The Burden

By Orbit MediaTrue Crime

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Typical duration
30 min
per episode

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The Burden episodes

September 18, 2024 Introducing - The Confessions of Anthony Raimondi
In 1978, Pope John Paul I was found dead in his bed just 33 days after he was elected. The official story is that he suffered a fatal heart attack. But in the years since his death, some have claimed he was murdered to cover up crimes in the Vatican. The question of the Pope’s death has never been definitively answered, but there is one man who claims to know the truth. A man from one of New York City’s crime families who has deep ties to the Italian mafia. He was there the day of the Pope’s death and witnessed his murder firsthand. Or, at least, that’s what he says. His name is Anthony Raimondi, and these are his confessions.
In this episode, Marc heads to Williamsburg, Brooklyn to meet a 70-year old gangster and hear him confess to the murder of Pope John Paul I. What he learns is that there’s a lot more to Anthony Raimondi than meets the eye.
From USG Audio and Truth Media in association with Clockwork Films.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
34 min
September 11, 2024 Empire on Blood | 7. This Too Shall Pass
In the aftermath of the court’s decision, Cal must adjust to a new reality. Where can a man like Cal find peace? With a mother he hasn’t seen in a decade? In a heatless van in the dead of winter? His girlfriend has waited for Cal for a decade, but he can’t bring himself to sleep inside her house. Freedom is hard.

Empire on Blood is a production of Orbit Media in association with Signal Co. No1
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
42 min
September 04, 2024 Empire on Blood | 6. Evilina on the Stand
Cal’s last-shot hearing finally arrives: his new lawyers are in place, the new witness ready to testify. Turtle Man has called their written affidavits worthless “toilet paper.” He threatens to come out of retirement to make sure Cal stays locked away. But the Bronx DA has other ideas.

Empire on Blood is a production of Orbit Media in association with Signal Co. No1
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
57 min
August 28, 2024 Empire on Blood | 5. Joe Barry, Private Eye
Joe Barry,Cal’s private investigator, hired in desperation when Cal’s case seems all but dead. Joe’s a hard drinking, Bible-toting P.I. who’s not afraid to lie in the service of the truth. When he connects with a witness who claims she has the answer, she gives Cal a sliver of hope.

Empire on Blood is a production of Orbit Media in association with Signal Co. No1
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
43 min
August 21, 2024 Empire on Blood | 4. Father Frank to the Rescue
Cal has been in prison for years as Dwight rules the Corner on Blood,which once belonged to Cal. Then Dwight “catches a body” and is sentenced to 25 years to life for murder. One day, Cal and Dwight, the man who testified against him, cross paths in a prison yard. Both Cal’s and Dwight’s worlds turn upside down, and alarmed prosecutors in the Bronx call in their ace. It’s all up to Father Frank now.

Empire on Blood is a production of Orbit Media in association with Signal Co. No1
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
45 min
August 14, 2024 Empire on Blood | 3. Dwight, Poet of Evil
Calvin Buari’s former protégé in the Bronx crack trade, Dwight Robinson, loved and admired Cal. But then, feeling shunned and nursing his own ambitions, Dwight charts his own course — first with guns, then with something even more lethal: his testimony.

Empire on Blood is a production of Orbit Media in association with Signal Co. No1
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
39 min
August 07, 2024 Empire on Blood | 2. Turtle Man Will Get His Man
Allen Karen was one of the best homicide prosecutors in the Bronx. He devotes his life to fighting crime – and to rescuing the 20 turtles that roam his bachelor pad. Karen uses his considerable skills – and his power to offer deals – to land a conviction in a three year old case no other prosecutor even wanted to try. Calvin Buari is in his sights. And Turtle Man is determined to take him down.

Empire on Blood is a production of Orbit Media in association with Signal Co. No1
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
39 min
August 07, 2024 Empire on Blood | 1. Calvin's Last Shot
Calvin Buari, who once drove BMWs and dealt crack from a violent corner in the Bronx, has served 22 years of a life sentence. The charge: double homicide. Cal insists he’s no murderer — someone else even confessed to the crime. Things are looking up for Cal when a legendary defense lawyer agrees to take on his final appeal. But then it all comes crashing down.

Empire on Blood is a production of Orbit Media in association with Signal Co. No1
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
40 min
July 31, 2024 Introducing - The Burden: Empire on Blood
The Burden: Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he?

Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent years trying to untangle this dark intrigue. Then one day, his phone rang. It was the protege. The Burden: Empire on Blood is one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. But someone’s gotta pay.

The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic Empire on Blood, which reached #1 on the charts when it was released half a dozen years ago.

Empire on Blood is a production of Orbit Media in association with Signal Co. No1
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
3 min
July 26, 2024 Introducing - The Gist: Birds Aren’t Real (SHHH … Don’t tell the Crested Warbler!)
Peter McIndoe is the founder of the Birds Aren't Real movement-slash-conspiracy theory. He is also the author of the book, Birds Aren't Real: The True Story of Mass Avian Murder and the Largest Surveillance Campaign in U.S. History. Peter doesn’t believe any of that, by the way, but he has good insights on the type of people who do. Plus, how public access to subway brakes, the inability to license a pot store, and a 30-year-old San Fransisco "shanty town" clearance offer lessons in can-do (and can't-do) governance. Please follow the show!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
51 min

About The Burden

From the publisher's feed

The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them.

Season 7 - The Burden: Bad Cops

Baltimore, Maryland likes to call itself Charm City. But you have to wonder: Is the nickname ironic? Consider one of the city's star cops, a sergeant so accomplished that he earned his own nickname, the Golden Boy. But Golden Boy led a double life. Said one of those who encountered him in the street. "I was robbed by the Baltimore City Police….with a gun … armed robbery." No one believed the allegation. Then a GPS tracker was discovered where it shouldn't have been; next, a wiretap went up on a cop's phone. An FBI agent couldn't believe what she was hearing. Are these guys gangsters? And then … an insider turned witness. "Like Rambo said, burn it down. And that's what I did." Welcome to Charm City, where it was sometimes difficult to tell the protectors from the predators.

Season 6 - The Burden: Lives of Crime

Ever wondered what it’s like to live on the edge?
To not follow the rules?
To live outside of the law?
On Lives of Crime you'll hear true stories from criminals themselves, narrating moments from their lives and expounding upon the crimes they’ve committed. This first person narrative podcast series creates an intimate connection between criminal and listener. It’s true crime without intermediaries. Presented without judgment, each episode features a single voice - a person with a criminal past - telling us the deeply personal details of their lives. We hear about their crimes, sure, but Lives of Crime goes beyond that. We hear the stories that shaped them, the moments that made them, the details that changed the direction of their lives for good or for ill.
True Crime Told by true criminals.

Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance

On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish?

Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run

“Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father.

Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger

Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice.

Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country.

Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood

Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question.

This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago.

Season 1 - The Burden

In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname.

Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance.

For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast.

Welcome to The Burden.