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
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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We also make This is Love and Phoebe Rea...
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August 22, 2025 • 43 mins
We visited E. Jean Carroll at her house in the woods to talk about her two trials against President Donald Trump.
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We also make This is Love and Phoebe...
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August 15, 2025 • 32 mins
Two days after Hurricane Katrina hit, people who lived in the Fischer Housing Projects were still trapped – and it didn’t seem like anyone was coming to help. So 20-year-old Jabar Gibson came up with a plan.
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August 8, 2025 • 34 mins
The summer after Jessica Maple finished 6th grade, she found out that her great-grandmother’s house had been burglarized. So, 12-year-old Jessica got out her notebook, looked for fingerprints, and decided she would conduct her own investigation. This week, four stories of kids who cracked the case.
This episode was first released in 2020.
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August 1, 2025 • 35 mins
On October 11, 2008, an 18-year-old was shot by someone firing a gun from the back seat of a car. A couple of hours later, homicide detectives arrived on the scene. And so did the camera crew for a reality television show.
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July 25, 2025 • 43 mins
In the early 1930s, eight people settled on an uninhabited island in the Galapagos. Within five years, two were missing and two were dead.
Abbott Kahler’s book is Eden Undone: A True Story of Sex, Murder, and Utopia at the Dawn of World War II.
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July 18, 2025 • 36 mins
In 2023, two men told police the same story: each man said that his name was William Woods, and that his identity had been stolen.
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We also make This i...
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July 11, 2025 • 49 mins
On September 15, 1983, Michael Stewart was on his way home from a nightclub when police arrested him. Thirteen days later, he was dead.
Elon Green’s book is The Man Nobody Killed: Life, Death, and Art in Michael Stewart’s New York.
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July 4, 2025 • 34 mins
Early one morning in 1948, a phone call woke up the police chief in the small town of Clearwater, Florida. The caller said he’d seen something strange at the beach. Residents had found an odd set of footprints in the sand, and a rumor began circulating that Clearwater Beach had a sea monster.
Listen to other episodes of This is Love at https://thisislovepodcast.com/.
This episode was first released in 2020.
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June 27, 2025 • 33 mins
In 1997, Eric Konigsberg received a strange voicemail from someone in prison — a hit man who had confessed to at least ten murders. Eric and the man had never spoken before, but Eric had a hunch about who it was: his uncle.
Eric Konigsberg’s book is Blood Relation.
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June 20, 2025 • 47 mins
In July 2010, a woman was on vacation with her boyfriend of six years — they were traveling around Italy in a van. One day, she was looking for a pair of sunglasses in the glove box, and she found a passport. It had her boyfriend’s photo — but a different name.
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June 13, 2025 • 33 mins
In the late 1960s, a yogi named Swami Rama came to the United States. His followers believed he could read their minds, visit them in their dreams, and manipulate reality. Shruti Swamy was one of them.
Shruti Swamy wrote a version of this story for the June 12th issue of The Believer. You can find it at https://www.thebeliever.net/.
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June 6, 2025 • 33 mins
John Buettner-Janusch was one of the first Americans to study lemurs. He held prestigious faculty positions at Yale, Duke and NYU, before surprising everyone with a series of increasingly bizarre crimes.
Phoebe and Lauren got to visit the Duke Lemur Center in person – hear all about it in our latest episode of Criminal Plus. Use the promo code “JOINUS” for 20% off an annual membership. You’ll get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes o...
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May 30, 2025 • 24 mins
Two years ago, we started making Criminal Plus episodes — behind-the-scenes conversations featuring Phoebe and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohrer. Today, we’re sharing some of those conversations with you — about everything from Phoebe’s jangly bracelets to the reason a judge ordered a man to watch Bambi.
And we’re also sharing a promo code if you’d like to support our work and join our membership program. Use the code “JOINUS” fo...
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May 23, 2025 • 32 mins
“Anyone who went to Action Park understood you could get really messed up going there. It was part of why you wanted to go.”
Seth Porges made a documentary about Action Park, along with Chris Charles Scott. It’s called Class Action Park.
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May 16, 2025 • 35 mins
In the 1950s, a new television quiz show premiered called Twenty One. But the first episode was a disaster — so the producers decided to try something.
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May 9, 2025 • 36 mins
The night before she gave birth, Susan Horton had a salad for dinner. The next day, doctors told her she’d tested positive for opiates - and reported her to child welfare authorities.
This episode is from our friends at the Reveal podcast. Listen to a longer version here.
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May 2, 2025 • 34 mins
When Tabatha Trammell was 50 years old, she started studying to become a doula — a support person for pregnant women. Today, most of her clients are incarcerated. She says she always tells them her own story when she meets them: “I went down that same road. But I'm here today. And I'm going to tell you how to navigate this prison system.”
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April 25, 2025 • 30 mins
Not long into his job as prison superintendent, Frank Thompson had to prepare his staff to perform Oregon's first execution in three decades. They simulated each step of the process over and over and over.
This episode was first released in 2018.
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