Crane Neck Nugent: Prohibition Trigger-
The Gangster Chronicles 2.2.1
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YESTERDAY'S NEWS
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The murders of Gus Fitch, Bob Sollick, Glenn Hiatt, Martin Dailey and Buddy Ryan. Crane Neck Nugent was involved in four of these, and will soon avenge a fifth.

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AN EYE FOR AN EYE-

A reading of Yesterday's News exploring the judicial system at its most extreme: Inflicting the death penalty

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This episode is a sequel to the tale of The Giant Vigilante Captain Nat Kinney, about one of the Bald Knobber masked vigilante groups that sprang up in the Ozark region after the civil war. This story concerns the Bald Knobbers in the adjacent county to Nat Kinney, where once again, and another instance where vigilante justice backfires. It’s a good story and has a lot of action, including a jail break. But my favorite part is the heart-breaking report of the artist who ventures into the hills to get sketches of the families of the condemned men just days before their scheduled execution. I’ll post the sketches on my website, but his word pictures are some of the most powerful I’ve come across in the historic newspaper archives.

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Musical direction by Dave Sams

http://www.truecrimehistorian.com/1887baldknobber2

Crane Neck Nugent, Prohibition Trigger -
The Gangster Chronicles 2.1
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YESTERDAY'S NEWS
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A reading from historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism
The second volume of The Gangster Chronicles explores one of the many side effects of the Great Experiment, America's Prohibition on alcohol.
I’ve often contended that Prohibition made criminals out of a lot of ordinary people who just wanted to drink and serve drinks. But it also gave some truly bad men an opportunity to misbehave.
Although he had one of the worst nicknames names ever, Raymond "Crane Neck" Nugent, was one of the most ruthless of the era's gangsters.
At 25, he went to trial for the murder of a bootlegger, and when the witness who came forward right after the event changed his mind at the trial -- well, we’ll look at that here in Chapter One.
Before his own demise, Nugent would be suspected in at least 15 high-profile murders, including the most famous gangland massacre of the Prohibition era. Yeah, he was probably one of the guns at the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
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Musical direction by Dave Sams

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YESTERDAY'S NEWS -

A reading from historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism.

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This episode, our 75th, comes from another request by an overseas listener, this time from the great down under.

My Aussie friend said I should look into Ned Kelly, whom he described as "the Australian Billy the Kid."

One of the better known Ned Kelly stories is his last stand at the Glenrowan Inn wearing a homemade suit of armor, but I’m going to put that story in my pocket for later and this time, focus on an earlier caper, shoot-out that grew out of the brawl described in the prologue.

First, we’ll hear the newspaper account that includes the testimony of the only lawman to survive, and in the second act, we’ll hear from the scoundrel Ned Kelly himself with excerpts from one of the letters he wrote for the Australian Press giving his side of the story.

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Musical direction by Dave Sams

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.

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Crimes of the Scoundrel Clarence V.T. Richeson

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This episode explores the tawdry case of Clarence Virgil Thompson Richeson, who was apparently an eloquent preacher and a rising star in the Baptist community as well as a notorious scoundrel.

The tangled web of deceit he wove between three women finally ended in the mysterious death of the unmarried mother of his expected child.

Richeson would later confess that he gave her poison, telling her that it was medicine to induce an abortion.

This case is historically significant in that it marks the first time in America that a man was sentenced to death without a trial, but solely on a confession.

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Musical direction by Dave Sams

SOLEMNLY SWORN AN EYE FOR AN EYE

OVERSEAS EDITION

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The Trial and Execution of Amelia Dyer

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This episode comes at the request of a listener across the great pond in the United Kingdom.

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We will be exploring the testimony from the trial of Amelia Dyer, who would take in infants and toddlers for adoption for a fee, and then murder the poor children for the profit.

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She is said to have once referred to herself as an angel maker. I’ve seen estimates of her carnage at as many as 400 young souls, but she was formally convicted on only one count.

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But that was enough for her to pay the ultimate price.

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By the way, 10 pounds in 1896 would be 1,190 pounds in 2016, adjusting for inflation, and in current conversion rates, 1,190 pounds is a bit more than $1,500 at the time of this broadcast.

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Vocabulary Word: pelisse

It comes from the Latin for a garment of fur, but in this case referred to a long, loose outer coat made for infants.

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Musical direction by Dave Sams

Murder Under the Crab Apple Tree By Damon Runyon
When a friend of mine started pitching Hall-Mills murder to me as a potential episode, I was immediately enthralled by the tale of an Episcopalian rector and his tragic affair with the choir singer, but when he told me the case hinged on the eyewitness testimony of “the pig woman,” I knew this was a story for True Crime Historian. 
But it gets even better. I started looking into it and discovered that the famed sportswriter Damon Runyon covered the trial with the same breezy prose he used in the short stories he wrote that inspired the musical “Guys and Dolls,” with daily dispatches drawing vivid word pictures of the trial and its participants. I felt it worthy of in depth exploration, so we’ll be doing a six episode series released on consecutive Sundays to hear all about the case and its cast of characters as told by one of America’s premier storytellers, who turns out to also be a Pioneer of True Crime. 

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.

PULP NONFICTION -

A reading from the pioneers of true crime

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This is the final episode exploring the sensational Hall-Mills murder trial of 1926.

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In this episode, we’ll hear the end of the testimony of the defendant Mrs. Frances Hall, and the closing arguments from the "million-dollar defense" and the firecracker special prosecutor, , against the backdrop drama of allegations of juror misconduct and local county politics.

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Theme music by Dave Sams

YESTERDAY'S NEWS -

A reading from historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism

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The Scoundrel Enos Stoner

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This episode, my seventy-first, probably holds the record for the most number of datelines, because it’s the scope of the six-decade long story that is impressive. Enos Stoner of northeastern Missouri was first convicted of murder in 1893 at the age of 28. But he was to commit at least two more murders in his day, with a parole, two escapes and a whole lot of other shenanigans and crimes along the way.

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Musical direction by Dave Sams

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www.truecrimehistorian.com/1893stoner

When a friend of mine started pitching Hall-Mills murder to me as a potential episode, I was immediately enthralled by the tale of an Episcopalian rector and his tragic affair with the choir singer, but when he told me the case hinged on the eyewitness testimony of “the pig woman,” I knew this was a story for True Crime Historian.

But it gets even better.

I started looking into it and discovered that the famed sportswriter Damon Runyon covered the trial with the same breezy prose he used in the short stories he wrote that inspired the musical “Guys and Dolls,” with daily dispatches drawing vivid word pictures of the trial and its participants.

I felt it worthy of in depth exploration, so we’ll be doing a six episode series released on consecutive Sundays to hear all about the case and its cast of characters as told by one of America’s premier storytellers, who turns out to also be a pioneer of True Crime.