Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast
Serial killers. Gangsters. Gunslingers. Victorian-era murderers. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Each week, the Most Notorious podcast features true-life tales of crime, criminals, tragedies and disasters throughout history. Host Erik Rivenes interviews authors and historians who have studied their subjects for years. Their stories are offered with unique insight, detail, and historical accuracy.
Episodes
July 30, 2025 • 72 mins
Myra Maibelle Shirley, better known as Belle Starr, was one of the most notorious female outlaws of the Old West (if you believe period newspapers, anyway). My guest, bestselling and award-winning author Michael Wallis, made it his mission to tell the true story of Belle Starr, and in the process dispels many of the myths that surround her. He shares details of her colorful life and violent death, which many believe was committed b...
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July 23, 2025 • 111 mins
"Doctor" Robert Spears was arguably one of the greatest con artists of the twentieth century, and very likely a mass murderer. In thirty nine years of grift, he had 25 aliases, 28 arrests in 20 cities, and was imprisoned close to a dozen times. He performed, without any medical degree, abortions on countless women, and in 1959 tricked his best friend into taking his place on an airplane. That plane exploded in mid-air, killing 42 p...
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July 15, 2025 • 61 mins
My guest this week is Scott Ellsworth, author of Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America. He talks about President Lincoln's turbulent last year in office, the Confederate secret service's attempts to create chaos in the north, and John Wilkes Booth's ties to the Confederacy's spy network.
The author's website: https://www.scottellsworthauthor.com/
The aut...
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July 9, 2025 • 89 mins
In July of 1908 the body of twenty-year-old Hazel Drew was found floating in a mill pond in Upstate New York. Her death captured headlines across the nation and around the world, but after a whirlwind investigation lasting less than thirty days (despite a myriad of suspects), the District Attorney abruptly closed the case.
Joining me is Jerry Drake, author of "Hazel Was a Good Girl: Solving the Murder that Inspired Twin Peaks"....
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July 3, 2025 • 86 mins
(Original pub date: 6/16/21)
In November of 1912, a young woman named Ella Barham journeyed home, on her horse, to her family farm in Boone County, Arkansas, but never arrived. After her body was discovered, murdered and dismembered, suspicions quickly centered on a neighbor, Odus Davidson, who was rumored to have been in love with Ella, a love never returned.
My guest, Nita Gould, has a very personal connection to Ella, one ...
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June 30, 2025 • 82 mins
Clem Pellett grew up knowing very little about his grandfather, Clarence Pellett, who was murdered along Montana's iconic Hi-Line in April of 1951. Pellett's father had cut ties with the family, and Pellett didn't even know his grandfather's first name until he started investigating the case as an adult. Through extensive research over many years, Pellett uncovered the details of his grandfather's cold-blooded murder by a hitchh...
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June 23, 2025 • 94 mins
On the morning of September 5th, 1917, sixteen-year-old Beatrice Epler was found dead just steps from her home in Alma, Michigan. The investigation into her murder would soon entangle a brothel madam, a traveling theater owner, a local farmer, and a French-Canadian amateur detective.
My guest is Allie Seibert, author of Bloodstained: Exploring Michigan's Darkest Murders Forgotten By Time. She walks us through this unsolved my...
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June 16, 2025 • 86 mins
On May 2, 1963, Robert Killins, a former United Church minister, slaughtered every woman in his family but one. She (and her brother) lived to tell the story of what motivated a talented man who had been widely admired, a scholar and graduate from Queen’s University, to stalk and terrorize the women in his family for almost twenty years and then murder them.
Through extensive oral histories, Sharon Anne Cook and Margaret Carson pa...
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June 9, 2025 • 76 mins
On the morning of July 3, 1915, John Pierpont Morgan Jr., one of the most famous names in finance, was entertaining guests at his sprawling Long Island estate when the doorbell unexpectedly rang. An armed man forced his way inside. At the same time, authorities in Washington, DC, were investigating a shocking bombing at the US Capitol. While no one had been killed, the blast had destroyed the reception room, and DC citizens were on...
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June 2, 2025 • 70 mins
George Lowther was a mutineer and a pirate, one of the most prolific during the golden age of piracy. His first mate, Edward "Ned" Low, went on to establish himself as perhaps the most sadistic and depraved of all pirate captains. Virtually all popular sources specify Lowther's death being by suicide in 1723, while marooned on the small island of Blanquilla, off the coast of Venezuela.
