The Bloody Century

On September 17, 1841, an expressman picked up a crate on Maiden Lane in Manhattan and delivered it to the docks. The crate was opened revealing a decomposing human corpse.

Blinded by rage, Dan Sickles shot and killed his wife’s lover. Was it premeditated murder or temporary insanity?

Minnie Wallace was married at 15 and widowed at 16. Did she poison her husband?

Rose Ambler said goodnight to her fiancé at the Raven Stream Bridge, the night of September 2, 1883, and started walking home alone as she usually did. She was never again seen alive.

When the mutilated bodies of two young women were found in Emanuel Baptist Church, Sunday school teacher Theo Durrant was recast as “The Demon of the Belfrey.”

The prominent Walworth family's reputation was tarnished when Frank Walworth murdered his father for abusing his mother.

Maria Bickford was found in murdered in her room, her throat cut from ear to ear. Albert Tirrell, charged with the crime pled not-guilty because he had been sleepwalking at the time.

The three Thayer Brothers shot John Love. Triple hanging in Buffalo, NY.

Alice Mitchel met Freda Ward on Front Street and cut her throat with a straight razor. Was Alice driven by insanity, jealousy, or “an unnatural love?”

Either Lizzie Borden got away with murder or someone else did.

Was Louise Leutgert's body dissolved in a sausage vat in her husband's factory?

George Abbot (aka Frank Almy) was infatuated with Christie Warden of Hanover, New Hampshire. When she did not return his love, he took it at a gunpoint in a shady hollow known as the Vale of Tempe.

Frankie Baker killed her lover because "he done her wrong."

“Stack” Lee Shelton shot Billy Lyons on Christmas day, 1895, in St. Louis, during a fight over a Stetson hat.

Domestic tranquility at the Cherry Hill mansion would be disrupted forever when Elsie Lansing and Jesse Strang failed to observe the distinction between upstairs and downstairs.

Carrie Brown, nicknamed "Old Shakespeare," was murdered in New York City in 1891. Some believe she was killed by London's Jack the Ripper.

As Lizzie Borden’s trial for axe murder was beginning in Fall River, MA, Bertha Manchester was the victim of another daylight axe murder in the same town.

The conspiracy to murder Capt. Joseph White, instigated by his two nephews was prosecuted by Daniel Webster.

Priscilla Budge was found in bed with her throat slashed. Was the killer her husband, Rev. Henry Budge?

6-year-old Nellie Meeks survived the murder of her family and testified against their killers.

The murder of Naomi Wise has been commemorated in song and story for more than 200 years. But how much of the story is true?

Edward H. Rulloff lived two lives: erudite scholar and murderous thief.

August 6, 1887, nine members of the Woolfolk family of Bibb County, Georgia – ranging in age from 18 months to 84 years – were hacked to death in their home. "Bloody" Tom Woolfolk was convicted.

Maren Hontvet, her sister Karen Christensen, and their sister-in-law Anethe Christensen on isolated Smuttynose Island, were visited by a deranged axe murderer.

Sarah Meservey was strangled to death in her home in Tenant’s Harbor, Maine. Was Nathan Hart falsely accused?

The Bender family murdered at least ten visitors to their Kansas restaurant.

Sarah Cornell was found hanging in a barn in Tiverton, Rhode Island. Was it murder or suicide?

Wealthy financier, Benjamin Nathan's murder was a classic "locked-room" mystery that has never been solved.

The body of five-year-old Mabel Young was found in the bell tower of the Warren Avenue Baptist church shortly after Thomas W. Piper, was seen leaping from the belfry.

Jennie Cramer's body was found on a sand bar in the ocean off West Haven Connecticut. What exactly happened in the last two days of her life remains a mystery.

The murder of George Parkman by Harvard professor John Webster was a shock to the residents of Boston and a fascination to readers across America.

Laura Fair ended her tumultuous affair with Alexander P. Crittenden with a pistol shot.

H.H. Holmes, America's most prodigious serial killer, confessed to killing 27 people but may have murdered more than 200 more.

Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin was murdered for uncovering corruption in Clan-na-Gale, a secret society for Irish independence.

Charles Preller's murder was staged to look like a political assassination; it was in fact the tragic ending of a “peculiar relationship.”

Fourteen-year-old Jesse Pomeroy murdered two children in Boston before he was captured.

Daniel McFarland shot the man who stole his wife, but his trial would focus on his wife's adultery.

William Druse of Herkimer County, New York, was brutally murdered, dismembered, and burned. His wife Roxalana was the prime suspect.

Sarah Jane Robinson poisoned seven members of her family for insurance money, earning her the title of "The Massachusetts Borgia."

When Jim Fisk's adulterous relationship turned scandalous, it was an epic scandal filled with blackmail, courtroom drama, and finally murder.

"The Poison Fiend," Lydia Sherman, killed three husbands and seven children with arsenic.

The murder of Laura Foster by Tom Dula in 1866 as the inspiration of one of America's most popular murder ballads.

Frankie Silver chopped her husband to pieces in North Carolina. Was it justifiable homicide?

Moses “Cooney” Houston shot his girlfriend Delia Green on Christmas Eve, in Savannah. Georgia. The world has been singing about it ever since.

Amasa Sprague was beaten to death in Spragueville, Rhode Island. The Gordon brothers were wrongfully accused.

Mary Ann Wyatt died of arsenic poisoning just eight days after marrying Henry Green. There is little doubt Henry killed her but his motive in doing so is an enduring mystery.

The evidence in Mary Stannard's murder pointed to Rev. Herbert H. Hayden, but would the court find him guilty?

The murder of courtesan, Helen Jewett, was one of New York City's most shocking crimes.

Stephen Arnold beat to death his six-year-old adopted daughter Betsey Van Amburgh for mispronouncing a word.