Vintage Villains

In this joint episode with the Silver Linings Handbook podcast, Allison and Jayson tackle what is to date the oldest no-body homicide case to receive a conviction in the US.In 1975, sisters Sheila (12) and Katherine (10) Lyon were going for a slice of pizza at a popular Baltimore-area shopping mall when they disappeared without a trace. But there were witnesses, and one of them hel

In 1957, Ed Gein's gruesome crimes of murder, grave robbing, and corpse abuse shocked the the tiny town of Plainfield, Wisconsin as well as the rest of the world, giving rise to a cottage industry of horror franchises, and serving as a grim reminder of how deep isolation, illness, and an unshakable Oedipus complex can drive some to commit some of the most depraved acts. Take a whir

In the 50th year since the kidnapping of heiress Patricia Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army, and the resulting crime spree that shocked the nation, we can acknowledge the vintage pedigree of the case. But was she truly a villain? She was certainly portrayed that way throughout her saga in the mid-1970s, but two US Presidents would intervene on her behalf, and she would go on

This week, Allison and her guest Jayson Blair unravel the dark saga of Patty Cannon, a mastermind behind the Reverse Underground Railroad, whereby free Blacks were kidnapped in the north and sold to southern plantations desperate for them in the wake of the ban on imported slaves in 1807. But not only did the Cannon-Johnson gang, as it would come to be known, thrive on making mayhe

In the final act of this grim tale, Allison and Jayson unravel the missteps and ultimate outcomes of John Wilkes Booth and his conspirators, from the assassination of Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater and the attempted assassinations of Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward, to the Booth's final stand at a tobacco farm only 20 miles from the scene of t

In this two-part historical odyssey, Allison and her guest Jayson Blair of the Silver Linings Handbook podcast weave through the transformative year of 1865, where the final throes of the Civil War and the ratification of the 13th Amendment are only a couple of the events that factored into John Wilkes Booth's fateful decision to murder the President of the United States.But who wa

This week's episode is crammed with enough villains to last several lifetimes, but Vasily Blokhin gets the title spot, because he still reigns as the current Guinness World Record holder for most prolific executioner/mass murderer, with more than 7000 killings to his name. And that's only for the Katyn Massacre. As Joseph Stalin's chief executioner, Blokhin's total death count like

The year 1908 brought a lot of marvels and advancements, and the discovery of dozens of bodies buried on a lonely widow's pig farm in LaPorte, Indiana was certainly among the most memorable. Belle Gunness came to the United States from Norway in search of love and riches, and that's exactly what she found. And it would come at a hideous cost. Questions linger to this day, chiefly a