1877: Crazy Horse Fatally Bayoneted at Fort Robinson

Crazy Horse, the celebrated Lakota war leader who had helped defeat George Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn just a year earlier, was fatally stabbed with a bayonet at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, on 5 September 1877. He was 36 years old.

He had surrendered to U.S. Army forces earlier that year, ending years of armed resistance on the northern plains. Brought to the fort under the pretence of a meeting, he was seized and stabbed during a struggle, dying that night. The killing marked the end of one of the most formidable military careers in the history of the Lakota people.

Crazy Horse and his band of Indians on their way to surrender (1877)
Crazy Horse and his band of Indians on their way to surrender (1877)

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1994: NSW Politician John Newman Shot Dead Outside His Cabramatta Home

At 9:30 pm on 5 September 1994, Labor MP John Newman was shot twice and killed instantly in the car park of his Woods Avenue home in Cabramatta, in the western suburbs of Sydney.

His fiancee, Lucy Wang, was present but saw little due to the speed of the attack; she reported a hooded man in an army-style jacket who fired four shots and fled in a waiting car. Newman had represented Cabramatta in the NSW Legislative Assembly since 1986 and had campaigned aggressively against organised crime and drug trafficking in the area. Newman was later given a state funeral. He was 47 years old.

Grey car parked in front of a garage at night
Grey car parked in front of a garage at night

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1975: Gerald Ford Survives Assassination Attempt in Sacramento

On 5 September 1975, President Gerald Ford was leaving a meeting at the Senator Hotel in Sacramento, California, when Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, pointed a loaded .45-calibre pistol at him from close range. A Secret Service agent grabbed the weapon before it could be fired, and Ford was unharmed.

Fromme was arrested on the spot. She was later tried and convicted of attempted assassination of the President, receiving a life sentence. It was the first of two attempts on Ford’s life within a single month, the second coming just 17 days later in San Francisco.

Gerald Ford portrait in the Michigan State Capitol at 100 N Capitol Avenue in Lansing, Michigan | ID 103716497 © Glenn Nagel | Dreamstime.com
ID 103716497 © Glenn Nagel | Dreamstime.com

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1894: H. H. Holmes Kills Accomplice in Philadelphia Insurance Fraud Murder

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.

Benjamin Pitezel; associate of H.H.Holmes
Benjamin Pitezel; associate of H.H.Holmes

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On This Day in True Crime History
1754·Born to Mutiny Twice: Captain William Bligh, Survivor of the Bounty and the Rum Rebellion in Sydney
1902·"Me Done It, and I Am Satisfied": The Chilling Calm of a Perth Murder
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