-water-wars-violent/

Hannon, Michael. “McNamara Bombing Trial.” University of Minnesota Law Library. http://moses.law.umn.edu/darrow/trialpdfs/McNamara_LA_Times_Bombing.pdf

Irwin, Lew. Deadly Times: The 1910 Bombing of the Los Angeles Times and America’s Forgotten Decade of Terror. (Guilford: Lyons Press, 2013).

King, Eddie. “The Los Angeles Times Building Fire: October 1, 1910.” The Los Angeles Fire Department Historical Archive. https://www.lafire.com/famous_fires/1910_1010_LATimesFire/100110_TheLosAngelesTimesFire_gv_11001960.htm

O’Higgins, Harvey. “Detective Burns’ Own Story of His Great Case: The Dynamiters” McClure Magazine. Vol. XXXVI, No. 4. August, 1911. 

Pollack, Alan. “Los Angeles Aqueduct.” Santa Clarita Valley History. https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/al1301.htm

St. Johns, Adela Rogers. Final Verdict (Los Angeles: Doubleday, 1962).

Music: Dellasera by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

In 1910, the city of Los Angeles was an inferno of unrest. A handful of powerful men used coercion, corruption, and outright theft to build their dream metropolis in the middle of a desert. But when labor unions shifted their focus to California, these powerful men realized that their furtunes would be ruined if they did not keep union men out of LA. What followed next was an all-out battle for the city that killed twenty-one innocent people.

This is part one of the two-part episode, Battle for Babylon: The LA Times Bombing.

Sources:

Blum, Howard. American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century (New York: Crown Publishers, 2008).

Butler, Kirstin. “When California’s Water Wars Turned Violent” PBS: American Experience. March 24, 2022. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/flood-desert-california-water-wars-violent/

Hannon, Michael. “McNamara Bombing Trial.” University of Minnesota Law Library. http://moses.law.umn.edu/darrow/trialpdfs/McNamara_LA_Times_Bombing.pdf

King, Eddie. “The Los Angeles Times Building Fire: October 1, 1910.” The Los Angeles Fire Department Historical Archive. https://www.lafire.com/famous_fires/1910_1010_LATimesFire/100110_TheLosAngelesTimesFire_gv_11001960.htm

Kincheloe, Jennifer. “The Woman who Captured the Real Boyle Heights Rape Fiend.” Jennifer Kincheloe. August 10, 2016. https://www.jenniferkincheloe.com/post/2016/08/10/the-woman-who-captured-the-real-boyle-heights-rape-fiend

Music: Dellasera by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

How did ancient Greeks obtain justice during a century known for bloodshed and turbulence? And how did the Athenians reconcile such senseless violence with their society's high values of justice and truth? Two ancient Athenian murder trials answer these questions and show how the city’s so-called Golden Age was just as ruthless as the rest of ancient history.

Sources:

Antiphon.  

Against the Stepmother For Poisoning. Perseus Digital Library. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0020&redirect=true

On the Murder of Herodes. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0020%3Aspeech%3D5

Dobson, J.F. The Greek Orators (London: Clarendon Press, 1919).

Freeman, Kathleen. The Murder of Herodes: And Other Trials From The Athenian Law Courts. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1991).

Gagarin, Michael. “Athenian Homicide Law: Case Studies.” Demos. March 27, 2003. https://www.stoa.org/demos/article_homicide@page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC.html

Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. (New York: Penguin Books, 2012).

Hamilton, Edith. Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes. (New York: Warner Books, 1999).

“Katharsis & Miasma.” Hellenic Faith. https://hellenicfaith.com/katharsis-miasma/

“Law and Courts in Ancient Athens: A Brief Overview.” The Kosmos (Harvard). September 20, 2018. https://kosmossociety.chs.harvard.edu/law-and-courts-in-ancient-athens-a-brief-overview/

Plutarch and Fowler, H.N. Trans. Lives of the Ten Orators. Attalus.org. 1936. http://attalus.org/translate/orators1.html

Spencer, McDaniel. “Ancient Greek Murder Mysteries.” Tales of Times Forgotten. October 2, 2019. https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2019/10/02/ancient-greek-murder-mysteries/

Music: Dellasera by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

In 1909, New York City Police discovered the corpse of a white woman stuffed into a trunk. Because cops found the corpse in a Chinese man’s apartment, the murder ignited a ‘war’ against Chinese Americans, who the press claimed were out to steal and spoil white women. This episode is the story of the Chinatown Trunk Mystery, the ‘Yellow Peril,’ and the destruction it caused for America’s immigrant communities.

This episode is in honor of Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month.

.

.

.

.

.

.

