In October 1949, aspiring Hollywood actress Jean Spangler left her Los Angeles apartment and never returned. Despite a major police investigation and decades of speculation,Jean Spangler was never found. In this episode, we examine the evidence behind one of Hollywood’s most enduring unsolved disappearances.

Source Materials

Lewis, Jon. Hard-Boiled Hollywood: Crime and Punishment in Postwar Los Angeles. University of California Press, 2017.

Charles River Editors. The Disappearance of Jean Spangler: The History of One of Hollywood’s Most Enduring Mysteries. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016.

Gilmore, John. Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia Murder. Amok Books, revised edition.

Lyons, Arthur. “The Mysterious Disappearance of Jean Spangler.” Palm Springs Life.

Patmore, Neil. “Inside The Haunting Hollywood Mystery Of Aspiring Actress Jean Spangler’s Disappearance.” All That’s Interesting.

Contemporary reporting from the Los Angeles Times archive.

In 1922, six people were murdered at the remote Hinterkaifeck farm in rural Bavaria. Despite an extensive investigation, the killer was never identified. This episode examines the historical context, evidence, and enduring mystery behind one of Germany’s most famous unsolved crimes.

Source Materials

Peter Leuschner, Hinterkaifeck: Germany’s Most Mysterious Murder Case.

Bill James & Rachel McCarthy James, The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery. Scribner, 2017.

Jack Rosewood, True Crime Stories, Vol. 4 (2017).

Katie Serena, “The Gruesome True Story Of The Unsolved Hinterkaifeck Murders,” All That’s Interesting, August 3, 2023 (updated October 20, 2023).
https://allthatsinteresting.com/hinterkaifeck-murders

Sonya Vatomsky, “The Chilling Story of the Hinterkaifeck Killings, Germany’s Most Famous Unsolved Crime,” Mental Floss, July 24, 2023.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/502044/chilling-story-hinterkaifeck-killings-germanys-most-famous-unsolved-crime

Rob Shapiro, “How The Hinterkaifeck Tragedy Remains Germany’s Biggest Unsolved Case.”

Tharun, “The Hinterkaifeck Murders: My Personal Theories as an Aspiring Forensic Investigator,” Medium.
https://medium.com/@tharun318106/the-hinterkaifeck-murders-my-personal-theories-as-an-aspiring-forensic-investigator-5627395ce924

If you’d like, I can also give you a shortened “mobile-friendly” version (many podcasters now use one optimized for Spotify’s collapsed show notes).Historical True Crime | Historical true crime podcast | Patreon

In 1857, a prominent New York dentist was found murdered in his Bond Street office. Suspicion fell on Emma Cunningham, the widow who ran the boardinghouse and claimed to be his wife — and heir. Her acquittal did not end the scandal. Adisputed marriage, a claimed pregnancy, and a staged birth kept the city riveted and raised new questions about truth, reputation, and inheritance in mid-19th-century New York.

Source Materials:

Duke, Franklin. Celebrated Criminal Cases of America. San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Company, 1910.

Serratore, Angela. “The Murder of Dr. Harvey Burdell and the Scandal That Gripped 1857 New York.” Smithsonian Magazine.

Roberts, Sam. “The Murder That Gripped Bond Street.” The New York Times.

The New-York Daily Times (1857), contemporary coverage of the Burdell murder and Emma Cunningham trial.

Contemporary inquest and trialreporting in New York newspapers, 1857.

In 1629, the Dutch merchant ship Batavia wrecked on a remote reef off Western Australia. What followed was not just a struggle for survival, but a calculated campaign of violence that left more than one hundred people dead. Drawing on survivor testimony and historical records, this episode examines one of the most disturbing episodes in maritime history.

Source Materials

Pelsaert, Francisco. The Journal of Francisco Pelsaert. 1629.

Dash, Mike. Batavia’s Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History’s Bloodiest Mutiny. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2002.

Drake-Brockman, Henrietta. Voyage to Disaster. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1964.

Edwards, Hugh. Islands of Angry Ghosts. New York: William Morrow, 1966.

Western Australian Museum — Batavia Collection
https://museum.wa.gov.au/

This episode was researched using both primary historical documents and modern scholarly works.

The 1612 Pendle witch trials remain among the most famous in English history. What began with a single accusation soon expanded into a prosecution that would send ten people to the gallows.

Source Materials

Potts, Thomas. The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster (1613)

Almond, Philip C. The Lancashire Witches: A Chronicle of Sorcery and Death on Pendle Hill.

Poole, Robert (ed.). The Lancashire Witches: Histories and Stories.

Sharpe, James. Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in Early Modern England.

Gibson, Marion. Witchcraft and Society in England and America, 1550–1750

Gaskill, Malcolm. Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy.

In 1937, three girls left home for a day at the park and never returned. Their disappearance sparked a frantic search, a shocked community, and a murder case that moved with remarkable speed. This episode traces the investigation intothe deaths of Melba Everett, Madeline Everett, and Jeanette Stephens, the arrest of Albert Dyer, and a trial shaped almost entirely by his confessions.

Everett, Pamela. Little Shoes: The Sensational Depression-Era Murders That BecameAmerica’s First Celebrity Crime. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2018.

People v. Dyer, 9 Cal. 2d 317 (Cal. Sup. Ct. 1938).

“Three Little Girls.” Time, July 12, 1937.

Contemporary newspaper reporting, including coverage from the Daily Breeze and Los Angeles–area papers (1937).

In September 1907, Emily Dimmock was found murdered in her rented rooms in Camden Town, her throat cut while she slept. Known to some as “Phyllis,” she lived a double life in Edwardian London, moving between respectability and survival.

This episode explores Emily’s final days, the trial that followed, andwhy the Camden Town Murder remains unsolved more than a century later.

Source Materials

Napley, Sir David. The Camden Town Murder. In Great Murder Trials of the Twentieth Century. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson / Orion.

Barber, John. The Camden Town Murder.

Barber, John. “The Camden Town Murder.” Ripperologist, no. 44 (December 2002). Reprinted at Casebook.org.

Grant, Thomas. Court Number One: The Old Bailey, the Trials and Scandals. London: John Murray, 2019.

Oates, Jonathan. Unsolved Murders in Victorian and Edwardian London. Barnsley: Wharncliffe, 2007.

Melville, Elizabeth. “The Camden Town Murder.” Medium.com.

Tilstra, Elizabeth. “A Killer in London: The Camden Town Murder.” The Line-Up.

Contemporary newspaper coverage including The News of the World, Illustrated Police News, and The Penny Illustrated Paper (1907).

In 1799, Elma Sands vanished from a New York boardinghouse. Her body was later found in a well, and the trial that followed — defended by Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr — left more questions than answers. This episode examines the Manhattan Well murder and the limits of justice in early America.

Source Materials

Coleman, William. The Trial of Levi Weeks; or, The Manhattan Well Mystery. New York: Printed for the author, 1800.

Kleiger, Estelle Fox. The Trial of Levi Weeks: Sex, Seduction, and Murder in the Early Republic. Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1989.

American State Trials: Being a Collection of the Most Interesting Criminal Trials Which Have Ever Occurred in the United States. Vol. 1. New York: Printed andpublished by G. & C. & H. Carvill, 1849.

Murder by Gaslight: A Victorian Anthology of True Crime

The Paris Review —“The Well on Spring Street,” Angela Serratore

“Death in the Manhattan Well.” Crime Magazine. https://www.crimemagazine.com

New York Gazette and General Advertiser. New York, various issues, 1799–1800.

The New-York Daily Advertiser. New York, various issues, 1799–1800.