https://euram-radio.blogspot.com/This lists of Unsolved Murders include notable cases where victims were murdered in unknown circumstances.  ]]>enTrue CrimeCopyright Popular Culture and Religion.https://d3wo5wojvuv7l.cloudfront.net/t_rss_itunes_square_1400/images.spreaker.com/original/4e4b8c68cdd4d8a72867f3ffd7ceadf4.jpghttps://euram-radio.blogspot.com/Mon, 28 Sep 2026 16:03:28 +0000Popular Culture and Religion.Popular Culture and Religion.luciamty002@gmail.comUnsolved Murders comprise thousands of historically infamous cold cases and recent homicides that continue to baffle investigators. While modern DNA and genetic genealogy frequently solve decades-old cold cases, many prominent mysteries—such as the...This lists of Unsolved Murders include notable cases where victims were murdered in unknown circumstances.  ]]>trueb08eecd0-371a-5441-8191-8b79c4400cc8trueepisodichttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/107-pedro-rodrigues-filho--73198867Pedro Rodrigues Filho (29 October 1954 – 5 March 2023), also known as Pedrinho Matador, Killer Lil' Pedro, Killer Killer Petey, or simply Killer Petey, was a Brazilian serial killer, spree killer, vigilante, and YouTuber known for pursuing and killing other criminals and suspected criminals. He committed most of his crimes as a teenager, when he was between 14 and 19 years old, and was officially sentenced for 71 murders, but claimed to have killed over 100 people, including drug dealers, rapists, and murderers, and served a total of 34 years in prison before his release in 2007. In 2011, Rodrigues was imprisoned again on charges of inciting riot and deprivation of liberty for crimes committed in prison; he was sentenced to eight years in prison, but was released again in 2018 after seven years on good behavior.  
Following Rodrigues' initial planned 2003 release, author Jeff Lindsay began publishing a novel series about a fictional American serial killer of killers, inspired by Rodrigues, named Dexter Morgan. The series' success, along with that of its 2006 television adaptation and 2021 revival, led to widespread retrospective media attention being brought to Rodrigues, with him becoming internationally known alternately both as the "Brazilian Dexter" and the "South American Punisher" (after the Marvel Comics character of the same name).  
After his second release from prison in 2018, Rodrigues declared himself to be reformed from his self-declared vigilantism as a youth and publicly vowed to commit no further crimes, becoming a Brazilian celebrity and YouTuber, maintaining a YouTube channel called "Pedrinho EX Matador" ("Ex-Killer Petey") on which he commented on modern crimes while educating the public that criminal acts are not something of which to be proud. In 2023, Rodrigues was killed in a drive-by shooting and stabbing by unidentified assailants.  

Early life.  
Rodrigues was born on a farm in Santa Rita do Sapucaí, south of Minas Gerais. His skull had been bruised as a result of his father kicking his very pregnant mother's belly during a fight. He claimed he felt the urge to kill for the first time at age 13—when in a fight with an older cousin, he was punched in the face. As Pedro laid there on the ground, he looked up at his cousin and said, "I'm going to kill you"; not knowing that he was serious, his cousin laughed it off. Later on, Pedro pushed the young man into a sugar cane press, almost ripping his whole arm off, and pulled a knife on him. When their family heard the cries, they came to the cousin's aid, leading to consequences for Pedro.  

Crime spree.  
At age 14, Rodrigues shot the deputy mayor of Santa Rita do Sapucaí in front of the city hall for having fired his father, a school guard, over accusations of stealing food from the school kitchen, putting him in jail, before shooting the security guard whom he suspected as the actual thief, using his grandfather's shotgun for both. On the run, Rodrigues took refuge in Mogi das Cruzes, Greater São Paulo, where he began robbing drug dens and killing drug traffickers, making him a celebrity in the news media as the vigilante "Pedrinho Matador" (Little Pedro the Killer).  
Rodrigues soon met Maria Aparecida Olympia, nicknamed Botinha, and they began living together. Rodrigues took on the duties of Botinha's deceased husband, a local drug lord. Due to his new place in a local street gang, he was soon "forced" to eliminate some rivals, killing three ex-cronies. Botinha became pregnant with his child but was murdered shortly thereafter by a rival gang leader. Still underage, Rodrigues escaped, going on a revenge-killing spree by tracking down and killing every member of the rival gang.  

Supposed patricide.  
Rodrigues once claimed to have killed his own father inside prison at age 20 by stabbing him twenty two times and chewing a part of his heart, supposedly in retaliation for his father having killed his mother by stabbing her twenty one times: "He stabbed my mother twenty one times, so I stabbed him twenty two", said Rodrigues in an interview to journalist Marcelo Rezende on RecordTV. "People say I ate his heart. No, I simply cut it, because it was revenge, right? I cut and threw it away. I take a piece of it, chewed and threw it away", he explained. He would also have a revolver on his waist, but preferred to use the knife. When asked about how he got the revolver, he said he locked a policeman in a cell and took the gun from him.  
According to criminal biographer and journalist Ullisses Campbell, this is not a true account. Despite having really killed his mother, Rodrigues's father died only years later, in prison, due to respiratory disease.  

First prison sentence and release.  
On 24 May 1973, at the age of 18, Rodrigues was arrested for the first time, and lived in prison most of his adult years. Police records show that he was once transported in a vehicle with another prisoner, both handcuffed. During transport, Rodrigues killed the other inmate without the police noticing. When they opened the car door and saw the other prisoner was dead, Rodrigues said he did it because the man was a rapist. Although he was sentenced to 126 years imprisonment, he was to be released in 2003 because Brazilian law at the time prohibited anyone from spending more than 30 years behind bars. After staying in prison for 34 years, Rodrigues was released on 24 April 2007, and he was reported to have moved to Fortaleza in Ceará.  
Second prison sentence and release.  
On 15 September 2011, Rodrigues was arrested at his rural home in Balneário Camboriú, where he worked as a caretaker. He was sentenced to eight years on charges of riot and deprivation of liberty, committed while he was detained in São Paulo. He was released for good behaviour on 10 December 2018, after seven years.  

YouTube career.  
Following his second release from prison in 2018 and after announcing himself to be retired from his self-declared vigilantism as a youth and officially committed not to commit any more crimes, Rodrigues became a YouTuber, maintaining a YouTube channel called "Pedrinho EX Matador" (literally: "Ex-Killer Petey"), on which he commented on modern crimes, campaigned against gang violence, and attempted to teach the public not to be proud of criminal acts.  

Murder.  
At about 10 a.m. on 5 March 2023 in Mogi das Cruzes, Rodrigues was shot by three unidentified men firing from a black car, after which one of the assailants came over and finished him off with a knife to the throat, in a near decapitation, and Rodrigues was already dead when police arrived. According to a witness, he was on a sidewalk carrying a child on his arms at the moment of the assault, but the child was not harmed, and one of the suspects fled in a second, white car. Police later found and searched the first car but no suspects have been identified or arrested.  

In popular culture.  
Following his initial planned 2003 release, Rodrigues was the principal inspiration for Dexter Morgan, the antihero protagonist of the 2004 Dexter book series written by Jeff Lindsay, as well as its 2006 television series adaptation of the same name by James Manos Jr., in which he is portrayed by Michael C. Hall, who won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series or Drama and Television Critics Association Award for Individual Achievement in Drama and was nominated five times for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his portrayal of the character, before reprising his role as Dexter in the 2021–22 revival series Dexter: New Blood by Clyde Phillips. The success of the novel series and Showtime television franchise additionally led to Rodrigues acquiring the new international media nickname of "The Brazilian Dexter".  
Because of the list of crimes and his behavior in jail, Rodrigues joined the list of killers quoted by writer Ilana Casoy in the book Serial Killers – Made in Brazil. The publication tells stories of murderers like Marcelo Costa de Andrade and Francisco da Costa Rocha. 


Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73198867Mon, 27 Jul 2026 20:02:47 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Pedro Rodrigues Filho.   Pedro Rodrigues Filho (29 October 1954 – 5 March 2023), also known as Pedrinho Matador, Killer Lil' Pedro, Killer Killer Petey, or simply Killer Petey, was a Brazilian serial killer, spree killer, vigilante, and YouTuber known...Pedro Rodrigues Filho (29 October 1954 – 5 March 2023), also known as Pedrinho Matador, Killer Lil' Pedro, Killer Killer Petey, or simply Killer Petey, was a Brazilian serial killer, spree killer, vigilante, and YouTuber known for pursuing and killing other criminals and suspected criminals. He committed most of his crimes as a teenager, when he was between 14 and 19 years old, and was officially sentenced for 71 murders, but claimed to have killed over 100 people, including drug dealers, rapists, and murderers, and served a total of 34 years in prison before his release in 2007. In 2011, Rodrigues was imprisoned again on charges of inciting riot and deprivation of liberty for crimes committed in prison; he was sentenced to eight years in prison, but was released again in 2018 after seven years on good behavior.  
Following Rodrigues' initial planned 2003 release, author Jeff Lindsay began publishing a novel series about a fictional American serial killer of killers, inspired by Rodrigues, named Dexter Morgan. The series' success, along with that of its 2006 television adaptation and 2021 revival, led to widespread retrospective media attention being brought to Rodrigues, with him becoming internationally known alternately both as the "Brazilian Dexter" and the "South American Punisher" (after the Marvel Comics character of the same name).  
After his second release from prison in 2018, Rodrigues declared himself to be reformed from his self-declared vigilantism as a youth and publicly vowed to commit no further crimes, becoming a Brazilian celebrity and YouTuber, maintaining a YouTube channel called "Pedrinho EX Matador" ("Ex-Killer Petey") on which he commented on modern crimes while educating the public that criminal acts are not something of which to be proud. In 2023, Rodrigues was killed in a drive-by shooting and stabbing by unidentified assailants.  

Early life.  
Rodrigues was born on a farm in Santa Rita do Sapucaí, south of Minas Gerais. His skull had been bruised as a result of his father kicking his very pregnant mother's belly during a fight. He claimed he felt the urge to kill for the first time at age 13—when in a fight with an older cousin, he was punched in the face. As Pedro laid there on the ground, he looked up at his cousin and said, "I'm going to kill you"; not knowing that he was serious, his cousin laughed it off. Later on, Pedro pushed the young man into a sugar cane press, almost ripping his whole arm off, and pulled a knife on him. When their family heard the cries, they came to the cousin's aid, leading to consequences for Pedro.  

Crime spree.  
At age 14, Rodrigues shot the deputy mayor of Santa Rita do Sapucaí in front of the city hall for having fired his father, a school guard, over accusations of stealing food from the school kitchen, putting him in jail, before shooting the security guard whom he suspected as the actual thief, using his grandfather's shotgun for both. On the run, Rodrigues took refuge in Mogi das Cruzes, Greater São Paulo, where he began robbing drug dens and killing drug traffickers, making him a celebrity in the news media as the vigilante "Pedrinho Matador" (Little Pedro the Killer).  
Rodrigues soon met Maria Aparecida Olympia, nicknamed Botinha, and they began living together. Rodrigues took on the duties of Botinha's deceased husband, a local drug lord. Due to his new place in a local street gang, he was soon "forced" to eliminate some rivals, killing three ex-cronies. Botinha became pregnant with his child but was murdered shortly thereafter by a rival gang leader. Still underage, Rodrigues escaped, going on a revenge-killing spree by tracking down and killing every member of the rival gang.  

Supposed patricide.  
Rodrigues once claimed to have killed his own father inside prison at age 20 by stabbing him twenty two times and chewing a part of his heart, supposedly in...]]>547falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/106-marc-angelucci--73198634Marc Etienne Angelucci (March 30, 1968 – July 11, 2020) was an American attorney, men's rights activist, and the vice-president of the National Coalition for Men (NCFM). As a lawyer, he represented several cases related to men's rights issues, and the most prominently, National Coalition for Men v. Selective Service System, in which the federal judge declared the male-only selective-service system unconstitutional. He was found murdered at his home on July 11, 2020.  

Biography.  
Marc Angelucci graduated from Eagle Rock High School in Los Angeles in 1986 and UCLA School of Law sometime before 2001.  He stated that he joined the National Coalition for Men while he was in law school after his friend had suffered from domestic violence, but was denied aid or support in 1997. He was admitted to the State Bar of California in 2000. He founded the Los Angeles chapter of the NCFM in 2001.  
A 2001 article in the Los Angeles Times described Angelucci as "a Green Party member with socialist sympathies". He had an autistic brother.  
In 2008, he won the Woods v. Horton case in a California appellate court, which ruled that the California State Legislature had improperly excluded men from domestic violence victim protection programs.  
National Coalition for Men v. Selective Service System.  
In 2013, Angelucci sued the Selective Service System on behalf of the NCFM on the basis that there is no reason to exclude women from the draft. Federal judge Gray H. Miller ruled that the male-only draft is unconstitutional in February 2019, stating that "historical restrictions on women in the military may have justified past discrimination" but that the rationale does not apply anymore as women serve in combat roles as well. In August 2020, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the constitutionality of the male-only draft, invoking stare decisis with respect to the earlier and precedential Supreme Court decision Rostker v. Goldberg.  
Angelucci appeared in the 2016 documentary The Red Pill, which detailed the men's rights movement.  

Assassination.  
Angelucci was fatally shot at his front door in Cedarpines Park, California, on July 11, 2020. A man posing as a deliveryman rang the doorbell and, when someone else from the house opened the door, the assailant claimed to have a package for Angelucci. After Angelucci came to the door to sign for it, he was shot, and the shooter sped away in a car. Angelucci was pronounced dead at the scene after paramedics arrived.  

Investigation.  
The FBI investigated the murder and its possible links to Roy Den Hollander, the suspect in the shooting of district judge Esther Salas' son and husband in New Jersey. In this later attack, eight days after the murder of Angelucci, the murderer had also posed as a package deliveryman. Den Hollander had, according to Harry Crouch, the president of the NCFM, been kicked out of the organization 5–6 years prior because Den Hollander was a "nut job". According to Crouch, Den Hollander had also been removed from the coalition board for threatening Crouch. Den Hollander had a vendetta against Esther Salas because he felt that she had taken too long to rule on his discrimination lawsuit, leading Angelucci to win in a similar case in Texas before Den Hollander's case could be decided, and thus costing Den Hollander a victorious precedent. Den Hollander was later found to have taken his life in his car, where papers mentioning Angelucci were also found. 


Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73198634Mon, 27 Jul 2026 19:42:42 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Marc Angelucci.   Marc Etienne Angelucci (March 30, 1968 – July 11, 2020) was an American attorney, men's rights activist, and the vice-president of the National Coalition for Men (NCFM). As a lawyer, he represented several cases related to men's...Marc Etienne Angelucci (March 30, 1968 – July 11, 2020) was an American attorney, men's rights activist, and the vice-president of the National Coalition for Men (NCFM). As a lawyer, he represented several cases related to men's rights issues, and the most prominently, National Coalition for Men v. Selective Service System, in which the federal judge declared the male-only selective-service system unconstitutional. He was found murdered at his home on July 11, 2020.  

Biography.  
Marc Angelucci graduated from Eagle Rock High School in Los Angeles in 1986 and UCLA School of Law sometime before 2001.  He stated that he joined the National Coalition for Men while he was in law school after his friend had suffered from domestic violence, but was denied aid or support in 1997. He was admitted to the State Bar of California in 2000. He founded the Los Angeles chapter of the NCFM in 2001.  
A 2001 article in the Los Angeles Times described Angelucci as "a Green Party member with socialist sympathies". He had an autistic brother.  
In 2008, he won the Woods v. Horton case in a California appellate court, which ruled that the California State Legislature had improperly excluded men from domestic violence victim protection programs.  
National Coalition for Men v. Selective Service System.  
In 2013, Angelucci sued the Selective Service System on behalf of the NCFM on the basis that there is no reason to exclude women from the draft. Federal judge Gray H. Miller ruled that the male-only draft is unconstitutional in February 2019, stating that "historical restrictions on women in the military may have justified past discrimination" but that the rationale does not apply anymore as women serve in combat roles as well. In August 2020, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the constitutionality of the male-only draft, invoking stare decisis with respect to the earlier and precedential Supreme Court decision Rostker v. Goldberg.  
Angelucci appeared in the 2016 documentary The Red Pill, which detailed the men's rights movement.  

Assassination.  
Angelucci was fatally shot at his front door in Cedarpines Park, California, on July 11, 2020. A man posing as a deliveryman rang the doorbell and, when someone else from the house opened the door, the assailant claimed to have a package for Angelucci. After Angelucci came to the door to sign for it, he was shot, and the shooter sped away in a car. Angelucci was pronounced dead at the scene after paramedics arrived.  

Investigation.  
The FBI investigated the murder and its possible links to Roy Den Hollander, the suspect in the shooting of district judge Esther Salas' son and husband in New Jersey. In this later attack, eight days after the murder of Angelucci, the murderer had also posed as a package deliveryman. Den Hollander had, according to Harry Crouch, the president of the NCFM, been kicked out of the organization 5–6 years prior because Den Hollander was a "nut job". According to Crouch, Den Hollander had also been removed from the coalition board for threatening Crouch. Den Hollander had a vendetta against Esther Salas because he felt that she had taken too long to rule on his discrimination lawsuit, leading Angelucci to win in a similar case in Texas before Den Hollander's case could be decided, and thus costing Den Hollander a victorious precedent. Den Hollander was later found to have taken his life in his car, where papers mentioning Angelucci were also found. 


Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>243falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/105-killing-of-brendin-horner--73198474Brendin 'Choppie' Horner (c. 1999 – 1 October 2020) was a 21-year-old South African farm manager for the Bloukruin Estate at Paul Roux, Free State, who was killed by a suspected stock thief or thieves. His body was recovered at DeRots farm outside Paul Roux, and two suspects were taken into custody. Horner's death heightened tensions in South Africa's ongoing farm attacks situation, and the first appearances of the two suspects at Senekal's Magistrate's Court was accompanied by protest action by political and civil rights groups, as well as far right groups that alleged Horner's murder was an example of so-called “white genocide”.  

Murder.  
Horner was reported missing on 1 October 2020 by his girlfriend. After searching throughout the night he was found after daybreak on the 2nd of October by his father, Robbie, and colleague Jaco Kleingeld. A knife placed on top of Horner's cap led them to his body, which was found some 400 metres from his home on the DeRots farm outside Paul Roux. Horner was found tied to a metal fence post with a girdle and a woven, black rope around his neck. He had stab wounds to his head, face,  shoulder, arm and hands, and appeared to have been tortured and strangled. Horner had injuries to his fists, which suggested that he fought back, and scrape marks on his body which suggested that he was dragged on the ground. The police were then called to the scene. The autopsy indicated strangulation as the cause of death.  
At 19:45 on Thursday evening, when Horner was likely dead, security camera footage spotted his Toyota Hilux pickup truck in Fateng Tse Ntsho township in Paul Roux. The next morning the pickup truck was found 15 km away at Duikfontein farm, along the N5 route to Bethlehem. Blood stains believed to be that of two different men were found in the vehicle. The morning after the murder, witnesses noticed three men with blood-stained clothes arriving from a mountain in the vicinity of the murder scene. On the 3rd of October police arrested two suspects, Sekwetje Isaiah Mahlamba (32) and Sekola Piet Matlaletsa (44) at Fateng tse Ntsho, a township outside Paul Roux. Their clothes and shoes were bloodstained and were sent for forensic tests.  

Court proceedings.  
Judge Deon van Rooyen found that a prima facie case existed against Mahlamba, who was not released on bail. Matlaletsa, who has a long list of previous convictions, was released on bail as the state did not have a strong case against him. He was hardly out of custody however, before he was arrested again on an unrelated stock theft charge. Magistrate Buti Mlangeni denied bail to André Pienaar (51) who allegedly incited unrest when proceedings commenced on 6 October, finding that Pienaar would likely interfere with witnesses and jeopardise the administration of justice. The Free State High Court overturned the ruling however, and set Pienaar's bail at R15,000.  
In November 2021, the court ruled that, allegedly, the DNA samples taken from the murder victim did not match the accused,  and the two were acquitted on the grounds that the evidence could not link them to Horner's murder.  

Reactions.  
Horner's killing was condemned by agricultural groups. The Freedom Front Plus released a statement in which they condemned the killing of Horner. The Democratic Alliance welcomed the arrests of the two suspects. Lobby group AfriForum called farm attacks a "form of terrorism". Horner's killing was also used as propaganda to fuel the White genocide conspiracy theory in regard to South African farm attacks, with attempts by alt right groups to claim the attack was an anti-white hate crime opposed to a non-racial violent crime.  

Protests in Senekal.  
On 6 October 2020, agricultural leaders and community members protested outside the Senekal Magistrate Court, where Mahlamba and Matlaletsa appeared before Magistrate Mlangeni. Unrest broke out when André Pienaar and a group of protesters stormed the court buildings in an attempt to get to Mahlamba and Matlaletsa. A police vehicle was overturned and set on fire, as the protesters forced their way towards the holding cells, which they damaged or tried to set on fire. As the protesters entered the court buildings, two gunshots allegedly went off and stun grenades were fired. Various groups and public figures, including Police Minister Bheki Cele, Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola, Free State Premier Sisi Ntombela and POPCRU condemned the occurrences.  
When the two accused applied for bail on the 16th there were brief clashes between the Economic Freedom Fighters and farmers, when the EFF sang "Kill the boer, kill the farmer" at the court house, but the police separated them. Representatives from various organizations, including Unite Against Farm Murders and Attacks, AfriForum, the ANC Youth League and the Institute of Race Relations had also assembled outside the court.  
Later in October 2020, President Cyril Ramaphosa called the murder "an appalling act of cruelty" but denounced the claim it was an anti-white hate crime, as well as the claim white farmers are being targeted by black people with mention of South Africa's problems with violent crimes and stating, "the majority of victims … are black and poor." In a later statement in November 2020, the President denounced the racial rhetoric and polarization that characterized the protests at Senekal, and subsequently at Brackenfell High School in the Western Cape. 


Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73198474Mon, 27 Jul 2026 19:30:35 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Killing of Brendin Horner.   Brendin 'Choppie' Horner (c. 1999 – 1 October 2020) was a 21-year-old South African farm manager for the Bloukruin Estate at Paul Roux, Free State, who was killed by a suspected stock thief or thieves. His body was...Brendin 'Choppie' Horner (c. 1999 – 1 October 2020) was a 21-year-old South African farm manager for the Bloukruin Estate at Paul Roux, Free State, who was killed by a suspected stock thief or thieves. His body was recovered at DeRots farm outside Paul Roux, and two suspects were taken into custody. Horner's death heightened tensions in South Africa's ongoing farm attacks situation, and the first appearances of the two suspects at Senekal's Magistrate's Court was accompanied by protest action by political and civil rights groups, as well as far right groups that alleged Horner's murder was an example of so-called “white genocide”.  

Murder.  
Horner was reported missing on 1 October 2020 by his girlfriend. After searching throughout the night he was found after daybreak on the 2nd of October by his father, Robbie, and colleague Jaco Kleingeld. A knife placed on top of Horner's cap led them to his body, which was found some 400 metres from his home on the DeRots farm outside Paul Roux. Horner was found tied to a metal fence post with a girdle and a woven, black rope around his neck. He had stab wounds to his head, face,  shoulder, arm and hands, and appeared to have been tortured and strangled. Horner had injuries to his fists, which suggested that he fought back, and scrape marks on his body which suggested that he was dragged on the ground. The police were then called to the scene. The autopsy indicated strangulation as the cause of death.  
At 19:45 on Thursday evening, when Horner was likely dead, security camera footage spotted his Toyota Hilux pickup truck in Fateng Tse Ntsho township in Paul Roux. The next morning the pickup truck was found 15 km away at Duikfontein farm, along the N5 route to Bethlehem. Blood stains believed to be that of two different men were found in the vehicle. The morning after the murder, witnesses noticed three men with blood-stained clothes arriving from a mountain in the vicinity of the murder scene. On the 3rd of October police arrested two suspects, Sekwetje Isaiah Mahlamba (32) and Sekola Piet Matlaletsa (44) at Fateng tse Ntsho, a township outside Paul Roux. Their clothes and shoes were bloodstained and were sent for forensic tests.  

Court proceedings.  
Judge Deon van Rooyen found that a prima facie case existed against Mahlamba, who was not released on bail. Matlaletsa, who has a long list of previous convictions, was released on bail as the state did not have a strong case against him. He was hardly out of custody however, before he was arrested again on an unrelated stock theft charge. Magistrate Buti Mlangeni denied bail to André Pienaar (51) who allegedly incited unrest when proceedings commenced on 6 October, finding that Pienaar would likely interfere with witnesses and jeopardise the administration of justice. The Free State High Court overturned the ruling however, and set Pienaar's bail at R15,000.  
In November 2021, the court ruled that, allegedly, the DNA samples taken from the murder victim did not match the accused,  and the two were acquitted on the grounds that the evidence could not link them to Horner's murder.  

Reactions.  
Horner's killing was condemned by agricultural groups. The Freedom Front Plus released a statement in which they condemned the killing of Horner. The Democratic Alliance welcomed the arrests of the two suspects. Lobby group AfriForum called farm attacks a "form of terrorism". Horner's killing was also used as propaganda to fuel the White genocide conspiracy theory in regard to South African farm attacks, with attempts by alt right groups to claim the attack was an anti-white hate crime opposed to a non-racial violent crime.  

Protests in Senekal.  
On 6 October 2020, agricultural leaders and community members protested outside the Senekal Magistrate Court, where Mahlamba and Matlaletsa appeared before Magistrate Mlangeni. Unrest broke...]]>366falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/104-killing-of-shanquella-robinson--73195054Shanquella Brenada Robinson (January 9, 1997 – October 29, 2022) was an American businesswoman, founder of a women's fashion clothing line, hairstylist, and social media personality from North Carolina, United States, who was murdered while on vacation in Mexico.  
She died on October 29, 2022, shortly after travelling with a friend and a group of loose acquaintances to the Mexican resort town of Cabo San Lucas.  
There was considerable public interest and intrigue surrounding the cause of her death. In addition, substantial collaborative efforts of citizen journalism and amateur news bloggers played an important role in bringing attention to Robinson's death, to the point of Mexican authorities facing enhanced scrutiny, particularly because the municipal Police Department initially treated the death as a case of conventional tourist alcohol intoxication.  
A video subsequently emerged depicting Shanquella being assaulted in a rental villa before her death.  
The events surrounding her death, along with the medical care provided, the police report, and forensic investigations into the cause, have resulted in a prominent, ongoing transnational criminal inquiry involving both the United States and Mexico.  

Background.  
Shanquella graduated from Winston-Salem State University, a historically black college. In her hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina, she operated multiple boutique beauty and children's hair-braiding businesses under the brands 'Exquisite Kids' and 'Exquisite Boutique'.  
On October 28, 2022, Shanquella embarked on a brief vacation to Mexico accompanied by a friend and five other travelers, consisting of three women and three men. Among them were Khalil Cooke, Malik St Patrick Dyer, Wenter Essence Donovan, Alysse Michelle Hyatt, Daejhanae Jackson (now E’mani Green), and Nazeer Wiggins, collectively referred to as the 'Cabo Six'.  
The group arrived at a luxury rental apartment located in the Puerto Los Cabos resort, situated in the resort town of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  

Death.  
On October 29, 2022, shortly after the group's arrival, at approximately 2:13 pm, a physician from the American Medical Centre in Cabo San Lucas was called to attend to a resort resident who was experiencing health issues.  
Approximately at the same time, Salamondra Robinson, Shanquella's mother, received a call from one of her daughter's travel companions informing her that Shanquella had fallen ill and that a doctor was en route to assist her.  
Dr. Karolina Beatriz Ornelas-Gutiérrez from the American Medical Centre arrived within an hour and found "a female in stable condition, but dehydrated, disorientated, verbally unresponsive, unable to communicate, and appearing to be intoxicated".  
The explanation given to the doctor was that Robinson "drank a lot of alcohol". The doctor recommended that Robinson be admitted into the hospital, but her travel companions insisted she be treated in the apartment room.  
During medical treatment, the doctor attempted to administer an IV-drip. However, Robinson's condition worsened when she suffered a tonic–clonic seizure (a stiffening of the body, arms, and legs) around 4:13 pm, about one hour after the doctor's arrival. An ambulance was called around 4:20 pm after Robinson began having trouble breathing, with her pulse dropping as well. Robinson then suffered a cardiac arrest.  
Ambulant paramedics called to the scene around 4:49 pm tried to resuscitate Robinson, administering fourteen CPR rounds of cardiac-vascular compressions and intrathoracic pressure to her chest, in an attempt to (re)establish venous blood-oxygen saturation and blood flow, as well as injecting five doses of adrenaline and six electrical discharges from a defibrillator. However, they were unable to revive any return of heartbeat, pulse, blood flow, pupillary reflexes, or other human vital signs.  
Shanquella Robinson was declared clinically dead at 5:57 pm, according to the police report.  

Police report.  
Police officers "Omar" and "David" of the Los Cabos Municipal Police Department were the first responding officers at the scene around 5:25 pm. They were briefed by Dr. Ornelas-Gutiérrez, who informed the officers that medical treatment was requested for a young lady who had ingested "too much alcohol". She briefed the officers that she had found a female in stable but unresponsive condition, and that she had planned to admit her to hospital, but her travel companions objected, claiming they instead requested that the young lady be treated in the hotel room. Paramedics arrived and her condition worsened.  
After Robinson was declared dead, the investigating police officers notified the General Prosecutor's Office (attorney general) in the state of Baja California Sur, reaching the state's attorney, Julio Daniel, around 6:35 pm and informing him of the death of a foreign citizen. They were instructed to file reports and investigation forms before handing the case to ministerial police.  
Based on eyewitness accounts and consultation with Dr. Ornelas-Gutiérrez, the police report concluded that a "person had died of alcohol poisoning, and that she died two hours and 45 minutes after the doctor was called to the residence. There was no observation of internal or external injuries in the police report.  
Based on this police report and the investigations of the Mexican authorities, the US State Department initially released a statement reporting that "Mexican authorities claimed there was no clear evidence Robinson was murdered".  

Coroner's report.  
On November 5, a notarized English translation of Robinson's death certificate, based on an autopsy report from forensic doctor Rene A. Galvan-Oseguera from the Secretariat Of Health, Baja California Sur, dated November 4, 2022, was released. The autopsy report described Robinson's death had occurred 15 minutes after suffering a severe spinal cord injury. and an atlas luxation, which is a dislocation or separation at the skull base from the atlas bone, (which is the first bone of the neck and spinal column).  
The forensic doctor made the following forensic observations in the official autopsy report:  
Date and time of death: October 29, 2022 – 15:00 pm.  
Cause of death: Severe Spinal Cord Injury and Atlas Luxation.  
Approximate time between injury and death: 15 minutes.  
Situation, circumstance or reason in which the injury occurred: Person found unconscious in her living room.  
Was it accidental or violent death? Yes.  
The autopsy report mentioned neither cardiac arrest nor alcohol poisoning.  

Investigation.  
U.S. Department of State.  
On November 16, the U.S. Department of State responded that they were aware of the incident, releasing the following statement:  
"We are aware of these reports. Protecting the welfare of U.S. citizens overseas is among our top priorities. Out of respect for the privacy of those involved, we have no further comment at this time." 

Family's doubts of conflicting accounts.  
As Salamondra Robinson, Shanquella's mother, disclosed during an ABC News Good Morning America interview, her family became suspicious of the claims of her daughter's travel companions after each one of them had different and inconsistent stories.  
Some of her travel companions claimed a maid had found her unconscious. Some also reported that they had called a doctor. And some said the concierge called the doctor. They at first claimed Shanquella had died of alcohol poisoning and a few days later admitted that "there had been a fight and that she was fighting and she had also been jumped."  
Regarding the location where Robinson was found unconscious, her travel associates raised further confusion and skepticism when one told her mother they found Shanquella unconscious on the floor. Yet another person claimed they found her in a bed, and another travel companion told her father, Bernard Robinson, that they had found her in a chair.  
Shanquella's mother told CBS News during an interview that her daughter's loose acquaintances initially suggested her daughter had fallen ill from alcohol poisoning, which surprised her. She was also told that a doctor was just on the way to their apartment. She insisted that her daughter be taken to an emergency room, but her daughter's travel companions lied to her, claiming her daughter's travel insurance was of no use in Mexico and that the emergency room required $5,000 in cash for her daughter to be seen.  
She recalled how further doubts began to surface, when the autopsy report emerged, showing the cause of death a broken neck, instead of alcohol poisoning. During an interview with Queen City News, Ms. Robinson also said her daughter's body showed obvious signs of trauma (a contusion and swelling of her head, a bruised face, swollen eye, and a busted lip). Her body was sent back to the United States on November 12. Shanquella Robinson's funeral took place on November 19 which was held at the Macedonia Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.  
For more than two weeks, the family attempted to convince authorities in the United States and Mexico that their daughter's death was suspicious and needed further investigation.  
In a statement by Robinson's family published to GoFundMe (a crowdfunding page raising funds for the family's legal fees), Robinson's sister, Quilla Long, announced the family will continue to investigate what happened. "The United States State Department released a statement claiming 'no clear evidence of foul play,' yet there is a video circulating of a woman violently attacking Shanquella," Long said. "This statement is unacceptable, and we are beyond devastated. We continue to fight for the truth."....  

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73195054Mon, 27 Jul 2026 15:59:15 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Killing of Shanquella Robinson.   Shanquella Brenada Robinson (January 9, 1997 – October 29, 2022) was an American businesswoman, founder of a women's fashion clothing line, hairstylist, and social media personality from North Carolina, United States,...Shanquella Brenada Robinson (January 9, 1997 – October 29, 2022) was an American businesswoman, founder of a women's fashion clothing line, hairstylist, and social media personality from North Carolina, United States, who was murdered while on vacation in Mexico.  
She died on October 29, 2022, shortly after travelling with a friend and a group of loose acquaintances to the Mexican resort town of Cabo San Lucas.  
There was considerable public interest and intrigue surrounding the cause of her death. In addition, substantial collaborative efforts of citizen journalism and amateur news bloggers played an important role in bringing attention to Robinson's death, to the point of Mexican authorities facing enhanced scrutiny, particularly because the municipal Police Department initially treated the death as a case of conventional tourist alcohol intoxication.  
A video subsequently emerged depicting Shanquella being assaulted in a rental villa before her death.  
The events surrounding her death, along with the medical care provided, the police report, and forensic investigations into the cause, have resulted in a prominent, ongoing transnational criminal inquiry involving both the United States and Mexico.  

Background.  
Shanquella graduated from Winston-Salem State University, a historically black college. In her hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina, she operated multiple boutique beauty and children's hair-braiding businesses under the brands 'Exquisite Kids' and 'Exquisite Boutique'.  
On October 28, 2022, Shanquella embarked on a brief vacation to Mexico accompanied by a friend and five other travelers, consisting of three women and three men. Among them were Khalil Cooke, Malik St Patrick Dyer, Wenter Essence Donovan, Alysse Michelle Hyatt, Daejhanae Jackson (now E’mani Green), and Nazeer Wiggins, collectively referred to as the 'Cabo Six'.  
The group arrived at a luxury rental apartment located in the Puerto Los Cabos resort, situated in the resort town of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  

Death.  
On October 29, 2022, shortly after the group's arrival, at approximately 2:13 pm, a physician from the American Medical Centre in Cabo San Lucas was called to attend to a resort resident who was experiencing health issues.  
Approximately at the same time, Salamondra Robinson, Shanquella's mother, received a call from one of her daughter's travel companions informing her that Shanquella had fallen ill and that a doctor was en route to assist her.  
Dr. Karolina Beatriz Ornelas-Gutiérrez from the American Medical Centre arrived within an hour and found "a female in stable condition, but dehydrated, disorientated, verbally unresponsive, unable to communicate, and appearing to be intoxicated".  
The explanation given to the doctor was that Robinson "drank a lot of alcohol". The doctor recommended that Robinson be admitted into the hospital, but her travel companions insisted she be treated in the apartment room.  
During medical treatment, the doctor attempted to administer an IV-drip. However, Robinson's condition worsened when she suffered a tonic–clonic seizure (a stiffening of the body, arms, and legs) around 4:13 pm, about one hour after the doctor's arrival. An ambulance was called around 4:20 pm after Robinson began having trouble breathing, with her pulse dropping as well. Robinson then suffered a cardiac arrest.  
Ambulant paramedics called to the scene around 4:49 pm tried to resuscitate Robinson, administering fourteen CPR rounds of cardiac-vascular compressions and intrathoracic pressure to her chest, in an attempt to (re)establish venous blood-oxygen saturation and blood flow, as well as injecting five doses of adrenaline and six electrical discharges from a defibrillator. However, they were unable to revive any return of heartbeat, pulse, blood flow, pupillary reflexes, or other human vital...]]>1032falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/103-murder-of-michalis-katsouris--73194416Michalis Katsouris (1994 – 7 August 2023) was murdered during hooligan riots between a joint coalition of Bad Blue Boys of Dinamo Zagreb and Gate 13 of Panathinaikos who engaged in conflict with AEK Athens supporters.  

Background.  
The murder occurred during riots in which a group of Dinamo Zagreb's supporters, Bad Blue Boys, arrived to Nea Filadelphia, Greece, in spite of UEFA's ban and attacked AEK Athens fans with the help of local Gate 13 supporters with whom they share friendly relations. Bad Blue Boys managed to enter Greece despite warnings sent to the Greek authorities by the Croatian, Montenegrin and Albanian police. Once in Athens, some 150 Bad Blue Boys met with Gate 13 supporters and proceeded to AEK Athens stadium where the clash with AEK supporters took place. The Greek police chased down the hooligans suspected for participating in the riots and eventually managed to arrest 105 individuals, most of whom were Croatian nationals. Due to the events which unfolded, the planned third qualifying round match of UEFA Champions League between Dinamo Zagreb and AEK Athens was postponed.  

Investigation.  
The Greek police eventually established 5 individuals whom they considered the main suspects for the murder. Out of these, there was one Croatian, one Albanian and three Greeks citizens. According to the Greek news site Newsita, knives were found with suspected Croat and Albanian citizen. On 11 August, the first group of detainees was brought before a local judge, and the court hearings continued throughout the weekend. All of the detainees were kept in custody and by Sunday, 13 August were distributed throughout sixteen different prisons in Greece. The treatment of detainees by the Greek state was criticized by the human rights activist Žarko Puhovski who claimed their human rights were brought into question. The case has attracted criticism from Dinamo Zagreb supporters and Croatians alike as Bad Blue Boys are known for not carrying knives.  Additionally, Greek journalist Yannis Kemmos published the photos of a colleague which showed Athens city employees power washing the crime scene before the police were called in to do their investigation and forensic analysis. According to the Croatian news site Gol.hr, referring to the information published by Greek site News 24/7, some 24 hours after the hooligan clash, Greek police received a tip about a weapons stash hidden near AEK stadium. The police soon confiscated these objects which included various clubs. On 14 August, a video was published showing CCTV footage of the clash. The footage shows a moment when Katsouris was hit by an unknown hooligan in his right arm, using a club-like object. On the same day, Croatian weekly Nacional referring to the Greek police report, wrote that the clash between two parties was arranged in advance.  According to the same report, Bad Blue Boys were led by their two senior leaders who managed to escape, leaving younger group members on their own. Panathinaikos fans, deceptively, theorized that the death of Michalis was from an accidental stabbing by a fellow AEK fan a few days following the event, since Michalis was wearing a blue T-shirt (color of Dinamo Zagreb). On 20 October, an 81 page document showing exactly where Michalis was attacked was published. On 22 December, all arrested suspects were let free. Croatian media reported that one of the bbb hooligans, who is also the son of a Dinamo Zagreb board member, was smuggled out of Athens by joining Dinamo's flight back to Zagreb.  

Reactions.  
Upon learning about what happened to her son, mother of Michalis Katsouris suffered a heart attack. Seven high ranking officials of Greek police were subsequently sacked for failing to act. Greek minister Ioannis Oikonomou stated that "although police quickly apprehended the hooligans, they failed to prevent the attack and proved that they are not capable for challenges such as this". Greek police syndicate representative further criticized the police action and claimed that police services had attackers licence plates and were tipped about their arrival, but some people did not even open the documents delivered to them.  
One day after the event, on 8 August, AEK Athens issued a press release in which they claimed that their fan was killed by “professional killers, organised criminals who crossed the country and arrived in New Philadelphia from Zagreb to join forces here with Greek criminal accomplices with the sole purpose of killing”. Dinamo Zagreb also "condemned the incident and expressed their condolences to the family of a fan who lost his life". They also wrote that: “Such events are not in line with the values and ethics we promote as a club and community”. Next day, AEK asked UEFA to kick Dinamo Zagreb out of the competition by saying: "How is it possible that after barbaric murder of Michalis Katsuris done by a band of Criminals from Croatia, we can go on the field and play against this particular team?" They went on by claiming: "those who came here to kill", make integral part of the organization against which AEK Athens needs to play. In response, Dinamo Zagreb issued their own press release in which they described AEK's demand as inappropriate, claiming that "AEK rises the tensions by using inappropriate, aggressive and mongering language with goal of pressuring UEFA." They further wrote that: "[AEK is trying] to use a human tragedy [...] for its own promotion which shows lack of elementary decency, piety and empathy towards the victim." On 11 August, UEFA announced that their president Aleksandar Čeferin will visit Athens in order to consult with Greek prime minister and representatives of AEK, Olympiakos, PAOK and Panathinaikos. During his visit to Athens, Čeferin described hooligans as "cancer of the football".  
On 9 August, both the mayor of Athens, Kostas Bakoyannis, and his Zagreb counterpart, Tomislav Tomašević, issued a joint statement in which they said that they "strongly condemn this terrible crime which culminated in a loss of young life and a sad episode of hooliganism which compromised lives of innocent citizens and kids." They concluded that: "violence has no nationality" and "its only homeland is hate".  
On 14 August, Dinamo Zagreb manager, Igor Bišćan, expressed his condolences to the family of deceased fan.  

Ramifications.  
One day after the murder, on 8 August, Greek journalist Giorgos Mazias issued a warning to Croatian tourists in Greece. He said that media, social networks and public are about to create the climate of intolerance towards Dinamo, their fans and Croatians in general. He therefore called all Croatians in Greece to camouflage themselves and not reveal their origin. On the same day Nova TV's news team in Athens got attacked by angry locals. Upon realising that the reporters were Croatian, locals surrounded them and demanded them to hand over their camera, eventually taking only their memory card. On 11 August, Croatian actor Rene Bitorajac published on Instagram that Greek news wrongly portrayed him as a football hooligan by showing scenes from Croatian feature film Metastases in their news. Few days later, Bitorajac published vulgar threats he started to receive from angry Greeks as a result.  


Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73194416Mon, 27 Jul 2026 15:22:07 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murder of Michalis Katsouris.   Michalis Katsouris (1994 – 7 August 2023) was murdered during hooligan riots between a joint coalition of Bad Blue Boys of Dinamo Zagreb and Gate 13 of Panathinaikos who engaged in conflict with AEK Athens supporters.  ...Michalis Katsouris (1994 – 7 August 2023) was murdered during hooligan riots between a joint coalition of Bad Blue Boys of Dinamo Zagreb and Gate 13 of Panathinaikos who engaged in conflict with AEK Athens supporters.  

Background.  
The murder occurred during riots in which a group of Dinamo Zagreb's supporters, Bad Blue Boys, arrived to Nea Filadelphia, Greece, in spite of UEFA's ban and attacked AEK Athens fans with the help of local Gate 13 supporters with whom they share friendly relations. Bad Blue Boys managed to enter Greece despite warnings sent to the Greek authorities by the Croatian, Montenegrin and Albanian police. Once in Athens, some 150 Bad Blue Boys met with Gate 13 supporters and proceeded to AEK Athens stadium where the clash with AEK supporters took place. The Greek police chased down the hooligans suspected for participating in the riots and eventually managed to arrest 105 individuals, most of whom were Croatian nationals. Due to the events which unfolded, the planned third qualifying round match of UEFA Champions League between Dinamo Zagreb and AEK Athens was postponed.  

Investigation.  
The Greek police eventually established 5 individuals whom they considered the main suspects for the murder. Out of these, there was one Croatian, one Albanian and three Greeks citizens. According to the Greek news site Newsita, knives were found with suspected Croat and Albanian citizen. On 11 August, the first group of detainees was brought before a local judge, and the court hearings continued throughout the weekend. All of the detainees were kept in custody and by Sunday, 13 August were distributed throughout sixteen different prisons in Greece. The treatment of detainees by the Greek state was criticized by the human rights activist Žarko Puhovski who claimed their human rights were brought into question. The case has attracted criticism from Dinamo Zagreb supporters and Croatians alike as Bad Blue Boys are known for not carrying knives.  Additionally, Greek journalist Yannis Kemmos published the photos of a colleague which showed Athens city employees power washing the crime scene before the police were called in to do their investigation and forensic analysis. According to the Croatian news site Gol.hr, referring to the information published by Greek site News 24/7, some 24 hours after the hooligan clash, Greek police received a tip about a weapons stash hidden near AEK stadium. The police soon confiscated these objects which included various clubs. On 14 August, a video was published showing CCTV footage of the clash. The footage shows a moment when Katsouris was hit by an unknown hooligan in his right arm, using a club-like object. On the same day, Croatian weekly Nacional referring to the Greek police report, wrote that the clash between two parties was arranged in advance.  According to the same report, Bad Blue Boys were led by their two senior leaders who managed to escape, leaving younger group members on their own. Panathinaikos fans, deceptively, theorized that the death of Michalis was from an accidental stabbing by a fellow AEK fan a few days following the event, since Michalis was wearing a blue T-shirt (color of Dinamo Zagreb). On 20 October, an 81 page document showing exactly where Michalis was attacked was published. On 22 December, all arrested suspects were let free. Croatian media reported that one of the bbb hooligans, who is also the son of a Dinamo Zagreb board member, was smuggled out of Athens by joining Dinamo's flight back to Zagreb.  

Reactions.  
Upon learning about what happened to her son, mother of Michalis Katsouris suffered a heart attack. Seven high ranking officials of Greek police were subsequently sacked for failing to act. Greek minister Ioannis Oikonomou stated that "although police quickly apprehended the hooligans, they failed to prevent the attack and proved that they are not capable...]]>483falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/102-darya-aleksandrovna-dugina--73192997Darya Aleksandrovna Dugina (15 December 1992 – 20 August 2022), also known under the pen name Daria Platonova, was a Russian journalist, political scientist, and activist. She was the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, a far-right political philosopher, whose political views and support for Vladimir Putin she shared.  
She was killed in August 2022 in a car bombing on the outskirts of Moscow. Later, Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), indirectly confirmed Ukraine's involvement in the assassination.  

Early life and education.  
Darya Dugina was born on 15 December 1992 in Moscow, Russia. She was the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin and his second wife, philosopher Natalya Melentyeva. In 2012/2013, while studying at Moscow State University, she was an intern at Bordeaux Montaigne University, specializing in Ancient Greek philosophy. Her MSU degree "focused on the political philosophy of late Neo-Platonism". She was in a PhD program, but she left the university before completing her degree.  

Career and activism.  
After university, she worked as a journalist, writing for the state-controlled media outlet RT and the pro-Kremlin conservative channel Tsargrad, using the pen name Daria Platonova. She was affiliated with the International Eurasian Movement, and worked for them as a political commentator.  
According to the United States Department of the Treasury, which added her to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List on 3 March 2022, she was the chief editor of a disinformation website called United World International which states it was owned by Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, who also controlled the state-backed Wagner Group. At the same time, she served as a press secretary of her father.  

Russian invasion of Ukraine.  
Dugina was an outspoken supporter of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In particular, she claimed that the war crimes against Ukrainian civilians by the Russian army during the invasion were staged. She mentioned that the war in Ukraine "serves to break the bridges of interaction between Russia and Europe, a struggle between two worldviews." In June 2022, she visited occupied Donetsk and Mariupol.  
Dugina visited the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, where she collaborated with British journalist Graham Phillips, who also worked for Russian state media. On 4 July 2022, she was sanctioned by the British government, which accused her of being a "frequent and high-profile contributor of disinformation in relation to Ukraine and the Russian invasion of Ukraine on various online platforms." She responded by saying that she is an ordinary journalist and should not have been sanctioned.  

Killing.  
Dugina was killed on 20 August 2022, when her car exploded on Mozhayskoye Highway in the settlement of Bolshiye Vyazyomy outside Moscow around 21:45 local time. She was driving to Moscow after attending the annual festival "Tradition," which describes itself as a family festival for art lovers.  
The "Tradition" festival is held at the Zakharovo estate, approximately one kilometre (1⁄2 mi) north of Bolshiye Vyazyomy. Investigators said an explosive device was attached to the underside of the car. It is unclear whether she was targeted deliberately, or whether her father, who had been expected to travel with her but switched to another car at the last minute, was the intended target, or whether the intention might have been to kill both.  

Investigation.  
On 22 August, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed that Ukrainian special services were behind the killing, alleging that their primary suspect was Natalia Vovk, a middle-aged female Ukrainian national who escaped to Estonia after the explosion. The suspect's relatives said that she was a former clerk in the National Guard of Ukraine. According to the FSB, after arriving with her daughter in Russia the previous month the Ukrainian rented an apartment in the building where Dugina lived, and she was at the festival which Dugina attended before being killed. The FSB also released surveillance footage from cameras at the entrance of the apartment building and at the border crossing points, purportedly showing the suspect, and said that she drove a Mini Cooper. The FSB allege she used a license plate from the Donetsk People's Republic, then switched to a plate from Kazakhstan and then used a plate from Ukraine to cross the border to Estonia.  
Interfax later reported that the FSB named an accomplice, a middle-aged male Ukrainian national, as providing logistical assistance to the primary assassin. Specifically, the FSB alleged that the accomplice provided the primary suspect with their false license plates and a Kazakhstani passport, and assisted in bomb assembly while in Russia. The FSB further alleged that the accomplice had also escaped to Estonia. The name of the alleged accomplice was released by FSB on 29 August 2022.  
The later Interfax report elaborated the FSB assertion, that the primary assassin tailed Dugina in the parking lot for guests at the "Tradition," followed Dugina's Land Cruiser in her own Mini Cooper, and detonated the bomb via remote control. It has been impossible to independently verify any of the claims made by the FSB, as Russia has partially criminalized disagreement with the official narrative of the killing and the war in Ukraine in general, and has made independent verification more difficult.  
On 23 October 2023, The Washington Post reported that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had carried out dozens of assassinations in Russia since the invasion began, including the bomb attack that killed Darya Dugina, which Ukraine had previously denied. Ukrainian Natalia Vovk, whose name appeared in the reports of Russian law enforcement officers, imported components of an explosive device into Russia in a cat carrier. The CIA did not comment on the article. The head of the SBU, Vasyl Malyuk, said that all the objectives of his department's operations were completely legitimate.  

Unofficial versions.  
Claim of responsibility from National Republican Army.  
Ilya Ponomarev, a former member of Russia's State Duma living in exile in Ukraine, said that a Russian partisan group was responsible for the attack, and that the hitherto unknown group calls itself the National Republican Army (NRA).  

Ponomarev's statements about NRA involvement.  
Ponomarev said the NRA is an underground group working inside Russia, dedicated to removing Putin from power. He later said it is a "network" of clandestine cells. Ponomarev told the Kyiv Post the group previously carried out anonymous arson attacks on military induction centers, then shifted to targeting Dugin and Dugina as "something high-profile for which they could become well known." He said that a contact in the group told him a week before the assassination to expect "something big," followed by instructions on the day of the event to "watch the news." Following news coverage of the assassination, Ponomarev said that he was provided evidence of the group's responsibility.  
Ponomarev added that his sources believed two persons (i.e., both Dugin and Dugina) were in the targeted car. From Ponomarev's statement, it is unclear whether she was targeted deliberately, or whether her father was the intended target, or whether the intention might have been to kill both. Ponomarev gave a similar account to Radio NV (Ukrainia), adding that his contacts "sent certain photos to prove their involvement."  
Along with the claim of responsibility for the assassination, Ponomarev aired the organization's manifesto on his media outlet "February Morning" and hailed it as "a new page in Russian resistance to Putinism. New—but not the last." Later confronted with the news of the FSB's accusation of Ukrainian involvement, Ilya Ponomarev told the Meduza news outlet that his purported sources in the National Republican Army deny the claimed Ukrainian being the perpetrator while leaving ambiguous whether she may have had a role. In both Meduza and a message to his Telegram channel "Rospartisan", Ponomarev appeared to take credit for her exfiltration from Russia at the request of unnamed "friends". Following his announcement of support for the assassination and the NRA, Ponomarev said that he was disinvited from a planned meeting of Russian dissidents.  

Scepticism about NRA involvement.  
As of 21 August 2022, Associated Press and The Guardian articles concerning the death of Dugina and its aftermath state that the claim of a National Republican Army responsibility cannot be confirmed. A 22 August 2022 report from Reuters says that "Ponomarev's assertion and the group's existence could not be independently verified."  
In an interview with Ponomarev for Meduza, both the interviewer Svetlana Reiter and the editor note skepticism about his claims about the Russian NRA, his accommodations of Putin in his Duma career, and the source of his wealth. Separately, Meduza managing editor Kevin Rothrock questioned Ponomarev's integrity, the existence of the NRA, and implied that both Dugin and Dugina were civilians who should not have been targeted. Citing the livestream of Yulia Latynina, Cathy Young discussed the possibility that Ponomarev is a "a grifter trying to sell a good story", but said that the NRA manifesto's appeal to patriotism is not suggestive of black propaganda.  
Sergey S. Radchenko, a professor at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told Deutsche Welle he found the claim of responsibility and manifesto to both be "dodgy." Deutsche Welle's reporter in Kyiv Roman Goncharenko said, "there are more questions than answers" about the group, and noted that the group's purported.....

Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73192997Mon, 27 Jul 2026 14:03:53 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Darya Dugina.   Darya Aleksandrovna Dugina (15 December 1992 – 20 August 2022), also known under the pen name Daria Platonova, was a Russian journalist, political scientist, and activist. She was the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, a far-right political...Darya Aleksandrovna Dugina (15 December 1992 – 20 August 2022), also known under the pen name Daria Platonova, was a Russian journalist, political scientist, and activist. She was the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, a far-right political philosopher, whose political views and support for Vladimir Putin she shared.  
She was killed in August 2022 in a car bombing on the outskirts of Moscow. Later, Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), indirectly confirmed Ukraine's involvement in the assassination.  

Early life and education.  
Darya Dugina was born on 15 December 1992 in Moscow, Russia. She was the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin and his second wife, philosopher Natalya Melentyeva. In 2012/2013, while studying at Moscow State University, she was an intern at Bordeaux Montaigne University, specializing in Ancient Greek philosophy. Her MSU degree "focused on the political philosophy of late Neo-Platonism". She was in a PhD program, but she left the university before completing her degree.  

Career and activism.  
After university, she worked as a journalist, writing for the state-controlled media outlet RT and the pro-Kremlin conservative channel Tsargrad, using the pen name Daria Platonova. She was affiliated with the International Eurasian Movement, and worked for them as a political commentator.  
According to the United States Department of the Treasury, which added her to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List on 3 March 2022, she was the chief editor of a disinformation website called United World International which states it was owned by Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, who also controlled the state-backed Wagner Group. At the same time, she served as a press secretary of her father.  

Russian invasion of Ukraine.  
Dugina was an outspoken supporter of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In particular, she claimed that the war crimes against Ukrainian civilians by the Russian army during the invasion were staged. She mentioned that the war in Ukraine "serves to break the bridges of interaction between Russia and Europe, a struggle between two worldviews." In June 2022, she visited occupied Donetsk and Mariupol.  
Dugina visited the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, where she collaborated with British journalist Graham Phillips, who also worked for Russian state media. On 4 July 2022, she was sanctioned by the British government, which accused her of being a "frequent and high-profile contributor of disinformation in relation to Ukraine and the Russian invasion of Ukraine on various online platforms." She responded by saying that she is an ordinary journalist and should not have been sanctioned.  

Killing.  
Dugina was killed on 20 August 2022, when her car exploded on Mozhayskoye Highway in the settlement of Bolshiye Vyazyomy outside Moscow around 21:45 local time. She was driving to Moscow after attending the annual festival "Tradition," which describes itself as a family festival for art lovers.  
The "Tradition" festival is held at the Zakharovo estate, approximately one kilometre (1⁄2 mi) north of Bolshiye Vyazyomy. Investigators said an explosive device was attached to the underside of the car. It is unclear whether she was targeted deliberately, or whether her father, who had been expected to travel with her but switched to another car at the last minute, was the intended target, or whether the intention might have been to kill both.  

Investigation.  
On 22 August, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed that Ukrainian special services were behind the killing, alleging that their primary suspect was Natalia Vovk, a middle-aged female Ukrainian national who escaped to Estonia after the explosion. The suspect's relatives said that she was a former clerk in the National Guard of Ukraine. According to the FSB, after arriving with her daughter in Russia the...]]>1159falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/101-john-p-wheeler-iii--73180603John Parsons Wheeler III (December 14, 1944 – c. December 30, 2010), known as Jack Wheeler, was an American veteran, businessman, and activist, who held multiple positions in the U.S. government for five decades and helped create the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He was murdered by an unknown person in or around Wilmington, Delaware in 2010.  
In the 1960s, Wheeler served in a non-combat position in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and worked for the Pentagon as a staffer and systems analyst. In the 1970s, he was a senior planner for Amtrak, an official of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. In the 1980s, he was the CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and an aide to the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations. In the 1990s, he was an activist for the deaf and for environmental concerns, and in the 2000s, he was an aide to the George W. Bush administration and consultant to the Mitre Corporation.  
Wheeler had homes in New Castle, Delaware, and New York City. On December 28, 2010, a man matching his description threw smoke bombs into a house neighboring Wheeler's in New Castle. Wheeler was last seen alive in Wilmington on December 30; he was acting unusually, though this may have resulted from his bipolar disorder. On the 31st, his corpse was found while being dumped from a garbage truck into a nearby landfill. The truck had received its contents from a commercial trash bin in Newark, Delaware, earlier that day. Police labeled the death a homicide, but it is unknown whether it was politically motivated.  

Early life.  
Wheeler was descended from a family of military professionals including Joseph Wheeler, who had served as a general both in the Confederate Army, and later with the United States Army. Wheeler III was born in Laredo, Texas, where his mother, Janet Conly Wheeler, was staying with her mother while his father was in Europe. Five days after his birth, the family received a telegram that his father was missing in action in the Battle of the Bulge. His father was later found to be alive. Wheeler had one younger brother, Robert Conly Wheeler, and one younger sister, Janet Wheeler Gilani.  

Military career.  
Wheeler was a member of the United States Military Academy (West Point) class of 1966 which lost 30 of its members in the Vietnam War.  
After graduation from West Point, he was a fire control platoon leader at a MIM-14 Nike-Hercules base at Franklin Lakes, New Jersey from 1966 to 1967. From 1967 to 1969, he was a graduate student at Harvard Business School spending the summer of 1968 as a systems analyst for the Office of Secretary of Defense in Washington, D.C. From 1969 to 1970, he served in a non-combat position at Long Binh in Vietnam. From 1970 to 1971, he served on the General Staff at the Pentagon.  
Wheeler's West Point and later years are featured prominently in Rick Atkinson's book, The Long Gray Line: The American Journey of West Point's Class of 1966.  

Law career.  
After leaving the military he was a senior planner for Amtrak in 1971 and 1972. From 1972 to 1975 he attended law school at Yale University becoming a clerk for George E. MacKinnon in 1975–76 and an associate for Shea & Gardner in 1976–1978. From 1978 to 1986, he was assistant general counsel, special counsel to the chairman, and the secretary of the Securities and Exchange Commission.  

Vietnam Veterans Memorial.  
From 1979 to 1989, Wheeler was chairman of Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund which built the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, opening in 1982. Working with Jan Scruggs, Robert W. Doubek and Sandie Fauriol, he supported the controversial Maya Lin design, which was opposed by Ross Perot and Jim Webb, who both tried to oust him as chairman of the memorial. Wheeler worked to address their issues by adding The Three Soldiers sculpture by Frederick Hart to the memorial.  
In 1983, Carlton Sherwood ran a four-part series on WDVM-TV (now WUSA) "Vietnam Memorial: A Broken Promise?" which focused on Wheeler's handling of the Memorial Fund, claiming that most of the $9 million raised for the memorial was improperly accounted for. Sherwood cast aspersions on Wheeler's career, questioning his decision not to go directly to Vietnam out of West Point and noting he had been disciplined shortly after arriving there in 1969 for "misappropriation" of government property. A General Accounting Office audit spurred by the television report cleared Wheeler. WDVM officials made an on-air apology and donated $50,000 to the memorial.  
In 1984, Wheeler published a memoir, Touched with Fire: The Future of the Vietnam Generation. He later founded the Project on the Vietnam Generation, an initiative based at the National Museum of American History that supported teaching and research on the Vietnam era and its social and cultural impact; its director of research was Stephen Sonnenberg.  
In the 1988 television film To Heal a Nation about the construction of the Vietnam Memorial, Wheeler was played by Marshall Colt, four years his junior and the former co-star with James Arness in the crime drama McClain's Law. Eric Roberts portrayed Jan Scruggs; Glynnis O'Connor, Becky Scruggs', Jan's wife.  

Other service.  
In 1988–1989, Wheeler worked with President George H. W. Bush to establish the Earth Conservation Corps. From 1997 to 2001, he was president and CEO of the Deafness Research Foundation. He was consultant to acting Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics from 2001 to 2005, special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force from 2005 to 2008. From 2008 to 2009, he was special assistant to the acting assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Logistics and Energy. From 1983 to 1987, he was chairman and CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and from 1993 until his death, he was the founding CEO of the Vietnam Children's Fund.  

Family.  
Wheeler was twice married. He had two children from his first marriage, twins John Parsons Wheeler, IV, and Katherine Marie Wheeler. He met Katherine Klyce in 1993 and married her in 1997. They had two stepdaughters together, Byrd Schas Chaskes and Meriwether Klyce Schas. His younger brother Robert predeceased him. In 1995, Klyce's sister was murdered, and the case was solved years later.  

Murder.  
Background.  
Discussion over Wheeler's death—likely in Delaware—on December 30, 2010, is complicated by his diagnosis of bipolar disorder, which may explain his unusual actions in the preceding days. He was prone to "quirky habits and forgetfulness", and was hospitalized for a manic phase in 2004. He acted disoriented, in what could be a psychotic episode caused by "heart problems, stroke, stress, past mental illness, or a problem with medication." Authorities have labeled his death a homicide,  though it is unknown if he was killed spontaneously by a stranger, or if he was the target of a political assassination. Wheeler was 66 at the time.  
Wheeler had homes in New Castle, Delaware; and Harlem in New York City. Around December 24, Wheeler left the New Castle home to spend time with family at the Harlem home on Christmas. Wheeler's New Castle neighbor, Ron Roark, claimed that between the 24th and 31st, he (Roark) and his family heard, from outside the Wheelers' home, a loud television inside that was constantly on, though no one appeared to be home. Klyce said that Wheeler did not seem to have emotional problems during their stay in New York. They were scheduled to attend a wedding in Boston at some point after the 30th. The two talked for the last time on the 27th. On the morning of the 28th, Wheeler left as Klyce was sleeping. He had previously told her he was going to Washington, D.C. to give gifts to a few people, probably spending time with his political acquaintances. She did not contact him after he left, as she expected him to return within a few days for the wedding. He had lunch at the Metropolitan Cafe in downtown D.C. On the 28th, Wheeler was scheduled to take an Amtrak train from D.C. to Wilmington, and police are unsure if he ever got on this train.  
Strange behavior and occurrences.  

December 28 and 29.  
On the 28th, in New Castle, a man matching Wheeler's description threw smoke bombs "typically used to exterminate rodents" into a house under construction across the street from his house. For the last three years, Wheeler had filed lawsuits challenging the zoning approval for the house in a lawsuit, because the building blocked the Wheelers' view of the Delaware River. Police questioned if this was an attempt at arson on the house by Wheeler. According to a Philadelphia TV station and the Radio Times, Wheeler's phone was found inside the new house in January 2011, though police would not confirm this. The last email from Wheeler to his family was sent on the morning of the 29th, from a different phone than Wheeler's usual device.  
Wheeler was sighted on the 29th in Delaware, at the New Castle County courthouse parking garage. He was disoriented and wearing only one shoe, as the other was ripped. While he attempted to gain access to the parking garage on foot, Wheeler claimed that he wanted to warm up before paying a parking fee (police later determined that his car was actually in a different parking garage at the train station, blocks away). Wheeler explained to the parking garage attendant that his briefcase had been stolen and assured her he was not intoxicated. He was also going up and down the garage stairs in a manner that, Klyce said, suggests he was being cautious. The parking lot attendant said he "knew something wasn't right" with Wheeler. At 6 p.m., Wheeler asked his pharmacist in New Castle for a ride to the Wilmington train station. He "looked upset"......

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73180603Sun, 26 Jul 2026 17:55:09 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.John P. Wheeler III.   John Parsons Wheeler III (December 14, 1944 – c. December 30, 2010), known as Jack Wheeler, was an American veteran, businessman, and activist, who held multiple positions in the U.S. government for five decades and helped...John Parsons Wheeler III (December 14, 1944 – c. December 30, 2010), known as Jack Wheeler, was an American veteran, businessman, and activist, who held multiple positions in the U.S. government for five decades and helped create the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He was murdered by an unknown person in or around Wilmington, Delaware in 2010.  
In the 1960s, Wheeler served in a non-combat position in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and worked for the Pentagon as a staffer and systems analyst. In the 1970s, he was a senior planner for Amtrak, an official of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. In the 1980s, he was the CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and an aide to the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations. In the 1990s, he was an activist for the deaf and for environmental concerns, and in the 2000s, he was an aide to the George W. Bush administration and consultant to the Mitre Corporation.  
Wheeler had homes in New Castle, Delaware, and New York City. On December 28, 2010, a man matching his description threw smoke bombs into a house neighboring Wheeler's in New Castle. Wheeler was last seen alive in Wilmington on December 30; he was acting unusually, though this may have resulted from his bipolar disorder. On the 31st, his corpse was found while being dumped from a garbage truck into a nearby landfill. The truck had received its contents from a commercial trash bin in Newark, Delaware, earlier that day. Police labeled the death a homicide, but it is unknown whether it was politically motivated.  

Early life.  
Wheeler was descended from a family of military professionals including Joseph Wheeler, who had served as a general both in the Confederate Army, and later with the United States Army. Wheeler III was born in Laredo, Texas, where his mother, Janet Conly Wheeler, was staying with her mother while his father was in Europe. Five days after his birth, the family received a telegram that his father was missing in action in the Battle of the Bulge. His father was later found to be alive. Wheeler had one younger brother, Robert Conly Wheeler, and one younger sister, Janet Wheeler Gilani.  

Military career.  
Wheeler was a member of the United States Military Academy (West Point) class of 1966 which lost 30 of its members in the Vietnam War.  
After graduation from West Point, he was a fire control platoon leader at a MIM-14 Nike-Hercules base at Franklin Lakes, New Jersey from 1966 to 1967. From 1967 to 1969, he was a graduate student at Harvard Business School spending the summer of 1968 as a systems analyst for the Office of Secretary of Defense in Washington, D.C. From 1969 to 1970, he served in a non-combat position at Long Binh in Vietnam. From 1970 to 1971, he served on the General Staff at the Pentagon.  
Wheeler's West Point and later years are featured prominently in Rick Atkinson's book, The Long Gray Line: The American Journey of West Point's Class of 1966.  

Law career.  
After leaving the military he was a senior planner for Amtrak in 1971 and 1972. From 1972 to 1975 he attended law school at Yale University becoming a clerk for George E. MacKinnon in 1975–76 and an associate for Shea & Gardner in 1976–1978. From 1978 to 1986, he was assistant general counsel, special counsel to the chairman, and the secretary of the Securities and Exchange Commission.  

Vietnam Veterans Memorial.  
From 1979 to 1989, Wheeler was chairman of Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund which built the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, opening in 1982. Working with Jan Scruggs, Robert W. Doubek and Sandie Fauriol, he supported the controversial Maya Lin design, which was opposed by Ross Perot and Jim Webb, who both tried to oust him as chairman of the memorial. Wheeler worked to address their issues by adding The Three Soldiers sculpture by Frederick Hart to the...]]>971falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/100-killing-of-scott-guy--73177761In July 2010, Scott Guy, a New Zealand farmer, was shot dead at the gate of his family farm in Feilding, Manawatū-Whanganui, at age 31. Six months later, his brother-in-law, Ewen Macdonald, was charged with murder. Macdonald was married to Guy's sister, Anna, and Guy had been best man at their wedding. Both men managed the Guys' family farm and surrounding properties on Aorangi Road, just outside of Feilding. At the trial, it was disclosed that Guy and Macdonald had different priorities and a competitive relationship. In 2008, two years before he was killed, Guy announced at a family meeting that he expected to inherit the farm. The defence claimed that by the time of the murder, difficulties between the two had settled down and they were getting on well.  
The case captured the attention of the New Zealand media and public for two years prior to the trial, at which Macdonald was acquitted. He was defended by lawyer Greg King, who committed suicide four months after the end of the trial. Guy's killer has never been brought to justice. However, the police are treating it as a closed case and are not looking for anyone else.  

Background.  
Scott Guy was a farmer who grew up on Byreburn, his family's farm, near Feilding, Manawatū-Whanganui, New Zealand. Ewen Macdonald had worked at the farm since leaving school at 16. Macdonald ran the dairy operation, was married to Guy's sister Anna, and had four children together with her. Guy was responsible for raising the calves and growing crops for the cows. Guy and Macdonald both earned around $100,000 a year working as farm managers for Guy's parents, who owned the property. The court was told that at a family meeting in 2008, Guy said he expected to inherit the family farm, and that this led to tension between him and his brother in law. In May 2008, Scott Guy's parents, Bryan and Jo, transferred 400 shares, representing 20 per cent of the business, to Scott, Macdonald and each of their wives.  
Bryan Guy testified at the trial that he explained to his son, Scott, that he was not going to inherit the farm and that to own it, he would have to buy everyone else out. The tension appeared to have subsided and Bryan reported that in the previous 12 months "everyone seemed to be getting along really well". Two weeks before Scott Guy died, he and MacDonald travelled to Invercargill together for a dairying conference. Nikki Guy, Scott's other sister, said the pair had a "fantastic time".
One of the Guys' former farm workers, Callum Boe, told police that he and Macdonald had gone on night time trips that they called 'missions' in which they trespassed, poached deer, and took revenge on farmers who had caught them by secretly returning to destroy valuable livestock and property. He told police that on one "mission" in October 2008, they torched an old home on Guy's section. In January 2009, about 18 months before the shooting, they vandalised a home being built by Guy and his wife Kylee, causing $14,000 worth of damage. At the time, no one but Boe and Macdonald knew who was responsible.  

Shooting.  
Scott Guy was shot dead at the end of his driveway after he stopped to open a farm gate somewhere between 4:43 am and 5:00 am on 8 July 2010. He died from shotgun wounds to his neck, face and arm. His body was discovered by David Berry, a truck driver, at about 7:00 am. Berry called the police at 7:08 am and then called his landlord, Bruce Johnstone. When Johnstone arrived, he took a quick look at the body and phoned Macdonald at 7:16 am. Two police cars soon arrived and Macdonald arrived on his quadbike shortly after. Macdonald immediately rang Guy's father at 7:21 am sounding distressed and incoherent.  
Adding to the mystery, three chocolate coloured Labrador puppies also disappeared from the farm at the time of Guy's death.  The police claimed, Macdonald stole the puppies to make it look like a burglary gone wrong.  

Trial.  
Prosecution.  
At the trial, the Crown alleged Guy still wanted to take control of the farm and two years earlier had gone to a family meeting explaining that he expected to inherit the farm. There had been tension between Guy and Macdonald and the prosecutor claimed "this (demand) might as well have been his death warrant". Crown prosecutor Ben Vanderkolk alleged Macdonald closed the farm gates which forced Guy to stop and get out of his vehicle. Vanderkolk said when Guy got out, Macdonald shot him in the throat and then in the face. Police believe the killing occurred at about 4:43 am.  
Vanderkolk alleged Macdonald used the farm shotgun and was wearing size 9 Proline dive boots while committing the crime. The boot prints found at the scene were the only forensic evidence police had potentially linking Macdonald to the scene.  Macdonald allegedly then rode his bicycle back to the farm which was 1.46 km away, arriving just after 5 am where he was milking the cows. Vanderkolk claimed Macdonald tried to make it look like a robbery by killing the Labrador puppies which were missing. Police excavated some of the property where Macdonald lived looking for the dive boots, dead puppies and the shotgun cartridges - but found nothing.  

Defence.  
Defence lawyer Greg King said there were four fatal flaws in the Crown case. The prosecution claimed Guy was killed by two blasts from the farm shotgun which occurred at 4:43 am. Four nearby residents testified they heard three shots in quick succession at about 5:00 am. King called witnesses who said that Macdonald was seen on the farm at about 5:00 am so he could not have been the killer. King also called an American shooting champion as an expert witness. The witness said the farm shotgun had to be reloaded after two shots so it was not possible for three shots to be fired that quickly. In his summing up at the end of the trial, King added that if there were three shots, the murder weapon could not be the farm's double-barrel shotgun. The expert witness suggested that a semi-automatic weapon had been used.  
King also challenged the forensic expert David Neale about the size of the footprints found at the scene. Neale told the Court there were more than 50 footprints next to Guy's body, and they were all made by size 9 Proline boots. King said the 33 wavy rows on the plaster impressions of the boots presented by the police were not compatible with size 9. He said the prints came from a size 11 or 12 boot. Macdonald's wife, Anna, confirmed that Macdonald's size 9 boots had been thrown out two years earlier.  
King also said the police ignored other possible suspects and failed to investigate car tyre marks at the scene of the crime and the sighting of a mystery sedan on Aorangi Rd. He said Police also failed to investigate an offender who had a history of shotgun crimes and had committed a string of local burglaries. A cigarette packet found outside the house matched one stolen by the burglar with a history of shotgun crimes. Concerns were also raised about another man who came looking for Guy at his home a few days before his death.  

Verdict.  
In July 2012, after 11 hours deliberation, the jury found Macdonald not guilty. After a short break, Justice Simon France remanded Macdonald for a sentencing date on other charges. A year later, Guy's father Bryan insisted that justice had prevailed. He said that he did not want the case to drag on for years without being solved and made a plea to his son's killer to give himself up.  
Kylee Guy's response.  
Scott's wife, Kylee Guy subsequently tried to track down her husband's killer and enlisted a private investigator, Mike Crawford, to conduct the investigation. After 18 months, the investigation was called off due to financial issues. Although it was called off, Crawford said Scott Guy received a number of phone calls the day before he died, and another on the day of his murder. However, there was no information about these calls, such as cell-site data and subscriber details, in the police file on Guy's murder. Crawford thought these calls might have shed some light on who the killer was.  

Other suspects.  
At the start of the investigation, police said there were nearly 60 people they looked at as possible suspects. One of them was a man who committed an aggravated robbery four days before Scott was killed. He stole a carton of Winfield Gold cigarettes and police found a cigarette of that brand on Scott's driveway near the murder site. Police stopped investigating him after his girlfriend, who was a methamphetamine addict, told police he came home "maybe around 4am" but admitted she was "pretty wrecked" on meth herself. A number of people told police this man, who has name suppression, was involved in the murder.  
Farmworker Matthew Ireland testified that he saw a car coming from the direction of Scott Guy's house, as he arrived at the farm – almost exactly at the time the police believe Scott was murdered. Ireland also said there was a second car coming from the same direction, just after 5am, as they rode towards the milking shed. The police have never identified either of these cars. Peter Coles, one of Macdonald's lawyers, said "The only way you'd be on that road is if you knew of its existence and had some reason to be there – it's not State Highway 1. The failure to find either of those cars, despite it being publicised throughout New Zealand, just defies belief, unless that car is connected with the murder." Coles is convinced the police disregarded suspects who were more likely to have been involved.  
Another suspect was suggested by Dave Berry, who was the first to come across Guy's body. Two weeks before Guy was shot he recalled a "tall, unshaven man with dark hair" smelling of alcohol and cigarettes. The man banged on his door looking for Scott.  
Another focus of....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73177761Sun, 26 Jul 2026 15:18:25 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Killing of Scott Guy.   In July 2010, Scott Guy, a New Zealand farmer, was shot dead at the gate of his family farm in Feilding, Manawatū-Whanganui, at age 31. Six months later, his brother-in-law, Ewen Macdonald, was charged with murder. Macdonald...In July 2010, Scott Guy, a New Zealand farmer, was shot dead at the gate of his family farm in Feilding, Manawatū-Whanganui, at age 31. Six months later, his brother-in-law, Ewen Macdonald, was charged with murder. Macdonald was married to Guy's sister, Anna, and Guy had been best man at their wedding. Both men managed the Guys' family farm and surrounding properties on Aorangi Road, just outside of Feilding. At the trial, it was disclosed that Guy and Macdonald had different priorities and a competitive relationship. In 2008, two years before he was killed, Guy announced at a family meeting that he expected to inherit the farm. The defence claimed that by the time of the murder, difficulties between the two had settled down and they were getting on well.  
The case captured the attention of the New Zealand media and public for two years prior to the trial, at which Macdonald was acquitted. He was defended by lawyer Greg King, who committed suicide four months after the end of the trial. Guy's killer has never been brought to justice. However, the police are treating it as a closed case and are not looking for anyone else.  

Background.  
Scott Guy was a farmer who grew up on Byreburn, his family's farm, near Feilding, Manawatū-Whanganui, New Zealand. Ewen Macdonald had worked at the farm since leaving school at 16. Macdonald ran the dairy operation, was married to Guy's sister Anna, and had four children together with her. Guy was responsible for raising the calves and growing crops for the cows. Guy and Macdonald both earned around $100,000 a year working as farm managers for Guy's parents, who owned the property. The court was told that at a family meeting in 2008, Guy said he expected to inherit the family farm, and that this led to tension between him and his brother in law. In May 2008, Scott Guy's parents, Bryan and Jo, transferred 400 shares, representing 20 per cent of the business, to Scott, Macdonald and each of their wives.  
Bryan Guy testified at the trial that he explained to his son, Scott, that he was not going to inherit the farm and that to own it, he would have to buy everyone else out. The tension appeared to have subsided and Bryan reported that in the previous 12 months "everyone seemed to be getting along really well". Two weeks before Scott Guy died, he and MacDonald travelled to Invercargill together for a dairying conference. Nikki Guy, Scott's other sister, said the pair had a "fantastic time".
One of the Guys' former farm workers, Callum Boe, told police that he and Macdonald had gone on night time trips that they called 'missions' in which they trespassed, poached deer, and took revenge on farmers who had caught them by secretly returning to destroy valuable livestock and property. He told police that on one "mission" in October 2008, they torched an old home on Guy's section. In January 2009, about 18 months before the shooting, they vandalised a home being built by Guy and his wife Kylee, causing $14,000 worth of damage. At the time, no one but Boe and Macdonald knew who was responsible.  

Shooting.  
Scott Guy was shot dead at the end of his driveway after he stopped to open a farm gate somewhere between 4:43 am and 5:00 am on 8 July 2010. He died from shotgun wounds to his neck, face and arm. His body was discovered by David Berry, a truck driver, at about 7:00 am. Berry called the police at 7:08 am and then called his landlord, Bruce Johnstone. When Johnstone arrived, he took a quick look at the body and phoned Macdonald at 7:16 am. Two police cars soon arrived and Macdonald arrived on his quadbike shortly after. Macdonald immediately rang Guy's father at 7:21 am sounding distressed and incoherent.  
Adding to the mystery, three chocolate coloured Labrador puppies also disappeared from the farm at the time of Guy's death.  The police claimed, Macdonald stole the puppies to make it look like a burglary gone...]]>847falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/99-eamon-dunne--73177471Eamon Dunne (17 February 1976 – 23 April 2010) was an Irish crime boss from Finglas in North Dublin. Nicknamed "the Don" by media outlets, Dunne led a gang based in Finglas, Cabra, and Ballymun, who were involved in drug dealing, armed robbery, extortion and murder. Linked to at least a dozen murders during his life, he was described by Garda sources as "the worst" they had ever seen by number of murders, and was considered Ireland's "public enemy number one" at the time of his death in 2010.  
Originally a member of a gang led by Martin "Marlo" Hyland, Dunne filled the power vacuum after Hyland was shot dead in December 2006, in an assassination Dunne was believed to be the getaway driver for. Dunne was suspected to have ordered at least a dozen gangland murders over the next three years, as he consolidated his position by having rivals and suspected Garda informers killed. Increased Garda attention brought on by his frequent murders and increasingly erratic behaviour, fuelled by his heavy cocaine usage, led to his own associates organising his death. On 23 April 2010, Dunne was shot dead at a birthday party in Cabra, in front of his seventeen-year-old daughter.  

Early life.  
The son of Eamon and Margaret Dunne, Eamon Dunne was born on 17 February 1976, and grew up in Cabra. Unlike many of his criminal contemporaries, he came from a stable family background and completed his Leaving Certificate examinations, attending St Declan's College in Cabra West. Prior to becoming a criminal, he first worked in meat wholesale, later becoming a taxi driver. He ran a motor business, which he used as a front for his criminal activities.  
Dunne was believed by Gardaí to have had a long history of violence against women, including assaulting his girlfriend, who had made a complaint to Gardaí about it but withdrew it in fear. According to crime journalist Paul Williams in his 2011 book Badfellas, Dunne had frequent affairs with girlfriends and wives of his own associates and other gangland criminals. Gardaí had repeatedly found Viagra tablets in his BMW car when he had been stopped for searches.  

Criminal activities.  
A member of Martin "Marlo" Hyland's crime gang, Dunne was one of Hyland's closest lieutenants. He first came to Garda attention in 2002 after being caught at a house during a raid with a large quantity of cocaine and ecstasy; at the time of his death, he was due to stand trial for this in the Supreme Court. Several months later, Dunne was stopped while driving a car and a man was found bound and gagged in the boot; the kidnap victim never filed a complaint and Dunne faced no punishment for this.  
Following Operation Oak, a large number of seizures were made against Hyland's gang, and a number of Hyland's associates, including ones awaiting payment for carrying out murders he had ordered, were facing serious charges. As Hyland's empire began to crumble, Dunne made a move to kill his former boss. In 2006, Hyland was shot dead at the home of a relative in Finglas, along with innocent plumber Anthony Campbell; it is suspected that Dunne drove the getaway car for the killers.  Following Hyland's murder, Dunne quickly filled the power vacuum and took control of the drug trade in Dublin.  
Dunne forged links with a number of other criminal groups, including the Kinahan Organised Crime Group, "Fat" Freddie Thompson's criminal gang in Dublin and the McCarthy-Dundon gang in Limerick, the latter of whom his former boss Hyland had organised the murder of Latvian woman Baiba Saulite for in 2007; Dunne was alleged to have been involved in this murder. Through his connections with Declan Duffy, he had links to the INLA; during a 2007 raid by the Special Detective Unit on a house in Tallaght, Duffy and Dunne were found torturing a drug dealer, though no complaint was forthcoming and they were not charged as a result. Dunne had reportedly also been a protegé of Dublin criminal godfather and drug trafficker Eamon Kelly.  
Up until his death, newspapers were not able to name Dunne in their reports for legal reasons, instead dubbing him "The Don". Dunne sent several unsuccessful legal letters to newspapers, claiming that their reports placed his life in jeopardy. He was reported to have engaged in intimidation, arriving to court hearings accompanied by two henchmen and frequently threatening press photographers. At the time of his death, Dunne was on bail and awaiting trial in connection with a €900,000 robbery of a cash-in-transit van in Celbridge in 2007. The Irish Independent reported that he was expected to face a number of criminal charges under gangland legislation should he not have been murdered. 
 
Victims.  
Dunne was noted for his extreme propensity for murder, including his own associates. While usually not pulling the trigger himself, Dunne was suspected of being involved in at least a dozen gangland murders in the years before his death.  
The victims included:  
- Andrew "Chicore" Dillon (26), a drug dealer from Finglas, shot dead on 17 August 2005. Formerly a member of the Westies crime gang, Dillon had stolen from a drug-trafficker ally of Hyland. On Hyland's orders, Dunne and two other gangsters lured Dillon into a trap, before shooting him three times and dumping his body in a ditch.  
- Baiba Saulite (26), shot dead outside her home on 19 November 2006. Saulite was shot dead on the orders of John Dundon of the McCarthy-Dundon crime family, who was sharing a cell with Saulite's ex-husband, Lebanese crime boss Hassan Hassan.  According to crime journalist Paul Williams, Hyland recruited Dunne, gangland killer Paddy Doyle and three other members to murder Saulite.  
- Martin "Marlo" Hyland (37), the leader of the gang Dunne was a member of, shot dead in Finglas on 12 December 2006.  
- Anthony Campbell (20), an innocent plumber, shot dead during the assassination of Hyland.  
- John Daly (27), shot dead as he sat in a taxi in Finglas on 22 October 2007. Daly had been released from prison in August of that year, after serving a nine-year sentence for armed robbery. A former member of Marlo Hyland's gang, he reportedly demanded money that Hyland owed him from Dunne; after threatening to kill Dunne, he was shot dead.  
- Trevor Walsh (33), shot dead at Kippure Park, Finglas, two days after he was released from prison, on 20 July 2008.  
- Paul 'Farmer' Martin (39), a convicted armed robber, shot dead in the Jolly Toper pub in Finglas on 23 August 2008. An ally of both Hyland and Daly, Martin had reportedly refused to stop selling drugs in Dunne's territory.  
- Michael 'Roly' Cronin (35), a major drug dealer, and James Maloney (26), his driver, shot dead in Dublin city centre, January 2009. A former associate of Hyland, Dunne had conspired with Cronin to have Hyland killed after Cronin incurred a drug debt to Hyland. A feud between the two later erupted. In 2008, Cronin attempted to attack Dunne with a grenade, but was spotted by Garda surveillance. Dunne hired heroin addict Christy Gilroy, who had bought drugs off Cronin previously, to lure him into a trap; Gilroy shot both men twice.  
- Graham McNally (34), shot dead in Finglas, 20 January 2009. One of Dunne's closest allies, McNally was killed because Dunne believed he was plotting against him. Dunne himself was believed to have been the gunman in this murder.  
- Christopher "Christy" Gilroy (36), disappeared in Spain, February 2009. A heroin addict hired to kill Michael "Roly" Cronin and James Maloney, he had left the murder weapon and clothing linking him to the murder close to the crime scene. Gilroy fled to Spain, where Dunne paid for him to enter a detox clinic. Paranoid about Gilroy potentially becoming a Garda informer, Dunne hired hitman Eric "Lucky" Wilson to kill Gilroy and ensure the body was never found.  
- Michael Murray (41), shot dead in Finglas, 2 March 2009. Having accepted a contract from associates of John Daly to kill Dunne, Murray had survived a murder attempt in 2008 after Dunne ordered Gilroy to kill him; Murray survived after being shot in the shoulder. He was shot three times in the head on a second attempt, in a killing ordered by Dunne.  
- Paul Smyth (34), from Finglas, body found in Balbriggan, 12 June 2009. A former member of Hyland's gang and the brother-in-law of Paul "Farmer" Martin, he had been approached by associates of both Martin and John Daly to kill Dunne.  
- David Thomas (43), shot dead outside the Drake Inn pub in Finglas, 11 October 2009. Not involved in serious crime, Thomas has been acquitted of killing a man in a pub in 2001; Dunne was believed to have organised the murder for a friend.  
- John Paul Joyce (30), a drug trafficker, body found near Dublin Airport on 9 January 2010. The man tasked with disposing of the weapon used to kill Paul "Farmer" Martin, Joyce had instead given it to the police in the hope of a lighter sentence for an assault charge. After Dunne discovered this, he had Joyce shot in the head.  

Downfall and death.  
For several years, Dunne had suffered from anxiety and paranoia; it was reported that in 2001 he had expressed suicidal thoughts to his GP, and two years later he was reportedly drinking eight cans of alcohol a night; at the time of his death, he had reportedly been using over five grams of cocaine a day. Dunne was also reportedly in financial difficulty before his death, having walked onto a halting site the weekend before his murder and demanded €20,000 from two men. Dunne also demanded €150,000 from a major gangland criminal, threatening to have the INLA kill him if he did not pay.  
Dunne's increasing paranoia and unstable behaviour eventually led to his own gang members turning against him. Due to the increased Garda attention brought on by Dunne's repeated murders, Gardaí believe.....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73177471Sun, 26 Jul 2026 14:50:50 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Eamon Dunne.   Eamon Dunne (17 February 1976 – 23 April 2010) was an Irish crime boss from Finglas in North Dublin. Nicknamed "the Don" by media outlets, Dunne led a gang based in Finglas, Cabra, and Ballymun, who were involved in drug dealing, armed...Eamon Dunne (17 February 1976 – 23 April 2010) was an Irish crime boss from Finglas in North Dublin. Nicknamed "the Don" by media outlets, Dunne led a gang based in Finglas, Cabra, and Ballymun, who were involved in drug dealing, armed robbery, extortion and murder. Linked to at least a dozen murders during his life, he was described by Garda sources as "the worst" they had ever seen by number of murders, and was considered Ireland's "public enemy number one" at the time of his death in 2010.  
Originally a member of a gang led by Martin "Marlo" Hyland, Dunne filled the power vacuum after Hyland was shot dead in December 2006, in an assassination Dunne was believed to be the getaway driver for. Dunne was suspected to have ordered at least a dozen gangland murders over the next three years, as he consolidated his position by having rivals and suspected Garda informers killed. Increased Garda attention brought on by his frequent murders and increasingly erratic behaviour, fuelled by his heavy cocaine usage, led to his own associates organising his death. On 23 April 2010, Dunne was shot dead at a birthday party in Cabra, in front of his seventeen-year-old daughter.  

Early life.  
The son of Eamon and Margaret Dunne, Eamon Dunne was born on 17 February 1976, and grew up in Cabra. Unlike many of his criminal contemporaries, he came from a stable family background and completed his Leaving Certificate examinations, attending St Declan's College in Cabra West. Prior to becoming a criminal, he first worked in meat wholesale, later becoming a taxi driver. He ran a motor business, which he used as a front for his criminal activities.  
Dunne was believed by Gardaí to have had a long history of violence against women, including assaulting his girlfriend, who had made a complaint to Gardaí about it but withdrew it in fear. According to crime journalist Paul Williams in his 2011 book Badfellas, Dunne had frequent affairs with girlfriends and wives of his own associates and other gangland criminals. Gardaí had repeatedly found Viagra tablets in his BMW car when he had been stopped for searches.  

Criminal activities.  
A member of Martin "Marlo" Hyland's crime gang, Dunne was one of Hyland's closest lieutenants. He first came to Garda attention in 2002 after being caught at a house during a raid with a large quantity of cocaine and ecstasy; at the time of his death, he was due to stand trial for this in the Supreme Court. Several months later, Dunne was stopped while driving a car and a man was found bound and gagged in the boot; the kidnap victim never filed a complaint and Dunne faced no punishment for this.  
Following Operation Oak, a large number of seizures were made against Hyland's gang, and a number of Hyland's associates, including ones awaiting payment for carrying out murders he had ordered, were facing serious charges. As Hyland's empire began to crumble, Dunne made a move to kill his former boss. In 2006, Hyland was shot dead at the home of a relative in Finglas, along with innocent plumber Anthony Campbell; it is suspected that Dunne drove the getaway car for the killers.  Following Hyland's murder, Dunne quickly filled the power vacuum and took control of the drug trade in Dublin.  
Dunne forged links with a number of other criminal groups, including the Kinahan Organised Crime Group, "Fat" Freddie Thompson's criminal gang in Dublin and the McCarthy-Dundon gang in Limerick, the latter of whom his former boss Hyland had organised the murder of Latvian woman Baiba Saulite for in 2007; Dunne was alleged to have been involved in this murder. Through his connections with Declan Duffy, he had links to the INLA; during a 2007 raid by the Special Detective Unit on a house in Tallaght, Duffy and Dunne were found torturing a drug dealer, though no complaint was forthcoming and they were not charged as a result. Dunne had reportedly also been a protegé of...]]>816falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/98-murder-of-elisabeth-mandala--73176561On May 1, 2010 an American woman named Elisabeth Mandala (Spring 1992 – April/May 2010) was found dead in a truck in Nuevo León, Mexico. Her murder is unsolved.  

Life.  
Mandala lived on a ranch, located in a section of Houston near the City of Sugar Land. Her father was an Italian American and her mother immigrated from Mexico to the US; they later divorced and the father moved out of her house. Mandala had an older sister, an older brother, and a younger sister. She was a 12th grade student at Kempner High School in Sugar Land.  
Mandala worked at a Pappadeaux restaurant in Sugar Land as a waitress and later as a secretary at her father's company. She also worked as an exotic dancer at the Moments Cabaret nightclub in Pasadena, Texas, something her friends were unaware of, and paid money into an apparent online scam.  
On April 27, 2010, she traveled to Mexico after getting into a car in north Houston. A group of her friends were aware of her travel plans. Her mother found that she was absent from school and text messages and Facebook messages saying that she was in Mexico and would be back. Her mother did not give her permission to travel abroad. Mandala was in contact with her father via text message, and he warned her about traveling in Mexico. On May 1 her mother reported her missing. Her body had been found in Mexico hours earlier. She died at age 18.  
Carl Franzen wrote in AOL News that "details have emerged about [Mandala's] life that invite comparisons to" that of Laura Palmer, a teenage girl character in the television series Twin Peaks. Marilyn D. McShane and Ming-Li Hsieh, authors of Women and Criminal Justice, stated that Mandala wanted more excitement in her life despite her comfortable upbringing.  

Death.  
At 6:00 a.m. on May 1, 2010, Mandala was found dead in a Texas-registered Dodge Dakota pickup truck, along a Mexican federal highway, near the town of Mina in Nuevo León. Mandala was in the truck's back bench. Two men, a 44-year-old taxicab driver named Luis Angel Estrella Mondragón and a 38-year-old businessman named Dante Ruiz Siller, were in the same truck;  they were Mexican citizens from Cuautitlán, State of Mexico, near Mexico City. Nuevo León authorities did not know why Estrella and Ruiz were in the state. One of the men had a lengthy criminal record and the two men had false identification.  Authorities were unable to determine the relationship between Mandala and the men, Estrella and Ruiz.  
The truck was discovered after it collided with another truck; the driver of the second truck did not sustain injuries. Nuevo León authorities found all three occupants died from beatings, while sustaining blows to their heads and bodies, in a period of at least ten hours prior to the collision, which Nuevo León authorities believe was engineered by the perpetrators. A rock was affixed to the accelerator of the truck. Nuevo León authorities stated the crash could not have caused the deaths as it was not strong enough.  

Aftermath.  
After the case came to national media attention, speculation in the outlets stated that she came to Mexico since she wanted to become a coyote and traffic persons along the U.S.-Mexico border. Her family stated that Mandala was joking when she said she wanted to smuggle illegal immigrants, and that in fact Mandala was not trying to smuggle people. Her parents turned away reporters who traveled to their residence. After several months the media attention died down.  
The Houston Police Department (HPD) and federal government authorities stated that since she was found dead in Mexico, they will not investigate the case since they lack jurisdiction. Upon the identification of Mandala's body, HPD closed its case on Mandala. Mexican authorities did not turn up any leads. The family declined to pay a private investigator funds to investigate the case since the family members had already exhausted their savings to repatriate Mandala's body.  
Mandala's funeral was held at St. Theresa Catholic Church in Sugar Land, and she was buried at Forest Park Westheimer Cemetery in Houston.  
McShane and Hsieh noted that this case, along with that of Ashley Paige Benton, was an example of a teenage girl who ended up in "statistical groups" atypical for that sex and age group and more typical for juvenile males, due to "perhaps bad choices" and "unpredictable behavior" despite Mandala having normalcy "in so many ways". 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73176561Sun, 26 Jul 2026 13:19:38 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murder of Elisabeth Mandala.   On May 1, 2010 an American woman named Elisabeth Mandala (Spring 1992 – April/May 2010) was found dead in a truck in Nuevo León, Mexico. Her murder is unsolved.   Life.   Mandala lived on a ranch, located in a section...On May 1, 2010 an American woman named Elisabeth Mandala (Spring 1992 – April/May 2010) was found dead in a truck in Nuevo León, Mexico. Her murder is unsolved.  

Life.  
Mandala lived on a ranch, located in a section of Houston near the City of Sugar Land. Her father was an Italian American and her mother immigrated from Mexico to the US; they later divorced and the father moved out of her house. Mandala had an older sister, an older brother, and a younger sister. She was a 12th grade student at Kempner High School in Sugar Land.  
Mandala worked at a Pappadeaux restaurant in Sugar Land as a waitress and later as a secretary at her father's company. She also worked as an exotic dancer at the Moments Cabaret nightclub in Pasadena, Texas, something her friends were unaware of, and paid money into an apparent online scam.  
On April 27, 2010, she traveled to Mexico after getting into a car in north Houston. A group of her friends were aware of her travel plans. Her mother found that she was absent from school and text messages and Facebook messages saying that she was in Mexico and would be back. Her mother did not give her permission to travel abroad. Mandala was in contact with her father via text message, and he warned her about traveling in Mexico. On May 1 her mother reported her missing. Her body had been found in Mexico hours earlier. She died at age 18.  
Carl Franzen wrote in AOL News that "details have emerged about [Mandala's] life that invite comparisons to" that of Laura Palmer, a teenage girl character in the television series Twin Peaks. Marilyn D. McShane and Ming-Li Hsieh, authors of Women and Criminal Justice, stated that Mandala wanted more excitement in her life despite her comfortable upbringing.  

Death.  
At 6:00 a.m. on May 1, 2010, Mandala was found dead in a Texas-registered Dodge Dakota pickup truck, along a Mexican federal highway, near the town of Mina in Nuevo León. Mandala was in the truck's back bench. Two men, a 44-year-old taxicab driver named Luis Angel Estrella Mondragón and a 38-year-old businessman named Dante Ruiz Siller, were in the same truck;  they were Mexican citizens from Cuautitlán, State of Mexico, near Mexico City. Nuevo León authorities did not know why Estrella and Ruiz were in the state. One of the men had a lengthy criminal record and the two men had false identification.  Authorities were unable to determine the relationship between Mandala and the men, Estrella and Ruiz.  
The truck was discovered after it collided with another truck; the driver of the second truck did not sustain injuries. Nuevo León authorities found all three occupants died from beatings, while sustaining blows to their heads and bodies, in a period of at least ten hours prior to the collision, which Nuevo León authorities believe was engineered by the perpetrators. A rock was affixed to the accelerator of the truck. Nuevo León authorities stated the crash could not have caused the deaths as it was not strong enough.  

Aftermath.  
After the case came to national media attention, speculation in the outlets stated that she came to Mexico since she wanted to become a coyote and traffic persons along the U.S.-Mexico border. Her family stated that Mandala was joking when she said she wanted to smuggle illegal immigrants, and that in fact Mandala was not trying to smuggle people. Her parents turned away reporters who traveled to their residence. After several months the media attention died down.  
The Houston Police Department (HPD) and federal government authorities stated that since she was found dead in Mexico, they will not investigate the case since they lack jurisdiction. Upon the identification of Mandala's body, HPD closed its case on Mandala. Mexican authorities did not turn up any leads. The family declined to pay a private investigator funds to investigate the case since the family...]]>306falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/97-murder-of-lorenzo-gonzalez-cacho--73176468Lorenzo Ahmed González Cacho (November 29, 2001 – March 9, 2010) was an eight-year-old Puerto Rican boy who was murdered on March 9, 2010 in his home in Dorado, Puerto Rico. At the time of his death, his mother, Ana Cacho González, and two sisters were at the house. The case gained notoriety in the island for the discrepancies and irregularities surrounding the crime scene, the evidence and testimonies. This led to the accusation of the boy's mother, Ana Cacho González, along with three males as potential suspects by the Secretary of Justice of Puerto Rico Guillermo Somoza, who took over the post after his predecessor, Antonio Sagardía, resigned to become Cacho González's attorney.  
On March 9, 2015, on the fifth anniversary of the boy's murder, the Puerto Rico Justice Department announced that the accused were no longer suspects. Almost a year later, on March 7, 2016, the Puerto Rico Department of Justice announced that first degree murder charges would be filed against Luis Gustavo Rivera Seijo ("El Manco") for the child's death. The charges were dropped twice in 2016, first on April 28, due to lack of evidence that could prove his presence in Cacho's residence, and again on June 7, in an appeal trial.  

Background.  
Lorenzo González Cacho was born on November 29, 2001 to Ahmed Alí González and Ana Cacho González and was the middle child of two sisters. From an early age, González Cacho showed interest in sports, and was active in a soccer team. He was studying at Dorado Academy in his hometown. At the time of Lorenzo's death, his parents were in the process of divorcing when his sisters were approximately 13 and 5 years old.  

Death.  
On March 9, 2010, Ana Cacho took Lorenzo to the Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Dorado, Puerto Rico. Cacho arrived between 5 am and 5:30 am AST with Lorenzo covered in blood; the child was later pronounced dead at the clinic. Upon questioning, Cacho claimed that her son had fallen from his bed at their home in Dorado del Mar, however, this version was discarded by the autopsy which revealed severe injuries to the face and head, which included three stab wounds to the face.   

Suspects.  
Although no charges have been filed, the Puerto Rico Department of Justice identified six people considered suspects in the death of Lorenzo. All, but Rivera Seijo, were no longer considered as suspects in the case on March 9, 2015, five years after the murder. Rivera Seijo was the only suspect to receive charges, which were dropped in 2016.  

• Ana Cacho González – Lorenzo's mother. She was identified as a suspect by the Department of Justice on March 19, 2010, nine days after the murder of the boy. Her two daughters were removed from her home on March 30, 2010, and they have not had any contact since. She has insisted her innocence throughout the process of the case.  
• - Jesús Genaro Camacho – Cacho's boyfriend at the time of the murder, identified as a suspect on October 26, 2011. He has denied being present in the Cacho residence when the murder occurred and has also maintained his innocence.  
• - Arnaldo "Naldy" Colón – A friend of Cacho, rumored to have been at the Cacho residence the night of the murder.  
• - William Marrero Rivera – A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, identified as a suspect by the authorities in August 2012, who was also allegedly present in the Cacho residence on the night of the murder.  
• - Luis Gustavo Rivera Seijo ("El Manco") – A homeless man with a previously-diagnosed mental disorder, who was incorrectly released from jail on the night of the murder. Rivera Seijo, whose nickname is literally translated to English as "the one-armed man" (missing left forearm), grew up in Dorado del Mar, the same neighborhood of Cacho's residence.  

Controversy.  
The case gained widespread notoriety throughout the island when the gossip-news show SuperXclusivo began to closely follow it and conduct independent investigations. While following the case, a number of irregularities were alleged, among these is the crime scene, which was not secured and was immediately cleaned after it had already been seen by investigators, but before forensics could thoroughly analyze it. Ana Cacho's father met with the Governor of Puerto Rico at the time, Luis Fortuño, and handed him a mysterious envelope. The Secretary of Justice at the time, Antonio Sagardía, resigned his post towards the end of 2009 to represent Ana Cacho as her lawyer, which was publicly criticized as an unethical move, and expressed her client was "a victim of the media".  
Luis Gustavo Rivera Seijo ("El Manco") was shown to have been diagnosed with mental problems. He had confessed to the murder at the beginning of the investigation and several other times, sometimes retracting his own confessions. According to authorities, Rivera Seijo's confessions weren't considered valid at first because they didn't add up and the claimed murder weapon was never found. On March 8, 2016, Judge Jessica Morales determined probable cause for the arrest for murder against Rivera Seijo for the death of Lorenzo González Cacho. On April 28, 2016, another judge explained the confession was full of errors and that there was a lack of forensic evidence to confirm that Rivera Seijo was present at the Cacho residence at the time of the murder. Charges of negligence, obstruction of justice and suspicion of murder against him were dropped. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73176468Sun, 26 Jul 2026 13:02:51 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murder of Lorenzo González Cacho.   Lorenzo Ahmed González Cacho (November 29, 2001 – March 9, 2010) was an eight-year-old Puerto Rican boy who was murdered on March 9, 2010 in his home in Dorado, Puerto Rico. At the time of his death, his mother, Ana...Lorenzo Ahmed González Cacho (November 29, 2001 – March 9, 2010) was an eight-year-old Puerto Rican boy who was murdered on March 9, 2010 in his home in Dorado, Puerto Rico. At the time of his death, his mother, Ana Cacho González, and two sisters were at the house. The case gained notoriety in the island for the discrepancies and irregularities surrounding the crime scene, the evidence and testimonies. This led to the accusation of the boy's mother, Ana Cacho González, along with three males as potential suspects by the Secretary of Justice of Puerto Rico Guillermo Somoza, who took over the post after his predecessor, Antonio Sagardía, resigned to become Cacho González's attorney.  
On March 9, 2015, on the fifth anniversary of the boy's murder, the Puerto Rico Justice Department announced that the accused were no longer suspects. Almost a year later, on March 7, 2016, the Puerto Rico Department of Justice announced that first degree murder charges would be filed against Luis Gustavo Rivera Seijo ("El Manco") for the child's death. The charges were dropped twice in 2016, first on April 28, due to lack of evidence that could prove his presence in Cacho's residence, and again on June 7, in an appeal trial.  

Background.  
Lorenzo González Cacho was born on November 29, 2001 to Ahmed Alí González and Ana Cacho González and was the middle child of two sisters. From an early age, González Cacho showed interest in sports, and was active in a soccer team. He was studying at Dorado Academy in his hometown. At the time of Lorenzo's death, his parents were in the process of divorcing when his sisters were approximately 13 and 5 years old.  

Death.  
On March 9, 2010, Ana Cacho took Lorenzo to the Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Dorado, Puerto Rico. Cacho arrived between 5 am and 5:30 am AST with Lorenzo covered in blood; the child was later pronounced dead at the clinic. Upon questioning, Cacho claimed that her son had fallen from his bed at their home in Dorado del Mar, however, this version was discarded by the autopsy which revealed severe injuries to the face and head, which included three stab wounds to the face.   

Suspects.  
Although no charges have been filed, the Puerto Rico Department of Justice identified six people considered suspects in the death of Lorenzo. All, but Rivera Seijo, were no longer considered as suspects in the case on March 9, 2015, five years after the murder. Rivera Seijo was the only suspect to receive charges, which were dropped in 2016.  

• Ana Cacho González – Lorenzo's mother. She was identified as a suspect by the Department of Justice on March 19, 2010, nine days after the murder of the boy. Her two daughters were removed from her home on March 30, 2010, and they have not had any contact since. She has insisted her innocence throughout the process of the case.  
• - Jesús Genaro Camacho – Cacho's boyfriend at the time of the murder, identified as a suspect on October 26, 2011. He has denied being present in the Cacho residence when the murder occurred and has also maintained his innocence.  
• - Arnaldo "Naldy" Colón – A friend of Cacho, rumored to have been at the Cacho residence the night of the murder.  
• - William Marrero Rivera – A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, identified as a suspect by the authorities in August 2012, who was also allegedly present in the Cacho residence on the night of the murder.  
• - Luis Gustavo Rivera Seijo ("El Manco") – A homeless man with a previously-diagnosed mental disorder, who was incorrectly released from jail on the night of the murder. Rivera Seijo, whose nickname is literally translated to English as "the one-armed man" (missing left forearm), grew up in Dorado del Mar, the same neighborhood of Cacho's residence.  

Controversy.  
The case gained widespread notoriety...]]>378falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/96-the-persian-princess--73166802The Persian Princess or Persian Mummy is a mummy of an alleged Persian princess who surfaced in Pakistani Baluchistan in October 2000. After considerable attention and further investigation, the mummy proved to be an archaeological forgery and possibly a murder victim.  

Discovery.  
The body that became known as the Persian Princess was located on 19 October 2000 at the home of tribal leader Wali Mohammed Reeki in Kharan, Balochistan, near the border with Afghanistan. Pakistani authorities located the mummy during a murder investigation after receiving a videotape in which Ali Aqbar offered a mummy for sale. During questioning, Aqbar directed police to Reeki's home.  
Reeki told investigators that he had acquired the mummy from an Iranian man, Sharif Shah Bakhi, who claimed to have found it after an earthquake near Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan. Before it came into police custody, the mummy had reportedly been offered for sale on the black antiquities market for 600 million Pakistani rupees (approximately US$11 million in 2000).  

Description.  
The Persian Princess was found wrapped in bandages and placed inside a gilded anthropoid wooden coffin, which rested within a carved stone sarcophagus sealed with a heavy stone lid. Both the coffin and the stone covering bore Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions, and the coffin was decorated with a large image of the Faravahar.  
The woman wore a gold crown, a gold face mask and a gold chest plate. An inscription on the chest plate identified her as Rhodogune, a daughter of the Achaemenid king Xerxes I. The body rested on a layer described as wax and honey.  

Initial identification.  
On 26 October 2000, one week after the mummy was discovered, Pakistani archaeologist Ahmad Hasan Dani announced that he believed it to be the remains of an ancient Persian princess. Based on the Old Persian inscription on the gold chest plate, Dani identified the woman as Rhodogune, whom he believed to be a daughter of Xerxes I, who ruled the Achaemenid Empire from 486 to 465 BCE.  
Dani believed the mummy represented the first authenticated ancient Persian mummy. At the time, mummification was not known to have been practised in the Achaemenid Empire, which ruled much of the ancient Near East from about 550 to 330 BCE. He suggested that the woman may have died in Ancient Egypt before being returned to Persia for burial.  
The announcement attracted international attention from archaeologists, museums and the news media. If authentic, the discovery would have represented the first known ancient Persian mummy.  

Competing claims.  
In late October 2000, after the mummy had been identified as the remains of an Achaemenid princess, competing claims arose over where it should be kept. The Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization demanded that the mummy be returned to Iran, arguing that it was the remains of a member of the Achaemenid royal family. Pakistan's Archaeological Department rejected the request, maintaining that the mummy belonged to Pakistan because it had been discovered within the country's borders.  
As news of the discovery spread, additional claims followed. The Taliban asserted that the mummy had been removed illegally from Afghanistan. Residents of Quetta called for it to be returned to their city. The Awan tribe also claimed the mummy, arguing that the inscription identified the woman as a member of the House of Hika Munshi, which they regarded as an Awan royal lineage, and requested that it be transferred to the Kallar Kahar Fossil Museum.  
In November 2000, while the competing claims remained unresolved, the mummy was placed on public display at the National Museum of Pakistan in Karachi.  

Investigation.  
As international interest in the Persian Princess grew, experts began examining whether the mummy was genuine. Earlier in 2000, several months before the mummy came to public attention, American archaeologist Oscar White Muscarella was approached by intermediaries acting for an antiquities dealer in Pakistan who claimed they wished to sell the body of a daughter of Xerxes I. When a fragment of the coffin underwent radiocarbon dating, it was found to be only about 250 years old. Muscarella concluded that the mummy was a forgery. "I smelled a rat," he later recalled. He broke off contact and alerted Interpol through the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  
After the mummy was taken into police custody in October 2000, Asma Ibrahim, curator of the National Museum of Pakistan, noticed features that immediately raised doubts about its authenticity. The body showed fungal growth on the face, a sign of recent decomposition, and the woven mat beneath it was only a few years old.  
The inscriptions also raised doubts. Iranian philologist Rüdiger Schmitt found numerous grammatical errors and determined that parts of the text had been copied from the Behistun inscription, a royal inscription commissioned by Darius the Great, rather than from an original royal funerary text. Schmitt also noted that the inscription used the Greek form Rhodogune instead of the expected Old Persian Wardegauna for the princess's name.  
CT scans and X-rays performed at Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi provided further evidence that the mummy was modern. The heart had been removed with the other internal organs, although ancient Egyptian embalmers normally left it in place. Soft tissues that would not be expected to survive for more than two millennia also remained intact.  

Identity.  
On 17 April 2001, Asma Ibrahim published the results of her investigation into the body. She concluded that the "Persian Princess" was a modern woman between about 21 and 25 years of age who had died around 1996, approximately five years before the mummy came to public attention.  
Ibrahim also found evidence that the woman's body had been altered after death to resemble an ancient mummy. Her teeth had been removed, and her hip joint, pelvis and backbone damaged before the body cavity was filled with powder. Ibrahim concluded that the woman had probably died after receiving a severe blow to the lower back or pelvis, possibly after being struck by a vehicle.  
In 2004, a study using accelerator mass spectrometry confirmed that the body was of modern origin, independently verifying that it was not an ancient Achaemenid burial.  
Following the forensic findings, Pakistani police investigated the woman's death as a possible murder and arrested several suspects in Balochistan.  

Burial.  
The Edhi Foundation took custody of the body, and on 5 August 2005, announced that it was to be interred with proper burial rites. However, police and other government officials never responded to numerous requests, and it was not until 2008 that the foundation finally carried out the burial.  

Representations in contemporary art.  
The Persian Princess is the name of an exhibition presented in August 2016 in Jerusalem, by artist Hili Greenfeld. The exhibition functions as a tribute to the anonymous woman who, in an instant, went from the status of a princess in a gold-plated coffin displayed in a national museum, to the victim of a vicious murder in whom everyone quickly lost interest. The extreme transformation of the perception of the archeological object – from an honored Princess to a woman who was murdered – is what interests Greenfeld.  
Greenfeld picked up the signs and symbols used by the forgers, such as engraved rosettes, cypress gold, the icon of Ahura Mazda, and gold crowns. She painted the symbols on artificial grass, and created a hybrid of lyrical abstract paintings, Persian rugs and graffiti murals. The works that are shown on the walls and on the floor seem to be graffiti murals and then seem to be rugs, but in both cases they are synthetic imitations of the original.  


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73166802Sat, 25 Jul 2026 15:30:11 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Persian Princess.   The Persian Princess or Persian Mummy is a mummy of an alleged Persian princess who surfaced in Pakistani Baluchistan in October 2000. After considerable attention and further investigation, the mummy proved to be an archaeological...The Persian Princess or Persian Mummy is a mummy of an alleged Persian princess who surfaced in Pakistani Baluchistan in October 2000. After considerable attention and further investigation, the mummy proved to be an archaeological forgery and possibly a murder victim.  

Discovery.  
The body that became known as the Persian Princess was located on 19 October 2000 at the home of tribal leader Wali Mohammed Reeki in Kharan, Balochistan, near the border with Afghanistan. Pakistani authorities located the mummy during a murder investigation after receiving a videotape in which Ali Aqbar offered a mummy for sale. During questioning, Aqbar directed police to Reeki's home.  
Reeki told investigators that he had acquired the mummy from an Iranian man, Sharif Shah Bakhi, who claimed to have found it after an earthquake near Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan. Before it came into police custody, the mummy had reportedly been offered for sale on the black antiquities market for 600 million Pakistani rupees (approximately US$11 million in 2000).  

Description.  
The Persian Princess was found wrapped in bandages and placed inside a gilded anthropoid wooden coffin, which rested within a carved stone sarcophagus sealed with a heavy stone lid. Both the coffin and the stone covering bore Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions, and the coffin was decorated with a large image of the Faravahar.  
The woman wore a gold crown, a gold face mask and a gold chest plate. An inscription on the chest plate identified her as Rhodogune, a daughter of the Achaemenid king Xerxes I. The body rested on a layer described as wax and honey.  

Initial identification.  
On 26 October 2000, one week after the mummy was discovered, Pakistani archaeologist Ahmad Hasan Dani announced that he believed it to be the remains of an ancient Persian princess. Based on the Old Persian inscription on the gold chest plate, Dani identified the woman as Rhodogune, whom he believed to be a daughter of Xerxes I, who ruled the Achaemenid Empire from 486 to 465 BCE.  
Dani believed the mummy represented the first authenticated ancient Persian mummy. At the time, mummification was not known to have been practised in the Achaemenid Empire, which ruled much of the ancient Near East from about 550 to 330 BCE. He suggested that the woman may have died in Ancient Egypt before being returned to Persia for burial.  
The announcement attracted international attention from archaeologists, museums and the news media. If authentic, the discovery would have represented the first known ancient Persian mummy.  

Competing claims.  
In late October 2000, after the mummy had been identified as the remains of an Achaemenid princess, competing claims arose over where it should be kept. The Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization demanded that the mummy be returned to Iran, arguing that it was the remains of a member of the Achaemenid royal family. Pakistan's Archaeological Department rejected the request, maintaining that the mummy belonged to Pakistan because it had been discovered within the country's borders.  
As news of the discovery spread, additional claims followed. The Taliban asserted that the mummy had been removed illegally from Afghanistan. Residents of Quetta called for it to be returned to their city. The Awan tribe also claimed the mummy, arguing that the inscription identified the woman as a member of the House of Hika Munshi, which they regarded as an Awan royal lineage, and requested that it be transferred to the Kallar Kahar Fossil Museum.  
In November 2000, while the competing claims remained unresolved, the mummy was placed on public display at the National Museum of Pakistan in Karachi.  

Investigation.  
As international interest in the Persian Princess grew, experts began examining whether the mummy was genuine. Earlier in 2000,...]]>516falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/95-jackie-coulter-loyalist--73166587Jackie Coulter (22 May 1954 – 21 August 2000) was a member of a loyalist paramilitary from Belfast, Northern Ireland who held the rank of lieutenant in the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). He was killed by the rival loyalist paramilitary organisation the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), as the result of a feud within loyalism.  

Paramilitary activity.  
Coulter, brought up as a Protestant, and a native of the loyalist Shankill Road area of Belfast joined the UDA at an unknown date as a member of his local West Belfast Brigade. He acquired the rank of Lieutenant and was described as being a close ally of UDA brigadier and leading loyalist Johnny Adair. He resided in St Mary's Court, a side street between the Shankill Road and the Crumlin Road and was married to wife Agnes having four children.  
Coulter was recognised as the commander of "C3A Commandos", a unit of C Company, the lower Shankill section of the West Belfast Brigade. He was also known to act as a driver for Johnny Adair. One of Coulter's children, his daughter Tracey, lived with Stephen McKeag for a time although the relationship soured amid allegations of domestic violence. Coulter had complained to Adair about his daughter's treatment shortly before his death and in response Adair sent a punishment squad to his former friend's home with McKeag beaten severely and expelled from C Company.  

Loyalist feud.  
Before Coulter's death, tension between the two main loyalist paramilitary had been building. The cause of the feud was attributed to the actions of Johnny Adair and his alliance with the dissident loyalist faction the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF). The UVF had a tense relationship with the LVF since its formation as a breakaway group from the UVF led by Billy Wright.  
Amidst an atmosphere of increasing tension in the area, Adair decided to host a "Loyalist Day of Culture" on the Shankill on Saturday, 19 August 2000, which saw around a dozen new murals officially unveiled in his lower Shankill powerbase. The UVF leadership, who had been given assurances that no LVF regalia would be displayed on the Shankill on the day of the parade, as well as the rest of the UDA outside of Adair's "C Company", Adair obtained a LVF flag which he planned to have unfurled as the parade passed the Rex Bar, a bar located in the middle of the Shankill Road and which is associated with the UVF, with the obvious intent of antagonising the UVF. Adair waited until the majority of the parade had made its way up the Shankill Road before initiating the provocative gesture of having the LVF flag unfurled outside the Rex. When this happened skirmishes broke out between UVF members who had been standing outside the premises watching the parade and those who had unfurled the contentious flag. Prior to this the atmosphere at the Rex had been relaxed, with the UVF spectators even joining in to sing UDA songs along to the tunes of the UDA-aligned flute bands that accompanied the approximately 10,000 UDA marchers on their parade up the Shankill. But bitter fighting ensued, with around 300 C Company (the name given to the lower Shankill unit of the UDA's West Belfast Brigade) members attacking the patrons of the Rex, initially with hand weapons such as bats and iron bars, before they shot up the bar as its patrons barricaded themselves inside. Also targeted with gunfire was the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) headquarters that faced the pub. C Company then went on the rampage in the lower Shankill, attacking the houses of known UVF members and their families, including the home of veteran UVF leader Gusty Spence, and evicting the inhabitants at gunpoint as they wrecked, stole property and set fire to homes. Coulter had played no part in any of the violence as by that point his only real involvement in loyalism was working on behalf of the welfare of UDA prisoners. He regularly drove a bus carrying prisoners' families to the Maze prison on visiting days.  

Death.  
Two days later, on 21 August, the UVF initiated retaliation for the UDA's action. Parked in a Land Rover Discovery outside a bookmakers on the Crumlin Road with former UVF member Bobby Mahood, Coulter was spotted by a young, inexperienced UVF gunman. Ironically, the two men were believed to have been discussing a solution for easing the recent tension between the two groups. Coulter was killed instantly in the attack and Mahood died a few hours later. The target of the attack had actually been Jackie Mahood, a leading figure in the Belfast LVF, with the inexperienced gunman mistaking Bobby Mahood for his brother. Although the killing was not directly claimed by the UVF the Progressive Unionist Party, the UVF's political wing, admitted that the UVF had been behind the killings. Both Adair and John White arrived on the scene in the immediate aftermath of the shooting and held an impromptu press conference in which they blamed the killings on the UVF. 
Coulter's funeral was held four days later on 25 August. Notable figures from within loyalism attended the funeral, including John White and Frank McCoubrey. All six brigades of the UDA were represented and the LVF was represented by one of its senior members Gary Fulton, who laid a wreath. In all, around 1000 people attended the funeral.  
The funeral left Coulter's home on St Mary's Court on the Shankill. The cortege briefly stopped at the spot where Coulter was killed outside a betting shop on the Crumlin Road. A flatbed lorry containing floral tributes with blacked out number plates led the cortege. Businesses along the route were closed and there was a heavy police and army presence in the back streets around the Shankill in case of trouble. Coulter was buried in Roselawn Cemetery where a UDA statement expressing "disgust at the cowardly and brutal murder" was read out.  

Aftermath.  
The UDA avenged Coulter's death by killing 22-year-old UVF member Sam Rocket at his girlfriend's home at Summer Street in the Oldpark Road area of Belfast. The Lower Oldpark, a small loyalist enclave close to the republican Cliftonville and Ardoyne areas, was known as a stronghold of Adair's C Company. Rocket like Coulter was also buried at Roselawn Cemetery. The feud continued on as more killings were carried on until its end in November 2000 including that of UDA member Tommy English. Coulter is commemorated on a wall mural in Boundary Way on the Lower Shankill.  
One of Coulter's daughters, Tracey, in 2009, had her home attacked on two occasions and received death threats from the UVF. She believed the attacks were linked to an investigation into the circumstances surrounding her father's death.  
In May 2012, Tracey Coulter gave an interview stating that although her family had given permission at the time for the police to retain part of her father's skull for investigative purposes, they received a letter from the Police Service of Northern Ireland telling her that more body parts of her deceased father may have been retained. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73166587Sat, 25 Jul 2026 15:11:03 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Jackie Coulter (loyalist).   Jackie Coulter (22 May 1954 – 21 August 2000) was a member of a loyalist paramilitary from Belfast, Northern Ireland who held the rank of lieutenant in the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). He was killed by the rival...Jackie Coulter (22 May 1954 – 21 August 2000) was a member of a loyalist paramilitary from Belfast, Northern Ireland who held the rank of lieutenant in the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). He was killed by the rival loyalist paramilitary organisation the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), as the result of a feud within loyalism.  

Paramilitary activity.  
Coulter, brought up as a Protestant, and a native of the loyalist Shankill Road area of Belfast joined the UDA at an unknown date as a member of his local West Belfast Brigade. He acquired the rank of Lieutenant and was described as being a close ally of UDA brigadier and leading loyalist Johnny Adair. He resided in St Mary's Court, a side street between the Shankill Road and the Crumlin Road and was married to wife Agnes having four children.  
Coulter was recognised as the commander of "C3A Commandos", a unit of C Company, the lower Shankill section of the West Belfast Brigade. He was also known to act as a driver for Johnny Adair. One of Coulter's children, his daughter Tracey, lived with Stephen McKeag for a time although the relationship soured amid allegations of domestic violence. Coulter had complained to Adair about his daughter's treatment shortly before his death and in response Adair sent a punishment squad to his former friend's home with McKeag beaten severely and expelled from C Company.  

Loyalist feud.  
Before Coulter's death, tension between the two main loyalist paramilitary had been building. The cause of the feud was attributed to the actions of Johnny Adair and his alliance with the dissident loyalist faction the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF). The UVF had a tense relationship with the LVF since its formation as a breakaway group from the UVF led by Billy Wright.  
Amidst an atmosphere of increasing tension in the area, Adair decided to host a "Loyalist Day of Culture" on the Shankill on Saturday, 19 August 2000, which saw around a dozen new murals officially unveiled in his lower Shankill powerbase. The UVF leadership, who had been given assurances that no LVF regalia would be displayed on the Shankill on the day of the parade, as well as the rest of the UDA outside of Adair's "C Company", Adair obtained a LVF flag which he planned to have unfurled as the parade passed the Rex Bar, a bar located in the middle of the Shankill Road and which is associated with the UVF, with the obvious intent of antagonising the UVF. Adair waited until the majority of the parade had made its way up the Shankill Road before initiating the provocative gesture of having the LVF flag unfurled outside the Rex. When this happened skirmishes broke out between UVF members who had been standing outside the premises watching the parade and those who had unfurled the contentious flag. Prior to this the atmosphere at the Rex had been relaxed, with the UVF spectators even joining in to sing UDA songs along to the tunes of the UDA-aligned flute bands that accompanied the approximately 10,000 UDA marchers on their parade up the Shankill. But bitter fighting ensued, with around 300 C Company (the name given to the lower Shankill unit of the UDA's West Belfast Brigade) members attacking the patrons of the Rex, initially with hand weapons such as bats and iron bars, before they shot up the bar as its patrons barricaded themselves inside. Also targeted with gunfire was the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) headquarters that faced the pub. C Company then went on the rampage in the lower Shankill, attacking the houses of known UVF members and their families, including the home of veteran UVF leader Gusty Spence, and evicting the inhabitants at gunpoint as they wrecked, stole property and set fire to homes. Coulter had played no part in any of the violence as by that point his only real involvement in loyalism was working on behalf of the welfare of UDA prisoners. He regularly drove a bus carrying prisoners' families...]]>454falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/94-killing-of-molly-anne-bish--73166414The murder of Molly Anne Bish is an unsolved child murder that occurred in Warren, Massachusetts, after 16-year-old high-school student Molly Anne Bish disappeared while working as a lifeguard on June 27, 2000.  
Her disappearance led to the most extensive and expensive search for a missing person ever undertaken in the state of Massachusetts. In June 2003, Bish's remains were found in Hampden County, 5 mi (8 km) from her family home. Police believe that Bish was abducted and murdered, and several suspects have been publicly identified. However, Bish's abduction and murder case remains unsolved.  

Disappearance.  
In the summer of 2000, 16-year-old Molly Anne Bish (born August 2, 1983) began working as a lifeguard at Comins Pond in Warren, Massachusetts. On June 26, the day before her disappearance, her mother Magi saw a mustached man in a white car parked in the lot of the beach where Bish's lifeguard post was located. Although the man seemed suspicious at the time, Magi did not fear that her daughter was in danger.  
On June 27, Magi took her daughter to Comins Pond and left Bish by the lifeguard station. Magi did not see the suspicious man whom she had spotted the day before. However, another person claimed to have seen a man who looked like the stranger in the parking lot just minutes before Bish arrived. A local worker also mentioned seeing a similar car parked at a cemetery that was linked to the pond by a path. Magi was the last person known to have seen her daughter before she went missing. A few hours later, the police reached out to Bish's parents to inform them that there had not been a lifeguard on duty all day and that Bish's belongings had been left at her station. An extensive search was launched immediately.  

Body discovery.  
In the fall of 2002, after a hunter spotted a blue swimsuit in the woods on Whiskey Hill in Palmer, a thorough search of the area was conducted. On June 9, 2003, Bish's remains were discovered 5 miles (8 km) away from her family home. Although the cause of death could not be established because of the body's decomposition, investigators believe that Bish was murdered.  

Investigation.  
In 2005, a Connecticut man charged with attempted kidnapping in New York was briefly under investigation in connection with the case.  
In 2009, a new suspect, Rodney Stanger, was investigated. Stanger had lived in Southbridge, Massachusetts, near Warren, for more than 20 years and moved to Florida one year after the Bish murder. Following the murder of Crystal Morrison, Stanger's girlfriend of 20 years, Morrison's sister alerted the Massachusetts authorities. Stanger was known to have access to a white car similar to the one seen the day before Bish's disappearance. He was also known to fish in Comins Pond and hunt in the woods where Bish's body was found. In addition, Stanger closely matched the description provided by Magi Bish of the man seen in the white sedan the day before her daughter's disappearance. In 2009, when Stanger was being investigated for the Bish murder, police also questioned him in connection with the 1993 murder of Holly Piirainen, who had gone missing in Sturbridge.  Bish and Piirainen were the same age in 1993, and Bish had written a letter of hope to Piirainen's parents in 1993. Stanger was not charged in either case.  
In 2012, forensic evidence led authorities to name David Pouliot, who had died in 2003, as a person of interest in the Piirainen case.  
In November 2011, Gerald Battistoni was named as a suspect. Battistoni served time in prison for repeatedly raping a teenage girl in the early 1990s. He attempted suicide in prison after newspaper articles identified him as a potential suspect in Bish's and Piirainen's deaths. Battistoni, who had a criminal record dating back to 1980, had been in the area where Bish's body was found and resembles a composite sketch of the mysterious man whom Magi had seen in the parking lot. The Bish family, working with a private investigator, asked the state to perform DNA testing. The Massachusetts State Police sent the DNA evidence to Texas. Battistoni died in November 2014.  
On June 3, 2021, Joseph Early, the Worcester County district attorney, announced that Francis Sumner was a new person of interest. Sumner, a registered sex offender with a long criminal record, had been found dead inside his home in Spencer, Massachusetts on May 4, 2016. Early did not disclose how Sumner was connected to the case, but he said that investigators had received new information. In 1982, Sumner was convicted of aggravated rape and kidnapping and was sentenced to at least nine years in prison.  
To date, there have been no arrests in the case. The search for Bish was the most extensive and expensive in Massachusetts history. Bish's story has been featured on many American television shows, such as Disappeared, America's Most Wanted, Unsolved Mysteries and 48 Hours.  

2023 update.  
As the 23rd anniversary of Bish's disappearance approached, Early provided an update. Despite the lack of arrests, Sumner, although dead, remains a person of interest. Early expressed confidence in the ongoing efforts by state police detectives and mentioned the continued testing of evidence with advancements in forensic science. He also emphasized the importance of familial DNA in aiding the investigation and noted his support for legislative changes to facilitate its use. The Bish family continues to advocate for child abduction awareness and the resolution of the case. An anonymous tip line remains open for any information regarding the case.  

Legacy.  
In 2004, Magi and John Bish founded the Molly Bish Foundation.  


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73166414Sat, 25 Jul 2026 14:53:49 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Killing of Molly Anne Bish.   The murder of Molly Anne Bish is an unsolved child murder that occurred in Warren, Massachusetts, after 16-year-old high-school student Molly Anne Bish disappeared while working as a lifeguard on June 27, 2000.   Her...The murder of Molly Anne Bish is an unsolved child murder that occurred in Warren, Massachusetts, after 16-year-old high-school student Molly Anne Bish disappeared while working as a lifeguard on June 27, 2000.  
Her disappearance led to the most extensive and expensive search for a missing person ever undertaken in the state of Massachusetts. In June 2003, Bish's remains were found in Hampden County, 5 mi (8 km) from her family home. Police believe that Bish was abducted and murdered, and several suspects have been publicly identified. However, Bish's abduction and murder case remains unsolved.  

