Forgotten Felonies
Forgotten Felonies revisits historical crimes that were forgotten—or remembered incorrectly. It’s tempting, looking backward, to fill in the gaps with conclusions that feel obvious now. But that isn’t how history works. Through original newspaper reporting, period advertisements from the years the crimes occurred, and a blend of forensic psychology and genealogical research, each episode restores context to cases history left behind—asking not only what happened, but why..
Pearl Bryan, Part 7: The Price of Friendship
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Just days after Scott Jackson is convicted of murdering Pearl Bryan, chaos erupts at the Newport Jail. Six prisoners make a break for freedom—and Scott and Alonzo are suddenly caught in the middle of an escape that could have changed everything.
Then Alonzo Walling finally faces a jury of his own.
His attorney, Colonel Washington, mounts what may be the strongest defense we have seen anywhere in this case. He attacks the prosecution’s timeline, challenges its witnesses, tests its physical evidence, and brings in expe...
Pearl Bryan, Part 6: Dead, Dead, Dead
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Scott Jackson finally takes the stand in his own defense—and for six and a half hours, he tries to explain everything.
But Scott’s testimony is only the beginning. As the trial barrels toward its conclusion, the courtroom descends into chaos: witnesses are accused of manufacturing evidence, an ex-convict “detective” gets caught coaching testimony, a professional mind reader retraces the alleged murder route, George H. Jackson becomes a dime-museum attraction, and two attorneys come dangerously close to settling their differences outside the courtroom.
Then come the closi...
Pearl Bryan, Part 5: The People vs Scott Jackson
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Scott Jackson’s trial finally begins in Newport, Kentucky, and after four episodes of rumors, "confessions," strange witnesses, missing evidence, and absolutely bizarre behavior, the Commonwealth finally has to put all of it together in front of a jury.
Pearl’s family takes the stand. Letters are read in court. Testimony swirls about blood coagulation, cocaine, and whether or not Pearl had been alive when she reached Kentucky. Little does the prosecution know, but their expert witnesses are playing right into the hands of the defense.
And...
Pearl Bryan, Part 4: The Road to Kentucky
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Psychics. Séances. Strange packages. Secret transmitters hidden inside jail cells.
As the investigation into Pearl Bryan’s murder moves into March of 1896, Cincinnati seems to have completely lost its mind. While mystics and dreamers offer their own solutions to the mystery, investigators uncover new witnesses, physical evidence, and a big problem with Scott Jackson’s latest confession.
At the same time, Scott Jackson and Alonzo Walling have become tourist attractions—and after weeks of fighting extradition, their time in the safety of an Ohio jail is fina...
Pearl Bryan, Part 3: Everyone Has a Story
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By the end of February 1896, the murder of Pearl Bryan had become more than an investigation. It had become a true spectacle.
Detectives were chasing new leads. Reporters were printing every rumor they could find. Songs were being written, crowds were paying to watch reenactments of the crime, and seemingly everyone connected to Pearl Bryan had something to say.
Some witnesses offered details that could change the entire case. Others told stories that became stranger every time they were repeated.
In Part 3, a mysterious...
Pearl Bryan, Part 2: The Last Days of Pearl Bryan
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After Pearl Bryan's identity is finally discovered, investigators begin the difficult task of answering an even larger question: What happened during her final days in Cincinnati?
Following newspaper accounts, trial testimony, and contemporary records, we retrace Pearl's last known movements—from train depots and hotels to piano stores, saloons, and a visit to a mysterious trance medium. Along the way, witnesses begin to emerge, conflicting stories multiply, and detectives struggle to separate fact from fiction as two young dental students each point the finger at the other.
...
Pearl Bryan, Part 1: The Headless Woman of Fort Thomas
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In January 1896, 23-year-old Pearl Bryan boarded a train bound for Indianapolis... and never came home.
When her body was discovered in northern Kentucky a few days later, investigators didn't even know who the victim was. But once they uncovered her identity, the trail led them to two young dental students and one of the most sensational murder investigations of the nineteenth century.
In Part 1, we follow the investigation from its shocking beginning through the first confession—a confession that seemed to solve the case but only ma...
The Joyce Children: A Mystery in Bussey Woods - A Fun-Sized Felony
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In June of 1865, fourteen-year-old Isabella Joyce and her twelve-year-old brother John packed a picnic basket, visited their grandmother, and set out for a summer afternoon in the woods outside Boston.
They never returned.
What followed was years of false arrests, sensational newspaper headlines, an ingenious undercover prison operation, and a suspect with one of the most unforgettable names I've ever encountered: Scratch Gravel. But every promising lead collapsed, leaving behind one of Massachusetts' oldest unsolved murder mysteries.
Murder by Fork: A Tragedy at Suppertime - A Fun-Sized Felony
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A serving fork isn't supposed to be a murder weapon.
In 1911, a Sunday evening argument in a Pennsylvania boarding house ended with one man dead and his wife under arrest for murder. But conflicting newspaper accounts soon turned my research into a detective story all its own.
Featuring:
De Ring Tailed Coon: The Minster Singers (1911)
Halsey Coon and the House of Fire - A Fun-Sized Felony
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A respected fire captain. A woman dying from horrific burns. A small Connecticut town searching for answers.
In this Fun-Sized Felony, Monica pieces together a forgotten case from scattered newspaper accounts dating back to 1842. What she uncovered was far stranger—and far more haunting—than she ever expected.
William Hooper Young: Murder, Madness, and the Morris Canal
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In September 1902, the body of Annie Pulitzer was discovered in New Jersey's Morris Canal, weighted down and hidden from view. The investigation quickly led police to William Hooper Young, grandson of famed Mormon leader Brigham Young and a man whose increasingly erratic behavior had alarmed those around him.
In this episode, Monica and Olivia follow the case from the streets of New York's Tenderloin district to a lavish rented apartment New York City, where investigators uncovered a trail of bloody evidence and a trunk that became one of...
The Tragic Affair at 2305 Brookside Avenue - A Fun-Sized Felony
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Dr. Charles M. Clayton was having a great day... until he came home for lunch.
Over the next few months he would shoot a man, face a murder charge, suffer a nervous collapse, accidentally hit a teenager with his car, paint the inside of a jail, and listen as a very nosy neighbor revealed what she'd been watching through their kitchen window... day, after day.
Sometimes one bad day really is enough.
Join Monica for the bizarre and tragic story of The Tragic Affair...
Jack Vincent: Professional Bummer of the Western Frontier - A Fun-Sized Felony
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Jack Vincent was a stagecoach driver, prospector, practical joker, hotel deadbeat, prison escapee, alleged murderer, and—according to one newspaper—a professional bummer.
In 1882, Vincent shot his brother-in-law, steamboat mate John Westfall, twice in the face during a saloon argument in Toledo, Washington Territory. Westfall survived for nine months before dying from his injuries, setting off a murder prosecution that would leave jurors struggling to decide exactly what happened.
This Fun-Sized Felony follows the strange life of Jack Vincent and the tragic death of John Westfall, a ca...
Ellsworth Kelley and the Jones-Murray Gang - Part 2
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By 1925, the Jones Brothers Gang had changed. Dewey Jones was no longer part of the outlaw life, Milam Jones had vanished, and Oregon Jones was back in the Oregon State Penitentiary ready to cause more trouble. After the deadly prison break that would make headlines across the Pacific Northwest, newspapers began calling the group the Jones-Murray Gang—a nod to the growing influence of escape artist Tom Murray, who had become the mastermind behind their latest plan.
In Part Two, Ellsworth Kelley, Tom Murray, James Willos, and Oregon Jo...
Ellsworth Kelley and the Jones Brothers Gang - Part 1
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Ellsworth Kelley became tangled up with the notorious Jones Brothers Gang — a crew of young outlaws, including the elusive Oregon Jones and 20-year-old escape artist Tom Murray, whose lives became a cycle of burglaries, highway robberies, prison escapes, freight-train rides, manhunts, and violence across the Pacific Northwest during the 1910s and 1920s.
This story follows hidden loot, prison tunnels, the infamous Oregon Boot, repeated escape attempts from the Oregon State Penitentiary, and a gang of young men who seemed incapable of staying behind bars.
But beneath th...
The Curious Disappearance of Frank E. Clark - A Fun-Sized Felony
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In the fall of 1910, husband and father Frank E. Clark vanished from Oakland, California without a trace.
His wife was left stranded in a city where she knew no one. Newspapers across California carried the story of the missing husband, while neighbors and the Catholic Ladies’ Aid society stepped in to help feed Mrs. Clark and their 5-year-old son.
Had Frank abandoned his family? Met with foul play? Started a new life somewhere else?
The answer, when it finally came, was far stranger—and far...
Alfred Knapp: Five Murders and a Confession
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A woman’s body floats more than 150 miles downriver before finally being recovered near New Albany, Indiana. By the time she is identified as Hannah Goddard Knapp, her husband—Alfred Knapp—has already confessed to murdering her.
But Hannah wasn't the first—Not by a long shot.
In 1903, Alfred Knapp shocked the country with confessions involving multiple women and children across Ohio and Indiana. Newspapers called him insane. Doctors blamed brain injuries, “brain fever,” and hereditary degeneration. His family insisted he could not control himself. Others believed he...
Bertha Boronda: the Mistress of Mayhem - A Fun-Sized Felony
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Bertha “Bessie” Boronda attacked her husband, Narciso "Frank" Boronda, in the middle of the night in their San Jose home in 1907.
The newspapers called it a violent, deliberate mutilation. The court charged her with mayhem—a crime defined by the destruction of part of the human body.
But no one ever said exactly what she did.
Over time, the story became more specific, more certain... and more sensational.
But, when you go back to the coverage of the case in 1907… that version of the s...
Frank Caruso and the Murder of Dr. Casper Pendola - A Fun-Sized Felony
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In February of 1927, a Brooklyn father watched his six-year-old son struggle to breathe as diphtheria tightened its grip. Desperate for help, Frank Caruso called for doctors, begged for treatment, and clung to the hope that his boy might survive.
But when that hope slipped away, something else took its place.
Within hours of his son’s death, Frank turned his grief into blame—and his blame into violence. A physician who had come to help would never leave the apartment alive.
What followed was a ca...
Jesse McClure: What Sarah Didn't See Coming
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Years before this double homicide, there were already signs—clear, documented, and deeply concerning. Sarah saw them. Sarah lived with them. Sarah warned the authorities that he was going to kill her.
But Jesse didn’t kill her.
Even Sarah didn’t see this coming.
When he couldn’t reach the person he wanted, Jesse McClure made a different choice—one that ended in the deaths of two small boys.
This case takes place in Tipton County and Grant County, Indiana, at the end of
200 Feet From Home: the Murder of Florence Kane - A Fun-Sized Felony
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In 1925, 29-year-old Florence Kane stepped off a subway in Brooklyn after a night out with friends. She called her mother to say she would be home in 30 minutes.
In the final stretch of just 6 blocks, the unthinkable happened; Florence never made it home.
As fear spread through the neighborhood, reports surfaced of other women being attacked in the same way—grabbed in the dark, beaten, and left for dead. And yet, despite witnesses, patterns, and mounting public outrage, the investigation into Florence’s murder was marred by r...
Edmund Creffield, Part 3: Revenge of the Brides
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This is the third and final episode in our Edmund Creffield series.
By the time Edmund Creffield lay dead on a Seattle sidewalk, it should have been over. The prophet was gone; the spell should have been broken. The story should have ended, but another chapter had just begun.
Because what followed was not closure… it was unraveling.
As George Mitchell stands trial for the killing, the courtroom fills with stories that are as disturbing as they are difficult to explain—stories of devotion, delu...
Edmund Creffield, Part 2: The Bride of Christ Cult
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This is the second episode following Edmund Creffield and the cult he began in Corvallis, OR, after her arrived in late 1902.
In this episode, he was finally caught.
After months in hiding, Edmund Creffield is pulled from beneath a house—filthy, frail, and barely able to stand—and brought into custody at last. For the people of Corvallis, it feels like the end of something that never should have begun.
But in the courtroom, Creffield refuses to break.
When Creffield walks out of p...
The Iverson Children Tragedy (1903) - A Fun-Sized Felony
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On a quiet Sunday in October of 1903, ten-year-old Hoga Iverson noticed something wasn’t right.
His sister had gone inside… and never came back out.
What followed was a chain of events that no child should ever have to carry: a train ride alone to find his father, a doctor turned away at the door, and a journey in the dark that would end in a discovery too devastating to comprehend.
Inside a small cottage in Pacific Grove, three children lay still—while their mother...
Edmund Creffield, Part 1: The Rise of the Army of Holiness in Corvallis, Oregon
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In the early 1900s, a young German preacher arrived in Corvallis, Oregon with a message he believed came directly from God.
Within weeks, he had gathered a devoted circle of followers who called themselves God’s Anointed. Others had a different name for them: The Holy Rollers.
Their intense prayer meetings, strange teachings, and bizarre behavior quickly made them the talk of the town—and not in a good way. What began as a small religious movement would soon spiral into scandal, insanity, murder, and one of t...
Agostino Izzo: The Day the Music Stopped — A Fun-Sized Felony
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In the Izzo household, music filled every corner of the home. Agostino Izzo had once played in the Seneca Falls Italian Band and worked as a music teacher, passing his love of music on to his children. Several would go on to perform in orchestras of their own, carrying the family’s musical legacy far beyond their home in Syracuse, New York.
But on July 13, 1926, the harmony ended in the cellar.
Three days later, haunted by guilt and unable to rest, he walked into police headquarters an...
What Jane Saw: An Intergenerational Family Tragedy in Pennsylvania (1909–1938) - A Fun-Sized Felony
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On July 17, 1938, ten people were living in two small rooms above the Broadway Inn in Leechburg, Pennsylvania. By sunrise, three were dead and seven children were orphaned.
In 1909, a young girl watched her father terrorize a Pennsylvania town with a shotgun. Nearly three decades later, that same girl would die in the doorway of the room where her children slept.
In this Fun-Sized Felony, we examine a double-murder suicide — and the unsettling possibility of intergenerational echoes.
James H Coyner (Alonzo Robinson): Two names, one rope.
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On January 12, 1935, Amelia Earhart landed safely in Oakland, California after her historic solo flight across the Pacific. The nation celebrated progress, courage, and modern aviation.
That same day, in a Mississippi post office, a man was arrested with a piece of human flesh in his pocket.
This episode traces the story of Alonzo Robinson — known for decades as James H. Coyner— from a mysterious trunk filled with skulls in Michigan to a double murder in Cleveland, Mississippi that stunned the country. Along the way, we uncover what...
Gone in a Moment: The Disappearance of Winifred Byrne — A Fun-Sized Felony
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In November of 1913, three-year-old Winifred Byrne vanished from outside her family’s home on West 38th Street in New York City. Her father had looked away for just a moment—and that was all it took.
What happened during the four days Winifred was missing was never fully explained.
In this Fun-Sized Felony, we revisit the brief headlines, the unanswered questions, and the mystery that remains.
Emily Antone and the Calls That Went Unanswered — A Fun-Sized Felony
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In July of 1912, Emily Antone—a 38-year-old Indigenous woman—arrived at a house in Middleport, Ontario, carrying a trunk and plans to start over. She never left alive.
This Fun-Sized Felony examines the murder of Emily Antone, the failures that surrounded it, and the way her story quietly disappeared from print. Using contemporary newspaper accounts, we trace what was recorded, what was ignored, and what was never followed up on at all.
Because some crimes aren’t remembered for what happened—but for how easily they were all...
John Heslop and the Case That Never Closed
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In the early hours of January 27, 1891, John Heslop was murdered inside his home near Ancaster, Ontario. He was a respected township clerk, a longtime pioneer in the area, and a man whose death sent shockwaves through the surrounding countryside.
What followed was an investigation shaped by footprints in the snow, conflicting testimony, and mounting public pressure. Detectives were brought in from outside the region. Suspects were named, arrests were made, a trial was held—and yet, certainty never arrived.
This episode traces the crime as it wa...
The Mysterious Disappearance and Return of Mabel E. Dorner — A Fun-Sized Felony
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This is another Fun-Sized Felony. Look for a full-sized episode next week!
In June of 1912, seventeen-year-old Mabel E. "Dolly" Dorner vanished, leaving her parents frantic and the newspapers full of fear. Three days later, she was quietly returned by a mysterious woman who claimed to be a nurse—along with an explanation that only raised more questions.
This Fun-Sized Felony revisits a brief disappearance—or two—and the unsettling possibility that the most important clues didn't emerge until long after the search ended.
Music:
My S...The Attack on Richard Doherty, Jr. - A Fun-Sized Felony
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Not every story is told in full. This frustrates us, and now it can frustrate you! (You're welcome.)
The towns of Whitman and Brockton, MA, were thrown for a loop in July of 1957 when young boys were being immorally assaulted, battered, and murdered.
What happened to little Dicky Doherty?
Tune in to this fun-sized episode to find out as much as we know!
Lorraine Clark and the Murder of Melvin: When the Headlines Hardened into Fact
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In 1954, Melvin Clark was murdered and his body dumped into the depths of the Merrimack River. His wife, Lorraine Clark, would ultimately plead guilty—and for decades, that plea has stood as the official ending to the case.
But the record tells a more complicated story.
In this episode, we take a closer look at the murder of Melvin Clark, the investigation that followed, and the media narrative that quickly hardened into “fact.” We examine the unanswered questions that were never resolved in court: the missing motive...
Baby John: The Boy Who Lived Through Fire - Part 3
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In the final episode, Isabella J. Martin finally faces trial in a courtroom she cannot control. As the case unfolds, testimony forces the legal system to confront a difficult truth: Baby John was not a criminal mastermind, but a child shaped by coercion and fear.
This episode follows Isabella from conviction, to imprisonment, to retrial, to re-conviction, and back to imprisonment. Then we take a look at the San Quentin prison records that reveal the extent of her unraveling behind bars, which brings a lot of clarity to...
Baby John: The Boy Who Lived Through Fire - Part 2
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A burning barn in the snow finally breaks Isabella J. Martin’s control over her son.
In Episode 2, Baby John is arrested—and for the first time in his life, separated from the woman who shaped every moment of his childhood. What follows is chaos inside the courtroom: Isabella acting as her son’s attorney, arguing with the judge, confessing to arson in open court, and then vanishing on the final day of the hearing.
As Baby John remains silent under her command, authorities begin to see the...
Baby John: The Boy Who Lived Through Fire - Part 1
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In 1907, a judge’s home in Oakland, CA was blown apart by a homemade bomb. For months, the case went unsolved — until a trail of clues led not to a hardened criminal, but to a sixteen-year-old boy known as “Baby John.”
Episode 1 uncovers the hidden truth behind that headline: Baby John was not a prodigy of crime, but a child raised in isolation and fear under the control of Isabella J. Martin, one of the most destructive women in California’s early legal history.
This chapter follows th...
Zollie Clement - The Boy Bandit
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A young boy found himself lost in the pages of adventure-filled dime novels and couldn't get enough. Before too long he brought those adventures to life just to read about his own adventures in the headlines. Zollie Clement became the Boy Bandit by night, yet he was conniving and clever enough by day to get away with it under the noses of all who knew him. He was so good at hiding in plain sight that he got away with it for an entire decade! He robbed and murdered without...
Protecting the Porch: Halloween Prank Horrors
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Long before candy and costumes, Halloween was a night of chaos. Young people looked forward to a night of unbridled rebellion while responsible property owners feared for their livelihood. Halloween was a night of anything-goes and, unfortunately, anything went far too often. Townsfolk and police officers simply had to brace themselves and wait for October to pass. What they'd wake up to in the morning was anyone's guess. The real question was whether or not there would be enough room in the hospitals and morgues come November 1st.
L...
Poison and Pistols: the Treacherous Deeds of John Branton
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This is the third and final episode in our series featuring Lane County, OR. This one takes you through the life and crimes of John Branton, older brother of Claude.
When Milly Elliott met John Branton, she thought it was a love story to last through the ages. She imagined she'd be with John for the rest of her life. She wasn't wrong—she just didn't realize her life would be so short. Neither did the next wife, nor the next, and it was only through sheer luck th...
