Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast
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Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast
Serial killers. Gangsters. Gunslingers. Victorian-era murderers. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Each week, the Most Notorious podcast features true-life tales of crime, criminals, tragedies and disasters throughout history. Host Erik Rivenes interviews authors and historians who have studie...
Recent Episodes
451 episodes
443: Iowa's Notorious Carter Gang w/ David & Rose Donovan
In the first decades of the twentieth century, saloon proprietor Erastus Wallace Scott of Des Moines―with his cousins in the infamous Carter Gang―oper...
442: The Maplehurst Murder w/ Mark Sebastian Jordan
The night before Easter 1905, Miranda Bricker left her sister’s house and made her way through the darkness. Her destination was her living quarters a...
MoNo Encore: (Part 2) The 1876 Northfield Bank Raid by the James-Younger Gang w/ Mark Lee Gardner
(Orig Pub Date 8/10/2016) My conversation with author Mark Lee Gardner continues, about his book "Shot All to Hell: Jesse James, the Northfield Raid,...
MoNo Encore: The 1876 Northfield Bank Raid by the James-Younger Gang Part 1 w/ Mark Lee Gardner
(Orig pub date: 8/3/2016) Much has been written about Jesse James, including his gang's ill-fated trip to Northfield, Minnesota, a botched bank raid m...
440: The Wreck of the Mentor w/ Eric Jay Dolin
In May of 1832, an American whaleship called the Mentor went down on a remote reef in the western Pacific. Of the crew, eleven men made it out alive,...
MoNo Encore: The Murder of Cecil Wells w/ James T. Bartlett
(Orig pub date: 6/21/22) In the early morning hours of October 17, 1953, a frightened, battered woman named Diane Wells told a horrific tale to polic...
436: Jack the Ripper Suspect Edward Buckley w/ Jonathan Tye
Edward Buckley was a violent East End tough whose life unfolded in the same streets and shadows as the Whitechapel murders. Born into a rough, crime-e...
432: Chicago's Apartment 131 Murders w/ Gregg Owen
On a chilly night in March of 1976, a father searching for his missing son made a horrifying discovery inside a Chicago apartment - in at what first a...
429: The Last Outlaws of the Old West w/ Tom Clavin
New York Times bestselling author Tom Clavin returns to the podcast to discuss his books "The Last Outlaws: The Desperate Final Days of the Dalton Gan...
425: Henry Scott Mausell: Michigan's First Serial Killer? w/ Allie Seibert
On a beautiful fall day in September 1916, 68-year-old Hannah Spielman went on a picnic with her new husband, 71-year-old James Allen, in the woods o...
424: The Black Dahlia: Another Suspect w/ William J Mann
My guest, William J. Mann, has spent years writing about Hollywood, and in his new book "Black Dahlia: Murder, Monsters, and Madness in Midcentury Hol...
423: The Nazi & the Psychiatrist w/ Jack El-Hai
On this episode of Most Notorious, I speak with author Jack El-Hai about his book "The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelle...
MoNo Encore: The East River Ripper Murder of Old Shakespeare w/ George R. Dekle Sr.
(Orig. Pub. Date 9/6/2021) On April 24th, 1891, a Bowery prostitute named Carrie Brown (known locally as "Old Shakespeare") was found murdered and mut...
421: The Killer of Little Shepherds w/ Douglas Starr
At the close of the nineteenth century, serial killer Joseph Vacher terrorized the French countryside for years, eluding capture while murdering more...
418: The Black Dahlia & the Prairie Heiress Murders: One Killer? w/ Eli Frankel
In January 1947, the bisected body of Elizabeth Short, completely drained of blood, was discovered in an undeveloped lot in Los Angeles. Its gruesome...
MoNo Encore: The Murder of Frank Richardson w/ Kimberly Tilley
Original Publication Date: 4/3/22
On Christmas Eve, 1900, 44-year-old dry goods store owner Frank Richardson was shot to de...
413: Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday & Tombstone w/ Mark Lee Gardner
Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were two complicated men whose steadfast friendship became one of the legendary relationships of the American West. Both w...
MoNo Encore: The Car Barn Murders w/ Karen Smith
(Orig pub date 8/15/23)
In the early morning of January 21st, 1935 two employees of the Capital Transit Company in Chevy Chase, Maryland...
409: The Scientist & the Serial Killer w/ Lise Olsen
In "The Scientist and the Serial Killer: The Search for Houston’s Lost Boys", investigative journalist Lise Olsen tells the gripping true-crime story...
408: The Murder of Cecelia Gullivan w/ Jeffrey L. Amestoy
In November 1926, Cecelia Gullivan, treasurer of the Cone Automatic Machine company of Windsor, Vermont, was brutally killed in her home. Local police...
407: The Thames Torso Murders w/ Sarah Bax Horton
Victorian London is often remembered for the Ripper murders, yet at the same time another equally chilling series of slayings unfolded. Between 1887 a...
406: The Murder of Jujube Heiress Ruth Quinn w/ Taylor Kiland
The small Southern California island of Coronado rarely makes news for violent crime. But in the spring of 1975, World War II widow and retired librar...
MoNo Encore: The Murder of Dr. W.D. Broadhurst w/ Patrick Gallagher
(Orig pub date: 2/15/22)
In October of 1946, a chiropractor and rancher named Willis "W.D." Broadhurst was beaten with a wrench and finis...
405: A History of Eugenics in America w/ Mark A. Torres
In the early twentieth century, eugenics captivated scientists and the public alike, giving researchers license to exploit the infirm, the mentally il...
404: Gunfighter Clay Allison w/ Donna Blake Birchell
Clay Allison was both liked and loathed in his lifetime, embodying the contradictions of the American frontier. He could show moments of kindness for...
403: The Madman of Crystal Beach w/ M.F. Gross
In the sultry summer of 1949, a sleepy Florida beach town was rocked to its core. A brutal home invasion, a shocking murder, and a desperate, month-lo...
402: The Reno Redfield Heist w/ Gavin Schmitt
The 1952 burglary of eccentric multi-millionaire LaVere Redfield’s mansion in Reno, Nevada was the largest of its time, but also a comedy of errors....
401: The First Forensic Hanging w/ Summer Strevens
The First Forensic Hanging: The Toxic Truth That Killed Mary Blandy by Summer Strevens tells the story of Mary Blandy, executed in 1752 for poisoning...
MoNo Encore: The Bermondsey Horror w/ Gavin Whitehead
(Orig pub date: 2/3/24)
On August 17th, 1849, London police officers made a grisly discovery at the home of George and Mari...
400: The Legend of Belle Starr w/ Michael Wallis
Myra Maibelle Shirley, better known as Belle Starr, was one of the most notorious female outlaws of the Old West (if you believe period newspapers, an...
399: The Life & Crimes of Robert Spears w/ Jerry Jamison
"Doctor" Robert Spears was arguably one of the greatest con artists of the twentieth century, and very likely a mass murderer. In thirty nine years of...
398: John Wilkes Booth & the Last Year of the Civil War w/ Scott Ellsworth
My guest this week is Scott Ellsworth, author of Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth o...
397: The Hazel Drew Murder Revisited w/ Jerry C. Drake
In July of 1908 the body of twenty-year-old Hazel Drew was found floating in a mill pond in Upstate New York. Her death captured headlines across the...
MoNo Encore: The 1912 Murder of Ella Barham w/ Nita Gould
(Original pub date: 6/16/21)
In November of 1912, a young woman named Ella Barham journeyed home, on her horse, to her fami...
396: The 1951 Murder of Clarence Pellett w/ Clem Pellett
Clem Pellett grew up knowing very little about his grandfather, Clarence Pellett, who was murdered along Montana's iconic Hi-Line in April of 1951....
395: The 1917 Murder of Beatrice Epler w/ Allie Seibert
On the morning of September 5th, 1917, sixteen-year-old Beatrice Epler was found dead just steps from her home in Alma, Michigan. The investigation in...
394: The Castleton Massacre with Margaret Carson & Sharon Anne Cook
On May 2, 1963, Robert Killins, a former United Church minister, slaughtered every woman in his family but one. She (and her brother) lived to tell th...
393: The Man Who Shot J.P. Morgan w/ Mary Noé
On the morning of July 3, 1915, John Pierpont Morgan Jr., one of the most famous names in finance, was entertaining guests at his sprawling Long Islan...
392: Golden Age Pirate George Lowther w/ Craig Chapman
George Lowther was a mutineer and a pirate, one of the most prolific during the golden age of piracy. His first mate, Edward "Ned" Low, went on to est...
MoNo Encore: The Murder of Kitty Genovese w/ Catherine Pelonero
(Original pub. date: 9/27/2018)
Catherine Pelonero, author of "Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and its P...