Disappearance.  
In the summer of 2000, 16-year-old Molly Anne Bish (born August 2, 1983) began working as a lifeguard at Comins Pond in Warren, Massachusetts. On June 26, the day before her disappearance, her mother Magi saw a mustached man in a white car parked in the lot of the beach where Bish's lifeguard post was located. Although the man seemed suspicious at the time, Magi did not fear that her daughter was in danger.  
On June 27, Magi took her daughter to Comins Pond and left Bish by the lifeguard station. Magi did not see the suspicious man whom she had spotted the day before. However, another person claimed to have seen a man who looked like the stranger in the parking lot just minutes before Bish arrived. A local worker also mentioned seeing a similar car parked at a cemetery that was linked to the pond by a path. Magi was the last person known to have seen her daughter before she went missing. A few hours later, the police reached out to Bish's parents to inform them that there had not been a lifeguard on duty all day and that Bish's belongings had been left at her station. An extensive search was launched immediately.  

Body discovery.  
In the fall of 2002, after a hunter spotted a blue swimsuit in the woods on Whiskey Hill in Palmer, a thorough search of the area was conducted. On June 9, 2003, Bish's remains were discovered 5 miles (8 km) away from her family home. Although the cause of death could not be established because of the body's decomposition, investigators believe that Bish was murdered.  

Investigation.  
In 2005, a Connecticut man charged with attempted kidnapping in New York was briefly under investigation in connection with the case.  
In 2009, a new suspect, Rodney Stanger, was investigated. Stanger had lived in Southbridge, Massachusetts, near Warren, for more than 20 years and moved to Florida one year after the Bish murder. Following the murder of Crystal Morrison, Stanger's girlfriend of 20 years, Morrison's sister alerted the Massachusetts authorities. Stanger was known to have access to a white car similar to the one seen the day before Bish's disappearance. He was also known to fish in Comins Pond and hunt in the woods where Bish's body was found. In addition, Stanger closely matched the description provided by Magi Bish of the man seen in the white sedan the day before her daughter's disappearance. In 2009, when Stanger was being investigated for the Bish murder, police also questioned him in connection with the 1993 murder of Holly Piirainen, who had gone missing in Sturbridge.  Bish and Piirainen were the same age in 1993, and Bish had written a letter of hope to Piirainen's parents in 1993. Stanger was not charged in either case.  
In 2012, forensic evidence led authorities to name David Pouliot, who had died in 2003, as a person of interest in the Piirainen case.  
In November 2011, Gerald Battistoni was named as a suspect. Battistoni served time in prison for repeatedly raping a teenage girl in the early 1990s. He attempted suicide in prison after newspaper articles identified him as a potential suspect in Bish's and Piirainen's deaths. Battistoni, who had a criminal record dating back to 1980, had been in the area where Bish's body was found and resembles a composite sketch of...]]>399falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/93-andre-dede-desjardins--73165751André "Dédé" Desjardins (4 July 1930 – 27 April 2000) was a Canadian union official noted for his involvement with organized crime. Desjardins served as the president of the Conseil des métiers de la construction (transl. Council of Construction Trades) and vice-president of the Fédération des travailleurs du Québec (Quebec Federation of Labour, FTQ) union between 1970 and 1974, becoming known as Le roi de la construction ("the king of construction"). During this time, Desjardins was involved in the scandal that led to the Cliche commission of 1974–75 headed by Judge Robert Cliche to examine corruption in Quebec construction unions. Afterwards, Desjardins enjoyed much success as one of the leading loan sharks in Montreal until his murder. Despite sharing the same surname, Desjardins is not related to Raynald Desjardins, a notorious mobster related to the Rizzuto crime family.  

Rise to power.  
Desjardins was born in the Centre-Sud of Montreal, the son of a plumber, and grew up in poverty. Desjardins went to work as an apprentice plumber at the age of 14, and had a long criminal record as a young man, doing several short stints in prison. In 1949, Desjardins was convicted of robbery and was convicted several more times in the 1950s. In 1957, he joined local 144 of l'Association internationale des plombiers et tuyauteurs d'Amérique union, which he rapidly came to dominate. During this time, Desjardins started to engage in organized crime, running illegal lotteries, demanding payments from construction companies to avoid "delays", engaging in loan sharking, and formed ties with the Montreal Mafia. Desjardins recruited men with criminal records to serve as his officials or "soldiers" as he called them, and rose up rapidly using violence and intimidation. Desjardins ran his loan sharking business from the Café Évangéline, and was so successful that he lent money to other criminals in Montreal, most notably Eugene Lafort, Gérald Fontaine (who was the father of Hells Angel Paul "Fon Fon" Fontaine), and members of the Devils Disciples outlaw motorcycle gang.  
The Canadian journalist Michel Auger described Desjardins as a "strong man" who frequently beat anyone who displeased him, and who was much feared in the construction industry in Montreal in the 1960s. Henri Masse, the president of the Quebec Federation of Labor, told the journalist Jerry Langton about Desjardins: "He was a tough guy. But at the same time, you have to remember labor relations back then were tough as well. During strikes, employers would use dogs and thugs and other means". Though capable of being charming and a professed friend of journalists, Desjardins was known for his ruthless methods, at one point leading a delegation of construction workers to storm the National Assembly in Quebec City while the assembly was in session to shut down a meeting of a parliamentary committee that was proposing a bill he disapproved of.  Desjardins's tactics paid off and the bill was killed.  

Le roi de la construction.  
A man with an engaging manner and immense powers of leadership noted for his walrus mustache, Desjardins quickly rose up the ranks of the union, becoming the general manager of the Construction Trades Council union affiliated with the FTQ and in September 1970 become the vice-president of the FTQ. Desjardins was well known for his lavish lifestyle, which went beyond a union official's salary, wearing a large diamond ring, owning a white Cadillac and frequently taking vacations in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Desjardins's lifestyle and his domination of a union of 70,000 members gave him the moniker the "King of Construction" (Le roi de la construction). Desjardins had "soldiers" in every union local, who were expected to engage in intimidation and violence, and other criminal activities like drug dealing and extortion. Desjardins was very closely associated with the Mafia during his time as union chief, and his time as president of the Conseil des métiers de la construction union is remembered as a "reign of terror" in the construction industry in Quebec. Auger described Desjardins's time as the "King of Construction" as the take-over of an entire section of the economy by organized crime, through he argued that Desjardins for his all power, was just a French-Canadian frontman for the Montreal Mafia, who wanted control of all the construction unions in Quebec, not just in Montreal. As part of his investigation into Desjardins undertaken in 1972, Auger took photographs of Desjardins on vacation in the Dominican Republic with Louis Laberge, president of the FTQ, together with various Mafiosi and other members of the Montreal underworld. Desjardins was aligned with the Cotroni family, at the time the most powerful Mafia family in Montreal.  
Construction had boomed in Montreal for Expo 67, leading to an inflated workforce, and afterwards times were tough for the construction industry in Montreal. As the Liberal Premier Robert Bourassa had promised in the 1970 election that his government would create 100,000 jobs in the construction industry with the James Bay Project, there was much violent competition between Desjardin's Conseil des métiers de la construction and the rival Confederation of National Trade Unions (CNFU) to have their workers engaged in the project.[9] The Canadian historian Desmond Morton noted that were 540 different incidents between the two main construction unions in Quebec on construction sites associated with the James Bay Project between 1970 and 1974, many of them "very bloody".  
Besides for the James Bay Project, Desjardins's union played a major role in causing the $1 billion cost overrun on building the facilities for the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, which nearly bankrupted the city. In May 1970, the International Olympic Committee declared that Montreal would host the 1976 Summer Olympics and construction of the facilities for the Olympics began later that year. The Montreal journalist Kristian Gravenor called Desjardins a "legendary" criminal who more than anyone else caused the "screwed up Olympics" that almost bankrupted Montreal and did so much to cause the decline of Montreal, which lost its status as the business capital of Canada to Toronto in the 1970s. The French architect Roger Taillibert and the Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau discovered that various "delays" on building the Olympic stadium were caused by the Conseil des métiers de la construction, and the two tried hard to win over Desjardins, buying him a lunch at the exclusive Ritz-Carlton hotel in a vain attempt to end the "anarchic disorder" on the Olympic stadium construction site. Finally, Bourassa made a secret deal to buy off Desjardins, which finally allowed work to proceed. In his 2000 book Notre Cher Stade Olympique, Taillibert wrote "If the Olympic Games took place, it was thanks to Dede Desjardins. What irony!".  
On 21 March 1974 as part of an extortion attempt against the sub-contractors working on the James Bay Project who refused to fire two workers belonging to the rival CNFU union, workers belonging to Conseil des métiers de la construction union destroyed the LG-2 construction site, causing $35 million in damages. The workers on the LG-2 site used their bulldozers to destroy the site they were working on while other workers set buildings afire. Desjardins was charged with incitement to violence as a result of the riot, but was never brought to trial. In response to the violence at the LG-2 site, which confirmed long-standing rumors about thuggish practices on the part of construction unions, the Premier of Quebec, Robert Bourassa, appointed a commission consisting of well-respected judge Robert Cliche, prominent Montreal labor lawyer Brian Mulroney and vice-president of the Centrale de l'enseignement du Québec Guy Chevrette to investigate corruption in the construction industry in Quebec. The legal counsel to the Cliche commission was another prominent Montreal lawyer, Lucien Bouchard. The commission had a narrow remit to examine only the question of freedom of expression within Quebec construction unions, but the commission soon began examining the question of the relationship between the construction unions and organized crime.  
The Cliche commission established that the Quebec construction industry was dominated by casual brutality with thuggish union bosses teaching union organizers how best to break legs. Workers who complained about corruption on the part of their bosses had their dogs murdered and their teenage children beaten up. The columnist Peggy Curran wrote that the Cliche commission uncovered:  
...tales of nepotism, bribery, sabotage, blackmail and intimidation; charges of union organizers with criminal records who gave lessons in how to break legs; thugs-for-hire who would happily beat up a rival union organizer's teenager or strangle their dog. Almost as frightening was an aura of complacency, a 'So what?' and 'What you gonna do about it?' reaction from key witnesses and from union rank-and file. As one union delegate put it, "How do you think a government commission is going to settle problems if the workers themselves are not willing to respect the law? By increasing the number of baseball bats in circulation?".  
During the hearings, a connection was established between Bourassa's office and Desjardins. It emerged that Bourassa's special executive assistant, Paul Desrochers, had met Desjardins to ask for the support of his union in helping the Parti libéral du Québec win a by-election in exchange for which the province would guarantee that only companies employing workers from the Conseil des métiers de la construction union would work on the James Bay project. The hearings had already established that the Conseil des métiers de la construction had donated to the Parti libéral du Québec generously and there were.....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73165751Sat, 25 Jul 2026 13:38:43 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.André "Dédé" Desjardins.   André "Dédé" Desjardins (4 July 1930 – 27 April 2000) was a Canadian union official noted for his involvement with organized crime. Desjardins served as the president of the Conseil des métiers de la construction...André "Dédé" Desjardins (4 July 1930 – 27 April 2000) was a Canadian union official noted for his involvement with organized crime. Desjardins served as the president of the Conseil des métiers de la construction (transl. Council of Construction Trades) and vice-president of the Fédération des travailleurs du Québec (Quebec Federation of Labour, FTQ) union between 1970 and 1974, becoming known as Le roi de la construction ("the king of construction"). During this time, Desjardins was involved in the scandal that led to the Cliche commission of 1974–75 headed by Judge Robert Cliche to examine corruption in Quebec construction unions. Afterwards, Desjardins enjoyed much success as one of the leading loan sharks in Montreal until his murder. Despite sharing the same surname, Desjardins is not related to Raynald Desjardins, a notorious mobster related to the Rizzuto crime family.  

Rise to power.  
Desjardins was born in the Centre-Sud of Montreal, the son of a plumber, and grew up in poverty. Desjardins went to work as an apprentice plumber at the age of 14, and had a long criminal record as a young man, doing several short stints in prison. In 1949, Desjardins was convicted of robbery and was convicted several more times in the 1950s. In 1957, he joined local 144 of l'Association internationale des plombiers et tuyauteurs d'Amérique union, which he rapidly came to dominate. During this time, Desjardins started to engage in organized crime, running illegal lotteries, demanding payments from construction companies to avoid "delays", engaging in loan sharking, and formed ties with the Montreal Mafia. Desjardins recruited men with criminal records to serve as his officials or "soldiers" as he called them, and rose up rapidly using violence and intimidation. Desjardins ran his loan sharking business from the Café Évangéline, and was so successful that he lent money to other criminals in Montreal, most notably Eugene Lafort, Gérald Fontaine (who was the father of Hells Angel Paul "Fon Fon" Fontaine), and members of the Devils Disciples outlaw motorcycle gang.  
The Canadian journalist Michel Auger described Desjardins as a "strong man" who frequently beat anyone who displeased him, and who was much feared in the construction industry in Montreal in the 1960s. Henri Masse, the president of the Quebec Federation of Labor, told the journalist Jerry Langton about Desjardins: "He was a tough guy. But at the same time, you have to remember labor relations back then were tough as well. During strikes, employers would use dogs and thugs and other means". Though capable of being charming and a professed friend of journalists, Desjardins was known for his ruthless methods, at one point leading a delegation of construction workers to storm the National Assembly in Quebec City while the assembly was in session to shut down a meeting of a parliamentary committee that was proposing a bill he disapproved of.  Desjardins's tactics paid off and the bill was killed.  

Le roi de la construction.  
A man with an engaging manner and immense powers of leadership noted for his walrus mustache, Desjardins quickly rose up the ranks of the union, becoming the general manager of the Construction Trades Council union affiliated with the FTQ and in September 1970 become the vice-president of the FTQ. Desjardins was well known for his lavish lifestyle, which went beyond a union official's salary, wearing a large diamond ring, owning a white Cadillac and frequently taking vacations in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Desjardins's lifestyle and his domination of a union of 70,000 members gave him the moniker the "King of Construction" (Le roi de la construction). Desjardins had "soldiers" in every union local, who were expected to engage in intimidation and violence, and other criminal activities like drug dealing and extortion. Desjardins was very closely associated with the Mafia during his...]]>1495falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/92-jean-dominique--73156773Jean Léopold Dominique (31 July 1930 – 3 April 2000) was a Haitian journalist and activist for human rights and democracy in Haiti. His station, Radio Haiti-Inter, was the first to broadcast news, investigative reporting, and political analysis in Haitian Creole, the language spoken by most Haitian people. On 3 April 2000 he was assassinated as he arrived for work at Radio Haiti-Inter. An extensive though turbulent investigation failed to officially identify and bring to justice the primary perpetrators, who remain at large.  

Personal life and early career.  
Jean Dominique was born in Port-au-Prince to Léopold Dominique, a trader originally from Rivière Froide, and Marcelle (Pereira) Dominique. As a child, Dominique frequently accompanied his father on trips throughout the Haitian countryside, which led him to know and understand the lives and struggles of peasant farmers. Dominique's elder brother Philippe was an officer in the Haitian army who, along with fellow officers Alix Pasquet and Henry Perpignan, was killed in an attempt to occupy the Casernes Dessalines and overthrow François Duvalier in July 1958. His eldest sister, Madeleine Dominique Paillère, was a well-known author and intellectual.  
After completing his primary and secondary schooling at Institution Saint-Louis de Gonzague, Dominique studied at the Faculté d’Agronomie in Port-au-Prince, graduating in 1951. In the 1950s he continued his training at the Institut national agronomique (INA) in Paris, where he also developed an interest in cinema as a political tool. He returned to Haiti in 1955 and began work as an agronomist in the Nord department with the Institut Haïtien de Crédit Agricole et Industriel as well as the Société Haitiano-Américaine de Développement Agricole (SHADA), primarily on sisal and rubber production.  
In the early 1960s, after his release from prison, Dominique went to work as a program host and cultural commentator at Haiti's first independent radio station, Radio Haïti, interviewing writers and scholars. In 1972, he purchased the lease to the station from Ricardo Widmaïer and renamed it Radio Haiti-Inter. It was the first radio station in Haiti to broadcast political analysis, interviews, and investigative reporting in Haitian Creole, the language spoken by the entire population of Haiti, in addition to French, which was the language of the ruling elite.  
During the 1960s, Dominique also founded Haiti's first film club at the Institut Français in Port-au-Prince, which he understood to be a way of subverting and resisting the political repression of the Duvalier dictatorship. In 1965, the film club was banned following a screening of Alain Resnais's Night and Fog, an anti-fascist film about the Nazi concentration camps. In 1961, Dominique co-directed and narrated Haiti's first documentary film, Mais, je suis belle (But, I Am Beautiful), an ironic film about Caribbean beauty pageants. Dominique remained a staunch supporter of Haitian cinema, and collaborated with Haitian filmmakers such as Rassoul Labuchin.  
Dominique was married to fellow journalist Michèle Montas, who became the co-director of Radio Haiti after his assassination. He had three daughters from previous marriages — the writer Jan J. (J.J.) Dominique, Nadine Dominique, and Dolores Dominique Neptune — and one son, Denis Boucolon. While studying in Paris, Dominique had a relationship with Guadeloupean student Maryse Boucolon, later known as the novelist Maryse Condé. Their son, Denis, was born in France. 

Career at Radio Haïti-Inter.  
1971–1980.  
Throughout the 1970s, Jean Dominique used Radio Haiti to highlights aspects of Haitian culture rooted in its Creole-speaking majority and repressed for almost two centuries by its French-speaking elite. Dominique and Radio Haiti also reported increasingly on events that would challenge the regime of Jean-Claude Duvalier, often strategically and indirectly to circumvent the regime's censorship laws. For example, Radio Haiti reported in 1972 for weeks, on the fall of the dictator of Nicaragua, Anastasio "Tachito" Somoza Debayle, as a proxy for talking about Duvalier. In 1973 and 1976, Dominique reported from the annual Vodou pilgrimage at Saut-d’Eau on worshippers’ lamentations and entreaties to the spirits: an implicit way of talking about peasant resistance : “We were under Jean-Claude Duvalier, we were under [high-ranking Macoutes like] Luc Désir, Jean Valmé, Luckner Cambronne, and company We were under the tigers!” Dominique later explained. “The people opened their arms in front of the pilgrimage site, they looked toward the church, and they described their misery. They described their oppression, how the life was squeezed out of them [peze-souse]. They described how everything was being destroyed [kraze-brize]. They spelled it all out. They described it in a litany, for hours. For days.”  
As the Haitian government relied on assistance from the United States, Duvalier had little choice but to comply with certain human rights rules and principles while Jimmy Carter was president. However, as Carter's term came to an end, Duvalier's opposition to the free press became more pronounced. In October 1980, he announced that le bal est fini (the party is over) for the independent press. Dominique, reading the writing on the wall, responded with one of his most famous editorials, entitled “Bon appétit, messieurs,” addressed to the journalists of the state press. “For you, the banquet shall resume. And you will not hear any discordant sounds, any noise that might disturb your appetites. You will not be distracted from your plentiful feast by the cries of the poor, the screams of the boat people devoured by sharks, the gunshots killing our cane-cutter brothers in Santo Domingo or in Nassau or La Romana... No, you will not hear those discordant, disagreeable noises that might trouble your meal, that might prevent you from celebrating -- it will be only silence... So you may celebrate at ease, gentlemen! At ease! And in that profound silence: Bon appétit, messieurs!”  
On 28 November 1980, shortly after Ronald Reagan won the US presidential election, Duvalier cracked down on the independent press, human rights activists, and union leaders in Haiti. Duvalier's militia, the Tontons Macoutes, ransacked and destroyed Radio Haiti's studios. Nearly all of Radio Haiti's journalists were arrested; some, including station manager Richard Brisson, were tortured. Most were released within days and then exiled. An order was issued for Jean Dominique to be killed on sight. He spent two months in asylum at the Venezuelan embassy, before he joined Montas in New York, where they married in 1983.  

1986–1991.  
On 5 March 1986, less than a month after Duvalier's ouster, Dominique and Montas returned to Haiti, and were greeted at the airport by nearly 60,000 people. That October, Radio Haiti reopened with funds raised by ordinary Haitian people.  
Through the late 1980s, as Haiti endured successive military coups d’état, Dominique continued to advocate for democratic participation, human rights, peasant rights, and for the removal of Duvalierist and Macoute elements from the government and the army. He devoted a great deal of airtime and analysis, for example, to the July 1987 massacre of peasant farmers by landowners and Macoutes in Jean Rabel. Haiti's first democratic elections were scheduled for 29 November 1987, but were violently suppressed by the army, which slaughtered voters at Ruelle Vaillant and destroyed electoral bureaus throughout the country. Radio Haiti came under armed attack that day, as ordered by Williams Régala; Dominique and the other journalists stood on the roof throwing rocks and bottles as the army fired machine guns and grenades.  
Dominique was an early supporter of the Lavalas movement and Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the parish priest and outspoken proponent of liberation theology. Radio Haiti covered the 11 September 1988 massacre in which attachés under the orders of Port-au-Prince mayor Franck Romain massacred parishioners at Aristide's St. Jean Bosco church, and interviewed Aristide several times as a priest and as a presidential candidate, and, finally, after his victory in Haiti's first democratic elections in December 1990.  
When the military under Raoul Cédras overthrew the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in September 1991, Radio Haiti once more had to close and Dominique and Montas again went into exile in New York. During these years, Dominique published op eds and appeared on the Charlie Rose show to encourage a return to constitutional order in Haiti. He also collaborated with the American filmmaker Jonathan Demme on the interviews that would eventually become the documentary The Agronomist, and on an unfinished project on the History of Haitian Cinema. In June 1993, Dominique was part of Aristide's entourage at the Governors Island meeting between the democratically elected government in exile and the leaders of the military junta. Dominique returned to Haiti in 1994, after Aristide's return to power, and reopened Radio Haiti the following year.  

1995–2000.  
In the final years of his life, Dominique concentrated on issues of state corruption and criminal negligence by the private sector. He investigated Pharval Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company, for selling cough syrup contaminated with diethylene glycol that was responsible for the poisoning of two hundred children, of whom sixty died. He also denounced the importation of medical-grade ethanol that was being sold as counterfeit clairin (high-proof undistilled sugar cane spirits), sickening and killing people who consumed it while undercutting the livelihood of Haiti's sugar planters and distillers.  
As a journalist who emphasized his own political objectivity and that of his staff, Dominique....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73156773Fri, 24 Jul 2026 20:03:43 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Jean Dominique.   Jean Léopold Dominique (31 July 1930 – 3 April 2000) was a Haitian journalist and activist for human rights and democracy in Haiti. His station, Radio Haiti-Inter, was the first to broadcast news, investigative reporting, and...Jean Léopold Dominique (31 July 1930 – 3 April 2000) was a Haitian journalist and activist for human rights and democracy in Haiti. His station, Radio Haiti-Inter, was the first to broadcast news, investigative reporting, and political analysis in Haitian Creole, the language spoken by most Haitian people. On 3 April 2000 he was assassinated as he arrived for work at Radio Haiti-Inter. An extensive though turbulent investigation failed to officially identify and bring to justice the primary perpetrators, who remain at large.  

Personal life and early career.  
Jean Dominique was born in Port-au-Prince to Léopold Dominique, a trader originally from Rivière Froide, and Marcelle (Pereira) Dominique. As a child, Dominique frequently accompanied his father on trips throughout the Haitian countryside, which led him to know and understand the lives and struggles of peasant farmers. Dominique's elder brother Philippe was an officer in the Haitian army who, along with fellow officers Alix Pasquet and Henry Perpignan, was killed in an attempt to occupy the Casernes Dessalines and overthrow François Duvalier in July 1958. His eldest sister, Madeleine Dominique Paillère, was a well-known author and intellectual.  
After completing his primary and secondary schooling at Institution Saint-Louis de Gonzague, Dominique studied at the Faculté d’Agronomie in Port-au-Prince, graduating in 1951. In the 1950s he continued his training at the Institut national agronomique (INA) in Paris, where he also developed an interest in cinema as a political tool. He returned to Haiti in 1955 and began work as an agronomist in the Nord department with the Institut Haïtien de Crédit Agricole et Industriel as well as the Société Haitiano-Américaine de Développement Agricole (SHADA), primarily on sisal and rubber production.  
In the early 1960s, after his release from prison, Dominique went to work as a program host and cultural commentator at Haiti's first independent radio station, Radio Haïti, interviewing writers and scholars. In 1972, he purchased the lease to the station from Ricardo Widmaïer and renamed it Radio Haiti-Inter. It was the first radio station in Haiti to broadcast political analysis, interviews, and investigative reporting in Haitian Creole, the language spoken by the entire population of Haiti, in addition to French, which was the language of the ruling elite.  
During the 1960s, Dominique also founded Haiti's first film club at the Institut Français in Port-au-Prince, which he understood to be a way of subverting and resisting the political repression of the Duvalier dictatorship. In 1965, the film club was banned following a screening of Alain Resnais's Night and Fog, an anti-fascist film about the Nazi concentration camps. In 1961, Dominique co-directed and narrated Haiti's first documentary film, Mais, je suis belle (But, I Am Beautiful), an ironic film about Caribbean beauty pageants. Dominique remained a staunch supporter of Haitian cinema, and collaborated with Haitian filmmakers such as Rassoul Labuchin.  
Dominique was married to fellow journalist Michèle Montas, who became the co-director of Radio Haiti after his assassination. He had three daughters from previous marriages — the writer Jan J. (J.J.) Dominique, Nadine Dominique, and Dolores Dominique Neptune — and one son, Denis Boucolon. While studying in Paris, Dominique had a relationship with Guadeloupean student Maryse Boucolon, later known as the novelist Maryse Condé. Their son, Denis, was born in France. 

Career at Radio Haïti-Inter.  
1971–1980.  
Throughout the 1970s, Jean Dominique used Radio Haiti to highlights aspects of Haitian culture rooted in its Creole-speaking majority and repressed for almost two centuries by its French-speaking elite. Dominique and Radio Haiti also reported increasingly on events that would challenge the regime of Jean-Claude Duvalier, often strategically and...]]>1052falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/91-killing-of-michael-nigg--73149883Michael Nigg (April 28, 1969 – September 8, 1995) was an aspiring actor who worked as a waiter at a Beverly Hills restaurant. He was shot and killed during an apparent robbery attempt in Hollywood. The Los Angeles Police Department later arrested three suspects but soon released them for lack of evidence. No other suspects have ever been identified, and the killing remains unsolved.  
The case attracted some media coverage at the time, because Nigg had formerly worked at the Mezzaluna restaurant in Brentwood, where he had befriended Ronald Goldman. Almost 15 months earlier, Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson had been found slain at her home near the restaurant, after he had gone there to return her mother's eyeglasses, which had been left behind at Mezzaluna. Simpson's ex-husband, former football star O. J. Simpson, had been charged with the murders, and his highly publicized trial had reached closing arguments.  
Simpson, who consistently professed his innocence in the Brown and Goldman killings, was acquitted of the murder charges almost a month after Nigg's death. Alternative theories of the murders, supposedly shared by Simpson, have suggested they were related to drug trafficking in the Los Angeles area, and that Nigg's was as well; Nigg apparently lived very well for a waiter, and there were some allegations he too had been involved in the drug trade while working at the Mezzaluna branch in Colorado before. It has also been noted that Nigg and Goldman were not the only waiters at Mezzaluna to be the victims of criminal activity during the mid-1990s.  

Background.  
Nigg was born in Gunnison, Colorado, where he grew up and attended Western State University. After graduating, he went to the Los Angeles area to try to start an acting or modeling career. He made an appearance on Liars, a syndicated television series.  
While seeking jobs and roles, he worked at restaurants waiting tables to support himself. By 1994, he was working at the Mezzaluna restaurant in Brentwood, on the city's Westside. Among his friends and coworkers there was Ronald Goldman. Nigg worked there until a month before June 1994, when Goldman was murdered along with Nicole Brown Simpson, former wife of football star O. J. Simpson. As Simpson's trial for the killings progressed, Nigg went to work at another restaurant, Sanctuary, located in Hollywood.  

Crime and investigation.  
On the evening of September 8, 1995, Nigg and his girlfriend Julie Long were on their way to another restaurant in his Mercedes. They stopped at a bank branch in Hollywood, so Nigg could withdraw some money from his account. Long stayed in the car, parked in the branch lot, while Nigg went up to the ATM, where he withdrew $40.  
As he did so, two men walked up to him and demanded money. When he refused, one of the men shot Nigg in the head. Afterwards, both robbers walked away, departing in a waiting car. Long, who witnessed the entire incident, was not harmed. The killers did not appear to have taken anything despite their initial aims.
The crime was reported promptly. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) looked for the suspects over the weekend but found no leads. On the night after the killing, Nigg's friends gathered in the parking lot for a candlelight vigil. Among them was actor Mickey Rourke, who spoke to television news crews that came to cover the event. "If anyone knows anything about the shooting that took place," he said, "just give the cops a call."    
Three months later the LAPD arrested three suspects, including the alleged getaway driver. However, they were quickly released for lack of evidence. Rewards have been offered, and the killing was dramatized on a January 1996 episode of Season Nine [which?] of FOX's America's Most Wanted. The case remains open and unsolved.  

Possible connection to O. J. Simpson murder case.  
The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office prosecuted Simpson for the killings of Goldman and Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, based on the theory that Simpson, who had a history of domestic violence with her, had acted in a fit of rage upon realizing that she was not going to return to him. Simpson, according to his lawyers, believed that the two had been killed over their involvement in drug dealing in the area, and that other murders at the time were carried out for the same reason. He speculated that Nicole had been planning to open a restaurant of her own using proceeds from cocaine sales. Mezzaluna Trattoria, where she ate her last meal, and where both Nigg and Goldman had worked, was reportedly a nexus for drug trafficking in Brentwood.  
Authors Donald Freed and Raymond Briggs claimed in Killing Time (1996), their book about the Simpson case, that an unnamed source told them that while Nigg had lived in Colorado, he was known to law enforcement there to be "involved in the narcotics culture" in Aspen (where another branch of Mezzaluna is located) and Denver. According to journalist Joseph Bosco, who had a reserved seat at the entire trial, Nigg "lived beyond his apparent means", driving a Mercedes and living in a luxury condominium while ostensibly deriving most of his income from waiting tables and occasional low-level acting jobs. Freed and Briggs, among others, have also observed that the circumstances of the killing seem to suggest the assailants' true intent was to kill Nigg rather than rob him. Moreover, Nigg and Goldman were not the only Mezzaluna waiters who had fallen victim to foul play around that time: two others were missing, and a third had his car destroyed by fire in Corona del Mar in 1994. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73149883Fri, 24 Jul 2026 15:22:58 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Killing of Michael Nigg.   Michael Nigg (April 28, 1969 – September 8, 1995) was an aspiring actor who worked as a waiter at a Beverly Hills restaurant. He was shot and killed during an apparent robbery attempt in Hollywood. The Los Angeles Police...Michael Nigg (April 28, 1969 – September 8, 1995) was an aspiring actor who worked as a waiter at a Beverly Hills restaurant. He was shot and killed during an apparent robbery attempt in Hollywood. The Los Angeles Police Department later arrested three suspects but soon released them for lack of evidence. No other suspects have ever been identified, and the killing remains unsolved.  
The case attracted some media coverage at the time, because Nigg had formerly worked at the Mezzaluna restaurant in Brentwood, where he had befriended Ronald Goldman. Almost 15 months earlier, Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson had been found slain at her home near the restaurant, after he had gone there to return her mother's eyeglasses, which had been left behind at Mezzaluna. Simpson's ex-husband, former football star O. J. Simpson, had been charged with the murders, and his highly publicized trial had reached closing arguments.  
Simpson, who consistently professed his innocence in the Brown and Goldman killings, was acquitted of the murder charges almost a month after Nigg's death. Alternative theories of the murders, supposedly shared by Simpson, have suggested they were related to drug trafficking in the Los Angeles area, and that Nigg's was as well; Nigg apparently lived very well for a waiter, and there were some allegations he too had been involved in the drug trade while working at the Mezzaluna branch in Colorado before. It has also been noted that Nigg and Goldman were not the only waiters at Mezzaluna to be the victims of criminal activity during the mid-1990s.  

Background.  
Nigg was born in Gunnison, Colorado, where he grew up and attended Western State University. After graduating, he went to the Los Angeles area to try to start an acting or modeling career. He made an appearance on Liars, a syndicated television series.  
While seeking jobs and roles, he worked at restaurants waiting tables to support himself. By 1994, he was working at the Mezzaluna restaurant in Brentwood, on the city's Westside. Among his friends and coworkers there was Ronald Goldman. Nigg worked there until a month before June 1994, when Goldman was murdered along with Nicole Brown Simpson, former wife of football star O. J. Simpson. As Simpson's trial for the killings progressed, Nigg went to work at another restaurant, Sanctuary, located in Hollywood.  

Crime and investigation.  
On the evening of September 8, 1995, Nigg and his girlfriend Julie Long were on their way to another restaurant in his Mercedes. They stopped at a bank branch in Hollywood, so Nigg could withdraw some money from his account. Long stayed in the car, parked in the branch lot, while Nigg went up to the ATM, where he withdrew $40.  
As he did so, two men walked up to him and demanded money. When he refused, one of the men shot Nigg in the head. Afterwards, both robbers walked away, departing in a waiting car. Long, who witnessed the entire incident, was not harmed. The killers did not appear to have taken anything despite their initial aims.
The crime was reported promptly. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) looked for the suspects over the weekend but found no leads. On the night after the killing, Nigg's friends gathered in the parking lot for a candlelight vigil. Among them was actor Mickey Rourke, who spoke to television news crews that came to cover the event. "If anyone knows anything about the shooting that took place," he said, "just give the cops a call."    
Three months later the LAPD arrested three suspects, including the alleged getaway driver. However, they were quickly released for lack of evidence. Rewards have been offered, and the killing was dramatized on a January 1996 episode of Season Nine [which?] of FOX's America's Most Wanted. The case remains open and unsolved.  

Possible connection to O. J. Simpson murder case.  
The Los Angeles County...]]>372falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/90-murder-of-luigia-borrelli--73148981The murder of Luigia Borrelli, known in Italy as the "Drill Crime" (Italian: delitto del trapano) was carried out on the night of 5 September 1995 in the historic centre of Genoa. The victim was a 42-year-old former nurse, also known by the name of "Antonella", who worked as a prostitute in the alley where she was murdered.  
The murder is known as the Drill Crime, taking its name from the tool used to kill the victim. It is remembered in the news as one of the most brutal crimes committed in the capital of Liguria in recent times and remained unsolved for many years until the case was reopened in 2023.  

Background.  
Luigia Borrelli was born in the 1950s in Iglesias, Sardinia, but at the end of the 1970s she moved to Genoa, where she found a job as a nurse at the San Martino Hospital. In the city she also met the man she went to live with, Mario Arnaldo Andreini, a divorced warehouse worker, with whom she had two children. Towards the end of the 1980s, Andreini tried to open a bar in the same neighbourhood where Borrelli worked. He did not have the money necessary for renovations, and went into debt with loan sharks owing 250 million lira. In February 1990, Andreini died of a heart attack. Borrelli was left with the task of supporting her two children and repaying the large debt, of which she had been unaware of until after her husband's death.  
Threatened and pressured by loan sharks, Luigia quit her job as a nurse in 1992 and began to prostitute herself under the fictitious name of "Antonella" to pay off her debts. She rented a property in the alleyway of Vico degli Indoratori at number 64, near the Genoa Cathedral, where she could play her trade. In July 1993 she was evicted, and moved from Corso Gastaldi, in the Foce district, to Monticelli in Marassi. She managed to generate a rather large clientele in the Molo district, so much so that she could pay her rent and her debt. This however also attracted the antipathy of other prostitutes under pimps. She told her children that she was a carer for an elderly woman, Adriana Fravega, who was a former prostitute and owner of the property where Borrelli organised the appointments.  
On the day of her murder, 5 September 1995, "Antonella" was seen having breakfast at the bar, around 10:30 am, on the corner between Piazza Carloforte and via Bonifacio, a few steps from her house, a regular stop, as the owner of the bar recalled. She was later seen at around 1 pm in a pizzeria where she usually ate, near Vico Indoratori, and an hour later in a bar in Piazza San Matteo, in the company of another prostitute. This was the last sighting of her alive.  
The morning of the following day, at the request of her 19-year-old daughter Francesca, who had not seen her mother return home, Adriana Fravega went to check the premises on Vico Indoratori, which she was able to enter at 8:30 due to the intervention of the Carabinieri. The body was found there. She was covered in blood, in a room turned upside down by what had been an apparent fight between the attacker and the victim. She had broken teeth, several bruises and a drill stuck in her throat, a tool that gave the crime its media name. None of the ten wounds, including the one inflicted by the drill, were immediately fatal. From the autopsy examination by the coroner, it emerged that Borrelli had been attacked between 9 and 11 pm the previous evening and had died from the serious injuries she had sustained. Investigators described the crime scene as "overkill".  

Aftermath.  
Following the broadcast, in May 2022, of the programme Mostri senza nome - Genova, on Sky and NowTv, a production of Crime + Investigation, with an episode on the "drill crime" narrated by Matteo Caccia – with the participation of Petruzziello and the journalist Marco Menduni, reporter for Il Secolo XIX. In 2023 the investigations were reopened with new DNA tests which exonerated the original prime suspect, who died in 2021, along with all the suspects from the years following the crime. 


Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73148981Fri, 24 Jul 2026 15:00:00 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murder of Luigia Borrelli.   The murder of Luigia Borrelli, known in Italy as the "Drill Crime" (Italian: delitto del trapano) was carried out on the night of 5 September 1995 in the historic centre of Genoa. The victim was a 42-year-old former nurse,...The murder of Luigia Borrelli, known in Italy as the "Drill Crime" (Italian: delitto del trapano) was carried out on the night of 5 September 1995 in the historic centre of Genoa. The victim was a 42-year-old former nurse, also known by the name of "Antonella", who worked as a prostitute in the alley where she was murdered.  
The murder is known as the Drill Crime, taking its name from the tool used to kill the victim. It is remembered in the news as one of the most brutal crimes committed in the capital of Liguria in recent times and remained unsolved for many years until the case was reopened in 2023.  

Background.  
Luigia Borrelli was born in the 1950s in Iglesias, Sardinia, but at the end of the 1970s she moved to Genoa, where she found a job as a nurse at the San Martino Hospital. In the city she also met the man she went to live with, Mario Arnaldo Andreini, a divorced warehouse worker, with whom she had two children. Towards the end of the 1980s, Andreini tried to open a bar in the same neighbourhood where Borrelli worked. He did not have the money necessary for renovations, and went into debt with loan sharks owing 250 million lira. In February 1990, Andreini died of a heart attack. Borrelli was left with the task of supporting her two children and repaying the large debt, of which she had been unaware of until after her husband's death.  
Threatened and pressured by loan sharks, Luigia quit her job as a nurse in 1992 and began to prostitute herself under the fictitious name of "Antonella" to pay off her debts. She rented a property in the alleyway of Vico degli Indoratori at number 64, near the Genoa Cathedral, where she could play her trade. In July 1993 she was evicted, and moved from Corso Gastaldi, in the Foce district, to Monticelli in Marassi. She managed to generate a rather large clientele in the Molo district, so much so that she could pay her rent and her debt. This however also attracted the antipathy of other prostitutes under pimps. She told her children that she was a carer for an elderly woman, Adriana Fravega, who was a former prostitute and owner of the property where Borrelli organised the appointments.  
On the day of her murder, 5 September 1995, "Antonella" was seen having breakfast at the bar, around 10:30 am, on the corner between Piazza Carloforte and via Bonifacio, a few steps from her house, a regular stop, as the owner of the bar recalled. She was later seen at around 1 pm in a pizzeria where she usually ate, near Vico Indoratori, and an hour later in a bar in Piazza San Matteo, in the company of another prostitute. This was the last sighting of her alive.  
The morning of the following day, at the request of her 19-year-old daughter Francesca, who had not seen her mother return home, Adriana Fravega went to check the premises on Vico Indoratori, which she was able to enter at 8:30 due to the intervention of the Carabinieri. The body was found there. She was covered in blood, in a room turned upside down by what had been an apparent fight between the attacker and the victim. She had broken teeth, several bruises and a drill stuck in her throat, a tool that gave the crime its media name. None of the ten wounds, including the one inflicted by the drill, were immediately fatal. From the autopsy examination by the coroner, it emerged that Borrelli had been attacked between 9 and 11 pm the previous evening and had died from the serious injuries she had sustained. Investigators described the crime scene as "overkill".  

Aftermath.  
Following the broadcast, in May 2022, of the programme Mostri senza nome - Genova, on Sky and NowTv, a production of Crime + Investigation, with an episode on the "drill crime" narrated by Matteo Caccia – with the participation of Petruzziello and the journalist Marco Menduni, reporter for Il Secolo XIX. In 2023 the investigations were reopened with new DNA tests which exonerated...]]>274falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/89-michael-ljunggren--73148562Per Michael "Joe" Ljunggren (22 March 1962 – 17 July 1995) was a Swedish outlaw biker and gangster who served as the first national president of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club in Sweden. Ljunggren was a central figure in the Nordic Biker War, in which the Bandidos feuded with the Hells Angels. He was shot dead while riding his motorcycle on the E4 motorway in Småland. The murder remains unsolved, but police believe members of the Hells Angels to be responsible.  

Outlaw biker.  
Ljunggren was a member of the Rebels Motorcycle Club, which was formed in Helsingborg in 1981. The Rebels were affiliated with the Hells Angels chapter across the Øresund strait in Helsingør and, through this association, Ljunggren became acquainted with Hells Angels member Jan "Face" Krogh Jensen. In 1984, Ljunggren founded the White Trash MC with Jensen and another Danish biker who had moved to Helsingborg, with the intention of eventually forming a Hells Angels chapter in Sweden. The White Trash became closely associated with the Black Sheep MC, a Hells Angels prospect club in Roskilde which later became the Hells Angels' South chapter. Two Black Sheep members, including Jan "Clark" Jensen, took refuge with the White Trash in Helsingborg following the Copenhagen Biker War. The White Trash also had good relations with Hells Angels in Helsingør and its then president Michael Garcia "Lerche" Olsen. The Helsingør Hells Angels chapter closed in the spring of 1986 following an internal dispute, however. The same year, police raided the White Trash's clubhouse while searching for Jan "Clark" Jensen and discovered weapons and stolen goods, which resulted in Ljunggren being sentenced to prison. The police operation and Ljunggren's imprisonment caused the White Trash to disband, and Ljunggren applied to return to the Rebels. He withdrew from the biker club scene following the birth of his second son in 1989 and, in 1991, spent time riding through the United States with his friend Lasse "Kalle Fist" Karlsson, another former Rebels member.  
Upon his return to Sweden, Ljunggren joined the Morbids MC, which had been formed in Helsingborg earlier that year. In 1993, a fight took place between the Morbids and the Rebels in Stockholm, which left several Morbids members beaten. Some time later, the Hells Angels in Malmö offered a path to membership for the Rebels and Morbids on the condition was that the clubs were merged and that Michael Ljunggren and his friend Lasse Karlsson were not members. The Morbids – a club with only six members – rejected the invitation and, requiring support in its feud with the Hells Angels, instead began an affiliation with the Undertakers MC in Zealand, who had contacts with the first Bandidos chapter in Europe, located in Marseille. The Undertakers were patched over by the Bandidos in December 1993, and the Morbids followed suit in January 1995 after first serving as a probationary chapter for a year. Ljunggren became the Bandidos Sweden national president. Upon its foundation, the Bandidos chapter in Helsingborg was attacked by the Hells Angels, beginning the Nordic Biker War.  

Murder.  
On 17 July 1995, Ljunggren was returning from a visit to the Finnish branch of the Undertakers in Helsinki – which would become a Bandidos probationary chapter the following month before being patched over in October 1996 – with Jan "Clark" Jensen, who joined the Bandidos earlier that year after leaving the Hells Angels. The pair boarded a ferry to Stockholm then rode their Harley-Davidson motorcycles in the direction of Helsingborg. Jensen's motorcycle broke down in Ljungby, however, and Ljunggren continued the journey alone. He was shot while riding his motorcycle on the E4 motorway, south of Markaryd, Småland. He then fell from his bike and was run over by a car. An ambulance took him to a nearby hospital, with doctors initially thinking a simple road accident had occurred. Only at the hospital did it become clear that he had been shot several times with a firearm, likely a Carl Gustaf m/45. He was wearing a flak vest, but one of the shots penetrated the armour, striking him in the back and killing him. There are various theories as to how Ljunggren was shot. One presumption is that he was shot by a sniper; this theory is supported by the testimony of two witnesses, a Danish couple. Another is that he was shot from a car driving behind him, which is supported by the police technical examination of the bullets' trajectory. The murder has gone unsolved and has become a cold case, although police believe the Hells Angels were involved. Information obtained by police from a mobile phone network indicates that Hells Angels members' phones were used and moved along Ljunggren's route from when he stepped ashore in Stockholm. Suspects include a Hells Angels prospect club from Helsinki (Undertakers members fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the prospects' Helsinki clubhouse eight days after Ljunggren's murder in a presumed revenge attack), Choppers MC from Stockholm (which gained prospect status from the Hells Angels shortly after the murder) or another Hells Angels prospect club from Helsingborg (who were, according to rumours, alerted to Ljunggren's location by a corrupt police officer).  


Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73148562Fri, 24 Jul 2026 14:44:57 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Michael Ljunggren.   Per Michael "Joe" Ljunggren (22 March 1962 – 17 July 1995) was a Swedish outlaw biker and gangster who served as the first national president of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club in Sweden. Ljunggren was a central figure in the Nordic...Per Michael "Joe" Ljunggren (22 March 1962 – 17 July 1995) was a Swedish outlaw biker and gangster who served as the first national president of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club in Sweden. Ljunggren was a central figure in the Nordic Biker War, in which the Bandidos feuded with the Hells Angels. He was shot dead while riding his motorcycle on the E4 motorway in Småland. The murder remains unsolved, but police believe members of the Hells Angels to be responsible.  

Outlaw biker.  
Ljunggren was a member of the Rebels Motorcycle Club, which was formed in Helsingborg in 1981. The Rebels were affiliated with the Hells Angels chapter across the Øresund strait in Helsingør and, through this association, Ljunggren became acquainted with Hells Angels member Jan "Face" Krogh Jensen. In 1984, Ljunggren founded the White Trash MC with Jensen and another Danish biker who had moved to Helsingborg, with the intention of eventually forming a Hells Angels chapter in Sweden. The White Trash became closely associated with the Black Sheep MC, a Hells Angels prospect club in Roskilde which later became the Hells Angels' South chapter. Two Black Sheep members, including Jan "Clark" Jensen, took refuge with the White Trash in Helsingborg following the Copenhagen Biker War. The White Trash also had good relations with Hells Angels in Helsingør and its then president Michael Garcia "Lerche" Olsen. The Helsingør Hells Angels chapter closed in the spring of 1986 following an internal dispute, however. The same year, police raided the White Trash's clubhouse while searching for Jan "Clark" Jensen and discovered weapons and stolen goods, which resulted in Ljunggren being sentenced to prison. The police operation and Ljunggren's imprisonment caused the White Trash to disband, and Ljunggren applied to return to the Rebels. He withdrew from the biker club scene following the birth of his second son in 1989 and, in 1991, spent time riding through the United States with his friend Lasse "Kalle Fist" Karlsson, another former Rebels member.  
Upon his return to Sweden, Ljunggren joined the Morbids MC, which had been formed in Helsingborg earlier that year. In 1993, a fight took place between the Morbids and the Rebels in Stockholm, which left several Morbids members beaten. Some time later, the Hells Angels in Malmö offered a path to membership for the Rebels and Morbids on the condition was that the clubs were merged and that Michael Ljunggren and his friend Lasse Karlsson were not members. The Morbids – a club with only six members – rejected the invitation and, requiring support in its feud with the Hells Angels, instead began an affiliation with the Undertakers MC in Zealand, who had contacts with the first Bandidos chapter in Europe, located in Marseille. The Undertakers were patched over by the Bandidos in December 1993, and the Morbids followed suit in January 1995 after first serving as a probationary chapter for a year. Ljunggren became the Bandidos Sweden national president. Upon its foundation, the Bandidos chapter in Helsingborg was attacked by the Hells Angels, beginning the Nordic Biker War.  

Murder.  
On 17 July 1995, Ljunggren was returning from a visit to the Finnish branch of the Undertakers in Helsinki – which would become a Bandidos probationary chapter the following month before being patched over in October 1996 – with Jan "Clark" Jensen, who joined the Bandidos earlier that year after leaving the Hells Angels. The pair boarded a ferry to Stockholm then rode their Harley-Davidson motorcycles in the direction of Helsingborg. Jensen's motorcycle broke down in Ljungby, however, and Ljunggren continued the journey alone. He was shot while riding his motorcycle on the E4 motorway, south of Markaryd, Småland. He then fell from his bike and was run over by a car. An ambulance took him to a nearby hospital, with doctors initially thinking a simple road accident had occurred. Only at...]]>349falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/88-killing-of-ramapiram-kannickaisparry--73146390Ramapiram Kannickaisparry (c. 1956 – 17 April 1995), also known as Ramipiram Kannickaisparry, was an Indian-born Singaporean woman who was found dead in a forested area of Sembawang on 17 April 1995. Ramapiram was last seen alive six hours before her corpse was discovered, with thirteen stab wounds on her head and neck, and her body showed signs of being run over by a vehicle. The police classified the case of her death as murder, and three days later, a 40-year-old man named Nadasan Chandra Secharan, who was the younger brother of Ramapiram's brother-in-law, was arrested and charged with her murder. Investigations and court proceedings revealed that Ramapiram and Nadasan were engaged in an illicit love affair with each other, even though both were married to different spouses and had children.  
Nadasan was tried by the High Court and sentenced to death after being found guilty of murder, but the Court of Appeal heard Nadasan's case and decided to acquit Nadasan and release him due to lack of concrete evidence to substantiate the murder charge against Nadasan. As of today, the death of Ramapiram remains unsolved and the murderer(s) were never caught.  

Death and police investigations.  
On the evening of 17 April 1995 at 6 pm, 38-year-old Soh Jin Chwee was jogging along the forest of Ulu Sembawang when he discovered the body of a woman lying in the undergrowth. Due to great shock, Soh did not immediately report the finding and instead, he told his brother about the gruesome discovery. The police were contacted the next day by Soh's brother, and subsequently, an autopsy report by forensic pathologist Dr Paul Chui revealed that the woman had thirteen stab wounds on her head and neck, and also sustained broken ribs and pelvis, which showed that she could be run over by a vehicle.  
The woman was identified as 39-year-old production operator Ramapiram Kannickaisparry, who was married to an army officer Munisamy Pandian, with whom she had two sons. She was separated from her husband at the time she was killed. She was last seen alive at 12.15 pm at her workplace Apple Computer, six hours before Soh's discovery of her death and her corpse. Several tyre marks were found on the wet mud near the corpse. The police investigations were led by Inspector Richard Lim Beng Gee, who was known for cracking several high-profile cases (which included the Anthony Ler case, Oriental Hotel murder, Bulgarian lady murder and the Koh Ngiap Yong murder case).  
Three days later, the police arrested a suspect, who was a 40-year-old mechanic named Nadasan Chandra Secharan, the younger brother of Ramapiram's brother-in-law, outside his Yishun flat. Nadasan was married with three children and worked as a mechanic at the Seletar Country Club at the time of his arrest. Prior to his arrest, both Nadasan and Ramapiram were engaged in an affair after they first met each other in 1991 at a family gathering in his brother's house, and Ramapiram's husband got wind of the affair some time after it started, which caused them to live in separation. Nadasan was charged with murder on 22 April 1995, two days after his arrest.  
A broken tooth was found inside Nadasan's van, in addition to some gold items and jewellery, which were purportedly belonging to the deceased victim. By the time the tooth was found, the body of Ramapiram was returned to her bereaved family and cremated, hence it cannot be compared if it belonged to her. As there were no DNA experts in Singapore at the time, the tooth was thus sent to the forensic experts of Scotland Yard in Britain for DNA testing. After some testing, it was confirmed to belong to Ramapiram.  
Background information of Nadasan revealed that he first began working as a mechanic at the British Naval Base in 1974, before he switched to becoming a mechanic at Singapore Bus Service (SBS), before he left SBS two years later and joined the New Zealand Naval Base. Nadasan was retrenched in 1989 and switched to self-employment in 1992, before he went on to become a mechanic at the Seletar Country Club, a job which he held until his arrest for allegedly murdering Ramapiram.  

Trial of Nadasan Chandra Secharan.  
Prosecution's case.  
On 11 January 1996, Nadasan Chandra Secharan stood trial for the murder of Ramapiram Kannickaisparry in the High Court, with the case being heard by the High Court's judge Lai Kew Chai (who notably sentenced both serial killer Sek Kim Wah and child killer Took Leng How to death in 1985 and 2005 respectively). Deputy Public Prosecutors (DPPs) Ong Hian Sun and Kan Shuk Weng of the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) were in charge of prosecuting Nadasan, while Nadasan was represented by Subhas Anandan, then the most famous criminal lawyer in Singapore, and Amolat Singh was the second lawyer to assist Subhas in court defending Nadasan. Subhas revealed later in his book that he and Nadasan were acquaintances and seen each other regularly at the Hindu temple they worshipped.  
The prosecution's case was that Nadasan killed Ramapiram due to the latter wanting to end the affair between them. They argued that Nadasan used the van to knock over Ramapiram after stabbing her inside the van, which led to the tooth being broken and fell off. They also consulted Dr Anthony Boyd Gummer, a forensic expert from New Zealand, who compared the tyre marks to Nadasan's van and concluded that the tyre marks belonged to Nadasan's van.  

Defence's case.  
The defence, however, rebutted the facts of the prosecution's case, and argued that Nadasan was not involved in the crime.  
Subhas cross-examined the Scotland Yard DNA expert Dr Valerie Susan Tomlinson, and he extracted the female expert's admission that the sample was contaminated, and the proper protocols were not followed while testing the broken tooth. Subhas also cross-examined the New Zealander expert Dr Gummer, who confirmed his findings of the tyre marks were only made after referring to the photos of the crime scene and the van, as well as there were only one in 133 probabilities that they belonged to Nadasan's van. Subhas also invited an Australian DNA expert Colin Wingrove and Australian forensic expert Brian Leslie McDonald, who both rebutted the evidence of the British DNA expert and New Zealander forensic expert respectively.  Subhas also argued that the tooth could have broken off due to Ramapiram's habit of using her teeth to open beer bottle caps, a habit which Ramapiram's husband Munisamy told the court about when he appeared as a witness. This possibility was given some credence with Nadasan's recount that he often ate food and drank beer with Ramapiram behind his van during the happier moments of their four years together up until her murder.  
Nadasan, who denied killing Ramapiram, took the stand to give his account of what happened. He stated he, at the time when Ramapiram was last seen alive, was repairing his van somewhere else and was not at the scene of crime. He stated that it was lunchtime, and since his home at Yishun was not far from the Seletar Country Club, he drove home to have his lunch. It happened that on the way, Nadasan's twenty-year-old van broke down as it usually did a few previous occasions, causing him to stop to fix the van, and the heavy downpour of rain during his lunchtime further delayed him, which led to him taking about one hour to fix the van. Nadasan's employer confirmed he paged Nadasan, who called him to inform him that he was repairing his van. Having taken quite some time to repair the van, Nadasan explained he skipped lunch and returned to his workplace.  
Yet, after Nadasan completed his testimony on the stand, the prosecution called on a Grade One mechanic, who did not have a prior understanding of Nadasan's van, to testify that fixing the van should have taken only twenty minutes. Having cross-examined the mechanic, Subhas urged the court to not consider the mechanic's testimony since the witness did not have a prior understanding of his client's van and it was reasonable to take one hour to repair his van, given Nadasan's poor mechanic skills, the heavy rain and it was his lunchtime. He also argued that Nadasan behaved normally throughout the day at his house and workplace, and it was not the expected post-killing behaviour of someone who just committed a brutal murder, and said if indeed he was guilty, Nadasan would be the "coolest cucumber in the world".  

Sentencing verdict.  
On 24 June 1996, the trial judge Lai Kew Chai delivered his verdict.  
In his judgement, Justice Lai stated he did not believe Nadasan's defence of using more than one hour to repair the van, and disbelieved that his van would coincidentally break down at another place at the time of murder. He stated that despite the flawed points, the prosecution's evidence was more persuasive than the defence in proving Nadasan guilty of murder rather than not guilty. The judge stated that with the DNA tests and forensic examination of the tyre marks, as well as the probable motive Nadasan had to cause Ramapiram's death, he concluded the prosecution had proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt and thus found 40-year-old Nadasan Chandra Secharan guilty of the murder of 39-year-old Ramapiram Kannickaisparry.  
In accordance to Singapore law, Justice Lai imposed the death penalty on Nadasan after his conviction, since all degrees of murder offences in Singapore back then carried the mandatory punishment of death (up until 2013 when life imprisonment was introduced as Singapore's lowest penalty for murder offences with no intention to kill).  
According to Subhas Anandan, he was disappointed with the verdict and Nadasan's family were emotionally distraught at the verdict of death. Nadasan also expressed his intention to appeal against the murder conviction. The aftermath..

Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73146390Fri, 24 Jul 2026 13:38:50 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Killing of Ramapiram Kannickaisparry.    Ramapiram Kannickaisparry (c. 1956 – 17 April 1995), also known as Ramipiram Kannickaisparry, was an Indian-born Singaporean woman who was found dead in a forested area of Sembawang on 17 April 1995. Ramapiram...Ramapiram Kannickaisparry (c. 1956 – 17 April 1995), also known as Ramipiram Kannickaisparry, was an Indian-born Singaporean woman who was found dead in a forested area of Sembawang on 17 April 1995. Ramapiram was last seen alive six hours before her corpse was discovered, with thirteen stab wounds on her head and neck, and her body showed signs of being run over by a vehicle. The police classified the case of her death as murder, and three days later, a 40-year-old man named Nadasan Chandra Secharan, who was the younger brother of Ramapiram's brother-in-law, was arrested and charged with her murder. Investigations and court proceedings revealed that Ramapiram and Nadasan were engaged in an illicit love affair with each other, even though both were married to different spouses and had children.  
Nadasan was tried by the High Court and sentenced to death after being found guilty of murder, but the Court of Appeal heard Nadasan's case and decided to acquit Nadasan and release him due to lack of concrete evidence to substantiate the murder charge against Nadasan. As of today, the death of Ramapiram remains unsolved and the murderer(s) were never caught.  

Death and police investigations.  
On the evening of 17 April 1995 at 6 pm, 38-year-old Soh Jin Chwee was jogging along the forest of Ulu Sembawang when he discovered the body of a woman lying in the undergrowth. Due to great shock, Soh did not immediately report the finding and instead, he told his brother about the gruesome discovery. The police were contacted the next day by Soh's brother, and subsequently, an autopsy report by forensic pathologist Dr Paul Chui revealed that the woman had thirteen stab wounds on her head and neck, and also sustained broken ribs and pelvis, which showed that she could be run over by a vehicle.  
The woman was identified as 39-year-old production operator Ramapiram Kannickaisparry, who was married to an army officer Munisamy Pandian, with whom she had two sons. She was separated from her husband at the time she was killed. She was last seen alive at 12.15 pm at her workplace Apple Computer, six hours before Soh's discovery of her death and her corpse. Several tyre marks were found on the wet mud near the corpse. The police investigations were led by Inspector Richard Lim Beng Gee, who was known for cracking several high-profile cases (which included the Anthony Ler case, Oriental Hotel murder, Bulgarian lady murder and the Koh Ngiap Yong murder case).  
Three days later, the police arrested a suspect, who was a 40-year-old mechanic named Nadasan Chandra Secharan, the younger brother of Ramapiram's brother-in-law, outside his Yishun flat. Nadasan was married with three children and worked as a mechanic at the Seletar Country Club at the time of his arrest. Prior to his arrest, both Nadasan and Ramapiram were engaged in an affair after they first met each other in 1991 at a family gathering in his brother's house, and Ramapiram's husband got wind of the affair some time after it started, which caused them to live in separation. Nadasan was charged with murder on 22 April 1995, two days after his arrest.  
A broken tooth was found inside Nadasan's van, in addition to some gold items and jewellery, which were purportedly belonging to the deceased victim. By the time the tooth was found, the body of Ramapiram was returned to her bereaved family and cremated, hence it cannot be compared if it belonged to her. As there were no DNA experts in Singapore at the time, the tooth was thus sent to the forensic experts of Scotland Yard in Britain for DNA testing. After some testing, it was confirmed to belong to Ramapiram.  
Background information of Nadasan revealed that he first began working as a mechanic at the British Naval Base in 1974, before he switched to becoming a mechanic at Singapore Bus Service (SBS), before he left SBS two years later and joined the New...]]>1133falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/87-murder-of-lindsay-rimer--73132455Lindsay Jo Rimer (17 February 1981 – c. 7 November 1994) was a 13-year-old British girl from Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire who disappeared on the evening of 7 November 1994. The following year, her body was found in the Rochdale Canal outside the town; she had been strangled.  
Despite repeated appeals for information, her murder remains unsolved. Police investigated criminals such as the murderer John Taylor, but no evidence has been found to link them to Rimer's murder. In 2016, West Yorkshire Police announced that they had isolated a DNA profile that they would attempt to develop further. In October 2025, a man was arrested on suspicion of her murder.
 
Life.  
Lindsay Jo Rimer (born 17 February 1981) lived with her parents, two sisters, and brother in the family home on Cambridge Street in Hebden Bridge. She was in Year 9 at Calder High School and was described as a popular pupil.  

Disappearance.  
Rimer was last seen alive on the evening of 7 November 1994. At about 10:00 p.m. GMT, she left her home to buy a packet of cornflakes from the SPAR supermarket in Crown Street. On her way to the shop, she briefly visited a local pub, the Trades Club in Holme Street, where her mother was having a drink with a friend. Her mother asked Rimer if she wanted to stay and have a cola with them, but Lindsay declined and continued to the shop, having asked her mother for money to buy the cornflakes.  CCTV footage exists from the shop showing her paying for the cornflakes at 10:22 p.m. She failed to return home that night, although as her mother was out and her father had been on the phone between 9:45 and 10:20 p.m., neither noticed and thought she had come home and gone straight to her attic bedroom for the night. Rimer was last seen at 10:40 p.m. on Crown Street by the entrance to the Memorial Garden, leaning against a wall.  
When Rimer did not appear for her paper round the following morning the newsagents rang home and her paper delivery bag was found to still be in the kitchen along with her school money. At this point, it became clear she had not slept in her bed and the alarm was raised.  
Police initially suspected that Rimer might have been a runaway. There was local speculation that Rimer had been having problems at home, although this was denied by her family. Rimer's older sister Katie took part in a reconstruction of Rimer's walk to the shop and hundreds of local people joined the police in searches of the area around Hebden Bridge, but no trace of Rimer was found. Parts of the Rochdale Canal and River Calder along her route home were also searched. The home of every man in the town was also searched by police.  

Discovery of body.  
On 12 April 1995 Rimer's body was found by two canal workers in the Rochdale Canal at Rawden Mill Lock, about one mile (1.6 km) from the centre of Hebden Bridge. It had been weighted down with a concrete boulder to prevent it from floating to the surface, and had probably been dislodged during dredging operations in the canal over the preceding days. She was found fully dressed in the clothes that she was wearing when she had disappeared, and in her pocket was still the exact change from the cornflakes she bought that night. The arms of her jumper had been tied together in a sling. The part of the canal in which Rimer was found was next to a well-lit factory (now demolished and a storage site); police believe that the killer had local knowledge of the factory's lack of night-time security.  
Police had previously searched parts of the canal, but confirmed after the discovery that they had not searched the section where she was found. Detectives admitted this had been a mistake and said that they should have searched upstream instead, in part because currents in the canal could have taken Rimer's body upstream from Hebden Bridge toward where she was found. However, detectives would later clarify that they believed that Rimer's body had been placed into the section of the canal by the factory. The 20-pound (9.1 kg) stone that had been used to anchor the body was also found to have come from the side of the canal.  
The post mortem was conducted later that day at Royal Halifax Infirmary by Home Office pathologist Mike Green, who concluded that Rimer had most likely been strangled to death. Her larynx had been flattened against the spinal column and there were also signs of congestion across the middle of the neck muscles. There were no signs of a sexual assault, and Green concluded that the attack had not been of a sexual nature.  

Investigations.  
Detectives believed that Rimer was killed on the night of her disappearance and her body placed in the canal hours before she was reported missing on the morning of 8 November. They also believed that she had likely been killed by someone whom she had known. She was described as a "cautious" girl who would only enter the vehicle of someone whom she trusted. The fact that there had been no sightings of a struggle or her being dragged into a vehicle made investigators believe that she had got into a vehicle with someone known to her, such as someone she had met recently or an older brother of a friend.  
An offender profile was drawn up by a psychiatrist, and this concluded that the killer would likely be someone who could drive, probably aged 17 to their early 20s, and potentially someone Rimer would be attracted to. Lead investigator Tony Whittle suggested that the killer may not have intended to murder Lindsay, saying: "Possibly someone she knew very well offered her a lift. Unbeknown to her he could have been sexually attracted to her, took her to the factory and when she struggled and screamed, perhaps he killed her by mistake."  
The canal in which her body was located runs close to the street where the Rimer family lived, and police believed that Rimer may have walked home along an unlit path that runs a few yards from her house.  
After Rimer's disappearance, police had discovered that a red Honda Civic stolen in Meanwood, near Leeds, the previous night had been spotted several times in Hebden Bridge near where she had last been seen. The car was seen again in the town during the evening on 12 November. Police attempted to trace the vehicle and the driver, who was described as a bearded male. The man further raised suspicions after it was discovered that he had tried to chat with several teenage girls in the town around the time when Rimer had vanished, and some of the girls were Rimer's school friends. However, several weeks into the investigation the vehicle and driver were traced and the man was ruled out as a suspect due to having a confirmed alibi, since he was being spoken to by a police officer some miles away at the time of Rimer's disappearance.  
Two months after Rimer's body was found, police released pictures of shoppers filmed by CCTV at the SPAR shop on the evening of the disappearance. A number of the shoppers had not been traced, and police appealed to the shoppers to present themselves because they may have held important information.  
A year after Rimer's disappearance, it was theorised by detectives that Rimer could have met her killer only days before she disappeared at the Hebden Bridge bonfire on 5 November 1994. Police appealed for anyone with any relevant information to speak with them.  

Later inquiries.  
In the late 1990s, Rimer's murder was investigated as part of Operation Enigma, a national cross-force police operation assembled to review the unsolved murders of 207 women across Britain. One of its aims was to examine possible links among murders and examine whether unidentified serial killers could be at large. However, Enigma eliminated the possibility of links between Rimer's murder and other killings.  
In 2000, forensic psychologist Richard Badcock told police that the killing may have had a sexual element. He asserted that Rimer may have been killed after she rebuffed the killer's sexual advances, and also claimed that she was killed close to where her body was discovered.  
In the years since the discovery of Rimer's body, police have taken hundreds of witness statements and spoken to more than 5,000 people. More than 1,200 vehicles were examined in the first year of the investigation. Detectives have investigated a number of criminals free at the time of the murder; John Taylor (jailed for life in 2002 for the murder of Leanne Tiernan) and John Oswin (jailed for life in 1998 for two rapes) have been investigated, but no evidence has been found to link either to Rimer's murder.  
In April 2016, West Yorkshire Police said that a DNA profile had been obtained by a team of forensic specialists. The police hoped that it would identify the killer, saying that they were “really interested in developing further" the DNA profile. It was noted that police did not disclose where the DNA had been found.  
On 8 November 2016, a 63-year-old man from Bradford was arrested on suspicion of the murder, but he was later released on police bail. A second suspect, aged 68, was arrested by West Yorkshire Police on suspicion of murder on 25 April 2017 in Bradford.  
Speaking on Channel 4 News on the 30th anniversary of Rimer's murder in 2024, new lead detective James Entwistle said that there was a "distinct possibility" that the killer was one of the people already known to investigators and that police may already have spoken to the killer.  
On 13 October 2025, police arrested a man on suspicion of Rimer's murder. The suspect was arrested at a prison where he is serving a sentence for other offences.  

Theories.  
In 2003, it was reported that detectives were investigating a possible link to double murderer Tony King and that they had sought a copy of his DNA. However, police stated to the press that any..

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73132455Thu, 23 Jul 2026 19:58:10 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murder of Lindsay Rimer,   Lindsay Jo Rimer (17 February 1981 – c. 7 November 1994) was a 13-year-old British girl from Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire who disappeared on the evening of 7 November 1994. The following year, her body was found in the...Lindsay Jo Rimer (17 February 1981 – c. 7 November 1994) was a 13-year-old British girl from Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire who disappeared on the evening of 7 November 1994. The following year, her body was found in the Rochdale Canal outside the town; she had been strangled.  
Despite repeated appeals for information, her murder remains unsolved. Police investigated criminals such as the murderer John Taylor, but no evidence has been found to link them to Rimer's murder. In 2016, West Yorkshire Police announced that they had isolated a DNA profile that they would attempt to develop further. In October 2025, a man was arrested on suspicion of her murder.
 
Life.  
Lindsay Jo Rimer (born 17 February 1981) lived with her parents, two sisters, and brother in the family home on Cambridge Street in Hebden Bridge. She was in Year 9 at Calder High School and was described as a popular pupil.  

Disappearance.  
Rimer was last seen alive on the evening of 7 November 1994. At about 10:00 p.m. GMT, she left her home to buy a packet of cornflakes from the SPAR supermarket in Crown Street. On her way to the shop, she briefly visited a local pub, the Trades Club in Holme Street, where her mother was having a drink with a friend. Her mother asked Rimer if she wanted to stay and have a cola with them, but Lindsay declined and continued to the shop, having asked her mother for money to buy the cornflakes.  CCTV footage exists from the shop showing her paying for the cornflakes at 10:22 p.m. She failed to return home that night, although as her mother was out and her father had been on the phone between 9:45 and 10:20 p.m., neither noticed and thought she had come home and gone straight to her attic bedroom for the night. Rimer was last seen at 10:40 p.m. on Crown Street by the entrance to the Memorial Garden, leaning against a wall.  
When Rimer did not appear for her paper round the following morning the newsagents rang home and her paper delivery bag was found to still be in the kitchen along with her school money. At this point, it became clear she had not slept in her bed and the alarm was raised.  
Police initially suspected that Rimer might have been a runaway. There was local speculation that Rimer had been having problems at home, although this was denied by her family. Rimer's older sister Katie took part in a reconstruction of Rimer's walk to the shop and hundreds of local people joined the police in searches of the area around Hebden Bridge, but no trace of Rimer was found. Parts of the Rochdale Canal and River Calder along her route home were also searched. The home of every man in the town was also searched by police.  

Discovery of body.  
On 12 April 1995 Rimer's body was found by two canal workers in the Rochdale Canal at Rawden Mill Lock, about one mile (1.6 km) from the centre of Hebden Bridge. It had been weighted down with a concrete boulder to prevent it from floating to the surface, and had probably been dislodged during dredging operations in the canal over the preceding days. She was found fully dressed in the clothes that she was wearing when she had disappeared, and in her pocket was still the exact change from the cornflakes she bought that night. The arms of her jumper had been tied together in a sling. The part of the canal in which Rimer was found was next to a well-lit factory (now demolished and a storage site); police believe that the killer had local knowledge of the factory's lack of night-time security.  
Police had previously searched parts of the canal, but confirmed after the discovery that they had not searched the section where she was found. Detectives admitted this had been a mistake and said that they should have searched upstream instead, in part because currents in the canal could have taken Rimer's body upstream from Hebden Bridge toward where she was found. However, detectives would later...]]>825falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/86-killing-of-gianfranco-cuccuini--73131598The killing of Gianfranco Cuccuini occurred in Florence, Italy on the morning of 24 March 1995. The victim, the sixty-five year old pensioner Gianfranco Cuccuini, was killed inside a bookshop specializing in religious books and articles in Via del Proconsolo where he occasionally worked. The perpetrator or perpetrators responsible have never been identified.  

Crime.  
Gianfranco Cuccuini.  
Gianfranco Cuccuini, who was married with two children, was a former art printer living in Sesto Fiorentino. His father died a few months after Gianfranco's birth, and his mother sent him to boarding school, where Gianfranco learned the typographer's trade. At sixteen, he joined the "Il Torchio" printing shop in Florence; he remained there for forty years, before retiring in 1990. After retiring, his nephew put him in touch with the owner of the Manuelli bookshop, which sold religious articles and books, and Gianfranco began working part-time at the shop. Four days before he was murdered, he had just returned from a short ski trip to Madonna di Campiglio, which he had spent with some friends.  

Discovery
At 8:45 a.m. on Friday, 24 March 1995, the priest Don Sergio Boffici went to the Curia Fiesolana building to pick up some hosts to be consecrated for Mass at the parish of Castelfranco. He knocked several times on the back door that led to the Manuelli bookshop, but received no answer. He instead passed through the courtyard, and once inside, he saw what appeared to be the body of a man lying on the floor at the end of the counter. Frightened, Don Boffici went out into the street to call for help and met another priest, Don Giuseppe Saccardi, who accompanied Don Boffici into the shop to find out what had happened. There, the body of Gianfranco Cuccuini was found, lying on the floor in a pool of blood. The autopsy revealed that Cuccuini had been killed with twenty-seven stab wounds, inflicted with unprecedented violence on multiple parts of his body. There were no signs of a struggle on his arms, which is why it was believed he had been victim of a surprise attack and he had no time to defend himself. The murder weapon was never found, but it was hypothesized that it could have been a pair of scissors or a paper knife given the type of wounds, inflicted by a single-edged blade.  

Investigations.  
The possibility of a robbery gone wrong was immediately ruled out, as the violence with which Cuccuini had been attacked was highly unusual for a thief, and nothing had been stolen from the cash register. The time of death was placed between 8:30 and 8:45 that morning, since Cuccuini had last been seen alive by passers-by at 8:30, and his body was found inside the bookstore at 8:45. Investigators analysed the profiles of the Manuelli bookstore's typical customers, discovering that they were mainly religious people and clerics, but also included fanatics and those with unusual requests. This lead was given importance as in the days preceding the murder, Cuccuini himself had confided to his wife his doubts about possible black masses being performed by these customers. The theory that the crime was committed by a deranged man in a fit of rage was immediately pursued by investigators. Several witnesses claimed to have seen, around the time of the crime, a woman pacing in front of the Manuelli bookshop with her hands clasped. The woman was identified and questioned, and among her personal belongings was discovered a freshly bloodstained umbrella. However, forensic analysis later revealed that the blood traces did not belong to Gianfranco Cuccuini and were likely instead the result of a minor accident involving the woman. Her case was immediately dismissed, as she also had a solid alibi.   
At the crime scene, a notebook was found on which three apparently nonsensical words had been written, namely "Uma harum uma ". Linguistic and cryptographic tests conducted by the Bologna forensic police were unable to give a meaning to the sequence of words, so the investigators searched on the Internet for all three word combinations (uma harum, uma uma and harum) that could be derived from the short text and discovered that, in Indonesia, Uma is the name of a deity worshipped on the island of Bali. Harum, on the other hand, is the spring temple in the Bangli Regency, also in the province of Bali, while "Uma uma" turned out to be an expression often used in sexually explicit films on Thai erotic sites.
Analysis of Cuccuini's private life revealed that on the morning of 24 March 1995, he shouldn't even have been at work, since his working days at the Manuelli store were Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. However, that Friday, he had agreed to stand in for the shop-owner because he had to take his daughter to the eye doctor. Also curiously, he had opened the shop earlier than the usual time. Therefore, the killer must have known Gianfranco well enough to know he was at the shop alone on that day and at that particular time. A witness also said that at 8:30 that Friday, she had seen a man matching Cuccuini's description enter the Manuelli store, along with another person with long hair, with uncertain gender. This individual, who has never been identified, was likely the killer of Gianfranco Cuccuini. The crime scene revealed neither blood spatters on the walls nor the killer's fingerprints, but a single drop of blood was found on a wooden chair near Cuccuini's body. Items found near the victim's body included his glasses, a bunch of keys and a mop. The coroner estimated that the first blow was delivered very violently, and had been inflicted from left to right and from top to bottom to Cuccuini's back. It was considered probable that the first blow had been inflicted to the victim's back while he was sitting on the wooden chair and leaning forward towards the aggressor, leaning forward perhaps to pick up the bunch of keys. The drop of blood on the chair, instead, would have fallen from the dripping blade of the killer who immediately afterwards stabbed Cuccuini on the ground another twenty-six times, which would explain the absence of fingerprints and blood splatter in the shop.  
Investigations into the running of the shop ultimately revealed that the killer's only escape route was the bookstore's main entrance, since the side entrance was locked from the inside. In any case, the attacker could not have escaped through there, as Don Boffici had repeatedly knocked on that door around 8:45 a.m., immediately after the murder. Despite several years of investigation, the person responsible for Cuccuini's death was never caught, and the crime remains unsolved to this day.  

Cultural influence.  
The murder of Gianfranco Cuccuini was discussed in the fifth episode of the second season of Blu notte - Misteri italiani, hosted by Carlo Lucarelli. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73131598Thu, 23 Jul 2026 19:25:01 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Killing of Gianfranco Cuccuini.   The killing of Gianfranco Cuccuini occurred in Florence, Italy on the morning of 24 March 1995. The victim, the sixty-five year old pensioner Gianfranco Cuccuini, was killed inside a bookshop specializing in religious...The killing of Gianfranco Cuccuini occurred in Florence, Italy on the morning of 24 March 1995. The victim, the sixty-five year old pensioner Gianfranco Cuccuini, was killed inside a bookshop specializing in religious books and articles in Via del Proconsolo where he occasionally worked. The perpetrator or perpetrators responsible have never been identified.  

Crime.  
Gianfranco Cuccuini.  
Gianfranco Cuccuini, who was married with two children, was a former art printer living in Sesto Fiorentino. His father died a few months after Gianfranco's birth, and his mother sent him to boarding school, where Gianfranco learned the typographer's trade. At sixteen, he joined the "Il Torchio" printing shop in Florence; he remained there for forty years, before retiring in 1990. After retiring, his nephew put him in touch with the owner of the Manuelli bookshop, which sold religious articles and books, and Gianfranco began working part-time at the shop. Four days before he was murdered, he had just returned from a short ski trip to Madonna di Campiglio, which he had spent with some friends.  

Discovery
At 8:45 a.m. on Friday, 24 March 1995, the priest Don Sergio Boffici went to the Curia Fiesolana building to pick up some hosts to be consecrated for Mass at the parish of Castelfranco. He knocked several times on the back door that led to the Manuelli bookshop, but received no answer. He instead passed through the courtyard, and once inside, he saw what appeared to be the body of a man lying on the floor at the end of the counter. Frightened, Don Boffici went out into the street to call for help and met another priest, Don Giuseppe Saccardi, who accompanied Don Boffici into the shop to find out what had happened. There, the body of Gianfranco Cuccuini was found, lying on the floor in a pool of blood. The autopsy revealed that Cuccuini had been killed with twenty-seven stab wounds, inflicted with unprecedented violence on multiple parts of his body. There were no signs of a struggle on his arms, which is why it was believed he had been victim of a surprise attack and he had no time to defend himself. The murder weapon was never found, but it was hypothesized that it could have been a pair of scissors or a paper knife given the type of wounds, inflicted by a single-edged blade.  

Investigations.  
The possibility of a robbery gone wrong was immediately ruled out, as the violence with which Cuccuini had been attacked was highly unusual for a thief, and nothing had been stolen from the cash register. The time of death was placed between 8:30 and 8:45 that morning, since Cuccuini had last been seen alive by passers-by at 8:30, and his body was found inside the bookstore at 8:45. Investigators analysed the profiles of the Manuelli bookstore's typical customers, discovering that they were mainly religious people and clerics, but also included fanatics and those with unusual requests. This lead was given importance as in the days preceding the murder, Cuccuini himself had confided to his wife his doubts about possible black masses being performed by these customers. The theory that the crime was committed by a deranged man in a fit of rage was immediately pursued by investigators. Several witnesses claimed to have seen, around the time of the crime, a woman pacing in front of the Manuelli bookshop with her hands clasped. The woman was identified and questioned, and among her personal belongings was discovered a freshly bloodstained umbrella. However, forensic analysis later revealed that the blood traces did not belong to Gianfranco Cuccuini and were likely instead the result of a minor accident involving the woman. Her case was immediately dismissed, as she also had a solid alibi.   
At the crime scene, a notebook was found on which three apparently nonsensical words had been written, namely "Uma harum uma ". Linguistic and cryptographic tests...]]>438falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/85-bowraville-murders--73127338The Bowraville murders is the name given to a suspected case of serial murder, relating to three deaths that occurred over five months from September 1990 to February 1991 in Bowraville, New South Wales, Australia. All three victims were Aboriginal, and all disappeared after parties in Bowraville's Aboriginal community, in an area known as The Mission. The Mission is on Gumbayngirr Road, (formerly Cemetery Road) and is approximately two kilometres outside of the town centre. A local labourer, who was regarded by police as the prime suspect, was charged with two of the murders but was acquitted following trials in 1994 and 2006. On 13 September 2018, the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal decided that the man could not be retried for the murders. On 22 March 2019, the High Court of Australia refused an application by the Attorney General of New South Wales to bring an appeal against that decision.  

Victims.  
The first victim, 16-year-old Colleen Walker of Sawtell, New South Wales, was in the rural timber town of Bowraville visiting relatives. She was last seen alive on 13 September 1990, walking away from a party in the Aboriginal community of The Mission. Thomas Jay Hart, a local man who later became the prime suspect, was noted to have been loitering around the party house. The following day, Walker's family reported to the police that she was missing. Despite the family believing something terrible had happened, the missing person's report was not taken seriously by local police; no search parties were formed and no formal action was taken. Walker's body has never been located, although in April 1991 articles of her clothing were later found weighed down by rocks in the Nambucca River.  
On 4 October 1990, Walker's cousin, four-year-old Evelyn Greenup, disappeared after a party at her grandmother's house. She was last seen by her mother's side after she was put to bed that night, but had vanished when she awoke the next morning. Evelyn's mother reported that she felt very tired and unwell that evening, and had gone into a deep sleep, waking up to find her clothes were removed. Greenup's grandmother later recalled hearing Evelyn briefly cry out during the night, but did not think much of it at the time. Several attendees recalled that the prime suspect was in attendance at this party, and had been awake late into the night. On 27 April 1991, Greenup's skeletal remains were found in bushland near Congarinni Road. An autopsy could not conclusively determine the cause of death, but noted that a skull injury was "consistent with a forceful penetration by a sharp instrument".  
On 31 January 1991, 16-year-old Clinton Speedy-Duroux went missing after a party at The Mission. Friends noted that Clinton appeared to be drunk that evening. This was noted as strange, as Clinton was not known to drink to intoxication. He was last seen on the morning of 1 February, and had stayed with his girlfriend in a yellow Viscount caravan used by the prime suspect.  When his girlfriend awoke the next morning, Clinton was gone and some of her clothes had been removed. The prime suspect was outside, and stated that he had witnessed Clinton leave the caravan at 5am, but never returned. On 2 February 1991, Clinton's father, Thomas Duroux, reported his son missing to the local police, and a search was launched. On 18 February 1991, Speedy-Duroux's remains were discovered in bushland near Congarinni Road about seven kilometres outside Bowraville. A pillowcase from the prime suspect's caravan was located underneath his clothing.  

Initial police response.  
Colleen was the first of the Bowraville children to vanish, and so her case was treated in isolation by local police, who categorised her disappearance as a likely runaway. Colleen's family, however, rejected this view, insisting that something more serious had befallen her. Concerned for her safety, members of the local community, alongside Catholic priest Bernie Ryan, established an office where residents could come forward and document their memories of the night Colleen went missing. These statements were carefully transcribed and provided to police, to assist with the investigation. 
Despite compelling evidence such as Colleen's intention to depart the following morning, her packed belongings, and her positive mood (all factors that could complicate the runaway theory) local authorities insisted that the majority of teenage disappearances are runaways, and Colleen would likely return home within two weeks. Colleen's family persisted in reporting her as missing, and encountered increased police scrutiny and accusations of child abuse in response. Research suggests that when reporting possible crimes or presenting as victims of crime, Aboriginal Australians commonly experience confrontational reactions, outright dismissal, and suspicion from police.  
Members of Evelyn's family also encountered significant issues when reporting Evelyn missing, and police initially refused to take a statement or report the 4-year-old as missing. In a statement to the Standing Committee on Law and Justice, Evelyn's aunt stated, "... they just kept asking us where she was. They thought we had sent her up to Queensland. They just wouldn’t listen to us when we said she had disappeared. I don’t understand why they didn’t believe us." Similarly to Colleen's family, Evelyn's mother was subjected to unfounded accusations when continuing to report her daughter missing,  
"The Police kept telling me that my mother and I sold her and I was so disgusted in the thought of what they were saying this about me and my mother. My daughter was missing and it seemed like they just didn’t want to find her."  
Clinton's disappearance prompted a more immediate response from police compared to Colleen's and Evelyn's cases, with officers visiting the suspect's caravan later that day. By the time officers arrived, the bedding (sheets, pillow slips, and blankets) had been removed, and there was no visible sign of where Clinton had slept. The suspect was informally questioned at Macksville Police Station later that day, and on February 4, was formally interviewed about Clinton's disappearance. The caravan was officially searched on February 7, six days after Clinton had disappeared. This delay exemplifies a recurring criticism of the initial police investigations: police took too long to search pertinent locations and question key witnesses, risking the loss or contamination of potential evidence. At the time of Clinton's disappearance the police were treating each case as unrelated and possible runaways, and no formal connection was made between the three disappearances.  
A crucial additional witness account, now referred to as the ‘Norco Corner’ evidence, further implicated possible foul play in Clinton's disappearance. On the early morning of February 1, two truck drivers were making early deliveries near Norco corner, roughly 200 metres from the caravan. They observed a white man standing over a barefoot Indigenous teenage boy beside a red car. When the truck drivers stopped and offered assistance, the man responded curtly, claiming he was trying to get the boy off the road and had already contacted police. Although this witness sighting was reported to law enforcement at the time, it was not pursued by the original investigative team and never reached the courts. It resurfaced only in 2006 through a renewed investigation, though by then its evidentiary value had diminished significantly due to the passage of time.  

Investigation.  
Police eventually agreed that the disappearances were likely criminal. However, they rejected the idea that the cases were directly linked and instead suspected the disappearances were a result of domestic child abuse, calling in the NSW Child Mistreatment Unit to investigate the community. Despite being under investigation, Bowraville's residents were sceptical of the police's claims and maintained their own search of the local area for their missing children.  
After Clinton and Evelyn's bodies were found, the case officially became a homicide investigation. However, the investigation was not transferred to a homicide squad, and the Child Mistreatment Unit was ordered to continue on the case, despite having zero experience with homicide investigations. This decision has never been clearly explained, and is noted as a crucial mistake in the investigation. Several distinct similarities between the disappearances and murders led the local community and police to believe they were committed by the same person:  
All took place within the short time frame of five months.  
All three victims were Aboriginal.  
Autopsies of the two bodies that were found, indicate both suffered trauma to the head.  
All three victims disappeared after parties in the area locally known as "The Mish", a former Mission located on the outskirts of Bowraville.  
Due to these similarities, investigators moved away from the initial 'child abuse' theory, to instead focus on a single prime suspect, Thomas Jay Hart, a 25-year-old, white, local labourer.  

Trials.  
On 8 April 1991, a 25-year-old local Bowraville labourer, Thomas Jay Hart, was arrested for the murder of Speedy-Duroux. He was well known in the Aboriginal community in Bowraville and often attended the parties at The Mission. On 16 October 1991, while out on bail awaiting trial, Hart was arrested and charged with the murder of Greenup. Despite the prosecution intending to try the cases together, Justice Badgery-Parker ruled that the trials for Clinton and Evelyn's murders had to be held separately, as the law at the time restricted the use of coincidence (aka similar fact) evidence. This meant that evidence from one case could not be used in the other, posing a significant challenge for the.....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73127338Thu, 23 Jul 2026 15:16:53 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Bowraville murders.   The Bowraville murders is the name given to a suspected case of serial murder, relating to three deaths that occurred over five months from September 1990 to February 1991 in Bowraville, New South Wales, Australia. All three...The Bowraville murders is the name given to a suspected case of serial murder, relating to three deaths that occurred over five months from September 1990 to February 1991 in Bowraville, New South Wales, Australia. All three victims were Aboriginal, and all disappeared after parties in Bowraville's Aboriginal community, in an area known as The Mission. The Mission is on Gumbayngirr Road, (formerly Cemetery Road) and is approximately two kilometres outside of the town centre. A local labourer, who was regarded by police as the prime suspect, was charged with two of the murders but was acquitted following trials in 1994 and 2006. On 13 September 2018, the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal decided that the man could not be retried for the murders. On 22 March 2019, the High Court of Australia refused an application by the Attorney General of New South Wales to bring an appeal against that decision.  

Victims.  
The first victim, 16-year-old Colleen Walker of Sawtell, New South Wales, was in the rural timber town of Bowraville visiting relatives. She was last seen alive on 13 September 1990, walking away from a party in the Aboriginal community of The Mission. Thomas Jay Hart, a local man who later became the prime suspect, was noted to have been loitering around the party house. The following day, Walker's family reported to the police that she was missing. Despite the family believing something terrible had happened, the missing person's report was not taken seriously by local police; no search parties were formed and no formal action was taken. Walker's body has never been located, although in April 1991 articles of her clothing were later found weighed down by rocks in the Nambucca River.  
On 4 October 1990, Walker's cousin, four-year-old Evelyn Greenup, disappeared after a party at her grandmother's house. She was last seen by her mother's side after she was put to bed that night, but had vanished when she awoke the next morning. Evelyn's mother reported that she felt very tired and unwell that evening, and had gone into a deep sleep, waking up to find her clothes were removed. Greenup's grandmother later recalled hearing Evelyn briefly cry out during the night, but did not think much of it at the time. Several attendees recalled that the prime suspect was in attendance at this party, and had been awake late into the night. On 27 April 1991, Greenup's skeletal remains were found in bushland near Congarinni Road. An autopsy could not conclusively determine the cause of death, but noted that a skull injury was "consistent with a forceful penetration by a sharp instrument".  
On 31 January 1991, 16-year-old Clinton Speedy-Duroux went missing after a party at The Mission. Friends noted that Clinton appeared to be drunk that evening. This was noted as strange, as Clinton was not known to drink to intoxication. He was last seen on the morning of 1 February, and had stayed with his girlfriend in a yellow Viscount caravan used by the prime suspect.  When his girlfriend awoke the next morning, Clinton was gone and some of her clothes had been removed. The prime suspect was outside, and stated that he had witnessed Clinton leave the caravan at 5am, but never returned. On 2 February 1991, Clinton's father, Thomas Duroux, reported his son missing to the local police, and a search was launched. On 18 February 1991, Speedy-Duroux's remains were discovered in bushland near Congarinni Road about seven kilometres outside Bowraville. A pillowcase from the prime suspect's caravan was located underneath his clothing.  

Initial police response.  
Colleen was the first of the Bowraville children to vanish, and so her case was treated in isolation by local police, who categorised her disappearance as a likely runaway. Colleen's family, however, rejected this view, insisting that something more serious had befallen her. Concerned for her safety, members of the local...]]>1096falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/84-alexander-vladimirovich-men--73125571Alexander Vladimirovich Men (22 January 1935 – 9 September 1990) was a Soviet Russian Orthodox Church priest, Soviet dissident, scholar of theology and the Bible, and author of works on theology, history of religion, the fundamentals of Christian doctrine, and Orthodox worship.  
He wrote dozens of books, including his magnum opus, History of Religion: In Search of the Way, the Truth and the Life (from 1970 onward). Its seventh volume, Son of Man (1969) introduced Christianity to thousands of Soviet citizens. He baptized hundreds of people, founded an Orthodox open university in 1990, established one of the first Sunday schools in the USSR, and created a charity group supporting the Russian Children's Hospital.  
Men was murdered on the morning of Sunday, 9 September 1990, by an unknown number of assailants outside his home in Semkhoz, located in the Sergiyevo-Posadsky District of Moscow Oblast, Russia. The circumstances of the murder remain unclear.  

Early life and education.  
Background.  
Men's father, Volf Gersh-Leibovich (Vladimir Grigoryevich) Men, was born in Kyiv in 1902. Volf attended a religious Jewish school as a child but did not practice religion later in life. He graduated from two universities and worked as the chief engineer of a textile factory.  
Men's maternal ancestors, originally from Poland, had lived in Russia since the 18th century. His grandmother, Cecilia Vasilevskaya, and grandfather, Odessa resident Semyon (Solomon) Ilyich Tsuperfein, met in Switzerland while studying chemistry at the University of Bern. Their daughter Yelena (Alexander's mother) was born in Bern in 1908. After graduating, Semyon, Cecilia, and their daughter lived in Paris. In 1914, during a visit to Russia, Semyon was mobilized, and the family settled in Kharkov. Yelena Semyonovna Men (née Tsuperfein) was drawn to Christianity from a young age and studied the Orthodox faith at a private gymnasium in Kharkov. As a high school student, she moved to Moscow to live with her grandmother Anna Osipovna Vasilevskaya. In 1934, she married Volf.  

Early life.  
Men was born in Moscow to a Jewish family on 22 January 1935. When he was aged six months, he and his mother were secretly baptized in Zagorsk by Archimandrite Seraphim (Bityukov) of the banned Catacomb Church, a branch of the Russian Orthodox Church that refused to cooperate with Soviet authorities.  
When Men was six years old, his father was arrested by the NKVD. His father spent over a year in custody and was then assigned to labor in the Ural Mountains. Men studied at the Moscow Fur Institute in 1955 and transferred to Irkutsk Agricultural Institute, from which he was expelled in 1958 due to his religious beliefs. On 1 June 1958, one month after his expulsion, he was ordained a deacon and sent to the parish of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos in Akulovo.  

Priesthood.  
On 1 September 1960, Men became a priest after graduating from the Leningrad Theological Seminary. His consecration took place at the Donskoi Monastery. Men was appointed second priest in the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary  in Petrovskoye-Alabin, where he became rector a year later. In 1965, he completed his studies at Moscow Theological Academy.  
In 1964 and 1965, Father Alexander was investigated due to his acquaintance with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Men became an influential leader with a good reputation among Christians, both locally and abroad, including those in the Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox faith. He served in several parishes near Moscow. During the 1960s, Men was a pioneer of Christian "samizdat" (self-publishing). From the early 1970s, Men became a popular figure in Russia's religious community, especially among the intelligentsia. The KGB targeted Men for his active missionary and evangelistic efforts. In 1974, Yuri Andropov wrote to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union about the "ideological struggle of the Vatican against the USSR," stating: "A group of pro-Catholic-minded priests, headed by A. Men (Moscow Oblast), pushes the idea in their theological works that only Catholicism can be the ideal of church life. These works, illegally exported abroad, are published by the Catholic publishing house Life with God (Belgium) and are then sent for distribution in the USSR."  
In 1984, Men was interrogated in connection with his student Sergei Marcus; during these interrogations, Men was threatened with a ban from serving in any of the Moscow parishes. An article in the Trud newspaper in the spring of 1986 accused him of attempting to create an "anti-Soviet underground" under the auspices of Archpriest John Meyendorff; organizing "illegal religious matinees"; and personally voicing "slide films of a religious propaganda nature, which he illegally distributed among believers."  
On 11 May 1988, Men's first public lecture took place in the hall of the Institute of Steel and Alloys. Alexander Kravetsky noted that "the organizers were completely amazed that a church theme could attract a full hall without any advertising." In the late 1980s, he used mass media to proselytize and was offered a nationally televised program on religion.  
Men was one of the founders of the Russian Bible Society in 1990; that same year, he founded the Open Orthodox University and "The World of the Bible" journal. His efforts to educate the Russian populace about the Orthodox faith led the Soviet newspaper Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya to label him a modern-day apostle to the Soviet intelligentsia. However, some representatives of Orthodox Christianity have stated that several of Men's views were not sufficiently "orthodox" and advised against using his books as an introduction to Orthodoxy.  
Men actively supported charitable activities, attending the founding of the Mercy Group at the Russian Children's Clinical Hospital, which was later named after him.  

Murder.  
On the morning of Sunday, 9 September 1990, Men was murdered with an axe while walking along the wooded path from his home in the Russian village of Semkhoz (near Moscow) to the local train platform, on his way to catch the train to Novaya Derevnya to celebrate the Divine Liturgy. Men had served at the parish in Novaya Derevnya for 20 years. The murder occurred around the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and despite orders from within the Soviet (and later the Russian) government that the case be further investigated, it remains unsolved. The assailant, or assailants, was/were not identified. Men's funeral was held on 11 September 1990, the day in the Orthodox calendar that commemorates the beheading of John the Baptist.  
According to Lieutenant General of Police Vyacheslav Pankin:  
When the suspect was detained, he confessed. Minister of Internal Affairs Barannikov was delighted: we could celebrate! However, apart from confessions, there was no material evidence. And even when the suspect gave investigators the axe with which he allegedly killed the priest, the examination did not confirm that it was the murder weapon. The briefcase with the priest's vestments also disappeared. We worked through a lot of versions, paying attention to the little things. When the priest, with a head wound, reached the gate of his house and hung helplessly on it, his wife did not recognize him. Why? We also checked the wife's brother, who had a conflict with Men on the eve of the murder. However, it was not possible to obtain significant evidence. Already in Afghanistan, I heard that the crime had allegedly been solved. This was reported by the then head of the Main Directorate of Criminal Investigation, Kolesnikov. But they still worked with the same suspects.  

Views and thought.  
According to Men, "The history of world religiosity begins not with Christianity but much earlier. Christianity is the highest point in the development of religious experience."  
Men positioned his attitude towards antiquity and paganism as Christian: "Even in paganism, you will find a presentiment and anticipation of the Good News. It is not for nothing that the Apostle Paul made the altar of the 'Unknown God' the starting point of his sermon in Athens. However, this kind of dialogue will often be replaced by a compromise with aspects of ancient beliefs that are alien to the Gospel."  

Works.  
Men's most significant work is his History of Religion, published in seven volumes under the title In Search of the Way, the Truth, and the Life (volumes 1–6, Brussels, 1970–1983; 2nd edition Moscow, 1991–1992). In it, he examines the history of non-Christian religions as a path for Christians in the struggle between Magiism and Monotheism. The seventh volume is his most famous work, Son of Man (Brussels, 1969; 2nd edition Moscow, 1991). Due to persecution in the Soviet Union, the Brussels editions were published under a pseudonym.  
An English translation of Son of Man by Mormon author Samuel Brown was completed in 1998 but is now out of print, as are several other works in English translation. In 2014, Alastair Macnaughton (1954–2017), an Anglican priest and Russian scholar, began a project to translate the entire History of Religion into English for the first time. Volume 1 was published in 2018. An abridged version of the entire History of Religion in Two Volumes was also translated into English in 2021 and includes the history of Christianity of the first millennium. Recent works by Men in English translation include: 
"An Inner Step Toward God: Writings and teachings on Prayer", (2014).  
"Russian Religious Philosophy: 1989–1990 Lectures" (2015) (in 25th Year Memory Commemoration).  
"The Wellsprings of Religion. The History of Religion: In Search of the Way, the Truth, and the Life....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73125571Thu, 23 Jul 2026 13:31:07 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Alexander Vladimirovich Men.   Alexander Vladimirovich Men (22 January 1935 – 9 September 1990) was a Soviet Russian Orthodox Church priest, Soviet dissident, scholar of theology and the Bible, and author of works on theology, history of religion, the...Alexander Vladimirovich Men (22 January 1935 – 9 September 1990) was a Soviet Russian Orthodox Church priest, Soviet dissident, scholar of theology and the Bible, and author of works on theology, history of religion, the fundamentals of Christian doctrine, and Orthodox worship.  
He wrote dozens of books, including his magnum opus, History of Religion: In Search of the Way, the Truth and the Life (from 1970 onward). Its seventh volume, Son of Man (1969) introduced Christianity to thousands of Soviet citizens. He baptized hundreds of people, founded an Orthodox open university in 1990, established one of the first Sunday schools in the USSR, and created a charity group supporting the Russian Children's Hospital.  
Men was murdered on the morning of Sunday, 9 September 1990, by an unknown number of assailants outside his home in Semkhoz, located in the Sergiyevo-Posadsky District of Moscow Oblast, Russia. The circumstances of the murder remain unclear.  

Early life and education.  
Background.  
Men's father, Volf Gersh-Leibovich (Vladimir Grigoryevich) Men, was born in Kyiv in 1902. Volf attended a religious Jewish school as a child but did not practice religion later in life. He graduated from two universities and worked as the chief engineer of a textile factory.  
Men's maternal ancestors, originally from Poland, had lived in Russia since the 18th century. His grandmother, Cecilia Vasilevskaya, and grandfather, Odessa resident Semyon (Solomon) Ilyich Tsuperfein, met in Switzerland while studying chemistry at the University of Bern. Their daughter Yelena (Alexander's mother) was born in Bern in 1908. After graduating, Semyon, Cecilia, and their daughter lived in Paris. In 1914, during a visit to Russia, Semyon was mobilized, and the family settled in Kharkov. Yelena Semyonovna Men (née Tsuperfein) was drawn to Christianity from a young age and studied the Orthodox faith at a private gymnasium in Kharkov. As a high school student, she moved to Moscow to live with her grandmother Anna Osipovna Vasilevskaya. In 1934, she married Volf.  

Early life.  
Men was born in Moscow to a Jewish family on 22 January 1935. When he was aged six months, he and his mother were secretly baptized in Zagorsk by Archimandrite Seraphim (Bityukov) of the banned Catacomb Church, a branch of the Russian Orthodox Church that refused to cooperate with Soviet authorities.  
When Men was six years old, his father was arrested by the NKVD. His father spent over a year in custody and was then assigned to labor in the Ural Mountains. Men studied at the Moscow Fur Institute in 1955 and transferred to Irkutsk Agricultural Institute, from which he was expelled in 1958 due to his religious beliefs. On 1 June 1958, one month after his expulsion, he was ordained a deacon and sent to the parish of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos in Akulovo.  

Priesthood.  
On 1 September 1960, Men became a priest after graduating from the Leningrad Theological Seminary. His consecration took place at the Donskoi Monastery. Men was appointed second priest in the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary  in Petrovskoye-Alabin, where he became rector a year later. In 1965, he completed his studies at Moscow Theological Academy.  
In 1964 and 1965, Father Alexander was investigated due to his acquaintance with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Men became an influential leader with a good reputation among Christians, both locally and abroad, including those in the Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox faith. He served in several parishes near Moscow. During the 1960s, Men was a pioneer of Christian "samizdat" (self-publishing). From the early 1970s, Men became a popular figure in Russia's religious community, especially among the intelligentsia. The KGB targeted Men for his active missionary and evangelistic efforts. In 1974, Yuri Andropov wrote to the...]]>1248falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/83-amber-beacon-tower-murder--73110799The Amber Beacon Tower murder is an unsolved case where a woman was murdered by two unknown attackers, who ambushed her and her boyfriend during the couple's romantic night out at Amber Beacon Tower in East Coast Park, Singapore. During the attack, the female victim, 21-year-old Kelly Tan Ah Hong (Chén Yàfèng), was stabbed in the neck by one of the men while her 22-year-old boyfriend, James Soh Fook Leong (Sū Fúliáng), was stabbed in the back by the man's accomplice. Although Soh managed to survive with timely medical intervention, Tan died as a result of massive bleeding from her wound. Despite the extensive police investigations of this case, the murderer(s) were never identified or caught.  

Background.  
Born sometime in late 1968, Kelly Tan Ah Hong was the second of seven children in an affluent family. Although Tan was a Singaporean by birth, her father, Tan Lam Lee, was a Chinese Indonesian immigrant who operated a vegetable wholesale business, while her mother, Ong Lye, was a housewife. Tan had one elder sister, three younger sisters and two younger brothers in her family, who resided at a bungalow house in Thomson Road.  
After completing her primary school education, Tan enrolled at Yio Chu Kang Secondary School at Ang Mo Kio, where she became classmates with her future boyfriend, James Soh Fook Leong, who was the only child of his family. His father was the owner of an electronics business. Soh was said to be a studious student and enthusiastic about sports and games. Both he and Tan, who were of the same age, became prefects. Although Tan was the opposite of Soh in terms of their interests and personality, Soh was attracted to Tan, who had mutual feelings for him, and they became friends after they first met.  
After both Soh and Tan graduated, Soh enrolled on an electronic engineering course at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, while Tan did not continue studying and instead joined her father's business and worked under him. In 1990, before Soh began his third year at the polytechnic, he decided to ask Tan out, and on 13 May 1990, about a decade after they first met, Soh and Tan officially became a couple. According to Soh's parents, they didn't meet Tan until a few days before her death, when Soh invited her to their flat. Soh's parents remembered their son telling them that Tan was his former schoolmate, but they never knew the specific nature of the couple's relationship.  

Murder of Kelly Tan.  
On the night of 15 May 1990, two days after they first became a couple, James Soh and Kelly Tan went to have a date at East Coast Park. They headed to the Amber Beacon Tower, which was a popular spot for young couples to hang out.  
When Soh and Tan were sitting on the tower's spiral staircase and chatting with each other, two men walked past them and went to the upper level of the tower. After about fifteen minutes, the two men ambushed the couple with knives. While Tan ran away to escape one of the attackers, the other man stayed at the tower to attack Soh, who defended himself against the assailant. Soh was stabbed in the back. The wound was so deep that it narrowly missed Soh's spinal cord, and would have been fatal if it had.  
A short distance away, Tan was in a more dire situation when her attacker caught up with her. She sustained a deep neck wound on the left side of her neck after her attacker stabbed her below her left ear. The knife wound caused massive bleeding. After the two men escaped the scene, Soh, who had barely retained his consciousness, staggered to help his girlfriend. He tried to bring her to the nearby Singa Inn Seafood Restaurant; one of their attackers was last seen running towards the restaurant, while the other was last seen running to the park's bird sanctuary.  
Soh, who was drenched in blood, managed to reach the restaurant, and asked the employees to help his girlfriend and himself, before he fainted. The police and ambulance, as well as Soh's parents (who rushed to the scene), were contacted, and 22-year-old James Soh Fook Leong was rushed to Singapore General Hospital, where he survived with timely medical intervention. 21-year-old Kelly Tan Ah Hong was pronounced dead at the scene. Reportedly, Soh, who regained consciousness in hospital and was in stable condition, was unaware of his girlfriend's death and kept asking his mother if she was all right. Soh was said to be devastated upon receiving news of Tan's death two days after she was killed. Soh's parents had kept the news from their son for fear it may affect his recovery progress, in accordance with the doctor's opinion. According to Soh's 47-year-old mother, whose surname was Tan, she and her husband were baffled over the horrific and senseless attack, and she knew that her son did not have any enemies since he was often well-behaved.  
Tan's father, who was in Indonesia at the time, flew back to Singapore to attend his daughter's funeral.  

Investigations.  
The case of Kelly Tan Ah Hong's death was classified as murder. Under the laws of Singapore, the death penalty was the mandated sentence for any offenders found guilty of murder. In light of the violent killing of Tan, which shocked the nation, members of the public, especially young people and couples, were advised by the authorities to be vigilant when going out at night.  
As part of their investigations, the police interviewed the survivor, James Soh, in the hospital. Soh was unable to recall the faces of their attackers, and could not hear their voices, since the two men never spoke a word during the attack. However, the police were able to gain a description that the men were dark-looking and that the person who attacked Soh had short hair and was about 173 cm tall. The second assailant, who went after Tan, was about 167 cm and had curly black hair. The assailants were speculated to be drug addicts. They were also speculated to be foreigners, as Soh remembered hearing the two killers speaking a foreign language while they were escaping from the tower. Although both Tan and Soh did not lose anything, robbery was theorized as a possible motive; this theory was corroborated by previous reports of people being robbed in East Coast Park during nights or late evenings. The police also did not rule out the possibility of a revenge killing, but both Soh and Tan were known to be good-mannered people who did not have any grudges or feuds with other people. Due to the lack of clues, the police were unable to make a breakthrough in their investigations. The murder weapons were never recovered.  
In April 1992, two years after the incident, a coroner's court held an inquiry of Kelly Tan's death and issued a verdict of murder by a person or persons unknown. Professor Chao Tzee Cheng, the senior forensic pathologist, certified that the knife wound to Tan's neck had cut through an artery, which resulted in excessive blood loss, which caused her death. James Soh, who by then had begun to serve his National Service after completing his diploma, came to court to testify during the coroner's inquiry.  After the coroner's verdict was meted out, Tan's bereaved family put up a reward of S$30,000 for any information leading to the arrest of Tan's murderer(s). According to Tan's 28-year-old cousin, Anthony Tan, who was also the manager of her father's company, the reward would be entrusted to the police and be indefinitely in effect until the arrest of Tan's killer(s).  
In June 1992, the Singaporean crime show Crimewatch re-enacted the Amber Beacon Tower murder. During the episode, both the police and Tan's family, including Tan's 42-year-old mother, Ong Lye, and 26-year-old older sister, Tan Kwee Mui, appealed for information from members of the public to assist in their investigations. Tan's mother and sisters were reportedly still haunted by nightmares and sadness about the murder, due to the uncertainty of when the case would be solved. Flyers were also published on newspapers to seek the public's help to solve the murder.  
Despite the police's efforts to investigate Tan's murder, the Amber Beacon Tower murder case remains unsolved, and the police were unable to uncover the identities of the killer(s). The police investigations remain open in this case, as all criminal cases in Singapore, including murder, do not carry a statute of limitations. The police would regularly review these outstanding cases from time to time to yield any new clues to solve these cases.  

Aftermath.  
The murder of Kelly Tan Ah Hong remains one of Singapore's infamous cases of unsolved murders, which also included the 1979 Geylang Bahru family murders, the 1985 Winnifred Teo murder case, the 1984 curry murder and several others.  
After surviving the attack, Tan's former boyfriend, James Soh Fook Leong, would eventually work in sales after completing his education. He was later married to another woman and they had a son, who was 16 years old when his father was interviewed in 2015.  
In July 2015, 25 years after his former girlfriend's murder, James Soh, then 47 years old, was approached for an interview, and he agreed to talk about his ordeal. Soh, who remained haunted and traumatized from the attack, stated that even after many years, he was unable to understand why he and Tan were attacked, and he still could not recall the faces of their assailants. He also developed a fear of footsteps coming from behind him and avoided secluded places at all times. Soh stated that he regretted not knowing Tan better before she died, and he still tried to move on from the incident, something which he finally told his son in 2014. Soh added that due to the attack, he often reminds his son not to go to secluded places and to be vigilant at all times. Soh also held on to the hope that the killer(s) of Tan would be brought to justice and asked that anyone with..

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73110799Wed, 22 Jul 2026 16:51:29 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Amber Beacon Tower murder.   The Amber Beacon Tower murder is an unsolved case where a woman was murdered by two unknown attackers, who ambushed her and her boyfriend during the couple's romantic night out at Amber Beacon Tower in East Coast Park,...The Amber Beacon Tower murder is an unsolved case where a woman was murdered by two unknown attackers, who ambushed her and her boyfriend during the couple's romantic night out at Amber Beacon Tower in East Coast Park, Singapore. During the attack, the female victim, 21-year-old Kelly Tan Ah Hong (Chén Yàfèng), was stabbed in the neck by one of the men while her 22-year-old boyfriend, James Soh Fook Leong (Sū Fúliáng), was stabbed in the back by the man's accomplice. Although Soh managed to survive with timely medical intervention, Tan died as a result of massive bleeding from her wound. Despite the extensive police investigations of this case, the murderer(s) were never identified or caught.  

Background.  
Born sometime in late 1968, Kelly Tan Ah Hong was the second of seven children in an affluent family. Although Tan was a Singaporean by birth, her father, Tan Lam Lee, was a Chinese Indonesian immigrant who operated a vegetable wholesale business, while her mother, Ong Lye, was a housewife. Tan had one elder sister, three younger sisters and two younger brothers in her family, who resided at a bungalow house in Thomson Road.  
After completing her primary school education, Tan enrolled at Yio Chu Kang Secondary School at Ang Mo Kio, where she became classmates with her future boyfriend, James Soh Fook Leong, who was the only child of his family. His father was the owner of an electronics business. Soh was said to be a studious student and enthusiastic about sports and games. Both he and Tan, who were of the same age, became prefects. Although Tan was the opposite of Soh in terms of their interests and personality, Soh was attracted to Tan, who had mutual feelings for him, and they became friends after they first met.  
After both Soh and Tan graduated, Soh enrolled on an electronic engineering course at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, while Tan did not continue studying and instead joined her father's business and worked under him. In 1990, before Soh began his third year at the polytechnic, he decided to ask Tan out, and on 13 May 1990, about a decade after they first met, Soh and Tan officially became a couple. According to Soh's parents, they didn't meet Tan until a few days before her death, when Soh invited her to their flat. Soh's parents remembered their son telling them that Tan was his former schoolmate, but they never knew the specific nature of the couple's relationship.  

Murder of Kelly Tan.  
On the night of 15 May 1990, two days after they first became a couple, James Soh and Kelly Tan went to have a date at East Coast Park. They headed to the Amber Beacon Tower, which was a popular spot for young couples to hang out.  
When Soh and Tan were sitting on the tower's spiral staircase and chatting with each other, two men walked past them and went to the upper level of the tower. After about fifteen minutes, the two men ambushed the couple with knives. While Tan ran away to escape one of the attackers, the other man stayed at the tower to attack Soh, who defended himself against the assailant. Soh was stabbed in the back. The wound was so deep that it narrowly missed Soh's spinal cord, and would have been fatal if it had.  
A short distance away, Tan was in a more dire situation when her attacker caught up with her. She sustained a deep neck wound on the left side of her neck after her attacker stabbed her below her left ear. The knife wound caused massive bleeding. After the two men escaped the scene, Soh, who had barely retained his consciousness, staggered to help his girlfriend. He tried to bring her to the nearby Singa Inn Seafood Restaurant; one of their attackers was last seen running towards the restaurant, while the other was last seen running to the park's bird sanctuary.  
Soh, who was drenched in blood, managed to reach the restaurant, and asked the employees to help his girlfriend and himself, before he fainted. The...]]>695falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/82-gerald-vincent-bull--73110613Gerald Vincent Bull (March 9, 1928 – March 22, 1990) was a Canadian engineer who developed long-range artillery. Bull moved from project to project in his quest to economically launch a satellite using a huge artillery piece, to which end he designed the Project Babylon "supergun" for Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq.  
On March 22, 1990, he was shot dead outside his apartment in Brussels, Belgium. His assassination is believed to be the work of Israel's Mossad over his work for the Iraqi government. No person has ever been charged with his murder.  

Early life.  
Gerald Vincent Bull was born on March 9, 1928 in North Bay, Ontario, Canada. He is the son of George L. Toussaint Bull, a solicitor, and Gertrude Isabelle (née LaBrosse) Bull. George Bull was from a family from the Trenton area and had moved to North Bay in 1903 to start a law firm. As a Roman Catholic, LaBrosse would have been forbidden from marrying Bull, an Anglican. George converted to Roman Catholicism on February 20, 1909, and the couple married three days later. They would go on to have 10 children.  
George Bull was offered the position of King's Counsel in 1928. The family was well off, but the Wall Street crash of 1929 and ensuing Great Depression dramatically changed their circumstances. Within a year the loans Bull had taken to buy stocks on margin were called in, and the family was forced to move to Toronto to look for work.  
The next year Gertrude Bull suffered complications while giving birth to her 10th child, Gordon. She died April 1, 1931. George Bull suffered a nervous breakdown and fell into heavy drinking; he left his children in the care of his sister Laura, who fell victim to cancer and died in mid-1934. The next year, banks foreclosed on the family home. The same year, George, at the age of 58, met and married Rose Bleeker. He gave up the children to various relatives: Gerald ending up living with his older sister Bernice.  
In 1938, Gerald was sent to spend the summer holidays with his uncle and aunt, Philip and Edith LaBrosse (Philip was the younger brother of Gerald's mother, Gertrude). During the Depression, Phil and Edith had won about $175,000 in the Irish Sweepstakes, and were relatively well off. Gerald was sent to an all-boys Jesuit school, Regiopolis College, Kingston, Ontario. Although too young to attend, the school allowed him to start in 1938 and he returned to spend the summers with the LaBrosses. During this time he took up the hobby of building balsa wood airplanes of his own design, and was a member of the school's modelling club. He graduated in 1944.  

University.  
After graduating, Bull entered Queen's University, with hopes of eventually entering military officers' training school. Philip LaBrosse visited the University of Toronto (U of T) with the intention of having Bull placed there. He wrote to Bull, who was in Kingston, having found room in the medical school. Bull declined the offer and instead asked LaBrosse if a position in the new aeronautical engineering course was available. The department, being brand new, had limited qualifying criteria for entrance and agreed to interview Bull even though he was only sixteen years old – and he was accepted into the undergraduate program. Records and recollections of both classmates and his professors show little evidence of Bull's brilliance; one professor noted that "He certainly didn't stand out". After graduating in 1948, with marks that were described as "strictly average", Bull took a drafting job at A.V. Roe Canada.  
Later that year, the University of Toronto opened a new Institute of Aerodynamics (now the Institute for Aerospace Studies) under the direction of Dr. Gordon Patterson. The Institute could afford to employ twelve students, accepting three per year for a four-year period, and was funded by the Defence Research Board (DRB). Bull applied and was accepted at Patterson's personal recommendation, as Patterson felt that any lack in academics was made up for by Bull's tremendous energy. Bull was soon assigned to work with fellow student Doug Henshaw, and the two were given the task of building a supersonic wind tunnel, which was at that time a relatively rare device.  
When the Royal Canadian Air Force donated land adjacent to RCAF Station Downsview to the institute, the operations were quickly moved. During construction, Bull used the wind tunnel as the basis for his September 15, 1949 Master's thesis, on the design and construction of advanced wind tunnels. The tunnel was to be featured prominently during the opening of the new Institute grounds, leading to an all-night rush to get it fully operational in time for the presentation. The work was completed at 3:30 am, but the team was too exhausted to test it. The next day Air Marshal Wilfred Curtis pushed the start button and nothing happened, but Dr. Patterson quickly reached around, pushed harder, and the wind tunnel worked perfectly.
Bull had largely finished his PhD thesis on the same topic in 1950, when a request from the DRB asking that the Institute provide an aerodynamicist to help on their Velvet Glove Missile project arrived. It was to be an unpaid position on which the volunteer would remain on a normal PhD stipend from the university. Patterson selected Bull for the position, which led to a period of successful work at the Canadian Armament and Research Development Establishment, or CARDE.  

Career.  
Canada.  
The Canadian Armament and Research Development Establishment (CARDE) was formed as a joint Canadian-British operation to study artillery and ballistics, in an effort to harness the intellectual resources of Canada, as well as to place developing British technology outside of German reach during World War II. Formed up on a military training area and artillery range outside Valcartier, northwest of Quebec City, CARDE was one of a number of research divisions of the DRB that were well funded in the immediate post-war era. CARDE was researching supersonic flight and a variety of rocket and missile projects when Bull was asked to join. Bull asked to build a wind tunnel for this research, but his suggestions were dismissed as too expensive.  
Gunners at CARDE suggested that firing models out of existing gun barrels would permit gathering data at much lower cost, and guided Bull in this direction. As a proof of concept, they tried an Ordnance QF 17-pounder barrel bored to 3.9 inches (99 mm). The aerodynamicists' demands to accommodate larger models resulted in boring out a BL 5.5 inch Medium Gun barrel to produce a 5.9 inches (150 mm) smooth-bore. Borrowing an idea developed in England in 1916, cards were placed on holders along the range and scaled models of the missile fired through them. The models were carried in a segmented aluminum sabot, which peeled away as the round left the muzzle.  
As originally built the range was 1,000 yards (910 m) long, with "jump cards" located at 100 yards (91 m) intervals. A metallic coating on the cards permitted timing of flight progress to measure velocity. One station was equipped for Schlieren photography to record the shock waves and wake around the projectile. In some ways this technique was superior to wind tunnel study, as it allowed for the direct measurement of real-world influences on the trajectory, as a test of theoretical calculations. On the downside, reducing the collected data to a mathematical trajectory for checking against the theoretical calculations is difficult.  
Bull was at CARDE briefly before returning to the university to defend his thesis in March 1951, at 23 years old becoming the youngest PhD graduate in the institute's history—a record that remains to this day. He returned to CARDE, now on the DRB's payroll, and continued working on the instrumented guns. On one of these trips, in 1953, he and a friend stopped in Charny after a fishing trip to drop off some of their catch at a local doctor's house. Bull met Noemi "Mimi" Gilbert, the doctor's daughter, and the two soon started dating. Given Bull's work schedule they were rarely able to see each other, but they became engaged in February 1954, and married on July 15. Gilbert gave the couple a small house as a wedding gift. Mimi gave birth to their first son, Phillippe, on July 3, 1955, and a second, Michel, in November 1956.  
In 1954 Bull decided that a wind tunnel was too important to ignore, even if he could not arrange for funding through the DRB. Instead, he gained the ear of professors at Laval University in Quebec City, and Bull and a number of graduate students started work on a tunnel similar to the one he had earlier built at U of T. It opened in the summer of 1955 and was capable of speeds up to Mach 4, but cost only $6,000, the result of using scrap for most of its parts.  
Bull's work was brought to the public's attention in a May 20, 1955 Toronto Telegram headline article, Unveil Canadian Gun that Fires 4,550 M.P.H. Missiles. Around this time Bull further improved the data-collection capabilities of the system by developing a telemetry system that could fit in the models. DRB staff thought the idea was unworkable and worked against having it funded, but Bull shuffled his own department's funding and went ahead and developed it anyway. All the parts of Bull's future efforts, smooth-bore high-velocity guns, sabots for increasing performance, and hardened electronics, were now complete.  
Work on the Velvet Glove ended in 1956, and the DRB turned its attention to anti-ballistic missiles (ABMs). Bull's gun system was not fast enough to be useful in this role, so it was adapted to use a "sabot" to improve its performance. Bull then moved on to hypersonics research and the study of infrared and radar cross sections for detection. As the UK's research efforts wound down in the post-war political environment...

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73110613Wed, 22 Jul 2026 16:27:31 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Gerald Vincent Bull.   Gerald Vincent Bull (March 9, 1928 – March 22, 1990) was a Canadian engineer who developed long-range artillery. Bull moved from project to project in his quest to economically launch a satellite using a huge artillery piece, to...Gerald Vincent Bull (March 9, 1928 – March 22, 1990) was a Canadian engineer who developed long-range artillery. Bull moved from project to project in his quest to economically launch a satellite using a huge artillery piece, to which end he designed the Project Babylon "supergun" for Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq.  
On March 22, 1990, he was shot dead outside his apartment in Brussels, Belgium. His assassination is believed to be the work of Israel's Mossad over his work for the Iraqi government. No person has ever been charged with his murder.  

Early life.  
Gerald Vincent Bull was born on March 9, 1928 in North Bay, Ontario, Canada. He is the son of George L. Toussaint Bull, a solicitor, and Gertrude Isabelle (née LaBrosse) Bull. George Bull was from a family from the Trenton area and had moved to North Bay in 1903 to start a law firm. As a Roman Catholic, LaBrosse would have been forbidden from marrying Bull, an Anglican. George converted to Roman Catholicism on February 20, 1909, and the couple married three days later. They would go on to have 10 children.  
George Bull was offered the position of King's Counsel in 1928. The family was well off, but the Wall Street crash of 1929 and ensuing Great Depression dramatically changed their circumstances. Within a year the loans Bull had taken to buy stocks on margin were called in, and the family was forced to move to Toronto to look for work.  
The next year Gertrude Bull suffered complications while giving birth to her 10th child, Gordon. She died April 1, 1931. George Bull suffered a nervous breakdown and fell into heavy drinking; he left his children in the care of his sister Laura, who fell victim to cancer and died in mid-1934. The next year, banks foreclosed on the family home. The same year, George, at the age of 58, met and married Rose Bleeker. He gave up the children to various relatives: Gerald ending up living with his older sister Bernice.  
In 1938, Gerald was sent to spend the summer holidays with his uncle and aunt, Philip and Edith LaBrosse (Philip was the younger brother of Gerald's mother, Gertrude). During the Depression, Phil and Edith had won about $175,000 in the Irish Sweepstakes, and were relatively well off. Gerald was sent to an all-boys Jesuit school, Regiopolis College, Kingston, Ontario. Although too young to attend, the school allowed him to start in 1938 and he returned to spend the summers with the LaBrosses. During this time he took up the hobby of building balsa wood airplanes of his own design, and was a member of the school's modelling club. He graduated in 1944.  

University.  
After graduating, Bull entered Queen's University, with hopes of eventually entering military officers' training school. Philip LaBrosse visited the University of Toronto (U of T) with the intention of having Bull placed there. He wrote to Bull, who was in Kingston, having found room in the medical school. Bull declined the offer and instead asked LaBrosse if a position in the new aeronautical engineering course was available. The department, being brand new, had limited qualifying criteria for entrance and agreed to interview Bull even though he was only sixteen years old – and he was accepted into the undergraduate program. Records and recollections of both classmates and his professors show little evidence of Bull's brilliance; one professor noted that "He certainly didn't stand out". After graduating in 1948, with marks that were described as "strictly average", Bull took a drafting job at A.V. Roe Canada.  
Later that year, the University of Toronto opened a new Institute of Aerodynamics (now the Institute for Aerospace Studies) under the direction of Dr. Gordon Patterson. The Institute could afford to employ twelve students, accepting three per year for a four-year period, and was funded by the Defence Research Board (DRB). Bull applied and was accepted at...]]>2182falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/81-lathierial-boyd--73109728Lathierial Boyd is an African-American man from Chicago who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1990 and served 23 years in prison. His appeals were turned down. An investigation by WGN-TV television in 2001 helped document new evidence in his case.  
A review by the Cook County State's Attorney office in 2012-13 found that the police work on his case was flawed. His conviction was overturned; Boyd was fully exonerated and freed in September 2013.  
In 2013 Boyd sued the city of Chicago and various named officials including the detectives that worked his case. Although his suit was dismissed in a summary judgement issued by federal judge Robert Gettleman he did receive $213,624 in compensation from the State of Illinois.  

Background and case.  
Lathierial Boyd was born and grew up in Chicago. He later admitted to having sold drugs when he was young, but put his life in order, becoming a successful realtor. At age 24, he had a loft in Chicago.  
In March 1990, learning that the police were looking for him, the 24-year-old Boyd went to a police station and agreed to be in a line-up. His name had come up when police talked with Ricky Warner, the severely wounded survivor of a February shooting at the Exodus club in Wrigleyville. Warner did not see the fatal shooting of Michael Fleming, as both men were both shot in the back. They were outside the Exodus club and apparently involved in a drug deal.  
Boyd did not match the eyewitness descriptions from the murder. He was fifty pounds heavier and several inches taller than the witness description. He lacked the facial hair which eyewitnesses described of the suspect, and had different skin tone.  
He also had an alibi, as he was staying that night 20 miles away from the scene of the shooting, at the home of his sister and brother-in-law. His brother-in-law, a deputy sheriff in Cook County, described having seen Boyd sleeping when he went to the bathroom at 1:30 am, shortly before the murder. No eyewitnesses to the shooting, of which there were several, identified Boyd as the shooter in a lineup. "There was no physical or forensic evidence tying Boyd to the crime scene, and none of the more than a dozen witnesses to the shooting identified Boyd." But once the police arrested Boyd, based on other identification by Warner and his father, they stopped looking at other suspects.  
Boyd gave the police permission to search his loft, and Richard Zuley, a white homicide detective, left him shackled to a wall in the precinct station for several hours while he was gone. When he returned, according to Boyd, Zuley said, "“No nigger is supposed to live like this." Later Zuley cobbled together a case that was prosecuted, in part by Zuley's suppressing exculpatory evidence, such as Boyd not matching descriptions of several eyewitnesses of the shooter.  
Boyd had a public defender. He agreed to a bench trial in October 1990 and was convicted by the judge, based on what the prosecution presented as eyewitness identification by Warner. Boyd's defense failed to make the case for him, to show that Warner could not have seen the shooter, to present his alibi, and other errors.  
Boyd was sentenced to 82 years in prison, with no hope for release until serving half of his sentence. He appealed his conviction but was unsuccessful. The Illinois Supreme Court declined to hear his case in 2000.  
By 2001, the television station WGNTV in Chicago had learned about Boyd's case and began its own investigation, including interviews of seven of the nine eyewitnesses. With the aid of material and petitions gathered by WGN, on February 6, 2008, Boyd filed "a petition for executive clemency with the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. The petition is based on the argument that the evidence supports the pardoning of Boyd based on his actual innocence of the Exodus shootings.  

2013 Exoneration and freedom.  
Anita Alvarez, Cook County State's Attorney, determined Boyd was innocent. Her Conviction Integrity Unit conducted a routine review of his case history beginning in 2011 after new evidence about the eyewitnesses was introduced by Boyd's new attorney Kathleen Zellner. They said he should never have been prosecuted. He received his certificate of innocence on September 25, 2013. Boyd's conviction due to Zuley's questionable means for assembling evidence lead Alvarez to subpoena the entire history of complaints against Zuley.  
In October 2013 Boyd "sued Chicago, six named police officers and several unknown individuals in the Eastern Division of the Northern District of Illinois." After depositions were taken from all the parties, and following multiple motions, Federal Judge Robert Gettleman dismissed Boyd's suit in a summary judgement. In his 33-page opinion issued on December 6, 2016, Judge Gettleman stated "he (Boyd) failed to provide even a scintilla of evidence to support Boyd's claim." Boyd v. City Of Chicago et al, No. 1:2013cv07152 - Document 140 (N.D. Ill. 2016) In his finding, Judge Gettleman also noted that in his own deposition, Boyd had refuted claims he made against the police, pointing out that although Boyd claimed evidence in the form of a hand-written note, it had been manufactured and planted, as he admitted in his deposition that he had written the evidence in question and had provided similar notes to other drug dealers who worked for him. Judge Gettleman gives a thorough and comprehensive response to each of the counts in Boyd's claim and finds that the "Plaintiff's argument provides no reason to believe, and certainly no evidence, that the defendant officers collaborated in a broad and complex scheme to frame him for the February 24, 1990, shooting. Consequently, no jury could reasonable find in favor of plaintiff and his claims fail."  
As a result of his failed lawsuit against the City of Chicago and the named police officers, Boyd was eligible to be billed by the City of Chicago for legal costs. He did however receive $213,624 in compensation from the state of Illinois and unrelated to his lawsuit."  
Boyd's case became more widely known in early 2015, when Zuley became the subject of international attention. The Guardian reported that he had served at Guantanamo Bay detention camp as a lieutenant in the US Navy Reserve, beginning in 2003. He was called into service to interrogate Mohamedou Ould Slahi, classified as a high-profile detainee. In January 2015, Slahi published his memoir, Guantanamo Diary in January 2015, which became an international bestseller. It included detailed descriptions of the various tortures he suffered, including psychological.  
Zuley used the various extended interrogation techniques authorized by the Secretary of Defense for Slahi and some other detainees. These methods have since been characterized as torture. The Guardian noted that numerous complaints in Chicago against Zuley were related to his use of torture during interrogation.  
Zuley was among several detectives, including Jon Burge, who were investigated in the late 1990s and into the 21st century because of alleged abuse of suspects. The 1990 Goldston Report by the Chicago Office of Professional Standards and an independent investigation concluded in 2006, determined that Burge and his men had committed torture in numerous instances and that there were some convictions based only on confessions coerced by them. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73109728Wed, 22 Jul 2026 15:22:59 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Lathierial Boyd.   Lathierial Boyd is an African-American man from Chicago who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1990 and served 23 years in prison. His appeals were turned down. An investigation by WGN-TV television in 2001 helped document new...Lathierial Boyd is an African-American man from Chicago who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1990 and served 23 years in prison. His appeals were turned down. An investigation by WGN-TV television in 2001 helped document new evidence in his case.  
A review by the Cook County State's Attorney office in 2012-13 found that the police work on his case was flawed. His conviction was overturned; Boyd was fully exonerated and freed in September 2013.  
In 2013 Boyd sued the city of Chicago and various named officials including the detectives that worked his case. Although his suit was dismissed in a summary judgement issued by federal judge Robert Gettleman he did receive $213,624 in compensation from the State of Illinois.  

