Retro Crime Story Time

Retro Crime Story Time

Historical crimes look different in retrospect. It’s astonishing what time can reveal after old cases have been closed. We research and visit sites of crimes that were once newsworthy but have since been forgotten. Our goal is to see through the eyes of the villain to understand the why and how.

Episodes

July 12, 2025 38 mins

In Clearwater, Florida in 1915, the charred remains of 19 year old Susie Eliot and her mother Bessie were found in a car that had been set on fire. The chauffeur pointed the finger at the Citrus King of Pinellas County, John Mendenhall, who pointed the finger right back at the driver. The investigation revealed a story of misogyny, immorality, and all three traits of the dark triad.

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In September of 1959, Kitty Harrig killed her husband and his mistress in their apartment in the Catskills. The town was shocked because Howard had been philandering for years, and Kitty had always handled it well. What made such a lovely person snap?

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May 23, 2025 23 mins
In 1926, Margaret Foley died from an illegal abortion in Washington, Pennsylvania. Who was responsible for her death? If you know a single mother, then her sacrifice wasn’t in vain.
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February 5, 2025 14 mins
On December 30th of 1918, a woman’s body was found in the James River. Families across the county insisted it was their daughter who had gone missing in that part of Virginia. Clue after clue unraveled a story of extreme selfishness and desperation.
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February 2, 2025 22 mins
In the 1930s, Squire Westwood was the most powerful man in The Bottoms of McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania. When he was on trial for killing his wife, his alibi was the lead detective on his case and a parade of beautiful women. He was a dirty, philandering, cheating judge, but did he do it?
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January 26, 2025 7 mins

In 1957, Lena Trappin was the oldest woman in Pennsylvania to be tried for murder. The 75 year old was charged with strangling her neighbor with a belt and dragged him downstairs into his yard in the middle of the night. What motive could she have had?

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January 26, 2025 12 mins

In East Liverpool, Ohio in 1948, Goldie Adams is found shot dead on Christmas morning by her common-law husband, John Adams. They lived in a shack at the dump. Her ex-husband Ross Adams was sleeping on their couch. All of them had been drunk and no one remembers what happened. Who did it?

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January 13, 2025 22 mins
In 1919, Wheeling, West Virginia, Margaret Clator shot her husband John Clator in self-defense. She claimed he caught her trying to kill herself and became so angry that he tried to kill her. Despite evidence against her and a confession, she outsmarted the prosecution who thought this was a simple death penalty case.
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January 13, 2025 20 mins
Before Bonnie and Clyde, there was a less sexy duo of robbers. Irene and Glenn had clean records then quickly escalated to crime once they met. They killed their way to the electric chair, and Irene became the first woman in Pennsylvania to die by one. The mystery remains: what motivated them suddenly?
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January 13, 2025 30 mins
While incarcerated in the 1980s, career burglar Roland Steele met drug dealer Robert McGrogan and pimp Sam Wallace (who trafficked minors). These chance encounters led to the Karate Chop Killings of 3 octogenarian widows, whose lives were devoted to charities for disadvantaged children. How could there have been a motive?
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December 10, 2024 20 mins

I discovered the British expression "I'm all right, Jack". It's used to describe another person who is selfish, smug, and doesn't care about anyone but themselves. This episode is about a murder in December of 1916. Jack Nolte shot his young lover Lee Ritz in Wheeling, West Virginia. Lee was a local celebrity for his talent on the football field. He had recently accepted a scholarship to Cornell, and Jack refused to be separated.

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November 23, 2024 8 mins

Thanksgiving of 1935 was peak drama at Chessie Tomlin's home. There was booze, adultery, and murder- all before the meal was ready! In my attempt to find a wild Thanksgiving story outside of my city, Pittsburgh once again proved to have the craziest crime.

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October 29, 2024 9 mins

For our Halloween episode, we went to the historic Sing Sing prison in Ossining, New York to find a ghost. Despite the prison being secretive about the supernatural, we were able to find one. William Caesar killed his common-law wife Mary Martin in 1894, and his blundering of the cover-up lead the police to him.

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October 15, 2024 9 mins

My six year old Zach and four year old Kate join me on this episode about kids who committed crimes in our neck of the woods. We also have a story about ten year old boy who protected his brother from a kidnapper in Washington County, Pennsylvania.

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August 27, 2024 25 mins

In Ambridge, Pennsylvania in 1949, 15 year old Margaret Bankowski was found murdered on a slag pile off a lovers' lane near the Ohio River. The case went cold until Catherine Smutko was arrested for murder. She allegedly wanted Margaret’s dad Ziegfeld all to herself and mistook his daughter for his wife.

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August 4, 2024 12 mins
In 1925, in the mountains outside of Pikeville, Kentucky, the bodies of two men were recovered from a mine explosion in the middle of the night. Behind the tragedy was a greedy family too dimwitted to fake a death properly.
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August 3, 2024 25 mins

In the summer of 1939, the bodies of Eddie Dombrowski and his uncle Ignatz were found outside of Eddie's car on a lone country road in New Castle, Pennsylvania. The crime left the family and community confused. Some things are too tragic to wrap our minds around.


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June 8, 2024 24 mins
In 1949, a couple of Southern boys kidnapped and murdered a taxi driver from Myrtle Beach. They were the first white people to die by judicial electrocution in South Carolina. Even though they were guilty of these crimes, they happened to be innocent of the crime they died for. Was justice done?
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May 10, 2024 10 mins
In 19th century Imperial Russia, a young man named Asher Markowitz married his foster mother Rachael Kirsch. Over a year later, he ran away. Rachael was determined to get him back and spent ten years searching. She finally found him in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, only now his name was Addison Brown and he was a happily married father. (Enjoy the soothing sounds of the dryer in the background.)
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March 2, 2024 14 mins
In December of 1929, the body of a man in his early 30s was found dumped in the snow in Forest Hills, Pennsylvania. He had two sets of ID on him. A few days later, a young man nearby went missing. The case wasn’t solved until 8 years later when both of their ghosts tortured their murderer into confessing.
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