The Blotter Presents 144: Fake Heiress and Unsolved Mysteries S03.E10
Plus new podcasts and boomer shenanigans.
the true crime that's worth your time
Even though The Last Narc got disappeared, Jessica Liese made the best of it with an Anna Delvey podcast in Episode 144. On the theory that nobody ever tires of takes on Delvey/Sorokin, we tackled BBC podcast Fake Heiress…and y’all, it’s a weird one, with a lot of class preoccupations we Yanks couldn’t really plug into (and a LOT of Britishisms sneaking into the re-enactments), and yet, we both listened to the whole thing. It’s not great, but in the funnest way.
Later, we dug into a third-season segment of Unsolved Mysteries about Nyleen Marshall. The update to that case, which reunited a completely other little girl with her family? Also missing! Nyleen’s mom? Murdered horribly in 1995…in Mexico, which is where The Last Narc is “set”! If you don’t hear from me or Jessica for a while, call the CIA!
…I’m joking. Mostly. Listen to 144 right here! — SDB
It’s Eve’s birthday this weekend! I got her whisky, because [gestures vaguely] you know. YOU can give her the gift of a paid subscription to this here newsletter, which will let her buy her own whisky, and let US pay our contributors so that THEY can buy THEIR own whisky. (Or coffee, or nail polish!) In fact, a gift sub makes a great last-minute gift for dads, grads, or people who mix plaids: virus-free, timely, and a bargain at $5/month or $55/year. — SDB
Soledad O’Brien’s upcoming podcast on the murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer is a gift to ME. I’ve long wondered why Meyer’s death hasn’t assumed a higher profile in the true-crime pantheon of “big cases,” and while Murder On The Towpath MAY not do that — the podcast is on Luminary, which is a subscription service — it also might induce some folks to pick up a sub to check it out.
Murder On The Towpath isn’t just about Meyer, although Meyer’s status as one of JFK’s mistresses may be what gets butts in the seats, at least initially. (I think I first heard about her/her demise via Ben Bradlee’s disappointingly gaseous memoir, during one of his frequent sidebars on his relationship with the Kennedys.) It’s also about Dovey Johnson Roundtree, who represented Roy Crump, Jr., the man arrested for but acquitted of killing Meyer.
Roundtree died in 2018 at the age of 104, according to the New York Times, who called her “a litigator of acuity, concision and steel who could win even the most hopeless trials.” She wasn’t allowed to drink from the same water fountain as white people, “but in court,” O’Brien says, “She was the only thing standing between a man and his execution.” Plus, she only charged $1.
Anyone else planning to listen to this one, or have reading to recommend on the case? — SDB
Is the College Board trying to sting would-be cheaters? Okay, so this story isn’t all that crimey, strictly speaking, but after the column inches we’ve devoted to Lori Loughlin and her shitty kids, I kind of had to take note of this one — not least because Madison Malone Kircher’s account made me laugh. In a nutshell: The College Board took Advanced Placement testing online this year, for obvious reasons. Although test-takers were given a fair bit of latitude as far as included materials, teen Redditors think the College Board also tried to plant a spy in the house of high school, a spy so obvious that the alleged spy account got buried in okay-boomer memes instead of the smoking-gun cheating-help requests it may have hoped to elicit. — SDB
And now, some mid-week longreads to while away your Wednesday!
My magazine-archive whittling project brought me to the sad, infuriating New York cover story from last fall, “The Toll Of Me Too.” Weirdly, I read it yesterday, as 1) the Ronan Farrow smear-job story was still unfolding, and 2) I was reviewing Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, in which one of the story’s interviewees also appears. [NYMag]
Did hacker Marcus Hutchins save the internet…only to get arrested? [Wired]
“After the surrogate son—and alleged lover—of New York’s ‘jeweler to the stars’ was involved in a brutal killing, tabloid drama engulfed a swath of the city’s rich and powerful.” I can’t lie; that subhed had me at “jeweler to the stars.” [Vanity Fair]
True Crime A To Z only has a week to go…and today’s installment will send you down an archive hole with a Texas Monthly rec, and many more. — SDB
Coming up on Best Evidence: A failed coup, a new Vegas/mob podcast, and there’s no stopping true-crime buttholes.
What is this thing? This should help. Follow The Blotter @blotterpresents on Twitter and Instagram, and subscribe to The Blotter Presents via the podcast app of your choice. You can also call or text us any time at 919-75-CRIME.