Forgotten Felonies
Forgotten Felonies revisits historical crimes that were forgotten—or remembered incorrectly. It’s tempting, looking backward, to fill in the gaps with conclusions that feel obvious now. But that isn’t how history works. Through original newspaper reporting, period advertisements from the years the crimes occurred, and a blend of forensic psychology and genealogical research, each episode restores context to cases history left behind—asking not only what happened, but why.
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Episodes
51 episodes
Pearl Bryan, Part 1: The Headless Woman of Fort Thomas
In January 1896, 23-year-old Pearl Bryan boarded a train bound for Indianapolis... and never came home.When her body was discovered in northern Kentucky a few days later, investigators didn't even know who the victim was. But once they u...
The Joyce Children: A Mystery in Bussey Woods - A Fun-Sized Felony
In June of 1865, fourteen-year-old Isabella Joyce and her twelve-year-old brother John packed a picnic basket, visited their grandmother, and set out for a summer afternoon in the woods outside Boston.They never returned.What foll...
Murder by Fork: A Tragedy at Suppertime - A Fun-Sized Felony
A serving fork isn't supposed to be a murder weapon.In 1911, a Sunday evening argument in a Pennsylvania boarding house ended with one man dead and his wife under arrest for murder. But conflicting newspaper accounts soon turned my resea...
Halsey Coon and the House of Fire - A Fun-Sized Felony
A respected fire captain. A woman dying from horrific burns. A small Connecticut town searching for answers.In this Fun-Sized Felony, Monica pieces together a forgotten case from scattered newspaper accounts dating back to 1842. What she...
William Hooper Young: Murder, Madness, and the Morris Canal
In September 1902, the body of Annie Pulitzer was discovered in New Jersey's Morris Canal, weighted down and hidden from view. The investigation quickly led police to William Hooper Young, grandson of famed Mormon leader Brigham Young and a man...
The Tragic Affair at 2305 Brookside Avenue - A Fun-Sized Felony
Dr. Charles M. Clayton was having a great day... until he came home for lunch.Over the next few months he would shoot a man, face a murder charge, suffer a nervous collapse, accidentally hit a teenager with his car, paint the inside of a...
Jack Vincent: Professional Bummer of the Western Frontier - A Fun-Sized Felony
Jack Vincent was a stagecoach driver, prospector, practical joker, hotel deadbeat, prison escapee, alleged murderer, and—according to one newspaper—a professional bummer.In 1882, Vincent shot his brother-in-law, steamboat mate John Westf...
Ellsworth Kelley and the Jones-Murray Gang - Part 2
By 1925, the Jones Brothers Gang had changed. Dewey Jones was no longer part of the outlaw life, Milam Jones had vanished, and Oregon Jones was back in the Oregon State Penitentiary ready to cause more trouble. After the deadly prison break tha...
Ellsworth Kelley and the Jones Brothers Gang - Part 1
Ellsworth Kelley became tangled up with the notorious Jones Brothers Gang — a crew of young outlaws, including the elusive Oregon Jones and 20-year-old escape artist Tom Murray, whose lives became a cycle of burglaries, highway robberies, priso...
The Curious Disappearance of Frank E. Clark - A Fun-Sized Felony
In the fall of 1910, husband and father Frank E. Clark vanished from Oakland, California without a trace.His wife was left stranded in a city where she knew no one. Newspapers across California carried the story of the missing husband, w...
Alfred Knapp: Five Murders and a Confession
A woman’s body floats more than 150 miles downriver before finally being recovered near New Albany, Indiana. By the time she is identified as Hannah Goddard Knapp, her husband—Alfred Knapp—has already confessed to murdering her.But Hanna...
Bertha Boronda: the Mistress of Mayhem - A Fun-Sized Felony
Bertha “Bessie” Boronda attacked her husband, Narciso "Frank" Boronda, in the middle of the night in their San Jose home in 1907.The newspapers called it a violent, deliberate mutilation. The court charged her with mayhem—a crime defined...
Frank Caruso and the Murder of Dr. Casper Pendola - A Fun-Sized Felony
In February of 1927, a Brooklyn father watched his six-year-old son struggle to breathe as diphtheria tightened its grip. Desperate for help, Frank Caruso called for doctors, begged for treatment, and clung to the hope that his boy might surviv...
Jesse McClure: What Sarah Didn't See Coming
Years before this double homicide, there were already signs—clear, documented, and deeply concerning. Sarah saw them. Sarah lived with them. Sarah warned the authorities that he was going to kill her.But Jesse didn’t kill her.Even...
200 Feet From Home: the Murder of Florence Kane - A Fun-Sized Felony
In 1925, 29-year-old Florence Kane stepped off a subway in Brooklyn after a night out with friends. She called her mother to say she would be home in 30 minutes.In the final stretch of just 6 blocks, the unthinkable happened; Florence ne...
Edmund Creffield: Revenge of the Brides
This is the third and final episode in our Edmund Creffield series.By the time Edmund Creffield lay dead on a Seattle sidewalk, it should have been over. The prophet was gone; the spell should have been broken. The story should ...
Edmund Creffield: The Bride of Christ Cult
This is the second episode following Edmund Creffield and the cult he began in Corvallis, OR, after her arrived in late 1902.In this episode, he was finally caught.After months in hiding, Edmund Creffield is pulled from beneath a ...
The Iverson Children Tragedy (1903) - A Fun-Sized Felony
On a quiet Sunday in October of 1903, ten-year-old Hoga Iverson noticed something wasn’t right.His sister had gone inside… and never came back out.What followed was a chain of events that no child should ever have to carry: a trai...
Edmund Creffield: The Rise of the Army of Holiness in Corvallis, Oregon
In the early 1900s, a young German preacher arrived in Corvallis, Oregon with a message he believed came directly from God.Within weeks, he had gathered a devoted circle of followers who called themselves God’s Anointed. Others had a dif...
Agostino Izzo: The Day the Music Stopped — A Fun-Sized Felony
In the Izzo household, music filled every corner of the home. Agostino Izzo had once played in the Seneca Falls Italian Band and worked as a music teacher, passing his love of music on to his children. Several would go on to perform in orchestr...
What Jane Saw: An Intergenerational Family Tragedy in Pennsylvania (1909–1938) - A Fun-Sized Felony
On July 17, 1938, ten people were living in two small rooms above the Broadway Inn in Leechburg, Pennsylvania. By sunrise, three were dead and seven children were orphaned.In 1909, a young girl watched her father terrorize a Pennsylvania...
James H Coyner (Alonzo Robinson): Two names, one rope.
On January 12, 1935, Amelia Earhart landed safely in Oakland, California after her historic solo flight across the Pacific. The nation celebrated progress, courage, and modern aviation.That same day, in a Mississippi post office, a man w...
Gone in a Moment: The Disappearance of Winifred Byrne — A Fun-Sized Felony
In November of 1913, three-year-old Winifred Byrne vanished from outside her family’s home on West 38th Street in New York City. Her father had looked away for just a moment—and that was all it took.What happened during the four days Win...
Emily Antone and the Calls That Went Unanswered — A Fun-Sized Felony
In July of 1912, Emily Antone—a 38-year-old Indigenous woman—arrived at a house in Middleport, Ontario, carrying a trunk and plans to start over. She never left alive.This Fun-Sized Felony examines the murder of Emily Antone, the failure...
John Heslop and the Case That Never Closed
In the early hours of January 27, 1891, John Heslop was murdered inside his home near Ancaster, Ontario. He was a respected township clerk, a longtime pioneer in the area, and a man whose death sent shockwaves through the surrounding countrysid...