Wicked Words - A True Crime Talk Show with Kate Winkler Dawson

We’re back talking to filmmaker Liam Le Guillou about his documentary An Unknown Compelling Force: The Dyatlov Pass Incident. We learn more about the victims, and we hear about many conspiracy theories. 

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Filmmaker Liam Le Guillou was fascinated with the mystery surrounding the deaths of nine experienced Russian hikers in the Ural Mountains in 1959. Paul Holes and I talked about this case on Buried Bones, but Liam really, really dug into the mystery. He has his own opinion and he shares it in his documentary, An Unknown Compelling Force: The Dyatlov Pass Incident. We rarely do this, but we had to make this interview a two-parter. &n...

Throughout history, women have been convicted of crime, sometimes violent crimes, we know that. But most were not sent to the gallows. Historian Naomi Clifford decided to tell the story of the time period in England, 40 years beginning in the late 1700s, and the women who were given the death penalty. She tells me about their crimes, their defense…and their lives before their deaths. Her book is called: Women and the Gallows...

Author Diane Fanning is known for covering high profile cases like Casey Anthony and JonBenet Ramsey. But not with this book. In the summer of 2011, Laura Jean Ackerson left to pick up her two sons from her ex-husband’s home. And she was never seen alive again. Diane digs into this case, which leads us from North Carolina to Texas. Her book is called, Bitter Remains: A Custody Battle, A Gruesome Crime...

In 2019, surveillance cameras at the headquarters of Britain’s spy agency in London recorded video of a 19-year-old man. He was pacing back and forth on a high balcony of a luxury tower along the bank of the river. A two in the morning, he jumped into the water. Soon, his family discovered that he had lived a secret life that might have led to his death. From the bestselling author Patrick Radden Keefe tel...

One type of crime we don’t talk about much is Munchausen by proxy. It’s a mental health condition and a form of child abuse. It's where a caregiver exaggerates, makes up, or induces physical or psychological symptoms in a child to make them seem sick. Or it could be another person under their care. Author Andrea Dunlop writes about Munchausen by Proxy in her book, The Mother ...

Author Susan Orlean wrote a best-selling book years ago that you’ve probably heard of: The Orchid Thief. It was made into a movie called Adaptation. Susan has now written another book—this one about an unexpected crime that might not have been a crime at all. A fire in the LA Public Library destroyed more than 400,000 books in 1986. Did they find out what caused it? Or who? Susan tells me the story in her book...

One of the most enduring mysteries in crime history is the horrible murder of Elizabeth Short. The Black Dhalia case has been told over and over again, including by Paul Holes and me on Buried Bones. But author William J. Mann has taken a different angle…and I really like it. He’s written a deeply researched, victim-forward book about Elizabeth: her life, her struggles and her death. But his focus is right where it&rsq...

This is our second ESPN story about the intersection between sports and murder. ESPN was asked by the Miami-Dade Police to look into the 2006 murder of a star football player at the University of Miami. What reporter Paula Lavigne found was a complicated victim, a questionable suspect, and a police department that likely regrets calling ESPN to begin with. She tells me about...

I’ve never interviewed someone about wildlife trafficking, but journalist Rachel Nuwer’s story for The Economist was so compelling that I wanted to explore it. It’s about an orphanage in Africa where kids are used as foot soldiers in an illegal animal and ivory smuggling operation. Rachel's article is called: The School for Wildlife Traffickers. 

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Randy Barnett is a law professor at Georgetown University. But decades ago, he was a young prosecutor in Cook County’s State’s Attorney’s office. In Chicago, Randy dealt with gritty crime, of course, but some of his biggest challenges were battling police corruption, crooked co-workers, and judges on the take. Randy tells me about his book: Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago. 

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We’re taking you back to 1980s West Texas. When a Catholic priest was found murdered in a seedy hotel in Odessa, investigators focused on a gay Apache man who had made an accusation against the victim. Director Deborah Esquenazi tells the story in her film with Texas Monthly: Night in West Texas. 

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FBI agent Seamus McElearney had dreamed of investigating the mafia in New York when he first joined the bureau. But of course, no one would flip on the families. No one had ever flipped on the families. Until McElearney did some research, offered a made-man some orange juice…and made history. He tells me about his book: Flipping Capo: How the FBI Dismantled the Real Sopranos. 

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We’re talking about a very famous case this week. In 1984, Bernie Goetz shot four Black teenagers on a subway in Manhattan. He was hailed as a hero in the press, a man who stopped would-be robbers. But as the public learned more about the evidence, and about Goetz himself, the story seemed to shift. Elliot Williams is a CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor. And he wrote a book about the case called "Five Bullets: T...

In 1976, 26 kids were riding on a school bus in Chowchilla, California when they were kidnapped along with their driver by three men. The men buried them all underground in the middle of nowhere. The kids were terrified as they struggled to stay alive, and then a 14-year-old boy took control. It’s an incredible story of survival. Paul Solet tells me about the story at the center of his film Chowchilla 

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I’m really thrilled to have my buddy Skip Hollandsworth on the show this week. He wrote a book called "She Kills.” And it’s a collection of updated stories from Texas Monthly focusing on fascinating and often shocking female murderers—and some of these are cases that I’ve never heard of.  

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An assistant college football coach never thought they’d find his mother because Dolores Wulff had been missing for more than 40 years. Paul Wulff, along with most everyone else, believed that his father, Carl, had murdered her. So, what would happen to this case…if they found her? ESPN reporters Adam Rittenberg & Kyle Bonagura tell me about their investigation from their podcast "Finding Dolores Wulff." 

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In 1971, James Tappen Hall was gunned down in Maryland as the deputy sheriff patrolled the grounds of a country club. The police searched for suspects, which included a gang of teens known for breaking into Coca-Cola machines. But the case went cold for half a century until it finally broke. But did they catch the real killer? Author Michael Weisberg tells me the story from his book, A Second Shot: The Pursuit of Jus...

Meg Gardiner is a thriller writer, a really great one. She has several series, but the one I’m most interested in started with a book called UNSUB about a serial killer. And it’s based on two real serial killers, one of whom she lived close to. 

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