Serial killers. Gangsters. Gunslingers. Victorian-era murderers. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Each week, the Most Notorious podcast features true-life tales of crime, criminals, tragedies and disasters throughout history. Host Erik Rivenes interviews authors and historians who have studied their subjects for years. Their stories are offered with unique insight, detail, and historical accuracy.
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Oct 1, 2026 · 1:04:48
There has been lots of buzz recently about Netflix's gory new series Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, and Cara Robertson, author of "The Trial of Lizzie Borden", joins me once…
Sep 28, 2026 · 1:22:40
(Orig Pub Date 7/19/22) In anticipation of a new interview with Cara, mostly about the recent Netflix Series, here is my original conversation with her about the notorious case.…
Sep 23, 2026 · 1:29:18
On August 25, 1938, twenty-five-year-old Ben Dickson and his fifteen-year-old wife Stella Mae robbed the Corn Exchange Bank in Elkton, South Dakota, making off with $2,187.64.…
Sep 20, 2026 · 1:27:56
(Orig Pub Date 11/16/2023) Aaron Kosminski is one of the more well known suspects in the Whitechapel murders. Some of the major police officials of the era, in fact, were…
Sep 16, 2026 · 1:16:35
Eli Frankel, author of "Sisters in Death: The Black Dahlia, The Prairie Heiress, & Their Hunter", returns to share his thoughts on the recent explosion of interest in Marvin…
Sep 11, 2026 · 1:12:14
On August 23, 1969, the badly decomposed body of twelve-year-old Tina Marie Andrews was found under a discarded sofa in the woods outside McComb, Mississippi. Days earlier, she…
Sep 5, 2026 · 1:20:02
Just months after the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders, the body of a 19-year-old woman was discovered off a secluded stretch of Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles on November 16th,…
Aug 27, 2026 · 1:09:23
My conversation with Derek Sherwood, author of Nittany Nightmare: The Sex Murders of 1938–1940 and the Panic at Penn State, continues. He shares a story about trying to find the…
Aug 26, 2026 · 1:02:37
Between November 1938 and May 1940, Margaret Martin, Rachel Taylor and Faye Gates were abducted and sexually assaulted, their bodies dumped within 50 miles of Penn State College.…
Aug 17, 2026 · 1:10:21
(Orig Pub Date 11/8/17) My guest is former criminal defense attorney Mark Shaw, author of "The Reporter Who Knew Too Much: The Mysterious Death of What's My Line TV Star and…
Aug 10, 2026 · 1:11:52
The Harp(e) brothers have been called America's first serial killers, once notorious enough to be the stuff of folklore and legend before fading into obscurity. In the chaos of…
Aug 7, 2026 · 44:45
This is the first episode of American Criminal's latest season - all about Boss Tweed, the Tammany Hall politician who has become synonymous with civic graft and corruption.…
Aug 4, 2026 · 1:08:30
William Morgan was last seen in Batavia, New York, in September 1826, shortly after threatening to publish purported Masonic secrets. He was arrested that same month in…
Jul 28, 2026 · 1:06:48
Ted Bundy grew up in Tacoma in the shadow of one of the most toxic smelters in the United States, and he wasn't the only one. Between the 1970s and '80s, the Pacific Northwest…
Jul 20, 2026 · 1:23:31
My guest this week is Phillip Barlag, author of "Evil Roman Emperors: The Shocking History of Ancient Rome's Most Wicked Rulers from Caligula to Nero and More." He shares stories…
Jul 14, 2026 · 1:12:17
Joaquin Murrieta has been remembered as a Robin Hood of the California Gold Rush — a wronged miner turned avenging outlaw, the supposed inspiration for Zorro. The truth is far…
Jul 10, 2026 · 1:33:30
(Orig pub date: 3/28/23) In 1912, four-year-old Bobby Dunbar went missing in the Louisiana swamps. After an eight-month search that electrified the country and destroyed Bobby’s…
Jul 7, 2026 · 1:03:15
On July 17, 1941, in Lynn, Massachusetts, attractive nineteen-year-old Frances Cochran stepped off a commuter bus and into a mysterious black automobile. Three days later, police…
