Anna Wheeler's Killer.

18-year-old Mildred Brewster left her parents' farm to make her own way in Montpelier, Vermont. She met and fell in love with a young man in her boarding house who seduced Mildred but did not return her affections. When Mildred learned that he was engaged to Annie Wheeler, she bought a revolver to take her rival's life as well as her own. She succeeded in killing Annie Wheeler but failed her suicide attempt. At her trial for premeditated murder, Mildred pled insanity.

Read the full story here: Insane Jealousy

"With My Knife I Cut Her Throat."

Jesse Pomeroy was 14 years old in 1874 when he stabbed and killed 10-year-old Katie Curran in South Boston. Less than a month later he stabbed and mutilated 4-year-old Horace Millen. Prior to the murders, Jesse had been sentenced to the reformatory for torturing and sexually abusing several other children but was released on probation. After conviction for murder, Jesse Pomeroy would spend his next 53 years in prison.

Read the full story here: Jesse Pomeroy - "Boston Boy Fiend." 

A Rejected Suitor.

Dr. Samuel Johnson was a successful physician in Borrah, Connecticut, a quiet little town not far from Norwich. In 1872, the Johnson family was well known and respected in Borrah. Around 1860, a man named William Erving was hired by Dr. Johnson, and boarded in his home. Erving was a good worker and they treated him as one of the family.

Erving’s only flaw was that he was quick to anger and would act out of passion. This was a problem when Erving became infatuated with Dr. Johnson’s daughter, Jane, a highly educated and refined young lady. He repeatedly asked her to marry him and each time she told him, in no uncertain terms, that she was not interested. The family, too, discouraged any notion of a courtship between Erving and Jane. Each rejection increased Erving’s anger.

A Murderer Murdered.

Charles Jefferds shot and killed his stepfather John Walton, in New York City, the night of June 30, 1860. He also killed John Mathews, who chased him after Walton’s murder. Jefferds was acquitted of killing Walton due to lack of evidence. 

Jefferds later bragged that his mother paid him to murder Walton. He correctly assumed he could not be retried for Walton’s murder, but Jefferds forgot he had also killed Mathews. His confession to Walton’s murder provided enough evidence to convict him of Mathew's murder.

Charles Jefferds was sentenced to hang. But as he awaited execution, Jefferds made some enemies in Sing Sing Prison, and one of them, who had been chopping wood in the prison yard, turned his axe on Jefferds and killed him.

Read the full story here: The Walton-Matthews Tragedy.

The Schoonmaker Tragedy.

Harry and Edith Schoonmaker of Brooklyn, New York, appeared to have a perfect marriage in 1888. Henry D. (Harry) Schoonmaker was from a prominent Brooklyn political family. He had a substantial job as a salesman for a gas fitting company and had recently received a pay raise. The couple had a 14-month-old son.

“No more happy and loving couple could be found,” said Harry’s father, Col. John B. Schoonmaker, “So far as I knew, they never had a quarrel, and all was love and happiness.”

But in December 1888, Harry began acting strangely. His parents noticed he was irritable, and his talk was flighty. Others said he was “…alternately excited and depressed as if he was addicted to the use of opium or some other drug.”