Criminal

When Fannie Davis and her family moved to Detroit in the mid-1950s, they hadn't prepared themselves for how hard it would be. They had trouble finding steady work. So, Fannie found a way to take care of her family. She started small, but built a robust and lucrative operation… a business that a lot of people knew about but no one talked about.

When Sarah Winchester's husband died, she inherited millions from the family business: the manufacture of the famous Winchester Rifle. A medium reportedly told Sarah that she would be haunted by the victims of that rifle unless she used her fortune to build a house, and never stop building. That's exactly what she did.

In a suburb outside of Salt Lake City, a 69-year-old woman named Linda Gillman hired a man named Christian Olsen to do some repairs on her condo. After months of working together, Linda Gillman asked for Christian’s help with a different sort of project.

John "Sonny" Franzese was once described as "largely responsible for the glamorization of the Mafia over the past century.” He'd been active in the Colombo crime family since the 1960s. And then, when he was 93, he was given an 8-year sentence. The evidence that helped convict him came from the last person he expected to wear a wire.

We speak to a man who has given thousands of people new names, told them where they would live, and warned them they could never go back home.

A story about doing things a little differently.

On a hot summer day in 1978, a group of friends started renovating an old house in Atlanta. They were steaming wallpaper off of the walls when two strangers just walked in. One of them had a gun.

Our second podcast, This is Love, is back. We’re sharing this first episode with Criminal listeners - we hope you like it.

We spend the day in a police car in Austin, Texas. 

When Martin McNally met another plane hijacker in prison, they started coming up with a plan to escape...using the very thing that got them there in the first place.