Criminal
Episodes
The Questions I’m Asking
15 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today we meet “Genius Grant” winner Andrea Armstrong. In 2019, she started the Incarceration Transparency Project to identify and make public how ...
Send Her to the Island
08 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When a young woman showed up at a boarding house in Manhattan, she said her name was Nellie Brown – but that was all she seemed to remember about he...
The Kit
01 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 1970s, Marty Goddard was worried about the high rates of sexual assault in Chicago. She learned from police that evidence from sexual ass...
Masterpiece
24 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1950s poodles were all the rage — one tabloid even reported that when a girl “makes the big time she traditionally acquires 3 things — mi...
Fine Art and Meat Cleavers
17 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1913, museums and art galleries in London received a memo from the police. It told them to be careful when they let in visitors – women might try...
The Liverpool Exchange
10 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1980s, Liverpool was having what journalists called a heroin epidemic. The chairman of a local organization where people would go for drug coun...
Interrogation Room
03 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After a 17-hour-long interrogation, a woman confesses to a murder. But then, evidence surfaces proving that she can’t have actually done it – and ...
How to Sell a Haunted House
27 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1989, Helen Ackley decided to sell her old Victorian house in Nyack, New York. It didn’t go as planned. The house became the center of a case tha...
The Spy
20 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jack Barsky was a college student in 1970 when the KGB knocked on the door of his dorm room to inquire about his plans after college. “I was told to...
Chesa, Kathy, and David
13 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert were once members of the radical activist group the Weather Underground. In 1981, they helped members of the Black Libe...
Jiminy Crickets
11 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Here's a little preview of what we’re making over on Criminal Plus! We’re having a lot of fun making these bonus episodes. In each one, Criminal ...
The Confession, Part 2
06 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This episode continues where Episode 237 leaves off. 17 years after he shot a man, Trevell Coleman walked into a police station and tried to turn hims...
The Confession, Part 1
29 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Trevell Coleman signed with Bad Boy Records in 1998. He made it onto the Billboard charts, and was called “the latest protege of rap’s royal famil...
Phoebe vs. Oyster
28 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We’re coming up on 10 years of Criminal. In the past decade, we've loved taking the show all over the country - including the time I ate a bad oyste...
Under the Crabapple Tree
22 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On September 16, 1922, a reverend and a choir singer were found dead under a tree. Between their bodies was a stack of love letters. When police began...
The Newsroom
15 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jeff German was a reporter for over 40 years in Las Vegas. He spent his life covering the mafia, corruption, and murder. In 2022, he was found killed ...
The Séances
08 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1916, two British soldiers were held captive in a remote prisoner-of-war camp. People said the camp was escape-proof. One day, one of the soldiers ...
Iceland Noir
25 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Iceland is one of the most peaceful countries in the world, but people there love to read about crime. Even the Prime Minister of Iceland has written ...
The Other Phoebe Judge
21 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A preview of what we’re making over on Criminal Plus! Hear me and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohrer taking your questions, telling stories, and tal...
Wolf 10
18 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In April of 1995, wildlife biologists flew small airplanes over Yellowstone National Park, looking for two missing wolves. “They’re just gone. And...
The Nurse
11 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When Amy Loughren started working as a nurse at Somerset Medical Center, she did everything she could to hide the fact that she had a heart condition....
The Perfectionists
04 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A story about religion, sex, an assassination, and silverware. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, ...
A Glamour and a Mystery
28 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the summer of 1917, 16-year-old Elsie Wright took a photograph of her 9-year-old cousin, Frances Griffiths. It was the first photograph she’d eve...
Roll of the Dice
21 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The UNABOM investigation was one of the longest manhunts in American history - it lasted for 18 years starting in 1978. Before the FBI started investi...
The Bodies in the Bog
14 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the summer of 1984, a local newspaper reporter outside of Manchester, England, got a tip from the police. A foot had been found in a nearby bog. Sa...
