Crimes of the Centuries

Crimes of the Centuries

Crime is so commonplace that it takes something particularly shocking to be labelled the “crime of the century.” Even so, there are a lot of cases that have earned the distinction. In each episode of Crimes of the Centuries, award-winning journalist Amber Hunt will examine a case that’s lesser known today but was huge when it happened. The cases explored span the centuries and each left a mark. Some made history by changing laws. Others were so shocking they changed society.

Episodes

S5 Ep23: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: Separating Fact from Fiction

August 18, 2025 • 53 mins
In 1981, 21-year-old Danny Hansford was shot and killed inside one of Savannah’s grandest mansions. The man who pulled the trigger, antiques dealer Jim Williams, claimed self-defense. What followed was a legal circus resulting in four high-profile trials. Then, less than a year later after the dust settled, Williams was dead. This is the case that inspired Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, the bestselling book that turn...
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S5 Ep22: The Green Bicycle Mystery

August 11, 2025 • 53 mins
Bella Wright was a shy, working-class woman whose life was cut short on a summer night in 1919, just short of her 22nd birthday. At first, her death looked like a tragic accident – until a single bullet found lodged in the dirt road changed everything. What followed was a century-long mystery involving an unshaven man on a distinctive green bicycle, a suspiciously dismantled frame dredged from a river, and a murder trial that ...
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S5 Ep21: Gun on the Ferry: The Ruin of Laura Fair

August 4, 2025 • 53 mins
Laura Fair wanted what many women in Gilded-Age San Francisco wanted: security, respectability, and a husband who told the truth. What she got instead was a years-long affair and a heap of public scorn. When a single gunshot rang out aboard a crowded ferry, it set off a national debate about morality, madness, and how far a woman could be pushed. Based on real letters, real lies, and a courtroom drama that captivated 19th cent...
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S5 Ep20: The Fox in the Henhouse: Klaus Fuchs and the Secret That Changed the World

July 28, 2025 • 54 mins
You’d think the guy helping build the deadliest weapon in history would be someone the Allies vetted carefully. You’d be wrong. Klaus Fuchs was a physicist, a refugee, and a trusted member of the Manhattan Project. He was also a Soviet spy. His quiet betrayal helped the USSR test its first atomic bomb years ahead of schedule—ending America’s monopoly on nuclear weapons and setting the stage for the Cold War. All in the name of...
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S5 Ep19: Karen Silkwood and the Price of Speaking Up

July 21, 2025 • 47 mins
In 1974, 28-year-old Karen Silkwood left her home with a binder full of evidence and a plan to blow the whistle on dangerous conditions at the plutonium plant where she worked. She never arrived. What followed was a national uproar, a swirl of conspiracy theories, and a battle over the truth that still echoes today.

"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past ...
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S5 Ep18: Reckoning at Penn State: The Jerry Sandusky Scandal

July 14, 2025 • 54 mins
Jerry Sandusky was a legend at Penn State University. As the right hand of head football coach Joe Paterno, he was known not only as an exceptional coach but also as a big-hearted philanthropist and advocate for troubled youth. So when a 2011 grand jury report exposed decades of abuse, the fallout was immeasurable, bringing to light a story of power, silence, and the cost of looking the other way.

"Crimes of the Centu...
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S5 Ep17: Faith Vs. Flag: How the Gobitis Case Tested the Limits of Religious Freedom

July 7, 2025 • 44 mins
In 1935, 12-year-old Lillian Gobitas and her little brother William were kicked out of their Pennsylvania public school — not for misbehaving, but for quietly refusing to salute the flag, which they believed went against their Jehovah’s Witness faith. Their dad sued, arguing the school had violated their right to religious freedom. But in a sweeping decision, the Supreme Court sided with the school, saying national unity outwe...
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The Murder of Phil Hartman

June 30, 2025 • 38 mins
Crimes Of The Centuries is dark again this week, so here is an episode that you might not have heard previously... or might just want to listen to again.

When news spread that a high-profile comedian was killed in a murder-suicide in 1998, the response was disbelief: Phil Hartman wasn't just famous for being funny. He was even better known for being a good-hearted guy. The shocking story behind the deaths of Hartman a...
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Guest Episode: The Wild Tale of Black Jack Ketchum

June 23, 2025 • 30 mins
While Crimes of the Centuries takes a brief summer break, enjoy a guest episode from Josh at The Wild West Extravaganza. This one’s a doozy: It’s the story of "Black Jack" Ketchum — a train robber whose criminal exploits made headlines across the American frontier. But it was his botched execution that really cemented his place in Wild West lore. This is one of those cases where the truth is not only stranger than fiction — it...
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S5 Ep16: The Siege of Sidney Street

June 16, 2025 • 49 mins
In late 1910 and early 1911, a band of impulsive Latvian radicals fleeing persecution in Russia unleashed a wave of violence in London that left three policemen dead and part of a quiet city block in ruins. The siege that followed would not only transform British law enforcement but also mark a turning point in media history, as cameras captured the chaos in real time.

