Jun 19, 2010
The Papin sisters
The strange case of the Papin sisters is notable not only for its shocking violence but because the gender of both the perpetrators and victims was female. The case became a media sensation in France with its lurid undertones of lesbianism and incest; the...
Oct 13, 2009
Lizzie Borden When Lizzie Borden axed her stepmother and father to death in 1892 it was unthinkable that a woman of such upbringing could commit such vicious crimes. The savagery of the murders set her free. by Denise M. Clark The New York Times headline for Aug. 5th, 1892...
Jan 31, 2017
In the summer of 1871,two grubby prospectors conned a Who's Who of San Francisco's financial elite as well of Charles Tiffany of New York to invest $10 million in diamond fields that did not exist. by Chuck LyonsThe framed stock certificate on the wall in banker...
May 7, 2015
Four months after his marriage to a beautiful 19-year-old, middle-aged Thomas Ogilvie was dead. His younger brother and the young widow were suspected of conspiring to poison him with arsenic.by Martin BaggoleyThomas Ogilvie, a wealthy bachelor in his late 40s and the eldest of...
Apr 20, 2015
Five days after General Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox, ending the Civil War, John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln at Ford's Theatre.by Cal Schoonover By the time President Abraham Lincoln and his party arrived at Ford’s Theatre, the play Our American...
Feb 12, 2015
Four months after his marriage to a beautiful 19-year-old, middle-aged Thomas Ogilvie was dead. His younger brother and the young widow were suspected of conspiring to poison him with arsenic.by Martin BaggoleyThomas Ogilvie, a wealthy bachelor in his late 40s and the eldest of...
Jan 15, 2015
The assassination of President James Garfield cut short one of the most astounding political careers in U.S. history. Like few presidents before or after him, Garfield possessed a flexible mind and an ability to work well with others. His goal of integrating the recently freed...
Dec 26, 2014
In early September world media splashed the headline that Jack the Ripper had finally been identified by amateur sleuth, Englishman Russell Edwards. The latter, in his book, Naming Jack the Ripper, identified Jack the Ripper as a Polish Jew named Aaron Kosminski. However, our...
Oct 16, 2014
Kate Webster at the Old Bailey before she was sentenced to be hanged for murder - July 1879 Victorian Britain was horrified by a 30-year-old Irish woman who murdered her employer, dismembered the body, threw bits of it into the river Thames, boiled the head (and other body parts...
Jan 13, 2014
Jan. 13, 2014Countess Erzsébet Báthoryby David RobbLady Macbeth is perhaps the most famous fictional female villainess in all of literature, but in 1606, while William Shakespeare was creating her bloodthirsty character, one of the world’s worst real life villainess was on a...