#history #herstory #historian #historylover #historybuff #historicaltruecrime #truecrimehistory #truecrime #truecrimepodcast #historypodcast #americanhistory #ushistory #newyorkhistory #newyorkcityhistory #chinatown #chinatownhistory #manhattanhistory #chineseamerican #aapiheritagemonth #elsiesigel #chinatowntrunkmystery #chinatowntrunkmurder 

Sources:

Bovsun, Mara. “The Chinatown Trunk Mystery.” Daily News. 25 March 2008. https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/chinatown-trunk-mystery-article-1.269236

Chow, Kat. “How The White Establishment Waged A ‘War’ on Chinese Restaurants in the U.S.” GBH. 16 June 2017. https://www.wgbh.org/news/2017/06/16/how-white-establishment-waged-war-chinese-restaurants-us

Fuchs, Chris. “The Chinese railroad workers who helped connect the country: Recovering an erased history.” NBC News. 22 April 2019. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/recovering-erased-history-chinese-railroad-workers-who-helped-connect-country-n991136

Lui, Mary Ting Yi. The Chinatown Trunk Mystery: Murder, Miscegenation, and Other Dangerous Encounters in Turn-of-the-Century New York City (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007).

“The Murder of Elsie Sigel by her Chinese Lover, 1909.” Historical Crime Detective. https://www.historicalcrimedetective.com/ccca/the-murder-of-elsie-sigel-by-her-chinese-lover-1909/

Powell, J. Mark. “The Body in the Trunk: Who Killed Elsie Sigel?” 29 October 2015. http://www.jmarkpowell.com/the-body-in-the-trunk-who-killed-elsie-sigel-2/

“Why Social Workers in the Slums Become Depraved.” The Star Company. 1914.

Newspapers:

Day Book. 6 January 1912. P. 23.

Evening Star. June 20 and 25 1909.

Los Angeles Herald. 27 June 1909.

New York Times. June 19 to 28, 1909.

New York Tribune. 23 June 1909.

Orange County Observer. 1 July 1909.

Palestine Daily Herald. 21 June 1909.

Princeton Union. 8 July 1909.

San Jose Mercury News. 23 June 1909.

Spokane Press. 26 June 1909.

Music: Dellasera by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

While World War I erupted throughout Europe, the Caillaux scandal plunged France into a chaotic murder trial that overshadowed the coming global conflict. What else do you expect to happen when a wife of the former Prime Minister murders her husband’s greatest political rival?

Sources:

Allain, Jean-Claude, Joseph Caillaux, 2 vols (Paris: Imprimerie nationale 1978-81).

Beatty, Jack. “The Cleopatra’s Nose of 1914

The story of the Caillaux affair—a murdered newspaper editor, a web of adultery, and the road to World War I.” Lapham’s Quarterly. https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/scandal/cleopatras-nose-1914

Berenson, Edward. The Trial of Madame Caillaux (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992).

“Caillaux, Joseph.” Encyclopedia.com. https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/caillaux-joseph

DeWaleffe, Maurice and Dulac, Jean. “L’affaire Caillaux.” Comoedia Illustre. 5 August 1914. https://criminocorpus.org/en/library/page/116658/

Kershaw, Alister. Murder in France (London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1955).

“La Belle Epoque: France and the Rise of Modernism.” Washington & Lee. 25 June 2017. https://my.wlu.edu/office-of-lifelong-learning/alumni-college/la-belle-epoque

Le Figaro, various issues from 1914. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k290183r/f1.image.r=caillaux

Martin, Benjamin. The Hypocrisy of Justice in La Belle Epoque (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984).

Moran, Tracy. “When a Paris Newspaper Pushed a Housewife to Murder.” OZY: A Modern Media Company. 20 August 2016. https://www.ozy.com/true-and-stories/when-a-paris-newspaper-pushed-a-housewife-to-murder/70987/

Raphael, John. The Caillaux Drama (London: Max Goschen Ltd., 1914). https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52680/52680-h/52680-h.htm

Simkin, John. “Henriette Caillaux.” Spartacus Educational, September 1997. https://spartacus-educational.com/FWWcaillauxH.htm

Udovic, Edward. “Famous Prisoners of Saint-Lazare: Henriette Caillaux.” DePaul Vincentian Collections. https://resources.depaul.edu/vincentian-collections/story/footnotes/Pages/Caillaux.aspx

Wilde, Robert. “Belle Époque or the ‘Beautiful Age’ in France.” ThoughtCo. 30 January 2019. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-belle-epoque-beautiful-age-1221300

Music: Dellasera by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

In the very early hours of September 9, 1739, a group of slaves digging a drainage ditch for the Stono River near Charleston, South Carolina, decided to break into a general store for a drink to celebrate their hard (and unpaid) work. The events that followed culminated in the largest and bloodiest slave rebellion in colonial American history.