The Prison Newspaper
07 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A little over sixty years ago, there were 250 prison newspapers being published on a regular basis. Today, there are 26. We visit Nash Correctional In...
The Impersonator
30 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Mary Jones could sing just like Aretha Franklin. One night, a James Brown impersonator saw her perform at a Motown tribute show - and thought he could...
Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and Cleveland’s Torso Murderer
23 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1934, a man collecting driftwood along the Lake Erie shore found a human torso on the beach. No one could figure out what had happened. Over the n...
The Unknown Woman
16 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When a toymaker and a doctor teamed up to make the world’s first CPR doll, they decided to make the doll’s face look like one specific woman – a...
The Paramedics
09 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As recently as 1965, if you had a medical emergency, the people who showed up at your door would be volunteer firefighters, police officers, or undert...
Lavender Scare
02 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Helen James grew up in a military family — her great-great-grandfather fought in the Civil War, her father in WWI, and her uncles in WWII. So when s...
Shipwrecked
26 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
There’s an old sailors’ saying about the ocean at the southernmost part of the world — “below 40 degrees latitude, there is no law; below 50 d...
A Mysterious Bank
19 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the late 1870s, a woman named Sarah Howe started a bank just for single women called the Ladies’ Deposit Company. She asked new customers to tell...
"Did we get it right?"
12 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“What we ask jurors to do is to just absorb all this trauma and just to keep on absorbing it and not process it with anyone. Just hold it in and hol...
The Juror
05 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 2008, Sven Berger was chosen to serve on the jury for a murder trial. He says the sentence that he and his fellow jurors handed down “felt like a...
The Magdalene Laundries
28 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When she was 14 years old, Elizabeth Coppin was sent to a place called Peacock Lane in Cork, Ireland. It was a laundry business run by a Catholic orde...
The Somerton Man
21 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1948, two horse jockeys were riding on a beach in Australia when they came across a man lying in the sand. There was a partially smoked cigarette r...
Palace of Justice – A Conversation with Benjamin Ferencz
14 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When Benjamin Ferencz was 27 years old, he prosecuted his very first trial. It's been called the largest murder trial in history, with more than one m...
The Most Wonderful Terrible Person
07 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When Debra Miller woke up on October 8th, 1964, she was expecting to see a black Volkswagen in her family’s driveway. Instead, she saw a police car....
The Fasting Cure
24 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1911, two sisters traveled to Seattle to meet a "doctor" named Linda Hazzard. The sisters didn’t seem very sick, but when they arrived, Dr. Hazza...
Crazy Eddie
17 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1980s, the discount electronics chain store Crazy Eddie was so famous, its commercials were parodied on "Saturday Night Live." So when the fami...
Out of the Box
10 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1964, one of the best javelin throwers in Australia traveled to England to see if he could qualify for the Olympics. But, because of an injury, he ...
An Impossible Crime, Part 2
03 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This episode continues where Episode 208 leaves off. In 2001, Daniel Taylor wrote a letter from prison to a reporter at the Chicago Tribune named Stev...
An Impossible Crime
24 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Taylor was 17 years old when he was arrested for a 1992 double homicide in Chicago. But Daniel had an alibi. He was in jail at the time of the ...
Novak v. City of Parma
17 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 2016, a man named Anthony Novak created a parody Facebook page of his local police department. "I just thought, 'That would be funny.'" About a mon...
The Feather Lady
03 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On October 4, 1960, Eastern Airlines Flight 375 took off from Boston’s Logan airport, and then, two minutes later, it crashed. 62 people died. Inves...
Sunset Mesa
20 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Debbie Schum waited a long time to receive the cremated ashes of her friend, LoraLee Johnson. When she did, she felt relieved to finally take them hom...
They Came for the Judges
06 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August of 2021, they unlocked the prisons and freed prisoners, some of whom sought revenge on the wome...
Dog in the Bed, Cat in the Bag, Camel on the Golf Course
16 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Stories of animals really going for it. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow th...
