1952
December 3, 1952
The Crime of Bathsheba Spooner, the First Woman to Be Tried for Murder in the U.s
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(MP3)
The series' December 1952 audition of its first tale -- Bathsheba Spooner, who plotted her husband's murder and in 1778 became the first woman tried and executed in the new United States. (Same script later aired as the June 1953 premiere.)
1953
June 15, 1953
The Crime of Bathsheba Spooner, the First Woman to Be Tried for Murder in the U.s
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(MP3)
The premiere: Bathsheba Spooner conspires to kill her husband and, in 1778, becomes the first woman tried and executed in the United States.
June 22, 1953
The Shockingly Peaceful Passing of Thomas Edwin Bartlett, Greengrocer
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(MP3)
England, New Year's Eve 1885 -- the oddly serene death of grocer Thomas Edwin Bartlett, and the poisoning riddle it left behind.
June 29, 1953
The Checkered Life and Sudden Death of Colonel James Fisk, Junior
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(MP3)
New York, 1872: two rich rivals and the widow they both loved end in a Grand Central Hotel stairway, where flamboyant Colonel Jim Fisk is shot by his former friend Edward Stokes.
July 6, 1953
The Shrapnelled Body of Charles Drew, Senior
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(MP3)
London, 1739 -- to inherit before the will can change, young Charles Drew arranges an alibi with a hook-handed smuggler and shoots his own father dead.
July 13, 1953
The Terrible Deed of John White Webster, and His Crime That Shocked the Nation.
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(MP3)
Harvard, 1849: Professor John White Webster murders his creditor Dr. George Parkman in his laboratory, only for a suspicious janitor to start asking questions.
July 20, 1953
The Death of a Picture Hanger
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(MP3)
St. Joseph, Missouri, 1882 -- outlaw Jesse James hangs a picture on his parlor wall while the hired Ford brothers prepare to collect the price on his head.
July 27, 1953
The Final Day of General Ketchum and How He Died
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(MP3)
The sudden, baffling deathbed collapse of Major General William Scott Ketchum -- a demise nobody, including his doctors, can quite explain.
August 3, 1953
Mr. Thrower's Hammer
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(MP3)
Suffolk, England, 1804: village blacksmith Edmund Thrower bludgeons a father and daughter, and eleven years later a nagging doubt reopens the case.
August 10, 1953
The Axe and the Droot Family: How They Fared
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(MP3)
Pennsylvania, 1795 -- Peter Droot writes his will, unwittingly sealing the fate of two of his sons as the family axe finds the shortest road to an inheritance.
August 17, 1953
The Incredible Trial or Laura D. Fair
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(MP3)
San Francisco Bay, the 1870s: the much-married Laura D. Fair boards a ferry and shoots her lover Mr. Crittenden through the heart in front of his family.
August 24, 1953
The Alsop Family: How It Diminished and Grew Again.
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(MP3)
17th-century England -- a family of highwaymen led by grave-digging patriarch James Alsop takes murderous exception to a new daughter-in-law.
August 31, 1953
Your Loving Son, Nero
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(MP3)
Rome, 62 AD: after a scuttled boat fails to drown his mother Agrippina, the Emperor Nero resolves to finish the job -- with a rare turn of William Conrad singing.
September 7, 1953
The Torment of Henrietta Robinson, and Why She Killed.
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(FLAC)
Troy, New York, 1855 -- grief-maddened Henrietta Robinson, clutching her doll Cecily, turns from drowning the toy to poisoning her neighbors.
September 30, 1953
The Bloody, Bloody Banks of Fall River
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(MP3)
Fall River, 1892: an axe finds Mr. and Mrs. Borden on a hot summer morning, and since Lizzie was acquitted the question lingers -- then who?
October 7, 1953
The Hangman and William Palmer: Who Won
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(MP3)
Rugeley, England: genial Dr. William Palmer loves the racetrack and poison in equal measure, carrying candy for his sweetheart and something deadlier for her husband.
