News of the Times - Unlocking the vaults of historical crime

Today, we travel to Paris in the spring of 1887, where an elegant apartment off the Rue Montaigne became the centre of one of the most sensational investigations of the Belle Époque.
A courtesan of considerable means, her trusted housekeeper, and a twelve-year-old girl were found murdered behind locked doors — no struggle, no intruder seen, and only the faintest collection of clues left behind.
What followed was a case that gripped Europe: a chase across France, a courtroom overflowing with spectators, and a man whose shifting identity and charm made him both captivating and deeply suspect.
This is the story of Henri Pranzini, and the triple murder that shocked Paris to its foundations.
And in our Further Particulars, we lighten the mood just a little with a gastronomic scandal from the Boulevard Haussmann, involving a pâté, an unexpected pigeon, and a delicatessen owner whose confidence exceeded his culinary accuracy.
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Settle in — Paris awaits.

Today we travel back to Boston in 1849, to one of the most unsettling disappearances of the Victorian age.
Dr George Parkman — a man known for his precision, his routine, and his unshakeable punctuality — leaves home one afternoon and never returns. The last place he was seen? The quiet, red-brick halls of Harvard Medical College.

What follows is a mystery that gripped Boston, unsettled Harvard, and pushed the courts into the earliest days of forensic science. Locked rooms, burning furnaces, shifting statements, and a breakthrough that would change criminal investigation forever.

Settle in as we explore the disappearance — and the murder — that became known as the Harvard Mystery.

And for listeners who enjoy diving deeper into Victorian true crime, we also have an archive of more than 500 ad-free episodes, exclusive series, and early releases over on Patreon.

Now — let’s step into 1849.

n 1844, the quiet town of Crewe was shaken by a crime that startled even seasoned Victorian magistrates. When Richard Gallop fell suddenly and violently ill, suspicion soon turned to the person closest to him: his young daughter, Mary.

What began as a family dispute over a forbidden romance spiralled into one of the era’s most unsettling arsenic cases. Drawing entirely from surviving inquest testimony, courtroom reporting, and contemporary medical evidence, this episode traces the final days of Richard Gallop, the repeated poison purchases, and the investigation that revealed a carefully executed plan inside an ordinary household.

We also close with a remarkable Further Particulars tale from Northumberland — involving two burglars, a fearless servant girl, an elderly woman armed with a scythe, and the sort of Victorian resourcefulness that belongs in a novel rather than a police report.

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London, October 1880.
A quiet walk in Finsbury Park ends in horror when three gunshots echo across the lake and a young woman collapses to her knees. Her name was Jane Messenger, twenty-nine years old, respectably dressed, navigating a troubled marriage and an increasingly fraught entanglement with her brother-in-law, William Herbert.

What followed was one of the Victorian era’s most startling public murders — a broad-daylight shooting witnessed by families, park-goers, and off-duty officers. In this episode, we trace the tangled domestic history behind the crime, Herbert’s delusional hopes of an Australian inheritance, and the months of emotional turmoil that led to a fatal confrontation on a cold October afternoon.

We explore the police response, the medical findings, the inquest before Dr Hardwicke, and Herbert’s chilling admissions that revealed his intentions long before he walked Jane into the park. The case would grip London, dominate the papers, and end at Newgate with a crowd waiting for the black flag.

And in Further Particulars, we lighten the mood with the story of a gentleman who believed the most effective way to critique the House of Lords was to break a window and demand a publishing contract. As one does.

If you enjoy archival Victorian true crime, forensic history, and carefully reconstructed storytelling, this episode brings together jealousy, delusion, and the darker side of respectability in 1880s London.

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In the spring of 1881, a quiet butcher’s shop in Slough became the centre of one of Victorian England’s most baffling crimes. Mrs Reville, the butcher’s wife, was found murdered in her own back room — no struggle, no witness, and barely a minute in which her killer could have acted.
The shop layout offered no hidden corners. The doors were visible from her desk. Anyone entering would have been immediately seen. And yet, within this impossibly narrow window of time, an assailant struck four blows, removed the money from her pocket, and vanished without leaving a trace.
Suspicion soon fell on the young apprentice, Augustus Payne, whose movements, handwriting, and prior disputes raised troubling questions… but whose innocence the jury ultimately upheld.
Tonight, we walk through the original testimony, the strange timings, the “H. Collins” letter, and the unanswered questions that left Victorian investigators — and later generations — utterly at a loss.
A quiet evening. A familiar shop. An impossible crime.
And still, after more than a century, no one can say how it was done.
In our Further Particulars: a lighter tale from 1881 involving missing cabbages, a suspiciously woolly sheep-dog, and a gardener whose evening surveillance took a most unexpected turn.
If you enjoy these deep dives into Victorian crime and curiosities, you’ll find many more investigations — including exclusive episodes — available on our Patreon.