While researching the War of Jenkins' Ear, hi...
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May 29, 2025 • 69 mins
(Original pub. date: 9/27/2018)
Catherine Pelonero, author of "Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and its Private Consequences", is my guest. She walks us through the murder of Kitty Genovese in Kew Gardens, New York in 1964 and its aftermath. The horrific crime is especially infamous because no one called police or stepped in to help, despite being witnessed by dozens of people.
Note: I normally post a link...
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May 27, 2025 • 61 mins
Charles Cowlam stands out as one of the most remarkable con artists of nineteenth-century America. He talked his way into receiving pardons from both President Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. Through deception, he secured a role investigating Lincoln’s assassination. He preyed on lonely widows, attempted to manipulate a Florida election, and created a secret society to steal money. His cons were as bold as they were relentles...
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May 19, 2025 • 71 mins
In November 1945, James Newton, a young World War II veteran, was shot four times—twice in the back—in his room at an Abingdon, Virginia boardinghouse owned by Helen Clark. She would soon stand trial for his murder, as speculation swirled about the true nature of their relationship. Was she a protective, motherly figure trying to prevent Jimmy from taking his own life, or had she killed him in a fit of jealousy?
Greg Lilly joins...
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May 12, 2025 • 68 mins
Much like the wheel, the boat, and the telephone, the axe is a transformative piece of technology―one that has been with us since prehistory. And just as early humans used the axe to chop down trees, hunt for food, and whittle tools, they also used it to murder. Over time, this particular use has endured: as the axe evolved over centuries to fit the needs of new agricultural, architectural, and social development, so have our letha...
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May 4, 2025 • 73 mins
The American sailing vessel Adriatic collided with the French steamship Le Lyonnais on November 2, 1856, off the coast of Nantucket in what can best be described as a maritime hit-and-run. Adriatic’s captain, Jonathan Durham, rendered no aid and left the passenger steamship to fend for herself. 114 people died in the collision and in the days that followed.
My guest is shipwreck hunter Jennifer N. Sellitti, author of "The Adriati...
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May 1, 2025 • 24 mins
Just in time for summer! This is an introduction and excerpt from the Slaycation Podcast, hosted by Kim and Adam "Tex" Davis and Jerry Kolber.
Pack your body bags for a darkly comic, true crime podcast that looks at murders, mysterious deaths and whodunits that happened while people were on vacation.
More here! https://www.slaycation.wtf/
Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/show/6m5al8OnkyVCunFq56qwRE
Appl...
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April 29, 2025 • 109 mins
(original pub date 7/19/23)
David "Stringbean" Akeman was a singer, clawhammer banjo player and an early Grand Ole Opry star, known for his lanky build and comedic personality. And as a cast member of the nationwide television show Hee-Haw, he was at the height of his popularity when he and his wife Estelle were murdered in their rural Tennessee home in November of 1973.
My guest this week is Professor Taylor Hagood, author o...
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April 26, 2025 • 57 mins
On July 24, 1964, twenty-four-year-old Matthew Kerry Smith disguised himself with a mask and a Beatle wig, hoisted a semi-automatic rifle, then held up a bank in North York, Ontario. The intelligent but troubled son of a businessman and mentally ill mother, Smith was a navy veteran with a young Indigenous wife and a hazy plan for violent revolution.
Outside the bank, Smith was confronted by Jack Blanc, a former member of the Cana...
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April 18, 2025 • 73 mins
The American government was faced with an unprecedented challenge: where to house the nearly 400,000 German prisoners of war plucked from the battlefield and shipped across the Atlantic. On orders from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Department of War hastily built hundreds of POW camps in the United States. Today, traces of those camps—which once dotted the landscape from Maine to California—have all but vanished. Forgotten, ...
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April 12, 2025 • 69 mins
Shortly before dusk on November 3, 1870, just as the ferryboat El Capitan was pulling away from its slip into San Francisco Bay, a woman clad in black emerged from the shadows and strode across the crowded deck. Reaching under her veil, she drew a small pistol and aimed it directly at a well-dressed man sitting quietly with his wife and children. The woman fired a single bullet into his chest. “I did it and I don’t deny it,” she sa...
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