Background and case.  
Lathierial Boyd was born and grew up in Chicago. He later admitted to having sold drugs when he was young, but put his life in order, becoming a successful realtor. At age 24, he had a loft in Chicago.  
In March 1990, learning that the police were looking for him, the 24-year-old Boyd went to a police station and agreed to be in a line-up. His name had come up when police talked with Ricky Warner, the severely wounded survivor of a February shooting at the Exodus club in Wrigleyville. Warner did not see the fatal shooting of Michael Fleming, as both men were both shot in the back. They were outside the Exodus club and apparently involved in a drug deal.  
Boyd did not match the eyewitness descriptions from the murder. He was fifty pounds heavier and several inches taller than the witness description. He lacked the facial hair which eyewitnesses described of the suspect, and had different skin tone.  
He also had an alibi, as he was staying that night 20 miles away from the scene of the shooting, at the home of his sister and brother-in-law. His brother-in-law, a deputy sheriff in Cook County, described having seen Boyd sleeping when he went to the bathroom at 1:30 am, shortly before the murder. No eyewitnesses to the shooting, of which there were several, identified Boyd as the shooter in a lineup. "There was no physical or forensic evidence tying Boyd to the crime scene, and none of the more than a dozen witnesses to the shooting identified Boyd." But once the police arrested Boyd, based on other identification by Warner and his father, they stopped looking at other suspects.  
Boyd gave the police permission to search his loft, and Richard Zuley, a white homicide detective, left him shackled to a wall in the precinct station for several hours while he was gone. When he returned, according to Boyd, Zuley said, "“No nigger is supposed to live like this." Later Zuley cobbled together a case that was prosecuted, in part by Zuley's suppressing exculpatory evidence, such as Boyd not matching descriptions of several eyewitnesses of the shooter.  
Boyd had a public defender. He agreed to a bench trial in October 1990 and was convicted by the judge, based on what the prosecution presented as eyewitness identification by Warner. Boyd's defense failed to make the case for him, to show that Warner could not have seen the shooter, to present his alibi, and other errors.  
Boyd was sentenced to 82 years in prison, with no hope for release until serving half of his sentence. He appealed his conviction but was unsuccessful. The Illinois Supreme Court declined to hear his case in 2000.  
By 2001, the television station WGNTV in Chicago had learned about Boyd's case and began its own investigation, including interviews of seven of the nine eyewitnesses. With the aid of material and petitions gathered by WGN, on February 6, 2008, Boyd filed "a petition for executive clemency with the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. The petition is based on the argument that the evidence supports the pardoning of Boyd based on his actual innocence of the Exodus shootings.  

2013 Exoneration and freedom.  
Anita...]]>501falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/80-alex-odeh--73109465Alexander Michel Odeh (April 4, 1944 – October 11, 1985) was a Palestinian activist. Odeh was serving as West Coast regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) when he was assassinated in a bombing in Santa Ana, California.  

Life and murder.  
Born into a Palestinian Catholic family in Jifna, Mandatory Palestine, Alex Odeh immigrated to the United States in 1972 at the age of 28. He was a lecturer and poet who had published a volume of his poetry, Whispers in Exile. Odeh was a defender of Palestinian human rights and advocate of interfaith dialogue between Christians, Jews, and Muslims. A father of three young daughters at the time of his death, Odeh was the West Coast regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). Preceding his assassination in California, four bombings of ADC offices occurred in Boston, New York and Washington, DC.  
The Boston office of the ADC suffered a bombing on August 16, 1985, injuring two officers. The bombing that killed Odeh came the day after the ending of the Palestinian Liberation Front–sponsored Achille Lauro hijacking in which Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish American, was murdered. The night before his death Odeh explained to the media that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was not involved in the hijacking and PLO leader Yasser Arafat was ready to make peace.  
The day of his murder, October 11, Odeh had been scheduled to speak at Friday prayer services at a synagogue in Fountain Valley, California. Shortly before his killing, Odeh appeared on the television show Nightline. The program featured a back-and-forth between Odeh and a representative from the Jewish Defense League (JDL). Odeh was later killed by a bomb as he opened the door of his office at 1905 East 17th Street in Santa Ana, California.  

Reaction to murder.  
The Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee both condemned the murder. United States President Ronald Reagan sent a message of condolence.  
Irv Rubin, who had become chairman of the JDL the same year, immediately made several public statements in reaction to the incident. "I have no tears for Mr. Odeh", Rubin said. "He got exactly what he deserved." He also said: "My tears were used up crying for Leon Klinghoffer."  
Helen Hatab Samhan, deputy director of the Arab American Institute in 1987, wrote that the murder of Odeh "shocked the Arab American community nation-wide and demonstrated how political intolerance had crossed the line into anti-Arab terrorism on American soil." She labeled the crime an example of "political racism," meaning racism that targeted pro-Palestine Arab viewpoints and individuals and groups associated with espousing those particular views.  
Samhan also notes that Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director William Webster warned following Odeh's murder that "Arab individuals or those supporting Arab points of view have come within the zone of danger, targeted by a group as of yet to be fully identified and brought to justice."  
Criminal investigation.  
Four weeks after Odeh's death, FBI spokesperson Lane Bonner stated the FBI attributed the bombing and two others to the JDL. Rubin criticized the FBI for implying his organization's guilt without evidence, saying the FBI "could take their possible link and shove it." In February 1986, the FBI classified the bombing that killed Alex Odeh as a terrorist act. In July, they eased away from their original position, saying the JDL was "probably" responsible for this attack and four others, but that final attribution to the JDL or any other group "must await further investigation." Rubin again denied the JDL's involvement. "What the FBI is doing is simple", he stated, "Some character calls up a news agency or whatever and uses the phrase Never Again, ... and on that assumption they can go and slander a whole group. That's tragic." The JDL denied any involvement in Odeh's killing. 
Immediately after the 1985 assassination the FBI identified three suspects—all of whom were believed to be affiliated with the JDL—who fled to Israel soon after the incident: Robert Manning, Keith Fuchs and Andy Green. Floyd Clarke, then assistant director of the FBI, claimed in an internal memo that key suspects had fled to Israel and were living in Kiryat Arba, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.  

Arrest and trial of Robert Manning.  
In 1988, the FBI arrested Rochelle Manning, Robert Manning's wife, as a suspect in a mail bombing which killed a computer company secretary, Patricia Wilkerson, in Manhattan Beach, California, in July 1980. Rochelle Manning was also considered a possible suspect in Odeh's murder. It also charged her husband, Robert Manning, who was considered a prime suspect in the Odeh bombing. Manning had previously been convicted of a 1972 bombing of the home of an Arab activist in Hollywood, and was a suspect in three other bombings in 1985, one of which killed Tscherim Soobzokov. Both Rochelle and Robert Manning were members of the JDL. Rochelle's jury deadlocked, and after the mistrial she left for Israel to join her husband.  
In 1989, American journalist Chris Hedges discovered Robert Manning's residency in Kiryat Arba due to his use of a compromised alias. The US government requested Robert Manning's extradition in 1991. It also requested Rochelle Manning be extradited for a retrial. After an unsuccessful two-year legal battle in the Israeli courts to prevent his extradition, Robert Manning was extradited in 1993. Robert Manning was charged with the bombing attack that killed Wilkerson and convicted; in February 1994, Judge Dickran Tevrizian sentenced him to life imprisonment with a minimum of 30 years before parole. This was subsequently reduced to a minimum of 10 years before parole. After some years imprisoned at USP Lompoc, Manning was transferred to the medium security federal prison in Phoenix, Arizona. Rochelle Manning died in an Israeli prison on March 18, 1994, while awaiting extradition to the United States after the Israeli Supreme Court rejected her final appeal against extradition.  

Later developments.  
In April 1994, the Alex Odeh Memorial Statue, created by Algerian-American sculptor Khalil Bendib, was erected in front of the Santa Ana Central Library over protests by the JDL. On October 11, 1996, the eleventh anniversary of Odeh's murder, vandals defaced the statue. On February 6, 1997, vandals poured two gallons of red paint on the statue. JDL chairman Irv Rubin commented: "I think the guy [Odeh] is a war criminal." The ADC called for greater government efforts to catch Odeh's killers.  
On August 27, 1996, the FBI announced a $1 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Odeh's killers. JDL members heckled the FBI spokespersons announcing the reward. The reward is still in force.  
In 2007, the FBI revealed they had received information from a deceased informant, believed to be former JDL member Earl Krugel, who had been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for 2001 plots to bomb a Southern California mosque and office of an Arab American congressman. It is believed that Rubin, who died in prison while awaiting trial on the same charges, revealed to Krugel the names of those responsible for Odeh's death and Krugel shared those with the FBI before he, too, died in prison. The bombers are believed to be Manning and two other JDL activists, Keith Fuchs and Andy Green, all of whom fled to Israel where they have avoided prosecution and extradition. Manning is believed to have settled in Kiryat Arba.  
In October 2023, Robert Manning was granted parole. He was released from prison on July 24, 2024.  

Legacy.  
The ADC continues to honor Odeh's memory and call for prosecution of his killers. In 2025, the ADC opened its first Southern California office since the attack in Anaheim's Little Arabia.  


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73109465Wed, 22 Jul 2026 15:03:47 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Alex Odeh.   Alexander Michel Odeh (April 4, 1944 – October 11, 1985) was a Palestinian activist. Odeh was serving as West Coast regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) when he was assassinated in a bombing in Santa...Alexander Michel Odeh (April 4, 1944 – October 11, 1985) was a Palestinian activist. Odeh was serving as West Coast regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) when he was assassinated in a bombing in Santa Ana, California.  

Life and murder.  
Born into a Palestinian Catholic family in Jifna, Mandatory Palestine, Alex Odeh immigrated to the United States in 1972 at the age of 28. He was a lecturer and poet who had published a volume of his poetry, Whispers in Exile. Odeh was a defender of Palestinian human rights and advocate of interfaith dialogue between Christians, Jews, and Muslims. A father of three young daughters at the time of his death, Odeh was the West Coast regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). Preceding his assassination in California, four bombings of ADC offices occurred in Boston, New York and Washington, DC.  
The Boston office of the ADC suffered a bombing on August 16, 1985, injuring two officers. The bombing that killed Odeh came the day after the ending of the Palestinian Liberation Front–sponsored Achille Lauro hijacking in which Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish American, was murdered. The night before his death Odeh explained to the media that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was not involved in the hijacking and PLO leader Yasser Arafat was ready to make peace.  
The day of his murder, October 11, Odeh had been scheduled to speak at Friday prayer services at a synagogue in Fountain Valley, California. Shortly before his killing, Odeh appeared on the television show Nightline. The program featured a back-and-forth between Odeh and a representative from the Jewish Defense League (JDL). Odeh was later killed by a bomb as he opened the door of his office at 1905 East 17th Street in Santa Ana, California.  

Reaction to murder.  
The Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee both condemned the murder. United States President Ronald Reagan sent a message of condolence.  
Irv Rubin, who had become chairman of the JDL the same year, immediately made several public statements in reaction to the incident. "I have no tears for Mr. Odeh", Rubin said. "He got exactly what he deserved." He also said: "My tears were used up crying for Leon Klinghoffer."  
Helen Hatab Samhan, deputy director of the Arab American Institute in 1987, wrote that the murder of Odeh "shocked the Arab American community nation-wide and demonstrated how political intolerance had crossed the line into anti-Arab terrorism on American soil." She labeled the crime an example of "political racism," meaning racism that targeted pro-Palestine Arab viewpoints and individuals and groups associated with espousing those particular views.  
Samhan also notes that Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director William Webster warned following Odeh's murder that "Arab individuals or those supporting Arab points of view have come within the zone of danger, targeted by a group as of yet to be fully identified and brought to justice."  
Criminal investigation.  
Four weeks after Odeh's death, FBI spokesperson Lane Bonner stated the FBI attributed the bombing and two others to the JDL. Rubin criticized the FBI for implying his organization's guilt without evidence, saying the FBI "could take their possible link and shove it." In February 1986, the FBI classified the bombing that killed Alex Odeh as a terrorist act. In July, they eased away from their original position, saying the JDL was "probably" responsible for this attack and four others, but that final attribution to the JDL or any other group "must await further investigation." Rubin again denied the JDL's involvement. "What the FBI is doing is simple", he stated, "Some character calls up a news agency or whatever and uses the phrase Never Again, ... and on that assumption they can go and slander a whole group. That's tragic." The...]]>557falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/79-murder-of-keith-blakelock-part-2--73108941Disputed interview.  
Known as "Sticks" locally, Silcott was living in the Martlesham block of Broadwater Farm at the time of the riots, and was running his greengrocer's shop in the Tangmere block, the block near the spot where Blakelock was killed. He told David Rose in 2004 that he had been in the Tangmere block on the night of the death, and had stopped someone from throwing a scaffolding pole through the window of his shop. A friend of his, Pam, had then invited him to her apartment to keep him out of trouble. He told Rose: "And look, I'm on bail for a murder. I know I'm stupid, but I'm not that stupid. There's helicopters, police photographers everywhere. All I could think about was that I didn't want to lose my bail." He said he had first learned of Blakelock's death when he heard cheering in the apartment he was staying in, in response to a news report about it.  
Silcott was arrested for Blakelock's murder on 12 October 1985, six days after the riot; he was interviewed five times over 24 hours; Det Ch Supt Melvin asked the questions and Det Insp Maxwell Dingle took the notes. During the first four interviews, Silcott stayed mostly silent and refused to sign the detectives' notes, but during the fifth interview on 13 October, when Melvin said he knew Silcott had struck Blakelock with a machete or sword, his demeanour changed, according to the notes.  
The notes show him asking: "Who told you that?" When the detectives said they had witnesses, he reportedly said: "They are only kids. No one is going to believe them." The notes say he walked around the interview room with tears in his eyes, saying: "You cunts, you cunts", and "Jesus, Jesus", then: "You ain't got enough evidence. Those kids will never go to court. You wait and see. No one else will talk to you. You can't keep me away from them." The notes show him saying of the murder weapons: "You're too slow, man, they gone." He was at that point charged with murder, to which he reportedly responded: "They won't give evidence against me." It was this interview that led to Silcott's conviction for murder being overturned. According to a scientist who conducted forensic tests on the original interview notes, the detectives' notes from the portion of the interview in which Silcott appeared to incriminate himself had been inserted after the other interview notes were written.  

Engin Raghip.  
Nineteen-year-old Engin Raghip, of Turkish–Cypriot descent, was arrested on 24 October 1985 after a friend mentioned his name to police, the only time anyone had linked him to the murder. During his trial, the court heard from an expert that Raghip was "in the middle of the mildly mentally handicapped range", although this testimony was withheld from the jury. His mental impairment became a key issue during his successful appeal in 1991 in R v Raghip and others when the court accepted that it had rendered his confession unsafe.  
Raghip's parents had moved from Cyprus to England in 1956. Raghip left school at age 15, illiterate, and by the time of the murder had three convictions, one for burglary and two for stealing cars. He had a common-law wife, Sharon Daly, with whom he had a two-year-old boy, and he worked occasionally as a mechanic. He had little connection with Broadwater Farm, although he lived in nearby Wood Green and had gone to the Farm with two friends to watch the riot, he said. One of those friends, John Broomfield, gave an interview to the Daily Mirror on 23 October 1985, boasting about his involvement. When Broomfield was arrested, he implicated Raghip. Broomfield was later convicted of an unrelated murder.  
At the time of Raghip's arrest, he had been drinking and smoking cannabis for several days, and his common-law wife had just left him, taking their son with her. He was held for two days without representation, first speaking to a solicitor on the third day, who said he had found Raghip distressed and disoriented. He was interviewed by Det Sgt van Thal and Det Insp John Kennedy ten times over a period of four days. He made several incriminating statements, first that he had thrown stones, then during the second interview that he had seen the attack on Blakelock. During the third, he said he had spoken to Silcott about the murder, and that Silcott owned a hammer with a hook on one side. After the fifth interview he was charged with affray, and during the sixth, he described the attack on Blakelock: "It was like you see in a film, a helpless man with dogs on him. It was just like that, it was really quick." He did not sign this interview, Rose writes, and after it, he vomited.  
During a seventh interview the next day, Raghip described noises he said Blakelock had made during the attack. During the eighth interview, he said he had armed himself that night with a broom handle and had tried to get close to what was happening to Blakelock, but there were too many people around him: "I had a weapon when I was running toward the policeman, a broom handle." He said he might have kicked or hit him had he been able to get close enough. Rose writes that Raghip also offered the order in which Blakelock's attackers had launched the assault. He was held for another two days, released on bail, and then charged with murder six weeks later, in December 1985, under the doctrine of common purpose.  

Mark Braithwaite.  
Aged 18 when Blakelock was killed, Mark Braithwaite was a rapper and disc jockey living with his parents in Islington, London, N1. He had a girlfriend who lived on Broadwater Farm, with whom he had a child. On 16 January 1986, three months after the murder, his name was mentioned for the first time to detectives by a man they had arrested, Bernard Kinghorn. Kinghorn told them he had seen Braithwaite, whom he said he knew only by sight, stab Blakelock with a kitchen knife. Kinghorn later withdrew the allegation, telling the BBC three years later that it had been false.  
Braithwaite was taken to Enfield Police Station and interviewed by Det Sgt Dermot McDermott and Det Con Colin Biggar. He was held for three days and was at first denied access to a lawyer, on the instruction of Det Ch Supt Melvin. He was interviewed eight times over the first two days and with a lawyer present four times on the third. During the first 30 hours of his detention he had nothing to eat, and said in court—as did several other suspects—that the heat in the cells was oppressive, making it difficult to breathe.  
He at first denied being anywhere near the Farm, then during interview four said he had been there and had thrown stones, and during interview five said he had been at the Tangmere block, but had played no role in the murder. During interview six, he said he had hit Blakelock with an iron bar in the chest and leg. Rose writes that there were no such injuries on Blakelock's body. In a seventh interview, he said he had hit a police officer, but that it was not Blakelock. On the basis of this confession evidence, he was charged with murder.  

(1987) Trial: R v Silcott and others.
Of the 359 men and youths arrested, 159 were charged, including with affray and throwing petrol bombs, and 88 were convicted. According to The Times, the accused were "divided almost equally between black and white". Five defendants were 29 or older; most were teenagers or in their early 20s. The youngest was aged 12. The trial of the six accused of murder—Silcott, Raghip and Braithwaite, the adults; and Pennant, Hill and Lambie, the youths—began in court number two of the Old Bailey on 19 January 1987 in front of Mr Justice Hodgson. All were charged with murder, riot, and affray; Lambie was also charged with throwing petrol bombs.  
The jury consisted of eight white men, two black women and two white women. They were not told that it was Silcott's fourth murder trial, that he had been out on bail for the murder of Anthony Smith when Blakelock was killed, or that he had subsequently been convicted of that murder. Silcott's barrister, Barbara Mills, a future Director of Public Prosecutions, decided that he should not take the stand to avoid exposing him to questions about his previous convictions. The effort to avoid introducing the conviction for the murder of Anthony Smith worked against Silcott too. It meant that the jury could not be told that he had signed on for his bail at Tottenham police station at around 7 pm on the evening of Blakelock's death. This was when witnesses had placed Silcott at a Broadwater Youth Association meeting, making inflammatory speeches against the police.  
Roy Amlot QC told the court that Blakelock had been stabbed 40 times by at least two knives and a machete. There were eight injuries to his head, and one of the weapons had penetrated his jawbone. In the view of the prosecution, the killers had intended to decapitate him and place his head on a pole. The press coverage of the trial included the publication on day two, by The Sun, of a notorious close-up of a half-smiling Silcott, one that "created a monster to stalk the nightmares of Middle England", as journalist Kurt Barling put it. Silcott said he had been asleep in a police cell when it was taken; he said he was woken up, held in a corridor with his arms pinned against a wall and photographed, and that the expression on his face was one of fear. Its publication constituted "the most gross contempt", according to the trial judge speaking to David Rose in 1992. No action was taken against the newspaper.  
The judge dismissed the charges against the youths because they had been detained without access to parents or a lawyer; in the absence of the jury, the judge was highly critical of the police on that point. Four armoured police vehicles waited in Tottenham as the jury deliberated for three days. They returned on 19 March 1987 with a unanimous guilty verdict...

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73108941Wed, 22 Jul 2026 14:40:01 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murder of Keith Blakelock. (part 2).   Disputed interview.   Known as "Sticks" locally, Silcott was living in the Martlesham block of Broadwater Farm at the time of the riots, and was running his greengrocer's shop in the Tangmere block, the block...Disputed interview.  
Known as "Sticks" locally, Silcott was living in the Martlesham block of Broadwater Farm at the time of the riots, and was running his greengrocer's shop in the Tangmere block, the block near the spot where Blakelock was killed. He told David Rose in 2004 that he had been in the Tangmere block on the night of the death, and had stopped someone from throwing a scaffolding pole through the window of his shop. A friend of his, Pam, had then invited him to her apartment to keep him out of trouble. He told Rose: "And look, I'm on bail for a murder. I know I'm stupid, but I'm not that stupid. There's helicopters, police photographers everywhere. All I could think about was that I didn't want to lose my bail." He said he had first learned of Blakelock's death when he heard cheering in the apartment he was staying in, in response to a news report about it.  
Silcott was arrested for Blakelock's murder on 12 October 1985, six days after the riot; he was interviewed five times over 24 hours; Det Ch Supt Melvin asked the questions and Det Insp Maxwell Dingle took the notes. During the first four interviews, Silcott stayed mostly silent and refused to sign the detectives' notes, but during the fifth interview on 13 October, when Melvin said he knew Silcott had struck Blakelock with a machete or sword, his demeanour changed, according to the notes.  
The notes show him asking: "Who told you that?" When the detectives said they had witnesses, he reportedly said: "They are only kids. No one is going to believe them." The notes say he walked around the interview room with tears in his eyes, saying: "You cunts, you cunts", and "Jesus, Jesus", then: "You ain't got enough evidence. Those kids will never go to court. You wait and see. No one else will talk to you. You can't keep me away from them." The notes show him saying of the murder weapons: "You're too slow, man, they gone." He was at that point charged with murder, to which he reportedly responded: "They won't give evidence against me." It was this interview that led to Silcott's conviction for murder being overturned. According to a scientist who conducted forensic tests on the original interview notes, the detectives' notes from the portion of the interview in which Silcott appeared to incriminate himself had been inserted after the other interview notes were written.  

Engin Raghip.  
Nineteen-year-old Engin Raghip, of Turkish–Cypriot descent, was arrested on 24 October 1985 after a friend mentioned his name to police, the only time anyone had linked him to the murder. During his trial, the court heard from an expert that Raghip was "in the middle of the mildly mentally handicapped range", although this testimony was withheld from the jury. His mental impairment became a key issue during his successful appeal in 1991 in R v Raghip and others when the court accepted that it had rendered his confession unsafe.  
Raghip's parents had moved from Cyprus to England in 1956. Raghip left school at age 15, illiterate, and by the time of the murder had three convictions, one for burglary and two for stealing cars. He had a common-law wife, Sharon Daly, with whom he had a two-year-old boy, and he worked occasionally as a mechanic. He had little connection with Broadwater Farm, although he lived in nearby Wood Green and had gone to the Farm with two friends to watch the riot, he said. One of those friends, John Broomfield, gave an interview to the Daily Mirror on 23 October 1985, boasting about his involvement. When Broomfield was arrested, he implicated Raghip. Broomfield was later convicted of an unrelated murder.  
At the time of Raghip's arrest, he had been drinking and smoking cannabis for several days, and his common-law wife had just left him, taking their son with her. He was held for two days without representation, first speaking to a solicitor on the third day, who said he had...]]>2177falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/78-murder-of-keith-blakelock-part-1--73089752Keith Henry Blakelock QGM (28 June 1945 – 6 October 1985) was a British police officer who served as a London Metropolitan Police constable. He was murdered on 6 October 1985 during the Broadwater Farm riot in Tottenham. The riot broke out after Cynthia Jarrett died of heart failure during a police search of her home, and took place against a backdrop of unrest in several English cities and a breakdown of relations between the police and some people in the black community.  
PC Blakelock had been assigned, on the night of his death, to Serial 502, a unit of 11 constables and one sergeant, dispatched to protect firefighters who were themselves under attack. When the rioters forced the officers back, Blakelock stumbled and fell. Surrounded by a mob of around 50 people, he received over 40 injuries inflicted by machetes or similar weapons, and was found with a six-inch-long (15-centimetre) knife in his neck, buried up to the hilt.  
Detectives came under enormous pressure to find those responsible. Faced with a lack of scientific evidence—because for several hours it had not been possible to secure the crime scene—police officers arrested 359 people, interviewed most of them without lawyers, and laid charges based on untaped confessions. Three adults and three youths were charged with the murder; the adults, Winston Silcott, Engin Raghip and Mark Braithwaite (the "Tottenham Three"), were convicted in 1987. A widely supported campaign arose to overturn the convictions, which were quashed in 1991 when scientific testing cast doubt on the authenticity of detectives' notes of an interview in which Silcott appeared to incriminate himself. Two detectives were charged in 1992 with perverting the course of justice and were acquitted in 1994.  
Police re-opened the murder inquiry in 1992 and again in 2003. Ten men were arrested in 2010 on suspicion of murder, and in 2013 one of them, Nicholas Jacobs, became the seventh person to be charged with Blakelock's murder, based largely on evidence gathered during the 1992 inquiry. He was found not guilty in April 2014.  
Blakelock and the other constables of Serial 502 were awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal for bravery in 1988.  

Background.  
Keith Blakelock.  
Blakelock was born on 28 June 1945 in Sunderland. He joined the Metropolitan Police on 14 November 1980 and was assigned to a response team in Hornsey before becoming a home beat officer in Muswell Hill, north London. At the time of his death, he was married to Elizabeth Blakelock (later Johnson), with three sons, Mark, Kevin and Lee. Lee Blakelock, eight years old when his father died, became a police officer himself, joining Durham Constabulary in 2000. PC Blakelock is buried in East Finchley Cemetery.  

Broadwater Farm.  
Broadwater Farm in Tottenham, in the Borough of Haringey, north London (N17), emerged from the British government's policy from the 1930s onwards of slum clearance, in which poorly maintained terraced houses were bulldozed to make way for high-rise social housing. Built between 1967 and 1973, the Farm consists of 1,063 flats (apartments) in 12 blocks raised on stilts, linked by first-floor outdoor connecting walkways; no homes or shops were built at ground level for fear of flooding from the nearby River Moselle. At the time of Blakelock's death, the estate housed 3,400 people, 49 percent white, 43 percent African-Caribbean.  
British journalist David Rose writes that by 1976 the Farm was already seen as a sink estate, and that by 1980 a Department of the Environment report had suggested demolition, although a regeneration project after the 1985 riots led to improvements.  Sir Kenneth Newman, Metropolitan Police Commissioner from 1982 to 1987, regarded the estate as one of London's "symbolic locations", or potential no-go areas, along with Railton Road in Brixton; All Saints Road in Notting Hill; the Notting Hill Carnival; and the Stonebridge Estate in Harlesden. The 1986 Gifford Inquiry into the rioting criticized the police for having adopted this attitude.  
The Royal Institute of British Architects blamed the unrest on Haringey Council's policy of "using the estate as a gathering ground for its problem tenants", combined with low rents that left no funds for adequate maintenance. The elevated linked walkways meant that the estate could be crossed without descending to street level. Combined with the ground-level parking spaces beloved of drug dealers, these had turned the estate into what commentators called a "rabbit warren" for criminals, to the point where residents were afraid to leave their homes. From May 1985 police entering the estate regularly faced lumps of concrete, bricks, bottles and beer barrels being thrown at them from the first-floor walkways. Dutch architectural historian Wouter Vanstiphout described the estate as it was at the time of the riots:  
"[T]here are elevated walkways, there are little stairs that connect them, there are these huge stairwells where the different elevated walkways come together ... there is a huge underground zone that is completely unmonitored, which consists of parking places ... so it's an incredible nest ... one of these typical modernist, multi-level network city constructions that make it extremely difficult for the police to exert any control over it, and it makes the police extremely vulnerable for attacks from behind, underneath, from the top."  

Social unrest across England.  
The riots in which Blakelock died took place within a wave of social unrest across England. Since the 1980 St Pauls riot in Bristol, and particularly since the 1981 Brixton riot in south London, a series of incidents had sparked violent confrontations between black youths and largely white police officers.  
On 9 September 1985, a month before Blakelock's murder, the arrest of a black man for a traffic offence triggered the 1985 Handsworth riots in Birmingham; two people were killed. On 28 September, a black woman, Dorothy "Cherry" Groce, was accidentally shot by police while they searched her home in Brixton looking for her son, Michael Groce, who was wanted on suspicion of robbery and firearms offences. Believing she had died in the shooting—in fact, she had survived but was left paralysed from the waist down—a group of protesters gathered outside Brixton police station, sparking the 1985 Brixton riot that saw police lose control of the area for 48 hours. A photojournalist, 29-year-old David Hodge, was killed when a breeze block was dropped on his head while he photographed the looting.  
Rumours spread throughout London at the end of September 1985 that more rioting was imminent, including in Bermondsey and the Wood Green shopping centre near Broadwater Farm. On 1 October there were disturbances in Toxteth, Liverpool. The police searched all vehicles entering Broadwater Farm that day; the following day they found a petrol bomb on the estate.  

Broadwater Farm riot.  
5 October - death of Cynthia Jarrett.  
At 1:00 pm on 5 October 1985, a young black man, Floyd Jarrett, who lived about one mile (1.5 kilometres) from Broadwater Farm, was arrested by police, having been stopped in a vehicle with an allegedly suspicious car tax disc, on suspicion of being in a stolen car. It was a suspicion that turned out to be groundless, but a decision was made several hours later to search the home of his mother, Cynthia Jarrett, for stolen goods. In the course of the search, she collapsed and died of heart failure. David Rose, a British author and investigative journalist, writes that the pathologist, Walter Somerville, told the inquest that Mrs. Jarrett had a heart condition that meant she probably only had months to live.  
The police, without a search warrant, had let themselves into the house using Floyd Jarrett's keys, without knocking or announcing themselves, while his mother and her family were watching television. The family said that an officer had pushed 49-year-old Mrs. Jarrett, causing her to fall. The officer denied this; the police said she had simply collapsed. When it became clear she had stopped breathing, the same officer tried to revive her using mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, to no avail. The pathologist testified at the inquest that the fall may have been a precipitating factor; the jury returned a verdict of accidental death, following the coroner's direction that such a verdict would mean Mrs. Jarrett had been pushed, but perhaps accidentally.  

6 October - rioting breaks out.  
According to Rose, Cynthia Jarrett's death was "not just a spark but ... a flamethrower aimed at a powder keg". Protesters began to gather outside Tottenham police station, a few hundred yards from Broadwater Farm, around 1:30 am on Sunday morning, 6 October. Four of the station's windows were smashed, but the Jarrett family asked the crowd to disperse. Later that day, two police officers were attacked with bricks and paving stones at the Farm, and a police inspector was attacked in his car.  
The next few hours saw some of the most violent rioting the country had experienced. By early evening a crowd of 500 mostly young black men had gathered on the estate, setting fire to cars, throwing petrol bombs and bricks, and dropping concrete blocks and paving stones from the estate's outdoor walkways, knocking several police officers unconscious, despite their NATO helmets. The local council's community relations officer said there was a "shifting convoy of ambulances: as soon as one was loaded up with injured officers, another would move up to take its place".  
Four senior officers were in control of police deployment in the area that night: Chief Superintendent Colin Couch, who was the Tottenham Division 4 Superintendent David French, Superintendent William Sinclair, and Chief Inspector John.....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73089752Tue, 21 Jul 2026 16:55:59 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murder of Keith Blakelock. (part 1).   Keith Henry Blakelock QGM (28 June 1945 – 6 October 1985) was a British police officer who served as a London Metropolitan Police constable. He was murdered on 6 October 1985 during the Broadwater Farm riot in...Keith Henry Blakelock QGM (28 June 1945 – 6 October 1985) was a British police officer who served as a London Metropolitan Police constable. He was murdered on 6 October 1985 during the Broadwater Farm riot in Tottenham. The riot broke out after Cynthia Jarrett died of heart failure during a police search of her home, and took place against a backdrop of unrest in several English cities and a breakdown of relations between the police and some people in the black community.  
PC Blakelock had been assigned, on the night of his death, to Serial 502, a unit of 11 constables and one sergeant, dispatched to protect firefighters who were themselves under attack. When the rioters forced the officers back, Blakelock stumbled and fell. Surrounded by a mob of around 50 people, he received over 40 injuries inflicted by machetes or similar weapons, and was found with a six-inch-long (15-centimetre) knife in his neck, buried up to the hilt.  
Detectives came under enormous pressure to find those responsible. Faced with a lack of scientific evidence—because for several hours it had not been possible to secure the crime scene—police officers arrested 359 people, interviewed most of them without lawyers, and laid charges based on untaped confessions. Three adults and three youths were charged with the murder; the adults, Winston Silcott, Engin Raghip and Mark Braithwaite (the "Tottenham Three"), were convicted in 1987. A widely supported campaign arose to overturn the convictions, which were quashed in 1991 when scientific testing cast doubt on the authenticity of detectives' notes of an interview in which Silcott appeared to incriminate himself. Two detectives were charged in 1992 with perverting the course of justice and were acquitted in 1994.  
Police re-opened the murder inquiry in 1992 and again in 2003. Ten men were arrested in 2010 on suspicion of murder, and in 2013 one of them, Nicholas Jacobs, became the seventh person to be charged with Blakelock's murder, based largely on evidence gathered during the 1992 inquiry. He was found not guilty in April 2014.  
Blakelock and the other constables of Serial 502 were awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal for bravery in 1988.  

Background.  
Keith Blakelock.  
Blakelock was born on 28 June 1945 in Sunderland. He joined the Metropolitan Police on 14 November 1980 and was assigned to a response team in Hornsey before becoming a home beat officer in Muswell Hill, north London. At the time of his death, he was married to Elizabeth Blakelock (later Johnson), with three sons, Mark, Kevin and Lee. Lee Blakelock, eight years old when his father died, became a police officer himself, joining Durham Constabulary in 2000. PC Blakelock is buried in East Finchley Cemetery.  

Broadwater Farm.  
Broadwater Farm in Tottenham, in the Borough of Haringey, north London (N17), emerged from the British government's policy from the 1930s onwards of slum clearance, in which poorly maintained terraced houses were bulldozed to make way for high-rise social housing. Built between 1967 and 1973, the Farm consists of 1,063 flats (apartments) in 12 blocks raised on stilts, linked by first-floor outdoor connecting walkways; no homes or shops were built at ground level for fear of flooding from the nearby River Moselle. At the time of Blakelock's death, the estate housed 3,400 people, 49 percent white, 43 percent African-Caribbean.  
British journalist David Rose writes that by 1976 the Farm was already seen as a sink estate, and that by 1980 a Department of the Environment report had suggested demolition, although a regeneration project after the 1985 riots led to improvements.  Sir Kenneth Newman, Metropolitan Police Commissioner from 1982 to 1987, regarded the estate as one of London's "symbolic locations", or potential no-go areas, along with Railton Road in Brixton; All Saints Road in Notting Hill; the Notting...]]>1804falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/77-tscherim-soobzokov--73088557Tscherim "Tom" Soobzokov (24 August 1924 – 6 September 1985) was a Circassian spy, American politician, SS Obersturmführer, and Nazi fugitive. He rose to prominence in the New Jersey Democratic Party and the Circassian community in Paterson, New Jersey. During the Cold War, Soobzokov served the CIA as an anti-Soviet operative.  
Soobzokov came to national attention in the United States with the publication of Howard Blum's Wanted! The Search for Nazis in America in 1977, and his subsequent appearance on PBS NewsHour. He was accused of collaborating with Nazi Germany during the invasion of the Soviet Union's North Caucasus before coming to the U.S. In 1985, Soobzokov was murdered by a pipe bomb at his house. The Jewish Defense League claimed responsibility for the murder. He was publicly supported by Pat Buchanan and New Jersey Congressman Robert Roe.  

Biography.  
Tscherim Soobzokov was born August 24, 1924, in Takhtamukay, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.  In some documents, Soobzokov listed his year of birth as either 1918 or 1921, although these were most likely lies.  
In 1940, Soobzokov was arrested and deported to a prison camp in the Lithuanian SSR, after its annexation by the Soviet Union, for either hooliganism  (Soobzokov claimed it had been for "throwing a rock at a judge")  or embezzling farm tax funds.  In 1941, after his release, Soobzokov returned back home to Takhtamukay in the Caucasus, and Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union soon afterwards. The Germans occupied the Caucasus in mid-1942.  
In August 1942, during the German occupation of the Caucasus, Tscherim Soobzokov was recruited by an SS or SD officer as chief of Nazi police in Takhtamukay. In 1943–1944 Soobzokov served as a military recruiter for the Nazis, and in early 1945, he was promoted to the rank of Obersturmführer in the Waffen-SS.  
After the end of the war, Soobzokov went into hiding in Italy; assured that the Vatican protected Nazi fugitives, Soobzokov remained there until 1947, when, with the aid of the Italian Red Cross and donations from Jordan, a group of 67 Circassian Nazi fugitives made their way to Jordan.  One of the Circassians who had journeyed on the same ship from Italy to Jordan later accused Soobzokov of trying to defraud the other passengers and stealing silverware from the ship's dining room.  
In 1950, Soobzokov was first approached for employment by the CIA.  Soobzokov was admitted into the United States in 1955.  Soobzokov settled in Paterson, New Jersey and became a naturalized US citizen in 1961. Official accusations against Soobzokov started in 1969, when a fellow immigrant named Mahamet Perchich, who had known Soobzokov in Jordan, wrote a letter to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, claiming Soobzokov had bragged about murdering Jews during the war.  In 1972, the Social Security Administration began investigating Soobzokov based on reports of his participation in a Social Security fraud scheme.  Despite the investigation and accusations against him in Paterson's tight-knit Circassian community, Soobzokov rose through the local political ranks, becoming a Democratic party apparatchik, serving as vice chairman of the Paterson Zoning Board, and eventually being appointed Chief Purchasing Inspector of Passaic County, New Jersey.  
Accusations against Soobzokov came to national attention in 1977 with the publication of Howard Blum's exposé of Nazi war criminal residing in the U.S., Wanted! The Search for Nazis in America. Both Blum and Soobzokov appeared on the February 2, 1977, episode of the PBS NewsHour The MacNeil/Lehrer Report. In the program, Soobzokov admitted that "I wore that uniform, but I never was any official. I never was in any service by the so-called Waffen-S.S.," and denied working for the CIA after WWII. Both statements would subsequently be shown to be false by Soobzokov's own defense lawyers in his 1979 denaturalization trial, when they produced secret CIA documents where Soobzokov admitted to serving in the Waffen-SS.  
In 1979, the Office of Special Investigations opened a denaturalization case against Soobzokov. In July 1980, the OSI withdrew its suit after the CIA shared with investigators a copy of Soobzokov's State Department Form V-30, which confirmed his claims he had disclosed service with the North Caucasian Legion and the Waffen SS when applying for his US immigration visa in Amman.  
Soobzokov sued Blum's publisher, Quadrangle Books (a division of the New York Times Company) for libel in 1977. After the deportation case against Soobzokov was dropped, the publisher decided to settle the suit for $450,000 before trial.  A trove of classified CIA documents released in 2006 under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act contained admissions by Soobzokov that validated witness testimony taken from survivors in the 1970s, and vindicated Blum's research.  

War crimes.  
The first documented evidence of Soobzokov's involvement in war crimes comes from reports made in 1943, after the Nazis had been driven from the North Caucasus. Soobzokov was implicated in the abduction and murder of Bachir Tlekhuch and Valeghei Skhazhok by Tlekhuch's father, and by one Soobzokov's colleagues in the Nazi Punitive Detachment.  Further testimony gathered in 1976 from surviving Nazi collaborators who had served with Soobzokov confirmed his participation in raids and executions in the auls (villages) of Edepsukai-1, Edepsukai-2, and Dzhidzkhihabl.  Even Soobzokov's own father-in-law (who had himself collaborated with the Nazis in the Vlasov army) and nephew had provided affidavits attesting to his activities.  
Circassian immigrants who had known Soobzokov in Paterson claimed that he had bragged about serving in German punitive detachments and participating in executions.  A number of Circassian immigrants who had ended up settling in Paterson had personally witnessed Soobzokov rounding up Jews as part of Nazi Punitive Detachments, or later in SS uniform as a military recruiter for the Nazis. Several said that Soobzokov had tried to intimidate them by bringing up his political connections.  
Soobzokov had confidentially admitted to the CIA that he had indeed participated in an execution unit and hunted for Jews and Communists. Witnesses confirmed he actively participated in those crimes.  

Relationships with the CIA and FBI.  
The CIA first took note of Soobzokov in 1949, and engaged him to provide intelligence and recruit assets in Jordan in December 1950, under the code name "NOSTRIL". Soobzokov proved to be "a failure of an agent," only managing to provide his handlers with 2 potential recruits. Agency reports "indicate[d] that he [Soobzokov] is a rather unscrupulous individual." By the middle of 1952, Soobzokov was unemployed.  
The CIA decided to re-engage Soobzokov in 1953, as part of the AEDEPOT program.  During a polygraph examination in 1953, a CIA official noted that Soobzokov had "consistent and pronounced reactions to all questions regarding war crimes". Soobzokov continued recruitment operations for the CIA in Jordan until 1955.  
In 1957, Soobzokov resumed working for the CIA as part of project AEACRE in the REDSOX program.  The Agency sent Soobzokov to Beirut on an assignment to recruit Russian exiles willing to return to the Soviet Union as undercover agents. The assignment was cut short after the Agency learned that Soobzokov was openly flaunting his CIA affiliation and running a scheme promising to use his connections to help refugees emigrate to America.  
Soobzokov had falsely told the CIA that he had attended a Soviet military academy, a claim he later recanted when the Agency decided to send him to a bomb-making course in Fort Meade, Maryland in 1958.  Finally, after a 1959 debriefing, a CIA examiner concluded that Soobzokov was an "incorrigible fabricator", after which the agency cancelled his operational approval.   
In the 1970s, Soobzokov acted as the president of the Committee for Liberation of North Caucasia in the U.S.  (incorporated as a non-profit in 1965) and Committee for Liberation of North Caucasia in New Jersey (incorporated as a non-profit in 1971),  which were likely CIA-funded anti-Soviet front groups similar to the American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia.  
In August 1958, Soobzokov became an FBI informant, spying on the immigrant community in Paterson.   

Death.  
Soobzokov's public notoriety resulted in him receiving death threats. The first attempt on Soobzokov's life came in 1979, when someone mailed a package containing a bomb to his house.  On 15 August 1985, a pipe bomb was detonated outside Soobzokov's home in Paterson, critically injuring him. Soobzokov died of his wounds on 6 September 1985. An anonymous caller claiming to represent the Jewish Defense League (JDL) said they had carried out the bombing. A spokesman for the JDL later denied responsibility, but applauded Soobzokov's murder as a "righteous act". No one was ever charged with the bombing. Tscherim's son, Aslan Soobzokov, has twice sued the federal government over its investigation. In 2017, Aslan made a statement claiming that "Soobzokov was killed because CIA feared revelation of the truth." The bombing was linked by the FBI to a similar bomb attack on Nazi fugitive Elmārs Sproģis.  
The prime suspect in these attacks is Robert Manning, a JDL member who is also considered a prime suspect in the murder of Alex Odeh. In 1994, Manning was convicted of an unrelated non-political murder, that of computer company secretary Patricia Wilkerson in California, in July 1980, and sentenced to life in prison. In October 2023, Manning was granted parole. He was released from prison in July 2024.  


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73088557Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:47:44 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Tscherim Soobzokov.   Tscherim "Tom" Soobzokov (24 August 1924 – 6 September 1985) was a Circassian spy, American politician, SS Obersturmführer, and Nazi fugitive. He rose to prominence in the New Jersey Democratic Party and the Circassian community...Tscherim "Tom" Soobzokov (24 August 1924 – 6 September 1985) was a Circassian spy, American politician, SS Obersturmführer, and Nazi fugitive. He rose to prominence in the New Jersey Democratic Party and the Circassian community in Paterson, New Jersey. During the Cold War, Soobzokov served the CIA as an anti-Soviet operative.  
Soobzokov came to national attention in the United States with the publication of Howard Blum's Wanted! The Search for Nazis in America in 1977, and his subsequent appearance on PBS NewsHour. He was accused of collaborating with Nazi Germany during the invasion of the Soviet Union's North Caucasus before coming to the U.S. In 1985, Soobzokov was murdered by a pipe bomb at his house. The Jewish Defense League claimed responsibility for the murder. He was publicly supported by Pat Buchanan and New Jersey Congressman Robert Roe.  

Biography.  
Tscherim Soobzokov was born August 24, 1924, in Takhtamukay, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.  In some documents, Soobzokov listed his year of birth as either 1918 or 1921, although these were most likely lies.  
In 1940, Soobzokov was arrested and deported to a prison camp in the Lithuanian SSR, after its annexation by the Soviet Union, for either hooliganism  (Soobzokov claimed it had been for "throwing a rock at a judge")  or embezzling farm tax funds.  In 1941, after his release, Soobzokov returned back home to Takhtamukay in the Caucasus, and Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union soon afterwards. The Germans occupied the Caucasus in mid-1942.  
In August 1942, during the German occupation of the Caucasus, Tscherim Soobzokov was recruited by an SS or SD officer as chief of Nazi police in Takhtamukay. In 1943–1944 Soobzokov served as a military recruiter for the Nazis, and in early 1945, he was promoted to the rank of Obersturmführer in the Waffen-SS.  
After the end of the war, Soobzokov went into hiding in Italy; assured that the Vatican protected Nazi fugitives, Soobzokov remained there until 1947, when, with the aid of the Italian Red Cross and donations from Jordan, a group of 67 Circassian Nazi fugitives made their way to Jordan.  One of the Circassians who had journeyed on the same ship from Italy to Jordan later accused Soobzokov of trying to defraud the other passengers and stealing silverware from the ship's dining room.  
In 1950, Soobzokov was first approached for employment by the CIA.  Soobzokov was admitted into the United States in 1955.  Soobzokov settled in Paterson, New Jersey and became a naturalized US citizen in 1961. Official accusations against Soobzokov started in 1969, when a fellow immigrant named Mahamet Perchich, who had known Soobzokov in Jordan, wrote a letter to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, claiming Soobzokov had bragged about murdering Jews during the war.  In 1972, the Social Security Administration began investigating Soobzokov based on reports of his participation in a Social Security fraud scheme.  Despite the investigation and accusations against him in Paterson's tight-knit Circassian community, Soobzokov rose through the local political ranks, becoming a Democratic party apparatchik, serving as vice chairman of the Paterson Zoning Board, and eventually being appointed Chief Purchasing Inspector of Passaic County, New Jersey.  
Accusations against Soobzokov came to national attention in 1977 with the publication of Howard Blum's exposé of Nazi war criminal residing in the U.S., Wanted! The Search for Nazis in America. Both Blum and Soobzokov appeared on the February 2, 1977, episode of the PBS NewsHour The MacNeil/Lehrer Report. In the program, Soobzokov admitted that "I wore that uniform, but I never was any official. I never was in any service by the so-called Waffen-S.S.," and denied working for the CIA after WWII. Both statements would subsequently be shown to be false by Soobzokov's own defense lawyers in his 1979...]]>702falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/76-mineral-washington-murders--73086478The Mineral, Washington murders, dubbed by the media as "the Tube Sock Killings," is a series of unsolved murders that occurred in remote areas of Lewis and Pierce counties, Washington, near the remote community of Mineral, Washington, in 1985. The murder cases were widely publicized, and were featured on the television series Unsolved Mysteries in 1989.  

Case.  
Harkins and Cooper.  
On August 10, 1985, Stephen Harkins, 27, and his girlfriend, Ruth Cooper, 42, left their Tacoma, Washington home for a weekend camping trip at Tule Lake in Pierce County. When the two did not return to their jobs at a Tacoma vocational school the following Monday, their families reported them missing. Four days later, on August 14, hikers passing through Pierce County found Harkins' body near a remote campsite. He had been shot in the head, and his body, still in a sleeping bag, suggested he had been murdered while sleeping. Nearby, searchers also found Harkins' and Cooper's pet dog, who had been shot to death as well. At the time, law enforcement suspected that the case may have been connected to the murders of Edward Smith and Kimberly Diane LaVine, a couple from Kent, Washington who were abducted, murdered, and disposed of in a gravel pit near the Columbia River in March 1985.  
On October 26, a skull was found at the dead end of Eighth Avenue South, near Harts Lake, about 1.5 mi (2.4 km) from where Harkins' body was found. Dental records confirmed the skull belonged to Cooper, and two days later on October 28, her body and her purse were also recovered from the area, 50 ft (15 m) from where her skull had been found. A tube sock had been tied around Cooper's neck. According to the autopsy, Cooper had died of "homicidal violence," though a spokesman later stated she had died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen. After the discovery of Cooper, the murders were publicized by Crime Stoppers in an attempt to recover information leading to the arrest of those responsible.  

Riemer and Robertson.  
Over a month after the discovery of Ruth Cooper, on December 12, 1985, Mike Riemer, 36, his girlfriend, Diana Robertson, 20, and their daughter, Crystal Robertson, age 2, traveled from their Tacoma home to Pierce County, planning to find a Christmas tree.  
Riemer, an animal trapper, also planned to check on traps he had set in the area. Later that evening, customers at a Kmart store 30 mi (48 km) north in Spanaway found the couple's daughter, Crystal, standing outside the store entrance. Crystal was placed in temporary foster care until her maternal grandmother saw her photograph on a local news broadcast two days later.  When asked where her mother was, the dazed two-year-old told her grandmother that her "Mommy was in the trees."  According to investigators, the two-year-old was "not nearly verbal enough" to provide any information.  
Police searched the area both on foot and by air, looking for evidence of Riemer's red 1982 Plymouth pickup truck, but efforts remained fruitless. On February 18, 1986, over two months after the couple's disappearance, the body of Diana Robertson was discovered half-buried in snow by a motorist near a logging road off of Washington State Route 7, just south of Elbe.  Bloodhounds scoured the area in the following days, but 6 in (150 mm) of snowfall impeded the search. Riemer's pickup truck was also found near Robertson's body.  
In the truck, police discovered a note on the dashboard that read "I love you, Diana." It was written on a manila envelope.  Robertson's mother claimed the handwriting was that of Riemer. Bloodstains were also found on the seat of the truck. An autopsy revealed that Diana Robertson had been stabbed seventeen times, and, as with Ruth Cooper, was also found with a tube sock tied around her neck.  
Due to Riemer's disappearance, investigators suspected he may have been responsible for Robertson's murder, and had abandoned his daughter at the Kmart store and then subsequently fled. However, they were unable to determine a solid motive for Riemer to kill his girlfriend. Police theorized that Riemer may have been responsible for Harkins' and Cooper's murders as well; an alternate theory, however, claimed that Riemer was also a victim of the same killer who had murdered Robertson, Harkins, and Cooper.  
In February 1986, after the discovery of Robertson's body, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published an article revealing that Riemer had been charged with domestic assault against Robertson on October 19, 1985. However, the couple had reconciled by December, the month in which they disappeared. Riemer, who worked as a roofer at Seattle’s Queen City Sheet Metal and Roofing Inc., was described by his employer as a "typical roofer who worked hard and played hard."  

2000s development.  
On March 18, 2009, hikers discovered a partial human skull later determined to be that of Mike Riemer. It was found in an area within a mile radius of where Robertson's body had been discovered in 1986. After recovery of the skull, Lewis County investigators stated that they believed Riemer could have been a possible victim of homicide as well, though his cause of death could not be determined. Based on the condition of the skull, however, authorities were able to rule out a gunshot wound to the head.  

Media depiction.  
In September 1989, the case was featured by the series Unsolved Mysteries.  


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73086478Tue, 21 Jul 2026 14:12:51 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Mineral, Washington murders.   The Mineral, Washington murders, dubbed by the media as "the Tube Sock Killings," is a series of unsolved murders that occurred in remote areas of Lewis and Pierce counties, Washington, near the remote community of...The Mineral, Washington murders, dubbed by the media as "the Tube Sock Killings," is a series of unsolved murders that occurred in remote areas of Lewis and Pierce counties, Washington, near the remote community of Mineral, Washington, in 1985. The murder cases were widely publicized, and were featured on the television series Unsolved Mysteries in 1989.  

Case.  
Harkins and Cooper.  
On August 10, 1985, Stephen Harkins, 27, and his girlfriend, Ruth Cooper, 42, left their Tacoma, Washington home for a weekend camping trip at Tule Lake in Pierce County. When the two did not return to their jobs at a Tacoma vocational school the following Monday, their families reported them missing. Four days later, on August 14, hikers passing through Pierce County found Harkins' body near a remote campsite. He had been shot in the head, and his body, still in a sleeping bag, suggested he had been murdered while sleeping. Nearby, searchers also found Harkins' and Cooper's pet dog, who had been shot to death as well. At the time, law enforcement suspected that the case may have been connected to the murders of Edward Smith and Kimberly Diane LaVine, a couple from Kent, Washington who were abducted, murdered, and disposed of in a gravel pit near the Columbia River in March 1985.  
On October 26, a skull was found at the dead end of Eighth Avenue South, near Harts Lake, about 1.5 mi (2.4 km) from where Harkins' body was found. Dental records confirmed the skull belonged to Cooper, and two days later on October 28, her body and her purse were also recovered from the area, 50 ft (15 m) from where her skull had been found. A tube sock had been tied around Cooper's neck. According to the autopsy, Cooper had died of "homicidal violence," though a spokesman later stated she had died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen. After the discovery of Cooper, the murders were publicized by Crime Stoppers in an attempt to recover information leading to the arrest of those responsible.  

Riemer and Robertson.  
Over a month after the discovery of Ruth Cooper, on December 12, 1985, Mike Riemer, 36, his girlfriend, Diana Robertson, 20, and their daughter, Crystal Robertson, age 2, traveled from their Tacoma home to Pierce County, planning to find a Christmas tree.  
Riemer, an animal trapper, also planned to check on traps he had set in the area. Later that evening, customers at a Kmart store 30 mi (48 km) north in Spanaway found the couple's daughter, Crystal, standing outside the store entrance. Crystal was placed in temporary foster care until her maternal grandmother saw her photograph on a local news broadcast two days later.  When asked where her mother was, the dazed two-year-old told her grandmother that her "Mommy was in the trees."  According to investigators, the two-year-old was "not nearly verbal enough" to provide any information.  
Police searched the area both on foot and by air, looking for evidence of Riemer's red 1982 Plymouth pickup truck, but efforts remained fruitless. On February 18, 1986, over two months after the couple's disappearance, the body of Diana Robertson was discovered half-buried in snow by a motorist near a logging road off of Washington State Route 7, just south of Elbe.  Bloodhounds scoured the area in the following days, but 6 in (150 mm) of snowfall impeded the search. Riemer's pickup truck was also found near Robertson's body.  
In the truck, police discovered a note on the dashboard that read "I love you, Diana." It was written on a manila envelope.  Robertson's mother claimed the handwriting was that of Riemer. Bloodstains were also found on the seat of the truck. An autopsy revealed that Diana Robertson had been stabbed seventeen times, and, as with Ruth Cooper, was also found with a tube sock tied around her neck.  
Due to Riemer's disappearance, investigators suspected he may have been responsible for Robertson's murder,...]]>374falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/75-christopher-dale-flannery--73086250Christopher Dale Flannery, nicknamed "Mr Rent-a-Kill" (born 1948 – disappeared 9 May 1985) is alleged to have been an Australian contract killer. Growing up in a working-class background in a culture that was suspicious of police, after leaving Melbourne he entered a life of crime and gang warfare that ended with his disappearance.  

Background and early career.  
Flannery was born in Brunswick, Victoria. He left school at the age of fourteen and received his first criminal conviction later that year. At 17, he was convicted of housebreaking, auto theft, assault against police, carrying firearms and rape, and was sentenced to seven years imprisonment.  

Criminal career.  
In 1974, Flannery and two other men were alleged to have committed an armed robbery on a David Jones store in Perth. They were arrested in Sydney by Detective Sergeant Roger Rogerson. It has been alleged that Flannery paid a bribe to Rogerson to escape conviction. Flannery was extradited to Perth but acquitted at trial. He was jailed on an outstanding Victorian warrant for rape.  

Mr Rent-a-Kill.  
On his release from prison, Flannery became a bouncer at Mickey's Disco, a night club in St Kilda, but was quickly bored by the work and moved into contract killing, hence the moniker "Mr Rent-A-Kill". According to police, one of his first jobs was the murder of barrister Roger Anthony Wilson. In August 1980, Flannery, Mark Alfred Clarkson and Kevin John Henry "Weary" Williams were arrested and charged with Wilson's murder. His body was never found, but police alleged that the trio had forced him off the road, abducted him and taken him to Pakenham, where Flannery shot him. Flannery is said to have missed and Wilson, bleeding profusely from a head wound, tried to escape. Flannery is then alleged to have gone "mad" and emptied his gun into Wilson's head and back.   
In October 1981, Flannery, Clarkson and Williams were all acquitted. As Flannery left the court, detectives from New South Wales Police immediately arrested him for the murder of Sydney brothel owner Raymond Francis "Lizard" Locksley, who had been murdered at Menai on 11 May 1979. In 1982, a jury failed to reach a verdict and a retrial was adjourned until 18 April 1984. Flannery was subsequently acquitted.  
Flannery's trial had been scheduled for 31 January 1984. However, he was provided with a medical certificate by Geoffrey Edelsten, certifying that he was unfit for trial in order to avoid Flannery being tried by a particular judge. Edelsten was convicted on 27 July 1990 for perverting the course of justice and for soliciting Flannery to assault a former patient. Edelsten was jailed for a year.  
After his acquittal, Flannery bought a house in Turrella and brought his wife, Kathleen, and children up from Melbourne. Flannery went to work as a bodyguard for Sydney crime figure George Freeman. In late 1984, he became embroiled in the Sydney gangland war and sided with Neddy Smith. Smith claims that Flannery became paranoid and "was running around shooting at anyone he thought had anything to do with Barry McCann or Tom Domican". He claims that police attempted to negotiate an end to the gang wars, but that Flannery refused to stop the killings. At one meeting, according to Smith, Flannery told a high-ranking police officer, "You're not a protected species, you know – you're not a fucking koala!"  
On 6 June 1984, Flannery is alleged to have been the gunman in the attempted murder of a Sydney Drug Squad detective, Michael Drury. Drury had been the undercover agent involved in a police drug operation which resulted in charges being laid against Flannery's friend, Alan Williams. Williams later testified that Flannery had attempted to bribe Drury through Rogerson in order to get the charges against Williams dismissed. When Drury rejected repeated attempts at bribery, Williams claims, he agreed to pay Flannery and Rogerson $50,000 each to murder Drury. On what he thought was his deathbed, Drury told detectives he believed he was shot because of "the Melbourne job".  
As Flannery and his wife walked towards their house on 27 January 1985, the residence was sprayed with thirty shots from an Armalite rifle. No one was seriously injured, though Flannery was shot through the hand as he pushed his wife's head down and he suffered some other minor abrasions. Flannery blamed Domican, who was later charged and convicted of attempted murder, but the conviction was overturned on appeal. Rogerson was seen in the area in the days after the shooting and was interviewed by police. He claimed he was just curious to see what kind of damage such a gun could do. He was released without charge. Drury was also interviewed, but was not considered a serious suspect.  
On 23 April 1985, Flannery was allegedly sent to murder Tony "Spaghetti" Eustace. Eustace was found by two schoolchildren who were returning home from sports training at about 7pm. He had been shot six times in the back outside the Airport Hilton in North Arncliffe, and was lying beside his gold Mercedes, bleeding profusely. He was rushed to hospital. Police attempted to speak to him, but Eustace told them to "fuck off", and he died a short time later.  
By the time of his disappearance and presumed death, police stated that they believed Flannery was responsible for up to a dozen murders.  

Disappearance.  
Not long after the attack on his family, Flannery moved into an inner Sydney apartment which was close to CIB headquarters. On 9 May 1985, Flannery received a phone call from Freeman asking for a meeting. Flannery, in leaving for the rendezvous, was unable to start his car. Flannery contacted Freeman who told him to catch a taxi. Flannery did so.  
After exiting The Connaught building, where he lived, onto Liverpool Street, Flannery was never seen again. It has been claimed by Smith that police may have been responsible for Flannery's disappearance, as Smith noticed him enter a police car with officers he knew on 9 May. The officers had allegedly offered to take Flannery to meet with Freeman.  

Coroner's findings.  
On 6 June 1997, New South Wales State Coroner Greg Glass handed down the finding that Flannery was murdered, most probably on or about 9 May 1985. He also found that the key to solving the murder lay with Rogerson. On 22 February 2004, Rogerson told the Seven Network Sunday programme, "Flannery was a complete pest. The guys up here in Sydney tried to settle him down. They tried to look after him as best they could, but he was, I believe, out of control. Maybe it was the Melbourne instinct coming out of him. He didn't want to do as he was told, he was out of control, and having overstepped that line, well, I suppose they said he had to go but I can assure you I had nothing to do with it." Flannery left a wife and two children.  

In popular culture.  
- Flannery's early experience in prison was the inspiration for the Ray Mooney play and subsequent 1994 Alkinos Tsilimidos film Everynight ... Everynight. The main character Dale, portrayed in the film by David Field, was based on Flannery. Mooney, a Melbourne author and playwright, was a friend of Flannery's and used some of the real and alleged events in Flannery's life as the basis for his 1988 novel, A Green Light, featuring a protagonist called Johnny Morgan, based on Flannery.  
- Blue Murder is a 1995 two-part mini-series based on events that led to the Wood Royal Commission into corruption in the NSW Police Force. Flannery was portrayed by Gary Sweet.  
- In the 2009 series Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities, Dustin Clare portrays Flannery as a reckless bully with links to the planning of the Great Bookie robbery and to drug trafficker Robert Trimbole. In the series, he is eventually murdered by Lenny McPherson and George Freeman.  
- In the June 2010 Australian true-crime series Tough Nuts: Australia's Hardest Criminals, on the Crime & Investigation Network channel, Stan "The Man" Smith was named as Flannery's killer. It is hosted by crime writer Tara Moss.  


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73086250Tue, 21 Jul 2026 13:54:21 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Christopher Dale Flannery.   Christopher Dale Flannery, nicknamed "Mr Rent-a-Kill" (born 1948 – disappeared 9 May 1985) is alleged to have been an Australian contract killer. Growing up in a working-class background in a culture that was suspicious of...Christopher Dale Flannery, nicknamed "Mr Rent-a-Kill" (born 1948 – disappeared 9 May 1985) is alleged to have been an Australian contract killer. Growing up in a working-class background in a culture that was suspicious of police, after leaving Melbourne he entered a life of crime and gang warfare that ended with his disappearance.  

Background and early career.  
Flannery was born in Brunswick, Victoria. He left school at the age of fourteen and received his first criminal conviction later that year. At 17, he was convicted of housebreaking, auto theft, assault against police, carrying firearms and rape, and was sentenced to seven years imprisonment.  

Criminal career.  
In 1974, Flannery and two other men were alleged to have committed an armed robbery on a David Jones store in Perth. They were arrested in Sydney by Detective Sergeant Roger Rogerson. It has been alleged that Flannery paid a bribe to Rogerson to escape conviction. Flannery was extradited to Perth but acquitted at trial. He was jailed on an outstanding Victorian warrant for rape.  

Mr Rent-a-Kill.  
On his release from prison, Flannery became a bouncer at Mickey's Disco, a night club in St Kilda, but was quickly bored by the work and moved into contract killing, hence the moniker "Mr Rent-A-Kill". According to police, one of his first jobs was the murder of barrister Roger Anthony Wilson. In August 1980, Flannery, Mark Alfred Clarkson and Kevin John Henry "Weary" Williams were arrested and charged with Wilson's murder. His body was never found, but police alleged that the trio had forced him off the road, abducted him and taken him to Pakenham, where Flannery shot him. Flannery is said to have missed and Wilson, bleeding profusely from a head wound, tried to escape. Flannery is then alleged to have gone "mad" and emptied his gun into Wilson's head and back.   
In October 1981, Flannery, Clarkson and Williams were all acquitted. As Flannery left the court, detectives from New South Wales Police immediately arrested him for the murder of Sydney brothel owner Raymond Francis "Lizard" Locksley, who had been murdered at Menai on 11 May 1979. In 1982, a jury failed to reach a verdict and a retrial was adjourned until 18 April 1984. Flannery was subsequently acquitted.  
Flannery's trial had been scheduled for 31 January 1984. However, he was provided with a medical certificate by Geoffrey Edelsten, certifying that he was unfit for trial in order to avoid Flannery being tried by a particular judge. Edelsten was convicted on 27 July 1990 for perverting the course of justice and for soliciting Flannery to assault a former patient. Edelsten was jailed for a year.  
After his acquittal, Flannery bought a house in Turrella and brought his wife, Kathleen, and children up from Melbourne. Flannery went to work as a bodyguard for Sydney crime figure George Freeman. In late 1984, he became embroiled in the Sydney gangland war and sided with Neddy Smith. Smith claims that Flannery became paranoid and "was running around shooting at anyone he thought had anything to do with Barry McCann or Tom Domican". He claims that police attempted to negotiate an end to the gang wars, but that Flannery refused to stop the killings. At one meeting, according to Smith, Flannery told a high-ranking police officer, "You're not a protected species, you know – you're not a fucking koala!"  
On 6 June 1984, Flannery is alleged to have been the gunman in the attempted murder of a Sydney Drug Squad detective, Michael Drury. Drury had been the undercover agent involved in a police drug operation which resulted in charges being laid against Flannery's friend, Alan Williams. Williams later testified that Flannery had attempted to bribe Drury through Rogerson in order to get the charges against Williams dismissed. When Drury rejected repeated attempts at bribery, Williams claims, he agreed to pay...]]>560falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/74-death-of-winnifred-teo--73085398On the evening of 22 May 1985, 18-year-old Winnifred Teo Suan Lie (Zhāng Xuànlì), then a student of Catholic Junior College, went out for an evening jog as usual, but never came back. The next morning, Teo's naked body was found lying in the undergrowth off Old Holland Road, Singapore. She had several stab wounds on her body and was sexually assaulted prior to her death. Autopsy reports showed that Teo was restrained and put up a fierce struggle against her killer(s) before her death from excessive blood loss.  
The brutality of Teo's rape and murder brought great shock across the whole of Singapore in 1985. Although the police extensively investigated the case, the killer(s) were never caught. Teo's murder case is one of Singapore's most notable unsolved murder cases.  

Background and case.  
Life of Winnifred Teo.  
Born in 1967, Winnifred Teo Suan Lie was the second of three children, and she had both an elder sister and a younger brother. She was a final-year pre-university student at Catholic Junior College. Her father Teo Joo Kim was a company director of a timber firm. At the time Teo was murdered, her sister, Martina Teo Suan Siew (aged 20 in 1985), was studying overseas in Australia and her younger brother, Gerald Teo (aged 16 in 1985), was studying in St Joseph's Institution. Teo was also said to have attended the St Ignatius Church in King's Road regularly. Due to her waist-long hair and tanned skin, Teo was mistaken for a Eurasian when she was actually an ethnic Chinese Singaporean.  
According to her teachers, classmates and family, Teo was a model student and well-liked in school. At her school, she was the student counsellor, enjoyed taking part in adventure camps, and was an active student in physical activities. During the final days leading up to her death, Teo jogged in the evenings to prepare herself for a school adventure camp. She could not find time to do so in school due to heavy schoolwork. Several joggers, like 16-year-old Anglo-Chinese School student Tan Meng Yan, 20-year-old polytechnic graduate Chao Tah Jin and his 16-year-old younger brother Chao Tar Wee, remembered often seeing Teo jogging or cycling along Holland Road, a popular place for joggers and where many female joggers often jogged alone. The Chao brothers described Teo as pretty, with long flowing hair. They said she usually wore pink jogging shoes and brief shorts during her jogs but never spoke to her due to her being stern-looking.  

Final jog and death.  
On the evening of 22 May 1985, Teo went out for a jog at Bukit Batok Nature Park as usual, leaving her Maryland Drive terrace house at 6:00 PM. It was the last time Teo's mother saw her alive.  
After 14 hours, Teo had still not returned home and her mother became concerned about her safety. At 04:00 AM on May 23rd, she contacted the police and reported Teo as missing. Officers from Tanglin Police Division conducted a search for Teo in the nearby areas where she usually jogged. The naked body of Teo was found six hours later by police, lying in the undergrowth at Old Holland Road, about four metres from the road and nearly 1.5 km from her home. Teo's body was covered with mud and bruises, and there were six stab wounds to her neck. Her hands were tied with her T-shirt, and her shoes, shorts and watch were found abandoned in the nearby surroundings. It was suspected that Teo was raped before her death.  
The news of her death shocked and saddened her family, as well as the students and teachers at her school. The school's students underwent a school-organised mourning period and received early dismissals following the discovery of Teo's body. Her father, who was on a business trip in Munich, Germany, immediately flew back home. Over 500 people, including family members and classmates, showed up at her funeral to mourn Teo's death. The murder of Teo led to Raffles Junior College warning its 1,700 students that girls should move in groups of "at least two or three". The female students were also told not to travel alone on lonely roads to and from school, and to not take shortcuts. Other schools similarly warned their students against travelling alone outdoors.  

Police investigations.  
The case of Winnifred Teo's murder was transferred to the Special Investigation Section of the CID for investigation. The police offered a S$50,000 reward for fresh information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer(s). The offer, which was valid until 31 December 1985, was made because the police had few leads to investigate Teo's murder. The reward did not draw any new information to help solve the case. An autopsy report by pathologist Clarence Lim confirmed that Teo was raped before her death, and she was attacked by more than one person. She also showed signs of struggle and resistance against her attackers during the sexual assault and stabbing. The weapon, speculated to be a sharp-edged instrument, was never found despite extensive searches by the police. Over 200 police officers were deployed during the manhunt for the suspects.  
The police also interrogated joggers and other people who often passed by the areas where Teo usually jogged, but they could not find any suspects among these people. They arrested a man who often exposed himself in front of female joggers in the area sometime before Teo's death, but the man was released as no connection could be made between him and Teo's case. A 1987 update revealed the police were still reviewing the case and there were no new leads. During a 1991 hearing at the coroner's court, the police stated that there was still no progress in their ongoing investigation of Teo's case. The police also could not find any motive behind the murder. They speculated that it might be due to a business-related rivalry with Teo's father, who was her father's favourite child. However, this was refuted.  
Despite the efforts of the police, the killer(s) of Teo were never identified or found.  

Aftermath.  
Suspected serial killing.  
In February 2000, 27-year-old financial executive Linda Chua was found brutally assaulted and raped at Bukit Batok Nature Park while jogging there. She died eight days later while hospitalized. The police, having found similarities in the circumstances surrounding the cases of Winnifred Teo and Chua, suspected that the killing of Teo could be the work of the same person who raped and killed Chua, and even suspected that Teo's murderer might be a serial killer. However, the autopsy report of Chua's case showed differences in the manner of attack on Chua compared to Teo's; the 'serial killing' theory was refuted.  

Notoriety.  
The case of Winnifred Teo went on to become one of Singapore's most infamous unsolved murder cases. There were two more murder cases, such as the 1998 unsolved rape-murder of Dini Haryati and 2000 rape-murder of Linda Chua, in which the victims, who went outdoors alone, faced a similar fate to Teo.  
In 2021, due to the renewed public attention to the unsolved 1995 rape-murder of seven-year-old Lim Shiow Rong, as well as the arrest of Ahmad Danial Mohamed Rafa'ee for the alleged murder of missing student Felicia Teo Wei Ling, the Winnifred Teo case and those of Dini and Chua were again caught in public spotlight as they were also unsolved, their killer(s) not arrested and/or their victims being raped and killed. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73085398Tue, 21 Jul 2026 12:44:27 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Death of Winnifred Teo.   On the evening of 22 May 1985, 18-year-old Winnifred Teo Suan Lie (Zhāng Xuànlì), then a student of Catholic Junior College, went out for an evening jog as usual, but never came back. The next morning, Teo's naked body was...On the evening of 22 May 1985, 18-year-old Winnifred Teo Suan Lie (Zhāng Xuànlì), then a student of Catholic Junior College, went out for an evening jog as usual, but never came back. The next morning, Teo's naked body was found lying in the undergrowth off Old Holland Road, Singapore. She had several stab wounds on her body and was sexually assaulted prior to her death. Autopsy reports showed that Teo was restrained and put up a fierce struggle against her killer(s) before her death from excessive blood loss.  
The brutality of Teo's rape and murder brought great shock across the whole of Singapore in 1985. Although the police extensively investigated the case, the killer(s) were never caught. Teo's murder case is one of Singapore's most notable unsolved murder cases.  

Background and case.  
Life of Winnifred Teo.  
Born in 1967, Winnifred Teo Suan Lie was the second of three children, and she had both an elder sister and a younger brother. She was a final-year pre-university student at Catholic Junior College. Her father Teo Joo Kim was a company director of a timber firm. At the time Teo was murdered, her sister, Martina Teo Suan Siew (aged 20 in 1985), was studying overseas in Australia and her younger brother, Gerald Teo (aged 16 in 1985), was studying in St Joseph's Institution. Teo was also said to have attended the St Ignatius Church in King's Road regularly. Due to her waist-long hair and tanned skin, Teo was mistaken for a Eurasian when she was actually an ethnic Chinese Singaporean.  
According to her teachers, classmates and family, Teo was a model student and well-liked in school. At her school, she was the student counsellor, enjoyed taking part in adventure camps, and was an active student in physical activities. During the final days leading up to her death, Teo jogged in the evenings to prepare herself for a school adventure camp. She could not find time to do so in school due to heavy schoolwork. Several joggers, like 16-year-old Anglo-Chinese School student Tan Meng Yan, 20-year-old polytechnic graduate Chao Tah Jin and his 16-year-old younger brother Chao Tar Wee, remembered often seeing Teo jogging or cycling along Holland Road, a popular place for joggers and where many female joggers often jogged alone. The Chao brothers described Teo as pretty, with long flowing hair. They said she usually wore pink jogging shoes and brief shorts during her jogs but never spoke to her due to her being stern-looking.  

Final jog and death.  
On the evening of 22 May 1985, Teo went out for a jog at Bukit Batok Nature Park as usual, leaving her Maryland Drive terrace house at 6:00 PM. It was the last time Teo's mother saw her alive.  
After 14 hours, Teo had still not returned home and her mother became concerned about her safety. At 04:00 AM on May 23rd, she contacted the police and reported Teo as missing. Officers from Tanglin Police Division conducted a search for Teo in the nearby areas where she usually jogged. The naked body of Teo was found six hours later by police, lying in the undergrowth at Old Holland Road, about four metres from the road and nearly 1.5 km from her home. Teo's body was covered with mud and bruises, and there were six stab wounds to her neck. Her hands were tied with her T-shirt, and her shoes, shorts and watch were found abandoned in the nearby surroundings. It was suspected that Teo was raped before her death.  
The news of her death shocked and saddened her family, as well as the students and teachers at her school. The school's students underwent a school-organised mourning period and received early dismissals following the discovery of Teo's body. Her father, who was on a business trip in Munich, Germany, immediately flew back home. Over 500 people, including family members and classmates, showed up at her funeral to mourn Teo's death. The murder of Teo led to Raffles Junior College warning its...]]>504falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/73-murders-of-dean-and-tina-clouse--73070686Harold Dean Clouse Jr. and Tina Linn Clouse, formerly known as the Harris County Does, were a pair of formerly unidentified murder victims found outside of Houston, Texas in January, 1981. After moving in the summer of 1980 with their infant daughter, Holly Marie, from Volusia County, Florida to Lewisville, Texas, the Clouses stopped contacting their families in October 1980. Their remains were found in a wooded area north of Houston on January 12, 1981. The bodies were found within feet of each other, both significantly decomposed, with a post-mortem interval of approximately two months. Dean Clouse had been bound and beaten to death, and Tina Clouse was strangled. Holly Marie's remains were not found with or near her parents' remains. After the two bodies were not identified and the case grew cold, they were buried in anonymous graves, where they remained unidentified for 41 years. In 2011, the Clouses' bodies were exhumed for genetic testing. In 2021, forensic genealogists positively identified the Harris County Does as Dean and Tina Clouse, however, Holly Marie's whereabouts remained unaccounted for. In 2022, Holly Marie was located alive in Oklahoma, with no memory of the traumatic events of her infancy.  

Background.  
Harold Dean Clouse Jr. and Tina Gail Linn were both living with their families in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, when they met in 1978. Tina Linn was 15 years old and Dean Clouse Jr. was 19. Dean's sister was already dating Tina's brother, who also later married. Dean and Tina had what was described by those around them as a “whirlwind romance”, and married a short time later at the Volusia County Courthouse on June 25, 1979. The couple's daughter, Holly Marie, was born on January 24, 1980. Both were described as devoted parents by those around them. Before their move to Texas, the young family lived with Tina's sister, Sherry Linn.  
In the summer of 1980, the Clouses moved with baby Holly to the suburb of Lewisville, Texas, in the Dallas metropolitan area.  In the early 1980s, the Dallas-Fort Worth area was rapidly developing, creating a construction boom. Dean was an adept cabinet maker, and moved his family to Texas in hopes of finding a good job in the trade. Dean found work with D. R. Horton homebuilders, and the young family lived with Dean's cousin to save for their own home. Holly was one year old at the time of the move. Although work at the time was not stable, no one who knew them reported any tensions between the two.  

Death and discovery.  
Dean and Tina fell out of contact with their families around late October 1980, only a few months after their relocation to Texas. It is now believed their murders occurred between October 1980 and several weeks before their decaying bodies were found on January 12, 1981. The Clouses were last seen alive in Lewisville, Texas. It is still unknown how they came to be where they were found, in undeveloped and swampy woodlands north of Houston, 250 miles from their last confirmed address. After several months had passed without contact from them, in 1981 Dean's mother, Donna Casasanta, reported the couple as missing. However, there was little effort put into the investigation by the police who strongly believed that the young family had deliberately cut off contact, citing the mysterious return of their car to Florida by members of an unidentified nomadic religious group. Their families made grassroots efforts to locate the missing pair, but none led to concrete developments. One such effort taken by the Linn family was to report the Clouses as missing to the Salvation Army, who sometimes keep track of disappearances, but nothing on the Clouses from the Salvation Army's database entered federal databases of missing people.  

Bodies discovered.  
The then-unidentified bodies of the Clouses were found on January 12, 1981, in northern Harris County, Texas, in a boggy, wooded area just north of the Houston city limits. A civilian's dog let to wander into the woods returned to its owner with a decomposing human arm. Search parties prompted by the dog's discovery subsequently found two heavily decomposed bodies near Wallisville Road. The bodies were found within a few feet of each other, and assumed to have been killed at approximately the same time, leading investigators to believe the two bodies were a double homicide. Both had been dead for anywhere between a week to two months, heavily decayed, with the male body already having been partially skeletonized.  However, their faces were still recognizable enough for a reconstruction to be drawn of each. Despite significant decomposition, it was determined that both were victims of homicide. The female had been strangled, and the male had been bound and gagged before being beaten to death. It is believed that the female victim had been attacked first, and the male victim attacked for attempting to defend her. It was unclear if they had been killed where they were found, or if they had been taken there afterwards. Also recovered at the scene was a bloodied towel and a pair of gym shorts.  

Investigation into the identities of the Harris County Does.  
Initial investigation.  
Further investigation turned up very few leads beyond what was gathered from the scene. Initial age estimates placed them as teenagers or young adults. Initial theories speculated that the female victim was attacked first and that the male victim had been killed while defending her. Harris County forensic artist Mary Mize drew the initial facial reconstructions of both victims,  but the reconstructions failed to generate any leads, now known to be because the Clouses had not yet built roots in Texas at the time of their deaths. As yet unidentified, the "Does" were buried in the Harris County Cemetery. Even after the victims were properly identified, no arrests have ever been made for their murders.  

Cold case investigation.  
The bodies were exhumed in July 2011 to extract DNA, originally to find out if they were related. The funding for exhumation was acquired when Harris County received a grant from the National Institute of Justice to exhume several unidentified murder victims, including the Clouses, to extract their DNA and enter it into databases. Jennifer Love, forensic anthropology director of the identification unit in the Harris County medical examiner's office, was put in charge of the exhumation. Funding for continued genealogical research into the Harris County Does was then secured from the true crime podcast company Audiochuck.  

Identification.  
The case of identifying the Does was given to California-based genetic genealogy organization Identifinders International in late 2020. Using Gedmatch as the genetic database they searched, forensic genealogists Misty Gillis and Allison Peacock were tasked with identifying them. Gillis focused on tracing the man's genetics, and Peacock focused on tracing the female. The male's DNA generated multiple distant matches in Kentucky, which led Gillis to a Kentucky family with the surname Clouse who had relocated to Florida. Gillis continued to follow the Clouse family's genealogy until she found an extremely close match with the male. Peacock, acting as representative for both her and Gillis, called Debbie Brooks, Dean's sister, and asked if there was a member of her family who had disappeared 40 years or more ago. Brooks then provided Peacock and Gillis with information about Dean, leading to Dean Clouse Jr. being identified within 10 days of Peacock and Gillis beginning his case. Tina Clouse was then identified shortly after, leading to both of the Harris County Does to be identified within several weeks of their cases being reopened.  
Dean and Tina Clouse were publicly identified by the Texas Attorney General's cold case unit on 12 January 2021, on the 40th anniversary of the discovery of their remains. Until then, Donna Casasanta had reportedly been hopeful that her son was still alive. Following the identifications, Peacock continued to work on the case as the Clouse family's public relations and advocate.  
Families of both decedents traveled to Houston to see the place where the bodies were found, and their gravesites.  According to Les Linn, Tina's brother, both families agreed to have the couple buried together.  

Disappearance of Holly Marie Clouse.  
After Dean and Tina's bodies were identified, the investigation's primary focus turned to finding their missing daughter. No baby's body was discovered with or near the couple's remains, and no baby Doe cases that fit Holly Marie's circumstances had ever surfaced. It is reported that when Peacock delivered news of the findings to the Clouse family, Debbie Brooks asked if the investigators had found the baby, to which Peacock responded, “What baby?”  
Several theories about Holly Marie's whereabouts were put forward, including theories that her small body had been carried away by scavenging animals, or that investigators missed her at the scene. Another increasingly popular theory was that the baby had been kidnapped by the killers, which became the general consensus after Holly Marie was recovered alive. It is now known that Holly Marie was left at a church in Arizona shortly after her parents’ murders, and that she was left by two white-robed and barefoot women claiming to be a part of a nomadic religious group.  
Allison Peacock and her organization FHD Forensics, along with the Clouse and Linn families continued to search for Holly Marie. Peacock launched the Hope For Holly DNA Project as part of their efforts. Information on Holly's case was released to the public, including that her last known whereabouts were Lewisville, Texas. An age progression image made by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was also made to be...

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73070686Mon, 20 Jul 2026 16:09:48 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murders of Dean and Tina Clouse.   Harold Dean Clouse Jr. and Tina Linn Clouse, formerly known as the Harris County Does, were a pair of formerly unidentified murder victims found outside of Houston, Texas in January, 1981. After moving in the summer...Harold Dean Clouse Jr. and Tina Linn Clouse, formerly known as the Harris County Does, were a pair of formerly unidentified murder victims found outside of Houston, Texas in January, 1981. After moving in the summer of 1980 with their infant daughter, Holly Marie, from Volusia County, Florida to Lewisville, Texas, the Clouses stopped contacting their families in October 1980. Their remains were found in a wooded area north of Houston on January 12, 1981. The bodies were found within feet of each other, both significantly decomposed, with a post-mortem interval of approximately two months. Dean Clouse had been bound and beaten to death, and Tina Clouse was strangled. Holly Marie's remains were not found with or near her parents' remains. After the two bodies were not identified and the case grew cold, they were buried in anonymous graves, where they remained unidentified for 41 years. In 2011, the Clouses' bodies were exhumed for genetic testing. In 2021, forensic genealogists positively identified the Harris County Does as Dean and Tina Clouse, however, Holly Marie's whereabouts remained unaccounted for. In 2022, Holly Marie was located alive in Oklahoma, with no memory of the traumatic events of her infancy.  

Background.  
Harold Dean Clouse Jr. and Tina Gail Linn were both living with their families in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, when they met in 1978. Tina Linn was 15 years old and Dean Clouse Jr. was 19. Dean's sister was already dating Tina's brother, who also later married. Dean and Tina had what was described by those around them as a “whirlwind romance”, and married a short time later at the Volusia County Courthouse on June 25, 1979. The couple's daughter, Holly Marie, was born on January 24, 1980. Both were described as devoted parents by those around them. Before their move to Texas, the young family lived with Tina's sister, Sherry Linn.  
In the summer of 1980, the Clouses moved with baby Holly to the suburb of Lewisville, Texas, in the Dallas metropolitan area.  In the early 1980s, the Dallas-Fort Worth area was rapidly developing, creating a construction boom. Dean was an adept cabinet maker, and moved his family to Texas in hopes of finding a good job in the trade. Dean found work with D. R. Horton homebuilders, and the young family lived with Dean's cousin to save for their own home. Holly was one year old at the time of the move. Although work at the time was not stable, no one who knew them reported any tensions between the two.  

Death and discovery.  
Dean and Tina fell out of contact with their families around late October 1980, only a few months after their relocation to Texas. It is now believed their murders occurred between October 1980 and several weeks before their decaying bodies were found on January 12, 1981. The Clouses were last seen alive in Lewisville, Texas. It is still unknown how they came to be where they were found, in undeveloped and swampy woodlands north of Houston, 250 miles from their last confirmed address. After several months had passed without contact from them, in 1981 Dean's mother, Donna Casasanta, reported the couple as missing. However, there was little effort put into the investigation by the police who strongly believed that the young family had deliberately cut off contact, citing the mysterious return of their car to Florida by members of an unidentified nomadic religious group. Their families made grassroots efforts to locate the missing pair, but none led to concrete developments. One such effort taken by the Linn family was to report the Clouses as missing to the Salvation Army, who sometimes keep track of disappearances, but nothing on the Clouses from the Salvation Army's database entered federal databases of missing people.  

Bodies discovered.  
The then-unidentified bodies of the Clouses were found on January 12, 1981, in northern Harris County, Texas, in a boggy,...]]>1020falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/72-murder-of-tammy-terrell--73069925Tammy Corrine Terrell (July 4, 1963 – c. October 4, 1980) was an American murder victim from Roswell, New Mexico. Her body was discovered on October 5, 1980, in Henderson, Nevada, and remained unidentified until December 2021. Her case has been the subject of extensive efforts by investigators and has been highlighted as inspiring other work to solve cold cases of unidentified murder victims.  
Prior to her identification, she was known as "Arroyo Grande Jane Doe".  

Discovery.  
At approximately 9:20 p.m. on October 5, 1980, the nude body of a white adolescent or young woman between 13 and 25 years old (most likely 17–18 years old) was found with blunt force trauma including multiple wounds to the back of the head (believed to be from a roofing hammer or framing hammer), signs of injury to the face, and seven puncture-type stab wounds on the upper left area of her back. One of her lower teeth had been knocked out in the attack. There was evidence of sexual assault.  
Her body was found just south of State Route 146, near the Arroyo Grande wash, where the I-215 Beltway is currently. She had been placed in a position described as "posed, basically" and was face-down. The body was discovered by two brothers who were driving on a dirt road, one of whom was an off-duty police officer. The cause of death was identified as an unknown two-pronged instrument with prongs around 3 in (76 mm) long that was used to stab the victim. The body appeared to have been washed, and a piece of yellow or orange shower curtain was nearby.  
Her hair was a natural brownish blond, red, or strawberry blond color at shoulder-length (about 11 in (280 mm) long). She was around 5 feet 2 inches (1.57 m) tall and weighed between 98–110 lb (44–50 kg). She still had her wisdom teeth (which were impacted) and had a visible gap between two of her upper-right teeth, possibly occurring postmortem. There is also the possibility she had fractured her jaw in the past. She had pierced ears and her nails were painted silver.  
The victim had dental fillings in some of her teeth, showing that she had seen a dentist. Her eyes were a hazel or blue color (some sources say green) and she had a small (about 1⁄2″×1⁄4″), crude, apparently amateur tattoo of an "S" on the inside of her right forearm, made with blue ink. The tattoo appeared to have been "inked" not long before she died. She had a vaccination scar on her left biceps. It was determined that she had probably died the day before her body was discovered. The victim also had undergone an unusual "suture procedure" to straighten one of her teeth, which led investigators to believe she was not impoverished.  
The police officer who discovered her body donated money for burial of the body, regularly visits the burial site with his wife, and leaves flowers in her memory.  

Investigation.  
Investigators made extensive efforts to try to identify the body of the young woman. The victim's fingerprints were taken and her dental characteristics were recorded, but could not be matched to anyone. Several television shows broadcast information about the case in the hope of generating leads, none of which led to her identification or the apprehension of her killer(s).  Forensic facial reconstructions were created to provide a likeness of the Jane Doe, which were hoped to enable recognition by those that may have known her.  
The body was exhumed at least four times for further investigations – in 2002, 2003, 2009, and 2016. In 2003, her body was exhumed after authorities followed clues to a missing girl from California, who was eventually ruled out by DNA analysis.  Twenty missing people were excluded as potential identities for the victim.  
The former coroner for Clark County when the victim's body was found has worked with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) to help with the case. In a video released in October 2015, he said "someone is missing their little girl – someone knows who she is – someone needs to come forward and help us", saying that he hoped the reconstructions created of the victim would trigger recognition. He said this victim's case was an impetus for the local department to develop a "cold case unit" for its unsolved cases. "She is the case that started it all for us", he said. The officer who found the body described similar feelings about the case.  
In June 2015, the case was officially reopened by investigators. The new image replaced a version that the organization had created.  
Hair samples collected at the time of her autopsy were sent to Astrea Forensics (Santa Cruz, California) in 2019. Using whole genome sequencing, they were able to create a genotype file that was uploaded to the ancestry site GedMatch, with the hopes that genealogists could find a relative in the database.  

Identification.  
On December 2, 2021, the Henderson Police Department announced that the Arroyo Grande Jane Doe had been identified as 17-year-old Tammy Corrine Terrell from Roswell, New Mexico. She was identified through forensic genealogy in an effort supervised by Barbara Rae-Venter, a genetic genealogist who also took part in the identification of the Golden State Killer in 2018. DNA samples from her two sisters were used to positively identify her.  
Terrell was last seen on September 28, 1980, when she was dropped off at the Roswell State Fair. Later that night, she was seen at a restaurant in Roswell with a white man and a woman, possibly planning to head for California. The investigation into her murder is ongoing. 


Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73069925Mon, 20 Jul 2026 15:19:02 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murder of Tammy Terrell.   Tammy Corrine Terrell (July 4, 1963 – c. October 4, 1980) was an American murder victim from Roswell, New Mexico. Her body was discovered on October 5, 1980, in Henderson, Nevada, and remained unidentified until December...Tammy Corrine Terrell (July 4, 1963 – c. October 4, 1980) was an American murder victim from Roswell, New Mexico. Her body was discovered on October 5, 1980, in Henderson, Nevada, and remained unidentified until December 2021. Her case has been the subject of extensive efforts by investigators and has been highlighted as inspiring other work to solve cold cases of unidentified murder victims.  
Prior to her identification, she was known as "Arroyo Grande Jane Doe".  

Discovery.  
At approximately 9:20 p.m. on October 5, 1980, the nude body of a white adolescent or young woman between 13 and 25 years old (most likely 17–18 years old) was found with blunt force trauma including multiple wounds to the back of the head (believed to be from a roofing hammer or framing hammer), signs of injury to the face, and seven puncture-type stab wounds on the upper left area of her back. One of her lower teeth had been knocked out in the attack. There was evidence of sexual assault.  
Her body was found just south of State Route 146, near the Arroyo Grande wash, where the I-215 Beltway is currently. She had been placed in a position described as "posed, basically" and was face-down. The body was discovered by two brothers who were driving on a dirt road, one of whom was an off-duty police officer. The cause of death was identified as an unknown two-pronged instrument with prongs around 3 in (76 mm) long that was used to stab the victim. The body appeared to have been washed, and a piece of yellow or orange shower curtain was nearby.  
Her hair was a natural brownish blond, red, or strawberry blond color at shoulder-length (about 11 in (280 mm) long). She was around 5 feet 2 inches (1.57 m) tall and weighed between 98–110 lb (44–50 kg). She still had her wisdom teeth (which were impacted) and had a visible gap between two of her upper-right teeth, possibly occurring postmortem. There is also the possibility she had fractured her jaw in the past. She had pierced ears and her nails were painted silver.  
The victim had dental fillings in some of her teeth, showing that she had seen a dentist. Her eyes were a hazel or blue color (some sources say green) and she had a small (about 1⁄2″×1⁄4″), crude, apparently amateur tattoo of an "S" on the inside of her right forearm, made with blue ink. The tattoo appeared to have been "inked" not long before she died. She had a vaccination scar on her left biceps. It was determined that she had probably died the day before her body was discovered. The victim also had undergone an unusual "suture procedure" to straighten one of her teeth, which led investigators to believe she was not impoverished.  
The police officer who discovered her body donated money for burial of the body, regularly visits the burial site with his wife, and leaves flowers in her memory.  

Investigation.  
Investigators made extensive efforts to try to identify the body of the young woman. The victim's fingerprints were taken and her dental characteristics were recorded, but could not be matched to anyone. Several television shows broadcast information about the case in the hope of generating leads, none of which led to her identification or the apprehension of her killer(s).  Forensic facial reconstructions were created to provide a likeness of the Jane Doe, which were hoped to enable recognition by those that may have known her.  
The body was exhumed at least four times for further investigations – in 2002, 2003, 2009, and 2016. In 2003, her body was exhumed after authorities followed clues to a missing girl from California, who was eventually ruled out by DNA analysis.  Twenty missing people were excluded as potential identities for the victim.  
The former coroner for Clark County when the victim's body was found has worked with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) to help with the case. In a video...]]>394falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/71-itavia-flight-870--73068147On 27 June 1980, Itavia Flight 870 (IH 870, AJ 421), a Douglas DC-9 passenger jet en route from Bologna to Palermo, Italy, crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea between the islands of Ponza and Ustica at 20:59 CEST, killing all 81 occupants on board. Known in Italy as the Ustica massacre ("strage di Ustica"), the disaster led to numerous investigations, as well as legal actions and accusations; it continues to be a source of controversy, including claims of conspiracy by the Government of Italy and others.  
Francesco Cossiga, the Prime Minister of Italy at the time, attributed the crash to the shooting down by a French missile during a dogfight between Libyan and French fighter jets. The technical commission's report concluded that a bomb hidden in the rear lavatory caused the aircraft's destruction. However, this conclusion still remains highly contested. In September 2023, former Italian prime minister Giuliano Amato declared that the crash was "part of a plan to shoot down the airplane of Gaddafi".  

Aircraft.  
The aircraft, flown as Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870, was a Douglas DC-9-15, serial number 45724, registered as I-TIGI. At the time of the crash, it had flown for 29,544 hours over 45,032 flights. The aircraft was manufactured in 1966 and delivered to Hawaiian Airlines registered as N902H.  

Disaster.  
On 27 June 1980 at 20:08 CEST, the aircraft departed with a delay of one hour and 53 minutes from Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport for a scheduled service to Palermo Punta Raisi Airport, Sicily. With 77 passengers aboard, Captain Domenico Gatti (44) and First Officer Enzo Fontana (32) were at the controls, with two flight attendants. The flight was designated IH 870 by air traffic control, while the military radar system referred to the same as AJ 421.  
Contact was lost shortly after the last message from the aircraft was received at 20:37, giving its position over the Tyrrhenian Sea near the island of Ustica, about 120 kilometres (70 mi) southwest of Naples. At 20:59 CEST, the aircraft broke apart in mid-air and crashed. Two Italian Air Force F-104s were scrambled at 21:00 from Grosseto Air Force Base to locate the crash area and search for any survivors but failed to locate the area because of poor visibility.  
Floating wreckage parts were later found in the area. There were no survivors among the 81 occupants on board.  
In July 2006, the re-assembled fragments of the DC-9 were returned to Bologna from Pratica di Mare Air Force Base near Rome.  

Official statements and litigation.  
The perpetrators of the crime remain unidentified. After hearings held from 1989 to 1991, the Parliamentary Commission on Terrorism, headed by Senator Libero Gualtieri, issued an official statement concerning the crash of Flight 870, which became known as the "Ustica Massacre" (Strage di Ustica). Then the crash was referred to by a "prima facie" judicial act as "primarily an act of war, a de facto unreported war – as has been customary ever since Pearl Harbor, until the latest Balkan conflict – an international police operation, in fact, up to the great powers, since there was no mandate in this sense; a non-military coercive action exercised lawfully or illicitly, by one State against another; or an act of terrorism, as it was later claimed, of an attack on a head of state or regime leader."  
A number of Italian Air Force personnel have been investigated and tried for a number of alleged offences, including falsification of documents, high treason, perjury, abuse of office and aiding and abetting. None have been convicted. On 30 April 2004, Generals Corrado Melillo and Zeno Tascio were held to be not guilty of high treason. Lesser charges against a number of other military personnel were also dropped. Other allegations could no longer be pursued after the expiration of the statute of limitations, since the disaster had occurred more than 15 years before, which included charges against Generals Lamberto Bartolucci and Franco Ferri. In 2005, an appeals court ruled that no evidence supported the charges. On 10 January 2007, the Italian Court of Cassation upheld this ruling and conclusively closed the case, fully acquitting Bartolucci and Ferri of any wrongdoing. 
In June 2010, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano urged all Italian authorities to cooperate in the investigation of the crash.  
In September 2011, a Palermo civil tribunal ordered the Italian government to pay 100 million euros ($137 million) in civil damages to the relatives of the victims for failing to protect the flight, concealing the truth and destroying evidence.  
On 23 January 2013, the Civil Cassation Court ruled that there was "abundantly" clear evidence that the flight was brought down by a stray missile, confirming the lower court's order that the Italian government must pay compensation.  
In April 2015, an appeals court in Palermo confirmed the rulings of the 2011 Palermo civil tribunal and dismissed an appeal by the state attorney.  

Hypotheses on the causes.  
Terrorist bomb.  
After the series of bombings that hit Italy in the 1970s, a terrorist act was the first explanation to be proposed. As the flight was delayed in Bologna by almost three hours, a bomb's timer may have been set to actually cause an explosion at the Palermo airport, or on a further flight of the same aircraft.
The 1990 judicial inquiry was supported by a technical commission, led by independent investigator Frank Taylor. The technical commission's report concluded that an explosion in the rear toilet, and not a missile strike, was the only conclusion supported by the wreckage analysis. A test explosion in a DC-9 lavatory had shown the resulting deformation in the surrounding structure to be almost identical to that of the crashed aircraft.  
The technical commission's report was criticised in the Italian media by Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica. In particular it was stated that there was no evidence of explosive residue, per tests performed in 1994 by the Defence Research Agency in the United Kingdom. In addition, the toilet seat of the rear toilet, where the bomb had supposedly been detonated, was recovered undamaged.  

Missile strike during military operation.  
Parts of the Italian media alleged that the aircraft was shot down during a dogfight involving Libyan, United States, French and Italian Air Force fighters in an assassination attempt by NATO members on an important Libyan politician, perhaps even Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, who was flying in the same airspace that evening. This version was supported in 1999 by Judge Rosario Priore, who said in his concluding report that his investigation had been deliberately obstructed by the Italian military and members of the secret service, in compliance with NATO requests.  
According to the Italian media, documents from the archives of the Libyan secret service passed on to Human Rights Watch after the fall of Tripoli show that Flight 870 and a Libyan MiG were attacked by two French jets.  
On 18 July 1980, 21 days after the Itavia Flight 870 crash, a Libyan MiG-23MS was found crashed in the Sila Mountains in Castelsilano, Calabria, southern Italy. According to Libyan Air Force sources, the pilot was a victim of hypoxia. As his aircraft's autopilot was activated, it just kept flying straight and level until running out of fuel, and eventually crashed in the Sila Mountains.  
In 2008, Francesco Cossiga (Prime Minister when the crash occurred) said that Itavia Flight 870 had been shot down by French warplanes. On 7 July 2008, a claim for damages was served on the French President.  
In 2023, former Italian prime minister Giuliano Amato said that France downed the aircraft while targeting a Libyan military jet in an attempt to kill Muammar Gaddafi. Amato said that Italy tipped off Libya about the planned assassination and consequently Gaddafi did not board the Libyan military jet.  

Conspiracy theories.  
Several conspiracy theories explaining the disaster persist. For example, the vessel that carried out the search for debris on the ocean floor was French, but only US officials had access to the aircraft parts they found. Several radar reports were erased and several Italian generals were indicted 20 years later for obstruction of justice. The difficulty the investigators and the victims' relatives had in receiving complete, reliable information on the Ustica disaster has been popularly described as un muro di gomma ("a rubber wall"), because investigations just seemed to "bounce back".  

Memorial.  
On 27 June 2007, the Museum for the Memory of Ustica was opened in Bologna. The museum is in possession of parts of the plane, which are assembled and on display, including almost all of the external fuselage. The museum also has objects belonging to those on board that were found in the sea near the plane. Christian Boltanski was commissioned to produce a site-specific installation. The installation consists of:  
- 81 pulsing lamps hanging over the plane.  
- 81 black mirrors.  
- 81 loudspeakers (behind the mirrors).  
Each loudspeaker describes a simple thought/worry (e.g. "when I arrive I will go to the beach"). All the objects found are contained in a wooden box covered with a black plastic skin. A small book with photos of all objects and various information is available to visitors upon request.  

Dramatization.  
The crash of Itavia Flight 870 was featured in the 13th season of the Canadian documentary series Mayday in an episode entitled "Massacre over the Mediterranean". The episode discussed the separate investigations into the event, and appeared to favour the investigation led by Frank Taylor, which concluded that the wreckage ruled out a missile and....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73068147Mon, 20 Jul 2026 13:49:21 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Itavia Flight 870.   On 27 June 1980, Itavia Flight 870 (IH 870, AJ 421), a Douglas DC-9 passenger jet en route from Bologna to Palermo, Italy, crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea between the islands of Ponza and Ustica at 20:59 CEST, killing all 81...On 27 June 1980, Itavia Flight 870 (IH 870, AJ 421), a Douglas DC-9 passenger jet en route from Bologna to Palermo, Italy, crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea between the islands of Ponza and Ustica at 20:59 CEST, killing all 81 occupants on board. Known in Italy as the Ustica massacre ("strage di Ustica"), the disaster led to numerous investigations, as well as legal actions and accusations; it continues to be a source of controversy, including claims of conspiracy by the Government of Italy and others.  
Francesco Cossiga, the Prime Minister of Italy at the time, attributed the crash to the shooting down by a French missile during a dogfight between Libyan and French fighter jets. The technical commission's report concluded that a bomb hidden in the rear lavatory caused the aircraft's destruction. However, this conclusion still remains highly contested. In September 2023, former Italian prime minister Giuliano Amato declared that the crash was "part of a plan to shoot down the airplane of Gaddafi".  

Aircraft.  
The aircraft, flown as Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870, was a Douglas DC-9-15, serial number 45724, registered as I-TIGI. At the time of the crash, it had flown for 29,544 hours over 45,032 flights. The aircraft was manufactured in 1966 and delivered to Hawaiian Airlines registered as N902H.  

Disaster.  
On 27 June 1980 at 20:08 CEST, the aircraft departed with a delay of one hour and 53 minutes from Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport for a scheduled service to Palermo Punta Raisi Airport, Sicily. With 77 passengers aboard, Captain Domenico Gatti (44) and First Officer Enzo Fontana (32) were at the controls, with two flight attendants. The flight was designated IH 870 by air traffic control, while the military radar system referred to the same as AJ 421.  
Contact was lost shortly after the last message from the aircraft was received at 20:37, giving its position over the Tyrrhenian Sea near the island of Ustica, about 120 kilometres (70 mi) southwest of Naples. At 20:59 CEST, the aircraft broke apart in mid-air and crashed. Two Italian Air Force F-104s were scrambled at 21:00 from Grosseto Air Force Base to locate the crash area and search for any survivors but failed to locate the area because of poor visibility.  
Floating wreckage parts were later found in the area. There were no survivors among the 81 occupants on board.  
In July 2006, the re-assembled fragments of the DC-9 were returned to Bologna from Pratica di Mare Air Force Base near Rome.  

Official statements and litigation.  
The perpetrators of the crime remain unidentified. After hearings held from 1989 to 1991, the Parliamentary Commission on Terrorism, headed by Senator Libero Gualtieri, issued an official statement concerning the crash of Flight 870, which became known as the "Ustica Massacre" (Strage di Ustica). Then the crash was referred to by a "prima facie" judicial act as "primarily an act of war, a de facto unreported war – as has been customary ever since Pearl Harbor, until the latest Balkan conflict – an international police operation, in fact, up to the great powers, since there was no mandate in this sense; a non-military coercive action exercised lawfully or illicitly, by one State against another; or an act of terrorism, as it was later claimed, of an attack on a head of state or regime leader."  
A number of Italian Air Force personnel have been investigated and tried for a number of alleged offences, including falsification of documents, high treason, perjury, abuse of office and aiding and abetting. None have been convicted. On 30 April 2004, Generals Corrado Melillo and Zeno Tascio were held to be not guilty of high treason. Lesser charges against a number of other military personnel were also dropped. Other allegations could no longer be pursued after the expiration of the statute of limitations, since the disaster had occurred more...]]>720falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/70-murder-of-dorothy-jane-scott--73067476Dorothy Jane Scott (April 23, 1948 — May 28, 1980) was an American woman who disappeared on May 28, 1980, in Anaheim, California. After driving two co-workers to the hospital, Scott went to fetch her car to take them back to their workplace. However, as her car approached them, it sped away; neither could see who was driving as its headlights had blinded them. The co-workers reported Scott missing a couple of hours later, after not hearing from her. In the preceding months, Scott had been receiving anonymous phone calls from a man who had reportedly been stalking her and had left threatening messages.  
In June 1980, a man called The Orange County Register, a local newspaper that had reported Scott's disappearance, and claimed that he had killed Scott. Police believe the caller was Scott's killer. From 1980 to 1984, Scott's mother also received phone calls from a man who claimed to have Scott or to have killed her. None of the calls could be traced, however, because the caller would not stay on the line long enough. In August 1984, partial human remains were found and later identified as Scott's. No arrests have been made in Scott's case.  

Background.  
Dorothy Scott was a single mother living in Stanton, California, twenty-four miles southeast of Los Angeles, with her aunt and four-year-old son. She was a secretary for two jointly-owned Anaheim stores. Co-workers and friends recall that Scott preferred staying at home, was a devout Christian and did not engage in substance abuse. Her parents, who lived in Anaheim, babysat their grandson while she worked. Scott's father, Jacob, said his daughter may have dated on occasion but, as far as the family knew, had no steady boyfriend.  
Months before her abduction, Scott had received strange phone calls at work from an unidentified male. The caller alternately professed his love for Scott and his intent to kill her. Scott's mother recounted, "One day he called and said to go outside because he had something for her. She went out and there was a single dead red rose on the windshield of her car." Scott's mother said one call especially horrified her daughter, in which the man reportedly stated he would get her alone and "cut [her] up into bits so no one will ever find [her]". Because of the calls, Scott began considering the purchase of a handgun; about a week before her disappearance, she started taking karate lessons.  

Events.  
At 9 p.m. on May 28, 1980, Scott attended an employee meeting at work. She noted co-worker Conrad Bostron did not look well and had a red mark on his arm. Scott and another co-worker, Pam Head, left the meeting to take Bostron to the emergency room at UC Irvine Medical Center. On the way to the hospital, they stopped by Scott's parents' house to check on her son; Scott took this occasion to change from her black scarf to a red one. At the hospital, medical personnel determined Bostron had suffered a bite from a black widow spider and treated him; Head said she and Scott remained in the waiting room. At no time, Head said, did Scott leave her side.  
Bostron was discharged around 11 p.m. and given a prescription. Scott offered to bring her car to the exit; she did not want Bostron to walk too far in his condition, as he was still not feeling well. Head said Scott used the restroom briefly before heading out to the parking lot. Head and Bostron filled his prescription and waited at the exit for Scott; when they did not see her after a few minutes they went out to the hospital's parking lot. Suddenly, they saw Scott's car speeding toward them; its headlights blinded them so they could not see who was behind the wheel. They waved their arms to try to get Scott's attention, but the car sped past them and took a sharp right turn out of the parking lot. Initially, both thought Scott had been summoned to an emergency involving her son. A few hours later, after not hearing from her, Head and Bostron reported Scott missing. At about 4:30 a.m. on May 29, Scott's car, a white 1973 Toyota station wagon, was found burning in an alley about 10 miles (16 km) from the hospital. Neither she nor her supposed kidnapper were anywhere nearby.  

Discovery of remains.  
On August 6, 1984, a construction worker discovered dog and human bones side by side, about 30 feet (10 m) from Santa Ana Canyon Road. The bones were partly charred and authorities believed they had been there for two years, as a bushfire had "swept across the site" in 1982. A turquoise ring and watch were also found. Scott's mother said the watch had stopped at 12:30 a.m. on May 29, about an hour after Head and Bostron last saw Scott's vehicle. On August 14, the bones were identified as Scott's by dental records. An autopsy could not determine the cause of death. A memorial service was held on August 22.  

Mysterious phone calls.  
About a week after Scott's disappearance, her parents, Jacob and Vera, received a phone call from an unidentified man who said, "I've got her" and hung up. The same man called "almost every Wednesday afternoon" and said either that he had Scott or had killed her. The calls were usually brief, and usually occurred when Vera was home alone. In April 1984, the man called during the evening; Jacob answered and the calls stopped. After Scott's remains were found in August 1984, the family started receiving calls again. Police installed a voice recorder at the Scott residence. They were not able to trace the calls, however, because the man never stayed on the line long enough.  
A possible motivation in Scott's murder surfaced June 12, 1980, when an unidentified man called the front desk at the Orange County Register, which had run a story that day about the case. A managing editor told police that the caller had said, "I killed her. I killed Dorothy Scott. She was my love. I caught her cheating with another man. She denied having someone else. I killed her." The editor also said the caller knew Bostron had suffered from a spider bite the night of May 28 and knew Scott had changed her black scarf to a red one prior to arriving at the hospital. Neither of these details had been published in the Register article. The caller also claimed Scott phoned him from the hospital that night. Head disputed that claim, saying she had been with Scott the entire time and she had not made a phone call. Investigators believe the anonymous caller is responsible for Scott's death.  


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73067476Mon, 20 Jul 2026 12:26:55 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murder of Dorothy Jane Scott.   Dorothy Jane Scott (April 23, 1948 — May 28, 1980) was an American woman who disappeared on May 28, 1980, in Anaheim, California. After driving two co-workers to the hospital, Scott went to fetch her car to take them...Dorothy Jane Scott (April 23, 1948 — May 28, 1980) was an American woman who disappeared on May 28, 1980, in Anaheim, California. After driving two co-workers to the hospital, Scott went to fetch her car to take them back to their workplace. However, as her car approached them, it sped away; neither could see who was driving as its headlights had blinded them. The co-workers reported Scott missing a couple of hours later, after not hearing from her. In the preceding months, Scott had been receiving anonymous phone calls from a man who had reportedly been stalking her and had left threatening messages.  
In June 1980, a man called The Orange County Register, a local newspaper that had reported Scott's disappearance, and claimed that he had killed Scott. Police believe the caller was Scott's killer. From 1980 to 1984, Scott's mother also received phone calls from a man who claimed to have Scott or to have killed her. None of the calls could be traced, however, because the caller would not stay on the line long enough. In August 1984, partial human remains were found and later identified as Scott's. No arrests have been made in Scott's case.  

Background.  
Dorothy Scott was a single mother living in Stanton, California, twenty-four miles southeast of Los Angeles, with her aunt and four-year-old son. She was a secretary for two jointly-owned Anaheim stores. Co-workers and friends recall that Scott preferred staying at home, was a devout Christian and did not engage in substance abuse. Her parents, who lived in Anaheim, babysat their grandson while she worked. Scott's father, Jacob, said his daughter may have dated on occasion but, as far as the family knew, had no steady boyfriend.  
Months before her abduction, Scott had received strange phone calls at work from an unidentified male. The caller alternately professed his love for Scott and his intent to kill her. Scott's mother recounted, "One day he called and said to go outside because he had something for her. She went out and there was a single dead red rose on the windshield of her car." Scott's mother said one call especially horrified her daughter, in which the man reportedly stated he would get her alone and "cut [her] up into bits so no one will ever find [her]". Because of the calls, Scott began considering the purchase of a handgun; about a week before her disappearance, she started taking karate lessons.  

Events.  
At 9 p.m. on May 28, 1980, Scott attended an employee meeting at work. She noted co-worker Conrad Bostron did not look well and had a red mark on his arm. Scott and another co-worker, Pam Head, left the meeting to take Bostron to the emergency room at UC Irvine Medical Center. On the way to the hospital, they stopped by Scott's parents' house to check on her son; Scott took this occasion to change from her black scarf to a red one. At the hospital, medical personnel determined Bostron had suffered a bite from a black widow spider and treated him; Head said she and Scott remained in the waiting room. At no time, Head said, did Scott leave her side.  
Bostron was discharged around 11 p.m. and given a prescription. Scott offered to bring her car to the exit; she did not want Bostron to walk too far in his condition, as he was still not feeling well. Head said Scott used the restroom briefly before heading out to the parking lot. Head and Bostron filled his prescription and waited at the exit for Scott; when they did not see her after a few minutes they went out to the hospital's parking lot. Suddenly, they saw Scott's car speeding toward them; its headlights blinded them so they could not see who was behind the wheel. They waved their arms to try to get Scott's attention, but the car sped past them and took a sharp right turn out of the parking lot. Initially, both thought Scott had been summoned to an emergency involving her son. A few hours later, after not hearing from...]]>447falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/69-oscar-romero-part-2--73056402Investigations into the assassination.  
No one has ever been prosecuted for the assassination or confessed to it to police. Immediately following the assassination, José Napoleón Duarte, the newly appointed foreign minister of El Salvador, actively promulgated a "blame on both sides" propaganda trope in order to provide cover for the lack of official inquiry into the assassination plot.  
Subsequent investigations by the United Nations and other international bodies have established that the four assassins were members of a death squad led by D'Aubuisson. Revelations of the D'Aubuisson plot came to light in 1984 when U.S. ambassador Robert White testified before the United States Congress that "there was sufficient evidence" to convict D'Aubuisson of planning and ordering Romero's assassination. In 1993, an official United Nations report identified D'Aubuisson as the man who ordered the killing. D'Aubuisson had strong connections to the Nicaraguan National Guard and to its offshoot the Fifteenth of September Legion and had also planned to overthrow the government in a coup. Later, he founded the political party Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) and organized death squads that systematically carried out politically motivated assassinations and other human rights abuses in El Salvador. Álvaro Rafael Saravia, a former captain in the Salvadoran Air Force, was chief of security for D'Aubuisson and an active member of these death squads. In 2003 a United States human rights organization, the Center for Justice and Accountability, filed a civil action against Saravia. In 2004, he was found liable by a U.S. District Court under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) (28 U.S.C. § 1350) for aiding, conspiring, and participating in the assassination of Romero. Saravia was ordered to pay $10 million for extrajudicial killing and crimes against humanity pursuant to the ATCA; he has since gone into hiding. On 24 March 2010 – the thirtieth anniversary of Romero's death – Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes offered an official state apology for Romero's assassination. Speaking before Romero's family, representatives of the Catholic Church, diplomats, and government officials, Funes said those involved in the assassination "unfortunately acted with the protection, collaboration, or participation of state agents."  
A 2000 article by Tom Gibb, then a correspondent with The Guardian and later with the BBC, attributes the murder to a detective of the Salvadoran National Police named Óscar Pérez Linares, acting on the orders of D'Aubuisson. The article cites an anonymous former death squad member who claimed he had been assigned to guard a house in San Salvador used by a unit of three counter-guerrilla operatives directed by D'Aubuisson. The guard, whom Gibb identified as "Jorge", purported to have witnessed Linares fraternizing with the group, which was nicknamed the "Little Angels", and to have heard them praise Linares for the killing. The article furthermore attributes full knowledge of the assassination to the CIA as far back as 1983. The article reports that both Linares and the Little Angels commander, who Jorge identified as "El Negro Mario", were killed by a CIA-trained Salvadoran special police unit in 1986; the unit had been assigned to investigate the murders. In 1983, U.S. Lt. Col. Oliver North, an aide to then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, is alleged to have personally requested the Salvadoran military to "remove" Linares and several others from their service. Three years later they were pursued and extrajudicially killed – Linares after being found in neighbouring Guatemala. The article cites another source in the Salvadoran military as saying "they knew far too much to live".  
In a 2010 article for the Salvadoran online newspaper El Faro, Saravia was interviewed from a mountain hideout. He named D'Aubuisson as giving the assassination order to him over the phone, and said that he and his cohorts drove the assassin to the chapel and paid him 1,000 Salvadoran colónes after the event.  
In April 2017, however, in the wake of the overruling of a civil war amnesty law the previous year, a judge in El Salvador, Rigoberto Chicas, allowed the case against the escaped Saravia's alleged role in the murder of Romero to be reopened. On 23 October 2018, days after Romero's canonization, Judge Chicas issued a new arrest warrant for him, and Interpol and the National Police are charged with finding his hideout and apprehending him. As both D'Aubuisson and Linares had already died, they could not be prosecuted.  

Legacy.  
International recognition.  
During his first visit to El Salvador in 1983, Pope John Paul II entered the cathedral in San Salvador and prayed at Romero's tomb, despite opposition from the government and from some within the church who strongly opposed liberation theology. Afterwards, the Pope praised Romero as a "zealous and venerated pastor who tried to stop violence". John Paul II also asked for dialogue between the government and opposition to end El Salvador's civil war.  
On 7 May 2000, in Rome's Colosseum during the Jubilee Year celebrations, Pope John Paul II commemorated 20th-century martyrs. Of the several categories of martyrs, the seventh consisted of Christians who were killed for defending their brethren in the Americas. Despite the opposition of some social conservatives within the church, John Paul II insisted that Romero be included. He asked the organizers of the event to proclaim Romero "that great witness of the Gospel".  
On 21 December 2010, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 24 March as the International Day for the Right to the Truth concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims which recognizes, in particular, the important work and values of Romero.  
On 22 March 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama visited Romero's tomb during an official visit to El Salvador. Irish President Michael D. Higgins visited the cathedral and tomb of Romero on 25 October 2013 during a state visit to El Salvador. Famed linguist Noam Chomsky speaks highly of Romero's social work, and refers often to his murder. In 2014, El Salvador's main international airport was named after him, becoming Monseñor Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez International Airport, and later, San Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez International Airport in 2018 after his canonization.  
Romero is remembered in the Church of England and in the Episcopal Church on 24 March.  

Sainthood.  
Process for beatification.  
Romero's sainthood cause at the Vatican was opened in 1993, but the Catholic News Service reported that it "was delayed for years as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith studied his writings, amid wider debate over whether he had been killed for his faith or for political reasons."  
In March 2005, Vincenzo Paglia, the Vatican official in charge of the process, announced that Romero's cause had cleared a theological audit by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, at the time headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later elected Pope Benedict XVI) and that beatification could follow within six months. Pope John Paul II died within weeks of those remarks. Predictably, the transition of the new pontiff slowed down the work of canonizations and beatifications. Pope Benedict instituted changes that had the overall effect of reining in the Vatican's so-called "factory of saints". In an October 2005 interview, Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, was asked if Paglia's predictions of a clearance for Romero's beatification remained on track. Saraiva responded, "Not as far as I know today". In November 2005, the Jesuit magazine La Civiltà Cattolica signaled that Romero's beatification was still "years away".  
Although Benedict XVI had always been a fierce critic of liberation theology, Paglia reported in December 2012 that the Pope had informed him of the decision to "unblock" the cause and allow it to move forward. However, no progress was made before Benedict's resignation in February 2013. Pope Francis was elected in March 2013, and in September 2013, Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, stated that the Vatican doctrinal office has been "given the green light" to pursue sainthood for Romero.  

Beatification.  
On 18 August 2014, Pope Francis said that "[t]he process [of beatification of Romero] was at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, blocked for 'prudential reasons', so they said. Now it is unblocked." Francis stated, "There are no doctrinal problems and it is very important that [the beatification] is done quickly." The beatification signaled Francis' affirmation of Romero's work with the poor as a major change in the direction of the church since he was elected.  
In January 2015, an advisory panel to the Roman Curia's Congregation for the Causes of Saints voted unanimously to recognize Romero as a martyr, and the cardinals who were voting members of the Congregation unanimously recommended to Francis that he be beatified as a martyr (a martyr can be beatified without recognition of a miracle). Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the postulator (chief promoter) of the causes of saints, said that Romero's assassination at the altar was intended "to strike the Church that flowed from the Second Vatican Council" and that the motive for his murder "was not caused by motives that were simply political, but by hatred for a faith that, imbued with charity, would not be silent in the face of the injustices that relentlessly and cruelly slaughtered the poor and their defenders." On 3 February 2015, Francis received Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, in a private audience, and authorized..

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73056402Sun, 19 Jul 2026 16:00:44 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Óscar Romero. (part 2).   Investigations into the assassination.   No one has ever been prosecuted for the assassination or confessed to it to police. Immediately following the assassination, José Napoleón Duarte, the newly appointed foreign minister...Investigations into the assassination.  
No one has ever been prosecuted for the assassination or confessed to it to police. Immediately following the assassination, José Napoleón Duarte, the newly appointed foreign minister of El Salvador, actively promulgated a "blame on both sides" propaganda trope in order to provide cover for the lack of official inquiry into the assassination plot.  
Subsequent investigations by the United Nations and other international bodies have established that the four assassins were members of a death squad led by D'Aubuisson. Revelations of the D'Aubuisson plot came to light in 1984 when U.S. ambassador Robert White testified before the United States Congress that "there was sufficient evidence" to convict D'Aubuisson of planning and ordering Romero's assassination. In 1993, an official United Nations report identified D'Aubuisson as the man who ordered the killing. D'Aubuisson had strong connections to the Nicaraguan National Guard and to its offshoot the Fifteenth of September Legion and had also planned to overthrow the government in a coup. Later, he founded the political party Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) and organized death squads that systematically carried out politically motivated assassinations and other human rights abuses in El Salvador. Álvaro Rafael Saravia, a former captain in the Salvadoran Air Force, was chief of security for D'Aubuisson and an active member of these death squads. In 2003 a United States human rights organization, the Center for Justice and Accountability, filed a civil action against Saravia. In 2004, he was found liable by a U.S. District Court under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) (28 U.S.C. § 1350) for aiding, conspiring, and participating in the assassination of Romero. Saravia was ordered to pay $10 million for extrajudicial killing and crimes against humanity pursuant to the ATCA; he has since gone into hiding. On 24 March 2010 – the thirtieth anniversary of Romero's death – Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes offered an official state apology for Romero's assassination. Speaking before Romero's family, representatives of the Catholic Church, diplomats, and government officials, Funes said those involved in the assassination "unfortunately acted with the protection, collaboration, or participation of state agents."  
A 2000 article by Tom Gibb, then a correspondent with The Guardian and later with the BBC, attributes the murder to a detective of the Salvadoran National Police named Óscar Pérez Linares, acting on the orders of D'Aubuisson. The article cites an anonymous former death squad member who claimed he had been assigned to guard a house in San Salvador used by a unit of three counter-guerrilla operatives directed by D'Aubuisson. The guard, whom Gibb identified as "Jorge", purported to have witnessed Linares fraternizing with the group, which was nicknamed the "Little Angels", and to have heard them praise Linares for the killing. The article furthermore attributes full knowledge of the assassination to the CIA as far back as 1983. The article reports that both Linares and the Little Angels commander, who Jorge identified as "El Negro Mario", were killed by a CIA-trained Salvadoran special police unit in 1986; the unit had been assigned to investigate the murders. In 1983, U.S. Lt. Col. Oliver North, an aide to then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, is alleged to have personally requested the Salvadoran military to "remove" Linares and several others from their service. Three years later they were pursued and extrajudicially killed – Linares after being found in neighbouring Guatemala. The article cites another source in the Salvadoran military as saying "they knew far too much to live".  
In a 2010 article for the Salvadoran online newspaper El Faro, Saravia was interviewed from a mountain hideout. He named D'Aubuisson as giving the assassination order to him over the phone, and said...]]>1335falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/68-oscar-romero-part-1--73054698Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (15 August 1917 – 24 March 1980) was a prelate of the Catholic Church in El Salvador; he served as Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of San Salvador, the Titular Bishop of Tambeae, as Bishop of Santiago de María, and finally as the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador. As archbishop, Romero spoke out against social injustice and violence amid the escalating conflict between the military government and left-wing insurgents that led to the Salvadoran Civil War. In 1980, Romero was fatally shot by an assassin while celebrating Mass. Though no one was ever convicted for the crime, investigations by the UN-created Truth Commission for El Salvador concluded that Major Roberto D'Aubuisson, a death squad leader and later founder of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) political party, had ordered the killing.  
In 1997, Pope John Paul II bestowed upon Romero the title of Servant of God, and a cause for his beatification was opened by the church. The cause stalled but was reopened by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012. Romero was declared a martyr by Pope Francis on 3 February 2015, paving the way for his beatification on 23 May 2015. During Romero's beatification, Pope Francis declared that his "ministry was distinguished by his particular attention to the most poor and marginalized." Pope Francis canonized Romero on 14 October 2018.  
Initially seen as a social conservative at the time of his appointment as archbishop in 1977, Romero was deeply affected by the murder of his friend and fellow priest Rutilio Grande and thereafter became an outspoken critic of the military government of El Salvador. Hailed by supporters of liberation theology, Romero's relationship with this theology was debated and initially led to impediments in his beatification process, with both denials and affirmations of Romero adhering to it. According to his biographer Michael E. Lee, since Romero's theological thought and homilies extensively utilized the theme of liberation, and Romero borrowed numerous controversial elements of liberation theology, he "can be seen as an exemplar of liberation theology". Similarly, Peter McLaren also argued that "Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero adopted an outspoken stance in favor of 'liberation theology'".  
In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 24 March as the "International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims" in recognition of Romero's role in the defence of human rights. Romero actively denounced violations of the human rights of the most vulnerable people and defended the principles of protecting lives, promoting human dignity and opposing all forms of violence. Archbishop José Luis Escobar Alas, one of Romero's successors as Archbishop of San Salvador, asked Pope Francis to proclaim Romero a Doctor of the Church, which is an acknowledgement from the church that his religious teachings were orthodox and had a significant impact on its philosophy and theology.  
Latin American church groups often proclaim Romero an unofficial patron saint of the Americas and El Salvador; Catholics in El Salvador often refer to him as San Romero, as well as Monseñor Romero. Outside of Catholicism, Romero is honoured by other Christian denominations, including the Church of England and Anglican Communion, through the Calendar in Common Worship, as well as in at least one Lutheran liturgical calendar. Romero is also one of the ten 20th-century martyrs depicted in statues above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey in London.  

Early life.  
Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez was born on 15 August 1917 in Ciudad Barrios, San Miguel, El Salvador; his parents were Santos Romero Garcilazo and Guadalupe de Jesús Galdámez Portillo. Romero was baptized on 11 May 1919 at the age of one by the priest Cecilio Morales.  
Romero entered the local public school, which offered only grades one through three. When finished with public school, Romero was privately tutored by a teacher, Anita Iglesias, until the age of thirteen. During this time Romero's father trained him in carpentry. Romero showed exceptional proficiency as an apprentice. His father wanted to offer his son the skill of a trade, because in El Salvador studies seldom led to employment, however, Romero broached the idea of studying for the priesthood, which did not surprise those who knew him.  

Priesthood.  
Romero entered the minor seminary in San Miguel at the age of thirteen. He left the seminary for three months to return home when his mother became ill after the birth of her eighth child; during this time he worked with two of his brothers in a gold mine near Ciudad Barrios. After graduation, he enrolled in the national seminary in San Salvador. He completed his studies at the Gregorian University in Rome, where he received a Licentiate in Theology cum laude in 1941, but had to wait a year to be ordained because he was younger than the required age. He was ordained in Rome on 4 April 1942. His family could not attend his ordination because of travel restrictions due to World War II. Romero remained in Italy to obtain a doctoral degree in theology, specializing in ascetical theology and Christian perfection according to Luis de la Puente. Before finishing, in 1943 at the age of 26, he was summoned back home from Italy by his bishop. He traveled home with a good friend, Father Valladares, who was also doing doctoral work in Rome. On the route home, they made stops in Spain and Cuba, where they were detained by the Cuban police, likely for having come from Fascist Italy, and were placed in a series of internment camps. After several months in prison, Valladares became sick and Redemptorist priests helped to have the two transferred to a hospital. From the hospital they were released from Cuban custody and sailed on to Mexico, then traveled overland to El Salvador.  
Romero was first assigned to serve as a parish priest in Anamorós, but then moved to San Miguel where he worked for over 20 years. He promoted various apostolic groups, started an Alcoholics Anonymous group, helped in the construction of San Miguel's cathedral, and supported devotion to Our Lady of Peace. He was later appointed rector of the inter-diocesan seminary in San Salvador. Emotionally and physically exhausted by his work in San Miguel, Romero took a retreat in January 1966 where he visited a priest for confession and a psychiatrist. He was diagnosed by the psychiatrist as having obsessive-compulsive personality disorder and by priests with scrupulosity.  
In 1966, he was chosen to be Secretary of the Bishops Conference for El Salvador. He also became the director of the archdiocesan newspaper Orientación, which became fairly conservative while he was editor, defending the traditional Magisterium of the Catholic Church.  

Bishop and Archbishop.  
On 25 April 1970, Romero was appointed an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of San Salvador and as the titular bishop of Tambeae. He was consecrated on 21 June by Girolamo Prigione, titular Archbishop of Lauriacum. On 15 October 1974, he was appointed Bishop of the Diocese of Santiago de María, a poor, rural region.  
On 3 February 1977, Romero was appointed Archbishop of San Salvador, assuming the position on 22 February. While this appointment was welcomed by the government, many priests were disappointed, especially those openly supportive of Marxist ideology. The progressive priests feared that his conservative reputation would negatively affect liberation theology's commitment to the poor.  
On 12 March 1977, Rutilio Grande, a Jesuit priest and personal friend of Romero who had been creating self-reliance groups among the poor, was assassinated. His death had a profound impact on Romero, who later stated: "When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead I thought, 'If they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path.'" Romero urged the government to investigate, but they ignored his request. Furthermore, the censored press remained silent.  
Tension was noted by the closure of schools and the lack of Catholic priests invited to participate in government. In response to Grande's murder, Romero revealed an activism that had not been evident earlier, speaking out against poverty, social injustice, assassinations and torture.  
On 15 October 1979, the Revolutionary Government Junta (JRG) came to power amidst a wave of human rights abuses by paramilitary right-wing groups and the government, in an escalation of violence that would become the Salvadoran Civil War. Romero criticized the United States for giving military aid to the new government and wrote an open letter to President Jimmy Carter in February 1980, warning that increased U.S. military aid would "undoubtedly sharpen the injustice and the political repression inflicted on the organized people, whose struggle has often been for their most basic human rights." This letter was then sent, via telegram, from the U.S. embassy in El Salvador to Washington, D.C. Carter did not directly respond to the letter; instead, Cyrus Vance, the Secretary of State, wrote a telegram back to the U.S. embassy. The telegram carried a very contradictory message, both stating that the United States will not interfere but will respond to the Revolutionary Government Junta's requests. It is unknown if Archbishop Romero received the telegram.  
On 11 May 1979, Romero met with Pope John Paul II and unsuccessfully attempted to obtain a Vatican condemnation of the Salvadoran military regime for committing human rights violations and its support of death squads, and expressed his frustration in working with clergy who cooperated with the government. He was encouraged by Pope John Paul II to maintain episcopal unity as a top priority......

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73054698Sun, 19 Jul 2026 15:14:00 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Óscar Romero. (part 1).   Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (15 August 1917 – 24 March 1980) was a prelate of the Catholic Church in El Salvador; he served as Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of San Salvador, the Titular Bishop of Tambeae, as Bishop...Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (15 August 1917 – 24 March 1980) was a prelate of the Catholic Church in El Salvador; he served as Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of San Salvador, the Titular Bishop of Tambeae, as Bishop of Santiago de María, and finally as the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador. As archbishop, Romero spoke out against social injustice and violence amid the escalating conflict between the military government and left-wing insurgents that led to the Salvadoran Civil War. In 1980, Romero was fatally shot by an assassin while celebrating Mass. Though no one was ever convicted for the crime, investigations by the UN-created Truth Commission for El Salvador concluded that Major Roberto D'Aubuisson, a death squad leader and later founder of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) political party, had ordered the killing.  
In 1997, Pope John Paul II bestowed upon Romero the title of Servant of God, and a cause for his beatification was opened by the church. The cause stalled but was reopened by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012. Romero was declared a martyr by Pope Francis on 3 February 2015, paving the way for his beatification on 23 May 2015. During Romero's beatification, Pope Francis declared that his "ministry was distinguished by his particular attention to the most poor and marginalized." Pope Francis canonized Romero on 14 October 2018.  
Initially seen as a social conservative at the time of his appointment as archbishop in 1977, Romero was deeply affected by the murder of his friend and fellow priest Rutilio Grande and thereafter became an outspoken critic of the military government of El Salvador. Hailed by supporters of liberation theology, Romero's relationship with this theology was debated and initially led to impediments in his beatification process, with both denials and affirmations of Romero adhering to it. According to his biographer Michael E. Lee, since Romero's theological thought and homilies extensively utilized the theme of liberation, and Romero borrowed numerous controversial elements of liberation theology, he "can be seen as an exemplar of liberation theology". Similarly, Peter McLaren also argued that "Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero adopted an outspoken stance in favor of 'liberation theology'".  
In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 24 March as the "International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims" in recognition of Romero's role in the defence of human rights. Romero actively denounced violations of the human rights of the most vulnerable people and defended the principles of protecting lives, promoting human dignity and opposing all forms of violence. Archbishop José Luis Escobar Alas, one of Romero's successors as Archbishop of San Salvador, asked Pope Francis to proclaim Romero a Doctor of the Church, which is an acknowledgement from the church that his religious teachings were orthodox and had a significant impact on its philosophy and theology.  
Latin American church groups often proclaim Romero an unofficial patron saint of the Americas and El Salvador; Catholics in El Salvador often refer to him as San Romero, as well as Monseñor Romero. Outside of Catholicism, Romero is honoured by other Christian denominations, including the Church of England and Anglican Communion, through the Calendar in Common Worship, as well as in at least one Lutheran liturgical calendar. Romero is also one of the ten 20th-century martyrs depicted in statues above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey in London.  

Early life.  
Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez was born on 15 August 1917 in Ciudad Barrios, San Miguel, El Salvador; his parents were Santos Romero Garcilazo and Guadalupe de Jesús Galdámez Portillo. Romero was baptized on 11 May 1919 at the age of one by the priest Cecilio Morales.  
Romero entered the local public...]]>1700falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/67-angelo-bruno--73053742Angelo Bruno (born Angelo Annaloro, May 21, 1910 – March 21, 1980) was a Sicilian-American mobster who was boss of the Philadelphia crime family for two decades until his assassination. Bruno was known as "The Docile Don" due to his preference for conciliation over violence, in stark contrast to his successors.  

Early years.  
Born in Villalba, Province of Caltanissetta, Sicily, Bruno emigrated to the United States as a child and settled in South Philadelphia with his brother, Vito. He was the son of a foundry worker who opened a small grocery store at 4341 North Sixth Street in Feltonville, Philadelphia. Angelo helped his father at the store until 1922, at the age of twelve, when he first entered school but attended for only a few years before dropping out of South Philadelphia High School to open his own grocery store at Eighth and Annin streets in Passyunk Square, Philadelphia. Bruno was a close associate of New York Gambino crime family boss Carlo Gambino. Living with Bruno was a cousin of mobster John Simone. Bruno dropped the name Annaloro and replaced it with his paternal grandmother's maiden name, Bruno. His sponsor into the Philadelphia mafia was Michael Maggio, a convicted murderer with a national reputation, and the founder of M. Maggio Cheese Corp. (since bought up by Crowley Foods).  
Bruno was married to Assunta "Sue" Maranca (1913–2007), his childhood sweetheart, from 1931 until his death. They had two children, Michael and Jean. Bruno owned an extermination company in Trenton, New Jersey and an aluminum products company in Hialeah, Florida. Bruno's first arrest was in 1928 for reckless driving. Subsequent arrests included firearms violations, operating an illicit alcohol still, illegal gambling, and receiving stolen property.  
Bruno purchased shares in the Plaza Hotel in Havana, Cuba. Around 1957–58 Bruno spent a significant amount of time in Cuba.  

Family leader.  
In 1959, Bruno was made boss of the Philadelphia family after a period of friction with Antonio "Mr. Miggs" Pollina. Eventually a plot to have Bruno murdered was uncovered and Pollina was deposed by the commission but was allowed to live and operate. This was the first indicator of Bruno's aversion to violence as a solution. Over the next twenty years, Bruno successfully avoided the intense media and law enforcement scrutiny and outbursts of violence that plagued other crime families. Bruno avoided lengthy prison terms despite several arrests; his longest term was two years for refusing to testify before a grand jury. Bruno forbade family involvement in narcotics trafficking, preferring more traditional Cosa Nostra operations, such as bookmaking and loansharking. However, Bruno did permit other gangs to distribute heroin in Philadelphia for a share of the proceeds. This arrangement angered some family members who wanted a share of the drug-dealing profits.  
Bruno preferred to operate through bribery and soft power rather than murder. For example, he banished violent soldier Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo to the then-backwater of Atlantic City, New Jersey, after he was charged with manslaughter.  
Like the rest of the mafia, Bruno was under immense pressure from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who was coming down hard on organized crime. An FBI surveillance operation in 1962 picked up Bruno and Willie Weisberg joking about killing the Attorney General. By mid 1963 Bruno's situation had gotten worse and he began to consider leaving America altogether and returning to Italy.  
In December 1963 he was arrested on his return from Italy as he stepped off the plane.  

Rebellion and death.  
On March 21, 1980, the 69-year-old Bruno was killed by a shotgun blast to the head as he sat in his car in front of his home near the intersection of 10th Street and Snyder Avenue in the Lower Moyamensing neighborhood of South Philadelphia; his driver, John Stanfa, was wounded. It is believed that the killing was ordered by Antonio Caponigro, Bruno's consigliere. A few weeks later, Caponigro's lifeless body was found, naked and battered, in the trunk of a car in the Bronx. The Commission had reportedly ordered Caponigro's murder because he assassinated Bruno without their sanction. Other Philadelphia family members found to be involved in Bruno's murder were tortured and killed.  
The murder sparked a mob war in Philadelphia, which claimed 20 lives over the next four years, including the succeeding boss Philip "Chicken Man" Testa, and his son Salvatore Testa.  
In February 2016, author and historian Celeste Morello began an effort to designate Bruno's home a historical landmark. In March 2016, a historical landmark advisory committee ruled against the request.  

In popular culture.  
Bruno is portrayed by Chazz Palminteri in the film Legend (2015) and Harvey Keitel in the film The Irishman (2019). 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73053742Sun, 19 Jul 2026 12:32:49 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Angelo Bruno.   Angelo Bruno (born Angelo Annaloro, May 21, 1910 – March 21, 1980) was a Sicilian-American mobster who was boss of the Philadelphia crime family for two decades until his assassination. Bruno was known as "The Docile Don" due to his...Angelo Bruno (born Angelo Annaloro, May 21, 1910 – March 21, 1980) was a Sicilian-American mobster who was boss of the Philadelphia crime family for two decades until his assassination. Bruno was known as "The Docile Don" due to his preference for conciliation over violence, in stark contrast to his successors.  

Early years.  
Born in Villalba, Province of Caltanissetta, Sicily, Bruno emigrated to the United States as a child and settled in South Philadelphia with his brother, Vito. He was the son of a foundry worker who opened a small grocery store at 4341 North Sixth Street in Feltonville, Philadelphia. Angelo helped his father at the store until 1922, at the age of twelve, when he first entered school but attended for only a few years before dropping out of South Philadelphia High School to open his own grocery store at Eighth and Annin streets in Passyunk Square, Philadelphia. Bruno was a close associate of New York Gambino crime family boss Carlo Gambino. Living with Bruno was a cousin of mobster John Simone. Bruno dropped the name Annaloro and replaced it with his paternal grandmother's maiden name, Bruno. His sponsor into the Philadelphia mafia was Michael Maggio, a convicted murderer with a national reputation, and the founder of M. Maggio Cheese Corp. (since bought up by Crowley Foods).  
Bruno was married to Assunta "Sue" Maranca (1913–2007), his childhood sweetheart, from 1931 until his death. They had two children, Michael and Jean. Bruno owned an extermination company in Trenton, New Jersey and an aluminum products company in Hialeah, Florida. Bruno's first arrest was in 1928 for reckless driving. Subsequent arrests included firearms violations, operating an illicit alcohol still, illegal gambling, and receiving stolen property.  
Bruno purchased shares in the Plaza Hotel in Havana, Cuba. Around 1957–58 Bruno spent a significant amount of time in Cuba.  

Family leader.  
In 1959, Bruno was made boss of the Philadelphia family after a period of friction with Antonio "Mr. Miggs" Pollina. Eventually a plot to have Bruno murdered was uncovered and Pollina was deposed by the commission but was allowed to live and operate. This was the first indicator of Bruno's aversion to violence as a solution. Over the next twenty years, Bruno successfully avoided the intense media and law enforcement scrutiny and outbursts of violence that plagued other crime families. Bruno avoided lengthy prison terms despite several arrests; his longest term was two years for refusing to testify before a grand jury. Bruno forbade family involvement in narcotics trafficking, preferring more traditional Cosa Nostra operations, such as bookmaking and loansharking. However, Bruno did permit other gangs to distribute heroin in Philadelphia for a share of the proceeds. This arrangement angered some family members who wanted a share of the drug-dealing profits.  
Bruno preferred to operate through bribery and soft power rather than murder. For example, he banished violent soldier Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo to the then-backwater of Atlantic City, New Jersey, after he was charged with manslaughter.  
Like the rest of the mafia, Bruno was under immense pressure from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who was coming down hard on organized crime. An FBI surveillance operation in 1962 picked up Bruno and Willie Weisberg joking about killing the Attorney General. By mid 1963 Bruno's situation had gotten worse and he began to consider leaving America altogether and returning to Italy.  
In December 1963 he was arrested on his return from Italy as he stepped off the plane.  

Rebellion and death.  
On March 21, 1980, the 69-year-old Bruno was killed by a shotgun blast to the head as he sat in his car in front of his home near the intersection of 10th Street and Snyder Avenue in the Lower Moyamensing neighborhood of South Philadelphia; his driver, John Stanfa,...]]>344falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/66-randy-kraft--73044954Randy Steven Kraft (born March 19, 1945) is an American serial killer and rapist known as the Scorecard Killer, the Southern California Strangler, and the Freeway Killer, who committed the rape, torture, and murder of a minimum of sixteen young men between 1972 and 1983, the majority of whom he killed in California. Kraft is also believed to have committed the rape and murder of up to fifty-one other young men and boys. He was convicted in May 1989 and is currently incarcerated on death row at the California Institution for Men, in San Bernardino County, California.  
Kraft became known as the "Scorecard Killer" because upon his arrest, investigators discovered a coded list with sixty-one entries on a scorecard containing cryptic references to his victims; he is also sometimes referred to as the "Freeway Killer" because many of his victims' bodies were discovered beside or near freeways.  

Early life.  
Childhood.  
Randy Kraft was born in Long Beach, California, on March 19, 1945, the fourth child and only son of Opal Lee (née Beal) and Harold Herbert Kraft. Kraft's father had moved to California from Wyoming weeks after the United States' entry into World War II. Upon finding employment as a production operative at Douglas Aircraft Company, he was joined by his wife and three daughters.  
The Kraft family lived modestly, and Kraft's mother took several jobs to supplement her husband's assembly-line salary. Kraft's mother initially found employment as a seamstress in a Westminster garment factory before later obtaining employment as a cook in a local school. Nonetheless, Opal Kraft always found time for her children; in contrast, Kraft's father seldom attended any social gatherings with them and was later described as being "distanced" from his family. As a child, Kraft was doted on by his three older sisters and mother, although he was known to be accident-prone.  
In 1948, the Kraft family moved from Long Beach to Midway City in neighboring Orange County. Their home was a small, wood-frame Women's Army Corps dormitory on Beach Boulevard that Kraft's father renovated into a three-bedroom house. The family became active in the Westminster First Presbyterian Church, with Kraft's mother rising to the chairman of the deacons committee.  
In Midway City, Kraft attended Midway City Elementary school, where his mother was a member of the PTA. His intelligence was noted by classmates and teachers and by 1957, Kraft was judged intelligent enough to attend accelerated classes at 17th Street Junior High School.  

Adolescence and graduation.  
By adolescence, Kraft had taken a keen interest in politics, becoming a staunch Republican and aspiring to become a U.S. senator. Shortly after his enrollment at Westminster High School, he and two close friends founded the Westminster World Affairs Club. At Westminster High, Kraft was again regarded as a pleasant, bright student who regularly achieved A grades in addition to being a varsity tennis player. He was also known to occasionally date girls, although some classmates and teachers later stated that they had suspected Kraft was homosexual.  
Kraft later stated he had known from his high school days that he was homosexual, although he initially kept his sexual orientation a secret. On June 13, 1963, he graduated tenth in his class of 390 students. That fall, he enrolled at Claremont Men's College in Claremont, California, where he pursued a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.  

Claremont Men's College.  
Shortly after his enrollment at Claremont, Kraft enrolled in the Reserve Officers Training Corps and regularly attended demonstrations in support of the Vietnam War and—in 1964—campaign rallies for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. He later declared these actions were merely a simulation of his parents' political views and not his own, describing his second year at Claremont as being when he abandoned the "last gasp" of his conservative ideology. The same year, Kraft entered his first known homosexual relationship.  
In 1964, Kraft began working as a bartender at a local Garden Grove cocktail lounge that catered to gay clientele; he was also known to regularly travel to Laguna Beach and Huntington Beach to have casual sex with hustlers. In an apparent tentative effort to reveal his sexual orientation to his parents, Kraft took a succession of male "friends" to meet his family during his years at Claremont. Initially, Kraft's parents and sisters were oblivious to his homosexuality.  
In 1966, Kraft was arrested and charged with lewd conduct after propositioning an undercover police officer in Huntington Beach; as he had no previous criminal record, no charges were filed. The following year, he developed a radical shift in his political beliefs, becoming an ardent supporter of liberal views and eventually registering as a Democrat in 1967. Kraft quickly became a Democratic Party organizer, campaigning tirelessly for the election of Robert F. Kennedy and receiving a personal letter from the senator thanking him for his efforts.  
By his senior year, Kraft had become a lackadaisical student, drinking, taking drugs, and regularly attending all-night gambling and poker sessions with other students. The lack of commitment to his studies in his final year resulted in Kraft's failing to graduate from Claremont in June 1967 and being forced to repeat his econometrics class, which postponed his graduation by eight months. In February 1968, Kraft graduated from Claremont Men's College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.  

U.S. Air Force.  
Four months after graduating from college, Kraft joined the United States Air Force. He was sent to basic training in Texas before being stationed at Edwards Air Force Base in southern California, where he supervised the painting of test planes.  During his service in the Air Force, Kraft rose to the rank of Airman First Class and supervisor-manager.  
The same year that Kraft became an Airman First Class, he came out to his family. In a letter he wrote to a friend, Kraft described his father as having flown "into a rage," whereas he described his mother as being more understanding, if somewhat disapproving. Kraft's family ultimately accepted his sexuality, and he remained in close contact with his parents and siblings, although his siblings noted he began to "distance himself" from his family after he had disclosed his sexuality to them.  
On July 26, 1969, Kraft announced his sexual orientation to his superiors. He was then granted a general discharge after only 13 months of service. His dismissal was officially listed as being on "medical" grounds. In response, Kraft sought legal advice from an attorney to challenge the grounds regarding his discharge. The Air Force, however, refused to change the status of his discharge. Following his discharge, Kraft moved back into his parents' home and obtained work as a bartender. 

First known sexual assault.  
In March 1970, Kraft encountered a 13-year-old Westminster youth named Joseph Alvin Fancher at Huntington Beach. Fancher explained to Kraft that he had run away from home that day. Kraft invited the youth to his apartment, promising that Fancher could live with him and offering him sex with a woman he claimed to know. Fancher agreed and accompanied Kraft to his Belmont Shore apartment, where he was drugged, beaten, and repeatedly sexually assaulted. Hours later, Fancher escaped from the apartment after Kraft left to go to work. A member of the public, alarmed by Fancher's drugged and disheveled condition, called an ambulance. Fancher's stomach needed to be pumped.  
At the hospital, Fancher informed police that Kraft had given him drugs and beaten him. He did not disclose to either his parents or the police that he had been sexually assaulted due to shame and fearing no one would believe him. A search of Kraft's apartment was conducted with the cooperation of his roommate. However, as Fancher had confessed to police he had taken the pills offered to him voluntarily and the officers had searched without a warrant, no charges were filed.  
Enrollment at California State University.  
In 1971, Kraft found new employment as a forklift driver in Huntington Beach. After his military discharge two years earlier, he enrolled at California State University, Long Beach, majoring in education to further his career prospects. There, Kraft became acquainted with Jeffrey Paul Graves, a fellow teaching student from Minnesota four years younger than Kraft, with whom he began a relationship.  

Murders.  
Between 1971 and 1983, Kraft is believed to have killed 67 people. All of his suspected victims were males between the ages of 14 and 30, the majority of whom were in their late teens to mid-twenties. Kraft was charged with—and convicted of—sixteen of these homicides, all of which had occurred between 1972 and 1983. Many of his victims were members of the United States Marines Corps, and most of their bodies were found to have high levels of both alcohol and tranquilizers, indicating they had been unconscious when they were abused and killed.  
Kraft's victims were typically lured into his vehicle with an offer of a lift or alcohol. The victims would be plied with alcohol and/or other drugs. They were then bound, tortured, and sexually abused before they were killed, usually by either strangulation, asphyxiation, or bludgeoning. However, some victims had also ingested lethal doses of pharmaceuticals. At least one victim was stabbed to death. The victims would then be discarded, usually—though not exclusively—alongside or close to various freeways in southern California. Photographic evidence found at Kraft's home indicates several of his victims were driven to his house before their murder......

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73044954Sat, 18 Jul 2026 15:47:29 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Randy Kraft.   Randy Steven Kraft (born March 19, 1945) is an American serial killer and rapist known as the Scorecard Killer, the Southern California Strangler, and the Freeway Killer, who committed the rape, torture, and murder of a minimum of...Randy Steven Kraft (born March 19, 1945) is an American serial killer and rapist known as the Scorecard Killer, the Southern California Strangler, and the Freeway Killer, who committed the rape, torture, and murder of a minimum of sixteen young men between 1972 and 1983, the majority of whom he killed in California. Kraft is also believed to have committed the rape and murder of up to fifty-one other young men and boys. He was convicted in May 1989 and is currently incarcerated on death row at the California Institution for Men, in San Bernardino County, California.  
Kraft became known as the "Scorecard Killer" because upon his arrest, investigators discovered a coded list with sixty-one entries on a scorecard containing cryptic references to his victims; he is also sometimes referred to as the "Freeway Killer" because many of his victims' bodies were discovered beside or near freeways.  

Early life.  
Childhood.  
Randy Kraft was born in Long Beach, California, on March 19, 1945, the fourth child and only son of Opal Lee (née Beal) and Harold Herbert Kraft. Kraft's father had moved to California from Wyoming weeks after the United States' entry into World War II. Upon finding employment as a production operative at Douglas Aircraft Company, he was joined by his wife and three daughters.  
The Kraft family lived modestly, and Kraft's mother took several jobs to supplement her husband's assembly-line salary. Kraft's mother initially found employment as a seamstress in a Westminster garment factory before later obtaining employment as a cook in a local school. Nonetheless, Opal Kraft always found time for her children; in contrast, Kraft's father seldom attended any social gatherings with them and was later described as being "distanced" from his family. As a child, Kraft was doted on by his three older sisters and mother, although he was known to be accident-prone.  
In 1948, the Kraft family moved from Long Beach to Midway City in neighboring Orange County. Their home was a small, wood-frame Women's Army Corps dormitory on Beach Boulevard that Kraft's father renovated into a three-bedroom house. The family became active in the Westminster First Presbyterian Church, with Kraft's mother rising to the chairman of the deacons committee.  
In Midway City, Kraft attended Midway City Elementary school, where his mother was a member of the PTA. His intelligence was noted by classmates and teachers and by 1957, Kraft was judged intelligent enough to attend accelerated classes at 17th Street Junior High School.  

Adolescence and graduation.  
By adolescence, Kraft had taken a keen interest in politics, becoming a staunch Republican and aspiring to become a U.S. senator. Shortly after his enrollment at Westminster High School, he and two close friends founded the Westminster World Affairs Club. At Westminster High, Kraft was again regarded as a pleasant, bright student who regularly achieved A grades in addition to being a varsity tennis player. He was also known to occasionally date girls, although some classmates and teachers later stated that they had suspected Kraft was homosexual.  
Kraft later stated he had known from his high school days that he was homosexual, although he initially kept his sexual orientation a secret. On June 13, 1963, he graduated tenth in his class of 390 students. That fall, he enrolled at Claremont Men's College in Claremont, California, where he pursued a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.  

Claremont Men's College.  
Shortly after his enrollment at Claremont, Kraft enrolled in the Reserve Officers Training Corps and regularly attended demonstrations in support of the Vietnam War and—in 1964—campaign rallies for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. He later declared these actions were merely a simulation of his parents' political views and not his own, describing his second year at...]]>3574falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/65-lynn-eusan--73044036Lynn Cecilia Eusan (October 11, 1948 – September 10, 1971) was an American activist and the first black Homecoming queen at the University of Houston, where she studied journalism, and the first black woman to earn the title at any predominantly white college or university in the Southern United States. Only seven years earlier, UH had been an all-white institution, not integrating until the 1962–63 academic year. In 1971, less than three years after that Homecoming ceremony, she was found dead in the back of a stranger's car. Her death was believed to be a murder, and no one was ever found guilty for her death. A park at the university is named in her honor.  

Personal life.  
Eusan was born on October 11, 1948, in Galveston County, Texas. Her parents, Ida Mae (Boudreaux) Eusan and Wilbur Thirkield Eusan, Sr., were working class. Eusan and her four siblings grew up in San Antonio, Texas.  
She graduated from Phillis Wheatley High School in 1966 and immediately enrolled at the University of Houston.  

University of Houston.  
At the University of Houston, Eusan was involved in the Spirit of Houston marching band and worked as a reporter and photojournalist. She majored in education and journalism.  
She helped organize the Committee on Better Race Relations at UH, which aimed to "promote racial harmony among the students on the university's campus." One year later, Eusan co-founded African Americans for Black Liberation, which replaced to COBRR. That organization was started with hopes to bring together other races and surrounding communities, including the surrounding Third Ward neighborhood and nearby historically black university Texas Southern University. The group also fund raised for scholarships and created summer programs for black youth.  
Eusan was a charter member of the Epsilon Lamba chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha. She also co-founded SHAPE (Self Help for African People through Education) Community Center in the Third Ward.  
On November 22, 1968, Eusan was crowned UH's Homecoming queen over five other white candidates in the Astrodome, becoming the first black homecoming queen at a white Southern university. The African Americans for Black Liberation ran her campaign. The Daily Cougar, the student newspaper, endorsed her candidacy. She continued to advocate for civil rights and black pride as Homecoming queen.  
In the weeks leading up to the Homecoming game, Eusan received death threats and white fraternities mocked her in minstrel shows. Through the mocking, Eusan stayed positive. In an interview with the Houston Chronicle two weeks later, Eusan said, "This was the first time black students on the campus have banded together and really been effective against overwhelming odds."  
In February 1969, Eusan and 100 other members of the AABL marched to UH President Phillip G. Hoffman's office and presented a list of 10 demands, which included:  
- Creation of an African-American studies program.  
- Hiring more black faculty and staff.  
- Efforts to recruit and retain black students. Pay equity and better conditions for menial workers.  
- Support for inner-city youth programs.  
Hoffman agreed to some of the group's demands. The same year, the university started the African-American studies program the AABL requested.  
Twice, Eusan was arrested for demonstrating. In 1969, she was charged with destruction of public property for her role in a riot on the UH campus. The charges were later dropped. In 1967, she was arrested during a demonstration for better conditions for children in the Sunnyside neighborhood.  

Murder.  
After graduating from UH in 1970, Eusan got a job reporting with Voice of Hope, the media arm of HOPE Development, Inc., in the Fifth Ward. She contributed to Black Enterprise magazine and worked as a secretary. Eusan planned to attend graduate school in North Carolina. The last time anyone saw Eusan, she was waiting at a bus stop in windy, rainy weather on the evening of September 10, 1971.  
On September 10, 1971, a car driven by Leo Jackson, Jr. collided with a police vehicle. In the back seat, police found Eusan's body; she had been stabbed several times. Jackson claimed that Eusan had been "hysterical", assaulted him, and then stabbed herself, and that he was on his way to the hospital.  
Jackson had been arrested 14 times prior to the incident for charges including rape and armed robbery. Jackson was charged with Eusan's murder, but in 1972, a jury acquitted him. Since then, no one has been charged in connection with Eusan's death.  

Legacy.  
Eusan was buried in the African American Cemetery on the east side of San Antonio. A public memorial service was held at UH.  
The sorority Eusan helped charter, Alpha Kappa Alpha, is still active at the university.  
The SHAPE Community Center is still active in the Third Ward. The center mobilized voters to elect Houston's first black mayor, organizes an annual Pan African Cultural Festival, and contributed to efforts to build the Third Ward Multi-Service Center.  
Three years after Eusan's death, the University of Houston Board of Regents named a park in her honor, called the Lynn Eusan Park. Until the 1980s, the park was home to the university's live mascot, a cougar named Shasta, who resided in a cage. In 2013, the university built a modern stage for the park equipped with lights and a sound system. The park is a hub of student life and activity at the university. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73044036Sat, 18 Jul 2026 13:18:31 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Lynn Eusan.   Lynn Cecilia Eusan (October 11, 1948 – September 10, 1971) was an American activist and the first black Homecoming queen at the University of Houston, where she studied journalism, and the first black woman to earn the title at any...Lynn Cecilia Eusan (October 11, 1948 – September 10, 1971) was an American activist and the first black Homecoming queen at the University of Houston, where she studied journalism, and the first black woman to earn the title at any predominantly white college or university in the Southern United States. Only seven years earlier, UH had been an all-white institution, not integrating until the 1962–63 academic year. In 1971, less than three years after that Homecoming ceremony, she was found dead in the back of a stranger's car. Her death was believed to be a murder, and no one was ever found guilty for her death. A park at the university is named in her honor.  

Personal life.  
Eusan was born on October 11, 1948, in Galveston County, Texas. Her parents, Ida Mae (Boudreaux) Eusan and Wilbur Thirkield Eusan, Sr., were working class. Eusan and her four siblings grew up in San Antonio, Texas.  
She graduated from Phillis Wheatley High School in 1966 and immediately enrolled at the University of Houston.  

University of Houston.  
At the University of Houston, Eusan was involved in the Spirit of Houston marching band and worked as a reporter and photojournalist. She majored in education and journalism.  
She helped organize the Committee on Better Race Relations at UH, which aimed to "promote racial harmony among the students on the university's campus." One year later, Eusan co-founded African Americans for Black Liberation, which replaced to COBRR. That organization was started with hopes to bring together other races and surrounding communities, including the surrounding Third Ward neighborhood and nearby historically black university Texas Southern University. The group also fund raised for scholarships and created summer programs for black youth.  
Eusan was a charter member of the Epsilon Lamba chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha. She also co-founded SHAPE (Self Help for African People through Education) Community Center in the Third Ward.  
On November 22, 1968, Eusan was crowned UH's Homecoming queen over five other white candidates in the Astrodome, becoming the first black homecoming queen at a white Southern university. The African Americans for Black Liberation ran her campaign. The Daily Cougar, the student newspaper, endorsed her candidacy. She continued to advocate for civil rights and black pride as Homecoming queen.  
In the weeks leading up to the Homecoming game, Eusan received death threats and white fraternities mocked her in minstrel shows. Through the mocking, Eusan stayed positive. In an interview with the Houston Chronicle two weeks later, Eusan said, "This was the first time black students on the campus have banded together and really been effective against overwhelming odds."  
In February 1969, Eusan and 100 other members of the AABL marched to UH President Phillip G. Hoffman's office and presented a list of 10 demands, which included:  
- Creation of an African-American studies program.  
- Hiring more black faculty and staff.  
- Efforts to recruit and retain black students. Pay equity and better conditions for menial workers.  
- Support for inner-city youth programs.  
Hoffman agreed to some of the group's demands. The same year, the university started the African-American studies program the AABL requested.  
Twice, Eusan was arrested for demonstrating. In 1969, she was charged with destruction of public property for her role in a riot on the UH campus. The charges were later dropped. In 1967, she was arrested during a demonstration for better conditions for children in the Sunnyside neighborhood.  

Murder.  
After graduating from UH in 1970, Eusan got a job reporting with Voice of Hope, the media arm of HOPE Development, Inc., in the Fifth Ward. She contributed to Black Enterprise magazine and worked as a secretary. Eusan planned to attend graduate school in North Carolina....]]>388falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/64-texas-killing-fields--73031019The Texas Killing Fields is a title used to denote the area surrounding the Interstate 45 (I-45) corridor southeast of Houston, where since the early 1970s, 34 bodies have been found, and specifically to a 25-acre (10 ha) patch of land in League City, Texas, United States, where four women were found between 1983 and 1991. The bodies along the corridor were mainly of girls or young women. Furthermore, many additional young girls have disappeared from this area who are still missing. Most of the victims were aged between 12 and 25 years. Some shared similar physical features, such as similar hairstyles.  
Despite efforts by the League City Police Department, along with the assistance of the FBI, very few of these murders have been solved. The area has been described as "a perfect place [for] killing somebody and getting away with it". After visiting some of the sites of recovered bodies in League City, Ami Canaan Mann, director of the film Texas Killing Fields, commented: "You could actually see the refineries that are in the south end of League City. You could see I-45. But if you yelled, no one would necessarily hear you. And if you ran, there wouldn't necessarily be anywhere to go." A task force composed of local law enforcement officials and FBI agents, called Operation HALT (Homicide/Abduction Liaison Team), has been formed to investigate the incidents.  

Victims.  
Confirmed or suspected victims, listed chronologically :  
- Colette Anise Wilson, 13, disappeared from the Alvin Bus Stop on County Road 99 and State Highway 6 in Alvin, Texas, after she was dropped off by her band director on June 17, 1971. Her body was found five months later on November 26, 1971, near the Addicks Reservoir, just 35 yards (32 m) from the location where the body of Gloria Gonzales was discovered four months later.  
- Brenda Kaye Jones, 14, was last seen while walking to Galveston hospital, close to I-45 on her way to visit her aunt on July 1, 1971, in Galveston, Texas. Her body was found on July 2, 1971, floating in nearby Galveston Bay near Pelican Island, close to the Seawolf Parkway and near I-45.  
- Rhonda Renee Johnson, 14, and Sharon Lynn Shaw, 13, disappeared in Harris County, Texas, on the afternoon of August 4, 1971. Both were last seen walking along Seawall Boulevard in Galveston near a local beach. On January 3, 1972, two boys fishing in Clear Lake discovered a human skull floating in the water, which they had initially believed to be a sports ball. Six weeks later, searchers discovered the rest of the body, along with that of another girl, in a marsh near the lake. According to a coroner's inquest filed on February 17, 1972, the skull found in the lake was determined via dental records to have belonged to Shaw. Additionally, a crucifix found wrapped around the jawbone of the skull was identified by Shaw's mother to have belonged to her daughter. The other body found in the marsh was positively identified as Johnson.  
- Gloria Ann Gonzales, 19, was last seen on October 28, 1971, near her apartment on Jacquelyn Street in Houston, Texas. Her skeletal remains were found near Addicks Reservoir in the same area as Colette Wilson on November 23, 1971.  
- Allison Anne Craven, 12, was reported missing by her mother on November 9, 1971, when she returned to their apartment in Houston, Texas near I-45 after completing shopping errands for one hour. Three months later police found Craven's partial remains in a nearby field, two hands along with bones from an arm and some teeth. On February 25, 1972, the rest of her skeleton was found in a Pearland, Texas field, also near I-45 and 10 miles (16 km) from where she was last seen.  
- Debbie Catherine Ackerman and Maria Talbot Johnson, both 15, were last seen attempting to hitchhike to Houston, Texas near an island ice cream shop in Galveston, Texas on November 15, 1971. Witnesses reported seeing a man in a white van stopping by the curb side and picking up the girls after agreeing to drive them to Houston. Their bodies were found bound and partially nude in Turner's Bayou on November 17, 1971, near Texas City.  
- Kimberly Raye Pitchford, 16, was last seen at Dobie High School in Houston, Texas while she was there for a driving test on January 3, 1973. Her body was found by two teenaged boys two days later in a ditch in Angleton, Texas around noon on County Road 65 in Brazoria County on January 5, 1973.  
- Brooks Bracewell, 12, and Georgia Caroline Geer, 14, were both last seen at the UtoteM convenience store off I-45 on September 6, 1974. At the time of their disappearance, police insisted that Bracewell and Geer were runaways, only beginning to investigate foul play in 1981. In 1976, partial skeletal remains  were not connected to Bracewell and Geer at the time, and were only identified as Bracewell after a new detective took over the case in 1981. The ditch where they were originally found was reexamined on April 3, 1981, and more remains were found as well as the fragments of a gold sweater and plaid pants.  
- Suzanne "Suzie" Bowers, 12, was last seen walking along a route between her grandmother's house at the 4000 block of Avenue S 1/2, about 1 mile to her own home at the 3100 block of Avenue P at around 10:45 a.m. On May 21, 1977, in Galveston, Texas. The seventh grader was going home to get her swimsuit to go to the beach. Her skeletal remains were found two years later in Alta Loma, Texas on March 25, 1979.  
- Tina Gail Clouse, 17, and Harold Dean Clouse Jr., 21, were found on January 12, 1981, in northern Harris County in a boggy, wooded area just north of the Houston city limits. A civilian's dog let to wander into the woods returned to its owner with a decomposing human arm. Search parties prompted by the dog's discovery subsequently found the heavily decomposed bodies of the Clouse couple near Wallisville Road. Despite significant decomposition, it was determined that both were victims of homicide. Tina had been strangled, and Harold had been bound and gagged before being beaten to death. In 2021, forensic genealogists positively identified Dean and Tina, and in 2022, their daughter Holly Marie was located alive in Oklahoma.  
- Michelle Angela Garvey, 15, went missing from New London, Connecticut, presumably after running away from home, on June 1, 1982, at the age of 14. Garvey's body was found on July 1, 1982, in Baytown, Texas, one month after she went missing. The cause of death of the victim was determined to be strangulation. There was evidence that Garvey had been sexually assaulted. Her body was found wearing brown clothing, including a long-sleeved, button-down shirt with a distinct horse embroidery on the breast pocket. The body was disposed of in a field after she died, possibly hours after her murder. She was buried near two other unidentified murder victims found in 1981 who were identified in 2021 as Dean and Tina Clouse. Garvey was identified in January 2014, through the efforts of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Harris County Police Department, who had contacted her family and obtained samples of their DNA for testing in August 2013.  
- Susan Lee Eads, 20, was a cocktail waitress who left her family home in Harris County at around 4:30 p.m. on August 30, 1983, to her workplace. The following day, a motorist discovered her body a few miles from her home. Found naked, she had bruises on her back and face. Susan had been strangled to death with the bodysuit she was wearing, which had been used as a tourniquet. Her car was found parked adjacent to the vacant lot where she was found. An autopsy determined that she had been sexually assaulted. Eads was last seen at a local club with a white man wearing a cowboy hat. Her mother received phone calls from an unidentified man who claimed to have photos of her daughter. He referred to himself as "Bill", and said that he lived in Houston, Texas. A DNA profile extracted from Eads' body was matched to Arthur Raymond Davis Jr., a Vietnam War veteran and a boat captain. He died on January 16, 1984, after a single-vehicle accident.  
- Heidi Marie Villarreal-Fye, 25, was a cocktail waitress last seen on October 10, 1983, at a convenience store located off of West Main Street and Hobbs in League City, Texas. On April 4, 1984, Villarreal-Fye's remains were discovered after a dog brought her skull to a nearby house in Calder Field on the 3000 block of Calder Road near League City, Texas.  
- Sondra Kay Ramber, 14, was last seen at her family's home in Santa Fe, Texas on October 26, 1983. She was determined to be missing due to the fact that the front door was left open, food was in the oven, and her purse and coat were still in the house. She was initially believed to have gone to the store for a moment, but she never returned.  
- Laura Lynn Miller, 16, a sophomore at Clear Creek Highschool in League City, Texas. She had just moved to League City, Texas and was musically gifted. She had suffered from debilitating seizures that affected her career in choir. She was last seen on September 10, 1984, at the same convenience store Villarreal-Fye was last seen at a year earlier in League City, Texas, using a payphone to call her boyfriend. It took police 17 months but her remains were found on February 2, 1986, 60 ft away from where police had found Villarreal-Fye the year before. She was found in a remote wooded field off Calder Road in League City, Texas.  
- Ellen Rae Simpson Beason, 29, was last seen with friends on July 29, 1985, at the Texas Moon Club in League City, Texas, where she met local construction worker Clyde Hedrick. Later that evening, she told her friends that she and Hedrick had made plans to go swimming. Her decomposed remains were discovered underneath a sofa in a wooded area beside Old Causeway Road in Galveston County. The medical...

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73031019Fri, 17 Jul 2026 17:19:33 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Texas Killing Fields.   The Texas Killing Fields is a title used to denote the area surrounding the Interstate 45 (I-45) corridor southeast of Houston, where since the early 1970s, 34 bodies have been found, and specifically to a 25-acre (10 ha) patch...The Texas Killing Fields is a title used to denote the area surrounding the Interstate 45 (I-45) corridor southeast of Houston, where since the early 1970s, 34 bodies have been found, and specifically to a 25-acre (10 ha) patch of land in League City, Texas, United States, where four women were found between 1983 and 1991. The bodies along the corridor were mainly of girls or young women. Furthermore, many additional young girls have disappeared from this area who are still missing. Most of the victims were aged between 12 and 25 years. Some shared similar physical features, such as similar hairstyles.  
Despite efforts by the League City Police Department, along with the assistance of the FBI, very few of these murders have been solved. The area has been described as "a perfect place [for] killing somebody and getting away with it". After visiting some of the sites of recovered bodies in League City, Ami Canaan Mann, director of the film Texas Killing Fields, commented: "You could actually see the refineries that are in the south end of League City. You could see I-45. But if you yelled, no one would necessarily hear you. And if you ran, there wouldn't necessarily be anywhere to go." A task force composed of local law enforcement officials and FBI agents, called Operation HALT (Homicide/Abduction Liaison Team), has been formed to investigate the incidents.  

Victims.  
Confirmed or suspected victims, listed chronologically :  
- Colette Anise Wilson, 13, disappeared from the Alvin Bus Stop on County Road 99 and State Highway 6 in Alvin, Texas, after she was dropped off by her band director on June 17, 1971. Her body was found five months later on November 26, 1971, near the Addicks Reservoir, just 35 yards (32 m) from the location where the body of Gloria Gonzales was discovered four months later.  
- Brenda Kaye Jones, 14, was last seen while walking to Galveston hospital, close to I-45 on her way to visit her aunt on July 1, 1971, in Galveston, Texas. Her body was found on July 2, 1971, floating in nearby Galveston Bay near Pelican Island, close to the Seawolf Parkway and near I-45.  
- Rhonda Renee Johnson, 14, and Sharon Lynn Shaw, 13, disappeared in Harris County, Texas, on the afternoon of August 4, 1971. Both were last seen walking along Seawall Boulevard in Galveston near a local beach. On January 3, 1972, two boys fishing in Clear Lake discovered a human skull floating in the water, which they had initially believed to be a sports ball. Six weeks later, searchers discovered the rest of the body, along with that of another girl, in a marsh near the lake. According to a coroner's inquest filed on February 17, 1972, the skull found in the lake was determined via dental records to have belonged to Shaw. Additionally, a crucifix found wrapped around the jawbone of the skull was identified by Shaw's mother to have belonged to her daughter. The other body found in the marsh was positively identified as Johnson.  
- Gloria Ann Gonzales, 19, was last seen on October 28, 1971, near her apartment on Jacquelyn Street in Houston, Texas. Her skeletal remains were found near Addicks Reservoir in the same area as Colette Wilson on November 23, 1971.  
- Allison Anne Craven, 12, was reported missing by her mother on November 9, 1971, when she returned to their apartment in Houston, Texas near I-45 after completing shopping errands for one hour. Three months later police found Craven's partial remains in a nearby field, two hands along with bones from an arm and some teeth. On February 25, 1972, the rest of her skeleton was found in a Pearland, Texas field, also near I-45 and 10 miles (16 km) from where she was last seen.  
- Debbie Catherine Ackerman and Maria Talbot Johnson, both 15, were last seen attempting to hitchhike to Houston, Texas near an island ice cream shop in Galveston, Texas on November 15, 1971. Witnesses reported seeing a man in a...]]>1970falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/63-hazelwood-massacre--73028922The Hazelwood massacre was a mass murder that occurred on June 14, 1971, in which eight people were shot and killed in a house on Hazelwood Street in Detroit, Michigan. It is the largest mass murder in Detroit's history.  
Police believed that one of the victims, heroin dealer and pimp Robert Gardner, was the target and that the others were killed to avoid leaving witnesses. Police further believed that Gardner had robbed two Toronto drug dealers while they were visiting Detroit in March 1971 and that the Toronto dealers took out a hit on Gardner in revenge. It remains officially unsolved.  

Crime.  
On June 14, 1971, shortly before 4:30 a.m., eight persons were shot in the living room of an apartment at a red-brick house located at 1970 Hazelwood Street in Detroit. Seven of the victims died immediately. The massacre occurred near 12th Street, the focal point of the 1967 Detroit riot.  
Police received calls from neighbors who heard the shots. They also received a call from the wife of Robert Gardner, who reported that she entered the house, found her husband had been shot, and drove him to Henry Ford Hospital. She reported, "There's a bloodbath in that house and you better send some police."  
The seven victims who died at the scene were:  
- Katherine Louise Winston, age 19, of 2482 Hazelwood St. Detroit.  
- Narcissa Lee "Tessie" Brown, age 19, of 2242 Hazelwood St., Detroit.  
- Katherine Betty Basser, age 22, also known as Katherine Vassar and Shelia Williams, of 1600 Seward, Detroit.  
- Sharon Brown, age 20, also known as Jacquelynn Foster and Linda Johnson, of 5618 14th Street, Detroit.  
- Romandel Burton, age 24, of 69 Portage, Highland Park, and a security guard at Tiger Stadium.  
- Carl Carrington Mounts Jr., age 27, also known as Robert Lee Gough, of 2708 West Grand Boulevard, Detroit.  
- Lloyd "Taboo" Tyler, 27, of 1975 Webb, Detroit.  
All seven were shot in the head at close range; cartridges were recovered from guns with three different calibers. Analysis of the cartridges identified the murder weapons as a .30-caliber carbine, a .32-caliber semi-automatic pistol, and a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol.  
Three of the women had their hands tied in front with rubber surgical tubing, and one of the women had her arms wrapped around another's waist. All of the bodies were found in the living room. Two of the men appeared to have been sitting on the floor, and their heads fell into the fireplace after being shot. Another was leaning against the couch. Three of the women were on the couch, and the fourth woman was near the couch.  
The eighth victim, Robert Gardner, was shot in the mouth, chest and stomach. He fell approximately 10 ft (3.0 m) from the front door. Police theorized that he answered the door and was shot as he backed away from the shooters. Gardner was taken to Henry Ford Hospital where he died from his wounds six days later, on June 20. All eight victims were African-American.  
Three other occupants of the apartment, two women and one man, escaped by breaking through the rear window of a sun porch and fleeing down an alley. They came to police headquarters afterward. The killings became commonly known as the "Hazelwood massacre".  

Investigation.  
Immediate findings and theories.  
Four men were seen fleeing the house; witnesses described them as wearing windbreakers and tam o' shanter hats. Inside, police found 11 guns (five handguns, five long guns, and a shotgun), none of which had been fired recently. Subsequent analysis confirmed that the guns in the house were not used in the massacre.  
Police also found packets of a substance believed to be heroin, as well as paraphernalia, including spoons, tin foil, and hypodermic needles. A total of $673 ($5,400 in 2022 dollars) in cash was found on the victims, including five $100 bills.  
Vera Gibson, who lived with her husband and children in the apartment directly above the murder scene, said she woke to the sound of breaking glass, presumed to be the sound of the three survivors breaking the sun porch window, and then heard several gunshots a few minutes later. Gibson then heard Mrs. Gardner run upstairs, reporting that her husband had been shot, and asking to use the phone. However, the Gibsons had no telephone. Gibson described the Gardners as a "pleasant couple" who had moved in recently. Neighbors reported that young people had recently been seen going in and out of the house, during the night.  
A team of 20 detectives, led by homicide inspector James Bannon, was assigned to the investigation. Inspector Bannon described the apartment as a suspected narcotics den. He said that four of the seven killed had criminal records for narcotics and prostitution. One of the victims, Lloyd Tyler, had multiple felony convictions, including a 1968 robbery of a jewelry store that ended in a shootout with police. He was a heroin addict who had been ordered to enter a federal narcotics treatment center in Kentucky as a condition of probation, but it rejected him due to his "anti-social behavior".  
Bannon called it "an execution-type slaying". He added that they were mystified at the "sedentary", even placid, positions of the seven bodies, noting that one man was found with a cigarette in his hand and dollar bills on his lap.  
In the days immediately following the shooting, police rejected the notion that the massacre was a robbery, as the perpetrators left both money and drugs untouched at the scene. Instead, police theorized that someone who had been sold fake heroin by Gardner returned for revenge and that the other seven victims were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The revenge theory was supported by the discovery in the apartment of a quantity of a substance that was initially thought to be heroin but which proved to be milk sugar and quinine. They later began pursuing leads indicating that Gardner may have robbed other drug dealers.  

Shooting of Gerald Williams.  
Police later opined that Gardner was the target of the attack. Police described the other victims as Gardner's associates, three dealers and four prostitutes, who were killed in order to eliminate them as witnesses. Police described Gardner and another individual, Gerald Williams, as "middle-rank heroin dealers". Based on its investigation, the Detroit Free Press reported that Gardner was both a heroin dealer and a pimp.  
Four days after the Hazelwood massacre, Williams was shot six times and killed at a motel on the west side of Detroit. Police believed that Williams had set up Gardner, telling the gunmen where to find him. Police suspected that Williams may even have been in the apartment on Hazelwood at the time of the massacre and that he was subsequently killed to eliminate him as a witness.  

Toronto connection.  
A few days into the investigation, police began following a lead tying the massacre to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. A team of homicide detectives was sent there.  
Sources informed the Detroit Free Press in late June that Williams was supplying heroin to dealers in Toronto, but the Toronto dealers were angry that Williams was diluting the heroin. Gardner then took over supplying the Canadians, but he was also suspected of diluting the product.  
Unhappy with the diluted heroin being supplied by Williams and Gardner, the Toronto dealers in March had traveled with a representative to Detroit to search for a new source of supply. Gardner learned of the plan and kidnapped the representative from a taxi cab. Gardner then used the man to gain access to a motel room where the two Toronto dealers were staying. Gardner and an accomplice reportedly then robbed the dealers, getting away with approximately $13,000 in cash, $4,000 in jewelry, and $3,000 to $4,000 in cocaine. Rather than killing them, Gardner then released the dealers and their agent.  
In retaliation, the Toronto dealers reportedly hired gunmen to kill Gardner. Gardner got wind of the planned hit and moved from his apartment at 2635 Cortland to a house at 95 Portage in Highland Park. The Highland Park location was reportedly used by two of the other victims (Lloyd Tyler and Romandel Burton) to sell heroin for Gardner. Seeking to remain on the move, Gardner relocated to the apartment on Hazelwood. He had also traveled to New York City, but was reportedly lured back to Detroit by a phone call from Williams advising Gardner of a potentially profitable drug deal.  

Aftermath.  
At the time it occurred, the Hazelwood massacre was "the biggest mass slaying in Detroit's history". It was part of a record year for murders in Detroit, many tied to drug wars, with the final death toll for 1971 reaching 690. During the 1970s, Detroit led the nation in homicides and became known as "Murder City".  
As of 2001, the Hazelwood massacre remained the worst mass killing in Detroit's history. In 1990, five people were fatally shot, and another critically injured, at a reputed crack house in northeast Detroit. It was the worst mass murder in Detroit since the Hazelwood massacre.  
No one has ever been arrested, and the case remains open.  


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73028922Fri, 17 Jul 2026 14:55:30 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Hazelwood massacre.   The Hazelwood massacre was a mass murder that occurred on June 14, 1971, in which eight people were shot and killed in a house on Hazelwood Street in Detroit, Michigan. It is the largest mass murder in Detroit's history.   Police...The Hazelwood massacre was a mass murder that occurred on June 14, 1971, in which eight people were shot and killed in a house on Hazelwood Street in Detroit, Michigan. It is the largest mass murder in Detroit's history.  
Police believed that one of the victims, heroin dealer and pimp Robert Gardner, was the target and that the others were killed to avoid leaving witnesses. Police further believed that Gardner had robbed two Toronto drug dealers while they were visiting Detroit in March 1971 and that the Toronto dealers took out a hit on Gardner in revenge. It remains officially unsolved.  

Crime.  
On June 14, 1971, shortly before 4:30 a.m., eight persons were shot in the living room of an apartment at a red-brick house located at 1970 Hazelwood Street in Detroit. Seven of the victims died immediately. The massacre occurred near 12th Street, the focal point of the 1967 Detroit riot.  
Police received calls from neighbors who heard the shots. They also received a call from the wife of Robert Gardner, who reported that she entered the house, found her husband had been shot, and drove him to Henry Ford Hospital. She reported, "There's a bloodbath in that house and you better send some police."  
The seven victims who died at the scene were:  
- Katherine Louise Winston, age 19, of 2482 Hazelwood St. Detroit.  
- Narcissa Lee "Tessie" Brown, age 19, of 2242 Hazelwood St., Detroit.  
- Katherine Betty Basser, age 22, also known as Katherine Vassar and Shelia Williams, of 1600 Seward, Detroit.  
- Sharon Brown, age 20, also known as Jacquelynn Foster and Linda Johnson, of 5618 14th Street, Detroit.  
- Romandel Burton, age 24, of 69 Portage, Highland Park, and a security guard at Tiger Stadium.  
- Carl Carrington Mounts Jr., age 27, also known as Robert Lee Gough, of 2708 West Grand Boulevard, Detroit.  
- Lloyd "Taboo" Tyler, 27, of 1975 Webb, Detroit.  
All seven were shot in the head at close range; cartridges were recovered from guns with three different calibers. Analysis of the cartridges identified the murder weapons as a .30-caliber carbine, a .32-caliber semi-automatic pistol, and a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol.  
Three of the women had their hands tied in front with rubber surgical tubing, and one of the women had her arms wrapped around another's waist. All of the bodies were found in the living room. Two of the men appeared to have been sitting on the floor, and their heads fell into the fireplace after being shot. Another was leaning against the couch. Three of the women were on the couch, and the fourth woman was near the couch.  
The eighth victim, Robert Gardner, was shot in the mouth, chest and stomach. He fell approximately 10 ft (3.0 m) from the front door. Police theorized that he answered the door and was shot as he backed away from the shooters. Gardner was taken to Henry Ford Hospital where he died from his wounds six days later, on June 20. All eight victims were African-American.  
Three other occupants of the apartment, two women and one man, escaped by breaking through the rear window of a sun porch and fleeing down an alley. They came to police headquarters afterward. The killings became commonly known as the "Hazelwood massacre".  

Investigation.  
Immediate findings and theories.  
Four men were seen fleeing the house; witnesses described them as wearing windbreakers and tam o' shanter hats. Inside, police found 11 guns (five handguns, five long guns, and a shotgun), none of which had been fired recently. Subsequent analysis confirmed that the guns in the house were not used in the massacre.  
Police also found packets of a substance believed to be heroin, as well as paraphernalia, including spoons, tin foil, and hypodermic needles. A total of $673 ($5,400 in 2022 dollars) in cash was found on the victims, including five $100 bills.  
Vera Gibson,...]]>637falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/62-freeway-phantom--73027807The Freeway Phantom is the pseudonym of an unidentified serial killer who murdered five girls and a woman in Washington, D.C., between April 1971 and September 1972.  

Murders.  
Carol Denise Spinks.  
On the evening of April 25, 1971, 13-year-old Spinks from Southeast was sent by an older sister to buy groceries at a 7-Eleven located a half-mile away from her home, just across the border in Maryland. On her way home from the store, Spinks was abducted; her body was found six days later at 2:46 pm behind St. Elizabeths Hospital on a grassy embankment next to the northbound lanes of I-295, about 1,500 feet south of Suitland Parkway. Examination revealed she had been both physically and sexually assaulted and strangled, was dressed but missing her shoes, and had only been killed a few days previously.  

Darlenia Denise Johnson.  
On July 8, 1971, Johnson, 16, from Congress Heights was abducted while en route to her summer job at Oxon Hill Recreation Center. One witness reported having seen Johnson in an old black car, driven by an African-American male, shortly after her abduction. Eleven days later, her body was located only 15 feet (4.6 meters) from where Spinks had been found even though police had been notified of the location of the corpse nearly a week earlier by an anonymous caller who had details only her killer could have known. By that time, Johnson's body (again dressed but without her shoes) was far too decomposed to determine the cause of death or if she had been sexually assaulted, but law enforcement was able to find evidence of strangulation.  

Brenda Faye Crockett.  
On July 27, 1971, 10-year-old Crockett from Northwest failed to return home after having been sent to the store by her mother.  About two hours later (around 9:20 pm) the Crocketts' phone rang and was answered by her 7-year-old sister, who had waited at home while her family searched the neighborhood. Crockett was on the other line, crying. "A white man picked me up, and I'm heading home in a cab," Crockett told her sister, adding that she believed she was in Virginia before abruptly saying, "Bye" and hanging up.  
A short time later, the phone rang again and was this time answered by the stepfather of Crockett. It was Crockett again, and she merely repeated what she'd said in the last telephone call, adding "Did my mother see me?" and indicating she was alone in a house with a white male. Her stepfather asked her to have the man come to the phone. Heavy footsteps were heard in the background and Crockett said "I'll see you" and hung up.  
Authorities quickly concluded that Crockett likely called her home at the behest of the killer, who fed her inaccurate information in order to buy the necessary time to perpetrate the crime, and to hamper the investigation. At 5:50 am the next day, a hitchhiker discovered Crockett's shoeless body in a conspicuous location on U.S. Route 50, near the Baltimore–Washington Parkway in Prince George's County, Maryland. She had been raped and strangled, and a scarf was knotted around her neck.  

Nenomoshia Yates.  
12-year-old Yates was walking home around 7:00 pm from a Safeway store in Northeast on October 1, 1971, when she was kidnapped, raped, and strangled. Her body was found within three hours of her abduction, just off the shoulder of Pennsylvania Avenue in Prince George's County, Maryland. As with the other cases, her shoes were missing and unidentified green fibers would also be found on her clothing. A witness apparently saw her getting into a blue Volkswagen, and although investigated, the lead led nowhere.  
It was after this murder that the "Freeway Phantom" moniker was first used in a Daily News article describing the murders.  

Brenda Denise Woodard.  
After having dinner with a high school classmate on November 15, 1971, Woodard, 18, from Baltimore boarded a city bus around 11:30 pm to return to her Maryland Avenue home. Approximately six hours later, a police officer discovered her body, which had been stabbed multiple times and strangled, in a grassy area near Prince George's County Hospital, along an access ramp to Route 202 from the Baltimore–Washington Parkway. Unlike the other victims, she was still wearing her shoes, and a coat had been placed over her chest. One of its pockets contained a note from the killer:  
"this is tAntAmount to my  
insensititivity [sic] to people  
especiAlly women.  
I will Admit the others  
wheN you cAtch me iF you cAn!  
FRee-wAy PhanTom"  
Based on handwriting samples, authorities surmised that the note, written on paper cut from the victim's school notebook, had been dictated to and handwritten by Woodard. They also speculated that, given the absence of indications of duress in the writing, apart from evidence of dysgraphia, she may have known her kidnapper.  

Diane Denise Williams.  
The Phantom's final victim was claimed almost a year later, on September 5, 1972. A 17-year-old Ballou High School senior, Williams cooked dinner for her family and then visited her boyfriend's house. She was last seen boarding a bus at 11:20 pm near his house. A few hours later, her strangled body was discovered dumped alongside I-295, just south of the District line. As with other victims, her shoes were missing, but no signs of sexual assault were found although traces of semen (assumed to be from the boyfriend) were found.  

Investigation.  
The Freeway Phantom case has seen a myriad of investigators and garnered much interest over the years. Numerous investigative tips came from the general public by a telephone hotline operated by the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPDC) and information also came by way of the mail. All these leads were investigated to their logical conclusion. Some leads were easily proven not to be viable, while others required substantial investigation. The investigation was conducted by a law enforcement task force that included Detectives from the MPDC Homicide and Sex Squads, investigators from Prince George's County and Montgomery County, Maryland, Maryland State Police, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).  
Common practice at the time was that case files at MPDC Detective Divisions were retained by the detectives assigned to the case. As a result, the Freeway Phantom case files are now incomplete – some have been discarded entirely and others are incomplete with pages or articles of evidence having been lost, along with their associated notes, and all the primary or task force investigators have either long retired, or are deceased. With current evidence and any information of the case from when it happened, no leads produced sufficient evidence for prosecution. This case, which has been closed and opened a number of times over its history, is currently open as a cold case in the MPDC Homicide Division. A reward of $150,000 remains open as well.  

Suspects.  
Green Vega Rapists.  
Among those individuals considered suspects were members of a gang known as the Green Vega Rapists. Members of this gang were collectively responsible for numerous Washington D.C. and surrounding Maryland vicinity rapes and abductions that occurred near the Washington Beltway. Logical investigation and intimate knowledge of the modus operandi of the Green Vega Gang brought them to the forefront. The Green Vega Gang members were individually interviewed by MPDC Homicide Detectives Fickling, Irving, and Richardson, at Lorton Prison in Virginia, where the gang members were serving sentences in conjunction with the successful prosecutions of those crimes in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.  
During these interviews, one gang member initially implicated another gang member, who he said told him he was involved and gave information as to one of the beltway homicides. This particular inmate was also serving a sentence at Lorton Prison for the Green Vega convictions. The inmate being interviewed stipulated that he would provide the information only if he could remain unidentified, which was agreed upon. He identified the man who gave him the information, the date and location of the crime, and signature detail which was not provided to the public, but which was known only to the perpetrator, and to detectives. That signature information was correct.  
The inmate who provided the information said he was not involved in the homicide, and provided an alibi which was found to be verifiable. During this period, an election was being held in Maryland, and one of the candidates publicly announced to the press that a break had occurred in the Freeway Phantom investigation, and provided that an inmate at Lorton Prison had given the information. After that announcement, the inmate who provided the information declined any further interviews, and denied that he had ever provided the information.  
Edward Sellman and Tommie Simmons.  
Edward Leonard Sellman and Tommie Bernard Simmons, two ex-cops, were arrested for the murder of Angela Denise Barnes.   Barnes, 14, was at one point thought to be a victim of the serial killings. Authorities later determined that Barnes was not a victim of the Freeway Phantom and resumed their investigation on the murders.  

Robert Askins.  
In March, 1977, a 58-year-old computer technician, Robert Elwood Askins, was charged with abducting and raping a 24-year-old woman inside his Washington, D.C. home. Homicide detective Lloyd Davis proceeded to question Askins and learned that he had been charged with murder on several previous occasions.  
On December 28, 1938, Askins—then a 19-year-old student and member of the science club at Miner Teachers College—served cyanide-laced whiskey to five prostitutes at a brothel, resulting in the death of...

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73027807Fri, 17 Jul 2026 13:39:46 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Freeway Phantom.   The Freeway Phantom is the pseudonym of an unidentified serial killer who murdered five girls and a woman in Washington, D.C., between April 1971 and September 1972.   Murders.   Carol Denise Spinks.   On the evening of April 25,...The Freeway Phantom is the pseudonym of an unidentified serial killer who murdered five girls and a woman in Washington, D.C., between April 1971 and September 1972.  

Murders.  
Carol Denise Spinks.  
On the evening of April 25, 1971, 13-year-old Spinks from Southeast was sent by an older sister to buy groceries at a 7-Eleven located a half-mile away from her home, just across the border in Maryland. On her way home from the store, Spinks was abducted; her body was found six days later at 2:46 pm behind St. Elizabeths Hospital on a grassy embankment next to the northbound lanes of I-295, about 1,500 feet south of Suitland Parkway. Examination revealed she had been both physically and sexually assaulted and strangled, was dressed but missing her shoes, and had only been killed a few days previously.  

Darlenia Denise Johnson.  
On July 8, 1971, Johnson, 16, from Congress Heights was abducted while en route to her summer job at Oxon Hill Recreation Center. One witness reported having seen Johnson in an old black car, driven by an African-American male, shortly after her abduction. Eleven days later, her body was located only 15 feet (4.6 meters) from where Spinks had been found even though police had been notified of the location of the corpse nearly a week earlier by an anonymous caller who had details only her killer could have known. By that time, Johnson's body (again dressed but without her shoes) was far too decomposed to determine the cause of death or if she had been sexually assaulted, but law enforcement was able to find evidence of strangulation.  

Brenda Faye Crockett.  
On July 27, 1971, 10-year-old Crockett from Northwest failed to return home after having been sent to the store by her mother.  About two hours later (around 9:20 pm) the Crocketts' phone rang and was answered by her 7-year-old sister, who had waited at home while her family searched the neighborhood. Crockett was on the other line, crying. "A white man picked me up, and I'm heading home in a cab," Crockett told her sister, adding that she believed she was in Virginia before abruptly saying, "Bye" and hanging up.  
A short time later, the phone rang again and was this time answered by the stepfather of Crockett. It was Crockett again, and she merely repeated what she'd said in the last telephone call, adding "Did my mother see me?" and indicating she was alone in a house with a white male. Her stepfather asked her to have the man come to the phone. Heavy footsteps were heard in the background and Crockett said "I'll see you" and hung up.  
Authorities quickly concluded that Crockett likely called her home at the behest of the killer, who fed her inaccurate information in order to buy the necessary time to perpetrate the crime, and to hamper the investigation. At 5:50 am the next day, a hitchhiker discovered Crockett's shoeless body in a conspicuous location on U.S. Route 50, near the Baltimore–Washington Parkway in Prince George's County, Maryland. She had been raped and strangled, and a scarf was knotted around her neck.  

Nenomoshia Yates.  
12-year-old Yates was walking home around 7:00 pm from a Safeway store in Northeast on October 1, 1971, when she was kidnapped, raped, and strangled. Her body was found within three hours of her abduction, just off the shoulder of Pennsylvania Avenue in Prince George's County, Maryland. As with the other cases, her shoes were missing and unidentified green fibers would also be found on her clothing. A witness apparently saw her getting into a blue Volkswagen, and although investigated, the lead led nowhere.  
It was after this murder that the "Freeway Phantom" moniker was first used in a Daily News article describing the murders.  

Brenda Denise Woodard.  
After having dinner with a high school classmate on November 15, 1971, Woodard, 18, from Baltimore boarded a city bus around 11:30...]]>799falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/61-murder-of-maureen-rowan--73014941Maureen Lu Rowan (née Minor; March 21, 1949 – c. January 20, 1971) was a formerly unidentified murdered young woman found on February 19, 1971, in Lake Panasoffkee, Florida, United States. Before identification, she was known as Little Miss Lake Panasoffkee or Little Miss Panasoffkee. In October 2025, it was announced that Little Miss Panasoffkee was in fact 21-year-old Maine native Rowan, who grew up in Jacksonville, Florida.  
Forensic reconstruction of the victim's face was undertaken in 1971 and 2012. The case was featured on the television show Unsolved Mysteries in an episode that premiered on October 14, 1992. In October 2025, the Sumter County Sheriff's Office announced that she had been identified, and had found a person of interest.  

Discovery of the body.  
On February 19, 1971, two teenage hitchhikers discovered a partially submerged figure floating beneath a highway overpass in Lake Panasoffkee, Florida.  
The body was dressed in a green shirt, green plaid pants, and a green floral poncho. Also found were a white gold watch and a gold necklace. On her ring finger there was a gold ring with a transparent stone, indicating that she may have been married.  
A forensic examination of the remains was conducted by Dr. William Schutze who concluded that the victim had been killed approximately 30 days before her body was discovered. A man's size-36 belt was fastened around her neck, strongly indicating strangulation as the cause of death.  

Forensic examination.  
The body was exhumed in February 1986 for further forensic examination.  
The woman was determined to have been between 17 and 24 years old when she died, weighing about 115 pounds. She had brown hair and prominent cheekbones. She was between 5 feet, 2 inches and 5 feet, 5 inches in height. She had received extensive dental work, including numerous silver tooth fillings. She had a porcelain crown on one of her upper right teeth.  
It was determined that she had borne at least two children before her death. One of her ribs had been fractured at the time of death, leading investigators to theorize that the killer had possibly knelt on her while he strangled her with the belt.  
Investigators initially believed the woman to be either of European or Native American ancestry. A further exhumation and examination of the remains, conducted in 2012, established that she was of European descent. An examination of Harris lines in the victim's bones indicated that an illness or malnutrition had briefly arrested her growth in childhood.  
Examining the lead isotopes in the victim's teeth, a geological scientist deduced that the victim had undoubtedly spent her childhood and adolescence in southern Europe close to the sea—most likely south of the Greek city of Athens—until within a year of her murder. The geological scientist George Kamenov pinpointed the most likely place as the fishing port of Laurium, Greece.  
Given that there is a large Greek-American population in Tarpon Springs (about 117 kilometers [73 mi] from Lake Panasoffkee), and that the victim had been dead for about 30 days and had likely lived in Greece, it was possible to conclude that she had traveled to the United States to attend an Epiphany celebration.  
Forensic examination of her hair supported the theory that she had been visiting temporarily. This was indicated by the fact that she had been in Florida for less than two months before her death.  
An orthopedic surgery procedure, known as the "Watson-Jones" technique, had been performed on her right ankle when she was about 16 years old. This operation—which involved stretching the tendon by screws drilled into the bone—would most likely have been performed to rectify a chronic instability which would likely have seen the victim sprain her ankle several times before the operation. Periostitis was found in her right leg, which may have been noticeably uncomfortable for the victim.  
A further development occurred when the case was featured on a Greek crime show (Fos Sto Tounel). A woman came forward to say that the facial reconstructions may be a girl she knew named Konstantina. She and Konstantina attended a prep school in Greece, where they were trained to be domestic help. After finishing the course, the school sent their students abroad to Australia or the United States as part of a two-year work contract. The school was funded by the International Organization for Migration. This woman had lost contact with Konstantina when they were separated; Konstantina was sent to the United States and the woman was sent to Australia. Konstantina arrived in the United States at the same time as the forensic testing indicated the victim had.  

Facial reconstructions.  
A collection of forensic facial reconstructions were made in the 1980s to show what Little Miss Lake Panasoffkee may have looked like at stages of her life. In 2012, another composite was created, visually different from the first. The composite was combined with a scale model of the victim's clothing.  

Identification.  
On October 29, 2025, the Sumter County Sheriff's Office announced that little Miss Panasoffkee had been identified as Maureen Lu Rowan (née Minor), also known as "Cookie", and that a person of interest had been identified. The sheriffs office used fingerprints from the body with updated criminal databases to make a positive ID. The sheriffs office also clarified that the initial assumption of a Greek immigrant was inaccurate because the isotope test performed on the body was contaminated by formaldehyde embalming gel used in the 1970s. The person of interest was her estranged husband, Charles Emery Rowan Sr., who died in 2015. She disappeared when she was 21 after leaving her family for a short time. She was born in 1949 in the state of Maine and had been living in Florida with her family up until her disappearance. She is survived by her two children. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73014941Thu, 16 Jul 2026 14:06:30 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murder of Maureen Rowan.   Maureen Lu Rowan (née Minor; March 21, 1949 – c. January 20, 1971) was a formerly unidentified murdered young woman found on February 19, 1971, in Lake Panasoffkee, Florida, United States. Before identification, she was...Maureen Lu Rowan (née Minor; March 21, 1949 – c. January 20, 1971) was a formerly unidentified murdered young woman found on February 19, 1971, in Lake Panasoffkee, Florida, United States. Before identification, she was known as Little Miss Lake Panasoffkee or Little Miss Panasoffkee. In October 2025, it was announced that Little Miss Panasoffkee was in fact 21-year-old Maine native Rowan, who grew up in Jacksonville, Florida.  
Forensic reconstruction of the victim's face was undertaken in 1971 and 2012. The case was featured on the television show Unsolved Mysteries in an episode that premiered on October 14, 1992. In October 2025, the Sumter County Sheriff's Office announced that she had been identified, and had found a person of interest.  

Discovery of the body.  
On February 19, 1971, two teenage hitchhikers discovered a partially submerged figure floating beneath a highway overpass in Lake Panasoffkee, Florida.  
The body was dressed in a green shirt, green plaid pants, and a green floral poncho. Also found were a white gold watch and a gold necklace. On her ring finger there was a gold ring with a transparent stone, indicating that she may have been married.  
A forensic examination of the remains was conducted by Dr. William Schutze who concluded that the victim had been killed approximately 30 days before her body was discovered. A man's size-36 belt was fastened around her neck, strongly indicating strangulation as the cause of death.  

Forensic examination.  
The body was exhumed in February 1986 for further forensic examination.  
The woman was determined to have been between 17 and 24 years old when she died, weighing about 115 pounds. She had brown hair and prominent cheekbones. She was between 5 feet, 2 inches and 5 feet, 5 inches in height. She had received extensive dental work, including numerous silver tooth fillings. She had a porcelain crown on one of her upper right teeth.  
It was determined that she had borne at least two children before her death. One of her ribs had been fractured at the time of death, leading investigators to theorize that the killer had possibly knelt on her while he strangled her with the belt.  
Investigators initially believed the woman to be either of European or Native American ancestry. A further exhumation and examination of the remains, conducted in 2012, established that she was of European descent. An examination of Harris lines in the victim's bones indicated that an illness or malnutrition had briefly arrested her growth in childhood.  
Examining the lead isotopes in the victim's teeth, a geological scientist deduced that the victim had undoubtedly spent her childhood and adolescence in southern Europe close to the sea—most likely south of the Greek city of Athens—until within a year of her murder. The geological scientist George Kamenov pinpointed the most likely place as the fishing port of Laurium, Greece.  
Given that there is a large Greek-American population in Tarpon Springs (about 117 kilometers [73 mi] from Lake Panasoffkee), and that the victim had been dead for about 30 days and had likely lived in Greece, it was possible to conclude that she had traveled to the United States to attend an Epiphany celebration.  
Forensic examination of her hair supported the theory that she had been visiting temporarily. This was indicated by the fact that she had been in Florida for less than two months before her death.  
An orthopedic surgery procedure, known as the "Watson-Jones" technique, had been performed on her right ankle when she was about 16 years old. This operation—which involved stretching the tendon by screws drilled into the bone—would most likely have been performed to rectify a chronic instability which would likely have seen the victim sprain her ankle several times before the operation. Periostitis was found in her right leg, which may...]]>403falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/60-mauro-de-mauro--73014654Mauro De Mauro (6 September 1921 – disappeared 16 September 1970) was an Italian investigative journalist. Originally a supporter of Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime, De Mauro eventually became a journalist with the left-leaning newspaper L'Ora in Palermo. He disappeared in September 1970 and his body has never been found. The disappearance and probable death of the "inconvenient journalist" (giornalista scomodo), as he became known as a result of his investigative reporting, remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in modern Italian history.  
Several explanations for De Mauro's disappearance are current. One is related to the death of Enrico Mattei, the president of Italy's state-owned oil and gas conglomerate Eni. Another is that De Mauro had discovered a drug trafficking network between Sicily and the United States. A third explanation links his disappearance with the Golpe Borghese, a 1970 foiled right-wing coup d'état. De Mauro was apparently convinced that he had got hold of a story of a lifetime and had told colleagues at L'Ora, "I have a scoop that is going to shake Italy."  

Fascist past.  
Mauro De Mauro was born in 1921 in Foggia, Apulia. His father Oscar De Mauro belonged to a reputable family of doctors and pharmacists that had been living in Foggia for several generations. His mother Clementina Rispoli came from Naples and was a math teacher. His younger brother Tullio De Mauro (31 March 1932 – 5 January 2017) was a linguist and politician who became minister of education in 2000–2001.  
De Mauro was a supporter of the Italian fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. After the armistice with the Allied Forces in September 1943, he chose to follow the hard-line fascist regime of the Italian Social Republic (Repubblica Sociale Italiana, or RSI) in German-held northern Italy. During the German military occupation of Rome in 1943–1944, he was vice-commander of police under Commander Caruso, informant of Captain Erich Priebke and Colonel Herbert Kappler of the SS. De Mauro was also a member of the Koch Band, a special unit of the Home Security in the RSI. Using a variety of aliases, De Mauro managed to infiltrate several resistance organizations in Rome and Milan in order to hunt the partisans.  
De Mauro and his wife Elda volunteered to join the Decima MAS, a brutal anti-partisan force under the command of Prince Junio Valerio Borghese, also known as the "Black Prince". He worked for the journal La Cambusa (The Galley) of the propaganda unit of the military formation. De Mauro was arrested during the liberation in Milan in April 1945. He escaped from the prison camp Coltano (Tuscany) in December 1945 and took refuge in Naples with his young wife, along with his two daughters, Junia and Franca Valeria (the names referred to Junio Valerio Borghese). Accused of having participated in the Fosse Ardeatine massacre in March 1944 in which 335 people were executed, he was absolved by the court in 1948.  

Journalist in Sicily.  
In 1948, De Mauro moved to Palermo, Sicily, under an assumed name, and worked for local newspapers such as Il Tempo di Sicilia and Il Mattino di Sicilia. In 1959 he started working for L'Ora, a communist-oriented paper. Other journalists were puzzled about De Mauro's presence at the newspaper, as he had been a supporter of Mussolini until the bitter end and fought in the brutal war against the anti-Fascist partisans. Rumour had it that his nose had been broken by partisans.  
At L'Ora, De Mauro joined a group of crack investigative reporters that included Felice Chilanti and Mario Farinella. From the mid-1950s to the 1970s, the left-leaning newspaper often hit the national spotlight for its investigations and denunciations of ties between corrupt politicians and the Sicilian Mafia. In 1960 De Mauro was among the winners of the Premiolino, one of the most important Italian journalism awards, for his crime investigations. De Mauro also wrote pieces on drug trafficking and on the Sack of Palermo, the construction boom in the 1950s and 1960s that led to the destruction of the city's green belt and ancient villas.  
In 1962, De Mauro was the first to publish a detailed map of the Mafia, which was confirmed 22 years later by the Mafia pentito (turncoat) Tommaso Buscetta in his testimony to Judge Giovanni Falcone. In January 1962 he published a series of articles in L'Ora disclosing the testimony of Melchiorre Allegra, a medical doctor and a member of the Mafia from 1916 until his arrest in 1937. Upon being arrested, Allegra disclosed his membership and testified about Mafia activities. It was one of the first testimonies about the Mafia from within, but the document had been neglected until De Mauro republished it.  
After these and other revelations, De Mauro became a target for the Mafia. "De Mauro was a walking corpse," said Buscetta. "Cosa Nostra had been forced to 'forgive' the journalist because his death would arouse too much suspicion, but at the first opportunity, he would have to pay for the scoop. The death sentence had only been temporarily suspended."  

Mattei affair.  
In 1962, De Mauro investigated the mysterious death of Enrico Mattei, the powerful president of Italy's state-owned oil and gas conglomerate Eni, who died in suspicious circumstances in a plane crash on 27 October. During his controversial tenure of Eni, Mattei had tried to break the oligopoly of the "Seven Sisters" (a term Mattei coined to refer to the dominant oil companies of the mid-20th century). and in 1959, in the middle of the Cold War, brokered an oil import deal with the Soviet Union over intense protests from the United States and NATO, while supporting independence movements against colonial powers such as Algeria. The U.S. National Security Council described Mattei as an irritation and an obstacle in a classified report from 1958, while the French could not forgive Mattei for his Algeria involvement. Responsibility for his death has been attributed to the Mafia, the CIA, and the French nationalist group the Organisation armée secrète (OAS).  
In September 1970, De Mauro was again investigating the case upon request of the movie director Francesco Rosi for the movie Il caso Mattei (The Mattei Affair), which would eventually be released in 1972. He was convinced that Mattei's aircraft had been sabotaged and looked into possible links between the Mafia and the crash. Two days before his disappearance, De Mauro interviewed Graziano Verzotto, a Christian Democrat politician and former right-hand man of Mattei as head of public relations for Eni. Verzotto knew Mafia boss Giuseppe Di Cristina quite well; he had been best man at De Cristina's wedding. Verzotto had been with Mattei on his airplane the day before it crashed. De Mauro was convinced that he had got hold of a story of a lifetime. Before his disappearance, he told colleagues at the newspaper L'Ora, "I have a scoop that is going to shake Italy".  

Disappearance.  
De Mauro was kidnapped on the evening of 16 September 1970, while coming back home from work, in the via delle Magnolie in Palermo. In response, thousands of police and Carabinieri, equipped with helicopters and dogs, combed Sicily in vain in search of the reporter. De Mauro's body has never been found, a victim of the so-called lupara bianca, despite intensive search efforts assisted by top-level forces from Rome and even a special investigative committee of the Italian Parliament.  
Over the years, the investigations into De Mauro's disappearance by the Carabinieri and the police followed widely divergent leads. Colonel Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa and Captain Giuseppe Russo of the Carabinieri were among the first to work on the case. Years later, and in different circumstances, both were murdered by the Mafia. They focused on the lead of drug trafficking. According to them, De Mauro would have been a victim of lupara bianca after discovering leads on drug trafficking by the Mafia between Sicily and the U.S.  
The first inquiries of the police by Bruno Contrada and Boris Giuliano instead focused on the lead of De Mauro's investigations into the death of Mattei, prompted by the disappearance a few pages of notes and a tape of Mattei's last speech from De Mauro's office. The investigations were seriously hampered due to deviations by people within the Italian police and secret services. According to police inspector Giuliano, there was "someone at the ministry in Rome that does not want to go to the bottom of the death of De Mauro." According to Giuliano, an order to scale down the investigation was issued by the head of the secret service, Vito Miceli, allegedly involved in the Borghese coup. Miceli had been in contact with the mafiosi Di Cristina and Giuseppe Calderone, who wanted to support the coup, which was scheduled for December 1970.  

Italian mystery.  
The disappearance of De Mauro remained a mystery and the focus of many speculations. In May 1994, Buscetta declared that the Sicilian Mafia had been involved in the murder of Mattei, and that De Mauro had been killed for investigating that murder.  According to Buscetta, Mattei was killed at the request of the American Mafia because his oil policies had hurt U.S. interests in the Middle East. The American Mafia in turn was possibly doing a favour to the Seven Sisters. Buscetta claimed that Mattei's death was organized by Mafia bosses Di Cristina, Salvatore Greco "Ciaschiteddu", and Stefano Bontade at the request of Angelo Bruno, a Sicilian-born Mafia boss from Philadelphia. Gaetano Iannì, another pentito, declared that a special agreement had been reached between the Sicilian Mafia and "some foreigners" for the elimination of Mattei, which was organized by Di Cristina. These statements triggered new inquiries, including the exhumation of Mattei's corpse.  
Buscetta claimed....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/73014654Thu, 16 Jul 2026 13:41:09 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Mauro De Mauro.   Mauro De Mauro (6 September 1921 – disappeared 16 September 1970) was an Italian investigative journalist. Originally a supporter of Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime, De Mauro eventually became a journalist with the left-leaning...Mauro De Mauro (6 September 1921 – disappeared 16 September 1970) was an Italian investigative journalist. Originally a supporter of Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime, De Mauro eventually became a journalist with the left-leaning newspaper L'Ora in Palermo. He disappeared in September 1970 and his body has never been found. The disappearance and probable death of the "inconvenient journalist" (giornalista scomodo), as he became known as a result of his investigative reporting, remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in modern Italian history.  
Several explanations for De Mauro's disappearance are current. One is related to the death of Enrico Mattei, the president of Italy's state-owned oil and gas conglomerate Eni. Another is that De Mauro had discovered a drug trafficking network between Sicily and the United States. A third explanation links his disappearance with the Golpe Borghese, a 1970 foiled right-wing coup d'état. De Mauro was apparently convinced that he had got hold of a story of a lifetime and had told colleagues at L'Ora, "I have a scoop that is going to shake Italy."  

Fascist past.  
Mauro De Mauro was born in 1921 in Foggia, Apulia. His father Oscar De Mauro belonged to a reputable family of doctors and pharmacists that had been living in Foggia for several generations. His mother Clementina Rispoli came from Naples and was a math teacher. His younger brother Tullio De Mauro (31 March 1932 – 5 January 2017) was a linguist and politician who became minister of education in 2000–2001.  
De Mauro was a supporter of the Italian fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. After the armistice with the Allied Forces in September 1943, he chose to follow the hard-line fascist regime of the Italian Social Republic (Repubblica Sociale Italiana, or RSI) in German-held northern Italy. During the German military occupation of Rome in 1943–1944, he was vice-commander of police under Commander Caruso, informant of Captain Erich Priebke and Colonel Herbert Kappler of the SS. De Mauro was also a member of the Koch Band, a special unit of the Home Security in the RSI. Using a variety of aliases, De Mauro managed to infiltrate several resistance organizations in Rome and Milan in order to hunt the partisans.  
De Mauro and his wife Elda volunteered to join the Decima MAS, a brutal anti-partisan force under the command of Prince Junio Valerio Borghese, also known as the "Black Prince". He worked for the journal La Cambusa (The Galley) of the propaganda unit of the military formation. De Mauro was arrested during the liberation in Milan in April 1945. He escaped from the prison camp Coltano (Tuscany) in December 1945 and took refuge in Naples with his young wife, along with his two daughters, Junia and Franca Valeria (the names referred to Junio Valerio Borghese). Accused of having participated in the Fosse Ardeatine massacre in March 1944 in which 335 people were executed, he was absolved by the court in 1948.  

Journalist in Sicily.  
In 1948, De Mauro moved to Palermo, Sicily, under an assumed name, and worked for local newspapers such as Il Tempo di Sicilia and Il Mattino di Sicilia. In 1959 he started working for L'Ora, a communist-oriented paper. Other journalists were puzzled about De Mauro's presence at the newspaper, as he had been a supporter of Mussolini until the bitter end and fought in the brutal war against the anti-Fascist partisans. Rumour had it that his nose had been broken by partisans.  
At L'Ora, De Mauro joined a group of crack investigative reporters that included Felice Chilanti and Mario Farinella. From the mid-1950s to the 1970s, the left-leaning newspaper often hit the national spotlight for its investigations and denunciations of ties between corrupt politicians and the Sicilian Mafia. In 1960 De Mauro was among the winners of the Premiolino, one of the most important Italian journalism awards, for his crime investigations....]]>1084falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/59-murder-of-harvey-and-jeannette-crewe--72994389David Harvey Crewe (20 October 1941 – c. 17 June 1970) and Jeannette Lenore Crewe (née Demler; 6 February 1940 – c. 17 June 1970) were a New Zealand farming couple who were shot to death in their home on or shortly after 17 June 1970. The killings led to an unsafe murder conviction and subsequent pardoning of another farmer who lived in the district, Arthur Allan Thomas. A Royal Commission to investigate the conviction found that, in a miscarriage of justice, police had fabricated evidence and placed it at the crime scene to convict Thomas. As of 2026 the murders remain unsolved.  

Background.  
Jeannette Lenore Demler was born in 1940 to farmer Lenard Demler and May Constance (née Chennells), known as Maisie. A second daughter, Heather, was born two years later. Earlier, in 1937, Len Demler had taken control of a farm in Pukekawa, a small affluent town on New Zealand’s North Island. Maisie was the daughter of the family that owned the farm next door. Next to that farm was another owned by Maisie’s brother, Howard Chennells. In 1950, Howard was killed in a tractor accident. In his will, he left his farm to Jeannette and Heather, then aged 10 and 8. He instructed that the farm should be managed by others until the girls were 25, with profits placed in a trust for them.  
Jeannette was attending Pukekawa School when, in 1951, she met Arthur Allan Thomas. Thomas was a local boy, born in 1938 and one of nine children of Allan and Ivy Thomas. The following year, Allan Thomas withdrew his son from school to work on their farm. Thomas later confirmed that he had a crush on Jeannette and asked her out on several occasions, but received no encouragement and eventually gave up.  
In 1958, Jeannette graduated from Auckland’s Ardmore Teachers College; by 1960, she was working at Mangatangi School, and living in the village of Maramarua, where she would occasionally run into her former schoolmate Thomas. Their interactions were cordial and brief.  
In 1961, Jeannette left New Zealand for her “Big O.E.’’, a rite of passage for many New Zealanders, where they travel for an extended period of time. Jeannette's father gave Arthur her address in London, and Arthur sent her a letter and a gift of beads and stockings. Jeannette thanked him politely. In 1962, he sent her a brush and comb set. This time, she replied that she had a boyfriend. 
In 1963, Jeannette returned to New Zealand and settled in the Manawatū District, where she met Harvey Crewe, a farmer from a farming family. Jeannette was now old enough to take over the farm she had inherited. Harvey bought out her sister’s share. The two married in the Auckland suburb of Epsom on 18 June 1966. That same day, they moved into their farm, next to that of her parents.  
Of the Crewes’ relationship, a friend said: “They had a real appreciation of each other... A well-suited, wonderfully happy, strong and mature couple, completely capable of working out life in a harmonious, positive manner. Both intelligent, witty, fun to be with if they knew you well, otherwise reserved... [they] could be described as a very private couple.”  
By coincidence, Arthur Thomas returned to Pukekawa that same month, having married Vivien (née Carter), a typist from Farnham, England, two years previously. He had been working for a crop-dusting company but had accepted his father's offer to lease the family farm, which was 15km from the Crewe farm. In July 1967, the Crewe home was burgled. Rather than take valuables, the thief took inexpensive items, including a brush and comb set.  
In December 1968, Jeannette gave birth to a daughter, Rochelle. While she was in hospital, Harvey returned home to find their house ablaze. Clothing had been set on fire in the bedroom, and much of the house was lost; how the fire started was never ascertained. On 28 May 1969, there was a second unexplained fire; this time, the Crewes lost their barn and 800 bales of hay.  
In 1962, Len Demler had been found guilty of tax evasion and fined £9540. To pay the fine, he sold half of his farm to Maisie.  On 26 February 1970, Maisie died of a brain tumour. In her will, she excluded her daughter, Heather, leaving Jeannette Crewe with 75% of the Demler farm. In return, Len Demler changed his will, leaving Heather his remaining 25% share. The situation had caused tension in the family and, on 16 June 1970, the Crewes went to dinner at Demler’s home. Jeannette had also inherited her mother’s car, a Morris 1100, which she said she intended to sell to pay inheritance tax. The dinner was an acrimonious occasion.  

Disappearance and discovery.  
On 17 June, the day after the dinner, the Crewes attended the local cattle stock sale. Harvey bought a bull, and the couple was seen leaving the sale at approximately 3:00 p.m. At 4:45 p.m., two farmers saw the Crewe car about 7km from the farmhouse and saw a man, whom they assumed was Harvey Crewe, off in the distance herding sheep. At 7:00 p.m., the stock agent called Harvey to arrange delivery of the bull; no one answered the phone.  
On 22 June, the stock agent called again, then went to the farm. When no one answered the door, he called Demler. A driver for a company scheduled to pick up sheep from the Crewe farm arrived at 12:35 and received no answer. He also called Demler, who finally went to the farm. In the back door, Demler found the key in the lock. He went in and found blood on the kitchen floor and in the living room. He finally looked in the baby’s room, where he found Rochelle in a “distressed condition” and unable to stand.  He left her there, went home and called the truck driver to cancel the sheep pick-up. He then went to the home of a neighbour, Owen Priest, and asked him to go to the Crewe farm with him, without mentioning the blood or the baby.  
At the farm, Demler stayed at the back door, leaving Priest to search the house alone. After searching the barn, Demler retrieved Rochelle and took her to a friend's home. Priest then went to his own home and called the police.  
An investigation team, led by Detective Inspector Bruce Hutton, arrived at 5:00 p.m. The house was searched, fingerprinted, sampled and photographed. In the living room, brain tissue was found on Harvey’s armchair, and a bloody smear indicated that a body had been dragged from the living room. In the kitchen, blood was found on the floor, and watered-down blood was found on the cupboards.  
The following day, Hutton heard from the doctor who examined Rochelle. Her skin tone indicated that she had lost 1-2 lbs., but the doctor concluded that someone had fed her 48 hours before she was discovered, or about three days after the death of her parents.  A witness said that, on June 19th, he saw a fair-haired woman in a green Hillman car on the Crewe property. That woman has never been identified.  
On the morning of August 16, 1970, two men were fishing downstream of the Tuakau Bridge, on New Zealand’s longest river, the Waikato. There, they found Jeannette's partially-submerged body, wrapped in a bedspread and curtain fabric, which were secured with copper wire.  
On September 16, 1970, 5km downstream from the bridge, police found Harvey's body. A vehicle axle had apparently weighed it down.  
In both cases, Demler identified the remains. Both victims had been shot in the head with a .22 calibre rifle, with Jeannette sustaining the additional pre-mortem injury of a broken nose from being struck across the face with a blunt object. Her body was fully clothed, and there was no evidence of sexual assault.  

Investigation.  
Given Demler’s odd behaviour—leaving the baby behind, not participating in the search with Priest or with police, his reputation as an ill-tempered drinker, and his defensive attitude when questioned about his whereabouts on the relevant dates, he became the first suspect. His home was searched, and he was formally questioned. During that interview, Hutton told him, “I think you are the person who removed Harvey Crewe’s body from the Crewe household. In fact, I’m quite certain you’ve done this.” However, Demler had no apparent motive—he’d already bequeathed his share of the farm to his daughter Heather and, with Rochelle alive, could not inherit Jeannette’s share. He did have a scratch on his neck, but there was no physical evidence linking him to the murders.  
While police collected .22 calibre rifles from properties within an 8km radius of the Crewe farm, Jeannette’s sister Heather, who was living in the USA, returned to take custody of Rochelle. Police had been told that Jeannette had previously been "pestered" by a local boy, and Heather told them it was Arthur Thomas.  
On July 2nd, Detective John Hughes visited Arthur Thomas. Thomas was forthcoming about his previous contact with Jeannette and said he had been to the Crewe farm three years earlier to spread manure. He said he had not seen the Crewes for 9 months and that on the night of 17 June, he was at home. Hughes discovered that Thomas also owned a green Hillman car. The witness who had seen a similar car at the Crewe farm was positive that the woman driving it was not Vivien Thomas.  There was no blood or evidence of bodies being transported in the vehicle. Hughes found that Thomas owned a .22 calibre rifle and seized it for testing.  
The search of the Crewe farm continued, with police looking for lengths of copper wire and cartridge cases. None were found. What did turn up was the brush set that Thomas had sent Jeannette years earlier, meaning that the set stolen during the 1967 burglary was not the Thomas gift.  
Police test-fired the 48 .22 calibre rifles collected. Two could not be excluded as the murder weapon; one belonging to the Eyre family and one belonging to Arthur Thomas. The bullets in the victims’ bodies were found to be.....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72994389Wed, 15 Jul 2026 16:06:21 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murder of Harvey and Jeannette Crewe.   David Harvey Crewe (20 October 1941 – c. 17 June 1970) and Jeannette Lenore Crewe (née Demler; 6 February 1940 – c. 17 June 1970) were a New Zealand farming couple who were shot to death in their home on or...David Harvey Crewe (20 October 1941 – c. 17 June 1970) and Jeannette Lenore Crewe (née Demler; 6 February 1940 – c. 17 June 1970) were a New Zealand farming couple who were shot to death in their home on or shortly after 17 June 1970. The killings led to an unsafe murder conviction and subsequent pardoning of another farmer who lived in the district, Arthur Allan Thomas. A Royal Commission to investigate the conviction found that, in a miscarriage of justice, police had fabricated evidence and placed it at the crime scene to convict Thomas. As of 2026 the murders remain unsolved.  

Background.  
Jeannette Lenore Demler was born in 1940 to farmer Lenard Demler and May Constance (née Chennells), known as Maisie. A second daughter, Heather, was born two years later. Earlier, in 1937, Len Demler had taken control of a farm in Pukekawa, a small affluent town on New Zealand’s North Island. Maisie was the daughter of the family that owned the farm next door. Next to that farm was another owned by Maisie’s brother, Howard Chennells. In 1950, Howard was killed in a tractor accident. In his will, he left his farm to Jeannette and Heather, then aged 10 and 8. He instructed that the farm should be managed by others until the girls were 25, with profits placed in a trust for them.  
Jeannette was attending Pukekawa School when, in 1951, she met Arthur Allan Thomas. Thomas was a local boy, born in 1938 and one of nine children of Allan and Ivy Thomas. The following year, Allan Thomas withdrew his son from school to work on their farm. Thomas later confirmed that he had a crush on Jeannette and asked her out on several occasions, but received no encouragement and eventually gave up.  
In 1958, Jeannette graduated from Auckland’s Ardmore Teachers College; by 1960, she was working at Mangatangi School, and living in the village of Maramarua, where she would occasionally run into her former schoolmate Thomas. Their interactions were cordial and brief.  
In 1961, Jeannette left New Zealand for her “Big O.E.’’, a rite of passage for many New Zealanders, where they travel for an extended period of time. Jeannette's father gave Arthur her address in London, and Arthur sent her a letter and a gift of beads and stockings. Jeannette thanked him politely. In 1962, he sent her a brush and comb set. This time, she replied that she had a boyfriend. 
In 1963, Jeannette returned to New Zealand and settled in the Manawatū District, where she met Harvey Crewe, a farmer from a farming family. Jeannette was now old enough to take over the farm she had inherited. Harvey bought out her sister’s share. The two married in the Auckland suburb of Epsom on 18 June 1966. That same day, they moved into their farm, next to that of her parents.  
Of the Crewes’ relationship, a friend said: “They had a real appreciation of each other... A well-suited, wonderfully happy, strong and mature couple, completely capable of working out life in a harmonious, positive manner. Both intelligent, witty, fun to be with if they knew you well, otherwise reserved... [they] could be described as a very private couple.”  
By coincidence, Arthur Thomas returned to Pukekawa that same month, having married Vivien (née Carter), a typist from Farnham, England, two years previously. He had been working for a crop-dusting company but had accepted his father's offer to lease the family farm, which was 15km from the Crewe farm. In July 1967, the Crewe home was burgled. Rather than take valuables, the thief took inexpensive items, including a brush and comb set.  
In December 1968, Jeannette gave birth to a daughter, Rochelle. While she was in hospital, Harvey returned home to find their house ablaze. Clothing had been set on fire in the bedroom, and much of the house was lost; how the fire started was never ascertained. On 28 May 1969, there was a second unexplained fire; this time, the Crewes lost...]]>1628falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/58-murders-of-jacqueline-ansell-lamb-and-barbara-mayo--72993264Jacqueline Susan Ansell-Lamb (21 September 1951 – 8 March 1970) and Barbara Janet Mayo (20 March 1946 – 12 October 1970)  were two young women who were murdered in separate incidents in 1970. Both women were last seen hitch-hiking along motorways in England, and both were sexually assaulted before being strangled to death.  
Although the murders occurred seven months apart and a considerable distance from each other, investigators suspect both murders were committed by the same perpetrator. Links between the two murders are often erroneously reported to have been proven via DNA testing, and although detectives announced in 1990 that the women's murders were likely linked, a DNA profile was not isolated in either case until 1997, and only in the case of Mayo.  
Despite numerous public appeals for information and reconstructions, both murders remain unsolved. The perpetrator(s) of the murders of Ansell-Lamb and Mayo is sometimes referred to as the Monster of the Motorway or the Motorway Monster.  

Murders.  
Jacqueline Susan Ansell-Lamb.  
Jacqueline "Jacqi" Ansell-Lamb was an 18-year-old secretary who worked in Manchester, and who was described as "very much a 60s teenager". On the weekend of 7–8 March 1970, she had spent time collecting belongings from her old house in London and had attended a party in Earl's Court, where she met a young man. On Sunday, 8 March 1970, she attempted to hitch-hike back to Manchester from London. She had been given a lift by the man she had met at Earl's Court to one of the slip roads of the M1 motorway in London, where she intended to hitch a lift northwards. She then shared a lift with another man 50 miles up the M1 to Buckinghamshire. How she travelled further north from there was not known. Ansell-Lamb was reported missing on 9 March when she did not turn up in Manchester. On the day she disappeared, she was wearing a blonde wig, false eyelashes, a dark blue coat and maroon shoes. She was carrying a Japan Airlines bag because the initials of the company were the same as hers.  
The last place Ansell-Lamb was positively seen was at a transport café named the Opera Café at High Legh, just off Junction 20 of the M6 motorway near Warrington in Cheshire. Between 9 pm and 10 pm she was seen in the café in the company of a man.  A number of witnesses sighted her there including a chef, Delia Brown, who said that a man came through the door, went up to Ansell-Lamb and then came to order two coffees. Brown said that she then saw him sitting with her talking. The man was described as smartly dressed in "business-like" clothing. The pair left together and she got into the man's car. It is believed the car may have been a white Jaguar. A final unconfirmed sighting of Ansell-Lamb put her thumbing for a lift on the A556 road, one mile from where her body was found.  
On 14 March, the partially clothed body of Ansell-Lamb was found by a ten-year-old boy and his father as they walked through woodland in Mere, Cheshire, just off the M6 motorway, near the café she was last seen at. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Her body had been posed. She had bruises and cuts on her neck and face which indicated she had fought with her attacker.  

Barbara Janet Mayo.  
Barbara Mayo was a 24-year-old schoolteacher who lived in Hammersmith, London.  
On 12 October 1970 she set off to hitch-hike to Catterick, North Yorkshire to pick up her boyfriend's car, which had broken down there. She did not turn up and two days after she left London her boyfriend reported her missing. She was last seen wearing a navy-blue coat, lilac jersey and gold and tan slacks. She was thought to have been carrying her red bag with her.  
Four days later, a family out walking in an isolated wood just off the M1 motorway at Ault Hucknall near Chesterfield, Derbyshire discovered her partially clothed body under a pile of leaves. She had been raped, battered around the head and strangled to death with a length of flex. She was found next to a lovers' lane named Hodmire Lane. Despite a detailed search, her bag containing her purse was not recovered and was never found.[4] The postmortem was by Home Office pathologist Allan Usher. Two police officers closed off access to the wood. On Tuesday 20 October, the police looked for a white Vauxhall Viva, and Barbara's body was officially identified, by her sister Marjorie, of Taplow. 50 police investigated. The body was fully clothed.  
Scotland Yard Chief St Charles Palmer, on Friday 13 November 1970, said 'There is someone on the M1 looking for girls - and none of the youngsters using it are safe until this man is found'. He said that hitchhiking was a pastime with students. A lone girl waited for 2 minutes, two girls waited for ten minutes, but one male waited for up to 4 hours. He believed that Barbara had been picked up at Watford Gap services.  
The investigation was under the head of Derbyshire CID Detective Superintendent Ernest Bradshaw, and assistant chief constable L T Bowers, and Det Chief Superintendent Charles Palmer, and Det Sgt Michael Purchase of Scotland Yard. By Tuesday 20 October, Cheshire Police had noticed a similarity with the murder on 8 May. Det Sup Walter Arden of Cheshire Police Support Group, at Stockport, visited the scene.  
Barbara lived at 40 Rockley Rd, in Shepherds Bush. She taught part-time in Hammersmith. She was wearing orange trousers, with an orange pullover, being 5 ft 10. Her boyfriend was David Pollard, an electrical designer. She had been possibly seen at Trowell services, as some staff remembered her 'snazzy trousers'. She had planned to travel along the M1, M18 and A1. Cafeteria staff and the manager of the service station, and a petrol attendant, recognised the picture, and said that she had got into a car around 3-4pm on Tuesday night. Philip Leech, deputy manager of Trowell services, said 'Girls are hitchhiking along the M1 all the time. We think it is dangerous'. Barney Labanyi, the manager of Trowell services in 1971, said that there were too many female hitchhikers at Trowell, and he had to call police when some were a nuisance.  
On Monday 26 October 1970, Palmer brought 120 miles of the M1, from Scratchwood to Chesterfield, to a stop, and every vehicle at every junction and service station was stopped for 3 and a half hours from 11.30am. Every driver was questioned. No warning was given. The technique is called dragnet (policing). The headquarters of the investigation was at New Beetwell Street, Chesterfield.  
On Monday 2 November 1970, a policewoman wore Barbara's clothes and followed her route up the M1. The policewoman, chosen for her resemblance to Barbara and given cosmetics by the BBC make up department, met Barbara's boyfriend in Barbara's flat in London, who was visibly startled. Some newspapers described it as 'Barbara's ghost'.  
On Monday 23 November 1970, police stopped every vehicle on the M1 Heath Interchange. On Monday 30 November 1970, police questioned all motorists over for four hours on the Nuthall Interchange. In August 1971, Scotland Yard took its last two officers off the case, but 400 local police were still on the case. 50 police were on the case on October 11, 1971.  
The media dubbed the killer of Mayo the "Monster of the Motorway" or the "Motorway Monster". The murder became infamous, and was later described by investigating officers as being "well and truly ingrained into local folklore".  

Police investigations.  
Initial inquiries.  
A massive police hunt was launched by Cheshire Police after Ansell-Lamb's murder, involving 120 officers. Investigators soon determined that neither the man Ansell-Lamb had met in Earl's Court nor any of her other male associates could have been responsible for the murder. As many fans of Manchester City were known to have travelled along the M6 from London to Manchester on the weekend of Ansell-Lamb's murder, investigators theorized her killer could have been one of these individuals.  
The brutal killing of Mayo led to what was described as Britain's "biggest ever motorway hunt". The investigation into her murder was led by Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Pollard from Scotland Yard, as Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire police had limited resources. 1,500 police officers quizzed more than 125,000 people on motorways and took nearly 50,000 statements. In an unprecedented move, police set up checkpoints across 150 miles of the M1 between London and Leeds to ask drivers if they had any information, although this was not done until two weeks after the murder. For a whole day every vehicle at every junction along the 150-mile length of the motorway was stopped and checked. Officers then launched a publicity campaign with posters pasted all over Britain. It was believed that some men who might have given lifts to female hitch-hikers at the time had not come forward because they did not want their wives to know, and police appealed to them by saying that their wives would not be told if they came forward with information.  
A reconstruction was broadcast on television a week after the motorway checkpoints were set up, covering Mayo's last known movements from her home in Hammersmith to the M1 motorway. The reconstruction led to 700 members of the public coming forward to say they had sighted Mayo. A significant sighting came from a man who said he was certain he had seen Mayo or a girl fitting her description at 4:00 p.m. on 12 October, thumbing for a lift and then getting into a white Morris Traveller at Kimberley, Nottinghamshire. This was less than twenty miles from where she was found dead and was located just off Junction 26 of the M1 motorway. The witness said he had driven past her thumbing for a lift, not being able to pick her up as he had others in the car, and said that..

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72993264Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:17:47 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murders of Jacqueline Ansell-Lamb and Barbara Mayo.   Jacqueline Susan Ansell-Lamb (21 September 1951 – 8 March 1970) and Barbara Janet Mayo (20 March 1946 – 12 October 1970)  were two young women who were murdered in separate incidents in 1970. Both...Jacqueline Susan Ansell-Lamb (21 September 1951 – 8 March 1970) and Barbara Janet Mayo (20 March 1946 – 12 October 1970)  were two young women who were murdered in separate incidents in 1970. Both women were last seen hitch-hiking along motorways in England, and both were sexually assaulted before being strangled to death.  
Although the murders occurred seven months apart and a considerable distance from each other, investigators suspect both murders were committed by the same perpetrator. Links between the two murders are often erroneously reported to have been proven via DNA testing, and although detectives announced in 1990 that the women's murders were likely linked, a DNA profile was not isolated in either case until 1997, and only in the case of Mayo.  
Despite numerous public appeals for information and reconstructions, both murders remain unsolved. The perpetrator(s) of the murders of Ansell-Lamb and Mayo is sometimes referred to as the Monster of the Motorway or the Motorway Monster.  

Murders.  
Jacqueline Susan Ansell-Lamb.  
Jacqueline "Jacqi" Ansell-Lamb was an 18-year-old secretary who worked in Manchester, and who was described as "very much a 60s teenager". On the weekend of 7–8 March 1970, she had spent time collecting belongings from her old house in London and had attended a party in Earl's Court, where she met a young man. On Sunday, 8 March 1970, she attempted to hitch-hike back to Manchester from London. She had been given a lift by the man she had met at Earl's Court to one of the slip roads of the M1 motorway in London, where she intended to hitch a lift northwards. She then shared a lift with another man 50 miles up the M1 to Buckinghamshire. How she travelled further north from there was not known. Ansell-Lamb was reported missing on 9 March when she did not turn up in Manchester. On the day she disappeared, she was wearing a blonde wig, false eyelashes, a dark blue coat and maroon shoes. She was carrying a Japan Airlines bag because the initials of the company were the same as hers.  
The last place Ansell-Lamb was positively seen was at a transport café named the Opera Café at High Legh, just off Junction 20 of the M6 motorway near Warrington in Cheshire. Between 9 pm and 10 pm she was seen in the café in the company of a man.  A number of witnesses sighted her there including a chef, Delia Brown, who said that a man came through the door, went up to Ansell-Lamb and then came to order two coffees. Brown said that she then saw him sitting with her talking. The man was described as smartly dressed in "business-like" clothing. The pair left together and she got into the man's car. It is believed the car may have been a white Jaguar. A final unconfirmed sighting of Ansell-Lamb put her thumbing for a lift on the A556 road, one mile from where her body was found.  
On 14 March, the partially clothed body of Ansell-Lamb was found by a ten-year-old boy and his father as they walked through woodland in Mere, Cheshire, just off the M6 motorway, near the café she was last seen at. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Her body had been posed. She had bruises and cuts on her neck and face which indicated she had fought with her attacker.  

Barbara Janet Mayo.  
Barbara Mayo was a 24-year-old schoolteacher who lived in Hammersmith, London.  
On 12 October 1970 she set off to hitch-hike to Catterick, North Yorkshire to pick up her boyfriend's car, which had broken down there. She did not turn up and two days after she left London her boyfriend reported her missing. She was last seen wearing a navy-blue coat, lilac jersey and gold and tan slacks. She was thought to have been carrying her red bag with her.  
Four days later, a family out walking in an isolated wood just off the M1 motorway at Ault Hucknall near Chesterfield, Derbyshire discovered her partially clothed body...]]>1284falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/57-leon-jordan--72990809Leon Mercer Jordan (May 6, 1905 – July 15, 1970) was an African-American civil rights leader who served in the Missouri House of Representatives. Jordan was "one of the most influential African Americans in Kansas City's history" and, at the time of his assassination in 1970, the "state's most powerful black politician".  

Early years.  
Leon Jordan attended Lincoln High School in Kansas City, Missouri, served in the United States Army, and graduated from Wilberforce University in Ohio in 1933. He married fellow Wilberforce student Orchid Irene Ramsey on August 10, 1932.  

Career.  
After graduation, Jordan worked as a schoolteacher.   
He joined the Kansas City Police Department (KCPD) in 1938, rising to the rank of detective. He took a leave of absence in 1947 and spent eight years training the police forces of Liberia. As a pilot, Jordan flew his own plane around the country. In 1948, he helped coordinate the rescue of the French High Commissioner of West Africa and sixteen other French officials after their plane made a forced landing. Jordan was awarded the Chevalier of the Order of the African Star by Liberian President William Tubman in 1948.  
In 1951, Jordan became a life member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He returned to Kansas City in February 1952 and was promoted to police lieutenant, the first African-American to hold that rank in the KCPD's history. However, he discovered that he had little power in the department, so he resigned and went back to Liberia for three years. Jordan returned to Kansas City permanently in the mid-1950s and purchased the Green Duck Tavern.  

Civil rights and politics.  
In 1958, Jordan became a Democratic committeeman for the 14th Ward of Kansas City. In 1962, Jordan and Bruce R. Watkins co-founded Freedom, Inc., an organization which advocated political awareness among African-Americans in the city by organizing a massive voter registration drive and promoting black political candidates. In 1963, Jordan and Watkins helped pass an accommodations ordinance, desegregating all public facilities in Kansas City.  
In 1964, Freedom, Inc. put forward eight candidates for office, seven of which won. Among them was Jordan, who was elected to the first of three terms in the Missouri House of Representatives. Jordan was campaigning for a fourth term at the time he was murdered. Shortly before his death, he described himself as a "radical", adding, "I'm not a conformist but there are bounds of reason."  

Assassination.  
At about 1:00 a.m. on July 15, 1970, Jordan was killed just outside his Green Duck Tavern by three shotgun blasts. Eyewitnesses reported that the three killers were black. The shotgun had been stolen and was abandoned immediately. When it was recovered, it was traced to a burglary five years earlier in Independence, Missouri. Three men were arrested for the murder, including at least one affiliated with a criminal group called the "Black Mafia". One man was acquitted, and charges were dropped against the other two suspects.  
Upon his death, his widow, Orchid I. Jordan, became a candidate for his legislative seat. She won the election, and served for sixteen years in the Missouri House of Representatives. She died on December 25, 1995, at the age of 85.  

Murder weapon.  
Jordan was killed using a Remington 12-gauge Wingmaster shotgun, which was one of several firearms that had been stolen from a hardware store in Independence in 1965. A January 1966 report on the burglary by the Independence Police Department stated that the guns had later been sold through a "North End Italian fence". This report was not discovered in the initial investigation of Jordan's murder, but was uncovered by investigative journalists working for the Kansas City Star in 2010. When the reporters asked the KCPD about the shotgun, they were told that it had been lost in 1973. The shotgun may have been sold in a police surplus auction. Some time later, the KCPD purchased the used shotgun from a gun store and did not check the serial number. The shotgun was refurbished and placed into police service.  
On November 5, 1997, a police officer used the shotgun to shoot and wound an armed suspect in North Kansas City. The weapon was analyzed by the crime lab, who failed to identify it as the Jordan murder weapon, and it was returned to police service the following year. Only when the Star asked questions about the missing shotgun in 2010 did a crime lab technician run a computer check that located the gun, which was recovered from the trunk of a police car and then returned to the evidence room.  

2010 investigation.  
In 2010, Kansas City Star reporters began investigating the assassination while preparing for coverage of the 40th anniversary of Jordan's death. This led to discovery of the missing murder weapon and some old fingerprint cards, which persuaded the KCPD to re-open their investigation into the department's oldest cold case. Civil rights leader Alvin Sykes pressed the KCPD for a complete investigation. In trying to determine who was responsible for the assassination, the Star reported that Jordan and Freedom, Inc. had been opposed to the "North End" faction in Kansas City politics, a group under the influence of the Italian-American Mafia which had previously controlled black voting blocs. In 1965, Jordan had punched Frank Mazzuca, a fellow state legislator who was alleged to have supported mob interests in Jefferson City, and reportedly faced death threats in the aftermath.  
The Star reported that police informants associated with the Black Mafia had described the killing as a favor to North End mob interests, and that it was organized by "Shotgun Joe" Centimano, owner of a local liquor store. The informants claimed that Centimano had supplied the murder weapon and recruited the killers. The Star further reported that one informant stated the assassination had elements of both a "contract killing" and a "revenge killing", and that another said it was "all about politics".  News coverage referred to a 900-page police report finished in 2011 which concluded that mob boss Nicholas Civella had given his "blessing" to Jordan's assassination. No one was indicted because all of the alleged perpetrators were deceased by then.  

Legacy.  
The Leon M. Jordan Memorial Park, located at 31st Street and Benton Boulevard in Kansas City, features a statue of Jordan and a plaque on the front of its base. Behind the statue of Jordan is the Monument to Freedom, Justice and Courage. The statue was dedicated on May 17, 1975, five years after his death. The Freedom Wall intends to highlight individuals that have significantly impacted the African American community in Jackson County, with an emphasis on unknown, unsung champions of civil rights, equality and excellence. Names are still being added through a nomination process to the Jackson County Freedom Wall Commission.  


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72990809Wed, 15 Jul 2026 13:30:21 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Leon Jordan.   Leon Mercer Jordan (May 6, 1905 – July 15, 1970) was an African-American civil rights leader who served in the Missouri House of Representatives. Jordan was "one of the most influential African Americans in Kansas City's history" and,...Leon Mercer Jordan (May 6, 1905 – July 15, 1970) was an African-American civil rights leader who served in the Missouri House of Representatives. Jordan was "one of the most influential African Americans in Kansas City's history" and, at the time of his assassination in 1970, the "state's most powerful black politician".  

Early years.  
Leon Jordan attended Lincoln High School in Kansas City, Missouri, served in the United States Army, and graduated from Wilberforce University in Ohio in 1933. He married fellow Wilberforce student Orchid Irene Ramsey on August 10, 1932.  

Career.  
After graduation, Jordan worked as a schoolteacher.   
He joined the Kansas City Police Department (KCPD) in 1938, rising to the rank of detective. He took a leave of absence in 1947 and spent eight years training the police forces of Liberia. As a pilot, Jordan flew his own plane around the country. In 1948, he helped coordinate the rescue of the French High Commissioner of West Africa and sixteen other French officials after their plane made a forced landing. Jordan was awarded the Chevalier of the Order of the African Star by Liberian President William Tubman in 1948.  
In 1951, Jordan became a life member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He returned to Kansas City in February 1952 and was promoted to police lieutenant, the first African-American to hold that rank in the KCPD's history. However, he discovered that he had little power in the department, so he resigned and went back to Liberia for three years. Jordan returned to Kansas City permanently in the mid-1950s and purchased the Green Duck Tavern.  

Civil rights and politics.  
In 1958, Jordan became a Democratic committeeman for the 14th Ward of Kansas City. In 1962, Jordan and Bruce R. Watkins co-founded Freedom, Inc., an organization which advocated political awareness among African-Americans in the city by organizing a massive voter registration drive and promoting black political candidates. In 1963, Jordan and Watkins helped pass an accommodations ordinance, desegregating all public facilities in Kansas City.  
In 1964, Freedom, Inc. put forward eight candidates for office, seven of which won. Among them was Jordan, who was elected to the first of three terms in the Missouri House of Representatives. Jordan was campaigning for a fourth term at the time he was murdered. Shortly before his death, he described himself as a "radical", adding, "I'm not a conformist but there are bounds of reason."  

Assassination.  
At about 1:00 a.m. on July 15, 1970, Jordan was killed just outside his Green Duck Tavern by three shotgun blasts. Eyewitnesses reported that the three killers were black. The shotgun had been stolen and was abandoned immediately. When it was recovered, it was traced to a burglary five years earlier in Independence, Missouri. Three men were arrested for the murder, including at least one affiliated with a criminal group called the "Black Mafia". One man was acquitted, and charges were dropped against the other two suspects.  
Upon his death, his widow, Orchid I. Jordan, became a candidate for his legislative seat. She won the election, and served for sixteen years in the Missouri House of Representatives. She died on December 25, 1995, at the age of 85.  

Murder weapon.  
Jordan was killed using a Remington 12-gauge Wingmaster shotgun, which was one of several firearms that had been stolen from a hardware store in Independence in 1965. A January 1966 report on the burglary by the Independence Police Department stated that the guns had later been sold through a "North End Italian fence". This report was not discovered in the initial investigation of Jordan's murder, but was uncovered by investigative journalists working for the Kansas City Star in 2010. When the reporters asked the KCPD about the shotgun, they were...]]>483falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/56-manuel-moreno-barranco--72968984Manuel Moreno Barranco (24 April 1932 – 22 February 1963) was a Spanish novelist and short-story writer, who suffered a violent death at the prison of Jerez de la Frontera in 1963.  

Life.  
Manuel Moreno Barranco was born on 24 April 1932 in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, to Manuel Moreno and María Luisa Barranco. In August 1936 his father, persecuted by Falangists, left his home and fled to the Republican zone: after some days, there were rumours that he had been executed along with other Republicans at the sierra of Ronda, presumably on their way to Malaga.  
Barranco studied Commerce and started working at the Bank of Jerez at the age of 16. Fond of the adventure literature of his time, he collected novels by Emilio Salgari or J. Mallorquí. In 1950 he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, which forced him to resign for over one year. His first literary efforts date from this time. Shortly thereafter, Barranco would finish a few short stories and a novella, which he presented to Editorial Aguilar in 1955. They would be published two years later under the title Revelaciones de un náufrago (Revelations of a Castaway).  
In October 1956, encouraged by the imminent publication of his book, Barranco requested a leave from the Bank of Jerez and moved to Madrid, looking for a new job. His aim was to build a literary career, something he considered difficult to accomplish given his hometown. He eventually managed to find a position at the Banco Popular Español. In Madrid, he started a novel (Arcadia feliz) and resumed writing short stories. Revelaciones de un náufrago was eventually published in 1957, receiving praise from several critics.  
In February 1959, Barranco requested a leave and moved to London, where he worked as an associate editor for the Embassy of Venezuela. Six months later, he travelled around Switzerland and Italy and arrived in Paris with a single pound in his pocket.  After an initial period of poverty and menial labour, he found a job at the Agricultural Bank of France and made friends among the Spanish exile community. When he finished his novel Arcadia feliz (Happy Arcade), Juan Goytisolo recommended its publication in Mexico. Although Barranco started a second novel, Bancarios (Bank Clerks), which remained unfinished, his main concern in the last years of his life seems to have been the publication of Arcadia feliz. The work was announced by an anti-Francoist publisher that went bankrupt before it was released. In his Paris years he had a romance with one Suzanne Lacoste, whom he planned to marry. In October 1962 he went on a two-week holiday to Barcelona, where he was informed about a six-month course in Carlos Barral's publishing house. Excited by this proposal, he settled in Molins de Rei and resigned from the Agricultural Bank of France by letter. He allegedly spent two months attempting to join that course; disillusioned and penniless, he returned to Jerez on 24 November 1962.  
Barranco spent Christmas in his family house, getting back in touch with his friends in Jerez. As one of them recalls:  
"after his return to Jerez we met often and talked much. You could feel that he was a communist in our conversations, he didn't say so but he didn't deny it either. You shouldn't trigger malicious gossip back then. In those days Grimau was arrested and almost killed when he was pushed from a window of the General Security Department, just to wind up executed by shooting. Francoist information services were aware of his affiliation and he was under surveillance since he crossed the border."  
On 27 January 1963, the police inspected the family house, searching for a pirate radio; they found nothing. Feeling increasingly surveilled, Barranco hid his writing machine and his last writings in a friend's house. This friend reports:  
"he started writing political pamphlets and cautiously handed them out. One of those leaflets fell into the police's hands. He realized he was persecuted and he thought they could only prove his authorship with his writing machine, which he brought, together with some writings, to my house in order to hide them. At the end of January, they entered his house and couldn't find anything, but they wanted to prove that the writings were his. I was going to get married in a few days--it seems all of his friends were under surveillance. Javier Bellido, a mutual friend, took the writings and hid them in the vaults of the church of San Dionisio, since his brother Luis was its priest; the machine remained here."  
Those writings were lost when the church vaults were demolished some years later.  
On 13 February 1963, the police inspected the family house again and arrested Barranco. There is no known judiciary mandate, nor was he charged with a formal accusation. Lawyers asked to take the case refused by claiming that it was a "matter of jurisdictional competence". While Barranco was in jail, some police officers used to visit his mother to threaten her. Ten days after his arrest, the family was informed that Barranco had "jumped from the prison balustrade", resulting in serious injury. He was admitted to the hospital of Santa Ana, where he died of a cerebral haemorrhage. Local newspaper Ayer reported the next day that Barranco had fallen from the balustrade, making no mention of his incarceration. The official version was the same as the one offered three months later regarding Julián Grimau: suicide. The Tourism and Information Minister, Manuel Fraga Iribarne, defended the government version in a letter to José Manuel Caballero Bonald, who had signed a manifesto to force the authorities to investigate the incident.  
When the warder opened, as usual, the cell occupied by Mr Moreno Barranco, at eight in the morning of February 22, the recluse jumped head first from the balustrade of the corridor located in front of his cell and fell to the yard, and the base of his skull broke.  
The other prisoners reportedly did not witness the "suicide". The only witness was the police in charge of the interrogation, who claimed that he was there to inform Barranco of his transfer to Madrid. The case shows many similarities with the defenestration of Julian Grimau, as well as with four police defenestrations suffered by inmates between 1963 and 1969, none of which was admitted by the authorities. The police prevented his mother from seeing her dying son and were present at his funeral, discouraging his own friends from attending. Many dubious rumours spread about the reasons for his arrest, for example, that he was involved in some anti-Francoist conspiracy and that he found his missing father in Paris.  

Legacy.  
Barranco's death was reported in different parts of the world, often stressing the strange circumstances that surrounded it. Clandestine media within Spain and in the exile also mentioned it. 
In France a committee called "Union of Writers on Behalf of the Truth" was formed to cast light on the facts. Some major newspapers in France, England, Mexico and the United States published the news or demanded an explanation.  
The poet Pablo Neruda read about it in the Chilean press, and the case was cited in books and university papers of the English-speaking world, as well as in France and the Spanish exile. However, perhaps because Barranco was not openly a member of any political party, the case was soon forgotten. Francoist Spain never carried out an investigation into his death, which remains a mystery to this day.  



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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72968984Tue, 14 Jul 2026 15:03:57 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Manuel Moreno Barranco.   Manuel Moreno Barranco (24 April 1932 – 22 February 1963) was a Spanish novelist and short-story writer, who suffered a violent death at the prison of Jerez de la Frontera in 1963.   Life.   Manuel Moreno Barranco was born...Manuel Moreno Barranco (24 April 1932 – 22 February 1963) was a Spanish novelist and short-story writer, who suffered a violent death at the prison of Jerez de la Frontera in 1963.  

Life.  
Manuel Moreno Barranco was born on 24 April 1932 in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, to Manuel Moreno and María Luisa Barranco. In August 1936 his father, persecuted by Falangists, left his home and fled to the Republican zone: after some days, there were rumours that he had been executed along with other Republicans at the sierra of Ronda, presumably on their way to Malaga.  
Barranco studied Commerce and started working at the Bank of Jerez at the age of 16. Fond of the adventure literature of his time, he collected novels by Emilio Salgari or J. Mallorquí. In 1950 he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, which forced him to resign for over one year. His first literary efforts date from this time. Shortly thereafter, Barranco would finish a few short stories and a novella, which he presented to Editorial Aguilar in 1955. They would be published two years later under the title Revelaciones de un náufrago (Revelations of a Castaway).  
In October 1956, encouraged by the imminent publication of his book, Barranco requested a leave from the Bank of Jerez and moved to Madrid, looking for a new job. His aim was to build a literary career, something he considered difficult to accomplish given his hometown. He eventually managed to find a position at the Banco Popular Español. In Madrid, he started a novel (Arcadia feliz) and resumed writing short stories. Revelaciones de un náufrago was eventually published in 1957, receiving praise from several critics.  
In February 1959, Barranco requested a leave and moved to London, where he worked as an associate editor for the Embassy of Venezuela. Six months later, he travelled around Switzerland and Italy and arrived in Paris with a single pound in his pocket.  After an initial period of poverty and menial labour, he found a job at the Agricultural Bank of France and made friends among the Spanish exile community. When he finished his novel Arcadia feliz (Happy Arcade), Juan Goytisolo recommended its publication in Mexico. Although Barranco started a second novel, Bancarios (Bank Clerks), which remained unfinished, his main concern in the last years of his life seems to have been the publication of Arcadia feliz. The work was announced by an anti-Francoist publisher that went bankrupt before it was released. In his Paris years he had a romance with one Suzanne Lacoste, whom he planned to marry. In October 1962 he went on a two-week holiday to Barcelona, where he was informed about a six-month course in Carlos Barral's publishing house. Excited by this proposal, he settled in Molins de Rei and resigned from the Agricultural Bank of France by letter. He allegedly spent two months attempting to join that course; disillusioned and penniless, he returned to Jerez on 24 November 1962.  
Barranco spent Christmas in his family house, getting back in touch with his friends in Jerez. As one of them recalls:  
"after his return to Jerez we met often and talked much. You could feel that he was a communist in our conversations, he didn't say so but he didn't deny it either. You shouldn't trigger malicious gossip back then. In those days Grimau was arrested and almost killed when he was pushed from a window of the General Security Department, just to wind up executed by shooting. Francoist information services were aware of his affiliation and he was under surveillance since he crossed the border."  
On 27 January 1963, the police inspected the family house, searching for a pirate radio; they found nothing. Feeling increasingly surveilled, Barranco hid his writing machine and his last writings in a friend's house. This friend reports:  
"he started writing political pamphlets and cautiously handed them out. One of those leaflets fell into...]]>505falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/55-enrico-mattei--72967825Enrico Mattei (29 April 1906 – 27 October 1962) was an Italian public administrator. After World War II, he was given the task of dismantling the Italian petroleum agency Agip, a state enterprise established by Fascist Italy. Instead, Mattei enlarged and reorganized it into the National Fuel Trust (Italian: Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, ENI). Under his direction, ENI negotiated important oil concessions in the Middle East as well as a significant trade agreement with the Soviet Union, which helped break the oligopoly of the "Seven Sisters" that dominated the mid-20th-century oil industry. He also introduced the principle whereby the country that owned exploited oil reserves received 75% of the profits.  
Mattei, who became a powerful figure in Italy, was a member of Christian Democracy and of the Italian Parliament from 1948 to 1953. Mattei made ENI a powerful company, so much so that Italians called it "the state within the state". He died in a plane crash in 1962, likely caused by a bomb in the plane, although it has never been established which group might have been responsible for his death. The unsolved death of Mattei was the subject of an award-winning film The Mattei Affair by Francesco Rosi in 1972, with Mattei portrayed by Gian Maria Volonté. Along with Vittorio Valletta of Fiat S.p.A., he is regarded among the best Italian managers of the 20th century.  

Early life.  
Enrico Mattei was born in Acqualagna, in the province of Pesaro and Urbino, Marche, as the second of five children of Antonio Mattei (a carabiniere – a member of the Italian national gendarmerie) and Angela Galvani. In 1923, he became an apprentice in the tannery industry in Matelica. His career was rapid; from factory hand, he quickly moved on to become a chemical assistant and then to laboratory chief at the age of 21. After his military service, he became the tannery owner's chief assistant. However, the economic crisis at the end of the 1920s made business go from bad to worse until the tannery closed.  
Mattei moved to Milan where he worked as a sales representative for foreign companies in tanning dyes and solvents. In 1931, he became a member of the National Fascist Party (Italian: Partito Nazionale Fascista) created by Benito Mussolini but was not active in politics. Subsequently, he set up a factory producing oil-based emulsifiers for the tanning and textile industries with his brother and sister. In 1934, he founded Industria Chimica Lombarda and two years later, in 1936, he married Greta Paulas, in Vienna. After acquiring an accountancy qualification, he enrolled at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan.  
In May 1943, he met the Christian Democracy leader Giuseppe Spataro, who introduced him into anti-Fascist circles in Milan against the Italian fascist regime of Mussolini. After 25 July 1943, when Mussolini was forced to resign, Mattei joined a partisan group of the Italian resistance movement in the mountains around Matelica, supplying them with weapons. He was able to join the resistance, despite suspicion over his former membership of the Fascist party. His role was rather marginal, concentrating mainly on administering and organising activities. After a number of roundups, he escaped to Milan.  
Impressed by his organisational and military skills, Christian Democrats put him in command of their partisan forces. On 26 October 1944, he was captured in Milan, along with others, at the Christian Democrats' secret headquarters in Milan. Detained at the military barracks in Como, he was able to escape on 3 December 1944, taking advantage of a confusion caused by a short circuit which he himself may have engineered. Mattei participated in the North Italian military command of the National Liberation Committee (Italian: Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale – CLN) on behalf of the Christian Democrats. He was decorated by the United States with the Silver Star.  

Agip and ENI.  
In 1945, the National Liberation Committee appointed him to the leadership of Agip (Azienda Generale Italiana Petrolio – General Italian Oil Company), the national oil company created by the Fascists, with instructions to close it as soon as possible. Mattei instead worked hard to restructure the company and transform it into one of the nation's most important economic assets.  
In 1949 Mattei made an astonishing public announcement: the soil of the Po Valley in Northern Italy was rich in oil and methane, and Italy would solve all its energy needs using its own resources. Through the Italian press, he then encouraged the idea that the nation (still suffering from the consequences of World War II) would soon become rich. Agip's financial value immediately grew in the stock exchanges, and the company (owned by the state but operating as a private company) became at once solid and important. The reality was a little different; in the territory of Cortemaggiore, in the Valley of Po, a certain amount of methane had been found together with a small quantity of oil.  
Mattei's strategy was to use natural gas to support the development of a national industry in Northern Italy, sustaining the postwar boom known as the Italian economic miracle. The gas was not a mere substitute for imported oil but rather a cheaper and more functional substitute for imported coal which the growing industrial activities relied on. High profits from natural gas sales were ploughed back into exploration, production, the expansion of pipelines, and the acquisition of new customers.  
Agip obtained an exclusive concession for gas and oil exploration within the national territory, and was able to retain the profits. Political views were divided; the leftists supported him, and the conservatives (together with the industrialists) opposed him. At this time, Mattei is alleged to have widely used the unofficial financial resources of Agip for extensive bribery, especially of politicians and journalists. He used to say of political parties: "I use them like I would use a taxi: I sit in, I pay for the trip, I get out." Agip gained control of hundreds of companies in all economic fields in the country. Mattei paid great attention to the press, and Agip soon took possession of several newspapers and two agencies.  
In 1953, a law created the ENI, Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, into which Agip was merged. Mattei was initially its president, then also the administrator and the general director. In practice, ENI was Mattei and Mattei was ENI.  

