WKAR listeners hear Cheyna Roth every Friday afternoon as part of the weekly state politics show MichMash.
Along with following the latest developments in Michigan government, Roth is also a published author, writing about true crime.
WKAR’s Scott Pohl talks with Cheyna Roth about her latest book, Between Two Wars.
Interview Transcript
Cheyna Roth, in MichMash introduction: This is MichMash, a weekly conversation where we try to unravel an important and sometimes under-the-radar statewide story that affects you. I'm Cheyna Roth.
Scott Pohl: No, this isn't MichMash, but that is Cheyna Roth. Hi, Cheyna.
Roth: Hi, Scott. Thanks for having me.
Pohl: Yeah, good to talk with you. Now, in 2020, you published your first book. It was called Cold Cases: A True Crime Collection. And so here we are now, several years later, and you've published Between Two Wars: Mysterious Disappearances, High Profile Heists, Baffling Murders, and More. So let's start with how this book is similar to your first book and how it's different.
Roth: So it's definitely similar in that they are both very much focused on true crime and different cases and different interesting people that are connected to various criminal acts. Where it's different is Cold Cases was obviously strictly just about different cases that had not been solved. This one is really more an examination of different crimes, cases and people that took place between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of World War II. So, you have one chapter that's about the Reno brothers who were, as far as we know, the first people to rob a moving train car. And then you've also got things like an entire chapter focused on John "Mushmouth" Johnson, who was called the "Negro King of Gambling."
And then there's also spies. There's the assassination of President James Garfield. There's the theft of the Mona Lisa. So, it's a much more broad scope of different types of cases and different types of events and focuses for each chapter while still being, you know, a true crime collection.
Pohl: Why did you choose those two wars in particular, the Civil War and World War II?
Roth: Yeah, when I was doing my research, my publisher basically said we would like another true crime book. Have at it, whereas the first one was very much, they approached me about specifically a cold case. So I had a little bit too much permission, I would say, on this book. And so I was doing a lot of research and trying to figure out, okay, what should this be about? What should the focus be? How do I hone this in? And I noticed that a lot of interesting facts and people that I was coming across took place between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of World War II.
This is really a time when there are interesting advances in criminal investigation, where you start to see, for example, the serial killer become kind of a more of a known thing. I mean, obviously that term wasn't coined until much later, but you have the first serial killer, the first known serial killer in H.H. Holmes. And then you also have things like the rogues' gallery start being used, which is a photo array, as we would call it today. But that was really invented around this time, using photographs to try and identify people. So it was really this time of change, not only in America, but worldwide. That led to a lot of interesting developments in crime, but also in criminals.
Pohl: Cheyna, as I read the book, I was looking for Michigan stories. I really only found one Michigan angle, and that was in chapter four, H.H. Holmes and the Murder Castle. Holmes studied medicine at the University of Michigan. Am I right? That's the only Michigan angle in this new book?
Roth: Yes, but I must say, I was incredibly surprised when I came across that little factoid, and that was kind of when I was putting the chapters together and trying to decide, okay, what stays, what goes? That was kind of what pushed that chapter over the edge for me and definitely having to come in the book, because that was a, you know, the only Michigan angle that I had. But it was really fascinating thing because all of his notoriety comes from a lot of things that happened in Chicago. So as I was doing research and stumbling around to see that he actually went to the University of Michigan, I was really surprised by that, particularly when you realize that another famous criminal the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, also went to the University of Michigan.
Pohl: Hmmm. I'll just leave it at that.
A lot of your readers will not know, or not remember, that the Mona Lisa at one point had been stolen.
Roth: Yeah, so I thought the theft of the Mona Lisa was probably one of the most fun chapters to write and to research and was just incredibly interesting. The incident that I focus on, the time that the Mona Lisa was stolen, is from 1911, but it had actually been vandalized a couple of times before then. It wasn't really the famous painting that we think of it today, where if you go to the Louvre, there's just long, incredible lines to see the Mona Lisa. At the time, based on the research that I did, it was kind of just in a gallery. It was just another painting in a gallery. It was kind of famous, but not to the extent that it is today, and it was the theft of it in 1911 that really catapulted it to the infamy and notoriety that it has today.
Pohl: And I don't remember knowing before that Agatha Christie had disappeared at one point.
Roth: Yes, that was another one that I was really excited to dig into. I'm a big Agatha Christie fan, As someone who loves mysteries, And I will admit that, you know, given that she was found and that we don't quite understand in the whole circumstances of her disappearance, and it's kind of maybe bluffing a little bit to call it true crime, but I couldn't help myself because it took place within this time period. And I'm like, well, police are involved, So I think it counts. But it was an incredible story about how she was in a very difficult time in her life. And she just disappeared for about a week, and people found her car, they found her belongings. And then there was this incredible manhunt trying to track her down, one of the largest in that area in their history. And to read about it today with what we know about mental health and, you know, depression and things like that, it reads in so differently when you're going through the newspaper clippings and things like that, it really does feel like this was a woman who was in pain, who was having an incredibly hard time. And the way that it was sensationalized in the press and by her fans is really quite sad in retrospect.
Pohl: Cheyna Roth's new book is Between Two Wars: Mysterious Disappearances, High Profile Heists, Baffling Murders and More. Cheyna, great talking with you. Good luck with the book.
Roth: Thank you so much, Scott.
Pohl: For WKAR News, I'm Scott Pohl.
