Criminal

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.Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow.Sign up for Criminal Plus to get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes of Criminal, ad-free listening of all of our shows, and members-only merch. Learn more and sign up here.Listen back through our archives at youtube.com/criminalpodcast.We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 Institution in North Carolina to meet Phillip Vance Smith, II, the editor of The Nash News.Learn more about the American Prison Newspapers digitization project here. Listen to more of Fresh Air’s interview with Angolite editor Wilbert Rideau here. Special thanks to Terry Gross and Fresh Air, which is produced at NPR member station WHYY and distributed by NPR. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow.Sign up for Criminal Plus to get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes of Criminal, ad-free listening of all of our shows, and members-only merch. Learn more and sign up here.Listen back through our archives at youtube.com/criminalpodcast.We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 take her on tour and trick audiences into believing she was the real Queen of Soul. Jeff Maysh tells the story.Learn more in Jeff Maysh’s piece for Smithsonian Magazine, “The Counterfeit Queen of Soul.” Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow.Sign up for Criminal Plus to get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes of Criminal, ad-free listening of all of our shows, and members-only merch. Learn more and sign up here.Listen back through our archives at youtube.com/criminalpodcast.We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 next several years, more bodies were discovered. Eventually, a coroner assembled something he called the “Torso Clinic” to work on the case. It was made up of about 30 people – doctors, professors, police officers, and a young Prohibition agent named Eliot Ness.We're excited to announce Criminal Plus - our new membership program. Sign up to get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes, ad-free listening of Criminal, This is Love, and Phoebe Reads a Mystery and members-only merch. Our first bonus episode is available now! Learn more and sign up here: thisiscriminal.com/plus.Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow.Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 woman who they thought had drowned. People call her l’Inconnue de la Seine, or the Unknown Woman of the Seine.Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow.Listen back through our archives at youtube.com/criminalpodcast. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.Artwork by Julienne Alexander.Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 undertakers with a hearse. Today, the story of how a group of Black men from Pittsburgh changed that. Kevin Hazzard’s book is American Sirens: The Incredible Story of the Black Men Who Became America's First Paramedics.Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow.Listen back through our archives at youtube.com/criminalpodcast. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.Artwork by Julienne Alexander.Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 she enlisted in 1952, she felt like she belonged. Shortly after, she realized she was being watched.Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow.Listen back through our archives at youtube.com/criminalpodcast. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.Artwork by Julienne Alexander.Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 degrees, there is no God.”David Grann brings us the story of what happened when five British warships set off on a secret mission to steal a ship filled with treasure. They’d have to sail around the very bottom of South America — at 56 degrees south.David Grann’s book is The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder.Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow.Listen back through our archives at youtube.com/criminalpodcast. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.Artwork by Julienne Alexander.Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 their friends about the bank rather than advertising in newspapers, and she promised she could almost double their money. Today, the story of the woman running a Ponzi scheme before Charles Ponzi was even born.Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow.Listen back through our archives at youtube.com/criminalpodcast. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.Artwork by Julienne Alexander.Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“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 hold it in and hold it in.” A look at what happens during and after a trial – and how some courts are trying to help jurors.Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow.Listen back through our archives at youtube.com/criminalpodcast. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.Artwork by Julienne Alexander.Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices