Criminal

On May 8, 2013, a man named Timothy Jones was arrested in Chicago. He says it wasn’t until he got to the police station that he found out that he was being charged with murder. He didn’t even know someone had died.

In the mid-1800s, Harvard Medical School had a reputation for being a "den of body snatchers." And then, in November 1849, the school’s most prominent supporter went missing. He was last seen walking into the medical school building.

Early in his career, Errol Morris read about a shocking series of alleged insurance crimes in Florida. When he told an insurance investigator he wanted to go to Florida to make a documentary, the investigator said, "Don't even think about it." Errol Morris went anyway. Today, the story behind the movie he couldn't figure out how to make, working as a private detective, and meeting Ed Gein.

The summer after Jessica Maple finished 6th grade, she found out that her great-grandmother’s house had been burglarized. So, 12-year-old Jessica got out her notebook, looked for fingerprints, and decided she would conduct her own investigation. This week, four stories of kids who cracked the case.

In 1978, Tim Jenkin was charged under South Africa’s Terrorism Act for disseminating anti-apartheid material, and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Just before he was convicted, someone gave him a book called Papillon, which he said “was really a manual of escape.”

In 1989, Helen Ackley decided to sell her old Victorian house in Nyack, New York. It didn't go as planned. The house became the center of a case that's referred to as “The Ghostbusters ruling.” The judicial opinion read: “as a matter of law, the house is haunted.” 

People incarcerated in California’s San Quentin State Prison aren’t allowed to have pets—but some people, like Ronell Draper, have found ways to work around that. Meet Ronell Draper, also known as “Rauch,” plus Ear Hustle’s Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods join Phoebe to talk about the impact of Covid-19 at San Quentin.

"I didn't do what they said I did. And it was like, I don't know how to disprove the police. I mean, it's my word against theirs. I don't really stand a chance.” - Julian Betton

On May 13, 1862, Robert Smalls took command of a Confederate ship and liberated himself and his family from enslavement. His great-great-grandson, Michael Boulware Moore, tells the story.

On August 10th, 2014, one day after 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, Edward Crawford went to his first protest. “The people, you know, I guess they were out there to be heard,” Ed told us. This episode contains references to police brutality.