Blogs

H. H. Holmes

by Michael Thomas Barry

On May 7, 1896, serial killer H. H. Holmes is hanged in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although his criminal exploits were just as extensive and occurred during the same time period as Jack the Ripper, Holmes has not endured in the public's memory the way the Ripper has.

May 6, 2013 Associated Press

CLEVELAND — Three women who went missing separately about a decade ago, when they were in their teens or early 20s, were found alive Monday in a residential area just south of downtown, and a man was arrested.

One of the women told a 911 dispatcher the person who had taken her was gone, and she pleaded for police officers to come and get her, saying, "I'm free now."

Cheering crowds gathered Monday night on the street near the home where police said Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michele Knight were found earlier in the day.

Police didn't immediately provide any details of how the women were found but said they appeared to be in good health and had been taken to a hospital to be reunited with relatives and to be evaluated.

George Maledon

by Michael Thomas Barry

On May 6, 1911, George Maledon, the man who executed at least 60 men for "Hanging Judge" Isaac Parker, died from natural causes in Tennessee. Few men actively seek out the job of hangman and Maledon was no exception.

Bobby Sands

by Michael Thomas Barry

On May 5, 1981, Irish Republican Army militant Bobby Sands dies after refusing food for 66 days in protest of his treatment as a criminal rather than a political prisoner by British authorities. His death immediately touched off widespread rioting in Belfast, as young Irish-Catholic militants clashed with police and British Army patrols and started fires.

Jesse Tafero

by Michael Thomas Barry

On May 4, 1990, Jesse Tafero is executed in Florida after his electric chair malfunctions three times, causing flames to leap from his head. Tafero's death sparked a new debate on humane methods of execution.

May 3, 2013 Reuters

WASHINGTON  - The number of names on a highly classified U.S. central database used to track suspected terrorists has jumped to 875,000 from 540,000 only five years ago, a U.S. official familiar with the matter said.

Among those was suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, whose name was added in 2011. The increase in names is due in part to security agencies using the system more in the wake of the failed 2009 attack on a plane by "underpants bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in Detroit.

Intelligence and law enforcement officials acknowledged in Congress that they had missed clues to that attack despite Abdulmutallab's name appearing in the main database, known as TIDE.

Maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center, the highly classified database is not a "watchlist" but instead is a repository of information on people whom U.S. authorities see as known, suspected or potential terrorists from around the world.

The "Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment" is a master database which agencies use to build other catalogs of possible terrorists, like the "no-fly" list which prevents people who feature on it from boarding airplanes.

The official familiar with the latest statistics said that even though the number of TIDE entries has grown substantially, this does not mean that the data is less manageable as intelligence agencies have gotten better at figuring how to extract information from the oceans of data.

Reso kidnapping and murder

by Michael Thomas Barry

On May 3, 1992, Exxon executive Sidney Reso dies in a storage vault in New Jersey. Four days earlier, he was abducted from the driveway of his Morris Township, New Jersey, home.