Criminalia

Resurrectionist William Cunningham was actively stealing bodies from grave sites around Cincinnati from 1855 to 1871. He was well known, and he was something of a legend. He once returned to the same gravesite at which he had earlier been caught digging – after he’d bought those who had detained him a drink. He dressed the bodies he stole. And, he had a “villainous bald head.”

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Imagine one day your local pharmacist is arrested and accused of drinking the blood of infants and flying on the back of a goat to an orgy involving the devil. From the 14th through the 18th century, there were some wild superstitions about witches. The first witch to confess to riding a broom was a man: Guillaume Edelin. But it was Matteuccia di Francesco who was the first accused and tried for flying.

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Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence considered a 17th century masterpiece, created by Italian painter Caravaggio in 1609. Nativity has been missing since it was nicked by thieves in Palermo in 1969. No one for sure knows who stole it, or why they stole it, but what might have become of it has sparked dozens of tales. One prominent theory is that it was stolen by the mafia – and, quite possibly, eaten by pigs.

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Welcome to first episode of a new season of Criminalia. This season we're talking about body snatchers, and the bodies they snatched. Ben Crouch was the son of a carpenter, and was a well-known prizefighter in his day. He’s described as a tall, flamboyantly-dressed man with a pox-marked face who loved to wear gold jewelry, especially gold rings. He could be violent and intimidating -- and he was the leader of London's most notorious group of body snatchers in the 1810s.

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On August 7, 1972, Jeannette DePalma disappeared in Springfield, New Jersey, four days after her 16th birthday. That afternoon, she told her mom she was going to see friends, but when she didn't return later that evening, her mother called the police; the police discovered she never made it to her friend's house. When her body was discovered six weeks later, investigators suspected she may have overdosed; many others suspected she was sacrificed in an occult ritual. Five decades later, it's still a mystery. Welcome to a new season of Criminalia, where we're exploring historical cold cases.

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