More than 2,100 miles, 14 states and, since 1974, 11 murders. The Appalachian Trail is a pretty safe place to be, unless you run into the wrong crazed killer. All of the 11 people who were killed on the trail that stretches from Georgia to Maine were killed by a stranger. At least those whose […]
Carol Jenkins was 21 and on the first day on the job selling encyclopedias when she made the mistake of agreeing to go to Martinsville, Indiana. She didn’t make it out of town alive. That was 1968, and her racially motivated murder is still considered partially unsolved in a town that seems more concerned about […]
In the summer of 1977, New York City was terrorized by a killer who shot his victims at close range, eventually killing six people and wounding seven. He was eventually called the Son of Sam. While not history’s most prolific killer — or even 1977’s — his brazen attacks, which police determined began in July […]
The relationship between Massachusetts teens Conrad Roy and Michelle Carter was one that only could have happened in the 21st century. They lived less than an hour from each other, but rarely met in person. But they communicated nonstop by social media, and in the weeks leading up to Roy’s July 12, 2014, suicide, they […]
In 1912, the state of Maine bought Malaga Island and evicted its mixed-race residents, placing eight of them — an entire family — in the Maine School for the Feeble-Minded and casting the rest adrift, some with tragic results. The move came after a several years of denigration of the people of the island by […]
Soooo… it’s been 31 episodes. And it’s July in Maine. And we have day jobs (kind of). So we’re taking a break for a few weeks from Crime & Stuff. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have anything to say… We discuss what we’re reading, watching, doing (Maureen’s reading 75 self-published books as a contest […]
In the ongoing Maine case of Anthony Sanborn, the man who served 27 years for a 1989 murder he may not have committed, the most recent twist is that a profiler has linked that murder, of Jessica Briggs, to another in 1987 in Vermont. That murder, of Barbara Agnew, was the last in a […]
On June 4, 2010, Kyron Horman’s stepmother took him to school in Portland, Oregon. There was a science fair that morning and Kyron, 7, was excited about his tree frog exhibit. His stepmother, Terri Moulton Horman, snapped a picture of him to post on Facebook later. It would be the last photo of the little […]
Annie Dookhan, a chemist at the Hinton State Laboratory in Boston, was loved by prosecutors — she was a whiz, testing more drug evidence than everyone else in the lab, and she always got them the results they wanted. Although some of her coworkers wondered just how she got it done, no one else was […]
Joyce Carol Vincent was pretty, bubbly, smart and talented. She also didn’t talk about her past and had parts of her life even those closest to her knew nothing about. Still, when the remains of a woman were found in a London bedsit in January 2006, about three years after the woman died, none […]
You might remember Phil Hartman from Saturday Live, where in the 1980s he was uproariously funny as Frankenstein in the ongoing Frankenstein, Tarzan and Tonto bit, or as the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer (“Your world frightens and confuses me…” Trust us, it was funny). Or maybe you loved him on The Simpsons, where he did another […]
When Blanche Kimball was stabbed to death in her home in Augusta, Maine, in 1976, police were stymied. She’d been stabbed 44 times and left to die, only found by police after neighbors became concerned at least a week after she was killed. Gary Raub — then Gary Wilson — was at the time tearing […]
So, what do you do with a musical genius who loves guns and scares the hell out of people? Well, since he’s rich, more famous than famous and influential, nothing. Until someone gets hurt. Phil Spector, whose “wall of sound” production transformed the music of the 60s, spent decades bending people to his will with crazy […]
In April, Richard Dabate was arrested on charges he murdered his wife in December 2015. The evidence against Dabate is a cyber-crumb track of electronic device information, the biggest ones provided by the Fitbit his wife was wearing when she was shot in their Connecticut home. Investigators said it’s the first time a Fitbit has […]
Updates on Logan Marr (episode 18) and Anthony Sanborn (episode 22). Find out how Logan Marr’s sister, Bailey, turned out. Some good news for a change. On the other hand, in the ongoing saga of Anthony Sanborn, the Portland, Maine, man recently freed on bail after 27 years in prison, find out what a case […]
