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

1692: Five Hanged at Salem in a Single Day for Witchcraft

On 19 August 1692, five people were executed by hanging at Salem, Massachusetts, after being convicted of witchcraft: Martha Carrier, George Jacobs Sr., George Burroughs, John Willard, and John Proctor. The executions were among the most notorious of the Salem witch trials, a period of mass hysteria that gripped colonial New England.

Fourteen more people would be executed before the year was out, and 150 others were imprisoned. The Salem trials remain one of the darkest episodes in early American legal history.

Painting of two alleged witches being tried in Salem, Massachusetts as part of the infamous witchhunts.

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Execution Historical Atrocity Massachusetts New England Political Crime Salem Trial USA

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1831: The Burking Murder: Elizabeth Ross Smothers an Elderly Woman to Sell Her Corpse

In August 1831, Elizabeth Ross suffocated 84-year-old Caroline Walsh at lodgings in Goodman’s Yard, Minories, London. Walsh had been lured to move in with Ross and her partner Edward Cook. Ross held her hand over the elderly woman’s mouth for half an hour as she lay on the bed, killing her to sell the body to medical institutions, a practice known as burking.

The case emerged during a period of intense demand for cadavers in British medical schools, driven by the expansion of anatomical education following the Napoleonic Wars. Just three years earlier, the infamous Burke and Hare murders in Edinburgh had shocked the country, and the London Burkers, John Bishop and Thomas Williams, had committed a similar anatomy murder the same year as Ross.

Vitruvian Man - Leonardo da Vinci. Vitruvian Man is a drawing created by Leonardo da Vinci circa 1487. It is accompanied by notes based on the work of the architect Vitruvius. The drawing, which is in pen and ink on paper, are sometimes called the Canon of Proportions or, less often, Proportions of Man. It is stored in the Gallerie dellAccademia in Venice | ID 27793770 © Steve Allen | Dreamstime.com — ID 27793770 © Steve Allen | Dreamstime.com

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London Murder Organised Crime UK

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2005: BTK Killer Dennis Rader Sentenced to 175 Years for Ten Murders

Dennis Rader, a church council president and compliance officer from Wichita, Kansas, was sentenced to ten consecutive life terms totalling 175 years in prison for a killing spree that began in 1974 and claimed ten lives over three decades. Methodical and media-savvy, he bound, tortured, and killed his victims, earning the acronym BTK. He stalked neighbours, executed families, and kept trophies, all while living an unremarkable suburban life.

Rader had evaded capture for thirty years before his own need for notoriety led to his undoing. In 2004 he resumed contact with police and local media after a long silence. A floppy disk he sent to a television station was traced back to his church computer, and he was arrested in February 2005. He pleaded guilty to all ten murders in June 2005 and was sentenced in August of that year, using his final court appearance to describe each killing in cold, methodical detail.

Forensics expert examining floppy disk with magnifying glass

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Murder Serial Killer Trial USA

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1987: Donald Harvey Sentenced to Triple Life Terms for Poisoning 24 Patients

Donald Harvey, an Ohio hospital orderly who described himself as an ‘angel of death’, was sentenced to triple life terms after pleading guilty to poisoning 24 patients. Harvey claimed to have begun killing in 1970 to ease the suffering of the terminally ill, smothering his first victim, 88-year-old Logan Evans, with a pillow at Marymount Hospital in London, Kentucky. His methods expanded to include arsenic, cyanide, morphine, insulin, and suffocation, deployed across multiple hospitals over 17 years.

Harvey ultimately claimed 87 murders, with 37 confirmed victims. To avoid execution, he pleaded guilty and received 28 life sentences in total. He died in custody at Toledo Correctional Institution on March 30, 2017, one of the most prolific hospital killers in American history.

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Murder Poisoning Serial Killer Trial USA

1692: Five Hanged at Salem in a Single Day for Witchcraft

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1831: The Burking Murder: Elizabeth Ross Smothers an Elderly Woman to Sell Her Corpse

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2005: BTK Killer Dennis Rader Sentenced to 175 Years for Ten Murders

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1987: Donald Harvey Sentenced to Triple Life Terms for Poisoning 24 Patients

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