Podcasts · History · True Crime

Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast

Blue Ewe Media

300 episodes

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 studied their subjects for years. Their stories are offered with unique insight, detail, and historical accuracy.

Episodes page 1 of 6

  1. MoNo Encore: The Life & Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe w/ Mark Dawidziak

    · 2 h 02 min

    Edgar Allan Poe is, of course, one of America's most iconic writers. Many credit him with inventing or popularizing multiple literary genres, including mystery, horror and detective fiction. But the real Poe has become…

  2. 460: Dr. Joseph Bell: The Real Sherlock Holmes w/ Lindsey Fitzharris

    · 1 h 10 min

    Throughout nineteenth-century Edinburgh, the surgeon Joseph Bell was known for his extraordinary talent for detection and diagnosis. To the amazement of onlookers at the Royal Infirmary, he could read a patient’s…

  3. 459: Taiwan's 1957 Liu Ziran Incident & Reynolds Riot w/ Stephen G. Craft

    · 1 h 13 min

    In March 1957, Master Sergeant Robert Reynolds, a U.S. military adviser living with his family outside Taipei, Taiwan, shot and killed a man named Liu Ziran, who Reynolds claimed had been peeping through his bathroom…

  4. 458: The Tale of a Medieval Survivor w/ Sara McDougall

    · 1 h 35 min

    In the winter of 1472, the city of Dijon, France, became the stage for a remarkable legal drama. On the mayor’s orders, an investigator named Jaques Borestel went door-to-door questioning his neighbors about an alleged…

  5. 457: Lizzie Borden Case Expert Cara Robertson Returns

    · 1 h 05 min

    There has been lots of buzz recently about Netflix's gory new series Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, and Cara Robertson, author of "The Trial of Lizzie Borden", joins me once again, this time to share her thoughts on…

  6. MoNo Encore: The Lizzie Borden Case w/ Cara Robertson

    · 1 h 23 min

    (Orig Pub Date 7/19/22) In anticipation of a new interview with Cara, mostly about the recent Netflix Series, here is my original conversation with her about the notorious case. In August of 1892, one of the most…

  7. 456: Outlaw Public Enemies Ben & Stella Mae Dickson w/ Matt Cecil

    · 1 h 29 min

    On August 25, 1938, twenty-five-year-old Ben Dickson and his fifteen-year-old wife Stella Mae robbed the Corn Exchange Bank in Elkton, South Dakota, making off with $2,187.64. Two months later they hit a bank in nearby…

  8. MoNo Encore: Jack the Ripper: Aaron Kosminski w/ Robert House

    · 1 h 28 min

    (Orig Pub Date 11/16/2023) Aaron Kosminski is one of the more well known suspects in the Whitechapel murders. Some of the major police officials of the era, in fact, were seriously concerned about his potential…

  9. 455: Black Dahlia Case Expert Eli Frankel Returns

    · 1 h 17 min

    Eli Frankel, author of "Sisters in Death: The Black Dahlia, The Prairie Heiress, & Their Hunter", returns to share his thoughts on the recent explosion of interest in Marvin Margolis as the possible Black Dahlia and…

  10. 454: The Murder of Tina Andrews w/ Trent Brown

    · 1 h 12 min

    On August 23, 1969, the badly decomposed body of twelve-year-old Tina Marie Andrews was found under a discarded sofa in the woods outside McComb, Mississippi. Days earlier, she and a friend had accepted a ride home but…

  11. 453: Jane Doe #59: The Murder of Reet Jurvetson w/ Catherine Fogarty

    · 1 h 20 min

    Just months after the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders, the body of a 19-year-old woman was discovered off a secluded stretch of Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles on November 16th, 1969. She had been stabbed over a hundred…

  12. 452: The Nittany Nightmare Murders Part 2 w/ Derek Sherwood

    · 1 h 09 min

    My conversation with Derek Sherwood, author of Nittany Nightmare: The Sex Murders of 1938–1940 and the Panic at Penn State, continues. He shares a story about trying to find the location of Faye Gates's murder, talks…

  13. 451: The Nittany Nightmare Murders Part 1 w/ Derek Sherwood

    · 1 h 03 min

    Between November 1938 and May 1940, Margaret Martin, Rachel Taylor and Faye Gates were abducted and sexually assaulted, their bodies dumped within 50 miles of Penn State College. My guest is Derek J. Sherwood, author…

  14. MoNo Encore: The Mysterious Death of Dorothy Kilgallen w/ Mark Shaw

    · 1 h 10 min

    (Orig Pub Date 11/8/17) My guest is former criminal defense attorney Mark Shaw, author of "The Reporter Who Knew Too Much: The Mysterious Death of What's My Line TV Star and Media Icon Dorothy Kilgallen". He talks…

  15. 450: The Murderous Harp Brothers Revisited w/ Katherine Grandjean

    · 1 h 12 min

    The Harp(e) brothers have been called America's first serial killers, once notorious enough to be the stuff of folklore and legend before fading into obscurity. In the chaos of the post-Revolutionary frontier, the two…

