Shell Game (Kansas City, Missouri, 1912)
The year was growing old, late October was approaching, and darkness blanketed Kansas City. People had become nothing more than silhouettes in the early morning hours of October 18, 1912. Al Hatch, perhaps the best-known and certainly the most gregarious … Continued
Sisters in the (Big) House (Ossining, New York, 1870)
They poisoned deadbeat husbands, tossed unwanted infants out of tenement windows, and chopped off the heads of lovers. They shoplifted and forged checks. And their misdeeds led them to a temple on a hill in Ossining, New York—the state’s premier … Continued
San Francisco Jekyll and Hyde: Patrick Collins, Wife-Slayer (San Francisco, CA, 1895)
Collins pulled the straight-blade out of his pocket and plunged it into his unsuspecting wife’s stomach. She pawed at the blade as he inched it upward. Sarah Collins fell to the floor, blood dribbling from the corners of her mouth. … Continued
Love is (Nearly ) Blind: the Case of Edward Methever (1899)
The sound of the surf pounding the sand of Long Beach, California, created an eerie, wild sensation on the morning of July 25, 1899, as Dorothy McKee and her friend Anna Scudder, peddled down the beach. Dorothy McKee enjoyed the … Continued
The Last Laugh: Tom Tate of Texas (1912)
There’s the devil in that bottle, according to an old saying, and to drink from can be to swallow a shot of evil. At least according to Tom Tate, the twenty-five-year-old slayer from Tyler, Texas. His shot of evil led … Continued
Speak Easy But Carry a Big Gat (1925)
Al Capone relied on him. So did Detroit’s Purple Gang and other Prohibition-era underworld syndicates. Traffickers like Albert Phillips, AKA David Bram, helped keep America from becoming too sober during the Roaring Twenties. Bram specialized in bringing whiskey as well … Continued
The Strange Case of the Umbria (1903)
Sometimes, an object from the past contains the power to summon, like a séance, a long-forgotten event. In the case of the steamship Umbria, the spiritual medium is a postcard from New York, which conjures the memory of a ship … Continued
Tall, Dark, and “Handsome Jack” Koetters (1912)
Tall, dark, and handsome, John B. Koetters, aka Cutter, fit his nickname “Handsome Jack.” His dimpled chin, in particular, was irresistible to lonely widows and old maids alike. He was affable and could turn on the charm on cue. If … Continued
Bananas! (1907)
The guards chatted about the upcoming “world’s championship” as they entered the yard of the Rhode Island State Prison at 5 a.m. on the morning of Saturday, October 5, 1912. In a few days, the series would begin in New … Continued
An Expensive Bottle of Wine (1907)
A bottle of fine wine can be a very expensive item, as Bay Area restaurateur John Marcovich would discover at eleven o’clock on Friday evening, April 19, 1907. Marcovich, co-owner of Oakland’s Gas Kitchen on Thirteenth Street near Washington, stood … Continued