The Alabama Murders - Part 3: A Peculiar Institution
Malcolm Gladwell examines the trial of John Forrest Parker for the murder of Elizabeth Sennett, highlighting how medical evidence and timing cast serious doubt on whether Parker actually inflicted the fatal stab wounds, and pointing instead toward her husband, Reverend Charles Sennett. The episode then traces how Alabama's judicial override system allowed a judge to impose the death penalty against a jury's recommendation of life without parole, and how the state later abolished override without correcting past cases, leaving Parker on death row despite the system's acknowledged flaws.
The Alabama Murders - Part 2: Coon Dog Cemetery Road
Malcolm Gladwell continues his exploration of the Alabama Murders by reconstructing the 1988 killing of Elizabeth Dorleen Sennett, the investigation that followed, and the early suspicions that her preacher husband Charles may have orchestrated the crime. Through interviews with congregants, investigators, and locals, he details the killers' confessions, the red flags in Charles Sennett's behavior, and the eventual revelation of Sennett's infidelity and suicide. Gladwell contrasts the messy, ongoing reality of this case with the tidy resolutions of typical crime stories, introducing the idea of a 'failure cascade' in the justice system.
The Alabama Murders - Part 1: The True Church
Malcolm Gladwell opens a seven-episode series by introducing psychologist Kate Porterfield and the death row client "Kenny," whose botched execution and focus on love after trauma lead Gladwell into an Alabama murder case decades in the making. The episode then shifts to northwestern Alabama and explores the culture and theology of the Church of Christ, including its strict rules, lack of grace, and practices like disfellowshipping, and how that environment shaped the life and unraveling of preacher Charles Sennett. Through interviews with Church of Christ members and ministers, Gladwell sets up the idea that a rigid, shame-driven religious system helped create the conditions for a moral and legal catastrophe that will unfold in the series.
SYSK's Fall True Crime Playlist: The Hinterkaifeck Axe Murders
Hosts Josh Clark and Charles W. "Chuck" Bryant recount the 1922 Hinterkaifeck axe murders in rural Bavaria, where six members of the Gruber household, including a new maid, were brutally killed on their isolated farm. They walk through the eerie lead-up of strange noises and footprints, the grisly discovery and forensic details, and the major suspects, especially neighbor Lorenz Schlittenbauer, while discussing why the case remains officially unsolved. The episode ends with lighter tangents about Steve Guttenberg and a listener mail story about a formative hunting experience.
SYSK's Fall True Crime Playlist: Who Committed the 1912 Villisca Ax Murders?
The hosts recount the 1912 Villisca axe murders in Iowa, describing the Moore family and Stillinger girls, the killer's methodical actions inside the house, and the chaotic discovery that destroyed much of the crime scene evidence. They examine early suspects including state senator Frank F. Jones and traveling preacher George Kelly, then lay out the modern theory that the crime was likely part of a series of connected Midwestern axe murders committed by an unidentified serial killer using the railroad. The episode closes with a listener email about how their earlier hookworm episode helped a listener's cousin finally receive an accurate medical diagnosis.
SYSK's Fall True Crime Playlist: The Strange Unsolved Murder of Ken McElroy
Hosts Josh and Chuck recount the history of Ken Rex McElroy, a violent criminal who terrorized the small town of Skidmore, Missouri for decades through theft, assault, sexual abuse of minors, and systematic intimidation of witnesses and officials. They describe how repeated failures of the legal system and law enforcement to stop him culminated in a daytime vigilante killing in front of dozens of townspeople, none of whom ever cooperated with investigators. The episode explores McElroy's background, his pattern of coercive marriages to underage girls, the shooting of grocer Bo Bowenkamp, the town meeting that preceded his death, and the unresolved questions around who pulled the trigger.
The Alabama Murders
This short episode introduces a special seven-episode Revisionist History series titled "The Alabama Murders." Using the 2003 Northeast blackout as an analogy for a "failure cascade," the host frames a decades-long Alabama murder case as a moral and legal cascade involving a woman killed in her home, a charismatic preacher, disputed jury and judicial decisions, long imprisonment, lethal injection, and far‑reaching harm. Interview clips hint at themes of religious culture, judicial power, the death penalty, and how a justice system meant to respond to suffering can instead amplify it.