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

I love a good spy story. We’ve talked about spies embedded with the American government. We’ve discussed librarians and academics researching in the basement of the Library of Congress during World War II. And now we’re talking with Thomas Maier about a very unlikely spy, a former football player turned spy for Churchill. It’s all in his book, The Invisible Spy. 

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Occasionally we interview fiction authors who use true crime stories as jumping off points for their novels. Virginia Feito wrote a book called “Victorian Psycho.” And it’s based on several cases you’ve likely heard of. There’s a lecherous head of house, a jealous wife…and a violent governess. Very violent. Feito uses gallows humor to take real stories and craft them into harrowing tales. &...

I’m so excited about this interview. It’s with Claire St. Amant. She’s a journalist and an author. And she was a TV producer for 48 Hours and 60 Minutes. Now she’s pulling back the curtain on true crime television. I learned a lot from her. She’s talking about her memoir: Killer Story. 

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We might have our first Pulitzer Prize winner on our show. Author Gilbert King digs into cases of wrongful conviction. Today, we’re talking about his outstanding podcast, Bone Valley Season 2. Gilbert explores the 1987 murder of Michelle Schofield in Florida. It’s a story of justice, forgiveness, and the possibility of redemption. 

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LA Times reporter Christopher Goffard was the voice behind the hit podcast “Dirty John.” And now he has a new podcast that covers crimes in Los Angeles that made headlines, stories like the murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer at the hands of a stalker. He tells me about his show, “Crimes of the Times.” 

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This week on Wicked Words, years ago author Pagan Kennedy wondered about the history of the rape kit, a crucial tool for investigators today. Who designed it? She found out that it was Martha Goddard, a pioneer who wanted to help police catch sexual predators using forensics. But sometime after she made history, Goddard vanished. Listen to Kennedy’s story at the center of her book, The Secret History of the Rape Kit.  &n...

Plane hijackings aren’t very common anymore. But in the late 1960s and early 1970s, armed criminals were forcing commercial airliners to divert their flights, oftentimes demanding ransom. Author Brendan Koerner tells the story of an American couple turned hijackers, whose journey ends with some surprising twists. Koerner’s book is called: The Skies Belong to Us. 

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For years, a predator preyed on gay men in Atlanta. He was known as the Handcuff Man. He attacked male sex workers, disfigured them, and then left them for dead. Journalist Hallie Lieberman wrote a fantastic piece for The Atavist Magazine called The Devil Went Down to Georgia. 

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In 2018, the FBI discovered that high level criminals around the world were using encrypted devices to plot intricate crimes. When a powerful, secure new app began courting these syndicates, members of the underworld flocked to it. One problem for the criminals: the app was created by the FBI. Joseph Cox tells us the incredible story from his book, Dark Wire. 

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In 1986, 17-year-old Keith Warren was found hanging from a tree in Silver Spring, Maryland. His sister wanted answers—how did he die? It was ruled a suicide, but there were so many suspicious things about Keith’s death. I talked to filmmaker Avril Speaks about her docuseries, “Uprooted,” which covers Keith’s case. 

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This is a story about a landmark case in Canada from just a few years ago. A teenager attacked two women in a massage parlor in Toronto in 2020. He killed one and seriously injured the other. When he told investigators why he did it, they settled on trying him for murder…and terrorism. Journalist Lana Hall tells me about her piece in Maclean’s magazine called: The Incel Terrorist. 

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Dean Corll was a serial killer in Houston in the early 1970s. He kidnapped and murdered more than two dozen missing teenage boys before he was murdered by one of his accomplices. Decades later, a forensic anthropologist discovered a box of remains from the case. She spent years using scientific tools to identify some of the unknown victims. Journalist Lise Olsen tells me the story at the center of her book: The Scien...

It’s been 30 years since the infamous OJ Simpson trial, and the lead prosecutor Marcia Clark has had quite a career since then. She writes fiction and nonfiction books, including the one we’ll talk about today. It’s called Trial by Ambush and it’s a story about a young woman in Burbank, California. In 1953, Barbara Graham was caught-up in a robbery scheme that turned deadly. Marcia Clark investigates the sex...

Did you know that some of the most effective American spies during World War II were librarians and archivists and history professors? Some were locked in the basement of the Library of Congress, analyzing documents. Those documents were being gathered by academics sneaking around Europe, under the noses of the Nazis.  Author Elyse Graham tells me the story at the center of her book, Book and Dagger: How Scholar...

We don’t talk a lot on this show about female killers, but author Craig Monson has brought me a fascinating story right out of a Hollywood film. His book, The Black Widows of the Eternal City, centers on a web of women poisoners in 17th century Rome and their male victims. 

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This week on Wicked Words, we’re traveling to 1856 Ireland for a locked-door mystery. A cashier for a Dublin railway station is found dead, savagely beaten. Nothing appears to have been stolen. Can an experienced detective crack this case? Author Thomas Morris tells us the story in his new book The Dublin Railway Murder: The Sensational True Story of a Victorian Murder Mystery. 

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On this week’s episode of Wicked Words, we’re traveling to the Texas border town of Laredo. When four vulnerable women are murdered, police suspect that a well-respected U.S. Border Patrol agent has turned into a serial killer. Author Rick Jervis tells me the story behind his book, The Devil Behind the Badge: The Horrifying Twelve Days of the Border Patrol Serial Killer. 

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When an outspoken journalist in India was assassinated in September of 2017, it shocked the world. The conspiracy that was uncovered by journalists and investigators was disturbing. Author Rollo Romig tells me the story at the center of his book: I Am on the Hit List. 

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Some of my most favorite true crime stories in history come from the UK, specifically London. So I was very excited to talk to author Simon Read about his book: Scotland Yard: A History of the London Police Force's Most Infamous Murder Cases. Read investigated some of Scotland Yard’s most interesting cases and now he’ll tell us about some of them. 

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