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Crimes of the Centuries
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Crimes of the Centuries
Author: Amber Hunt
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© Amber Hunt
Description
Crime is so commonplace that it takes something particularly shocking to be labelled the “crime of the century.” Even so, there are a lot of cases that have earned the distinction. In each episode of Crimes of the Centuries, award-winning journalist Amber Hunt will examine a case that’s lesser known today but was huge when it happened. The cases explored span the centuries and each left a mark. Some made history by changing laws. Others were so shocking they changed society.
165 Episodes
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The Catholic Church lost its grip on England largely thanks to a woman who refused to quietly let her husband trade her in for a younger model. Catherine of Aragon's impact on Europe has lasted for centuries, and it all began with a single crime: bigamy.
"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history.
\DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
Cassie Chadwick of Cleveland wasn't who she said she was. Even she admitted that -- though in her version, she wasn't the con artist daughter of a Canadian farmer, but rather the illegitimate daughter of Andrew Carnegie, America's wealthiest man. She used that lie to bilk businessmen, bankers and entire institutions out of boatloads of money, earning her place in history as one of the Gilded Age's most accomplished grifters.
"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history.
DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
Episode sponsors:
3 Day Blinds: For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to 3DayBlinds.com
Greenlight. Sign up for Greenlight today and get your first month free when you go to GREENLIGHT.com/COTC
When several men dressed as cops entered the Isabella Gardner Museum in March of 1990, the nighttime security detail didn't think much of it -- until one of the "officers" handcuffed the guards' wrists and announced, "This is a robbery." Thirty-four years later, theories abound about who was behind the largest -- and most mystifying -- art heist in American history.
"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history.
DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
Episode sponsors:
Hiya Health. Receive 50% off your first order. To claim this deal, you must go to www.hiyahealth.com/COTC.
Better Help. Visit BetterHelp.com/COTC today to get 10% off your first month.
Wildgrain. For a limited time, you can get $30 off the first box-PLUS free Croissants in every box-when you go to Wildgrain.com/COTC to start your subscription.
In 1932, hundreds of men in Tuskegee, Alabama, signed up for something they'd never had much access to: healthcare. The best part? It was free. Told for decades they were being treated for "bad blood," the participants were never informed they had tested positive for syphilis and were being studied by the US government to see how the disease progressed in Black men who were blocked from receiving readily available treatment.
"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history.
DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
Episode sponsors:
Better Help. Visit BetterHelp.com/COTC today to get 10% off your first month.
After Munich, Germany, was named the host of the 1972 Olympic Games, organizers were determined to highlight the country's softer side after the horrors of World War II. This was, after all, the first Olympics to be held in Germany since 1936's Berlin Games, during which Hitler used the festivities to spread propaganda and Nazi ideology. Unfortunately, Munich's "softer side" went beyond a subdued color palette, leading to a porous Olympic Village that provided easy access to a deadly terrorist attack.
"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history.
DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
Episode sponsors:
Hiya Health. Receive 50% off your first order. To claim this deal, you must go to hiyahealth.com/COTC.
Cremo Body Wash. You can find the new Cremo Men’s Body Wash at Walmart or Walmart.com
When a handyman from Mobile, Alabama, was accused of stealing $1.95 from a woman who employed him in 1957, no one could have guessed the fervor it would cause, not just nationally but overseas. Jimmy Wilson was sentenced to death for the theft in a case that threatened America's reputation on a global scale.
"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history
DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
Episode sponsors:
Greenlight. Sign up for Greenlight today and get your first month free when you go to www.greenlight.com/cotc
Laundry Sauce. For 15% off your order, head to LaundrySauce.com/COTC and use code COTC.
Soon after London bade farewell to 1885 and welcomed the new year, a woman named Adelaide Bartlett roused her sleeping house with screams. Her husband, Edwin, who had seemed to have turned a corner on his recent illness, was dead. Housemates who arrived in a panic immediately noticed a chemical smell in the room that suggested Edwin hadn't died of natural causes. The case, which would soon be dubbed the Pimlico Poisoning, proved to be one of the most sensational in 19th-century England.
"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history
DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
Episode sponsors:
Quince. Go to Quince.com/COTC for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.
Cremo. You can find all the new, decadent scents of Cremo Women’s Body Wash at Walgreens and CVS Or CremoCompany.com.
Wildgrain. For a limited time, you can get $30 off the first box, PLUS free croissants in every box, when you go to Wildgrain.com/COTC to start your subscription.
In the 1970s, an aerospace firm in Redondo Beach, California, had the clever idea of handing over access to highly classified spy satellite secrets to a 20-something named Christopher Boyce. It didn't end well. Boyce and his high school buddy -- a drug dealer named Daulton Lee -- soon began selling that classified info to the Russians in a scheme that's still regarded today as one of the most damaging acts of espionage in U.S. history.
"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history
DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
Episode sponsors:
Cremo. You can find all the new, decadent scents of Cremo Women’s Body Wash at Walgreens and CVS Or CremoCompany.com.
