Scoundrel: History's Forgotten Villains

At the turn of the 20th century, Hetty Green was possibly the richest woman in America. She outsmarted the men of Wall Street at their own game, amassing a fortune that, today, would be worth billions. So, with all that money, why did she die in in squalor, wearing threadbare clothes, alienated from everyone she knew both personally and professionally, with the moniker of "The Witch of Wall Street?"Today, we te...

In 1645, the English Civil War caused a great divide in England - on both sides, the destruction, violence and famine were all blamed on malevolent witches, cursing towns and villages all throughout the countryside to fulfill their pacts with the devil. Thankfully, King Charles I endorsed a duo of witch-hunters, led by Matthew Hopkins to identify and condemn as many accused witches as they could lay eyes on, le...

In January of 1920, as their locomotive headed into Rochester, New York, a group of brakemen happened to spot a corpse lying in a nearby ditch. After a quick police investigation, authorities were able to point their fingers at a rather unusual couple of culprits: A married couple - Pearl and James O'Dell.  Nicknamed "The Honeymoon Murderers," their strange motive, method and mayheim splashes its way all over n...

They were two of the most feared outlaws in the Wild West. Known for their crack shots, and overall disregard of Oklahoma law, their names were on most wanted lists from Alda to Tulsa County.  Oh, and the kicker? They were two teenage girls. The world may have forgotten about Cattle Annie and Little Britches, but we sure haven't!

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On April 16, 1874, a desperate and frostbitten man wrapped in rags wandered into a basecamp in the frosty Colorado San Juan Mountains. Famished and half-dead, soldiers gathered around to quickly feed the poor guy. As he regained strength, Alferd Packer quickly threaded together a story about how he impossibly survived the winter stranded deep in the unforgiving mountains. His story... would be one giant lie. Th...

On July 17, 1918, Nicholas II, Czar of Russia and his entire family were ushered into a dark basement where they were all killed by Bolshevik revolutionary gunmen. But people around the world prayed that perhaps the legend was true. That his 17-year-old daughter Anastasia Romanov survived the massacre. Well, a Polish woman for several decades preyed upon those false hopes and deviously masqueraded as the late G...

He had it all. Good looks, a privileged upbringing, the adoration of women...yet in November 1961, Julian Harvey was responsible for murdering almost an entire family while captaining their vacation vessel off the shore of Florida. What made this villain tick and ultimately do the unthinkable? Take a listen now!

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You may have heard of famous pirates like Black Beard and Calico Jack, but did you know a 19th century former peasant girl assembled a pirate confederation so massive  it made these men's fleets seem like a couple of row boats? Ching Shih was the most successful pirate the world has ever forgotten.... until today. 

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In 2014, Dutch friends Lisanne Froon and Kris Kremers disappeared while hiking a jungle trail in Panama. Two months later, investigators found their remains, as well as a backpack with a digital camera filled with photos that hinted at a darker story. What happened to Kris and Lisanne? In this investigative series, journalists Mariana Atencio and Jeremy Kryt retrace the last steps of the doomed women. Their sea...

The Wild West after the Civil War was famous for its unruly hooligans. But buried in the headlines under the rowdy shenanigans of Billy The Kid and Jesse James stood the story of a very different outlaw. One many had described as "Gentlemanly." Sure with each of his highway robberies, he'd hold a shotgun to your face, but he never wanted your personal belongings...only the money of certain banks that have wrong...

The year is 1911.  In the idyllic beauty of Olalla Washington, sits a sanitarium - a supposed sanctuary for those suffering from health conditions to come and heal under the guidance of a "brilliant medical mind." Little do locals realize, it's in these walls that an unassuming health practitioner named Dr. Linda Hazzard is performing unspeakable horrors on her patients. Her torture and starvation tactics will ...

Everyone knows the Academy award winning film Amadeus, where a dramatic jealous-ridden  Antonio Salieri contributed to the death of Mozart. But what you probably don't know is a man named John Taylor was complicit in the death of two other musical giants;  Johann Sebastian Bach and George Friedrich Handel.  And the greatest irony of all...he was their eye doctor. Join us this week on Scoundrel: History's Forgot...

Good Cult is an investigative podcast about the dark corners of the New Age self-help movements and the American counterculture. In season one, host River Donaghey will explore his family's group therapy cult to unpack the strange history of the Human Potential Movement, and try to understand how a violent self-help seminar in the 1980s evolved into a global phenomenon, which would capture his own family decade...

Ever visit the world famous Louvre Museum in Paris?  Ever gaze up at Picassos? How about the Matisses? Well, what if we told you that behind the beautiful colors and brush strokes, a dark history lingers as to why they're in the museum.  You see, many of them used to belong to somebody...some say one of the richest and most ruthless women of 20th century Europe, who besides her art collecting hobby, spent much ...

Mediums, Clairvoyants, Psychics. You can't turn on TV these days without seeing a reality show where some self-proclaimed "Communicator" is conversing with dead people. Where did this all come from? Well..it all began with two young sisters from the 1840s named Kate and Maggie Fox. The craziest part?  It all started with a prank. 

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October 15, 1917.  A war criminal is marched before a French firing squad to receive their brutal final punishment.  Their crime... selling secrets to the Germans resulting in the slaughter of 40,000 French officers in one of World War 1's bloodiest battles. As witnesses watch the despicable traitor being pushed before the guns, they are shocked.  The  perpetrator is none other than one of the most famous women...

The turn of the 20th century was a wild and weird time, especially in medicine. New discoveries of radioactive elements created a medical craze with companies putting now-known poisonous substances in medicines with unproven promises to cure everything from arthritis to impotence.  Unfortunately, the only thing these medicines did for people...was eventually kill them. And nobody poisoned more people and pushed...

You've heard her name in the same breath as other gun slinging wild west hooligans like Billy the Kid and Jesse James. But who really was Belle Starr? Was she the  pistol-packing bloodthirsty Bandit Queen who delighted in breaking the law as her legend dictates, or... was she more a victim of circumstance and the turbulent times she lived? More importantly, who actually killed her that fateful day on February 3...