International influence.  
When it became apparent that the domestic resource base would not be sufficient to meet Italy's growing energy demand, Mattei recognized the need to secure foreign supplies. Driven by his ambition to make ENI a player on par with the Exxons and Totals of the world, Mattei expanded abroad and turned his attention to the international oil markets. He invented, or at least used to tell very often, the story of the little cat: "A little cat arrives where a few big dogs are eating in a pot. The dogs attack him and toss him away. We Italians are like that little cat: in that pot, there is oil for everybody, but someone does not want to let us get close to it."  
This kind of fable made Mattei extremely popular in the economically poor Italy of the time, and he gained the popular support that was needed to gain political support. To break the oligopoly of the "Seven Sisters", a term he coined to refer to the dominant oil companies of the mid-20th century, Mattei initiated agreements with the poorest countries of the Middle East and countries of the former Eastern Bloc as well. Mattei visited Moscow in 1959, where he brokered an oil import deal with the Soviet Union in the middle of the Cold War over intense protests from NATO and the United States. He also publicly supported independence movements against colonial powers, which allowed ENI to take advantage of postcolonial bitterness in places like Algeria. To opponents who charged that he was helping Communists and making Italy dependent on a capricious flow from the Soviet Union, Mattei answered that he bought from the cheapest sources.  
Mattei forged agreements with Tunisia and Morocco, to which he offered a 50–50 partnership for extracting their oil, very different from the sort of concessions normally offered by the major oil companies. To Iran and Egypt, he additionally offered that the risk involved in prospecting was entirely ENI's: if there was no petrol, the countries would not have to pay one cent. In 1957, with ENI already competing with giants like Esso or Shell, rumour has it that Mattei was secretly financing the independence movement against colonialist France in the Algerian War.  
In 1960, after concluding the agreement with the Soviet Union and while negotiating with China, Mattei publicly declared that the American monopoly was over. The reaction was initially mild, and he was invited to take part in the partition of the prospecting map in the Sahara. Mattei made the independence of Algeria a condition of his acceptance, and no agreement would be subscribed until that event. As a consequence of his stance, Mattei was considered to have become a target of the French far-right terrorist organization Organisation armée secrète (OAS), opposed to Algeria's independence, which began sending him explicit threats.  

Death.  
On a 27 October 1962 flight from Catania, Sicily, to the Milan Linate Airport, Mattei's jetplane, a Morane-Saulnier MS.760 Paris, crashed in the surroundings of the small village of Bascapè in Lombardy. The cause of the accident has been a mystery. There are strong indications that the crash was caused by a bomb hidden in the aeroplane. All three men on board were killed: Mattei, his pilot Irnerio Bertuzzi, and the American Time–Life journalist William McHale. The inquiries officially declared that it was an.....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72967825Tue, 14 Jul 2026 13:51:16 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Enrico Mattei.   Enrico Mattei (29 April 1906 – 27 October 1962) was an Italian public administrator. After World War II, he was given the task of dismantling the Italian petroleum agency Agip, a state enterprise established by Fascist Italy. Instead,...Enrico Mattei (29 April 1906 – 27 October 1962) was an Italian public administrator. After World War II, he was given the task of dismantling the Italian petroleum agency Agip, a state enterprise established by Fascist Italy. Instead, Mattei enlarged and reorganized it into the National Fuel Trust (Italian: Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, ENI). Under his direction, ENI negotiated important oil concessions in the Middle East as well as a significant trade agreement with the Soviet Union, which helped break the oligopoly of the "Seven Sisters" that dominated the mid-20th-century oil industry. He also introduced the principle whereby the country that owned exploited oil reserves received 75% of the profits.  
Mattei, who became a powerful figure in Italy, was a member of Christian Democracy and of the Italian Parliament from 1948 to 1953. Mattei made ENI a powerful company, so much so that Italians called it "the state within the state". He died in a plane crash in 1962, likely caused by a bomb in the plane, although it has never been established which group might have been responsible for his death. The unsolved death of Mattei was the subject of an award-winning film The Mattei Affair by Francesco Rosi in 1972, with Mattei portrayed by Gian Maria Volonté. Along with Vittorio Valletta of Fiat S.p.A., he is regarded among the best Italian managers of the 20th century.  

Early life.  
Enrico Mattei was born in Acqualagna, in the province of Pesaro and Urbino, Marche, as the second of five children of Antonio Mattei (a carabiniere – a member of the Italian national gendarmerie) and Angela Galvani. In 1923, he became an apprentice in the tannery industry in Matelica. His career was rapid; from factory hand, he quickly moved on to become a chemical assistant and then to laboratory chief at the age of 21. After his military service, he became the tannery owner's chief assistant. However, the economic crisis at the end of the 1920s made business go from bad to worse until the tannery closed.  
Mattei moved to Milan where he worked as a sales representative for foreign companies in tanning dyes and solvents. In 1931, he became a member of the National Fascist Party (Italian: Partito Nazionale Fascista) created by Benito Mussolini but was not active in politics. Subsequently, he set up a factory producing oil-based emulsifiers for the tanning and textile industries with his brother and sister. In 1934, he founded Industria Chimica Lombarda and two years later, in 1936, he married Greta Paulas, in Vienna. After acquiring an accountancy qualification, he enrolled at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan.  
In May 1943, he met the Christian Democracy leader Giuseppe Spataro, who introduced him into anti-Fascist circles in Milan against the Italian fascist regime of Mussolini. After 25 July 1943, when Mussolini was forced to resign, Mattei joined a partisan group of the Italian resistance movement in the mountains around Matelica, supplying them with weapons. He was able to join the resistance, despite suspicion over his former membership of the Fascist party. His role was rather marginal, concentrating mainly on administering and organising activities. After a number of roundups, he escaped to Milan.  
Impressed by his organisational and military skills, Christian Democrats put him in command of their partisan forces. On 26 October 1944, he was captured in Milan, along with others, at the Christian Democrats' secret headquarters in Milan. Detained at the military barracks in Como, he was able to escape on 3 December 1944, taking advantage of a confusion caused by a short circuit which he himself may have engineered. Mattei participated in the North Italian military command of the National Liberation Committee (Italian: Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale – CLN) on behalf of the Christian Democrats. He was decorated by the United States with the Silver Star.  

Agip...]]>977falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/54-murder-of-paul-guihard--72966722Paul Leslie Guihard (1931 – 30 September 1962) was a French-British journalist for Agence France-Presse. He was murdered in the 1962 riot at the University of Mississippi while covering the events surrounding James Meredith's attempts to enroll at the all-white university. The only journalist known to have been killed in the Civil Rights Movement, his murder remains unsolved.  

Early life.  
Guihard was born in London in 1931, the son of an English mother and a French father, both of whom worked in the hotel industry. He had a brother, Alain Guihard. He was a dual citizen of France and the United Kingdom. In 1935, his parents purchased London's Rhodesia Court Hotel, and sent the three-year-old Guihard to stay with his grandparents in Saint-Malo, France while they attended to the new business. He remained in Saint-Malo until the end of World War II, and at fourteen returned to his parents in London. There he attended the French Lycée and the University of London, where he earned a degree in international affairs.  
Guihard was always interested in writing and found part-time work with Agence France-Presse (AFP) while in his teens, covering the 1948 London Olympics for the agency. His dedication to his work earned him the nickname "Flash". At 19 he joined the British Army, serving at the Suez Canal. He joined Agence France-Presse full-time in 1953 after his discharge. AFP transferred him to its English-speaking desk in Paris in 1959 and assigned him to the New York office the following year. In New York Guihard chiefly worked as an editor, also occasionally contributing stories for AFP and freelancing for London's Daily Sketch. He also wrote plays, including "The Deck Chair", which was performed in New York and later adapted into French for several performances in France.  

University of Mississippi assignment and death.  
On 30 September 1962, AFP assigned Guihard, aged 30, to cover the developing story of James Meredith's enrollment at the University of Mississippi, the first time an African-American enrolled at the school. As an editor, Guihard infrequently went out on assignment, and did not regularly cover the Civil Rights beat; in fact, Guihard had the day off. However, the agency was short-staffed and felt the story needed to be covered, so it called in Guihard and photographer Sammy Schulman to go to Mississippi.  
That morning, Guihard and Schulman flew from New York to Jackson, Mississippi via Atlanta. They found a tense atmosphere in which the federal government was prepared to use force to ensure Meredith's enrollment despite the attempts of governor Ross Barnett and local segregationists to keep him out. Guihard and Schulman visited the governor's office, where the Citizens' Council had organized a segregationist rally. They then visited the local Citizens' Council headquarters to interview executive director Louis Hollis. The meeting was friendly and Guihard received Hollis' permission to file a story from the office; this 198-word piece, Guihard's last, called the situation "the gravest Constitutional crisis that the United States has known since the War of Secession" and asserted that the "Civil War never came to an end".  
Guihard and Schulman then drove north to the University of Mississippi in Oxford. While en route, they heard President John F. Kennedy's speech indicating that federal agents had already escorted Meredith to campus. Assuming the story was over, they continued on to Oxford to clear up the details. When they arrived, at around 8:40 p.m., however, they learned that rioting had started on campus. Parking near The Grove, Guihard and Shulman split up to avoid being identified as journalists and targeted by the mob, agreeing to meet back up an hour later. Guihard headed toward the riot gathering at the Lyceum and Circle areas of campus, while Shulman circled the Grove. Life photographer Flip Schulke saw Guihard heading toward the riot and tried to stop him, but Guihard refused, saying, "I'm not worried; I was in Cyprus." This may have been the last time anyone spoke to Guihard.  
Guihard was shot in an unlit area at the southeast corner of the Ward Dormitory between 8 and 9 p.m. His body was found by students just east of the dormitory at 9 p.m. The students attempted to revive him and sought help, but were not immediately certain what had happened to him; they initially believed he had suffered cardiac arrest from the tear gas. The riot exacerbated matters, as ambulances could not get through the crowd to assist. Eventually, the students were able to get a car to the area and took Guihard to Oxford Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. The hospital determined that he had been killed by "a gunshot wound to the back that penetrated the heart". The hospital sent Guihard's body to a nearby funeral home, where Schulman made the identification. He was the only journalist murdered during the Civil Rights Era.  
The Federal Bureau of Investigation handled the initial investigation with assistance from local authorities. Sheriff Joe Ford surmised that the shooter had attacked Guihard either knowing he was a journalist, or mistaking him as a protester, and had certainly intended to kill him. Guihard may have stood out from the crowd due to his large frame, red hair, distinctive red goatee, and potentially his foreign accent. The investigation never identified a suspect and the case remains unsolved.  

Memorials.  
in 1989, Paul Guihard's name was included in the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, memorializing 40 people who lost their lives in the struggle for civil rights. Twenty years later a memorial plaque was unveiled by representatives of the University of Mississippi and from AFP, a short distance from where his body was found. Some 150 students and teachers from the School of Journalism participated in the ceremony. 


Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72966722Tue, 14 Jul 2026 12:35:02 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murder of Paul Guihard.   Paul Leslie Guihard (1931 – 30 September 1962) was a French-British journalist for Agence France-Presse. He was murdered in the 1962 riot at the University of Mississippi while covering the events surrounding James Meredith's...Paul Leslie Guihard (1931 – 30 September 1962) was a French-British journalist for Agence France-Presse. He was murdered in the 1962 riot at the University of Mississippi while covering the events surrounding James Meredith's attempts to enroll at the all-white university. The only journalist known to have been killed in the Civil Rights Movement, his murder remains unsolved.  

Early life.  
Guihard was born in London in 1931, the son of an English mother and a French father, both of whom worked in the hotel industry. He had a brother, Alain Guihard. He was a dual citizen of France and the United Kingdom. In 1935, his parents purchased London's Rhodesia Court Hotel, and sent the three-year-old Guihard to stay with his grandparents in Saint-Malo, France while they attended to the new business. He remained in Saint-Malo until the end of World War II, and at fourteen returned to his parents in London. There he attended the French Lycée and the University of London, where he earned a degree in international affairs.  
Guihard was always interested in writing and found part-time work with Agence France-Presse (AFP) while in his teens, covering the 1948 London Olympics for the agency. His dedication to his work earned him the nickname "Flash". At 19 he joined the British Army, serving at the Suez Canal. He joined Agence France-Presse full-time in 1953 after his discharge. AFP transferred him to its English-speaking desk in Paris in 1959 and assigned him to the New York office the following year. In New York Guihard chiefly worked as an editor, also occasionally contributing stories for AFP and freelancing for London's Daily Sketch. He also wrote plays, including "The Deck Chair", which was performed in New York and later adapted into French for several performances in France.  

University of Mississippi assignment and death.  
On 30 September 1962, AFP assigned Guihard, aged 30, to cover the developing story of James Meredith's enrollment at the University of Mississippi, the first time an African-American enrolled at the school. As an editor, Guihard infrequently went out on assignment, and did not regularly cover the Civil Rights beat; in fact, Guihard had the day off. However, the agency was short-staffed and felt the story needed to be covered, so it called in Guihard and photographer Sammy Schulman to go to Mississippi.  
That morning, Guihard and Schulman flew from New York to Jackson, Mississippi via Atlanta. They found a tense atmosphere in which the federal government was prepared to use force to ensure Meredith's enrollment despite the attempts of governor Ross Barnett and local segregationists to keep him out. Guihard and Schulman visited the governor's office, where the Citizens' Council had organized a segregationist rally. They then visited the local Citizens' Council headquarters to interview executive director Louis Hollis. The meeting was friendly and Guihard received Hollis' permission to file a story from the office; this 198-word piece, Guihard's last, called the situation "the gravest Constitutional crisis that the United States has known since the War of Secession" and asserted that the "Civil War never came to an end".  
Guihard and Schulman then drove north to the University of Mississippi in Oxford. While en route, they heard President John F. Kennedy's speech indicating that federal agents had already escorted Meredith to campus. Assuming the story was over, they continued on to Oxford to clear up the details. When they arrived, at around 8:40 p.m., however, they learned that rioting had started on campus. Parking near The Grove, Guihard and Shulman split up to avoid being identified as journalists and targeted by the mob, agreeing to meet back up an hour later. Guihard headed toward the riot gathering at the Lyceum and Circle areas of campus, while Shulman circled the Grove. Life photographer Flip Schulke saw Guihard heading...]]>391falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/53-eddie-gaedel--72951800Edward Carl Gaedel (June 8, 1925 – June 18, 1961) was the smallest player to appear in a Major League Baseball game.  
Gaedel gained recognition in the second game of a St. Louis Browns doubleheader on August 19, 1951. Weighing 60 pounds (27 kg) and standing 3 feet 7 inches (109 cm) tall, he became the shortest player in the history of the Major Leagues. Gaedel made a single plate appearance and was walked with four consecutive balls before being replaced by a pinch-runner at first base. His jersey, bearing the uniform number "1⁄8", is displayed in the St. Louis Cardinals Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.  
St. Louis Browns owner Bill Veeck, in his 1962 autobiography Veeck – As in Wreck, said of Gaedel, "He was, by golly, the best darn midget who ever played big-league ball. He was also the only one."   
Early life.  
Edward Carl Gaedele (Gaedel) was born in Cook County, Illinois, on June 8, 1925.[4] His father, Carl Gaedele (1886–1949), was a Lithuanian immigrant who managed a department store and worked as a parking lot checker. His mother, Helen (née Janicki), was a homemaker. In 1930, the Gaedele family lived in Chicago's Garfield Ridge neighborhood, and by 1940, the family lived in Back of the Yards.  

Appearance.  
Gaedel had worked as a riveter during World War II, as he was able to crawl inside the wings of airplanes. He was a professional performer, belonging to the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA). After the war, Gaedel was hired in 1946 by Mercury Records as a mascot to portray the "Mercury Man". He sported a winged hat similar to the record label's logo, to promote Mercury recordings. Some early Mercury recordings featured a caricature of him as its logo.  
Browns' owner Bill Veeck, a showman who enjoyed staging publicity stunts, found Gaedel through a booking agency. Secretly signed by the Browns, he was added to the team roster and put in uniform (with the number "1⁄8" on the back). The uniform was that of future St. Louis Cardinals managing partner and chairman William DeWitt, Jr. who was a 9-year-old batboy for the Browns at the time.  
Gaedel came out of a papier-mache cake between games of a doubleheader at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis to celebrate the American League's 50th anniversary. The stunt was also billed as a Falstaff Brewery promotion. Falstaff, and the fans, had been promised a "festival of surprises" by Veeck. Before the second game got underway, the press agreed that the "midget-in-a-cake" appearance had not been up to Veeck's usual promotional standard. Falstaff personnel, who had been promised national publicity for their participation, were particularly dissatisfied. Keeping the surprise he had in store for the second game to himself, Veeck just meekly apologized.  
Although Veeck denied the stunt was directly inspired by it, the appearance of Gaedel was similar to the plot of "You Could Look It Up", a 1941 short story by James Thurber. Veeck later said he got the idea from listening to the conversations of Giants manager John McGraw decades earlier when Veeck was a child.  

At the plate.  
On August 19, 1951, Gaedel entered the second half of the doubleheader between the Browns and Detroit Tigers in the bottom of the first inning as a pinch-hitter for leadoff batter Frank Saucier. Immediately, umpire Ed Hurley called for Browns manager Zack Taylor. Veeck and Taylor had the foresight to have a copy of Gaedel's contract on hand, as well as a copy of the Browns' active roster, which had room for Gaedel's addition.  
The contract had been filed late in the day on Friday, August 17. Veeck knew the league office would summarily approve the contract upon receipt, and that it would not be scrutinized until Monday, August 20. Upon reading the contract, Hurley motioned for Gaedel to take his place in the batter's box (as a result of Gaedel's appearance, all contracts must now be approved by the Commissioner of Baseball before a player can appear in a game). The change to that day's St. Louis Browns scorecard, listing Gaedel and his uniform number, had gone unnoticed by everyone except Harry Mitauer, a writer for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. The Browns' publicity man shunted Mitauer's inquiry aside. Until Gaedel stepped up to the plate, even his teammates had no idea he was actually going to play in the game.  
Gaedel was under strict orders not to attempt to move the bat off his shoulder. When Veeck got the impression that Gaedel might be tempted to swing at a pitch, he warned Gaedel that he had taken out a $1 million insurance policy on his life, and that he would be standing on the roof of the stadium with a rifle prepared to kill Gaedel if he even looked like he was going to swing. Veeck had carefully trained Gaedel to assume a tight crouch at the plate; he had measured Gaedel's strike zone in that stance and claimed it was just one and a half inches (3.8 cm) high.[15] However, when Gaedel came to the plate, he abandoned the crouch he had been taught for a pose that Veeck described as "a fair approximation of Joe DiMaggio's classic style", leading Veeck to fear he was going to swing.  
With Bob Cain (listed as six feet tall, 29 inches taller than Gaedel) on the mound—laughing at the absurdity that he actually had to pitch to Gaedel—and catcher Bob Swift catching on his knees, Gaedel took his stance. The Tigers catcher offered his pitcher a piece of strategy: "Keep it low". Cain delivered four consecutive balls, all high (the first two pitches were legitimate attempts at strikes; the last two were half-speed tosses). Gaedel took his base (stopping twice during his trot to bow to the crowd) and was replaced by pinch-runner Jim Delsing. The 18,369 fans gave Gaedel a standing ovation.  

Baseball reaction.  
Veeck had hoped that Delsing would go on to score in a one-run Browns victory, but he ended up stranded at third base and the Tigers won the game 6–2. American League president Will Harridge, saying Veeck was making a mockery of the game, voided Gaedel's contract the next day. In response, Veeck threatened to request an official ruling on whether Yankees shortstop and reigning American League MVP Phil Rizzuto, who stood 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 m), was a short ballplayer or a tall dwarf.  
Initially, Major League Baseball struck Gaedel from its record book, as if he had not been in the game. He was relisted a year later, as a right-handed batter and left-handed thrower (although he did not play the field). Eddie Gaedel finished his major league career with an on-base percentage of 1.000. His total earnings as a pro athlete were $100 (equivalent to $1,200 in 2025), the scale price for an American Guild of Variety Artists appearance.  

Later life.  
Gaedel's major league career lasted just the one plate appearance, but with Veeck's 1959 acquisition of the White Sox he began working for Veeck in other capacities. On May 26, 1959, a helicopter carrying Gaedel and three other dwarfs dressed as spacemen "invaded" Comiskey Park, its apparent mission being the delivery of "ray guns" to two of the White Sox' smallest players, Nellie Fox and Luis Aparicio, to whom Gaedel reportedly confided, "I don't want to be taken to your leader. I've already met him." On April 19, 1961, Veeck hired several dwarfs, including Gaedel, as vendors, allegedly due to "some complaints" from fans regarding hitherto blocked sight lines.  

Death.  
On June 18, 1961, the unemployed Gaedel, who had just turned 36, was at a bowling alley in Chicago, his birthplace and hometown. Gaedel was followed home and beaten. His mother discovered him lying dead in his bed. He had bruises about his knees and on the left side of his face. A coroner's inquest determined that he also had a heart attack. Bob Cain, who had pitched to Gaedel, was the only Major League Baseball figure to attend the funeral, despite the fact that the two never formally met. Gaedel was interred at Saint Mary Catholic Cemetery and Mausoleum in Cook County, Illinois. His tombstone indicates that his family name may actually have been Gaedele, not Gaedel.  

Legacy.  
Gaedel is one of only five Major League players who drew a walk in their only plate appearance and never played the field. The first three all played in the 1910s: Dutch Schirick (September 17, 1914 with the Browns), Bill Batsch (September 9, 1916 with Pittsburgh) and – in a disputed case – Joe Cobb (April 25, 1918 with Detroit; recent research shows that Cobb is more likely to have struck out in his only plate appearance). On June 24, 2007, Kevin Melillo of the Oakland Athletics did so against the New York Mets. Other than Gaedel, the other four players pinch-hit for pitchers; all five appeared in games their teams ultimately lost. For Gaedel, Schirick and Batsch, their one MLB appearance was their only professional appearance in organized baseball at any level.  
Gaedel's one-day career has been the subject of programs on ESPN and MLB Network. He was mentioned by name in the lyrics of Terry Cashman's homage to 1950s baseball, "Talkin' Baseball (Willie, Mickey, and the Duke)." His at-bat was the No. 1 choice on a 1999 list of "Unusual and Unforgettable Moments" in baseball history published by the Sporting News.  
In 1994, Veeck's son Mike Veeck owned the minor league St. Paul Saints team. He brought the then 69-year-old Bob Cain to the park to "reenact" the at-bat, by pitching to the 10-year-old son of the Saints manager.  
Because of its scarcity, Gaedel's autograph now sells for more than Babe Ruth's.  
Gaedel's grandnephew, Kyle Gaedele, was selected in the 2011 MLB draft by the San Diego Padres and played minor league baseball as high as the Double-A level. 


Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72951800Mon, 13 Jul 2026 16:30:39 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Eddie Gaedel.   Edward Carl Gaedel (June 8, 1925 – June 18, 1961) was the smallest player to appear in a Major League Baseball game.   Gaedel gained recognition in the second game of a St. Louis Browns doubleheader on August 19, 1951. Weighing 60...Edward Carl Gaedel (June 8, 1925 – June 18, 1961) was the smallest player to appear in a Major League Baseball game.  
Gaedel gained recognition in the second game of a St. Louis Browns doubleheader on August 19, 1951. Weighing 60 pounds (27 kg) and standing 3 feet 7 inches (109 cm) tall, he became the shortest player in the history of the Major Leagues. Gaedel made a single plate appearance and was walked with four consecutive balls before being replaced by a pinch-runner at first base. His jersey, bearing the uniform number "1⁄8", is displayed in the St. Louis Cardinals Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.  
St. Louis Browns owner Bill Veeck, in his 1962 autobiography Veeck – As in Wreck, said of Gaedel, "He was, by golly, the best darn midget who ever played big-league ball. He was also the only one."   
Early life.  
Edward Carl Gaedele (Gaedel) was born in Cook County, Illinois, on June 8, 1925.[4] His father, Carl Gaedele (1886–1949), was a Lithuanian immigrant who managed a department store and worked as a parking lot checker. His mother, Helen (née Janicki), was a homemaker. In 1930, the Gaedele family lived in Chicago's Garfield Ridge neighborhood, and by 1940, the family lived in Back of the Yards.  

Appearance.  
Gaedel had worked as a riveter during World War II, as he was able to crawl inside the wings of airplanes. He was a professional performer, belonging to the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA). After the war, Gaedel was hired in 1946 by Mercury Records as a mascot to portray the "Mercury Man". He sported a winged hat similar to the record label's logo, to promote Mercury recordings. Some early Mercury recordings featured a caricature of him as its logo.  
Browns' owner Bill Veeck, a showman who enjoyed staging publicity stunts, found Gaedel through a booking agency. Secretly signed by the Browns, he was added to the team roster and put in uniform (with the number "1⁄8" on the back). The uniform was that of future St. Louis Cardinals managing partner and chairman William DeWitt, Jr. who was a 9-year-old batboy for the Browns at the time.  
Gaedel came out of a papier-mache cake between games of a doubleheader at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis to celebrate the American League's 50th anniversary. The stunt was also billed as a Falstaff Brewery promotion. Falstaff, and the fans, had been promised a "festival of surprises" by Veeck. Before the second game got underway, the press agreed that the "midget-in-a-cake" appearance had not been up to Veeck's usual promotional standard. Falstaff personnel, who had been promised national publicity for their participation, were particularly dissatisfied. Keeping the surprise he had in store for the second game to himself, Veeck just meekly apologized.  
Although Veeck denied the stunt was directly inspired by it, the appearance of Gaedel was similar to the plot of "You Could Look It Up", a 1941 short story by James Thurber. Veeck later said he got the idea from listening to the conversations of Giants manager John McGraw decades earlier when Veeck was a child.  

At the plate.  
On August 19, 1951, Gaedel entered the second half of the doubleheader between the Browns and Detroit Tigers in the bottom of the first inning as a pinch-hitter for leadoff batter Frank Saucier. Immediately, umpire Ed Hurley called for Browns manager Zack Taylor. Veeck and Taylor had the foresight to have a copy of Gaedel's contract on hand, as well as a copy of the Browns' active roster, which had room for Gaedel's addition.  
The contract had been filed late in the day on Friday, August 17. Veeck knew the league office would summarily approve the contract upon receipt, and that it would not be scrutinized until Monday, August 20. Upon reading the contract, Hurley motioned for Gaedel to take his place in the batter's box (as a result of Gaedel's appearance, all contracts must now be approved by the...]]>676falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/52-murder-of-sharon-lee-gallegos--72949940Sharon Lee Gallegos (September 6, 1955 – c. July 21–24, 1960) was a formerly unidentified American murder victim known as Little Miss Nobody whose body was found in Congress, Yavapai County, Arizona on July 31, 1960. Her remains were estimated to have been discovered within one to two weeks of the date of her murder. Due to the advanced state of decomposition of the child's remains, the specific cause of death of Gallegos has never been established, although her death has always been considered to be a homicide.  
On March 15, 2022, investigators in Arizona announced the identification of Gallegos's remains, almost 62 years after the discovery of her body. The child had been kidnapped from outside her grandmother's home in Alamogordo, New Mexico by two unknown individuals ten days prior to the discovery of her body.  
Gallegos became known as "Little Miss Nobody" after contemporary efforts to identify her proved unsuccessful and no family or friends came forward to identify or claim her body. Her 2022 identification is the oldest cold case identification in Yavapai County; efforts to identify her abductors/murderers are ongoing.  

Early life.  
Gallegos lived in Alamogordo with her mother, Guadelupe Gallegos, along with her two older siblings, Ramona and John, and her grandmother. Six other relatives lived in the same home, including four other children aged between five and fifteen. Her biological father, a soldier, had left the family when Gallegos was a baby, and the child had no contact with him.  
Her family was not wealthy, and Gallegos's mother supported the family by working as a maid at a local motel. Despite general financial limitations, the Gallegos family was close-knit. Sharon herself has been described as a "feisty" and "happy-go-lucky" child who enjoyed performing simple errands for her mother and playing close to the family home with her siblings and other neighborhood children. Due to her fair complexion by comparison to her siblings, the child was affectionately known to relatives as "La Güera."  

Prior stalking concerns.  
Authorities believe the couple who kidnapped Gallegos had been actively stalking the child for days, if not weeks, before her actual kidnapping. On Sunday, July 17, a couple were observed in a distinctive dark-green sedan car with two children (one a freckle-faced male; one a "small" female) after Gallegos and her mother had attended a church service. Following the church service, the female abductor had asked several attendees probing questions pertaining to Sharon and her mother, Guadelupe.  
Gallegos's mother later stated that her daughter's behavior had markedly changed in the days immediately prior to her disappearance. The girl became markedly nervous and wary, and suddenly ceased wishing to retrieve groceries for the family from a local grocery store (an errand she particularly enjoyed). She also became visibly upset whenever she observed this same distinctive dark-green car near her home or places she visited, asking relatives to pick her up and carry her past the vehicle.  
Shortly thereafter, on or about July 19, this female abductor is known to have knocked on a neighbor's door, inquiring as to Gallegos's mother, her actual address, and asking about her children—specifically whether she had a little girl. Other questions asked included whether Gallegos's mother had numerous children and her current financial situation. This woman then claimed to this neighbor she wanted to offer a job to Gallegos's mother.  
At the time of her disappearance, Gallegos was two months shy of her fifth birthday. She was approximately 3 ft 6 in (110 cm) in height and had light brown hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing pink shorts and white shoes.  

Abduction.  
At approximately 3 p.m. on July 21, 1960, while playing with her two cousins (aged five and eleven), Gallegos was kidnapped in an alley at the rear of her Virginia Avenue home. The couple offered to buy Gallegos some candy and new clothing if she would get in the car with them. Gallegos refused, and the female suspect emerged from the car and grabbed the girl by the arm and forced her into the "dirty, old green car" (believed to be a dark-green 1951- or 1952-model Dodge or Plymouth sedan). This woman was described by the witnesses as a short, bespectacled and heavy-set individual in her 30s, with dirty blonde hair. The man was described as a fair, thin Caucasian with a long nose and straight, sandy-colored hair. Immediately after the woman dragged the child into the car, the driver sped away; the vehicle was last seen turning west onto Fifth Street at high speed.  
The child witnesses to Gallegos's abduction immediately reported the incident to her mother, who in turn immediately notified authorities. Within one hour, police had set up roadblocks at the Texas-New Mexico state border, ultimately searching numerous vehicles of the description described by the eyewitnesses at the roadblocks. This tactic failed to apprehend the abductors.  

Motive.  
Although investigators remained open-minded as to the actual motive for the child's abduction, the prospect of kidnapping for ransom was quickly discounted both due to the family's modest means and the fact no demands for money were received. Moreover, the circumstances surrounding the abduction and evident previous stalking indicated the child had been specifically targeted. One of the child witnesses to Gallegos's abduction, 11-year-old Dolores Badial, was adamant she had observed the same vehicle into which the child had been dragged parked outside the Gallegos household shortly before the actual abduction as she and Gallegos had walked toward the vehicle en route to a local grocery store. According to Badial, the female occupant had been staring intently at the Gallegos household and the actual sight of the car had greatly distressed the child, who asked to be carried as the two passed the vehicle.  
A friend and neighbor of the Gallegos family, Helen González, also informed investigators she had observed a dark-green vehicle matching the description provided by the eyewitnesses parked at the site of the abduction the previous Sunday.  However, by July 28, investigators had announced their investigation into the possibility "a relative or possible acquaintance" of the Gallegos family being the abductor(s) had failed to bear any fruit.  

Discovery of remains.  
On July 31, 1960, the partially buried body of a female child was found in Sand Wash Creek Bed on Old Alamo Road in Congress, Arizona, approximately 29.8 miles from the town of Wickenburg and roughly half a mile west of Highway 93. Her body was discovered by a Las Vegas schoolteacher named Russell Allen, who had been searching for rocks to decorate his garden.  
The body was clothed in red shorts and a buttoned blue blouse with a distinctive, vertical linear pattern. The child wore a pair of adult-sized rubber thong sandals that had been cut to fit her feet and fastened with leather straps. The child's toes and fingernails had evidently been painted bright red. Sections of the child's clothing were also recovered close to the shallow grave. The child's body was taken to Widmer Funeral Home, to undergo an autopsy.  
Investigators at the scene later stated at the inquest that the individual(s) responsible for the child's death had possibly made two separate attempts to dig an alternate grave for the child's body at the location she was subsequently discovered. This conclusion was determined by two evident disturbances in the sand close to the actual burial site. In addition, evident tire impressions indicated the perpetrator(s) had driven off Highway 93 to the actual disposal location before "[turning] around" in their vehicle and driving from the actual burial location.  
Two sets of footprints were recovered at the crime scene, one of which had evidently been made by an adult; the other possibly by the sandal-footed child, indicating she may have walked to the site of her murder. Investigators also recovered a rusted and apparently bloodstained pocket knife near the body, but were unable to definitively determine whether this item was connected to the crime. The clothing, knife, and footprint impressions found upon and/or near the child's body were sent to an FBI laboratory to undergo further examination.  

Autopsy.  
The forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy determined that the body was that of a white girl, most likely between the ages of five and seven years old, 3 feet–6 inches to 4 feet–5 inches in height, and likely weighing 50 to 60 pounds. The child had been dead for between one and two weeks prior to the discovery of her remains. Her hair color was brown, possibly having been tinted or dyed auburn, and she had a full set of intact milk teeth described as being in a markedly good condition.  
The actual cause of death of the child was never determined by medical examiners, although her death was officially declared a homicide. Although unable to determine the actual cause of death, the forensic pathologist was able to definitively state the decedent had not suffered any puncture wounds or bone fractures, either at the time of her death or during her lifetime.  Furthermore, the contemporary autopsy report states that her remains were charred, presumably from her body having been set alight around the time of her death, and none of the items of clothing recovered bore any puncture holes indicative of being penetrated by a knife.  
Because the decedent had been in an advanced state of decomposition at the time of her discovery, creating an actual composite drawing of the child's facial features was not possible.  

Initial investigation.  
With active assistance from the local media.....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72949940Mon, 13 Jul 2026 13:35:04 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murder of Sharon Lee Gallegos.   Sharon Lee Gallegos (September 6, 1955 – c. July 21–24, 1960) was a formerly unidentified American murder victim known as Little Miss Nobody whose body was found in Congress, Yavapai County, Arizona on July 31, 1960....Sharon Lee Gallegos (September 6, 1955 – c. July 21–24, 1960) was a formerly unidentified American murder victim known as Little Miss Nobody whose body was found in Congress, Yavapai County, Arizona on July 31, 1960. Her remains were estimated to have been discovered within one to two weeks of the date of her murder. Due to the advanced state of decomposition of the child's remains, the specific cause of death of Gallegos has never been established, although her death has always been considered to be a homicide.  
On March 15, 2022, investigators in Arizona announced the identification of Gallegos's remains, almost 62 years after the discovery of her body. The child had been kidnapped from outside her grandmother's home in Alamogordo, New Mexico by two unknown individuals ten days prior to the discovery of her body.  
Gallegos became known as "Little Miss Nobody" after contemporary efforts to identify her proved unsuccessful and no family or friends came forward to identify or claim her body. Her 2022 identification is the oldest cold case identification in Yavapai County; efforts to identify her abductors/murderers are ongoing.  

Early life.  
Gallegos lived in Alamogordo with her mother, Guadelupe Gallegos, along with her two older siblings, Ramona and John, and her grandmother. Six other relatives lived in the same home, including four other children aged between five and fifteen. Her biological father, a soldier, had left the family when Gallegos was a baby, and the child had no contact with him.  
Her family was not wealthy, and Gallegos's mother supported the family by working as a maid at a local motel. Despite general financial limitations, the Gallegos family was close-knit. Sharon herself has been described as a "feisty" and "happy-go-lucky" child who enjoyed performing simple errands for her mother and playing close to the family home with her siblings and other neighborhood children. Due to her fair complexion by comparison to her siblings, the child was affectionately known to relatives as "La Güera."  

Prior stalking concerns.  
Authorities believe the couple who kidnapped Gallegos had been actively stalking the child for days, if not weeks, before her actual kidnapping. On Sunday, July 17, a couple were observed in a distinctive dark-green sedan car with two children (one a freckle-faced male; one a "small" female) after Gallegos and her mother had attended a church service. Following the church service, the female abductor had asked several attendees probing questions pertaining to Sharon and her mother, Guadelupe.  
Gallegos's mother later stated that her daughter's behavior had markedly changed in the days immediately prior to her disappearance. The girl became markedly nervous and wary, and suddenly ceased wishing to retrieve groceries for the family from a local grocery store (an errand she particularly enjoyed). She also became visibly upset whenever she observed this same distinctive dark-green car near her home or places she visited, asking relatives to pick her up and carry her past the vehicle.  
Shortly thereafter, on or about July 19, this female abductor is known to have knocked on a neighbor's door, inquiring as to Gallegos's mother, her actual address, and asking about her children—specifically whether she had a little girl. Other questions asked included whether Gallegos's mother had numerous children and her current financial situation. This woman then claimed to this neighbor she wanted to offer a job to Gallegos's mother.  
At the time of her disappearance, Gallegos was two months shy of her fifth birthday. She was approximately 3 ft 6 in (110 cm) in height and had light brown hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing pink shorts and white shoes.  

Abduction.  
At approximately 3 p.m. on July 21, 1960, while playing with her two cousins (aged five and eleven), Gallegos...]]>1261falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/51-lake-bodom-murders--72949506The Lake Bodom murders is an unsolved 1960 homicide case in which three teenage campers were killed and another seriously injured in Finland. The case is one of the most notorious crimes in modern Finnish history.  
Sometime between 4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. (EET) on 5 June 1960, at Lake Bodom in Espoo, Uusimaa, Maila Irmeli Björklund (15), Anja Tuulikki Mäki (15), and Seppo Boisman (18) were killed by stabbing and blunt-force trauma to their heads while sleeping inside a tent. The fourth youth, Nils Gustafsson, then-aged 18, was found outside the tent with broken facial bones and stab wounds.  
Despite extensive investigations, the perpetrator was never identified and various theories on the killer's identity have been presented over the years. Gustafsson was unexpectedly arrested on suspicion of committing the murders in 2004, but he was found not guilty the following year.  

Murders.  
On Saturday, 4 June 1960, four Finnish teenagers had decided to camp along the shore of Lake Bodom (Finnish: Bodominjärvi, Swedish: Bodom träsk), near the city of Espoo's Oittaa Manor. Maila Irmeli Björklund and Anja Tuulikki Mäki were both aged 15 at the time; accompanying them were their boyfriends, Seppo Antero Boisman and Nils Wilhelm Gustafsson, both aged 18.  
Sometime between 4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. on Sunday 5 June 1960, Mäki, Björklund and Boisman were all stabbed and bludgeoned to death by an unknown assailant. Gustafsson, the only survivor of the massacre, had fractured facial bones that appeared to confirm his story of being a victim. He stated afterwards that he had seen a glimpse of an attacker clothed in black with bright red eyes coming for them.  
At about 6:00 a.m., a group of boys birdwatching some distance away had reportedly seen the tent collapse and a blond man walking away from the site. The bodies of the victims were discovered at about 11:00 a.m. by a carpenter named Esko Oiva Johansson. He alerted the police, who arrived on the scene at noon.  

Initial investigation.  
The killer had not injured the victims from inside the tent but instead had attacked the occupants from outside with a knife and an unidentified blunt instrument (possibly a rock) through the sides of the tent. The murder weapons have never been located.   The killer had taken several items which detectives found puzzling, including the keys to the victims' motorcycles, which themselves had been left behind. Some of the missing clothing items, including Gustafsson's shoes, were found partially hidden approximately 500 metres from the murder site. The police did not cordon off the site nor record the details of the scene (later seen as a major error) and almost immediately allowed a crowd of police officers and other people to trample around and disturb the evidence. The mistake was further exacerbated by calling in soldiers to assist with the search around the lake for the missing items, several of which were never found.  
Björklund, Gustafsson's girlfriend, was found undressed from the waist down and was lying on top of the tent, and had suffered the most injuries out of all of the victims. She was stabbed multiple times after her death, while the other two teenagers were slain with less brutality.  

Suspects.  
There have been numerous suspects over the course of the investigation of the Lake Bodom murders, but the following are the most notable.  
Valdemar Gyllström.  
Many local people suspected Karl Valdemar Gyllström, a kiosk keeper from Oittaa known to have been hostile towards campers. Police found no hard evidence to link him to the murders. They were skeptical of supposed confessions he was said to have made because they considered him disturbed. He drowned in Lake Bodom in 1969, most likely by suicide. The people in the town knew Gyllström was violent, cut down tents, threw rocks at people who came to his street, and some later said that it was Gyllström they saw coming back from the murder scene but were too afraid to call the police about him. A book released in 2006 brings up the theory in detail. The book also claims that the police almost immediately ignored much more evidence that was previously unknown to the public because of language barriers, among other things.  
Hans Assmann.  
Most public suspicion focused on Hans Assmann, a German-born naturalized Finnish citizen, who lived several kilometres from the shore of Lake Bodom. A series of popular books promulgated a theory of Assmann committing the Bodom killings and other murders. It was not taken seriously by the police, as Assmann had an alibi for the night of the Bodom murders (and was said to have been in Germany during the time of another murder). On the morning of June 6, 1960, however, he had shown up at a hospital in Helsinki with bloody clothes. He moved to Sweden, where he died in the late 1990s. Assmann was also a suspect in five other cases, even confessing to one on his death bed.  
Pentti Soininen.  
During the mid-1960s, an individual named Pentti Soininen, known for his violent tendencies, claimed to a fellow inmate that he was responsible for the murders that occurred at Lake Bodom. However, he was approximately 14 years old at the time of the murders. Many question whether he could have single-handedly overpowered four older teenagers, casting doubt on his involvement.  

Arrest and trial of Nils Gustafsson.  
In late March 2004, almost 44 years after the event, Gustafsson was arrested. In early 2005, the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation declared the case was solved based on new forensic analysis. According to the prosecution's interpretation of the bloodstains, Gustafsson had been drunk and excluded from the tent when he attacked the other boy, getting his jaw broken in a fight which escalated into him committing three murders.  
The trial started on 4 August 2005. Gustafsson's defence lawyer argued that the murders were the work of one or more outsiders and that Gustafsson would have been incapable of killing three people given the extent of his injuries. It had always been known that the shoes worn by the killer and hidden by him 450 metres (500 yards) away from the tent belonged to Gustafsson, who was found barefoot on top of the tent. Modern DNA analysis was significant for the prosecution as it showed that the three murdered victims' blood was on Gustafsson's shoes, but Gustafsson's was absent.  
The prosecution said it followed from the lack of Gustafsson's blood on the shoes, that his injuries had occurred at a different time to the attack on the murdered victims, and that the only explanation of this was that Gustafsson had committed the murders, then faked the theft of items by hiding them, further injured himself and then went back to the tent where (now barefoot) he pretended to be unconscious. The prosecution attempted to bolster their case by alleging an identification by two birdwatchers of Gustafsson as the tall blond man at the scene of the crime, an assertion that he had been overheard making an incriminating remark, and also that a decade after the event he had boasted to a woman about his guilt.  
On 7 October 2005, Gustafsson was acquitted of all charges. The court explained the verdict as due to the prosecution’s evidence being inconclusive, failure to show Gustafsson had a motive appropriate to a crime of such extreme seriousness, and certainty about the facts now being impossible given the time that had elapsed. The State of Finland paid him €44,900 for the mental suffering caused by the long remand time, but the public prosecutor refused to sue Finnish newspapers for defamation. Gustafsson did not use his right to bring charges against the newspapers as an injured party.  



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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72949506Mon, 13 Jul 2026 12:52:00 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Lake Bodom murders.   The Lake Bodom murders is an unsolved 1960 homicide case in which three teenage campers were killed and another seriously injured in Finland. The case is one of the most notorious crimes in modern Finnish history.   Sometime...The Lake Bodom murders is an unsolved 1960 homicide case in which three teenage campers were killed and another seriously injured in Finland. The case is one of the most notorious crimes in modern Finnish history.  
Sometime between 4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. (EET) on 5 June 1960, at Lake Bodom in Espoo, Uusimaa, Maila Irmeli Björklund (15), Anja Tuulikki Mäki (15), and Seppo Boisman (18) were killed by stabbing and blunt-force trauma to their heads while sleeping inside a tent. The fourth youth, Nils Gustafsson, then-aged 18, was found outside the tent with broken facial bones and stab wounds.  
Despite extensive investigations, the perpetrator was never identified and various theories on the killer's identity have been presented over the years. Gustafsson was unexpectedly arrested on suspicion of committing the murders in 2004, but he was found not guilty the following year.  

Murders.  
On Saturday, 4 June 1960, four Finnish teenagers had decided to camp along the shore of Lake Bodom (Finnish: Bodominjärvi, Swedish: Bodom träsk), near the city of Espoo's Oittaa Manor. Maila Irmeli Björklund and Anja Tuulikki Mäki were both aged 15 at the time; accompanying them were their boyfriends, Seppo Antero Boisman and Nils Wilhelm Gustafsson, both aged 18.  
Sometime between 4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. on Sunday 5 June 1960, Mäki, Björklund and Boisman were all stabbed and bludgeoned to death by an unknown assailant. Gustafsson, the only survivor of the massacre, had fractured facial bones that appeared to confirm his story of being a victim. He stated afterwards that he had seen a glimpse of an attacker clothed in black with bright red eyes coming for them.  
At about 6:00 a.m., a group of boys birdwatching some distance away had reportedly seen the tent collapse and a blond man walking away from the site. The bodies of the victims were discovered at about 11:00 a.m. by a carpenter named Esko Oiva Johansson. He alerted the police, who arrived on the scene at noon.  

Initial investigation.  
The killer had not injured the victims from inside the tent but instead had attacked the occupants from outside with a knife and an unidentified blunt instrument (possibly a rock) through the sides of the tent. The murder weapons have never been located.   The killer had taken several items which detectives found puzzling, including the keys to the victims' motorcycles, which themselves had been left behind. Some of the missing clothing items, including Gustafsson's shoes, were found partially hidden approximately 500 metres from the murder site. The police did not cordon off the site nor record the details of the scene (later seen as a major error) and almost immediately allowed a crowd of police officers and other people to trample around and disturb the evidence. The mistake was further exacerbated by calling in soldiers to assist with the search around the lake for the missing items, several of which were never found.  
Björklund, Gustafsson's girlfriend, was found undressed from the waist down and was lying on top of the tent, and had suffered the most injuries out of all of the victims. She was stabbed multiple times after her death, while the other two teenagers were slain with less brutality.  

Suspects.  
There have been numerous suspects over the course of the investigation of the Lake Bodom murders, but the following are the most notable.  
Valdemar Gyllström.  
Many local people suspected Karl Valdemar Gyllström, a kiosk keeper from Oittaa known to have been hostile towards campers. Police found no hard evidence to link him to the murders. They were skeptical of supposed confessions he was said to have made because they considered him disturbed. He drowned in Lake Bodom in 1969, most likely by suicide. The people in the town knew Gyllström was violent, cut down tents, threw rocks at people who came to his street, and some later...]]>505falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/50-bouncing-ball-killer--72949380The Bouncing Ball Killer, also known as the Bouncing Ball Slayer, the Bouncing Ball Strangler, and the Rubber Ball Strangler, was an unidentified serial killer who is believed to have raped and murdered at least six women between May 1959 and June 1960 in Los Angeles, California. A majority of the victims were elderly, and all but one were strangled to death. During the investigation, a multitude of suspects were detained, and although one reportedly confessed to the crimes, no one was ever convicted of the murders, and the identity of the killer remains a mystery. The killer received his moniker from being seen bouncing a toy ball at several of the crime scenes.
 
Murders.  
The first murder attributed to the suspected killer occurred on May 28, 1959, when 57-year-old Ruth Gwinn was attacked while on her way home from work. The attacker initially beat her relentlessly before dragging her into a parking lot and raping her.  As witnesses tried to intervene, the man fled. Gwinn survived long enough to tell police what had happened, though it would only take a few hours until she died from her injuries. Gwinn had previously been attacked seven years prior in 1952, near where she would later be killed in 1959, although minimal evidence suggested a link.  
On January 29, 1960, 73-year-old Amanda E. Rockefellow was murdered. Her body was found in an alleyway two blocks away from her home. On February 10, 1960, 60-year-old Ann Cotter was murdered while walking to church. Three months later, on May 1, 74-year-old Elmyra Miller was murdered via strangulation in her home. Evidence found at the home showed that it was likely a sexually motivated attack. Twelve days later, on May 13, 60-year-old Bessie Elva Green was raped and murdered in her apartment, which had also been burglarized.  
On June 20, 83-year-old Grace A. Moore was murdered in her home. Six days later, on June 26, 72-year-old Mercedes Langeron was raped and strangled to death with a bedsheet in her home. She was found by her roommate, 62-year-old Adela Williams. Williams later told police that she had seen a man leaving the apartment as she entered it. The man, who she described as approximately six feet tall and black, was bouncing a rubber ball as he left. She also described him as wearing Ivy League clothes.  

Other suspected crimes.  
On August 18, 1960, 51-year-old Mrs. Modie Hall and her 10-year-old granddaughter, Mary Foster, were brutally attacked in their home on the 69th block of San Pedro and Avalon by a man wielding a blunt object. Hall's son-in-law, 30-year-old Floyd Harris, was awakened by moaning and the distinct sound of a rubber ball bouncing on the floor. He pursued the intruder for several blocks but eventually lost sight of him.  
Of the six occupants in the house at the time, only Foster and Hall were assaulted before the intruder fled. Both victims were hospitalized with critical injuries to the head and face but survived. The attacker was believed to be the elusive "Bouncing Ball Killer", who remained at large, but despite efforts, police were unable to apprehend the suspect.  
On September 1, 1960, 84-year-old Lena Bensusen was badly beaten during a home invasion. She survived long enough for her to be taken to the hospital, where she supposedly gave a description of her attacker, which reportedly matched the description given of the Bouncing Ball Killer. On September 6, Bensusen died from her injuries while being treated at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center.  

Investigation.  
The murders were quickly grouped together, and based on Adela Williams' description, a composite sketch of the suspect was made and released by police artist Ector Garcia in June 1960. Newspapers and the media altogether nicknamed the killer the "Rubber Ball Strangler" and the more popular "Bouncing Ball Killer". Other news outlets nicknamed the killer the "Bouncing Ball Slayer" and the "Bouncing Ball Strangler".  
By the end of June, over one hundred tips had been submitted to local law enforcement from citizens who claimed to have information in the case, but none led to any arrests.  

Initial arrests.  
On July 3, 1960, 38-year-old Noble Harper was arrested at a shopping market, having been seen bouncing a rubber ball outside the building. He was also described as showing particular similarities with the sketch of the killer. Police found little evidence to suggest he was the killer, and the following day he was cleared as a suspect.   
A bricklayer named Ray Williams was arrested on July 10, on suspicion of being the killer after police noted his similarities to the sketch of the killer. His shoe size was also consistent with the killer.  
On July 23, 23-year-old Joseph Walter Malveaux was arrested after police spotted him loitering near the local coliseum. While being booked, police noticed similarities in Malveaux's facial features to that of the composite sketch of the Bouncing Ball Killer. During his interrogation, Malveaux told police that all of his friends also thought he looked like the killer but said that rumors of it being him were "a lot of boloney". His shoe size was consistent with the killer's, but besides that, police struggled to find any other evidence linking him to the murders, and as such, Malveaux was released from police custody.  

Substantial suspects.  
- On July 12, 1960, police responded to a call of a woman screaming near the city college campus. When they arrived, police noticed 35-year-old Raymond Ward Clemmons getting into his car and stopped him for questioning. Nearby, police found the body of a woman, who was identified as 19-year-old Nina T. Thoeren. Clemmons was arrested and confessed to strangling Thoeren to death. He had a criminal record, and at the time of Thoeren's murder, Clemmons was on parole after serving two years at San Quentin State Prison for a hit-and-run in 1956. According to his confession, Clemmons stated that he had offered Thoeren a ride, and presumably she jokingly asked him if he was the Bouncing Ball Killer, and in response, Clemmons said, "Sure, I'm the Bouncing Ball Killer. Look in the glove compartment. The ball is in there". Clemmons went further and confessed to being the Bouncing Ball Killer. In response to this, police ordered Clemmons to take a polygraph, which concluded that he was not being truthful when he said he was the Bouncing Ball Killer. Clemmons was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Thoeren, and he was never convicted of any of the other murders.  
- On September 6, 1960, police arrested 28-year-old Henry Adolph Busch for the attempted murder of a co-worker in Los Angeles. Police found a knife and a pair of handcuffs in his possession. As he was being booked at the police station, Busch confessed to the murders of two women that month: 72-year-old Shirley Payneas on September 4 and 53-year-old Margaret Briggs on September 5. He also confessed to the murder of Elmyra Miller, who was believed to have been murdered by the Bouncing Ball Killer. Busch stated his reasoning for the murders was that he had an irresistible urge to do so, albeit he later said he had been inspired to kill after watching the movie Psycho, a claim that made headlines and even got the director of the film Alfred Hitchcock to respond and deny his movie would inspire violence. Busch would be tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for the three murders. He was executed via the gas chamber on June 6, 1962.  
- On August 28, 1961, Long Beach police arrested 20-year-old Charles James Golston on charges of murder in the rape and strangling of 81-year-old Dora Ann Cutting. After his arrest, he was also questioned in the disappearance of 11-year-old Karen Lynn Tompkins, although he was later cleared of suspicion in that case. Los Angeles police were made aware of the arrest and sought to question Golston in the Bouncing Ball murders. In the end he was never definitively linked to the Los Angeles killings but was subsequently tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for the murder of Cutting. He was first scheduled to be executed in January 1963 but was granted a stay of execution by Justice William Douglas. In April 1963 Golston and three other death row inmates, Don Franklin, John Vlahovich, and Joseph Rosoto, were scheduled to be executed on May 3 of that year. He later successfully appealed and got a new stay of execution. In 1972, the Supreme Court of California ruled the death penalty was unconstitutional, and that same year, following the Supreme Court decision Furman v. Georgia, the death penalty in the United States was ruled unconstitutional, causing everyone on death row, including Golston, to be resentenced to life imprisonment. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72949380Mon, 13 Jul 2026 12:33:27 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Bouncing Ball Killer.   The Bouncing Ball Killer, also known as the Bouncing Ball Slayer, the Bouncing Ball Strangler, and the Rubber Ball Strangler, was an unidentified serial killer who is believed to have raped and murdered at least six women...The Bouncing Ball Killer, also known as the Bouncing Ball Slayer, the Bouncing Ball Strangler, and the Rubber Ball Strangler, was an unidentified serial killer who is believed to have raped and murdered at least six women between May 1959 and June 1960 in Los Angeles, California. A majority of the victims were elderly, and all but one were strangled to death. During the investigation, a multitude of suspects were detained, and although one reportedly confessed to the crimes, no one was ever convicted of the murders, and the identity of the killer remains a mystery. The killer received his moniker from being seen bouncing a toy ball at several of the crime scenes.
 
Murders.  
The first murder attributed to the suspected killer occurred on May 28, 1959, when 57-year-old Ruth Gwinn was attacked while on her way home from work. The attacker initially beat her relentlessly before dragging her into a parking lot and raping her.  As witnesses tried to intervene, the man fled. Gwinn survived long enough to tell police what had happened, though it would only take a few hours until she died from her injuries. Gwinn had previously been attacked seven years prior in 1952, near where she would later be killed in 1959, although minimal evidence suggested a link.  
On January 29, 1960, 73-year-old Amanda E. Rockefellow was murdered. Her body was found in an alleyway two blocks away from her home. On February 10, 1960, 60-year-old Ann Cotter was murdered while walking to church. Three months later, on May 1, 74-year-old Elmyra Miller was murdered via strangulation in her home. Evidence found at the home showed that it was likely a sexually motivated attack. Twelve days later, on May 13, 60-year-old Bessie Elva Green was raped and murdered in her apartment, which had also been burglarized.  
On June 20, 83-year-old Grace A. Moore was murdered in her home. Six days later, on June 26, 72-year-old Mercedes Langeron was raped and strangled to death with a bedsheet in her home. She was found by her roommate, 62-year-old Adela Williams. Williams later told police that she had seen a man leaving the apartment as she entered it. The man, who she described as approximately six feet tall and black, was bouncing a rubber ball as he left. She also described him as wearing Ivy League clothes.  

Other suspected crimes.  
On August 18, 1960, 51-year-old Mrs. Modie Hall and her 10-year-old granddaughter, Mary Foster, were brutally attacked in their home on the 69th block of San Pedro and Avalon by a man wielding a blunt object. Hall's son-in-law, 30-year-old Floyd Harris, was awakened by moaning and the distinct sound of a rubber ball bouncing on the floor. He pursued the intruder for several blocks but eventually lost sight of him.  
Of the six occupants in the house at the time, only Foster and Hall were assaulted before the intruder fled. Both victims were hospitalized with critical injuries to the head and face but survived. The attacker was believed to be the elusive "Bouncing Ball Killer", who remained at large, but despite efforts, police were unable to apprehend the suspect.  
On September 1, 1960, 84-year-old Lena Bensusen was badly beaten during a home invasion. She survived long enough for her to be taken to the hospital, where she supposedly gave a description of her attacker, which reportedly matched the description given of the Bouncing Ball Killer. On September 6, Bensusen died from her injuries while being treated at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center.  

Investigation.  
The murders were quickly grouped together, and based on Adela Williams' description, a composite sketch of the suspect was made and released by police artist Ector Garcia in June 1960. Newspapers and the media altogether nicknamed the killer the "Rubber Ball Strangler" and the more popular "Bouncing Ball Killer". Other news outlets nicknamed the killer the "Bouncing Ball...]]>584falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/49-murder-of-maria-ridulph--72939984Murder of Maria Ridulph.  
Maria Elizabeth Ridulph (March 12, 1950 – c. December 1957) was a seven-year-old girl who disappeared from Sycamore, Illinois, United States, on December 3, 1957. Her remains were found almost five months later in a wooded area near Woodbine, Illinois, approximately 90 miles (140 km) from her home. Maria was last seen by her friend on her neighborhood corner of Center Cross Street and Archie Place with an unknown man in his early twenties who called himself "Johnny".  
The case, which was well known in the Chicago area, was one of the oldest cold case murders in the U.S. that was thought to have been solved. Jack McCullough, who under his former name John Tessier had been a neighbor of the Ridulph family, was wrongfully convicted of her murder in September 2012. McCullough was serving a life sentence when the DeKalb County State's Attorney completed a post-conviction review in March 2016. In particular, phone records from Illinois Bell showed that McCullough made a collect call to his mother from a payphone forty miles away in downtown Rockford, Illinois rather than from Sycamore as alleged at his trial, leading the State's Attorney to conclude McCullough could not have been in Sycamore at the time of Maria's abduction. McCullough was released from prison in April 2016 and declared innocent by the DeKalb County Circuit Court in April 2017.  

Background.  
Maria Ridulph was born on March 12, 1950, to Michael and Frances Ivy Ridulph in Sycamore, Illinois. She was the youngest of four children and had two sisters and a brother. Although many residents lived or worked on farms in the area, her father Michael worked at one of Sycamore's few factories and her mother Frances was a homemaker. At the time she was abducted, Maria was 7 years old, 44 inches tall, and weighed 53 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. She was an honor student in second grade. She also received awards for perfect Sunday school attendance at Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. John.  
According to her mother, Maria was high-strung. "My daughter was a nervous girl and if she got in any trouble would become hysterical," Frances said in a 1957 interview shortly after Maria disappeared. "Someone would probably have to kill her to keep her quiet. I am the only one who could calm her down." Maria was also described as a "screamer" and afraid of the dark. Her best friend was 8-year-old Kathy Sigman, who lived on the same street as the Ridulphs.  

Crime.  
On the evening of December 3, 1957, Maria begged to be allowed to go outside as it had started to snow. After finishing dinner, Maria and Kathy Sigman went outside in the dark near Maria's house and played a game they called "duck the cars", running back and forth trying to avoid the headlights of oncoming cars in the street. According to Kathy, they were approached by a man, whom Kathy later described to police as in his early 20s and tall with a slender chin, light hair, and a gap in his teeth, and wearing a colorful sweater. The man, who said his name was "Johnny", told the girls that he was 24 and not married. He asked if they liked dolls and if they liked piggyback rides. He gave Maria a piggyback ride, after which she went back to her house and got a doll to show him. After Maria returned, Kathy ran back to her house to get her mittens, leaving Maria alone with the man. When Kathy returned, Maria and the man were gone.  
Kathy went to the Ridulph house to tell them she couldn't find Maria. The family initially thought Maria was hiding, and sent Maria's 11-year-old brother to look for her. After he was unable to find her, the Ridulphs called the police, and within an hour, police and armed civilians began a search of the town, but failed to locate Maria or "Johnny", the man with whom she was last seen. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), presuming that Maria might have been abducted across state lines, arrived in Sycamore within two days to help the local and state police in the search. The FBI and police interviewed numerous witnesses who had seen the two girls playing without any other person present between 6:00 – 6:30 p.m., and also spoke to family members who had seen or spoken with Maria and Kathy in the course of Maria getting her doll, Kathy getting her mittens, and Kathy reporting Maria's disappearance to the Ridulphs. Based on these interviews, "Johnny" was thought to have approached the girls after 6:30 p.m., and the FBI concluded that Maria was abducted between 6:45 – 7:00 p.m.  
Kathy Sigman was the only witness who had seen "Johnny" and was placed in protective custody, as the police and FBI feared that the kidnapper would come back and harm her. The authorities had her look at photos of convicted felons or suspects who bore a resemblance to "Johnny". John Tessier, who was wrongfully convicted of the crime over 50 years later, lived in the girls' neighborhood and was on the original list of suspects based on a tip, but the police did not ask Kathy to identify him after he provided an alibi for the night of the crime. In late December 1957, Kathy was taken to the Dane County Sheriff's Office in Madison, Wisconsin, to see a lineup of possible suspects. She positively identified Thomas Joseph Rivard, described in FBI documents as a 35-year-old man approximately 5 foot 4 inches tall and 156 lbs., with dark blond wavy (bushy) hair. However, Rivard had an alibi, as he was in jail at the time of the kidnapping; police suspected someone else in the lineup as the real culprit and Rivard was merely used to fill out the lineup. Rivard also did not physically resemble Tessier, who was six inches taller and 17 years younger than Rivard. When asked years later about the 1957 lineup, Kathy said she did not remember picking Rivard out of the lineup.  
Maria's disappearance received national news coverage, and both President Dwight D. Eisenhower and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover took an interest in the case. Law enforcement continued to investigate various suspects in the area, including transients, known sex offenders, and a local man who had given children piggyback rides, but developed no solid leads. Maria's parents appeared on television and in other media pleading for their daughter's safe return and the public's help in finding her.  
On April 26, 1958, near Woodbine, Illinois, two tourists searching for mushrooms in a wooded area along US Route 20 discovered the skeletal remains of a small child, wearing only a shirt, undershirt, and socks, under a partially fallen tree. The decomposed condition of the body indicated it had been there for several months. The body was identified as Maria Ridulph based on dental records, a lock of hair, and the shirts and socks she had been wearing when she disappeared. The rest of Maria's clothing, including her coat, slacks, shoes and an undergarment, was not found. No photographs were taken of the crime scene because the coroner, James Furlong, did not want photos of the child's body leaked to newspapers. Because the crime had occurred within Illinois rather than crossing state lines, the FBI withdrew from the case, leaving it to state and local police.  
The initial autopsy did not determine a cause of death due to the state of decomposition. During an autopsy done 50 years later, a forensic anthropologist determined Maria had likely been stabbed several times in the throat.  

Suspects:  
John Tessier (Jack McCullough).  
John Tessier was born John Cherry on November 27, 1939, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to British sergeant Samuel Cherry and his wife Eileen McCullough Cherry. Samuel Cherry was killed early in World War II. During the war, Eileen Cherry served as one of the first female airplane spotters with the UK's Royal Air Force and met Ralph Tessier, who was serving with the United States 8th Army-Air Force at RAF Bovingdon, England. She married Ralph Tessier in November 1944, and after the war, she and her son John, then aged 7, followed Ralph to Sycamore, Illinois, where Ralph and Eileen had six more children together over the years. After his mother's marriage, John used the last name Tessier, although he was still sometimes called John Cherry.  
The Tessier family home in Sycamore was located around the corner from the Ridulph home, less than two blocks away. Ralph Tessier, a sign painter, painted insignia on the doors of Sycamore police cars and was friendly with the police chief. John Tessier was expelled from school in the tenth grade for pushing a teacher and calling her a name. At the time of Maria Ridulph's disappearance, he was 18 years old and living at home with his parents and siblings while making plans to join the U.S. Air Force.
On December 4, investigators visited the Tessier home as part of their neighborhood search for Maria. According to Tessier's half-sisters Katherine Tessier (Caulfield) and Jeanne Tessier, their mother told the investigators that John Tessier had been home on the night of December 3, something that they later testified was not true. Shortly thereafter, before Maria's body was found, the FBI investigated Tessier as a possible suspect. Sources differ on whether the investigation was triggered by a tip from a local resident or by John Tessier's own parents seeking to clear their son, who they realized had the same name and general description as "Johnny".  
Tessier and his parents told FBI investigators that on December 3, 1957, Tessier was in Rockford, Illinois, approximately 40 miles northwest of Sycamore, to enlist in the Air Force. He said he had been in Chicago on December 2 and 3 undergoing physical examinations required for his enlistment. On the morning of December 3, he had visited the Chicago recruiting station and then spent the day sightseeing in Chicago before returning to Rockford by train that evening, arriving there at 6:45 p.m. Upon his.....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72939984Sun, 12 Jul 2026 16:38:01 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murder of Maria Ridulph.   Maria Elizabeth Ridulph (March 12, 1950 – c. December 1957) was a seven-year-old girl who disappeared from Sycamore, Illinois, United States, on December 3, 1957. Her remains were found almost five months later in a wooded...Murder of Maria Ridulph.  
Maria Elizabeth Ridulph (March 12, 1950 – c. December 1957) was a seven-year-old girl who disappeared from Sycamore, Illinois, United States, on December 3, 1957. Her remains were found almost five months later in a wooded area near Woodbine, Illinois, approximately 90 miles (140 km) from her home. Maria was last seen by her friend on her neighborhood corner of Center Cross Street and Archie Place with an unknown man in his early twenties who called himself "Johnny".  
The case, which was well known in the Chicago area, was one of the oldest cold case murders in the U.S. that was thought to have been solved. Jack McCullough, who under his former name John Tessier had been a neighbor of the Ridulph family, was wrongfully convicted of her murder in September 2012. McCullough was serving a life sentence when the DeKalb County State's Attorney completed a post-conviction review in March 2016. In particular, phone records from Illinois Bell showed that McCullough made a collect call to his mother from a payphone forty miles away in downtown Rockford, Illinois rather than from Sycamore as alleged at his trial, leading the State's Attorney to conclude McCullough could not have been in Sycamore at the time of Maria's abduction. McCullough was released from prison in April 2016 and declared innocent by the DeKalb County Circuit Court in April 2017.  

Background.  
Maria Ridulph was born on March 12, 1950, to Michael and Frances Ivy Ridulph in Sycamore, Illinois. She was the youngest of four children and had two sisters and a brother. Although many residents lived or worked on farms in the area, her father Michael worked at one of Sycamore's few factories and her mother Frances was a homemaker. At the time she was abducted, Maria was 7 years old, 44 inches tall, and weighed 53 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. She was an honor student in second grade. She also received awards for perfect Sunday school attendance at Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. John.  
According to her mother, Maria was high-strung. "My daughter was a nervous girl and if she got in any trouble would become hysterical," Frances said in a 1957 interview shortly after Maria disappeared. "Someone would probably have to kill her to keep her quiet. I am the only one who could calm her down." Maria was also described as a "screamer" and afraid of the dark. Her best friend was 8-year-old Kathy Sigman, who lived on the same street as the Ridulphs.  

Crime.  
On the evening of December 3, 1957, Maria begged to be allowed to go outside as it had started to snow. After finishing dinner, Maria and Kathy Sigman went outside in the dark near Maria's house and played a game they called "duck the cars", running back and forth trying to avoid the headlights of oncoming cars in the street. According to Kathy, they were approached by a man, whom Kathy later described to police as in his early 20s and tall with a slender chin, light hair, and a gap in his teeth, and wearing a colorful sweater. The man, who said his name was "Johnny", told the girls that he was 24 and not married. He asked if they liked dolls and if they liked piggyback rides. He gave Maria a piggyback ride, after which she went back to her house and got a doll to show him. After Maria returned, Kathy ran back to her house to get her mittens, leaving Maria alone with the man. When Kathy returned, Maria and the man were gone.  
Kathy went to the Ridulph house to tell them she couldn't find Maria. The family initially thought Maria was hiding, and sent Maria's 11-year-old brother to look for her. After he was unable to find her, the Ridulphs called the police, and within an hour, police and armed civilians began a search of the town, but failed to locate Maria or "Johnny", the man with whom she was last seen. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), presuming that Maria might have been abducted across state lines, arrived in...]]>1736falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/48-rosemarie-nitribitt--72939415Maria Rosalia Auguste Nitribitt (1 February 1933 – 29 October 1957), better known as Rosemarie Nitribitt, was a German luxury call girl whose violent death caused a scandal in West Germany during the Wirtschaftswunder years. The case gave rise to a novel, three movies and a musical.  
On 1 November 1957, Nitribitt was found dead in her apartment in Frankfurt, Stiftstraße 36. Her death was alleged to have occurred three days earlier. Her body showed signs of strangulation and a head wound. Heinz Pohlmann, a businessman and friend of Nitribitt's, became the prime suspect. He had visited her on 29 October. A few days after the murder, Pohlmann was able to settle high debts and bought an expensive car, but could not explain the origins of the money; he provided contradictory information during questioning. He had embezzled money at his job. Pohlmann was charged with Nitribitt's murder but acquitted in July 1960 on grounds of reasonable doubt.  

Early life and career.  
Born in Düsseldorf, Rhine Province, Prussia, "Rosemarie" Nitribitt and her two younger half-sisters were raised in low-income conditions by their mother in Ratingen and Düsseldorf. The girls were placed in a juvenile home and after 1939 lived with foster parents. There Nitribitt was raped at the age of 11. Still in her teenage years, she began to work as a prostitute. She was later sent to juvenile correctional homes, from where she escaped on several occasions. She then moved to Frankfurt am Main, where, after a brief interlude as a waitress and model, she took up prostitution again and was arrested at the Frankfurt railway station in 1951.  
According to people who knew her at the time, Nitribitt tried hard to disguise her humble origins in order to be able to keep up conversation in polite society and to attract more sophisticated customers. For example, she started learning English and French.  
One of her regular clients gave her a car—a used Opel Kapitän—as a present. Others invited her to spend a Mediterranean holiday with them. Accordingly, she became very wealthy quite quickly, a fact which she demonstrated by buying a black Mercedes-Benz 190SL (a roadster which was to be colloquially referred to as the Nitribitt-Mercedes) with red leather upholstery in 1956; she would drive around Frankfurt in the car to solicit customers. Also in 1956, she moved into a luxurious apartment at Stiftstraße 36. The police later estimated that she had earned about 80,000 DM in 1956 (building a single-family house cost about 25,000 – 30,000 DM in Germany at the time).  

Death.  
On 1 November 1957, she was found dead in her apartment in Frankfurt, Stiftstraße 36. Her death was alleged to have occurred three days earlier. Her body showed signs of strangulation and a head wound.  
She was interred at the Nordfriedhof ("north cemetery") in Düsseldorf. Her head, however, was kept in police custody as evidence and later exhibited in the Kriminalmuseum ("criminal museum") in Frankfurt; it was eventually buried on 10 February 2008.  
Police investigations and the trial of Heinz Pohlmann.  
Police investigations into the case were conducted very sloppily, with much evidence being destroyed during the first days. Several prominent citizens were exposed as her personal acquaintances, including Gunter Sachs and her close friend and benefactor Harald von Bohlen und Halbach, brother of Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, head of Krupp industries.  
Heinz Pohlmann, a businessman and friend of Nitribitt's, became the prime suspect. He had visited her on 29 October. A few days after the murder he was able to settle high debts and bought an expensive car, but could not explain the origins of the money; he provided contradictory information during questioning. He had embezzled money at his job. He was charged with her murder but acquitted in July 1960 on grounds of reasonable doubt. Pohlmann's lawyer had argued that the police had failed, on examining Nitribitt's apartment, to measure the precise temperature there, a fact which he claimed would have been essential in determining the exact time of her death. The prosecution did not appeal the acquittal.  
When it became clear that the police would not be able to find the murderer, it was insinuated in the media that high-ranking personalities were trying to thwart any attempts at solving the crime.  

Aftermath.  
There is no evidence for the claim that Pohlmann wrote a book about the Nitribitt case after having served his prison sentence for embezzlement. In 1958, before his imprisonment, Pohlmann published several articles in Quick magazine instead, giving an explanation about the last days with Rosemarie Nitribitt from his point of view.  
There was speculation that the 1959 unsolved murder of prostitute Blonde Dolly in the Netherlands was linked to Nitribitt's murder. Nine years after Nitribitt's murder, a very similar case occurred in Frankfurt. The high-class prostitute Helga Matura, who also solicited customers by driving a Mercedes, was murdered, and the case never was solved.  
In 1968, a forged stamp circulated in Germany, showing a murdered Nitribitt and the text "Zehn Jahre [um] Trauer R. Nitribitt" ("10 years mourning [for] R. Nitribitt").  

In popular culture.  
A novel by Erich Kuby entitled Rosemarie: Des deutschen Wunders liebstes Kind (1958), based on the Nitribitt case, was turned into the film Rosemary (1958), directed by Rolf Thiele. The film stars Nadja Tiller (in the title role), Peter van Eyck, Gert Fröbe, and Mario Adorf. In this fictionalized film, Nitribitt is presented as just one of many entrepreneurs during the Wirtschaftswunder who wants her piece of the new fortune. Her clients include members of the West German industrial elite, but their business secrets are sold by Rosemarie to French competitors. However, when a scandal looms on the horizon, Rosemarie realizes that she cannot beat the system. Another film using the Nitribitt case for inspiration is Love Now, Pay Later (1959). A Girl Called Rosemary (1996) is a remake of the 1958 film by Bernd Eichinger, in which Nina Hoss played Nitribitt.  


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72939415Sun, 12 Jul 2026 15:36:39 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Rosemarie Nitribitt.   Maria Rosalia Auguste Nitribitt (1 February 1933 – 29 October 1957), better known as Rosemarie Nitribitt, was a German luxury call girl whose violent death caused a scandal in West Germany during the Wirtschaftswunder years. The...Maria Rosalia Auguste Nitribitt (1 February 1933 – 29 October 1957), better known as Rosemarie Nitribitt, was a German luxury call girl whose violent death caused a scandal in West Germany during the Wirtschaftswunder years. The case gave rise to a novel, three movies and a musical.  
On 1 November 1957, Nitribitt was found dead in her apartment in Frankfurt, Stiftstraße 36. Her death was alleged to have occurred three days earlier. Her body showed signs of strangulation and a head wound. Heinz Pohlmann, a businessman and friend of Nitribitt's, became the prime suspect. He had visited her on 29 October. A few days after the murder, Pohlmann was able to settle high debts and bought an expensive car, but could not explain the origins of the money; he provided contradictory information during questioning. He had embezzled money at his job. Pohlmann was charged with Nitribitt's murder but acquitted in July 1960 on grounds of reasonable doubt.  

Early life and career.  
Born in Düsseldorf, Rhine Province, Prussia, "Rosemarie" Nitribitt and her two younger half-sisters were raised in low-income conditions by their mother in Ratingen and Düsseldorf. The girls were placed in a juvenile home and after 1939 lived with foster parents. There Nitribitt was raped at the age of 11. Still in her teenage years, she began to work as a prostitute. She was later sent to juvenile correctional homes, from where she escaped on several occasions. She then moved to Frankfurt am Main, where, after a brief interlude as a waitress and model, she took up prostitution again and was arrested at the Frankfurt railway station in 1951.  
According to people who knew her at the time, Nitribitt tried hard to disguise her humble origins in order to be able to keep up conversation in polite society and to attract more sophisticated customers. For example, she started learning English and French.  
One of her regular clients gave her a car—a used Opel Kapitän—as a present. Others invited her to spend a Mediterranean holiday with them. Accordingly, she became very wealthy quite quickly, a fact which she demonstrated by buying a black Mercedes-Benz 190SL (a roadster which was to be colloquially referred to as the Nitribitt-Mercedes) with red leather upholstery in 1956; she would drive around Frankfurt in the car to solicit customers. Also in 1956, she moved into a luxurious apartment at Stiftstraße 36. The police later estimated that she had earned about 80,000 DM in 1956 (building a single-family house cost about 25,000 – 30,000 DM in Germany at the time).  

Death.  
On 1 November 1957, she was found dead in her apartment in Frankfurt, Stiftstraße 36. Her death was alleged to have occurred three days earlier. Her body showed signs of strangulation and a head wound.  
She was interred at the Nordfriedhof ("north cemetery") in Düsseldorf. Her head, however, was kept in police custody as evidence and later exhibited in the Kriminalmuseum ("criminal museum") in Frankfurt; it was eventually buried on 10 February 2008.  
Police investigations and the trial of Heinz Pohlmann.  
Police investigations into the case were conducted very sloppily, with much evidence being destroyed during the first days. Several prominent citizens were exposed as her personal acquaintances, including Gunter Sachs and her close friend and benefactor Harald von Bohlen und Halbach, brother of Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, head of Krupp industries.  
Heinz Pohlmann, a businessman and friend of Nitribitt's, became the prime suspect. He had visited her on 29 October. A few days after the murder he was able to settle high debts and bought an expensive car, but could not explain the origins of the money; he provided contradictory information during questioning. He had embezzled money at his job. He was charged with her murder but acquitted in July 1960 on grounds of reasonable doubt. Pohlmann's...]]>429falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/47-albert-anastasia--72938361Umberto "Albert" Anastasia; né Anastasio [anaˈstaːzjo]; September 26, 1902 – October 25, 1957) was an Italian-American mobster, hitman and crime boss. One of the founders of the modern American Mafia, and a co-founder and later boss of the Murder, Inc. organization, Anastasia eventually rose to the position of boss in what became the modern Gambino crime family. He also controlled New York City's waterfront for most of his criminal career, mainly through dockworker unions. Anastasia was murdered on October 25, 1957, on the orders of Vito Genovese and Carlo Gambino; Gambino subsequently became the boss of the family.  
Anastasia was one of the most ruthless and feared organized crime figures in American history; his reputation earned him the nicknames The Earthquake, The One-Man Army, The Mad Hatter and The Lord High Executioner.  

Early life.  
Albert Anastasia was born Umberto Anastasio on September 26, 1902, in Parghelia, Calabria, Italy, to Bartolomeo Anastasio and Marianna Polistena. Anastasia's father was a railway worker who died after World War I, leaving behind nine children.  Anastasia had seven brothers: Raffaele; Frank; Anthony; Joseph; Gerardo; Luigi (who later moved to Australia), Salvatore Anastasio; and a sister, Maria.  
In 1919, Anastasia, with his brothers Joseph, Anthony and Gerardo, illegally entered the United States after they deserted a freighter they were working aboard in New York City. They soon started working as longshoremen on the Brooklyn waterfront.  
On March 17, 1921, Anastasia was convicted of murdering longshoreman George Turino as the result of a quarrel. He was sentenced to death and sent to Sing Sing State Prison in Ossining, New York, to await execution. Due to a legal technicality, however, Anastasia won a retrial in 1922, four of the original prosecution witnesses had since disappeared, and Anastasia was released from custody. During that time, he legally changed his surname from "Anastasio" to "Anastasia." On June 6, 1923, Anastasia was convicted of illegal possession of a firearm and sentenced to two years in prison. In 1928, he was charged with a murder in Brooklyn, but the witnesses either disappeared or refused to testify in court.  
In 1937, Anastasia married Elsa Bargnesi and they had two sons, Umberto and Richard; and two daughters, Joyana and Gloriana.  

Rise to power.  
By the late 1920s, Anastasia had become a top leader of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), controlling six local chapters of the labor union in Brooklyn. He allied himself with Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria, a powerful Sicilian-born crime boss in Brooklyn. He soon became close associates with future Cosa Nostra bosses Joe Adonis, Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Vito Genovese and Frank Costello.  

Castellammarese War.  
In early 1931, the Castellammarese War broke out between Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano. In a secret deal with Maranzano, Luciano agreed to engineer the death of his boss, Masseria, in exchange for receiving Masseria's rackets and becoming Maranzano's second-in-command. On April 15, Luciano lured Masseria to a meeting at the Nuova Villa Tammaro restaurant on Coney Island, where he was murdered. While the two men played cards, Luciano allegedly excused himself to the bathroom. Anastasia and other gunmen—reportedly Adonis, Genovese and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel—then shot Masseria to death. Ciro "The Artichoke King" Terranova drove the getaway car; legend has it that he was too shaken up to drive away and Siegel had to shove him out of the driver's seat. Luciano took over Masseria's family, with Genovese as his underboss.  
In 1932, Anastasia was indicted on charges of murdering another man with an ice pick, but the case was dropped due to lack of witnesses. The following year, he was charged with killing a man who worked in a laundry; again, there were no witnesses willing to testify.  

Murder, Inc.  
To reward Anastasia's loyalty, Luciano placed him and Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, the leading labor racketeer in the country, in control of the National Crime Syndicate's enforcement arm, Murder, Inc. The troop, also known as "The Brownsville Boys", was a group of Jewish and Italian contract killers that operated out of the back room of Midnight Rose's, a candy store owned by mobster Louis Capone in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn. During its ten years of operation, it is estimated that Murder Inc. committed thousands of murders, many of which were never solved. For his leadership in Murder, Inc., Anastasia was nicknamed the "Mad Hatter" and the "Lord High Executioner".  
In 1935 the Commission, the governing body established by Luciano following Maranzano's murder in 1931, ordered Dutch Schultz to drop his plans to murder Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey out of fear for the law enforcement crackdown that would inevitably follow. An enraged Schultz refused and walked out of the meeting. Anastasia approached Luciano with information that Schultz had asked him to stake out Dewey's apartment building on Fifth Avenue. Upon hearing the news, the Commission held a discreet meeting to discuss the matter. After six hours of deliberations the Commission ordered Buchalter to eliminate Schultz. On October 23, 1935, before he could kill Dewey, Schultz was shot in a tavern in Newark, New Jersey, and succumbed to his injuries the following day.  
On June 7, 1936, following a prosecution by Dewey's office masterminded by Eunice Carter, Luciano was convicted on 62 counts of forced prostitution. On July 18, he received a 30 to 50-year sentence in state prison. Genovese became acting boss, but he fled to Italy in 1937 after being indicted on a 1934 murder. Costello then became acting boss of the Luciano crime family.  
In May 1939, Anastasia allegedly ordered the murder of Morris Diamond, a Teamsters Union official in Brooklyn who had opposed Buchalter's attempts to maintain control of the Garment District in Manhattan. In the summer of 1939, he allegedly organized the murder of Peter Panto, an International Longshoremen's Association activist who had been leading a movement for democratic reforms in the union's local chapters, and refused to be intimidated by ILA officials. On July 14, 1939, Panto disappeared; his body was later recovered on a farm in New Jersey.  
In 1941, Abe Reles, a gang leader from Brownsville, Brooklyn, who had been supplying Anastasia and Murder Inc. with hitmen for the previous decade, was arrested by law enforcement, effectively ending Murder Inc. Reles decided to testify for the government to save himself from the death penalty, leading to the conviction of seven members of Murder Inc. Reles also had information that could implicate Anastasia in the Diamond and Panto murders. Fearful of prosecution, Anastasia offered a $100,000 reward for Reles's murder. On November 12, 1941, Reles was found dead on a restaurant roof outside the Half Moon Hotel on Coney Island. Reles was being guarded in a sixth-floor room during an ongoing trial. In 1951, a grand jury ruled that Reles accidentally died while climbing down to the fifth floor using sheets tied to a heating radiator. However, many officials still suspected that Reles had been murdered.  
In the spring of 1942, Anastasia allegedly ordered the murder of an associate, Anthony Romeo, who had been arrested and questioned in the Panto killing. At the end of June, Romeo's body was discovered near Guyencourt, Delaware; he had been beaten and shot a number of times.  

World War II.   
During World War II, Anastasia reportedly conceived the plan to win a pardon for the imprisoned Luciano by contributing to the war effort. With the United States needing allies in Sicily to advance the invasion of Italy and the desire of the U.S. Navy to dedicate its resources to the war, Anastasia orchestrated a deal to obtain lighter treatment and eventual parole for Luciano in exchange for the Mafia's protection of the waterfront and Luciano's assistance with his associates in Sicily.  
In 1942, Anastasia joined the U.S. Army, possibly motivated by a desire to escape the criminal investigations that were dismantling Murder Inc. Attaining the rank of technical sergeant, he trained soldiers to be longshoremen at Fort Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania. In 1943, as a reward for his military service, he received U.S. citizenship. The following year, Anastasia was honorably discharged and moved his family to a ranch house on Bluff Road in Fort Lee, New Jersey.  
In 1945, U.S. military authorities in Sicily returned Genovese to the U.S. to be tried for the murder of Ferdinand Boccia in 1934. However, after the death of the main prosecution witness, all charges against Genovese were dropped. In 1946, New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey commuted Luciano's sentence, and the federal government immediately deported him to Italy.  
In 1946 he attended the Havana Conference in Cuba. In 1948, Anastasia bought a dressmaking factory in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, and left his waterfront activities in the control of his brother Anthony.  

Boss.  
In 1951, the U.S. Senate summoned Anastasia to answer questions about organized crime at the Kefauver Hearings. Anastasia refused to answer any questions.  
Despite being a mob power in his own right, Anastasia was nominally the underboss of the Mangano crime family, under boss Vincent Mangano. During his 20-year rule, Mangano had resented Anastasia's close ties to Luciano and Costello, particularly the fact that they had obtained Anastasia's services without first seeking Mangano's permission. This and other business disputes led to heated, almost physical fights between the two mobsters. On April 19, 1951, Mangano went missing and his body was never found. The same day, the body of Mangano's brother Philip was discovered....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72938361Sun, 12 Jul 2026 13:57:30 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Albert Anastasia.   Umberto "Albert" Anastasia; né Anastasio [anaˈstaːzjo]; September 26, 1902 – October 25, 1957) was an Italian-American mobster, hitman and crime boss. One of the founders of the modern American Mafia, and a co-founder and later...Umberto "Albert" Anastasia; né Anastasio [anaˈstaːzjo]; September 26, 1902 – October 25, 1957) was an Italian-American mobster, hitman and crime boss. One of the founders of the modern American Mafia, and a co-founder and later boss of the Murder, Inc. organization, Anastasia eventually rose to the position of boss in what became the modern Gambino crime family. He also controlled New York City's waterfront for most of his criminal career, mainly through dockworker unions. Anastasia was murdered on October 25, 1957, on the orders of Vito Genovese and Carlo Gambino; Gambino subsequently became the boss of the family.  
Anastasia was one of the most ruthless and feared organized crime figures in American history; his reputation earned him the nicknames The Earthquake, The One-Man Army, The Mad Hatter and The Lord High Executioner.  

Early life.  
Albert Anastasia was born Umberto Anastasio on September 26, 1902, in Parghelia, Calabria, Italy, to Bartolomeo Anastasio and Marianna Polistena. Anastasia's father was a railway worker who died after World War I, leaving behind nine children.  Anastasia had seven brothers: Raffaele; Frank; Anthony; Joseph; Gerardo; Luigi (who later moved to Australia), Salvatore Anastasio; and a sister, Maria.  
In 1919, Anastasia, with his brothers Joseph, Anthony and Gerardo, illegally entered the United States after they deserted a freighter they were working aboard in New York City. They soon started working as longshoremen on the Brooklyn waterfront.  
On March 17, 1921, Anastasia was convicted of murdering longshoreman George Turino as the result of a quarrel. He was sentenced to death and sent to Sing Sing State Prison in Ossining, New York, to await execution. Due to a legal technicality, however, Anastasia won a retrial in 1922, four of the original prosecution witnesses had since disappeared, and Anastasia was released from custody. During that time, he legally changed his surname from "Anastasio" to "Anastasia." On June 6, 1923, Anastasia was convicted of illegal possession of a firearm and sentenced to two years in prison. In 1928, he was charged with a murder in Brooklyn, but the witnesses either disappeared or refused to testify in court.  
In 1937, Anastasia married Elsa Bargnesi and they had two sons, Umberto and Richard; and two daughters, Joyana and Gloriana.  

Rise to power.  
By the late 1920s, Anastasia had become a top leader of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), controlling six local chapters of the labor union in Brooklyn. He allied himself with Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria, a powerful Sicilian-born crime boss in Brooklyn. He soon became close associates with future Cosa Nostra bosses Joe Adonis, Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Vito Genovese and Frank Costello.  

Castellammarese War.  
In early 1931, the Castellammarese War broke out between Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano. In a secret deal with Maranzano, Luciano agreed to engineer the death of his boss, Masseria, in exchange for receiving Masseria's rackets and becoming Maranzano's second-in-command. On April 15, Luciano lured Masseria to a meeting at the Nuova Villa Tammaro restaurant on Coney Island, where he was murdered. While the two men played cards, Luciano allegedly excused himself to the bathroom. Anastasia and other gunmen—reportedly Adonis, Genovese and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel—then shot Masseria to death. Ciro "The Artichoke King" Terranova drove the getaway car; legend has it that he was too shaken up to drive away and Siegel had to shove him out of the driver's seat. Luciano took over Masseria's family, with Genovese as his underboss.  
In 1932, Anastasia was indicted on charges of murdering another man with an ice pick, but the case was dropped due to lack of witnesses. The following year, he was charged with killing a man who worked in a laundry; again, there were no witnesses willing to testify....]]>1405falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/46-murder-of-joseph-augustus-zarelli--72930011Joseph Augustus Zarelli (January 13, 1953 – February 1957), previously known as the "Boy in the Box", the "Boy in a Box" or "America's Unknown Child", was an American four-year-old male whose nude, malnourished and beaten body was found on the side of Susquehanna Road, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on February 25, 1957. Zarelli appeared to have been cleaned and freshly groomed, with a recent haircut and trimmed fingernails, although he had suffered extensive physical attacks prior to his death, with multiple bruises on his body. He was also severely malnourished. His body was covered with scars, some of which were surgical (most notably on his ankle, groin and chin). Authorities believe that the cause of death was homicide by blunt force trauma.  
Despite the publicity and sporadic interest throughout the years, the boy's identity remained unknown for over half a century. On November 30, 2022, the Philadelphia Police Department announced that detectives had determined the boy's identity using DNA and genealogical databases. On December 8, 2022, more than sixty-five years after his body was found, Zarelli was publicly identified. Despite the identification, the exact circumstances leading to his death are uncertain and the case is still considered an open homicide investigation.  

Discovery of the body.  
On February 25, 1957, the body of Joseph Augustus Zarelli, wrapped in a plaid blanket, was found in the woods off Susquehanna Road in the Fox Chase neighborhood of Philadelphia. The body was discovered by a young man who was checking his rabbit traps. Fearing that police would confiscate his traps, he did not report what he had found. A few days later, a college student spotted a rabbit running into the underbrush. Knowing that there were traps in the area, he stopped his car to investigate and discovered the body. He was also reluctant to have any contact with police, but he did report what he had found the following day, after hearing of the disappearance of Mary Jane Barker in Bellmawr, New Jersey.  
Zarelli's naked body had been placed inside a cardboard box that had once contained a bassinet of the kind sold by J. C. Penney. His hair had been recently cropped, possibly after death, as clumps of hair clung to the body. There were signs of severe malnourishment, as well as surgical scars on the ankle and groin, and an L-shaped scar under the chin.  

Investigation prior to identification.  
The Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) opened an investigation on February 26, 1957. The dead boy's fingerprints were taken, and police at first were optimistic that he would soon be identified. However, no one ever came forward with any useful information.  
The case attracted considerable media attention in Philadelphia and the surrounding metropolitan area. The Philadelphia Inquirer printed 400,000 flyers depicting the boy's likeness, which were sent out and posted across the area, and were included with every gas bill in Philadelphia. The crime scene was combed repeatedly by 270 police academy recruits, who discovered a man's blue corduroy cap, a child's scarf and a man's white handkerchief with the letter "G" in the corner, all clues that led nowhere. Police also distributed a post-mortem photograph of the boy fully dressed and in a seated position, as he may have looked in life, in the hope it might lead to a clue.  
In 1998, the boy's body was exhumed for the purpose of extracting DNA, which was obtained from a tooth. On March 21, 2016, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children released a forensic facial reconstruction of the victim and added him into their database. The body was then exhumed yet again in 2019 to retrieve additional DNA samples.
 
Identification.  
The child was an unidentified murder victim for decades. However, on November 30, 2022, the PPD announced that they had identified the child through the use of genetic testing and investigative genetic genealogy, and that they would provide a case update in the following week. Sources stated that he was the child of a prominent family in Delaware County. Authorities said that an investigation would use the new information to continue the search for suspects.  
On December 8, 2022, the child was publicly identified as four-year-old Joseph Augustus Zarelli, born on January 13, 1953. Genealogists had uncovered his name more than a year earlier, in October 2021. On January 19, 2023, the names of Zarelli's parents were reported.  
Investigators were finally able to identify Zarelli after a cousin uploaded DNA to a public database. Investigators subsequently encouraged that person's mother (a first cousin of Zarelli) to submit a genetic profile to GEDmatch, which she did, allowing investigators to identify his parents. A court order for the child's birth certificate was then made, which revealed the child's name and his parents' names, which were also subsequently verified by DNA.  

Theories prior to identification.  
Before his identification in 2022, several prominent theories regarding the boy's origin were investigated by law enforcement and amateur sleuths.  

The foster home.  
In 1960, Remington Bristow, an employee of the medical examiner's office who doggedly pursued the case until his death in 1993, contacted a New Jersey psychic, who told him to look for a house that matched a foster home that was located approximately 1.5 miles (2.5 km) from the site of the body. When the psychic was brought to the Philadelphia discovery site, she led Bristow directly to the foster home.  
Upon attending an estate sale at the foster home, Bristow discovered a bassinet similar to the one sold at J. C. Penney. He also discovered blankets hanging on the clothesline that were similar to the one in which the boy's body had been wrapped when discovered. Bristow believed that the boy was the son of the stepdaughter of the man who ran the foster home, and that they disposed of his body so the stepdaughter would not be exposed as an unwed mother.  
However, police established that all the foster children at the home were accounted for, and a reexamination by investigators confirmed that the family were likely not involved. In 1998, PPD lieutenant Tom Augustine, who was in charge of the investigation, and several members of the Vidocq Society (a group of retired policemen and profilers), interviewed the foster father and the stepdaughter (whom he had married). The foster home investigation was closed.  

The woman known as Martha or "M".  
Another theory was brought forward in February 2002 by a woman identified only as Martha, or "M", accusing her mother of acquiring and killing the child. Police considered her story plausible but were troubled by her testimony, as she had a history of mental illness. Martha claimed that her parents purchased a boy named Jonathan from his birth parents in the summer of 1954, after which he was beaten to death and his body left abandoned inside a box outside of town. Police were unable to verify her story. Neighbors who had access to Martha's house during the stated time period denied that there had been a young boy living there and dismissed her claims as "ridiculous".  

Other theories.  
Forensic artist Frank Bender developed a theory that the victim may have been raised as a girl. Zarelli's unprofessional haircut, which appeared to have been performed in haste, was the basis for the scenario, as well as the appearance of the eyebrows having been styled. In 2008, Bender released a sketch of the unidentified child with long hair, reflecting the strands found on the body.  
In 2016, two writers, Jim Hoffmann and Louis Romano, believed they had discovered a potential relative from Memphis, Tennessee, and requested that their DNA be compared with the boy. The lead was originally discovered by a Philadelphia man (who introduced Romano and Hoffmann to each other) and was developed and presented, with the help of Hoffmann, to the PPD and the Vidocq Society in early 2013. In December 2013, Romano became aware of the lead and agreed to help obtain the DNA from this particular relative in January 2014, which was sent quickly to the PPD. Local authorities confirmed that they would investigate the lead, but said they would need to do more research on the circumstances surrounding the link to Memphis before comparing DNA. In December 2017 Homicide Sgt. Bob Kuhlmeier confirmed that DNA taken from the Memphis man was compared to the boy, and there was no connection.  

Burial.  
Zarelli was originally buried in a potter's field. In 1998, he was reburied at Ivy Hill Cemetery in the Cedarbrook section of Philadelphia, which donated a large plot. The coffin, headstone and funeral service were donated by the son of the man who buried Zarelli in 1957. There was significant public attendance and media coverage at the reburial. City residents keep the grave decorated with flowers and toys.  
The large headstone when first installed contained the words "America's Unknown Child", with a plaque underneath reading, "Heavenly Father, Bless This Unknown Boy". On January 13, 2023, which would have been Zarelli's 70th birthday, a new memorial containing his full name and image was unveiled, along with the addition of his name to the existing headstone.  

Homicide investigation.  
At a December 2022 press conference, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw stated that Zarelli's death is "still an active homicide investigation and we still need the public's help." Law enforcement reported at the same conference that both of Zarelli's biological parents are deceased, but the child has living half-siblings.  
At the same December 2022 press conference, Philadelphia law enforcement stated that Zarelli had lived i

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72930011Sat, 11 Jul 2026 15:51:48 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murder of Joseph Augustus Zarelli.   Joseph Augustus Zarelli (January 13, 1953 – February 1957), previously known as the "Boy in the Box", the "Boy in a Box" or "America's Unknown Child", was an American four-year-old male whose nude, malnourished and...Joseph Augustus Zarelli (January 13, 1953 – February 1957), previously known as the "Boy in the Box", the "Boy in a Box" or "America's Unknown Child", was an American four-year-old male whose nude, malnourished and beaten body was found on the side of Susquehanna Road, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on February 25, 1957. Zarelli appeared to have been cleaned and freshly groomed, with a recent haircut and trimmed fingernails, although he had suffered extensive physical attacks prior to his death, with multiple bruises on his body. He was also severely malnourished. His body was covered with scars, some of which were surgical (most notably on his ankle, groin and chin). Authorities believe that the cause of death was homicide by blunt force trauma.  
Despite the publicity and sporadic interest throughout the years, the boy's identity remained unknown for over half a century. On November 30, 2022, the Philadelphia Police Department announced that detectives had determined the boy's identity using DNA and genealogical databases. On December 8, 2022, more than sixty-five years after his body was found, Zarelli was publicly identified. Despite the identification, the exact circumstances leading to his death are uncertain and the case is still considered an open homicide investigation.  

Discovery of the body.  
On February 25, 1957, the body of Joseph Augustus Zarelli, wrapped in a plaid blanket, was found in the woods off Susquehanna Road in the Fox Chase neighborhood of Philadelphia. The body was discovered by a young man who was checking his rabbit traps. Fearing that police would confiscate his traps, he did not report what he had found. A few days later, a college student spotted a rabbit running into the underbrush. Knowing that there were traps in the area, he stopped his car to investigate and discovered the body. He was also reluctant to have any contact with police, but he did report what he had found the following day, after hearing of the disappearance of Mary Jane Barker in Bellmawr, New Jersey.  
Zarelli's naked body had been placed inside a cardboard box that had once contained a bassinet of the kind sold by J. C. Penney. His hair had been recently cropped, possibly after death, as clumps of hair clung to the body. There were signs of severe malnourishment, as well as surgical scars on the ankle and groin, and an L-shaped scar under the chin.  

Investigation prior to identification.  
The Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) opened an investigation on February 26, 1957. The dead boy's fingerprints were taken, and police at first were optimistic that he would soon be identified. However, no one ever came forward with any useful information.  
The case attracted considerable media attention in Philadelphia and the surrounding metropolitan area. The Philadelphia Inquirer printed 400,000 flyers depicting the boy's likeness, which were sent out and posted across the area, and were included with every gas bill in Philadelphia. The crime scene was combed repeatedly by 270 police academy recruits, who discovered a man's blue corduroy cap, a child's scarf and a man's white handkerchief with the letter "G" in the corner, all clues that led nowhere. Police also distributed a post-mortem photograph of the boy fully dressed and in a seated position, as he may have looked in life, in the hope it might lead to a clue.  
In 1998, the boy's body was exhumed for the purpose of extracting DNA, which was obtained from a tooth. On March 21, 2016, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children released a forensic facial reconstruction of the victim and added him into their database. The body was then exhumed yet again in 2019 to retrieve additional DNA samples.
 
Identification.  
The child was an unidentified murder victim for decades. However, on November 30, 2022, the PPD announced that they had identified the child...]]>739falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/45-murder-of-the-grimes-sisters--72929822The murder of the Grimes sisters is an unsolved double murder that occurred in Chicago, Illinois, on December 28, 1956, in which two sisters named Barbara and Patricia Grimes—aged 15 and 12 respectively—disappeared while traveling from a Brighton Park movie theater to their home in McKinley Park. Their disappearance initiated one of the largest missing persons investigations in the history of Chicago. The girls' nude bodies were discovered alongside a deserted road in Willow Springs on January 22, 1957.  
Although the sisters' autopsy reports concluded they had been murdered within five hours of their last confirmed sighting, and that both girls had died of secondary shock, numerous individuals attested to having seen the girls alive in the weeks between the night of December 28 and the subsequent discovery of their bodies.  
The murder of the Grimes sisters has been described by authors as a crime that "shattered the innocence" of Chicago. This case is also acknowledged as one of the most labor-intensive missing person and murder investigations in Cook County, and remains one of Chicago's most infamous cold cases.  

Disappearance.  
On December 28, 1956, two of the seven children born to Joseph Cornelius and Lorretta Marcela (née Hayes) Grimes—sisters Barbara, 15, and Patricia, 12—opted to view a screening of the Elvis Presley film Love Me Tender at a Brighton Park theater.   Barbara and Patricia have been described as being inseparable sisters, and attentive students at the Thomas Kelly High School and St. Maurice's Catholic School which they, respectively, attended. They are also known to have been devoted fans of Presley, and both had recently joined his official fan club. This particular occasion was the eleventh time the girls had viewed this particular film, and the sisters are known to have left their residence at approximately 7:30 p.m., promising their mother they would be home before midnight.  
The Brighton Theater was located approximately one-and-a-half miles from the girls' McKinley Park home, and Barbara and Patricia are presumed to have had approximately $2.50 (the equivalent of about $29.80 as of 2026) when they departed, with Barbara instructed to keep fifty cents of this money in the zipper of her wallet should the two girls opt to view a second screening of this film scheduled to be shown at the theater that evening. It is unknown how the sisters traveled to the Brighton Theater on this particular date, although they had always walked or traveled by bus to this destination previously.  
A school friend of Patricia named Dorothy Weinert later informed investigators she was seated behind the girls with her own younger sister during the film, although Weinert and her sister left the theater at the intermission of the double feature, at approximately 9:30 p.m. While leaving, Dorothy saw the Grimes sisters queueing to purchase popcorn. The two seemed in good spirits, and neither Weinert sister noticed anything untoward in their demeanor.  
Both sisters stayed to view the second screening of Love Me Tender, thus meaning they would be expected to return home at approximately 11:45 p.m. When the girls had not arrived home by midnight, their mother, Lorretta, sent their older sister, Theresa (aged 17), and brother Joey (aged 14) to wait by the bus stop located closest to the family home for their arrival. After three successive buses had driven by without either girl arriving at the designated stop, both siblings returned home. Having by this stage already unsuccessfully contacted the girls' friends in the hope her daughters may be at one of these addresses,  and upon seeing the return of Theresa and Joey to the family home without their sisters, Lorretta Grimes filed missing person reports on her daughters with the Chicago Police Department at 2:15 a.m. on December 29.  

Investigation.  
The disappearance of the Grimes sisters sparked one of the largest missing person cases in the history of Cook County. A citywide search for the girls was quickly initiated, to which hundreds of police officers were assigned full-time. Cook County officers were assisted by colleagues from surrounding suburbs, and a task force devoted solely to locating the sisters was formed, with the ground search initiated on December 29 being bolstered by hundreds of local volunteers. Police conducted door-to-door canvassing throughout Brighton Park, and numerous canals and rivers were dredged. In addition, more than 15,000 flyers were distributed to local homes, and parishioners of the sisters' church offered a $1,000 reward (the equivalent of about $11,900 as of 2026) for information leading to their whereabouts. As a result of this co-ordinated investigation, 300,000 people would be questioned, with some 2,000 individuals subjected to serious interrogation pertaining to their potential culpability, although the two arrests and charges brought against individuals who confessed to the crime subsequently collapsed. One individual, Edward Bedwell, asserted he had been coerced into giving a confession after being subjected to a prolonged interrogation.  
Despite police efforts, and extensive media appeals producing many reported sightings of the girls, little in the way of hard evidence was yielded, although several teenagers who had been at the Brighton Theater on December 28 did inform investigators they had seen the sisters conversing with, then entering a car driven by a young man whose physical appearance had been similar to that of Elvis Presley. The vehicle described by these eyewitnesses was consistently described as being a Mercury model.  
Prior to the implementation of the task force, and despite protests from the girls' parents, several investigators initially assigned to the case theorized the sisters had either run away from home or were voluntarily staying with boyfriends. Although the sisters were front-page news by December 31, their disappearance would only be seriously considered as a missing persons case—and thus appropriately treated as such—by investigators after approximately one week had passed without family and friends receiving any form of contact from either girl. Nonetheless, extensive media appeals were conducted, imploring both sisters to return home, and for any eyewitnesses to contact police. Resultingly, numerous alleged sightings of the sisters would be reported to police as late as January 9, and these reports often described one or both of the girls as having been seen in various business establishments. These sightings supported several investigators' initial theories the girls had opted to leave home of their own accord.  
Theories also abounded that the sisters may have traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, to see Presley in concert, or had simply left their home of their own volition as a means of emulating Presley's lifestyle. In the event her daughters had actually been kidnapped, Lorretta Grimes publicly pleaded: "If someone is holding them, please let the girls call me", adding: "I'll forgive them from the bottom of my heart."  
On January 19, 1957, an official statement was issued from Presley's Graceland estate. This televised statement read: "If you are good Presley fans, you'll go home and ease your mother's worries." Presley also made a direct radio plea to the Grimes sisters, imploring the girls to return home to their mother.  

Discovery.  
On January 22, 1957, following a rapid thaw of recent snowfall, a construction worker named Leonard Prescott spotted what he later described as being "these flesh-colored things" behind a guard rail as he drove along a rural country road named German Church Road, approximately 200 feet east of County Line Road in unincorporated Willow Springs. Initially unsure of the origin of what he had seen, and believing the forms may be mannequins, Prescott later returned to the site with his wife Marie, who fainted upon taking a closer look. The forms were actually the nude, frozen bodies of the Grimes sisters, and the Prescotts immediately reported their findings to the Willow Springs Police Department.  
The girls' bodies lay upon a flat, horizontal section of snow-covered ground directly behind the guard rail, which extended for just 10 feet (3.0 m) before the incline of the embankment of Devil's Creek. Barbara lay on her left side, with her legs drawn slightly up toward her torso. Patricia lay on her back, with her body covering her sister's head, and her own head turned sharply to the right. It is believed the sisters had most likely been driven to this location in a car, with their bodies then being dragged or lifted out of the vehicle, then placed or thrown behind the guard rail. Three wounds resembling those typically inflicted by ice picks were discovered upon Barbara's chest and injuries resembling blunt force trauma were visible upon her face and head, while numerous injuries resembling bruises were discovered upon Patricia's face and body. The girls' father, Joseph Grimes, was driven to the crime scene to formally identify both bodies.  
Following Joseph's initial positive identification of the bodies, over 160 police officers from several suburban Chicago police departments—assisted by numerous local volunteers— conducted a search of the crime scene with the additional assistance of the Forest Preserves. This search uncovered little or no real evidence linked to the crime (any potential link any item discovered at the crime scene had to the murders has never been determined), and the search itself was later criticized due to those organizing the search allowing untrained individuals to trample over any evidence that may have been at the location.  

Autopsies.  
The decedents' autopsies were performed the day following their discovery by three experienced forensic pathologists who.....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72929822Sat, 11 Jul 2026 15:23:44 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murder of the Grimes sisters.   The murder of the Grimes sisters is an unsolved double murder that occurred in Chicago, Illinois, on December 28, 1956, in which two sisters named Barbara and Patricia Grimes—aged 15 and 12 respectively—disappeared...The murder of the Grimes sisters is an unsolved double murder that occurred in Chicago, Illinois, on December 28, 1956, in which two sisters named Barbara and Patricia Grimes—aged 15 and 12 respectively—disappeared while traveling from a Brighton Park movie theater to their home in McKinley Park. Their disappearance initiated one of the largest missing persons investigations in the history of Chicago. The girls' nude bodies were discovered alongside a deserted road in Willow Springs on January 22, 1957.  
Although the sisters' autopsy reports concluded they had been murdered within five hours of their last confirmed sighting, and that both girls had died of secondary shock, numerous individuals attested to having seen the girls alive in the weeks between the night of December 28 and the subsequent discovery of their bodies.  
The murder of the Grimes sisters has been described by authors as a crime that "shattered the innocence" of Chicago. This case is also acknowledged as one of the most labor-intensive missing person and murder investigations in Cook County, and remains one of Chicago's most infamous cold cases.  

Disappearance.  
On December 28, 1956, two of the seven children born to Joseph Cornelius and Lorretta Marcela (née Hayes) Grimes—sisters Barbara, 15, and Patricia, 12—opted to view a screening of the Elvis Presley film Love Me Tender at a Brighton Park theater.   Barbara and Patricia have been described as being inseparable sisters, and attentive students at the Thomas Kelly High School and St. Maurice's Catholic School which they, respectively, attended. They are also known to have been devoted fans of Presley, and both had recently joined his official fan club. This particular occasion was the eleventh time the girls had viewed this particular film, and the sisters are known to have left their residence at approximately 7:30 p.m., promising their mother they would be home before midnight.  
The Brighton Theater was located approximately one-and-a-half miles from the girls' McKinley Park home, and Barbara and Patricia are presumed to have had approximately $2.50 (the equivalent of about $29.80 as of 2026) when they departed, with Barbara instructed to keep fifty cents of this money in the zipper of her wallet should the two girls opt to view a second screening of this film scheduled to be shown at the theater that evening. It is unknown how the sisters traveled to the Brighton Theater on this particular date, although they had always walked or traveled by bus to this destination previously.  
A school friend of Patricia named Dorothy Weinert later informed investigators she was seated behind the girls with her own younger sister during the film, although Weinert and her sister left the theater at the intermission of the double feature, at approximately 9:30 p.m. While leaving, Dorothy saw the Grimes sisters queueing to purchase popcorn. The two seemed in good spirits, and neither Weinert sister noticed anything untoward in their demeanor.  
Both sisters stayed to view the second screening of Love Me Tender, thus meaning they would be expected to return home at approximately 11:45 p.m. When the girls had not arrived home by midnight, their mother, Lorretta, sent their older sister, Theresa (aged 17), and brother Joey (aged 14) to wait by the bus stop located closest to the family home for their arrival. After three successive buses had driven by without either girl arriving at the designated stop, both siblings returned home. Having by this stage already unsuccessfully contacted the girls' friends in the hope her daughters may be at one of these addresses,  and upon seeing the return of Theresa and Joey to the family home without their sisters, Lorretta Grimes filed missing person reports on her daughters with the Chicago Police Department at 2:15 a.m. on December 29.  

Investigation.  
The disappearance of the...]]>2088falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/44-arthur-brennan--72917262Arthur Brennan (2 March 1881 – 12 September 1931) was an Australian rules footballer who played with St Kilda in the Victorian Football League (VFL). He also played for Richmond, Port Melbourne, and Footscray in the Victorian Football Association (VFA).  

Personal life.  
The son of William Brennan, and Mary Brennan, née O'Farrell, Arthur Brennan was born in Abbotsford, Victoria on 2 March 1881.  
He came from a large family; William and Mary had eight daughters and three sons. Both of his brothers played football, most notably Owen Brennan, who was the first member of the family to play in the VFL, with 11 appearances for Collingwood in 1900. His other brother, William Jr, played in the VFA for Northcote and Port Melbourne.  

Football career.  
Brennan played his only senior game for St Kilda during the 1901 VFL season as a 20-year-old. In round 15, Brennan was a member of the St Kilda team which lost to Fitzroy at Junction Oval by 72 points.  
Although his VFL career was brief, Brennan played for a number of years in the VFA. He was regarded as being one of Richmond's finest players in their pre-VFL era, a club he played for from 1903 to 1905. In 1906 and 1907, Brennan played with his brother William at Port Melbourne, then midway through the 1908 VFA season, he crossed to Footscray.  

Bigamy trial.  
Arrested on 29 September 1914, Brennan was committed for trial on 7 October 1914, on a charge of having committed bigamy.  
At his trial, evidence was given that the Rev. Henry Heathershaw had married Arthur Brennan to his first wife, Catherine Prout, on 7 May 1902, and that Brennan had left her after two years.  
Further evidence was given by Alice Mary Patton, who appeared in court having been brought from Pentridge Women's Prison Gaol in order to do so, that, while Brennan was still married to Catherine (and while Catherine was still alive), the Rev. Albert James Abbott married her to Brennan on 23 January 1910, and that they had had a child together, which died in its infancy.  
Having initially pleaded "not guilty" to the charge, he later changed his plea to guilty, on the advice of his solicitor, Napthali Henry "Sonny" Sonenberg, and was consequently sentenced to 12 months imprisonment.  

Military service.  
1915.  
Brennan enlisted in the First AIF on 3 September 1915. At this (initial) enlistment, he answered "no" to the question "Are you married?" He entered camp at Royal Park, Melbourne on 13 September 1915.  
"At Carlton court yesterday [viz., 20 October 1915], Arthur Brennan and Catherine Brennan, a married couple, were each fined 20/, in default seven days' imprisonment, for having unlawfully assaulted Ellen Steele.  
Complainant, a resident of Pelham-street, said accused assaulted her in the street on 19th [October], the male accused hitting her on the side with a policeman's baton.  
Brennan, who denied the charge, said he found the baton in Little Bourke-street.  
On a charge of wilfully damaging the property of William Steele, engineer's laborer, by breaking the panel of the door and breaking nine panes of glass, Arthur Brennan was also fined £3, in default one month's imprisonment; and on a charge of having used insulting words, Catherine Brennan was fined 20/, in default seven days in gaol."
— The Age, 21 October 1915.  
Brennan was discovered to be absent without leave on 24 November 1915, and was "struck off strength of [the] Royal Park Camp as a deserter on 30/11/15 — a decision later confirmed by a Court of Inquiry — and a warrant was issued for his arrest."  
1918.  
Although no further details are given, his service record indicates that the warrant for his arrest was withdrawn on 4 March 1918, and that he re-enlisted on 27 March, and that he resumed his military service on 29 April. At the time of his 1918 re-enlistment, the previous "no" answer to the "Are you married?" question was crossed out and replaced with "yes" — and "Catherine Brennan", of "30 Madeline Street, Carlton, Vic.", "Wife", was now given as his next of kin.  
He left Sydney, with the 2nd General (Victorian) Reinforcements, on 1 May 1918, aboard the HMAT Euripides A14,[24] to serve in Europe.  
In August 1918, whilst still in England, he was charged with being absent without leave and was imprisoned without pay for 28 days.  
In September 1918, soon after arriving in France, he was imprisoned for three days without pay for "conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline in that he discharged firearms in his hut on 23.9.18"; and in October 1918, he was imprisoned, again, for being absent without leave. He was absent without leave, once more, from 26 October 1918 until he was arrested on 18 November 1918.  

Court-martial.  
Brennan and a fellow soldier, Private Patrick McGrath (51412), were arrested in November 1918, and put on trial, in France, after they had forcibly entered an estaminet in Saint-Vaast, on the night of 29 October 1918.  
Both were found guilty of "committing an offence against the property of an inhabitant of the country in which he was serving", and both were sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labour; a sentence which Brennan served, at the Northampton Military Prison, in England.  
His sentence was suspended, and he was released from prison on 18 June 1919 under the powers provided by the "Suspension of Sentences" provisions (i.e., Regulations 643A and 643B) of the Australian Military Regulations under the Defence Act 1903–1915 that had come into operation on 7 March 1917, and was returned to his regiment and then repatriated (with his regiment) to Australia in the HMAT Port Melbourne, leaving England on 5 July 1919, and landing in Melbourne on 20 August.  

Murder.  
The Brennan household, which consisted of Arthur and five of his sisters, had an arrangement with their immediate neighbour, Norah Power, that, if she was alone and in need of assistance, she would knock on the wall which divided their homes.  
12 September 1931.  
On 12 September 1931, Brennan was shot dead outside his home, at 26 Rowe Street, North Fitzroy, by a burglar who was trying to get into Power's residence. That night, Power had been alarmed by the sound of someone trying to get through her window.  Brennan was in his kitchen and, once he heard Power's signal, walked across his garden to her home. He confronted a man he saw standing on Power's verandah who attempted unsuccessfully to defuse the situation by claiming he was at the home to visit a friend. When he tried to make his escape, Brennan blocked his path at the garden gate and the pair then grappled.  During the struggle, Brennan was shot in the chest by a small automatic pistol that the intruder had managed to draw from his overcoat with a free arm. Brennan died on the footpath within minutes. The gunman was chased by two other bystanders but was able to get away.  

Search for suspect.  
An investigation revealed that the gunman, likely aged 25 to 30, had earlier been seen scoping the area and was, therefore, able to get a good description of his appearance. The police were unable to locate the suspect; and, after three months had elapsed, the City Coroner gave a finding that Brennan had been murdered by a "person unknown".  

Alleged perpetrators.  
Although the case remains unsolved today, the Victorian police sequentially identified (albeit posthumously) two known criminals as Brennan's murderer, first, at the time of his death, John Gepp, then, later, when that allegation had been retracted, Reginald James Barker, although no evidence supporting either of these official allegations was ever presented in court.  
- John Gepp, alias John Vernon Pinkus, alias Raymond Brennan, alias John D'Arcy.  
John Gepp (1898–1932), alias John Vernon Pinkus, alias Raymond Brennan, alias John D'Arcy, was shot dead on 18 January while escaping from the police who had attempted to apprehend him outside his Clifton Hill residence (apparently in order to arrest him for Brennan's murder). In his attempt to evade arrest, he fled the scene, and was badly injured when attempting to clear an iron spiked fence at the Jolimont railway station; and, bleeding profusely, he then ran into an adjacent park, "turned in his tracks and fired a shot at his pursuers". The police returned fire ("The staff at the Jolimont station heard the report of a shot and then a fusillade") killing Gepp.  
At the time of his death, police stated that "[they were] now certain from information which has come to hand that [Gepp] was the prowler who on September 12 last murdered Arthur Brennan in front of his home in Howe Street, North Fitzroy". However, in April 1932, once forensic evidence had revealed that Gepp's gun had not fired the bullet that killed Brennan, the police had become convinced "beyond all reasonable doubt that [Gepp] was not the murderer of Arthur Brennan". On 15 April 1932, Thomas Blamey, the Chief Commissioner of the Victorian Police Force, formally announced that Gepp was no longer considered to be Brennan's murderer.  
- Reginald James Barker.  
Reginald James Barker (1914–1932) was shot dead on 27 February 1932 while attempting to escape from Pentridge Prison in the company of two other prisoners (who, although not shot, also failed to escape). Having stolen a warder's rifle, he wounded two of the prison's warders in the process.  
Although just 17½, he was more than 6 feet tall and was strongly built; and "despite his youth, [he] was described by police [at the time of his death] as being one of the most desperate young criminals who had passed through their hands in recent years" Having previously been convicted of a number of crimes (including firearms offences, and breaking and.....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72917262Fri, 10 Jul 2026 17:09:59 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Arthur Brennan.   Arthur Brennan (2 March 1881 – 12 September 1931) was an Australian rules footballer who played with St Kilda in the Victorian Football League (VFL). He also played for Richmond, Port Melbourne, and Footscray in the Victorian...Arthur Brennan (2 March 1881 – 12 September 1931) was an Australian rules footballer who played with St Kilda in the Victorian Football League (VFL). He also played for Richmond, Port Melbourne, and Footscray in the Victorian Football Association (VFA).  

Personal life.  
The son of William Brennan, and Mary Brennan, née O'Farrell, Arthur Brennan was born in Abbotsford, Victoria on 2 March 1881.  
He came from a large family; William and Mary had eight daughters and three sons. Both of his brothers played football, most notably Owen Brennan, who was the first member of the family to play in the VFL, with 11 appearances for Collingwood in 1900. His other brother, William Jr, played in the VFA for Northcote and Port Melbourne.  

Football career.  
Brennan played his only senior game for St Kilda during the 1901 VFL season as a 20-year-old. In round 15, Brennan was a member of the St Kilda team which lost to Fitzroy at Junction Oval by 72 points.  
Although his VFL career was brief, Brennan played for a number of years in the VFA. He was regarded as being one of Richmond's finest players in their pre-VFL era, a club he played for from 1903 to 1905. In 1906 and 1907, Brennan played with his brother William at Port Melbourne, then midway through the 1908 VFA season, he crossed to Footscray.  

Bigamy trial.  
Arrested on 29 September 1914, Brennan was committed for trial on 7 October 1914, on a charge of having committed bigamy.  
At his trial, evidence was given that the Rev. Henry Heathershaw had married Arthur Brennan to his first wife, Catherine Prout, on 7 May 1902, and that Brennan had left her after two years.  
Further evidence was given by Alice Mary Patton, who appeared in court having been brought from Pentridge Women's Prison Gaol in order to do so, that, while Brennan was still married to Catherine (and while Catherine was still alive), the Rev. Albert James Abbott married her to Brennan on 23 January 1910, and that they had had a child together, which died in its infancy.  
Having initially pleaded "not guilty" to the charge, he later changed his plea to guilty, on the advice of his solicitor, Napthali Henry "Sonny" Sonenberg, and was consequently sentenced to 12 months imprisonment.  

Military service.  
1915.  
Brennan enlisted in the First AIF on 3 September 1915. At this (initial) enlistment, he answered "no" to the question "Are you married?" He entered camp at Royal Park, Melbourne on 13 September 1915.  
"At Carlton court yesterday [viz., 20 October 1915], Arthur Brennan and Catherine Brennan, a married couple, were each fined 20/, in default seven days' imprisonment, for having unlawfully assaulted Ellen Steele.  
Complainant, a resident of Pelham-street, said accused assaulted her in the street on 19th [October], the male accused hitting her on the side with a policeman's baton.  
Brennan, who denied the charge, said he found the baton in Little Bourke-street.  
On a charge of wilfully damaging the property of William Steele, engineer's laborer, by breaking the panel of the door and breaking nine panes of glass, Arthur Brennan was also fined £3, in default one month's imprisonment; and on a charge of having used insulting words, Catherine Brennan was fined 20/, in default seven days in gaol."
— The Age, 21 October 1915.  
Brennan was discovered to be absent without leave on 24 November 1915, and was "struck off strength of [the] Royal Park Camp as a deserter on 30/11/15 — a decision later confirmed by a Court of Inquiry — and a warrant was issued for his arrest."  
1918.  
Although no further details are given, his service record indicates that the warrant for his arrest was withdrawn on 4 March 1918, and that he re-enlisted on 27 March, and that he resumed his military service on 29 April. At the time of his 1918 re-enlistment, the previous "no"...]]>1035falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/43-hubert-chevis--72914785Hubert George "Hugh" Chevis (21 September 1902 – 21 June 1931) was a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery of the British Army who died of strychnine poisoning in June 1931 after eating contaminated partridge.  
The youngest son of Sir William and Amy Florence, Lady Chevis, née Dannenberg, Hubert Chevis was born at Rawalpindi, India. The first years of his life were spent in India. He later attended Charterhouse School in Surrey. Chevis graduated from the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich as a second lieutenant on 29 August 1923.  
At the time of his death in 1931 Chevis was an instructor at the Aldershot Training Camp in Hampshire, and had been married for approximately six months to Frances (née Rollason), an extremely wealthy 29-year-old heiress. Chevis was her second husband, the first having been Major George Jackson, a veterinarian.  

Suspicious death.  
On the afternoon of 20 June 1931 the couple had friends over for cocktails at their Blackdown Camp bungalow. After their friends had left, the Chevises had a slightly earlier dinner than usual, as they wanted to attend the local military tattoo that night. Dinner was prepared by their cook, Ellen Yeomans, and served by their batman, Nicholas Bulger. Gunner Bulger served the Manchurian partridge, onto the sideboard in the dining room, where Mrs Chevis carved it. After Chevis had eaten a mouthful of the bird, he summoned Bulger, saying "Take this bird away. It is the most terrible thing I have tasted." His wife tasted the meat and agreed with him. The partridges were incinerated in the kitchen by Ellen Yeomans. Not long after ingesting the mouthful of partridge, Chevis started experiencing severe cramps and convulsions and a doctor was called. Later that evening, Mrs Chevis also fell ill. A second doctor was called and the couple was admitted to Frimley Cottage Hospital.   Chevis died at 9.50 am the following morning after five doctors had administered artificial respiration over a period of several hours. Not long after having been admitted to hospital, both Hubert and Frances Chevis had been given powerful emetics. Two grains of strychnine were found in his stomach. Mrs Chevis subsequently recovered, as she had only tasted the meat.  
Announcement of Chevis's death was made in the press on Monday, 22 June (The Times). On 24 June, Hubert Chevis's father, Sir William Chevis, received a telegram on the day of his son's funeral that said "Hooray, hooray, hooray!". It was sent from the Irish capital, Dublin, and signed "J. Hartigan". On the back of the telegram was written "Hibernian", a well-known hotel in Dublin. The local police were notified, but nobody of that name was found at the hotel. Subsequent enquiries undertaken by the Irish police found that a south Dublin chemist had sold strychnine about four weeks earlier to a man who was similar in appearance to the man who had sent the telegram in the name of J. Hartigan.  
The Daily Sketch published a copy of the telegram, only to receive another telegram signed "J. Hartigan" that read, "Dear Sir, Why did you publish a picture of the Hooray telegram?" Chevis's father also received a postcard on 4 August 1931 from "J. Hartigan" that said, "It is a mystery they will never solve."  

Investigation.  
The shipment of Manchurian partridges from which the Chevis partridges had come was examined by experts, but they found no poisoned birds. Several people were interviewed, including Mrs Chevis and her former husband, G. T. T. Jackson of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps. Jackson denied that he had anything to do with the death of Chevis, stating that he was "miles away at Northampton" at the time. He added that he considered J. Hartigan, the man who sent the telegram, "a cad and a blackguard".  Mrs Chevis was unable to shed any light on her husband's death. Irish police later identified the author of the telegram towards the end of 1931 and determined that apart from being mentally unbalanced, he had no other involvement in Chevis's death. Police records identifying this person have not survived.  
Many theories were propounded about Chevis's death, but the investigation stalled because of a lack of evidence. After several weeks the coroner announced at the inquest, "There is no evidence on which you can find a definite verdict; therefore I direct you to find an open verdict." Chevis's case is often referred to as a murder case, but this is incorrect. As the coroner returned an open verdict, in a legal sense this meant that he was unable to confirm whether Chevis has died by accident or misadventure, suicide, murder or manslaughter. Legally, Chevis's death should be referred to as a suspicious death.  

Media.  
The case was the subject of a documentary on BBC Radio 4 on 3 September 2011, part of the Punt PI series presented by Steve Punt. Lack of evidence prevented the programme from reaching any firm conclusions, but it noted that none of the initial suspects had both the motive and opportunity. It also conjectured that both Chevis and his father, Sir William Chevis, had strong connections to the British Raj, and that 'J Hartigan' is an anagram of 'Raj hating'.  


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72914785Fri, 10 Jul 2026 14:11:54 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Hubert Chevis.   Hubert George "Hugh" Chevis (21 September 1902 – 21 June 1931) was a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery of the British Army who died of strychnine poisoning in June 1931 after eating contaminated partridge.   The youngest son of Sir...Hubert George "Hugh" Chevis (21 September 1902 – 21 June 1931) was a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery of the British Army who died of strychnine poisoning in June 1931 after eating contaminated partridge.  
The youngest son of Sir William and Amy Florence, Lady Chevis, née Dannenberg, Hubert Chevis was born at Rawalpindi, India. The first years of his life were spent in India. He later attended Charterhouse School in Surrey. Chevis graduated from the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich as a second lieutenant on 29 August 1923.  
At the time of his death in 1931 Chevis was an instructor at the Aldershot Training Camp in Hampshire, and had been married for approximately six months to Frances (née Rollason), an extremely wealthy 29-year-old heiress. Chevis was her second husband, the first having been Major George Jackson, a veterinarian.  

Suspicious death.  
On the afternoon of 20 June 1931 the couple had friends over for cocktails at their Blackdown Camp bungalow. After their friends had left, the Chevises had a slightly earlier dinner than usual, as they wanted to attend the local military tattoo that night. Dinner was prepared by their cook, Ellen Yeomans, and served by their batman, Nicholas Bulger. Gunner Bulger served the Manchurian partridge, onto the sideboard in the dining room, where Mrs Chevis carved it. After Chevis had eaten a mouthful of the bird, he summoned Bulger, saying "Take this bird away. It is the most terrible thing I have tasted." His wife tasted the meat and agreed with him. The partridges were incinerated in the kitchen by Ellen Yeomans. Not long after ingesting the mouthful of partridge, Chevis started experiencing severe cramps and convulsions and a doctor was called. Later that evening, Mrs Chevis also fell ill. A second doctor was called and the couple was admitted to Frimley Cottage Hospital.   Chevis died at 9.50 am the following morning after five doctors had administered artificial respiration over a period of several hours. Not long after having been admitted to hospital, both Hubert and Frances Chevis had been given powerful emetics. Two grains of strychnine were found in his stomach. Mrs Chevis subsequently recovered, as she had only tasted the meat.  
Announcement of Chevis's death was made in the press on Monday, 22 June (The Times). On 24 June, Hubert Chevis's father, Sir William Chevis, received a telegram on the day of his son's funeral that said "Hooray, hooray, hooray!". It was sent from the Irish capital, Dublin, and signed "J. Hartigan". On the back of the telegram was written "Hibernian", a well-known hotel in Dublin. The local police were notified, but nobody of that name was found at the hotel. Subsequent enquiries undertaken by the Irish police found that a south Dublin chemist had sold strychnine about four weeks earlier to a man who was similar in appearance to the man who had sent the telegram in the name of J. Hartigan.  
The Daily Sketch published a copy of the telegram, only to receive another telegram signed "J. Hartigan" that read, "Dear Sir, Why did you publish a picture of the Hooray telegram?" Chevis's father also received a postcard on 4 August 1931 from "J. Hartigan" that said, "It is a mystery they will never solve."  

Investigation.  
The shipment of Manchurian partridges from which the Chevis partridges had come was examined by experts, but they found no poisoned birds. Several people were interviewed, including Mrs Chevis and her former husband, G. T. T. Jackson of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps. Jackson denied that he had anything to do with the death of Chevis, stating that he was "miles away at Northampton" at the time. He added that he considered J. Hartigan, the man who sent the telegram, "a cad and a blackguard".  Mrs Chevis was unable to shed any light on her husband's death. Irish police later identified the author of the telegram towards the end of 1931 and determined that...]]>356falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/42-william-herbert-wallace--72914097William Herbert Wallace (29 August 1878 – 26 February 1933) was a British man convicted in 1931 of the murder of his wife, Julia, in their home in Wolverton Street in Liverpool's Anfield district. Wallace's conviction was later overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal, the first instance in British legal history where an appeal had been allowed after re-examination of evidence. The case, with its strange background, has long been the subject of speculation and has generated many books, being regarded internationally as a classic murder mystery.  

