Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast

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

416: Nazi Germany’s Bungled Operation Condor w/ Gavin Whitehead

December 3, 2025 • 57 mins
In 1942, two Abwehr German agents, including Johannes Eppler, slipped into Cairo to gather intelligence for Rommel’s desert campaign, getting help from local allies like the famous dancer Hekmet Fahmy and Anwar Sadat. Despite their efforts to infiltrate British circles, the whole operation eventually fell apart once Allied intelligence caught on. My guest, once again, is Gavin Whitehead, creator of The Art of Crime Podcast. His si...
Mark as Played

415: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald w/ John U. Bacon

November 26, 2025 • 55 mins
November 10, 2025, marked the fiftieth anniversary of the sinking of the freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald during a vicious Lake Superior storm. All 29 crew members were lost, a tragedy later memorialized in Gordon Lightfoot’s iconic song. My guest is bestselling author John U. Bacon, who shares details from his new book, "The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald". The author's website: https://johnubacon.c...
Mark as Played

414: The Martha Wise Murders w/ Rod Kackley

November 20, 2025 • 54 mins
In the winter of 1924-1925, quiet Medina County, Ohio, was shaken to its core. Martha Wise, an ordinary farm widow with an extraordinary obsession, slipped arsenic into her family’s food and water. Three of her relatives were dead, dozens more gravely ill, and a rural community was gripped by fear. What followed was a murder investigation and trial unlike anything the Midwest had ever seen. Was Martha a cold-blooded killer, or (...
Mark as Played

MoNo Encore: The Murder of President James Garfield w/ Candice Millard

November 15, 2025 • 59 mins
Original Pub Date: 1/14/19 On July 2nd, 1881, a disappointed and mentally unstable office-seeker named Charles Guiteau shot President James A. Garfield in a Washington D.C. train station. Over the next weeks, Garfield would linger, bedridden, as infection set in, caused by poor medical treatment, and America would wait with bated breath over whether their beloved president would survive. Meanwhile, Guiteau, the most hated man in A...
Mark as Played

413: Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday & Tombstone w/ Mark Lee Gardner

November 12, 2025 • 80 mins
Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were two complicated men whose steadfast friendship became one of the legendary relationships of the American West. Both were flawed, and often on uncertain moral ground, yet their bond carried them through the violent world of frontier justice, culminating in a deadly conflict with the Clanton-McLaury gang in Tombstone, Arizona. It's a story of two very different men who became linked forever by circums...
Mark as Played

412: The Killing of William Woodward w/ Jerry Aylward

November 5, 2025 • 69 mins
In the early hours on a rainy autumn night in 1955, on a lavish country estate in Oyster Bay Cove, esteemed New York socialite Ann Woodward fired both barrels of her custom-made shotgun into the head of her husband, multimillionaire William J. “Billy” Woodward Jr., killing him. She mistook him for a notorious prowler who preyed on the privileged class. At least that was what the official reports stated. The police focused on catchi...
Mark as Played

411: The Murder of Zoya Fyodorova w/ Chris Pouy

October 28, 2025 • 86 mins
My guest is Chris Pouy, who shares an astonishing true story of love, betrayal, and murder on this latest episode of Most Notorious. His grandmother, Zoya Fyodorova, was a celebrated Russian actress who fell in love with an American naval officer, Jackson Tate, in 1945. It was a forbidden romance that led to the birth of Chris’s mother, Victoria. Zoya was imprisoned for nearly a decade before reuniting with her daughter, who later ...
Mark as Played

The Mysterious Death of Meriwether Lewis - Southern Gothic

October 25, 2025 • 36 mins
Just off the old Natchez Trace, in the quiet woods of Tennessee, stands a broken marble column marking the grave of Meriwether Lewis. The monument was meant to honor one of America’s greatest explorers, but its shattered form also reflects a life cut short under circumstances that remain unsolved more than two centuries later. In 1804, Lewis and Clark led the Corps of Discovery across thousands of miles of uncharted wilderness. Th...
Mark as Played

410: The 1856 Dublin Railway Murder w/ Thomas Morris

October 22, 2025 • 73 mins
In November 1856, Dublin was shaken by the murder of George Little, chief cashier at the Broadstone railway terminus. He was found in his office, beaten and with his throat cut, thousands of pounds worth of gold and silver left untouched and the door locked. The investigation gripped the public, filled with twists and unusual developments, including a phrenologist who later inserted himself into the main suspect's life. In this ep...
Mark as Played

MoNo Encore: The Car Barn Murders w/ Karen Smith

October 16, 2025 • 72 mins
(Orig pub date 8/15/23) In the early morning of January 21st, 1935 two employees of the Capital Transit Company in Chevy Chase, Maryland were cold-bloodedly gunned down. One of the men murdered was my guest's great-great uncle Emory Smith. As the police investigated the list of compelling suspects grew, but a powerful cover-up appeared to be in play, ultimately preventing the perpetrators from facing justice.  Former forensic det...
Mark as Played

409: The Scientist & the Serial Killer w/ Lise Olsen

October 9, 2025 • 89 mins
In "The Scientist and the Serial Killer: The Search for Houston’s Lost Boys", investigative journalist Lise Olsen tells the gripping true-crime story behind the “Lost Boys” murders in 1970s Houston, when more than two dozen teenage boys were murdered at the hands of Dean Corll, nicknamed the “Candy Man”, and his young accomplices. Through years of investigation, research and interviews, Olsen follows forensic anthropologist Sharo...
Mark as Played

