Criminal
Criminal is the first of its kind. A show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Hosted by Phoebe Judge. Named a Best Podcast of 2023 by the New York Times. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Episodes
January 30, 2026 • 33 mins
In 1963, Jeanne and Alan Abel traveled to Washington, DC to picket in front of the White House. They said they were part of a campaign that wanted to put clothes on animals — including the first lady’s horse.
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January 23, 2026 • 37 mins
While investigating a murder, a Polish detective discovered an unusual clue – a novel that contained an odd number of similarities to the real-life crime.
David Grann is the author of The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon, and his article about Krystian Bala is contained in his collection The Devil and Sherlock Holmes.
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January 16, 2026 • 46 mins
One night in 1989, Karen Palmer got in her car with her husband and two daughters and drove away from their home in California. They didn’t tell anyone where they were going.
Karen Palmer’s memoir is She’s Under Here.
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January 9, 2026 • 35 mins
One day in 2011, Lindsey Schweigert’s roommate came home to an open garage, a missing dog, and an overflowing bathtub. Lindsey remembers waking up in police custody.
Ramya Nagesh is the author of A Practical Guide to Insane and Non-Insane Automatism in Criminal Law – Sleepwalking, Blackouts, Hypoglycaemia, and Other Issues.
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December 26, 2025 • 43 mins
In 1982, Sister Helen Prejean was invited to write a letter to a man on death row named Elmo Patrick Sonnier. She told us, “I thought that all I was going to be doing was writing letters. And lo and behold, two years later, I am in that execution chamber.” When we spoke to her in 2021, she was 81, and had been present at the executions of six men.
Sister Helen’s book, Dead Man Walking, is about her time as a spiritual advisor to E...
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December 19, 2025 • 36 mins
Stories of animals really going for it.
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We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.
Artwork by Julienne Alex...
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December 12, 2025 • 32 mins
On Christmas morning, Laura Nowlin was in her living room with her infant son. They were getting ready to leave to spend the day with family. Then, Laura heard a knock on the door. She says it sounded frantic.
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December 5, 2025 • 44 mins
In 1833, a writer named Catharine Williams began working on a new book. She’d published books of poetry and about the Revolutionary War before, but this book was going to be different. It was going to be about a Methodist minister, a mill worker, and a murder.
Kate Dawson’s book is The Sinners All Bow: Two Authors, One Murder, and the Real Hester Prynne.
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November 28, 2025 • 29 mins
In 1993, a family was found murdered in their home. A Maryland police spokesperson described the homicide investigation as the most “exhaustive and labor intensive” in the department’s history. And then investigators found a strange manual - written by someone calling themselves Rex Feral.
This episode was originally released in 2018.
To hear more about who actually wrote Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors, s...
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November 21, 2025 • 45 mins
Scott Darlington ran the post office in a village outside Manchester for four years. One day, the computer system told him there was money missing from the branch – and he was accused of theft and fraud. “I started thinking, ‘Maybe I’ve done this and I just haven’t realized that it’s been me.’”
Nick Wallis’s book is The Great Post Office Scandal. Scott Darlington’s book is Signed Sealed Destroyed.
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November 14, 2025 • 46 mins
When David Hahn was 16, he started working on something that caught the attention of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the FBI.
Ken Silverstein’s book is The Radioactive Boy Scout.
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November 7, 2025 • 40 mins
The story of one day in one neighborhood in Chicago – and the people living there who try to stop ICE agents from arresting their neighbors.
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We also m...
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October 31, 2025 • 52 mins
On Halloween night, in 1992, an unusual television special aired on the BBC. Nobody expected what happened next. “The technicians were looking up at the big screen in the lobby, saying to each other, ‘My God, what's going on in Studio One?’”
This episode was first released in 2022.
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October 24, 2025 • 45 mins
In 1883, a sailing captain named Thomas Dudley accepted a job no one thought was a good idea: to sail a small ship called the Mignonette halfway across the world.
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October 17, 2025 • 34 mins
When Audrey Ryan’s father told her he once found 20 pounds of hash while he was fishing for scallops, she didn’t believe him. But he said that he wasn’t the only one who had found drugs in the ocean.
Audrey Ryan wrote about the Tusker for Boston Globe Magazine.
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October 10, 2025 • 34 mins
In 2006, a group of young men and teenagers were arrested under the Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act for planning to set off bombs in Toronto. They were known as the Toronto 18. One of the group’s leaders was a 20-year-old named Zakaria Amara.
Michelle Shephard wrote about Zakaria Amara for The Walrus magazine.
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September 26, 2025 • 34 mins
One Saturday morning in 2018, the police showed up at Patience Rousseau’s door, and started asking her questions about something she'd posted on Facebook after she'd had a miscarriage.
Caroline Kitchener’s article for The Washington Post is “She said she had a miscarriage — then got arrested under an abortion law.”
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September 19, 2025 • 36 mins
Bow Suprasert had just returned from a trip abroad when she got a strange phone call, saying a man had been caught traveling with a passport in her name. But Bow’s passport was still in her suitcase.
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September 12, 2025 • 37 mins
In 2023, a woman named Jella got a new job. On her first day, she got in a car to go to her new office. Then she got a feeling that something wasn’t right.
Denise Chan hosts the podcast Scam Factory.
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September 5, 2025 • 39 mins
Phoebe tries to scam an English grandmother named Daisy over the phone. But Daisy isn’t just any grandmother.
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