"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab...
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S5 Ep15: The Repairman's Ruse: The Kidnapping of Alice Speed Stoll

June 9, 2025 • 40 mins
When Berry Stoll returned from work on Oct. 10, 1934, the scene greeting him was pure chaos: His maid was tied up, his wife was missing and a terrifying pool of blood covered one of the beds. Alice Speed Stoll had been kidnapped by a smooth-talking, well-dressed man who claimed to be a phone repairman. What followed was a tense and twisted saga of ransom demands, narrow escapes, and a desperate manhunt that captured the countr...
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S5 Ep14: Breach of Trust: Inside the Legendary Loomis Fargo Heist

June 2, 2025 • 40 mins
One Sunday morning in 1997, a security guard noticed the front fence at Loomis Fargo in Charlotte, North Carolina, was ajar. So was the warehouse door. And the vault inside was fitted with a suspicious time lock. When authorities finally opened the vault the next day, they found it completely empty, the target of one of the largest cash thefts in US history. The manhunt that followed would grip the nation as authorities raced ...
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S5 Ep13: Silenced in the South: Ruby McCollum and the Murder of Dr. Adams

May 26, 2025 • 43 mins
In 1952, Ruby McCollum left two of her children in her car as she casually walked into a doctor's office in Live Oak, Florida, and shot Dr. C. Leroy Adams — a respected white physician and newly elected state senator. But what seemed like a clear-cut case of murder over a disputed medical bill soon unraveled into a story of power, race, sexual violence, and silence in the Jim Crow South.

"Crimes of the Centuries" is ...
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S5 Ep12: The Stolen Cells and Silent Legacy of Henrietta Lacks

May 19, 2025 • 44 mins
When Henrietta Lacks discovered a tumor inside of her in 1951, she turned to Johns Hopkins Medical Center for help. They examined her cells and discovered two things: First, she had cervical cancer. And second, her cells, for reasons we still can't explain, multiplied at astonishing rates, allowing doctors and pharmaceutical companies to use them to conduct all sorts of valuable research. Without Lacks knowledge or consent, he...
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Presenting: Murder True Crime Stories

May 15, 2025 • 6 mins
Murder: True Crime Stories explores the depths of history's most notorious murders, like you've never heard before. Go beyond the crime scene as we search for the real story, and focus on the people impacted the most. Whether or not the case is solved, you'll come away with an understanding of why these stories need to be told.

Murder: True Crime Stories is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. New...
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S5 Ep11: Sex on the Moon: The Audacious Theft of Lunar Rocks

May 12, 2025 • 41 mins
A band of nerdy geology enthusiasts were sure the email they received in 2002 was a hoax: The unsolicited message said that its writer was in possession of moon rocks that he was willing to sell. But moon rocks were among the most valuable objects on earth and anyone who knew anything about NASA knew that not only was owning them illegal, but it was impossible. One email recipient reached out to the FBI and was instructed to p...
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S5 Ep10: Did Britain Hang an Innocent Man? The Murders at Rillington Place Part 2

May 5, 2025 • 39 mins
When 25-year-old Tim Evans was hanged for killing his wife and 14-month-old daughter in 1949, few outside of his family questioned whether justice had been done. After all, Evans had at one point confessed to the crimes. But during his trial he recanted, saying that a neighbor had killed his 20-year-old wife Beryl during a botched abortion attempt. It seemed a ludicrous attempt at diversion -- until that same neighbor was hims...
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S5 Ep9: John Reginald Christie and the Murders at Rillington Place

April 28, 2025 • 41 mins
In 1953, a horrific discovery was made behind some hastily hung wallpaper in a flat at 10 Rillington Place in London's Notting Hill neighborhood: The decomposing bodies of three women. Another body was found beneath floor boards, and two more skeletons were recovered from the backyard garden. Soon, a nationwide manhunt was under way for John Reginald Christie, a man author Kate Summerscale describes as "terrifyingly ordinary."...
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S5 Ep8: Journalist Spy: The Double Life of Pham Xuan An

April 21, 2025 • 45 mins
As American journalists worked to cover the Vietnam War, one of their colleagues proved a valuable asset: Pham Xuan An had been born in Vietnam, and was therefore able to help his coworkers navigate the ins and outs of an unfamiliar culture. His work was praised as detailed, empathetic and unbiased. It would be years later that the truth finally came out, revealing that the journalist was in fact a South Vietnamese spy whose a...
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S5 Ep7: Jack Kevorkian: Dr. Death or Champion of Choice?

April 14, 2025 • 49 mins
In the 1990s, Dr. Jack Kevorkian ignited a firestorm when he began helping to end the lives of people who said they were terminally ill. Over the years, he claimed to have assisted in the deaths of more than 130 people, all while challenging police and prosecutors who vowed to stop him. His first four trials ended in three acquittals and a mistrial, but as his antics grew more daring, so, too, did the legal system's fervor to ...
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