October 14, 1953
The Seven Layered Arsenic Cake of Madame Lafarge
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(MP3)
France, 1839 -- in a quiet country summer, Madame Marie Lafarge is accused of feeding her husband an arsenic-laced cake, half loving wife, half scheming murderess.
October 21, 1953
Billy Bonny Bloodletter: Also Known as "the Kid
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(MP3)
New Mexico, from 1871 -- the short, violent life of young William Bonney, who defends his mother's honor with a knife and becomes Billy the Kid.
October 28, 1953
John Hayes--His Head--And How They Were Parted
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(MP3)
Warwickshire, England, 1785: Catherine Hayes, ambitious to be a widow, has her husband John killed -- and his severed head turns up beside the Thames, then in a jar.
November 4, 1953
Raschi Among the Crocodiles, and the Prank He Played
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(MP3)
Host Thomas Hyland opens the file on Raschi, whose grim prank among the crocodiles becomes another of his true tales of crime.
November 11, 1953
Blackbeard's Fourteenth Wife: Why She Was No Good for Him
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(MP3)
The Caribbean, 1714 -- pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, trims his blood-washed beard while his fourteenth wife proves to be no good for him at all.
November 18, 1953
The Triangle on the Round Table
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(MP3)
6th-century Britain: in Camelot, King Arthur marches four thousand men to their deaths over a woman, and calls it chivalry.
November 25, 1953
The Killing Story of William Corder and the Farmer's Daughter
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(MP3)
England, 1827 -- knife-sharpener William Corder courts Maria Marten in London while, back home, she lies murdered in the Red Barn.
December 2, 1953
If a Body Need a Body, Just Call Burke & Hare
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(MP3)
Edinburgh, 1826: with cadavers scarce for the medical schools, Burke and Hare hit on a grislier shortcut than grave-robbing to supply bodies on demand.
December 9, 1953
The Assasination of Abraham Lincoln
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(MP3)
April 1865 -- a president's prophetic dream and how it came to pass, as Thomas Hyland reports on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
December 16, 1953
John and Judith, Their Crime, and Why They Didn't Get to Enjoy It.
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(MP3)
England, 1684: John and Judith murder for gain, then spend their remaining days hating each other and wishing they had never done it.
December 30, 1953
Coyle & Richardson -- Why They Hung in a Swinging Breeze.
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(MP3)
A hulking Scot and his small partner, Coyle and Richardson, take up a seagoing life of crime that ends with the pair swinging in the breeze.
1954
January 6, 1954
The Younger Brothers: Why Some of Them Grew No Older
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(MP3)
Missouri, 1866 -- out of the border war's blood feuds ride the Younger brothers, and Thomas Hyland reports on why some of them grew no older.
January 13, 1954
How Supan Got the Hook Outside Bombey
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(MP3)
Bombay, 1856: brother turns against brother in colonial India, with a waiting tiger to settle accounts.
January 20, 1954
Madeline Smith, Maid or Murderess: Which?
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(MP3)
Glasgow, 1857 -- lovely Madeleine Smith is tried for feeding her inconvenient lover arsenic: maid or murderess, which?
January 27, 1954
The Boorn Brothers & the Hangman: a Study in Nip and Tuck.
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(MP3)
Manchester, Vermont, 1817: the Boorn brothers face the gallows for a murder -- in a nip-and-tuck race against the reappearance of the supposed victim.
February 3, 1954
The Incredible History of John Shepard
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(MP3)
England -- the amazing career of jailbreaking rogue Jack Sheppard, who robs a party guest of her jewels and gives her a story for life.
February 10, 1954
Twenty-Three Knives Against Caesar
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(MP3)
Rome, 44 BC: on the Ides of March, silken-clad Brutus and the conspirators wait with twenty-three knives for the arrival of Julius Caesar.
February 17, 1954
Jean Baptiste Troppmann: Killer of Many
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(MP3)
France under Louis Napoleon, 1869 -- youthful Jean-Baptiste Troppmann murders his way toward fortune, leaving a missing family and fresh graves behind.
February 24, 1954
The Good Ship Jane: Why She Became Floatsam
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(MP3)
1821: a well-told tale of piracy and murder aboard the good ship Jane, and why she became flotsam.
March 3, 1954
Roger Nems: How He, Though Dead, Won the Game
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(MP3)
Suffolk, England, 1676 -- during a game of croquet, Roger Nems takes a mallet to the head, yet contrives even in death to win the game.
March 10, 1954
New Hampshire, the Tiger and Brad Ferguson What Happened Then
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(MP3)
New Hampshire, 1842: Thomas Hyland reports on Brad Ferguson, a tiger, and what happened then.
March 17, 1954
Old Sixtoes: How He Stopped Construction on the B.b.c. and I
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(MP3)
Colonial India -- an aged husband, a young wife, and the murderous scheme built around an elephant called Old Sixtoes.
March 24, 1954
Francisco Pizarro: His Heart on a Golden Knife
March 31, 1954
Robby-Boy Balfour: How He Wrecked a Big Prison's Reputation
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(MP3)
Scotland, 1707: escape artist Robby-Boy Balfour makes a mockery of a great prison's reputation.
April 7, 1954
A General's Daughter, Czar's Lieutenant and the Linen Closet: a Russian Tragedy
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(MP3)
Imperial Russia -- a general's daughter, a Tsar's lieutenant, and a hidden romance that ends in the frozen Neva.
April 14, 1954
James Evans, Fireman: How He Extinguished a Human Torch
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(MP3)
Manchester, England, 1826: fireman James Evans, expert at putting out blazes large and small, extinguishes a human torch and wins a bride.
April 21, 1954
Cesare Borgia: His Most Difficult Murder
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(MP3)
Rome, 1500 -- Cesare Borgia navigates a court of poison and plots to accomplish his most difficult murder yet.
April 28, 1954
Widow Magee and the Three Gypsies - - a Vermont Fandango
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(MP3)
Vermont, 1850: a beautiful widow turns the tables and casts her own spell on three gypsies in a backwoods fandango.
May 5, 1954
Bunny Baumler: His Close Brush with Fame
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(MP3)
Nuremberg, 1820 -- hapless Bunny Baumler can do nothing right, except bludgeon four people to death in a beer hall.
May 12, 1954
Mr. Clarke's Skeleton in Mr. Aram's Closet: the Noise It Made
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(MP3)
Knaresborough, Yorkshire, 1758: a skeleton dug from a cave points to Eugene Aram -- but is he the wrong man for the gallows, or exactly the right one?
May 26, 1954
The Lethal Habit of Marquise De Brinvilliers
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(MP3)
France under Louis XIV -- from her favorite duelling chamber, the Marquise de Brinvilliers makes a lethal habit of poisoning everyone who displeases her.
June 2, 1954
Mr. Jonathon Jewett: How, Most Peculiarly, He Cheated the Hangman
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(MP3)
A condemned prisoner plots to cheat the noose with a friend's help, in a grimly funny account of Mr. Jonathan Jewett's peculiar end.
June 9, 1954
The Assassination of Leon Trotsky
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(MP3)
Mexico City, 1940 -- the life and murder of exiled revolutionary Leon Trotsky, from Siberian prisoner to an assassin's ice axe.
June 16, 1954
The Death of a Baltimore Birdie and Friend
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(MP3)
A canvasback Baltimore prize-fighter's adventures in love and murder end on a hot summer night.
June 23, 1954
Ali Pasha; a Turkish Delight
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(MP3)
The Ottoman court -- a bizarre tale of murder and mayhem around Ali Pasha, with a mother consigned to the dungeon.
June 30, 1954
Good Evening, My Name Is Jack the Ripper
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(MP3)
London, 1888: the yearlong series closes on Whitechapel, where a killer who calls himself Jack the Ripper is seen through the eyes of a young woman.