Criminal

On Christmas Eve in 1926, a man came running into Bellevue Hospital in New York screaming that Santa Claus had been chasing him for blocks with a baseball bat. Not long after that, he died. And then another person arrived in the emergency room. And then another. This started happening in emergency rooms around the country. And it was happening because of a plan created by the U.S. government.

Deborah Blum’s book is The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York.

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When Elzire Dionne gave birth to five identical babies, she caught the attention of reporters and doctors hundreds of miles away, the Chicago World’s Fair – and the Ontario government. Before the quintuplets were ten months old, they passed a new law: the Dionne Quintuplet Guardianship Act. “These children are our own royal family.” 

Sarah Miller’s book is The Miracle and Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets.

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When Cecilia Gentili was growing up in Argentina, she felt so different from everyone around her that she thought she might be from another planet. “I think that we are all aliens until we find our communities.”

This episode was originally released in 2019. 

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When Angelo Quinto died, his family said police were responsible for his death. But a lawyer told them his official cause of death would likely be something called “excited delirium.”

You can read more of Renu Rayasam's reporting on "excited delirium" at KFF Health News.

Arjun Byju's article for Current Affairs is: Excited Delirium: How Cops Invented a Disease.

Reporter Chris Gelardi obtained Rochester Police Department training materials on "excited delirium" for New York Focus. You can read more here.

Reuters has investigated Taser's interest in "excited delirium." You can find the investigation here.

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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.
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After a gang leader was murdered in San Francisco’s Chinatown, the only witnesses who would talk with the police were tourists. They looked through so-called “mug books” filled with photographs of Asian men - and pointed out a man named Chol Soo Lee. Years later, a journalist decided to investigate his case, and described it as an “unreal, Alice-in-Chinatown murder case."

Today’s episode comes from the Smithsonian’s Sidedoor podcast. Julie Ha's documentary is Free Chol Soo Lee.

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