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PODCAST

Crime To Burn

A true crime podcast where we explore the dark sooty landscape of crimes involving fire including arson and criminal negligence. Join us as we explore what really happened in some of the most horrific criminal fires in history. Hosted by April and some guy that’s seen Backdraft at least twice.

true crime documentary

All Episodes

42:27

Fireproof - The Iroquois Theater Fire

Crime To Burn ·

2025/12/22

Episode 93On December 30, 1903, Chicago gathered for a matinee performance at the Iroquois Theater—a venue that had opened just five weeks earlier and was widely promoted as one of the safest, most modern theaters in the country. It was advertised as “absolutely fireproof.” It was anything but. In this episode of Crime to Burn, we examine the Iroquois Theater Fire, one of the deadliest single-building fires in U.S. history—and a catastrophe that unfolded in minutes inside a brand-new building that

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42:10

The Sweet Sixteen of Samarcand Reformatory - The...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/12/15

Episode 92In the conclusion of Samarcand, we turn away from the fire itself and examine what happened after sixteen teenage girls were arrested — and what the justice system did when it realized it had no good options left. With Samarcand no longer able to house them, the state faced a question it wasn’t prepared to answer: What do you do with traumatized, rebellious, and violently angry teenage girls the system has already failed? In this episode, we explore: The debate over how — or whether —

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50:08

The Sweet Sixteen of Samarcand Reformatory

Crime To Burn ·

2025/12/08

Episode 91Sixteen girls. Multiple fires. A system built to control them — and a desperate act that forced the nation to look closer. In this episode, we step inside the walls of the Samarcand Reform School for Girls in North Carolina, where young women lived under harsh discipline, forced labor, and relentless institutional oversight. On the night they began setting fires, they weren’t just striking a match — they were striking back. This is a story of defiance, injustice, and the blurred line

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34:38

Burn, Marry, Kill: The Wicked Web of Sarah Hartsfield...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/12/01

Episode 90In the final installment of our deep dive into the deadly world of Sarah Hartsfield, we unravel the last threads of a case that spiraled from chaos to calculated cruelty. This episode pulls together the full picture of Sarah’s violent history, her pattern of manipulation, and the chilling timeline that led investigators—and ultimately a jury—to label her actions for what they were. We break down the pivotal moments from Sarah's past that shifted the direction of the trial. From the

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48:50

Burn, Marry, Kill - The Wicked Web of Sarah...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/11/24

Episode 89 In Part 2 of our deep dive into the life and crimes of Sarah Hartsfield, we follow the tangled threads back to the beginning. Because before the alleged poisoning, before the string of dead or endangered husbands, before the Dateline episode… there was a childhood already splintered by chaos. This week, we explore: Sarah’s early life — the patterns that began long before her first “I do.” Marriage #1: A relationship marked by volatility, control, and infidelity Her marriage to Chris

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45:51

Burn, Marry, Kill - The Wicked Web of Sarah Hartsfield

Crime To Burn ·

2025/11/17

Episode 88 Sarah Hartsfield didn’t weave a web of silk — she wove a web of control. A web of manipulation. A web she masked with charisma and charm until it finally snapped under its own weight. In October 2025, a jury convicted Sarah Hartsfield of murdering her husband, Joseph Hartsfield, after deliberating for just one hour. One hour — despite the fact that the physical evidence was thin, the investigation delayed, and the medical questions complex. But what wasn’t thin was the pattern that

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43:09

Dual Disasters: The Dawson Mine Explosions

Crime To Burn ·

2025/11/10

Episode 87Hidden beneath the hills of northeast New Mexico lies a ghost that industry left behind. Dawson was once a model mining town — a company-built community boasting schools, golf courses, and an opera house. Phelps Dodge called it progress. But twice, in just ten years, that progress went up in smoke. In 1913 and again in 1923, massive explosions ripped through Dawson’s coal mines, killing 383 miners — fathers, sons, and brothers — in two of the deadliest mining disasters in American

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43:19

France's Disco Inferno: The Club Cinq-Sept Fire

Crime To Burn ·

2025/11/03

Episode 86In the early hours of November 1st, 1970, celebration turned to catastrophe when a fire tore through the Club Cinq-Sept near Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, France. Within minutes, 146 young people were dead — trapped behind padlocked exits, a full-height turnstile, and flammable décor that turned the dance floor into a death trap. This wasn’t just a fire — it was the inevitable result of greed, negligence, and a system that valued profit over safety. In this episode, April breaks down how the

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38:25

Devil's Night: Detroit's Arson Reckoning

Crime To Burn ·

2025/10/27

Episode 85 Each October, the city of Detroit braced for three nights of chaos known as Devil’s Night—a grim tradition of arson and destruction that peaked in the 1980s with hundreds of fires set across the city. But behind the headlines and the flames lies a story of resilience, strategy, and a community that refused to burn. In this episode, we take you inside the rise and fall of Devil’s Night—how economic collapse, political scandal, and desperation turned mischief into mayhem, and how Detroit’s

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56:15

Bonus Episode: Interview with Arnie Bernstein (Author...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/10/21

Episode 84:In this week’s bonus episode of Crime to Burn, April sits down with author Arnie Bernstein to discuss the 1927 Bath School disaster, the investigation that followed, and what it takes to responsibly tell true stories of mass violence nearly a century later. Together, they explore how the bombing changed one American town — and why its echoes still shape today’s conversations about justice, memory, and the human cost of tragedy. Arnie Bernstein’s Website: arniebernstein.com Arnie’s

