Minnesota's Most Notorious: Where Blood Runs Cold

In August of 1894, a young woman was found brutally murdered on a sand dune at Minnesota Point in Duluth. Over the next two years both Duluth and Minneapolis detectives would hunt for her killer across the country, until finally finding him in the Pacific Northwest.My guest is Jeffrey Sauve, author of "Murder at Minnesota Point". He shares details of the life and death of 32-year-old Norwegian immigrant servant Lena Olson, the con man (and possible serial killer) who seduced and killed her, and his connection to notorious Minneapolis murderer Harry Hayward.More about the author and his book here at North Star Editions. My earlier interview about Harry Hayward here on the Most Notorious website. This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/4698318/advertisement

Since the mid-19th century one of the great tourist destinations in Minnesota has been Minnehaha Falls. Already known for its beauty, its fame intensified when Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized it in his poem "The Song of Hiawatha". But Minnehaha Falls has had a dark side as well. In the late 19th century it became a place synonymous with drunkenness and debauchery. The notorious father and son team of Adelbert and Irwin Gardner (and others) profited from the Minnehaha Midway, where corrupt cops intermingled with inebriated Fort Snelling soldiers and young Minneapolis women. Eventually the low-class dancehalls would be driven out, replaced by the park we know today.My guest is Karen E. Cooper, whose book "When Minnehaha Flowed With Whiskey: A Spirited History of the Falls" has just been nominated for a 2023 Minnesota Book Award. She shares some of the uncouth history of the Falls on this latest episode of Minnesota's Most Notorious. More about the author and her work can be found here: http://www.urbancreek.com/

Have you ever wondered whether Pig's Eye Parrant's notorious Fountain Cave saloon is accessible to visitors? Was there really a tunnel between Nina Clifford's brothel and the original Minnesota Club? Did Jesse and Frank James hide out in any Minnesota caves before or after their botched Northfield bank raid in 1876? What really exists under downtown Saint Paul and Minneapolis? My guest is Dr. Greg Brick, who arguably knows more about caves and tunnels in Minnesota than anyone alive, and he answers these questions for us (and more) on this latest episode of Minnesota's Most Notorious. He is the author of "Minnesota Caves: History and Lore", "Minnesota Underground", and "Subterranean Twin Cities", to name a few of his books. More information on Dr. Brick's books (and adventures) can be found here: https://drgregbrick.com/

On June 27, 1868, Hole in the Day (Bagonegiizhig) the Younger left Crow Wing, Minnesota, for Washington, DC, to fight the planned removal of the Mississippi Ojibwe to a reservation at White Earth. Several miles from his home, the self-styled leader of all the Ojibwe was stopped by at least twelve Ojibwe men and fatally shot.Hole in the Day's death was national news, and rumors of its cause were many: personal jealousy, retribution for his claiming to be head chief of the Ojibwe, retaliation for the attacks he fomented in 1862, or retribution for his attempts to keep mixed-blood Ojibwe off the White Earth Reservation. Still later, investigators found evidence of a more disturbing plot involving some of his closest colleagues: the business elite at Crow Wing.My guest, Anton Treuer, is Professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University and author of "The Assassination of Hole in the Day". He has spent years researching the story and believes he has solved the now one hundred and fifty four year old murder case. Professor Treuer's website: https://antontreuer.com/Buy it at Birch Bark Books here: https://birchbarkbooks.com/products/the-assassination-of-hole-in-the-day

On December 3rd, 1894, a dressmaker named Catherine "Kitty" Ging was found shot to death on a snowy Lake Calhoun road in Minneapolis. Police patched together clues and evidence, which ultimately led them to the front door of a charming, scheming scoundrel named Harry Hayward. My guest is Shawn Francis Peters, author of "The Infamous Harry Hayward: A True Account of Murder and Mesmerism in Gilded Age Minneapolis". He shares insight into this sensational murder case and arguably the greatest 19th century villain in Minnesota history. More about the book here: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/the-infamous-harry-hayward

The upscale Highland Park neighborhood in Saint Paul in the late 1940s was a fun place to grow up in. But there was a dark side to the area as well. A trio of gruesome murders of young women happened in a fifteen month period, which shocked the respectable community. The most memorable for the author was the 1948 murder of seventeen-year-old Geraldine Mingo. My guest, David Butwin, shares childhood stories from his memoir, "A Minnesota Kid: In Search of Heroes and Ghosts". Information about his book can be found at his website here: https://www.davidbutwin.com/

On this episode, I get a little more informal than usual, as I chat with Deborah Frethem, long time tour guide at the Wabasha Street Caves (the old Castle Royale Nightclub). We swap tour guide and ghost stories, in honor of the sad, recent closing of the Caves. Deborah, along with Cynthia Schreiner Smith, are co-authors of a book called "Alvin Karpis and the Barker Gang in Minnesota".