Across the Atlantic
02 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In February of 1910, members of the Music Hall Ladies Guild in London received a strange letter from their treasurer – a singer who went by the name...
The Tylenol Murders
18 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On September 29, 1982, Adam Janus suddenly collapsed in his home outside of Chicago. He died within hours. Later that same day, in the same house, his...
We Interrupt This Program
04 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On a Saturday night, in February 1949, the music programming on one of the most popular radio stations in Quito, Ecuador, was interrupted with an urge...
Ghostwatch
21 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On Halloween night, in 1992, an unusual television special aired on the BBC. Nobody expected what happened next. “The technicians were looking up at...
The Hammersmith Ghost
07 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the winter of 1803, residents outside of London reported strange encounters with a ghost. Some said it looked like Napoleon Bonaparte, or a horse w...
Mantrap
23 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ed and Bertha Briney’s unoccupied farmhouse was reportedly broken into 50 times over 10 years. They put up “No Trespassing” signs, repeatedly co...
Hungryland
09 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In March of this year, a biologist working in a nature preserve in Florida saw an alligator swimming along a canal with something in its mouth. When s...
The Procedure
19 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1967, a very unlikely group of individuals gathered to quietly break the law and help facilitate abortions. They established a phone number. When y...
The Divorce Colony
05 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This episode picks up where Episode 193 left off. We suggest you listen to them in order. Blanche Molineux visited her husband while he was in prison ...
A Ring and a Bottle
22 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1895, Blanche Chesebrough moved into a small apartment in Gramercy Park, in New York City. She brought a portrait of her parents, a vase for flower...
The Devil’s Hole Pupfish
08 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There is a cave in the middle of the Mojave Desert called Devil's Hole. It's home to a small iridescent blue fish, called the Devil's Hole pupfish - a...
The Sailor's Teeth
24 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1982, forensic dentists examined the teeth of thousands of sailors stationed on an aircraft carrier called the USS Carl Vinson in Newport News, Vir...
Day In, Day Out
10 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Laura Coates decided to become a prosecutor in Washington, D.C., she was told that the job would be “human misery.” She says she remembers th...
The Doctors
27 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 2018, we talked with three of America’s most experienced trauma surgeons about what happens when someone is shot. We wanted to spend some time wi...
John & Trooper
13 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For 10 years, Detective John Reilly and his horse Trooper were the only mounted team assigned to Central Park. They rode the same route every day. Joh...
427 Emails
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Pontiac Correctional Center is a maximum security prison in the small town of Pontiac, Illinois. It’s the oldest in the state - founded in 1871 - an...
The Magpie
08 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Shigeru Yabu was 9 years old, he and his family were incarcerated at Heart Mountain Internment Camp, along with thousands of other Japanese and J...
The Princess
25 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
One night in 1817, a woman appeared in the village of Almondsbury, in England. No one could figure out who she was. But everyone wanted to solve the m...
Ransom
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Miles Hargrove was in his sophomore year of college when he got a phone call that his father had been kidnapped. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and I...
Breaking into the F.B.I.
25 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1971, a woman visited an F.B.I. office in Pennsylvania. She identified herself as a college student interested in learning about opportunities for ...
The Midnight Slider
11 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 2013, a small boat called The Midnight Slider was found floating empty in the waters off of Isle Madame in Nova Scotia. "Murder is not something...
Pappy, Another Round
28 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When it comes to Kentucky bourbon, Pappy Van Winkle is among the most exclusive. You can’t get it unless you’re exceptionally lucky, exceptionally...
The Boycott
14 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
15 years after the Supreme Court ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education, many schools across the South were...
A Splendid Newfoundland, Cursing Birds, and the Fashion Fox
17 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Stories of animals really going for it. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow th...
"The experiment requires that you continue."
03 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
1. Please continue. 2. The experiment requires that you continue. 3. It is absolutely essential that you continue. 4. You have no other choice, you...
Palace of Justice
19 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Benjamin Ferencz was 27 years old, he prosecuted his very first trial. There were 22 defendants, each of them high-ranking members of Nazi German...
