Crimes of the Centuries

When two young girls began suffering from mysterious ailments in Salem, Massachusetts, in the late 17th century, townsfolk were baffled. The only explanation they could imagine was that the girls had been bewitched -- and over the next three months, no one in town would be safe from the label. The notorious trials would go down in history as a cautionary tale about group hysteria, but its impact goes even deeper -- and still affects how our legal system works today. "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. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod

When a 9-year-old girl failed to return home from school in 1910 Asbury Park, N.J., a local reporter became convinced of a Black man's guilt -- putting that man's life in danger even before an arrest was made in the case. The confounding unraveling of the murder of Marie Smith would not only shock the small town and make headlines nationwide, but it would employ a new type of detective work that had rarely been attempted before -- or since."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.Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod

As actress Rebecca Schaeffer rushed around her apartment to ready for the biggest audition of her career, a disturbed young man was pacing the street below, armed with a gun. Schaeffer's senseless death in 1989 would not only shock the nation, but it would also be the catalyst for the country's first anti-stalking laws."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.Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod

In 1859, two of Washington, D.C.'s highest-profile men were in love with the same woman -- and that love triangle would lead to the broad-daylight shooting of one of them just a stone's throw from the White House. The victim had been the first-born son of Francis Scott Key, author of the lyrics to America's national anthem. And his killer would be the first in the country to argue a defense of temporary insanity. "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. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod

On July 14, 1966, Chicago residents awoke to horrific news: Eight young nurses had been brutally killed in their dorm-style housing overnight. The killer had lost count of his victims and left one survivor, and soon, the hunt for Illinois-born and Texas-raised felon Richard Speck was on. The case, which gave birth to the phrase "random mass murder," would "shatter our innocence," according to the lead prosecutor in the highly publicized trial. It remains one of the most horrific crimes in the annals of American true crime. "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.Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod

In 1932, a group of white men rushed to police to report a group of Black men had roughed them up on as they sneaked a ride on a train. Authorities soon descended and soon even more heinous allegations were lodged: Two women on the train said the group of nine young men had sexually assaulted them. Outraged citizens demanded justice. The rush to try the so-called "Scottsboro Boys" in Alabama led to legal landmark cases that are still cited today. "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. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod

When wealthy Ginny Piper was kidnapped at gunpoint in broad daylight inside of her secluded Minnesota home, it put the nation on edge and sent her husband on a macabre scavenger hunt to save Ginny’s life. It also became a pet case for the FBI, which was trying to improve its reputation, but many would later argue that the agency only bungled things further by focusing on the wrong suspects. The Piper case would go down in history as one of the nation’s most baffling. "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. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod

Edward Rulloff was a genius, speaking seven languages by the time he graduated high school -- no easy feat for someone from a poor farming family. But Rulloff was also arrogant, hot-headed and prone to violence. When his wife and infant daughter disappeared in 1844, Rulloff said they'd simply gone on a trip, though his in-laws were suspicious. Somehow, he managed time and again to slip through authorities' fingers -- once with the help of an undersheriff's son whom he'd smooth-talked into freeing him from jail. When Rulloff was finally caught, some argued that his life should be spared and his brain studied, and he went down in history as one of America's smartest and most slippery criminals. "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. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod

When 52-year-old Bruce Nickell suddenly dropped dead in Washington state, investigators at first thought he'd died of a heart attack. But then a second person collapsed, and police realized that the two victims had both taken the painkiller Excedrin. Suddenly, they realized they were dealing with a copycat of a case that had haunted federal investigators for nearly 15 years. In that earlier case, seven people died when someone randomly tampered with the over-the-counter painkiller to replace some of the powder inside capsules with enough cyanide to kill an entire family. Those deaths changed how medication is packaged nationwide and made it a federal crime to tamper with such products -- a legal change that years later came back to bite Nickell's killer. "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.

It was one of the most salacious stories the country had ever heard: A famous architect had been gunned down in front of an audience of hundreds by a man who said he was defending his wife's honor. It so happened the wife was the world's first supermodel. The love triangle among architect Stanford White, model and showgirl Evelyn Nesbit and millionaire unhinged man Harry Kendell Thaw reached its climax on June 24, 1906. With hundreds of witnesses, the case was never a whodunit. Rather, it was a gripping tale of sex, lies, and murder. The story made such headlines nationwide that, for the first time in American history, the jury had to be sequestered. "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. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod

A fire broke out in a stately New Orleans mansion in 1834, leading neighbors to rush to the homeowners' aid. What they discovered inside, however, made them realize that the charming and cultured woman of the house had been hiding a horrifying secret: In an upstairs apartment, enslaved people were weighed down by chains, starved to emaciation and barely recognizable as humans. The case of Delphine LaLaurie and her unfathomable cruelty would outrage the nation and beyond."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.Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod

After 4-year-old Charley Ross vanished in a carriage with two men who'd offered him candy and fireworks, police at first told his father to wait it out. Surely the men had no bad intentions. Then came the first ransom letter. And another. And another. In 1874, the Charley Ross case marked the first time in American history that a child had been stolen for money. The case terrified parents, made kidnapping a crime and served as macabre inspiration for future criminals."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.Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod

As a 28-year-old woman screamed for help on an otherwise quiet New York City street, neighbors roused from sleep ... and then largely did nothing. The 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese would soon represent apathy in America and spark the creation of a centralized phone number that ultimately changed how the entire nation reported emergencies. While Kitty's case will go down in history as a driving force that launched 9-1-1, the nuances of the crime -- and people's reactions to it -- have been misunderstood for decades."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.Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod

When a headless woman's remains were discovered near Cincinnati in 1896, police had a problem. Long before DNA and fingerprinting, the lack of a head made it tough to identify the victim. Thanks to a sharp-eyed shoemaker, a new kind of detective work was born: The woman was ID'd thanks to a pair of distinctive shoes on the corpse's feet. Pearl Bryan was a 22-year-old Indiana woman who'd recently learned she was pregnant. Her lover, a Cincinnati man named Scott Jackson, suggested she come to town so they could figure out their next steps. After police discovered the "who," they then had to piece together the "how." "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. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod

To his neighbors, Bob Berdella was a proactive citizen who helped launch a neighborhood watch group. Sure, he was a bit condescending, but he seemed to have a big heart, using his Kansas City home as a safe haven for young men in trouble. But then, in 1988, a young man jumped from a second-story window of Berdella's house wearing nothing but a dog collar, prompting police to scour the innocuous-looking home on Charlotte Street. What they uncovered would lead to the quaint home being labeled a "House of Horrors," and to a case that both shocked the nation and changed state law. "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.Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod

Thanks to Prohibition, criminal gangs were a dime a dozen in the 1920s and '30s, but the Karpis/Barker Gang became one of the era's longest lived, highest profile, and most consequential. During the Depression, their exploits not only burnished the reputation of the FBI and its director J. Edgar Hoover, but also inadvertently triggered the end to rampant corruption in St. Paul Minnesota. While its body count was hefty -- and included lawmen like a sheriff gunned down in cold blood -- its enduring reputation hinges on its supposed matriarch, Ma Barker, who would go on to be depicted in movies and TV shows as a gun-toting criminal mastermind. There's no question three of her sons, and plenty of their friends, were stone-cold killers, but was Ma really pulling all the strings? "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.Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod

When widower Sam Doss was rushed to the hospital with abdominal pains in 1954, his doctor was flummoxed by his life-threatening yet mysterious illness. But Doss got better and came home -- then died the next day. That's what prompted police to look at his matronly, sweet-talking new wife, Nannie. Born Nannie Hazle, it turned out this missus had left a trail of dead husbands behind her -- not to mention several relatives, all of whom died of sudden and inexplicable illnesses. By the time Nannie was done confessing, she'd earned nicknames like The Giggling Grandma and The Black Widow."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.Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod

When a 22-year-old woman living with relatives in a boarding house disappeared on Dec. 22, 1799, her loved ones didn't immediately worry. But when she still hadn't returned days later, all eyes turned to her lover -- whom she'd supposedly been set to marry the last time she was seen alive. Levi Weeks came from a family with money, so his rich brother did something that was unheard of at this point in American history: He hired fancy lawyers. And that's how Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr ended up on the same side defending a man against murder charges in 1800. The case, referenced in Lin Manuel Miranda's award-winning musical "Hamilton," marks two firsts: The defense panel was America's first legal Dream Team, and the Weeks' case was the first recorded murder trial in the country'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.Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod

On May 21, 1924, 19-year-old Nathan Leopold and 18-year-old Richard Loeb convinced a younger boy, 14 year old Bobby Franks, to get in a car with them. We think Leopold was driving with Loeb in the backseat. 14 year old Bobby sat in the passenger seat. From behind, Loeb struck the younger boy several times in the head with a chisel, and then dragged him into the backseat where he eventually died. Leopold and Loeb were wealthy kids who thought they were smarter than everybody else. And they committed this murder to prove it. They believed that they were so intellectually gifted that they could plan and execute a crime so perfect that they would never be caught. They were wrong, of course. And the details of this story and their plan are so terrifying and haunting that it changed the way people raised their kids and thought about psychology."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.

At 3:00 am on April 27th, 1913, the body of 13 year old Mary Phagan was found in the basement of the factory where she worked in Atlanta, Georgia. Her dress was up around her waist and a strip from her petticoat had been torn off and wrapped around her neck. Her face was blackened and scratched, and her head was bruised and battered. Almost immediately, the murder, and the mystery surrounding who would do such a horrible, brutal thing to a child went the 1913 equivalent of viral.When authorities finally landed on a suspect, their evidence was flimsy at best. The trial was a media spectacle and the outcome not only embedded this story in American history, but also sparked child labor laws. "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.Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod

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.Full episodes of "Crimes of the Centuries" premiere on October 26, 2020.