Podcast
Crimes of the Centuries
Hosted by Amber Hunt and Audioboom · EN
Crime is so commonplace that it takes something particularly shocking to be labelled the “crime of the century.” Even so, there are a lot of cases that have earned the distinction. In each episode of Crimes of the Centuries, award-winning journalist Amber Hunt will examine a case that’s lesser known today but was huge when it happened. The cases explored span the centuries and each left a mark. Some made history by changing laws. Others were so shocking they changed society.
43episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
S6 Ep17: Meaher's Illegal Gamble: The Last Slave Ship
3d ago00:56:23Tap to summarizeIn 1859, a wealthy Alabama landowner made a bet that he could do the unthinkable. The next spring, he did just that — trafficking human beings from West Africa to the United States a half-century after it had been made a federal crime punishable by death. The Clotilda brought back 110 men, women and children. For more than 150 years, the ship sat buried in the mud of a Mobile Bay bayou, as if the whole thing had never happened.Crimes of the Centuries is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history. You can get early and ad-free episodes and more over at www.grabbagcollab.comOrder the Crimes of the Centuries book at your favorite bookstore or at www.centuriespod.com/book!Follow us on Instagram and other social media: @centuriespodEPISODE SPONSORS:Mint Mobile. Get a new wireless plan for just $15 a month at MintMobile.com/cotc. Talkiatry. Get matched with an in-network psychiatrist in minutes at Talkiatry.com/cotc. Hims. Get your free online visit for ED treatment and more at Hims.com/cotc. BiOptimizers. Get 15% off Magnesium Breakthrough at bioptimizers.com/cotc with code COTC.
Transcribe →S6 Ep16: Murder in Coweta County
1w ago00:56:34Tap to summarizeOne April morning in 1948, a tenant farmer named Wilson Turner walked out of a rural Georgia jail and into an ambush. The man waiting for him owned 2,000 acres known as The Kingdom, a moonshine empire, and the county sheriff. What followed was a murder investigation that drew 500 lawmen from across the state — and a verdict few in Meriwether County saw coming. This is the real story behind Murder in Coweta County.Crimes of the Centuries is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history. You can get early and ad-free episodes and more over at www.grabbagcollab.comOrder the Crimes of the Centuries book at your favorite bookstore or at www.centuriespod.com/book!Follow us on Instagram and other social media: @centuriespodEPISODE SPONSORS:Mint Mobile. Get a new wireless plan for just $15 a month at MintMobile.com/cotc. Talkiatry. Get matched with an in-network psychiatrist in minutes at Talkiatry.com/cotc. Hims. Get your free online visit for ED treatment and more at Hims.com/cotc. BiOptimizers. Get 15% off Magnesium Breakthrough at bioptimizers.com/cotc with code COTC.
Transcribe →S6 Ep15: Twilight Zone Part 2: 'We Decided to Break the Law'
2w ago01:09:43Tap to summarizeAfter three people died on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie, it took four years to get five defendants into a courtroom and another 10 months before anyone knew how it would end. What unfolded in between was part legal battle, part Hollywood spectacle and entirely unlike anything the film industry had faced before. Part two of two.Crimes of the Centuries is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history. You can get early and ad-free episodes and more over at www.grabbagcollab.comOrder the Crimes of the Centuries book at your favorite bookstore or at www.centuriespod.com/book!Follow us on Instagram and other social media: @centuriespodEPISODE SPONSORS:Lumi Gummies. Get 30% off your order at LumiGummies.com with code COTC.Quince. Get free shipping and 365-day returns on your order at Quince.com/centuries.Storyworth. Save up to $20 at StoryWorth.com/cotc.ButcherBox. Get your choice of free Sirloin Tips, Ground Beef, or Chicken Wings in every box for life, plus $20 off your first box and free shipping always at ButcherBox.com/cotc.
Transcribe →S6 Ep14: Twilight Zone Part 1: Vic Morrow's Last Role
3w ago00:51:20Tap to summarizeIn the early morning hours of July 23, 1982, cameras were rolling at a California filming location when a helicopter crashed into a river, killing actor Vic Morrow and two young children, Renee Chen and Myca Le. It was called a tragic accident. But the more investigators looked, the harder that word was to defend. Part one of two.Crimes of the Centuries is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history. You can get early and ad-free episodes and more over at www.grabbagcollab.comOrder the Crimes of the Centuries book at your favorite bookstore or at www.centuriespod.com/book!Follow us on Instagram and other social media: @centuriespodEPISODE SPONSORS:Hims. Get your free online visit for ED treatment and more at hims.com/COTC.Rula. Find a therapist covered by your insurance — average copay just $15 — at rula.com/COTC.Home Chef. Get 50% off your first box, free shipping, and free dessert for life at homechef.com/COTC.