Greenlight. Sign up for Greenlight today and get your first month free when you go to Greenlight.com/COTC
Ritual. Get 25% off your first month at ritual.com/cotc
Miracle Made. Go to TryMiracle.com/COTC and use the code COTC to claim your free three-piece towel set and save over 40% off.
After World War II stole a great many men from their loving wives, Lonely Hearts clubs were all the rage for lonely widows looking for love. A number of them thought they'd met their soul mates when they traded letters with a man calling himself Chris Martin who was so devoted to his family, he often had his sister in tow. In truth, those unsuspecting women were communicating with Ray Fernandez and his lover, Martha Beck, who would come to be known as the Lonely Hearts Club Killers.
"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history
DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
Episode sponsors:
Miracle Made. Go to TryMiracle.com/COTC and use the code COTC to claim your free three-piece towel set and save over 40% off.
IQ Bar. Our special podcast listeners get 20% off all IQBar products plus FREE shipping. To get your twenty percent off, just text CENTURIES to 64000.
Smalls. Head to Smalls.com/COTC and use promo code COTC at checkout for 50% off your first order PLUS free shipping.
Randy Ayers was a 17-year-old high school senior when he was spotted at school and identified as the man who raped and tried to kill a 15-year-old girl in November 1981. It would take nine agonizing years -- and an unsolicited confession from a serial killer -- before Randy's case would change how prosecutors in Hamilton County, Ohio, treated eyewitness identification.
"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history
DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
Episode sponsors:
IQ Bar. Special podcast listeners get 20% off all IQBar products plus FREE shipping. To get your twenty percent off, text CENTURIES to 64000.
Wildgrain. For a limited time, you can get $30 off the first box, PLUS free croissants in every box, when you go to Wildgrain.com/COTC to start your subscription.
The 937 passengers aboard the M.S. St. Louis had every reason to be optimistic as they left Hamburg, Germany, on May 13, 1939. After years of their rights being slowly stripped away, the Jewish men, women and children felt lucky to be sailing off to start anew in Cuba. But once they spotted their destination, a new nightmare began.
"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history
DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
Episode sponsors:
Smalls. Head to Smalls.com/COTC and use promo code COTC at checkout for 50% off your first order PLUS free shipping.
Athena Club. Head over to AthenaClub.com to try their award-winning razor and body products and get 20% off your purchase with code CENTURIES at checkout. You can also find AthenaClub Razors at your local Target store.
When 26 California schoolchildren and their bus driver failed to show up after a swimming trip on the penultimate day of summer school, authorities launched a search that grew much more frantic after the school bus they'd been traveling in was discovered hidden in 20-foot-tall bamboo. What happened next shocked and befuddled the nation.
"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history
DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
Episode sponsors:
Magic Mind. For a limited time, this special link offers up to 48% off your first subscription or 20% off one-time purchases with code COTC at checkout. You can claim it at www.magicmind.com/cotc20.
In 1898, a pair of killers stalked a worksite in the Tsavo region of Kenya. They evaded blockades and booby traps to torment hundreds of men who'd simply signed up to do a job but instead found themselves marked as prey for a seemingly unstoppable deadly duo.
"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history
DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
Episode sponsors:
Laundry Sauce. For 15% off your order, head to LaundrySauce.com/COTC and use code COTC
Ritual. Get 25% off your first month at ritual.com/cotc.
Field of Greens. 15% off your first order, plus free rush shipping. Visit FieldofGreens.com and use promo code COTC.
In the 1960s, after losing all 10 of the babies they'd conceived, Marie Noe and her husband, Arthur, became the most famous bereaved parents in America, with most of the deaths attributed to "crib death," later called Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). After a journalist revisited the case in 1998, investigators took another look at the mysterious series of deaths, prompting Marie Noe to share a horrifying secret that had been weighing on her for more than 30 years.
"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history
DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
Episode sponsors:
Wildgrain. For a limited time, you can get $30 off the first box-PLUS free Croissants in every box-when you go to Wildgrain.com/COTC to start your subscription.
Hiya. Receive 50% off your first order. To claim this deal, go to hiyahealth.com/COTC.
Rocket Money. Stop wasting money on things you don’t use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to RocketMoney.com/COTC
On September 6, 1949, 28-year-old World War II veteran Howard Unruh ate the breakfast his mother made him, then armed himself with a Luger pistol and walked calmly through his Camden, New Jersey, neighborhood, shooting everyone in sight. He told police afterward he'd had a kill list of specific people he'd felt had wronged him, but by the end of his 12-minute rampage, 13 would be fatally wounded, three of them innocent children.
"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history
DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
Episode sponsors:
Smalls. Head to Smalls.com/COTC and use promo code COTC at checkout for 50% off your first order PLUS free shipping.
Athena Club. Head over to AthenaClub.com to try their award-winning razor and body products and get 20%off your purchase with code COTC at checkout.
While the grift he deployed had been named for another man, Bernie Madoff took the concept of a Ponzi scheme and pumped it full of steroids, allowing it to keep him -- and plenty of others -- filthy rich for literally decades. In the end, Madoff bilked some $65 billion from thousands of clients, all while maintaining such a sheen of respectability that he was charged with helping write the very rules he himself eschewed.
