As wearers of vintage fashion are particularly well-suited to know, what’s old is new again. Such is the premise of Class A Felons, B-Films & C-Cups, a podcast that focuses primarily on vintage true crime.  

As its creator, my background as a native Southern Californian put me on the path toward an unavoidable interest in true crime at an early age; the summer that I was twelve, serial killer Richard Ramirez terrorized nearby Los Angeles neighborhoods. My mother is a devotee of true crime books, and that’s likely how I got my fourteen-year-old hands on Vincent Bugliosi’s account of the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders in his book Helter Skelter. From there, I devoured every other true crime book I could find. Then, at age eighteen, I experienced firsthand a horrific crime. My partner at the time and one of our friends were shot by my neighbor. The unshakeable memory of witnessing this brutal death has lingered in my psyche. It undoubtedly, in part, led to my seven-year career as a police dispatcher.   

The Manson Women: Look at Your Game Girl – Season 1, Episode 1

True Crime & Hollywood Splendor

These life experiences cumulated one evening several years ago at the historic Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, which has its own connection to the 1947 Black Dahlia murder. My sister and I, along with a group of friends that I dubbed the “Vintage Brigade,” came together in our finest mid–century ensembles for high tea. Afterwards, over cocktails in the dimly-lit setting of the Biltmore’s Cognac Room, I managed to regale several listeners with my intricate research on Charles Manson and his cult that I had built upon in the years following my reading of Bugliosi’s work. Others stopped their conversations and listened in; someone complimented me on my storytelling abilities. An idea was born.  

The Beauty of the Bizzare

Launched in October 2018, Class A Felons, B-Films & C-Cups’s aim is to research and narrate twentieth-century histories of true crime, mysteries, mid-century eccentrics, Hollywood’s Golden Age, and what I call “the beauty of the bizarre.” Now in its second season, it also strives for inclusivity, treating each subject with respect and empathy, while at the same time presenting colorful profiles of significant socio-historic figures, seeking to reassemble their motivations, style, and the culture of their era. 

Bonnie Parker & Blanche Barrow: The Bluest Shot – At Eyest in Texas – Season 1 Episode 5

As a Ph.D. candidate specializing in aesthetics and fashion theory, I’m intrigued with what lies beyond the surface of crime scene chalk outlines. How might we better humanize victims and understand suspects while paradoxically considering how their life—and death—events provide symbolic snapshots of larger cultural moments in time? Season one, which includes profiles of Manson Family women (naturally!), and Carolyn Bryant, the infamous focus of the Emmett Till murder, exemplify these colliding interests. In the second season’s chapter, “Stranger Than Fiction,” I’ve investigated the tragedies and mysteries associated with prominent midcentury authors, including Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, and Oscar Zeta Acosta. 

Sylvia Plath: The Oven Suicides Part 1 – Season 2 Episode 1

Class A Felons, B-Films, C-Cup is available for no-cost listening at classafelons.wordpress.com, as well as Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Castbox, Radio Public, Spotify, and all of your favorite podcatchers.