Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast - 352: The Ward-Peters Murder Case w/ James Polchin - A True Crime History Podcast

352: The Ward-Peters Murder Case w/ James Polchin - A True Crime History Podcast

07/17/24 • 80 min

2 Listeners

Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast

On the morning of May 16, 1922, a young man’s body was found on a desolate road in Westchester County. The victim was penniless ex-sailor Clarence Peters. Walter Ward, the handsome scion of the family that owned the largest chain of bread factories in the country, confessed to the crime as an act of self-defense against a violent gang of “shadow men,” blackmailers who extorted their victims’ moral weaknesses. From the start, one question defined the investigation: What scandalous secret could lead Ward to murder?

My guest is author and historian James Polchin, whose latest book, "Shadow Men: The Tangled Story of Murder, Media, and Privilege That Scandalized Jazz Age America", is available to purchase in bookstores and online now.

Visit the author's publisher page here: https://www.counterpointpress.com/books/shadow-men/

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Visit the author's publisher page here: https://www.counterpointpress.com/books/shadow-men/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Previous Episode

Today in MoNo History: The 1881 Rock Island Train Robbery w/ Mark Lee Gardner

In this mini MoNo interview, I chat with Mark Lee Gardner about the James Gang and their holdup of a Rock Island Railroad train in Missouri 143 years ago today. Two men were murdered during the robbery.

Mark's website: https://songofthewest.com/

My previous interviews with Mark:

The Northfield Bank Raid: https://www.mostnotorious.com/2022/12/12/mono-classics-the-1876-northfield-bank-raid-by-the-james-younger-gang-parts-1-2/

Billy the Kid: https://www.mostnotorious.com/2020/08/05/mono-classics-billy-the-kid-pat-garrett-w-mark-lee-gardner/

Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and the Battle of the Little Bighorn: https://www.mostnotorious.com/2023/04/14/sitting-bull-crazy-horse-the-battle-of-the-little-bighorn-w-mark-lee-gardner/

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Next Episode

353: The Incorruptibles w/ Dan Slater - A True Crime History Podcast

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In the early 1900s, prior to World War I, New York City was a vortex of vice and corruption. On the Lower East Side, then the most crowded ghetto on earth, Eastern European Jews formed a dense web of crime syndicates. Gangs of horse poisoners and casino owners, pimps and prostitutes, thieves and thugs, jockeyed for dominance while their family members and neighbors toiled in the unregulated garment industry.

But when the notorious murder of a gambler attracted global attention, a coterie of affluent German-Jewish uptowners decided to take matters into their own hands. Worried about the anti-immigration lobby and the uncertain future of Jewish Americans, the uptowners marshalled a strictly off-the-books vice squad led by an ambitious young reformer.

The squad, known as the Incorruptibles, took the fight to the heart of crime in the city, waging war on the sin they saw as threatening the future of their community. Their efforts, however, led to unforeseen consequences in the form of a new mobster class who realized, in the country’s burgeoning reform efforts, unprecedented opportunities to amass power.

My guest is journalist Dan Slater, author of "The Incorruptibles: A True Story of Kingpins, Crime Busters, and the Birth of the American Underworld".

Dan' Slater's publisher page (with links to purchase the book): https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/dan-slater/the-incorruptibles/9780316427715

Dan Slater on Twitter/X: https://x.com/bydanslater

Dan Slater on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bydanslater

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