Golden Age of Murder
28 episodes listed below
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This true crime podcast examines the history of serial murder and a unique period of violence in 20th century america.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · June 2026
A long-form serial murder history show that connects notorious cases to psychology, public image, and criminal justice failure.
The Golden Age of Murder: A True Crime Podcast belongs on the historical side of PlayNext's True Crime shelf. It uses long-form serial murder cases to look at late 20th-century North America through some of its most notorious offenders: John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Robert…
You want infamous cases taken apart as psychology, institutional failure, and awful biography.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A reflective series closer that ties the cases to their historical moment.
This closing chapter steps back from the cases and makes the series wider argument plain: serial murder is not new, but the post-war era and the rise of mass media helped give it a sharper public shape.
A road-system view of how truck stops, interstates, and forensic limits shaped the killings.
The episode frames the Federal Highway Act and the rise of long-haul trucking as part of a wider landscape where predation could move with traffic, then widens into the FBI's Highway Serial Killing Initiative and the bodies that helped spur it.
A serial-killer story that is really about media, optics, and American myth.
The episode uses Henry Lucas and Otis Toole to trace how serial killers became part of American pop mythology, shaped by mass communication, public fear, and commercial exploitation.
A historian's route into serial murder, with reporting gaps and police silos that kept cases apart.
Dr. Peter Vronsky brings a historian's eye to serial murder, starting with the 1979 moment when Richard Cottingham crossed his path and widening into an era when the term serial killer was still being tested in law enforcement and had not yet entered common use elsewhere.
A grim, sprawling look at predators, panic, and the fear they created.
The episode opens with John D. Norman and the wider panic around missing boys in the 1970s and 80s, with Dean Corll and John Wayne Gacy setting the tone for how dangerous that era felt.
A study of hunting, control, and the murderous fantasy behind Robert Hansen.
The episode is at its best when it links Robert Hansen's hunting life to the murders, especially through Anchorage, the cabin or house, and the flights out to remote locations.
A talky, grim look at the Mall Passer and the counterfeiting case that finally exposed him.
This episode tracks the Mall Passer, a skilled and prolific counterfeiter who moved hundreds of thousands of dollars in fake bills across 38 states before Roger Colin Blanchard's 1983 arrest in Maryville, Tennessee revealed James Mitchell de Barta k's identity.
A grim, digressive look at Ramirez as a symptom of a country at war with itself.
Richard Ramirez is framed less as a lone horror figure than as a symptom of the American post-war psyche, and that is the episode's sharpest idea.
Retired detectives and victims' families walk through Australian murder cases with host Meshel Laurie.
A dark calendar of consequential cases.
True crime with blunt questions and rough edges.
Appalachian case files, told from the record.
Southern cases, sharp context, steady storytelling.
Historical mysteries built from the smallest clues.
Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole are presented as the center of a “tall tale” built by mass media, Texas law enforcement, and public fear in the 1970s and 1980s.
Richard Ramirez is framed as more than a horror story.
The episode starts with Dwight D.
Hosts examine two serial killers — Kenneth McDuff and Arthur Shawcross — as case studies in systemic failure: both were unambiguous predators, both were convicted and jailed, and both were released due to the 1972 Furman v.
A deep-dive true crime podcast exploring the life and crimes of James Mitchell DeBardeleben, an almost unknown serial criminal who was one of the most prolific counterfeiters in US history and a suspected serial killer.
The epilogue episode of a true crime podcast series examining the 'Golden Age of Serial Murder.' The hosts reflect on the complete arc from Harvey Glattman (prototypical sexually sadistic killer) through David Parker Ray (fully elaborated, extreme killer with torture chambers), analyzing how serial murder psychology evolved alongside media culture development.
The episode opens with a regional claim: after California, the Pacific Northwest has also been unusually prolific in serial murder.
Late December 1978 in Chicago sets the scene.
New Mexico sets the mood first.
Carla Homolka and Paul Bernardo's wedding sits at the center of this episode.
Robert Hansen terrorized Anchorage, Alaska, by hunting women he treated as prey.
The episode opens with the Milwaukee apartment raid and the news-footage shock that followed.
Dr.
This episode examines John D.