The Red Flag
05 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 2006, a man named William Ramsey went to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida for a life-saving liver transplant. It was a success, and so when...
Ghost Racket Crusade
22 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The story of two famous friends — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini — and the disagreement that ended their friendship: can we speak to the...
The Loves
08 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“There is something he hasn’t been telling me and I’m about to find out what it is.” Bobby and Cheryl Love’s book is The Redemption of Bobby...
Family Money
24 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Beverley Schottenstein’s husband Alvin died, she and her children sold their stake in his family’s business, worth an estimated 90 million do...
Roselle and Michael
10 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Hingson was on the 78th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He says the first indication that something ...
Sealand
27 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today's episode begins with rock & roll and ends with royalty. When bands like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles were becoming popular, they weren't ...
Ian Manuel
30 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"The phone rang and rang and a lady picked up on the other end and I still remember the operator saying, 'You have a collect call from Ian for Debbie....
Masquerade
16 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The story of a cryptic children’s book, a real-life treasure hunt, and its very mysterious winner: “He refused to be on camera. It’s just his vo...
48 Hours, Part 2
02 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This episode picks up where Episode 167 left off. We suggest you listen to them in order. When Aaron Quinn called the Vallejo police to report that ...
48 Hours
18 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“I think it was around 3:00 a.m., and that’s when I heard a strange man’s voice waking me from sleep.” This is part one of a two-part episode....
On Fire
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On November 12th, 2012, the Accomack County volunteer fire departments got a call. An abandoned house had suddenly gone up in flames. And then, just h...
Unfit
21 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In August 1934, Ann Cooper Hewitt was having lunch with her mother when she suddenly felt pain in her abdomen. When she went to the doctor, he told he...
Sanctuary
07 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
After 32 years in the United States, José Chicas was told he had to leave. He bought a plane ticket to El Salvador, but then a local church offered a...
The Ghoul of Grays Harbor
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Pacific Northwest was said to be terrorized by a serial killer in the early 20th century. Bodies were floating to the surface of the Chehalis and ...
I Fought the Law
09 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The song “I Fought the Law” by the Bobby Fuller Four reached number 9 on the Billboard Charts in the week of March 12, 1966. Just months later, Bo...
Only in Hollywood
26 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Joan Borsten married actor Oleg Vidov, also known as “the Soviet Robert Redford,” he introduced her to beautiful Soviet animations created in...
Hot Lotto
12 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 2010, a $16.5 million Hot Lotto ticket was sold at a gas station in Des Moines, Iowa. At first, no one showed up to claim the prize. And then, a se...
Spiritual Developments
26 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
One Sunday afternoon, a man named William Mumler decided to take a self portrait. He said he was alone in the photography studio, but as the photograp...
"If it ever happens, run."
12 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“What I recall most is the way that she grabbed my wrist and, shaking a bit, she said over and over again, ‘If it happens, run. Don’t let that h...
The Short Life of Qandeel Baloch
29 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Qandeel Baloch grew up in a conservative village in Pakistan called Shah Sadar Din, a place where it was shocking to see a woman swimming outdoors. Sh...
Sister Helen
15 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1982, Sister Helen Prejean was invited to write a letter to a man on death row in Louisiana’s Angola State Prison named Elmo Patrick Sonnier. She...
Bears on Ice
24 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A day in the life of the town of Kalispell, Montana. Thanks very much for listening this year, and happy New Year. Read about other days in the Flath...
Cannonball
18 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
With Covid-19 shutdowns, people have been taking advantage of quiet highways to drive as fast as they can from New York City to Redondo Beach, Califor...
The Night of the Party
04 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When Nathan Myers and Clifford Williams were charged with the murder of Jeanette “Baldie” Williams in Jacksonville, Florida on May 2, 1976, neithe...
The Max Headroom Incident
20 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
One Sunday night in November 1987, something very odd happened in the middle of the WGN nine o’clock news in Chicago. Sportscaster Dan Roan had been...