In the final summer of the Roaring Twenties, just weeks before the stock market crash would shatter the nation’s confidence, a quiet and disheveled stranger wandered into Bakersfield. Within hours, that man—49-year-old Augustus Mahillon—would b...

For decades, Sidney “Sid” Sheffield devoted his life to making Bakersfield a better place — as a teacher, administrator, and champion of local education and health care. His warmth drew people in, his optimism lifted spirits, and his...

Notorious Bakersfield Brief: A Greenlawn Cemetery worker was shot while on his lunch break in front of his coworkers in 1974. Ruby Lee Jackson Meriweather was murdered in 2000. Her case went unsolved for nine years

 It all started with a clown, a few eerie pictures posted to Instagram, and a wave of panic that spread faster than anyone could’ve imagined. 

 It was a quiet afternoon in 2013 in the Rosedale community when neighbors heard gunfire. What began as a family’s desperate attempt to save a troubled young man from addiction would end in tragedy. 

Nearly a decade before the murder that would shock Bakersfield, Dennis Weis had been convicted in Illinois for a brutal sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend who tried to leave him. By the mid-1980s, he’d quietly resettled in Bakersfield, whe...

Inside a charming Northeast Bakersfield Craftsman-style home lived Joe and Margy LiCastro—he, a 91-year-old Pearl Harbor survivor; she, his 84-year-old wife, known for her grace and kindness. But one cold winter morning, that home became the sc...

Illah O'Malior was a divorced woman living alone in Bakersfield’s Westchester neighborhood when she was murdered in 1952. Purchase this year's Notorious Bakersfield Halloween audio driving tour here:

I first covered this story back in 2022. Here is a much overdue update regarding that story. 

On a quiet Wednesday morning in October 1996, the staff and patients at a Bakersfield dialysis clinic were going about their routines when tragedy struck. Within moments, a workplace dispute turned deadly, leaving beloved nurse administrator Da...

Encore: Almost thirty-seven years ago, Lorraine Rodriguez was murdered. She was a single mother to two young daughters. Her case remains unsolved. 

 In the early morning hours of Labor Day 1987, a young couple traveling through Bakersfield made an unexpected stop at a gas station on White Lane. Within minutes, they would become witnesses to a shocking act of violence. 

 Nearly 32 years ago, a tragic shooting in Bakersfield revealed how fragile the safety net for mental health truly was. What followed was a sobering look at how a family’s desperate pleas for help went unanswered until it was too late.&nbs...

I'm taking a couple of weeks off. This is a rerun. 

Seventy-five years ago this week, Jeanne Long went missing. Her whereabouts remain a mystery. This is her story. 

In the mid-1980s, a woman was responsible for a string of bank robberies. Media outlets dubbed her "Ma Bakersfield". 

I had some technical difficulties this week. Notorious Bakersfield will be back next week with an all-new episode. 

 In the summer of 1974, a young newspaper employee’s routine late-night errand in the Kern River Valley took a horrifying turn. What began with a harmless spider scare ended in a brutal crime that shocked the tight-knit Lake Isabella co...

Joe and Dorothy Parrott were slain in their home in August 2008. Their murders went unsolved for months. This is their story.