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.
Era
Edwardian years and the Great War (1900–1919)
18 cases from 1900–1919.
18 cases14 solved3 unsolved1900–1919
Never caught
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
1902–1903 · France
Thérèse Humbert
For twenty years Paris lent fortunes against an American millionaire's legacy locked in Thérèse Humbert's safe. In May 1902 they opened it.
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.
Convicted
1906–1908 · Germany
Captain of Köpenick
In 1906 an unemployed shoemaker in a second-hand captain's uniform commandeered a squad of soldiers, arrested a mayor and walked off with the town's cash.
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
1907–1908 · Ireland
Irish Crown Jewels theft
Days before a royal visit in July 1907, the diamond regalia of the Order of St Patrick vanished from a safe in Dublin Castle. They have never been found.
Executed
1910 · United Kingdom
Dr Crippen
In 1910 a mild American medicine seller fled London with his lover dressed as a boy, and a ship's wireless message brought him back to hang.
Executed
1911–1912 · United Kingdom
Frederick Seddon
An insurance man took over his lodger's savings for an annuity. Weeks after she fell ill and died, the arsenic in her body sent him to the gallows.
Convicted
1911–1914 · France
Mona Lisa theft
In 1911 a glazier walked out of the Louvre with Leonardo's portrait. It was gone 28 months, and the empty wall made it the world's most famous painting.
Executed
1912–1915 · United Kingdom
George Joseph Smith
Three newly married women drowned in small baths in three towns. A grieving father's newspaper cutting exposed the bigamist behind all of them.
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.
Convicted
1913 · United Kingdom
Great Pearl Robbery of 1913
In July 1913 a Hatton Garden dealer opened a registered parcel from Paris and found sugar lumps instead of the world's most valuable pearl necklace.
Convicted
1914–1915 · Bosnia and Herzegovina
Franz Ferdinand Assassination
A wrong turn, a stalled engine and a nineteen-year-old with a pistol: how Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were killed in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914.
Executed
1915–1922 · France
Henri Désiré Landru
A fugitive swindler answered wartime France's lonely-hearts columns. Eleven people who went with him to rented villas outside Paris were never seen again.
Executed
1916–1917 · France
Mata Hari
France shot the famous dancer as a German spy in 1917. She took money from both sides; whether she gave either anything of value is still argued.
Never caught
1916–1917 · Russia
Rasputin
Poisoned cakes, a man who would not die, a body under the ice: the famous story comes from one of Rasputin's killers. The autopsy tells a plainer one.
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.