Foul Play: A Historical True Crime Podcast

Season 40: America's 250th — fifty states, fifty crimes, two hundred and fifty years of American history. This

double-feature takes us to two immigrant communities separated by two decades and a thousand miles. In

Minnesota, 1884, a boarding house keeper is murdered by the stranger he nursed back to health. In Vermont,

1903, a nation's greatest granite carver is shot dead during a political brawl in the hall his own community built.

Two states. Two crimes. One question: what did it cost to belong?

The Victims

Joseph Farley ran a saloon an...

Season 40: America's 250th — fifty states, fifty crimes, two hundred and fifty years. Tonight is a double feature:

Nebraska and Oregon. Two frontier murder convictions. Two men the justice system got wrong.

May 1876. A horse breeder is found killed with an axe in a barn loft in Seward, Nebraska. His brother Warren

Clough stands over the body — the first murder victim in Seward County history. Within weeks, the community

convicts Warren on nothing but circumstance. He is sentenced to hang. Fifteen years later, the prosecutor, the

judge, and the jurors who...

October 1900, Paterson, New Jersey. A seventeen-year-old silk mill worker named Jennie Bosschieter walks to

a drugstore on a Thursday evening. She never comes home. Four men from the city's wealthiest families drug

her with chloral hydrate, assault her, and leave her body by the Wagaraw Bridge. The murder trial exposes a city

where the families that owned the mills believed they owned the law, too.

Eight hundred miles south, Perry County, Kentucky, 1887. Two merchants in a town called Hazard turn a dispute

over coal mineral rights into a seven-year...

Foul Play is historical true crime, built from the records that survive. Every week Shane Waters goes back to a real crime that history tried to bury and tells it plainly, with respect for the people in it, the victims most of all.

In this trailer: the Bender orchard in Kansas, 1873. Katsu Goto's last ride home in Hawaii, 1889. Mollie Korbel's kitchen in Dakota Territory, 1888. And Hamburg, South Carolina, on the nation's hundredth birthday in 1876.

There are more than 300 episodes waiting. Start anywhere, and follow Foul Play so the next story finds you.

In 1891 Noah Benson, a Black farmhand and a father, was murdered, and his body was pulled from the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. His head was never found. In 1889 in Montana Territory, five settlers were murdered and left in the Judith River, and James Wilber, the guide the record names as their killer, died in jail before any trial.

Noah Benson worked the land around Delaware City. He had a son named William, and an employer called him an exemplary man. He was last seen alive on Thanksgiving night, November 26, 1891, and a lock tender towed his body ashore...

In 1912 in the Arkansas Ozarks, 18-year-old Ella Barham was murdered, and Boone County hanged her neighbor Odus Davidson on circumstantial evidence. In 1875 in Rogers City, Michigan, fifteen men plotted to kill the town's founder, Albert Molitor. The shooting killed him and his clerk, Edward Sullivan, and the town kept the secret for sixteen years.

Ella Barham's errand on a November morning in 1912 was a hat for her sister, and she never came home. Her remains were found that night on a hillside south of Crooked Creek. Odus Davidson was convicted of first-degree murder in January 1913 after his...

The Bloody Benders killed travelers at their Kansas inn and vanished in 1873. In 1895 in Lunenburg County, Virginia, Mary Abernathy, Pokey Barnes and Mary Barnes were convicted of killing Lucy Pollard on testimony the witness later admitted was false. All three went free.

The Benders ran an inn on the Osage Trail in Labette County, Kansas, and for two years travelers went missing there. At least 11 victims were found buried in the orchard and the well, among them Dr. William York and an 18-month-old girl, Mary Ann Longcor. The family was gone before the bodies were found, and...

In 1876 an armed white mob killed six Black men in Hamburg, South Carolina, and not one of 94 men indicted was tried. That year Crawford Goldsby, later Cherokee Bill, was born; after Ike Rogers helped capture him, Goldsby was hanged for murder at Fort Smith in 1896.

On July 8, 1876, more than 100 armed white men attacked the Black militia of Hamburg, four days after a parade dispute over a road. They killed town marshal James Cook and Moses Parks, then shot four men they had captured, Allan Attaway, David Phillips, Hampton Stephens and Albert Myniart. A coroner's jury produced 94 indictments...

