Today’s mug shot is taken from “Famous Crimes the World Forgot.” This is Arthur Eggers. In 1946, he was a cuckold who got tired of his younger, dominant wife running around on him. He was coming home late one night when he caught sight of his wife’s lover leaving the house. When he went […]

George Edward Cole George Edward Cole shot and killed a San Francisco Police Sergeant during a hold-up of a tavern on Dec. 30, 1956. He was placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List on Feb. 25, 1957. He was captured two years later in Des Moines, Iowa after a citizen identified his girlfriend, Yvonne Conley, […]

. “Police Officers Capture Opium Smugglers and All their Plunder,” The San Francisco Call, April 9, 1902. Police Officers A. 0. Juel and E. C. Gould captured two opium smugglers yesterday and secured their plunder. The officers will very likely receive a substantial reward from the Government. The men arrested were John Gavin, alias Murphy, […]

. Originally published: “The Mad Butcher of O’Farrell Street,” by Mitchell Chaindown, Front Page Detective, April, 1956. San Francisco, December 25-28, 1955 The sound was a shriek that started high and piercing and ended in a gurgle that was scarcely audible. The man leaped from his bed and ran out into the hallway of the […]

. Kenneth Malcom Christianson – 1964, FBI Most Wanted, Escaped convict Kenneth Malcolm Christiansen, was a tall, tattooed California prison escapee who engaged in a “white collar” holdups,  was  added to the FBI’s list of “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” on July 27, 1964. On Christmas Eve, 1963, Kevin Malcolm Christiansen escaped from the California Institution […]

  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 […]

  There is a great link to an 1896 article from The San Francisco Call about the case at the end of the article. San Francisco, 1896 Joseph Blanther was born in Rankerburg Steirmart, Austria, in 1859. When nineteen years of age he was made a Lieutenant in the Austrian army, and a few months […]

  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 […]

Jan. 8, 1909, San Francisco, CA Anton J. F. Nolting was born in San Francisco on February 9, 1860. He was of a studious disposition and acquired a high education. As a young man he was in comfortable circumstances financially but meeting with reverses, he joined the San Francisco Police Force on December 2, 1895. […]