My guest, Rob Feeney, suddenly found himself the middle of one of the most fascinating criminal investigations in Minnesota history - the theft of one of the famous pairs of Ruby Slippers, worn by Minnesota native Judy Garland in the classic film The Wizard of Oz, out of a Grand Rapids museum in 2005. Rob talks about the historical significance of the shoes, the theft itself, and shares his own experience helping investigators track them down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the summer of 1887, Thomas Tollefson was shot to death as he operated his mule-drawn streetcar in the Cedar Avenue-Lake Street neighborhood of Minneapolis. Police settled on two brothers as the murderers - members of a family that ran a notorious saloon nearby called The Hub of Hell.  My guest is Beverly J. Porter, author of "The Hub of Hell: A True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Neighborhood, Murder, and Trial". She offers details of not only the murder itself, but the flimsy investigation, trial, and eventual execution of Tim and Pete Barrett.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before the early 1960s, when much of Minneapolis was razed to make way for ugly parking ramps and office buildings, another world existed. Decrepit 19th century buildings in an area of downtown called Skid Row housed lowbrow bars and flophouses, and a man named John "Johnny Rex" Bacich, owner of the Sourdough Bar, reigned supreme over a gaggle of brawlers, migrant workers, prostitutes and drunks.  My guest is Star Tribune editor James Eli Shiffer and his book is called "The King of Skid Row: John Bachich and the Twilight Years of Old Minneapolis". With the help of John Bacich's memories and photographs, he documents and shares the fascinating history of this bygone era of Minneapolis.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The F.B.I. refers to the 1972 Virginia Piper kidnapping as the most successful kidnapping in American history. In July of that year, Virginia Piper, socialite wife of Bobby Piper, the CEO of Piper, Jaffray and Hopwood, was abducted from her home, taken to Jay Cooke State Park near Duluth, and tied to a tree. The ransom demand was one million dollars. My guest, William Swanson, with help from the Piper family, has meticulously researched a case that many Minnesotans still remember in vivid detail. The product of his hard work is the book "Stolen From the Garden: The Kidnapping of Virginia Piper". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest is Jerry Kuntz, author of "Minnesota's Notorious Nellie King: Wild Woman of the Closed Frontier". He tells the story of a larger-than-life and beautiful young con-artist, pretend detective, singer and cross-dresser, who lights up Twin Cities papers with her outrageous exploits.  He also explains how he was able to track down her elusive past history, and discover her real identity.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this second part of the 1912 Alice Matthews Murder case, a serious suspect finally emerges, a young man named Alfred Driskell, but it takes four confessions for the police to finally him seriously.  And throughout his journey to convince authorities of his guilt, many questions arise as to Driskell's sanity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In March of 1912, a brutal murder of a young woman just off of Cedar Avenue rocked the city of Minneapolis. In part one of this episode, I narrate the story of the initial investigation of the slaying of Alice Matthews, just feet from her front door.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this new episode of Minnesota's Most Notorious: Where Blood Runs Cold, I speak with author Jack El-Hai about his book, "The Lost Brothers: A Family's Decades-Long Search".  In it, he explores the mysterious disappearance of three little brothers in a Minneapolis park in November of 1951. While the police would consider it a drowning, their parents, Betty and Ken Klein, would never give up looking for their sons. A recent investigation has begun into the cold case, suggesting something far more sinister happened to the boys.  Jack also talks about a new podcast set to debut at the end of 2019 that explores the story in further detail.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The year 1918 goes down as probably the most horrific in Minnesota history.  A flu epidemic, a world war and the deadliest fire in the state's history all hit within months of each other, and often the resulting tragedies overlapped for suffering families.  My guest is Curt Brown, author of "Minnesota 1918: When Flu, Fire & War Ravaged the State". He not only shares some sad stories from this disastrous year, but uplifting ones as well.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While most of us know that prostitution existed in Minneapolis in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, fewer of us know where the red-light districts were, and what life would have been like for the madams and prostitutes who worked in these bordellos. My guest is Penny A. Petersen, author of Minneapolis Madams: The Lost History of Prostitution on the Riverfront. She offers a rare glimpse of a long lost and hidden history, and the struggles and successes experienced by the women who ran these brothels in a male-dominated business world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A brief look at some of the wild stories published in the Minneapolis Morning Tribune on August 4th, 1913. True Crime, tragedy and even comedy take a turn.