The Strange Story of Joseph Berger’s “Money-Making Mill,” 1913

      The suave dandy’s mugshot card after his arrest in 1913. (Author’s collection) Silver-tongued Joseph Berger, a tailor by trade, made a living running swindles on the unsuspecting throughout northern California. The suave dandy used his good-looks, smooth-talking, … Continued

Obsession (West Bridgewater, Pennsylvania, 1918)

Mary and Maeterlinch Pavlinich of West Bridgewater, Pennsylvania, took in boarders to earn extra income. So, they opened their home to George Karas, a swarthy, mustachioed charmer from old-world Austria. The thirty-nine-year-old had the square shoulders of a boxer and … Continued

Otto Cobb: Chicken Thief (Corning, New York, 1908)

Otto Cobb, prisoner number J2440, has a sinister-looking smirk in his March 1908 mugshot. His expression is halfway between a scowl and a grin—somewhere on the edge between disgust and cockiness. He may look the part of a Goodfella, but … Continued

Her Bertillon is Only Skin Deep (Rochester, New York, 1908)

Twenty-seven-year-old house maid Ida Olliver apparently had her eye on a particular ring. Unfortunately, it wasn’t for sale, so in a moment of weakness, she pocketed it—a petit theft that landed her in a Rochester, New York, courtroom. It was … Continued

Nicholas Moran, Dandy Forger (Cleveland, Ohio, 1906)

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Newspaper reporters described his as “tall and aristocratic looking, with gray hair and beard.” He typically wore a Prince Albert jacket and a fur coat. He carried a diamond-encrusted pocket watch, which was attached to his jacket with a heavy … Continued

So, I married an axe murderer (Detroit, Michigan, 1895)

Dr. Horace Pope, a Detroit physician, never knew what hit him. The first axe blow sliced off the top of his scalp and sprinkled the dark, green patterned wallpaper in his den with crimson dots. The second blow bit into … Continued

Hellgate Hath No Fury: the “Seduction” of Bessie Leigh (Missoula, Montana, 1916)

Prison mugshot card of Bessie Leigh from an original in the Dark Corners of History archives. Her name was Bessie Leigh. She was young (twenty-six), vivacious, curvaceous, and lonely. What she might have neglected to mention was that she also had … Continued

San Francisco Jekyll and Hyde: Patrick Collins, Wife-Slayer (San Francisco, CA, 1895)

Collins pulled the straight-blade out of his pocket and plunged it into his unsuspecting wife’s stomach. She pawed at the blade as he inched it upward. Sarah Collins fell to the floor, blood dribbling from the corners of her mouth. … Continued

Love is (Nearly ) Blind: the Case of Edward Methever (1899)

The sound of the surf pounding the sand of Long Beach, California, created an eerie, wild sensation on the morning of July 25, 1899, as Dorothy McKee and her friend Anna Scudder, peddled down the beach. Dorothy McKee enjoyed the … Continued

The Last Laugh: Tom Tate of Texas (1912)

There’s the devil in that bottle, according to an old saying, and to drink from can be to swallow a shot of evil. At least according to Tom Tate, the twenty-five-year-old slayer from Tyler, Texas. His shot of evil led … Continued

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