Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast

On October 24, 1588, the city of Bologna, Italy was shaken when a knight named Paola Barbieri stabbed his wife Isabella to death with a sword. He then fled, dressed only in a nightshirt, with his sword in hand, eventually escaping the city. Authorities were torn about his motivation. Did he murder Isabella out of anger or jealousy? Or did he suffer from serious mental illness?My guest, Mònica Calabritto, addresses those questions in her book, "Murder and Madness on Trial: A Tale of True Crime from Early Modern Bologna."More about the author here: https://www.gc.cuny.edu/people/monica-calabrittoPurchase the book through it's publisher here: https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-09508-0.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a MoNo Encore interview. Original release date: 11/10/2020.On the morning of June 10, 1937, New York heiress Alice Parsons disappeared off the face of the earth. Investigators almost immediately suspected that Anna Kupryanova, the Russian housekeeper, and Alice's husband, William Parsons, knew more than they were letting on.My guest is former NYPD detective and Hot Zone Attribution specialist Steven C. Drielak, and his book is called "Long Island’s Vanished Heiress: The Unsolved Alice Parsons Kidnapping". He shares his research and personal theories about one of New York's greatest unsolved mysteries.The author's FB page: https://www.facebook.com/p/Steven-Drielak-100009174391095/Become a Most Notorious patron at: https://www.patreon.com/mostnotorious Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Best-selling author Margalit Fox returns to the show to talk about Marm Mandelbaum, an extraordinary woman who lived the classic rags to riches story, rising out of immigrant poverty and into wealth and power, but also extreme notoriety. She built her mid-19th century criminal empire by assembling some of the best shoplifters and burglars in the country and putting them to work. They stole millions of dollars worth of silk, jewelry and other valuables for her, which she would fence and sell at incredible profits.Her new book is called "The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum: The Rise and Fall of an American Organized-Crime Boss".More about the author and her work can be found here at her website: https://margalitfox.com/Watch her book trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ynn5koWzaA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Reno Gang is best known for being the first group of outlaws in history to rob a moving train, but their criminal enterprises stretched far beyond that. They were counterfeiters, thieves, safecrackers and murderers as well. Led by John and Frank Reno, they terrorized the town of Seymour, Indiana throughout the second half of the 1860s until they were finally brought down by both Alan Pinkerton and local vigilante groups.My guest this week is Janice Dickinson, author of " The Notorious Reno Gang: The Wild Story of the West's First Brotherhood of Thieves, Assassins, and Train Robbers."Visit the author's Amazon page for more about her books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Rachel-Dickinson/author/B0034NKTTC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the early 1900s, prior to World War I, New York City was a vortex of vice and corruption. On the Lower East Side, then the most crowded ghetto on earth, Eastern European Jews formed a dense web of crime syndicates. Gangs of horse poisoners and casino owners, pimps and prostitutes, thieves and thugs, jockeyed for dominance while their family members and neighbors toiled in the unregulated garment industry.But when the notorious murder of a gambler attracted global attention, a coterie of affluent German-Jewish uptowners decided to take matters into their own hands. Worried about the anti-immigration lobby and the uncertain future of Jewish Americans, the uptowners marshalled a strictly off-the-books vice squad led by an ambitious young reformer.The squad, known as the Incorruptibles, took the fight to the heart of crime in the city, waging war on the sin they saw as threatening the future of their community. Their efforts, however, led to unforeseen consequences in the form of a new mobster class who realized, in the country’s burgeoning reform efforts, unprecedented opportunities to amass power.My guest is journalist Dan Slater, author of "The Incorruptibles: A True Story of Kingpins, Crime Busters, and the Birth of the American Underworld".Dan' Slater's publisher page (with links to purchase the book): https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/dan-slater/the-incorruptibles/9780316427715Dan Slater on Twitter/X: https://x.com/bydanslaterDan Slater on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bydanslater Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the morning of May 16, 1922, a young man’s body was found on a desolate road in Westchester County. The victim was penniless ex-sailor Clarence Peters. Walter Ward, the handsome scion of the family that owned the largest chain of bread factories in the country, confessed to the crime as an act of self-defense against a violent gang of “shadow men,” blackmailers who extorted their victims’ moral weaknesses. From the start, one question defined the investigation: What scandalous secret could lead Ward to murder?My guest is author and historian James Polchin, whose latest book, "Shadow Men: The Tangled Story of Murder, Media, and Privilege That Scandalized Jazz Age America", is available to purchase in bookstores and online now.Visit the author's publisher page here: https://www.counterpointpress.com/books/shadow-men/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this mini MoNo interview, I chat with Mark Lee Gardner about the James Gang and their holdup of a Rock Island Railroad train in Missouri 143 years ago today. Two men were murdered during the robbery.Mark's website: https://songofthewest.com/My previous interviews with Mark:The Northfield Bank Raid: https://www.mostnotorious.com/2022/12/12/mono-classics-the-1876-northfield-bank-raid-by-the-james-younger-gang-parts-1-2/Billy the Kid: https://www.mostnotorious.com/2020/08/05/mono-classics-billy-the-kid-pat-garrett-w-mark-lee-gardner/Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and the Battle of the Little Bighorn: https://www.mostnotorious.com/2023/04/14/sitting-bull-crazy-horse-the-battle-of-the-little-bighorn-w-mark-lee-gardner/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm joined by former Scotland Yard detective Steven Keogh, who examines the Jack the Ripper case in his recent book, "Murder Investigation Team: Jack the Ripper". He applies current investigative techniques and uses his own experiences as a detective to revisit this very infamous series of murders.The author's website: https://stevekeogh.com/Options to purchase the book here: https://books2read.com/u/38Wo2w Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the early 1960s, two top gangsters, Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana, were hired by the CIA to kill Cuba’s Communist leader, Fidel Castro, only to wind up murdered themselves amidst Congressional hearings and a national debate about the JFK assassination.My guest, journalist Thomas Maier, is the author of "Mafia Spies: The Inside Story of the CIA, Gangsters, JFK, and Castro, " which will debut as a Paramount Plus docuseries on July 16. In this interview he talks about the plot to kill Castro, the moment when J Edgar Hoover learns about the assassination attempts, his thoughts on President Kennedy's assassination, the murders of Giancana and Roselli, and much more.The author's website: http://www.thomasmaierbooks.com/Buy the book on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Mafia-Spies-Inside-Gangsters-Castro/dp/151077890XWatch the Mafia Spies docuseries trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c3AgTFSNkk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this month's MoNo Encore episode, we revisit one of the strangest cases ever covered on this show, in my humble opinion.On October 24th, 1961, one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in Massachusetts history began when housewife and mother Joan Risch vanished from her home. Investigators were perplexed by a kitchen floor smeared with blood, a telephone receiver ripped from the wall and placed gently on the edge of a trash basket, and a bloodhound who traced her scent to the middle of her driveway. Later, drivers would report seeing someone resembling Joan stumbling along local highways, apparently dazed and injured.My guest, Stephen Ahern, is author of "A Kitchen Painted in Blood: The Unsolved Disappearance of Joan Risch". He teamed up with a retired FBI profiler and a cold case detective to try and piece together a possible explanation of what happened to Joan that fateful day.More about the author and his book here: https://expositbooks.com/product/a-kitchen-painted-in-blood/Buy it through Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Kitchen-Painted-Blood-Unsolved-Disappearance/dp/1476681848/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices