No. 678
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
February 14, 2023
His Wife Danced the Coochee-Coochee.
She and her friends had been drinking wine, and they gave the sedate hubby an unexpected treat when he arrived at his home in St. Louis Mo.
February 14, 2023
alias: , F R WILSON, FREDDIE LOUTHER
SNEAK, PICKPOCKET
"Owensboro Messenger," January 29, 1911, via Newspapers.comEarly in 1910, American newspapers breathlessly carried the story of what appeared to be a particularly shocking double homicide. This account comes from the "Republican News Item" for January 6:The mystery of the death of Miss Grace Elosser, of Cumberland, Md., and Charles E. Twigg, of Keyser, W. Va. her fiance, appears as deep as
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Strange Company - 6/22/2026
"As his son I am proud of hisefforts to succeed in life"Jefferson Randolph Smith IIIArtifact #93-2Jeff Smith collection(Click image to enlarge)
oapy's son hires a legal firm to stop the defamation of his father's name.
At age 30, Jefferson Randolph Smith III, Soapy and Mary's oldest son, was protecting his father's legacy and his mother's reputation from "libel" and scandal. He was also
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
You’re forgiven if you assumed 58 Joralemon Street was just another beautifully restored Greek Revival row house in Brooklyn Heights. Built in 1847, it resembles many of the elegant single-family houses on the block, with its red brick facade, long windows, and brownstone trim around the entryway. But take a closer look, and you’ll notice […]
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Ephemeral New York - 6/22/2026
Youth With Executioner by Nuremberg native Albrecht Dürer … although it’s dated to 1493, which was during a period of several years when Dürer worked abroad. November 13 [1617]. Burnt alive here a miller of Manberna, who however was lately … Continue reading
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
In 1863, Theodore B. Weber, then a businessman in Burlington, Iowa, was attracted to Mrs. Adelaide (Ada) Bennert, a woman sixteen years his junior. His passion “soon ripened into criminal intimacy,” and although both were married, they began a romantic affair. When Mr. Bennert learned of his wife’s infidelity, he left her in disgust. Weber moved to Chicago to join his brother’s
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Murder By Gaslight - 6/20/2026
Be sure to stop by our Facebook page tomorrow for a Prosecution Marathon of witnesses. Here are the witnesses for Wednesday, June 14th, Day 9 Rufus Hilliard, City Marshal, Mayor John Coughlin, Mrs. Hannah Gifford (seamstress and dressmaker), Anna Borden ( wealthy socialite who was on Lizzie’s grand tour of Europe, distantly related to Lizzie), Lucy Collett (watching the office of Dr. Chagnon day of the murder), Thomas Bowles ( handyman who once rented a room from Addie Churchill and was wa
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 6/13/2026
[Editor’s note: Guest writer, Peter Dickson, lives in West Sussex, England and has been working with microfilm copies of The Duncan Campbell Papers from the State Library of NSW, Sydney, Australia. The following are some of his analyses of what he has discovered from reading these papers. Dickson has contributed many transcriptions to the Jamaica […]
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Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
The Bloody Century 2
Takes the reader back to 19th-century America in all its gory glory.