In 1888 in Wahpeton, Dakota Territory, 19-year-old Mollie Korbel was shot in a kitchen after refusing a deputy, and a mob hanged him. In Rhode Island, John Gordon was hanged in 1845 for the murder of mill owner Amasa Sprague; the state pardoned him in 2011.

Mollie Korbel, from an immigrant family, worked as a hired girl in the Richland County sheriff's house. Deputy Lee Elmer shot her on July 25, 1888, after she refused his proposal, and masked men took him from the jail past a crowd of about 1,000 and hanged him from a railroad bridge. No one in the mob...

This episode is part of Season 40: America's 250th Anniversary -- 50 states, 25 double-feature episodes

exploring the cases that shaped American history from every corner of the country.

Hawaii, 1889. A Japanese shopkeeper is lynched from a telephone pole on the main street of Honoka'a for

speaking English on behalf of plantation workers. Louisiana, 1887. Ten thousand sugar cane workers strike for cash

wages instead of scrip -- and armed paramilitaries sweep through residential streets at dawn, killing between 35

and 300 people. Two plantation economies. Two communities who challenged the system. The same answer.<...

William Freeman, a deaf Black man broken by Auburn State Prison, killed four people near Owasco Lake in 1846, and Seward defended him. In 1889 in Wyoming, six men lynched Ella Watson, and newspapers smeared her as Cattle Kate.

Freeman was born free in Auburn, New York, and was sent to Auburn State Prison before he turned 16, on one man's word in a horse theft case. A keeper's blow with a board left him deaf. Released in 1845 with nothing, he killed John Van Nest, a farmer and justice of the peace; his pregnant wife, Sarah; their son George, not...

Paula Angel was hanged twice from a cottonwood tree in New Mexico in 1861. Five years earlier in Charleston, Illinois, a mob hanged Adolphus Monroe after the governor reprieved him for shooting his father-in-law, Nathan Ellington.

Paula Angel was about 19 when she killed Juan Miguel Martin, a father of five, in March 1861. Judge Kirby Benedict told the jury it could consider only first-degree murder, and she was hanged on April 26, 1861, with her appeal still pending. She is the only woman ever legally executed in New Mexico.

In Charleston, Illinois, Adolphus Monroe shot Nathan Ellington, the county's...

Shane Waters and Gemma Hoskins close out their reunion by going down the list of the people who appeared in the Netflix documentary The Keepers, where they are today, who is still fighting, who has found peace, and who the world has lost. It is a warm, reflective conversation about the unsolved 1969 murder of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik, the young School Sister of Notre Dame who taught English and drama at Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore, and about the community of survivors, investigators, journalists, and filmmakers her case brought together.

The Investigators and Advocates

...

Shane Waters and Gemma Hoskins continue their first sit-down in over a year, working through the second half of the questions listeners submitted through the show's Facebook community. This is the follow-up to "The Mary Statue and Unanswered Questions, " a wide-ranging conversation about the unsolved 1969 murder of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik in Baltimore, Maryland. Known to millions through the Netflix documentary The Keepers, Gemma has spent more than a decade investigating what happened to Sister Cathy, the young School Sister of Notre Dame who taught English and drama at Archbishop Keough High School.

The Persons of Interest<...

This episode contains descriptions of murder, mob violence, historical racial violence, and the execution of a convicted killer. If you need to skip this content, advance past the 18:00 mark. Support resources are listed at the end of these notes.

This Episode

Season 40: Fifty states, fifty forgotten crimes, America's 250th year. Episode 9 covers California and Alabama — two cases, two communities that looked at the legal system and reached for something uglier. October 10, 1890. A woman named Helen Riche is playing cards in her tavern near a California quicksilver mine when ten men in flour-sack hoods crash through th...

This episode contains discussions of murder, execution, racial violence, and a botched public hanging. If you need to skip any section, the chapter markers below will help you find your way around. Support resources are listed at the end of these notes.

This Episode

Season 40 of Foul Play covers America's forgotten crimes — fifty states, 250 years, and the stories that slipped out of the history books. Episode 8 closes out the season with a double portrait. One case from New Hampshire. One from Colorado. Eleven years apart. Two thousand miles between them. The same question at the ce...

