Page 1 Stories of Murder, Mayhem, and Misadventure
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
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
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
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
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
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
Sometimes, an object from the past contains the power to summon, like a séance, a long-forgotten event. In the case of the steamship Umbria, the spiritual medium is a postcard from New York, which conjures the memory of a ship … Continued
Tall, dark, and handsome, John B. Koetters, aka Cutter, fit his nickname “Handsome Jack.” His dimpled chin, in particular, was irresistible to lonely widows and old maids alike. He was affable and could turn on the charm on cue. If … Continued
The guards chatted about the upcoming “world’s championship” as they entered the yard of the Rhode Island State Prison at 5 a.m. on the morning of Saturday, October 5, 1912. In a few days, the series would begin in New … Continued
A bottle of fine wine can be a very expensive item, as Bay Area restaurateur John Marcovich would discover at eleven o’clock on Friday evening, April 19, 1907. Marcovich, co-owner of Oakland’s Gas Kitchen on Thirteenth Street near Washington, stood … Continued