AN EYE FOR AN EYE --A special edition of Yesterday’s News exploring the criminal justice system at its most extreme: Inflicting the Death Penalty...

The Botched Execution of Eva Dugan

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Episode 131 concerns the murky relationship between the mysterious hired wife, a Tuscon rancher, and a young man who came to stay. It’s also about the dogged chase for the fugitive conducted by a determined sheriff, but the scene that strikes me most takes place in the office of a prison warden when they confront the suspected murderer with an unsettling relic of her crime.

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Theme Music by Dave Sams

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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bit.ly/1927mathis

YESTERDAY’S NEWS --Tales of classic scandals, scoundrels and scourges told from historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism...

What The Dog Saw At Beekman Place

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This episode is one of the creepiest and sleaziest yet, when the mad Bohemian debauchery that made Greenwich Village famous spills over into the posh East Midtown. The colorful cast of real-life characters includes a woman who ran a prohibition speakeasy, her beautiful model daughter and her artistic friends, and an estranged husband who is disgusted by the whole thing, but addicted to pornography. And wait til you hear the eerie confession! You’re gonna love it.

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Theme Music by Dave Sams

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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bit.ly/1937gedeon

AN EYE FOR AN EYE -- A special edition of Yesterday’s News exploring the criminal justice system at its most extreme: Inflicting the Death Penalty...

The Botched Execution of Tom Ketchum

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This episode takes us back to the Old West with the tale of the Black Jack gang, terrors of the Southwest from about 1896 to 1991 when its leader, Tom Ketchum, was finally captured trying to pull off a train robbery solo. He didn’t know the conductor had been robbed once before and carried a sawed off shotgun. Yeah. That’s not gonna end well.

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Theme Music by Dave Sams

Additional incidental music by Chuck Wiggins

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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bit.ly/1901ketchum

SERIAL KILLER CLIPS --A reading of Yesterday’s News exploring some of History’s most prolific murderers...

Rampage At Valdosta

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For this episode, True Crime Historian presents its first non-human perpetrator, a great big crazy brilliant elephant first known as Empress when imported into the United States in 1871. She killed so many handlers that she was sentenced to death many times, but doing so was so difficult that she was just passed from show to show. Along the way someone changed her name to Gypsy, and she spent the last decade of her tragic life with the Harris Nickel Plate Circus. She claimed at least seven victims, but she was crazy for a reason, and if you’re an animal lover, I’ve got to warn you that you’re about to get a big dose of outrage and indignation.

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Theme Music by Dave Sams

Carnival of the Animals: Elephants by Camille Saint-Saëns courtesy Creative Commons.

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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bit.ly/1902gypsy

AN EYE FOR AN EYE --A special edition of Yesterday’s News exploring the criminal justice system at its most extreme: Inflicting the Death Penalty...

The Saga of Ida and Paul V. Hadley

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Ida Hadley was so passionate for her husband Paul that they called her a nymphomaniac in court. But I get ahead of myself. Their trouble really started in Beaumont, Texas, when a man makes eyes at Ida and Paul shoots him. This steamy story spans five years and includes three trials, attempted and successful jailbreaks, multiple flights from justice across five states, and two murders -- one of them from a moving train!

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Theme Music by Dave Sams

Research Assistance by Anna from AGP Stories

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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bit.ly/1916hadley

AN EYE FOR AN EYE -- A special edition of Yesterday’s News exploring the criminal justice system at its most extreme: Inflicting the Death Penalty...

Death of a Teenage Stenographer

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Fifteen year old Ruth Wheeler, recent graduate of a secretarial school, excitedly picked up a referral from her alma mater and headed to her first job interview in a building on East 75th Street in New York City. She was not seen again alive. Two days later, a man living in the same building discovered that someone had dumped a gunny sack full of trash on his fire escape. But there was something not quite right about that bundle of garbage.

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Theme Music by Dave Sams

Research Assistance by Anna from AGP Stories

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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bit.ly/1910wheeler

YESTERDAY’S NEWS --Tales of classic scandals, scoundrels and scourges told from historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism...

The Kentucky Conspiracy

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The Commonwealth of Kentucky was thrown into political turmoil over the election of its governor in 1899. The Republican candidate, William S. Taylor, first appeared to win the election by a narrow margin, but the votes were challenged by his opponent, William Justus Goebel, who eventually won the seat by an act of the legislature.

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Tensions run high in the days before his inauguration, and as you can tell by the prologue, these Kentuckians took their politics seriously. Deadly seriously.

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Theme Music by Dave Sams

Research Assistance by Anna from AGP Stories

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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bit.ly/1900goebel

YESTERDAY’S NEWS --Tales of classic scandals, scoundrels and scourges told from historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism...

The Brutal Crimes and Punishment of Jesse Pomeroy

This episode concerns one of the most heinous crimes ever committed by a teenager. Jesse Pomeroy was but 14 years old when he was arrested for abducting and torturing young boys and sent to the state reformatory. He was released after a little more than a year, due either to the pleading of his mother or some kind of bribery, you be the judge. But anyway, you know it’s not gonna end well. At 15 years old, Jesse Pomeroy was the youngest person to be convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to die.

Theme Music by Dave Sams

Research Assistance by Anna from AGP Stories

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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bit.ly/1874pomeroy

YESTERDAY’S NEWS --Tales of classic scandals, scoundrels, and scourges told from historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism...

The Brutal Murder of Alberta Meadows

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Once upon a time, 1922 to be exact, Clara Phillips, a former Hollywood bathing beauty and chorus girl, decides she wants to have a chat with a young lady whom she believes is canoodling with her husband. She stops and buys a brand new hammer on the way.

Yeah. That’s not gonna end well.

This episode is filled with a lot of poignant stories of the incident from a variety of points of view, including a daring escape from justice.

The Bathing Beauty’s New Hammer

Theme Music by Dave Sams

Research Assistance by Anna from AGP Stories

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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bit.ly/1922phillips

True Crime Short Stories -- As I do my research in the dark dusty archives trying to find exciting stories of the scandals, scoundrels and scourges of the past, I often come upon feature stories about interesting crimes and criminal personalities in Sunday magazine sections. They’re not enough for an entire episode, so I’ve strung a few of them together for you.

The first two are of a piece:

-- Murder for $2.45, which tells of how a newsboy finds the clue to solving a professional, sorta, murder, while ...

-- The Waitress and the Death Row War Hero ties in the murder of a theater tycoon with a bit of romantic intrigue.

-- Following that, Love and the Counterfeiters is an exciting tale of counterfeiters and double-crossers in the old school Italian mob.

-- The next article is titled, When The Ouija Board Spelled “DADDY MUST DIE”, the tragic story of a teenage girl falling into her mother’s web of betrayal and murder.

-- And finally, from the classic pages of Master Detective magazine, I give you comes Phantom in the Window: The Murder of Mary Louise Stammer, a heartbreaking tale of another teenager.

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Theme Music by Dave Sams

Research Assistance by Anna from AGP Stories

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

I’m True Crime Historian Richard O Jones signing off for now