112. The Natural History Museum Heist

Murder They Wrote with Laura Whitmore and Iain Stirling

BBC

True Crime, Comedy

4.3 • 922 Ratings

🗓️ 30 March 2026

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A collection of precious jewels goes missing from New York’s Museum of Natural History. The thieves are smooth operators – but prosecutor Maurice Nadjari will stop at nothing to put them away.

Murder They Wrote with Laura Whitmore and Iain Stirling is available twice a week on BBC Sounds. Subscribe now so you never miss an episode. Email us at lauraandiain@bbc.co.uk

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:07.0	An abandoned psychiatric hospital.
0:10.7	As if staff had simply walked out one day and never returned.
0:14.3	And the unexplained death of a nursing assistant.
0:17.8	Mary Glasgow 35 had died when on Judy.
0:20.8	It wasn't just an altercation. The room was wrecked.
0:23.2	The curtains were on the floor.
0:24.9	She didn't just die at her workplace.
0:27.0	Something strange happened.
0:29.9	Assume nothing.
0:31.1	What happened to Mary Glasgow?
0:33.5	Listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:36.1	We are starting today's case in one of my favourite places in the whole entire world.
0:39.4	New York.
0:40.9	Hey, hey!
0:42.0	We're in Manhattan at one of the island's most famous landmarks, the Natural History Museum.
0:47.2	A dramatic 19th century building perched on the west side of Central Park.
0:51.0	It's Friday the 30th of October, 1964, and it's 9.45 a.m. Which means
0:56.6	rush hour. There is gridlock traffic everywhere. You can imagine the scene, like taxi drivers
1:02.0	beeping the horns, exhaust fumes filling the air. People go out, walk in here. You got it. Inside
1:08.2	the museum, though, all is quiet. The staff are setting up for the day, getting ready to open their doors at 10 a.m.
1:14.8	Soon the museum will be full of excited groups of tourists. Their cameras hung around their necks, ready to snap some pictures of the world-famous dinosaur skeletons, the enormous dioramas, and artefacts locked up inside display cases.
	...

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