44. Celia Cooney - Bobbed Haired Bandit

Lucy Worsley is back with a brand new series of Lady Swindlers, where true crime meets history - with a twist. Lucy and her team of all female detectives travel back more than a hundred years to revisit the audacious and surprising crimes of swindlers, hustlers and women on the make. Women trying to make it in a world made for men.

In this episode Lucy is investigating the bobbed hair and flapper dresses of New York’s Jazz Age, on the heels of a 20 year old bandit, Celia Cooney. She and her husband Ed hold up local grocery stores and pharmacies in the hope of achieving a better life for their unborn child. But, as Lucy discovers, the papers quickly latch on to two key details - Celia’s stylish bobbed hair, and the fact she is a woman with a gun.

With Lucy to explore Celia Cooney’s story is the Emmy Award winning journalist and CBS news correspondent Erin Moriarty, who gives us an insight into why the press were so enthralled by Celia, and can tell us how Celia’s New York compares to the city today.

Lucy is also joined by historian, author and Pulitzer Prize winner Debby Applegate, who explains more about the Jazz Age - there was a dark side lurking alongside the flappers and parties.

And in a Lady Swindlers first, Lucy speaks to Kat Palmiotti, the granddaughter of Celia Cooney, to find out how her family discovered her grandmother’s biggest secret.

Lucy wants to know: what makes a woman like Celia Cooney, with a steady job and a baby on the way, turn to crime? And how much was the mania that surrounded her fuelled by the fact she was a woman, and one with a stylish hairstyle?

Producer: Hannah Fisher Readers: Laurel Lefkow and Jonathan Keeble Historical consultant: Rosalind Crone Sound design: Chris Maclean Executive producer: Kirsty Hunter

A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4.