Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast

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 about some of the worst rulers in Rome's history and the horrific deeds they committed, including Tarquin, Caligula, Nero, Caracalla and Elagabalus.

He is also the creator/host of The "Greats" of History podcast, available on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-greats-of-history/id1741228862. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1mS1MVueNYjtkomqWEtkjG. Podbean: https://phillipbarlag.podbean.com/ and everywhere else great podcasts are heard.

And he is available for questions related to his books, his podcast and anything Rome via email here: phillipbarlag@gmail.com and his book can be purchased on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Evil-Roman-Emperors-Shocking-Caligula/dp/1633886905

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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 darker and more complicated: the real Murrieta led one of the bloodiest bandit gangs of the era. He was killed in 1853, and his severed head became its own strange piece of California history.

My guest is New York Times bestselling author John Boessenecker, and his book is called "Bring Me the Head of Joaquin Murrieta: The Bandit Chief Who Terrorized California and Launched the Legend of Zorro". He has been on the show twice before, and back to separate the myth of Murrieta from the man.

The author's FB page: https://www.facebook.com/p/John-Boessenecker-100039302328585/

The author's publisher page: https://www.harpercollins.com/blogs/authors/john-boessenecker

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(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 parents, the boy was found, filthy and hardly recogniz­able. A wandering piano tuner was arrested and charged with kidnapping— a crime then punishable by death.

But when a destitute single mother came forward from North Carolina to claim the boy as her son, not the lost Bobby Dunbar, the case became a high-pitched battle over custody—and identity—that divided the South.

My guest, Tal McThenia, first introduced listeners of NPR's This American Life to this case in 2008. A few years later he co-wrote, along with Margaret Dunbar Cutright (the granddaughter of Bobby Dunbar) the definitive book about this historical whodunnit, called "A Case for Solomon: Bobby Dunbar and the Kidnapping That Haunted a Nation".

The author's website: https://www.talmcthenia.com/

Listen to This American Life's "The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar" here: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/352/transcript

The author's Audubon article: https://www.audubon.org/magazine/fall-2021/the-strange-true-story-john-williams-and-charles

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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 discovered her mutilated body in a Salem lovers' lane.

Her murder made national headlines on the eve of World War II. Investigators checked twelve thousand cars and interviewed almost two thousand witnesses. Despite leads that spanned the continent, decades passed and the killer was never caught. Like a poisonous vine, the death of Frances Cochran is tangled with other unsolved murders, including the 1947 Los Angeles Black Dahlia case.

My guest is Robert Fitzgibbon, author of the new book "Murder in Salem, Massachusetts: The Death of Frances Cochran".

The author's blog: https://medium.com/@chebacco.parish

The author's publisher page: https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/products/murder-in-salem-massachusetts-9781467171298

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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, grappling with the unfathomable trauma of watching her mother’s trial and conviction—a devastation that is only amplified when her family’s tragedy is splashed across headlines nationwide and featured in Joan Didion’s "Slouching Towards Bethlehem".

Debra is the author of the new book "The Most Wonderful, Terrible Person: A Memoir of Murder in the Golden State". She joins me to share intimate details about her family and the murder case that has so deeply shaped her life — and to wonder whether her mother really killed her father that autumn night so long ago.

The author's publisher page: https://shewritespress.com/portfolio/debra-miller/

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