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

The Complicated Death of Starr Faithfull

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Episode 138 is the case that inspired the John O’Hara novel and Elizabeth Taylor film “BUtterfield 8,” the sad, sordid tale of a beautiful girl with an evocative name and a traumatic past that put her on a road to ruin. The finding of her body led to a probe deep into the social fabric of three cities on two continents.

The telling of the story isn’t especially graphic, but it does go to dark, dark places.

Just so you know.

Theme Music by Dave Sams

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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bit.ly/1931faithfull

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

Who Killed The Widow Short?

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Episode 137 is the quirky story of the death of a beloved widow in Topeka, Kansas. She was old and in ill health, and no one suspected any foul play until her caretaker--allegedly her late husband’s nephew--suddenly confessed to the crime, but then the autopsy told another story entirely. Was Fred Fanning covering for someone? Or did someone have undue influence over his mind, if he had one?

I’m True Crime Historian Richard O Jones and I give you:

Fred Fanning’s False Confession

Who Killed The Widow Short?

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Playlist

Here are some other True Crime Historian episodes about poisoners and/or confessions:

The Mystery of My Husband’s Body In My Trunk

The Death Cell Confession Of Anna Marie Hahn

The Murderous Mania Of Jolly Jane, Part I

The Murderous Mania Of Jolly Jane, Part II

The Cyanide Widow

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Theme Music by Dave Sams

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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

The Herrin Coal Mine Massacre

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Episode 136 comes by way of a request from Herrin, Illinois, where a True Crime Historian listener Chris Baines wanted to know more about some hometown dark history, about the time a local mining company imported 50 guys from Chicago to bust a strike, 25 men to ship the coal that had been dug, and 25 men to stand guard with rifles and a machine gun to make sure the work got done. Yeah. That’s not gonna end well.

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Playlist

If you liked this episode, here are a few others about social unrest and/or rivalries gone too far.

Revenge of the Anarchists (Part 1: Crime)

Revenge of the Anarchist (Part 2: Punishment)

A Deadly Family Feud

Mystery at the American Saloon

The Demented Dynamiter of Bath

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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/1922herrin

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

The Examination Room Murder

Major Green Collared By The Collar

For Episode 135 we’ve put together a double-header expanding on the theme of the past two episodes. Both of these cases were mentioned in “The Good Friday Beekman Place Bathtub Murder” and Tears of the Weeping Willow.” First is the story of how an unfortunate relationship brought tragedy upon tragedy to a physician’s family, and then we’ll explore the case of a housewife caught unaware by a burglar carrying a deadly weapon.

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Recommended Episodes:

The East Orange Bathtub Murder

The Chinatown Trunk Murder

The Wicked Working Girl of Fall River

The Belle in the Belfry

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Theme Music by Dave Sams

Violin Concerto in E minor #15 by Felix Draeseke, performed by Julia Röntz - Wolfgang Müller-Steinbach, courtesy musopen.org

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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1937marycase

YESTERDAY’S NEWS --

Tales of classic scandals, scoundrels and scourges told from historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism...

The Trial Of Vera Stretz

The next two episodes of True Crime Historian will be a pair of murders, of sorts, as they both took place within a swank New York City block of each other within months of each other. First up, Episode 133 is the story of a scholarly young artist whose married fiance tries to take things too far.

This story is performed by True Crime Historian producer Emily Simer Braun, reprising the role of Alice Cogan, ace reporter for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, whose wise-cracking reporting we first heard in episode 16, “Momsies Deadly Love.”

Theme Music by Dave Sams

String Quartet no. 6 in Fm, Op. 80 by Felix Mendelssohn performed by the Musopen String Quartet

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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bit.ly/1936stretz

A Pair Of Chilling Confessions --“The Confession of ‘Texas Jim’ Baker” ...

“The Vampire of Dusseldorf”

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The first half of episode 132 is a first person account of the crimes of James “Texas Jim” Baker, who is said to have killed, usually by poison, nine men around the world. His gleeful rendering of his story was published after his capture in 1930. The second half is culled from a pair of Sunday magazine articles that includes copious quotes from the sworn confession of the man dubbed “The Vampire of Dusseldorf” as told in court.

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Theme Music by Dave Sams

Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata performed by Paul Pitman, courtesy musopen.org

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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bit.ly/2017magazine05

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