Killed before trial
1716–1719 · North Carolina
Blackbeard
Edward Teach held Charles Town to ransom for a chest of medicine, took a royal pardon, went back to sea and died on a sloop's deck at Ocracoke in 1718.
Country
Historical crimes in the United States
38 cases with their main events in the United States.
38 cases24 solved8 unsolved1716–1949
Killed before trial
Executed
1717–1718 · South Carolina
Stede Bonnet
A rich Barbados planter bought a ship, hired a crew and went pirating in 1717. Eighteen months later Charles Town hanged him, despite his pleas.
Unsolved
1841–1842 · New Jersey
Mary Rogers
In 1841 New York's 'beautiful cigar girl' was found dead in the Hudson. Her death was never solved, and it gave Edgar Allan Poe a detective story.
Executed
1865 · D.C.
Lincoln Assassination
Good Friday, 1865: an actor shoots the president at Ford's Theatre, a manhunt crosses two states, and a military court hangs four conspirators.
Convicted
1868–1895 · Texas
John Wesley Hardin
A preacher's son who killed a deputy on his 21st birthday served sixteen years, came out a lawyer, and was shot from behind in an El Paso saloon in 1895.
Unsolved
1874–1875 · Pennsylvania
Charley Ross
In 1874 two men lured a four-year-old into a buggy in Germantown and demanded $20,000. Charley Ross was never found, and America learned to fear strangers.
Convicted
1875–1888 · Northern California and southern Oregon
Black Bart
A polite robber in a flour-sack mask held up Wells Fargo stagecoaches for eight years. A laundry mark on a dropped handkerchief led detectives to his door.
Killed before trial
1876–1882 · Missouri
Jesse James
Northfield's townspeople broke the James-Younger gang in seven minutes in 1876. Six years later a new recruit shot Jesse James in his own parlour.
Killed before trial
1877–1878 · Texas
Sam Bass
Sam Bass took $60,000 in new gold coins from a Union Pacific train in 1877. A year later an informer led him into a Ranger trap at Round Rock, Texas.
Killed before trial
1878–1881 · New Mexico Territory
Billy the Kid
Convicted of killing a sheriff, Billy the Kid shot his way out of the Lincoln jail in 1881. Eleven weeks later Pat Garrett found him in a dark bedroom.
Executed
1881–1882 · D.C.
Garfield Assassination
A disappointed office-seeker shoots President Garfield in a Washington railway station in 1881. The doctors' probing may have done the rest.
Acquitted
1881 · Arizona Territory
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
About thirty shots in thirty seconds on Fremont Street, Tombstone, in 1881: three Cowboys dead, the Earps charged with murder, and a month-long hearing.
Killed before trial
1889–1908 · Bolivia
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
From Telluride to the Wild Bunch, Patagonia and a mule with the wrong brand: the trail that ended at San Vicente, Bolivia, in November 1908.
Executed
1891–1896 · Ontario
H. H. Holmes
Swindler, bigamist and killer of at least nine people, hanged in 1896. The '200 victims' and the murder castle of legend are another matter.
Killed before trial
1892–1907 · Kansas
Dalton Gang at Coffeyville
On 5 October 1892 the Dalton gang tried to rob two Kansas banks at once in a town that knew their faces. In about ten minutes eight people were dead.
Acquitted
1892–1893 · Massachusetts
Lizzie Borden
Andrew and Abby Borden were killed in their Fall River home in 1892. A jury took barely an hour to acquit his daughter Lizzie. No one else was charged.
Never caught
1900–1908 · Indiana
Belle Gunness
When her Indiana farmhouse burned in 1908, searchers found a dozen people buried on her land. Belle Gunness was declared dead. Many doubted it.
Executed
1901 · New York
McKinley Assassination
Buffalo, 1901: a young anarchist hides a revolver under a handkerchief in the president's receiving line. Eight days later McKinley is dead.
Convicted
1904–1905 · Ohio
Cassie Chadwick
A Cleveland doctor's wife hinted she was Andrew Carnegie's secret daughter. Banks lent her millions on notes no one dared check.
Acquitted
1906–1908 · New York City
Stanford White
In 1906 Harry Thaw shot the architect Stanford White before a theater crowd at Madison Square Garden. Two trials later, a jury called Thaw insane.
Unsolved
1912–1917 · Iowa
Villisca axe murders
Eight people, six of them children, were killed in one house in a small Iowa town in June 1912. Two men faced the law. Neither was convicted.
Unsolved
1918–1919 · Louisiana
Axeman of New Orleans
In 1918-19 an intruder with an axe terrorized New Orleans, above all its Italian grocers. He was never caught, and his famous jazz letter may be a hoax.
Convicted
1920 · Massachusetts
Charles Ponzi
Boston, 1920: an Italian immigrant promised 50% in 45 days on postage coupons. Eight months later his name was a byword for fraud.
Disputed verdict
1920–1927 · Massachusetts
Sacco and Vanzetti
Two Italian anarchists executed in 1927 for a Braintree payroll robbery and double murder. Their guilt is still argued; their unfair trial is not.
Acquitted
1922–1926 · New Jersey
Hall-Mills murder
A New Jersey rector and his choir singer were found shot under a crab apple tree in 1922. His rich widow and her brothers were tried in 1926 and acquitted.
Unsolved
1922 · California
William Desmond Taylor
A leading Hollywood director was shot in his bungalow in 1922. The suspects included two film stars and a stage mother, and the case files later vanished.
Convicted
1924 · Illinois
Leopold and Loeb
Two rich Chicago students killed Bobby Franks, 14, in 1924 to prove they could commit a perfect crime. A pair of glasses gave them away.
Convicted
1924 · Illinois
Rondout train robbery
June 1924: the Newton brothers stop a mail train north of Chicago and take some $2 million, America's biggest train robbery. A postal inspector planned it.
Unsolved
1929–1931 · Illinois
St. Valentine's Day Massacre
Seven men lined against a garage wall in Chicago, 1929. Gunmen dressed as police. Capone blamed by everyone, charged with nothing. Nobody was ever tried.
Unsolved
1930–1979 · New York City
Judge Crater
On 6 August 1930 a New York judge left a Midtown chophouse and was never seen again. The 'missingest man in America' and the Tammany scandal around him.
Convicted
1931 · Illinois
Al Capone tax evasion trial
Chicago could never convict Al Capone of murder. In 1931 the Treasury got him with a lawyer's letter, a bookkeeper's ledger and his own grocery bills.
Killed before trial
1931–1935 · Florida
Ma Barker
Hoover called her the brains of a murderous gang. A robber who knew her said she couldn't plan breakfast. Kate Barker and the shootout at Lake Weir.
Killed before trial
1932–1934 · Louisiana
Bonnie and Clyde
Two years, at least nine dead lawmen and a posse waiting in the Louisiana pines: the real Barrow gang, from Eastham prison farm to the ambush at Gibsland.
Executed
1932–1936 · New Jersey
Lindbergh baby kidnapping
A ladder, a misspelled note and $50,000 in gold certificates: how the Lindbergh baby case ended in the electric chair, and why doubts still linger.
Killed before trial
1933–1934 · Chicago
John Dillinger
Out of prison in May 1933, dead by July 1934: Midwest bank raids, a jailbreak with a gun that may have been wood, and a summer night at the Biograph.
Disputed verdict
1933–1938 · Missouri
Kansas City Massacre
Thirty seconds outside Union Station in June 1933 left four lawmen and their prisoner dead. The FBI blamed Pretty Boy Floyd. Historians are still arguing.
Convicted
1933 · Texas
Machine Gun Kelly and the Urschel kidnapping
Blindfolded for nine days, an Oklahoma oilman counted the planes overhead. His memory led the FBI to a Texas farm and put Machine Gun Kelly away for life.
Unsolved
1947–1949 · California
Black Dahlia
Elizabeth Short, 22, was murdered in Los Angeles in January 1947. Hundreds confessed, dozens were suspected, and no one was ever charged.