Mark Pulham

July 26, 2011

Charles Whitman 

Charles Whitman’s killing rampage from the Tower at the University of Texas on August 1, 1966 led to the creation of S.W.A.T. teams in every major city across the United States.  During the 90-minute siege, the former Marine sharpshooter gunned down almost 50 innocent people – 17 of whom, including an 8-month old fetus, would die from their wounds. 

by Mark Pulham

In the 1950’s, American television seemed to embrace the idea of the perfect family, in one form or another. There was “Father Knows Best” with a wise father and his common sense wife raising their three children, two girls and a boy “; there was “Leave It To Beaver” and “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” both similar, but with two boys; “The Donna Reed Show” with a girl and a boy as children; and even “My Three Sons,” where the father is widowed.

But no matter what the configuration, they all had one thing in common:  all portrayed the popular image of what a typical “all-American” family should be like, a template for everyone watching. The Whitman family would have fit right in.

The Whitman’s were a typical upper-middle-class American family.  C. A. Whitman was a self made man, a plumber who through hard work and a determination to succeed built his own successful sewage plumbing business. He was also an upstanding citizen in the community, a prominent civic leader, and at one time, he was chairman of the Chamber of Commerce.

He had a perfect family, with a loving wife, Margaret, whom he married in their home town of Savannah, Georgia, and they had three sons, Charles Jr., Patrick, and John. They all lived happily on South L Street in Lake Worth, Florida.

May 23, 2011

Dorothea Puente (Photo LA Times)

Serial killer Dorothea Puente was charming and incorrigible. 

by Mark Pulham

Charles Willgues, a retired carpenter, had been out that Wednesday afternoon to a hardware store to buy a glass cutter. Now, he sat at the bar of the Monte Carlo Tavern, a short walk from his home where he lived alone, and nursed a beer. At around 2 p.m., the door opened, and a gray-haired woman walked in. Elegantly dressed in a red pleated skirt and red high heels, she walked to the bar, took a seat at the end and ordered a screwdriver from the bartender. Willgues called down to give her a friendly warning, “The heat from the refrigerator motor comes out right where you’re sitting.”

The woman thanked him, and moved to the seat next to him. She introduced herself as 55-year-old Donna Johansson and said she had just come down to Los Angeles from Sacramento. Her husband, she explained, had died just a month before, and to escape from her grief, she had decided to make a new life in Los Angeles. She hadn’t got off to a good start. She had taken a cab from the bus station to the Royal Viking Motel, and the cab had driven off with four of her suitcases and her overnight bag. To make matters worse, the heels of her shoes, the only ones she had, were worn down from the walking she’d done looking for a place to live.

Feb. 2, 2011

Crime Scene Photo

In woods not far from Philadelphia, the body of a young boy was found in a box in 1957.  An autopsy showed the 4-to-6-year-old child had died from a blow to his head and had sustained numerous bruises.  A widespread, prolonged investigation failed to even determine the boy’s name. 

by Mark Pulham

It had rained heavily the night before, and there was still some rain and cloud cover that Wednesday morning. It was November

11, 1998, and a crowd of around a hundred had gathered at the Ivy Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia for the funeral service. Just in time, the rain cleared and the clouds broke apart to reveal the sun, leaving a blue sky for the ceremony.

The service began exactly at 11 a.m. A lone piper played “Going Home” from Dvořák's “New World Symphony” on the bagpipes.

November 29, 2010

Hawley Harvey Crippen

Dr. Hawley Crippen was small, balding, and meek, with large watery eyes that peered from behind gold-rimmed spectacles.  When he fled England for Quebec in the summer of 1910 with his mistress aboard the S.S. Montrose, he was wanted for the murder of his wife. Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Walter Dew was in pursuit aboard the speedier steamer, Laurentic. 

by Mark Pulham

One hundred years ago, in the summer of 1910, the world became enthralled by a transatlantic chase between two steamers. One was the White Star liner Laurentic, the other, the Canadian Pacific S.S. Montrose. Both were heading for Quebec. The world waited with excitement as each day the newspapers reported the progress of the two ships. The public’s interest was not about the ships themselves, but about who was aboard. On the Laurentic was Scotland Yards Chief Inspector Walter Dew. On the Montrose, fleeing with his lover Ethel Le Neve, was suspected wife murderer Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen.

The famous barrister Frederick Edwin Smith would later describe Crippen as “one of the most dangerous and remarkable men who have lived in this century…A compelling and masterful personality who feared neither God nor man.”

Nov. 1, 2010

Johann "Jack" Unterweger

With the help of future Nobel Laureate Elfriede Jelinek and other prominent Austrian literati, Jack Unterweger wrote his way out of a lifetime sentence for murder. Paroled in 1990, and now a famous crime writer himself, he embarked on a wide-ranging killing spree, murdering women in Austria, Czechoslovakia and Los Angeles. 

by Mark Pulham

Vienna. People sitting in cafés eating Sachertorte, listening to the music of Mozart and Strauss, walking through the Vienna Woods, and if you are a film buff, thinking about The Third Man. Vienna is synonymous with culture. It is not the first place anyone thinks of when you mention serial killers. Yet in the spring of 1991, particularly in the red-light district, the fear of a killer on the loose gripped the city.

It began on April 8, 1991, when a young prostitute named Silvia Zagler vanished. When last seen, she had been standing on her regular corner around 10:30 p.m. Sabine Moitzi worked in a bakery during the day. At night, unknown to her husband, she occasionally boosted her income by working as a “secret prostitute,” which meant that she was not, as is required by the laws of Vienna, registered with the Office of Health. Eight days after Zagler’s disappearance, Sabine’s friend, Ilse, dropped the 25-year-old woman off near the rail yard of the West Train Station. A short while later, she disappeared.

Sept. 23, 2010

William Hare and William Burke

William Burke and William Hare are the most famous grave robbers of 19^th century Scotland, but none of the 16 fresh corpses they turned over for dissection in the anatomy classroom of Dr. Robert Knox at 10 Surgeon Square in Edinburg, came from any graveyard.  

by Mark Pulham

Up the close and down the stair,
In the house with Burke and Hare.
Burke’s the butcher, Hare’s the thief
Knox, the man who buys the beef. 

Children's rhyme

It is dark, and the only sound is that of someone digging. As quietly as they can, the grave robbers remove the earth from the newly interred and remove the lid of the coffin. Fearful of capture, they remove the corpse and hurriedly get away before someone discovers them. It is a profitable and fast growing business. And the most famous body grave robbers of all are Burke and Hare. In films and stories, they are shown committing this dreadful act. But the films and stories got it wrong, Burke and Hare never dug up a body.  No, they were far worse.

In Britain, the Murder Act of 1752 made it illegal for any doctor to perform a dissection on a corpse, unless the corpse was that of an executed criminal. In the 1700’s, any number of crimes could result in the death penalty. Even petty crimes such as cutting down trees, pick pocketing more than a shilling, stealing a horse or a sheep (hence the phrase, “may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb”) or being out at night with a blackened face could result in an execution.  As a result, there were hundreds of corpses available each year.

By the 1800’s, as the number of medical students began to grow, the demand for cadavers increased, but by now laws allowing more lenient punishments were on the books and the number of criminals executed had fallen to as low as 50 to 60 a year.

As always, with demand outstripping supply, someone would provide the bodies. Anatomists would turn a blind eye when the resurrection men came around with a recently interred corpse. Body snatching became a lucrative business and was so common that many graveyards built high walls and railings around them and erected watchtowers.

June 25, 2010

Dick Turpin

Dick Turpin’s romanticized image as the famed “Highwayman” of English lore was built on the big lie about his one-night ride from York to London on his faithful steed, Black Bess. Nor was he in any way a latter-day Robin Hood.

by Mark Pulham

“Stand and deliver,” Dick Turpin would shout, and with a brace of pistols levelled at the coachman, the romantic and reckless highwayman would relieve the passengers of their valuables. Dashing and daring, his tri-corn hat pulled low and a mask covering his face, he would flee on his gallant steed, Black Bess, into the night, his black cloak flowing behind him.

It’s an image that has been enhanced by numerous films going back to 1912, particularly by the Disney version and the 1970’s British television series. Who could ever forget his ride from London to York in a single night, his brave horse Bess dying from exhaustion to save his life? Who could not love the charming, handsome, courteous rogue that made robbery almost a pleasure? Certainly, this image of this latter day Robin Hood has passed down through the years with almost no change, thrilling generations of British schoolboys as the hero of numerous books. But is this an accurate portrayal of Turpin, was he really the handsome romantic hero we have seen in the movies? Hardly.

In the 18^th century, highway robbery was a common event throughout Europe and Great Britain, and anyone foolish enough to venture into the woods after dark risked robbery at gunpoint and even death. For the most part, highwaymen were ordinary criminals, but in England, on occasion, they were gentlemen who were maybe down on their luck, or were in it for the adventure. Dick Turpin, however, was not a gentleman.