27 June

A man in a wagon gives sweets to Walter and Charley Ross outside their Germantown home, the first of several such visits.

Charley Ross Unsolved

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.

Louis Besumer and Harriet Lowe are attacked in rooms behind his grocery; Lowe dies weeks later.

Axeman of New Orleans Unsolved

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.