100th Episode Trailer
100th EPISODE TRAILER
Here’s a sneak peak at next week’s 100th episode, where we will be going back to tarry awhile with the elusive sect who gave us the very name of this show!
Interview: Sue Woolmans
7.15: INTERVIEW: SUE WOOLMANS
The murder of Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo in 1914 was the tragic prelude to the horrors of the First World War. In this special episode of the show, host Niall speaks with Sue Woolmans, co-author of the book The Assassination of the Archduke.
Roberto Calvi Part 3
7.14: ROBERTO CALVI PART 3
After years of lobbying, City of London Police eventually agreed to open a murder investigation into the death of Roberto Calvi. Italian authorities then tried several people for the crime. During that trial, sensational claims were made, including the suggestion that the banker had made enemies within the Vatican. Was his death a Mafia hit? And what might British intelligence have had to do with things? A tail that leads us from sunny Tuscany to the stormy South Atlantic, this is the third and concluding part of our look into this most extraordinary case.
Roberto Calvi Part 2
7.13: ROBERTO CALVI PART 2
Calvi wrote to Pope John Paul II in June of 1982 that the imminent collapse of Banco Ambrosiano would bring catastrophe to the Church. Days later, the shamed banker disappeared. From the chambers of parliament, to the boardrooms of commerce, to the sepulchral halls of the Vatican, nobody would come away unscathed from the biggest financial scandal in modern Italian history.
This series concludes next week.
Roberto Calvi Part 1
7.12: ROBERTO CALVI
One of Italy’s preeminent financiers, Calvi was called “God’s banker” because of his work with Banco Ambrosiano, which was associated with the Istituto per le Opere di Religione - better known as the Vatican Bank. Embroiled in one of the country’s biggest financial scandals, the exposure of Calvi’s misdeeds shed light on the extent to which the Church traded in, or was at least associated with, dirty money. But his connections to the darker side of life in Italy went beyond financial skullduggery. He was a member of a shadowy Masonic lodge with political designs, a cult-like underground organization whose weird initiation rite we dramatize in this week’s episode.
Part 1 of a three-part series.
Qasem Soleimani
7.11: QASEM SOLEIMANI
A powerful military and political figure in Iran and across the Middle East, General Soleimani enjoyed victory on the battlefield and successes in geopolitical strategizing over a long career leading up to his assassination in 2020. He had gained the admiration of many of his fellow countrymen and others in the region, but earned the deadly ire of powerful foes.
Count Bernadotte
7.10: COUNT BERNADOTTE
A diplomat for the fledgling United Nations, Folke Bernadotte was sent to Palestine to broker a ceasefire and attempt to establish a peace deal in the conflict zone. With the competing interests of the British Empire, various Zionist groups, the native Palestinian population, and neighboring Arab states, the task was well-nigh impossible. But one group was determined to ensure, by the ultimate means, that the Swedish nobleman would not live to pursue his mission.
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh
7.9: MAHMOUD AL-MABHOUH
For a man who had been on the run from Israel’s feared Mossad intelligence agency for over two decades, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh did not show much regard for his security. Rather, he left himself more or less an open target prior to his assassination in 2010. An Israeli kill team was sent to Dubai to liquidate their target - a task that they carried out, though not without a few seemingly inexplicable steps along the way.
William McKinley
7.7: William McKinley
The 25th President of the United States, William McKinley was the third occupant of the White House to be assassinated within the span of just four decades. We begin this episode with a narrative account of the Pan-American Exposition, a grand celebration of achievement in the Western Hemisphere, where McKinley was fatally wounded by an anarchist on the 6th of September, 1901.
Jill Dando Part 3
7.6: JILL DANDO PART 3
Barry George was convicted of Jill’s murder in 2001. Six years later, he walked out of prison a free man, having been acquitted of the crime. The case against him had always been tenuous, and now Britain was left with one of the most baffling unsolved crimes of modern times. Then, in 2014, came a shocking claim that the murder might have been connected to a massive scandal that was rocking the BBC.
Part 3 of 3.
Jill Dando Part 2
Episode 7.5: Jill Dando Part 2
Was Ms Dando murdered on the orders of Slobodan Milošević, the President of Serbia? As strange as it might seem, this idea was considered by British police and it made a splash in the tabloid newspapers. The theory was dismissed, but with other suspects ruled out and ideas about potential motives evaporating, desperate detectives looked back at a potential suspect who they had previously dismissed.
Part 2 of 3.
Jill Dando Part 1
7.4: Jill Dando Part 1
By 1999, Jill Dando was one of the most famous people in Britain. Her execution-style shooting outside her home shocked the country. We recreate the events leading up to her murder, and begin to look at the theories that have been put forward to explain the killing of a trusted journalist and well-liked public figure. Part 1 of 3.
Thomas Becket
7.3: Thomas Becket
From humble beginnings in Cheapside, London, Becket rose to the highest offices in England. He earned his success in part thanks to his own skill as an administrator; but, ultimately, he owed everything to the largesse of his sovereign, King Henry II. When Becket defied the will of his king, in order - as he saw it - to serve the will of God, he entered into a conflict that would cost him his life.
Huey Long
7.2: Huey Long
To his supporters, he was a relentless crusader for justice, a people’s champion against cruel and greedy elites. To his opponents, Huey Long was a dangerously power-hungry demagogue who threatened democracy. Maybe both sides were right. Either way, he had made many enemies in American politics and in his home state of Louisiana when he was killed in Baton Rouge in 1935. Just who killed him is a another question, however …
The Legend of Abraham Lincoln's Ghost
7.1: The Legend of Abraham Lincoln's Ghost
The life of Abraham Lincoln was filled with tragedy. The weight of the war-torn republic fell upon his shoulders. The anguish of a nation seemed writ upon his face. In the last weeks of his life, even after he had won reelection and overseen the defeat of the Confederacy, the sixteenth president of the United States looked like a specter of the man who had entered the White House five years earlier. Perhaps it is no surprise then that, following his shocking assassination in 1865, stories emerged over and over again that the spirit of President Lincoln still haunts his former residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Season 7 Trailer
The show comes back for a seventh season next week! There won’t be a particular “theme” for the season; rather, we’ll be covering a melange of subjects - some suggested by our listeners - spanning everything from the murder of a medieval archbishop to recent political killings. Episode 7.1 will be in the spirit of both Halloween and the upcoming US presidential election: a look at the legend of Abraham Lincoln’s ghost.
Don Bolles
EPISODE 6.16: DON BOLLES
In the final episode of our season on the theme of conspiracies, we travel to Arizona in the 1970s. Mafia money was being laundered in the state through various schemes involving local businessmen and political players. On the verge of uncovering a huge story on Mob involvement in gambling, Bolles was catastrophically wounded when a remote controlled bomb was detonated under his car. He died eleven days later from his horrendous injuries.
One year later, the body of a businessman from Tucson was found in the desert. It seemed that he too had fallen afoul of the deadly forces that would do anything to keep their criminal activities from being exposed.
Dr David Kelly Part 3
EPISODE 6.15: DR DAVID KELLY
In the conclusion to our look at the life and death of the British scientist and weapons inspector, we are joined by Andy Thomas. Andy was with us earlier this season to talk about his new book, Conspiracies, which deals in part with the Kelly case. In this episode he and Niall discuss the findings of the Hutton Inquiry and consider what might really have happened.
This is the third and final installment of the investigation.
Dr David Kelly Part 2
EPISODE 6.14: DR DAVID KELLY
In the second installment of this investigation, we consider some of the evidence presented during the Hutton Inquiry. As we discover, much of the evidence is … problematic. When the judge leading in inquiry, Lord James Brian Hutton, declared that Kelly had committed suicide, several medical experts came forward to challenge this verdict, stating that the manner of death described was a virtual impossibility.
We conclude this case next week.
Dr David Kelly Part 1
EPISODE 6.13: DR DAVID KELLY
In 2003 Dr David Kelly was at the very pinnacle of his career. A brilliant scientist and world-renowned inspector of biological weapons sites, he had worked everywhere from Britain’s top secret military labs at Porton Down, to ex-Soviet weapons facilities, to alleged WMD caches in war-torn Iraq. But when he questioned an aspect of the UK government’s justification for going to war - the “forty-five minute claim” - he found himself in a new type of conflict zone. And a deadly one, at that. For, just one day after ebulliently giving evidence to a parliamentary committee, in which he had reiterated his disapproval of the controversial claim, Dr David Kelly lay dead.
This is the first installment of a three part investigation.