Background.  
William Herbert Wallace was born in Millom, Cumberland, in 1878; he was the eldest of three children born to Benjamin and Margery Wallace, having a younger brother and sister. On leaving school at age 14 he began training as a draper's assistant in Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire, and on finishing his apprenticeship he obtained a position in Manchester with Messrs Whiteway Laidlaw and Company, outfitters to the British Armed Forces and the Colonial, Indian and Diplomatic Services. In 1903, after five years' service, Wallace obtained a transfer to the company's branch in Calcutta, India, where he remained for two years. On the suggestion of his brother Joseph, who lived in Shanghai, Wallace sought another transfer to Whiteway Laidlaw's branch of that city in 1905.  
A recurrent kidney complaint resulted in Wallace resigning his position and returning to England in 1907, where his left kidney was removed at Guy's Hospital. Little is recorded of his life after this time, until he obtained a position working for the Liberal Party in Harrogate, rising to the post of election agent in 1911. During his time in Harrogate, he met Julia Dennis (1861–1931), and they were married there in March 1914. All early sources suggested that Julia was approximately the same age as Wallace, but in 2001 James Murphy demonstrated from her original birth certificate that she was actually seventeen years older than he was. Julia's father was a destitute alcoholic farmer from near Northallerton, who had died in 1875, leaving her an orphan at the age of 13. In later life Julia exaggerated her antecedents, claiming her father had been a veterinary surgeon and her mother French.  
At the outbreak of the First World War, the position of Liberal election agent in Harrogate was discontinued, owing to the suspension of elections and a parliamentary truce, and Wallace once again found himself looking for a job. Through the help of his father, he obtained a position as a collections agent with the Prudential Assurance Company in Liverpool. The Wallaces moved there in 1915, settling at 29 Wolverton Street in the district of Anfield. During the 1920s, Wallace supplemented his comfortable but mundane existence as a collections agent, working exclusively in the neighbouring Clubmoor district, by lecturing part-time in chemistry at Liverpool Technical College. His hobbies included chemistry, botany and chess, and in 1928 he learned to play the violin to enable him to accompany Julia, who was an accomplished pianist, in "musical evenings" at their home at Wolverton Street.  

The crime.  
On the evening of Monday 19 January 1931, Wallace, aged 52, attended a meeting of the Liverpool Central Chess Club to play a scheduled chess game. While there he was handed a message, which had been received by telephone about twenty-five minutes before he arrived. It requested that he call at an address at 25 Menlove Gardens East, Liverpool, at 7.30 pm the following evening to discuss insurance with a man who had given his name as "R. M. Qualtrough".  
The following night, Wallace duly made his way by tramcar to the south of the city at the time requested, only to discover that while there were Menlove Gardens North, South and West, there was no East. He called at 25 Menlove Gardens West, and asked several passers-by in the neighbourhood for directions, but to no avail. Wallace also spoke to a policeman on his beat, and made inquiries in a nearby newsagent's, but nobody he asked was able to help him in his search for the address or the mysterious Qualtrough.  
After searching the district for about forty-five minutes, Wallace returned home. Neighbours John and Florence Johnston were heading out for the evening when they encountered Wallace in the back alleyway, complaining that he could not gain entry to his home at either the front or the back. While they watched, Wallace tried the back door again, which now opened. Inside he found his wife, Julia, had been brutally beaten to death in their sitting room.  

The investigation.  
Up to his arrest two weeks later, Wallace made four voluntary statements. While he was never intensively questioned by police, he was required to attend CID headquarters every day and was asked specific questions about whether the Wallaces had a maid, why he had subsequently asked the man who had taken the telephone message at the chess club to be specific about the time he took it and whether he had spoken to anyone in the street on his way back to his house from his abortive attempt to find Mr. Qualtrough. Police had evidence that the telephone box used by "Qualtrough" to make his call to the chess club was situated just 400 yards (370 m) from Wallace's home, although the person in the café who took the call was quite certain it was not Wallace on the other end of the line. Nevertheless, police began to suspect that "Qualtrough" and Wallace were the same man. Wallace's legal team conducted timing tests that showed it was possible for someone to have made the call, catch a tram and arrive at the chess club when Wallace did, and it was equally possible for Wallace to arrive at the same time by boarding at the stop he claimed he had used, nowhere near the telephone box. These tests were not introduced as evidence at trial since, ultimately, the Crown offered nothing to controvert Wallace's assertion that he had boarded the tram elsewhere and did not make the phone call.  
Police were also convinced that it would have been possible for Wallace to murder his wife and still have time to arrive at the spot where he boarded his tram. They attempted to prove this by having a fit young detective go through the motions of the murder and then sprint all the way to the tram stop, something an ailing 52-year-old Wallace probably could not have accomplished. The original assessment of the time of death, around 8 pm, was also later changed to just after 6 pm although there was no additional evidence on which to base the earlier timing. A milk-boy witness who claimed to have spoken to Mrs. Wallace on her doorstep sometime after 6.30 pm further undermined the Crown's case, leaving Wallace an extremely narrow window in which he could possibly have committed the "frenzied" crime, yet emerge blood-free and composed only minutes later to catch his tram.  
Forensic examination of the crime scene had revealed that Julia's attacker was likely to have been heavily contaminated with her blood, given the brutal and frenzied nature of the assault. Wallace's suit, which he had been wearing on the night of the murder, was examined closely but no trace of bloodstains were found. Police formed the theory that a mackintosh, which was inexplicably found under Julia's corpse, had been used by a naked Wallace to shield himself from blood spatter while committing the crime. Examination of the bath and drains revealed that they had not been recently used, and there was no trace of blood there either, apart from a single tiny clot in the toilet pan, the origin of which could not be established, but was alleged to have been the result of inadvertent cross-contamination by police.  

Trial and appeal.  
Wallace consistently denied having anything to do with the crime but was charged with murder and stood trial at the Liverpool Assizes on 22 April 1931. After conducting a secret mock-trial in London, which unanimously found Wallace not guilty, the Prudential Staff Union, in a unique act, sponsored his defence. Despite the evidence against him being purely circumstantial, and the statement of the milk-boy—who was certain he had spoken to Julia only minutes before her husband would have had to leave to catch his tram—Wallace was found guilty after an hour's deliberation by the Liverpool jury, and sentenced to death.  
F. J. Salfeld (1905-2001), who was present in the courtroom, commented, "what probably harmed [Wallace] most at his trial was his extraordinary composure. Like every other observer, I found enigmatic his seeming indifference to his sur­round­ings. Shock? Callousness? Stoicism? Confidence? We shall never know."  
In an unprecedented move, in May 1931 the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed the verdict on the grounds that it "cannot be supported, having regard to the evidence", and Wallace was set free. The decision meant that the jury was wrong in law, and in fact there was no evidence against Wallace—appeals are usually brought on the basis of bad decisions by the presiding judge at the original trial or by the emergence of new evidence.  
No other person was charged with the murder, and it remains officially unsolved. A further mock trial, conducted by the Merseyside Medico-Legal Society in 1977, presided over by Mr. Justice Lawton, also found Wallace not guilty. Robert Montgomery QC led for the prosecution while Richard Whittington-Egan led for the defence.  

Later life and death.  
After his successful appeal, Wallace returned to his job in insurance but public opinion in the areas where he lived and worked was strongly of the view that he had been guilty and escaped justice. Many of his previous customers shunned him; he was subjected to hate mail and physical threats and had to take a clerical job at his employer's head office. At the same time, Wallace.....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72914097Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:17:53 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.William Herbert Wallace.   William Herbert Wallace (29 August 1878 – 26 February 1933) was a British man convicted in 1931 of the murder of his wife, Julia, in their home in Wolverton Street in Liverpool's Anfield district. Wallace's conviction was...William Herbert Wallace (29 August 1878 – 26 February 1933) was a British man convicted in 1931 of the murder of his wife, Julia, in their home in Wolverton Street in Liverpool's Anfield district. Wallace's conviction was later overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal, the first instance in British legal history where an appeal had been allowed after re-examination of evidence. The case, with its strange background, has long been the subject of speculation and has generated many books, being regarded internationally as a classic murder mystery.  

Background.  
William Herbert Wallace was born in Millom, Cumberland, in 1878; he was the eldest of three children born to Benjamin and Margery Wallace, having a younger brother and sister. On leaving school at age 14 he began training as a draper's assistant in Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire, and on finishing his apprenticeship he obtained a position in Manchester with Messrs Whiteway Laidlaw and Company, outfitters to the British Armed Forces and the Colonial, Indian and Diplomatic Services. In 1903, after five years' service, Wallace obtained a transfer to the company's branch in Calcutta, India, where he remained for two years. On the suggestion of his brother Joseph, who lived in Shanghai, Wallace sought another transfer to Whiteway Laidlaw's branch of that city in 1905.  
A recurrent kidney complaint resulted in Wallace resigning his position and returning to England in 1907, where his left kidney was removed at Guy's Hospital. Little is recorded of his life after this time, until he obtained a position working for the Liberal Party in Harrogate, rising to the post of election agent in 1911. During his time in Harrogate, he met Julia Dennis (1861–1931), and they were married there in March 1914. All early sources suggested that Julia was approximately the same age as Wallace, but in 2001 James Murphy demonstrated from her original birth certificate that she was actually seventeen years older than he was. Julia's father was a destitute alcoholic farmer from near Northallerton, who had died in 1875, leaving her an orphan at the age of 13. In later life Julia exaggerated her antecedents, claiming her father had been a veterinary surgeon and her mother French.  
At the outbreak of the First World War, the position of Liberal election agent in Harrogate was discontinued, owing to the suspension of elections and a parliamentary truce, and Wallace once again found himself looking for a job. Through the help of his father, he obtained a position as a collections agent with the Prudential Assurance Company in Liverpool. The Wallaces moved there in 1915, settling at 29 Wolverton Street in the district of Anfield. During the 1920s, Wallace supplemented his comfortable but mundane existence as a collections agent, working exclusively in the neighbouring Clubmoor district, by lecturing part-time in chemistry at Liverpool Technical College. His hobbies included chemistry, botany and chess, and in 1928 he learned to play the violin to enable him to accompany Julia, who was an accomplished pianist, in "musical evenings" at their home at Wolverton Street.  

The crime.  
On the evening of Monday 19 January 1931, Wallace, aged 52, attended a meeting of the Liverpool Central Chess Club to play a scheduled chess game. While there he was handed a message, which had been received by telephone about twenty-five minutes before he arrived. It requested that he call at an address at 25 Menlove Gardens East, Liverpool, at 7.30 pm the following evening to discuss insurance with a man who had given his name as "R. M. Qualtrough".  
The following night, Wallace duly made his way by tramcar to the south of the city at the time requested, only to discover that while there were Menlove Gardens North, South and West, there was no East. He called at 25 Menlove Gardens West, and asked several passers-by in the neighbourhood for...]]>1166falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/41-rosvall-and-voutilainen--72913617Viljo Rosvall and Janne Voutilainen were two Finnish-Canadian unionists from Thunder Bay, Ontario and members of the Lumber Workers Industrial Union of Canada who mysteriously disappeared on November 18, 1929, and were later found dead. The two were on their way to a bush camp near Onion Lake to line up bush workers for a sympathy strike in conjunction with a large strike that was happening in Shabaqua and Shebandowan, west of Thunder Bay.  

Discovery of the bodies and funeral.  
The bodies of Rosvall and Voutilainen were found by a union search party, which included Aate Pitkanen, at Onion Lake the following spring. The men's funeral on April 28, 1930, was the largest ever held in Thunder Bay. Adding to the legendary status of the event, a solar eclipse darkened the sky as the funeral procession marched to Riverside Cemetery. The funeral events were regarded as the symbolic beginning of the Great Depression for local residents.  

Cause of death.  
The official cause of death was ruled to be accidental drownings. However, members of the Finnish community in Thunder Bay stated they suspected the two had been murdered by thugs employed by the bushcamp boss. Evidence that the two men had struggled before their deaths as well as the questionable matter that two experienced bushworkers had drowned in shallow water added to the feeling that foul play was involved. Furthermore, some community members claimed that the hired thugs had been shipped to Finland after the murder.  

Legacy.  
The case of Rosvall and Voutilainen continues to be controversial. An Ontario Historical Plaque was erected by the province to commemorate Rosvall and Voutilainen's role in Ontario's heritage. The plaque was erected in Centennial Park, which has a small logging museum. The park is located on Current River, which flows out of Onion Lake where the bodies were found approximately 20 kilometres away. The plaque reads:  
On November 18, 1929, Finnish-Canadians Viljo Rosvall and Janne Voutilainen left the Port Arthur area for Onion Lake, 20 kilometres upstream from here to recruit bushworkers for a strike. Their bodies were found at Onion Lake the following spring. Local unionists and many Finnish-Canadians suspected foul play, but coroner's juries ruled the deaths accidental drownings. The two men's funeral on April 28, 1930, is remembered as the largest ever held in Port Arthur. As thousands of mourners marched to Riverside Cemetery, an eclipse of the sun darkened the sky. The mystery surrounding the deaths of Rosvall and Voutilainen endures, sustaining them in public memory as martyrs to the cause of organized labour.  
As an event that has seeped into more mainstream Canadian consciousness, the case of Rosvall and Voutilainen has aroused interest from academics, unionists, and authors. For instance, Michael Ondaatje's 1987 novel In the Skin of a Lion gives a fictionalized account of the murder of Rosvall and Voutilainen.  

Continuing controversy.  
Historian Peter Raffo has carefully analyzed the oral and written evidence, and concluded, "According to the contemporary historical record, the likelihood is that Rosvall and Voutilainen were not murdered. The oral record - the myth - does not stand up well to close examination. Practically none of its details are sustained by the facts of the case... Not martyrs so much as tragic and brave victims."  
Raffo's analysis, however, might be criticized from at least two different angles: firstly, the reliability of Raffo's access and interpretation of the oral record as a non-Finnish speaking academic; and secondly, as an interpretation based almost entirely on the "oral record" for evidence, largely neglecting other important elements in the case of Rosvall and Voutilainen.  
Satu Repo, for instance, observes in her article "Rosvall and Voutilainen: Two Union Men Who Never Died" that:  
The advances made by [social historians such as] E.P. Thompson in expanding historical writing about the working class to include the experienced, "lived" quality of history, the way the past felt to the contemporaries, are not easy to apply to Canadian working-class history. There are several reasons for this. Not only is it hard to find records from which to construct the subjective side of working-class lives, (this is presumably the case everywhere), but these records, even when they do exist, speak in the numerous languages of our ethnically fragmented population. The precondition to access to some of them requires a kind of double identity, an ability to be on intimate terms with some "other" Canadian experience, and at the same time the capability of communicating that experience to the mainstream culture. An additional problem, of course, is the highly selective nature of any such records. For obviously it is not some homogeneous working class, but certain self-conscious and articulate minorities who are likely to leave a record of any kind.  
Repo thus raises the question of how accurate Raffo's analysis could be, given that Raffo lacked direct access to Finnish-language sources. It could be charged further that Raffo's article is an inappropriate attempt to use a highly emotional and controversial event in Thunder Bay labour history as merely a case study in oral history.  
As for the second criticism, the reliance on oral history does not address many of the facts of the case. Voutilainen was a trapper who had maintained trap lines in the Onion Lake area for several years, and thus, intimately familiar with the area.  How could an experienced trapper with an intimate knowledge of the local environment fall through ice and drown in (at most) three and a half feet of water? The testimony of the official coroner, Dr. Crozier, also raises doubts. Not only was his testimony highly agitated and hostile, but Crozier also belonged to an anti-union "citizens' group" formed around the time of the Winnipeg General Strike. Other inconsistencies include contradictory statements from the camp boss, Maki, and evidence of injuries on the bodies suggesting a struggle before their drowning. That violent methods were used by employers, the authorities, and/or vigilantes to disrupt or discourage union activity around this time in North America is not unusual. The lynching of Frank Little, the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, the Everett Massacre, and the Estevan Riot, to name only a few, clearly show that violent and brutal means were commonplace in class conflict.  
Anti-union violence including targeted physical assaults and targeted murders continue to be common and a sad truth in the City of Thunder Bay to the present day. The oral history in Thunder Bay’s Finnish community is that Rosvall and Voutilainen were murdered for their pro-union efforts, resulting in the authorities in Thunder Bay conducting a major cover up in an attempt to conceal the truth. Thunder Bay remains a hotbed of anti-union violence against pro-union individuals, resulting in Thunder Bay being labelled the Capital of Anti-Union Violence in Canada. Anti-union violence remains common to this day aided by the authorities in Thunder Bay, including the police, Ministry of Labour and corrupt unions, all of whom are involved in covering up the truth.  


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72913617Fri, 10 Jul 2026 12:36:52 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Rosvall and Voutilainen.   Viljo Rosvall and Janne Voutilainen were two Finnish-Canadian unionists from Thunder Bay, Ontario and members of the Lumber Workers Industrial Union of Canada who mysteriously disappeared on November 18, 1929, and were later...Viljo Rosvall and Janne Voutilainen were two Finnish-Canadian unionists from Thunder Bay, Ontario and members of the Lumber Workers Industrial Union of Canada who mysteriously disappeared on November 18, 1929, and were later found dead. The two were on their way to a bush camp near Onion Lake to line up bush workers for a sympathy strike in conjunction with a large strike that was happening in Shabaqua and Shebandowan, west of Thunder Bay.  

Discovery of the bodies and funeral.  
The bodies of Rosvall and Voutilainen were found by a union search party, which included Aate Pitkanen, at Onion Lake the following spring. The men's funeral on April 28, 1930, was the largest ever held in Thunder Bay. Adding to the legendary status of the event, a solar eclipse darkened the sky as the funeral procession marched to Riverside Cemetery. The funeral events were regarded as the symbolic beginning of the Great Depression for local residents.  

Cause of death.  
The official cause of death was ruled to be accidental drownings. However, members of the Finnish community in Thunder Bay stated they suspected the two had been murdered by thugs employed by the bushcamp boss. Evidence that the two men had struggled before their deaths as well as the questionable matter that two experienced bushworkers had drowned in shallow water added to the feeling that foul play was involved. Furthermore, some community members claimed that the hired thugs had been shipped to Finland after the murder.  

Legacy.  
The case of Rosvall and Voutilainen continues to be controversial. An Ontario Historical Plaque was erected by the province to commemorate Rosvall and Voutilainen's role in Ontario's heritage. The plaque was erected in Centennial Park, which has a small logging museum. The park is located on Current River, which flows out of Onion Lake where the bodies were found approximately 20 kilometres away. The plaque reads:  
On November 18, 1929, Finnish-Canadians Viljo Rosvall and Janne Voutilainen left the Port Arthur area for Onion Lake, 20 kilometres upstream from here to recruit bushworkers for a strike. Their bodies were found at Onion Lake the following spring. Local unionists and many Finnish-Canadians suspected foul play, but coroner's juries ruled the deaths accidental drownings. The two men's funeral on April 28, 1930, is remembered as the largest ever held in Port Arthur. As thousands of mourners marched to Riverside Cemetery, an eclipse of the sun darkened the sky. The mystery surrounding the deaths of Rosvall and Voutilainen endures, sustaining them in public memory as martyrs to the cause of organized labour.  
As an event that has seeped into more mainstream Canadian consciousness, the case of Rosvall and Voutilainen has aroused interest from academics, unionists, and authors. For instance, Michael Ondaatje's 1987 novel In the Skin of a Lion gives a fictionalized account of the murder of Rosvall and Voutilainen.  

Continuing controversy.  
Historian Peter Raffo has carefully analyzed the oral and written evidence, and concluded, "According to the contemporary historical record, the likelihood is that Rosvall and Voutilainen were not murdered. The oral record - the myth - does not stand up well to close examination. Practically none of its details are sustained by the facts of the case... Not martyrs so much as tragic and brave victims."  
Raffo's analysis, however, might be criticized from at least two different angles: firstly, the reliability of Raffo's access and interpretation of the oral record as a non-Finnish speaking academic; and secondly, as an interpretation based almost entirely on the "oral record" for evidence, largely neglecting other important elements in the case of Rosvall and Voutilainen.  
Satu Repo, for instance, observes in her article "Rosvall and Voutilainen: Two Union Men Who Never Died" that:  468falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/40-saint-valentine-s-day-massacre--72892703The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre was the murder of seven members and associates of Chicago's North Side Gang on Saint Valentine's Day 1929. The men were gathered at a Lincoln Park, Chicago, garage when between four and six men entered, two of whom were disguised as police officers. The seven men were lined up facing a wall and shot with Thompson submachine guns and a sawed-off shotgun; seventy rounds were fired from the Thompsons, and one cartridge was fired from the shotgun. Six of the victims died immediately; one lived for a short while but refused to identify the killers.         
The murders occurred amid the competition for control of organized crime in the city during Prohibition. Police and historians have speculated that the murders were an attempt to kill the head of the North Side Gang, George "Bugs" Moran, although he had not arrived by the time the attack started. The North Siders were rivals of the Chicago Outfit, a criminal organization headed by Al Capone, and much of the speculation has focused on whether he was behind the murders.  
The police, the Illinois Attorney General's office, and the coroner's office all opened investigations into the murders. Calvin Goddard, a pioneer in forensic ballistics set up a lab in Chicago with his team and equipment. Two cars likely to have been involved in the shootings were found; both had been destroyed. Police arrested several gang members in connection with the shootings, but a lack of evidence meant none were charged.  
In 1935, Byron Bolton, who had been identified as a possible lookout at the crime, was arrested on unrelated charges. He confessed to being a lookout and said the murderers were Fred Goetz, Gus Winkler, Fred Burke, Ray Nugent and Bob Carey. His accusation was supported by the memoirs of Winkler's widow, Georgette. The accusations have been disputed by some historians who have suggested that "Three Fingered Jack" White and Tony Accardo were involved.  
The violence associated with the Thompson machine gun in events like the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and the activities of John Dillinger led to changes in gun control legislation in the US, with the introduction of the National Firearms Act in 1934. The massacre has been discussed or referenced in books, including histories, and depicted on television and in film.  

Background.  
Prohibition and organized crime.  
In 1920, the ratification of the 18th Amendment banned the manufacture, distribution, importation, and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States, beginning the Prohibition era. In October 1919, the Volstead Act defined an alcoholic beverage as any that contained more than 0.5 percent alcohol.  
Organized crime in the US pre-dated Prohibition, with gangs already involved in such activities as widespread brothel and gambling-house control. Prohibition brought about the growth of bootlegging, as the pre-existing gangs involved themselves in the illegal liquor trade. It brought with it "a previously unknown level of competitive violence" between rival groups, according to criminologist Robert M. Lombardo. One study calculated that the homicide rate in Chicago, Illinois, for example, rose 21 percent during Prohibition; the Chicago Crime Commission identified 729 gangland-affiliated murders in Cook County, Illinois, between 1919 and 1933 – 15 percent of all murders in the area.  

Bugs Moran and the North Side Gang.  
George "Bugs" Moran was the leader of the North Side Gang, a Chicago-based criminal organization during Prohibition.   According to historian Rose Keefe, Moran derived his nickname from his "intense stare, coupled with his sometimes homicidal temper".  
The North Side Gang was the second most powerful gang in Chicago in the 1920s, behind the neighboring Chicago Outfit of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone. The North Siders were active in bootlegging, running speakeasies and gambling dens, and labor union racketeering; they also continued their pre-Prohibition activities of looting warehouses, safeblowing, and hijacking. The North Side Gang had been fighting with the Chicago Outfit from the mid-1920s. Hymie Weiss, then the leader of the North Side Gang, attempted to kill the Chicago Outfit's second-in-command, Al Capone, on January 12, 1925: Weiss shot at Capone's car and wounded the driver, but Capone escaped unharmed. After the deaths of Weiss and his successor, Vincent Drucci, Moran rose to become the head of the North Side Gang.  
On September 20, 1926, Capone was living on two floors of the Hawthorne Hotel in Cicero, Illinois. While he was in the hotel's dining room, a car drove past with a man on the running board firing blanks from a machine gun into the air. Capone wanted to go and see what the commotion was, but his bodyguard, Frank Rio, pushed him to the ground. Ten cars then drove past the hotel, firing machine guns and shotguns into the building and the cars parked in front. Police estimated that over a thousand rounds were fired. There were no deaths, but some injuries, including a woman sitting in a car who suffered glass splinters in her eye. Capone paid all her medical expenses at a cost of $10,000.  
Despite the dislike between the rival gangs, they maintained a business relationship. Capone received shipments of Canadian Old Log Cabin whiskey from the Purple Gang, a criminal group from Detroit, Michigan; he would then sell the alcohol to Moran's speakeasies. After he was offered a supply of cheaper whiskey, Moran terminated the agreement and sold the cheaper product for the same price, increasing his profits. The new whiskey was inferior to the Old Log Cabin brand and was not well received by his customers. Moran went back to Capone and asked him to resume the supply of Old Log Cabin, but Capone refused, saying he had a new buyer. Moran then hijacked as much of the Purple Gang's shipments as he needed to supply his speakeasies.  

Al Capone and the Chicago Outfit.  
The Chicago Outfit started as a prostitution, gambling, and labor racketeering organization in the early 1900s under the leadership of Big Jim Colosimo; it was the largest and best-organized criminal group in Chicago. When prohibition began, Colosimo was reluctant to move into bootlegging; he was murdered in May 1920, probably at the behest of his second-in-command, Johnny Torrio. The gang grew under Torrio as he moved it into bootlegging. He made deals with smaller gangs in Chicago, creating a cartel for liquor trading across the city. On January 24, 1925, Weiss, Moran and another North Side member ambushed and shot Torrio. Moran's gun then failed to fire – or was empty – as he was about to kill Torrio; the North Siders fled, believing Torrio was dying, but he survived. Torrio spent time in the hospital and then nine months in prison on a pre-existing charge. He was so shaken by the attack that, upon his release, he handed over the leadership of the Outfit to Capone and moved to New York.  
The year Capone took over the Chicago Outfit, the gang's gross income from their racketeering was conservatively estimated by the United States Attorney General's office at $105 million a year. It had a weekly payroll of $300,000 for the thousand men employed and an estimated $15 million per year for bribes. By 1929, Capone's annual income is estimated to have been over $40 million.   

Massacre.  
Sources differ about the build-up to the murders. Some – including those by writer Troy Allen and historian Paul R. Kavieff – state that on February 13, 1929, Moran received a phone call offering a truckload of highjacked Purple Gang whiskey for sale. He told the caller to deliver it to the garage at 2122 North Clark Street in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago's North Side at 10:30 am. William J. Helmer and Arthur J. Bilek, in their history of the killings, disagree and point out that the men, except for two, were Moran's trusted inner circle and best killers; all were wearing expensive suits, which makes it unlikely that they were going to unload a truck. Historian Rose Keefe interviewed one of Moran's relatives, who said: "I can tell you one thing, there was no meeting with out-of-town gangsters or any plans to unload bootleg. They were there to meet George [Moran] because he'd been shot and they were losing their territory to Capone."  
On Saint Valentine's Day, February 14, seven men were in the garage waiting for the truck and for Moran and his fellow gang members Willie Marks and Ted Newberry, who were running late. The seven men in the garage were Albert Kachellek (alias James Clark), Moran's second in command and brother-in-law; Adam Heyer, the North Side Gang's bookkeeper and business manager; Albert Weinshank, who managed several cleaning and dyeing operations for Moran; and gang enforcers Frank Gusenberg and his brother Peter. Two non-gang members were also present: Reinhardt H. Schwimmer, a former optician turned gambler, who liked to hang around the gang; and John May, an occasional mechanic at the garage, who had brought his dog Highball with him. May was fixing the wheel of a truck.  
Between 10:30–10:35 am, a black Cadillac pulled up outside the garage. The driver and front-seat passenger wore police uniforms; the three men in the back wore civilian clothes. They exited the car and went into the garage. Shortly afterwards, Moran drove past and saw what he thought was a police car; he went around the corner for a cup of coffee to avoid what he presumed to be a raid in progress on the premises. The seven men inside the garage were forced to line up against the wall, facing it. The assailants then shot them in the back with Thompson submachine guns. The shooting was methodical, with fire directed along the line of men three times: at the level of the head, chest, and the stomach; seventy rounds were fired from the machine guns...

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72892703Thu, 09 Jul 2026 16:12:16 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Saint Valentine's Day Massacre.   The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre was the murder of seven members and associates of Chicago's North Side Gang on Saint Valentine's Day 1929. The men were gathered at a Lincoln Park, Chicago, garage when between four...The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre was the murder of seven members and associates of Chicago's North Side Gang on Saint Valentine's Day 1929. The men were gathered at a Lincoln Park, Chicago, garage when between four and six men entered, two of whom were disguised as police officers. The seven men were lined up facing a wall and shot with Thompson submachine guns and a sawed-off shotgun; seventy rounds were fired from the Thompsons, and one cartridge was fired from the shotgun. Six of the victims died immediately; one lived for a short while but refused to identify the killers.         
The murders occurred amid the competition for control of organized crime in the city during Prohibition. Police and historians have speculated that the murders were an attempt to kill the head of the North Side Gang, George "Bugs" Moran, although he had not arrived by the time the attack started. The North Siders were rivals of the Chicago Outfit, a criminal organization headed by Al Capone, and much of the speculation has focused on whether he was behind the murders.  
The police, the Illinois Attorney General's office, and the coroner's office all opened investigations into the murders. Calvin Goddard, a pioneer in forensic ballistics set up a lab in Chicago with his team and equipment. Two cars likely to have been involved in the shootings were found; both had been destroyed. Police arrested several gang members in connection with the shootings, but a lack of evidence meant none were charged.  
In 1935, Byron Bolton, who had been identified as a possible lookout at the crime, was arrested on unrelated charges. He confessed to being a lookout and said the murderers were Fred Goetz, Gus Winkler, Fred Burke, Ray Nugent and Bob Carey. His accusation was supported by the memoirs of Winkler's widow, Georgette. The accusations have been disputed by some historians who have suggested that "Three Fingered Jack" White and Tony Accardo were involved.  
The violence associated with the Thompson machine gun in events like the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and the activities of John Dillinger led to changes in gun control legislation in the US, with the introduction of the National Firearms Act in 1934. The massacre has been discussed or referenced in books, including histories, and depicted on television and in film.  

Background.  
Prohibition and organized crime.  
In 1920, the ratification of the 18th Amendment banned the manufacture, distribution, importation, and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States, beginning the Prohibition era. In October 1919, the Volstead Act defined an alcoholic beverage as any that contained more than 0.5 percent alcohol.  
Organized crime in the US pre-dated Prohibition, with gangs already involved in such activities as widespread brothel and gambling-house control. Prohibition brought about the growth of bootlegging, as the pre-existing gangs involved themselves in the illegal liquor trade. It brought with it "a previously unknown level of competitive violence" between rival groups, according to criminologist Robert M. Lombardo. One study calculated that the homicide rate in Chicago, Illinois, for example, rose 21 percent during Prohibition; the Chicago Crime Commission identified 729 gangland-affiliated murders in Cook County, Illinois, between 1919 and 1933 – 15 percent of all murders in the area.  

Bugs Moran and the North Side Gang.  
George "Bugs" Moran was the leader of the North Side Gang, a Chicago-based criminal organization during Prohibition.   According to historian Rose Keefe, Moran derived his nickname from his "intense stare, coupled with his sometimes homicidal temper".  
The North Side Gang was the second most powerful gang in Chicago in the 1920s, behind the neighboring Chicago Outfit of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone. The North Siders were active in bootlegging, running speakeasies and...]]>1750falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/39-meyer-zayder--72890003Meyer Zayder (died 1930; also written Meyer Seider) was a criminal from Odessa, Russian Empire (now Ukraine), known for fatally shooting Soviet general Grigory Kotovsky on 6 August 1925.  

Biography.  
Before the October Revolution Zayder was reputed as the owner of one of the biggest brothels in Odessa. Zayder was a very wealthy man and was even going to buy a mansion overlooking the Black Sea.  
At the same time, the Bolshevik underground, headed by Grigory Kotovsky, operated in Odessa. It took part in the raids on prisons and counterintelligence of General Denikin, seized weapons and transported them to the Transnistrian partisans, and organized sabotage of the railways. 

Acquaintance with Kotovsky.  
Zayder and Kotovsky met in the following circumstances. One day, fleeing persecution, the latter in the uniform of the captain of artillery came to him, turning directly from the threshold:  
I'm Kotovsky. I need a key from your attic ... (after getting the key) you did not see any captain today. Did you?  
Zayder hid Kotovsky in his attic. At night, having disguised himself in civilian clothes and wearing a wig, went down and left his apartment, saying that he was now his debtor.  
In 1919, Zayder was adjutant to the gangster and socialist Mishka Yaponchik, and was known by the nickname "Majorchik." In 1920, Zayder became unemployed, since the Soviet government, which was finally established in Odesa, closed the brothel owned by him. For two years he was interrupted by casual earnings. In 1922, Zayder learned that a cavalry corps was stationed in Uman, commanded by his debtor Kotovsky, and went to him with a request for help. Kotovsky helped Zayder, arranging that the head of the guard Peregonovsky sugar factory, located near Uman. Zayder, in turn, helped Kotovsky in settling the life of his corps. So, his idea was to prepare skins for cats and exchange them in Ivanovo for fabrics that went to uniforms. Zayder, according to eyewitnesses, was very grateful to Kotovsky for the help, since finding work in the early 1920s was very difficult and there were about 1.5 million people on labor exchanges (as of 1925).  

Assassination of Kotovsky.  
In early August 1925, Zayder came to the Chebank farm, where Kotovsky lived temporarily. His motivation was that he wanted to help his family get together on the way back. It is possible that Kotovsky knew in advance about Zayder's arrival, but did not interfere with this, completely trusting him.  
On the evening of 5 August 1925, Kotovsky was invited to a "bonfire" at a pioneer camp near Chebanki Luzanovsky, after which he returned home. Approximately at 23:00 on the occasion of Kotovsky's departure, the red commanders who lived in the neighbourhood decided to give him a solemn farewell. Kotovsky's wife recalled the moment of the murder:  
... Kotovsky reluctantly went, because he did not like such evenings and was tired: he told the pioneers about the liquidation of Antonov's gang, which for him always meant to relive a great nervous tension. The evening, as they say, was not glued. There were loud speeches and toasts, but Kotovsky was indifferent and extraordinarily boring. After about three hours, they began to disperse. Kotovsky was detained by the senior accountant of the Central Administration of Military-Industrial Economy who had just arrived to him. I went home alone and made my bed. Suddenly I hear short revolver shots – one, the second, and then – dead silence ... I ran to the shots ... At the corner of the main building of holidaymakers I see Kotovsky's flattened body facing down. I rush to the pulse – no pulse.  
A bullet shot by a murderer from a revolver hit Kotovsky in the aorta. Death came instantly. Neighbours came running at the shots. The murderer soon appeared himself. Kotovsky's son recalled:  
... Soon after my father was brought to the veranda, and my mother was left alone by the body, Zayder ran in and fell to her knees before her, began to beat in hysterics: "I killed the commander!" It seemed to Mama that he was going to enter the room where I slept, and she shouted: "There, you scoundrel!", blocking Zayder's way. Zayder quickly disappeared.  
At dawn of the same day, Zayder was arrested. During the investigation and at the trial he fully admitted his guilt, however, he often changed his testimony. So, during the investigation, he claimed that he had shot Kotovsky out of jealousy, and at court stated that he had killed him because he had not raised him up the ranks. The trial took place in August 1926. Zayder was sentenced to ten years in prison. From the verdict, the charges were excluded in cooperation with the Romanian special services.  
The punishment of Meyer Zayder was serving in the Kharkiv pre-trial detention centre. He soon became the head of the prison club and was transferred to an unconditional system of detention and was given the right to freely exit from prison to the city. In 1928, having been imprisoned for less than three years, Zayder was released on parole for exemplary behaviour. After his release, he got a job as a railway wagon co-driver.  
In the fall of 1930, the 3rd Bessarabian Cavalry Division, stationed in Berdychiv, celebrated the tenth anniversary of its military path. On the occasion of the jubilee, a holiday and manoeuvres were to be held, and veterans of the division were invited, including the widow of Grigory Kotovsky, Olga Petrovna, who had once served as a doctor in his brigade. One evening three of her former colleagues came to her and said that Meyer Zayder had sentenced them to death. Kotovskaya tried to object to them, saying that Zayder was the only witness to the murder of her husband, and in no case could he kill him, but her arguments did not convince those who prepared the murder. Intending to prevent them, Kotovskaya turned to the division commander Mishuk and the Political Department of the division.  
Soon it became known that Meyer Zayder lost his life in Kharkiv, not far from the local railway station. His lifeless body was found on the canvas of the railway. It is likely that, after strangling him, the murderers threw Zayder on the rails in the hope of imitating the accident, but the train was late, and their plan failed. As it was later possible to establish, the killing was carried out by three cavalrymen who served together with Kotovsky – Strigunov, Valdman and the third, whose name is still unknown. The people who took Zayder's life were not convicted. According to the memoirs of Grigory Grigoryevich Kotovsky's son, the chief organizer of the murder of Zayder was Odessit Valdman. In 1939, he was shot over a different matter.  
Many researchers of Kotovsky's murder are convinced that Zayder was not the only and not the most important criminal, but acted under someone else's leadership. The materials about the murder of Kotovsky were classified.  
Zayder's friendship with Mishka Yaponchik and Kotovsky's murder, as an act of revenge, became one of the plot lines of the series "The Life and Adventures of Mishka Yaponchik". The role of Meyer Zayder (in the series he appears under the name Izya Majorchik) was performed by Alexey Filimonov. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72890003Thu, 09 Jul 2026 14:23:01 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Meyer Zayder.   Meyer Zayder (died 1930; also written Meyer Seider) was a criminal from Odessa, Russian Empire (now Ukraine), known for fatally shooting Soviet general Grigory Kotovsky on 6 August 1925.   Biography.   Before the October Revolution...Meyer Zayder (died 1930; also written Meyer Seider) was a criminal from Odessa, Russian Empire (now Ukraine), known for fatally shooting Soviet general Grigory Kotovsky on 6 August 1925.  

Biography.  
Before the October Revolution Zayder was reputed as the owner of one of the biggest brothels in Odessa. Zayder was a very wealthy man and was even going to buy a mansion overlooking the Black Sea.  
At the same time, the Bolshevik underground, headed by Grigory Kotovsky, operated in Odessa. It took part in the raids on prisons and counterintelligence of General Denikin, seized weapons and transported them to the Transnistrian partisans, and organized sabotage of the railways. 

Acquaintance with Kotovsky.  
Zayder and Kotovsky met in the following circumstances. One day, fleeing persecution, the latter in the uniform of the captain of artillery came to him, turning directly from the threshold:  
I'm Kotovsky. I need a key from your attic ... (after getting the key) you did not see any captain today. Did you?  
Zayder hid Kotovsky in his attic. At night, having disguised himself in civilian clothes and wearing a wig, went down and left his apartment, saying that he was now his debtor.  
In 1919, Zayder was adjutant to the gangster and socialist Mishka Yaponchik, and was known by the nickname "Majorchik." In 1920, Zayder became unemployed, since the Soviet government, which was finally established in Odesa, closed the brothel owned by him. For two years he was interrupted by casual earnings. In 1922, Zayder learned that a cavalry corps was stationed in Uman, commanded by his debtor Kotovsky, and went to him with a request for help. Kotovsky helped Zayder, arranging that the head of the guard Peregonovsky sugar factory, located near Uman. Zayder, in turn, helped Kotovsky in settling the life of his corps. So, his idea was to prepare skins for cats and exchange them in Ivanovo for fabrics that went to uniforms. Zayder, according to eyewitnesses, was very grateful to Kotovsky for the help, since finding work in the early 1920s was very difficult and there were about 1.5 million people on labor exchanges (as of 1925).  

Assassination of Kotovsky.  
In early August 1925, Zayder came to the Chebank farm, where Kotovsky lived temporarily. His motivation was that he wanted to help his family get together on the way back. It is possible that Kotovsky knew in advance about Zayder's arrival, but did not interfere with this, completely trusting him.  
On the evening of 5 August 1925, Kotovsky was invited to a "bonfire" at a pioneer camp near Chebanki Luzanovsky, after which he returned home. Approximately at 23:00 on the occasion of Kotovsky's departure, the red commanders who lived in the neighbourhood decided to give him a solemn farewell. Kotovsky's wife recalled the moment of the murder:  
... Kotovsky reluctantly went, because he did not like such evenings and was tired: he told the pioneers about the liquidation of Antonov's gang, which for him always meant to relive a great nervous tension. The evening, as they say, was not glued. There were loud speeches and toasts, but Kotovsky was indifferent and extraordinarily boring. After about three hours, they began to disperse. Kotovsky was detained by the senior accountant of the Central Administration of Military-Industrial Economy who had just arrived to him. I went home alone and made my bed. Suddenly I hear short revolver shots – one, the second, and then – dead silence ... I ran to the shots ... At the corner of the main building of holidaymakers I see Kotovsky's flattened body facing down. I rush to the pulse – no pulse.  
A bullet shot by a murderer from a revolver hit Kotovsky in the aorta. Death came instantly. Neighbours came running at the shots. The murderer soon appeared himself. Kotovsky's son recalled:  
... Soon after my father was brought to the veranda, and my...]]>497falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/38-arnold-rothstein--72889747Arnold Rothstein (January 17, 1882 – November 6, 1928), nicknamed "The Brain", was an American racketeer, gangster, businessman and gambler who became a kingpin of the Jewish Mob in New York City. Rothstein was widely reputed to have organized corruption in professional athletics, including conspiring to fix the 1919 World Series. He was also a mentor of future crime bosses Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, Bugsy Siegel and numerous others.  
Rothstein is credited with "transform[ing] organized crime from a thuggish activity by hoodlums into a big business run like a corporation," gaining notoriety as the person who first realized the lucrative opportunities afforded by Prohibition and "understood the truths of early 20th century capitalism (giving people what they want) and came to dominate them." His notoriety inspired several fictional characters based on his life, portrayed in contemporary and later forms of media, including the character Meyer Wolfsheim in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby (1925).  
Rothstein refused to pay a large debt resulting from a fixed poker game and was murdered in 1928. His illegal empire was broken up and distributed among a number of other underworld organizations, which led in part to the downfall of New York State's Tammany Hall political machine and the rise of reformer Fiorello La Guardia.  

Early life and education.  
Arnold Rothstein was born in New York City on January 17, 1882, the son of an affluent Ashkenazi Jewish businessman, Abraham Rothstein, and his wife, Esther Rothschilds. His father was a man of upright character, who had acquired the nickname "Abe the Just." Rothstein himself was highly skilled at mathematics but was otherwise uninterested in school. Known to be a difficult child, Rothstein harbored a deep envy of his older brother Harry, who studied to become a rabbi. His father believed that young Rothstein craved to be the center of attention and became frustrated when he was not.  
As a child, Rothstein began to indulge in gambling, despite repeated admonishment by his father. In 1921, when asked how he became a gambler, Rothstein said: "I always gambled. I can't remember when I didn't. Maybe I gambled just to show my father he couldn't tell me what to do, but I don't think so. I think I gambled because I loved the excitement. When I gambled, nothing else mattered."  

Illegitimate career.  
By 1910, at age 28, Rothstein had moved to the Tenderloin district of Manhattan, where he established a casino. He also invested in a horse racing track at Havre de Grace, Maryland, where he was reputed to have fixed many of the races that he won. Rothstein built a wide network of informants, very deep pockets from some among his father's banker associates and the willingness to pay a premium for good information, regardless of the source. His successes made him a millionaire by age 30.  

1919 World Series.  
There is a great deal of evidence both for and against Rothstein being involved in the 1919 World Series fix. In 1919, Rothstein's agents allegedly paid members of the Chicago White Sox to throw the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. He bet against them and made a large profit in what was called the "Black Sox Scandal".  
Summoned to Chicago to testify before a grand jury investigating the incident, Rothstein said he was an innocent businessman, intent on clearing his name and his reputation. Prosecutors could find no evidence linking Rothstein to the affair, and he was never indicted. Rothstein testified:  
The whole thing started when Abe [Attell] and some other cheap gamblers decided to frame the Series and make a killing. The world knows I was asked in on the deal and my friends know how I turned it down flat. I don't doubt that Attell used my name to put it over. That's been done by smarter men than Abe. But I was not in on it, would not have gone into it under any circumstances and did not bet a cent on the Series after I found out what was under way.  
In another version of the story, Rothstein was first approached by Joseph "Sport" Sullivan, a gambler, who suggested Rothstein help fix the World Series. Rothstein supposedly refused Sullivan's proposal but when he received Attell's offer, Rothstein reconsidered Sullivan's first offer. He figured that the competition to fix the game made it worth the risk to get involved and still be able to conceal his involvement. David Pietrusza's biography of Rothstein suggests that the gangster worked both ends of the fix with Sullivan and Attell. Michael Alexander concluded that Attell fixed the Series "probably without Arnold Rothstein's approval", which "did not prevent Rothstein from betting on the Series with inside knowledge".  
Leo Katcher said that "all the records and minutes of the Grand Jury disappeared. So too did the signed confessions of Cicotte, Williams and Jackson.... The state, virtually all of its evidence gone, sought to get the players to repeat their confession on the stand. This they refused to do, citing the Fifth Amendment." Eventually, the judge had no choice but to dismiss the case. Katcher went on, "Thus, on the official record and on the basis of [State Attorney Maclay] Hoyne's statement, Rothstein was never involved in the fixing of the Series. Also, on the official record, it was never proved that the Series had been fixed." Despite the legal case against the ballplayer defendants being dismissed, all eight White Sox players named as trial defendants were permanently banned from playing or participating as coaches in Major League Baseball (MLB) by the newly named first Commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Despite all the denials, Katcher noted that "while Rothstein won the Series, he won a small sum. He always maintained it was less than $100,000. It actually was about $350,000. It could have been much – very much – more. It wasn't because Rothstein chickened out. A World Series fix was too good to be true – even if it was true."  

1921 Travers Stakes.  
Under the pseudonym "Redstone Stable", Rothstein owned a racehorse named Sporting Blood, a very popular racehorse in the early 1920s, which won the 1921 Travers Stakes under suspicious circumstances. Rothstein allegedly conspired with a leading trainer, Sam Hildreth, to drive up Sporting Blood's odds. Hildreth entered an outstanding three-year-old, Grey Lag, on the morning of the race, causing Sporting Blood's odds to rise to 3–1. Rothstein bet $150,000 through bookmakers, allegedly having been informed that the second favorite, Prudery, was off her feed. Just before post time and without explanation, Hildreth scratched Grey Lag from the starting list. Rothstein collected over $500,000 in bets plus the purse, but a conspiracy was never proved.  

Prohibition and organized crime.  
With the advent of Prohibition, Rothstein saw the opportunities for bootlegging and narcotics. Liquor was smuggled across the Hudson River, as well as from Canada across the Great Lakes and into Upstate New York. Rothstein also purchased holdings in a number of speakeasies. He became the first to import illegal Scotch whisky in his own fleet of transatlantic freighters, knowing that high-end booze would be the "chic thing to have."  
With his banking support and high-level political connections, Rothstein soon managed to end-run Tammany Hall to the street gangs. Subsequently, his criminal organization included such underworld notables as Meyer Lansky, Jack "Legs" Diamond, Charles "Lucky" Luciano, and Dutch Schultz, whose combined gangs and double-dealing with their own respective bosses subverted the entire late 19th-century form of political gangsterism. Rothstein's various nicknames were Mr. Big, The Fixer, The Man Uptown, The Big Bankroll, and The Brain.  
Rothstein frequently mediated disputes among the New York gangs and reportedly charged a hefty fee for his services. His favorite "office" was Lindy's, at Broadway and 49th Street in Manhattan. He often stood on the corner surrounded by his bodyguards and did business on the street. Rothstein made bets and collected debts from those who had lost the previous day.  Meanwhile, he exploited his role as mediator with the city's legitimate business world and soon forced Tammany Hall to recognize him as a necessary ally in its administration of the city. Many historians credit him as the first successful modern drug dealer.  
By 1925, Rothstein was one of the nation's most powerful criminals and had forged a large criminal empire. For a time he was the nation's largest bootlegger, until the rise of George Remus. With a reported wealth of over $10 million (equivalent to $162 million in 2024).  

Death.  
On November 4, 1928, Rothstein was shot and wounded during a business meeting at Manhattan's Park Central Hotel at Seventh Avenue near 55th Street. He died two days later at the New York Polyclinic Hospital.  
The shooting was reportedly linked to debts owed from a three-day high-stakes poker game in October, for which Rothstein owed $320,000 (equivalent to $6 million in 2025). He claimed the game was fixed and refused to pay, provoking his murder.  Gambler George "Hump" McManus was arrested for homicide, but later acquitted for lack of evidence.  
According to Kevin Cook, author of Titanic Thompson, the poker game was fixed by gambler Titanic Thompson (born Alvin Clarence Thomas) and his associate, Nate Raymond. Due to some complicated side bets, by the end Rothstein owed Raymond $319,000 (much of which Raymond, by secret agreement, was to pass on to Thompson); $30,000 to Thompson; and about $200,000 to the other gamblers present. McManus owed Rothstein $51,000. Rothstein stalled for time, saying he would not be able to pay until after the elections of November 1928, when he expected to win $550,000 for.....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72889747Thu, 09 Jul 2026 14:04:26 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Arnold Rothstein.   Arnold Rothstein (January 17, 1882 – November 6, 1928), nicknamed "The Brain", was an American racketeer, gangster, businessman and gambler who became a kingpin of the Jewish Mob in New York City. Rothstein was widely reputed to...Arnold Rothstein (January 17, 1882 – November 6, 1928), nicknamed "The Brain", was an American racketeer, gangster, businessman and gambler who became a kingpin of the Jewish Mob in New York City. Rothstein was widely reputed to have organized corruption in professional athletics, including conspiring to fix the 1919 World Series. He was also a mentor of future crime bosses Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, Bugsy Siegel and numerous others.  
Rothstein is credited with "transform[ing] organized crime from a thuggish activity by hoodlums into a big business run like a corporation," gaining notoriety as the person who first realized the lucrative opportunities afforded by Prohibition and "understood the truths of early 20th century capitalism (giving people what they want) and came to dominate them." His notoriety inspired several fictional characters based on his life, portrayed in contemporary and later forms of media, including the character Meyer Wolfsheim in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby (1925).  
Rothstein refused to pay a large debt resulting from a fixed poker game and was murdered in 1928. His illegal empire was broken up and distributed among a number of other underworld organizations, which led in part to the downfall of New York State's Tammany Hall political machine and the rise of reformer Fiorello La Guardia.  

Early life and education.  
Arnold Rothstein was born in New York City on January 17, 1882, the son of an affluent Ashkenazi Jewish businessman, Abraham Rothstein, and his wife, Esther Rothschilds. His father was a man of upright character, who had acquired the nickname "Abe the Just." Rothstein himself was highly skilled at mathematics but was otherwise uninterested in school. Known to be a difficult child, Rothstein harbored a deep envy of his older brother Harry, who studied to become a rabbi. His father believed that young Rothstein craved to be the center of attention and became frustrated when he was not.  
As a child, Rothstein began to indulge in gambling, despite repeated admonishment by his father. In 1921, when asked how he became a gambler, Rothstein said: "I always gambled. I can't remember when I didn't. Maybe I gambled just to show my father he couldn't tell me what to do, but I don't think so. I think I gambled because I loved the excitement. When I gambled, nothing else mattered."  

Illegitimate career.  
By 1910, at age 28, Rothstein had moved to the Tenderloin district of Manhattan, where he established a casino. He also invested in a horse racing track at Havre de Grace, Maryland, where he was reputed to have fixed many of the races that he won. Rothstein built a wide network of informants, very deep pockets from some among his father's banker associates and the willingness to pay a premium for good information, regardless of the source. His successes made him a millionaire by age 30.  

1919 World Series.  
There is a great deal of evidence both for and against Rothstein being involved in the 1919 World Series fix. In 1919, Rothstein's agents allegedly paid members of the Chicago White Sox to throw the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. He bet against them and made a large profit in what was called the "Black Sox Scandal".  
Summoned to Chicago to testify before a grand jury investigating the incident, Rothstein said he was an innocent businessman, intent on clearing his name and his reputation. Prosecutors could find no evidence linking Rothstein to the affair, and he was never indicted. Rothstein testified:  
The whole thing started when Abe [Attell] and some other cheap gamblers decided to frame the Series and make a killing. The world knows I was asked in on the deal and my friends know how I turned it down flat. I don't doubt that Attell used my name to put it over. That's been done by smarter men than Abe. But I was not in on it, would not have gone into...]]>1036falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/37-serge-rubinstein--72871504Serge Rubinstein (January 7, 1897 or May 18, 1908 – January 27, 1955) was a stock and currency manipulator, a playboy, Café society denizen, convicted draft-evader and unsolved murder victim.  

Early life.  
Serge Rubinstein was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, to Dmitri and Stella Rubinstein. His father was a money lender to the Czar and a financial adviser to Grigory Rasputin. The family fled Russia during the Russian Revolution, going to Sweden, Austria, and France. Serge finally settled in England, where he graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in economics.  

Business dealings.  
Rubinstein joined the Banque Franco-Asiatique in Paris and by 1932 was running the bank. He was accused of manipulating the French franc by short selling and was expelled from France by Pierre Laval in 1935.  
Rubinstein entered the United States in 1938 on a phony Portuguese passport that he had purchased for $2000. The passport was under the name of Serge Manuel Rubinstein de Rovello. He said he was the illegitimate son of a Russian father and Portuguese mother (Rubinstein's brother Andre would later sue Serge on behalf of their mother for defamation of character because of this claim). He had stock dealings in Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation and Postal Telegraph during 1939 and 1940 which earned him a substantial sum. His political contributions gained him a dinner at the White House with Eleanor Roosevelt.  
The British company Chosen Corporation, Ltd. owned three gold mines in Korea. One of its directors, Martin Coles Harman, was convicted of misappropriating funds from the company and its stock price fell. Rubinstein bought stock in the company and gained control. He sold the mines to a Japanese company for the Japanese yen equivalent of $1.7 million, keeping the money for himself. Because Japan had restrictions on the exportation of its currency, Rubinstein smuggled Japanese yen valued at $1.2 million out of Japan. Rubinstein was sued in 1941 in New York by other Chosen Corp. shareholders for $5.9 million, with the suit being settled out of court in 1946 for $2 million.  

Draft evasion and deportation.  
Rubinstein made extensive attempts to avoid the draft during World War II. He claimed that he was the sole support for seven dependents, with only a relatively low income (he had married in 1941 to Laurette Kilbourne and they had two children, Alexandria and Dianna). He also claimed that he worked for vital defense industries. Later, he claimed as a Portuguese citizen from a neutral country that he could not serve in the United States armed forces.  
He was indicted for lying about his income to the draft board, when he claimed he only earned $11,000 in 1940 but actually earned $337,000. He was convicted as a draft evader and served two years in the federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, from 1947 to 1949. His wife divorced him in 1949 while in prison, claiming cruelty. After the divorce and his release from prison Rubinstein became noted for his social life, being seen with numerous women at fancy nightclubs.  
The United States government had previously initiated deportation hearings for Rubinstein, as he had illegally entered the country with a forged Portuguese passport. However, using a battery of lawyers, as well as political connections, he was able to successfully contest those attempts to deport him.  

Postwar business dealings.  
Rubinstein was indicted in 1949 on charges of stock fraud, mail fraud, and violation of the Securities Act in connection with a $3.5 million gain in stock of the Panhandle Producing and Refining Company. He was acquitted in 1951. Rubinstein was also sued by his sister-in-law in 1951, claiming that he cheated his late brother Andre out of $1.5 million in the Chosen Corporation swindle, but she lost the suit.  
In 1954, Rubinstein was sued by Blair Holdings for $5 million, alleging conspiracy to defraud. Also in 1954, three men, including Emanuel Lester, were arrested for trying to extort $535,000 from Rubinstein. Lester claimed that he was just trying to collect a debt, and had filed a $750,000 lawsuit against Rubinstein.  
Rubinstein said he invested in companies whose liquidation values exceeded the stock value. Critics said that Rubinstein would gain control of a company, then exchange its assets for shares in a sham company, all through a complicated series of transactions, and then dissolve the sham company.  

Death.  
In the early morning of January 27, 1955, Rubinstein returned from a dinner at Nino's La Rue supper club with Estelle Gardner to his six-story Fifth Avenue mansion. She left about fifteen minutes later at 1:45 am.  
At 8:30 am, Rubinstein's butler, William Morter, found the body dressed in silk pajamas in the third floor bedroom. Rubinstein's hands and feet were tied with venetian blind cords and his mouth was covered with adhesive tape. The coroner found that he had died of manual strangulation.  
An initial force of 50 detectives was assigned to the murder. There was no sign of a forced entry. The room had been ransacked, but the police were unable to determine if anything was missing. The estimated time of death was 3AM.  
Rubinstein's mother and an aunt lived at the home on the top floors and claimed that they had seen a mysterious "girl [dressed] in brown" on the stairway at about 1 am after hearing quarreling. However, this was before Rubinstein had arrived home, and police thought they were confused about the time and had seen an ambulance attendant.  
Another thing complicating the investigation was that Rubinstein had given keys to the house to numerous girlfriends and business associates. The murder generated significant interest by the public and the media because of Rubinstein's notoriety.  
Serge Rubinstein left a will and bequeathed a thousand dollars a month to his mother and five hundred a month to each of his two daughters, ten thousand dollars to his personal valet, his former Parisian secretary Mary Payne, and to Betty Reed, one of his protégés.  
There were numerous theories about the murder, including a botched kidnap attempt, involvement of organized crime, revenge by a jilted lover, and revenge by financial victims. A business associate of Rubinstein, Stanley T. Stanley, said he believed it was a "mob job - a syndicate job." One reporter famously quipped that the police had "narrowed the list of suspects down to 10,000." The case was never solved. A theory denounced by an English investigator, Sir Perey Sillitoe, acting on behalf of the diamond trust, would have revealed to the American authorities that Serge Rubinstein had embezzled a large stock of diamonds purchased with the Russian government's money and part of its capital. For these reasons, two Russian agents were reportedly tasked with liquidating him.  
At his funeral, rabbi Dr. Julius Mark of Temple Emanu-El made this assessment of Rubinstein's life:  
The word 'paradox' best describes the strangely complex, ambiguous and unquestioned psychopathic personality of Serge Rubinstein. He possessed a brilliant mind but was utterly lacking in wisdom. He had a genius for acquiring wealth, yet never learned that money is a good servant but a harsh master. He wanted friends and never had them, since he never seemed to realize that to have friends one must be a friend. He wanted love, but never knew that love must be earned, and cannot be bought. He declared that America was the finest of all countries, yet stubbornly scorned those who pleaded with him to answer America's call to service.  
These remarks generated some controversy but were defended by other clergy. His estate assets totaled $1,281,668, far less than estimates of up to $10,000,000 when he was alive. Rubinstein's murder was rated as one of the biggest news stories in 1955 by the United Press.  

In popular culture.  
The 1956 film Death of a Scoundrel, starring George Sanders, Yvonne DeCarlo, and Zsa-Zsa Gabor, was loosely based on Rubinstein's life. The movie's tag line was "Men, Women... he used them, ruined them on his fantastic march to self-destruction."  


Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72871504Wed, 08 Jul 2026 16:47:39 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Serge Rubinstein.   Serge Rubinstein (January 7, 1897 or May 18, 1908 – January 27, 1955) was a stock and currency manipulator, a playboy, Café society denizen, convicted draft-evader and unsolved murder victim.   Early life.   Serge Rubinstein was...Serge Rubinstein (January 7, 1897 or May 18, 1908 – January 27, 1955) was a stock and currency manipulator, a playboy, Café society denizen, convicted draft-evader and unsolved murder victim.  

Early life.  
Serge Rubinstein was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, to Dmitri and Stella Rubinstein. His father was a money lender to the Czar and a financial adviser to Grigory Rasputin. The family fled Russia during the Russian Revolution, going to Sweden, Austria, and France. Serge finally settled in England, where he graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in economics.  

Business dealings.  
Rubinstein joined the Banque Franco-Asiatique in Paris and by 1932 was running the bank. He was accused of manipulating the French franc by short selling and was expelled from France by Pierre Laval in 1935.  
Rubinstein entered the United States in 1938 on a phony Portuguese passport that he had purchased for $2000. The passport was under the name of Serge Manuel Rubinstein de Rovello. He said he was the illegitimate son of a Russian father and Portuguese mother (Rubinstein's brother Andre would later sue Serge on behalf of their mother for defamation of character because of this claim). He had stock dealings in Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation and Postal Telegraph during 1939 and 1940 which earned him a substantial sum. His political contributions gained him a dinner at the White House with Eleanor Roosevelt.  
The British company Chosen Corporation, Ltd. owned three gold mines in Korea. One of its directors, Martin Coles Harman, was convicted of misappropriating funds from the company and its stock price fell. Rubinstein bought stock in the company and gained control. He sold the mines to a Japanese company for the Japanese yen equivalent of $1.7 million, keeping the money for himself. Because Japan had restrictions on the exportation of its currency, Rubinstein smuggled Japanese yen valued at $1.2 million out of Japan. Rubinstein was sued in 1941 in New York by other Chosen Corp. shareholders for $5.9 million, with the suit being settled out of court in 1946 for $2 million.  

Draft evasion and deportation.  
Rubinstein made extensive attempts to avoid the draft during World War II. He claimed that he was the sole support for seven dependents, with only a relatively low income (he had married in 1941 to Laurette Kilbourne and they had two children, Alexandria and Dianna). He also claimed that he worked for vital defense industries. Later, he claimed as a Portuguese citizen from a neutral country that he could not serve in the United States armed forces.  
He was indicted for lying about his income to the draft board, when he claimed he only earned $11,000 in 1940 but actually earned $337,000. He was convicted as a draft evader and served two years in the federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, from 1947 to 1949. His wife divorced him in 1949 while in prison, claiming cruelty. After the divorce and his release from prison Rubinstein became noted for his social life, being seen with numerous women at fancy nightclubs.  
The United States government had previously initiated deportation hearings for Rubinstein, as he had illegally entered the country with a forged Portuguese passport. However, using a battery of lawyers, as well as political connections, he was able to successfully contest those attempts to deport him.  

Postwar business dealings.  
Rubinstein was indicted in 1949 on charges of stock fraud, mail fraud, and violation of the Securities Act in connection with a $3.5 million gain in stock of the Panhandle Producing and Refining Company. He was acquitted in 1951. Rubinstein was also sued by his sister-in-law in 1951, claiming that he cheated his late brother Andre out of $1.5 million in the Chosen Corporation swindle, but she lost the suit.  
In 1954, Rubinstein was sued by Blair Holdings for...]]>571falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/36-sam-sheppard--72871163Samuel Holmes Sheppard (December 29, 1923 – April 6, 1970) was an American osteopath. He was convicted of the 1954 murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn Reese Sheppard, but the conviction was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, which cited a "carnival atmosphere" at the trial. Sheppard was acquitted at a retrial in 1966.  

Early life and education.  
Sheppard was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the youngest of three sons of Richard Allen Sheppard, D.O. He attended Cleveland Heights High School where he was an excellent student and was active in American football, basketball, and track; he was class president for three years. Sheppard met his future wife, Marilyn Reese, while in high school. Although several small Ohio colleges offered him athletic scholarships, Sheppard chose to follow the lead of his father and older brothers and pursued a career in osteopathic medicine. He enrolled at Hanover College in Indiana to study pre-osteopathic medical courses, then took supplementary courses at the Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland during the Summer of 1943. Sheppard finished his medical education at the Los Angeles Osteopathic School of Physicians and Surgeons (now University of California, Irvine School of Medicine) and was awarded the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) medical degree.  
Sheppard completed his internship and a residency in neurosurgery at Los Angeles County General Hospital. He married Marilyn Reese on February 21, 1945, in Hollywood, California. A few years later he returned to Ohio and joined his father's growing medical practice at Bay View Hospital.  

Murder of Marilyn Reese Sheppard.  
On the night of Saturday, July 3, 1954, Sheppard and Marilyn were entertaining neighbors at their home in Bay Village on Lake Erie. While they were watching the movie Strange Holiday, Sheppard fell asleep on the daybed in the living room. Marilyn walked the neighbors out.  
In the early morning hours of July 4, 1954, Marilyn Sheppard was bludgeoned to death in her bed with an unknown instrument. The bedroom was covered with blood spatter and drops of blood were found on floors throughout the house. Some items from the house, including Sam Sheppard's wristwatch, keychain and key, and fraternity ring, appeared to have been stolen.   They were later found in a canvas bag in shrubbery behind the house. According to Sheppard, he was sleeping soundly on a daybed when he heard the cries from his wife. He ran upstairs where he saw a "white biped form" in the bedroom and then he was knocked unconscious. When he awoke, he saw the person downstairs, chased the intruder out of the house down to the beach where they tussled and Sheppard was knocked unconscious again.  
At 5:40 am, a neighbor received an urgent phone call from Sheppard who pleaded for him to come to his home. When the neighbor and his wife arrived, Sheppard was found shirtless and his pants were wet with a bloodstain on the knee. Authorities arrived shortly thereafter. Sheppard seemed disoriented and in shock. The family dog was not heard barking to indicate an intruder, and their seven-year-old son, Sam Reese "Chip" Sheppard, was asleep in the adjacent bedroom throughout the incident.  

First trial.  
Media.  
Sheppard's trial began October 18, 1954, and lasted nine weeks. The murder investigation and the trial were notable for the extensive publicity. Some newspapers and other media in Ohio were accused of bias against Sheppard and inflammatory coverage of the case, and were criticized for immediately labeling him the only viable suspect. A federal judge later criticized the media, "If ever there was a trial by newspaper, this is a perfect example. And the most insidious example was the Cleveland Press. For some reason that newspaper took upon itself the role of accuser, judge, and jury."  
It appeared that the local media influenced the investigators. On July 21, 1954, the Cleveland Press ran a front-page editorial titled "Why No Inquest? Do It Now, Dr. Gerber", which called for a public inquest. Hours later, Dr. Samuel Gerber, the coroner investigating the murder, announced that he would hold an inquest the next day. The Cleveland Press ran another front-page editorial titled "Why Isn't Sam Sheppard in Jail?" on July 30, which was titled in later editions, "Quit Stalling and Bring Him In!"  That night, Sheppard was arrested for a police interrogation.  
The local media ran salacious front-page stories inflammatory to Sheppard that contained no supporting facts or were later disproved. During the trial, a popular radio show broadcast a report about a New York City woman who claimed to be his mistress and the mother of his illegitimate child. Since the jury was not sequestered, two of the jurors admitted to the judge that they heard the broadcast but the judge did not dismiss them. From interviews with some of the jurors years later, it is likely that jurors were contaminated by the press before the trial and perhaps during it. The U.S. Supreme Court later stated that the trial was surrounded by a "carnival atmosphere".  

Susan Hayes.  
Susan Hayes was a 24-year-old laboratory technician at Bayview Hospital in Bay Village, who had an affair with Sheppard. The prosecution attempted to show that Hayes was the motive for murder.  

Defense strategy.  
Sheppard's attorney, William Corrigan, argued that Sheppard had severe injuries and that these injuries were inflicted by the intruder. Corrigan based his argument on the report made by neurosurgeon Charles Elkins who examined Sheppard and found he had suffered a cervical concussion, nerve injury, many absent or weak reflexes (most notably on the left side of his body), and injury in the region of the second cervical vertebra in the back of the neck. Elkins stated that it was impossible to fake or simulate the missing reflex responses.  
The defense further argued the crime scene was extremely bloody, yet the only blood evidence appearing on Sheppard was a bloodstain on his trousers. Corrigan also argued two of Marilyn's teeth had been broken and that the pieces had been pulled from her mouth, suggesting she had possibly bitten her assailant. He told the jury that Sheppard had no open wounds. Some[who?] observers have questioned the accuracy of claims that Marilyn Sheppard lost her teeth while biting her attacker, arguing that her missing teeth are more consistent with the severe beating she received to her face and skull. However, criminologist Paul L. Kirk later said that if the beating had broken Mrs. Sheppard's teeth, pieces would have been found inside her mouth, and her lips would have been severely damaged, which was not the case.  
Sheppard took the stand in his own defense, testifying that he had been sleeping downstairs on a daybed when he awoke to his wife's screams.  
I think that she cried or screamed my name once or twice, during which time I ran upstairs, thinking that she might be having a reaction similar to convulsions that she had in the early days of her pregnancy. I charged into our room and saw a form with a light garment, I believe, at that time grappling with something or someone. During this short period I could hear loud moans or groaning sounds and noises. I was struck down. It seems like I was hit from behind somehow but had grappled this individual from in front or generally in front of me. I was apparently knocked out. The next thing I knew, I was gathering my senses while coming to a sitting position next to the bed, my feet toward the hallway. ... I looked at my wife, I believe I took her pulse and felt that she was gone. I believe that I thereafter instinctively or subconsciously ran into my youngster's room next door and somehow determined that he was all right, I am not sure how I determined this. After that, I thought that I heard a noise downstairs, seemingly in the front eastern portion of the house.  
Sheppard ran back downstairs and chased what he described as a "bushy-haired intruder" or "form" down to the Lake Erie beach below his home, before being knocked out again. The defense called eighteen character witnesses for Sheppard, and two witnesses who said that they had seen a bushy-haired man near the Sheppard home on the day of the crime.  

Verdict.  
On December 21, after deliberating for four days, the jury found Sheppard guilty of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison.  

Family deaths.  
On January 7, 1955, shortly after his conviction, the incarcerated Sheppard was told that his mother, Ethel Sheppard, had died from a self-inflicted gunshot. Eleven days later, Sheppard's father, Richard Sheppard, died of a bleeding gastric ulcer and stomach cancer. Sheppard was permitted to attend both funerals but was required to wear handcuffs.  
On February 13, 1963, while F. Lee Bailey was pursuing the appeals process, Sheppard's former father-in-law, Thomas S. Reese, died by suicide in an East Cleveland, Ohio, motel. Reese's wife had died in 1929 when their daughter Marilyn was in grade school.  

Incarceration.  
In 1959, Sheppard voluntarily took part in cancer studies by the Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, allowing live cancer cells to be injected into his body.  

Appeals and retrial.  
Appeals.  
Sheppard's attorney William Corrigan spent six years making appeals but all were rejected. On July 30, 1961, Corrigan died and F. Lee Bailey took over as Sheppard's chief counsel. Bailey's petition for a writ of habeas corpus was granted on July 15, 1964, by a United States district court judge who called the 1954 trial a "mockery of justice" that shredded Sheppard's Fourteenth Amendment right to due process. The State of Ohio was ordered to release Sheppard on bond and gave the prosecutor 60 days to bring.....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72871163Wed, 08 Jul 2026 16:17:20 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Sam Sheppard.   Samuel Holmes Sheppard (December 29, 1923 – April 6, 1970) was an American osteopath. He was convicted of the 1954 murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn Reese Sheppard, but the conviction was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme...Samuel Holmes Sheppard (December 29, 1923 – April 6, 1970) was an American osteopath. He was convicted of the 1954 murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn Reese Sheppard, but the conviction was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, which cited a "carnival atmosphere" at the trial. Sheppard was acquitted at a retrial in 1966.  

Early life and education.  
Sheppard was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the youngest of three sons of Richard Allen Sheppard, D.O. He attended Cleveland Heights High School where he was an excellent student and was active in American football, basketball, and track; he was class president for three years. Sheppard met his future wife, Marilyn Reese, while in high school. Although several small Ohio colleges offered him athletic scholarships, Sheppard chose to follow the lead of his father and older brothers and pursued a career in osteopathic medicine. He enrolled at Hanover College in Indiana to study pre-osteopathic medical courses, then took supplementary courses at the Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland during the Summer of 1943. Sheppard finished his medical education at the Los Angeles Osteopathic School of Physicians and Surgeons (now University of California, Irvine School of Medicine) and was awarded the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) medical degree.  
Sheppard completed his internship and a residency in neurosurgery at Los Angeles County General Hospital. He married Marilyn Reese on February 21, 1945, in Hollywood, California. A few years later he returned to Ohio and joined his father's growing medical practice at Bay View Hospital.  

Murder of Marilyn Reese Sheppard.  
On the night of Saturday, July 3, 1954, Sheppard and Marilyn were entertaining neighbors at their home in Bay Village on Lake Erie. While they were watching the movie Strange Holiday, Sheppard fell asleep on the daybed in the living room. Marilyn walked the neighbors out.  
In the early morning hours of July 4, 1954, Marilyn Sheppard was bludgeoned to death in her bed with an unknown instrument. The bedroom was covered with blood spatter and drops of blood were found on floors throughout the house. Some items from the house, including Sam Sheppard's wristwatch, keychain and key, and fraternity ring, appeared to have been stolen.   They were later found in a canvas bag in shrubbery behind the house. According to Sheppard, he was sleeping soundly on a daybed when he heard the cries from his wife. He ran upstairs where he saw a "white biped form" in the bedroom and then he was knocked unconscious. When he awoke, he saw the person downstairs, chased the intruder out of the house down to the beach where they tussled and Sheppard was knocked unconscious again.  
At 5:40 am, a neighbor received an urgent phone call from Sheppard who pleaded for him to come to his home. When the neighbor and his wife arrived, Sheppard was found shirtless and his pants were wet with a bloodstain on the knee. Authorities arrived shortly thereafter. Sheppard seemed disoriented and in shock. The family dog was not heard barking to indicate an intruder, and their seven-year-old son, Sam Reese "Chip" Sheppard, was asleep in the adjacent bedroom throughout the incident.  

First trial.  
Media.  
Sheppard's trial began October 18, 1954, and lasted nine weeks. The murder investigation and the trial were notable for the extensive publicity. Some newspapers and other media in Ohio were accused of bias against Sheppard and inflammatory coverage of the case, and were criticized for immediately labeling him the only viable suspect. A federal judge later criticized the media, "If ever there was a trial by newspaper, this is a perfect example. And the most insidious example was the Cleveland Press. For some reason that newspaper took upon itself the role of accuser, judge, and jury."  
It appeared that the local media influenced the investigators. On July...]]>1705falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/35-kyllikki-saari--72869133Auli Kyllikki Saari (6 December 1935 – 1953) was a 17-year-old Finnish girl whose murder in 1953 became one of the most infamous cases of homicide in Finland's history. Her murder in Isojoki remains unsolved.  

Background information.  
Kyllikki Saari was last seen alive on late evening 17 May 1953. She was cycling to her home [Möykky] from a prayer meeting, held in Kortteenkylä, Isojoki. It is believed she was attacked by an unidentified person. The authorities speculated that the murderer may have had a sexual motive, but no evidence has been produced to support this theory. Although the crime received notable media attention, the murderer has never been identified. Saari's remains were found on 11 October 1953. She was buried in a bog. Her bicycle was discovered in a marshy area earlier that year. Funeral services were held at Isojoki Church on 25 October; an estimated 25,000 people attended.  

Suspects.  
Kauko Kanervo.  
Initially, the prime suspect in the case was Kauko Kanervo, a parish priest who remained under investigation for several years. Kanervo had moved to Merikarvia three weeks before her disappearance and had been reported as having been in the area on the evening of Saari's disappearance. An investigation determined Kanervo had been dean of the party and spent the late night hours in the parsonage. With all but 20 minutes of his time accounted for, the authorities deduced the priest could not have had enough time to go to Isojoki (60 kilometres away from Merikarvia), as he did not have a driver's licence or an automobile.  

Hans Assmann.  
The wife of Hans Assmann, an alleged KGB spy and suspect in the 1960 Lake Bodom murders, reported that her husband and his driver were near Isojoki at the time of the murder. Assmann also owned a light-brown Opel, the same type of car several witnesses had seen near the murder scene. Assmann's wife also reported that one of her husband's socks was missing and his shoes were wet when he returned home the evening of the murder. There were also dents in the car. A few days later, the two men allegedly left again, but this time they brought a shovel with them. Later investigators determined that Saari's murderer must have been left-handed, which Assmann was.  
In 1997, Assmann reportedly confessed his involvement in the crime to a former police officer, Matti Paloaro, and claimed responsibility for Saari's death. Assmann claimed the death was caused by an automobile accident when his car, driven by his chauffeur, collided with Saari; to conceal the evidence of the driver's involvement, the two men staged the case as a murder. According to Paloaro, Assmann said on his deathbed, "One thing however, I can tell you right away ... because it is the oldest one, and in a way it was an accident, that had to be covered up. Otherwise, our trip would have been revealed. Even though my friend was a good driver, the accident was unavoidable. I assume you know what I mean."  

Vihtori Lehmusviita.  
Vihtori Lehmusviita was in a mental hospital for long periods, and died in 1967, following which his case was set aside. The man police generally held as a murderer was, at the time, a 38-year-old Isojoki resident living within a 1–2 km radius of the murder scene. In the 1940s, Lehmusviita was found guilty of a sexual offence and was determined to have a mental illness. The police suspected that Lehmusviita was aided in covering up the crime by a 37-year-old brother-in-law, who had a criminal background. Both Lehmusviita and his brother-in-law knew the local terrain very well, as they had a common working field located fifty meters from where Saari was found. There was a shovel in the field that was used to dig the grave.
Lehmusviita's mother and sister gave him an alibi for the evening of the murder, saying that he was in bed by 19:00 after drinking heavily. When Lehmusviita was interrogated, he said that Saari was no longer alive, and that her body would never be found. Subsequently, he withdrew his statement, claiming that he had been misunderstood. Lehmusviita and his brother-in-law were questioned in the autumn of 1953. Shortly after this incident, the brother-in-law moved to Central Ostrobothnia, and then to Sweden. Lehmusviita was questioned again while he was in a mental hospital for treatment, but his doctor halted the interview when his behaviour became strange and confused. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72869133Wed, 08 Jul 2026 14:13:47 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Kyllikki Saari.   Auli Kyllikki Saari (6 December 1935 – 1953) was a 17-year-old Finnish girl whose murder in 1953 became one of the most infamous cases of homicide in Finland's history. Her murder in Isojoki remains unsolved.   Background...Auli Kyllikki Saari (6 December 1935 – 1953) was a 17-year-old Finnish girl whose murder in 1953 became one of the most infamous cases of homicide in Finland's history. Her murder in Isojoki remains unsolved.  

Background information.  
Kyllikki Saari was last seen alive on late evening 17 May 1953. She was cycling to her home [Möykky] from a prayer meeting, held in Kortteenkylä, Isojoki. It is believed she was attacked by an unidentified person. The authorities speculated that the murderer may have had a sexual motive, but no evidence has been produced to support this theory. Although the crime received notable media attention, the murderer has never been identified. Saari's remains were found on 11 October 1953. She was buried in a bog. Her bicycle was discovered in a marshy area earlier that year. Funeral services were held at Isojoki Church on 25 October; an estimated 25,000 people attended.  

Suspects.  
Kauko Kanervo.  
Initially, the prime suspect in the case was Kauko Kanervo, a parish priest who remained under investigation for several years. Kanervo had moved to Merikarvia three weeks before her disappearance and had been reported as having been in the area on the evening of Saari's disappearance. An investigation determined Kanervo had been dean of the party and spent the late night hours in the parsonage. With all but 20 minutes of his time accounted for, the authorities deduced the priest could not have had enough time to go to Isojoki (60 kilometres away from Merikarvia), as he did not have a driver's licence or an automobile.  

Hans Assmann.  
The wife of Hans Assmann, an alleged KGB spy and suspect in the 1960 Lake Bodom murders, reported that her husband and his driver were near Isojoki at the time of the murder. Assmann also owned a light-brown Opel, the same type of car several witnesses had seen near the murder scene. Assmann's wife also reported that one of her husband's socks was missing and his shoes were wet when he returned home the evening of the murder. There were also dents in the car. A few days later, the two men allegedly left again, but this time they brought a shovel with them. Later investigators determined that Saari's murderer must have been left-handed, which Assmann was.  
In 1997, Assmann reportedly confessed his involvement in the crime to a former police officer, Matti Paloaro, and claimed responsibility for Saari's death. Assmann claimed the death was caused by an automobile accident when his car, driven by his chauffeur, collided with Saari; to conceal the evidence of the driver's involvement, the two men staged the case as a murder. According to Paloaro, Assmann said on his deathbed, "One thing however, I can tell you right away ... because it is the oldest one, and in a way it was an accident, that had to be covered up. Otherwise, our trip would have been revealed. Even though my friend was a good driver, the accident was unavoidable. I assume you know what I mean."  

Vihtori Lehmusviita.  
Vihtori Lehmusviita was in a mental hospital for long periods, and died in 1967, following which his case was set aside. The man police generally held as a murderer was, at the time, a 38-year-old Isojoki resident living within a 1–2 km radius of the murder scene. In the 1940s, Lehmusviita was found guilty of a sexual offence and was determined to have a mental illness. The police suspected that Lehmusviita was aided in covering up the crime by a 37-year-old brother-in-law, who had a criminal background. Both Lehmusviita and his brother-in-law knew the local terrain very well, as they had a common working field located fifty meters from where Saari was found. There was a shovel in the field that was used to dig the grave.
Lehmusviita's mother and sister gave him an alibi for the evening of the murder, saying that he was in bed by 19:00 after drinking heavily. When Lehmusviita was...]]>305falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/34-death-of-wilma-montesi--72868978Wilma Montesi (3 February 1932 – 9 April 1953) was an Italian woman whose body was discovered near Rome. The finding of her lifeless body on a public beach near Torvajanica, on Rome's littoral, led to prolonged investigations involving sensational allegations of drug and sex orgies in Roman society.  
The alleged involvement of Ugo Montagna and Piero Piccioni (son of deputy prime minister, Attilio Piccioni and lover of actress Alida Valli) caused a scandal. Subsequently, they were absolved of all charges. The case remains unsolved, including the cause of death.  

Discovery of the body and murder investigation.  
The discovery.  
On Saturday, 11 April 1953, the day before Easter, the body of 21-year-old Wilma Montesi was discovered on the beach at Torvaianica, near Rome. She had been missing since 9 April.  
Wilma Montesi was born in 1932 in Rome, where she lived in via Tagliamento 76. At the time of her disappearance, she was engaged to a policeman from Potenza whom she was about to marry. She was considered to be very beautiful and longed to enter the world of cinema and show business at Rome's Cinecittà film studios (she made an uncredited appearance in Prison, Ergastolo, 1952). Everyone described her as reserved and noble, intent on finishing the trousseau for her forthcoming wedding, planned for the next Christmas.  
The body was found by a labourer, Fortunato Bettini, who was having breakfast at the beach. The body was lying on its back on the shore, the head immersed in water. The young woman was partially dressed and the clothes were soaked with water: she was no longer wearing her shoes, skirt, stockings, and garter belt, and her handbag was missing.  

Initial evidence.   
When the news of the discovery was disclosed, newspapers came out with extensive articles, although the investigators had banned the press access to the mortuary where the body of the victim was kept. However, a reporter of Rome's Il Messaggero, Fabrizio Menghini, managed to gain access and to see the body. The description he provided appeared in the paper the next day and it allowed her father, Rodolfo Montesi, to show up to identify the body.  
From a reconstruction of Montesi's final hours, it emerged that the young woman had not returned home for dinner on the evening of 9 April, contrary to her habits. Her mother, along with her other daughter, Wanda, had spent the afternoon at the cinema watching Renoir's The Golden Coach and stated that Wilma had declined to join them because she was not keen on films featuring Anna Magnani, adding that she would probably go out for a walk. After returning home, the two women noticed that Wilma was not there; strangely she had left home without her identification and some jewellery, gifts from her boyfriend she usually wore when she went out.  
The caretaker of the building in which the Montesis lived claimed to have seen her going out at around 5:30, and not to have seen her again.  
Some witnesses claimed to have seen Montesi on the train from Rome to Ostia: Ostia is around 20 km from Torvaianica, too far to travel on foot, especially by someone not familiar with the area. The owner of a kiosk selling postcards located near the beach at Ostia claimed to have spoken with a young woman apparently resembling Montesi, who had bought an illustrated postcard and intended to send it to her boyfriend in Potenza.
 
The exclusion of the suicide option and the closure of the case.  
The body was brought to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Rome, where an autopsy was conducted: the doctors claimed that the probable cause of death was a "syncope due to a foot bath," claiming that, most likely, Montesi took the chance of the trip to the beach to eat ice cream (remains were found in her stomach) and made a foot bath in the sea to relieve a nagging irritation at the heels of which she suffered for some time. To do so, Montesi would take off her shoes and socks and, most likely, also skirt and suspenders, and then she dived into the water where she fainted and finally drowned. The coroner reconnected her sudden illness to the fact that the woman was menstruating.  
The distance between Ostia (the presumed last sighting of Montesi) and the point of the discovery was justified by saying that the body had been moved by complex combinations of sea currents. An autopsy revealed that the young woman was a virgin and that she had not experienced violence (as evidenced by the fact that make-up was still on her face and nail varnish on her fingernails intact); later, however, another doctor, Professor Pellegrini, said that the presence of sand in her intimate parts could be explained only as a consequence of violence. No traces of drugs or alcohol were found in her body.  

The scandal.  
The press involvement.  
The accident theory was considered reliable by the police, who closed the case. However, newspapers were sceptical.  
On 4 May, the Naples monarchist newspaper Roma, suggested the hypothesis of a plot to cover up the real killers, probably some powerful personalities from politics; the hypothesis was presented in the article "Why are the police silent on the death of Wilma Montesi?", by journalist Riccardo Giannini, who had a large following.  
This hypothesis was shared by prestigious national newspapers such as Corriere della Sera and Paese Sera, and by small gossip magazines such as Attualità, but the main actor was the Messaggero reporter Fabrizio Menghini, who had followed the case from the outset. The idea, however, was echoed by almost all local and national newspapers.  
On 24 May 1953, an article by Marco Cesarini Sforza, published in the communist magazine Vie Nuove, had much resonance: one of the characters appearing in the investigation and allegedly linked to politics, so far known as "the blond", was identified as Piero Piccioni. Piccioni was a film score composer, the lover of Alida Valli and the son of Attilio Piccioni, Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and a major exponent of the Christian Democrats.  
The name of "blond" had been attributed to the young Piccioni by Paese Sera: an article published on 5 May told how the young man had brought to the police station the missing garments of the murdered girl. Identification with Piero Piccioni was a fact known to all journalists, but no one had ever revealed the identity to the general public. In early May, Il merlo giallo published a cartoon satire in which a garter belt, held in the beak of a pigeon ("Piccione" in Italian), was brought to the police station, a clear reference to the politician and crime. The news caused uproar because it was published shortly before the 1953 general election.  

Piero Piccioni and political scandal.  
Piero Piccioni sued the journalist and the editor of Vie Nuove, Fidia Gambetti for defamation. Sforza was subjected to a harsh interrogation. The Italian Communist Party (PCI), the owner of the newspaper and sole "political" beneficiary of the scandal, refused to recognize the work of the journalist, who was accused of "sensationalism" and threatened with dismissal.  
Even under interrogation, Cesarini Sforza never directly quoted the name of the source from which officially the news came, saying only that it came from "the faithful environments of De Gasperi."  
Even the journalist's father, a professor of philosophy at Sapienza University of Rome, suggested to his son to recant, as well as the lawyer Francesco Carnelutti, who had taken the side of the plaintiff on behalf of Piccioni.  
The lawyer of Marco Cesarini Sforza, Giuseppe Sotgiu (former president of the provincial administration of Rome and member of the PCI) made an agreement with his colleague, and on May 31 Cesarini Sforza recanted his statements. He poured 50,000 Lire to charity to "House of fraternal friendship for freed from prison," and in exchange, Piccioni dropped the charge.  
Although, for the moment, the scandal for the Christian Democrats was excluded, the Piccioni name had been mentioned and later would return to prominence.  
Meanwhile, during the summer, the case disappeared from the news pages.  

In film.  
At the end of the 1960 Federico Fellini's film La dolce vita, fishermen retrieve a dead ray-like monster from the sea. It is an allusion to the Montesi affair.  
The 1972 film Pulp and the 2023 film Finally Dawn took inspiration by the Montesi affair.  


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72868978Wed, 08 Jul 2026 13:58:54 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Death of Wilma Montesi.   Wilma Montesi (3 February 1932 – 9 April 1953) was an Italian woman whose body was discovered near Rome. The finding of her lifeless body on a public beach near Torvajanica, on Rome's littoral, led to prolonged investigations...Wilma Montesi (3 February 1932 – 9 April 1953) was an Italian woman whose body was discovered near Rome. The finding of her lifeless body on a public beach near Torvajanica, on Rome's littoral, led to prolonged investigations involving sensational allegations of drug and sex orgies in Roman society.  
The alleged involvement of Ugo Montagna and Piero Piccioni (son of deputy prime minister, Attilio Piccioni and lover of actress Alida Valli) caused a scandal. Subsequently, they were absolved of all charges. The case remains unsolved, including the cause of death.  

Discovery of the body and murder investigation.  
The discovery.  
On Saturday, 11 April 1953, the day before Easter, the body of 21-year-old Wilma Montesi was discovered on the beach at Torvaianica, near Rome. She had been missing since 9 April.  
Wilma Montesi was born in 1932 in Rome, where she lived in via Tagliamento 76. At the time of her disappearance, she was engaged to a policeman from Potenza whom she was about to marry. She was considered to be very beautiful and longed to enter the world of cinema and show business at Rome's Cinecittà film studios (she made an uncredited appearance in Prison, Ergastolo, 1952). Everyone described her as reserved and noble, intent on finishing the trousseau for her forthcoming wedding, planned for the next Christmas.  
The body was found by a labourer, Fortunato Bettini, who was having breakfast at the beach. The body was lying on its back on the shore, the head immersed in water. The young woman was partially dressed and the clothes were soaked with water: she was no longer wearing her shoes, skirt, stockings, and garter belt, and her handbag was missing.  

Initial evidence.   
When the news of the discovery was disclosed, newspapers came out with extensive articles, although the investigators had banned the press access to the mortuary where the body of the victim was kept. However, a reporter of Rome's Il Messaggero, Fabrizio Menghini, managed to gain access and to see the body. The description he provided appeared in the paper the next day and it allowed her father, Rodolfo Montesi, to show up to identify the body.  
From a reconstruction of Montesi's final hours, it emerged that the young woman had not returned home for dinner on the evening of 9 April, contrary to her habits. Her mother, along with her other daughter, Wanda, had spent the afternoon at the cinema watching Renoir's The Golden Coach and stated that Wilma had declined to join them because she was not keen on films featuring Anna Magnani, adding that she would probably go out for a walk. After returning home, the two women noticed that Wilma was not there; strangely she had left home without her identification and some jewellery, gifts from her boyfriend she usually wore when she went out.  
The caretaker of the building in which the Montesis lived claimed to have seen her going out at around 5:30, and not to have seen her again.  
Some witnesses claimed to have seen Montesi on the train from Rome to Ostia: Ostia is around 20 km from Torvaianica, too far to travel on foot, especially by someone not familiar with the area. The owner of a kiosk selling postcards located near the beach at Ostia claimed to have spoken with a young woman apparently resembling Montesi, who had bought an illustrated postcard and intended to send it to her boyfriend in Potenza.
 
The exclusion of the suicide option and the closure of the case.  
The body was brought to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Rome, where an autopsy was conducted: the doctors claimed that the probable cause of death was a "syncope due to a foot bath," claiming that, most likely, Montesi took the chance of the trip to the beach to eat ice cream (remains were found in her stomach) and made a foot bath in the sea to relieve a nagging irritation at the heels of which she suffered for some...]]>555falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/33-arnold-schuster--72868351Arnold L. Schuster (February 21, 1928 – March 8, 1952) was an American clothing salesman and amateur detective known for his involvement in the capture of bank robber Willie "The Actor" Sutton and for Schuster's subsequent murder by either the Gambino crime family, associates of Sutton, or any one of the many suspects police questioned about his death. He was a distant paternal cousin of literary agent and book publisher M. Lincoln ("Max") Schuster of Simon & Schuster.  

Background.  
A longtime resident of Brooklyn, New York, 24-year-old Schuster recognized wanted bank robber Willie "The Actor" Sutton while travelling on the city subway on February 18, 1952. Following Sutton to a garage, Schuster quickly notified police of his whereabouts. This resulted in the robber's arrest a short time later as he was changing a dead battery from his car, which had stalled in the street near his furnished room.  

Death and aftermath.  
After receiving publicity from New York City press regarding his involvement with Sutton's capture, including a televised interview with the New York Police Commissioner, Schuster was murdered outside his home on March 8, 1952, by a lone gunman. Although a manhunt was quickly organized by police, their search failed to apprehend any suspects. Within two days, Sutton associate and FBI Ten Most Wanted fugitive and hit man Frederick J. Tenuto was a primary suspect in Schuster's murder, having been positively identified by witnesses who saw Tenuto near the crime scene. According to Detective Jack LaTorre, over 300 suspects were also questioned, one being a local fence for stolen goods.  
According to testimony in 1963 by Mafia informant Joseph Valachi, Gambino crime family boss Albert Anastasia allegedly ordered Schuster's murder. When Anastasia saw Schuster being interviewed on television, he allegedly said: "I can't stand squealers! Hit that guy!" However, law enforcement authorities were skeptical of Valachi's claims regarding Anastasia, as a murder sanctioned by a notorious organized crime leader would undoubtedly draw unwanted attention from police and the public. Although Frederick Tenuto remained on the FBI's Most Wanted list for many years, he was never found, and is believed by authorities to have been eliminated by the Mafia before he could be apprehended by the police. Schuster's murder remains unsolved.  
Schuster was buried in Montefiore Cemetery in Springfield Gardens, Queens.  
Schuster's estate sued New York City for failure to protect him. In accordance with the law at that time, their complaint was dismissed, and the dismissal was affirmed by the intermediate appellate court (1955). In general, governments were held not to owe protection obligations to citizens for fear of straining public treasuries (among other reasons). However, in a landmark case, New York's highest court reversed the decisions and ruled that in a case where a member of the public has furnished the sort of cooperation that the police have asked the public for, an obligation of protection of a person who comes forward to help the police is created. Schuster v. City of New York, 5 N.Y.2d 75 (1958). This important precedent meant the case could go to trial. The City of New York eventually settled for $41,000, a reasonably large sum at the time, especially considering that even the presumably exaggerated sum the complaint sought was $1,000,000.  


Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72868351Wed, 08 Jul 2026 12:54:40 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Arnold Schuster.   Arnold L. Schuster (February 21, 1928 – March 8, 1952) was an American clothing salesman and amateur detective known for his involvement in the capture of bank robber Willie "The Actor" Sutton and for Schuster's subsequent murder by...Arnold L. Schuster (February 21, 1928 – March 8, 1952) was an American clothing salesman and amateur detective known for his involvement in the capture of bank robber Willie "The Actor" Sutton and for Schuster's subsequent murder by either the Gambino crime family, associates of Sutton, or any one of the many suspects police questioned about his death. He was a distant paternal cousin of literary agent and book publisher M. Lincoln ("Max") Schuster of Simon & Schuster.  

Background.  
A longtime resident of Brooklyn, New York, 24-year-old Schuster recognized wanted bank robber Willie "The Actor" Sutton while travelling on the city subway on February 18, 1952. Following Sutton to a garage, Schuster quickly notified police of his whereabouts. This resulted in the robber's arrest a short time later as he was changing a dead battery from his car, which had stalled in the street near his furnished room.  

Death and aftermath.  
After receiving publicity from New York City press regarding his involvement with Sutton's capture, including a televised interview with the New York Police Commissioner, Schuster was murdered outside his home on March 8, 1952, by a lone gunman. Although a manhunt was quickly organized by police, their search failed to apprehend any suspects. Within two days, Sutton associate and FBI Ten Most Wanted fugitive and hit man Frederick J. Tenuto was a primary suspect in Schuster's murder, having been positively identified by witnesses who saw Tenuto near the crime scene. According to Detective Jack LaTorre, over 300 suspects were also questioned, one being a local fence for stolen goods.  
According to testimony in 1963 by Mafia informant Joseph Valachi, Gambino crime family boss Albert Anastasia allegedly ordered Schuster's murder. When Anastasia saw Schuster being interviewed on television, he allegedly said: "I can't stand squealers! Hit that guy!" However, law enforcement authorities were skeptical of Valachi's claims regarding Anastasia, as a murder sanctioned by a notorious organized crime leader would undoubtedly draw unwanted attention from police and the public. Although Frederick Tenuto remained on the FBI's Most Wanted list for many years, he was never found, and is believed by authorities to have been eliminated by the Mafia before he could be apprehended by the police. Schuster's murder remains unsolved.  
Schuster was buried in Montefiore Cemetery in Springfield Gardens, Queens.  
Schuster's estate sued New York City for failure to protect him. In accordance with the law at that time, their complaint was dismissed, and the dismissal was affirmed by the intermediate appellate court (1955). In general, governments were held not to owe protection obligations to citizens for fear of straining public treasuries (among other reasons). However, in a landmark case, New York's highest court reversed the decisions and ruled that in a case where a member of the public has furnished the sort of cooperation that the police have asked the public for, an obligation of protection of a person who comes forward to help the police is created. Schuster v. City of New York, 5 N.Y.2d 75 (1958). This important precedent meant the case could go to trial. The City of New York eventually settled for $41,000, a reasonably large sum at the time, especially considering that even the presumably exaggerated sum the complaint sought was $1,000,000.  


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>232falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/32-belle-gunness--72855284Belle Gunness (born Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth; November 11, 1859[3] – possibly April 28, 1908), nicknamed Hell's Belle, was a Norwegian-American serial killer who was active in Illinois and Indiana between 1884 and 1908. Gunness is thought to have killed at least fourteen people (most of whom were men she enticed to visit her rural Indiana property through personal advertisements), while some sources speculate her involvement in as many as forty murders, making her one of the most prolific female serial killers in history. Gunness seemingly died in a fire in 1908, although her actual fate is unconfirmed.  

Early life.  
Belle Gunness was born Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth in Selbu Municipality in Søndre Trondhjem county, Norway, on November 11, 1859, to Paul and Berit Størseth; she was the youngest of eight children. She was confirmed at the Church of Norway in 1874. At age 14, Gunness began working for neighboring farms by milking and herding cattle to save enough money for the journey to New York City. She moved to the United States in 1881.  
When she was processed by immigration at Castle Garden, Gunness changed her first name to Belle, then travelled to Chicago to join her sister, Nellie, who had immigrated several years earlier. In Chicago, while living with her sister and brother-in-law, Gunness worked as a domestic servant, then got a job at a butcher's shop cutting up animal carcasses. She was at least 170 centimetres (5 ft 7 in) tall and weighed around 95–113 kilograms (209–249 lb) and was physically strong in appearance.  

Deaths associated with Gunness.  
Mads Sørensen and children.  
Gunness married Mads Ditlev Anton Sørensen in 1884. The couple owned a candy store which later burned to the ground. Their home had also burned down, and both instances granted the couple insurance payouts. Two babies in Gunness' home died from inflammation of the large intestine. Gunness had insured both of the children and collected a large insurance check after each death. Neighbors gossiped about the babies, since Gunness never appeared to be pregnant.  
Sørensen had purchased two life insurance policies. On July 30, 1900, both policies were active at the same time, as one would expire that day and the other would enter into force. Sørensen died of cerebral hemorrhage that day. Gunness explained he had come home with a headache and she provided him with quinine powder for the pain; she later checked on him and he was dead. Gunness collected money from both the expiring life insurance policy, and the one that went into effect that day, making a total of $5,000. With the insurance money, she moved to La Porte, Indiana, and bought a pig farm.  

Peter Gunness.  
Belle married Peter Gunness on April 1, 1902. The following week, while Peter was out of the house, his infant daughter died of unknown causes in Belle's care. Peter died eight months later due to a skull injury. Belle explained that Peter reached for something on a high shelf and a meat grinder fell on him, smashing his skull. The district coroner convened a coroner's jury, suspecting murder, but nothing came of the case. Belle collected $3,000 insurance money for Peter's death.  

Disappearances.  
Gunness began placing marriage ads in Chicago newspapers in 1905. One of her ads was answered by a Wisconsin farmhand, Henry Gurholt. After travelling to La Porte, Gurholt wrote his family, saying that he liked the farm, was in good health, and requesting that they send him seed potatoes. When they failed to hear from him after that, the family contacted Gunness. She told them Gurholt had gone off with horse traders to Chicago. She kept his trunk and fur overcoat. John Moe of Minnesota answered Gunness's ad in 1906. After they had corresponded for several months, Moe travelled to La Porte and withdrew a large amount of cash. Although no one ever saw Moe again, a carpenter who did occasional work for Gunness observed that Moe's trunk remained in her house, along with more than a dozen others.  

Andrew Helgelien and discovery of multiple graves.  
Her criminal activities came to light in April 1908, when the Gunness farmhouse in La Porte, Indiana burned to the ground. In the ruins, authorities found the bodies of a headless adult woman, initially identified as Belle Gunness, and her three children.  Further investigation unearthed the partial remains of at least eleven additional people on the Gunness property. Among the first victims identified was Jennie Olson, whose body was identified so positively that the coroner issued a death certificate; Gunness had told neighbors that Olson had gone to Los Angeles.  
After the fire at the Gunness homestead led to the discovery of bodies believed to be Gunness and her children, La Porte police authorities were contacted by Asle Helgelien, who had found correspondence between his brother, Andrew Helgelien, and Gunness; the letters included petitions for him to relocate to La Porte, to bring money, and to keep the move a secret. A visit by Asle Helgelien to the Gunness farm with a former hired hand led to attention being paid to "soft depressions" in what had been made into a pen for hogs; after briefly digging one of the depressions in the lot, a gunny sack was found that contained "two hands, two feet, and one head", which Helgelien recognized to be those of his brother.  
Immediate inspection of the site revealed that there were dozens of such "slumped depressions" in the Gunness yard, and further digging and investigation at the site yielded multiple burlap sacks containing "torsos and hands, arms hacked from the shoulders down, masses of human bone wrapped in loose flesh that dripped like jelly", from trash-covered depressions that proved to be graves. In each case, the body had been butchered in the same manner—the body decapitated, the arms removed at the shoulders, and the legs severed at the knees. Blunt trauma and gashes characterized the skulls that were found that had been separated from the bodies.  
After finding the parts of five bodies on the first day, and an additional six on the second—some in shallow graves under the original hog pen, others near an outhouse or a lake—"the police stopped counting". With these discoveries, the perceptions of Belle Gunness, as reported in newspaper descriptions of a praiseworthy woman—dying in the fire that consumed her house, "in a desperate attempt to save her children"—were reassessed. Despite the initial success with the identification of Andrew Helgelien, and despite the fact that widening news coverage of the mass murders invited inquiries from families with men that had gone missing, "[m]ost of the remains could not be identified."  

Involvement of Ray Lamphere and Gunness legacy.  
Ray Lamphere was Gunness' hired hand and on-and-off lover. In November 1908, Lamphere was convicted of arson in connection with the fire at Gunness' house. Lamphere later confessed that Gunness had placed advertisements seeking male companionship, only to rob and murder the men who responded and subsequently visited her on the farm. Lamphere stated that Gunness asked him to burn down the farmhouse with her children inside. Lamphere also asserted that the body thought to be Gunness's was in fact a murder victim, chosen and planted to mislead investigators. The brother of one victim had warned Gunness that he might arrive at the farm shortly to investigate his brother's disappearance. According to Lamphere, this impending visit motivated Gunness to destroy her house, fake her own death, and flee. When Lamphere was arrested, he was wearing John Moe's overcoat and Henry Gurholt's watch.  
Edward Bechly, a journalist, was given a secret assignment to acquire access to a confession and publish it, thus bringing a second, inconsistent Lamphere account to public knowledge. The second confession was made to Reverend Edwin Schell, who was minister of the Methodist church of LaPorte, Indiana, who was personally requested by Lamphere to visit him at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Indiana, where he was being held. Realizing the importance of this confession, Reverend Schell recorded Lamphere's verbal confession on paper, had him sign it, and then sealed it and locked it in his personal safe.  Bechly attempted to convince Schell to allow him to publish this later confession, but was denied by both Schell and his wife.  However, a separate newspaper published a story with speculation regarding the second Lamphere confession. Schell offered the confession to Bechly, which was later published. The publication of Lamphere's confession resulted in the subsequent arrest of his accomplice Elisabeth Smith.  
Three rings found on a charred hand of the body initially suggested near-conclusive identification: two were gold bands, one set with a diamond that had been given to Gunness by her first husband Mads Sorenson on their wedding day. Investigators noted, however, that the rings were not fully conclusive evidence; given Gunness's reputation for cunning, it was suggested she could have placed the rings on a planted corpse specifically to create the impression of her own death. Gunness was pronounced dead, even though Dr. Harry Long of La Porte, who had known Gunness personally, stated unequivocally on May 9 that the body was not hers: it weighed approximately 160 pounds against Gunness's 325 or more, was nearly five inches shorter, had well-formed and rounded arms unlike Gunness's, and, most tellingly, had carefully manicured fingernails, something Gunness was not known to do. "It is not that of Mrs. Gunness," he said. "I am sure of that." Gunness's dentist, identified as Innorton, positively identified a gold crown found in the ruins as one he had placed in her mouth, which some investigators took as conclusive proof of her death......

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72855284Tue, 07 Jul 2026 15:51:53 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Belle Gunness.   Belle Gunness (born Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth; November 11, 1859[3] – possibly April 28, 1908), nicknamed Hell's Belle, was a Norwegian-American serial killer who was active in Illinois and Indiana between 1884 and 1908. Gunness...Belle Gunness (born Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth; November 11, 1859[3] – possibly April 28, 1908), nicknamed Hell's Belle, was a Norwegian-American serial killer who was active in Illinois and Indiana between 1884 and 1908. Gunness is thought to have killed at least fourteen people (most of whom were men she enticed to visit her rural Indiana property through personal advertisements), while some sources speculate her involvement in as many as forty murders, making her one of the most prolific female serial killers in history. Gunness seemingly died in a fire in 1908, although her actual fate is unconfirmed.  

Early life.  
Belle Gunness was born Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth in Selbu Municipality in Søndre Trondhjem county, Norway, on November 11, 1859, to Paul and Berit Størseth; she was the youngest of eight children. She was confirmed at the Church of Norway in 1874. At age 14, Gunness began working for neighboring farms by milking and herding cattle to save enough money for the journey to New York City. She moved to the United States in 1881.  
When she was processed by immigration at Castle Garden, Gunness changed her first name to Belle, then travelled to Chicago to join her sister, Nellie, who had immigrated several years earlier. In Chicago, while living with her sister and brother-in-law, Gunness worked as a domestic servant, then got a job at a butcher's shop cutting up animal carcasses. She was at least 170 centimetres (5 ft 7 in) tall and weighed around 95–113 kilograms (209–249 lb) and was physically strong in appearance.  

Deaths associated with Gunness.  
Mads Sørensen and children.  
Gunness married Mads Ditlev Anton Sørensen in 1884. The couple owned a candy store which later burned to the ground. Their home had also burned down, and both instances granted the couple insurance payouts. Two babies in Gunness' home died from inflammation of the large intestine. Gunness had insured both of the children and collected a large insurance check after each death. Neighbors gossiped about the babies, since Gunness never appeared to be pregnant.  
Sørensen had purchased two life insurance policies. On July 30, 1900, both policies were active at the same time, as one would expire that day and the other would enter into force. Sørensen died of cerebral hemorrhage that day. Gunness explained he had come home with a headache and she provided him with quinine powder for the pain; she later checked on him and he was dead. Gunness collected money from both the expiring life insurance policy, and the one that went into effect that day, making a total of $5,000. With the insurance money, she moved to La Porte, Indiana, and bought a pig farm.  

Peter Gunness.  
Belle married Peter Gunness on April 1, 1902. The following week, while Peter was out of the house, his infant daughter died of unknown causes in Belle's care. Peter died eight months later due to a skull injury. Belle explained that Peter reached for something on a high shelf and a meat grinder fell on him, smashing his skull. The district coroner convened a coroner's jury, suspecting murder, but nothing came of the case. Belle collected $3,000 insurance money for Peter's death.  

Disappearances.  
Gunness began placing marriage ads in Chicago newspapers in 1905. One of her ads was answered by a Wisconsin farmhand, Henry Gurholt. After travelling to La Porte, Gurholt wrote his family, saying that he liked the farm, was in good health, and requesting that they send him seed potatoes. When they failed to hear from him after that, the family contacted Gunness. She told them Gurholt had gone off with horse traders to Chicago. She kept his trunk and fur overcoat. John Moe of Minnesota answered Gunness's ad in 1906. After they had corresponded for several months, Moe travelled to La Porte and withdrew a large amount of cash. Although no one ever saw Moe again, a carpenter...]]>782falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/31-pat-garrett--72854891Patrick Floyd Jarvis Garrett (June 5, 1850 – February 29, 1908) was an American Old West lawman, bartender, and customs agent known for killing Billy the Kid. He was the sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico, as well as Doña Ana County, New Mexico. Stories about him, especially his involvement with Billy the Kid, are part of the legends of the American Old West.  

Early years.  
Patrick Floyd Jarvis Garrett was born on June 5, 1850, in Chambers County, Alabama. He was the second of five children born to John Lumpkin Garrett and his wife Elizabeth Ann Jarvis. Garrett's four siblings were Margaret, Elizabeth, John, and Alfred.   Garrett was of English ancestry, and his ancestors migrated to America from the English counties of Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Lincolnshire, and Buckinghamshire. When Pat was three years old, his father purchased the John Greer plantation in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana. The Civil War, however, destroyed the Garrett family's finances. Their mother died at the age of 37 on March 25, 1867, when Garrett was 16. The following year, on February 5, 1868, his father died at age 45. The children were left with a plantation that was more than $30,000 in debt. The children were taken in by relatives. The 18-year-old Garrett headed west from Louisiana on January 25, 1869.  

Buffalo hunter.  
Garrett's whereabouts over the next seven years are obscure. By 1876, he was in Texas hunting buffalo. During this period, Garrett killed his first man, another buffalo hunter named Joe Briscoe. Garrett surrendered to the authorities at Fort Griffin, Texas, but they declined to prosecute. When buffalo hunting declined, Garrett left Texas and rode to New Mexico Territory.   When Garrett arrived at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, he found work as a bartender, then as a cowboy for Pedro Menard "Pete" Maxwell.  

Family life.  
Garrett's first wife was Juanita Martinez, who was born in May 1860 in Taos, New Mexico, to Antonio Domingo Martínez and María Manuela Trujillo, and they moved to Cimarron. Her mother died while giving birth to a daughter who also died, and then they moved to Fort Sumner with her uncle Celedon Trujillo and his employer Lucien Maxwell. Garrett and Juanita got married in the fall of 1879, and Tom O'Folliard, Charlie Bowdre, and Billy the Kid, among others, attended the wedding. She took ill in the ceremony or soon after, and died 15 days after from stress or medical complication, at the age of 19, because she collapsed.[11] She was interred in Fort Sumner Cemetery.  
The reference Leon C. Metz made about Juanita being the older sister of Pat's second wife Apolinaria (or Aplonia) is unfounded. Apolinaria had only one sister by the name of Celsa Gutierrez. On January 14, 1880, Garrett married Apolinaria Gutierrez.   Between 1881 and 1905, Apolinaria Garrett gave birth to eight children: Ida, Dudley, Elizabeth, Annie, Patrick, Pauline, Oscar, and Jarvis. Apolinaria's sister, Celsa, resident of Fort Sumner, was reputed to be romantically involved with Billy the Kid at the time of the Kid's death.  

Pursuit of Billy the Kid.  
Billy the Kid, William Henry Bonney Jr, born Henry McCarty, was wanted for murder in the aftermath of the Lincoln County War. On November 2, 1880, Garrett was elected sheriff of Lincoln County, having defeated the incumbent, Sheriff George Kimball, by a vote of 320 to 179. Although Garrett's term would not begin until January 1, 1881, Sheriff Kimball appointed him a deputy sheriff for the remainder of Kimball's term. Garrett also obtained a deputy U.S. marshal's commission, which allowed him to pursue the Kid across state lines. Garrett and his posse stormed the Dedrick ranch at Bosque Grande on November 30, 1880. They expected to find the Kid there, but only succeeded in capturing John Joshua Webb, who had been charged with murder, along with an accused horse thief named George Davis. Garrett turned Webb and Davis over to the sheriff of San Miguel County a few days later, and moved on to the settlement of Puerto de Luna. There, a local tough named Mariano Leiva picked a fight with Garrett and was shot in the shoulder.  
On December 19, 1880, Billy the Kid, Charlie Bowdre, Tom Pickett, Billy Wilson, Dave Rudabaugh, and Tom O'Folliard rode into Fort Sumner. Lying in wait were Deputy Garrett and his posse. Mistaking O'Folliard for the Kid, Garrett's men opened fire and killed O'Folliard. Billy and the others escaped unharmed. Three days later, Garrett's posse cornered Billy and his companions at a spot called Stinking Springs. They killed Bowdre and captured the others. On April 15, 1881, Billy the Kid was sentenced to hang by Judge Warren Bristol, but escaped 13 days later, killing two deputies.  
On July 14, 1881, Garrett visited Fort Sumner to question a friend of the Kid's about his whereabouts, and learned he was staying with a common friend, Pedro Menard "Pete" Maxwell. Around midnight, Garrett went to Maxwell's house. The Kid was asleep in another part of the house, but woke up in the middle of the night and entered Maxwell's bedroom, where Garrett was standing in the shadows. The Kid did not recognize the man standing in the dark. He asked him, repeatedly, "¿Quién es?" ("Who is it?"), and Garrett replied by shooting at him twice. The first shot hit the Kid in the chest just above the heart, while the second missed. Garrett's account leaves unclear whether Billy was killed instantly or took some time to die.  

Account of Billy the Kid.  
He coauthored The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid with Ash Upson, and for decades his book was deemed authoritative.  
Following Billy the Kid's death, writers quickly went to work producing books and articles that made a folk hero out of him, while making Garrett seem like an assassin. Although filled with many errors of fact, The Authentic Life served afterward as the main source for most books written about the Kid until the 1960s. A failure when originally released, an original copy of the Pat Garrett–Ash Upson book became a rare commodity; in 1969, the original 1882 edition of the Garrett–Upson book was described by Ramon F. Adams as being "exceedingly rare". Twentieth-century editions of Garrett's Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid (with alterations to the original title) appeared in 1927, 1946 and 1964. 

Texas Ranger.  
Garrett did not seek re-election as sheriff of Lincoln County in 1882. He moved to Texas, where he ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the state senate. Garrett became a captain with the Texas Rangers for less than a month, then returned to Roswell, New Mexico.  

Middle years.  
Irrigation investments and move to Texas.  
Garrett discovered a large reservoir of artesian water in the Roswell region, and went into partnership with two men to organize the Pecos Valley Irrigation and Investment Company on July 18, 1885. Garrett kept his irrigation schemes alive for several years, and on January 15, 1887, he purchased a one-third interest in the Texas Irrigation Ditch Company, but the partners got rid of him. On August 15, 1887, he formed a partnership with William L. Holloman in the Holloman and Garrett Ditch Company. All of Garrett's forays into the irrigation field, however, resulted in failure. By 1892, Garrett had moved his large family to Uvalde, Texas, where he became a close friend of John Nance Garner, a future vice president of the United States.   Garrett might have lived out the remainder of his life in Uvalde, had it not been for a headline-making event back in New Mexico.  

Disappearance of Albert Jennings Fountain.  
On January 31, 1896, Colonel Albert Jennings Fountain and his eight-year-old son Henry disappeared at the edge of the White Sands area of southern New Mexico. Neither of the Fountains was ever seen again. The mystery was never officially solved, even with the efforts of Apache scouts, the Pinkertons, and an all-out push by the Republican Party. In April 1896, Garrett was appointed sheriff of Doña Ana County, and two years later had gathered sufficient evidence to make arrests, asking a judge in Las Cruces for warrants to arrest Oliver M. Lee, William McNew, Bill Carr, and James Gililland. Within hours, he had arrested McNew and Carr.  
During the early-morning hours of July 12, 1898, Garrett and his posse confronted Oliver M. Lee and James Gililland at a spot called "Wildy Well" near Orogrande, New Mexico. Garrett had hoped to capture the fugitives while they were sleeping, but Lee and Gililland expected trouble and took their bedrolls up to the roof of the bunkhouse to avoid being taken by surprise. One of Garrett's deputies named Kearney heard footsteps on the roof, scaled a ladder, and was mortally wounded by the fugitives. A stray shot nicked Garrett. Due to his concern for his dying deputy, Garrett arranged a truce with the fugitives and withdrew while Kearney was lifted into a wagon. Kearney, however, died on the road to Las Cruces, and Lee and Gililland remained at large for another eight months, before they finally surrendered to Sheriff George Curry. They were found not guilty in the Fountain killings, and the indictments for killing the deputy were also dismissed.  

Final kill.  
Garrett killed his last offender in 1899, a fugitive named Norman Newman, who was wanted for murder in Greer County, Oklahoma. Newman was hiding out at the San Augustin Ranch in New Mexico. Sheriff George Blalock of Greer County went to New Mexico and asked Garrett for his assistance. The lawmen and Jose Espalin, one of Garrett's deputies, rode to the ranch, and on October 7, 1899, Newman was killed in a gunfight.   

Presidential appointment in El Paso.  
On December 16, 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt nominated Garrett to the post of collector of customs in El Paso. He also became one....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72854891Tue, 07 Jul 2026 15:08:18 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Pat Garrett.   Patrick Floyd Jarvis Garrett (June 5, 1850 – February 29, 1908) was an American Old West lawman, bartender, and customs agent known for killing Billy the Kid. He was the sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico, as well as Doña Ana County,...Patrick Floyd Jarvis Garrett (June 5, 1850 – February 29, 1908) was an American Old West lawman, bartender, and customs agent known for killing Billy the Kid. He was the sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico, as well as Doña Ana County, New Mexico. Stories about him, especially his involvement with Billy the Kid, are part of the legends of the American Old West.  

Early years.  
Patrick Floyd Jarvis Garrett was born on June 5, 1850, in Chambers County, Alabama. He was the second of five children born to John Lumpkin Garrett and his wife Elizabeth Ann Jarvis. Garrett's four siblings were Margaret, Elizabeth, John, and Alfred.   Garrett was of English ancestry, and his ancestors migrated to America from the English counties of Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Lincolnshire, and Buckinghamshire. When Pat was three years old, his father purchased the John Greer plantation in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana. The Civil War, however, destroyed the Garrett family's finances. Their mother died at the age of 37 on March 25, 1867, when Garrett was 16. The following year, on February 5, 1868, his father died at age 45. The children were left with a plantation that was more than $30,000 in debt. The children were taken in by relatives. The 18-year-old Garrett headed west from Louisiana on January 25, 1869.  

Buffalo hunter.  
Garrett's whereabouts over the next seven years are obscure. By 1876, he was in Texas hunting buffalo. During this period, Garrett killed his first man, another buffalo hunter named Joe Briscoe. Garrett surrendered to the authorities at Fort Griffin, Texas, but they declined to prosecute. When buffalo hunting declined, Garrett left Texas and rode to New Mexico Territory.   When Garrett arrived at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, he found work as a bartender, then as a cowboy for Pedro Menard "Pete" Maxwell.  

Family life.  
Garrett's first wife was Juanita Martinez, who was born in May 1860 in Taos, New Mexico, to Antonio Domingo Martínez and María Manuela Trujillo, and they moved to Cimarron. Her mother died while giving birth to a daughter who also died, and then they moved to Fort Sumner with her uncle Celedon Trujillo and his employer Lucien Maxwell. Garrett and Juanita got married in the fall of 1879, and Tom O'Folliard, Charlie Bowdre, and Billy the Kid, among others, attended the wedding. She took ill in the ceremony or soon after, and died 15 days after from stress or medical complication, at the age of 19, because she collapsed.[11] She was interred in Fort Sumner Cemetery.  
The reference Leon C. Metz made about Juanita being the older sister of Pat's second wife Apolinaria (or Aplonia) is unfounded. Apolinaria had only one sister by the name of Celsa Gutierrez. On January 14, 1880, Garrett married Apolinaria Gutierrez.   Between 1881 and 1905, Apolinaria Garrett gave birth to eight children: Ida, Dudley, Elizabeth, Annie, Patrick, Pauline, Oscar, and Jarvis. Apolinaria's sister, Celsa, resident of Fort Sumner, was reputed to be romantically involved with Billy the Kid at the time of the Kid's death.  

Pursuit of Billy the Kid.  
Billy the Kid, William Henry Bonney Jr, born Henry McCarty, was wanted for murder in the aftermath of the Lincoln County War. On November 2, 1880, Garrett was elected sheriff of Lincoln County, having defeated the incumbent, Sheriff George Kimball, by a vote of 320 to 179. Although Garrett's term would not begin until January 1, 1881, Sheriff Kimball appointed him a deputy sheriff for the remainder of Kimball's term. Garrett also obtained a deputy U.S. marshal's commission, which allowed him to pursue the Kid across state lines. Garrett and his posse stormed the Dedrick ranch at Bosque Grande on November 30, 1880. They expected to find the Kid there, but only succeeded in capturing John Joshua Webb, who had been charged with murder, along with an accused horse thief named George Davis....]]>1158falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/30-murder-of-jeanne-van-calck--72853213Jeanne Van Calck (17 September 1897 – 7 February 1906), also known as Joanna, was a Belgian child murder victim whose case became a symbol for childhood innocence. Her dismembered body was found on the evening of 7 February 1906, at 22, rue des Hirondelles/Zwaluwenstraat in Brussels. The murder, now known as the Murder of the Rue des Hirondelles, was never solved.  

The Murder of the Rue des Hirondelles.  
Jeanne Van Calck lived with her grandparents in Brussels but habitually visited her mother, Françoise Van Calck, for an hour or two each evening, generally accompanied by her grandfather. Her father was a typographer working for the Le Soir newspaper, who had abandoned the family and never knew his daughter. At 18:30 on the evening of 7 February 1906, Jeanne left her grandparents' home as usual, but for the first time was allowed to go alone, as her grandfather was working. She never arrived at her mother's home on the corner of the Boulevard Baudouin/Boudewijnlaan.  
Around 23:45, a machinist from the Théâtre de l'Alhambra, Joseph Eylenbosch, and his son discovered a suspicious package outside the door of 22, rue des Hirondelles/Zwaluwenstraat (a house that was demolished in 1965). A policeman, Gustave Vandamme, was called to inspect it. He was joined by a colleague, Pierre Noël, who helped carry the package to the police station on the Place du Nouveau Marché aux Grains/Nieuwe Graanmarkt. The Department Chief, Desmedt, inspected the curious package and asked Noël to open it. The first thing they saw was a blue pea coat and a checkered dress, and after taking a closer look, they found frozen blood. The still-warm corpse of a little girl, which had been dismembered and wrapped up in thick paper, tied with a hemp cord, fell to the ground. The child's legs had also been amputated and were not present.  
Messengers were sent to awaken the commissioner, and the public prosecutor and the press were immediately informed. When two men arrived at the police station to report Jeanne's disappearance, it was found that the clothes she had been wearing corresponded to those discovered. The next day, a huge crowd gathered in front of 22, rue des Hirondelles. Françoise Van Calck was present, and upon hearing the news of her daughter's death, she fainted.  

Investigation, funeral and popular discontent.  
The coroner who examined the body was categorical that the murder had been carried out by somebody with specialist knowledge, probably a doctor or a butcher. The cause of death was quickly established: Jeanne had died of suffocation from violent vomiting after being forced to drink a large quantity of alcohol, in addition to violent abuse. The time of death was fixed between 20:00 and 21:00.  
The funeral was held on 11 February, with over ten thousand people in attendance. The burgomaster, Emile De Mot, presided over the collection of the body from Saint-Pierre Hospital's mortuary and accompanied the funeral procession. The police guarded the coffin, while the crowd shouted in anger. Jeanne was taken to Brussels Cemetery in Evere, where she was buried and remains to this day.  
The police began searching for the little girl's killer, dragging the canals to find her legs, which were still missing. On 16 February, a gardener by the name of Buelens found two packages about 40 cm in length in the park of the royal Stuyvenbergh farm. The day before, Jeanne's boots had been found close by. The Belgian government offered a reward of 20,000 Belgian francs to anyone who could identify the murderer and even offered leniency with regard to any person indirectly involved who incriminated themselves.  
A police dog, Folette, and her handler, Agent Librechts, were dispatched to the crime scene. The dog stopped at 22, rue des Hirondelles, then another house and barked at length in front of the grandparents' house. Later, a Spaniard and an Algerian were remanded in custody, but both were released without charge. Jean Many, a butcher's apprentice who begged in the streets, was similarly arrested but released. Sometime later, a bloody shirt was found on the Chaussée de Wavre/Waversesteenweg. A Dr Nyssens was considered a person of interest, but no convincing leads were uncovered.  
The newspapers of the time criticised the carelessness and incompetence of the authorities, who never managed to solve the crime. A Parisian lawyer, Louis Frank, gained access to the files and listed 29 failures in the investigation, publishing his findings in 1909. Some leads had never been followed up because they came from a little girl. She reported seeing her friend around 7 p.m. on the night of her murder near her grandparents' house, accompanied by a man she seemed to trust, but heading in the opposite direction from her mother's home.  
Émile Rossel, the owner of Le Soir at the time, opened a subscription service to fund a white marble monument in homage to the "Little Angel of the Rue des Hirondelles". The following year, another child, Annette Bellot, was found dead in Anderlecht, under similar circumstances. Her killer, like Jeanne's, was never found. 

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72853213Tue, 07 Jul 2026 12:34:54 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murder of Jeanne Van Calck.   Jeanne Van Calck (17 September 1897 – 7 February 1906), also known as Joanna, was a Belgian child murder victim whose case became a symbol for childhood innocence. Her dismembered body was found on the evening of 7...Jeanne Van Calck (17 September 1897 – 7 February 1906), also known as Joanna, was a Belgian child murder victim whose case became a symbol for childhood innocence. Her dismembered body was found on the evening of 7 February 1906, at 22, rue des Hirondelles/Zwaluwenstraat in Brussels. The murder, now known as the Murder of the Rue des Hirondelles, was never solved.  

The Murder of the Rue des Hirondelles.  
Jeanne Van Calck lived with her grandparents in Brussels but habitually visited her mother, Françoise Van Calck, for an hour or two each evening, generally accompanied by her grandfather. Her father was a typographer working for the Le Soir newspaper, who had abandoned the family and never knew his daughter. At 18:30 on the evening of 7 February 1906, Jeanne left her grandparents' home as usual, but for the first time was allowed to go alone, as her grandfather was working. She never arrived at her mother's home on the corner of the Boulevard Baudouin/Boudewijnlaan.  
Around 23:45, a machinist from the Théâtre de l'Alhambra, Joseph Eylenbosch, and his son discovered a suspicious package outside the door of 22, rue des Hirondelles/Zwaluwenstraat (a house that was demolished in 1965). A policeman, Gustave Vandamme, was called to inspect it. He was joined by a colleague, Pierre Noël, who helped carry the package to the police station on the Place du Nouveau Marché aux Grains/Nieuwe Graanmarkt. The Department Chief, Desmedt, inspected the curious package and asked Noël to open it. The first thing they saw was a blue pea coat and a checkered dress, and after taking a closer look, they found frozen blood. The still-warm corpse of a little girl, which had been dismembered and wrapped up in thick paper, tied with a hemp cord, fell to the ground. The child's legs had also been amputated and were not present.  
Messengers were sent to awaken the commissioner, and the public prosecutor and the press were immediately informed. When two men arrived at the police station to report Jeanne's disappearance, it was found that the clothes she had been wearing corresponded to those discovered. The next day, a huge crowd gathered in front of 22, rue des Hirondelles. Françoise Van Calck was present, and upon hearing the news of her daughter's death, she fainted.  

Investigation, funeral and popular discontent.  
The coroner who examined the body was categorical that the murder had been carried out by somebody with specialist knowledge, probably a doctor or a butcher. The cause of death was quickly established: Jeanne had died of suffocation from violent vomiting after being forced to drink a large quantity of alcohol, in addition to violent abuse. The time of death was fixed between 20:00 and 21:00.  
The funeral was held on 11 February, with over ten thousand people in attendance. The burgomaster, Emile De Mot, presided over the collection of the body from Saint-Pierre Hospital's mortuary and accompanied the funeral procession. The police guarded the coffin, while the crowd shouted in anger. Jeanne was taken to Brussels Cemetery in Evere, where she was buried and remains to this day.  
The police began searching for the little girl's killer, dragging the canals to find her legs, which were still missing. On 16 February, a gardener by the name of Buelens found two packages about 40 cm in length in the park of the royal Stuyvenbergh farm. The day before, Jeanne's boots had been found close by. The Belgian government offered a reward of 20,000 Belgian francs to anyone who could identify the murderer and even offered leniency with regard to any person indirectly involved who incriminated themselves.  
A police dog, Folette, and her handler, Agent Librechts, were dispatched to the crime scene. The dog stopped at 22, rue des Hirondelles, then another house and barked at length in front of the grandparents' house. Later, a Spaniard and an Algerian were...]]>349falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/29-al-swearengen--72841908Ellis Alfred Swearengen (July 8, 1845 – November 15, 1904) was an American pimp and entertainment entrepreneur who ran the Gem Theater, a notorious brothel, in Deadwood, South Dakota, for 22 years during the late 19th century.  

Personal life.  
Swearengen (sometimes spelled Swearingen, Swearengin, Swearngir, etc.) and his twin brother Lemuel were the eldest two of eight children of Dutch American farmer Daniel J. Swearingen and Keziah "Katie" Montgomery of Oskaloosa, Iowa.   Swearengen remained at home well into his adult years and only arrived in Deadwood in May 1876, with his wife, Nettie Swearengen. Nettie later divorced him on the grounds of spousal abuse. Swearengen married two more times; both of these marriages ended in divorce.  

Custer.  
Prior to opening a business in Deadwood, Swearengen operated a dance house in Custer, South Dakota. As stated in the 1882 New Year Edition of the Black Hills Pioneer, which described the early history of Custer, "Al Swearengen was running a dance house of 30X150 feet in dimensions and day and night a man had to push and crowd to get into it."  
As to his reason for leaving, this same publication stated that "[i]n January, 1876 reports came to Custer that there was gold in Deadwood gulch. In March, the rush from Custer to Deadwood began; the roads were lined with people, and not more than one hundred persons were left in Custer; and town lots that had been selling for $800 two months before would not bring $50."  

Deadwood.   
Swearengen originally owned and operated a canvas-and-lumber saloon in Deadwood known as the Cricket, which featured gambling and hosted prizefights. Shortly afterward, he closed it down and opened a larger saloon known as the Gem Theater.  
The Gem functioned as a saloon, dance hall, and brothel. Swearengen lured desperate young women to Deadwood, then forced them into prostitution through a combination of bullying and physical brutality committed by him and his henchmen.   Calamity Jane, who was one of his first dancers at the Gem, procured ten girls from Sidney, Nebraska for him on one occasion.  
The results were highly lucrative: the Gem earned a nightly average of $5,000, and sometimes as much as $10,000 (equivalent to $302,000 in 2025). The Gem burned down on September 26, 1879, along with much of the town, but Swearengen rebuilt his establishment larger and more opulent than ever, to great public acclaim.  
Swearengen's talent for making canny alliances and financial payoffs kept him insulated from the general drive to clean up Deadwood, including the otherwise successful work of Seth Bullock, the town's first sheriff.  
In 1899, the Gem burned down once again and was not rebuilt. The same year, Swearengen left Deadwood and married Odelia Turgeon.  

Death.  
It is often reported that Swearengen died penniless while trying to hop a freight train, but research suggests he was murdered. According to his rediscovered obituary and contemporaneous newspaper accounts, Swearengen was found dead in the middle of a suburban Denver street on November 15, 1904, apparently of a massive head wound. Less than two months earlier, his twin brother Lemuel had been shot by unknown assailants and survived, although suspiciously was not robbed.  

