Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast MOST NOTORIOUS +

Just after midnight on July 6, 1932, twenty-year-old Zachary Smith Reynolds, a renowned aviator and an heir to the R.J. Reynolds tobacco fortune, was shot in the family's summer home in what is now Winston-Salem, North Carolina. While some believed the moody young man had committed suicide, evidence suggested someone else had pulled the trigger, and eventually Reynolds' wife, Broadway actress Libby Holman, and his best friend, A.B. Walker, would be indicted for murder.

I'm joined by Phil Archer, the Betsy Main Babcock Deputy Director at Reynolda House Museum of American Art. He helped create Reynolda's popular exhibition, called "Smith & Libby: Two Rings, Seven Months, One Bullet", which can now be experienced in a condensed form on the very porch where Smith died.


More about the Reynolda Museum here: https://reynolda.org/
Watch the original exhibition trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bVYrVhMK7M&t=5s
Libby Holman sings the traditional folk song "House of the Rising Sun": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4ZGrlO7JU4
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On April 26, 1871, Avery Putnam was viciously attacked on a New York City horse-car. He would die a few days later. Rumors abounded that the murderer was a Tammany Hall crony, and newspapers leveled criticism at the city about the dangerous conditions passengers faced while utilizing public transportation.

This week we revisit one of my favorite Most Notorious episodes. In the small town of Isadore Michigan in 1907, a young nun named Janina disappeared. Ten years later, her body is discovered by a priest intent on building a new church on the foundation of the old one. Mardi Link, author of "Isadore's Secret", chats with me about the terrible circumstances surrounding the death of Sister Janina.

The author's website: https://www.mardilink.com/
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On a warm August day in 1910, Sheriff Jake Houpt and his deputies attempted to arrest brothers George and Oscar Chitwood outside the Garland County Courthouse in Hot Springs, Arkansas. A gunfight soon erupted, leaving both the sheriff and George dead. And when Oscar himself was killed in December under the protection of deputies, a mob of mysterious masked men were blamed for the lynching. But evidence suggests the story of Oscar's death might have been a cover for something else.

My guest is Christopher Thrasher, who along with fellow author and historian Guy Lancaster wrote the book "The Murder of Oscar Chitwood in Hot Springs, Arkansas". He summarizes this fascinating story for us on this latest episode of Most Notorious.


Christopher Thrasher's Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Christopher-Thrasher/author/B0C3Z3ZGQK
The book's publisher page: https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/products/9781467153270
The Encyclopedia of Arkansas: https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/
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In the early afteroon of March 31, 1904, Edward Page returned to the family's Weston, Massachusetts home and was horrified to discover his forty-one-year-old daughter Mabel stabbed to death in her bedroom.

It was a shocking crime that ultimately led to an execution. This is a summary of the terrible crime, the investigation and the trial.


References:

The Boston Globe 4/22/1903 p. 1
The Boston Globe 4/1/1904 p. 1, p. 8
The Boston Post 4/2/1904 p. 1
The Boston Globe, 4/3/1904 p. 2
The Boston Globe 4/4/1904 p. 2
The Boston Globe 4/10/1904 pp 1-2, 4, 14-15
The Boston Globe 4/11/1904 pp 1, 3
The Boston Globe 4/12/1904 p. 1-2
The Boston Globe 4/14/1904 p. 1, 8.
The Boston Globe 1/1/1905 p. 22
The Atlanta Journal 1/9/1905 p. 1, 3
The Boston Globe 1/10/1905 p. 1, 5
The Boston Globe 1/13/1905 p. 1, 4
The Daily Item 1/18/1905 p. 1
The Boston Globe 1/19/1905 p. 1, 4
The Boston Globe 1/22/1905, p 1, 4
The Boston Evening Transcript 4/21/06 p. 14
The Boston Globe 5/23/1906 p. 1
Fall River Evening News 6/12/1906 pp 1, 4

Six months after losing a world title fight that remains infamous as one of the last mob fixes in boxing, Tyrone “The Butterfly” Everett—a flashy, handsome lightweight southpaw on the verge of stardom—was dead. Only twenty-four years old, he was shot in the head by his girlfriend, Carolyn McKendrick, who claimed that Everett had abused her throughout their relationship. But for years, street corner talk raised doubts about what actually took place in Philadelphia at 2710 Federal Street on May 26, 1977.

My guest is journalist Sean Nam, author of "Murder on Federal Street: Tyrone Everett, the Black Mafia, Fixed Fights, and the Last Golden Age of Philadelphia Boxing." He gives us an outline of the drama and shares theories regarding who might be responsible for the up-and-coming fighter's demise, including the possible involvement of a violent Philly organization called "The Black Mafia".

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

The author on Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/seanpasbon
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