Sources:

“Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade.” Enslaved Peoples of Historical Slave Trade, 31 May, 2013. https://enslaved.org/fullStory/16-23-92889/. 

Hoffer, Peter Charles. Cry Liberty: The Great Stono River Slave Rebellion of 1739 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

Mutti-Burke, Diane. “What the Stono Revolt Can Teach Us About History.” H-South, H-Net Reviews. October, 2006. 

Niven, Steven J. “The Stono Slave Rebellion Was Nearly Erased From US History Books.” The Root, February 22, 2016. https://www.theroot.com/the-stono-slave-rebellion-was-nearly-erased-from-us-his-1790854336. 

“Resource Bank Contents.” Africans in America. Public Broadcasting Service, n.d. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/index.html. 

Smith, Mark M., ed. Stono: Documenting and Interpreting a Southern Slave Revolt. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005).

“The Stono Rebellion.” Bill of Rights Institute. https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/the-stono-rebellion. 

“The Stono Rebellion: Crash Course Black American History #6- YouTube.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pND-9KhM1Xw. 

“Two Views of the Stono Slave Rebellion South Carolina, 1739.” Becoming American: The British Atlantic Colonies, 1690-1763. National Humanities Center. http://www.nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/becomingamer/peoples/text4/stonorebellion.pdf. 

Music: Dellasera by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

The 2010 discovery of a skull in broadcaster David Attenborough's backyard finally closed a 130-year-old case that enraged Victorian London. When a box of boiled and mutilated human remains washed up on the bank of the Thames in southwest London in 1879, no one could have imagined who was responsible for the heinous act. When police finally arrested the Barnes Mystery murderer, Victorian Britain became disgusted and enraged, but mostly terrified. How well does anyone really know the people they allow into the safety of their home? 

Sources:

"The Jury of Matrons." First Hundred Years. 27 June, 2016. https://first100years.org.uk/the-jury-of-matrons/

"Kate Webster - The 'Barnes Mystery'" Capital Punishment- U.K.. http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/webster.html

Kontur, Daniel, director. Murder Maps: The Richmond Case. Dark Crimes, 2020. 43 min. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWn1r00E5zM

McKinnell, Ellie. "The Victorian murder victim whose skull was found in David Attenborough's Richmond garden." MyLondon News. 2 September, 2019.https://www.mylondon.news/news/west-london-news/victorian-murder-victim-whos-skull-16838132

O'Donnell, Elliot. The Trial of Kate Webster. (William Hodge & Company, Ltd.: Glasgow, 1925).

Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0, 21 February 2022), June 1879, trial of CATHERINE WEBSTER (29) (t18790630-653).

"Trial, sentence & execution of Kate Webster for the murder of Mrs Thomas, at Richmond" London, 1879.

Music: Dellasera by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

Count Francesco Cenci, a 16th-century Roman nobleman, had a long record of cruel and violent behavior. In September of 1598, villagers found the count's body in a ravine at the bottom of his castle. His family claimed that he accidentally fell from the castle's balcony, but the inconsistencies in their stories led the villagers of La Petrella to believe that Francesco had not died by accident. Had Francesco's beautiful 21-year-old daughter Beatrice Cenci finally tire of her father's abuse and have him murdered?

Sources:

"Beatrice Cenci" Murderpedia. https://murderpedia.org/female.C/c/cenci-beatrice.htm

Guerrazzi, Francesco Domenico. Beatrice Cenci: Storia del secolo XVI. (Pisa, 1854). 

Jack, Belinda. Beatrice's Spell: The Enduring Legend of Beatrice Cenci  (New York: Other Press, 2005.)

The New York Times

"Beatrice Cenci Rescued From Prejudice and Myth" 20 December, 1925.

"The Legend of Beatrice Cenci Disproved by New Facts." 22 July, 1923.

Nicholl, Charles. "Screaming in the Castle: The Case of Beatrice Cenci." The London Review of Books. 2 July, 1998. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v20/n13/charles-nicholl/screaming-in-the-castle-the-case-of-beatrice-cenci

"The Rack." Torture Museum. http://torturemuseum.net/en/the-rack/

Ricci, Corrado. Trans. Morris Bishop and Henry Longan Stuart. Beatrice Cenci. Vol. 1 &2. (London: The Whitefriars Press Ltd., 1925).

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. The Cenci: A Tragedy in Five Acts. (London : C and J Ollier Vere street, Bond street, 1821).

Music: Dellasera by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com