Today in True Crime

On this day in 1776, Professor Adam Weishaupt founded a secret society he called…The Order of the Illuminati. It would go on to become one of the most infamous organizations on planet Earth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1943, the body of Major William Martin of Britain’s Royal Marines washed up on a beach in Huelva, Spain. The discovery of the body would set in motion one of the most notorious counterintelligence operations of World War II: Operation Mincemeat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1944, British spy Nancy Wake parachuted into France to help coordinate the French Resistance for the upcoming Allied invasion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 2017, three men were sentenced for their roles in one of the biggest heists in Canadian history—18.7 million Canadian dollars’ worth of maple syrup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1945, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was arrested in Northern Italy. It was the beginning of the end for the longest-ruling fascist of the World War II era. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1865, Union soldiers at a farm in Port Royal, Virginia engaged in a deadly stand-off with presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 2005, the last piece of the stolen Obelisk of Axum was returned to Ethiopia, after spending sixty-eight years in Rome, Italy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1964, 22-year-old Helen Barthelemy was found asphyxiated in an alleyway in Brentford, England. A sex worker from Blackpool, Barthelemy fell prey to one of London’s most notorious serial killers—“Jack the Stripper.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1014, the forces of Brian Boru, the High King of Ireland, defeated an alliance of Viking and Irish armies at the Battle of Clontarf. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1911, JB McNamara was arrested at his union office for bombing the LA Times building and killing 21 people. Guest hosted by Lanie Hobbs from Crimes of Passion and True Crime Fan Club. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1962, serial killer Graham Young, aka the “Teacup Poisoner,” murdered his 37-year-old stepmother, Molly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1970, the notorious Zodiac Killer sent one of his most disturbing communications to the San Francisco press. The letter not only held the key to the killer’s identity, but also included a detailed bomb threat that terrified the public. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 2013, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev died from his injuries after a shootout with the police. Tamerlan, along with his younger brother Dzhokhar, was suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1946, the International Court of Justice held its inaugural sitting at The Peace Palace in The Netherlands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1969, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was convicted of the murder of United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1996, James Patterson Smith walked into a police station in Manchester, claiming that his teenage girlfriend drowned in the bathtub. Subsequent investigations showed that the death was far from an accident… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1920, two anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, robbed and killed the paymaster and security guard of a Massachusetts shoe company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 2014, 276 schoolgirls were abducted by Boko Haram in Chibok, Nigeria. Six years later, over one hundred girls are still presumed missing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1946, the Phantom Killer committed his second double-murder in Texarkana, Texas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1982, three television engineers were fatally shot as they left their offices at CBS. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1955, 28-year-old English nightclub hostess and escort Ruth Ellis was charged with murdering her lover, 25-year-old race car driver, David Blakely. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1834, New Orleans firefighters responded to an act of arson. But the fire’s light revealed an even more heinous crime, deep inside the LaLaurie Mansion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1881, legendary outlaw William H. Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, was found guilty of murder and condemned to the gallows. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1943, Otto and Elise Hampel were beheaded in Berlin’s Plötzensee Prison for their protests against Hitler’s government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1972, notorious mobster Joseph “Crazy Joe” Gallo was gunned down in front of his family in a clam bar in Little Italy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1978, a team of Oklahoma law enforcement agents arrested 34-year-old Gene Leroy Hart. Hart was the main suspect for the notorious Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1991, 11-year-old patient, Timothy Hardwick, was admitted to the hospital after suffering from epileptic seizures. He would die in the care of nurse Beverley Alitt only a few hours later. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1966, the Buddhist uprising in South Vietnam reached a crucial turning point when Nguyen Cao Ky sent battalions of South Vietnamese Marines to quash the unrest in Da Nang. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1996, the FBI arrested an infamous domestic terrorist at his cabin in the Montana wilderness. It was the culmination of a 17-year manhunt, for a man known as “The Unabomber.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1973, 11-year-old Wanda Walkowicz was sent to fetch groceries for her mother in Rochester, New York. Unfortunately, that afternoon, Wanda was the second victim in the gruesome and haunting, “Alphabet Murders.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1934, outlaws Bonnie Parker, Clyde Barrow, and Henry Methvin shot and killed two Texas highway patrolmen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1922, six people were murdered at a farmstead in southern Germany. It was a horrific event that would become one of the most infamous crimes in German history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1961, Judge Joseph Peel, a corrupt municipal judge in West Palm Beach, Florida, was found guilty for participating as an accessory to murder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 2010, two suicide bombers attacked two different metro stations in Moscow, during rush hour, killing forty people. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 193 CE, Roman Emperor Pertinax was murdered by his treacherous bodyguards. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1941, Japanese spy Takeo Yoshikawa arrived in Hawaii. He was a key figure in planning the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor later that year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1993, 16-year-old Rayna Rison disappeared after her shift at the local animal hospital. It would take two decades for her murder to be solved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1933, Erik Jan Hanussen was shot to death in the woods outside Berlin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1873, convicted serial killer Mary Ann Cotton was executed for fatally poisoning her stepson, Charles Edward Cotton. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1994, presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio was assassinated in Tijuana, Mexico. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1971, the San Francisco Chronicle received a strange postcard. Reporters were quick to connect it to the serial killer who terrorized northern California from the mid-1960s through the early 1970s: The Zodiac Killer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1937, police in Ponce, Puerto Rico opened fire on a peaceful Nationalist parade. The resulting bloodshed killed at least 19 people and wounded around 200 more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1995, the Aum Shinrikyo cult killed 13 people when they released sarin, one of the deadliest nerve gases in the world, into the Tokyo subway system. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1946, the murder trial of French doctor Marcel Petiot began in Paris. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1980, 12-year-old Frank Gotti was run over by a neighbor as he played outside his home in New York City. But Frank was the youngest son of John Gotti—the future head of the Gambino crime family—and the mafia wouldn’t let the story end there... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 2010, David Cotton held up a bank in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee wearing an unconventional disguise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1977, 11-year-old Timothy King vanished from his hometown of Birmingham, Michigan. His body would later be discovered, marking him as the fourth victim of the Oakland County Child Killer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 44 BCE, Roman general and dictator Julius Caesar was assassinated by a cabal of rival Senators. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 2008, 9-year-old Shannon Matthews was discovered in a flat in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, England. She had been missing for 24 days. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this day in 1957, labor leader Jimmy Hoffa was arrested by the FBI on charges of bribery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices