It was a foolproof plan. Six men in Lebanon County Pennsylvania bought insurance policies on the life of Joseph Raber, an elderly recluse...

Harry Hayward was a handsome young playboy from a wealthy Minneapolis family. An inveterate gambler, he would finance his habit through t...

Mary Lula Noel’s sister and brother-in-law were not afraid to leave Mary alone with her boyfriend William Simmons. They were going across...

The growth of textile mills in the middle of the 19th century brought new opportunities to young women in rural New England. Though the d...

Inspector Thomas Byrnes, head of the Detective Bureau of the New York City police at the end of the 19th Century, had no love of mys...

Do modern crime scene photographs leave you sick to your stomach, or have repeated viewings of mangled corpses left you utterly desensiti...

Charlie and Frankie Silver were the ideal young married couple, so the legend goes; he was strong and handsome, she was kind and beautifu...

When Russell Colvin lost his Manchester, Vermont farm and had to move his wife Sally and their six children into her parents’ house, his ...

Review: Discovery Channel's   "Jack the Ripper in America" Discovery Channel documentaries are a mixed bag. Their qua...

On September 17, 1841, an expressman picked up a crate on Maiden Lane in Manhattan and delivered it to the docks. The crate, addressed to ...

“Frankie and Johnny were lovers” – true, they were lovers, but his name was Allen, not Johnny. “He was her man, but he done her wrong.”...

On Christmas Eve 1900, Cooney Houston shot and killed Delia Green. If that isn’t tragic enough, they were both 14 years old. Their sad st...

Called “The Pedestrian” by one Boston newspaper, Dr. George Parkman was famous for his regular daily walks through town to collect rent ...

On October 4, 1875, 17-year-old Josie Langmaid was absent from school – The Pembroke Academy in Pembroke, New Hampshire. When her parent...

In the early hours of August 6, 1887, nine members of the Woolfolk family of Bibb County, Georgia – ranging in age from 18 months to 8...

 Carolino Amalia Espos y Mina In May 1831, Cuban exile Lino Espos y Mina found himself alone and penniless in the town of Andalusia,...

A Gaslight Poll: Did Lizzie Borden Kill Her Father and Stepmother? Well over 100 years after the fact, this murder is still news. Did Liz...

The stories behind murder ballads are never as pretty as the songs. The story behind “Tom Dooley” – the 1866 murder of Laura Foster by Tom...

Alice Mitchell and Freda Ward, aged 19 and 17, had become close friends at the Higbee School for Girls in Memphis. So close, in fact, that...

In the summer of 1826, William Morgan of Batavia, New York, announced his intention to publish a book exposing the secrets of Freemasonry...