No. 315
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
July 11, 2016
Trying to Scare an Old Maid with a Wooden Dutchman.
A wooden Dutchman, rather than no man at all, was what a sensible spinster argued when some practica
July 11, 2016
alias: GEO HAVILL, HARRY THORN
SNEAK, FORGER
"The Olympian," July 27, 1981, via Newspapers.comIn the movie “Wait Until Dark,” Audrey Hepburn played a blind woman terrorized by sinister strangers searching her apartment. The film showed that there is a unique psychological horror in knowing danger lurks around you, but you are unable to see it. That same fear is central to the following crime case--only in this real-life story,
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Strange Company - 9/28/2026
[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
"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
Mary Anderson was an acclaimed international stage actress in the late 1800s. Among her many fans was a young Brooklyn man named James M. Dougherty. He worked as a telegraph lineman and studied science in his spare time. He dabbled in a little of everything until, after watching one of her plays, he became obsessed with Miss Anderson. His love for Mary Anderson became his sole
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Murder By Gaslight - 9/26/2026
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
The Bloody Century 2
Takes the reader back to 19th-century America in all its gory glory.
