Mary Hamilton was a young woman of Scottish descent who rose to prominence in the Russian court of Peter the Great. Serving as a lady-in-waiting to Empress Catherine I, Mary appeared to have a life worth envying. But behind the elegance of court life, she harbored dark and dangerous secrets.

Set in early 18th-century Russia, this episode examines how power, gender, and fear shaped justice under Peter the Great. While Mary Hamilton’s choices carried deadly consequences, her public execution became one of the most shocking and haunting scandals of the Romanov era.

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In this episode, we travel to the dusty streets of Bisbee, Arizona in 1883, where a robbery quickly spiraled into deadly violence. What was intended to be a targeted crime resulted in the deaths of innocent people and left the town shaken with shock and anger. At the center of it all was John Heath, the man who orchestrated the robbery while keeping his own hands free of blood.

In the aftermath of what became known as the Bisbee Massacre, five men were put on trial for first degree murder. John Heath faced a separate trial for his role in planning the crime, and while he may have believed he escaped the worst punishment, his sentence set the stage for one of the most infamous acts of vigilante justice in the American West.

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Introducing Madame de Brinvilliers: devoted lover, enthusiastic poisoner, and a woman who could hold a truly impressive grudge. Her clever murder spree horrified Paris and helped ignite France’s obsession with secret poisons, eventually leading to the Affair of the Poisons.

Competent, methodical, and alarmingly confident, she nearly got away with it all. Unfortunately for Marie-Madeleine, her own incriminating self-confessions ultimately led to her downfall. What begins as a scandalous love affair ends at the scaffold.

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