"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history
DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
Italian-born Charles Ponzi had grown up hearing from his mother that he was destined for greatness, so it was no surprise to her when she visited him in America to find him wealthy beyond her wildest dreams. Ponzi had come up with a get-rich-quick scheme that he insisted was legal. To his credit, it took federal authorities a good seven months to figure out how it wasn't. In this episode, meet the man whose name would go down in history to be synonymous with "grifter."
"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history
DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
• Hiya Health Products. Get 50% off your first order of Hiya Health’s best-selling children’s vitamin by going tohiyahealth.com/COTC
• Field of Greens. For 15% off your first order plus free rush shipping, visit FieldofGreens.com and use promo code COTC.
In the midst of nationwide bombings that pit union backers against anti-union bosses, an explosion at the Los Angeles Times building crossed a line that changed everything. At 1:07 a.m. on Oct. 1, 1910, a blast tore through the Times building, killing 21 people. Times officials immediately blamed organized labor, which ultimately bore out: Not only were three union-affiliated co-conspirators convicted soon after the bombing, but nearly 40 other union officials would eventually be convicted on charges related to that and other bombings that had been plaguing the country.
"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history
DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
Episode sponsor:
• Ritual. Synbiotic+ and Ritual are here to celebrate, not hide, your insides. Get 25% off your first month for a limited time at ritual.com/cotc.
In September 1944, a 24-year-old married woman named Recy Taylor was walking home with friends from church when a carload of seven men stopped her. Forced into the car, Recy, a Black woman, was repeatedly raped by six white men at gunpoint, then tossed roadside with a warning: Tell anyone about this, and you're dead. Recy ignored the threats and her tale soon galvanized activists throughout Alabama -- including a woman whose name would eventually become synonymous with the Civil Rights movement.
Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history
AND DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK - NOW AVAILABLE! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
Episode sponsors:
• Smalls. Get 50% off your first order of protein-packed, preservative-free cat food by going to Smalls.com/cotc and use promo code COTC.
• Wildgrain. Get $30 off your first box of bake-from-frozen breads, pastries and pastas plus free croissants in every box when you go to Wildgrain.com/cotc to start your subscription.
• For Wellness. Get 25% off your first order from this functional food brand when you go to ForWellness.com/cotc and use code COTC.
When luggage leaking blood arrived at a Los Angeles train depot in 1931, the woman who'd traveled with the items feigned ignorance -- and then disappeared, leading to a nationwide manhunt that captivated the nation. Because one of the two victims found inside the Winnie Ruth Judd's trunks had been dismembered -- and because both she and the victims were beautiful women -- the case generated hundreds of headlines and a memorable moniker: The Trunk Murderess. But were prosecutors' theories about the Phoenix, Arizona, deaths really true? Or did Judd take the fall for a well-connected accomplice?
"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history.
AND DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK - NOW AVAILABLE! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)!
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod
Episode sponsors:
• Hiya Health Products. Get 50% off your first order of Hiya Health’s best-selling children’s vitamin by going to hiyahealth.com/COTC
• Field of Greens. For 15% off your first order plus free rush shipping, visit FieldofGreens.com and use promo code COTC.
• Factor Meals. Head to factormeals.com/COTC50 and use code COTC50 to get 50% off.
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I really like the stories but the narration jets pretty painful 😒 that is not really a talking voice :)
Really, 4 minutes in and there's already a commercial?
Was it just me, or was the host ESPECIALLY annoying in this episode?
You are the Queen of true crime, I love your show, ! Thanks
👍
Way too snarky...couldn't finish.
These people love to use the word cringe, but somehow don't understand how cringe it really is for modern white folks to try and distance themselves from the "colonizers", and the "brown people" they exploited. I think I have a pretty damn good idea how many of them would give up their creature comforts of given the chance to leave, and give it all back.
beautifully done,. Thanks 👍
Does this clown seriously refer to the acclaimed author as "Paul Haines" rather than Paul Holes? Credible much 🙄
Love the show. Sad that it still hasn't completely changed.😓😡
The mixing on this episode is just terrible; I cannot hear a word the man is saying and if I raise the volume enough to make anything out, the narrator comes on and blows out my eardrums.
Narrator needs to learn the correct pronunciation. It's not Raymond Navarro, but "Ray moan" Navarro.
Thank you! Your show was excellent. I was really engrossed in this case because I had not heard of it before. I enjoy your Work. I can’t wait till next week thank you
Tiny Kenneth Bianchi: "these aren't even my pants! YOU gave me these pants, maybe YOU put the candy there." I had a cousin like this. Walk in the store, pick up something and start eating it in front of the owner, all while telling him she came in with it. Get kicked out, go in the next day... "Naw, that must have been my sister." 😒
Fiction.
You mentioned Sam Sheppard studied ostyopothy yet it is listed as a neurosurgeon. in the US is this one and the same?
She looks super similar to Dakota Johnson!
Every neighborhood that did absolutely nothing should have caught charges. They aided the murderer. Pure and simple.
Great show!