This story is dedicated to ‘packerpil.’ Thank you for your continued support.   During the summer of 1942, Lafayette, Indiana, residents experienced a six-week “reign of terror” in which fifty serious and misdemeanor crimes were committed by one or more individuals. Beginning on June 2, the crime wave included: Twenty counts of breaking into automobiles, […]

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 […]

Hobocidal Maniac Lloyd Gomez Killed Nine Men in 15 Months Tap or click on a thumbnail for pop-up image gallery. Hover mouse middle, right side for arrow.   October 15, 1953 San Quentin Prison, California Six hundred and thirty days after he confessed to California authorities to murdering nine men between 1950 and 1951, Lloyd […]

In 1961, nineteen-year-old Wilbert Rideau shot and killed Lake Charles, Lousiana bank teller Julia Fergusen, who was twenty-years-old. Rideau’s first trial included an all-white, all-male jury who sentenced him to death. That verdict, and two more which came in 1964 and 1970, were eventually overturned on constitutional grounds. Nevertheless, he remained on death row until […]

In late October 1948, Hattiesburg, Mississippi house painter Walter Dorman, 42 or 44, was vacationing at a fishing camp near Tallulah, in the northeast corner of the Louisiana (near the Mississippi River, Mississippi Delta, and Lake Providence). The fishing camp was owned and operated by George Dowdy, 68, and his son, J.D. Dowdy, 23, a […]

In the early morning hours of June 15, 1955, Judge Curtis Chillingworth and his wife Marjorie were snatched from their beachfront home in Palm Beach County, Florida and were never seen again. Curtis E. Chillingworth was born to an upper-class family in 1896. His grandfather had moved down from New York and served as sheriff. […]

Lenient Sentences for Serial-Rapist and Molester Lead to More Crimes DNA Connected Stansbury to 1974 Murder Seven Years After He Died in Prison In the summer of 1974, twenty-nine-year old Barbara Hall was found dead near a horse trail in the San Dimas/Claremont area near Pomona, California. Her life was tragically ended at the hands […]

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  Emma Head was born near Jackson, Amador County, California, where her parents were in comfortable circumstances. While quite young, she married a man named Barrett, but after living with him a short time in Fresno, Cal., a divorce was granted, and she then married a man named Williams, with whom she went to Arizona. […]

My new book, Famous Crimes the World Forgot Volume II: More Vintage True Crime Stories Rescued from Obscurity, is now available for download to your Amazon Kindle. The book will be available for free for five days (the maximum they allow) from Tuesday, March 21, to Saturday, March 25, 2017. The paperback version will be […]