Delaware Behaving Badly

Murder, scandal, betrayal, and deceit—Delaware has never been as quiet as its size suggests.

Delaware Behaving Badly opens the case files of the First State to reveal true stories of crime, corruption, and human folly drawn from newspapers, court records, and eyewitness accounts. These episodes show how ordinary people slid into extraordinary—and often disastrous—moments that shaped communities and lingered in memory.

Listeners encounter jealous lovers whose passions turned violent, confidence men who spun intricate frauds, officials who abused public trust, and families left to reckon with sudden tragedy. Some cases remain unresolved, their questions echoing across generations. Others end in dramatic courtroom confrontations where reputations collapsed and verdicts set lasting precedents.

Delaware’s small scale made crime intensely personal. A killing or scandal rarely stayed local; news spread quickly, and entire towns debated guilt, motive, and justice. That intimacy gives these stories unusual force. They do not feel remote. They feel as though they happened to people you might have known.

Unlike crime fiction, these accounts require no invention. They rely on documented evidence, yet unfold with a storyteller’s attention to character, tension, and consequence.

Written for a broad audience, each chapter presents a self-contained narrative that brings Delaware’s darker past into sharp focus. Delaware Behaving Badly will appeal to true crime listeners, history buffs, and anyone drawn to well-told stories of human conflict and moral choice. It offers suspense grounded in fact, and history made vivid through narrative.