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Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast

332: The Murder of Vivian Gordon w/ Michael Wolraich

Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast

Erik Rivenes

True Crime, History, Education

4.7 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2024

⏱️ 60 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Vivian Gordon went out before midnight in a velvet dress and mink coat. Her body turned up the next morning in a desolate Bronx park, a dirty clothesline wrapped around her neck. At her stylish Manhattan apartment, detectives discovered notebooks full of names—businessmen, socialites, gangsters. And something else: a letter from an anti-corruption commission established by Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Led by the imperious Judge Samuel Seabury, the commission had uncovered a police conspiracy to frame women as prostitutes. Had Vivian Gordon been executed to bury her secrets? As FDR pressed the police to solve her murder, Judge Seabury pursued the trail of corruption to the top of Gotham’s powerful political machine—the infamous Tammany Hall. My guest is author Michael Wolraich, and his brand-new book is called "The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age". He shares the story of Vivian Gordon, her 1931 murder, and the dramatic effect it had on New York City politics. More about the author here: https://michaelwolraich.com/ This episode is sponsored by Factor. Go to https://factormeals.com/notorious50 to get 50% off! Use code notorious50. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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You know?

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You know?

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You know?

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You know?

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Oh, You know You know Welcome everyone to another episode of the most notorious

1:27.0

podcast I'm Eric Riveness happy as always to be a part of your precious podcast listening time. It is so great to

1:36.8

have Michael Woolreisch as my guest today. He is a writer whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, New York

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