Jun 29, 2026 · 1:15:47
On October 7, 1964, Debra Miller’s life turns upside down when her mother is arrested for the murder of her father. At only fourteen years old, Debra becomes a ward of the court,…
Jun 25, 2026 · 1:05:41
In the first decades of the twentieth century, saloon proprietor Erastus Wallace Scott of Des Moines―with his cousins in the infamous Carter Gang―operated a campaign of murder,…
Jun 20, 2026 · 1:02:40
The night before Easter 1905, Miranda Bricker left her sister’s house and made her way through the darkness. Her destination was her living quarters and place of employment, the…
Jun 14, 2026 · 1:18:05
(Orig Pub Date 8/10/2016) My conversation with author Mark Lee Gardner continues, about his book "Shot All to Hell: Jesse James, the Northfield Raid, and the Wild West's Greatest…
Jun 13, 2026 · 1:11:00
(Orig pub date: 8/3/2016) Much has been written about Jesse James, including his gang's ill-fated trip to Northfield, Minnesota, a botched bank raid met with death and tragedy,…
Jun 6, 2026 · 1:15:41
My guest this week is Merry Gordon, author of Arizona's Murdered Madams: Death in the Red-Light Districts. She shares the stories of two of Territorial Arizona's most infamous…
May 31, 2026 · 1:06:53
In May of 1832, an American whaleship called the Mentor went down on a remote reef in the western Pacific. Of the crew, eleven men made it out alive, but surviving the wreck was…
May 26, 2026 · 49:26
My guest is New York Times bestselling author Phyllis Karas. She shares the deeply personal story of two shocking tragedies in her family history: a 1935 car accident that killed…
May 22, 2026 · 1:41:46
(Orig pub date: 6/21/22) In the early morning hours of October 17, 1953, a frightened, battered woman named Diane Wells told a horrific tale to police. She said intruders had…
May 15, 2026 · 53:16
In 1986, The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults drew a larger audience than the Super Bowl or David Frost’s interview with Richard Nixon. The special was intended as a comeback for…
May 6, 2026 · 1:01:51
In 1939, the crimes of German serial murderer Eugen Weidmann captivated France, culminating in a sensational trial and a public execution by guillotine, the last of its kind in…
May 2, 2026 · 1:14:52
Edward Buckley was a violent East End tough whose life unfolded in the same streets and shadows as the Whitechapel murders. Born into a rough, crime-entangled family, he grew up…
Apr 28, 2026 · 1:30:41
(Orig. Release Date: 4/23/23) For decades following the horrific 1918 execution of the Romanov family, many hoped against hope that one or more of the children had escaped the…
Apr 24, 2026 · 1:21:48
My guest this week is forensic psychologist Dr. Jeffrey Smalldon. He shares stories from decades of correspondence, prison visits and interviews with some of America’s most…
Apr 18, 2026 · 1:05:26
My guest is award-winning author Saladin Ambar, who examines a wave of racially motivated killings along the Mississippi River in the 1830s - events that left a deep impression…
Apr 9, 2026 · 1:31:59
One chilly January night in 1867, a Virginia City prostitute was strangled to death in her bed. The murderer was caught and hanged in front of a crowd of thousands, and the…
Apr 3, 2026 · 1:26:56
On a chilly night in March of 1976, a father searching for his missing son made a horrifying discovery inside a Chicago apartment - in at what first appeared to be a drug deal…
Mar 31, 2026 · 1:15:27
(Orig pub date: 10/8/2017). My guest, Jay Atkinson, author of "Massacre on the Merrimack", tells the notorious and controversial story of Hannah Duston. After members of the…
Mar 27, 2026 · 1:14:43
On a crisp September evening in 1899, a seventeen-year-old petty thief named Edwin Ray Snow shot and killed a bakery deliveryman named Jimmy Whittemore outside Yarmouth,…
Mar 20, 2026 · 1:37:44
My guest this week is Suzanne Huntington, co editor of Ripperologist Magazine and author of the recently published book "The Thames Torso Murders: Fact or Fiction?" She not only…
Mar 13, 2026 · 1:01:35
