1 April

Kidd reaches Madagascar, where most of his crew desert to Robert Culliford.

Captain Kidd Executed

Sent by powerful backers to hunt pirates, William Kidd came home accused of being one, and was hanged twice at Execution Dock in 1701.

The Regulators kill Sheriff William Brady and Deputy George Hindman in Lincoln.

Billy the Kid Killed before trial

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.

Dyer collects Harry Simmons at Paddington station.

Amelia Dyer Executed

For £10 'Mrs Harding' promised a mother's love to babies born outside marriage. In 1896 the Thames at Reading gave up what she had done with them.

He dies in poverty in London and is buried at Paddington Cemetery.

Tichborne Claimant Convicted

A bankrupt butcher from Wagga Wagga said he was a lost English baronet. A grieving mother believed him; two juries and 188 court days did not.

She marries Peter Gunness, whose infant daughter dies in her care a week later.

Belle Gunness Never caught

When her Indiana farmhouse burned in 1908, searchers found a dozen people buried on her land. Belle Gunness was declared dead. Many doubted it.

Two travelling coffee salesmen find no one at home and leave.

Hinterkaifeck Unsolved

Six people were killed on a lonely Bavarian farm in 1922, and someone kept feeding the cattle for days afterwards. A century later no one has been charged.

Highway patrolmen E. B. Wheeler and H. D. Murphy are killed near Grapevine, Texas.

Bonnie and Clyde Killed before trial

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.