He's Still Neutral

In 2014, 16-year-old Wildin Acosta left Olancho, Honduras and traveled toward the U.S. border. When he arrived, he turned himself in to border patrol agents. He was one of 68,541 unaccompanied minors who crossed the border into the U.S. that year. We spoke to Wildin Acosta shortly after Donald Trump’s inauguration, and after he had spent months in a detention center.  Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

3 Mars 201725min

People have faked death to escape criminal convictions, debts, and their spouses. In 2007, a man named Amir Vehabovic faked his death just to see who showed up at the funeral (answer: only his mom). John Darwin faked his own death in a canoeing accident in the UK. And the ex-boyfriend of Olivia Newton John, Patrick Mcdermott, is rumored to have faked his death.  It's an appealing soap-opera fantasy, but actually disappearing requires an incredible amount of planning. How do you obtain a death certificate, a believable new identity, or enough money to start a new life? Today -- the answers to those questions, stories of fake death gone wrong, and a man who spends his life bringing back the dead. Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud, by Elizabeth Greenwood Steven Rambam's Investigative Agency, Pallorium, Inc. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

17 Feb 201727min

In 2005, Teri Knight drove 650 miles on midwestern roads through Ohio, Indiana, Iowa and Illinois, pleading with the public to help her do what law enforcement and the FBI had not been able to: find the remains of her children Sarah and Philip Gehring. An Ohio woman named Stephanie Dietrich read about Teri Knight's search in her local paper, and decided she would try to help. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

3 Feb 201721min

In 1849, abolitionist and attorney Wendell Phillips wrote: "We should look in vain through the most trying times of our revolutionary history for an incident of courage and noble daring to equal that of the escape of William and Ellen Craft; and future historians and poets would tell this story as one of the most thrilling in the nation's annals, and millions would read it, with admiration of the hero and heroine of the story." Unfortunately, almost 170 years later, William and Ellen Craft aren't well known anymore. Today, we have the story of this couple's incredible escape from slavery, the abolitionist pastor Theodore Parker who married the Crafts, and their founding of the Woodville Co-operative Farm School. Read the Craft's book: Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/585 Barbara McCaskill wrote about William and Ellen Craft in Love, Liberation, and Escaping SlaveryWilliam and Ellen Craft in Cultural Memory http://www.ugapress.org/index.php/books/loveliberationescaping_slavery Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

20 Jan 201732min

In 2010, Michael McIntosh's son was incarcerated at the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility in the small town of Walnut Grove, Mississippi. One Sunday, Michael McIntosh went to visit his son and was turned away because, he was told, prison officials "did not know" where his son was. He spent the next six weeks searching for his son, only to find him in the hospital with severe injuries. And Michael McIntosh's son wasn't the only one who had been hurt at the facility.  Jody Owens of the Southern Poverty Law center launched an investigation and found that Walnut Grove was such a violent prison that one Federal Judge called it "a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts." Today, we have the story of an especially troubled youth prison, the for-profit corporation, Cornell Companies, that managed it, and the small town that relied on it. The U.S. Department of Justice Investigation of the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility The Southern Poverty Law Center Lawsuit The U.S. Department of Justice Memo Re: Reducing the Use of Private Prisons Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

6 Jan 201734min

To close out 2016, we're bringing you two lighter stories of people exhibiting everyday genius under. . . unusual circumstances. Comedian Dave Holmes' story begins with an upsetting phone call from the IRS. Then we meet a Baton Rouge attorney with a story of wild resourcefulness at Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola. A word of caution, this episode contains language that may not be suitable for everyone. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

16 Dec 201620min

Since 1938, a weekly African-American owned newspaper called The Evening Whirl has covered crime in St. Louis with a style all its own, using alliteration and rhyme, and often omitting the usual crime-reporting words like "accused" or "alleged." The paper has been widely criticized for its casual approach to fact-checking and sensational writing style. But the paper's owner, Anthony Sanders, who has been helping out with it since he was 18 years old, doesn't have any plans to change it. As the pages of The Whirl have said: “If that’s too much for you, pick up the Times and read the theatre reviews.”  Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

2 Dec 201618min

The Magic Castle in Hollywood has been a private club for magicians since 1963, and its walls are lined with portraits of magicians past and present. Among them is a portrait of one of the earliest American organized crime bosses and conmen, Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith. And though it may seem strange that this "mecca of magic" honors a criminal, Soapy's legacy reveals just how blurry the line is between a delightful trick and a dirty one.  Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

18 Nov 201617min