New York Times bestselling author Tom Clavin returns to the podcast to discuss his books "The Last Outlaws: The Desperate Final Days of the Dalton Gang" and "Bandit Heaven: The…
Mar 5, 2026 · 1:01:34
In 1708, during the War of the Spanish Succession, the Spanish galleon San José sailed from South America carrying a vast cargo of gold and silver bound for Spain. Off the coast…
Feb 28, 2026 · 1:16:52
(Orig. Pub Date: 11/10/21) In January of 1923, a 20-year-old dancer named Fritzie Mann left home to meet a mysterious man for what she told her mother was a house party. When she…
Feb 24, 2026 · 1:16:22
In 1949, a quiet neighborhood in St. Louis became the center of one of the most controversial religious cases in American history. A 13-year-old boy began exhibiting disturbing…
Feb 21, 2026 · 40:50
Growing up in Memphis, George Kelly Barnes starts dabbling in crime from a young age. First he blackmails his father, then he grows a successful bootlegging business for himself.…
Feb 18, 2026 · 1:07:31
Told and retold in many languages, the legend of the Blood Countess has consumed cultural imaginations around the world. But despite claims that Elizabeth Báthory tortured and…
Feb 10, 2026 · 1:07:20
On a beautiful fall day in September 1916, 68-year-old Hannah Spielman went on a picnic with her new husband, 71-year-old James Allen, in the woods outside Grand Rapids,…
Feb 4, 2026 · 1:07:05
My guest, William J. Mann, has spent years writing about Hollywood, and in his new book "Black Dahlia: Murder, Monsters, and Madness in Midcentury Hollywood", he takes a fresh…
Jan 28, 2026 · 1:02:34
On this episode of Most Notorious, I speak with author Jack El-Hai about his book "The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of…
Jan 24, 2026 · 1:24:47
(Orig. Pub. Date 9/6/2021) On April 24th, 1891, a Bowery prostitute named Carrie Brown (known locally as "Old Shakespeare") was found murdered and mutilated in the seedy East…
Jan 23, 2026 · 48:32
On October 21, 1836, crowds lined the docks of Saint John, New Brunswick, to watch the steamship Royal Tar depart for Portland, Maine - this time carrying an entire circus. Cages…
Jan 17, 2026 · 1:03:01
At the close of the nineteenth century, serial killer Joseph Vacher terrorized the French countryside for years, eluding capture while murdering more victims than Jack the…
Jan 7, 2026 · 1:09:34
On April 13, 1788, outrage erupted in New York City when word spread that students from the local medical school were stealing corpses from nearby graveyards, at the direction of…
Dec 30, 2025 · 1:08:10
Among the many murder cases handled by South Carolina attorney Dick Harpootlian, one continues to stand apart: the prosecution of Donald “Pee Wee” Gaskins. A serial killer and…
Dec 17, 2025 · 1:30:19
In January 1947, the bisected body of Elizabeth Short, completely drained of blood, was discovered in an undeveloped lot in Los Angeles. Its gruesome mutilations led to a…
Dec 14, 2025 · 1:14:29
Original Publication Date: 4/3/22 On Christmas Eve, 1900, 44-year-old dry goods store owner Frank Richardson was shot to death in his Savannah, Missouri home. Suspects included…
Dec 11, 2025 · 58:06
On May 19, 1884, the yacht Mignonette set sail from England on what should have been an uneventful voyage. When their vessel sank in the Atlantic, Captain Thomas Dudley and his…
Dec 3, 2025 · 57:52
In 1942, two Abwehr German agents, including Johannes Eppler, slipped into Cairo to gather intelligence for Rommel’s desert campaign, getting help from local allies like the…
Nov 26, 2025 · 55:04
November 10, 2025, marked the fiftieth anniversary of the sinking of the freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald during a vicious Lake Superior storm. All 29 crew members were lost, a…
Nov 21, 2025 · 54:41
In the winter of 1924-1925, quiet Medina County, Ohio, was shaken to its core. Martha Wise, an ordinary farm widow with an extraordinary obsession, slipped arsenic into her…
Nov 15, 2025 · 59:28
Original Pub Date: 1/14/19 On July 2nd, 1881, a disappointed and mentally unstable office-seeker named Charles Guiteau shot President James A. Garfield in a Washington D.C. train…
