Dark Stories: On This Day In True Crime History - Dark Stories True Crime Tours

2007: From Acquittal to Arrest: O.J. Simpson Held Over an Armed Raid on His Own Memorabilia in Las Vegas

On September 16, 2007, O.J. Simpson led a group of armed men into a room at the Palace Station Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, seizing sports memorabilia he insisted had been stolen from him. He was arrested and charged with multiple felonies, including armed robbery and kidnapping, though he denied that anyone in his group had carried a weapon.

The case drew intense attention largely because of who Simpson was: the former football star had been famously acquitted in 1995 of the 1994 murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, one of the most watched criminal trials in American history. More than a decade later, he found himself back in handcuffs, this time over a hotel room confrontation staged to reclaim items he believed were rightfully his.

Assorted vintage sports equipment including helmet and gloves

⬅ See all events from 16 September

Celebrity Crime Kidnapping Las Vegas Nevada Robbery Trial USA

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

1811: A Last-Minute Recantation at the Gallows Delays the Execution of John Dunn at Parramatta

John Dunn, Thomas Welch and Ann Wilson were charged before the Court of Criminal Jurisdiction at Parramatta with the murder of Mary Rowe. After a lengthy hearing, the court convicted Dunn of the murder largely on the evidence of an accomplice, John Welch, a boy of about sixteen.

Dunn was ordered hanged the following Monday, between eight and twelve. But as the execution was about to proceed, the teenage witness suddenly retracted his sworn testimony in front of the assembled spectators, declaring that Dunn was innocent and that he and his father, Thomas Welch, were the true killers. The Acting Provost Marshal, with no precedent to guide him, respited the hanging, which did not take place until the following Wednesday, under far gloomier circumstances than before.

Despite the boy’s dramatic gallows reversal accusing himself and his father of the killing, the original verdict against Dunn stood and his execution went ahead two days later than planned.

Lady Justice Themis statue on gallows with scales and sword

⬅ See all events from 16 September

Australia Colonial Crime Execution Murder NSW Parramatta Trial

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

1890: The Birth of the Queen of Crime: Agatha Christie, 1890

On this date in 1890, Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in Torquay, England, the woman who would become Agatha Christie and the best selling novelist in history after the Bible and Shakespeare. She went on to write 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, creating enduring figures such as Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

Her own life carried a strange echo of her fiction: in 1926 she vanished for eleven days, sparking a nationwide manhunt, before being found registered under an assumed name at a Yorkshire hotel, an episode that remains unexplained to this day.

London, Great Britain -May 25, 2016: Agatha Christie Memorial, memorial to author and playwright Agatha Christie, designed by sculptor Ben Twiston-Davies | ID 153687923 © Swetlana Mehlfeld | Dreamstime.com — ID 153687923 © Swetlana Mehlfeld | Dreamstime.com

⬅ See all events from 15 September

Author Europe Mystery True Crime Literature UK

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

1866: The Sussex Street Mystery: A Dog Walk Leads to a Severed Head in Sydney

Eleven-year-old James Kirkpatrick was walking his dog behind Sussex Street in Sydney in September 1866 when he stumbled on a woman’s severed head half buried in a rubbish heap near Ebsworth’s tweed factory and Barker’s flour mills. Nearby lay her torso, its chest cavity completely emptied and the lower ribs charred. Despite police turning the rubbish heap over three times and combing the neighbourhood, no other body parts were ever recovered.

The case became known as the Sussex Street Mystery and gripped the colony as police pieced together the killing. It ended with the conviction and execution of a butcher, William Henry Scott, for the murder, making it one of colonial Australia’s most sensational and gruesome murder cases.

William Henry Scott under sentence of death 1867

⬅ See all events from 15 September

Australia Cold Case Execution Murder NSW Sydney Trial

2007: From Acquittal to Arrest: O.J. Simpson Held Over an Armed Raid on His Own Memorabilia in Las Vegas

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

1811: A Last-Minute Recantation at the Gallows Delays the Execution of John Dunn at Parramatta

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

1890: The Birth of the Queen of Crime: Agatha Christie, 1890

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

1866: The Sussex Street Mystery: A Dog Walk Leads to a Severed Head in Sydney

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Subscribe to Dark Stories