Forgotten Felonies

Ellsworth Kelley and the Jones Brothers Gang - Part 1

Send a message to Monica and Olivia! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2459451/fan_mail/new] Ellsworth Kelley became tangled up with the notorious Jones Brothers Gang — a crew of young outlaws, including the elusive Oregon Jones and 20-year-old escape artist Tom Murray, whose lives became a cycle of burglaries, highway robberies, prison escapes, freight-train rides, manhunts, and violence across the Pacific Northwest during the 1910s and 1920s. This story follows hidden loot, prison tunnels, the infamous Oregon Boot, repeated escape attempts from the Oregon State Penitentiary, and a gang of young men who seemed incapable of staying behind bars. But beneath the sensational headlines and outlaw mythology lies something far more tragic: boys who grew into fugitives, prisoners, and condemned men while spending years trying to outrun prison walls.

The Curious Disappearance of Frank E. Clark - A Fun-Sized Felony

Send a message to Monica and Olivia! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2459451/fan_mail/new] In the fall of 1910, husband and father Frank E. Clark vanished from Oakland, California without a trace. His wife was left stranded in a city where she knew no one. Newspapers across California carried the story of the missing husband, while neighbors and the Catholic Ladies’ Aid society stepped in to help feed Mrs. Clark and their 5-year-old son. Had Frank abandoned his family? Met with foul play? Started a new life somewhere else? The answer, when it finally came, was far stranger—and far more ordinary—than anyone expected. This is the forgotten story of Frank E. Clark.

Alfred Knapp: Five Murders and a Confession

Send a message to Monica and Olivia! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2459451/fan_mail/new] A woman’s body floats more than 150 miles downriver before finally being recovered near New Albany, Indiana. By the time she is identified as Hannah Goddard Knapp, her husband—Alfred Knapp—has already confessed to murdering her. But Hannah wasn't the first—Not by a long shot. In 1903, Alfred Knapp shocked the country with confessions involving multiple women and children across Ohio and Indiana. Newspapers called him insane. Doctors blamed brain injuries, “brain fever,” and hereditary degeneration. His family insisted he could not control himself. Others believed he was simply evil. This episode follows the life, crimes, confessions, and execution of one of the most infamous killers of the early 1900s—the very man who later fascinated child murderer Jesse McClure. Vintage ads for: * Dr. Charles Flesh Food, (1903) * and Tonsiline. (1903)

Bertha Boronda: the Mistress of Mayhem - A Fun-Sized Felony

Send a message to Monica and Olivia! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2459451/fan_mail/new] Bertha “Bessie” Boronda attacked her husband, Narciso "Frank" Boronda, in the middle of the night in their San Jose home in 1907. The newspapers called it a violent, deliberate mutilation. The court charged her with mayhem—a crime defined by the destruction of part of the human body. But no one ever said exactly what she did. Over time, the story became more specific, more certain... and more sensational. But, when you go back to the coverage of the case in 1907… that version of the story isn’t quite there.

Frank Caruso and the Murder of Dr. Casper Pendola - A Fun-Sized Felony

Send a message to Monica and Olivia! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2459451/fan_mail/new] In February of 1927, a Brooklyn father watched his six-year-old son struggle to breathe as diphtheria tightened its grip. Desperate for help, Frank Caruso called for doctors, begged for treatment, and clung to the hope that his boy might survive. But when that hope slipped away, something else took its place. Within hours of his son’s death, Frank turned his grief into blame—and his blame into violence. A physician who had come to help would never leave the apartment alive. What followed was a case shaped by language barriers, fear of modern medicine, and a courtroom battle over whether this was cold-blooded murder… or something far more complicated. This is the story of Frank Caruso—a devastated father—and the moment everything broke.