In popular culture.  
From 2004 to 2006, the television series Deadwood depicted Swearengen as a powerful and influential figure in the early history of the town, ruthlessly murderous and abusive, but ultimately guiding it toward its development and annexation to the Dakota Territory once he comes to see this course as fitting his best interests. The series altered Swearengen to be English born, and also changed his first name to Albert. The English actor Ian McShane won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Drama in 2005 for his portrayal of Swearengen. He was also nominated that year for Emmy and Screen Actors Guild Awards, and TV Guide named him #6 in its 2013 list of The 60 Nastiest Villains of All Time. The series also altered timelines; it shows the Gem (historically opened in April 1877) as a going concern during the famous events of August 1876.  
McShane reprised his role of Swearengen in Deadwood: The Movie (2019), which takes place in 1889, 13 years after the series ended. 

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72841908Mon, 06 Jul 2026 17:28:07 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Al Swearengen.   Ellis Alfred Swearengen (July 8, 1845 – November 15, 1904) was an American pimp and entertainment entrepreneur who ran the Gem Theater, a notorious brothel, in Deadwood, South Dakota, for 22 years during the late 19th century.  ...Ellis Alfred Swearengen (July 8, 1845 – November 15, 1904) was an American pimp and entertainment entrepreneur who ran the Gem Theater, a notorious brothel, in Deadwood, South Dakota, for 22 years during the late 19th century.  

Personal life.  
Swearengen (sometimes spelled Swearingen, Swearengin, Swearngir, etc.) and his twin brother Lemuel were the eldest two of eight children of Dutch American farmer Daniel J. Swearingen and Keziah "Katie" Montgomery of Oskaloosa, Iowa.   Swearengen remained at home well into his adult years and only arrived in Deadwood in May 1876, with his wife, Nettie Swearengen. Nettie later divorced him on the grounds of spousal abuse. Swearengen married two more times; both of these marriages ended in divorce.  

Custer.  
Prior to opening a business in Deadwood, Swearengen operated a dance house in Custer, South Dakota. As stated in the 1882 New Year Edition of the Black Hills Pioneer, which described the early history of Custer, "Al Swearengen was running a dance house of 30X150 feet in dimensions and day and night a man had to push and crowd to get into it."  
As to his reason for leaving, this same publication stated that "[i]n January, 1876 reports came to Custer that there was gold in Deadwood gulch. In March, the rush from Custer to Deadwood began; the roads were lined with people, and not more than one hundred persons were left in Custer; and town lots that had been selling for $800 two months before would not bring $50."  

Deadwood.   
Swearengen originally owned and operated a canvas-and-lumber saloon in Deadwood known as the Cricket, which featured gambling and hosted prizefights. Shortly afterward, he closed it down and opened a larger saloon known as the Gem Theater.  
The Gem functioned as a saloon, dance hall, and brothel. Swearengen lured desperate young women to Deadwood, then forced them into prostitution through a combination of bullying and physical brutality committed by him and his henchmen.   Calamity Jane, who was one of his first dancers at the Gem, procured ten girls from Sidney, Nebraska for him on one occasion.  
The results were highly lucrative: the Gem earned a nightly average of $5,000, and sometimes as much as $10,000 (equivalent to $302,000 in 2025). The Gem burned down on September 26, 1879, along with much of the town, but Swearengen rebuilt his establishment larger and more opulent than ever, to great public acclaim.  
Swearengen's talent for making canny alliances and financial payoffs kept him insulated from the general drive to clean up Deadwood, including the otherwise successful work of Seth Bullock, the town's first sheriff.  
In 1899, the Gem burned down once again and was not rebuilt. The same year, Swearengen left Deadwood and married Odelia Turgeon.  

Death.  
It is often reported that Swearengen died penniless while trying to hop a freight train, but research suggests he was murdered. According to his rediscovered obituary and contemporaneous newspaper accounts, Swearengen was found dead in the middle of a suburban Denver street on November 15, 1904, apparently of a massive head wound. Less than two months earlier, his twin brother Lemuel had been shot by unknown assailants and survived, although suspiciously was not robbed.  

In popular culture.  
From 2004 to 2006, the television series Deadwood depicted Swearengen as a powerful and influential figure in the early history of the town, ruthlessly murderous and abusive, but ultimately guiding it toward its development and annexation to the Dakota Territory once he comes to see this course as fitting his best interests. The series altered Swearengen to be English born, and also changed his first name to Albert. The English actor Ian McShane won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Drama in 2005 for his portrayal of Swearengen. He was also nominated that year for...]]>300falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/28-murder-of-bertha-schippan--72841677The murder of Johanne Elizabeth "Bertha" Schippan (January 1888 – 1 January 1902) is an unsolved Australian murder. The victim, the youngest child in a large Wendish family, resided in the South Australian town of Towitta, located approximately 6 km (3.7 mi) west of Sedan. She was murdered on the night of 1 January 1902, at the age of 13. Her 24-year-old sister, Maria “Mary” Auguste (10 Sept 1877 – 4 July 1919), was prosecuted for the crime but was eventually acquitted. Despite various theories, the case remains unsolved and continues to attract media attention.  

Circumstances of the crime.  
Bertha and Mary's parents, Matthes and Johanne, had left that day to visit relatives in Eden Valley. Three other siblings were away working on other farms, and the sisters' two younger brothers had decided to sleep in a nearby barn that night, leaving Bertha and Mary alone in the house. Mary claimed she awoke at 10 pm to find a bearded man lying across her chest. After wriggling free, she escaped the house to raise the alarm with her brothers, leaving her sister Bertha behind. Her brothers raised the alarm, finally notifying the local constable, but Bertha was found the next day violently murdered, having been stabbed and slashed around 40 times.  

Inquest and trial.  
The inquest into Bertha's death, headed by the local Coroner, Dr Ramsey Smith, was held shortly afterwards, with suspicion quickly falling on Mary. Given the lack of contrary evidence, she was committed to stand trial in Adelaide.  
At the trial before Chief Justice Sir Samuel Way, which commenced in March 1902, Mary was represented by Sir Josiah Symon K.C. The case was reported on extensively in the newspapers. Mary, who had been remanded in Adelaide Gaol, was finally acquitted, due to there only being circumstantial evidence of her guilt.  
The nature of the case, and the lack of a conviction, led to media speculation that Mary's father, who had a history of violence, or her boyfriend, 21-year-old Gustav Nitschke, could have been responsible. While both of them had possible motives in preventing Bertha from revealing incriminating evidence, Nitschke had an alibi that he was in Adelaide, and it was deemed unlikely that Matthes could have ridden to the scene of the crime and back again in the dark.  

Media.  
In 1984, a film about the murder called The Schippan Mystery, was released. Directed by Di Drew, it was the last of four telemovies called Verdict produced by the ABC dramatising real Australian cases. A number of books and documentaries covering the case were later produced. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72841677Mon, 06 Jul 2026 17:13:26 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murder of Bertha Schippan.   The murder of Johanne Elizabeth "Bertha" Schippan (January 1888 – 1 January 1902) is an unsolved Australian murder. The victim, the youngest child in a large Wendish family, resided in the South Australian town of Towitta,...The murder of Johanne Elizabeth "Bertha" Schippan (January 1888 – 1 January 1902) is an unsolved Australian murder. The victim, the youngest child in a large Wendish family, resided in the South Australian town of Towitta, located approximately 6 km (3.7 mi) west of Sedan. She was murdered on the night of 1 January 1902, at the age of 13. Her 24-year-old sister, Maria “Mary” Auguste (10 Sept 1877 – 4 July 1919), was prosecuted for the crime but was eventually acquitted. Despite various theories, the case remains unsolved and continues to attract media attention.  

Circumstances of the crime.  
Bertha and Mary's parents, Matthes and Johanne, had left that day to visit relatives in Eden Valley. Three other siblings were away working on other farms, and the sisters' two younger brothers had decided to sleep in a nearby barn that night, leaving Bertha and Mary alone in the house. Mary claimed she awoke at 10 pm to find a bearded man lying across her chest. After wriggling free, she escaped the house to raise the alarm with her brothers, leaving her sister Bertha behind. Her brothers raised the alarm, finally notifying the local constable, but Bertha was found the next day violently murdered, having been stabbed and slashed around 40 times.  

Inquest and trial.  
The inquest into Bertha's death, headed by the local Coroner, Dr Ramsey Smith, was held shortly afterwards, with suspicion quickly falling on Mary. Given the lack of contrary evidence, she was committed to stand trial in Adelaide.  
At the trial before Chief Justice Sir Samuel Way, which commenced in March 1902, Mary was represented by Sir Josiah Symon K.C. The case was reported on extensively in the newspapers. Mary, who had been remanded in Adelaide Gaol, was finally acquitted, due to there only being circumstantial evidence of her guilt.  
The nature of the case, and the lack of a conviction, led to media speculation that Mary's father, who had a history of violence, or her boyfriend, 21-year-old Gustav Nitschke, could have been responsible. While both of them had possible motives in preventing Bertha from revealing incriminating evidence, Nitschke had an alibi that he was in Adelaide, and it was deemed unlikely that Matthes could have ridden to the scene of the crime and back again in the dark.  

Media.  
In 1984, a film about the murder called The Schippan Mystery, was released. Directed by Di Drew, it was the last of four telemovies called Verdict produced by the ABC dramatising real Australian cases. A number of books and documentaries covering the case were later produced. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>187falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/27-the-konitz-affair--72841583The Konitz affair was an accusation of Jewish ritual murder in the unsolved murder and dismemberment of student Ernst Winter in Konitz, then part of the Prussian Province of West Prussia in the German Empire (now part of northern Poland), in 1900. Although jealousy was later determined to be the probable motive, antisemite leaders were quick to turn suspicion against the Jewish inhabitants, and encouraged and bribed locals to testify against the Jews.  
Violence against Jews increased, leading to riots in Konitz and several nearby towns, and marked the worst period of antisemitic violence in Wilhelmine Germany. The number of Jews residing in Konitz fell by 28% between 1900 and 1903. A number of Jews were prosecuted regarding the riots and other incidents, and received harsher sentences than their attackers. Accused of shielding the Jews, the government and detectives felt compelled to investigate the most improbable statements implicating Jews. Despite exonerating physical evidence, two Jews were brought to trial for the murder and acquitted.  
On June 4, 1902, an appeal to the superior court held that all accusations against the Jews were baseless. Wilhelm Bruhn and Bötticher, the publisher and editor of antisemitic newspaper Staatsbürgerzeitung, were convicted of libel against the government. Pastor Krösell, who lectured in Konitz on Jewish immorality, was forced to withdraw from the ministry. Despite this, antisemitic sentiment remained popular, and Bruhn, Bötticher and Krösell were elected to the Reichstag in 1903.  

Murder and investigation.  
Ernst Winter was a nineteen-year-old student of the gymnasium of Konitz, West Prussia (now part of northern Poland). He was the son of an architect of Prechlau and was known for his licentiousness. On March 11, 1900, he left his boarding-house after dinner and did not return. It was immediately thought probable that Winter had fallen through lake ice while skating. The lake was searched, and on March 15 parts of his body were discovered. His right arm was found thrown over the fence of a Protestant cemetery.[5] On April 15, his head was recovered from a pool. The body had been dismembered by someone possessing a knowledge of anatomy; suspicion thus turned against the local butchers, especially against the Christian butcher Hoffmann. Hoffman's daughter had been frequently seen in Winter's company, and a member of his household had been heard to express threats against Winter on account of his attention to the young woman.  
Forensic evidence determined that Winter's head had been frozen in the pool for some time. The state of Winter's stomach contents proved that he could not have died later than seven o'clock in the evening.  
Antisemites tried from the outset to turn suspicion against the Jewish inhabitants. This included antisemitic publications in Berlin such as Staatsbürgerzeitung, whose editor Wilhelm Bruhn permanently settled in the Konitz area to report about the events and to cajole and bribe locals to testify against the Jews. Police found no evidence to implicate the Jews, and on May 9, 1900, the publication declared: "No one can help forming the impression that the organs of the government received orders to pursue the investigation in a manner calculated to spare the Jews." Detectives and judges eagerly took up the most improbable statements implicating Jews, while Christian witnesses withheld important testimony. The police appealed for the owner of a handkerchief in which Winter's head was wrapped to come forward; only by accident was the owner's identity revealed to be the wife of school superintendent Rohde. Also, two young men who were last seen in Winter's company never revealed their identities. Some of the garments of the murdered youth were kept in a house in the city until January 1901, without being discovered by the police, and were subsequently found on different days in a public park.  
Hoffmann was arrested and subsequently discharged. The city council, of which he was a member, gave him a cordial reception when he first appeared after his release. Among the grounds for dismissal, the court held that the deed must have been perpetrated by several people and according to a premeditated plan, indirectly supporting the accusation of ritual murder. Dr. Müller, the county physician (German: Kreisphysikus), rendered the opinion that Winter had bled to death, which, as subsequent investigations proved, was untenable. This opinion was published in the Staatsbürgerzeitung before the investigation of the court had been closed. For this breach of confidence, Müller's son, who had communicated the document to the press, was censured by a court of honor (German: Ehrengericht).  

Antisemitic agitation and excesses.  
The violence against Jews during the Konitz affair was sporadic at first. However, it increased in intensity until it became the worst case of antisemitic violence in the history of Wilhelmine Germany. On June 8, 1900, a shed near the synagogue of Konitz was set on fire; and two days later excesses were committed against the synagogue and against Jewish homes to such an extent that the military had to be called. Similar riots, though not of such a severe character, occurred at Czersk (April 22), Stolp and Bütow (May 21–22), Tuchel (June 10), and Komarczyn (June 17).  
In all of these cases the sentences imposed upon the rioters or assailants were very light, while Jews, whenever they came before the court, met with hostile sentiment and received heavy sentences for the slightest offenses. A county official to whom a Jew complained of the insults to which he had been subjected on the street, replied: "You can easily obtain relief, if you give up the murderer." A synagogue sexton who defended himself with a stake against a crowd which assailed him was sentenced to spend a year in jail; and a similar sentence was imposed on a Jewish apprentice because he had beaten a boy who had jeered at him. A highly respected citizen, Jacob Jacoby of Tuchel, was sentenced to confinement for one year in the penitentiary for perjury (October 10), because he had sworn that he had called some boys who had shouted "Hep-Hep!" after him "lümmel" (toughs) only after they had insulted him, while the boys swore that he had first called them offensive names. This sentence was so repugnant to public opinion that the emperor commuted it to six months in jail, and revoked that part by which the convict was deprived of civil rights (March 1901).  
A common superstition during the Konitz affair was that Jews caused harm to children during their Passover rituals. An organization[which?] revealed that between 1891 and 1900, there were 120 reported incidents involving this belief, accusing Jews of ritual murder. While these were largely concentrated in Eastern Europe, it spread into the German Empire, contributing to the increase of antisemitic sentiments which often led to violence.  
Authorities were very lenient regarding two dangerous agitators: Silesian count Pückler and Pomeranian pastor Krösell. The former, whom a court afterward adjudged insane, delivered in various cities violent antisemitic diatribes declaring that Jews must be clubbed out of the country and that the Christians must wade in Jewish blood up to their ankles. Krösell, who later had to withdraw from the ministry in order to escape a sentence of expulsion for immorality, delivered in the neighborhood of Konitz lectures on ritual murder and on the immorality of rabbinical literature; neither the ecclesiastical nor the state authorities would interfere, and the people elected Krösell to the Reichstag in 1903. In the Reichstag, where this case was made the subject of an interpellation (February 8–9, 1901), Prussian minister of justice Schönstedt limited himself to a defense of the authorities against the charge of shielding the Jews. He carefully refrained from uttering one word in condemnation of the ritual-murder charge.  

Antisemitic politician Liebermann von Sonnenberg said in a public address: "The Christians have not yet become accustomed to bear without a murmur the killing of Christian youths in an unnatural fashion by Jews within the city walls." The antisemitic papers, including Germania and Kreuzzeitung (the organs of the Clerical party and Conservative party, respectively), constantly stirred religious fanaticism and fostered the prejudice that the government had been bought by the Jews. A society for the investigation of the murder was formed, and spread false statements that the coroner's commission had not searched the ritual bath near the synagogue, and had left undisturbed a room in the house of butcher Adolf Lewy in which his wife was supposed to be sick. In fact, all the rooms in Lewy's house and every nook and corner in the synagogue been searched, and the commission had even taken a sample of the blood of chickens from the yard which was used for killing fowl (see Shehilah).  
The members of a highly respectable family named Rosenthal in Cammin were kept in prison for six months, because a servant-girl of bad character testified that she had heard Rosenthal say that he would hang himself on a hook in the ceiling of his room, as he was unable to bear the remorse he felt for having participated in the murder of Winter. Investigation proved that this was intentionally false testimony. In the room, where, according to the girl's statement, Rosenthal had pointed to the hook, there never had been such a hook; the case against the girl was dismissed in 1902 on the plea of insanity.  

Trial of Wolf Israelski.  
Wolf Israelski, a Jew, was arrested as he had been seen walking on April 13 in the direction of the place where Winter's head had been found, with a sack on his back in which there was a round object. Although he denied the fact, and the state of the head...

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72841583Mon, 06 Jul 2026 17:01:27 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.The Konitz affair.   The Konitz affair was an accusation of Jewish ritual murder in the unsolved murder and dismemberment of student Ernst Winter in Konitz, then part of the Prussian Province of West Prussia in the German Empire (now part of northern...The Konitz affair was an accusation of Jewish ritual murder in the unsolved murder and dismemberment of student Ernst Winter in Konitz, then part of the Prussian Province of West Prussia in the German Empire (now part of northern Poland), in 1900. Although jealousy was later determined to be the probable motive, antisemite leaders were quick to turn suspicion against the Jewish inhabitants, and encouraged and bribed locals to testify against the Jews.  
Violence against Jews increased, leading to riots in Konitz and several nearby towns, and marked the worst period of antisemitic violence in Wilhelmine Germany. The number of Jews residing in Konitz fell by 28% between 1900 and 1903. A number of Jews were prosecuted regarding the riots and other incidents, and received harsher sentences than their attackers. Accused of shielding the Jews, the government and detectives felt compelled to investigate the most improbable statements implicating Jews. Despite exonerating physical evidence, two Jews were brought to trial for the murder and acquitted.  
On June 4, 1902, an appeal to the superior court held that all accusations against the Jews were baseless. Wilhelm Bruhn and Bötticher, the publisher and editor of antisemitic newspaper Staatsbürgerzeitung, were convicted of libel against the government. Pastor Krösell, who lectured in Konitz on Jewish immorality, was forced to withdraw from the ministry. Despite this, antisemitic sentiment remained popular, and Bruhn, Bötticher and Krösell were elected to the Reichstag in 1903.  

Murder and investigation.  
Ernst Winter was a nineteen-year-old student of the gymnasium of Konitz, West Prussia (now part of northern Poland). He was the son of an architect of Prechlau and was known for his licentiousness. On March 11, 1900, he left his boarding-house after dinner and did not return. It was immediately thought probable that Winter had fallen through lake ice while skating. The lake was searched, and on March 15 parts of his body were discovered. His right arm was found thrown over the fence of a Protestant cemetery.[5] On April 15, his head was recovered from a pool. The body had been dismembered by someone possessing a knowledge of anatomy; suspicion thus turned against the local butchers, especially against the Christian butcher Hoffmann. Hoffman's daughter had been frequently seen in Winter's company, and a member of his household had been heard to express threats against Winter on account of his attention to the young woman.  
Forensic evidence determined that Winter's head had been frozen in the pool for some time. The state of Winter's stomach contents proved that he could not have died later than seven o'clock in the evening.  
Antisemites tried from the outset to turn suspicion against the Jewish inhabitants. This included antisemitic publications in Berlin such as Staatsbürgerzeitung, whose editor Wilhelm Bruhn permanently settled in the Konitz area to report about the events and to cajole and bribe locals to testify against the Jews. Police found no evidence to implicate the Jews, and on May 9, 1900, the publication declared: "No one can help forming the impression that the organs of the government received orders to pursue the investigation in a manner calculated to spare the Jews." Detectives and judges eagerly took up the most improbable statements implicating Jews, while Christian witnesses withheld important testimony. The police appealed for the owner of a handkerchief in which Winter's head was wrapped to come forward; only by accident was the owner's identity revealed to be the wife of school superintendent Rohde. Also, two young men who were last seen in Winter's company never revealed their identities. Some of the garments of the murdered youth were kept in a house in the city until January 1901, without being discovered by the police, and were subsequently found on different days in a public park.  922falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/26-john-bozeman--72841279John Merin Bozeman (January 1835 – April 20, 1867) was an American pioneer and frontiersman in the American West who helped establish the Bozeman Trail through Wyoming Territory into the gold fields of southwestern Montana Territory in the early 1860s. He helped found the city of Bozeman, Montana, in 1864, which is named for him.  

Life.  
Bozeman was born in Pickens County, Georgia, in January 1835 to William and Delila Sims Bozeman.  
Bozeman married Lucinda Catherine Ingram, and the couple had three daughters. In 1860, John Bozeman headed west to join in the Pike's Peak Gold Rush in Colorado, leaving behind his wife and children. After his mining claims in Colorado failed, Bozeman traveled to Deer Lodge in western Montana Territory in 1862 to work the gold fields discovered by James and Granville Stuart. Bozeman later joined the January 1863 rush to newly discovered gold in Bannack, Montana, but his claims there proved unsuccessful.  
Seeing that it would be more profitable to "mine the miners" than to mine for gold, Bozeman enlisted the support of another unsuccessful Bannack prospector and friend, John Jacobs, to explore a new and shorter route into Montana Territory from the east. In 1863, he and John Jacobs blazed the Bozeman Trail, a cutoff route from the Oregon Trail in Wyoming to Bannack, Montana, and guided miners to Virginia City through the Gallatin Valley. Bozeman settled in the Gallatin Valley at a site "standing right in the gate of the mountains, ready to swallow up all tenderfeet that would reach the territory from the east, with their golden fleeces to be taken care of". The route spanned the eastern front of the Rockies north to the Yellowstone River, then west across the Bozeman Pass. In 1864, he laid out the town of Bozeman, Montana. Its proximity to the trail helped it to grow in the following years, especially as migration to Montana increased after the discovery of gold at Virginia City in 1864.  
In 1865, federal troops began guarding the trail from hostile Indian attacks, since the trail ran through lands reserved by treaty to Indian tribes. The federal government constructed Forts Reno, Phil Kearny, and C. F. Smith to defend the trail. The Sioux tribe "succeeded by closing the road by a massacre near Fort Kearny" in 1866. The trail was briefly abandoned.  

Death.  
Bozeman was murdered on April 20, 1867 (aged 32), while traveling along the Yellowstone River to Fort C.F. Smith to secure a flour contract. His partner, Tom Cover, reported they had been attacked by a band of Blackfeet Natives, but some historians propose that Bozeman was killed by Cover himself, or perhaps even by a henchman of pioneer Montana rancher Nelson Story named Thomas Kent. The end of Bozeman's life is still a subject of debate today, and some theorize that he was murdered in revenge for his habit of flirting with married women. The Montana Post (Virginia City, Montana) reported on 20 July 1867 that while visiting Blackfoot's (Crow) camp on the Yellowstone, Charlie Smith found that Bear Tooth’s tribe of Crows included expelled Blackfeet tribal members Mountain Chief, his two sons and two nephews with John Bozeman and Tom Cover’s horses. Mountain Chief and his cohorts boasted that they had killed Bozeman and provided details of the attack to Smith that were consistent with Tom Cover’s story. It should be noted Mountain Chief and his braves were expelled from their tribe for killing Chief Little Dog.  

Archives.  
John M. Bozeman's papers are now held by Archives and Special Collections at Montana State University.


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72841279Mon, 06 Jul 2026 16:27:46 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.John Bozeman.   John Merin Bozeman (January 1835 – April 20, 1867) was an American pioneer and frontiersman in the American West who helped establish the Bozeman Trail through Wyoming Territory into the gold fields of southwestern Montana Territory in...John Merin Bozeman (January 1835 – April 20, 1867) was an American pioneer and frontiersman in the American West who helped establish the Bozeman Trail through Wyoming Territory into the gold fields of southwestern Montana Territory in the early 1860s. He helped found the city of Bozeman, Montana, in 1864, which is named for him.  

Life.  
Bozeman was born in Pickens County, Georgia, in January 1835 to William and Delila Sims Bozeman.  
Bozeman married Lucinda Catherine Ingram, and the couple had three daughters. In 1860, John Bozeman headed west to join in the Pike's Peak Gold Rush in Colorado, leaving behind his wife and children. After his mining claims in Colorado failed, Bozeman traveled to Deer Lodge in western Montana Territory in 1862 to work the gold fields discovered by James and Granville Stuart. Bozeman later joined the January 1863 rush to newly discovered gold in Bannack, Montana, but his claims there proved unsuccessful.  
Seeing that it would be more profitable to "mine the miners" than to mine for gold, Bozeman enlisted the support of another unsuccessful Bannack prospector and friend, John Jacobs, to explore a new and shorter route into Montana Territory from the east. In 1863, he and John Jacobs blazed the Bozeman Trail, a cutoff route from the Oregon Trail in Wyoming to Bannack, Montana, and guided miners to Virginia City through the Gallatin Valley. Bozeman settled in the Gallatin Valley at a site "standing right in the gate of the mountains, ready to swallow up all tenderfeet that would reach the territory from the east, with their golden fleeces to be taken care of". The route spanned the eastern front of the Rockies north to the Yellowstone River, then west across the Bozeman Pass. In 1864, he laid out the town of Bozeman, Montana. Its proximity to the trail helped it to grow in the following years, especially as migration to Montana increased after the discovery of gold at Virginia City in 1864.  
In 1865, federal troops began guarding the trail from hostile Indian attacks, since the trail ran through lands reserved by treaty to Indian tribes. The federal government constructed Forts Reno, Phil Kearny, and C. F. Smith to defend the trail. The Sioux tribe "succeeded by closing the road by a massacre near Fort Kearny" in 1866. The trail was briefly abandoned.  

Death.  
Bozeman was murdered on April 20, 1867 (aged 32), while traveling along the Yellowstone River to Fort C.F. Smith to secure a flour contract. His partner, Tom Cover, reported they had been attacked by a band of Blackfeet Natives, but some historians propose that Bozeman was killed by Cover himself, or perhaps even by a henchman of pioneer Montana rancher Nelson Story named Thomas Kent. The end of Bozeman's life is still a subject of debate today, and some theorize that he was murdered in revenge for his habit of flirting with married women. The Montana Post (Virginia City, Montana) reported on 20 July 1867 that while visiting Blackfoot's (Crow) camp on the Yellowstone, Charlie Smith found that Bear Tooth’s tribe of Crows included expelled Blackfeet tribal members Mountain Chief, his two sons and two nephews with John Bozeman and Tom Cover’s horses. Mountain Chief and his cohorts boasted that they had killed Bozeman and provided details of the attack to Smith that were consistent with Tom Cover’s story. It should be noted Mountain Chief and his braves were expelled from their tribe for killing Chief Little Dog.  

Archives.  
John M. Bozeman's papers are now held by Archives and Special Collections at Montana State University.


Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>250falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/25-richard-h-barter--72840598Richard H. Barter (c. 1833 – July 11, 1859), known as "Rattlesnake Dick", was born in Lower Canada. Around 1850, he came to California on the Oregon Trail with three other family members. He tried his luck at mining at Rattlesnake Bar during the California Gold Rush. He was twice charged, and once convicted, of being a thief, the second time for stealing a mule. Once the mule and the real thief were found, he was released.  
For two years, Barter mined in Shasta County under the assumed name of Dick Woods. It was an uneventful period for him until a former foe from Rattlesnake Bar enter the county and shared information about Barter's reputation. Barter's name was sullied again. Turning outlaw, he became a highwayman and joined a gang that was known for stagecoach robbery.  
In the summer of 1856, Barter planned one of the biggest holdups during the gold rush. His gang stole $80,000 of gold bullion (equivalent to $2,866,667 in 2025) from a mule train guarded by the Wells Fargo Express, but Barter and Cyrus Skinner were arrested for stealing mules, which foiled the successful completion of the crime. Barter was killed on July 11, 1859 after a shoot-out with lawmen.  

Early life.  
Barter, born about 1833 in Quebec, Lower Canada, was the son of an officer of the British Army and a French-Canadian woman.  Both of his parents died by 1850 when he traveled to the United States with his older brother, and an older cousin, John Cross.  They traveled through America on the Oregon Trail. Barter's sister and brother-in-law, who traveled with them, settled in Sweet Home, Oregon. The two brothers and their cousin headed for the gold mines of California in the spring of 1851. Barter and his brother intended to work in gold mines and save money earned to their sister in Canada.  

Rattlesnake Bar.  
Barter, his brother, and cousin settled along the North Fork American River at Rattlesnake Bar, a mining camp with hundreds of cabins full of prospectors. In the early 1850s, it was known as a good place to prospect for gold. The men settled in an abandoned cabin. The camp had a saloon, jail, and a couple stores.  
By the time they arrived, though, the gold had thinned out considerably. The three men worked hard in difficult conditions, but they did not find much gold. Barter's sister encouraged the men to return to her and her husband's homestead, where they were "doing well". Barter's brother and cousin returned to Oregon after a year. By 1853, many of the miners moved on to new sites. About 1854, Barter stayed and did some prospecting on his own and worked for miners who had claims. He was so determined that Rattlesnake Bar would still provide him a fortune that other miners called him "Rattlesnake Dick" in a good-natured manner. Barter had experiences with other men, though, who were cruel and vindictive. A historian from Nevada County wrote that Barter was "naturally able, clever but selfish, vain, and devoid of the ordinary sense of right and wrong—one of these men whose course in life is governed by circumstances."  

Legal woes.  
In 1853, a fellow miner accused Barter of stealing from a dry goods store near Rattlesnake Bar. He was tried and found not guilty by the court. His friends agreed with the ruling. Lawman John Boggs accused Barter of stealing a horse or a mule the same year. Although Barter had professed his innocence for a second time, he was found guilty and sentenced to two years in prison. When the real culprit and the equine were found, Barter was released from the Folsom jail on his date of imprisonment,  before he was transferred to the prison.  
Having endured two trials for theft, he was considered by many to be a thief. Barter changed his name to Dick Woods and moved 200 miles (320 km) north to Shasta County where he mined for two years in the Lewiston, Trinity, and South Fork of the Klamath Rivers, as well as French Gulch. He met up with other miners who also left Rattlesnake Bar for Shasta County, he mined with some, he left those who were less friendly alone. He came across a man at French Gulch who knew him from Rattlesnake Bar and that he changed his surname to Woods. Besides mining, Barter also made money as a gambler.  
People from Rattlesnake Bar came to Shasta County and informed the locals about his reputation. Barter no longer felt welcome in the community.  

Criminal activity.  
Broke and homeless, Barter traveled south to the Red Bluff area and camped there. Barter held up someone for $400 (equivalent to $14,333 in 2025) there. He told the man that he robbed that his name was "Rattlesnake Dick", the "pirate of the Placers". Barter gained a reputation for robbery, stealing cattle, equines, and gold dust from sluices. Barter robbed mining camps, stores, houses, and travelers. He was best known as a highwayman, robbing stage coaches over six years. It became harder for Barter to avoid arrest as the number of lawmen increased and they became more effective at catching outlaws.  
Barter was suspected of planning with Tom Bell's gang to rob a pack train that was carrying $25,000 (equivalent to $895,833 in 2025) in gold on Trinity Mountains on March 12, 1856. George Skinner, Nicanora Rodriquez, and Big Dolph Newton of Tom Bell's gang performed the robbery.  
Beginning in the summer of 1856, "Barter went on to form gangs and terrorize the Sierra Foothills from Nevada City to Folsom." The gang he formed included:  
- George Skinner, a convicted robber and escapee.  
- Cyrus Skinner, George's brother, a convicted robber and escapee.  
- Big Dolph Newton, a horse thief.  
- Nicorona, also called Romero, an Italian.  
- Bill Carter, known for his skill with a gun.  
Jack Phillips, formerly one of the Sydney Ducks, ran the Mountaineer House near Auburn. Phillips let Barter know if lawmen were searching for him, after which he and his gang would go into hiding. 
Barter and his gang were involved in minor robberies in Trinity and Shasta County, during which time the men honed their skills and Barter began to trust them for bigger heists.  
In the summer of 1856, Barter planned one of the biggest holdups during the gold rush. The gang held up a mule train carrying gold bullion from the mines of Yreka, through the Trinity Mountains region. Since the mules were branded with the express company's name, "WF" for Wells Fargo, Barter and Cyrus stole mules and were to bring them to a meeting place. Meanwhile, the other four men and an unnamed Mexican man attacked the mule train on Trinity Mountain. They tied the guards up to trees and absconded with $80,000 of gold bullion (equivalent to $2,866,667 in 2025). The men then traveled to the pre-arranged meeting place, but Barter and Cyrus were not there. George and the other men checked the trails and waited for Barter, Cyrus, and the unmarked mules. On the third day of waiting, the Mexican man was nervous they would be caught and tried to leave, and George shot him out of fear he would tell others about the robbery. George buried half the gold and rode out with the other half to Folsom where the three robbers hid the remaining $40,000 in gold. The men went to Phillips' Mountaineer House to see if there was information about what had happened to Barter and Cyrus. They were met by a posse and James Barkeley, a detective for Wells Fargo. George was killed instantly, Romero was seriously injured, and the other two men surrendered. Romero and Newton were sentenced to ten years. Carter turned over the $40,000 that was buried at Folsom and was pardoned. He left the life of crime, and died a poor man. The other $40,000 in gold, buried secretly by George, presumably remains hidden. Barter and Cyrus were arrested for stealing mules and jailed in Auburn. The men escaped and separated. Cyrus was found near Auburn and ended up at the Angel Island penitentiary. Barter made it to San Francisco.  
The San Francisco Committee of Vigilance and policemen were suspicious of Barter, who was brought to the police department many times as a suspect. Barter left San Francisco and formed his own gang in 1858 that rivaled Tom Bell's gang with:
- Jim Driscoll.  
- George Taylor.  
- Billy Dickson.  
- Aleck Wright.  
Barter's gang went to mining areas northeast of San Francisco and committed highway robberies and burglaries. Their crimes were committed over five counties generally with just two men, so that it was easier and safer to get away after their thievery.  Barter was arrested several times and he broke out of "every jail in Placer and Nevada counties". Lawman John Boggs of Placer County, feared by outlaws, was persistent in his effort to capture Barter. Upon hearing that Barter was traveling by stage with Taylor, Boggs obtained a warrant and singlehandedly tried to arrest both men from a Nevada City stagecoach. Barter and Taylor claimed they were not the men that Boggs was seeking. Taylor asked to see the warrant, Boggs fumbled the paperwork, and Barter and Taylor shot at him. Boggs fired back and the outlaws ran away, avoiding arrest.  
On July 11, 1859, Barter and Wright went to Auburn for a drink in a saloon. Someone noticed Barter and spread the word that he was in town. Barter and Wright were met in Placer County, California by undersheriff George C. Johnston, deputy sheriff W. M. Crutcher, and deputy tax collector George W. Martin. Martin was killed, and Barter was injured but escaped. His body was found the next day outside Auburn with two bullets in the chest and a third in his brain. It seemed that Barter had been shot twice and would likely have died from the injury, but people speculated that he may have been shot a third time, this time in the head, for a quicker death. He could have done it himself, his companion may have done it, or someone else. It remains unknown who....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72840598Mon, 06 Jul 2026 15:32:24 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Richard H. Barter.   Richard H. Barter (c. 1833 – July 11, 1859), known as "Rattlesnake Dick", was born in Lower Canada. Around 1850, he came to California on the Oregon Trail with three other family members. He tried his luck at mining at Rattlesnake...Richard H. Barter (c. 1833 – July 11, 1859), known as "Rattlesnake Dick", was born in Lower Canada. Around 1850, he came to California on the Oregon Trail with three other family members. He tried his luck at mining at Rattlesnake Bar during the California Gold Rush. He was twice charged, and once convicted, of being a thief, the second time for stealing a mule. Once the mule and the real thief were found, he was released.  
For two years, Barter mined in Shasta County under the assumed name of Dick Woods. It was an uneventful period for him until a former foe from Rattlesnake Bar enter the county and shared information about Barter's reputation. Barter's name was sullied again. Turning outlaw, he became a highwayman and joined a gang that was known for stagecoach robbery.  
In the summer of 1856, Barter planned one of the biggest holdups during the gold rush. His gang stole $80,000 of gold bullion (equivalent to $2,866,667 in 2025) from a mule train guarded by the Wells Fargo Express, but Barter and Cyrus Skinner were arrested for stealing mules, which foiled the successful completion of the crime. Barter was killed on July 11, 1859 after a shoot-out with lawmen.  

Early life.  
Barter, born about 1833 in Quebec, Lower Canada, was the son of an officer of the British Army and a French-Canadian woman.  Both of his parents died by 1850 when he traveled to the United States with his older brother, and an older cousin, John Cross.  They traveled through America on the Oregon Trail. Barter's sister and brother-in-law, who traveled with them, settled in Sweet Home, Oregon. The two brothers and their cousin headed for the gold mines of California in the spring of 1851. Barter and his brother intended to work in gold mines and save money earned to their sister in Canada.  

Rattlesnake Bar.  
Barter, his brother, and cousin settled along the North Fork American River at Rattlesnake Bar, a mining camp with hundreds of cabins full of prospectors. In the early 1850s, it was known as a good place to prospect for gold. The men settled in an abandoned cabin. The camp had a saloon, jail, and a couple stores.  
By the time they arrived, though, the gold had thinned out considerably. The three men worked hard in difficult conditions, but they did not find much gold. Barter's sister encouraged the men to return to her and her husband's homestead, where they were "doing well". Barter's brother and cousin returned to Oregon after a year. By 1853, many of the miners moved on to new sites. About 1854, Barter stayed and did some prospecting on his own and worked for miners who had claims. He was so determined that Rattlesnake Bar would still provide him a fortune that other miners called him "Rattlesnake Dick" in a good-natured manner. Barter had experiences with other men, though, who were cruel and vindictive. A historian from Nevada County wrote that Barter was "naturally able, clever but selfish, vain, and devoid of the ordinary sense of right and wrong—one of these men whose course in life is governed by circumstances."  

Legal woes.  
In 1853, a fellow miner accused Barter of stealing from a dry goods store near Rattlesnake Bar. He was tried and found not guilty by the court. His friends agreed with the ruling. Lawman John Boggs accused Barter of stealing a horse or a mule the same year. Although Barter had professed his innocence for a second time, he was found guilty and sentenced to two years in prison. When the real culprit and the equine were found, Barter was released from the Folsom jail on his date of imprisonment,  before he was transferred to the prison.  
Having endured two trials for theft, he was considered by many to be a thief. Barter changed his name to Dick Woods and moved 200 miles (320 km) north to Shasta County where he mined for two years in the Lewiston, Trinity, and South Fork of the Klamath Rivers, as well as French Gulch....]]>772falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/24-francoise-duchesse-de-praslin--72839501Françoise, Duchess de Choiseul-Praslin (April 14, 1807 – August 17, 1847) was a French duchess and heiress who was found murdered. Her husband, Charles de Choiseul, Duke of Praslin was believed guilty for her death and committed suicide while awaiting trial days later on August 24, 1847. These events in 1847 contributed to the French Revolution of 1848.  

Biography.  
Her birth name was Françoise Altarice Rosalba Sébastiani. Her nickname was "Fanny". She was the daughter of Jeanne-Françoise-Antoinette "Fanny" Sébastiani (née Franquetot de Coigny) (1778–1807) and Horace Sébastiani (1771–1851), a French politician and army general. She was born in Constantinople where her father was stationed. Her mother died while giving birth to her. Her family was very wealthy and her father was a peer in Corsica.  
She married the duke at age 17 in 1824 and had as many as 9 children with him, with many miscarriages. After going through several governesses for their children, they hired a woman named Henriette Deluzy. Deluzy spent six years with the family, and it was a public scandal when it was widely reported the duke and Deluzy were lovers, which infuriated the duchess.  
The duchess fired Deluzy in June 1847, which sent their household into a tailspin. The Duchess felt she was being estranged from her children and her husband had lost interest in her. She was no longer thin and beautiful like she was when they first married when she was 17. She was now nearing 40 years old and was over-weight from her many childbirths. She threatened to divorce the duke after he refused to fire Deluzy himself, which would mean that her family's money would go with her, leaving him much less wealthy.  
This was not such an issue since his own father, Charles Laure Hugues Théobald, duc de Choiseul-Praslin, had left him a sizeable fortune amounting to well over nine million francs. She had announced her plans to wrest the children from him by declaring him unfit to have custody of the children because of his supposed adultery. The duc was first and foremost an utterly devoted father and that he could not bear. It was widely understood that that was what propelled him to take this step. In those days divorce would have severely hampered his daughters chances of brilliant matches and thus in an attempt to dispel one scandal he propitiated the worst of its kind by resorting to murder.  
It is generally believed that, during a visit to Paris, the duc murdered her while she was sleeping. After Deluzy was fired, she had moved into the lodging house of one Mme Renaud. The governess had been desperate for a letter of recommendation from the duchesse which, declaring herself innocent of the charge of having an affair with the duc and believing herself to have dedicated the past six years of her life to caring for the Praslin children, she was entitled to and without which she would find it impossible to get another post. The duchesse possibly seeing a chance to gain her revenge on the governess she sorely detested is believed to have refused to write the recommendation.  
The duchesse had her throat slashed and was hit with blunt objects, leaving cuts and marks all over her body. This caused further scandal because her husband, being a duc, was protected from being sentenced and jailed until other peers met and came to an agreement on the proceedings. While the duke awaited what was likely to be a long prison sentence, he poisoned himself with arsenic. He died within six days of first appearing sick on August 24, 1847. He never confessed to his wife's murder.  
The governess, Henriette Deluzy, was arrested because officials believed she could have been involved in the plot with the duc to kill the duchesse. She was cleared of any wrongdoing, left France, and emigrated to the United States where she married and hosted an artistic and intellectual salon. The younger children of the duc and duchesse were split up and raised by family members.  
French society was still reverberating from the aristocratic Teste–Cubières political corruption scandal which was revealed in May 1847. The controversy created by the death of the duc and duchesse further contributed to the start of the French Revolution of 1848. The couple were considered members of the royal court of the King Louis Philippe I and their scandals added to the public feeling that the King and his court were not trustworthy or honorable. King Louis was forced to abdicate the throne and he fled to England where he lived the rest of his life.  
During this time period, the family owned Vaux-le-Vicomte and had a residence in Paris.  

In popular culture.  
Writer Rachel Field, who claimed Henriette Deluzy was her great-aunt, wrote a novel about the events titled All This, and Heaven Too, which was released in 1938. In 1940, a film was made of the same name All This, and Heaven Too, in which the duchess was portrayed by actress Barbara O'Neil, the duke by Charles Boyer and Bette Davis portraying Henriette Deluzy. O'Neil was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as the duchess, and the film was nominated for Best Picture of the Year.  


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72839501Mon, 06 Jul 2026 13:56:52 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Françoise, Duchesse de Praslin.   Françoise, Duchess de Choiseul-Praslin (April 14, 1807 – August 17, 1847) was a French duchess and heiress who was found murdered. Her husband, Charles de Choiseul, Duke of Praslin was believed guilty for her death...Françoise, Duchess de Choiseul-Praslin (April 14, 1807 – August 17, 1847) was a French duchess and heiress who was found murdered. Her husband, Charles de Choiseul, Duke of Praslin was believed guilty for her death and committed suicide while awaiting trial days later on August 24, 1847. These events in 1847 contributed to the French Revolution of 1848.  

Biography.  
Her birth name was Françoise Altarice Rosalba Sébastiani. Her nickname was "Fanny". She was the daughter of Jeanne-Françoise-Antoinette "Fanny" Sébastiani (née Franquetot de Coigny) (1778–1807) and Horace Sébastiani (1771–1851), a French politician and army general. She was born in Constantinople where her father was stationed. Her mother died while giving birth to her. Her family was very wealthy and her father was a peer in Corsica.  
She married the duke at age 17 in 1824 and had as many as 9 children with him, with many miscarriages. After going through several governesses for their children, they hired a woman named Henriette Deluzy. Deluzy spent six years with the family, and it was a public scandal when it was widely reported the duke and Deluzy were lovers, which infuriated the duchess.  
The duchess fired Deluzy in June 1847, which sent their household into a tailspin. The Duchess felt she was being estranged from her children and her husband had lost interest in her. She was no longer thin and beautiful like she was when they first married when she was 17. She was now nearing 40 years old and was over-weight from her many childbirths. She threatened to divorce the duke after he refused to fire Deluzy himself, which would mean that her family's money would go with her, leaving him much less wealthy.  
This was not such an issue since his own father, Charles Laure Hugues Théobald, duc de Choiseul-Praslin, had left him a sizeable fortune amounting to well over nine million francs. She had announced her plans to wrest the children from him by declaring him unfit to have custody of the children because of his supposed adultery. The duc was first and foremost an utterly devoted father and that he could not bear. It was widely understood that that was what propelled him to take this step. In those days divorce would have severely hampered his daughters chances of brilliant matches and thus in an attempt to dispel one scandal he propitiated the worst of its kind by resorting to murder.  
It is generally believed that, during a visit to Paris, the duc murdered her while she was sleeping. After Deluzy was fired, she had moved into the lodging house of one Mme Renaud. The governess had been desperate for a letter of recommendation from the duchesse which, declaring herself innocent of the charge of having an affair with the duc and believing herself to have dedicated the past six years of her life to caring for the Praslin children, she was entitled to and without which she would find it impossible to get another post. The duchesse possibly seeing a chance to gain her revenge on the governess she sorely detested is believed to have refused to write the recommendation.  
The duchesse had her throat slashed and was hit with blunt objects, leaving cuts and marks all over her body. This caused further scandal because her husband, being a duc, was protected from being sentenced and jailed until other peers met and came to an agreement on the proceedings. While the duke awaited what was likely to be a long prison sentence, he poisoned himself with arsenic. He died within six days of first appearing sick on August 24, 1847. He never confessed to his wife's murder.  
The governess, Henriette Deluzy, was arrested because officials believed she could have been involved in the plot with the duc to kill the duchesse. She was cleared of any wrongdoing, left France, and emigrated to the United States where she married and hosted an artistic and intellectual salon. The younger children of...]]>342falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/23-joseph-smith-part-4--72828770End Times and Zion (1831).  
Smith taught the he and his followers were living in the "later days", calling church members "Later-Day Saints". In 1831, Smith announced a revelation that the Zion of end times would be centered in Independence, Missouri.  

Three "Degrees of Glory" in the afterlife (1832).  
An 1832 revelation called "The Vision" added to the fundamentals of sin and atonement, and introduced doctrines of life after salvation, exaltation, and a heaven with degrees of glory. On February 16, 1832, while working on translation of the Bible , Smith and Rigdon received what was known to early Latter Day Saints as "the Vision." It detailed a heaven divided into three degrees of glory (the celestial, terrestrial, and telestial kingdoms), where resurrected beings would go after the final judgement.  

Book of Commandments and Temperance (1833).  
In 1833, Smith edited and expanded many of the previous revelations, publishing them as the Book of Commandments, which later became part of the Doctrine and Covenants.  
In 1833, at a time of temperance agitation, Smith delivered a revelation called the "Word of Wisdom", which counseled a diet of wholesome herbs, fruits, grains and a sparing use of meat. It also recommended that Latter Day Saints avoid "strong" alcoholic drinks, tobacco, and "hot drinks" (later interpreted to mean tea and coffee). The Word of Wisdom was originally framed as a recommendation rather than a commandment and was not strictly followed by Smith and other early Latter Day Saints, though it later became a requirement in the LDS Church.  
Before 1832, most of Smith's revelations concerned establishing the church, gathering followers, and building the city of Zion. Later revelations dealt primarily with the priesthood, endowment, and exaltation. The pace of formal revelations slowed during the autumn of 1833 and again after the dedication of the Kirtland Temple. Smith moved away from formal written revelations spoken in God's voice, and instead taught more in sermons, conversations, and letters. For instance, the doctrines of baptism for the dead and the nature of God were introduced in sermons, and one of Smith's most famed statements, about there being "no such thing as immaterial matter", was recorded from a casual conversation with a Methodist preacher.  

Evolving authority claims.  
In the mid-1830s, Smith's teaching expanded his claim to authority over an increasingly-hierarchical church. In February 1835, Smith issued revelations to begin naming Apostles and to markedly increase the authority of the high priesthood. Smith said he and Cowdery had received authority to do so during past in-person meetings, years prior, with a litany of biblical figures. After an 1838 split with Cowdery, Smith reported having met God and Jesus, two physical beings, in childhood.  

The Armies of Israel or "Zion's Camp" elevated in authority (1834–1835).  
After church members in Independence, Missouri were violently expelled from their homes, Smith dictated a revelation calling upon him to raise an army to "Redeem Zion" and serve as its commander-in-chief.  
On February 14, 1835, a "meeting was called for the camp of Zion to be assembled, to receive what was called a Zion's blessing". Smith and the Three Witnesses named twelve men to the office of "Apostle", while other members of the Zion's Camp force were ordained to the priesthood office of "Seventy".  
While the High Priesthood dated to 1831, Bushman reports it received little public attention and was not an office of authority until March 1835. That month, Smith, the President of the High Priesthood, issued a revelation declaring that the High Priesthood "holds the right of presidency, and has power and authority over all the offices in the church". The revelation held that "All other authorities, or offices in the church, are appendages to this priesthood". Originally called simply the "High Priesthood", it later became known as the "Melchizedek Priesthood", named for the biblical priest Melchizedek.  
Smith taught a hierarchy of three priesthoods—the Melchizedek, the Aaronic, and the Patriarchal. Each priesthood was a continuation of biblical priesthoods through lineal succession or through ordination by biblical figures appearing in visions. By 1835, the "lesser priesthood" was referred to as the Aaronic Priesthood.  

Past visits by biblical figures to Smith and Cowdery (1835).  
In 1835, Smith and his followers published the Doctrine and Covenants featuring an updated version of an 1830 revelation. The text added in 1835 mentioned visits by Moroni, John the Baptist, patriarchs Joseph, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham, and Michael or Adam, and the apostles Peter, James and John.  
In his official history, begun in 1838, Smith narrated the encounter: "The messenger who visited us on this occasion and conferred this Priesthood upon us, said that his name was John, the same that is called John the Baptist in the New Testament, and that he acted under the direction of Peter, James and John, who held the keys of the Priesthood of Melchizedek, which Priesthood, he said, would in due time be conferred on us, and that I should be called the first Elder of the Church, and he (Oliver Cowdery) the second. It was on the fifteenth day of May, 1829, that we were ordained under the hand of this messenger, and baptized."  
Smith taught that the High Priesthood's endowment of heavenly power included the sealing powers of Elijah, allowing High Priests to perform ceremonies with effects that continued after death. For example, this power would enable proxy baptisms for the dead and marriages that would last into eternity. Elijah's sealing powers also enabled the second anointing, or "fulness  of the priesthood", which, according to Smith, sealed married couples to their exaltation.  
On January 21, 1836, Smith introduced the practice of Washing and anointing. In 1852, years after Smith's death, the Deseret News would publish an account of Smith and Cowdery having seen Jesus, Moses, Elias, and Elijah in April 1836.  

Childhood encounter with God the Father and Christ (1838).  
On April 12, 1838, Smith's longtime partner Oliver Cowdrey was excommunicated after he criticized Joseph's relationship with Fanny Alger. That year, Smith reported a childhood encounter with 'two personages', God and Jesus, that had occurred years before he had met Cowdery. Smith said that, although he had become concerned about the welfare of his soul, he was confused by the claims of competing religious denominations. Smith wrote that he had received a vision that resolved his religious confusion. He said that in 1820, while he had been praying in a wooded area near his home, God the Father and Jesus Christ together appeared to him, told him his sins were forgiven, and said that all contemporary churches had "turned aside from the gospel". Wrote Smith: "I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!".  Smith said he recounted the experience to a Methodist minister, who dismissed the story "with great contempt". According to historian Steven C. Harper, "There is no evidence in the historical record that Joseph Smith told anyone but the minister of his vision for at least a decade", and Smith might have kept it private because of how uncomfortable that first dismissal was.  During the 1830s, Smith orally described the vision to some of his followers, though it was not widely published among Mormons until the 1840s. This vision later grew in importance to Smith's followers, who eventually regarded it as the first event in the restoration of Christ's church to Earth. Smith himself may have originally considered the vision to be a personal conversion.  

Late teachings.  
Smith first taught the doctrine of Baptism for the Dead at the funeral sermon of a deceased church member, Seymour Brunson. In a letter written on October 19, 1840, to the church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (who were on a mission in the United Kingdom at the time), Smith refers to the passage in 1 Corinthians 15:29 (KJV):  
I presume the doctrine of 'baptism for the dead' has ere this reached your ears, and may have raised some inquiries in your minds respecting the same. I cannot in this letter give you all the information you may desire on the subject; but aside from knowledge independent of the Bible, I would say that it was certainly practiced by the ancient churches; and Saint Paul endeavors to prove the doctrine of the resurrection from the same, and says, 'Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead?'  
LDS Church scripture expands further upon this doctrine and states that such baptisms are to be performed in temples.  Vicarious baptism is performed in connection with other vicarious ordinances in temples of the Church, such as the endowment and celestial marriage.  

Book of Abraham (1842).  
In 1835, Smith encouraged some Latter Day Saints in Kirtland to purchase rolls of ancient Egyptian papyri from a traveling exhibitor. He said they contained the writings of the ancient patriarchs Abraham and Joseph. Over the next several years, Smith dictated to scribes what he reported was a revelatory translation of one of these rolls, which was published in 1842 as the Book of Abraham. The Book of Abraham speaks of the founding of the Abrahamic nation, astronomy, cosmology, lineage and priesthood, and gives another account of the creation story. The Book of Abraham text is a source of some distinct Latter Day Saint doctrines, which Mormon author Randal S. Chase calls "truths...

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72828770Sun, 05 Jul 2026 17:10:51 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Joseph Smith. (part 4).   End Times and Zion (1831).   Smith taught the he and his followers were living in the "later days", calling church members "Later-Day Saints". In 1831, Smith announced a revelation that the Zion of end times would be centered...End Times and Zion (1831).  
Smith taught the he and his followers were living in the "later days", calling church members "Later-Day Saints". In 1831, Smith announced a revelation that the Zion of end times would be centered in Independence, Missouri.  

Three "Degrees of Glory" in the afterlife (1832).  
An 1832 revelation called "The Vision" added to the fundamentals of sin and atonement, and introduced doctrines of life after salvation, exaltation, and a heaven with degrees of glory. On February 16, 1832, while working on translation of the Bible , Smith and Rigdon received what was known to early Latter Day Saints as "the Vision." It detailed a heaven divided into three degrees of glory (the celestial, terrestrial, and telestial kingdoms), where resurrected beings would go after the final judgement.  

Book of Commandments and Temperance (1833).  
In 1833, Smith edited and expanded many of the previous revelations, publishing them as the Book of Commandments, which later became part of the Doctrine and Covenants.  
In 1833, at a time of temperance agitation, Smith delivered a revelation called the "Word of Wisdom", which counseled a diet of wholesome herbs, fruits, grains and a sparing use of meat. It also recommended that Latter Day Saints avoid "strong" alcoholic drinks, tobacco, and "hot drinks" (later interpreted to mean tea and coffee). The Word of Wisdom was originally framed as a recommendation rather than a commandment and was not strictly followed by Smith and other early Latter Day Saints, though it later became a requirement in the LDS Church.  
Before 1832, most of Smith's revelations concerned establishing the church, gathering followers, and building the city of Zion. Later revelations dealt primarily with the priesthood, endowment, and exaltation. The pace of formal revelations slowed during the autumn of 1833 and again after the dedication of the Kirtland Temple. Smith moved away from formal written revelations spoken in God's voice, and instead taught more in sermons, conversations, and letters. For instance, the doctrines of baptism for the dead and the nature of God were introduced in sermons, and one of Smith's most famed statements, about there being "no such thing as immaterial matter", was recorded from a casual conversation with a Methodist preacher.  

Evolving authority claims.  
In the mid-1830s, Smith's teaching expanded his claim to authority over an increasingly-hierarchical church. In February 1835, Smith issued revelations to begin naming Apostles and to markedly increase the authority of the high priesthood. Smith said he and Cowdery had received authority to do so during past in-person meetings, years prior, with a litany of biblical figures. After an 1838 split with Cowdery, Smith reported having met God and Jesus, two physical beings, in childhood.  

The Armies of Israel or "Zion's Camp" elevated in authority (1834–1835).  
After church members in Independence, Missouri were violently expelled from their homes, Smith dictated a revelation calling upon him to raise an army to "Redeem Zion" and serve as its commander-in-chief.  
On February 14, 1835, a "meeting was called for the camp of Zion to be assembled, to receive what was called a Zion's blessing". Smith and the Three Witnesses named twelve men to the office of "Apostle", while other members of the Zion's Camp force were ordained to the priesthood office of "Seventy".  
While the High Priesthood dated to 1831, Bushman reports it received little public attention and was not an office of authority until March 1835. That month, Smith, the President of the High Priesthood, issued a revelation declaring that the High Priesthood "holds the right of presidency, and has power and authority over all the offices in the church". The revelation held that "All other authorities, or offices in the church, are appendages to...]]>1217falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/22-joseph-smith-part-3--72828534Legacy.  
Modern biographers and scholars agree that Smith was one of the most influential, charismatic, and innovative figures in American religious history. In a 2015 compilation of the 100 Most Significant Americans of All Time, Smithsonian ranked Smith first in the category of religious figures. In popular opinion, non-Mormons in the U.S. generally consider Smith a "charlatan, scoundrel, and heretic", while outside the U.S. he is "obscure".  
Within the Latter Day Saint movement, Smith's legacy varies between denominations: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and its members consider Smith the founding prophet of their church, on par with Moses and Elijah.   Meanwhile, Smith's reputation is ambivalent in the Community of Christ, which continues "honoring his role" in the church's founding history but deemphasizes his human leadership. Conversely, Woolleyite Mormon fundamentalism has deified Smith within a cosmology of many gods.  
Memorials to Smith include the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City the former Joseph Smith Memorial building on the campus of Brigham Young University as well as the Joseph Smith Building there, a granite obelisk marking Smith's birthplace, and a fifteen-foot-tall bronze statue of Smith in the World Peace Dome in Pune, India.  

Succession crisis and split into denominations.  
Smith's death resulted in a succession crisis within the Latter Day Saint movement. He had proposed several ways to choose his successor, but never clarified his preference. The two strongest succession candidates were Young, senior member and president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and Rigdon, the senior remaining member of the First Presidency. In a church-wide conference on August 8, most of the Latter Day Saints present elected Young. They eventually left Nauvoo and settled the Salt Lake Valley, Utah Territory.  
Nominal membership in Young's denomination, which became the LDS Church, surpassed 17 million in 2023. Smaller groups followed Rigdon and James J. Strang, who had based his claim on a letter of appointment ostensibly written by Smith but which some scholars believe was forged. Some hundreds followed Lyman Wight to establish a community in Texas. Others followed Alpheus Cutler. Many members of these smaller groups, including most of Smith's family, eventually coalesced in 1860 under the leadership of Joseph Smith III and formed the RLDS Church (Community of Christ), which has about 250,000 members.  

Family and descendants.  
The first of Smith's wives, Emma Hale, gave birth to nine children during their marriage, five of whom died before the age of two. The eldest, Alvin (born in 1828), died within hours of birth, as did twins Thaddeus and Louisa (born in 1831). When the twins died, the Smiths adopted another set of twins, Julia and Joseph Murdock, whose mother had recently died in childbirth; the adopted male twin died of measles in 1832. In 1841, Don Carlos, who had been born a year earlier, died of malaria, and five months later, in 1842, Emma gave birth to a stillborn son.  
Joseph and Emma had five children who lived to maturity: adopted Julia Murdock, Joseph Smith III, David Hyrum Smith, Frederick Granger Williams Smith, and Alexander Hale Smith. Some historians have speculated—based on journal entries and family stories—that Smith fathered children with his plural wives. However, in cases where DNA testing of potential Smith descendants from plural wives has been possible, results have been negative.  
After Smith's death, Emma was quickly alienated from Young and the LDS leadership. Emma feared and despised Young, who in turn was suspicious of Emma's desire to preserve the family's assets from inclusion with those of the church. He also disliked her open opposition to plural marriage. Young excluded Emma from ecclesiastical meetings and from social gatherings. When most Mormons moved west, Emma stayed in Nauvoo and married a non-Mormon, Major Lewis C. Bidamon. She withdrew from religion until 1860, when she affiliated with the RLDS Church headed by her son, Joseph III. Emma maintained her belief that Smith had been a prophet, and she never repudiated her belief in the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.  

Polygamous wives.  
Smith reportedly began teaching a polygamy doctrine as early as 1831. Although the church had publicly repudiated polygamy, in 1837 there was a rift between Smith and Cowdery over the issue. Cowdery suspected Smith had engaged in a relationship with teenager Fanny Alger, who worked in the Smith household as a serving girl. Smith insisted that he had never committed adultery, "presumably", historian Bushman argues, "because he had married Alger" as a plural wife.  
In April 1841, Smith secretly wed Louisa Beaman, and during the next two-and-a-half years he secretly married or was sealed to about thirty or forty additional women. Ten of his plural wives were between the ages of fourteen and twenty; others were over fifty. Ten were already married to other men, though some of these polyandrous marriages were contracted with the consent of the first husbands.  Evidence for whether and to what degree Smith's polygamous marriages involved sex is ambiguous and varies between marriages. Some polygamous marriages may have been considered solely religious marriages that would not take effect until after death. In any case, during Smith's lifetime, the practice of polygamy was kept secret from both non-Mormons and most members of the church. Polygamy caused a breach between Smith and his first wife, Emma;  historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich summarizes by stating that "Emma vacillated in her support for plural marriage, sometimes acquiescing to Joseph's sealings, sometimes resisting".  

Views and teachings.  
Smith's teachings were rooted in dispensational restorationism. He taught that the true Church of Christ had been lost in the Great Apostasy but was restored by the Book of Mormon. Smith promoted the Jewish Indian theory that some Native Americans are descendants of the ancient Israelites.  

Foundational teachings.  
Nighttime visit by treasure guardian (1823).  
Joseph Smith taught that he had been visited in the night by a being who revealed the location of a nearby treasure.  
Early accounts mention the possibility that the encounter took place in a dream. In 1829, a local newspaper account claimed Smith "had been visited in a dream by the spirit of the Almighty" and was "thrice thus visited". In an 1832 account, Smith similarly taught that "being exceedingly frightened, I supposed it had been a dream of vision, but when I considered, I knew that it was not." In a January 1835 account, Smith described lying awake in bed when the visitation by an unnamed angel occurred. According to this account, he "saw in the vision the place where [the plates of gold] were deposited."  
Early accounts describe the visitor as a 'spirit' or a 'ghost', while later accounts mention a deceased man who had become an angel. D. Michael Quinn writes "It was not customary to use 'angel' to describe a personage who had been mortal, had died, and was returning to earth to give a message to someone. An 1830 article argued that that Smith "made a league with the spirit, who afterwards turned out to be an angel". Vogel concludes "The word 'angel' is anachronstic to the 1823 setting".  
By the mid-1830s, the being was described by the name Moroni, while later accounts mentioned the name Nephi. A hostile account published in 1834 identified the guardian as an old man named "Moroni". In the 1835 printing of a revelation reportedly given in September 1830, the being who visited Smith was identified as Moroni, the figure from the Book of Mormon. In Smith's 1838 account, he described Nephi (not Moroni), an "angel of light" who "had on a loose robe of most exquisite whiteness. It was a whiteness beyond anything earthly I had ever seen ... His hands were naked and his arms also a little above the wrists .... Not only was his robe exceedingly white but his whole person was glorious beyond description". Many of Smith's followers taught that Smith had encountered both Moroni and Nephi, but in the 1870s, decades after his death, Smith's followers concluded the name "Nephi" had been an error; Subsequent printings changed "Nephi" to "Moroni". 

Failed treasure retrievals (1823–1826).  
Earliest accounts describe Smith's failed attempt to recover the treasure through the lens of folk magic. Willard Chase, a treasure-digging neighbor, recalled Joseph Sr telling him in 1827 about an attempt to recover the treasure years prior, where Joseph Jr. dressed in black clothes on a black horse had briefly obtained the treasure, only to lose it for failing to follow instructions.  
Chase recalled that "he laid it down to place the top stone, as he found it; and turning round, to his surprise there was no book in sight." Knight similarly recalled that Smith set the plates down, only to find they had disappeared.  
Chase recalled hearing that the guardian was a "spirit" who looked "something like a toad, which soon assumed the appearance of a man" and struck Joseph thrice. Benjamin Saunders likewise recalled a tale of "something down near the box that looked some [thing] like a toad that rose up into a man which forbid him to take the plates."  
According to Chase's tale, the guardian instructed him to return the following year with his brother Alvin.  
According to Smith's 1838 account, Smith "made an attempt to take them out, but was forbidden by the messenger, and was again informed that the time for bringing them forth had not yet arrived, neither would it, until four years from that time; but he told me that I should come to that place precisely in one year from that time, and....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72828534Sun, 05 Jul 2026 16:29:20 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Joseph Smith. (part 3).   Legacy.   Modern biographers and scholars agree that Smith was one of the most influential, charismatic, and innovative figures in American religious history. In a 2015 compilation of the 100 Most Significant Americans of All...Legacy.  
Modern biographers and scholars agree that Smith was one of the most influential, charismatic, and innovative figures in American religious history. In a 2015 compilation of the 100 Most Significant Americans of All Time, Smithsonian ranked Smith first in the category of religious figures. In popular opinion, non-Mormons in the U.S. generally consider Smith a "charlatan, scoundrel, and heretic", while outside the U.S. he is "obscure".  
Within the Latter Day Saint movement, Smith's legacy varies between denominations: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and its members consider Smith the founding prophet of their church, on par with Moses and Elijah.   Meanwhile, Smith's reputation is ambivalent in the Community of Christ, which continues "honoring his role" in the church's founding history but deemphasizes his human leadership. Conversely, Woolleyite Mormon fundamentalism has deified Smith within a cosmology of many gods.  
Memorials to Smith include the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City the former Joseph Smith Memorial building on the campus of Brigham Young University as well as the Joseph Smith Building there, a granite obelisk marking Smith's birthplace, and a fifteen-foot-tall bronze statue of Smith in the World Peace Dome in Pune, India.  

Succession crisis and split into denominations.  
Smith's death resulted in a succession crisis within the Latter Day Saint movement. He had proposed several ways to choose his successor, but never clarified his preference. The two strongest succession candidates were Young, senior member and president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and Rigdon, the senior remaining member of the First Presidency. In a church-wide conference on August 8, most of the Latter Day Saints present elected Young. They eventually left Nauvoo and settled the Salt Lake Valley, Utah Territory.  
Nominal membership in Young's denomination, which became the LDS Church, surpassed 17 million in 2023. Smaller groups followed Rigdon and James J. Strang, who had based his claim on a letter of appointment ostensibly written by Smith but which some scholars believe was forged. Some hundreds followed Lyman Wight to establish a community in Texas. Others followed Alpheus Cutler. Many members of these smaller groups, including most of Smith's family, eventually coalesced in 1860 under the leadership of Joseph Smith III and formed the RLDS Church (Community of Christ), which has about 250,000 members.  

Family and descendants.  
The first of Smith's wives, Emma Hale, gave birth to nine children during their marriage, five of whom died before the age of two. The eldest, Alvin (born in 1828), died within hours of birth, as did twins Thaddeus and Louisa (born in 1831). When the twins died, the Smiths adopted another set of twins, Julia and Joseph Murdock, whose mother had recently died in childbirth; the adopted male twin died of measles in 1832. In 1841, Don Carlos, who had been born a year earlier, died of malaria, and five months later, in 1842, Emma gave birth to a stillborn son.  
Joseph and Emma had five children who lived to maturity: adopted Julia Murdock, Joseph Smith III, David Hyrum Smith, Frederick Granger Williams Smith, and Alexander Hale Smith. Some historians have speculated—based on journal entries and family stories—that Smith fathered children with his plural wives. However, in cases where DNA testing of potential Smith descendants from plural wives has been possible, results have been negative.  
After Smith's death, Emma was quickly alienated from Young and the LDS leadership. Emma feared and despised Young, who in turn was suspicious of Emma's desire to preserve the family's assets from inclusion with those of the church. He also disliked her open opposition to plural marriage. Young excluded Emma from ecclesiastical meetings and from social gatherings....]]>1194falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/21-joseph-smith-part-2--72828064Strife and war in Far West, Missouri (1838–39).  
By 1838, Smith had abandoned plans to reclaim the city of Independence and instead declared the town of Far West as the new "Zion". In Missouri, the church also took the name "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints", and construction began on a new temple. In the weeks and months after Smith and Rigdon arrived at Far West, thousands of Latter Day Saints followed them from Kirtland. Smith encouraged the settlement of land outside Caldwell County, instituting a settlement in Adam-ondi-Ahman, in Daviess County.  
Since 1830, Smith's claims about the golden plates had been corroborated by statements from the Three Witnesses: Oliver Cowdrey, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer. In December 1837, Harris was excommunicated after denouncing Joseph Smith as a financial fraudster over the bank scandal, while Whitmer and Cowdrey were excommunicated for dissent in April 1838. In June 1838, a secret group called the Danites was formed to deal with dissenters who had split with Smith. A letter was addressed specifically to the principal dissenters: Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, John Whitmer, William Wines Phelps, and Lyman E. Johnson. The letter demanded the dissenters vacate the county, warning "depart, or a more fatal calamity shall befall you." The letter — later known as the "Danite Manifesto" — displayed the signatures of eighty-three Mormons, including that of Joseph Smith's brother, and fellow member of the First Presidency, Hyrum, but not Joseph or Rigdon. The letter had the desired effect, and the few named dissenters quickly fled the county. That July, Smith wrote in his diary that the Danites were a force to "put to right that which is not right, and to clense the Church of every great evil".  
Beginning in 1838, Smith told followers that, as a teen, he had been visited by "two personages" that he identified as God and Jesus. According to his 1838 account, the young Smith asked the personages which church was correct and was told that all were wrong.  
Political and religious differences between old Missourians and newly arriving Latter Day Saint settlers provoked tensions between the two groups, much as they had in Jackson County. By this time, Smith's experiences with mob violence led him to believe that his faith's survival required greater militancy against anti-Mormons. Tensions between the Mormons and the native Missourians escalated quickly until, on August 6, 1838, non-Mormons in Gallatin, Missouri, tried to prevent Mormons from voting, and a brawl ensued. The election day scuffles initiated the 1838 Mormon War. Non-Mormon vigilantes raided and burned Mormon farms, while Danites and other Mormons pillaged non-Mormon towns.  
In the Battle of Crooked River, a group of Mormons attacked the Missouri state militia, mistaking them for anti-Mormon vigilantes. Governor Lilburn Boggs then ordered that the Mormons be "exterminated or driven from the state". On October 30, a party of Missourians surprised and killed seventeen Mormons in the Haun's Mill massacre.  
The following day, the Mormons surrendered to 2,500 state troops and agreed to forfeit their property and leave the state.   Smith was immediately brought before a military court, accused of treason, and sentenced to be executed the next morning, but Alexander Doniphan, who was Smith's former attorney and a brigadier general in the Missouri militia, refused to carry out the order. Smith was then sent to a state court for a preliminary hearing, where several of his former allies testified against him. Smith and five others, including Rigdon, were charged with treason, and transferred to the jail at Liberty, Missouri, to await trial.  
During his imprisonment, Smith wrote a personal defense and an apology for the activities of his followers. Though he directed his followers to collect and publish their stories of persecution, he also urged them to moderate their antagonism toward non-Mormons. On April 6, 1839, after a grand jury hearing in Daviess County, Smith and his companions escaped custody, almost certainly with the connivance of the sheriff and guards.  

Rule in Nauvoo, Illinois (1839–1844).  
Many American newspapers criticized Missouri for the Haun's Mill massacre and the state's expulsion of the Mormons. Illinois then accepted Mormon refugees who gathered along the banks of the Mississippi River, where Smith purchased high-priced, swampy woodland in the hamlet of Commerce. He attempted to portray the Mormons as an oppressed minority and unsuccessfully petitioned the federal government for help in obtaining reparations.  
Smith also attracted a few wealthy and influential allies, including John C. Bennett, the Illinois quartermaster general. Bennett used his connections in the Illinois state legislature to obtain an unusually liberal charter for the new city, which Smith renamed "Nauvoo". The charter granted the city virtual autonomy, authorized a university, and granted Nauvoo habeas corpus power—which allowed Smith to fend off extradition to Missouri. Though Latter Day Saint authorities controlled Nauvoo's civil government, the city guaranteed religious freedom for its residents. The charter also authorized the Nauvoo Legion, a militia whose actions were limited only by state and federal constitutions. Bennett and Smith became its commanders, and were styled Major General and Lieutenant General respectively. As such, they controlled by far the largest body of armed men in Illinois. Smith appointed Bennett as Assistant President of the Church, and Bennett was elected Nauvoo's first mayor.  
The early Nauvoo years were a period of doctrinal innovation. Smith introduced baptism for the dead in 1840, and in 1841 construction began on the Nauvoo Temple as a place for recovering lost ancient knowledge. An 1841 revelation promised the restoration of the "fullness of the priesthood"; and in May 1842, Smith inaugurated a revised endowment or "first anointing".  The endowment resembled the rites of Freemasonry that Smith had observed two months earlier when he had been initiated "at sight" into the Nauvoo Masonic lodge. At first, the endowment was open only to men, who were initiated into a special group called the Anointed Quorum. For women, Smith introduced the Relief Society, a service club and sorority within which Smith predicted women would receive "the keys of the kingdom". Smith also elaborated on his plan for a Millennial kingdom; no longer envisioning the building of Zion in Nauvoo, he viewed Zion as encompassing all of North and South America, with Mormon settlements being "stakes" of Zion's metaphorical tent. Zion also became less a refuge from an impending tribulation than a great building project. In the summer of 1842, Smith revealed a plan to establish the millennial Kingdom of God, which would eventually establish theocratic rule over the whole Earth.  
In Nauvoo, Smith secretly practiced plural marriage. He introduced the doctrine to a few of his closest associates, including Bennett. When rumors of polygamy (called "spiritual wifery" by Bennett) got abroad, Smith forced Bennett's resignation as Nauvoo mayor. In retaliation, Bennett left Nauvoo and began publishing sensational accusations against Smith and his followers.  
By mid-1842, popular opinion in Illinois had turned against the Mormons. After an unknown assailant shot and wounded former Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs in May 1842, anti-Mormons circulated rumors that Smith's bodyguard, Porter Rockwell, was the gunman. In July, the recently excommunicated John C. Bennett published a letter claiming Smith had admitted sending Rockwell to 'fulfill prophecy' by killing Boggs; Bennett's claims were widely viewed as an attempt at vengeance for his recent excommunication, with even Gov. Ford later writing that Bennett "everywhere accounted the same debauched, unprincipled and profligate character". Though the evidence was circumstantial, the new governor of Missouri petitioned Illinois for Smith's extradition, and Illinois Governor Carlin issued an arrest warrant. Certain he would be killed if he ever returned to Missouri, Smith went into hiding twice during the next five months, until the U.S. Attorney for Illinois argued that his extradition would be unconstitutional. Rockwell was later freed after a Missouri grand jury declined to indict him for the shooting.  
In May 1843, Smith married Helen Mar Kimball, age 14, the daughter of apostle Heber C. Kimball, who himself had two wives at that time and had encouraged his daughter to accept the marriage.  
In June 1843, Illinois Governor Thomas Ford issued a warrant to extradite Smith to Missouri on the outstanding charge of treason. Two law officers arrested Smith but were intercepted by a party of Mormons before they could reach Missouri. Smith was then released on a writ of habeas corpus from the Nauvoo municipal court. The events caused significant political fallout in Illinois.  
On July 12, 1843, Joseph Smith dictated a revelation about polygamy; Hyrum read the revelation to the High Council on August 12, dividing the hierarchy into polygamist and anti-polygamist factions. On August 1, Smith assaulted County assessor Walter Bagby; Smith pleaded guilty, a fine was imposed, and it was paid. In September, Smith was charged with assault and battery against a Warsaw resident by the name of Bennett [not John C. Bennett]; arriving in Nauvoo with a warrant for Smith's arrest, Constable James Charles was informed that Smith had been tried and acquitted by the Nauvoo municipal court.  
On November 5, Smith became ill and suspected he had been poisoned, perhaps by wife Emma. In December 1843, Smith petitioned Congress to make Nauvoo an independent territory with the right to call out federal troops in its defense. Smith then wrote to the leading presidential candidates....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72828064Sun, 05 Jul 2026 15:40:13 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Joseph Smith. (part 2).   Strife and war in Far West, Missouri (1838–39).   By 1838, Smith had abandoned plans to reclaim the city of Independence and instead declared the town of Far West as the new "Zion". In Missouri, the church also took the name...Strife and war in Far West, Missouri (1838–39).  
By 1838, Smith had abandoned plans to reclaim the city of Independence and instead declared the town of Far West as the new "Zion". In Missouri, the church also took the name "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints", and construction began on a new temple. In the weeks and months after Smith and Rigdon arrived at Far West, thousands of Latter Day Saints followed them from Kirtland. Smith encouraged the settlement of land outside Caldwell County, instituting a settlement in Adam-ondi-Ahman, in Daviess County.  
Since 1830, Smith's claims about the golden plates had been corroborated by statements from the Three Witnesses: Oliver Cowdrey, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer. In December 1837, Harris was excommunicated after denouncing Joseph Smith as a financial fraudster over the bank scandal, while Whitmer and Cowdrey were excommunicated for dissent in April 1838. In June 1838, a secret group called the Danites was formed to deal with dissenters who had split with Smith. A letter was addressed specifically to the principal dissenters: Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, John Whitmer, William Wines Phelps, and Lyman E. Johnson. The letter demanded the dissenters vacate the county, warning "depart, or a more fatal calamity shall befall you." The letter — later known as the "Danite Manifesto" — displayed the signatures of eighty-three Mormons, including that of Joseph Smith's brother, and fellow member of the First Presidency, Hyrum, but not Joseph or Rigdon. The letter had the desired effect, and the few named dissenters quickly fled the county. That July, Smith wrote in his diary that the Danites were a force to "put to right that which is not right, and to clense the Church of every great evil".  
Beginning in 1838, Smith told followers that, as a teen, he had been visited by "two personages" that he identified as God and Jesus. According to his 1838 account, the young Smith asked the personages which church was correct and was told that all were wrong.  
Political and religious differences between old Missourians and newly arriving Latter Day Saint settlers provoked tensions between the two groups, much as they had in Jackson County. By this time, Smith's experiences with mob violence led him to believe that his faith's survival required greater militancy against anti-Mormons. Tensions between the Mormons and the native Missourians escalated quickly until, on August 6, 1838, non-Mormons in Gallatin, Missouri, tried to prevent Mormons from voting, and a brawl ensued. The election day scuffles initiated the 1838 Mormon War. Non-Mormon vigilantes raided and burned Mormon farms, while Danites and other Mormons pillaged non-Mormon towns.  
In the Battle of Crooked River, a group of Mormons attacked the Missouri state militia, mistaking them for anti-Mormon vigilantes. Governor Lilburn Boggs then ordered that the Mormons be "exterminated or driven from the state". On October 30, a party of Missourians surprised and killed seventeen Mormons in the Haun's Mill massacre.  
The following day, the Mormons surrendered to 2,500 state troops and agreed to forfeit their property and leave the state.   Smith was immediately brought before a military court, accused of treason, and sentenced to be executed the next morning, but Alexander Doniphan, who was Smith's former attorney and a brigadier general in the Missouri militia, refused to carry out the order. Smith was then sent to a state court for a preliminary hearing, where several of his former allies testified against him. Smith and five others, including Rigdon, were charged with treason, and transferred to the jail at Liberty, Missouri, to await trial.  
During his imprisonment, Smith wrote a personal defense and an apology for the activities of his followers. Though he directed his followers to collect and publish their stories of persecution, he also urged them to...]]>1096falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/20-joseph-smith-part-1--72827727Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805 – June 27, 1844) was an American religious and political leader and the founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. Publishing the Book of Mormon at the age of 24, Smith attracted tens of thousands of followers by the time of his death fourteen years later. The religious movement he founded is followed by millions of global adherents and several churches, the largest of which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).  
Born in Sharon, Vermont, Smith moved with his family to Western New York amid hardships following a series of crop failures in 1816. Living in an area of intense religious revivalism during the Second Great Awakening, Smith reported experiencing a series of visions. The first of these was in 1820, when he saw "two personages" (whom he eventually described as God the Father and Jesus Christ). In 1823, he said he was visited by an angel who directed him to a buried book of golden plates inscribed with a Judeo-Christian history of an ancient American civilization. In 1830, Smith published the Book of Mormon, which he described as an English translation of those plates. The same year he organized the Church of Christ, calling it a restoration of the early Christian Church. Members of the church were later called Latter Day Saints or nicknamed the Mormons.  
In 1831, Smith and his followers moved west, planning to build a communal Zion in the American heartland. They first gathered in Kirtland, Ohio, and established an outpost in Independence, Missouri, which was intended to be Zion's central location. During the 1830s, Smith sent out missionaries, published revelations, and supervised construction of the Kirtland Temple. Smith and his followers left Ohio and Missouri after the collapse of the church-sponsored Kirtland Safety Society and violent skirmishes with non-Mormon Missourians escalated into the Mormon extermination order. They established a new settlement at Nauvoo, Illinois, which quickly grew to be the second-largest city in Illinois during Smith's mayoralty.  
Smith launched a presidential campaign in 1844. During his campaign, Smith and the Nauvoo City Council ordered the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor's printing press after it criticized Smith's power and his practice of polygamy. This inflamed opposition to Smith and his followers. Smith surrendered to Illinois authorities but was shot and killed by a mob that stormed the jailhouse.  
During his ministry, Smith published numerous documents and texts, many of which he attributed to divine inspiration and revelation from God. He dictated the majority of these in the first-person, saying they were the writings of ancient prophets or expressed the voice of God. His followers accepted his teachings as prophetic and revelatory, and several of these texts were canonized by denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement, which continue to treat them as scripture. Smith's teachings discuss God's nature, cosmology, family structures, political organization, and religious community and authority. Mormons generally regard Smith as a prophet comparable to Moses and Elijah. Several religious denominations identify as the continuation of the church that he organized, including the LDS Church and the Community of Christ.  

Life.  
In New York, Smith co-founded a church and published The Book of Mormon. After minister Sidney Rigdon and his followers converted, Smith moved to Ohio to join them.  
Smith urged followers to settle in Independence, Missouri, but hostile residents forced them out. He organized a militia to retake the town, but disbanded it when his small, cholera-stricken force faced superior opposition. Back in Ohio, Smith built a house of worship as his following grew, but polygamy and an illegal bank led to denunciations and legal troubles.  
Smith fled to Far West, Missouri, until a Mormon militia, provoked by vigilantes, looted and burned three towns. After his followers fired on the state militia, the governor ordered them expelled. Smith was arrested for treason but later escaped.  
In Illinois, Smith founded a new city and temple, but his secret polygamy led some close associates to denounce him. When dissenters published a paper exposing him, he ordered their press destroyed. Facing arrest, Smith declared martial law and mobilized his militia, prompting the state militia to mobilize in response.  
Smith fled to Iowa but soon returned, accepting the Illinois governor's assurances of protection if he surrendered.   
Expecting to receive bail, Smith learned he also faced treason charges for declaring martial law. When locals, aware of Smith's history of jailbreak, heard he was guarded by only a few men, they stormed the jail. After initially assuming his own men had come to rescue him, Smith defended himself from the lynch mob, using a smuggled pistol to wound three, before he was shot and killed. His murderers, fearing the arrival of Smith's followers, fled the scene.  

Early years (1805–1827).  
Joseph Smith was born on December 23, 1805, in Vermont to Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith. One of eleven children, Smith was a descendent of the influential colonial minister John Lothropp (1584–1653). Joseph's maternal grandfather, Solomon Mack (1732 – 1820), self-published a memoir about his own conversion experience.  
Smith's childhood was marked by hardship. Joseph Sr.'s drunkenness was a source of embarrassment. When seven-year-old Joseph Jr. underwent painful surgery for a leg bone infection, the boy refused alcohol. He used crutches for three years and walked with a slight limp thereafter. After Joseph Sr. fell for a ginseng swindle followed by years of crop failures, the Smiths lost the family farm and were forced to travel 300 miles (480 km) west to frontier Western New York, where they took out a mortgage on a small farm.  
The Smiths engaged in folk magic, a relatively common practice in that time and place. Joseph, his father, and his older brother Alvin hunted for treasure under the direction of a seer named Luman Walters. Before Walters left professing he lacked sufficient power, he singled out young Joseph Smith as the young man who might be able to find the treasure. After Walters left, the Smiths continued using folk magic and a seer stone to look for buried treasure.  
Joseph, his family, and his acquaintances consistently listed September 21, 1823, the equinox, as a pivotal night in his life; the next day, he told his father that he had been visited in the night by a supernatural being who revealed the location of a nearby treasure. The Smith family believed in prophetic dreams or visions; both parents and his maternal grandfather had previously reported such dreams.  
Just weeks later, Alvin complained of stomach pains and called for a doctor who treated him with mercury salts. The substance lodged in Alvin's digestive system, and multiple other doctors were helpless to dislodge it. Alvin, only 25, died from mercury poisoning due to medical error. Joseph Sr. and Jr.'s trust in authorities was further shaken when the Presbyterian minister presiding over the funeral suggested Alvin had gone to hell. The family became divided by faith: Joseph and his father refused to join the church, while Joseph's mother and siblings joined.  
One year after Joseph's dream, the Smiths reportedly attempted and failed to obtain the treasure. On September 29, 1824, Joseph Sr. published a notice in the paper announcing that he had briefly disinterred Alvin's body to confirm it had not been removed. Rumors spread that the Smiths had exhumed Alvin's body for use in magical treasure-seeking.  
In the wake of Alvin's death, the family faced further financial hardships and worked odd jobs. Smith and his father achieved a reputation as treasure seers for hire. In 1825, Joseph's friend Josiah Jr. told his father Josiah Stowell about the two Smiths, and Josiah Sr. hired them to locate for a lost mine he believed might be on his property in Pennsylvania. While boarding in Pennsylvania, Smith met Emma Hale, his future wife. After about a month in Pennsylvania, the company disbanded and Smith returned to Chenango, New York where he worked for Stowell and his friend Joseph Knight Sr., along with making trips to court Emma Hale.  
In New York, Smith directed further treasure digs for Knight and Stowell until March. That month, Josiah Stowell's nephew Peter Bridgeman filed a complaint against Joseph Smith, alleging he was taking advantage of the elder Stowell by engaging in "glass-looking", or using fortune-telling to attempt to find treasure. Smith was arrested and taken to trial, where Josiah Stowell testified that he believed Smith had the ability to find treasures by use of a seer stone. While the precise result of the proceeding remains unclear, Smith was freed and returned home to Palmyra.  
Smith and Emma eloped and married on January 18, 1827, over the objections of her father Isaac Hale who regarded Smith as a charlatan. The couple began boarding with Smith's parents in Manchester, but after Smith promised to abandon treasure seeking, Hale offered to let the couple live on his property in Harmony and help Smith get started in business.  
Josiah Stowell and Joseph Knight, Smith's patrons, travelled to Palmyra for the anticipated recovery on the treasure on September 22, 1827. Smith, with Emma, left home that night, returning with a report that treasures had been recovered, but that he had hidden them inside a hollow log for safekeeping. Days later, he returned home with a set of plates which could be hefted but not viewed. Smith explained he had been commanded not to show the plates to anyone else.  
Upon hearing Smith had obtained a treasure, Smith's former treasure-seeking partners believed he had double.....

Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72827727Sun, 05 Jul 2026 14:55:09 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Joseph Smith. (part 1).   Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805 – June 27, 1844) was an American religious and political leader and the founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. Publishing the Book of Mormon at the age of 24, Smith...Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805 – June 27, 1844) was an American religious and political leader and the founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. Publishing the Book of Mormon at the age of 24, Smith attracted tens of thousands of followers by the time of his death fourteen years later. The religious movement he founded is followed by millions of global adherents and several churches, the largest of which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).  
Born in Sharon, Vermont, Smith moved with his family to Western New York amid hardships following a series of crop failures in 1816. Living in an area of intense religious revivalism during the Second Great Awakening, Smith reported experiencing a series of visions. The first of these was in 1820, when he saw "two personages" (whom he eventually described as God the Father and Jesus Christ). In 1823, he said he was visited by an angel who directed him to a buried book of golden plates inscribed with a Judeo-Christian history of an ancient American civilization. In 1830, Smith published the Book of Mormon, which he described as an English translation of those plates. The same year he organized the Church of Christ, calling it a restoration of the early Christian Church. Members of the church were later called Latter Day Saints or nicknamed the Mormons.  
In 1831, Smith and his followers moved west, planning to build a communal Zion in the American heartland. They first gathered in Kirtland, Ohio, and established an outpost in Independence, Missouri, which was intended to be Zion's central location. During the 1830s, Smith sent out missionaries, published revelations, and supervised construction of the Kirtland Temple. Smith and his followers left Ohio and Missouri after the collapse of the church-sponsored Kirtland Safety Society and violent skirmishes with non-Mormon Missourians escalated into the Mormon extermination order. They established a new settlement at Nauvoo, Illinois, which quickly grew to be the second-largest city in Illinois during Smith's mayoralty.  
Smith launched a presidential campaign in 1844. During his campaign, Smith and the Nauvoo City Council ordered the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor's printing press after it criticized Smith's power and his practice of polygamy. This inflamed opposition to Smith and his followers. Smith surrendered to Illinois authorities but was shot and killed by a mob that stormed the jailhouse.  
During his ministry, Smith published numerous documents and texts, many of which he attributed to divine inspiration and revelation from God. He dictated the majority of these in the first-person, saying they were the writings of ancient prophets or expressed the voice of God. His followers accepted his teachings as prophetic and revelatory, and several of these texts were canonized by denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement, which continue to treat them as scripture. Smith's teachings discuss God's nature, cosmology, family structures, political organization, and religious community and authority. Mormons generally regard Smith as a prophet comparable to Moses and Elijah. Several religious denominations identify as the continuation of the church that he organized, including the LDS Church and the Community of Christ.  

Life.  
In New York, Smith co-founded a church and published The Book of Mormon. After minister Sidney Rigdon and his followers converted, Smith moved to Ohio to join them.  
Smith urged followers to settle in Independence, Missouri, but hostile residents forced them out. He organized a militia to retake the town, but disbanded it when his small, cholera-stricken force faced superior opposition. Back in Ohio, Smith built a house of worship as his following grew, but polygamy and an illegal bank led to denunciations and legal troubles.  
Smith fled to Far West, Missouri, until a Mormon militia,...]]>1441falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/19-mary-rogers--72819210Mary Cecilia Rogers (born c. 1820 – found dead July 28, 1841) was an American murder victim whose story became a national sensation.  
Rogers was a noted beauty who worked in a New York tobacco store, which attracted the custom of many distinguished men. When her body was found in the Hudson River, she was assumed to have been the victim of gang violence. However, one witness swore that she was dumped after a failed abortion attempt, and her boyfriend's suicide note suggested possible involvement on his part. Rogers' death remains unexplained. She inspired Edgar Allan Poe's pioneering detective story "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt".  

Early life.  
Mary Rogers was probably born in 1821 in Lyme, Connecticut, though her birth records have not survived. She was a beautiful young woman who grew up as the only child of her widowed mother. At the age of 20, Mary lived in the boarding house that was run by her mother. Her father James Rogers died in a steamboat explosion when she was 17 years old, and she took a job as a clerk in a tobacco shop owned by John Anderson in New York City.  
Anderson paid her a generous wage in part because her physical attractiveness brought in many customers. One customer wrote that he spent an entire afternoon at the store only to exchange "teasing glances" with her. Another admirer published a poem in the New York Herald referring to her heaven-like smile and her star-like eyes. Some of her customers included notable literary figures James Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, and Fitz-Greene Halleck.  

First disappearance.  
On October 5, 1838, the newspaper the Sun reported that "Miss Mary Cecilia Rogers" had disappeared from her home. Her mother Phoebe said she found a suicide note which the local coroner analyzed and said revealed a "fixed and unalterable determination to destroy herself". The next day, however, the Times and Commercial Intelligence reported that the disappearance was a hoax and that Rogers only went to visit a friend in Brooklyn. The New York Sun had previously published a story known as the Great Moon Hoax in 1835, causing controversy. Some suggested this return was actually the hoax, evidenced by Rogers' failure to return to work immediately. When she finally resumed working at the tobacco shop, one newspaper suggested the whole event was a publicity stunt managed by Anderson.  

Murder.  
On July 25, 1841, Rogers told her fiancé Daniel Payne that she would be visiting her aunt and other family members. Three days later, on July 28, the police found her corpse floating in the Hudson River in Hoboken, New Jersey. Referred to as the "Beautiful Cigar Girl", the mystery of her death was sensationalized by newspapers and received national attention. The details of the case suggested she was murdered, or dumped by abortionist Madame Restell after a failed procedure. Months later, the inquest still ongoing, her grief-stricken fiancé Daniel Payne committed suicide by overdosing on laudanum during a bout of heavy drinking. A remorseful note was found among the papers on his person where he died near Sybil's Cave on October 7, 1841, reading: "To the World – here I am on the very spot. May God forgive me for my misspent life."  
The story, much publicized by the press, also emphasized the ineptitude and corruption of the city's watchmen system of law enforcement. At the time, New York City's population of 320,000 was served by an archaic force, consisting of one night watch, 100 city marshals, 31 constables, and 51 police officers.  
The popular theory was that Rogers was a victim of gang violence. In November 1842, Frederica Loss came forward and swore that Rogers' death was the result of a failed abortion attempt. Police refused to believe her story, and the case remained unsolved. Interest in the story waned nine weeks later when the press began publicizing a different, unrelated murder case,  that of John C. Colt's murder of Samuel Adams.  

In fiction.  
Rogers' story was fictionalized most notably by Edgar Allan Poe as "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" (1842). The action of the story was relocated to Paris and the victim's body found in the River Seine. Poe presented the story as a sequel to "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841), commonly considered the first modern detective story, and included its main character C. Auguste Dupin. As Poe wrote in a letter: "under the pretense of showing how Dupin... unravelled the mystery of Marie's assassination, I, in fact, enter into a very rigorous analysis of the real tragedy in New York." In the story, Dupin suggests several possible solutions but never actually names the murderer. 



Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72819210Sat, 04 Jul 2026 16:31:28 +0000Popular Culture and Religion.Mary Rogers.   Mary Cecilia Rogers (born c. 1820 – found dead July 28, 1841) was an American murder victim whose story became a national sensation.   Rogers was a noted beauty who worked in a New York tobacco store, which attracted the custom of many...Mary Cecilia Rogers (born c. 1820 – found dead July 28, 1841) was an American murder victim whose story became a national sensation.  
Rogers was a noted beauty who worked in a New York tobacco store, which attracted the custom of many distinguished men. When her body was found in the Hudson River, she was assumed to have been the victim of gang violence. However, one witness swore that she was dumped after a failed abortion attempt, and her boyfriend's suicide note suggested possible involvement on his part. Rogers' death remains unexplained. She inspired Edgar Allan Poe's pioneering detective story "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt".  

Early life.  
Mary Rogers was probably born in 1821 in Lyme, Connecticut, though her birth records have not survived. She was a beautiful young woman who grew up as the only child of her widowed mother. At the age of 20, Mary lived in the boarding house that was run by her mother. Her father James Rogers died in a steamboat explosion when she was 17 years old, and she took a job as a clerk in a tobacco shop owned by John Anderson in New York City.  
Anderson paid her a generous wage in part because her physical attractiveness brought in many customers. One customer wrote that he spent an entire afternoon at the store only to exchange "teasing glances" with her. Another admirer published a poem in the New York Herald referring to her heaven-like smile and her star-like eyes. Some of her customers included notable literary figures James Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, and Fitz-Greene Halleck.  

First disappearance.  
On October 5, 1838, the newspaper the Sun reported that "Miss Mary Cecilia Rogers" had disappeared from her home. Her mother Phoebe said she found a suicide note which the local coroner analyzed and said revealed a "fixed and unalterable determination to destroy herself". The next day, however, the Times and Commercial Intelligence reported that the disappearance was a hoax and that Rogers only went to visit a friend in Brooklyn. The New York Sun had previously published a story known as the Great Moon Hoax in 1835, causing controversy. Some suggested this return was actually the hoax, evidenced by Rogers' failure to return to work immediately. When she finally resumed working at the tobacco shop, one newspaper suggested the whole event was a publicity stunt managed by Anderson.  

Murder.  
On July 25, 1841, Rogers told her fiancé Daniel Payne that she would be visiting her aunt and other family members. Three days later, on July 28, the police found her corpse floating in the Hudson River in Hoboken, New Jersey. Referred to as the "Beautiful Cigar Girl", the mystery of her death was sensationalized by newspapers and received national attention. The details of the case suggested she was murdered, or dumped by abortionist Madame Restell after a failed procedure. Months later, the inquest still ongoing, her grief-stricken fiancé Daniel Payne committed suicide by overdosing on laudanum during a bout of heavy drinking. A remorseful note was found among the papers on his person where he died near Sybil's Cave on October 7, 1841, reading: "To the World – here I am on the very spot. May God forgive me for my misspent life."  
The story, much publicized by the press, also emphasized the ineptitude and corruption of the city's watchmen system of law enforcement. At the time, New York City's population of 320,000 was served by an archaic force, consisting of one night watch, 100 city marshals, 31 constables, and 51 police officers.  
The popular theory was that Rogers was a victim of gang violence. In November 1842, Frederica Loss came forward and swore that Rogers' death was the result of a failed abortion attempt. Police refused to believe her story, and the case remained unsolved. Interest in the story waned nine weeks later when the press began publicizing a different, unrelated murder case,  that of...]]>325truefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/18-helen-jewett--72818507Helen Jewett (born Dorcas Doyen; October 18, 1813 – April 10, 1836) was an American prostitute in New York City who was brutally murdered. One of her regular clients, Richard P. Robinson, was tried and sensationally acquitted of her murder. Jewett's murder and Robinson's subsequent trial was one of the first sex scandals to receive detailed press reporting, notably in the New York Herald. Public opinion was divided between those who felt that Jewett had deserved her fate, and others claiming that Robinson had escaped justice through powerful connections.  

Early history.  
Jewett was born Dorcas Doyen into a working-class family in Temple, Maine. Her father was an alcoholic; her mother died when Jewett was young. From the age of 12 or 13, Jewett was employed as a servant girl in the home of Chief Justice Nathan Weston of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Upon reaching the age of 18, Jewett left the Weston home at the first opportunity. She moved to Portland, Maine, where she worked as a prostitute under an assumed name. She subsequently moved to Boston and finally New York under a succession of fake names.  

The murder.  
Jewett's body was discovered by the matron of the brothel, Rosina Townsend, at 3 a.m. on April 10, 1836. The murder had taken place sometime after midnight. Jewett was struck on the head three times with a sharp object. (The coroner's report called it a 'hatchet'.) Based on the position of the corpse in bed, the coroner concluded that the blows were not expected: there were no signs of struggle. After inflicting the lethal blows, the murderer then set fire to Jewett's bed. Townsend discovered the room full of smoke, and Jewett's body charred on one side.  

The trial.  
Based on the testimony of the women who lived in the brothel, the police arrested 19-year-old Richard P. Robinson on suspicion of Jewett's murder. Robinson, a repeat customer of the victim, flatly denied killing her, and did not display much emotion even when confronted with the still warm corpse. Nevertheless, based on the testimony of various witnesses and the recovery of a cloak that resembled Robinson's, the coroner's jury, hastily assembled on the scene and made up of on-lookers, concluded that Jewett met her end "by blows ... inflicted ... with a hatchet by the hand of Richard P. Robinson." This was enough to gain an initial indictment.  
On June 2, 1836, Robinson's trial for murder began. Ex-D.A. of New York Ogden Hoffman appeared for the defence. After days of testimony from several witnesses, including Rosina Townsend, the judge gave the jury its instructions. As most of the witnesses were other prostitutes, the judge ordered his jury to disregard their testimony. Presented primarily with circumstantial evidence against Robinson, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty in less than a half hour.  

The press.  
Jewett's murder excited the press and the public. The coverage of the murder and trial was highly polarized, with reporters either sympathizing with Jewett and vilifying Robinson or attacking Jewett as a seductress who deserved her fate. The New York Herald, edited by James Gordon Bennett, Sr., provided the most complete (if not unbiased) coverage of the sensational murder.   Almost from the beginning and throughout the trial, Bennett insisted that Robinson was the innocent victim of a vicious conspiracy launched by the police and Jewett's madam. He also emphasized the sensational nature of the story and worked to exploit the sexual, violent details of Jewett's death. The New York Sun, in contrast, whose readers tended to come from the working class, argued that Robinson was guilty and that he was able to use money and the influence of wealthy relatives and his employer to buy an acquittal. This theory continued to gain traction for many years later.  
Most notably, the trial was largely responsible for nationwide changes in the approach to sex and scandal coverage by American journalists. Prior to the case, coverage of such topics by major newspapers was nearly nonexistent. Additionally, some historians credit Bennett with the first journalistic interview, namely that of Rosina Townsend. Other historians, however, argue that Bennett never actually talked to Townsend and that his reported interview was a hoax.  

Post trial.  
Personal letters of Robinson's that became public after the trial undercut some of his claims and showed him to be capable of vicious and (for the time) deviant sexual behavior and the public turned against him, including some who had been his vocal supporters. Robinson eventually moved to Texas where he became a respected frontier citizen.  

References in popular culture.  
Jewett and Robinson are the subject of The Lives of Helen Jewett, And Richard P. Robinson, an 1849 novel by journalist George Wilkes. The novel was originally published in serial form in Wilkes' newspaper the National Police Gazette. This story is a fictionalized narrative based around the stories about Jewett and Robinson that circulated after the murder.  
Jewett is a character in the novel Burr by Gore Vidal—being the love interest of the narrator. Although her murder is peripheral to the story, it is foreshadowed throughout by the title character's having secured, in a notorious trial at the turn of the century, the acquittal of Levi Weeks, the apparent murderer of Elma Sands. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72818507Sat, 04 Jul 2026 16:17:26 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Helen Jewett.   Helen Jewett (born Dorcas Doyen; October 18, 1813 – April 10, 1836) was an American prostitute in New York City who was brutally murdered. One of her regular clients, Richard P. Robinson, was tried and sensationally acquitted of her...Helen Jewett (born Dorcas Doyen; October 18, 1813 – April 10, 1836) was an American prostitute in New York City who was brutally murdered. One of her regular clients, Richard P. Robinson, was tried and sensationally acquitted of her murder. Jewett's murder and Robinson's subsequent trial was one of the first sex scandals to receive detailed press reporting, notably in the New York Herald. Public opinion was divided between those who felt that Jewett had deserved her fate, and others claiming that Robinson had escaped justice through powerful connections.  

Early history.  
Jewett was born Dorcas Doyen into a working-class family in Temple, Maine. Her father was an alcoholic; her mother died when Jewett was young. From the age of 12 or 13, Jewett was employed as a servant girl in the home of Chief Justice Nathan Weston of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Upon reaching the age of 18, Jewett left the Weston home at the first opportunity. She moved to Portland, Maine, where she worked as a prostitute under an assumed name. She subsequently moved to Boston and finally New York under a succession of fake names.  

The murder.  
Jewett's body was discovered by the matron of the brothel, Rosina Townsend, at 3 a.m. on April 10, 1836. The murder had taken place sometime after midnight. Jewett was struck on the head three times with a sharp object. (The coroner's report called it a 'hatchet'.) Based on the position of the corpse in bed, the coroner concluded that the blows were not expected: there were no signs of struggle. After inflicting the lethal blows, the murderer then set fire to Jewett's bed. Townsend discovered the room full of smoke, and Jewett's body charred on one side.  

The trial.  
Based on the testimony of the women who lived in the brothel, the police arrested 19-year-old Richard P. Robinson on suspicion of Jewett's murder. Robinson, a repeat customer of the victim, flatly denied killing her, and did not display much emotion even when confronted with the still warm corpse. Nevertheless, based on the testimony of various witnesses and the recovery of a cloak that resembled Robinson's, the coroner's jury, hastily assembled on the scene and made up of on-lookers, concluded that Jewett met her end "by blows ... inflicted ... with a hatchet by the hand of Richard P. Robinson." This was enough to gain an initial indictment.  
On June 2, 1836, Robinson's trial for murder began. Ex-D.A. of New York Ogden Hoffman appeared for the defence. After days of testimony from several witnesses, including Rosina Townsend, the judge gave the jury its instructions. As most of the witnesses were other prostitutes, the judge ordered his jury to disregard their testimony. Presented primarily with circumstantial evidence against Robinson, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty in less than a half hour.  

The press.  
Jewett's murder excited the press and the public. The coverage of the murder and trial was highly polarized, with reporters either sympathizing with Jewett and vilifying Robinson or attacking Jewett as a seductress who deserved her fate. The New York Herald, edited by James Gordon Bennett, Sr., provided the most complete (if not unbiased) coverage of the sensational murder.   Almost from the beginning and throughout the trial, Bennett insisted that Robinson was the innocent victim of a vicious conspiracy launched by the police and Jewett's madam. He also emphasized the sensational nature of the story and worked to exploit the sexual, violent details of Jewett's death. The New York Sun, in contrast, whose readers tended to come from the working class, argued that Robinson was guilty and that he was able to use money and the influence of wealthy relatives and his employer to buy an acquittal. This theory continued to gain traction for many years later.  
Most notably, the trial was largely responsible for nationwide changes in the...]]>359falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/17-elijah-parish-lovejoy--72817333Elijah Parish Lovejoy (November 9, 1802 – November 7, 1837) was an American Presbyterian minister, journalist, newspaper editor, and abolitionist. After his murder by a mob, he became a martyr to the abolitionist cause opposing slavery in the United States. He was also hailed as a defender of free speech and freedom of the press.  
Lovejoy was born in New England and graduated from what is today Colby College. Unsatisfied with a teaching career, he was drawn to journalism and decided to 'go west'. In 1827, he reached St. Louis, Missouri. Under the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Missouri entered the United States as a slave state. Lovejoy edited a newspaper but returned east for a time to study for the ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary. On his return to St. Louis, he founded the St. Louis Observer, in which he became increasingly critical of slavery and the powerful interests protecting slavery. Facing threats and violent attacks, Lovejoy decided to move across the river to Alton in Illinois, a free state. However, Alton was also tied to the Mississippi River economy, easily reachable by anti-Lovejoy Missourians, and badly split over abolitionism.  
In Alton, Lovejoy was fatally shot during an attack by a pro-slavery mob. The mob was seeking to destroy a warehouse owned by Winthrop Sargent Gilman and Benjamin Godfrey, which held Lovejoy's printing press and abolitionist materials. According to John Quincy Adams, the murder "[gave] a shock as of an earthquake throughout this country." The Boston Recorder wrote that "these events called forth from every part of the land 'a burst of indignation which has not had its parallel in this country since the Battle of Lexington.'" When informed about the murder, John Brown said publicly: "Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery." Lovejoy is often seen as a martyr to the abolitionist cause and to a free press. The Lovejoy Monument was erected in Alton in 1897.  

Early life and education.  
Elijah Parish Lovejoy was born at his paternal grandparents' frontier farmhouse near Albion, Maine (then part of Massachusetts), the eldest of nine children of Elizabeth (née Pattee) Lovejoy and Daniel Lovejoy. Lovejoy's father was a Congregational preacher and farmer, and his mother was a homemaker and a devout Christian. Daniel Lovejoy named his son in honor of his close friend and mentor, Elijah Parish, a minister who was also involved in politics. Due to his own lack of education, the father encouraged his sons – Elijah, Daniel, Joseph Cammett, Owen, and John – to become educated. Elijah was taught to read the Bible and other religious texts by his mother at an early age. 
After completing early studies in public schools, Lovejoy attended the private Academy at Monmouth and China Academy. When sufficiently proficient in Latin and mathematics, he enrolled at Waterville College (now Colby College) as a sophomore in 1823. Lovejoy received financial support from minister Benjamin Tappan to continue his studies there. Based on faculty recommendations, from 1824 until his graduation in 1826, he also served as headmaster of Colby's associated high school, the Latin School (later known as the Coburn Classical Institute). In September 1826, Lovejoy graduated cum laude from Waterville,  and was class valedictorian.  

Journey westward.  
During the winter and spring, he taught at China Academy in Maine. Dissatisfied with teaching, Lovejoy considered moving to the American South or westward to the Northwest Territory. His former teachers at Waterville College advised him that he would best serve God in the West (now considered the American Midwest).  
In May 1827, he went to Boston to earn money for his journey, having settled on the free state of Illinois as his destination.   Unsuccessful at finding work, he started for Illinois by foot. He stopped in New York City in mid-June to try to find work. He eventually landed a position with the Saturday Evening Gazette as a newspaper subscription peddler. For nearly five weeks, he worked to sell subscriptions.  
Struggling with his finances, he wrote to Jeremiah Chaplin, president of Waterville College, explaining his situation. Chaplin sent the money that his former student needed. Before embarking on his journey westward, Lovejoy wrote a poem which later seemed to prophesy his death:  
I go to tread,  
The Western vales, whose gloomy cypress tree,  
Shall haply, soon be enwreathed upon my bier;  
Land of my birth! My natal soil, Farewell.  
—Elijah P. Lovejoy.  

Career in Missouri.  
In 1827, Lovejoy arrived in St. Louis, Missouri, a major port in a slave state that shared its longest border with the free state of Illinois. Although it had a large slave market, St. Louis identified itself less with the plantation South and more as the "gateway to the West" and the American "frontier."  
Lovejoy initially ran a private school in St. Louis with a friend, which they modeled after academies in the East. Lovejoy's interest in teaching waned, however, when local editors began publishing his poems in their newspapers.  

St. Louis Times.  
In 1829, Lovejoy became a co-editor with T. J. Miller of the St. Louis Times, which promoted the candidacy of Henry Clay for president of the United States. Working at the Times introduced him to like-minded community leaders, many of whom were members of the American Colonization Society. They supported sending freed American blacks to Africa, considering it a kind of "repatriation." Opponents of the ACS including Frederick Douglass noted most African Americans had been native-born for generations and considered their future to be in the U.S. Among Lovejoy's new acquaintances were prominent St. Louis attorneys and slaveholders such as Edward Bates (later U.S. Attorney General under President Abraham Lincoln); Hamilton R. Gamble, later Chief Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court; and his brother Archibald Gamble.  
Lovejoy occasionally hired slaves who were leased out by owners, to work with him at the paper. Among them was William Wells Brown, who later recounted his experience in a memoir. Brown described Lovejoy as "a very good man, and decidedly the best master that I had ever had. I am chiefly indebted to him, and to my employment in the printing office, for what little learning I obtained while in slavery."  

Theological training.  
Lovejoy struggled with his interest in religion, often writing to his parents about his sinfulness and rebellion against God. He attended revival meetings in 1831 led by William S. Potts, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, that rekindled his interest in religion for a time. However, Lovejoy admitted to his parents that "gradually these feelings all left me, and I returned to the world a more hardened sinner than ever."  
A year later, Lovejoy found the call to God he had been yearning for. In 1832, influenced by Christian revivalist meetings led by abolitionist David Nelson, he joined the First Presbyterian Church and decided to become a preacher. He sold his interest in the Times, and returned East to study at Princeton Theological Seminary. While he was at Princeton, Lovejoy debated the question of slavery with an abolitionist named Bradford. Although Lovejoy had opposed abolitionism during the debate, after returning to St. Louis he would write to Bradford repeatedly asking him to write articles for his newspaper.  
After graduation, he went to Philadelphia, where he became an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church on April 18, 1833.  

St. Louis Observer.  
In 1833, a group of Protestants in St. Louis offered to finance a religious newspaper if Lovejoy would agree to return and edit it. Lovejoy accepted and on November 22, 1833, he published the first issue of the St. Louis Observer. His editorials criticized both the Catholic Church and slavery. By 1830, sixty percent of the population of St. Louis was Catholic, and the proprietors of the Observer tasked Lovejoy with countering the increasing influence of Catholicism.  
From the fall of 1833 to the summer 1836, Lovejoy regularly published articles criticizing the Catholic Church and church doctrine. Some were written by Lovejoy, while others were contributed by other authors. Initially, he criticized Catholic beliefs such as transubstantiation, clerical celibacy, and the influence of Catholicism on foreign governments. He also argued that "Popery" undermined the fundamental principles of American democracy. Local Catholics and clergy were offended by these attacks and regularly responded in articles of their own in The Shepherd of the Times, a Catholic newspaper funded by Bishop Joseph Rosati.  
In 1834, the St. Louis Observer began to increase its coverage of slavery, the most controversial issue of the day. At first, Lovejoy resisted calling himself an abolitionist, because he disliked the negative connotations associating abolitionism with social unrest. Even as he expressed antislavery views, he claimed to be an "emancipationist" rather than an "abolitionist." In the spring of 1835, the Missouri Republican advocated the gradual emancipation of slaves in Missouri, and Lovejoy voiced his support through the Observer. Lovejoy urged antislavery groups in Missouri to push for the issue to be addressed during a proposed state constitutional convention. To their dismay, the editors of both newspapers soon found that their "moderate" proposal to end slavery gradually could not be discussed without igniting a polarizing political debate.  
Over time, Lovejoy became bolder and more outspoken about his antislavery views, advocating the outright emancipation of all slaves on religious and moral grounds. Lovejoy condemned slavery and....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72817333Sat, 04 Jul 2026 14:14:00 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Elijah Parish Lovejoy.   Elijah Parish Lovejoy (November 9, 1802 – November 7, 1837) was an American Presbyterian minister, journalist, newspaper editor, and abolitionist. After his murder by a mob, he became a martyr to the abolitionist cause...Elijah Parish Lovejoy (November 9, 1802 – November 7, 1837) was an American Presbyterian minister, journalist, newspaper editor, and abolitionist. After his murder by a mob, he became a martyr to the abolitionist cause opposing slavery in the United States. He was also hailed as a defender of free speech and freedom of the press.  
Lovejoy was born in New England and graduated from what is today Colby College. Unsatisfied with a teaching career, he was drawn to journalism and decided to 'go west'. In 1827, he reached St. Louis, Missouri. Under the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Missouri entered the United States as a slave state. Lovejoy edited a newspaper but returned east for a time to study for the ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary. On his return to St. Louis, he founded the St. Louis Observer, in which he became increasingly critical of slavery and the powerful interests protecting slavery. Facing threats and violent attacks, Lovejoy decided to move across the river to Alton in Illinois, a free state. However, Alton was also tied to the Mississippi River economy, easily reachable by anti-Lovejoy Missourians, and badly split over abolitionism.  
In Alton, Lovejoy was fatally shot during an attack by a pro-slavery mob. The mob was seeking to destroy a warehouse owned by Winthrop Sargent Gilman and Benjamin Godfrey, which held Lovejoy's printing press and abolitionist materials. According to John Quincy Adams, the murder "[gave] a shock as of an earthquake throughout this country." The Boston Recorder wrote that "these events called forth from every part of the land 'a burst of indignation which has not had its parallel in this country since the Battle of Lexington.'" When informed about the murder, John Brown said publicly: "Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery." Lovejoy is often seen as a martyr to the abolitionist cause and to a free press. The Lovejoy Monument was erected in Alton in 1897.  

Early life and education.  
Elijah Parish Lovejoy was born at his paternal grandparents' frontier farmhouse near Albion, Maine (then part of Massachusetts), the eldest of nine children of Elizabeth (née Pattee) Lovejoy and Daniel Lovejoy. Lovejoy's father was a Congregational preacher and farmer, and his mother was a homemaker and a devout Christian. Daniel Lovejoy named his son in honor of his close friend and mentor, Elijah Parish, a minister who was also involved in politics. Due to his own lack of education, the father encouraged his sons – Elijah, Daniel, Joseph Cammett, Owen, and John – to become educated. Elijah was taught to read the Bible and other religious texts by his mother at an early age. 
After completing early studies in public schools, Lovejoy attended the private Academy at Monmouth and China Academy. When sufficiently proficient in Latin and mathematics, he enrolled at Waterville College (now Colby College) as a sophomore in 1823. Lovejoy received financial support from minister Benjamin Tappan to continue his studies there. Based on faculty recommendations, from 1824 until his graduation in 1826, he also served as headmaster of Colby's associated high school, the Latin School (later known as the Coburn Classical Institute). In September 1826, Lovejoy graduated cum laude from Waterville,  and was class valedictorian.  

Journey westward.  
During the winter and spring, he taught at China Academy in Maine. Dissatisfied with teaching, Lovejoy considered moving to the American South or westward to the Northwest Territory. His former teachers at Waterville College advised him that he would best serve God in the West (now considered the American Midwest).  
In May 1827, he went to Boston to earn money for his journey, having settled on the free state of Illinois as his destination.   Unsuccessful at finding work, he started for Illinois by foot....]]>1692falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/16-alessandro-stradella--72816780Antonio Alessandro Boncompagno Stradella (Bologna, 3 July 1643 – Genoa, 25 February 1682) was an Italian composer of the middle Baroque period. He enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, and collaborating with distinguished poets, producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres.  

Life.  
Stradella was born in Bologna on 3 July 1643 to the aristocrats Marc'Antonio Stradella (1579-1649) from Nepi (in the province of Viterbo), and his second wife, Vittoria Bartoli from Orvieto, and baptised Antonio Alessandro Boncompagno Stradella on 1 August 1643 in Bologna. His godfather in proxy was Duke Ugo Boncompagni, who had appointed his father vice-marquis of Vignola on 7 June 1642. Although the family resided in Nepi, they were temporarily in Bologna, taking refuge from papal troops attacking Vignola.  
He was educated at Rome, and was already making a name for himself as a composer at the age of 24. In 1667 he composed a Latin oratorio (lost) for the Confraternity of Crocifisso di San Marcello and in the following year the serenata La Circe for the Princess of Rossano Olimpia Aldobrandini Pamphilj. In 1671–72 he collaborated in staging some operas, two by Francesco Cavalli and two by Antonio Cesti, at the Tordinona Theater, composing prologues, intermedios and new arias. In the early 1670s, he also composed some operas performed in private theatres of aristocratic families.  
Stradella began to live a dissolute life. With Carlo Ambrogio Lonati he attempted to embezzle money from the Roman Catholic Church, but was found out: he fled the city, only returning much later when he thought it was safe. His numerous incautious affairs with women began to make him enemies among the powerful men of the city, and he had to leave Rome for good.  
In 1677 he went to Venice, where he was hired by a powerful nobleman, Alvise Contarini, as the music tutor to his mistress, Agnese Van Uffele. She and Stradella began an affair and fled Venice together for Turin, where they were protected by Marie Jeanne Baptiste of Savoy-Nemours, the regent of Savoy. Contarini followed and instructed the Archbishop that Uffele and Stradella must marry or that Uffele must take the veil. She did the latter, and then the two married in October; however, as Stradella left the convent after signing the contract, he was attacked from behind on 10 October by two would-be-hired assassins, who believed him dead when they left him in the street. He survived and the two assassins took asylum with the French ambassador. That Contarini had hired the attackers became known, leading to complaints from the regent of Savoy to Louis XIV; the matter became a topic of negotiation between the courts. In 1678 Stradella fled to Genoa, where he met again with Lonati. He was paid to compose operas performed at Falcone Theatre and music for the local nobility.  

Murder.  
In 1682 he was stabbed to death at the Piazza Banchi. A nobleman of the Lomellini family hired the killer which put an end to Stradella's life, although the identity of the killer was never discovered. Another report of his murderers states: "Stradella was murdered at Genoa by three brothers of the name of Lomellini, whose sister he had seduced". Stradella was buried in the Santa Maria delle Vigne.  

Work.  
Stradella was an extremely influential composer at the time, though his fame was eclipsed in the next century by Corelli, Vivaldi and others. Some of his music was exploited by George Frideric Handel, for example in Israel in Egypt. Probably his greatest significance is in originating the concerto grosso: while Corelli in his Op. 6 was the first to publish works under this title, Stradella clearly uses the format earlier in one of his Sonate di viole. Since the two knew each other, a direct influence is likely.  
Stradella wrote at least six baroque operas including a full-length comic opera Il Trespolo tutore. He also wrote more than 170 cantatas, at least one of which was based on a poem by Sebastiano Baldini, and six oratorios. Stradella composed 27 separate instrumental pieces, most for strings and basso continuo, and typically in the sonata da chiesa format.  
He wrote two cantatas for the regent of Savoy, Se del pianeta ardente and Sciogliete i dolci nodi.  

Operas:
- La Doriclea (1672).  
- Amare e Fingere (1676).  
- La forza dell'amor paterno (1678).  
- Il Trespolo tutore (1679).  
- Le gare dell'amor eroico (1679).  
- Moro per amore (1681).  
- La Rosaura (premiered 1688).  
- Il Corispero.  
Oratorios:  
- Santa Editta, vergine e monaca, regina d'Inghilterra (Rome c. 1672–73).  
- Ester liberatrice del popolo ebreo (Rome c 1673).  
- San Giovanni Battista (Rome, 1675).  
- Susanna (Modena, 1681).  
- San Giovanni Chrisostomo.  
- Santa Pelagia.  
Serenatas:  
- La Circe (1668).  
- La Circe (second version).  
- Il Duello ("Vola, vola, in alti petti") (1674).  
- Lo schiavo liberato (1674).  
- La forza delle stelle or Il Damone ("Or che il mondo ristaura") (1677).  
- Il Barcheggio (1681).  

Legacy.  
His colourful life and his bloody death ordered by the powerful Lomellini family provided the basis for biographical operas such as Il cantore di Venezia by Virginio Marchi (1835), Stradella by Louis Niedermeyer (Paris, 1837), Stradella by César Franck (1841, unfinished), Alessandro Stradella by Friedrich von Flotow (Hamburg, 1844), Alessandro Stradella by Adolf Schimon (1846), Stradella il trovatore by Vincenzo Moscuzza (1850), Alessandro Stradella by Giuseppe Sinico (1864)[11] and Ti vedo, ti sento, mi perdo by Salvatore Sciarrino (Teatro alla Scala, 2017).  
American novelist F. Marion Crawford also produced a highly romanticized novel of Stradella's affair and flight from Venice, titled Stradella (Macmillan 1909). 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72816780Sat, 04 Jul 2026 13:04:30 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Alessandro Stradella.   Antonio Alessandro Boncompagno Stradella (Bologna, 3 July 1643 – Genoa, 25 February 1682) was an Italian composer of the middle Baroque period. He enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, and...Antonio Alessandro Boncompagno Stradella (Bologna, 3 July 1643 – Genoa, 25 February 1682) was an Italian composer of the middle Baroque period. He enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, and collaborating with distinguished poets, producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres.  

Life.  
Stradella was born in Bologna on 3 July 1643 to the aristocrats Marc'Antonio Stradella (1579-1649) from Nepi (in the province of Viterbo), and his second wife, Vittoria Bartoli from Orvieto, and baptised Antonio Alessandro Boncompagno Stradella on 1 August 1643 in Bologna. His godfather in proxy was Duke Ugo Boncompagni, who had appointed his father vice-marquis of Vignola on 7 June 1642. Although the family resided in Nepi, they were temporarily in Bologna, taking refuge from papal troops attacking Vignola.  
He was educated at Rome, and was already making a name for himself as a composer at the age of 24. In 1667 he composed a Latin oratorio (lost) for the Confraternity of Crocifisso di San Marcello and in the following year the serenata La Circe for the Princess of Rossano Olimpia Aldobrandini Pamphilj. In 1671–72 he collaborated in staging some operas, two by Francesco Cavalli and two by Antonio Cesti, at the Tordinona Theater, composing prologues, intermedios and new arias. In the early 1670s, he also composed some operas performed in private theatres of aristocratic families.  
Stradella began to live a dissolute life. With Carlo Ambrogio Lonati he attempted to embezzle money from the Roman Catholic Church, but was found out: he fled the city, only returning much later when he thought it was safe. His numerous incautious affairs with women began to make him enemies among the powerful men of the city, and he had to leave Rome for good.  
In 1677 he went to Venice, where he was hired by a powerful nobleman, Alvise Contarini, as the music tutor to his mistress, Agnese Van Uffele. She and Stradella began an affair and fled Venice together for Turin, where they were protected by Marie Jeanne Baptiste of Savoy-Nemours, the regent of Savoy. Contarini followed and instructed the Archbishop that Uffele and Stradella must marry or that Uffele must take the veil. She did the latter, and then the two married in October; however, as Stradella left the convent after signing the contract, he was attacked from behind on 10 October by two would-be-hired assassins, who believed him dead when they left him in the street. He survived and the two assassins took asylum with the French ambassador. That Contarini had hired the attackers became known, leading to complaints from the regent of Savoy to Louis XIV; the matter became a topic of negotiation between the courts. In 1678 Stradella fled to Genoa, where he met again with Lonati. He was paid to compose operas performed at Falcone Theatre and music for the local nobility.  

Murder.  
In 1682 he was stabbed to death at the Piazza Banchi. A nobleman of the Lomellini family hired the killer which put an end to Stradella's life, although the identity of the killer was never discovered. Another report of his murderers states: "Stradella was murdered at Genoa by three brothers of the name of Lomellini, whose sister he had seduced". Stradella was buried in the Santa Maria delle Vigne.  

Work.  
Stradella was an extremely influential composer at the time, though his fame was eclipsed in the next century by Corelli, Vivaldi and others. Some of his music was exploited by George Frideric Handel, for example in Israel in Egypt. Probably his greatest significance is in originating the concerto grosso: while Corelli in his Op. 6 was the first to publish works under this title, Stradella clearly uses the format earlier in one of his Sonate di viole. Since the two knew each other, a direct influence is likely.  
Stradella wrote at least six baroque operas including a full-length...]]>467falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/15-edmund-berry-godfrey--72805676Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey (23 December 1621 – 12 October 1678) was an English magistrate whose mysterious death caused anti-Catholic uproar in England. Contemporary documents also spell the name Edmundbury Godfrey.  

Early life.  
Edmund Berry Godfrey was born in Sellindge, Kent, between Hythe and Ashford, the eleventh son of eighteen children born to Thomas Godfrey (1586–1664), a member of an old Kentish family and his second wife Sarah, née Isles. He was named after his godfathers, Edmund Harrison and Captain John Berrie (which led to the misconception that his first name was "Edmundbury").  His father had been MP for New Romney in the Short Parliament and owned Hodiford Farm. He studied at Westminster School and at Christ Church, Oxford and after entering Gray's Inn became a prominent wood and coal merchant. He became justice of the peace for Westminster and received a knighthood in September 1666 for his services during the Great Plague of 1665  when he had stayed in his post regardless of the circumstances. In 1669 Godfrey was briefly imprisoned for a few days because he had the King's physician, Sir Alexander Fraizer, arrested for owing him money. Samuel Pepys' diary of 26 May 1669 mentions that he went on hunger strike, claiming that the Judges had found for him, but the King, Charles II, had overridden them. He was held at the Porter's Lodge of Whitehall Palace.  
He was in business with his brother-in-law, James Harrison. Originally their premises was in Greene's Lane (beneath present-day Charing Cross Station) but moved in 1670 to Hartshorn Lane, having use of a wharf. This is now Northumberland Avenue. His grave in St Martin-in-the-Fields has since been concreted over. After his death, his papers were retrieved from a trunk in a coffee house at Swan's Court, by Somerset House. He lived with a maid named Elizabeth Curtis and his secretary, Henry More and a housekeeper, who were questioned at his inquest, where they gave evidence that in their opinion his death was suicide. He was considered eccentric in choosing to socialise with members of the working class instead of persons of his own class, although he did have a number of influential friends, including Gilbert Burnet and Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Nottingham. Recently, correspondence has been retrieved from Ireland detailing his relations with a faith-healer Valentine Greatrakes — the "Irish stroker". Strictly Anglican in religion, Godfrey had a number of Catholic acquaintances, including Edward Colman, Catholic secretary of the Duke of York, the future James II.  

Peyton Gang.  
In a letter to the Secretary of State, Sir Joseph Williamson, the Lieutenant of the Tower of London named Godfrey as a member of the so-called "Peyton Gang". Sir Robert Peyton was MP for Middlesex and a prominent member of the Green Ribbon Club. This had been founded by Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury after he had become aware of the Secret Treaty of Dover in which Charles II agreed to convert himself and England to Roman Catholicism in return for money paid by the French King Louis XIV. The club, unable to confront the king directly, stirred up popular ill feelings against the Roman Catholic Church. Peyton hand-picked twelve men (including himself and Godfrey) who plotted to replace the King with a republic, nominally led by Richard Cromwell. The founding meeting of the Green Ribbon Club was in the Swan Tavern in King Street, Hammersmith. This was owned by Sir Edmund Godfrey, who left it in his will. It has been said that after Titus Oates had left his deposition with Godfrey, Godfrey warned one of the intended scapegoats, Edward Colman, who was later hanged, drawn and quartered, and who was a personal friend.  

Mystery.  
In 1678, Godfrey became involved with the schemes of Titus Oates when Oates invented the Popish Plot and began an anti-Catholic campaign. Titus Oates and Israel Tonge appeared before Godfrey and asked him to take their oath that the papers they presented as evidence were based on truth. Godfrey demanded first to know the contents of the papers and when he had received a copy on 28 September, took their depositions. He may have warned Coleman of the content of the accusations.  
When Oates's accusations became known, the public became concerned. Godfrey had supposedly been concerned that he might be one of the victims of the scare, but he took no extra precautions for his own security; his conversation also became increasingly strange, with references to martyrdom and to being "knocked on the head" (the contemporary phrase for assassination). It was this odd behaviour which led his household to conclude that he had committed suicide, despite the medical evidence to the contrary.  
On 12 October 1678, he left his house in the morning but did not return home. He was found dead in a ditch on Primrose Hill on 17 October. Godfrey was lying face down and had been impaled with his own sword.   
Two committees unsuccessfully investigated the murder. They received conflicting statements about Godfrey's whereabouts before the murder. There was no evidence of a struggle on the spot where the body had been found and Godfrey still had his money and rings. On the other hand, curious people had already trampled the ground when investigators arrived. The body was covered with bruises and a circular mark around Godfrey's neck revealed that he had been strangled and his neck broken. The sword wound had not bled, meaning that Godfrey was already dead when he was impaled, maybe for 4–5 days. The authorities announced a reward of £500 (equivalent to £91,000 in 2025) for information about the murderers.  
Oates exploited the situation and encouraged the public perception that the murder was the work of Catholic plotters. There was a commemorative dagger and medal, sermons and pamphlets. These months were long remembered as "Godfrey's Autumn".  
Later "Captain" William Bedloe, who claimed to be a "reformed" Catholic plotter, claimed that he had been taken to Somerset House on the night of 14 October to see the body of Godfrey (although on the previous day he had claimed just the opposite). He said he had seen two men, including Samuel Atkins, secretary to Samuel Pepys.  
Atkins was arrested but was able to prove that he had been on a yacht at Greenwich (and extremely drunk) at that time, and the Court directed an acquittal. Bedloe claimed that Catholic plotters had killed Godfrey in order to steal his papers about the depositions (note that the witnesses whose words had been recorded were still alive). He changed his story several times afterwards but the House of Lords retained him as a witness.  
Perhaps in response to prompting he named John Belasyse, 1st Baron Belasyse, as the mastermind behind the murder. The King, who was increasingly sceptical about the reality of the Plot, burst out laughing at the notion, pointing out that Belasyse was so afflicted with gout that he could hardly stand up.  

Miles Prance.  
On 21 December, Miles Prance, Catholic servant-in-ordinary to England's Catholic Queen consort, Catherine of Braganza, was arrested and taken to Newgate prison. His lodger John Wren (who was in debt to Prance) testified that he had been away for the four nights before Godfrey's body was discovered. Bedloe claimed to recognize him. Both statements are now thought to be lies, but this did not help Prance.   
On 23 – 24 December, Prance announced that he had had a part in the murder but that the main instigators were three Catholic priests: Thomas Godden, head of the secular English clergy, and two Irish priests, Kelly and Fitzgerald. These priests witnessed the murder in the courtyard of Somerset House where Godfrey had been lured. Godfrey had been strangled and his body taken to Hampstead. Prance named as the actual killers three working men, Robert Green, Henry Berry and Lawrence Hill, who were arrested. Godden fled the country, while the two Irish priests simply vanished from sight. As with most solutions to the murder, the main weakness was the absence of a plausible motive. Prance could only say, vaguely, that Godfrey had been harassing the two priests in some way, which seems unlikely as he was noted for tolerance in religious matters.  
Prance later recanted his confession before the king and the council and was thrown back to prison: he was threatened with torture, and nearly froze to death.  As a result, he recanted his recantation and recanted two more times, ending up verifying his original story. At the trial, he was a highly credible witness, although Hill's wife rightly prophesied "we shall see him recant after, when it is too late".  The three men were sentenced to death 5 February 1679 and hanged at Primrose Hill. For a time this was known as "Greenberry Hill", because of the hangings of Green, Berry and Hill.  
Prance's story was later discredited and he pleaded guilty to perjury. Because the three men were executed on false evidence, and historians accept their complete innocence, the murder remains officially unsolved.  

Solutions.  
There have been many theories of what really happened to Godfrey and who killed him. "To the minds of Kennet, Oldmixon, and Christie the Catholics were responsible. North declared that he was murdered by the patrons of Oates, to give currency to the belief in the Plot. Sir James Fitzjames Stephen hazards that Oates himself was the murderer, and is supported by Mr Traill and Mr Lee. L'Estrange was positive that he committed suicide. Lingard and Sir George Sitwell have given the same verdict. Ralph, Hallam, Macaulay, Ranke, and Klopp pronounce the problem unsolved. Hume has pronounced it insoluble".  
Mystery writer John Dickson Carr wrote that suicide by hanging was impossible as the marks on his neck showed that he had had his neck....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72805676Fri, 03 Jul 2026 14:07:15 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Edmund Berry Godfrey.   Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey (23 December 1621 – 12 October 1678) was an English magistrate whose mysterious death caused anti-Catholic uproar in England. Contemporary documents also spell the name Edmundbury Godfrey.   Early...Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey (23 December 1621 – 12 October 1678) was an English magistrate whose mysterious death caused anti-Catholic uproar in England. Contemporary documents also spell the name Edmundbury Godfrey.  

Early life.  
Edmund Berry Godfrey was born in Sellindge, Kent, between Hythe and Ashford, the eleventh son of eighteen children born to Thomas Godfrey (1586–1664), a member of an old Kentish family and his second wife Sarah, née Isles. He was named after his godfathers, Edmund Harrison and Captain John Berrie (which led to the misconception that his first name was "Edmundbury").  His father had been MP for New Romney in the Short Parliament and owned Hodiford Farm. He studied at Westminster School and at Christ Church, Oxford and after entering Gray's Inn became a prominent wood and coal merchant. He became justice of the peace for Westminster and received a knighthood in September 1666 for his services during the Great Plague of 1665  when he had stayed in his post regardless of the circumstances. In 1669 Godfrey was briefly imprisoned for a few days because he had the King's physician, Sir Alexander Fraizer, arrested for owing him money. Samuel Pepys' diary of 26 May 1669 mentions that he went on hunger strike, claiming that the Judges had found for him, but the King, Charles II, had overridden them. He was held at the Porter's Lodge of Whitehall Palace.  
He was in business with his brother-in-law, James Harrison. Originally their premises was in Greene's Lane (beneath present-day Charing Cross Station) but moved in 1670 to Hartshorn Lane, having use of a wharf. This is now Northumberland Avenue. His grave in St Martin-in-the-Fields has since been concreted over. After his death, his papers were retrieved from a trunk in a coffee house at Swan's Court, by Somerset House. He lived with a maid named Elizabeth Curtis and his secretary, Henry More and a housekeeper, who were questioned at his inquest, where they gave evidence that in their opinion his death was suicide. He was considered eccentric in choosing to socialise with members of the working class instead of persons of his own class, although he did have a number of influential friends, including Gilbert Burnet and Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Nottingham. Recently, correspondence has been retrieved from Ireland detailing his relations with a faith-healer Valentine Greatrakes — the "Irish stroker". Strictly Anglican in religion, Godfrey had a number of Catholic acquaintances, including Edward Colman, Catholic secretary of the Duke of York, the future James II.  

Peyton Gang.  
In a letter to the Secretary of State, Sir Joseph Williamson, the Lieutenant of the Tower of London named Godfrey as a member of the so-called "Peyton Gang". Sir Robert Peyton was MP for Middlesex and a prominent member of the Green Ribbon Club. This had been founded by Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury after he had become aware of the Secret Treaty of Dover in which Charles II agreed to convert himself and England to Roman Catholicism in return for money paid by the French King Louis XIV. The club, unable to confront the king directly, stirred up popular ill feelings against the Roman Catholic Church. Peyton hand-picked twelve men (including himself and Godfrey) who plotted to replace the King with a republic, nominally led by Richard Cromwell. The founding meeting of the Green Ribbon Club was in the Swan Tavern in King Street, Hammersmith. This was owned by Sir Edmund Godfrey, who left it in his will. It has been said that after Titus Oates had left his deposition with Godfrey, Godfrey warned one of the intended scapegoats, Edward Colman, who was later hanged, drawn and quartered, and who was a personal friend.  

Mystery.  
In 1678, Godfrey became involved with the schemes of Titus Oates when Oates invented the Popish Plot and began an anti-Catholic campaign. Titus Oates and Israel Tonge...]]>961falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/14-robert-pakington--72805128Robert Pakington (c. 1489 – 13 November 1536) was a London merchant and Member of Parliament. He was murdered with a handgun in London in 1536, likely the first such killing in the city. His murder was later interpreted as martyrdom, and recounted in John Foxe's Acts and Monuments. He was the grandfather of Queen Elizabeth I's favourite, Sir John "Lusty" Pakington.  

Family.  
Robert Pakington, born about 1489 at Stanford-on-Teme, Worcestershire, was a younger son of John Pakington and Elizabeth Washborne, the daughter of Thomas Washborne. He had three brothers, John, Augustine, and Humphrey.  

Life.  
By 1510 Pakington had completed an apprenticeship with the Mercers' Company, one of the twelve great livery companies of London, and was exporting cloth and importing various wares. In 1523, and again in 1529, he and others were chosen to draw up articles on behalf of the Mercers for presentation to Parliament. According to Peter Marshall, one of the articles drawn up in 1529 was "sharply anti-clerical". In 1527–1528 Pakington was elected Warden of the Company.  
He was elected to Parliament in a by-election in October 1533, and was re-elected in 1536. The chronicler Edward Hall records that in Parliament Pakington again revealed anti-clerical sentiments, "speaking somewhat against the covetousness and cruelty of the clergy".  
In the final years of his life, Pakington reported to Thomas Cromwell on matters in Flanders at the behest of Cromwell's man of business, Stephen Vaughan, who held strongly Protestant sympathies. 
On the morning of 13 November 1536, while crossing the street from his home in Cheapside to attend Mercers' Chapel located opposite, Pakington was shot with a gun and killed:  
"And one morning amongst all other, being a great misty morning such as hath seldom been seen, even as he was crossing the street from his house to the church, he was suddenly murdered with a gun, which of the neighbours was plainly heard and by a great number of labourers there standing at Soper's Lane end...but the deed doer was never espied nor known."  
His murder was likely the first committed with a handgun in London. His murderer was never found, despite the "gret rewarde" which was offered for information.  
Pakington's murder was interpreted by Protestant reformers as martyrdom, and became a source of religious controversy. In 1545 the Protestant reformer John Bale suggested that "conservative bishops" were behind the murder. A similar suggestion was made in 1548 by Hall, who also attributed Pakington's death to the Catholic clergy. John Foxe, too, held the clergy responsible, but in the process of doing so proposed contradictory theories of the crime. In 1559 Foxe claimed that John Stokesley, a former Bishop of London "had paid a priest sixty gold coins to carry out the murder". However, in the 1563 edition of the Actes and Monuments Foxe stated that John Incent, a former Dean of St Paul's, had made a deathbed confession in which he admitted arranging for Pakington's murder. The Catholic apologist Nicholas Harpsfield accused Foxe of slandering Incent, and in the 1570 edition of the Actes and Monuments Foxe produced yet another theory, claiming that Pakington's murderer was an Italian. In their accounts of Pakington's death the chroniclers John Stow, Richard Grafton and Raphael Holinshed did not repeat Foxe's allegations, and Holinshed put forward an entirely different version of events, claiming that a felon hanged at Banbury had confessed on the gallows to Pakington's murder.  
By the time of his death, Pakington was a "man of substance". He had been assessed at 500 marks in the 1534 subsidy, and in 1535 had exported some 250 cloths to Antwerp. The cash bequests in his will amounted to over £300. According to Marshall, the wording of the will, which Pakington drew up on 23 November 1535, provides additional evidence of his sympathy for the Protestant Reformation. Moreover, the sermon at his funeral on 16 November was preached by the "Lutheran activist", Robert Barnes.  
Pakington was buried in St Pancras Church in Soper Lane, which was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and not rebuilt. Stow states that a monument was erected there to his memory. According to the custom of the City of London his children became orphans in the care of the city; on 20 November 1537 the court of aldermen entrusted Pakington's son and heir, Thomas Pakington, to the custody of his grandfather, Sir John Baldwin.  

Marriages and issue.  
Pakington married firstly Agnes Baldwin, the daughter of Sir John Baldwin, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, by whom he had two sons and three daughters:  
- Sir Thomas Pakington (d. 2 June 1571), who married Dorothy, the daughter of Sir Thomas Kitson by his second wife, Margaret (d. 12 January 1561), the only child of John Donnington (d.1544) of Stoke Newington. Their eldest son, Sir John Pakington, was for a time a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I, who invited him to court after he had been presented to her during her visit to Worcester in 1572.  
- John Pakington, of whom nothing further is known.  
- Elizabeth Pakington, who married firstly John Lane (died 12 September 1557) of Walgrave, Northamptonshire, and secondly Sir Richard Malory, Alderman of London and Lord Mayor in 1564.  
- Anne Pakington, who married Richard Cupper, esquire, of Glympton, Oxfordshire.  
- Margaret Pakington, who married firstly Benedict Lee (d.1559), esquire of Burston, Buckinghamshire, half-brother of Sir Anthony Lee, and a henchman to King Henry VIII, and secondly Thomas Scott, esquire, of Yorkshire.  
Between 1533 and November 1535, Pakington married secondly Katherine Dallam (d.1563), the daughter of Thomas Dallam, a member of the Worshipful Company of Skinners and the Company's Warden in 1497. At the time of the marriage, Katherine was the widow of her first husband, Richard Collier (d.1533), by whom she had a son and daughter, George and Dorothy.  
On 21 August 1539, Katherine Pakington took as her third husband Sir Michael Dormer (d. 20 September 1545), the son of Geoffrey Dormer (d. 9 March 1503) of West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, by his second wife, Alice Collingridge. Dormer was a wealthy Mercer, and Lord Mayor of London in 1541. Katherine's two children by her marriage to Richard Collier died about the time of her marriage to Dormer. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72805128Fri, 03 Jul 2026 13:25:56 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Robert Pakington.   Robert Pakington (c. 1489 – 13 November 1536) was a London merchant and Member of Parliament. He was murdered with a handgun in London in 1536, likely the first such killing in the city. His murder was later interpreted as...Robert Pakington (c. 1489 – 13 November 1536) was a London merchant and Member of Parliament. He was murdered with a handgun in London in 1536, likely the first such killing in the city. His murder was later interpreted as martyrdom, and recounted in John Foxe's Acts and Monuments. He was the grandfather of Queen Elizabeth I's favourite, Sir John "Lusty" Pakington.  

Family.  
Robert Pakington, born about 1489 at Stanford-on-Teme, Worcestershire, was a younger son of John Pakington and Elizabeth Washborne, the daughter of Thomas Washborne. He had three brothers, John, Augustine, and Humphrey.  

Life.  
By 1510 Pakington had completed an apprenticeship with the Mercers' Company, one of the twelve great livery companies of London, and was exporting cloth and importing various wares. In 1523, and again in 1529, he and others were chosen to draw up articles on behalf of the Mercers for presentation to Parliament. According to Peter Marshall, one of the articles drawn up in 1529 was "sharply anti-clerical". In 1527–1528 Pakington was elected Warden of the Company.  
He was elected to Parliament in a by-election in October 1533, and was re-elected in 1536. The chronicler Edward Hall records that in Parliament Pakington again revealed anti-clerical sentiments, "speaking somewhat against the covetousness and cruelty of the clergy".  
In the final years of his life, Pakington reported to Thomas Cromwell on matters in Flanders at the behest of Cromwell's man of business, Stephen Vaughan, who held strongly Protestant sympathies. 
On the morning of 13 November 1536, while crossing the street from his home in Cheapside to attend Mercers' Chapel located opposite, Pakington was shot with a gun and killed:  
"And one morning amongst all other, being a great misty morning such as hath seldom been seen, even as he was crossing the street from his house to the church, he was suddenly murdered with a gun, which of the neighbours was plainly heard and by a great number of labourers there standing at Soper's Lane end...but the deed doer was never espied nor known."  
His murder was likely the first committed with a handgun in London. His murderer was never found, despite the "gret rewarde" which was offered for information.  
Pakington's murder was interpreted by Protestant reformers as martyrdom, and became a source of religious controversy. In 1545 the Protestant reformer John Bale suggested that "conservative bishops" were behind the murder. A similar suggestion was made in 1548 by Hall, who also attributed Pakington's death to the Catholic clergy. John Foxe, too, held the clergy responsible, but in the process of doing so proposed contradictory theories of the crime. In 1559 Foxe claimed that John Stokesley, a former Bishop of London "had paid a priest sixty gold coins to carry out the murder". However, in the 1563 edition of the Actes and Monuments Foxe stated that John Incent, a former Dean of St Paul's, had made a deathbed confession in which he admitted arranging for Pakington's murder. The Catholic apologist Nicholas Harpsfield accused Foxe of slandering Incent, and in the 1570 edition of the Actes and Monuments Foxe produced yet another theory, claiming that Pakington's murderer was an Italian. In their accounts of Pakington's death the chroniclers John Stow, Richard Grafton and Raphael Holinshed did not repeat Foxe's allegations, and Holinshed put forward an entirely different version of events, claiming that a felon hanged at Banbury had confessed on the gallows to Pakington's murder.  
By the time of his death, Pakington was a "man of substance". He had been assessed at 500 marks in the 1534 subsidy, and in 1535 had exported some 250 cloths to Antwerp. The cash bequests in his will amounted to over £300. According to Marshall, the wording of the will, which Pakington drew up on 23 November 1535, provides additional evidence of his sympathy...]]>460falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/13-richard-hunne--72804822Richard Hunne was an English merchant tailor in the City of London during the early years of the reign of Henry VIII (1509–1547). After a dispute with his priest over his infant son's funeral, Hunne sought to use the English common law courts to challenge the church's authority. In response, church officials arrested him for trial in an ecclesiastical court on the capital charge of heresy.  
In December 1514, while awaiting trial, Hunne was found dead in his cell, and murder by church officials was suspected. His death caused widespread anger against the clergy, and months of political and religious turmoil followed.  

Life.  
In March 1511, Hunne refused to pay the standard mortuary fee, the baby's christening robe, to the rector of St Mary Matfelon in Whitechapel, Thomas Dryffeld, after the funeral of his dead five-week-old son called Stephen. The matter was not pursued by the Church until Hunne and a friend challenged the rector of St Michael Cornhill over the title to a tenement in November 1511. Hunne was then sued by the rector of St Mary Matfelon for the mortuary fee and appeared in the ecclesiastical Court of Audience, presided over by Cuthbert Tunstall, chancellor to the Archbishop of Canterbury, in April 1512. The court found in favour of the rector.  
On 27 December 1512, Hunne attended vespers at the same church and the priest refused to proceed with the service until Hunne left. According to the account of Hunne in John Foxe's Acts and Monuments, the priest shouted "Hunne, thou art accursed and standest accursed!", meaning by this that Hunne had been excommunicated by the ecclesiastical court. Hunne responded in January 1513 by suing the priest for slander claiming his character and business had been ruined by the priest's accusation. He also counteracted with a praemunire charge against the church court in which he had been arraigned and argued that its authority derived from a Papal legate and therefore was a foreign court which could have no legitimate jurisdiction over the King of England's subjects.  
The London clergy responded by again charging Hunne, this time for heresy. Hunne was then sent to the Lollards' Tower of St Paul's Cathedral, after a raid on his house in October 1514 had uncovered an English Bible with a prologue sympathetic to Wycliffe's teachings.  
Hunne was found hanging in his cell on 4 December 1514, and the circumstances were suspicious. There was widespread anger against the clergy among the populace of the City of London.  
The Church went ahead with Hunne's heresy trial in spite of his death, and he was duly condemned. His corpse was burned at the stake on 20 December.  
Hunne's accusers claimed that he had committed suicide, but they could not convince the coroner's jury, which in February 1515, charged William Horsey, chancellor to the Bishop of London, and two other church officials with Hunne's murder.  
The political and religious crisis continued to grow. Bishop FitzJames of London wrote to the King's Chancellor, Archbishop Wolsey, asking him to persuade the King to prevent Horsey being put on trial. He said that Horsey would not get a fair trial because of the strength of public feeling, which had built up against the Church: "...if my chancellor be tried by any twelve men in London, they be so maliciously set in favor of heretical depravity that they will cast and condemn my clerk though he be as innocent as Abel." The king eventually intervened to stifle the situation.  
Horsey was kept in prison until the anger in London abated. Then he was brought before a civil court, but King Henry had ordered his attorney general to see that the case was dismissed on the grounds of insufficient evidence. Horsey went free, but the public anger was exacerbated by his release, and Parliament became more and more involved.  
To calm the situation, Wolsey went before Parliament and on his knees made an apology to them on behalf of the clergy. Wolsey's real aim, however, was to get Parliament to agree to the case being tried in Rome. Then, the king intervened, rejecting Wolsey's proposal and stating that the sovereign of the realm had previously made his decision and that no one had a right to overrule his decision but God himself.  
Wolsey later fined Horsey and expelled him 160 miles from the capital. Horsey lived out the rest of his life in great poverty.  

Aftermath.  
In  1515, as a result of this affair, Parliament debated whether to approve a bill to restore to Hunne's children the property that had been forfeited when their father was found, posthumously, guilty of heresy. The House of Commons petitioned Henry VIII to reform the law on mortuary fees and an attempt was made to extend laws against benefit of clergy. None of the proposed laws was enacted. 
Foxe recounted Hunne's case as evidence of the unfairness and unaccountability of English ecclesiastical courts on the eve of the English Reformation. He also presented Hunne as a martyr and one of the forerunners of the Protestantism that would soon enter England in the wake of Martin Luther's protest. An anonymous account, "The enquirie and verdite of the quest panneld of the death of Richard Hune which was founde hanged in Lolars tower", published in 1537, suggests that its author also saw parallels between Hunne's case and the Henrician Reformation's attempt to bring ecclesiastical courts under state control.  


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72804822Fri, 03 Jul 2026 13:06:31 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Richard Hunne.   Richard Hunne was an English merchant tailor in the City of London during the early years of the reign of Henry VIII (1509–1547). After a dispute with his priest over his infant son's funeral, Hunne sought to use the English common...Richard Hunne was an English merchant tailor in the City of London during the early years of the reign of Henry VIII (1509–1547). After a dispute with his priest over his infant son's funeral, Hunne sought to use the English common law courts to challenge the church's authority. In response, church officials arrested him for trial in an ecclesiastical court on the capital charge of heresy.  
In December 1514, while awaiting trial, Hunne was found dead in his cell, and murder by church officials was suspected. His death caused widespread anger against the clergy, and months of political and religious turmoil followed.  

Life.  
In March 1511, Hunne refused to pay the standard mortuary fee, the baby's christening robe, to the rector of St Mary Matfelon in Whitechapel, Thomas Dryffeld, after the funeral of his dead five-week-old son called Stephen. The matter was not pursued by the Church until Hunne and a friend challenged the rector of St Michael Cornhill over the title to a tenement in November 1511. Hunne was then sued by the rector of St Mary Matfelon for the mortuary fee and appeared in the ecclesiastical Court of Audience, presided over by Cuthbert Tunstall, chancellor to the Archbishop of Canterbury, in April 1512. The court found in favour of the rector.  
On 27 December 1512, Hunne attended vespers at the same church and the priest refused to proceed with the service until Hunne left. According to the account of Hunne in John Foxe's Acts and Monuments, the priest shouted "Hunne, thou art accursed and standest accursed!", meaning by this that Hunne had been excommunicated by the ecclesiastical court. Hunne responded in January 1513 by suing the priest for slander claiming his character and business had been ruined by the priest's accusation. He also counteracted with a praemunire charge against the church court in which he had been arraigned and argued that its authority derived from a Papal legate and therefore was a foreign court which could have no legitimate jurisdiction over the King of England's subjects.  
The London clergy responded by again charging Hunne, this time for heresy. Hunne was then sent to the Lollards' Tower of St Paul's Cathedral, after a raid on his house in October 1514 had uncovered an English Bible with a prologue sympathetic to Wycliffe's teachings.  
Hunne was found hanging in his cell on 4 December 1514, and the circumstances were suspicious. There was widespread anger against the clergy among the populace of the City of London.  
The Church went ahead with Hunne's heresy trial in spite of his death, and he was duly condemned. His corpse was burned at the stake on 20 December.  
Hunne's accusers claimed that he had committed suicide, but they could not convince the coroner's jury, which in February 1515, charged William Horsey, chancellor to the Bishop of London, and two other church officials with Hunne's murder.  
The political and religious crisis continued to grow. Bishop FitzJames of London wrote to the King's Chancellor, Archbishop Wolsey, asking him to persuade the King to prevent Horsey being put on trial. He said that Horsey would not get a fair trial because of the strength of public feeling, which had built up against the Church: "...if my chancellor be tried by any twelve men in London, they be so maliciously set in favor of heretical depravity that they will cast and condemn my clerk though he be as innocent as Abel." The king eventually intervened to stifle the situation.  
Horsey was kept in prison until the anger in London abated. Then he was brought before a civil court, but King Henry had ordered his attorney general to see that the case was dismissed on the grounds of insufficient evidence. Horsey went free, but the public anger was exacerbated by his release, and Parliament became more and more involved.  
To calm the situation, Wolsey went before Parliament and on his knees made an...]]>345falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/12-vladislav-listyev--72804681Vladislav Nikolayevich Listyev (May 10, 1956 – March 1, 1995) was a Soviet, later Russian journalist and head of the ORT TV Channel (now government-owned Channel One).  

Career.  
Listyev was arguably the most popular journalist and TV anchor in Russia (he remains well remembered years after his death), and was a key force in bringing the voice of democracy to Russian television. Listyev first appeared on television as one of the hosts of a progressive and successful show Vzglyad (Glance or Outlook) in the late 1980s. Vzglyad was an outstanding show for that time, after the premiere many people thought it was allowed on TV only by some mistake of censors. The program was ‘like a fresh wind’, it raised the questions that never before were allowed for public discussion, such as Stalin's Great Purge, death penalty, reconstruction of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The program was watched weekly by as many as 100 million people. The other anchors were Alexander Lyubimov, Alexander Politkovsky, Dmitry Zakharov, Artyom Borovik and Yevgeny Dodolev.  
He was also the first host of the Russian version of Wheel of Fortune, which became popular. Following the success of Vzglyad, Listyev and his colleagues founded a TV company VID (Vzglyad i Drugiye—The View and the Others) that would produce programming for the First Channel of Soviet Central Television, the main TV channel in the Soviet Union (later reformed into 1st channel Ostankino and ORT). With VID, Listyev started a number of new TV projects —The Field of Wonders (the Russian version of Wheel of Fortune), Ugadai melodiu ("Guess the melody", the Russian version of Name That Tune), Tema ("The Theme"), and Chas Pik ("The Rush Hour"). In 1995, Listyev moved from VID to ORT, where he was appointed director of the channel. One of Listyev's very first moves as director was to order a temporary stop to all advertising, in effect excluding all unauthorized middlemen out of the lucrative advertising business, and consolidating future ad sales in the hands of the channel.  

Assassination.  
Shortly after his appointment, on the evening of March 1, 1995, when returning from the live broadcast of his evening show Chas Pik, Listyev was shot dead on the stairs of his apartment building. Valuables and a large sum in cash that Listyev had on him were left untouched, leading the investigators to conclude that the murder was either a political or business-related assassination. However, despite numerous claims made by investigators that the case was close to resolution, neither the gunmen, nor those who ordered the killing, were found.  
The killing caused an enormous public outcry—in an unprecedented move, ORT and several other Russian TV channels shut down for the whole day on March 2, displaying only a picture of Listyev and the words "Vladislav Listyev has been killed",  
Days later, the channel was reorganized and after a number of different incarnations, came back as the government-controlled Channel One that Russian viewers are now familiar with. Listyev's wake was visited by thousands of people, and President Boris Yeltsin went to the Studios of Channel One himself to deliver a highly emotional eulogy praising Listyev and mourning his death as a great loss for Russia.  
There has been much speculation as to the reasons behind Listyev's murder, and two possible causes have been isolated as the most likely: financial and political. When Listyev put the middlemen advertising agencies out of business, he deprived many corrupt businessmen of a source for enormous profits. From the political standpoint, Listyev enjoyed an enormous popularity rating among Russian citizens and could potentially influence the political mood of the whole country.  
Paul Klebnikov's article "Godfather of the Kremlin?" in Forbes accused Boris Berezovsky of ordering the murder. Berezovsky sued the magazine for libel in British court. Klebnikov expanded allegations in his book Godfather of the Kremlin: Boris Berezovsky and the looting of Russia. Forbes stated in court that it didn't have evidence of Berezovsky's complicity in Vlad Listyev's murder or any other murder.  
According to Yuri Felshtinsky and Vladimir Pribylovsky, top KGB officers Alexander Korzhakov and Alexander Komelkov may have plotted Listyev's murder at the hands of Solntsevskaya Bratva. The authors implied that the motive was to steal the TV advertisement revenue and sponsor Oleg Soskovets for Russia's presidency. The authors believed that Korzhakov also used the murder to blame Berezovsky and to prepare his arrest. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72804681Fri, 03 Jul 2026 12:52:58 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Vladislav Listyev.   Vladislav Nikolayevich Listyev (May 10, 1956 – March 1, 1995) was a Soviet, later Russian journalist and head of the ORT TV Channel (now government-owned Channel One).   Career.   Listyev was arguably the most popular journalist...Vladislav Nikolayevich Listyev (May 10, 1956 – March 1, 1995) was a Soviet, later Russian journalist and head of the ORT TV Channel (now government-owned Channel One).  

Career.  
Listyev was arguably the most popular journalist and TV anchor in Russia (he remains well remembered years after his death), and was a key force in bringing the voice of democracy to Russian television. Listyev first appeared on television as one of the hosts of a progressive and successful show Vzglyad (Glance or Outlook) in the late 1980s. Vzglyad was an outstanding show for that time, after the premiere many people thought it was allowed on TV only by some mistake of censors. The program was ‘like a fresh wind’, it raised the questions that never before were allowed for public discussion, such as Stalin's Great Purge, death penalty, reconstruction of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The program was watched weekly by as many as 100 million people. The other anchors were Alexander Lyubimov, Alexander Politkovsky, Dmitry Zakharov, Artyom Borovik and Yevgeny Dodolev.  
He was also the first host of the Russian version of Wheel of Fortune, which became popular. Following the success of Vzglyad, Listyev and his colleagues founded a TV company VID (Vzglyad i Drugiye—The View and the Others) that would produce programming for the First Channel of Soviet Central Television, the main TV channel in the Soviet Union (later reformed into 1st channel Ostankino and ORT). With VID, Listyev started a number of new TV projects —The Field of Wonders (the Russian version of Wheel of Fortune), Ugadai melodiu ("Guess the melody", the Russian version of Name That Tune), Tema ("The Theme"), and Chas Pik ("The Rush Hour"). In 1995, Listyev moved from VID to ORT, where he was appointed director of the channel. One of Listyev's very first moves as director was to order a temporary stop to all advertising, in effect excluding all unauthorized middlemen out of the lucrative advertising business, and consolidating future ad sales in the hands of the channel.  

Assassination.  
Shortly after his appointment, on the evening of March 1, 1995, when returning from the live broadcast of his evening show Chas Pik, Listyev was shot dead on the stairs of his apartment building. Valuables and a large sum in cash that Listyev had on him were left untouched, leading the investigators to conclude that the murder was either a political or business-related assassination. However, despite numerous claims made by investigators that the case was close to resolution, neither the gunmen, nor those who ordered the killing, were found.  
The killing caused an enormous public outcry—in an unprecedented move, ORT and several other Russian TV channels shut down for the whole day on March 2, displaying only a picture of Listyev and the words "Vladislav Listyev has been killed",  
Days later, the channel was reorganized and after a number of different incarnations, came back as the government-controlled Channel One that Russian viewers are now familiar with. Listyev's wake was visited by thousands of people, and President Boris Yeltsin went to the Studios of Channel One himself to deliver a highly emotional eulogy praising Listyev and mourning his death as a great loss for Russia.  
There has been much speculation as to the reasons behind Listyev's murder, and two possible causes have been isolated as the most likely: financial and political. When Listyev put the middlemen advertising agencies out of business, he deprived many corrupt businessmen of a source for enormous profits. From the political standpoint, Listyev enjoyed an enormous popularity rating among Russian citizens and could potentially influence the political mood of the whole country.  
Paul Klebnikov's article "Godfather of the Kremlin?" in Forbes accused Boris Berezovsky of ordering the murder. Berezovsky sued the magazine for libel in British...]]>303falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/11-killing-of-amy-mihaljevic--72758257Amy Renee Mihaljevic (December 11, 1978 – c. October 27, 1989) was a ten-year-old American elementary school student who was kidnapped and murdered in the U.S. state of Ohio in 1989.  
Her murder case received national attention. The story of her unsolved kidnapping and murder was presented by John Walsh on the television show America's Most Wanted during the program's early years. To date, her killer has not been found, yet the case remains active; new information in 2007 and 2013 has increased hopes of resolving the case.  
In February 2021, it was announced that a person of interest emerged in the case after a woman contacted authorities in 2019 with potentially valuable information.  

Disappearance and murder.  
On October 27, 1989, Amy Mihaljevic walked from Bay Middle School to the Bay Square Shopping Center, and was kidnapped from the center in Bay Village, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. The abductor had contacted Mihaljevic by telephone and arranged to meet her on the pretext of buying a gift for her mother because she had recently been promoted, as he told her. On February 8, 1990, the girl's body was found in a field, close to the road, off County Road 1181, Ruggles Township in rural Ashland County, Ohio.  
Evidence found at the scene of the crime suggests that Mihaljevic's body was probably dumped there shortly after her abduction. Based on findings by the Cuyahoga County coroner, Mihaljevic's last meal was some soy substance, possibly an vegetarian chicken product or Chinese food. Other evidence includes yellow/gold colored fibers on her body. It appears her killer also took several souvenirs including the girl's horse riding boots, her denim backpack, a binder with "Buick, Best in Class" written on the front clasp, and turquoise earrings in the shape of horse heads. Mitochondrial DNA from the crime scene was sampled, which may be used to compare to suspects.  

Investigation.  
The Bay Village Police and the FBI conducted an extensive investigation into her disappearance and murder. The case generated thousands of leads. Dozens of suspects were asked to take lie-detector tests, but no one has ever been charged. Law enforcement continues to pursue leads and monitor suspects to the present day. Twenty thousand interviews have taken place during the investigation. This case was described as involving the most extensive search in Ohio since the 1951 disappearance of Beverly Potts.  
In November 2006, it was revealed that several other young girls had received phone calls similar to the ones Mihaljevic received in the weeks before her abduction. The unknown male caller claimed he worked with the girl's mother and wanted help buying a present to celebrate her promotion. The girls who received these calls lived in North Olmsted, a suburb near Bay Village; some had unlisted phone numbers. This new information was considered significant by investigators. Mihaljevic and the others who received such calls had all visited the local Lake Erie Nature and Science Center, which had a visitors' logbook by the front door. The girls may have signed the book and added personal information, including phone numbers and addresses.  
Bay Village police collected DNA samples from several potential suspects in the case in December 2006. As of early 2007, it was reported that a longtime suspect in the case had retained legal counsel.  
In late 2013, investigator Phil Torsney returned from retirement to work on the case, to which he had been assigned initially after the murder. Torsney is well known for aiding in the capture of Whitey Bulger, who was a long-time member of the FBI Top Ten Most Wanted. Torsney stated that he believed that Mihaljevic was transported out of Bay Village after she was kidnapped, as the town is "too dense, too close-knit, to be a likely place to commit murder." However, he stated that the murder likely took place in Ashland County, which the murderer was probably familiar with.  
The FBI announced in March 2014 that a $25,000 reward is available to anyone who can provide information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the killer of Mihaljevic. In October, it was increased to $27,000.  
In 2016, it was discovered that a blanket and curtain near Mihaljevic's body had hairs similar to those of Mihaljevic's dog. They were possibly used to conceal the victim's body before she was left in the field.  
In 2018, investigators were also following a potential link between identity thief Robert Ivan Nichols (alias Joseph Newton Chandler III) and the murder of Mihaljevic. In 2019, authorities stated that they have extensively investigated all suspects in the case and feel that if her killer were identified, he would likely be a part of their list.  

2021 case update.  
On the 31st anniversary of discovering Mihaljevic's remains, a significant development in the case was announced. A publicly unidentified man, age 64, was implicated by a former girlfriend with whom he was involved at the time of the kidnapping and murder. She alleged that he was uncharacteristically absent from their residence, located in close proximity to the abduction site when the victim disappeared. The man called her late that evening, inquiring if she had seen media releases about the abduction. He was employed in the same city, and his niece was in the same grade as Mihaljevic.  
Police interviews with the man included "suspicious statements", including the possibility he had met Amy Mihaljevic's mother, Margaret, before. His DNA was obtained without protest, and he later failed a polygraph test. A warrant to search a storage facility led to authorities confiscating certain items of interest.  
Additionally, the two individuals who witnessed the yet-to-be-identified kidnapper lead Mihaljevic into his vehicle identified the potential suspect out of line-ups conducted in May 2020. The vehicle itself was consistent with what the man drove at the time, including the fact that its carpeting was similar in coloration to the fibers on Mihaljevic's body. A vehicle of the same make and model had been observed near the body's dumpsite on February 8, 1990, when the victim's body was recovered along a roadside.  

Aftermath
In response to her daughter's death, Mihaljevic's mother, Margaret McNulty, co-founded the Community Fund for Assisting Missing Youth, which aimed to educate children about stranger danger. McNulty died in 2001 from complications of alcoholism at the age of 54. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72758257Tue, 30 Jun 2026 15:10:02 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Killing of Amy Mihaljevic.   Amy Renee Mihaljevic (December 11, 1978 – c. October 27, 1989) was a ten-year-old American elementary school student who was kidnapped and murdered in the U.S. state of Ohio in 1989.   Her murder case received national...Amy Renee Mihaljevic (December 11, 1978 – c. October 27, 1989) was a ten-year-old American elementary school student who was kidnapped and murdered in the U.S. state of Ohio in 1989.  
Her murder case received national attention. The story of her unsolved kidnapping and murder was presented by John Walsh on the television show America's Most Wanted during the program's early years. To date, her killer has not been found, yet the case remains active; new information in 2007 and 2013 has increased hopes of resolving the case.  
In February 2021, it was announced that a person of interest emerged in the case after a woman contacted authorities in 2019 with potentially valuable information.  

Disappearance and murder.  
On October 27, 1989, Amy Mihaljevic walked from Bay Middle School to the Bay Square Shopping Center, and was kidnapped from the center in Bay Village, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. The abductor had contacted Mihaljevic by telephone and arranged to meet her on the pretext of buying a gift for her mother because she had recently been promoted, as he told her. On February 8, 1990, the girl's body was found in a field, close to the road, off County Road 1181, Ruggles Township in rural Ashland County, Ohio.  
Evidence found at the scene of the crime suggests that Mihaljevic's body was probably dumped there shortly after her abduction. Based on findings by the Cuyahoga County coroner, Mihaljevic's last meal was some soy substance, possibly an vegetarian chicken product or Chinese food. Other evidence includes yellow/gold colored fibers on her body. It appears her killer also took several souvenirs including the girl's horse riding boots, her denim backpack, a binder with "Buick, Best in Class" written on the front clasp, and turquoise earrings in the shape of horse heads. Mitochondrial DNA from the crime scene was sampled, which may be used to compare to suspects.  

Investigation.  
The Bay Village Police and the FBI conducted an extensive investigation into her disappearance and murder. The case generated thousands of leads. Dozens of suspects were asked to take lie-detector tests, but no one has ever been charged. Law enforcement continues to pursue leads and monitor suspects to the present day. Twenty thousand interviews have taken place during the investigation. This case was described as involving the most extensive search in Ohio since the 1951 disappearance of Beverly Potts.  
In November 2006, it was revealed that several other young girls had received phone calls similar to the ones Mihaljevic received in the weeks before her abduction. The unknown male caller claimed he worked with the girl's mother and wanted help buying a present to celebrate her promotion. The girls who received these calls lived in North Olmsted, a suburb near Bay Village; some had unlisted phone numbers. This new information was considered significant by investigators. Mihaljevic and the others who received such calls had all visited the local Lake Erie Nature and Science Center, which had a visitors' logbook by the front door. The girls may have signed the book and added personal information, including phone numbers and addresses.  
Bay Village police collected DNA samples from several potential suspects in the case in December 2006. As of early 2007, it was reported that a longtime suspect in the case had retained legal counsel.  
In late 2013, investigator Phil Torsney returned from retirement to work on the case, to which he had been assigned initially after the murder. Torsney is well known for aiding in the capture of Whitey Bulger, who was a long-time member of the FBI Top Ten Most Wanted. Torsney stated that he believed that Mihaljevic was transported out of Bay Village after she was kidnapped, as the town is "too dense, too close-knit, to be a likely place to commit murder." However, he stated that the murder likely took place in...]]>440falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/10-jeannie-mills--72758054Jeannie Mills (née Gustafson; July 2, 1939 – February 27, 1980), formerly Deanna Mertle, was an early defector from the Peoples Temple organization headed by Jim Jones. With her husband and Elmer Mertle, she co-founded the Concerned Relatives of Peoples Temple Members organization in 1977. Mills was murdered in 1980 along with her husband and one of her daughters, in a killing which remains unsolved.  

Background.  
Jeannie Mills, her husband Al, and her children joined the Peoples Temple in 1969. As Deanna and Elmer Mertle, Jeannie served as head of the Temple's publications office while Al was the official photographer. The couple left the Temple with their five children in 1974 after Jones beat their daughter Linda seventy times with a paddle for a minor infraction. The family legally changed their names to void the power of attorney they had earlier given Jones.  
After her defection, Mills published a memoir, Six Years with God: Life inside Rev. Jim Jones's Peoples Temple, and established the Berkeley Human Freedom Center with her husband. She later co-founded the Concerned Relatives of Peoples Temple Members, a support group for Temple defectors and their families. The Concerned Relatives eventually persuaded U.S. Representative Leo Ryan to undertake a fact-finding mission to the Temple's Jonestown settlement in Guyana, which ultimately led to Ryan's murder and the mass murder-suicide at Jonestown on November 18, 1978. After the killings, the Mills family initially holed up with other defectors in the protective custody of a police SWAT team, but eventually decided to resume normal life.  

Murder.  
Mills, along with her husband Al and their 15-year-old daughter Daphene, were murdered execution-style inside their home in Berkeley, California, on February 26, 1980, just over a year after the Jonestown massacre. Their 17-year-old son Eddie was home at the time, but was left unharmed. There was no forced entry, and burglary was quickly ruled out as a motive. Eddie claimed he was unaware that the killings had taken place, even though police found gunshot residue on his hands.  
The Mills murders raised the fear that Temple "hit squads" – former members out to "avenge" the Jonestown deaths – were involved. The theory was never substantiated. With no leads, the investigation was eventually shelved and the case went cold. In 2005, police re-interviewed several surviving members of the Mills family. On December 3, 2005, 43-year-old Eddie Mills was arrested at San Francisco International Airport after returning to the U.S. for the first time in several years. However, the Alameda County District Attorney's Office declined to file charges, citing a lack of evidence. Eddie Mills returned to Japan, where he lives with his wife and two children. The Mills murders remain unsolved.

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72758054Tue, 30 Jun 2026 14:53:44 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Jeannie Mills.   Jeannie Mills (née Gustafson; July 2, 1939 – February 27, 1980), formerly Deanna Mertle, was an early defector from the Peoples Temple organization headed by Jim Jones. With her husband and Elmer Mertle, she co-founded the Concerned...Jeannie Mills (née Gustafson; July 2, 1939 – February 27, 1980), formerly Deanna Mertle, was an early defector from the Peoples Temple organization headed by Jim Jones. With her husband and Elmer Mertle, she co-founded the Concerned Relatives of Peoples Temple Members organization in 1977. Mills was murdered in 1980 along with her husband and one of her daughters, in a killing which remains unsolved.  

Background.  
Jeannie Mills, her husband Al, and her children joined the Peoples Temple in 1969. As Deanna and Elmer Mertle, Jeannie served as head of the Temple's publications office while Al was the official photographer. The couple left the Temple with their five children in 1974 after Jones beat their daughter Linda seventy times with a paddle for a minor infraction. The family legally changed their names to void the power of attorney they had earlier given Jones.  
After her defection, Mills published a memoir, Six Years with God: Life inside Rev. Jim Jones's Peoples Temple, and established the Berkeley Human Freedom Center with her husband. She later co-founded the Concerned Relatives of Peoples Temple Members, a support group for Temple defectors and their families. The Concerned Relatives eventually persuaded U.S. Representative Leo Ryan to undertake a fact-finding mission to the Temple's Jonestown settlement in Guyana, which ultimately led to Ryan's murder and the mass murder-suicide at Jonestown on November 18, 1978. After the killings, the Mills family initially holed up with other defectors in the protective custody of a police SWAT team, but eventually decided to resume normal life.  

Murder.  
Mills, along with her husband Al and their 15-year-old daughter Daphene, were murdered execution-style inside their home in Berkeley, California, on February 26, 1980, just over a year after the Jonestown massacre. Their 17-year-old son Eddie was home at the time, but was left unharmed. There was no forced entry, and burglary was quickly ruled out as a motive. Eddie claimed he was unaware that the killings had taken place, even though police found gunshot residue on his hands.  
The Mills murders raised the fear that Temple "hit squads" – former members out to "avenge" the Jonestown deaths – were involved. The theory was never substantiated. With no leads, the investigation was eventually shelved and the case went cold. In 2005, police re-interviewed several surviving members of the Mills family. On December 3, 2005, 43-year-old Eddie Mills was arrested at San Francisco International Airport after returning to the U.S. for the first time in several years. However, the Alameda County District Attorney's Office declined to file charges, citing a lack of evidence. Eddie Mills returned to Japan, where he lives with his wife and two children. The Mills murders remain unsolved.

Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>197falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/09-miami-strangler--72757940The Miami Strangler is the name attributed to an unidentified serial killer who murdered at least nine women in Miami, Florida, between 1964 and 1970. Despite the nickname, not all victims were strangled, and some died from bludgeoning and smothering. Although no victim was directly sexually assaulted, the murders appear sexually motivated given how the victims were posed. Investigators had a suspect in the case, a felon, but he was never charged in any of the crimes.  

Murders.  
- On August 17, 1964, Mary E. McGreevy, 64, was smothered to death in her home with a pillow.  
- Six months later, at about 9:00 p.m. on March 8, 1965, 38-year-old Sylvia Valdez left her workplace, walked to the parking lot and discovered her car had a flat tire. At 10:30 p.m., a parking lot attendant changed the tire and saw Valdez speak with two Cuban men as he walked away. Valdez was found dead in her car the next morning. A black silk scarf was wrapped around her neck, and her skirt was pulled over her head. She was also shot twice behind the right ear with a .22 caliber pistol. Although her purse, shoes, and car keys were stolen, the perpetrator did not steal other valuable items such as her diamond ring. It was determined that Valdez had not been sexually assaulted.  
- In February of 1966, 44-year-old Bernadita Gonzalez was last seen alive in a Miami beauty salon. Eight weeks later, a highway patrolman discovered her decomposing body floating face down in Levitz Lake. The medical examiner determined that she died from blunt-force trauma to the skull, possibly inflicted by a hatchet. The perpetrator took her underwear, but left her jewelry on her.  
- Sherivon Dolores Wooten, a 21-year-old woman, was the next victim. On August 16, 1969, her dead body was found on a dirt road between two homes. Like the previous victims, she was strangled to death, and her clothes were hiked over her breasts. There were also fingernail marks on her neck. Wooten was last seen leaving her house the night before her body was found.  
- On May 5, 1970, 64-year-old Mary Louise Clark Danford was found strangled to death in her home by worried friends who came to check on her after she stopped answering phone calls. Danford was found on her bed with her sweater pushed up and her underwear missing. She was last seen buying groceries a few hours earlier. The perpetrator entered the home through a small window.  
- The next victim was 64-year-old Ruth Boehner, whose body was discovered in her apartment on June 2, 1970. Her cause of death was blunt-force trauma to the head, neck, and jaw. Additionally, Boehner had been strangled, which caused her hyoid bone to break. Her nightgown was also pulled up, and her clothes were disheveled. There was no evidence of forced entry into the apartment.  
- On August 5, 1970, 84-year-old Mattie Ophelia Harris was strangled to death with a necktie in her kitchen. Her nightgown had also been pulled up, and her house was ransacked.  
- On October 10, 1970, 48-year-old deaf-mute woman Regina Bonnanno was found dead in her apartment. She was bound to her bed, and her bra and a scarf were tied around her neck. Panties were stuffed in her mouth, and her head was shoved inside of a pillowcase.  
- The final confirmed victim of the Miami Strangler was 36-year-old Patrice Finer Newkirk. On October 26, 1970, she was found bludgeoned to death in the trunk of her car. The damage to her skull was comparable to that from falling from a building. The perpetrator also tore off a piece of her dress and tied it around her neck. Newkirk's purse, car keys, shoes, and underwear were stolen as well.  


Other suspected murders.  
Although the Miami Strangler was only conclusively linked to nine murders, he is also suspected of murdering Mary Francis Sims, a 31-year-old Miami housewife. Sims was found dead by her husband in their home in March of 1971. She was sexually assaulted, strangled, and stabbed in the throat on her bed.  
The perpetrator may also be responsible for the murder of Clara Jane Armaly, who was strangled to death in her home on September 12, 1971. On the afternoon before, she last seen alive by her estranged husband, who came to pick up their children for a visit. Her husband found her body face down in her bedroom on the morning of September 13. There were no signs of forced entry into the house or of a struggle between Armaly and the perpetrator. Additionally, an electrical cord was found near her body, but it's unknown if the cord was used to strangle her. Armaly's husband went into a state of shock after finding her remains, and required sedation at the hospital. To date, no arrests have been made in Clara Armaly's murder.  

Investigation.  
Police linked the murders through their similarities. All but one of the victims were white; the crimes occurred in downtown Miami; the victims died from either strangulation, smothering, or bludgeoning; and the murders appeared sexually motivated. Investigators believed that the perpetrator was a sexual sadist with a fetish for attacking vulnerable women alone in their homes. However, the perpetrator's modus operandi was inconsistent, and he did not always exhibit the same behaviors in every murder.  
Police questioned Calvin Jones Jr., a truck driver who had been recently released from prison following a conviction for his fourth felony. Jones was the parking lot attendant that changed Sylvia Valdez's tire and also knew Patrice Newkirk. However, Jones was never charged with any of the murders. 


Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72757940Tue, 30 Jun 2026 14:43:40 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Miami Strangler.   The Miami Strangler is the name attributed to an unidentified serial killer who murdered at least nine women in Miami, Florida, between 1964 and 1970. Despite the nickname, not all victims were strangled, and some died from...The Miami Strangler is the name attributed to an unidentified serial killer who murdered at least nine women in Miami, Florida, between 1964 and 1970. Despite the nickname, not all victims were strangled, and some died from bludgeoning and smothering. Although no victim was directly sexually assaulted, the murders appear sexually motivated given how the victims were posed. Investigators had a suspect in the case, a felon, but he was never charged in any of the crimes.  

Murders.  
- On August 17, 1964, Mary E. McGreevy, 64, was smothered to death in her home with a pillow.  
- Six months later, at about 9:00 p.m. on March 8, 1965, 38-year-old Sylvia Valdez left her workplace, walked to the parking lot and discovered her car had a flat tire. At 10:30 p.m., a parking lot attendant changed the tire and saw Valdez speak with two Cuban men as he walked away. Valdez was found dead in her car the next morning. A black silk scarf was wrapped around her neck, and her skirt was pulled over her head. She was also shot twice behind the right ear with a .22 caliber pistol. Although her purse, shoes, and car keys were stolen, the perpetrator did not steal other valuable items such as her diamond ring. It was determined that Valdez had not been sexually assaulted.  
- In February of 1966, 44-year-old Bernadita Gonzalez was last seen alive in a Miami beauty salon. Eight weeks later, a highway patrolman discovered her decomposing body floating face down in Levitz Lake. The medical examiner determined that she died from blunt-force trauma to the skull, possibly inflicted by a hatchet. The perpetrator took her underwear, but left her jewelry on her.  
- Sherivon Dolores Wooten, a 21-year-old woman, was the next victim. On August 16, 1969, her dead body was found on a dirt road between two homes. Like the previous victims, she was strangled to death, and her clothes were hiked over her breasts. There were also fingernail marks on her neck. Wooten was last seen leaving her house the night before her body was found.  
- On May 5, 1970, 64-year-old Mary Louise Clark Danford was found strangled to death in her home by worried friends who came to check on her after she stopped answering phone calls. Danford was found on her bed with her sweater pushed up and her underwear missing. She was last seen buying groceries a few hours earlier. The perpetrator entered the home through a small window.  
- The next victim was 64-year-old Ruth Boehner, whose body was discovered in her apartment on June 2, 1970. Her cause of death was blunt-force trauma to the head, neck, and jaw. Additionally, Boehner had been strangled, which caused her hyoid bone to break. Her nightgown was also pulled up, and her clothes were disheveled. There was no evidence of forced entry into the apartment.  
- On August 5, 1970, 84-year-old Mattie Ophelia Harris was strangled to death with a necktie in her kitchen. Her nightgown had also been pulled up, and her house was ransacked.  
- On October 10, 1970, 48-year-old deaf-mute woman Regina Bonnanno was found dead in her apartment. She was bound to her bed, and her bra and a scarf were tied around her neck. Panties were stuffed in her mouth, and her head was shoved inside of a pillowcase.  
- The final confirmed victim of the Miami Strangler was 36-year-old Patrice Finer Newkirk. On October 26, 1970, she was found bludgeoned to death in the trunk of her car. The damage to her skull was comparable to that from falling from a building. The perpetrator also tore off a piece of her dress and tied it around her neck. Newkirk's purse, car keys, shoes, and underwear were stolen as well.  


Other suspected murders.  
Although the Miami Strangler was only conclusively linked to nine murders, he is also suspected of murdering Mary Francis Sims, a 31-year-old Miami housewife. Sims was found dead by her husband in their home in March of 1971. She...]]>392falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/08-national-airlines-flight-2511--72742814National Airlines Flight 2511 was a United States domestic passenger flight from New York City to Miami, Florida. On January 6, 1960, the Douglas DC-6 serving the flight exploded in midair. The National Airlines aircraft was carrying 5 crew members and 29 passengers, all of whom perished. The Civil Aeronautics Board investigation concluded that the plane was brought down by a bomb made of dynamite. No criminal charges were ever filed, nor was the blame for the bombing ever determined, though a suicide bombing is suspected. The investigation remains open.  
One of the victims was retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Edward Orrick McDonnell, a Medal of Honor recipient and veteran of both World Wars.  

Flight history.  
National Airlines' New York-Miami route was usually flown by a Boeing 707 as Flight 601. On January 5, 1960, the 707 aircraft scheduled to fly to Miami was grounded due to cracks that were discovered in the cockpit windshield. The windshield replacement procedure would take eight hours to perform, so National Airlines transferred the passengers of Flight 601 to two propliner aircraft it had in reserve.  
Passengers were boarded on these two replacement planes on a first-come, first-served basis. Seventy-six passengers boarded a Lockheed L-188 Electra. This aircraft flew to Miami and arrived safely.  
The remaining 29 passengers boarded a Douglas DC-6B, which departed Idlewild Airport for Miami as Flight 2511. The crew consisted of stewardesses Mary O'Dell (24) and Valery Stewart (25), pilot Dale Southard (45), copilot Richard L. Hentzel (31), and flight engineer Robert R. Halleckson (34). The plane departed New York at 11:52 p.m. and was scheduled to arrive in Miami at 4:36 a.m. on January 6.  
The aircraft, registration N8225H, was described as being in good condition. It had four Pratt and Whitney R-2800 CB-16 engines and had accumulated 24,836 hours of flight time.  
2511's flight plan called for it to fly south from New York to Wilmington, North Carolina, where it would continue south over the Atlantic Ocean. It would fly south 550 miles (890 km) over the ocean to Palm Beach, Florida. The crew maintained radio contact with National Airlines' radio controllers and air traffic control, reporting clouds and instrument flying conditions. The crew checked in with Wilmington Airport at 2:07 a.m., and later reported flying over the Carolina Beach radio beacon at 2:31 a.m. This was the last radio contact with the airplane.  

Crash and recovery.  
After losing contact with the DC-6 aircraft, National Airlines, the United States Coast Guard, and the United States Navy began an intensive search along the southeastern coast of the United States. The search was called off the following day, when National Airlines received word that there was a plane down in North Carolina.  
At about 2:45 a.m. a farmer, Richard Randolph, heard the sound of an engine cutting in and out, followed by tearing metal and an explosion. Later that morning, after his teenage son McArthur Randolph found airplane wreckage in one of his father's fields, Richard Randolph drove to Bolivia, North Carolina, which had the nearest phone. He called Wilmington Airport to report the downed plane at approximately 7:00 a.m. When Highway Patrol officers responded, he led them to the crash site.  
Bodies and wreckage were scattered over an area of 20 acres (8 ha) covering farm fields, marshland, and pine forests.  
During the first day of search and rescue, investigators located 32 bodies of the 34 persons on board. One of the missing bodies was later found at the main crash site. The remaining body was found at Snow's Marsh, approximately 16 miles (26 km) from the main site.  
Initial reports speculated that the aircraft had disintegrated in mid-flight. One newspaper reporter indicated that the largest piece of wreckage he observed was a portion of the wing. A fragment of aluminum, believed to be a piece of the airplane's skin, was found on Kure Beach, 25 miles (40 km) from the rest of the wreckage.  

Investigations.  
The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), part of the Department of Transportation, were the primary investigators into the crash of Flight 2511. The wreckage of the DC-6 was taken to a hangar at nearby Wilmington Airport, where the fuselage was reassembled on a wood-and-chicken-wire frame. Investigators recovered approximately 90% of the fuselage, which was then assembled on the frame in the Wilmington hangar.  
Investigators identified the point of origin of the disintegration as an area immediately ahead of the leading edge of the aircraft's right wing. The material recovered from Kure Beach, including a portion of the wing fillet, was from this general area. Investigators did not recover material from an irregular, triangularly shaped area positioned above the leading edge and extending forward ahead of the wing.  
The bodies were taken to the local high school gymnasium to await autopsy and identification by a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) fingerprinting team. The Brunswick County coroner ordered autopsies of the passengers and crew to determine the specific cause of death for each. One of the victims was Vice Admiral Edward Orrick McDonnell, U.S. Navy (retired), a recipient of the Medal of Honor and a veteran of both World Wars. Other victims included a vice president of the Continental Bank of Cuba, a pharmacist, a student at the University of Miami, and an insurance adjuster. Three of the victims had been standby passengers and only made the flight due to others cancelling their reservations.  

Julian Frank.  
The only body not found at the main crash site was that of Julian Frank, a New York City lawyer. His body was recovered from Snow's Marsh, located on the west side of the Cape Fear River. Frank's body had sustained significant injuries, including the amputation of both legs, and debris was embedded in his body. Frank's injuries were significantly different from and much more extensive than the other passengers'. Furthermore, Frank's injuries were inconsistent with the type of injury usually incurred in an aircraft accident.  
Frank was autopsied twice, the second time to recover debris embedded in his body. The autopsy revealed that his lower extremities had been ripped off; his muscle tissue was extensively mutilated and torn; small pieces of wire, brass, and miscellaneous articles including a hat ornament were embedded in various limbs; the fingers of his right hand were fractured and the bones splintered; and the distal phalanx of each finger on his left hand was missing. The coroner also observed numerous patches of blackened areas, similar to close-range gunshot residue. Four human finger bones were discovered among the wreckage at the primary crash site.  
At the time of the crash, Frank had been accused of running a charity scam and was under investigation by the Manhattan district attorney's office. It was alleged that he had misappropriated up to a million dollars (roughly equivalent to $8 million in 2024 dollars) in a series of scams.  

Bombing.  
The crash of National Airlines Flight 2511 came shortly after the crash of another National Airlines plane. National Airlines Flight 967 exploded over the Gulf of Mexico on November 16, 1959. The cause of the explosion was believed to be a bomb in the luggage of one of the passengers, Robert Vernon Spears, who enlisted a substitute to board the plane in his place. Spears was heavily insured, and the FBI indicated that his motive was insurance fraud. Similarly, Julian Frank was covered by almost $900,000 (roughly equivalent to $7.3 million in 2024 dollars) in life insurance policies, including some purchased the day of the crash.  
The CAB sent the material recovered from Frank's body to the FBI laboratories for testing and analysis. Analysis determined that the many wire fragments that were found embedded in Frank's body, in the seats on the right-hand side, and in the carpeting, were low-carbon steel wire, 0.025 inches (0.64 mm) in diameter. One of the dismembered fingers recovered from the wreckage had been embedded in the face plate of a travel alarm clock. A life jacket from Kure Beach, found with parts of a flight bag embedded in it, tested positive for nitrate residue. A black "crusty" residue on Frank's right hand was found to be manganese dioxide, a substance found in dry cell batteries.  
In addition to the evidence collected from Frank's body, there were also samples of residue taken from the air vents and hat rack located on the right side of the aircraft near the leading edge of the wing. These samples contained sodium carbonate, sodium nitrate, and mixtures of sodium-sulfur compounds.  
The Civil Aeronautics Board concluded the severity of Frank's injuries and the numerous particulates found embedded in his body could only be attributed to his proximity to an explosion. Furthermore, the chemical compounds detected in the area around the explosion's point of origin were consistent with those generated by a dynamite explosion. The manganese dioxide samples collected from the seats near the focal point and from Frank's body indicated a dry cell battery was located very near the explosive. The CAB determined, based on the blast pattern, a dynamite charge had been placed underneath the window seat of row 7.  
The CAB's chief investigator, Oscar Bakke, testified before the Senate Aviation subcommittee to this effect on January 12, 1960. The same day, the FBI formally took over the criminal aspects of the investigation.  

Other theories.  
One of the first theories considered by investigators was that Flight 2511 was involved in a collision with another airliner, given the crash site's proximity to Wilmington Airport. Investigators reviewed the...

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72742814Mon, 29 Jun 2026 15:58:47 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.National Airlines Flight 2511.   National Airlines Flight 2511 was a United States domestic passenger flight from New York City to Miami, Florida. On January 6, 1960, the Douglas DC-6 serving the flight exploded in midair. The National Airlines...National Airlines Flight 2511 was a United States domestic passenger flight from New York City to Miami, Florida. On January 6, 1960, the Douglas DC-6 serving the flight exploded in midair. The National Airlines aircraft was carrying 5 crew members and 29 passengers, all of whom perished. The Civil Aeronautics Board investigation concluded that the plane was brought down by a bomb made of dynamite. No criminal charges were ever filed, nor was the blame for the bombing ever determined, though a suicide bombing is suspected. The investigation remains open.  
One of the victims was retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Edward Orrick McDonnell, a Medal of Honor recipient and veteran of both World Wars.  

Flight history.  
National Airlines' New York-Miami route was usually flown by a Boeing 707 as Flight 601. On January 5, 1960, the 707 aircraft scheduled to fly to Miami was grounded due to cracks that were discovered in the cockpit windshield. The windshield replacement procedure would take eight hours to perform, so National Airlines transferred the passengers of Flight 601 to two propliner aircraft it had in reserve.  
Passengers were boarded on these two replacement planes on a first-come, first-served basis. Seventy-six passengers boarded a Lockheed L-188 Electra. This aircraft flew to Miami and arrived safely.  
The remaining 29 passengers boarded a Douglas DC-6B, which departed Idlewild Airport for Miami as Flight 2511. The crew consisted of stewardesses Mary O'Dell (24) and Valery Stewart (25), pilot Dale Southard (45), copilot Richard L. Hentzel (31), and flight engineer Robert R. Halleckson (34). The plane departed New York at 11:52 p.m. and was scheduled to arrive in Miami at 4:36 a.m. on January 6.  
The aircraft, registration N8225H, was described as being in good condition. It had four Pratt and Whitney R-2800 CB-16 engines and had accumulated 24,836 hours of flight time.  
2511's flight plan called for it to fly south from New York to Wilmington, North Carolina, where it would continue south over the Atlantic Ocean. It would fly south 550 miles (890 km) over the ocean to Palm Beach, Florida. The crew maintained radio contact with National Airlines' radio controllers and air traffic control, reporting clouds and instrument flying conditions. The crew checked in with Wilmington Airport at 2:07 a.m., and later reported flying over the Carolina Beach radio beacon at 2:31 a.m. This was the last radio contact with the airplane.  

Crash and recovery.  
After losing contact with the DC-6 aircraft, National Airlines, the United States Coast Guard, and the United States Navy began an intensive search along the southeastern coast of the United States. The search was called off the following day, when National Airlines received word that there was a plane down in North Carolina.  
At about 2:45 a.m. a farmer, Richard Randolph, heard the sound of an engine cutting in and out, followed by tearing metal and an explosion. Later that morning, after his teenage son McArthur Randolph found airplane wreckage in one of his father's fields, Richard Randolph drove to Bolivia, North Carolina, which had the nearest phone. He called Wilmington Airport to report the downed plane at approximately 7:00 a.m. When Highway Patrol officers responded, he led them to the crash site.  
Bodies and wreckage were scattered over an area of 20 acres (8 ha) covering farm fields, marshland, and pine forests.  
During the first day of search and rescue, investigators located 32 bodies of the 34 persons on board. One of the missing bodies was later found at the main crash site. The remaining body was found at Snow's Marsh, approximately 16 miles (26 km) from the main site.  
Initial reports speculated that the aircraft had disintegrated in mid-flight. One newspaper reporter indicated that the largest piece of wreckage he observed was a portion of the...]]>933falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/07-murders-of-harry-and-harriette-moore--72739763Harry T. Moore and his wife, Harriette V. S. Moore, were pioneer activists and leaders of the early Civil Rights Movement in the United States and became the first martyrs of the movement. On the night of Christmas, December 25, 1951, a bomb that had been planted under the bedroom floor of the Moores' home in Mims, Florida, exploded. They had celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary earlier that day. Harry died in the ambulance in transit from the attack, and Harriette died from her injuries nine days later, on January 3, 1952. Their deaths were the first assassination of any activist to occur during the Civil Rights Movement and the only time that a husband and wife were killed during the history of the movement.  

Background.  
Harry Moore and Harriette Simms married on December 25, 1926, and moved into the Simms' family home the following fall.  Harry was an educator, and Harriette was a former teacher turned insurance broker. In 1927, Harry was promoted to the position of principal at the local Titusville Colored School. The city's school system was racially segregated, like many others in the country at the time. Harry taught the school's ninth grade (the school taught grades one to nine), and he also supervised the team of teachers at the school. The school was closed early his first year by the local school board just six months into the year, as part of the local school system's systemic discrimination against black children. The Moores had their first daughter in 1928 and moved into their own home with an acre of land given to them by Harriette's parents. They gave birth to their second daughter in 1930. Harriette returned to her career in education the following year and later began working as a teacher for the same school as Harry.  
In 1934, Harry founded the Brevard County, Florida, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter. He later served as the NAACP's first Executive Secretary in the state of Florida. The NAACP chapter worked towards achieving equal pay for equal work for teachers of any race, fought to get lynchings prosecuted, and attempted to register black voters in the region.  
Moore's activism was highly controversial in the local white-dominated county. In 1946, it resulted in the firings of Harry and Harriette from their teaching jobs by state authorities. Harry then became a full-time employee of the NAACP.  

Murder.  
On the night of December 25, 1951, the Moores finished celebrating Christmas and their 25th wedding anniversary. When they later retired to their bedroom for the evening, a bomb exploded, injuring Harry and Harriette but leaving their daughter (who was at home at the time, the other being in a different location) unharmed. The improvised explosive device, which was made from dynamite, had been placed directly under the Moores' bedroom floor. The Moores were rushed to the nearest hospital that would treat African-Americans in Sanford, Florida, a 29.8 miles (48.0 km) drive by car. Harry died while being transported; his wife, Harriette, lived to see her husband buried before she died nine days later from her injuries.  
Investigations and motive.  
Over the years, a number of motives have been suggested for the Moores' deaths. All of them share a common theme — retribution against Harry Moore for his civil rights activities. — Charlie Crist, 35th Attorney General of the State of Florida.  
Since the night of the explosion in 1951, five separate criminal investigations have been initiated and completed. The first investigation was headed by the FBI, began on the night of the explosion, and concluded in 1955. The second investigation was a joint investigation by the Brevard County Sheriff's Office and Brevard County State Attorney's Office in 1978. The third investigation took place in 1991 by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). In 2004, a fourth investigation was commenced by the Florida Attorney General's Office of Civil Rights. In 2008, the FBI again investigated the Moore homicides as part of the Department of Justice's "Cold Case Initiative".  
In total, the five criminal investigations revealed evidence implicating four subjects in the bombing. The four subjects were known to be high-ranking members within the Ku Klux Klan in the central region of Florida. The first of the four, Earl J. Brooklyn, was a Klansman with a reputation for being exceedingly violent and described as "a renegade" after being expelled from a Klavern of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia for engaging in unsanctioned acts of violence. Brooklyn reportedly was in possession of floor plans of the Moore home and was said to be recruiting volunteers to assist in the bombing. The second subject, Tillman H. "Curley" Belvin, was also reported to be a violent member of the Klan and a close friend of Brooklyn. Joseph N. Cox, another Klansman, was implicated in the bombing by a fourth co-conspirator, Edward L. Spivey.  
Spivey implicated Cox in a deathbed confession while he suffered in the late stages of cancer in 1978. He told the police that Cox had gone to his home and privately confessed that he had been paid $5,000 by the Klan to kill the Moores. After confessing, Cox borrowed a shotgun and committed suicide. Cox, 61, committed suicide on March 30, 1952, one day after he was confronted by the FBI. Both Brooklyn and Belvin died during the FBI's initial investigation—Belvin, 58, of natural causes on August 25, 1952, and Brooklyn, 41, of an illness on Christmas Day 1952, one year to the day after the bombing. With three of the suspects dead within a year of the bombing and Spivey's death from cancer in 1980, no arrests were ever made in the case.  
The investigation revealed that Harry's civil rights advocacy made him a known target of the Klan. The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division closed the file on the federal investigation in 2011.
 
Public reaction.  
During the early morning hours of the following day, December 26, 1951, angry men in Titusville's black neighborhoods were in the streets spreading word of the bombing. In the following hours men and women from Brevard County, still in their nightclothes, walked and rode towards Mims to protest in the streets. Most of the people knew Moore personally, some via his job in education, others via the NAACP, and still others through his registration drives.  
The assassination triggered nationwide protests, with rallies, memorials, and other events held following the news of the bombing. President Harry S Truman and Governor Fuller Warren both received a high volume of telegrams and letters in protest of the murder of the civil rights activists in Mims, Florida. In New York City, a few weeks later on January 5, 1952, Jackie Robinson held a memorial service drawing approximately 3,000 mourners. The NAACP held a memorial service, in March 1952 in the Madison Square Garden that was attended by 15,000 people, and speakers like Langston Hughes had come to give their respects.  
And this he says, our Harry Moore.  
As from the grave he cries.  
No bomb can kill the dreams I hold.  
For freedom never dies!"  
 — Langston Hughes, (1951).  

Awards and tributes.  
In 1952, the year following the Moore's deaths, Harry was posthumously awarded the NAACP's Spingarn Medal. In 1999, the site of the Moore's home in Mims, Florida, where the bombing occurred became an Historical Heritage Landmark of the State of Florida. Five years later, Brevard County's local government christened the "Harry T. and Harriette Moore Memorial Park and Interpretive Center." 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72739763Mon, 29 Jun 2026 13:43:06 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Murders of Harry and Harriette Moore.   Harry T. Moore and his wife, Harriette V. S. Moore, were pioneer activists and leaders of the early Civil Rights Movement in the United States and became the first martyrs of the movement. On the night of...Harry T. Moore and his wife, Harriette V. S. Moore, were pioneer activists and leaders of the early Civil Rights Movement in the United States and became the first martyrs of the movement. On the night of Christmas, December 25, 1951, a bomb that had been planted under the bedroom floor of the Moores' home in Mims, Florida, exploded. They had celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary earlier that day. Harry died in the ambulance in transit from the attack, and Harriette died from her injuries nine days later, on January 3, 1952. Their deaths were the first assassination of any activist to occur during the Civil Rights Movement and the only time that a husband and wife were killed during the history of the movement.  

Background.  
Harry Moore and Harriette Simms married on December 25, 1926, and moved into the Simms' family home the following fall.  Harry was an educator, and Harriette was a former teacher turned insurance broker. In 1927, Harry was promoted to the position of principal at the local Titusville Colored School. The city's school system was racially segregated, like many others in the country at the time. Harry taught the school's ninth grade (the school taught grades one to nine), and he also supervised the team of teachers at the school. The school was closed early his first year by the local school board just six months into the year, as part of the local school system's systemic discrimination against black children. The Moores had their first daughter in 1928 and moved into their own home with an acre of land given to them by Harriette's parents. They gave birth to their second daughter in 1930. Harriette returned to her career in education the following year and later began working as a teacher for the same school as Harry.  
In 1934, Harry founded the Brevard County, Florida, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter. He later served as the NAACP's first Executive Secretary in the state of Florida. The NAACP chapter worked towards achieving equal pay for equal work for teachers of any race, fought to get lynchings prosecuted, and attempted to register black voters in the region.  
Moore's activism was highly controversial in the local white-dominated county. In 1946, it resulted in the firings of Harry and Harriette from their teaching jobs by state authorities. Harry then became a full-time employee of the NAACP.  

Murder.  
On the night of December 25, 1951, the Moores finished celebrating Christmas and their 25th wedding anniversary. When they later retired to their bedroom for the evening, a bomb exploded, injuring Harry and Harriette but leaving their daughter (who was at home at the time, the other being in a different location) unharmed. The improvised explosive device, which was made from dynamite, had been placed directly under the Moores' bedroom floor. The Moores were rushed to the nearest hospital that would treat African-Americans in Sanford, Florida, a 29.8 miles (48.0 km) drive by car. Harry died while being transported; his wife, Harriette, lived to see her husband buried before she died nine days later from her injuries.  
Investigations and motive.  
Over the years, a number of motives have been suggested for the Moores' deaths. All of them share a common theme — retribution against Harry Moore for his civil rights activities. — Charlie Crist, 35th Attorney General of the State of Florida.  
Since the night of the explosion in 1951, five separate criminal investigations have been initiated and completed. The first investigation was headed by the FBI, began on the night of the explosion, and concluded in 1955. The second investigation was a joint investigation by the Brevard County Sheriff's Office and Brevard County State Attorney's Office in 1978. The third investigation took place in 1991 by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). In 2004,...]]>528falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/06-arthur-buddy-schumacher--72739460Arthur Louis "Buddy" Schumacher (September 2, 1916 – July 1925) was an 8-year-old from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, who was murdered in 1925. His body was discovered on September 12, 1925. Two suspects were interviewed in connection with the case, but it remains unsolved.  

Early life.  
Buddy was born on September 2, 1916, to Arthur "Art" Schumacher and Florence May Zapp (Armstrong) Schumacher. He had an older sister, Jeanette Alice, who was born on April 11, 1915. Buddy attended Lincoln Elementary School in Wauwatosa.  

Disappearance.  
Schumacher went missing on July 24, 1925. He left his house with some neighborhood boys about 9 a.m. and never returned. He was last seen by three of his friends after they hopped off a freight train they had jumped to get a ride to a nearby swimming hole. For seven weeks, the community and state searched desperately to find the boy until his body was found just a mile from his house with his clothing torn and a handkerchief shoved down his throat. The police pursued several promising leads, but to no avail.  
In September 1925, two of Schumacher's friends identified Edward Vreeland as a man who had chased them on the day of Schumacher's disappearance. The two boys said they ran away, but Buddy remained. He was never seen alive again after that day. Vreeland had been arrested as a vagrant two days after Schumacher disappeared, taken into custody in the woods where the boy was last seen. He was questioned at the time in relation to the disappearance of the boy but professed ignorance of any connection with the case. In November 1925, 21-year-old William Brandt, who was serving time at the Minnesota State Prison for murdering a young boy in St. Paul under similar circumstances, confessed to the killing of Schumacher, but there were discrepancies between known facts and the statements he made. During their investigation, detectives discovered that at least four other children had been molested or attacked near Wauwatosa.  

Aftermath.  
Buddy was the subject of a nonfiction book, Murder in Wauwatosa: The Mysterious Death of Buddy Schumacher, written by former Wauwatosa resident Paul J. Hoffman that was published in 2012 by The History Press. Hoffman's father, Raymond Hoffman, purchased a house at 8118 Hillcrest Drive in Wauwatosa in 1969 from Buddy's father that the Schumachers had moved into about two years after Buddy died. Raymond Hoffman owned the house until 2004. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72739460Mon, 29 Jun 2026 13:11:36 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Arthur "Buddy" Schumacher.   Arthur Louis "Buddy" Schumacher (September 2, 1916 – July 1925) was an 8-year-old from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, who was murdered in 1925. His body was discovered on September 12, 1925. Two suspects were interviewed in...Arthur Louis "Buddy" Schumacher (September 2, 1916 – July 1925) was an 8-year-old from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, who was murdered in 1925. His body was discovered on September 12, 1925. Two suspects were interviewed in connection with the case, but it remains unsolved.  

Early life.  
Buddy was born on September 2, 1916, to Arthur "Art" Schumacher and Florence May Zapp (Armstrong) Schumacher. He had an older sister, Jeanette Alice, who was born on April 11, 1915. Buddy attended Lincoln Elementary School in Wauwatosa.  

Disappearance.  
Schumacher went missing on July 24, 1925. He left his house with some neighborhood boys about 9 a.m. and never returned. He was last seen by three of his friends after they hopped off a freight train they had jumped to get a ride to a nearby swimming hole. For seven weeks, the community and state searched desperately to find the boy until his body was found just a mile from his house with his clothing torn and a handkerchief shoved down his throat. The police pursued several promising leads, but to no avail.  
In September 1925, two of Schumacher's friends identified Edward Vreeland as a man who had chased them on the day of Schumacher's disappearance. The two boys said they ran away, but Buddy remained. He was never seen alive again after that day. Vreeland had been arrested as a vagrant two days after Schumacher disappeared, taken into custody in the woods where the boy was last seen. He was questioned at the time in relation to the disappearance of the boy but professed ignorance of any connection with the case. In November 1925, 21-year-old William Brandt, who was serving time at the Minnesota State Prison for murdering a young boy in St. Paul under similar circumstances, confessed to the killing of Schumacher, but there were discrepancies between known facts and the statements he made. During their investigation, detectives discovered that at least four other children had been molested or attacked near Wauwatosa.  

Aftermath.  
Buddy was the subject of a nonfiction book, Murder in Wauwatosa: The Mysterious Death of Buddy Schumacher, written by former Wauwatosa resident Paul J. Hoffman that was published in 2012 by The History Press. Hoffman's father, Raymond Hoffman, purchased a house at 8118 Hillcrest Drive in Wauwatosa in 1969 from Buddy's father that the Schumachers had moved into about two years after Buddy died. Raymond Hoffman owned the house until 2004. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>176falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/05-william-goebel--72739395William Justus Goebel (January 4, 1856 – February 3, 1900) was an American Democratic politician who served as the 34th governor of Kentucky for four days, having been sworn in on his deathbed a day after being shot by an assassin. Goebel is the only sitting state governor in United States history to die by assassination.  
Goebel was born to Wilhelm and Augusta Goebel (née Groenkle), German immigrants from Hanover. He studied at the Hollingsworth Business College in the mid-1870s and became an apprentice at John W. Stevenson's law firm. While Goebel lacked the social qualities like public speaking that are common with politicians, various authors referred to him as an intellectual man. He served in the Kentucky Senate, campaigning for populist causes like railroad regulation, which won him many allies and supporters.  
In 1895, Goebel engaged in a duel with John Lawrence Sandford, a former Confederate general staff officer turned cashier. According to the witnesses, both men then drew their pistols, but no one was sure who fired first. Sandford was killed; Goebel pleaded self-defense and was acquitted.  
During the 1899 Kentucky gubernatorial election, Goebel divided his party with his political tactics to win the nomination for governorship at a time when Kentucky Republicans were gaining strength, having elected the party's first governor four years previously. These dynamics led to a close contest between Goebel and William S. Taylor. In the politically chaotic climate that resulted, Goebel was declared as having won the election, but was assassinated and died after three days in office. Everyone charged in connection with the murder was either acquitted or eventually pardoned, and the identity of his assassin remains unknown.  

Early life.  
Heritage and career.  
Wilhelm Justus Goebel was born January 4, 1856, to Wilhelm and Augusta Goebel (née Groenkle)—immigrants from Hanover, Germany—in Pennsylvania. The eldest of four children, he was two months premature and weighed less than 3 pounds (1.4 kg). His father served as a private in Company B, 82nd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, during the American Civil War, and Goebel's mother raised her children alone, teaching them much about their German heritage. Wilhelm spoke German until the age of six, but he embraced American culture, adopting the English spelling of his name as "William".  
After being discharged from the army in 1863, Goebel's father moved his family to Covington, Kentucky. Goebel attended school in Covington and was then apprenticed to a jeweler in Cincinnati, Ohio. After a brief time at Hollingsworth Business College in mid 1870s, he became an apprentice in the law firm of John W. Stevenson, who had served as governor of Kentucky from 1867 to 1871. Goebel eventually became Stevenson's partner and executor of his estate. Goebel graduated from Cincinnati Law School in 1877, and enrolled at the Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, before joining the practice of Kentucky state representative John G. Carlisle. He then rejoined Stevenson in Covington in 1883, after the death of Stevenson's previous partner.  

Personal characteristics.  
According to author James C. Klotter, Goebel was not known as a particularly genial person in public. He belonged to few social organizations and greeted none but his closest friends with a smile or handshake. He was rarely linked romantically with a woman and was the only governor of Kentucky who never married. Journalist Irvin S. Cobb remarked, "I never saw a man who, physically, so closely suggested the reptilian as this man did." Others commented on his "contemptuous" lips, "sharp" nose, and "humorless" eyes. Goebel was not a gifted public speaker, often eschewing flowery imagery and relying on his deep, powerful voice and forceful delivery to drive home his points. Klotter wrote, "When coupled to somewhat demagogic appeals and to an occasional phrase that stirred emotions, this delivery made for an effective speech, but never more than an average one." While lacking in the social qualities common to politicians, one characteristic that served Goebel well in the political arena was his intellect. Goebel was well-read, and supporters and opponents both conceded that his mental prowess was impressive. Cobb concluded that he had never been more impressed with a man's intellect than he had been with Goebel's.  

Political career.  
Kentucky Senate.  
In 1887, James William Bryan vacated his seat in the Kentucky Senate to pursue the office of lieutenant governor. Goebel decided to seek election to the vacant seat representing Covington. He campaigned on the platform of railroad regulation and labor causes. Like Stevenson, he insisted on the right of the people to control chartered corporations. The Union Labor Party had risen to power in the area with a platform similar to Goebel's. However, while Goebel had to stick close to his allies in the Democratic Party, the Union Labor Party courted the votes of both Democrats and Republicans and made the election close, which was decided in Goebel's favor by just 56 votes. He was later sworn in on December 30. During his first term as senator, the State Railroad Commission increased to over $3,000,000 tax evaluation on the property of Louisville and Nashville Railroad. A proposal from pro-railroad legislators in the Kentucky House of Representatives to abolish Kentucky's Railroad Commission was passed and sent to the Senate. Cassius Marcellus Clay responded by proposing a committee to investigate lobbying by the railroad industry. Goebel served on the committee, which uncovered significant violations by the railroad lobby. He also helped defeat the bill to abolish the Railroad Commission in the Senate. These actions increased his popularity and he was elected senator unopposed in 1889 for a full term. Goebel was well able to broker deals with fellow lawmakers and was equally able and willing to break the deals if a better deal came along. His tendency to use the state's political machinery to advance his agenda earned him the nickname "William the Conqueror".  
Goebel served as a delegate to Kentucky's fourth constitutional convention in 1890, which produced the current Constitution of Kentucky. Despite being a delegate, Goebel showed little interest in participating in the process of creating a new Constitution. The convention was in session for approximately 250 days, but Goebel was present for approximately only 100 days. However, he did secure the inclusion of the Railroad Commission in the new Constitution. As a Constitutional entity, the Commission could only be abolished by an amendment ratified by a popular vote. This effectively protected the Commission from ever being unilaterally dismantled by the General Assembly.[20] Klotter wrote, "Goebel used the constitution as a vehicle to enact laws which he had not been able to pass in the more conservative legislature." Goebel won another term in 1893 by a three-to-one margin over his Republican opponent. By 1894, he had been elected as the President pro tempore of the Kentucky Senate.  

Duel with John Sandford.  
In 1895, Goebel engaged in what many observers considered to be a duel with John Lawrence Sandford. Sandford, a former Confederate general staff officer turned cashier, had clashed with Goebel before. Goebel's successful campaign to remove tolls from some of Kentucky's turnpikes cost Sandford a large amount of money. Many believed that Sandford had blocked Goebel's appointment to the Kentucky Court of Appeals, in retaliation. Incensed, Goebel had written an article in a local newspaper referring to Sandford as "Gonorrhea John." On April 11, 1895, Goebel and two acquaintances went to Covington to cash a check. Goebel suggested they avoid Sandford's bank, but Sandford, standing outside the bank, spoke to the men before they could cross the street to a different bank. Sandford greeted Goebel's friends, offering them his left hand. However, Goebel noticed that Sandford's right hand was on a pistol concealed in his pocket. Having come armed himself, Goebel clutched his revolver in his pocket. Sandford confronted Goebel and said, "I understand that you assume authorship of that article." "I do", replied Goebel.  
The shooting took place at 1:30 p.m. According to the witnesses, both men then drew their pistols, but no one was sure which had fired first. One of the witnesses – W. J. Hendricks, the attorney general of Kentucky, said "I don't know who shot first, the shots were so close together." Another witness, Frank P. Helm, said "I was right up against them and really thought at first that I had, myself, been shot." Sandford's bullet passed through Goebel's coat and ripped his trousers, but left him uninjured. Goebel's shot fatally struck Sandford in the head; Sandford died five hours later. Goebel pleaded self-defense and was acquitted. The acquittal was significant because the Kentucky constitution prohibited dueling. If Goebel had been convicted of dueling, he would have been ineligible to hold any public office. The shooting made Goebel unpopular among Kentucky's Confederate veterans, who also noted his non-southern background and his father's service in the Union army.  

Goebel Election Law.  
Kentucky Democrats, who controlled the General Assembly believed that county election commissioners had been unfair in selecting local election officials, and had contributed to the election of Republican governor William O. Bradley in 1895. Goebel proposed a bill, known as the "Goebel Election Law", which passed along strict party lines and over Governor Bradley's veto, created a three-member state election commission, appointed by the General Assembly, to choose the county election commissioners. It allowed the Democratic-controlled General Assembly to appoint only Democrats to...

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72739395Mon, 29 Jun 2026 13:02:41 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.William Goebel.   William Justus Goebel (January 4, 1856 – February 3, 1900) was an American Democratic politician who served as the 34th governor of Kentucky for four days, having been sworn in on his deathbed a day after being shot by an assassin....William Justus Goebel (January 4, 1856 – February 3, 1900) was an American Democratic politician who served as the 34th governor of Kentucky for four days, having been sworn in on his deathbed a day after being shot by an assassin. Goebel is the only sitting state governor in United States history to die by assassination.  
Goebel was born to Wilhelm and Augusta Goebel (née Groenkle), German immigrants from Hanover. He studied at the Hollingsworth Business College in the mid-1870s and became an apprentice at John W. Stevenson's law firm. While Goebel lacked the social qualities like public speaking that are common with politicians, various authors referred to him as an intellectual man. He served in the Kentucky Senate, campaigning for populist causes like railroad regulation, which won him many allies and supporters.  
In 1895, Goebel engaged in a duel with John Lawrence Sandford, a former Confederate general staff officer turned cashier. According to the witnesses, both men then drew their pistols, but no one was sure who fired first. Sandford was killed; Goebel pleaded self-defense and was acquitted.  
During the 1899 Kentucky gubernatorial election, Goebel divided his party with his political tactics to win the nomination for governorship at a time when Kentucky Republicans were gaining strength, having elected the party's first governor four years previously. These dynamics led to a close contest between Goebel and William S. Taylor. In the politically chaotic climate that resulted, Goebel was declared as having won the election, but was assassinated and died after three days in office. Everyone charged in connection with the murder was either acquitted or eventually pardoned, and the identity of his assassin remains unknown.  

Early life.  
Heritage and career.  
Wilhelm Justus Goebel was born January 4, 1856, to Wilhelm and Augusta Goebel (née Groenkle)—immigrants from Hanover, Germany—in Pennsylvania. The eldest of four children, he was two months premature and weighed less than 3 pounds (1.4 kg). His father served as a private in Company B, 82nd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, during the American Civil War, and Goebel's mother raised her children alone, teaching them much about their German heritage. Wilhelm spoke German until the age of six, but he embraced American culture, adopting the English spelling of his name as "William".  
After being discharged from the army in 1863, Goebel's father moved his family to Covington, Kentucky. Goebel attended school in Covington and was then apprenticed to a jeweler in Cincinnati, Ohio. After a brief time at Hollingsworth Business College in mid 1870s, he became an apprentice in the law firm of John W. Stevenson, who had served as governor of Kentucky from 1867 to 1871. Goebel eventually became Stevenson's partner and executor of his estate. Goebel graduated from Cincinnati Law School in 1877, and enrolled at the Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, before joining the practice of Kentucky state representative John G. Carlisle. He then rejoined Stevenson in Covington in 1883, after the death of Stevenson's previous partner.  

Personal characteristics.  
According to author James C. Klotter, Goebel was not known as a particularly genial person in public. He belonged to few social organizations and greeted none but his closest friends with a smile or handshake. He was rarely linked romantically with a woman and was the only governor of Kentucky who never married. Journalist Irvin S. Cobb remarked, "I never saw a man who, physically, so closely suggested the reptilian as this man did." Others commented on his "contemptuous" lips, "sharp" nose, and "humorless" eyes. Goebel was not a gifted public speaker, often eschewing flowery imagery and relying on his deep, powerful voice and forceful delivery to drive home his points. Klotter wrote, "When coupled to somewhat demagogic appeals and to an occasional...]]>1192falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/04-joseph-hedley--72739107Joseph Hedley (also known as Joe the Quilter, 1749 or 1750 – 3 January 1826) was a Quilter from Northumberland. During his life, he was renowned for his quality of craftsmanship, with his work being exported as far as America. He lived his later years on parish relief. His life was widely recorded in newspapers across the country and is most remembered due to his brutal murder, which occurred on 3 January 1826. His murderers were not found despite a large reward being offered, and the culprits remain unknown.  

Life.  
Joseph Hedley was born at some point in 1749 or 1750 in Northumberland. Little is known about his early life except what scant information is given in his obituaries, which are more interested in contrasting the peacefulness of his late life with his grisly murder. It is known that he trained as a tailor, probably taking an apprenticeship in the craft. However, for an unknown reason, he gave up the craft for that of Quilt making.  
While much of the nation's quilting industry was in decline during the second half of the 18th century, in part due to the Industrial Revolution, Northumberland quilters in general and Joe the Quilter in particular managed to buck this trend. During his life he was known as a highly skilled craftsman, designing and quilting in both linen and cotton, with extremely fine details executed down to a quarter of an inch. Many of his designs show a propensity towards flowers, chains and diamond shapes, becoming especially associated with a pattern known as 'Old Joe's chain'. Such was his reputation that he created quilts for customers as far away as America and Ireland.  
In 1773, at the age of 23, Hedley married Isabel Thompson, a woman 25 years his elder, and moved into a typical 2 roomed 'squatter' cottage in Warden Parish, called "Homer's House". The cottage was on the road between Warden church and Chollerford, overlooking the Tyne. The Hedleys kept a small garden, containing vegetables and herbs and had kept a variety of animals. As Isabel aged, Joseph spent many of his prime years caring for her and when she died he was left almost destitute.   He was generally well-liked by the local community but his seclusion made him liable with it being reported that he would have starved during a severe snowstorm in 1823, had it not been for a Hexham clergyman wading through snow drifts to bring him food when other attempts to reach him had failed.  

Murder.  
On the evening of Thursday, 3 January 1826 he was murdered in his home by an unknown attacker. Hedley was 76 years old.   That afternoon he had been at Walwick Grange and had received charitable aid from the farmer there. During the evening a variety of visitors called on him and all recall him being in good health, with the last person to see him alive being a peddler  from Stamfordham asking for directions. An hour later when a Mr. Smith of Haughton Castle rode past he noted Joe's cottage was dark and silent. Despite passers-by and herdsman noting the strangeness of the cottage being locked up and silent over the next few days, it wasn't until the Saturday that further inquiry was undertaken.  
On the afternoon of the 7th alarmed neighbours burst open the locked door to Hedley's home. His body was found in a small inner room with more than 40 wounds inflicted to his face and neck. There seemed to have been a struggle outside the cottage as his clogs and some scraps of cloth were discovered on the other side of the road, with some at the time theorising this showed that Hedley had been attempting to flee to the nearest residence, Wall Mill. There were also signs of struggle inside the cottage and several garden tools were suspected to have been used as murder weapons by those at the scene.  
Little motive could be discerned for such a violent act. The only possible explanation seems to be that his murderers believed rumours that Hedley had some secret fortune despite the fact that Joe was known to be receiving parish aid. This interpretation is backed up by the fact that the perpetrators appear to have rummaged through the old man's drawers, evidently in search of something. On the other hand, Robert Hill argues that personal motive should be considered because of details such as the clock face being smashed, something he points out would not have been done in the struggle and instead a purposeful attack against Hedley's identity. He proposes as a possibility for the murderer a neighbour named William Herdman who had been an early suspect. However, he was discounted by contemporaries because he was, in the words of The Newcastle Chronicle, "a poor and simple creature of rather imbecile intellect".  
A 100 guineas reward was put up by the local parish and a full pardon was promised by Robert Peel for any accomplice who came forward. Despite this, all efforts to find the culprits came to nought. Several arrests were made in the immediate aftermath but no one was prosecuted, and from time to time afterwards, purported confessions were made but all have been discounted as fabrications.  

Legacy.  
The life and death of Joe the Quilter was remembered in a contemporary elegiac ballad by A. B. Wright of the Hexham theatre.   The song inspired the Richard Dawson song "Joe The Quilt Maker" from his album Glass Trunk. Because of the brutality of his death and subsequent reaction in newspapers around the country, a lot more is recorded about Joseph Hedley's life and living conditions than is usual for a person of his social standing in the Georgian era.  
Hedley's cottage was demolished in 1872 and its location was forgotten until archaeologists led by the Beamish Museum, using an 1826 postcard and old maps of the area, excavated the site. The dig uncovered the cottage's walls, fireplace, flagstones and smaller items such as pottery and a silver groat coin. The museum used a floor plan, along with 10 tonnes of material removed from the site, and information from the time to reconstruct the cottage, opening it to visitors in 2018. 


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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72739107Mon, 29 Jun 2026 12:26:29 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Joseph Hedley.    Joseph Hedley (also known as Joe the Quilter, 1749 or 1750 – 3 January 1826) was a Quilter from Northumberland. During his life, he was renowned for his quality of craftsmanship, with his work being exported as far as America. He...Joseph Hedley (also known as Joe the Quilter, 1749 or 1750 – 3 January 1826) was a Quilter from Northumberland. During his life, he was renowned for his quality of craftsmanship, with his work being exported as far as America. He lived his later years on parish relief. His life was widely recorded in newspapers across the country and is most remembered due to his brutal murder, which occurred on 3 January 1826. His murderers were not found despite a large reward being offered, and the culprits remain unknown.  

Life.  
Joseph Hedley was born at some point in 1749 or 1750 in Northumberland. Little is known about his early life except what scant information is given in his obituaries, which are more interested in contrasting the peacefulness of his late life with his grisly murder. It is known that he trained as a tailor, probably taking an apprenticeship in the craft. However, for an unknown reason, he gave up the craft for that of Quilt making.  
While much of the nation's quilting industry was in decline during the second half of the 18th century, in part due to the Industrial Revolution, Northumberland quilters in general and Joe the Quilter in particular managed to buck this trend. During his life he was known as a highly skilled craftsman, designing and quilting in both linen and cotton, with extremely fine details executed down to a quarter of an inch. Many of his designs show a propensity towards flowers, chains and diamond shapes, becoming especially associated with a pattern known as 'Old Joe's chain'. Such was his reputation that he created quilts for customers as far away as America and Ireland.  
In 1773, at the age of 23, Hedley married Isabel Thompson, a woman 25 years his elder, and moved into a typical 2 roomed 'squatter' cottage in Warden Parish, called "Homer's House". The cottage was on the road between Warden church and Chollerford, overlooking the Tyne. The Hedleys kept a small garden, containing vegetables and herbs and had kept a variety of animals. As Isabel aged, Joseph spent many of his prime years caring for her and when she died he was left almost destitute.   He was generally well-liked by the local community but his seclusion made him liable with it being reported that he would have starved during a severe snowstorm in 1823, had it not been for a Hexham clergyman wading through snow drifts to bring him food when other attempts to reach him had failed.  

Murder.  
On the evening of Thursday, 3 January 1826 he was murdered in his home by an unknown attacker. Hedley was 76 years old.   That afternoon he had been at Walwick Grange and had received charitable aid from the farmer there. During the evening a variety of visitors called on him and all recall him being in good health, with the last person to see him alive being a peddler  from Stamfordham asking for directions. An hour later when a Mr. Smith of Haughton Castle rode past he noted Joe's cottage was dark and silent. Despite passers-by and herdsman noting the strangeness of the cottage being locked up and silent over the next few days, it wasn't until the Saturday that further inquiry was undertaken.  
On the afternoon of the 7th alarmed neighbours burst open the locked door to Hedley's home. His body was found in a small inner room with more than 40 wounds inflicted to his face and neck. There seemed to have been a struggle outside the cottage as his clogs and some scraps of cloth were discovered on the other side of the road, with some at the time theorising this showed that Hedley had been attempting to flee to the nearest residence, Wall Mill. There were also signs of struggle inside the cottage and several garden tools were suspected to have been used as murder weapons by those at the scene.  
Little motive could be discerned for such a violent act. The only possible explanation seems to be that his murderers believed rumours that Hedley had some secret fortune...]]>387falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/03-giovanni-borgia-2nd-duke-of-gandia-part-3--72731032In literature.  
The murder occasioned the witty and cruel epigram by the contemporary Neapolitan poet and humanist, Jacopo Sannazaro about Pope Alexander VI. The poem plays on the apostolic title of the pope as fisher of men alluding to the scandal when his son's body was dragged from the river:  
Piscatorem hominum ne te non Sexte putemus / Piscaris natum retibus ecce tuum.  
Lest we do not think you are not a fisher of men, Sixth, you fish for your own son with nets.  
— Jacopo Sannazaro, Epigrammata.  
The most important Renaissance literary work remembering the event was a traditional Hispanic ballad (romance) entitled Muerte del duque de Gandía (Death of the Duke of Gandía). The original version was in all probability composed right after the murder, and belonged to the group of news-bearing ballads dealing with tragic contemporary events. The ballad survived in five different 16th-century printed editions. Even the oldest version, from a chapbook printed in Burgos around 1530, appeared more than thirty years after Juan's death, which suggests that the ballad had previously been transmitted by oral tradition for a long time. The remaining versions were included in chapbooks printed around 1540 in Valladolid and in Valencia around 1560, and two famous songbooks that appeared in Valencia and Granada (in 1573 and 1588 respectively). The ballad was apparently popular on the Iberian Peninsula, and retained its relevance for more than a century. Other ballads of this kind usually disappeared quickly from the press.  
The romance portrayed Alexander VI as a loving father worrying about his son, and later as an example of Christian charity who forgives the murderers and even absolves them. Juan is described as a young nobleman widely mourned by the papal court, who "did not deserve such harm", although some versions refer to his sins. The murderers remain unnamed although one songbook version claims that they have already fled beyond Lombardy. The main motif of the ballad is the finding of the body, which the text attributes to the same boatman who witnessed the murder. The rich clothing and the horrific wounds of the victim are emphasized. Although some researchers interpreted the ballad as anti-Borgia propaganda, a reading of the text does not really support such a view, in fact there is an obvious sympathy for the grieving pope and his murdered son.  
The oral tradition of the ballad died out on the Iberian Peninsula but lived on in the Sephardic diaspora. A very large number of versions in Judaeo-Spanish were recorded among the Jewish communities in the Eastern Mediterranean and in Morocco. In these late versions all the historical references to the Borgias and Rome were lost, and Giovanni Borgia was transformed into a "golden duke" whose corpse was discovered in the sea. In some versions he was murdered by a fisherman. In this way the murder of the Duke of Gandía became a Jewish folk tale.  

In fiction.  
The crimes and tragedy of the Borgias became a frequent literary topic during the Romantic era. The black legend was created by Renaissance pamphlet writers and chroniclers, but 19th-century poets and novelists made it widely known to the European reading public. From the beginning, the murder of the Duke of Gandía by his jealous brother was a crucial element.  
The fratricide was mentioned in Massimo d'Azeglio's 1833 historical novel, Ettore Fieramosca, a highly popular literary expression of Italian patriotism in the Risorgimento era. D'Azeglio made Cesare Borgia an antihero who, among his many other crimes, threw the corpse of his brother into the Tiber, "washed off the blood-stains from the pommel of his saddle, and disappeared in a dark lane".  
Nikolaus Lenau, one of the most important German poets of the Late Romantic era dedicated a song, "Vater und Sohn" to Giovanni Borgia's murder in his 1837 epic, Savonarola. The song describes an imagined late-night conversation between Alexander VI and his son, Cesare, during which he tells the pope that he killed his brother. The young duke is not sleeping in the arms of a prostitute, as his doting father thinks:  
Diesmahl hat eine alte, kühle, / Unsaubre Dirne ihn umfasst; / Er hält auf ihrem schlechten Pfühle vom Liebestaumel tiefe Rast.  
This time an old, cold, unclean whore has embraced him; and he is taking a deep rest on her bad pillows from the madness of love.  
— Nikolaus Lenau, Savonarola.  
The old whore Cesare is speaking about is the Tiber, and in this moment Alexander VI, the great sinner "is shocked to see that he has fathered an even greater one".   
The murder was recounted by Alexandre Dumas in his 1840 novel, The Borgias (although Giovanni Borgia is referred to as Francesco) which was published in his Celebrated Crimes series. One of Dumas' early historical novels, it was based on documentary research, probably conducted with the collaboration of Pier Angelo Fiorentino, an Italian author whom he had met in Naples. The French writer closely follows Burchard's description of the murder, only adding a few storytelling details and an invented dialogue between Cesare Borgia and his henchman, Michelotto Corella. The novel relies on the well-established clichés of fratricide and incest. Dumas' opposition to authoritarian and absolute regimes provide a framework for interpretation but the novel also had a strong anticlerical message. The whole series was popular literature, and it was reprinted many times in the 1840s.  
The modernist Algernon Charles Swinburne wrote a drama about the murder titled The Duke of Gandia in 1908, also naming the victim Francesco, and using Michelotto as Cesare's henchman. This decadent work focused on the thoroughly immoral character of the Borgias using florid Shakespearean language and again an imagined conversation between the pope and Cesare after the murder. It was not meant to be a play for the stage, but a brief, dramatic poem of "hate, ambition, fear, desire, and the conquest of ironic evil".  
The murder of Giovanni Borgia is one of the main topics in Canto V by Ezra Pound written in 1919. Recounted along with another infamous Renaissance era crime, the murder of Duke Alessandro de' Medici by his cousin, the poem is concerned with the relationship between historical facts and historiography. As Pound's main source was William Roscoe, who acquitted Cesare Borgia of the murder charge in his Life and Pontificate of Leo the Tenth , Pound does not take it for granted that Giovanni Borgia was killed by his own brother. History is to some extent unknowable and, as he says, "slander is up betimes". Pound's poetic vision of the murder is particularly evocative:  
Tiber, dark with the cloak, wet cat, gleaming in patches. / Click of the hooves, through garbage, / Clutching the greasy stone. "And the cloak floated",  
— Ezra Pound, Canto V.  
In contrast to the sensationalism of the Romantic literary tradition, the 1926 novel of The Borgias or At the Feet of Venus by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez was based on modern scientific research. The Spanish realist writer wanted to rehabilitate the memory of the much-maligned family. After painstakingly reconstructing the events, the narrator concludes that the accusations against Cesare are only malicious slander, and his brother was simply a young man, enjoying life, not realizing the dangers involved. "He was, in reality, a superficial man, his character not corresponding to his external brilliance. But ... many ladies raved about his elegance and masculine vigor", Ibáñez says about Juan.  

In art.  
During his short life, Giovanni Borgia did not become a patron of artists, and there is no authentic contemporary portrait of him.  
He is sometimes identified with the horseman in a Turkish robe on the far right of the famous fresco of the Disputation of St. Catherine by Pinturicchio in the Borgia Apartments. The young Duke of Gandía liked to wear fashionable oriental clothes. He memorably rode through Rome dressed alla turchesca and with a turban on his head during a papal procession in May 1493, perhaps out of courtesy to his friend, Prince Djem. But other than that, there is not much to support the theory.  
In 1897, Franz Ehrle, the first monographer of the Borgia Apartments refuted the claim that any of the pope's children were portrayed on the fresco. Cesare, Lucrezia and Giovanni were still teenagers, when Alexander VI created the apartments for his own personal use in the Vatican Palace between 1492 and 1494. They were younger than any of the figures painted. "Conjectures on this subject have long been taken up by the ciceroni, passing them off as proven facts. ... It would be appropriate to stop spreading these fables", he stated. A few years later Pinturicchio's biographer, Evelyn March Phillipps identified "the fierce and stately prince on horseback" as Prince Djem. Despite this, the claim still appears regularly in literature dealing with the Borgias.
Another painting erroneously connected to Giovanni Borgia is a small panel in the collection of the Museu del Patriarca in Valencia. Painted by an unknown artist it shows the Virgin Mary with two saints. In the foreground, a bearded young man is about to be stabbed by an assassin while two other men watch the scene. Émile Bertaux, who discovered the painting in 1908, claimed that it was commissioned by María Enríquez de Luna, Giovanni Borgia's widow, and it shows the murder of her husband ordered by his brother, Cesare. Bertaux stated that panel "is the most striking memory of the tragic family in the Kingdom of Valencia". The fanciful interpretation is not supported by any documents, and was based simply on a perceived physical likeness of one of the figures to Cesare Borgia. The painting was later attributed to Miguel E....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72731032Sun, 28 Jun 2026 18:47:48 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Giovanni Borgia, 2nd Duke of Gandía. (part 3).   In literature.   The murder occasioned the witty and cruel epigram by the contemporary Neapolitan poet and humanist, Jacopo Sannazaro about Pope Alexander VI. The poem plays on the apostolic title of...In literature.  
The murder occasioned the witty and cruel epigram by the contemporary Neapolitan poet and humanist, Jacopo Sannazaro about Pope Alexander VI. The poem plays on the apostolic title of the pope as fisher of men alluding to the scandal when his son's body was dragged from the river:  
Piscatorem hominum ne te non Sexte putemus / Piscaris natum retibus ecce tuum.  
Lest we do not think you are not a fisher of men, Sixth, you fish for your own son with nets.  
— Jacopo Sannazaro, Epigrammata.  
The most important Renaissance literary work remembering the event was a traditional Hispanic ballad (romance) entitled Muerte del duque de Gandía (Death of the Duke of Gandía). The original version was in all probability composed right after the murder, and belonged to the group of news-bearing ballads dealing with tragic contemporary events. The ballad survived in five different 16th-century printed editions. Even the oldest version, from a chapbook printed in Burgos around 1530, appeared more than thirty years after Juan's death, which suggests that the ballad had previously been transmitted by oral tradition for a long time. The remaining versions were included in chapbooks printed around 1540 in Valladolid and in Valencia around 1560, and two famous songbooks that appeared in Valencia and Granada (in 1573 and 1588 respectively). The ballad was apparently popular on the Iberian Peninsula, and retained its relevance for more than a century. Other ballads of this kind usually disappeared quickly from the press.  
The romance portrayed Alexander VI as a loving father worrying about his son, and later as an example of Christian charity who forgives the murderers and even absolves them. Juan is described as a young nobleman widely mourned by the papal court, who "did not deserve such harm", although some versions refer to his sins. The murderers remain unnamed although one songbook version claims that they have already fled beyond Lombardy. The main motif of the ballad is the finding of the body, which the text attributes to the same boatman who witnessed the murder. The rich clothing and the horrific wounds of the victim are emphasized. Although some researchers interpreted the ballad as anti-Borgia propaganda, a reading of the text does not really support such a view, in fact there is an obvious sympathy for the grieving pope and his murdered son.  
The oral tradition of the ballad died out on the Iberian Peninsula but lived on in the Sephardic diaspora. A very large number of versions in Judaeo-Spanish were recorded among the Jewish communities in the Eastern Mediterranean and in Morocco. In these late versions all the historical references to the Borgias and Rome were lost, and Giovanni Borgia was transformed into a "golden duke" whose corpse was discovered in the sea. In some versions he was murdered by a fisherman. In this way the murder of the Duke of Gandía became a Jewish folk tale.  

In fiction.  
The crimes and tragedy of the Borgias became a frequent literary topic during the Romantic era. The black legend was created by Renaissance pamphlet writers and chroniclers, but 19th-century poets and novelists made it widely known to the European reading public. From the beginning, the murder of the Duke of Gandía by his jealous brother was a crucial element.  
The fratricide was mentioned in Massimo d'Azeglio's 1833 historical novel, Ettore Fieramosca, a highly popular literary expression of Italian patriotism in the Risorgimento era. D'Azeglio made Cesare Borgia an antihero who, among his many other crimes, threw the corpse of his brother into the Tiber, "washed off the blood-stains from the pommel of his saddle, and disappeared in a dark lane".  
Nikolaus Lenau, one of the most important German poets of the Late Romantic era dedicated a song, "Vater und Sohn" to Giovanni Borgia's murder in his 1837...]]>800falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/02-giovanni-borgia-2nd-duke-of-gandia-part-2--72730797Suspects.  
In his speech at the consistory of 19 June, Pope Alexander VI explicitly exonerated some of the suspects.  
It is not known at whose hands he met his death. It has been stated that the Lord of Pesaro devised it, which we do not believe, or the Prince of Squillace, his brother, which is utterly false. We are certain, too, that the Duke of Urbino had no hand in it. God forgive the guilty, whoever he was.  
At the time, it was presumed that Alexander VI was aware of the identity of the real culprits but saw no opportunity to punish them immediately. "This morning I was told by a trustworthy person that at this time His Beatitude has very close news of the truth, but he will pretend otherwise to surprise the authors in their sleep, as they are very important people and of high status", the Florentine envoy, Alessandro Braccio reported on 23 June.  
The investigation lasted more than a year but it was concluded without results. The murder was never avenged, which contributed to the spread of wild rumours. Eventually the unsolved case became part of the black legend of the Borgia, and regarded as one of the most mysterious crimes in history.  

The main suspects:  
- The most obvious suspects were the Orsinis revenging the death of Virginio Orsini at the beginning of the year in a Neapolitan prison. This ancient Roman family was hostile to the Borgias, and they had fought a war against Alexander VI. They defeated the Duke of Gandía on the battlefield, but the pope's plan to carve out a principality in Italy for his son still posed a threat to the family's fortune. Immediately after the murder, the Milanese envoy wrote that all signs point to the Orsini's guilt, but the pope is acting with great caution. In December Sanudo reported that "the pope was plotting to ruin the Orsini, because they certainly had his son, the Duke of Gandía killed", however, the Venetians intervened that the moment was not suitable. Several sources testify that Alexander VI remained determined to exact revenge on the family but political circumstances prevented him to carry out his plan.  
- Ascanio Sforza, Vice-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church was one of the prime suspects in the period following the murder. At the time the relations between the Sforzas and the pope were tense. The cardinal tried to mediate in the conflict between his cousin, Giovanni Sforza and the Borgias, and immediately before the murder his valet called the Duke of Gandia a bastard during a quarrel and the man was subsequently killed. According to Burchard, the Duke of Gandía took leave of his brother, Cesare near the vice-chancellor's palace on the fateful evening. Ascanio Sforza did not attend the consistory of 19 June. The Spanish ambassador, Garcilaso de la Vega apologised for his absence by saying that he was worried about the rumours accusing him of being behind the murder. Pope Alexander VI immediately absolved him from the charge: "God forbid that I should suspect him, for I hold him as a brother." In a letter to his brother on 20 June, Ascanio Sforza admitted that his people were suspected: "It is said that some of my people may have done it on account of the recent quarrel with the duke". In the following months, relations between the cardinal and the pope fluctuated, meetings were held, but suspicion reared its head again among the Spaniards in Rome, and during the summer Sforza thought advisable to spend more time away from the city. At the time the Venetian envoy wrote that everyone in Rome believes that Ascanio Sforza ordered the murder.  
- Antonio Maria Pico della Mirandola was among the early suspects. The Florentine envoy, Alessandro Braccio mentioned that the city police searched all the houses that the duke had been visiting in secret to question family members and maids, including the house of Count Antonio della Mirandola that was located not far from the place where Giovanni Borgia was murdered and where his body was thrown into the river. Mirandola "had a very shapely daughter but of very good fame", Braccio added. It seems that the envoy alluded to a love affair between the Duke of Gandía and the girl, or at least to a rumor circulating in the city. The Ferrarese envoy claimed that the murder was organized by Mirandola and Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, and "the said count was already arrested by the pope". Since Mirandola was never mentioned again, the charge must have been dismissed.  
- Suspicions later centred on Giovanni's brother, Cesare Borgia. Some argue that a personal rivalry existed between them and, with Giovanni's death, Cesare was allowed to leave the Church as he wished, taking his brother's place as a man-at-arms and eventually the prospective ruler of a Borgia principality. The claim that Cesare was his brother's murderer is first found in a despatch of the Ferrarese ambassador at Venice: "I recently learned how the death of the Duke of Candia was caused by his brother, the Cardinal", he wrote on 22 February 1498. This new accusation emerged nine months after the murder, and not in Rome but in distant Venice. Until then, Cesare had never been mentioned among the suspects. Two years later, Paolo Cappello, the Venetian ambassador in Rome also included the allegation in his report. The malicious rumour was spread further by an infamous pamphlet that appeared in Italy in November 1501. The anonymous Letter to Silvio Savelli was a poisoned attack on the Borgia family which became the basis of the black legend. About Cesare it says: "yet they all fear [the pope], and especially fear his fratricidal son, who, as a cardinal, has become a murderer". Niccolò Machiavelli eventually also came to the conclusion that Cesare Borgia was the perpetrator.  

Persons exonerated by the pope:  
- Giovanni Sforza, the Lord of Pesaro was a condottiero and the husband of Lucrezia Borgia. The marriage was no longer useful for the Borgias politically and Sforza was fearing for his life; he fled Rome in disguise in March 1497. In the following months Pope Alexander VI tried to annul the marriage but Sforza refused the humiliation imposed on him. At first, his brother, Galeazzo was also among the suspects although he had not even left Pesaro.  
- Gioffre Borgia, the Prince of Squillace was the younger brother of Cesare and Giovanni Borgia. His wife, Sancia allegedly had affairs with both of her husband's older brothers. It was rumoured that Gioffre had killed his brother out of jealousy, but the pope apparently considered this utter nonsense.  
- Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, the Duke of Urbino was a condottiero who led the papal troops against the Orsini together with Giovanni Borgia in 1496. Montefeltro was captured at the Battle of Soriano, but the pope refused to pay his ransom, and he had to arrange his release at his own expense. This gave him enough reason to resent Giovanni Borgia's undeserved success, yet the pope was sure that he had not instigated the murder.  

Proceedings against Cesare.  
Some sources suggest that María Enríquez, the Dowager Duchess of Gandia, held Cesare Borgia responsible for her husband's murder. But these sources describe events which happened after the death of Pope Alexander VI, when Cesare had already lost his principality, and was arrested in Naples by Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba in May 1504. One contemporary diplomatic despatch on 18 June 1504 claimed that "the wife of the Duke of Candia, who was killed by Valentino, procured this act of retribution and revenge, and she is a relative of the King of Spain." According to Höfler, this was just a rumour that arose because an explanation was needed for the uncharacteristic act of Córdoba who violated safe-conduct with the arrest.  However, Antonio Giustiniani, the Venetian envoy in Rome wrote the same in his report in May. On 19 October, when Cesare Borgia was already transferred to a Spanish prison, Giustiniani claimed that letters have come from Spain about "a trial being held against him for the death of the Duke of Gandía, his brother and for the death of his brother-in-law; with the intention of having him executed for his crimes".  
This proceedings ultimately came to nothing due to Cesare's escape and later his death in 1507. María Enríquez was an influential lady in the Spanish court, and if she really blamed her brother-in-law for the murder, her opinion certainly mattered a lot for the Catholic Monarchs. But she had never set foot in Italy and the circumstances of the murder were only known to her by hearsay.  

Opinions.  
Historians and chroniclers have always been divided about the identity of the perpetrator. The theory about Giovanni Sforza being the murderer of his brother-in-law was popularized in the colourful but highly unreliable account of Francesco Matarazzo in his Chronicles. As we saw from Bernáldez's account, the same view prevailed in Spain at the time of the murder.  
Francesco Guicciardini summarized the most popular argument for Cesare's guilt in his highly influential work, The History of Italy in 1537-40. According to him the Cardinal of Valencia "aspired to the exercise of arms, and could not tolerate that this place was occupied by his brother. He was, besides, extremely jealous that Madonna Lucrezia, their sister, loved him more." So the main motives were incestuous lust and ambition. His contemporary, Paolo Giovio also blamed Cesare in his Vita e gesta di Ferdinando Consalvo.  
In the 19th century, modern academic historians have generally dismissed this theory. Ludwig von Pastor ruled out Cesare's guilt based on a thorough examination of the sources and found that no such assumption was made at the time of the murder. "Whether the Duke of Gandia fell a victim to the revenge of the Orsini and Giovanni Sforza, or to his own profligacy, or to both, it is....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72730797Sun, 28 Jun 2026 18:23:26 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Giovanni Borgia, 2nd Duke of Gandía. (part 2).   Suspects.   In his speech at the consistory of 19 June, Pope Alexander VI explicitly exonerated some of the suspects.   It is not known at whose hands he met his death. It has been stated that the Lord...Suspects.  
In his speech at the consistory of 19 June, Pope Alexander VI explicitly exonerated some of the suspects.  
It is not known at whose hands he met his death. It has been stated that the Lord of Pesaro devised it, which we do not believe, or the Prince of Squillace, his brother, which is utterly false. We are certain, too, that the Duke of Urbino had no hand in it. God forgive the guilty, whoever he was.  
At the time, it was presumed that Alexander VI was aware of the identity of the real culprits but saw no opportunity to punish them immediately. "This morning I was told by a trustworthy person that at this time His Beatitude has very close news of the truth, but he will pretend otherwise to surprise the authors in their sleep, as they are very important people and of high status", the Florentine envoy, Alessandro Braccio reported on 23 June.  
The investigation lasted more than a year but it was concluded without results. The murder was never avenged, which contributed to the spread of wild rumours. Eventually the unsolved case became part of the black legend of the Borgia, and regarded as one of the most mysterious crimes in history.  

The main suspects:  
- The most obvious suspects were the Orsinis revenging the death of Virginio Orsini at the beginning of the year in a Neapolitan prison. This ancient Roman family was hostile to the Borgias, and they had fought a war against Alexander VI. They defeated the Duke of Gandía on the battlefield, but the pope's plan to carve out a principality in Italy for his son still posed a threat to the family's fortune. Immediately after the murder, the Milanese envoy wrote that all signs point to the Orsini's guilt, but the pope is acting with great caution. In December Sanudo reported that "the pope was plotting to ruin the Orsini, because they certainly had his son, the Duke of Gandía killed", however, the Venetians intervened that the moment was not suitable. Several sources testify that Alexander VI remained determined to exact revenge on the family but political circumstances prevented him to carry out his plan.  
- Ascanio Sforza, Vice-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church was one of the prime suspects in the period following the murder. At the time the relations between the Sforzas and the pope were tense. The cardinal tried to mediate in the conflict between his cousin, Giovanni Sforza and the Borgias, and immediately before the murder his valet called the Duke of Gandia a bastard during a quarrel and the man was subsequently killed. According to Burchard, the Duke of Gandía took leave of his brother, Cesare near the vice-chancellor's palace on the fateful evening. Ascanio Sforza did not attend the consistory of 19 June. The Spanish ambassador, Garcilaso de la Vega apologised for his absence by saying that he was worried about the rumours accusing him of being behind the murder. Pope Alexander VI immediately absolved him from the charge: "God forbid that I should suspect him, for I hold him as a brother." In a letter to his brother on 20 June, Ascanio Sforza admitted that his people were suspected: "It is said that some of my people may have done it on account of the recent quarrel with the duke". In the following months, relations between the cardinal and the pope fluctuated, meetings were held, but suspicion reared its head again among the Spaniards in Rome, and during the summer Sforza thought advisable to spend more time away from the city. At the time the Venetian envoy wrote that everyone in Rome believes that Ascanio Sforza ordered the murder.  
- Antonio Maria Pico della Mirandola was among the early suspects. The Florentine envoy, Alessandro Braccio mentioned that the city police searched all the houses that the duke had been visiting in secret to question family members and maids, including the house of Count Antonio della Mirandola that was located not far...]]>992falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/01-giovanni-borgia-2nd-duke-of-gandia-part-1--72730533Giovanni Borgia, 2nd Duke of Gandía (Spanish: Juan de Borja; Valencian: Joan Borja; c. 1476 – 14 June 1497) was the second child of Pope Alexander VI and Vannozza dei Cattanei and a member of the House of Borgia. He was the brother of Cesare, Gioffre, and Lucrezia Borgia. Giovanni Borgia was the pope's favourite son, and Alexander VI granted him important positions and honours. He was murdered in Rome on 14 June 1497. The case remained unsolved and is still considered one of the most notorious scandals of the Borgia era.  

Early life.   
Giovanni Borgia was born in Rome around 1476 to Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia and his mistress, Vannozza dei Cattanei. He was the second son of the couple, after the firstborn Cesare. No exact birth dates are known for him and his brother, and Giovanni was long thought to be the couple's eldest son, but modern research agrees that he must have been younger than Cesare. Cesare and Giovanni were brought up together in a house provided by their father, probably supervised by his confidant, Adriana de Mila. An instrument of 29 January 1483 removed the guardianship of Giovanni from his mother's family and gave it to his older half-brother, Pier Luigi and another relative, Otto Borgia.  
Pier Luigi died in September 1488 and by his will, Giovanni succeeded him as the 2nd Duke of Gandía. The duchy was located in the Kingdom of Valencia, the Borgia's ancestral homeland, and it was cobbled together by Rodrigo Borgia in 1485 with the help of his patron, King Ferdinand II of Aragon. A marriage contract was written on 13 December 1488 for Giovanni and María Enríquez de Luna, the king's first cousin, who had been betrothed to his brother, Pier Luigi. Because Giovanni was only twelve years old, the wedding was postponed. The situation changed four years later when Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia was elected pope as Alexander VI. A political alliance between the Crown of Aragon and the papacy made the long-planned union more urgent for both sides.  

Years in Spain.  
In August 1493, Alexander VI sent the then-17 year-old Giovanni to Spain equipped with a large amount of textiles, jewels, silver and portable goods. "He left Rome loaded with loot and was expected to return next year to make more," wrote the ambassador from Mantua, Giovanni Lucido Cattanei. Giovanni was received with great ceremony by the Catholic Monarchs in the Royal Palace of Barcelona. His wedding to María Enríquez was celebrated at the end of September 1493.  
Initially there were rumours, to the great dismay of the pope, that the marriage was not consummated. Alexander VI rebuked his son in a letter dated 30 November 1493, and repeatedly advised him to be a good husband. Eventually, María Enríquez gave birth to two children. Juan de Borja y Enríquez (later the 3rd Duke of Gandía) was born on 10 November 1494. A daughter, Isabel de Borja y Enríquez, was born on 15 January 1497, seven months after Giovanni's departure to Rome; she grew up to be abbess of Santa Clara in Gandía with the name Francisca de Jesús.  
Giovanni Borgia spent three years in Spain where he kept a sizeable court of 130 noblemen and their entourage. The pope was constantly worried about his reckless spending, and urged his son to live more moderately and expand his estate. Alexander VI was a keen businessman, and the region around Gandía was a major centre of sugarcane production where buying up lands of the cash-strapped local nobility was a smart plan. In this regard, Giovanni, like his brother before, simply acted as his father's manager in the duchy but his acquisitions were limited.  
Alexander hoped that his son would receive large estates in the recently conquered Kingdom of Granada and become an important figure at the Spanish court. However, the Catholic Monarchs did not heap any more favours on the duke. Queen Isabella was particularly annoyed that the pope was so focused on the promotion of his children, and refused to provide any assistance in this regard. Still, the pope was relentless in this pursuit: he managed to get the new King of Naples, Alfonso II, to grant the fiefdom of Tricarico and the counties of Carinola, Claramonte and Lauria, worth 12,000 ducats a year, to Giovanni on the occasion of his coronation in May 1494. However, the subsequent Italian campaign of Charles VIII of France made these Neapolitan estates unavailable for the Borgias.  
The young man was already homesick in 1494, and wrote letters to his father to send ships to take him back to Rome. "Each day seems like a year to me in the delay of those ships which His Holiness has written in recent days he will send soon", he wrote to his brother, Cesare. At this point, Giovanni Borgia was effectively a pawn in the hands of the Catholic Monarchs, as his presence in Spain guaranteed the alliance between the House of Aragon and the papacy against the French.  

Captain General of the Church.  
The Duke of Gandía was finally able to return to Italy 1496 after the French army retreated. He arrived in Rome on 10 August without his pregnant wife and his two-year-old son who remained in Spain. He was received in Rome with great pomp and ceremony. All the cardinals, led by his brother, were waiting for him on the Campus Martius, as well as the ambassadors, the Roman nobles and the officials. On 26 October he was invested in St. Peter's Basilica as Captain General and Gonfalonier of the Church.  
The pope had great plans for his favourite son, and entrusted him with the campaign against the powerful Orsini family who controlled a large part of the Roman Campagna and had sided with the French against Alexander VI in the previous years. The twenty-year-old duke was completely inexperienced as a commander, therefore he was joined by the condottiero Guidobaldo da Montefeltro. They were initially successful, forcing several Orsini strongholds to surrender while they advanced north from Rome to Lake Bracciano. But the strong castle of Bracciano was able to withstand the siege of the papal forces, and the troops suffered heavily from the harsh winter weather and the rain. Montefeltro was wounded, and the leadership of the campaign devolved mainly to Giovanni. The defendants of the castle insulted him by sending a donkey to his camp with a sign around the animal's neck reading:  
Lassatime andar per la mia via, che vado ambasador al ducha di Chandia.  
Let me pass because I am an ambassador to the Duke of Gandía.  
— cited by Marino Sanudo.  
There was even a rude personal message stuck under the animal's tail.  
On 23 January 1497, the Borgia army suffered a heavy defeat at Soriano when the captains tried to fight the Orsini relief army led by Vitellozzo Vitelli and Carlo Orsini in the open field. Montefeltro was captured but Giovanni Borgia managed to escape with only minor injuries to his face.  
At the Battle of Soriano "the men of the Church succumbed with great dishonor and loss", as Burchard put it in his diary; some five hundred soldiers were killed and many more were wounded, the Orsini captured all the cannons and scattered the papal forces. They quickly advanced to the walls of Rome and recaptured their lost strongholds. The pope now had no choice but to sign a peace treaty with his enemies in February 1497.  
Giovanni's next military endeavour was more successful: he took part in the recapture of Ostia which was still held by forces loyal to the French. The campaign was led by Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, an experienced Spanish general, and ended quickly with the surrender of the garrison on 9 March 1497. A few days later Córdoba held a victory parade in Rome, where he was accompanied by the Duke of Gandía and his brother-in-law, Giovanni Sforza. But Córdoba seems to have resented the favouritism shown towards the duke because on 19 March he refused to accept a blessed palm branch during the celebration of Palm Sunday in the chapel of the Apostolic Palace after Giovanni Borgia had received one. It was a surprising rebuke from an important ally of the Borgias.  
Despite losing the war against the Orsini, the pope still tried to carve out a principality in Italy for his son. For this, he marked out territories that had belonged to the Patrimony of Saint Peter for centuries. On 7 June a secret consistory was held, in which the Duchy of Benevento and the cities of Terracina and Pontecorvo were granted to the Duke of Gandía and his legitimate descendants. Out of the cardinals present, only Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini raised his voice against the alienation of the lands of the papacy. Jerónimo Zurita claimed that the Spanish ambassador also objected and warned the pope that his plan was unacceptable.  

Murder.  
Giovanni Borgia was murdered on the night of 14 June 1497 in Rome. According to Burchard he was last seen alive when he left a family dinner at the home of his mother, Donna Vannozza, who owned a house near the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli. After the dinner, his brother Cesare urged him to return to the Papal Palace, but as they approached the Palace of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza (now the Palazzo Sforza Cesarini), the duke told his brother that he was going to find entertainment somewhere, and dismissed his retinue. He took only his valet and a masked man whose identity was unknown but who had accompanied Giovanni when he arrived at dinner, and had been visiting him almost daily at the palace for about a month. The duke rode to the Square of the Jews where he ordered the servant to wait for him until eight o'clock, and if he had not appeared by then, to return to the palace. Then he rode off with the masked man behind him on the back of his mule.  
When the duke did not return to the palace on the next morning, which was Thursday, 15th of June, his trusted servants became uneasy and one of....

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This episode includes AI-generated content.]]>https://api.spreaker.com/episode/72730533Sun, 28 Jun 2026 17:43:41 +0000truePopular Culture and Religion.Giovanni Borgia, 2nd Duke of Gandía. (part 1). Giovanni Borgia, 2nd Duke of Gandía (Spanish: Juan de Borja; Valencian: Joan Borja; c. 1476 – 14 June 1497) was the second child of Pope Alexander VI and Vannozza dei Cattanei and a member of the House of...Giovanni Borgia, 2nd Duke of Gandía (Spanish: Juan de Borja; Valencian: Joan Borja; c. 1476 – 14 June 1497) was the second child of Pope Alexander VI and Vannozza dei Cattanei and a member of the House of Borgia. He was the brother of Cesare, Gioffre, and Lucrezia Borgia. Giovanni Borgia was the pope's favourite son, and Alexander VI granted him important positions and honours. He was murdered in Rome on 14 June 1497. The case remained unsolved and is still considered one of the most notorious scandals of the Borgia era.  

Early life.   
Giovanni Borgia was born in Rome around 1476 to Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia and his mistress, Vannozza dei Cattanei. He was the second son of the couple, after the firstborn Cesare. No exact birth dates are known for him and his brother, and Giovanni was long thought to be the couple's eldest son, but modern research agrees that he must have been younger than Cesare. Cesare and Giovanni were brought up together in a house provided by their father, probably supervised by his confidant, Adriana de Mila. An instrument of 29 January 1483 removed the guardianship of Giovanni from his mother's family and gave it to his older half-brother, Pier Luigi and another relative, Otto Borgia.  
Pier Luigi died in September 1488 and by his will, Giovanni succeeded him as the 2nd Duke of Gandía. The duchy was located in the Kingdom of Valencia, the Borgia's ancestral homeland, and it was cobbled together by Rodrigo Borgia in 1485 with the help of his patron, King Ferdinand II of Aragon. A marriage contract was written on 13 December 1488 for Giovanni and María Enríquez de Luna, the king's first cousin, who had been betrothed to his brother, Pier Luigi. Because Giovanni was only twelve years old, the wedding was postponed. The situation changed four years later when Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia was elected pope as Alexander VI. A political alliance between the Crown of Aragon and the papacy made the long-planned union more urgent for both sides.  

Years in Spain.  
In August 1493, Alexander VI sent the then-17 year-old Giovanni to Spain equipped with a large amount of textiles, jewels, silver and portable goods. "He left Rome loaded with loot and was expected to return next year to make more," wrote the ambassador from Mantua, Giovanni Lucido Cattanei. Giovanni was received with great ceremony by the Catholic Monarchs in the Royal Palace of Barcelona. His wedding to María Enríquez was celebrated at the end of September 1493.  
Initially there were rumours, to the great dismay of the pope, that the marriage was not consummated. Alexander VI rebuked his son in a letter dated 30 November 1493, and repeatedly advised him to be a good husband. Eventually, María Enríquez gave birth to two children. Juan de Borja y Enríquez (later the 3rd Duke of Gandía) was born on 10 November 1494. A daughter, Isabel de Borja y Enríquez, was born on 15 January 1497, seven months after Giovanni's departure to Rome; she grew up to be abbess of Santa Clara in Gandía with the name Francisca de Jesús.  
Giovanni Borgia spent three years in Spain where he kept a sizeable court of 130 noblemen and their entourage. The pope was constantly worried about his reckless spending, and urged his son to live more moderately and expand his estate. Alexander VI was a keen businessman, and the region around Gandía was a major centre of sugarcane production where buying up lands of the cash-strapped local nobility was a smart plan. In this regard, Giovanni, like his brother before, simply acted as his father's manager in the duchy but his acquisitions were limited.  
Alexander hoped that his son would receive large estates in the recently conquered Kingdom of Granada and become an important figure at the Spanish court. However, the Catholic Monarchs did not heap any more favours on the duke. Queen Isabella was particularly annoyed that the pope was so...]]>1191falsefull