Lucy Worsley and Rosalind Crone are joined by Helen Lewis, author of ‘Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights.’ They discuss what it means to be a difficult woman and why the airbrushing of feminist history can be problematic. Together they discuss four of the most difficult women across the Lady Killers series; Mary Surratt, Alice Mitchell, Mary Ann Brough and Maria Manning. Each one commits wild and unspeakable crimes. They are anti-heroines; breaking taboos around...

Lucy Worsley travels back in time to revisit the unthinkable crimes of 19th century murderesses from the UK, Australia and North America. In this episode, Lucy is joined by Alexandra Wilson, a barrister specialising in criminal and family law and author of ‘In Black and White’, to explore the case of Mary Ann Brough in 1854. Mary Ann lives in the picturesque county of Surrey, close to London. She’s married to George, who lives and works at the stately home nearby, while Mary Ann stays at...

Lucy Worsley travels back in time to revisit the unthinkable crimes of 19th century murderesses from the UK, Australia and North America. In this episode Lucy is joined by Cameron Esposito, stand-up comic, actor, writer and host of the hit podcast Queery. They investigate the case of 19-year-old Alice Mitchell who killed 17-year-old Freda Ward in Memphis, Tennessee in 1892 after a stormy and illicit relationship. Alice and Freda plan to marry and move to St Louis, but when Freda’s family...

Lucy Worsley travels back in time to revisit the unthinkable crimes of 19th century murderesses from the UK, Australia and North America. Lucy Worsley travels to Buckland Brewer, Devon, to investigate the death of a young servant girl on a remote farm. Far from bucolic idyll with roses around the door, this is the location of a grizzly crime where a teenage girl, Mary-Ann Parsons, is found dead, her emaciated body horribly bruised and battered. Guest Detective Baroness Helena Kennedy, a...

Lucy Worsley travels back in time to revisit the unthinkable crimes of 19th century murderesses from the UK, Australia and North America. In this episode Lucy is joined by Evy Poumpouras, former special agent with the Secret Service, where she protected five US presidents as part of the Presidential Protective Division. Lucy and Evy investigate the case of Mary Surratt, a 42 year-old widow, mother and pious Catholic who was arrested in April 1865 for conspiring to assassinate President...

Lucy Worsley, Professor Rosalind Crone and barrister Nneka Akudolu KC take a look behind the scenes of Lady Killers. They shine a light on the detective work required to build the cases of these infamous murderesses, how evidence is pieced together, and how we can hear what these Victorian women are really trying to tell us about their lives. Nneka shares insights into her work specialising in complex crimes: murder, drug trafficking and serious sexual offences, and how she uses evidence to...

Lucy Worsley travels back in time to revisit the unthinkable crimes of 19th century murderesses from the UK, Australia and North America. In this episode, Lucy is joined by Dr Gwen Adshead, for many years a consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist at Broadmoor Hospital. They investigate the case of Frances Kidder, a 25-year-old woman unhappily married to a much older man, who is accused of murdering her stepdaughter Louisa in Kent in 1867. We all know the stories of Cinderella and Snow...

Lucy Worsley travels back in time to revisit the unthinkable crimes of 19th century murderesses from the UK, Australia and North America. In this episode Lucy is joined by the Right Honourable Dame Siobhan Keegan, the Lady Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, who was one of the first women High Court judges in Northern Ireland. They explore the case of mother and daughter Jane and Ann Boyd, from a poor family living in Holywood near Belfast, whose lives are turned upside down when 19-year-old...

It’s the 14th September 1896, just a short distance from Brisbane, on Australia’s east coast, and the sun is rising on Minjerribah Island, the ancestral land of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait ‘Quandamooka People’. It’s an area rich in Aboriginal culture. It’s also a colonised area, steeped in racism and division, and this is where the murder of six year old ‘Cassey’ takes place. To investigate this tragic crime and its contemporary resonances, Lucy Worsley is joined by Guest Detective...

Lucy Worsley travels back in time to revisit the unthinkable crimes of 19th century murderesses from the UK, Australia and North America. This episode sees Lucy traverse London, hot on the heels of Maria Manning, the so-called Lady Macbeth of Bermondsey, a woman who confounds expectations of respectable Victorian England. Maria shocked the nation in 1849, when she conspired with her husband to kill her lover, before stealing the dead man’s money and making a break for freedom on the all-new...

Lady Killers With Lucy Worsley is a smash hit historical true-crime podcast. Join Lucy and a team of female detectives as they investigate the ordinary lives - and extraordinary crimes - of women in the past from a contemporary feminist perspective. In this series, Lucy revisits the unthinkable crimes of murderesses including Mary Surratt, accused of conspiring to assassinate a U.S. President and Maria Manning the so-called ‘Lady Macbeth of Bermondsey’. Each episode focuses on a true story...

Cases to baffle and intrigue. What to expect from BBC Radio 4 and 4 Extra’s treasure trove of murder mysteries.

Helena Bonham Carter shines a light on extraordinary stories from World War Two. Join her for incredible tales of deception, acts of resistance and courage.

Lucy Worsley, Professor Rosalind Crone and lawyer and comedian Sikisa Bostwick-Barnes discuss the wicked crimes of the last four Lady Killers in this series. They examine their treatment by the criminal justice system and ask whether there are parallels with women’s experiences today. Together they examine gender, prejudice and racial bias. They explore the major changes for women over 100 years from 1823 to 1923. From raising hemlines to the campaign for women’s suffrage and...

Lucy Worsley investigates the historical crimes of women from a contemporary, feminist perspective. In this episode, Lucy is joined by Dr Katherine Ramsland, a professor of forensic psychology at DeSales University, to visit Massachusetts in New England, USA and discover how one nurse became a notorious serial killer. Jane Toppan is a well-respected and successful private nurse in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She spends her time moving from one family to another, caring for them until they...

Lucy Worsley investigates the historical crimes of women from a contemporary, feminist perspective. In this episode, Lucy is joined by award-winning crime writer Lynda La Plante CBE to investigate the case of two sisters, Catherine Flanagan and Margaret Higgins. They’re part of the Irish immigrant community in Liverpool, living near the docks in a crowded, working class area, doing many different jobs to make ends meet. Professor Rosalind Crone from the Open University visits the Museum of...

Lucy Worsley takes a fresh look at an infamous shooting that took place at London’s Savoy Hotel, amid all the wealth and glamour of the Roaring ‘20s. On 10th July 1923, at the height of a violent thunderstorm, Marguerite Fahmy shoots her new husband at close range with a pistol – in the corridor, outside their opulent suite. It’s clear she’s killed him, but why? Lucy is joined by Nneka Akudolu KC, a barrister with 20 years’ experience of exactly this kind of complex case, and Lady Killers’...

In this episode of Lady Killers, we travel back to the Roaring 20s as Lucy Worsley and guest detective Sasha Wass KC investigate how Edith Thompson, a woman who merely witnessed the violent killing of her husband, found herself on trial for his murder. Sasha Wass KC has taken on some of the legal system's most notable cases - involving Rosemary West, Rolf Harris and Johnny Depp. As a judge, prosecutor and defender, she has the benefit of understanding all dimensions of the criminal process,...

In this episode of Lady Killers, Lucy Worsley, Professor Rosalind Crone and broadcaster Ayesha Hazarika discuss the first four cases - brothel-keeper Mary McKinnon, chocolate-cream killer Christiana Edmonds, enslaved woman Margaret Garner and abortionist Elizabeth Taylor. They examine legal prejudice, frustrated sexual desire, illegal abortion, and slavery. They explore women’s rights over their own bodies, and dig a little deeper into the parallels between women in the 19th century and...

In Lady Killers, Lucy Worsley investigates the crimes of 19th and early 20th century women from a contemporary, feminist perspective. In this episode, Lucy is joined by Dr Anastacia Ryan, Founder of SISU, a Glasgow-based charity for women at risk and Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Glasgow, to explore the case of Mary McKinnon. Mary lives in Edinburgh, Scotland in the 1820s, and runs a tavern on South Bridge. Except her tavern, like many at the time, has another side to...

Lucy Worsley looks at the crimes of Victorian women from a contemporary, feminist perspective. In this episode, Lucy is joined by Deborah Frances-White, women’s rights campaigner, comedian and host of The Guilty Feminist podcast, to explore the case of Elizabeth Taylor, a backstreet abortionist in late 19th century Melbourne, Australia who spent decades playing cat and mouse with the law. They consider Elizabeth Taylor’s story in the context of women’s rights in 19th century Australia and...

Lucy Worsley looks at the crimes of women from the 19th and early 20th centuries from a contemporary, feminist perspective. Lucy explores the story of Margaret Garner, an enslaved mother in 1850s America, who commits a murder that transforms her into an icon of tragedy and resistance. Her life inspired Tony Morrison’s Pulitzer-winning novel Beloved. To explore Margaret Garner’s remarkable story and its contemporary resonances Lucy is joined by Nikki M Taylor, Professor of African...

Lucy Worsley looks at the crimes of Victorian women from a contemporary, feminist perspective. In the first case in her new series, Lucy explores the story of Christiana Edmunds, a respectable spinster who embarks on a mass poisoning spree when the man she loves fails to return her affection. Lucy is joined by Dr Gwen Adshead, a forensic psychiatrist and psychotherapist who has worked for many years at Broadmoor Hospital. Gwen offers fascinating insights into one of the most remarkable,...

Lucy and a crack team of female detectives uncover new cases in Lady Killers series 2. Listen to all episodes first on BBC Sounds from Monday 20th March 2023.