For a few short weeks during June 1841, residents of Springfield, Illinois, were caught up in the mass hysteria of a sensational murder case that had all the elements of an Edgar Allan Poe murder mystery. Three strangers from out of town arrive in Springfield, but one of them soon goes missing. Wild rumors abound […]

[September 7, 2018]  Posted below for your consideration is Chapter 17 from the first volume of a new anthology series presented by HCD Publishing entitled, Vintage True Crime Stories: An Illustrated Anthology of Forgotten Cases of Murder & Mayhem, Volume I, 314 pages. The book will be released on Amazon Kindle this coming Monday, September […]

  Guest Post by Harry Parsons, Content Manager, Arcadia Publishing We all know the horror film trope: the motel, the inn, the guesthouse at the side of the road that is, for some reason, curiously empty. The friendly, welcoming, eager proprietors who usher you in and tell you to make yourself at home, but somehow […]

In 1910, if someone said they were “blowing the peter,” — it’s not what you’re thinking. From approximately 1890 to 1919, that term meant they were going to the door off a safe to rob it, and the person doing it was called “a yeggman,” slang for safe robber. If someone said they wanted to […]

A Sensational Crime and Trial that Confronted Racism, Sexism, and Privilege as America Took to the World Stage On the foggy, cold morning of February 1, 1896, a boy came upon what he thought was a pile of clothes. It was soon discovered to be the headless body of a young woman, brutally butchered and […]

Special Guest Feature Story by: Dr. Barry Morton: At few times in its history has the small town of Crawfordsville, Indiana ever been more regularly in the spotlight than it was between the autumn of 1889 through November 1890. The Pettit murder trial, “the most publicized case in this period,” began with published rumors of […]

Not all crime books are about murder or serial killers. Some of the most intriguing ones are about other subjects like gambling, Ocean 11 type heists, bank robbers, con men, spies, and other non-violent crimes. And there is also prostitution. Veteran historical true crime writer, Tobin Buhk, author of eight books including the popular, True […]

HCD Review: This is the best historical true crime book of 2016. Some authors crank out books, some of them write books, and an elite few craft a great book over years of unimaginable diligence and Skip Hollandsworth has produced a new American classic. I read it this weekend and I can tell you that […]

While conducting research for a story about a double-homicide in 1898, I came across an account of all known lynchings for that year. The statistics were interesting and confirmed what you might suspect, but also revealed some surprising information. Out of 127 lynchings in 1898, five of them were women. As expected, African-Americans represent the […]

Article by Thomas S. Duke, Celebrated Criminal Cases of America Alexander Crittenden was born in Lexington, Ky., on, January 14, 1816. Andrew Jackson was a close friend of his family, and it was through Jackson’s influence that Alexander was sent to West Point. He graduated from this military college with Sherman and remained in the […]