2002: The Steamer Trunk in the Closet: Ira Einhorn Convicted of Murdering Holly Maddux

In 1979, Philadelphia police searching Ira Einhorn’s apartment found a locked steamer trunk shoved into a closet; inside were the mummified remains of his former girlfriend, Holly Maddux, missing for more than a year. Einhorn, a charismatic countercultural figure known as the Unicorn Killer, fled the country before trial and spent nearly two decades hiding in Europe before he was finally captured in France.

Extradited to the United States, Einhorn stood trial in 2002 and took the stand in his own defense, insisting CIA agents had killed Maddux and framed him. The jury took just two hours to convict him of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced the following day to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Vintage steamer trunk with secrets locked up tight.
Vintage steamer trunk with secrets locked up tight.

⬅ See all events from 17 October

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

1793: The Queen Who Apologised to Her Executioner: the Execution of Marie Antoinette

Nine months after her husband Louis XVI went to the guillotine, Marie Antoinette followed him, tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal for treason against the new French Republic. Her hair had been cropped and her wrists bound behind her back; she rode to the Place de la Revolution in an open cart, not the closed carriage that had carried the king. Witnesses recorded that climbing the scaffold she stepped on her executioner’s foot and murmured an apology, a small, almost absurd courtesy moments before the blade fell on 16 October 1793. The crowd that had once cheered a queen watched in silence.

Marie Antoinette's execution in 1793
Marie Antoinette’s execution in 1793

⬅ See all events from 16 October

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

1917: Mata Hari Executed by Firing Squad as a German Spy in Paris

She was born Margaretha Zelle in the Netherlands and reinvented herself in Paris as Mata Hari, an exotic dancer whose stage act and string of wealthy, often military, lovers made her a sensation across Europe. When war came, French intelligence suspected she was selling pillow talk to Germany.

The evidence against her was thin and largely circumstantial, built on intercepted telegrams and a reputation for scandal rather than proof. A French military tribunal convicted her of espionage anyway, and she was executed by firing squad outside Paris on 15 October 1917.

She refused a blindfold and reportedly blew a kiss to the soldiers before they fired, going to her death still insisting she had never betrayed France.

Mata Hari - 1910
Mata Hari – 1910

⬅ See all events from 15 October

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

1307: Friday the 13th: King Philip the Fair Orders the Arrest of the Knights Templar

Before dawn on Friday 13 October 1307, royal officers across France moved on hundreds of Knights Templar at once, arresting the warrior monks in their own preceptories under sealed orders opened simultaneously nationwide. King Philip the Fair, deeply in debt to the order he had once sworn to protect, accused its knights of heresy and secret blasphemous rites.

Under torture, many confessed to charges historians now regard as fabricated to justify seizing the order’s vast wealth. The arrests marked the beginning of the end for the Templars, who were suppressed within a few years and their leaders burned at the stake, and contributed to the enduring misfortune of the date of Friday the 13th.

Medieval illustration of the Grand Master of the Templars burning at the stake.
Medieval illustration of the Grand Master of the Templars burning at the stake.

⬅ See all events from 13 October

Spread the word on your favourite platform!
On This Day in True Crime History
1853·"I Would Finish You Now": Hanged in Melbourne for the Murder of His Mistress
1853·The Young Witness Testifies: Alexander Ram Hanged in Melbourne for Murdering Kitty Hennessy
1883·Hanged in Perth, Each Still Blaming the Other to the End
1885·Hanged in Brisbane After a Feverish Stockman Shot the Manager Who Denied Him Hospital
1888·Mutiny on the Brisbane River: the Captain Who Threatened to Turn His Guns on Parliament
1926·The Gold He Took to His Grave: Two Men Hanged in Fremantle for Killing Two Police Officers
More Crime On This Day →

Subscribe to Dark Stories

True crime stories, dark history and tour news, straight to your inbox.