Female Criminals

Here’s one of our listeners’ most requested episodes of 2019: During Prohibition, while most young women were focused on getting married and having a family, Gertrude Lythgoe was busy running her wholesale liquor empire in the Bahamas. She started as a quiet secretary, but found herself venturing into the dangerous waters of Rum Row. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Up until 2001, Ana Montes led a double life as a Cuban spy and a high-ranking analyst in the U.S. intelligence community. A nationally recognized expert, she was nicknamed the "Queen of Cuba," until top-secret information provided by her own sister led to her arrest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ana Belen Montes was a smart, ambitious Puerto-Rican American with a passion for defending the sovereignty of Latin American nations. In 1985, her drive for social justice found an outlet when she was recruited as a spy for Cuban Intelligence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By the late 1960s, Valerie Solanas tried to start an underground feminist movement using Andy Warhol to publicize her vision for a new world. But she became consumed with paranoia and rage. She was convinced that Warhol planned to steal her ideas and pawn them off as his own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A radical feminist writer who overcame a childhood of poverty and sexual abuse to put herself through college. Valerie Solanas became obsessed with overthrowing the patriarchy — by any means necessary. But an undiagnosed mental disorder inspired increasingly erratic behavior, which soon took a criminal turn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1726, Mary Toft seemed to birth a series of strange creatures: rabbits, cats, and never-before-seen hybrid animals. She quickly became a national sensation. But how did an ordinary English wife and mother deceive the most accomplished doctors of the day? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By 1997, Mary Kay Letourneau's affair with her 13-year-old student seemed doomed to be exposed when she found herself pregnant with his baby. But even as she faced arrest and imprisonment, she continued to maintain that they were in love. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After a troubled childhood, Mary Kay Letourneau always thought she had to be perfect: the perfect daughter, the perfect wife, the perfect mother. But when she found herself falling for 13-year-old Vili Fualaau at her Washington elementary school, she was ready to throw everything away. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The trials continue: Tituba’s devilish confession sends chills through the town of Salem. And more men and women are tortured, imprisoned and executed as a result of the 1693 proceedings.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Massachusetts 1692-1693: Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne—the three women at the center of the Salem Witch Trials. Discover the three key factors that combined to create their witch hunt, as well as the months of moral panic and finger-pointing that followed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With a not-so-promising future in Victorian England, Mary Ann Cotton embarks on a journey of seducing, marrying, and killing her spouses and children to collect her insurance policies. Once she was caught in 1873, she learned just how unforgiving society could be to those who transgressed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A career gold-digger with a penchant for arsenic, and a trail of murders that would make headlines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1920's New York City, policy bank queen Stephanie St. Clair was sitting on the top of the world. She had become one of the most successful policy bankers in her adopted home of Harlem, and had the cash to prove it. But as the Prohibition came to a close, Stephanie would be faced with a formidable new enemy - white mobsters encroaching on her turf. Sponsors! Bombas - Save 20% on your first purchase when you shop at Bombas.com/CRIMINALS! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1911, 13-year-old Stephanie St. Clair left the Caribbean for America and never looked back. The scrappy teen lied about her age, and soon found herself on the streets of Harlem at the dawn of the Harlem Renaissance and the Prohibition Era - two moments in history that helped launch her career as the queenpin of a highly lucrative gambling ring. And ultimately, as New York City's first black woman gangster Sponsors! Best Fiends - Download FREE the 5-star rated mobile puzzle game Best Fiends on the Apple App Store and Google Play.  Literati Books - Go to LITERATIBOOKS.COM and use promo code CRIMINALS for $20 OFF your FIRST BOX. Plus, kids THREE and up get a special blacklight pen! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On Easter Sunday, 1903, Marie Sukloff awoke in her Russian prison cell to the sounds of a massacre. She overheard one of the bloodiest pogroms in Russian history. The bloodshed ignited a fire that Marie would feel to her dying day. In the years to come, she would plan and carry out an assassination that would make her famous. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the grip of Tsar Nicholas II loosened at the turn of the 20th century and the wave of Communism started to rise in Russia, a young girl named Marie Sukloff dutifully took her place in the revolution. After watching her peasant farming parents struggle to make ends meet, she learned to read from political bulletins, waiting for her day to strike.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It was called “one of the most brutal and bizarre crimes Australia has ever seen.” In 1989, Tracey Wigginton not only murdered bar patron Edward Buldock – she and her fellow vampires drank his blood. As the investigation unfolded, her small coastal town was riveted by the story of Tracey’s small occultist following, all self-proclaimed lesbian vampires. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After heiress Marjorie Congdon was aquitted of her mother's 1977 murder, she remarried and began to build a new life. But mysterious deaths continued to plague Marjorie, who would become a suspect in numerous murders and arsons for decades. Sponsors! Best Fiends - Download the 5-star rated mobile game for free on the Apple App Store and Google Play. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Marjorie Congdon was adopted at three months old, she became the doted up daughter of an heiress. She grew up wanting for nothing, showered in gifts and affection. But Marjorie still suffered, eventually diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. Her mother, afraid of scandal, couldn't accept the diagnosis and Marjorie was never treated. Left unchecked, Marjorie would bring chaos and death to all those around her.  Sponsors! Literati - Go to LITERATIBOOKS.COM and use promo code CRIMINALS for $20 OFF your FIRST BOX. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Irma Grese quickly proved herself as one of the most vicious guards at Ravensbruck concentration camp. In 1943, she was promoted and sent to Auschwitz, where her reputation for cruelty only grew. Thousands of interned prisoners suffered under her reign until they were finally liberated by Allied forces.  Sponsors! Embrace Pet Insurance - Get your FREE quote at EmbracePetInsurance.com/CRIMINALS. Away - For $20 off a suitcase, visit AwayTravel.com/criminals and use promo code CRIMINALS during checkout!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices