In 2018, Joanna Laiscell was fired from her position in the finance department at the Hartford Schools District after 24 years of service.

The official reason for her dismisaal was insurance fraud, but the truth ran far deeper, exposing a murky world of racism and collusion. Joanna didn't know it at the time, but one of her colleagues was making it his mission to ruin her reputation.

If you have any story ideas for future episodes of Caught Up in Crime - you can email them to caughtupincrime@gmail.com or contact me at tom@shinebrighterconsulting.co.uk

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Artwork by Spencer Wilson

Music by Premium Beat

Theme: Noir Guitar by Jonathan Boyle

Other tracks featured in this episode:

• Beyond Silence by Remember the Future
• Breezy Life by Sirus Music
• Pressing Matters by Mark Fabian
• Mountains by Jack Catfish
• Life is Golden by Young Presidents

Have you ever thought about the historical crimes in YOUR town?

Eleanor Phillips has lived in my home town of Chesham all her life, and in her retirement she has become one of its foremost historians and story-tellers. In this episode, she talks about four crimes spanning more than a century from the swahbuckling tale of highwaymen thwarted by a hero stagecoach driver, to the sinister 'Raincoat Man' who stalked his terrified victims in Chesham and Amersham in 1957.

To find out more about the stories we covered in this episode, read Eleanor's articles on the Chesham Museum website.

If you have any story ideas for future episodes of Caught Up in Crime - you can email them to caughtupincrime@gmail.com or contact me at tom@shinebrighterconsulting.co.uk

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Or Facebook

Or Instagram

Artwork by Spencer Wilson

Music by Premium Beat

Theme: Noir Guitar by Jonathan Boyle

Tracks featured in this episode:

• Another Piece of the Puzzle by Emmett Cooke
• The Latest Scandal by Shaun Frearson
• Elephant Crossing by Little Red Church
• Sorry Sea Dog by Porter Productions
• Dark Expanse by Sarah Chapman
• Ain't in Like a River by the Commandeers

For Mary O'Kane and her friends, murder never seems to be far away...

Throughout their lives, their get-togethers have been dominated by talk of the latest serial killings or celebrity homicides. Pretty soon, they realised they all had close connections to some of the most notorious crimes in US history. Sometimes, the cases were huge - OJ, Versace, John Wayne Gacy - but others struck much closer to home.

Whether these brushes with death are driven by fate or coincidence, Mary doesn't know. But she came up with a name for the phenomenon all the same: She called it The Murder Wheel.

If you have any story ideas for future episodes of Caught Up in Crime - you can email them to caughtupincrime@gmail.com or contact me at tom@shinebrighterconsulting.co.uk

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Or Facebook

Artwork by Spencer Wilson

Music by Premium Beat

Theme: Noir Guitar by Jonathan Boyle

Tracks featured in this episode:

• The Clermont - Flash Fluharty
• Whispers in the Attic - Cosmo Lawson
• Groovy - INPLUSMUSIC
• Snappy - Jonathan Boyle
• Silver Light - Swan Productions