Shane Waters and Gemma Hoskins sit down together for the first time in over a year for a wide-ranging conversation about the unsolved 1969 murder of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik in Baltimore, Maryland. Known to millions through the Netflix documentary The Keepers, Gemma has spent more than a decade investigating what happened to Sister Cathy, the young School Sister of Notre Dame who taught English and drama at Archbishop Keough High School. She was found dead two months after her disappearance. This episode is a Q&A, recorded live with questions submitted by listeners through the show's Facebook community.

This episode contains detailed descriptions of violent death, including axe murders and decapitation. If you need to skip this content, advance to the chapter markers below. Support resources are listed at the end of these notes.

This Episode

Season 40 of Foul Play marks America's 250th anniversary with a series of Twin Portraits, two true crimes from two different states, set in the same decade, examined side by side. This week: two axe murders from the 1890s, one in Massachusetts, one in Tennessee, both forgotten by history.

On May 30, 1893, twenty-two-year-old Bertha Manchester was killed...

This episode contains discussions of murder, arsenic poisoning, the deaths of children, and historical criminal trials. Ifyou need to skip any portion, advance past that segment using your chapter markers.

This Episode

Season 40 of Foul Play marks America's 250th anniversary by examining two cases that expose how the justice system treated killers differently based on wealth, gender, and class. This week: a double feature — one case from Texas, one from Pennsylvania, eleven years apart, and both asking the same question. Was justice served?

In January 1877, a woman known as Diamond Bessie crossed a fo...

Historical Significance

In Georgia, a Webster County posse pursued Susan and Enoch one hundred twenty-five miles to Coffee County, Alabama. The grand jury indicted both on May 27, 1872, twenty-three days after the murder. Enoch's trial lasted a single day; the jury deliberated for three minutes. Both were sentenced to death on May 30. Twenty-six days from murder to death sentence. The Georgia Supreme Court denied Susan's appeal in *Eberhart v. State* 47 Ga. 598 (1873), with Justice H.K. McCay dismissing calls for mercy. Governor James M. Smith refused clemency four days before Susan was to die.

Sheriff L.R...

July 1877. A dirt road in rural Missouri. A fifty-eight-year-old woman named Martha Parrish is shot dead by her own son-in-law while trying to rescue her daughter from an abusive marriage. Fifteen years later and five hundred miles east, an eighteen-year-old maid named Ellen Smith is shot behind a luxury hotel in Winston, North Carolina — and someone writes a song about it. Two historical murders. Two women killed by men who claimed to love someone close to them. One ended in a double coffin. The other became a folk song you may have heard without knowing it was real.

...

Content Warning: This episode contains descriptions of gun violence, intimate partner violence, poisoning, and discussions of coercive control in same-sex and heterosexual relationships. Crisis resources are listed at the end of these notes.

of Foul Play, Shane and Wendy examine two cases from the American Gilded Age connected by the same institutional failure: not a lack of evidence, but a refusal to act on it. The Ashtabula bridge disaster killed 92 people and led to the silencing of the one man who told the truth. The Hells Canyon massacre left as many as 34 Chinese miners dead, and an...

Billy Wimbish - was born around 1859. A Black man who made his life in the Alaska Interior, Wimbish earned respect among the miners of the Fairbanks district. In 1906, he served as lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against mine owner D.H. Cascaden on Cleary Creek. Judge James Wickersham ruled in the miners' favor, finding Cascaden liable for all wages owed. That legal victory, won in Alaska Territory as a Black man against a white mine owner, defined the kind of man Wimbish was.

Lloyd Magruder - was born in 1825 in Maryland, descended from a Scottish ancestor who...

Content Warning: This episode contains descriptions of gun violence, intimate partner violence, poisoning, and discussions of coercive control in same-sex and heterosexual relationships. Crisis resources are listed at the end of these notes.

Historical Context

In Indiana, public pressure forced an exhumation four months after Hattie's death. Organs shipped to Chicago forchemical analysis revealed large quantities of strychnine. Pettit was arrested and charged with murder. The trial in Crawfordsville drew journalists from across the Midwest. Lew Wallace — the author of *Ben-Hur*, a former Union general, and a member of the military commission that tried the Li...

Content Warning

This episode contains discussions of murder, suicide, and Victorian scandal. Support resources are listed at the end of these notes.