408: The Murder of Cecelia Gullivan w/ Jeffrey L. Amestoy

September 29, 2025 • 65 mins
In November 1926, Cecelia Gullivan, treasurer of the Cone Automatic Machine company of Windsor, Vermont, was brutally killed in her home. Local police quickly arrested Cone Automatic machinist John Winters on suspicion of the crime, and the trial that followed was sensational and swift. Convicted of murder, Winters’ appeal brought in an unexpected ally: America’s most famous defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, who took the case a...
Mark as Played

407: The Thames Torso Murders w/ Sarah Bax Horton

September 24, 2025 • 62 mins
Victorian London is often remembered for the Ripper murders, yet at the same time another equally chilling series of slayings unfolded. Between 1887 and 1889, the dismembered bodies of four women appeared along the Thames. The river itself became the killer’s cover, its tides and hidden corners serving as a macabre dumping ground. Overshadowed by the Ripper’s reign of terror, the Thames Torso Murders remain one of England's darkest...
Mark as Played

406: The Murder of Jujube Heiress Ruth Quinn w/ Taylor Kiland

September 17, 2025 • 57 mins
The small Southern California island of Coronado rarely makes news for violent crime. But in the spring of 1975, World War II widow and retired librarian Ruth Quinn was murdered, execution-style, in her cottage. Her death sent a shock wave through the community. The granddaughter of Jujubes and Jujyfruits creator Henry Heide, Ruth was found fully clothed with her shoes on, in her bed, dead from two gunshot wounds. To this day, her ...
Mark as Played

MoNo Encore: The Murder of Dr. W.D. Broadhurst w/ Patrick Gallagher

September 13, 2025 • 75 mins
(Orig pub date: 2/15/22) In October of 1946, a chiropractor and rancher named Willis "W.D." Broadhurst was beaten with a wrench and finished off with a shotgun on a lonely eastern Oregon road. Investigators would soon accuse his wife Gladys of plotting the doctor's murder with the help of his young cowhand and her lover, Alvin Williams. Stunning details of her deception would be revealed during the trial, including accusations tha...
Mark as Played

405: A History of Eugenics in America w/ Mark A. Torres

September 10, 2025 • 67 mins
In the early twentieth century, eugenics captivated scientists and the public alike, giving researchers license to exploit the infirm, the mentally ill, prisoners, Native communities and many others considered "defective" or "feebleminded" under the guise of genetics. At its center stood the Eugenics Record Office in Cold Spring Harbor, directed by Charles Davenport from 1910 to 1939. From this Long Island building emerged policies...
Mark as Played

404: Gunfighter Clay Allison w/ Donna Blake Birchell

September 3, 2025 • 64 mins
Clay Allison was both liked and loathed in his lifetime, embodying the contradictions of the American frontier. He could show moments of kindness for the downtrodden, but also carried deep hatred for Northerners and Black people. Dangerously unpredictable, he was capable of generosity one moment and chilling violence the next, a quality that made him as frightening as he was fascinating. His legacy is forever stained by his acts of...
Mark as Played

403: The Madman of Crystal Beach w/ M.F. Gross

August 27, 2025 • 83 mins
In the sultry summer of 1949, a sleepy Florida beach town was rocked to its core. A brutal home invasion, a shocking murder, and a desperate, month-long manhunt captivated and terrified an entire region. At the center of the storm was John Calvin “Rastus” Russell, a cunning ex-con and former asylum patient who unleashed a wave of fear unlike anything the Gulf Coast had ever seen. My guest is M.F. Gross, author of the recently pu...
Mark as Played

402: The Reno Redfield Heist w/ Gavin Schmitt

August 20, 2025 • 63 mins
The 1952 burglary of eccentric multi-millionaire LaVere Redfield’s mansion in Reno, Nevada was the largest of its time, but also a comedy of errors. "Masterminded" by a French-Canadian woman with a questionable relationship to Redfield, it also included a failed safecracker and a crew of Italian-American hoodlums from the Milwaukee underworld. My guest is historian, author and podcaster Gavin Schmitt, and he shares details f...
Mark as Played

401: The First Forensic Hanging w/ Summer Strevens

August 13, 2025 • 55 mins
The First Forensic Hanging: The Toxic Truth That Killed Mary Blandy by Summer Strevens tells the story of Mary Blandy, executed in 1752 for poisoning her father Frances Blandy with arsenic. Her trial was the first in Britain to use toxicology as evidence in an arsenic poisoning case, marking a turning point in forensic history. Drawing on period newspapers and court records, Strevens unpacks the trial, the intense public fascinati...
Mark as Played

Popular Podcasts

    Dateline NBC

    Dateline NBC

    Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

    Are You A Charlotte?

    Are You A Charlotte?

    In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.

    Stuff You Should Know

    Stuff You Should Know

    If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

    The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

    The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

    The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.

    Crime Junkie

    Crime Junkie

    Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.

Advertise With Us
Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

Explore

iHeart

Live Radio

Podcasts

Artist Radio

Exclusives

News

Features

Events

Contests

Photos

Information

About

Advertise

Blog

Brand Guidelines

Contest Guidelines

Subscription Offers

Jobs

Get the App

Automotive

Home

Mobile

Wearables

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.