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On July 14th of 1901, the  remaining members of the notorious James-Younger outlaw gang, Cole and Jim Younger, were allowed to leave the gates of the Minnesota State Prison, where they had been incarcerated for twenty five years, and explore the town of Stillwater for the morning. This is an account of that little expedition, as reported by the Minneapolis Tribune.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Minnesota's Most Notorious's first interview in front of a live audience took place at the Warden's House Museum, downtown Stillwater, on Thursday, June 27th, 2019 at 7 pm.   My guest was Gibson Stanton, site manager of the museum, which is operated by the Washington County Historical Society. She not only offered a fascinating history of Minnesota's first prison, but told stories of its most infamous inmates, Cole and Jim Younger. She also revealed some of her  research into Jim Younger's mysterious suicide and Cole Younger's secretive job with the Saint Paul Police Department, including a personal theory  that there might have been some darker reasons for his death.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My interview continues with Gary Brueggemann, author of  "Minnesota's First Murder Mystery, The Case of Edward Phalen: St. Paul's Unsaintly Pioneer". In part two, my guest delves deeper into the death of Sergeant John Hayes, including presenting strong evidence to suggest it was his partner, the brutish Edward Phalen, who murdered him.  He also offers his opinion on the Lake Calhoun name change controversy in Minneapolis.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest is teacher and historian Gary Brueggemann, author of "Minnesota's First Murder Mystery, The Case of Edward Phalen: St. Paul's Unsaintly Pioneer".  In part one of this episode, he explains the strange and complicated origin of Saint Paul, and sets the scene for part two, which details the murder of John Hayes, the investigation, and eventual outcome for Edward Phalen, the prime suspect.  Also in this episode, notorious river pirate and whiskey peddler Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant's role in the early history of the city. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest is Tim Mahoney, author of "Secret Partners: Big Tom Brown and the Barker Gang".  He shares the story of the tangled relationship between mob bosses, bank-robbing gangsters, breweries and corrupt police officers in 1920s and 30s Saint Paul.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm tickled, on this episode of Minnesota's Most Notorious, to be joined by author, poet and nonagenarian Betty Gove. She talks about an infamous and tragic Minnesota murder, taken directly from her own family history.  Josefina Olson  was stabbed to death by her jealous father Ole on the eve before her wedding day in 1902 outside of Aitkin, MN.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guests are Susi and Todd Adler, Fort Snelling historians who specialize in the history of the Upper Post during World War 1 and World War 2.  On this episode of Minnesota's Most Notorious,  they tell the story of the gruesome murder of fourteen year old Mary Jane Massey, who disappeared while walking home from the post's swimming pool on a hot summer day in 1940.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of my favorite characters from my book, Dirty Doc Ames & the Scandal That Shook Minneapolis, is "Coffee John" Fitchette. He was an incorrigible, swaggering bully who conned and cheated his way across the United States, leaving three wives, multiple children, and a legion of angry creditors in his wake. He finally settled in Minneapolis, where he would start his infamous Coffee John's Oyster Grotto on Nicollet Avenue and become fast friends with Mayor Albert Alonzo "Doc" Ames. He'd use that connection to finagle his way into a police captain's uniform while continuing to use his brute strength to intimidate and beat up customers in his restaurant. This is a brief history of his life and legend.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a Minnesota's Most Notorious interview. On this episode I chat with Brian Johnson, author of Murder in Chisago County: The Untold Johnson Family Mystery. He has a personal connection to the story - it was his great-aunt and her children who were murdered on their family farm in Rush City, Minnesota, in April of 1933.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brian Haines, Executive Director of the McLeod County Historical Society and Museum in Hutchinson MN, tells some turn-of-the-century stories of murder and lynching on Buffalo Creek. He also talks about some of the great exhibits offered at the museum this year.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In April of 1882, in downtown Minneapolis, a hobo named Frank McManus committed a terrible crime upon a little girl named Mina Spear, and citizens turned into vigilantes to take justice into their own hands. * Listener discretion advised on this episode.