Synopsis
True Crime Historian remembers the famous and forgotten scandals, scoundrels, and scourges of the past told through vintage newspaper accounts from the golden age of yellow journalism.
Episodes
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March 24, 1882
24/03/2026 Duration: 09minCincinnati, OhioMarch 24, 1862Abolition's golden trumpet, Wendell Phillips, takes the stage at Pike's Opera House to tell a river city what it doesn't want to hear. The eggs come first. Then the rocks. Then the mob outside, waiting with a rope. The mayor watches and does nothing.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Exclusives, direct access to the Boss, and whatever personal services you require.We invite you to our other PULPULAR MEDIA podcasts:If disaster is more your jam, check out CATASTROPHIC CALAMITIES, telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th and 20th centuries. What could go wrong? Everything!For brand-new tales in the old clothes from the golden era of popular literature, give your ears a treat with PULP MAGAZINES with two new stories e
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The Dead Is Alive
23/03/2026 Duration: 57minThe Wrongful Execution of William Jackson MarionJump To The Ad-Free Safe House EditionEpisode 470 begins in 1887, when Nebraska hanged Jack Marion for murdering his friend John Cameron. Four years later, Cameron turned up alive on a Kansas farm. He'd never heard of the trial. He still had the receipt for the horses Marion supposedly killed him for. Nobody ever figured out whose body was in the creek.Hear more stories about BOTCHED EXECUTIONS.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Exclusives, direct access to the Boss, and whatever personal services you require.We invite you to our other PULPULAR MEDIA podcasts:If disaster is more your jam, check out CATASTROPHIC CALAMITIES, telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th and 20th centuries. What could go
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Anarchist Kills Them All
22/03/2026 Duration: 36minThe 1896 Klaettke Family Massacre Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House EditionEpisode 42 is the sad tale of a family of seven shot and killed by the crazed father, who then turned the gun on himself. It’s rare that we do an episode about a murder/suicide, because you rarely get to hear about the drama that led up to the tragedy, because there’s no one left to tell the story. There are still a lot of unanswered--and over-answered--questions in this one, but I like how the reporter included the details of the family history and their daily lives into the narrative, although I do think they’ve put too much emphasis on the role of the man’s politics in his decision to commit this horrible act.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Exclusives, direct access to the Boss, and whatever
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March 21, 1556
21/03/2026 Duration: 09minOxford, EnglandMarch 21, 1556The Archbishop of Canterbury signed five recantations to save his life. Queen Mary scheduled his burning anyway. On the morning of his execution, Cranmer was ordered to renounce his faith one final time before the crowd. He had other plans — and a right hand he intended to punish first.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Exclusives, direct access to the Boss, and whatever personal services you require.We invite you to our other PULPULAR MEDIA podcasts:If disaster is more your jam, check out CATASTROPHIC CALAMITIES, telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th and 20th centuries. What could go wrong? Everything!For brand-new tales in the old clothes from the golden era of popular literature, give your ears a treat with P
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The Long Island Torso Murder
20/03/2026 Duration: 38minJump to the AD-FREE Safe House EditionEpisode 14. One summer day in 1896, three young boys discover a mysterious package floating near the docks of the East River. Hoping for some kind of treasure, what they found was the freshly dismembered body of a man. Police eventually discovered the identity of the man and found that he was involved in a deadly love triangle. His lover and her other man were charged with the grisly crime.Hear about more TORSO MURDERS!!!!Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Exclusives, direct access to the Boss, and whatever personal services you require.We invite you to our other PULPULAR MEDIA podcasts:If disaster is more your jam, check out CATASTROPHIC CALAMITIES, telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th and 20th centur
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March 19, 1687
19/03/2026 Duration: 09minEast Texas March 19, 1687The man who claimed half a continent for France walked into a stand of river cane looking for his missing nephew. Waiting in the grass were the men he'd led into the wilderness — men who had no intention of following him back out.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Exclusives, direct access to the Boss, and whatever personal services you require.We invite you to our other PULPULAR MEDIA podcasts:If disaster is more your jam, check out CATASTROPHIC CALAMITIES, telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th and 20th centuries. What could go wrong? Everything!For brand-new tales in the old clothes from the golden era of popular literature, give your ears a treat with PULP MAGAZINES with two new stories every week.This episode in
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The White Slavery Suicide Pact
18/03/2026 Duration: 54minMurder in the Marberry ResortJump to the AD-FREE Safe House EditionIn Episode 57, we get an unusual glimpse into the world inside a bordello at the turn of the previous century, when a young prostitute reneges on a suicide pact with another, and allegedly kills a third girl to keep her secret safe. One of the things I like about this story is the outrage and indignation expressed by the newspaper editors that seems both quaint and relative to many of today’s social issues. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Exclusives, direct access to the Boss, and whatever personal services you require.We invite you to our other PULPULAR MEDIA podcasts:If disaster is more your jam, check out CATASTROPHIC CALAMITIES, telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th a
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March 17, 1794
17/03/2026 Duration: 09minDorcester, EnglandMarch 17, 1794A fifteen-year-old girl who claimed she had never learned the difference between good and evil killed her grandfather in his sleep. The Murder Act demanded swift justice. Elizabeth Marsh became the first person hanged at a gaol that wasn't even finished yet. Her body went to the surgeons.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Exclusives, direct access to the Boss, and whatever personal services you require.We invite you to our other PULPULAR MEDIA podcasts:If disaster is more your jam, check out CATASTROPHIC CALAMITIES, telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th and 20th centuries. What could go wrong? Everything!For brand-new tales in the old clothes from the golden era of popular literature, give your ears a treat w
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One Less Woman
16/03/2026 Duration: 55minThe Bawdy House MurderJump to the AD-FREE Safe House EditionEpisode 469 unearths the 1919 murder of Lucina Broadwell — a carpenter's wife found strangled in a vacant lot in Barre, Vermont, the granite capital of the world. A private eye, a madam's little red book, and a trail of tire tracks expose the double lives of a town built on dust and secrets.Hear more stories about LOVE TRIANGLES GONE AWRYBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Exclusives, direct access to the Boss, and whatever personal services you require.We invite you to our other PULPULAR MEDIA podcasts:If disaster is more your jam, check out CATASTROPHIC CALAMITIES, telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th and 20th centuries. What could go wrong? Everything!For brand-new tales in the
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The Philadelphia Trunk Murder
15/03/2026 Duration: 38minThe True Crimes of Edward F. KellerJump to the AD-FREE Safe House EditionEpisode 110 follows the criminal career of one Edward F. Keller, who makes national headlines when h e is arrested for murdering his business partner and burying the body in a trunk in the basement of their leather shop. But his trouble doesn’t stop there. You’ll want to stick around to the end to find out how karma accomplished what the justice system could not.Get more stories about TRUNK MURDERSBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Exclusives, direct access to the Boss, and whatever personal services you require.We invite you to our other PULPULAR MEDIA podcasts:If disaster is more your jam, check out CATASTROPHIC CALAMITIES, telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th and 2
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March 14, 1891
14/03/2026 Duration: 09minNew Orleans, LouisianaMarch 14, 1891 A jury acquits nine Italians of murdering the police chief. By noon the next day, a mob of thousands, led by the city's finest citizens, storms the parish prison and slaughters eleven men. Nobody is punished. Nobody ever learns who actually killed the chief.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Exclusives, direct access to the Boss, and whatever personal services you require.We invite you to our other PULPULAR MEDIA podcasts:If disaster is more your jam, check out CATASTROPHIC CALAMITIES, telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th and 20th centuries. What could go wrong? Everything!For brand-new tales in the old clothes from the golden era of popular literature, give your ears a treat with PULP MAGAZINES with tw
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The Mystery of My Husband's Body in My Trunk
13/03/2026 Duration: 01h22minMadame Bessarabo's ExplanationJump to the AD-FREE Safe House EditionEpisode 111When the body of a missing international businessman is found in an unclaimed trunk in the train station at Nancy, France, his wife (the French dramatist and poet known as Hera Mirtel) and his stepdaughter were immediately suspected, but it took two years to end their legal ordeal. Mysteries still remain (such as how two petit women managed to truss up the body and carry it around in a trunk). Episode 111 focuses on an epistle she wrote from her jail cell as she continues to proclaim her innocence, even denying that it was her husband's body in her trunk. Featuring Emily Simer Braun reading Mme. Bessarbo's epistle from the Paris jail.More FEMMES FATALEBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Ex
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March 12, 1888
12/03/2026 Duration: 09minNew York CityMarch 12, 1888New Yorkers woke to the worst blizzard in American history. Fifteen thousand passengers stranded on elevated trains. The East River frozen solid. Four hundred dead. And one stubborn former senator who refused to pay for a cab — and walked two and a half miles into legend.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Exclusives, direct access to the Boss, and whatever personal services you require.We invite you to our other PULPULAR MEDIA podcasts:If disaster is more your jam, check out CATASTROPHIC CALAMITIES, telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th and 20th centuries. What could go wrong? Everything!For brand-new tales in the old clothes from the golden era of popular literature, give your ears a treat with PULP MAGAZINES wit
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British Dude Stuffed In Trunk
11/03/2026 Duration: 01h40minThe 1885 Preller-Maxwell Murder Of St. LouisAd-Free Safe House Edition Episode 101 spans three years and three continents as a pair of British dandies meet on the steamer ship coming out of Liverpool and make a pact to travel together across the United States and on to Auckland, New Zealand. One of them only makes it as far a St. Louis before his body is found packed in a trunk in a hotel room and his partner gone with all of his traveling money. The case, the chase, the trial and the final reckoning all make national headlines and a celebrity out of the murderer, but that’s not going to make this end any better for him.This is one of my favorite stories with one of my favorite tropes: The Trunk Murder. Hear More Stories About TRUNK MURDERSBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe
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March 10, 1865
10/03/2026 Duration: 09minMarch 10, 1865Darlington, South CarolinaThirty days before the end of the Civil War, Confederate soldiers hanged seventeen-year-old Amy Spain from a sycamore tree on the courthouse lawn. Her crime: shouting "Bless the Lord, the Yankees have come!" and taking linens from the house where she'd been enslaved since birth.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Exclusives, direct access to the Boss, and whatever personal services you require.We invite you to our other PULPULAR MEDIA podcasts:If disaster is more your jam, check out CATASTROPHIC CALAMITIES, telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th and 20th centuries. What could go wrong? Everything!For brand-new tales in the old clothes from the golden era of popular literature, give your ears a treat wit
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The Bat Man In The Attic
09/03/2026 Duration: 55minDolly Oesterreich’s Hidden LoverJump to the AD-FREE Safe House EditionEpisode 468 is what Agatha Christie would call a "locked room" murder. In 1922 Los Angeles, Fred Oesterreich seems to have been murdered by a ransacking intruder. The problem: The house was locked up tight when the police arrived with the dead man on the floor and his wife locked in a closet. No signs of forced entry. Eight years would pass before the world learns the truth of Dolly Osterreich's kept man. Not a euphemism. She literally kept a man in her attic.Hear More Stories About LOVE TRIANGLES GONE AWRYBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Exclusives, direct access to the Boss, and whatever personal services you require.We invite you to our other PULPULAR MEDIA podcasts:If disaster is more your jam
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March 8, 1782
08/03/2026 Duration: 09minGnadenhutten, Ohio CountryMarch 8, 1782The name meant "Huts of Grace." It was a Moravian missionary village where Lenape and Mohican converts had embraced Christianity, European dress, and pacifism. They refused to take sides in the American Revolution. Both sides hated them for it. When 160 Pennsylvania militiamen rode into the Tuscarawas Valley that March, they found unarmed families harvesting corn. The militia smiled, shook hands, and promised safe passage to Fort Pitt. Then they bound their hosts, separated men from women and children, and held a vote. The result was ninety-six dead — bludgeoned with a cooper's mallet, scalped, and burned with their village. Two boys survived. Congress opened an investigation, then quietly killed it. Tecumseh remembered. The Lenape remembered. The mound where the dead are buried is still maintained. The descendants still come every March. Today on Dark History Today: the Gnadenhutten Massacre.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime
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March 7, 1850
07/03/2026 Duration: 09minWashington, District of ColumbiaMarch 7, 1850Daniel Webster — the most celebrated orator in American history — rose in a packed Senate chamber to deliver the speech that would save the Union and destroy his reputation. With the nation tearing itself apart over slavery, and a dying John C. Calhoun having just issued an ultimatum for Southern secession three days earlier, Webster endorsed Henry Clay's Compromise of 1850 in its entirety, including the despised Fugitive Slave Law. The speech bought the country a decade of peace. It also turned Webster from "Godlike Daniel" into a pariah overnight. Emerson compared him to a courtesan. Whittier wrote his poetic obituary while he was still breathing. Not a single New England colleague would publicly support him. Was it the greatest act of political courage in Senate history, or the most consequential moral surrender? The answer depends on which side of the Fugitive Slave Law you were standing on.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/tr
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The Mad Pastor Of Rattle Run
06/03/2026 Duration: 01h44sBloody Murder Among the PewsJump to the AD-FREE Safe House EditionEpisode 112 begins inside the Rattle Run Michigan Methodist Church, smeared with blood as if it had been the scene of a battle to the death. Charred bones discovered in the stove were presumed to belong to the missing pastor, Rev. John H. Carmichael. But then, the town roustabout also turned up missing, and the game is on to figure out who killed who. This gruesome story plays out in less than a week, and ends with a chilling confession. Gave me the willies reading it. Hope you get ‘em, too. Listen to more stories about FALLS FROM GRACEBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Exclusives, direct access to the Boss, and whatever personal services you require.We invite you to our other PULPULAR MEDIA podcasts:If
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March 5, 1825
05/03/2026 Duration: 09minBoca del Infierno, Puerto RicoMarch 5, 1825Three nations set a trap at the Mouth of Hell, and the Caribbean's most wanted pirate sailed right into it. Roberto Cofresí was the son of an Austrian nobleman who'd fled a murder charge and a Puerto Rican mother from one of the island's founding families. Noble blood, empty pockets. When colonial Puerto Rico collapsed around him, Cofresí took to the sea with a fast sloop and a crew of men who had nothing left to lose. He robbed merchant vessels from six nations, attacked a U.S. Navy warship, and became a folk hero to the poor criollos of the coast. It took an alliance of Spain, the United States, and Denmark to bring him down. Twenty-four days after his capture, a firing squad at El Morro ended the pirate. The legend was just getting started.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 4