UNSOLVED!-

Exploring one of history's most baffling murder mysteries.

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The Villisca Ax Murders Mystery

This episode starts with a brutal axe murder that scandalized the quiet town of Villisca, about 2,000 souls in the summer of 1912, when a family of six and two young visitors were killed in their beds by an assailant wielding a long-handled axe, the family’s own tool, which was left at the scene. Clues were scant, and it took years for the twists and subplots to emerge, including a string of similar murders, implications that it was a job for hire by a business rival, and a bizarre confession by an itinerant minister five years later.

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Musical direction by Dave Sams

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Horror ambiance by the Klankbeeld team via freesound.org

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www.truecrimehistorian.com/1912villisca

PULP NONFICTION-

A reading from the pioneers of true crime

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Murder Under the Crab Apple Tree

By Damon Runyon

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

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The murder took place four years earlier, when the bodies of the Episcopalian rector Edward Wheeler Hall and choir singer Eleanor Mills were found shot, mutilated and posed under a crabapple tree in DeRussey’s Lane, the lover’s lane of Brunswick, New Jersey.

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Endearing letters written between the two were scattered about the scene, and the rector’s wife, her two brothers and a cousin were eventually charged with the murders. The trial became the proverbial media circus, and the press section included Damon Runyon, the famed sportswriter also noted for his short stories about the seedy side of Broadway, who sent out dispatches in the same evocative prose style.

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In addition to inspiring Guys and Dolls, Damon Runyon was also a pioneer of true crime.

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This episode explores the testimony providing an alibi for the defendant Henry Stevens, brother-in-law of one of the victims, who claims he was fishing at the time of the murder.

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Music by Dave Sams

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www.truecrimehistorian.com

YESTERDAY'S NEWS -

A reading from America's historical newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism

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Panic at the Italian Hall

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This episode comes from the request of a listener in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan who wanted to know more about the panic disaster that took place at the Calumet Italian Hall in 1913.

I actually went through Calumet a couple of years ago on vacation when we wanted to see what the upper peninsula of the upper peninsula of Michigan was like.

We found a lot of good microbreweries and wandered about some of the old copper mines, but we missed the monument dedicated to the victims of this horrible tragedy.

Now that I know about it, the next time I’m in Calumet, I will definitely pay my respects. It’s a sad story, folks, but I think it’s an important one to remember because it’s all about what happens when we lose our civility.

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Theme music by Dave Sams

Some incidental music via musopen.org Creative Commons license

Panic at the Italian Hall
This episode comes from the request of a listener in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan who wanted to know more about the panic disaster that took place at the Calumet Italian Hall in 1913. 
We just took nice camping trip to the Keneewah Peninsula, Michigan's upper Upper Peninsula. You'd be hard pressed to find a more beautiful place in the world. The weather was sublime and Lake Superior is one of my favorite bodies of water--crystal clear, unsalted and shark-free. My girlfriend wants to move up there, at least for the summers, and I'm not opposed.
While we were there, we took the time to stop at Calumet and visited the memorial to the the Italian Hall. I'm usually a pretty cynical person, but I was truly moved to tears thinking about how horrible a person it took to instigate this tragedy, especially when most of the victims were little children. I took some pictures of the memorial and that evening, dug Episode 67 out of the vault, made a few edits, enhanced some of the audio, and while listening to it, found myself with the sniffles all over again. 
It’s a sad story, folks, but I think it’s an important one to remember because it’s all about what happens when we lose our civility. 
Theme music by Dave Sams Some incidental music via musopen.org Creative Commons license 

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 episode is the third of six exploring the sensational Hall-Mills murder trial of 1926.

The murder took place four years earlier, when the bodies of the Episcopalian rector Edward Wheeler Hall and choir singer Eleanor Mills were found shot, mutilated and posed under a crabapple tree in DeRussey’s Lane, a remote part of Brunswick, New Jersey, popular with young lovers seeking a private place to park. Love letters written between the two were scattered about the scene, and the rector’s wife, her two brothers and a cousin were charged with the murders. The trial became the proverbial media circus, and the press section included Damon Runyon, the famed sportswriter also noted for his short stories about the seedy side of Broadway, who sent out dispatches in the same evocative prose style. In addition to inspiring Guys and Dolls, Damon Runyon was also a pioneer of true crime.

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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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This episode comes at the request of a faithful listener in Cincinnati who wanted to hear more about Anna Marie Hahn, the first woman to be executed in Ohio's electric chair.
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Although ‘Arsenic Annie’ had stoically proclaimed her innocence right up until her dying day, Anna Marie Hahn left a handwritten 20-page confession in her death row cell on December 7, 1938, when they led her to Ohio’s electric chair, literally kicking and screaming.
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In the letter, she not only takes responsibility for six murders, she denies other poisoning attempts and goes into details about her life and how she began her series what the governor called cold-blooded and horrifying crimes when he made the final decision to take her to the chair.
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The letter is such a remarkable and revealing self-portrait, more entertaining than her pathetic execution, that I gave it to a professional actress, my friend and colleague Emily Simer Braun, to help bring out some of the nuances in this rare insight into the mind of a mass murderer.
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Music by Dave Sams
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www.truecrimehistorian.com/1938hahn

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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Murder Under the Crab Apple Tree

By Damon Runyon

YESTERDAY'S NEWS-

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

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Until recently, I presumed that Black Bart was a fictional character, like the Lone Ranger or Dudley Do-right, but I was recently set straight on that account and subsequently discovered a story that COULD pass for pretty outlandish romantic fiction.

Charley Bowles did get the moniker Black Bart from the villain in a dime novel, but I think he used it ironically because it didn’t really fit his gentlemanly style.

He only robbed coaches carrying treasure belonging to the Wells Fargo Company, apparently in revenge for a mining dispute in Nevada.

When he left his doggerel poetry at the scene of the crime, he would sign it “Black Bart PO8” spelling poet with a numeral, text messaging style before the internet, ahead of his time.

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Music by Dave Sams

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www.truecrimehistorian.com/1883blackbart

PULP NONFICTION -

A reading from the pioneers of true crime.

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Murder Under the Crab Apple Tree

By Damon Runyon

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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.

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Music by Dave Sams

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www.truecrimehistorian.com/1922hallmills

PULP NONFICTION-

A reading from the pioneers of true crime.

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From the Archives of the Pinkertons by Cleveland Moffett

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This episode begins with a daring train robbery and tells the story of how one of America’s most famed detectives, the esteemed William Pinkerton, solves a string of seemingly unrelated robberies while tracking the lone bandit down.

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The exciting tale is told by Cleveland Moffett, a New York journalist who wrote mystery stories on the side and in 1905 syndicated a series of articles about the exploits of the Pinkerton Detectives that was published in newspapers across the country.

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Music by Dave Sams

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www.truecrimehistorian.com/1892pollack