True Crime Historian

Captain Tyrell's Stories Of The Secret Service

Episode 59 turns again to the writing of Captain Patrick D. Tyrell, a former investigator for the Secret Service, who set down many of his adventures for a syndicated newspaper feature that ran in 1905. This is an exciting story about two related investigations. After Tyrell and his men track down some of the Midwest's most notorious counterfeiters, they stumble upon a plot to steal the corpse of Abraham Lincoln by some of the scoundrels in an attempt to have their star engraver released from prison. In the first act, we'll hear about how Captain Tyrell broke the counterfeiting ring, and in the second act, how a pair of Pinkerton detectives botched the sting at the Lincoln Memorial in Sprinfield, Illinois.

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How Mary Rogers Murdered Her Husband

Episode 179 tells the story of a sordid little plot to commit murder in 1902, set in motion by a young married woman of questionable reputation. One boyfriend helps her in her plot, another testifies against her, and when she receives her sentence, she cries for a girlfriend.

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More Femmes Fatale 

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The Many True Crimes of Tillie Klimek and Nellie Koulik 

Episode 100, a man goes to a doctor because he’s not feeling well and the doctor says, “Sounds like arsenic poisoning,” and suddenly there are four women in jail who discovered that arsenic is more effective in getting rid of a husband than divorce. The ringleader of them all, however, not only poisoned her husband, but just about anybody who crossed her, including an annoying dog. Before it was through, more than 20 deaths would be attributed to Tillie Klimek. For our 100th episode, we take a look at one of Chicago’s most prolific serial killers and her disciples. 

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The Peoria Hallmark Sex Murder

Episode 182 tells the story of a young sex fiend, whose aggressive pursuit of his nefarious goals ends up with a body in a ditch. Police find a diary he kept of his exploits, used in court as evidence... FOR THE DEFENSE!

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Included in the collection Capital Crimes

Included in the collection Courtroom Shenanigans

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The Murder Of Percy Thompson By His Wife’s Young Lover

For Episode 149 we make a journey to England in the 1920s and hear about the torrid affair between a successful milliner, but unhappy wife, and a young sailor eight years her junior. She writes saucy letters to his ports of call while he’s away that seem to indicate a plan for murdering her husband. She says she was role-playing, just showing how much she loved him. He had a different interpretation.


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Included in the collection Love Triangles Gone Awry


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The End Of Gordon Fawcett Hamby 

Episode 277 is a fascinating portrait of a cold-blooded psychopath and sociopath, an erudite Canadian seaman who allegedly traveled the world committing the most dastardly robberies. But when he goes too far and murders a friend, his conscience finally gets to him and his eight year career comes to a crashing halt and the light of day.

Culled from the historic pages of the New York Herald and other newspapers of the era.

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Included in the collection Robberies Gone Awry

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The Travels of Clara Elizabeth Skarin

Episode 204 tells the interesting tale of a young woman who shoots her aged benefactor and loots his trunk for a poke full of gold, then goes on a spending spree to update her wardrobe. Was it self-defense (as she would claim eight months later when police finally catch up with her)? Or premeditated? That's the question.

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Pulp Nonfiction
A celebration of the pioneers of true crime

In a remote part of Florida in the 1920s, a brother and sister in business together running a curio shop and gas station are found brutally murdered. Was it a robbery gone awry? Or were there more sinister forces at work? Detectives on the case soon dig up some telling secrets.

• Adapted from True Detective, v. 43, no. 2, May 1945.

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More Prison Breaks!

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A Crossing Guard Confesses

Episode 150 is the brutal tale of one of the most fiendish murders on record in California (or anywhere else for that matter) that a dogged prosecutor pins on the town’s simple-crossing guard. The man confesses four times, then retracts it at the trial. I think maybe they got the wrong maniac. What do you think?

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More episodes about kidnappings

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Baby Irene & Her Two Mothers

Episode 208 seems to start out like a murder case: An elderly man marries a woman 40 years younger and suddenly dies three months later under suspicious circumstances. But it turns out to be something much more complicated-even an international incident!-the macguffin being a tiny baby girl. The final decision on this case is dramatically made by the famous Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, who (incidentally) was born right down the road from me.

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More Courtroom Shenanigans

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