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Blog postOn a road outside of Norristown, Pennsylvania, on October 28, 1896, Frank Mancil and his daughter came upon an agitated man shouting, “Murder! Help!” The man was bleeding from his arm, and, in a buggy nearby, a woman lay prostrate. The man, Charles O. Kaiser, Jr., told Mancil that he and his wife Emma had been attacked by highwaymen who shot them both then left with their watches and her purse containing $53. Mancil thought the woman was only unconscious, so they went in two carriages t
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Blog postIn 1894, Lizzie Halliday was sentenced to death for murdering her husband and two others and. A state commission judged her insane and commuted her sentence to life in an asylum. Though she exhibited all the signs of a woman who was violently insane, many believed that Lizzie was merely a gifted actress.
At Mattawan State Asylum, she killed her favorite nurse with a pair of scissors. No one disagreed when the press dubbed Lizzie Halliday “Worst woman on earth.”
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Blog postThe morning stillness on East 12th Street, New York City, was shattered on December 31, 1869, by cries of “Murder!” Charles M. Rogers lay bleeding on the sidewalk in front of his house as two men were seen running from the scene.
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Blog postThis week’s guest post from Howard and Nina Brown of Jack The Ripper Forums - Ripperology For The 21st Century (jtrforums.com) continues the story of Ameer Ben Ali (aka “Frenchie”) who was falsely convicted of the 1891 murder of Carrie Brown. "The Rescue of Ameer Ben Ali" focuses on the evidence that led to his release.
THE RESCUE OF AMEER BEN ALI
In the last Murder by Gaslight article of ours, along with the photograph of Ameer Ben Ali, an article was transcribed whi -
Blog postLizzie Lochner returned home from a night on the town sometime after midnight the morning of June 2, 1894. Her husband Joseph, who stayed home with the children—4-year-old Rosa and her infant brother— berated Lizzie for her for coming in so late. They began to loudly argue the matter as they had done many times before.
Their lodger, Gus Englund, was used to being awakened by the Lochner’s arguing but this night was different. The voices grew to a crescendo followed by a few minutes of sile -
Blog postRead the whole story of Alice Brown's mysterious, 1897 murder in Boston here: 15 Corning Street.
Illustrations from Boston Post, November 6, 1897.
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Blog postThe Hangman, a newspaper dedicated to the abolition of capital punishment, celebrated the commutation of Orrin DeWolf’s death sentence on September 9, 1845.
Did this young, drunken, diseased, conniving, duplicitous, murderous, libertine deserve mercy? You decide: Orrin DeWolf.
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Blog postLuella Mabbitt.Luella Mabbitt and Amer Green made a handsome couple. 23-year-old Luella was an attractive, well-formed young lady—“of the blonde type of beauty and very winning in her ways.” Amer Green, 34-years-old, was tall and good-looking with manly features. But Luella’s father, Peter Mabbitt, did not approve of his daughter’s suiter, so, reluctantly, Luella told Amer that they had to break up. She would return his letters and he was to return hers.
On August 6, 1886, Amer Gree -
Blog postThe beautiful Minnie Wallace Walkup, married at 16, widowed a month later, may have gotten away with murder...three times. Read her story here: Vamp of New Orleans.
Picture from National Police Gazette, November 14, 1885.
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Blog postA little past midnight, January 4, 1868, William Connell, age 21, was standing at the corner of Bowery and Bayard Streets, New York City, conversing with Maggie Brown and Emma Gardner, two young women in their teens. Richard Casey came up to them and flourished some bank notes in the faces of the women in an insulting manner, implying that they were prostitutes—which in fact they were. Connell took offense to the action and asked Casey what he meant by it. Casey asked if he was going to defend t
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Blog postRough on Rats was a cheap but effective over-the-counter rat poison. It was a very popular product, and in the 1880s, the company published an almanac and had its own theme song. Chorus
R-r-rats! Rats! Rats! Rough on Rats,
Hang your dogs and drown
your cats;
We give a plan for every man
To clear his house
with Rough on Rats.
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Blog postDeidrich Steffens, a bottler of lager beer, was making a delivery on Park Avenue in Brooklyn, the afternoon of April 17, 1883, when he was called to by John Cordes, a wholesale grocery dealer. Cordes was standing in front of the grocery store of Steffens’s friend, Diedrich Mahnken, and as Steffens crossed the street, Mahnken emerged from his store brandishing a “British bull dog” revolver. Without a word Mahnken fired five shots into Deidrich Steffens—four to the head, one to the chest.
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Blog postThe prosecution claimed that Adolph Luetgert, "Sausage King of Chicago," dissolved his wife Louisa in a vat of lye, but without a body, how could they prove she was dead? Read the full story here: The Sausage Vat Murder.
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Blog postThe morning of February 8, 1898, the nude, dismembered body of a man was found floating in the East River, near a ferryboat slip on Roosevelt Street, New York City. The entire front portion of the head was missing, leaving only the right ear and a portion of the back of the head. The left leg was missing from a point just above the knee and the right leg had been cut off at the hip. Both arms had been cut off at the shoulder.
The cuts were smooth and intentional, eliminating the possibilit -
Blog postOld Cap. Collier, the fictional dime novel detective, tries his hand at solving the murder of Dr. Cronin.
The real murder of Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin was stranger than fiction, with the good doctor found naked and dead in a Chicago sewer after confronting the corrupt leaders of an Irish secret society. As Edmund Pearson said, “It was one of those murders over which men nod their heads and look portentous and intimate that ‘everything hasn’t come out yet.’”
Read the -
Blog postDavid J. Wood owned a thriving leather and shoe business in Dansville, New York, in the 1850s. He and his wife Rhoda were busy raising two children but found time to be active in church and civic events, always willing to donate their time and money to better the community. They were wealthy, prominent, and well-liked citizens of Dansville, living a perfect life—until the arrival of David’s brother Isaac.
Isaac L. Wood was 34 years old in 1854, when he left his home in New Jersey, hopi -
Blog postCol. A.M. Swope and Col. William Cassius Goodloe happened to enter the Lexington, Kentucky post office at the same time on the afternoon of November 8, 1889. They greeted each other with icy glares then went about their business. Both men were leaders in the Republican Party in Kentucky, and both had national reputations. Swope was the former Internal Revenue Collector for the district, Goodloe had been Minister to Belgium, a state senator, and was the current Internal Revenue Collector; both me
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Blog post“A dark, mean little bedroom, a woman, half-undressed, dirty and pale, and blear-eyed from long excesses, a male companion, leaning over her with a revolver at her head, two shots, a shriek, an ugly hole under the ear, and the vice and crime of Boston had added another murder to its long score.” The Boston Herald’s vivid description of the murder of Josephine Brown on Christmas Eve, 1891, served to underscore her sad and dismal life. Married and divorced by age twenty, Josephine’s family blamed
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Blog postDr. Henry Meyer, his wife Maria, and their associate Ludwig Brant devised an elaborate plan to defraud insurance companies. Maria and Brant held a mock wedding then took out several insurance policies on his life with Maria as beneficiary. The plan was to then obtain a cadaver, declare it was the body of Ludwig Brant, and collect the insurance. Unbeknownst to Brant, Dr. Meyer and Maria decided they didn’t need a cadaver; it was much easier just to poison Brant.
The plot w -
Blog postThis week we are pleased to present a guest post from Howard and Nina Brown, experts on the Whitechapel Murders of Jack the Ripper. They are the owners of JTRForums.Com and have been Ripperologists for 20 years. Along with the website, JTRForums.Com, they also have pages on Twitter, Facebook, and a You Tube page. They're always looking for people interested in the Whitechapel Murders and can be contacted at Howard@jtrforums.com.
The article is on Ameer Ben Ali, convicted and later exon -
Blog postIn 1880, Mrs. Anna Hayes was the landlady of a house at 396 State Street in Chicago. The newspapers referred to it as a “house of ill-fame,” but it was not a brothel, it was a house of assignation, renting rooms to prostitutes. On Sunday, November 7, 1880, Eva Lloyd rented room 6 on the top floor; one week for $3.00. Eva did not have the money but she had a revolver worth $4.00, and Mrs. Hayes took that as security.Read more »
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Blog postIn 1831, Cuban Exile Carolino Amalia Espos y Mina conspired with Lucretia Chapman to murder her husband. When the plot was exposed, only one conspirator was executed.
Read the full story here: The Cuban Con Artist.
Carolino Estradas de Mina, The life and confession of Carolino Estradas de Mina (Philadelphia: Robert Desilver, 1832.) -
Blog postAmerican justice is largely fair and impartial, but it is not perfect; sometimes mistakes are made. It is always disturbing when an innocent person is unjustly punished, but it is far more common for a guilty party to be set free. When the crime in question is murder, this result can be equally disturbing.
In the nineteenth century (as now) accused murderers were tried in the court of public opinion before ever entering a court of law, and sometimes the verdicts did not agree. Wheth -
Blog postWilliam Udderzook and Winfield Goss conspired to defraud four insurance companies in 1873, by putting a cadaver in Goss’s workshop, setting the building on fire, and claiming the burned corpse was Goss. The plan went awry when Udderzook, fearing Goss would spill the beans, stabbed his partner to death. Read the full story here: He Knew Too Much.
The Udderzook mystery! (Philadelphia: Barclay & Co, 1873.) -
Blog postMrs. Sarah Shancks owned a high-end millenary concern—“a fancy thread and needle store”—at 22 East 12th Street. At around 10:00 AM, the morning of December 7, 1860, Susan Ferguson, who worked as a seamstress for Mrs. Shanks, entered the store but could not find her employer. She went to the back room where Mrs. Shanks resided and found her lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Her throat had been slashed, and she was surrounded by broken glass and crockery. Susan ran out of the
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