1721: Hanged for a Penknife and Five Shillings: John Dykes, the Gambler Turned Highwayman
John Dykes gambled away everything he had, then slid from pickpocketing into armed robbery on the road between Mile End and Bow. Read more →
1884: He Helped Murder a Policeman, Then Willed His Estate to the Widow
Thomas Carbury and an accomplice, Andrew Miller, were arrested for drunkenness in a small Western Australian town, and Constable Patrick Hackett refused to return the new clothing found in their swag, worth about £20, until they explained how they had got it. Read more →
1893: Spurned, He Killed Her With an Axe and Tried to Burn Away the Evidence: Hanged in Brisbane
George Blantern asked the young domestic servant Flora Macdonald to marry him. Read more →
1907: The Confession That Confessed Nothing: Hanged in Fremantle for the Waroona Farm Murder
Augustin De Kitchilan, a young drifter from Ceylon, had been living and working at Leah Fouracre's isolated farm near Waroona, Western Australia, breaking in her horses in exchange for board. Read more →
1931: The Confession Note Fished From a Department Store Sink That Caught the Trunk Murderess
Winnie Ruth Judd, a medical secretary in Phoenix, shot her two friends Anne LeRoi and Hedvig Samuelson after a jealous falling out in October 1931, then packed their bodies, one dismembered, into trunks and shipped them to Los Angeles by train. Read more →
1976: Before He Was Son of Sam: the 44 Calibre Killer Strikes a Parked Car in Queens
Carl Denaro and Rosemary Keenan were sitting in a parked car near Bowne Park in Flushing, Queens, on this day in 1976 when the windows suddenly exploded around them. Read more →
1998: The Trunk Murderess Dies on the Exact Anniversary of Her Own Surrender
Winnie Ruth Judd earned the tabloid name the Trunk Murderess after she shot two friends in Phoenix, Arizona, then packed their bodies into steamer trunks and shipped them by rail to Los Angeles in 1931. Read more →