Nov 12, 2025 · 1:20:10
Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were two complicated men whose steadfast friendship became one of the legendary relationships of the American West. Both were flawed, and often on…
Nov 5, 2025 · 1:09:13
In the early hours on a rainy autumn night in 1955, on a lavish country estate in Oyster Bay Cove, esteemed New York socialite Ann Woodward fired both barrels of her custom-made…
Oct 28, 2025 · 1:26:12
My guest is Chris Pouy, who shares an astonishing true story of love, betrayal, and murder on this latest episode of Most Notorious. His grandmother, Zoya Fyodorova, was a…
Oct 26, 2025 · 36:31
Just off the old Natchez Trace, in the quiet woods of Tennessee, stands a broken marble column marking the grave of Meriwether Lewis. The monument was meant to honor one of…
Oct 22, 2025 · 1:13:12
In November 1856, Dublin was shaken by the murder of George Little, chief cashier at the Broadstone railway terminus. He was found in his office, beaten and with his throat cut,…
Oct 16, 2025 · 1:12:08
(Orig pub date 8/15/23) In the early morning of January 21st, 1935 two employees of the Capital Transit Company in Chevy Chase, Maryland were cold-bloodedly gunned down. One of…
Oct 9, 2025 · 1:29:46
In "The Scientist and the Serial Killer: The Search for Houston’s Lost Boys", investigative journalist Lise Olsen tells the gripping true-crime story behind the “Lost Boys”…
Sep 29, 2025 · 1:05:33
In November 1926, Cecelia Gullivan, treasurer of the Cone Automatic Machine company of Windsor, Vermont, was brutally killed in her home. Local police quickly arrested Cone…
Sep 24, 2025 · 1:02:24
Victorian London is often remembered for the Ripper murders, yet at the same time another equally chilling series of slayings unfolded. Between 1887 and 1889, the dismembered…
Sep 18, 2025 · 57:10
The small Southern California island of Coronado rarely makes news for violent crime. But in the spring of 1975, World War II widow and retired librarian Ruth Quinn was murdered,…
Sep 13, 2025 · 1:15:56
(Orig pub date: 2/15/22) In October of 1946, a chiropractor and rancher named Willis "W.D." Broadhurst was beaten with a wrench and finished off with a shotgun on a lonely…
Sep 10, 2025 · 1:07:20
In the early twentieth century, eugenics captivated scientists and the public alike, giving researchers license to exploit the infirm, the mentally ill, prisoners, Native…
Sep 3, 2025 · 1:04:47
Clay Allison was both liked and loathed in his lifetime, embodying the contradictions of the American frontier. He could show moments of kindness for the downtrodden, but also…
Aug 27, 2025 · 1:23:49
In the sultry summer of 1949, a sleepy Florida beach town was rocked to its core. A brutal home invasion, a shocking murder, and a desperate, month-long manhunt captivated and…
Aug 21, 2025 · 1:03:40
The 1952 burglary of eccentric multi-millionaire LaVere Redfield’s mansion in Reno, Nevada was the largest of its time, but also a comedy of errors. "Masterminded" by a…
Aug 13, 2025 · 55:42
The First Forensic Hanging: The Toxic Truth That Killed Mary Blandy by Summer Strevens tells the story of Mary Blandy, executed in 1752 for poisoning her father Frances Blandy…
Aug 6, 2025 · 1:17:42
(Orig pub date: 2/3/24) On August 17th, 1849, London police officers made a grisly discovery at the home of George and Maria (born Marie de Roux) Manning. Her former beau,…
Jul 30, 2025 · 1:08:39
Myra Maibelle Shirley, better known as Belle Starr, was one of the most notorious female outlaws of the Old West (if you believe period newspapers, anyway). My guest, bestselling…
Jul 23, 2025 · 1:46:18
"Doctor" Robert Spears was arguably one of the greatest con artists of the twentieth century, and very likely a mass murderer. In thirty nine years of grift, he had 25 aliases,…
Jul 15, 2025 · 59:24
My guest this week is Scott Ellsworth, author of Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America. He talks about…
Jul 9, 2025 · 1:26:27
In July of 1908 the body of twenty-year-old Hazel Drew was found floating in a mill pond in Upstate New York. Her death captured headlines across the nation and around the world,…
