Seal of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee
On the late evening of February 19, 1851, two men entered the Jansen & Bond Company, on Montgomery Street in San Francisco, knocked manager J.C. Jansen unconscious, and fled with over two thousand dollars in gold coin.
Gary Leon Ridgway
On February 18, 2011, Gary Leon Ridgway pleads guilty to the 1982 aggravated, first-degree murder of his 49th victim, 20-year-old Rebecca Marrero. Her remains were found in December 2010, decades after her murder, in a ravine near Auburn, Washington.
Charles Moyer, Bill Hayward & George Pettibone (1907)
On February 17, 1906, union leaders Bill Hayward, Charles Moyer, and George Pettibone are taken into custody by Idaho authorities and the Pinkerton Detective Agency. They are put on a special train in Denver, Colorado, following a secret, direct route to Idaho because the officials had no legal right to arrest the three union executives in Colorado.
John Wesley Hardin
On February 16, 1894, infamous gunslinger John Wesley Hardin is pardoned after spending 15 years in a Texas prison for murder. Hardin, who was reputed to have shot and killed a man just for snoring, was 41 years old at the time of his release.
Giuseppe Zangara
On February 15, 1933, Italian immigrant Giuseppe Zangara attempts to assassinate President-elect Franklin Roosevelt in Miami, Florida. Zangara’s shots miss and strike Anton Cermak, the Mayor of Chicago.
Steven Kazmierczak
On February 14, 2008, Steven Kazmierczak shot multiple people on the campus of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, killing five and injuring twenty-one, before committing suicide. At approximately 3:05 p.m., Steven Kazmierczak entered Cole Hall wearing a black t-shirt with the word "Terrorist" written across the chest imposed over an image of an assault rifle.
Bruno Richard Hauptmann
On February 13, 1935, Bruno Richard Hauptmann is convicted of the kidnap and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr. the young son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh. The trial attracted widespread media attention and was dubbed the "Trial of the Century.”
On the night of November 29, 1988, near the impoverished Marlborough neighborhood in south Kansas City, an explosion at a construction site killed six of the city’s firefighters. It was a clear case of arson, and five people from Marlborough were duly convicted of the crime. But for veteran crime writer and crusading editor J. Patrick O’Connor, the facts—or a lack of them—didn’t add up. Justice on Fire is OConnor’s detailed account of the terrible explosion that led to the firefighters’ deaths and the terrible injustice that followed. Also available from Amazon