  16. American Criminal: Boss Tweed

    · 45 min

    This is the first episode of American Criminal's latest season - all about Boss Tweed, the Tammany Hall politician who has become synonymous with civic graft and corruption. Listen to my interview with Ken Ackerman…

  17. 449: The Mysterious Disappearance of William Morgan w/ Ann Webster Bunch

    · 1 h 09 min

    William Morgan was last seen in Batavia, New York, in September 1826, shortly after threatening to publish purported Masonic secrets. He was arrested that same month in Canandaigua, transported to Fort Niagara and…

  18. 448: Did a Tacoma Smelter Help Create a Generation of Serial Killers? w/ Caroline Fraser

    · 1 h 07 min

    Ted Bundy grew up in Tacoma in the shadow of one of the most toxic smelters in the United States, and he wasn't the only one. Between the 1970s and '80s, the Pacific Northwest was home to a bizarre, outsized cluster of…

  19. 447: Rome's Most Evil Rulers w/ Phillip Barlag - A True Crime History Podcast

    · 1 h 24 min

    My guest this week is Phillip Barlag, author of "Evil Roman Emperors: The Shocking History of Ancient Rome's Most Wicked Rulers from Caligula to Nero and More." He shares stories about some of the worst rulers in…

  20. 446: Bandit Chief Joaquin Murrieta: Myth Vs. Fact w/ John Boessenecker

    · 1 h 12 min

    Joaquin Murrieta has been remembered as a Robin Hood of the California Gold Rush — a wronged miner turned avenging outlaw, the supposed inspiration for Zorro. The truth is far darker and more complicated: the real…

  21. MoNo Encore: The Mysterious Disappearance of Bobby Dunbar w/ Tal McThenia

    · 1 h 34 min

    (Orig pub date: 3/28/23) In 1912, four-year-old Bobby Dunbar went missing in the Louisiana swamps. After an eight-month search that electrified the country and destroyed Bobby’s parents, the boy was found, filthy and…

  22. 445: The Murder of Frances Cochran w/ Robert Fitzgibbon

    · 1 h 03 min

    On July 17, 1941, in Lynn, Massachusetts, attractive nineteen-year-old Frances Cochran stepped off a commuter bus and into a mysterious black automobile. Three days later, police discovered her mutilated body in a…

  23. 444: A Memoir of Murder in the Golden State w/ Debra Miller

    · 1 h 16 min

    On October 7, 1964, Debra Miller’s life turns upside down when her mother is arrested for the murder of her father. At only fourteen years old, Debra becomes a ward of the court, grappling with the unfathomable trauma…

  24. 443: Iowa's Notorious Carter Gang w/ David & Rose Donovan

    · 1 h 06 min

    In the first decades of the twentieth century, saloon proprietor Erastus Wallace Scott of Des Moines―with his cousins in the infamous Carter Gang―operated a campaign of murder, fraud, corruption, and prostitution from…

  25. 442: The Maplehurst Murder w/ Mark Sebastian Jordan

    · 1 h 03 min

    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 and place of employment, the Maplehurst mansion, the home of Mount…

  26. MoNo Encore: (Part 2) The 1876 Northfield Bank Raid by the James-Younger Gang w/ Mark Lee Gardner

    · 1 h 18 min

    (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, and the Wild West's Greatest Escape". In the second part of the…

  27. MoNo Encore: (Part 1) The 1876 Northfield Bank Raid by the James-Younger Gang w/ Mark Lee Gardner

    · 1 h 11 min

    (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 met with death and tragedy, but never told like this. Mark Lee…

  28. 441: Arizona's Murdered Madams w/ Merry Gordon

    · 1 h 16 min

    My guest this week is Merry Gordon, author of Arizona's Murdered Madams: Death in the Red-Light Districts. She shares the stories of two of Territorial Arizona's most infamous madams, former Mormon Minnie Powers and…

  29. 440: The Wreck of the Mentor w/ Eric Jay Dolin

    · 1 h 07 min

    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, but surviving the wreck was only the beginning. They found…

  30. 439: The Curse of the Blumenthals w/ Phyllis Karas

    · 49 min

    My guest is New York Times bestselling author Phyllis Karas. She shares the deeply personal story of two shocking tragedies in her family history: a 1935 car accident that killed six relatives, and the brutal 1954…

  31. MoNo Encore: The Murder of Cecil Wells w/ James T. Bartlett

    · 1 h 42 min

    (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 police. She said intruders had broken into the top-floor penthouse…

  32. 438: The Capone's Vault Fiasco w/ William Hazelgrove

    · 53 min

    In 1986, The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults drew a larger audience than the Super Bowl or David Frost’s interview with Richard Nixon. The special was intended as a comeback for journalist Geraldo Rivera, built around…

  33. 437: The Journalist & the Serial Killer w/ Mark Braude

    · 1 h 02 min

    In 1939, the crimes of German serial murderer Eugen Weidmann captivated France, culminating in a sensational trial and a public execution by guillotine, the last of its kind in the country, just weeks before the…

