After a wild crime spree of robbery and kidnapping in 1942, escaped San Quentin prisoner Jim Quillen was sentenced to 45 years and sent to Alcatraz on Aug. 28 where he became prisoner #586. When he arrived on Alcatraz, he was an angry and bitter young man with a “maladjusted attitude.” He grew up never […]

  I am really proud [because of its rarity] of today’s mugshot of Lloyd Sampsell, a career bank robber whose amazing escapades spanned three decades. This is the only mugshot of him to known exist on the internet, outside of an FBI wanted circular. From the early 1920s to 1952 Lloyd Sampsell was one of […]

  Roy G. Gardner (January 5, 1884 – January 10, 1940) was once America’s most celebrated outlaw and escaped convict during the Roaring Twenties. During his criminal career, he stole over $350,000 in cash and securities. He also had a $5,000 reward placed on his head three times in less than a year during his […]

  Follow HistoricalCrimeDetective.com on Facebook The Zodiac Killer, whose serial murders terrorized northern California in the late ’60s, was a man named Earl Van Best Jr., according to a new book by Gary L. Stewart, who happens to be his biological son. Stewart’s The Most Dangerous Animal of All, as we reported Monday, is for […]

Posted from: “Full Pardon Asked For One Who Paid For another Man’s Crime,” The Sunday News and Tribune, Jefferson City, MO, Nov. 2, 1947   Attorneys for Frank Werther, 47, who served nearly 15 years in the Missouri state penitentiary here and state mental hospitals after conviction of a crime he did not commit, are […]

. Story #1: Child Brutally Slain in LA, Suspect is Hunted LOS ANGELES, CA, Nov. 15, 1949: The gashed and mutilated body of six year-old Linda Glucoft was found today in a rubbish heap, wrapped in a brightly colored Indian blanket. Police Sgt. Bill Brennan said he definitely had established that the blanket came from […]

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 […]