How Kate Winkler Dawson finds killer stories for ‘Tenfold More Wicked’ podcast

It’s the early 1900s in New Orleans. Jazz music fills the streets, absinthe is plentiful, and drugs like cocaine and morphine are commonly found in basic, over-the-counter medications — even for children.

And purchasing large amounts of arsenic at any home goods store wasn’t suspicious at all.

Kate Winkler Dawson sets this scene as crime historian and podcast creator rolls out the true crime story of Annie Crawford during the first episode of the eighth season of her “Tenfold More Wicked” podcast dubbed “The Morphine Murderess,” which launched on March 20 and is available through a variety of platforms. The podcast focuses on historical true crimes.

Sister, morphine

In 1910, several members of the Crawford family died of illnesses that were initially believed to be caused by things like kidney failure and meningitis. But when Annie’s sister Elise dies, the doctors suspected morphine poisoning.

“This one is very different than the ones we’ve done in the past because it’s a big mystery,” said Dawson about the podcast during a recent phone interview. “Anyone who listens, by the end of the season, I’m not sure anyone is any more clear than they were at the beginning about whether this person is a killer or not. There’s so much evidence all over the place and you just don’t know. It’s one of those things that makes it so wonderful to me.”

As well as “Tenfold More Wicked,” she hosts “Wicked Words,” a true crime podcast featuring journalists and authors discussing cases, and she co-hosts “Buried Bones” alongside retired investigator Paul Holes. She’s written several books, including her most recent, 2022’s “All That Is Wicked: A Gilded-Age Story of Murder and the Race to Decode the Criminal Mind,” and the new audio original, “The Ghost Club,” which dropped March 21.

Though she’s reviewed hundreds of cases, the story of Annie Crawford stuck with her. First off, it was set in New Orleans, a city Dawson said she fell in love with visiting as a child; she still vacations there since it’s only about a nine-hour drive from her home in Austin, Texas. Second, it’s set in a time period she refers to as “the rise of the female killer.”

“There’s a misunderstanding that people have and have had since the beginning of time that there’s no way that a woman is capable of this level of deception or brutality. Every once in a while, I want to remind people that women can be killers, too,” she said. “Not that there’s anything to brag about, but there is this inequality there that the fairer of the sexes can’t do this and that’s certainly not the case. Some of the most brutal crimes I’ve ever heard of were committed by women.”

Arsenic and old cases

Statistically, women are more apt to use poison for murder than men, she said, noting how readily available a variety of substances were in the late 1800s and early 1900s, coupled with the fact that, for the most part, small amounts were undetectable.

“You have to be very intelligent to get away with murder using poison,” she said. “If you use too much, it could be detected, and if you don’t use enough, you don’t kill the person. So it’s literally a science to use poison.”

There is an intersection in crime history, she noted, where there’s an abundance of poisonings and at the same time toxicology hadn’t caught up. Investigators were still relying on things like sniffing out the scent of almonds to determine if arsenic was used.

“I’m working on a case for a future episode of ‘Tenfold’ where they’re looking at the blackening of the face to see if this is someone who died of arsenic poisoning or cyanide,” she said. “So there really was a time when it was easy to get away with poisoning someone and women found an easy way to get rid of abusive husbands or unwanted family members or, frankly, people who just pissed them off.”

Along with Dawson’s rich storytelling and interviews with family members of both the accused and victims, the first episode of the new season is also filled with music and sound effects that create an immersive audio experience.

“That is important to me,” she said. “I am a huge fan of old radio shows that have dramatic reenactments and they have people in the studio doing the Foley sounds and I love those shows. I didn’t feel like there was a lot out there like that, so for my show, I wanted to keep it interesting and draw listeners into that time period, and my composer, Curtis Heath, he does all-original music.

“My sound designer, producer and I are constantly debating, ‘Does this sound like the Mississippi River or does it sound more like a lake? Are we walking through gravel or are we walking through leaves?’ Those things are important because we have very smart listeners and they pick up on inauthenticity so we have to stay authentic.”

Staying true

True crime storytelling is a booming business. There are countless podcasts, books, documentaries and television programs dedicated to recent high-profile cases, such as the trial of former lawyer Alex Murdaugh, who was found guilty of the murder of his wife and son.

Dawson isn’t interested in jumping on the bandwagon; she’ll stick to historical crimes.

“I like obscure cases and I’m pretty good at finding stories that no one else has heard of, that are relatively important in history and have a lot of source material,” she said. “I’ll never do a story based on contemporary newspaper articles; there have to be diaries and old journals.”

While Dawson said she doesn’t have “an endless supply of book ideas,” she is fortunate to have multiple outlets — including the three podcasts — to share the stories that she does find interesting. Through all of her research into cases, she said there is a common thread and that’s the fact that human behavior hasn’t really changed all that much through the years — or centuries.

“You can see that people don’t behave any differently in the 1600s than they do now,” she said. “The reason they commit crimes has always been the same — money, sex, greed, lust, love, insecurity and jealousy — those are the constants and that will never change. Those are the main reasons we find and when you learn about people’s behaviors – and not just the killers, but the victims and survivors, too. It all paints a picture of who we are as a society. That’s what I’m really interested in.”

“If you look at Annie Crawford through a 1910 lens, she’s this odd woman who is not even remotely capable of killing people in her family,” she continued. “That viewpoint is incredulous for many people, to think that a woman would be capable of such things. But now we think differently and we can look at Annie Crawford’s behavior and go, ‘OK, is there something else going on here with her as a diagnosis that might explain some of her behavior?’ By the end of the season, you are a little more informed and can say, ‘I don’t know if this verdict was the right verdict.’

“It’s a big mystery and even I go back and forth based on the evidence that I have and that the family has given to me. It’s just not clear-cut at all.”