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 series of lawyers tried to claim the money on behalf of a client they would not name. Things got stranger, and eventually investigators uncovered what has been called the biggest lottery fraud in U.S. history. We speak with Iowa’s state Auditor, Rob Sand, and with Ed Stefan, who spent years working at the Multi State Lottery Association.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.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

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 photograph developed he saw something very strange—the image of someone else, sitting beside him. Mumler’s “spirit photograph” was championed by advocates of Spiritualism, who saw it as evidence that the living could communicate with the dead. Mumler began to host portrait sessions in his studio, for a hefty fee. Abraham Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, visited Mumler to have her portrait taken with the hope of contacting her late son. Louis Kaplan’s book is The Strange Case of William Mumler, Spirit Photographer.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.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

“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 happen to you. Run. If it ever happens, run.’” It was years before Cynthia Brown understood what her great-grandmother, Athalia Howe, was talking about. Athalia Howe grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina in the late 1890s. At the time, Wilmington was called “the freest town in the country” for Black people, and by 1898, Black men had become integral in Wilmington’s government. White Supremacists in the state were determined to stop them, by "ballot or bullet or both.”David Zucchino's book is Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy.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.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

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. She ran away from home, changed her name from Fouzia Azeem, auditioned for Pakistan Idol, and eventually became “Pakistan’s first social media star.” By 2015, she was reported to be one of the 10 most Googled people in Pakistan. As she became more famous, Qandeel Baloch also became more controversial. She received intense criticism when she posed for photos with a famous cleric named Mufti Abdul Qavi in his Karachi hotel room and later tweeted that he had behaved inappropriately, in June 2016. The next month, she was dead. Her brother, Waseem Azeem, confessed to her murder. He said, “She was bringing disrepute to our family’s honour and I could not tolerate it any further.” Because of a loophole in Pakistan’s laws regarding honor killings, he believed he would not be punished.Sanam Maher’s book is A Woman Like Her: The Story Behind the Honor Killing of a Social Media Star.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.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 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 told us, “I thought that all I was going to be doing was writing letters. And lo and behold, two years later, I am in that execution chamber.” She’s now 81, and has been present at the executions of six men.Sister Helen’s book, Dead Man Walking, is about her time as a spiritual advisor to Elmo Patrick Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie. It was adapted into a movie starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn.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.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 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 Flathead Beacon'sPolice Blotter. 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.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

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, California. They’re trying to break records set in an unofficial and secretive race called the “Cannonball.” Car and Driver Magazine editor Brock Yates came up with the idea for the race, and described it as a “balls-out, shoot-the-moon, rumble.” He also wrote the screenplay for the 1981 movie based on the race, “Cannonball Run,” which starred Burt Reynolds, Farrah Fawcett, and Roger Moore. In today’s episode, the history of the illegal cross country race, how it has evolved since 1971, and why fans say it will never go away. We speak with Brock Yates’ son, Brock Yates Jr., and Ed Bolian tells us about his record-setting cross-country drive in 2013.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.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

When Nathan Myers and Clifford Williams were charged with the murder of Jeanette “Baldie” Williams in Jacksonville, Florida on May 2, 1976, neither of them were worried they would be convicted. They had dozens of witnesses that could confirm that they had been at a party when the shots were fired. But during their trial, not a single one of those witnesses was asked to testify. The prosecution’s entire case rested on the testimony of a woman named Nina Marshall, who'd been in bed with Jeannette Williams at the time of the shooting. Nina Marshall herself had been shot three times, but said she recognized the men who had shot Jeanette Williams, and that they were Nathan Myers and Clifford Williams.  We speak with Nathan Myers, the director of the Conviction Integrity Unit for Florida’s 4th Judicial Circuit, Shelley Thibodeau, and with forensic artist Jim McMillan.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.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

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 talking about the Chicago Bears, when the screen suddenly went black. Then a person appeared, dancing back and forth in front of a moving striped background, and wearing a mask. The mask was the face of a fictional character from 1985 named Max Headroom, who was supposed to be the world’s first computer generated TV host. He supposedly came from our “not so distant future”—a future where the world is run by TV executives. The interruption lasted about 30 seconds. And then, two hours later it happened again on a different channel—WTTW—during a broadcast of Dr. Who. As one television viewer said, it felt like someone threw “a brick through your window.” A little boy said it was “very, very funny.” We speak with Dan Roan, Larry Ocker, Al Skierkiewicz, Jim Higgins, and Matt Frewer.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.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

Early one morning in 1948, a phone call woke up the police chief in the small town of Clearwater, Florida. The caller said he’d seen something strange at the beach. Residents woke up that morning to find an odd set of footprints in the sand, and a rumor began circulating that Clearwater Beach had a sea monster. The rumor spread so wide, it caught the attention of a biologist in New York named Ivan Sanderson. Ivan Sanderson coined the term cryptozoology in the 1930s, meaning the search for creatures that haven’t been found and aren’t recognized by science—like the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot. But even Ivan Sanderson couldn’t figure out where, or what, the footprints were coming from. We speak with Jeff Klinkenberg, Richard Grigonis, Jeff Signorini, and Alyssa Shimko about Tony Signorini, Al Williams, and the Clearwater monster.Listen to other episodes of This is Love at https://thisislovepodcast.com/.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.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