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42:33

Her Own Witness: The Judy Malinowski Story

Crime To Burn ·

2025/10/20

Episode 83This week on Crime to Burn, we’re doing something a little different. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and this episode honors the extraordinary courage of Judy Malinowski — a woman whose strength changed the law and gave victims of domestic violence a voice that could never again be silenced. Judy was burned alive by her abuser and spent nearly two years in the hospital, fighting through unimaginable pain to testify against him. Her recorded testimony would later make

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41:58

Texas Justice: Revisiting Cameron Todd Willingham's...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/10/13

Episode 82 In this episode, we follow the fallout of the Cameron Todd Willingham case — a story that didn’t end at the execution chamber. When fire scientist Dr. Gerald Hurst sounded the alarm that the arson evidence used to convict Willingham was based on junk science, Texas had a choice: pause and reevaluate, or push forward and protect its image. It chose the latter. We’ll unpack how political pressure and flawed forensics collided, how the Texas Forensic Science Commission became a battleground

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47:09

Texas Justice: Revisiting Cameron Todd Willingham's...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/10/06

Episode 81A fire, a flawed science, and a state that still hasn’t learned. In 1991, Cameron Todd Willingham was convicted of setting the house fire that killed his three young children. Despite a mountain of later evidence debunking the “arson indicators” used against him, Texas executed Willingham in 2004—long after leading fire scientists warned that the case rested on junk science. Two decades later, Texas is preparing to repeat history. On October 16th, the state is scheduled to execute

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41:35

Permission to Burn: The Ballantynes Fire of...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/09/29

Episode 80On November 18, 1947, a fire tore through Ballantynes department store in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 41 people and changing the nation forever. It remains New Zealand’s deadliest fire disaster — and one that exposed shocking negligence. In this episode, we retrace the events leading up to the blaze, the chaos of the evacuation, and the devastating aftermath. We’ll look at how overcrowding, building construction, and a lack of fire protection systems turned a busy shopping day into

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42:00

Bath School Massacre: The Making of America's First...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/09/22

Episode 79In Part 2 of our Bath School Massacre series, we step back from the timeline to ask the harder questions: what drives an otherwise rational man to the brink of ruin—and what finally pushes him over the edge? We’ll uncover just how long, and how meticulously, Andrew Kehoe had been planning his attack, and the unsettling foresight that made the tragedy possible. From there, we confront the psychology behind Kehoe’s actions, the societal pressures that fed his resentment, and the dangerous

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41:27

Bath School Massacre: The Making of America's First...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/09/15

Episode 78On May 18, 1927, the quiet farming town of Bath, Michigan, was shattered by the deadliest school massacre in U.S. history. Long before Columbine, Sandy Hook, or Parkland, one man wired an entire school with explosives — and changed the way America would understand mass violence forever. In this episode of Crime to Burn, we dig into the life and mind of Andrew Kehoe — a farmer, a school board treasurer, and the man who became America’s first school bomber. What drove him from grievances

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43:17

Elusive Evidence: Florida's Botched Arson Case...

Crime To Burn ·

2025/09/08

Episode 77 In this episode of Crime to Burn, we revisit the devastating fire at Greybeard’s Tavern in Jacksonville, Florida, and the deeply flawed arson case that followed. Randal Wagoner, a local truck driver, was arrested and charged with both arson and murder after the fire claimed the life of Katherine Johnson. What first looked like an open-and-shut case unraveled. Investigators leaned on experts who couldn’t back up their findings with scientific proof, relied on questionable witnesses, and

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55:22

The Flora Four: Between Rumors and Reality - The Finale

Crime To Burn ·

2025/09/01

Episode 76In the finale of The Flora Four: Between Rumors and Reality, we bring the story full circle. Nearly a decade after the fire that claimed the lives of four young sisters in Flora, Indiana, we examine why this case remains unsolved — and who really benefitted from the official arson ruling. From conflicting investigator depositions to shifting fire science, we uncover how shaky evidence and rushed conclusions may have shaped the narrative. Was this truly a deliberate act of arson, or did

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51:12

The Flora Four: Between Rumors and Reality - Part 2

Crime To Burn ·

2025/08/25

Episode 75 In Part 2 of The Flora Four: Between Rumors and Reality, we dig into the tangled web of suspects, motives, and unanswered questions surrounding the fire that claimed the lives of four young sisters in Flora, Indiana. From Gaylin Rose’s boyfriend Colten Creasy to the complicated history of Jennifer Dean (a.k.a. Jennifer Barnes, Jennifer Miller), we examine the relationships, rumors, and criminal connections that kept investigators circling. Was this a case of small-town drama spilling into

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55:44

The Flora Four: Between Rumors and Reality - Part 1

Crime To Burn ·

2025/08/18

Episode 74On November 21, 2016, a fire tore through a home in Flora, Indiana, claiming the lives of four young sisters: Keyana, Keyara, Kerriele, Kionnie. Nearly nine years later, the case remains unsolved, mired in contradictions, unanswered questions, and a community still searching for justice. In this episode of Crime to Burn, we sift through the layers of rumor and fact surrounding the Flora fire. From conflicting reports about accelerant use to the shifting narratives in the press, we trace

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95 results

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