Episode 147

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Spider Attic Ghost Killer: The truly bizarre tale of a man who stalked an elderly couple by living in their attic, sneaking down to forage meals from their fridge.

The Texas Candybar Murder: The justice of the peace called it suicide, but others question how the young mother-to-be came to shoot herself in the back of the head.

The Nurse and Her Nagging Auntie: A botched suicide in which the suicide is not the person who ends up dead.

The Dissection of Antoine DuBlanc: The story of an immigrant who plots a murder before he even gets off the boat. He was from France. Or Switzerland. Or somewhere like that.

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 Episode 280 is a reading of "The Black Negligee Murder" By Frederic Holmes

Adapted from True Detective, v.43 no.1

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There’s a lot going on in this story. The seams show in the author’s reporting as he occasionally allows glimpses into his process, but at the same time, he makes it seem like he’s telling story from the point of view of the bad guy for most of the first two thirds of the narrative. The really cool nerdy part for me as a writer and a fan of pulp, is that you can hear the author’s disdain and sympathy both for the character as well as his determination to be fair and to let the story unfold no matter how disagreeable he may find it. So this tells me that he might have had a frank, lengthy, detailed interview with Dahlbender, was maybe even charmed by him a little, just as Rose Whitmore was, but also repulsed by his plotting and despicable actions. Still, the author seems to get in Dahlbender’s head and lets him have his say, but his self-pity doesn’t make his actions any less reprehensible.

 I checked with some of the newspaper articles of the day, and this story seems to be sticking to the gist of what reporting I found. Dahlbender was quite contrite when he was caught and his confession seemingly heart-felt. True crime magazines have a terrible reputation for not being totally committed to the “true” in the interest of sensationalizing the stories. The do typically veer from newspaper journalism in a lot of ways, such as inventing dialogue and giving people intentions they can’t possibly know, but I have found them to be relatively reliable, at least as reliable as daily newspaper reporting, as far as the general facts of the case go. Before I share a story from the old pulps, I always do at least a cursory check against newspaper reporting to make sure there really was such a case and that the basic facts are accurate if not the details. There’s a big difference between a true story and a story based on a true story, and I try to lean toward the former in my curation. I’ve got some really well-told stories in my back pocket that I can’t yet prove their veracity, mainly because they’re about really old cases and I don’t have access to the right archives to give adequate confirmation. At least not yet. I’ll keep them in my pocket for now.

I’ve known some guys who did this kind of magazine work, and they were always meticulous in their reporting and had an advantage of time that daily newspaper reporters don’t have. This story was written three years after the trial and covers the case not only from the reporter’s and the perpetrator’s points of view, but the last third switches over to the police investigation, which is usually the sole perspective in most pulp stories. So I believe the author did his homework for us and presents us with an interesting, somewhat sympathetic portrait of a sleazy opportunist.



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Episode 252 tells two stories of when the wheels of justice had a blow-out and people were convicted of crimes they didn't commit.

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"Uncle Amos Dreams a Dream," by Edmund Pearson, the story of two brothers accused of murder after the discovery of two clipped toenails.

"Twenty-Three Years Skidoo: What Was Justice In This Case," by Peter Levins, about how a deathbed confession made liars out of a whole bunch of witnesses and law enforcement officials.

More stories from Edmund Pearson, True Crime Pioneer

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The Kidnapping Of Brooke L. Hart

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Mob rule threatens the city of San Jose, California in Episode 279 when the scion of a beloved wealthy family, the owners of the town’s biggest department store, is kidnapped by a pair of opportunistic thugs. When the young man’s body is recovered from the waters of the San Francisco Bay, the crowd gathers around the Santa Clara County jail, and the governor of California lets popular justice take its course.

More stories of Mobs & Riots

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The Tri-State Head and Hands Murder Plot

The cast of characters in Episode 147 includes a previously convicted murderer who works as a driver and a “sort of secretary” for an eccentric former opera singer, three thugs that he met in prison, and a fire captain who often bragged of his success in the stock market after his retirement, amassing a fortune of more than $2 million (in today’s money). The inept plot to murder for his papers covers three states and a nationwide manhunt.

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More Manhunts

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Episode 233.

"The Case Of The Smoking Corpse" By Peter Levins. When a young man stumbles upon a pair of corpses in a park, police not only solve a murder, but break up a caper to rid all of the banks in Indianapolis of their cash. And it all starts with a clue from a horseshoe.

"A Clue At The Kitchen Window: A Strangulation in Apartment 16" By Quincy Carlton. A young man discovers a young girl he just picked up dead in her apartment. He has an alibi and there are many leads to follow, but the young man's story doesn't sit right with some of the detectives on the case.

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The Approximately 55 Wives of Johann Hoch

Episode 148 tells the unlikely story of a German immigrant who managed to wed dozens of women, mostly widows that he met through personal ads in German newspapers in several American cities. Soon as he could get his hands on their money, he’d run. Sometimes, his cons wouldn’t work, and he’d resort to murder.

Theme Music by Dave Sams “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from the Peer Gynt Suite by The Musopen Orchestra 

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More Bluebeard Stories

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Episode 278

Celibate Farmer Ruins The Romance

So what happens when a bachelor farmer is determined that his 52-year-old sister stay a spinster and she falls in love with the farm hand? Nothing good, you can bet on that, especially when the bachelor farmer discovers the suitor slinking around his house. I found this story interesting not only for the unusual disposal of the body, but also for the colorful people with names that sound like they came from a Saturday Night Live sketch or a Coen Brothers movie.

Culled from the historic pages of the Wisconsin State Journal and other newspapers of the era.

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Episode 163: Magazine #13

"The Man Who Owned Manhattan" is the story of a determined private detective who sets out to solve one of the classic con game and match wits with "the man with an educated laugh."

"Love And Money: Two Motives," a tale from the 1870s about a blackmail scheme that goes way over the top.

"Mister Bravo's Burgandy" by Edmund Pearson is the scandalous tale of a widow, her doctor, her bosom companion, and her beleaguered second husband.

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The Atrocities Of Albert Fish

I'D TURN BACK IF I WERE YOU!!!

Episode 191 is without a doubt the vilest case you'll ever hear on this program because I don't think I could find a worse one if I tried. There's a lot of evil discussed here: torture, cannibalism, and more. Consider this your trigger warning: I'd turn back if I were you! Or at least put the kids to bed and plug in your ear buds. Keep this between us.

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The Murder Of Mary Phagan

Episode 183 tells of one of the most infamous cases of an innocent man wrongly accused. When a teenage factory girl is found dead in the basement of an Atlanta pencil manufacturer, blame falls on the mild-mannered Jewish superintendent of the plant, and the jury takes the word of a drunken janitor. It’ll take 70 years for the truth to come out.

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