"New York Daily News, May 9, 1982, via Newspapers.comCases of murder-by-poison have a particularly eerie quality, due to the often phantom nature of the killer. Another example of the unseen murder is the following mystery, where death was delivered by unsuspecting mail carriers.Joan Kipp led a quiet suburban life in her hometown of Brooklyn, New York. Her husband Howard owned a
Included in yesterday’s trip to Fall River was a stop at Miss Lizzie’s Coffee shop and a visit to the cellar to see the scene of the tragic demise of the second Mrs. Lawdwick Borden and two of the three little children in 1848. I have been writing about this sad tale since 2010 and had made a previous trip to the cellar some years ago but was unable to get to the spot where the incident occured to get a clear photograph. The tale of Eliza Borden is a very sad, but not uncommon story of post partum depression with a heartrending end. You feel this as you stand in the dark space behind the chimney where Eliza ended her life with a straight razor after dropping 6 month old Holder and his 3 year old sister Eliza Ann into the cellar cistern. Over the years I have found other similar cases, often involving wells and cisterns, and drownings of children followed by suicides of the mothers. These photos show the chimney, cistern pipe, back wall, dirt and brick floor, original floorboards forming the cellar ceiling and what appears to be an original door. To be in the place where this happened is a sobering experience. My thanks to Joe Pereira for allowing us to see and record the place where this sad occurrence unfolded in 1848. R.I.P. Holder, Eliza and Eliza Ann Borden. Visit our Articles section above for more on this story. The coffee shop has won its suit to retain its name and has plans to expand into the shop next door and extend its menu in the near future.
The Chinese restaurant on the ground floor has shut its doors. Some apartment windows are blocked by wood boards. Graffiti mars the space below the roofline. The tenement at 1205 First Avenue, at the corner of 65th Street, seems empty and abandoned. And the faded ads that once faced traffic heading uptown are in an […]
An article I recently wrote for the British online magazine, New Politic, is now available online. The article, “The Criminal Origins of the United States of America,†is about British convict transportation to America, which took place between the years 1718 and 1775, and is the subject of my book, Bound with an Iron Chain: […]
Maggie Thompson, a pretty eight-year-old girl living on Merchant Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio, mysteriously disappeared on May 9, 1889. She was coming from school, just two blocks away, but she never reached her home. Detectives, police constables, and private citizens searched the neighborhood to no avail. They found no trace of Maggie.In early June, Joseph Shovell, who lived seven doors away from
CHIEF OF CONSThe Morning Times(Cripple Creek, Colorado)February 15, 1896Courtesy of Mitch Morrissey
ig Ed Burns robs a dying man?
Mitch Morrissey, a Facebook friend and historian for the Denver District Attorney’s Office, found and published an interesting newspaper piece on "Big Ed" Burns, one of the most notorious characters in the West. Burns was a confidence man and
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 →
She resides in a swamp near Branford, Conn, and fills the rustics with terror.
A special from New Haven, Oct. 28 says: For several weeks past sportsmen who have been hunting in the woods in the vicinity of Branford have from time to time seen a young woman darting about among the trees. She is apparently about sixteen years of age, wears no hat or shoes, and her clothing hangs in tatters about her, barley covering her form. Who she is, where she lives or where she came from is unknown. On several occasions when addressed she replied in incoherent language and ended her sentence with wild, hysterical laughter. Any attempt to approach her is fruitless. She runs like a dear and leaps stone walls and fences in a single bound. Her retreat is believed to be in Towner’s swamp, about two miles from Branford Center, as she seeks refuge there when pursued. It is supposed that the girl has been the inmate of some asylum from which she escaped. The authorities and citizens of Branford are to organize and if possible capture her and place her in some one of the State institutions.
Reprinted from National Police Gazette, November 19. 1887.
"We follow vice and folly where a police officer dare not show his head, as the small, but intrepid weasel pursues vermin in paths which the licensed cat or dog cannot enter."
The Sunday Flash 1841