Thomas Woolcock died at 3 am on 4 September 1873 in Moonta, Adelaide having suffered weeks of stomach pains, nausea, and prolonged vomiting. His death was initially attributed to exhaustion, but suspicion quickly fell on his wife Elizabeth Woolcock, a woman whose own life had been marked by hardship, abuse, and desperation.

Elizabeth had endured years of violence at the hands of Woolcock, a heavy-drinking wife-beater who had repeatedly prevented her from leaving. In the weeks before his death, she had made increasingly frantic attempts to obtain morphine and other substances from local chemists, and her behaviour had become talk of the community. Charged with murder by mercury poisoning, Elizabeth was tried, convicted, and hanged at Adelaide Gaol on 30 December 1873. She remains the only woman ever executed in South Australia.

On September 4, 1894, serial killer H. H. Holmes murdered his accomplice Benjamin Pitezel at 1326 Callowhill Street in Philadelphia. The original scheme called for Pitezel to fake his own death under the alias 'B.F. Perry', supposedly killed in a lab explosion, with Holmes supplying a substitute corpse so that Pitezel's wife could collect a $10,000 life insurance policy. Instead, Holmes knocked Pitezel unconscious with chloroform and burned his body with benzene, staging the death as an accident.

A coroner's jury returned a verdict of accidental death, and Pitezel's body was buried in a potter's field. Three weeks later, Holmes collected the $10,000 payout. The murder only unravelled after Philadelphia detective Frank Geyer investigated, ultimately exposing Holmes as one of the most prolific killers in American history.

In September 1939, New York bookmaker Irving Feinstein was strangled to death by members of Murder Inc., the enforcement arm of the American organised crime syndicate. His body was set alight and dumped in a vacant lot, a signature disposal method of the organisation.

The killing was ordered after Feinstein was accused of doublecrossing a criminal associate. He was one of dozens of victims claimed by Murder Inc. during its brutal reign as a contract killing operation for the mob.

On September 4, 1946, William Heirens stood before a Chicago court with his parents and the victims' families watching, and admitted guilt on burglary and murder charges spanning three killings. The prosecution had already staged a public reenactment of the Degnan murder in August, ensuring the case was tried in the press long before sentencing.

That night, Heirens attempted to hang himself in his cell, timing the attempt to coincide with a guard shift change. He was discovered before he died. He later said: 'Everyone believed I was guilty ... If I weren't alive, I felt I could avoid being adjudged guilty by the law and thereby gain some victory. Before I walked into the courtroom my counsel told me to just enter a plea of guilty and keep my mouth shut afterward. I didn't even have a trial.'