Jay Kelly Pinkerton Warning: This story contains graphic content. Jay Kelly Pinkerton was executed by the state of Texas on May 15, 1986, for the rape and murder of two women while they slept in their home. On October 26, 1979, Pinkerton entered the Amarillo home of David and Sarah Lawrence between the hours of […]

Charles Rumbaugh’s minor notoriety as a killer and criminal only came after he committed the murder that put him on Texas death row. On April 4, 1975, Rumbaugh shot and killed an Amarillo jewelry store owner, fifty-eight-year-old Michael Fiorillo, during a robbery. When he was arrested the next day, he pulled a gun on the […]

  During the month of October 1974, Patrick Randel, an undercover narcotics agent with the Texas Department of Public Safety, was working a drug buy/sting operation against two underworld figures from Austin. With $850 in “buy money,” Randel agreed to purchase Quaaludes from the two men. On October 23, the three met in a room […]

. On August 7, 1978, Harker Heights Police Officer Carl Levin located an arson suspect entering a vacant house in the small community located southeast of Killeen, Texas. When Officer Levin stopped the individual and asked for identification, the man pulled out a .25 caliber pistol and shot the thirty-one-year-old Levin in the head, killing […]

On Halloween night, 1974, Ronald O’Bryan took his eight-year-old-son, Timothy, and his daughter, trick-or-treating with some other neighborhood friends near their home in the Deer Park suburb of Houston. Since there was a light rain falling, they only collected candy in a two-block area for half-an-hour before returning home. As he went to bed, Ronald […]

  Want to Read this Story Later on Your Tablet or other Device? Download PDF File of “The Case of the Make Believe Orphan, 1953″   Story Credit: “The Case of the Make-Believe Orphan,” by Gerry Smart, Front Page Detective, November 1955. Texas, March 1953 The boy’s words over the phone were simple, but it […]

This story is available as one of ten stories in my book: Famous Crimes the World Forgot: Ten Vintage True Crime Stories Rescued from Obscurity. Volume I. You can view images related to this case here.

I almost feel sorry for the police. This kid is like the “James Bond” of juvenile delinquents. [November 18, 1949] A thin, wiry, 14 year-old boy who has led officers of three states on a merry chase for seven crime-packed weeks was captured today at his Texarkana home. The boy, small for his age, launched […]