Georgianna Lovering.

13-year-old Georgianna Lovering disappeared from her home in Northwood, New Hampshire, in October 1872. The prime suspect in her abduction was her 64-year-old great-uncle, Franklin Evans, who had previously made “improper advances” to Georgianna. In police custody, Evans led the Sheriff to Georgianna’s body. He also confessed to murdering a 5-year-old girl in Derry, New Hampshire, and was suspected of at least three more murders, leading the press to dub Georgianna's killer "The Northwood Murderer."

Read the full story here: The Northwood Murderer.

Shot on Christmas Eve.

“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.

Read the full story here: Two Shots, A Shriek.

The Home of the Benders.

In the early 1870s the counties of Labette and Montgomery in Kansas experienced an alarming number of missing persons. The Bender family, who ran a grocery store and restaurant from their cabin, were investigated and cleared. But a closer look at the Benders' home revealed systematic mechanisms for murder and theft. The Bloody Benders fled Kansas, leaving behind ten corpses buried on their property.

Read the full story here: The Bloody Benders.

 

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Pictures from: Triplett, Frank. History, romance and philosophy of great American crimes and criminals; with personal portraits, biographical sketches, legal notes of celebrated ... causes, prevalence and prevention of crime. Hartford, Conn.: Park Pub. Co., 1885.

Mad with Jealousy.

On September 8, 1892, Frank Garvin, an artist working for the Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, married Cora Redpath, a trapeze artist who worked for Barnum and other circuses. They met and fell in love four years earlier, in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, when he was 19, and she was 16. Neither family approved of the relationship.

Tom and Catherine.

The morning of February 5, 1895, Dr. John E Rader was found murdered in the house of Mrs. Catherine McQuinn in Jackson, Kentucky. Catherine told police they were drinking whiskey with her paramour Tom Smith and when Tom passed out, Dr. Rader assaulted her. She shot him in self-defense. 

Catherine could have committed the murder; she was a rough, course woman with a bad reputation. But the police were inclined to suspect her lover, “Bad Tom” Smith. He had been indicted for murder seven times before but escaped justice when crucial witnesses disappeared. This time, however, his luck ran out. Both Tom and Catherine were convicted of first-degree murder.

Read the full story here: "Bad Tom" Smith.