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First, a recounting of the December 1932 robbery of the Third Northwestern National Bank, where the Barker Karpis gang murdered three before making their way back to the safety of Saint Paul. Then, Bruce Rubenstein, author of The Rockwell Heist, tells the strange story of the theft and eventual recovery of a number of Norman Rockwell paintings from an art gallery in St. Louis Park in 1978.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a slight change of pace for Minnesota's Most Notorious, I invite my sister Alison to interview me about my political true crime book, published in April of this year, called Dirty Doc Ames & the Scandal That Shook Minneapolis, about the wild rise and fall of one of the most colorful and corrupt politicians in Minnesota history, Albert Alonzo "Doc" Ames.  In 1901, Doc was elected for a fourth term as mayor of Minneapolis, where he proceeded to fire half of the police force and go on a year-long crime spree, alongside a strange assortment of crooks and incompetents.  Eventually they would be brought down by a muckraking journalist, a stubborn grand jury foreman, and reformers who helped herald in the Progressive era.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A couple of years ago, I released a "mini-episode" on Most Notorious, which included a story of the murder of members of the Schuch family in Waseca in 1929. A few weeks ago, I was contacted by Jen Barr, granddaughter of one of the girls, Wilhemenia, who discovered the bodies of her family almost 90 years ago. We revisit the story, and I talk to Jen about her own investigation into the long-ago murders on this episode of Minnesota's Most Notorious: Where Blood Runs Cold.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First, the strange story of the attempted murder of Dakota Indian chief Sitting Bull at the Grand Opera House in Saint Paul in 1885. Then, I speak to Jeff Neuberger, archivist and historian for the Saint Paul Police Historical Society, who tells the story of Abe Wagner, who was pistol-whipped to death on University Avenue by two contract killers hired by New York City's notorious Murder, Incorporated.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up, the story of the strange relationship between 28 year old steamfitter William Williams and 16 year old Johnny Keller in 1905 Saint Paul, which led to the murders of both Johnny and his mother Mary.  Then, an interview with Christine Hill, who is trying to solve the murder of her grandmother's cousin, Ray Ruud, who was shot while driving his cab in East Grand Forks in 1935.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm excited to share my interview with Steve Thayer, New York Times bestselling author, about a book that was very important in my life, a book that ultimately led me on a path that would take me to creating and hosting the Most Notorious Podcast.  Saint Mudd: A Novel of Gangsters and Saints, centers around a World War I-ravaged newspaperman named Grover Mudd, who gets mixed up in the seedy and violent Saint Paul underworld of the 1930s. Steve tells the compelling story about his successful and unlikely journey as an author, and what he believes made this book a surprise smash hit.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Historic Saint Paul has it's share of spooky ghost stories, and in celebration of the Halloween holiday, here are three of these paranormal tales, presented in full audio glory.   1) The Ghost of Charlie Pitts on Como Lake   2) The Wabasha Street Caves/Castle Royale Nightclub 3) The Ghost of Joseph Forepaugh and "Molly" at Forepaugh's Restaurant Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this special interview episode of Where Blood Runs Cold, I interview Sharon Henry Darby, author of Glensheen's Daughter,  about the notorious Minnesota murderer and arsonist Marjorie Congdon, who besides allegedly conspiring to murder her mother Elizabeth Congdon at the famous Glensheen Mansion in Duluth, also left a trail of fire and death for the next three decades across the country.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this second part to the story, a member of the Arbogast family is put on trial for murder, although it may not be someone initially suspected by police. Also, a myriad of possible motives are discussed, primarily based on an intimate relationship between two people in the family.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The quiet, slumbering neighborhood of Seven Corners was awakened in the early morning hours of May 13, 1909, by the terrified screams of the Arbogast family. Louis Arbogast, prosperous Saint Paul butcher, had been murdered in his bed, but the doors to the house had been locked shut, and his five daughters and wife were not talking. In part one of this story, police detectives investigate the murder, gather evidence, and focus on one particular family member with an especially suspicious past.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Erik Rivenes, host of the popular Most Notorious Podcast, explains why he decided to start a new podcast devoted to Minnesota true crime history, and what listeners can expect to come.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices