Criminal
Criminal is the first of its kind. A show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Hosted by Phoebe Judge. Named a Best Podcast of 2023 by the New York Times. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
- Update frequency
- every 7 days
- Average duration
- 33 minutes
- Episodes
- 346
- Years Active
- 2014 - 2025
The Newsroom
Jeff German was a reporter for over 40 years in Las Vegas. He spent his life covering the mafia, corruption, and murder. In 2022, he was found killed outside his home. His colleagues at the Las Vegas…
00:38:41 |
Fri 15 Sep 2023
The Séances
In 1916, two British soldiers were held captive in a remote prisoner-of-war camp. People said the camp was escape-proof. One day, one of the soldiers received a postcard from his aunt in England, sug…
00:44:34 |
Fri 08 Sep 2023
Iceland Noir
Iceland is one of the most peaceful countries in the world, but people there love to read about crime. Even the Prime Minister of Iceland has written a crime novel. We stopped by her office to ask wh…
00:30:43 |
Fri 25 Aug 2023
The Other Phoebe Judge
A preview of what we’re making over on Criminal Plus! Hear me and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohrer taking your questions, telling stories, and talking with other producers and special guests. We’re…
00:12:05 |
Mon 21 Aug 2023
Wolf 10
In April of 1995, wildlife biologists flew small airplanes over Yellowstone National Park, looking for two missing wolves. “They’re just gone. And that’s implausible because wolves don’t just disappe…
00:36:06 |
Fri 18 Aug 2023
The Nurse
When Amy Loughren started working as a nurse at Somerset Medical Center, she did everything she could to hide the fact that she had a heart condition. And then, another nurse named Charles Cullen dis…
00:46:50 |
Fri 11 Aug 2023
The Perfectionists
A story about religion, sex, an assassination, and silverware.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on A…
00:48:14 |
Fri 04 Aug 2023
A Glamour and a Mystery
In the summer of 1917, 16-year-old Elsie Wright took a photograph of her 9-year-old cousin, Frances Griffiths. It was the first photograph she’d ever taken — and it became the source of a mystery tha…
00:41:58 |
Fri 28 Jul 2023
Roll of the Dice
The UNABOM investigation was one of the longest manhunts in American history - it lasted for 18 years starting in 1978. Before the FBI started investigating Ted Kaczynski, they looked into a number o…
00:48:51 |
Fri 21 Jul 2023
The Bodies in the Bog
In the summer of 1984, a local newspaper reporter outside of Manchester, England, got a tip from the police. A foot had been found in a nearby bog.
Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign …
00:36:32 |
Fri 14 Jul 2023
The Prison Newspaper
A little over sixty years ago, there were 250 prison newspapers being published on a regular basis. Today, there are 26. We visit Nash Correctional Institution in North Carolina to meet Phillip Vance…
00:43:16 |
Fri 07 Jul 2023
The Impersonator
Mary Jones could sing just like Aretha Franklin. One night, a James Brown impersonator saw her perform at a Motown tribute show - and thought he could take her on tour and trick audiences into believ…
00:34:40 |
Fri 30 Jun 2023
Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and Cleveland’s Torso Murderer
In 1934, a man collecting driftwood along the Lake Erie shore found a human torso on the beach. No one could figure out what had happened. Over the next several years, more bodies were discovered. Ev…
00:40:40 |
Fri 23 Jun 2023
The Unknown Woman
When a toymaker and a doctor teamed up to make the world’s first CPR doll, they decided to make the doll’s face look like one specific woman – a woman who they thought had drowned. People call her l’…
00:36:40 |
Fri 16 Jun 2023
The Paramedics
As recently as 1965, if you had a medical emergency, the people who showed up at your door would be volunteer firefighters, police officers, or undertakers with a hearse. Today, the story of how a gr…
00:53:11 |
Fri 09 Jun 2023
Lavender Scare
Helen James grew up in a military family — her great-great-grandfather fought in the Civil War, her father in WWI, and her uncles in WWII. So when she enlisted in 1952, she felt like she belonged. Sh…
00:27:49 |
Fri 02 Jun 2023
Shipwrecked
There’s an old sailors’ saying about the ocean at the southernmost part of the world — “below 40 degrees latitude, there is no law; below 50 degrees, there is no God.”
David Grann brings us the story…
00:38:29 |
Fri 26 May 2023
A Mysterious Bank
In the late 1870s, a woman named Sarah Howe started a bank just for single women called the Ladies’ Deposit Company. She asked new customers to tell their friends about the bank rather than advertisi…
00:33:15 |
Fri 19 May 2023
"Did we get it right?"
“What we ask jurors to do is to just absorb all this trauma and just to keep on absorbing it and not process it with anyone. Just hold it in and hold it in and hold it in.” A look at what happens dur…
00:45:10 |
Fri 12 May 2023
The Juror
In 2008, Sven Berger was chosen to serve on the jury for a murder trial. He says the sentence that he and his fellow jurors handed down “felt like a mistake right away.”
Sven talked about what happen…
00:35:16 |
Fri 05 May 2023
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