Starring Lou Merrill (12 half-hour episodes / 6 hours via digital download)

Crime Classics was a radio docudrama that aired over CBS from June 15, 1953 until June 30, 1954. Created, produced, and directed by Elliott Lewis, the program was a true crime series, examining crimes and murders throughout history. It grew out of Lewis' personal interest in famous murder cases and took a documentary-like approach to the subject, carefully recreating the facts, personages and feel of the time period. Written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin, very little dramatic license was taken with the facts and events, but the tragedy was leavened with humor, expressed largely through the narration. The crimes dramatized covered a broad time and place from ancient Greece to late 19th-century America. The cases ranged from famous assassinations (of Abraham Lincoln, Leon Trotsky, and Julius Caesar) and the lives (and often deaths) of the likes of Cesare Borgia and Blackbeard to more obscure cases, such as Bathsheba Spooner, who killed her husband Joshua Spooner in 1778 and became the first woman tried and executed in America. Lou Merrill portrayed our host, Thomas Hyland, and the series featured radio’s finest supporting players with original scores by Bernard Herr.

6/29/53 The Checkered Life and Sudden Death Of Colonel James Fisk, Jr. Esq.

7/6/53 The Shrapnelled Body Of Charles Drew, Sr.

7/13/53 The Terrible Deed Of John White Webster and His Crime That Shocked the Nation

8/3/53 The Dread Events Surrounding Mr. Thrower's Hammer

8/10/53 The Axe and The Droot Family; How They Fared

9/30/53 The Bloody, Bloody Banks Of Fall River

10/7/53 The Hangman and William Palmer. Who Won?

11/4/53 Raschi Among the Crocodiles and The Prank He Played

11/25/53 The Killing Story Of William Corder and The Farmer's Daughter

12/2/53 If A Body Need A Body, Just Call Burke and Hare

12/9/53 The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

12/16/53 John and Judith, Their Crime, and Why They Didn’t Get to Enjoy It