  34. 436: Jack the Ripper: Edward Buckley w/ Jonathan Tye

    · 1 h 15 min

    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-entangled family, he grew up in a world of poverty, street gangs, and…

  35. MoNo Encore: Anastasia: Mystery & Myth w/ Greg King and Penny Wilson

    · 1 h 31 min

    (Orig. Release Date: 4/23/23) For decades following the horrific 1918 execution of the Romanov family, many hoped against hope that one or more of the children had escaped the bullets and bayonets of the Bolsheviks.…

  36. 435: Conversations With Serial Killers w/ Jeffrey Smalldon

    · 1 h 22 min

    My guest this week is forensic psychologist Dr. Jeffrey Smalldon. He shares stories from decades of correspondence, prison visits and interviews with some of America’s most notorious killers, including Charles Manson,…

  37. 434: The Murders That Inspired Lincoln's Lyceum Address w/ Saladin Ambar

    · 1 h 05 min

    My guest is award-winning author Saladin Ambar, who examines a wave of racially motivated killings along the Mississippi River in the 1830s - events that left a deep impression on a young Abraham Lincoln and helped…

  38. 433: Julia Bulette: Murdered by a Serial Killer? w/ Robin Flinchum

    · 1 h 32 min

    One chilly January night in 1867, a Virginia City prostitute was strangled to death in her bed. The murderer was caught and hanged in front of a crowd of thousands, and the citizens of the Comstock considered the…

  39. 432: Chicago's Apartment 131 Murders w/ Gregg Owen

    · 1 h 27 min

    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 appeared to be a drug deal gone bad. Inside were the bodies of Gio…

  40. MoNo Encore: The Revenge of Hannah Duston w/ Jay Atkinson

    · 1 h 15 min

    (Orig pub date: 10/8/2017). My guest, Jay Atkinson, author of "Massacre on the Merrimack", tells the notorious and controversial story of Hannah Duston. After members of the Abenaki tribe captured her and her newborn…

  41. 431: The Cape Cod Murder of 1899 w/ Theresa Mitchell Webster

    · 1 h 15 min

    On a crisp September evening in 1899, a seventeen-year-old petty thief named Edwin Ray Snow shot and killed a bakery deliveryman named Jimmy Whittemore outside Yarmouth, Massachusetts. The gunshots rang out for only a…

  42. 430: The Thames Torso Murders Revisited w/ Suzanne Huntington

    · 1 h 38 min

    My guest this week is Suzanne Huntington, co editor of Ripperologist Magazine and author of the recently published book "The Thames Torso Murders: Fact or Fiction?" She not only talks about the “Canonical Four” Thames…

  43. 429: The Last Outlaws of the Old West w/ Tom Clavin

    · 1 h 02 min

    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 Gang" and "Bandit Heaven: The Hole-in-the-Wall Gangs and the Final…

  44. 428: The Shipwreck of the San José & the Quest to Find Its Treasure w/ Julian Sancton

    · 1 h 02 min

    In 1708, during the War of the Spanish Succession, the Spanish galleon San José sailed from South America carrying a vast cargo of gold and silver bound for Spain. Off the coast of present-day Colombia, British ships…

  45. MoNo Encore: The Mysterious Death of Fritzie Mann w/ James Stewart

    · 1 h 17 min

    (Orig. Pub Date: 11/10/21) In January of 1923, a 20-year-old dancer named Fritzie Mann left home to meet a mysterious man for what she told her mother was a house party. When she was discovered dead on a remote beach a…

  46. 427: The 1949 Exorcism That Inspired "The Exorcist" w/ Troy Taylor

    · 1 h 16 min

    In 1949, a quiet neighborhood in St. Louis became the center of one of the most controversial religious cases in American history. A 13-year-old boy began exhibiting disturbing symptoms including violent outbursts,…

  47. American Criminal: Machine Gun Kelly

    · 41 min

    Growing up in Memphis, George Kelly Barnes starts dabbling in crime from a young age. First he blackmails his father, then he grows a successful bootlegging business for himself. But how did this small-time crook earn…

  48. 426: Elizabeth Báthory: The World's Worst Female Serial Killer? w/ Shelley Puhak

    · 1 h 08 min

    Told and retold in many languages, the legend of the Blood Countess has consumed cultural imaginations around the world. But despite claims that Elizabeth Báthory tortured and killed as many as 650 girls, some have…

  49. 425: Henry Scott Mausell: Michigan's First Serial Killer? w/ Allie Seibert

    · 1 h 07 min

    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 outside Grand Rapids, Michigan. She had met him through a newspaper…

  50. 424: The Black Dahlia: Another Suspect w/ William J Mann

    · 1 h 07 min

    My guest, William J. Mann, has spent years writing about Hollywood, and in his new book "Black Dahlia: Murder, Monsters, and Madness in Midcentury Hollywood", he takes a fresh look at Los Angeles's most notorious crime…

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