Frances Schreuder wanted desperately to be a member of high society, but she just didn’t have enough money to bankroll it. So she did what a lot of women would do — got her teenage son to kill her incredibly wealthy but tight-fisted father. You may not recognize the names now, but the murder of Franklin […]
When 16-year-old Jessica Briggs was found dead under the Maine State Pier in Portland in May 1989 — stabbed, beaten and eviscerated — police quickly narrowed their focus to her fellow street kids. They arrested her sometime boyfriend Tony Sanborn in 1990, he was convicted of her murder in 1992 and an appeal failed in […]
Today’s quiz: After 9/11, what was the worst act of terrorism on U.S. soil? You know, the one that killed more people than any other? That’s right, Oklahoma City. Don’t you feel people have kind of forgotten about that one? In any case, we talk about Tim McVeigh the twisted white supremacist whose bomb killed […]
Ah, bucolic small-town life, where everything is wonderful. NOT. More like, where everything can be a real cluster f***. Take Franconia, New Hampshire, in 2007 for instance. Mix in a messed-up kid, a hard-ass cop and a vigilante gun-nut bystander and the only outcome there’s going to be is trouble. On May 11, 2007, Like […]
In a VERY SPECIAL episode, we feature the April 2 Noir at the Bar event, in which a dozen members of the Maine Crime Writers blog and some guest speakers read (brief!) passages from their work. The Maine Crime Writers blog is a loose group of published mystery and crime writers who live in, and […]
Logan Marr was too young to understand why the state of Maine kept taking her away from her mother. Her mother, Christy Baker, didn’t really understand either. Baker did everything she was asked, but a tangle of poverty, culture and, most importantly, a bureaucracy that valued its own prejudices over the well-being of a […]
Martha Moxley was bludgeoned to death, then stabbed through the neck with the broken end of a golf club when she was 15. If it had happened in 2015, an arrest probably would have been made almost immediately. But it happened in 1975 in an exclusive gated neighborhood in Connecticut and the man finally […]
It was the best of times, then the worst of times, for two con men — and their marks — as they separately traveled America using one of the country’s most famous and powerful names to wheedle their way into the hearts and minds of the rich. And ultimately, for one, to commit murder. What […]
Everyone makes stalking jokes. Everyone. But from the time it first came into modern public perception as a thing, to the recent murder of singer Christina Grimmie, and for millions of regular people who aren’t celebrities and have to live with it every day, it’s not a joke at all. What’s happened since the vicious […]
We don’t mail it in when we discuss the spate of US Postal Service-related shootings over a 20-year period that spurred the phrase “going postal,” particularly one in Edmond, Oklahoma, in 1986 that changed the way we look at mass shootings. Patrick Shirrell wasn’t the first disgruntled worker to shoot up his workplace, but when […]
Nearly 16 years after Washington intern Chandra Levy disappeared and nearly 15 after her remains were found in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., police are no closer to convicting someone of her murder. That’s despite one trial and conviction, a scheduled then dumped retrial and the extremely unhelpful “goofiness” of Gary Condit, the […]
From drunken assaults to sex trafficking to an Uber app in which Satan told the driver to kill, the ride-share business has had plenty of crime during its short life. Drivers, passengers, bystanders — everyone joins the party. We discuss some of the highlights from our special perspective of being Uber drivers ourselves. Buckle […]
One of New Hampshire’s longest-standing mysteries — the discovery of the remains of a woman and three children in Bear Brook State Park — was solved (kind of) when a young woman searching for her birth parents with DNA set off a series of events that revealed a cross-country serial killer. Bob Evans — or Gordon […]
What seemed like a good thing for people on the margins when it started out turned into one of the most horrific tragedies of the late 20th century, thanks to a narcissistic megalomaniac who had just enough charisma to convince politicians he was a godsend and to leave him alone, get a thousand people to […]
A special road trip episode as we talk in the car ride home from Washington DC about the Women’s March and other stuff. Fun fun fun with one million others! What’s the deal with the crowd count? The guys who were there? What was the deal with the boy in the tree? What DID he see? […]
