Before laws, before guilt, before language fully formed—someone planned the first murder.

Told in the voice of an ancient storyteller, this episode imagines that moment: when hunger, envy, and reason collided, and the first deliberate killing changed humanity forever.

Murderous Origins explores the likely beginnings of premeditated violence among early Homo sapiens.

Archaeological evidence suggests organized conflict and intentional killing appeared tens of thousands of years ago, around the same time as symbolic thought and complex tools.

This story reimagines that shift—from instinctive survival to calculated intent—when planning death became part of being human.

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There’s a reason crows gather in cemeteries. They remember. They watch. And sometimes, they wait. Murder of Crowsisn’t a tale borrowed from the past—it’s one I wrote for New Tales Told, a series of original stories that echo in the spaces between memory and myth. This one lingers in the cold silence of the American frontier, where the shadows are long and the watchers have wings.

Set in Montana Territory, 1868, Murder of Crows is a western—but not the kind you remember from Saturday matinees. The dead don’t rest. The land doesn’t forget. And the crows? They remember everything.

Author's Note

There’s an old belief that crows remember faces. That they mourn their dead. That they never forget a slight.

It was early morning when a murder of crows descended on the sycamore outside my bedroom window, their cries so sharp and relentless they pulled me from sleep with a strange sense of dread. I lay there, half-conscious and irritated, staring at the ceiling as their screams echoed through the glass. And in that moment—quietly, almost reflexively—I had a thought I wasn’t proud of: Maybe this murder deserves one of its own.

From that flash of anger came something unexpected: a story. Murder of Crows began as a whisper of guilt and folklore. Though it draws faint inspiration from the life and legend of Jeremiah Johnson, this tale is entirely imagined—fiction through and through. But like many stories, its roots are tangled in real emotion: grief, memory, regret… and the uncanny way the natural world sometimes stares back.

As for the birds? They haven’t left.

They’re still watching.

Just outside my window.

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This is the inaugural story for the New Tales Told podcast available on this service.

While this story is purely fictional, it unfolds in the shadow of a real disaster—one that affected communities close to my own family in Asheville, where my mother, sister, and niece live. I want to express my sincere concern and empathy for those who were impacted. That said, this is not a story about the tragedy itself. It’s a tale of personal escape, buried secrets, and a woman who may have used chaos as cover for something darker—or perhaps something justified. The events are imagined, but the setting was chosen for its emotional weight, and I’ve tried to treat that weight with care.

Author's Note

Publishing this story has been one of the scarier things I’ve done in my life. Reading the works of others is far different than narrating a creation of my own. Honestly, I haven’t written fiction since high school—but I’ve always wanted to. I first published this on my Litreading podcast, but as I have now written more stories, I decided to give these stories their own stage, New Tales Told.