In 1937, three girls left home for a day at the park and never returned. Their disappearance sparked a frantic search, a shocked community, and a murder case that moved with remarkable speed. This episode traces the investigation intothe deaths of Melba Everett, Madeline Everett, and Jeanette Stephens, the arrest of Albert Dyer, and a trial shaped almost entirely by his confessions.

Everett, Pamela. Little Shoes: The Sensational Depression-Era Murders That BecameAmerica’s First Celebrity Crime. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2018.

People v. Dyer, 9 Cal. 2d 317 (Cal. Sup. Ct. 1938).

“Three Little Girls.” Time, July 12, 1937.

Contemporary newspaper reporting, including coverage from the Daily Breeze and Los Angeles–area papers (1937).

In September 1907, Emily Dimmock was found murdered in her rented rooms in Camden Town, her throat cut while she slept. Known to some as “Phyllis,” she lived a double life in Edwardian London, moving between respectability and survival.

This episode explores Emily’s final days, the trial that followed, andwhy the Camden Town Murder remains unsolved more than a century later.

Source Materials

Napley, Sir David. The Camden Town Murder. In Great Murder Trials of the Twentieth Century. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson / Orion.

Barber, John. The Camden Town Murder.

Barber, John. “The Camden Town Murder.” Ripperologist, no. 44 (December 2002). Reprinted at Casebook.org.

Grant, Thomas. Court Number One: The Old Bailey, the Trials and Scandals. London: John Murray, 2019.

Oates, Jonathan. Unsolved Murders in Victorian and Edwardian London. Barnsley: Wharncliffe, 2007.

Melville, Elizabeth. “The Camden Town Murder.” Medium.com.

Tilstra, Elizabeth. “A Killer in London: The Camden Town Murder.” The Line-Up.

Contemporary newspaper coverage including The News of the World, Illustrated Police News, and The Penny Illustrated Paper (1907).

In 1799, Elma Sands vanished from a New York boardinghouse. Her body was later found in a well, and the trial that followed — defended by Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr — left more questions than answers. This episode examines the Manhattan Well murder and the limits of justice in early America.

Source Materials

Coleman, William. The Trial of Levi Weeks; or, The Manhattan Well Mystery. New York: Printed for the author, 1800.

Kleiger, Estelle Fox. The Trial of Levi Weeks: Sex, Seduction, and Murder in the Early Republic. Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1989.

American State Trials: Being a Collection of the Most Interesting Criminal Trials Which Have Ever Occurred in the United States. Vol. 1. New York: Printed andpublished by G. & C. & H. Carvill, 1849.

Murder by Gaslight: A Victorian Anthology of True Crime

The Paris Review —“The Well on Spring Street,” Angela Serratore

“Death in the Manhattan Well.” Crime Magazine. https://www.crimemagazine.com

New York Gazette and General Advertiser. New York, various issues, 1799–1800.

The New-York Daily Advertiser. New York, various issues, 1799–1800.