408: The Murder of Cecelia Gullivan w/ Jeffrey L. Amestoy

Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast

Erik Rivenes

True Crime, History, Education

4.7 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 29 September 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In November 1926, Cecelia Gullivan, treasurer of the Cone Automatic Machine company of Windsor, Vermont, was brutally killed in her home. Local police quickly arrested Cone Automatic machinist John Winters on suspicion of the crime, and the trial that followed was sensational and swift. Convicted of murder, Winters’ appeal brought in an unexpected ally: America’s most famous defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, who took the case after Winters’ family called in a favor promised decades before. My guest is former Chief Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court, Jeffrey L. Amestoy. He is the author of "Winters' Time: A Secret Pledge, a Severed Head, and the Murder that Brought America’s Most Famous Lawyer to Vermont". Link to the book through the Vermont Historical Society's website: https://vermonthistory.org/vermont-history-winters-time-clarence-darrow-jeff-amestoy The author's Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jeffrey-L.-Amestoy/author/B01FC3Q07Q Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	Push the boat out, Hund, all the way out to Alaska.
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0:20.0	Welcome to True Spies.
0:22.4	The podcast that takes you deep inside the greatest secret missions of all time.
0:28.0	Suddenly out of the dark that's appeared in Laudan.
0:29.9	You'll meet the people who live life undercover.
0:33.5	What do they know?
0:34.6	What are their skills?
0:35.9	And what would you do in their position?
0:38.3	Vengeance felt good.
0:39.9	Seeing these people pay for what they'd done felt righteous.
0:44.5	True spies from Spyscape Studios, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:51.1	The 250th anniversary of the American Revolution is here. But do you really know the full story?
0:57.6	I'm Liz Cobart, historian and host of Ben Franklin's World, the podcast that takes you beyond the
1:02.4	miss and into the real histories of early America, from before Christopher Columbus to the early days of the United States.
1:09.2	As we commemorate 250 years since the American Revolution,
1:13.1	now was the perfect time to dive into the people, places, and ideas that have shaped our world.
1:18.4	Tune in to Ben Franklin's world and experience early American history like never before.
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2:04.8	Music Franklin's World, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, everyone to the most notorious podcast. I'm Eric Rivenis. Always great to have you with me. And I am so pleased to have Jeffrey Amostoy on the show today. He is a former Vermont Attorney General and Chief Justice of the Vermont
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