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S6 Ep13: Wesley Elkins: The 11-Year-Old Killer
May 2500:54:36Tap to summarizeOn a hot July morning in 1889, two adults were found murdered in their beds on a small Iowa farm, shot and bludgeoned to death while they slept. The only witness was an 11-year-old boy who said a stranger had done it. What followed was a legal and moral reckoning that divided the country and forced a question the American justice system wasn't remotely prepared to answer: What do you do with a child who kills?Crimes of the Centuries is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history. You can get early and ad-free episodes and more over at www.grabbagcollab.comOrder the Crimes of the Centuries book at your favorite bookstore or at www.centuriespod.com/book!Follow us on Instagram and other social media: @centuriespodEpisode Sponsors: Storyworth: Save up to $20 on Storyworth at storyworth.com/cotc.Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping at BollAndBranch.com/cotc with code cotc.
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S6: Murdaugh Country: Future Crimes of the Centuries?
May 2200:49:19Tap to summarizeYou've heard the name. You've read the headlines. But the Alex Murdaugh story is bigger than one man's spectacular fall — bigger, even, than two people's horrific deaths. It's about the century of institutional rot that made it all possible. In this bonus episode of "Future Crimes of the Centuries?", Amber looks beyond the expected retrial to the people whose stories got buried under the spectacle: a housekeeper who died at the Murdaugh estate and whose sons were swindled, a 19-year-old whose suspicious death was treated as a traffic accident for years, and the clerk of court so convinced the system would protect a powerful man that she broke it herself — and may have handed him exactly what she was trying to prevent.
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S6 Ep12: Above Suspicion: The FBI Informant Who Disappeared
May 1801:05:47Tap to summarizeA young mother from a tiny Kentucky hollow vanished without a trace in 1989, leaving behind her clothes, her makeup and her two children. She'd been working as an informant for FBI Agent Mark Putnam, so her family held onto one hope: Maybe she'd finally gotten the fresh start she'd always dreamed of through the federal witness protection program. It would take a year to find out the truth about what happened to Susan Daniels Smith. And it was worse than anyone had imagined.
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The Case Files History Left Unsolved | Hidden History with Dr. Harini Bhat
May 1800:09:03Tap to summarizeDr. Harini Bhat is a clinical pharmacist and storyteller obsessed with the moments in history that still can't be fully explained. Every week she investigates real events that defy easy explanation. Mass hysterias. Vanished civilizations. Medical oddities. Strange signals. Unexplained phenomena that keep repeating across centuries, as if history is trying to tell us something.Hidden History doesn't dismiss ancient events as myth or superstition. It treats them as open case files, shaped by the limits of knowledge, technology, and record-keeping. Because the unknown isn't a failure of explanation. It's a constant in human experience, one that evolves, repeats, and sometimes deepens the more we learn.New episodes drop every Monday. Follow now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or watch on YouTube @hiddenhistorypod. Listen here: https://play.megaphone.fm/65qgwrg-sq-mmvg7tpqgfa
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S6 Ep11: The Butcher of Rostov
May 1100:55:32Tap to summarizeIn 1978, a nine-year-old girl in a red coat went looking for a kind man she'd met at a train station. She never came home. Over the next 12 years, at least 52 more would follow. But in the Soviet Union's supposed utopia, serial killers didn't exist — and a government more committed to its own mythology than to its citizens would pay a terrible price for that belief. Crimes of the Centuries is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history. You can get early and ad-free episodes and more over at www.grabbagcollab.comOrder the Crimes of the Centuries book at your favorite bookstore or at www.centuriespod.com/book!Follow us on Instagram and other social media: @centuriespodEpisode Sponsors:Hims. Start your free online visit at hims.com/COTC.Home Chef. Get 50% off your first box, free shipping, and free dessert for life at HomeChef.com/COTC.Hiya Health. Get 50% off your first order at hiyahealth.com/COTC.
Transcribe →S6 Ep10: The Fire That Condemned Cameron Todd Willingham
May 400:55:57Tap to summarizeIn 1991, investigators of a house fire in Corsicana, Texas, concluded the fatal blaze was arson, pointing to burn patterns they said proved someone had deliberately turned the house into a death trap. They zeroed in on Cameron Todd Willingham as the one who ignited the inferno. But in the years that followed, a growing number of fire scientists began questioning whether the evidence used to convict him was ever sound in the first place, raising enduring doubts about one of the most controversial death penalty cases in modern Texas history.Crimes of the Centuries is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history. You can get early and ad-free episodes and more over at www.grabbagcollab.comOrder the Crimes of the Centuries book at your favorite bookstore or at www.centuriespod.com/book!Follow us on Instagram and other social media: @centuriespodEpisode Sponsors:Quince. Get free shipping and 365-day returns at quince.com/CENTURIES.Home Chef. Get 50% off your first box, free shipping, and free dessert for life at HomeChef.com/COTC.ButcherBox. Get free sirloin tips, ground beef, or chicken wings for life plus $20 off at ButcherBox.com/COTC.Rula. Connect with in-network therapists for as little as $15 per session at rula.com/cotc.
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