The Atlas Obscura Podcast · Thursday, August 6, 2026
The podcast episode "Sibyl's Cave" delves into the 1841 murder of Mary Rogers, a cigar girl from Lower Manhattan. Her death, discovered near Sibyl's Cave in Hoboken, New Jersey, became a sensation and is believed to have inspired Edgar Allan Poe's first detective story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." The case remains unsolved, with various theories and a sensationalized history.
“The site of a 19th-century murder that shocked and fascinated the people of New York and New Jersey.”
“Poe used the story as inspiration for one of the first detective stories ever written.”
“But the truth of what happened to Mary Rogers remains a mystery.”