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Meet the Team


Marlin Bressi (Host). Marlin is the author of seven nonfiction books, including Pennsylvania's Coldest Cases: Ten Unsolved Murders That Rocked the Keystone State (Globe Pequot, 2025) and the host/creator of Pennsylvania Oddities, Pennsylvania's longest continuously running true crime podcast. He is a frequent guest speaker and presenter at historical societies, museums and bookstores across the state.

An accomplished fiction writer, his work has appeared in Suspense Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Best New England Crime Stories, and other publications.


Ashley Bemis (Voice Talent). Ashley provides the female and children's voices for both the 15 Minutes of Infamy and Pennsylvania Oddities podcasts. And since our esteemed host is also a moron when it comes to anything involving electricity, Ashley is also the show's de facto technical advisor.

 

Destiny (Occasional Co-Host, Peanut Butter Aficionado). You'll never know when Destiny will show up in an episode. Oddly, she can read from a cue card exceptionally well, and while we claim that tip jar donations go toward defraying production costs, the truth is, we're really just saving up to send her for treatment for her catnip addiction.


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Ep. 5: Isaac Sawtelle

Unlike so many murderers who have been forgotten by history, Isaac Sawtelle earned his fifteen minutes of infamy-- not just for the brutal nature of his crime, but for having the rare distinction of being sentenced to death in a state where the crime wasn't committed. Christmas Day of 1889 had a special meaning for one Boston family. Isaac Sawtelle, Jr., would be reunited with the family he hadn't seen in sixteen years. Isaac's long absence from home was neither the result of his seeking fortune out West or traveling abroad, nor was it because of a family rift. No, the reason for Isaac's long-awaited homecoming was because he had just been pardoned by the Governor of Massachusetts after serving half of his sentence for raping three young girls. And the reason why he was welcomed home with open arms was because Isaac's elderly mother, Hannah, had never believed that he was guilty in the first place.  In 1889, Hannah Sawtelle found herself living with her other son, ...

Ep. 20: A Textbook Case of Murder

  John Caldwell Colt Today we present one of the most discussed true crime cases of Old New York-- a case which famously spawned a conspiracy theory involving a faked death, a doppelganger corpse, and powerful family connections. Like most people who made it their career to teach penmanship, Asa Wheeler was the quiet, meticulous sort. During the mid-19th century Asa conducted daily classes in a building on Chambers Street in Lower Manhattan, instructing anyone who wanted to learn calligraphy or Spencerian script. Unfortunately for Mr. Wheeler, there just weren't enough students to fill a classroom, and so, to make ends meet, he sublet one of his rooms to another teacher named John Caldwell Colt. Colt was a fur trader turned gambler turned bookkeeper who had fallen on hard times, and he believed that he could turn his fortunes around by publishing a textbook on the subject. Asa Wheeler didn't share the struggling bookkeeper's optimism, however. But he decided to rent space o...

Ep. 19: The Sunday School Slaughterer

This week, we visit the Emmanuel Church in San Francisco-- a church with a very dark history. One of its former pastors had committed suicide in his study, another pastor had murdered a member of the congregation, and a third had carried on so many extramarital affairs that he had been forced to resign.  But, in 1895, when the body of a missing teenage housekeeper was discovered inside the church library with a dinner knife protruding from her chest and another young woman was found butchered in the belltower, it created a media sensation that helped launch one of the greatest careers in the history of journalism.   It was a slow news day and the San Francisco Examiner was looking for something fresh with a local angle. It was a classified ad in Examiner which caught the attention of one newspaper reporter. Nine little words, sandwiched between two names. It was an ad which hinted at the promise of an interesting story: Blanche: No matter what has happened, come home to me. M...