Jul 3, 2025 · 1:23:09
(Original pub date: 6/16/21) In November of 1912, a young woman named Ella Barham journeyed home, on her horse, to her family farm in Boone County, Arkansas, but never arrived.…
Jun 30, 2025 · 1:18:52
Clem Pellett grew up knowing very little about his grandfather, Clarence Pellett, who was murdered along Montana's iconic Hi-Line in April of 1951. Pellett's father had cut ties…
Jun 23, 2025 · 1:29:43
On the morning of September 5th, 1917, sixteen-year-old Beatrice Epler was found dead just steps from her home in Alma, Michigan. The investigation into her murder would soon…
Jun 17, 2025 · 1:22:52
On May 2, 1963, Robert Killins, a former United Church minister, slaughtered every woman in his family but one. She (and her brother) lived to tell the story of what motivated a…
Jun 9, 2025 · 1:13:32
On the morning of July 3, 1915, John Pierpont Morgan Jr., one of the most famous names in finance, was entertaining guests at his sprawling Long Island estate when the doorbell…
Jun 2, 2025 · 1:07:30
George Lowther was a mutineer and a pirate, one of the most prolific during the golden age of piracy. His first mate, Edward "Ned" Low, went on to establish himself as perhaps…
May 29, 2025 · 1:07:05
(Original pub. date: 9/27/2018) Catherine Pelonero, author of "Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and its Private Consequences", is my guest. She walks us through…
May 27, 2025 · 58:41
Charles Cowlam stands out as one of the most remarkable con artists of nineteenth-century America. He talked his way into receiving pardons from both President Abraham Lincoln…
May 19, 2025 · 1:07:31
In November 1945, James Newton, a young World War II veteran, was shot four times—twice in the back—in his room at an Abingdon, Virginia boardinghouse owned by Helen Clark. She…
May 12, 2025 · 1:06:11
Much like the wheel, the boat, and the telephone, the axe is a transformative piece of technology―one that has been with us since prehistory. And just as early humans used the…
May 4, 2025 · 1:11:22
The American sailing vessel Adriatic collided with the French steamship Le Lyonnais on November 2, 1856, off the coast of Nantucket in what can best be described as a maritime…
May 1, 2025 · 26:40
Just in time for summer! This is an introduction and excerpt from the Slaycation Podcast, hosted by Kim and Adam "Tex" Davis and Jerry Kolber. Pack your body bags for a darkly…
Apr 29, 2025 · 1:44:05
(original pub date 7/19/23) David "Stringbean" Akeman was a singer, clawhammer banjo player and an early Grand Ole Opry star, known for his lanky build and comedic personality.…
Apr 26, 2025 · 55:25
On July 24, 1964, twenty-four-year-old Matthew Kerry Smith disguised himself with a mask and a Beatle wig, hoisted a semi-automatic rifle, then held up a bank in North York,…
Apr 18, 2025 · 1:10:21
The American government was faced with an unprecedented challenge: where to house the nearly 400,000 German prisoners of war plucked from the battlefield and shipped across the…
Apr 13, 2025 · 1:06:03
Shortly before dusk on November 3, 1870, just as the ferryboat El Capitan was pulling away from its slip into San Francisco Bay, a woman clad in black emerged from the shadows…
Apr 6, 2025 · 54:56
On a nearly moonless night in October 1943, a single gunshot rang out in Littlefield, Texas. A prominent Texas doctor and his wife were found bound, shot, beaten, and murdered.…
Mar 28, 2025 · 1:01:51
(Original pub date: 3/11/20) While the Coen brothers refuse to confirm it, many believe that their movie "Fargo" was inspired by the Carol Thompson murder case. She was viciously…
Mar 22, 2025 · 55:24
Molly Zelko was the crusading editor and publisher of the Spectator, a newspaper devoted to battling local gangsters operating slot machines and other rackets in Joliet,…
Mar 16, 2025 · 1:16:01
On September 13, 1868, the bodies of Jacob and Nancy Young were discovered brutally murdered along the bank of the White River in Cold Spring, Indiana. Police would eventually…
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