This Episode

Season 39 Finale: The Balham Mystery. The jury deliberated for three hours. Their verdict would haunt this case for one hundred and fifty years: "Willful murder by person or persons unknown." Murder--but no murderer. Four suspects. Four possible killers. And no way to know which one poisoned Charles Bravo.

The Victim

Charles Bravo died on April 21st, 1876. On August 12th, after twenty-three days of testimony, the...

Content Warning

This episode contains discussions of adultery, abortion, and Victorian scandal. Support resources are listed at the end of these notes.

This Episode

Season 39: The Balham Mystery. For twenty-three days, the secrets of The Priory were stripped bare in the longest inquest in English legal history. Forty witnesses. Thousands of pages of testimony. Florence Bravo finally forced to admit her affair. Dr. Gully humiliated on the stand.

Every scandal exposed. And still no murderer named.

The Victim

Charles Bravo's death demanded answers. The open verdict of...

Content Warning

This episode contains detailed descriptions of poisoning and prolonged death. Support resources are listed at the end of these notes.

This Episode

Season 39: The Balham Mystery. For seventy-two hours, Charles Bravo lay dying at The Priory while doctors—including Queen Victoria's own physician—watched helplessly. He suffered. He convulsed. He said almost nothing about who poisoned him.

One woman claims she heard a confession. No one else heard a word. Was it truth, or a convenient lie to make murder look like suicide?

The Victim

Char...

Content Warning

This episode contains discussions of poisoning and death. Support resources are listed at the end of these notes.

This Episode

Season 39: The Balham Mystery. April 1876—a young barrister collapses in agony minutes after retiring to bed. For three days, Charles Bravo suffers while doctors, family, and suspects gather. He names no one. The poison is antimony—enough to kill ten men.

Behind the gaslit elegance of The Priory, a household harbors dangerous secrets. A wife with a scandalous past. A companion facing dismissal. A former lover humiliated by her marr...

Content Warning

This episode contains discussions of domestic abuse, poisoning, and death. Support resources are listed at the end of these notes.

This Episode

Season 39: The Balham Mystery. April 1876, a successful barrister collapses in his bedroom after drinking from a bedside water jug. For three agonizing days, doctors begged him to name his poisoner. He never would. This is the story of Charles Bravo, and the Victorian murder that has never been solved.

Behind the elegant facade of The Priory, a villa in Balham, South London, lay a tangle of secrets...

A Victorian courtroom drama unfolds as a chilling murder verdict is delivered in 19th-century London, a place of evolving laws and societal norms. This episode, nestled in the heart of Season 38's exploration of 'The Rugeley Poisoner,' uncovers the judicial outcomes and societal impact of murder trials during this transformative era. Episode 3 follows the toxic trail left by the infamous Dr. William Palmer. This physician, perceived by many as a respectable figure, secretly loitered in deceitful practices. Before accusations shadowed over him, Palmer was known for his medical expertise and charm, captivating the trust of many. This case's...

Enter 'The Doctor's Care' in New York, a chilling glimpse into the remaining shadows of the Rugeley Poisoner series, Part 2. This four-part narrative dissects the devious manipulations of Dr. William Palmer, a man whose affable facade masked cruel intentions. Diving deeper than mere medical malpractice, these stories reveal how once-respected figures turned to devious strategies to stave off ruin at any cost. The 19th-century medical area provided fertile ground for deception and desperation, vividly encapsulated within these tales. From court trials to societal repercussions, each episode keenly explores layers of deceit. Shane Waters continues to guide audiences through accounts...

In the fog-laden lanes of Victorian Staffordshire, William Palmer found his first victim, igniting a path of sinister intent that would crown him the notorious Rugeley Poisoner. Season 38 of Foul Play examines deep into the life and crimes of William Palmer, examining the chilling narrative from his humble beginnings to the peak of his criminal exploits. Long before William Palmer was branded a murderer, he was a doctor known for his charisma and skill in horse racing circles. He was a family man in a seemingly picturesque town. However, beneath this facade lurked a fervent gambler whose debts began...

Constance Kent's confession shocked a nation still reeling from the Road Hill House murder, altering her life forever as Victorian justice loomed. In Season 37's climax, Foul Play explores the ripple effects of Constance Kent's confession which exposed Victorian society's rigidities and prompted a broader contemplation of justice. Constance lived in quiet affluence, working through societal structures until her arrest. Her life changed irreversibly when she confessed, a decision that intertwined personal conscience and family protection. Her confession sparked debates epitomizing tangible yet metaphorical shackles of Victorian society, challenging its judicial integrity and posing moral dilemmas. As investigation closed...

Road Hill House weaves a haunting legacy as the walls echoed with accusations, while Constance Kent disappeared into silence for five years. Amidst the intrigue of Season 37, examine into the aftermath of the Road Hill House murder where the secrets of Constance Kent, the prime suspect, veered between silent confession and public observation. Before the silence, Constance Kent was a young woman grappling with family strife and societal pressures, her life entangled in complexities far beyond comprehension. Her silence became a beacon of mystery, with hidden depths perceived as possibilities of either guilt or self-preservation, reflecting the confined roles of...

Detective Whicher stumbled onto the Road Hill House murder, probing deeper into its secrets than anyone dared, forever changing investigative practices. Season 37's focus unfolds the life and work of Detective Whicher, a key figure in the Road Hill House murder case whose methods carried the burden of public scrutiny and professional respect. The Kent family remained enshrouded in mutual suspicion, their genteel Victorian lifestyle marred by deceit and unspoken animosities. Whicher, a man of methodical diligence and emotional insight, pushed forward amidst growing paranoia in the household. His approach and dedication symbolized the shift towards modern detective work within...

A quiet Wiltshire town became infamously known as the site of the 1860 Road Hill House murder, a case that shattered Victorian complacency and intrigued the nation. Season 37 of Foul Play opens with the harrowing murder at Road Hill House, examining into one of Victorian England's most brutal and mystifying family tragedies. At the heart of this mystery was the Kent family, generally respected, yet living amid turmoil and secrets. Three-year-old Saville Kent, innocent and unaware, was ripped from life and left to be discovered in a location that spoke volumes of the crime's heinous nature. This case forced the integration...

Münsterberg's forgotten cannibal terrorized under the veil of normalcy... Enter the darker side of history with Season 36's exploration of serial killers. During the early 1920s, Münsterberg was unaware of a brutal presence lurking within its town. The victims, often travelers and transient workers, had fallen prey to the townsman who cannibalized beneath accepted societal surfaces. They lived simple lives, stripped of grand narratives, but deserve acknowledgement for their unjust plight. This case offers a reminder of the shadowy perils that can exist within seemingly innocuous communities. It reorients our perception of safety, community trust, and the unpredictable na...

Hungary's Béla Kiss lured and slaughtered those seeking love... Season 36 dives deep into the chilling tales of forgotten serial killers. In a sleepy town in Hungary, the seemingly charming Béla Kiss preyed on the hopes of women seeking companionship through matrimonial ads. Each victim, a dreamer in pursuit of happiness, found only treachery with Kiss. These women, who believed in the promise of love and friendship, were instead met with deception that extinguished their futures. Their stories remind us of the vulnerabilities imbued in the quest for romance. The case highlights a culturally impactful lesson about the dangers of...

In Marrakesh, the shoemaker buried his many victims beneath his shop... This season unfolds the chilling narratives of historical serial killers worldwide. In a vibrant Marrakesh, the unassuming shoemaker, often found diligently crafting footwear, held a sinister secret beneath his shop floor. The victims, primarily lonely women seeking solace or companionship, became unwitting targets. These individuals, forgotten in life and in history, had families and dreams, only to be deceived by the promise of hope. Their stories bring a human element to this dark tragedy and call for their remembrance. The case matters historically, highlighting the intersection of innocence and...

In 1880s Leiden, the 'Angel of Death's many victims lay undetected. 'Good Mary', once a beloved caretaker, was found to have... The season examines into the horrific actions of serial killers throughout history. Known to the community as 'Good Mary', the seemingly compassionate nurse moved through the foggy streets of Leiden, offering her aid to the sick and the dying. Yet behind her benevolent facade lurked a darker purpose. we explore her chilling transformation from caregiver to relentless killer. The victims of the so-called 'Angel of Death' were everyday people; men and women who were simply seeking care in their...