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I'm Lacey.

And I'm Ashley, and this is United States of Murder.

This week, we're in New York discussing the first American citizens to be executed for espionage.

Then we'll talk about a mysterious illness and death that made no sense.

Buckle up and join us on this dark and twisted ride through the Empire State.

Ethel Greenglass was born in New York on September 28, 1915,

and worked as a clerk after she graduated high school in 1931.

She married Julius Rosenberg in 1939.

She was 21 and he was 18. The next year, he earned a degree in electrical engineering.

And the two are active members of the Communist Party of the United States of America, which is where they met.

Julius had taken an active role within the organization.

Ethel was less involved.

The United States, in the late 40s and 50s, fear was kind of the norm, and it bred hysteria.

There was fear that the Russians and Stalin would launch an atom bomb on the United States.

There was fear of communism, so it wasn't a good look that they were members of the Communist Party, much like other political parties that we've seen over the years and still see

today, you don't want to be necessarily associated with that group of people.

So the couple had two sons, Michael and Robert.

Julius took a job as a civilian engineer with the U.S. Army Signal Corp Laboratories in New Jersey.

By 1942, both the Soviet Union and the United States had entered World War II.

And from his post at Fort Monmouth, Julius was serving both nations.

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