SinisterCrimes
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The timeline

Every case from first event to verdict. The centuries before 1800 are compressed so the crowded nineteenth and twentieth centuries have room. Bars are coloured by outcome.

Every case on one timeline, 1150 to 1951Before 17001700s1800–18591860–18991900–19191920s1930–19511200130014001500160017001800182518501875190019251950Thomas Becket (1170–1174): Four of Henry II's knights cut down the Archbishop of Canterbury in his own cathedral in 1170. Within three years he was a saint and the king did penance.Thomas BecketGilles de Rais (1432–1440): A Marshal of France who fought beside Joan of Arc was hanged at Nantes in 1440 for murdering children. Can his confession be trusted?Gilles de RaisPrinces in the Tower (1483): In 1483 a twelve-year-old king and his brother vanished inside the Tower of London and their uncle took the crown. What became of them is still debated.Princes in the TowerMartin Guerre (1556–1560): In 1556 a man walked into a Pyrenean village claiming to be its missing husband. His wife accepted him for three years, until the real one came home.Martin GuerreElizabeth Báthory (1602–1614): Hundreds of witnesses accused a Hungarian countess of killing young women. She was walled up without trial in 1610. Was it justice or a political purge?Elizabeth BáthoryGunpowder Plot (1605–1606): Thirty-six barrels of powder under the House of Lords, an anonymous letter, and a man called 'John Johnson' with a lantern: the plot behind Bonfire Night.Gunpowder PlotColonel Blood (1671): In 1671 Thomas Blood flattened King Charles II's crown with a mallet and ran for the Tower gate. He was caught, then pardoned and given an Irish estate.Colonel BloodAffair of the Poisons (1677–1682): Fortune tellers selling 'inheritance powders' to the Paris elite, a secret court lit by torches, and testimony that reached the king's own mistress.Affair of the PoisonsHenry Every (1694–1696): In 1695 Henry Every's pirates plundered the Mughal emperor's greatest ship. A worldwide manhunt followed. Six of his men hanged; Every vanished.Henry EveryCaptain Kidd (1696–1701): Sent by powerful backers to hunt pirates, William Kidd came home accused of being one, and was hanged twice at Execution Dock in 1701.Captain KiddBlackbeard (1716–1719): 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.BlackbeardStede Bonnet (1717–1718): 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.Stede BonnetBartholomew Roberts (1719–1722): A Welsh mate forced into piracy took hundreds of ships in under three years. A broadside off Gabon in 1722 ended him, and 52 of his men were hanged.Bartholomew RobertsAnne Bonny and Mary Read (1720–1721): Two women sailed with John Rackham for barely two months in 1720. Their trial in Jamaica is the solid record; almost everything else is later legend.Anne Bonny and Mary ReadDick Turpin (1734–1739): No night ride to York, no Black Bess: the real Dick Turpin was an Essex gang robber and killer, hanged at York in 1739 for stealing horses.Dick TurpinRatcliff Highway murders (1811): Seven people killed in two East London households twelve days apart in 1811. The suspect hanged himself before trial, and doubts have outlived him.Ratcliff Highway murdersGregor MacGregor and Poyais (1821–1826): Gregor MacGregor sold bonds, land and passage to Poyais, a Central American country that did not exist. Most of the settlers who sailed there died.Gregor MacGregor and PoyaisMaria Marten and William Corder (1827–1828): A Suffolk molecatcher's daughter left home in men's clothes to elope in 1827. Eleven months later her father dug her up from the floor of the Red Barn.Maria Marten and William CorderBurke and Hare (1827–1829): Two Irish labourers killed sixteen people in Edinburgh in 1828 and sold the bodies to an anatomy lecturer. Only one of them hanged.Burke and HareKaspar Hauser (1833): A foundling who claimed a childhood in a dark cell, rumours of a stolen prince, and a stab wound in an Ansbach park in 1833. Murder or self-inflicted?Kaspar HauserMarie Lafarge (1839–1840): A Parisian bride, a crumbling former monastery in Corrèze, a husband dead of 'cholera', and the Marsh test that made toxicology a courtroom science.Marie LafargeMary Rogers (1841–1842): 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.Mary RogersSweeney Todd (1846–1847): The demon barber of Fleet Street was born in a penny serial in 1846. No record shows he ever lived, yet the 'true story' claim has never quite died.Sweeney ToddFrederick and Maria Manning (1849): In 1849 a Swiss lady's maid and her husband buried their dinner guest under the kitchen floor, then each tried to cheat the other of his fortune.Frederick and Maria ManningWilliam Palmer (1855–1856): A Staffordshire doctor deep in racing debts, a friend's winnings at Shrewsbury, and a strychnine trial moved to London by Act of Parliament.William PalmerGreat Gold Robbery of 1855 (1855–1857): In May 1855 four men emptied the bullion safes on the London-to-Folkestone night train and refilled them with lead shot. Nobody noticed until Paris.Great Gold Robbery of 1855Madeleine Smith (1857): A Glasgow architect's daughter, a secret lover, his bundle of letters and three purchases of arsenic. In 1857 the jury said: not proven.Madeleine SmithConstance Kent (1860–1865): A three-year-old taken from his cot in a Wiltshire country house in 1860. Five years later his half-sister walked into Bow Street and confessed.Constance KentDr Edward Pritchard (1864–1865): A Glasgow doctor poisoned his wife and her mother while nursing them, and in 1865 became the last man hanged in public in the city.Dr Edward PritchardLincoln Assassination (1865): Good Friday, 1865: an actor shoots the president at Ford's Theatre, a manhunt crosses two states, and a military court hangs four conspirators.Lincoln AssassinationTichborne Claimant (1866–1874): 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.Tichborne ClaimantJohn Wesley Hardin (1868–1895): 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.John Wesley HardinMary Ann Cotton (1872–1873): A County Durham nurse buried husbands, children and a lover to 'gastric fever'. A seven-year-old stepson's death finally brought arsenic to light.Mary Ann CottonCharley Ross (1874–1875): 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.Charley RossBlack Bart (1875–1888): 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.Black BartCharles Peace (1876–1879): A limping Sheffield burglar shot two men, let an innocent one take the blame, and lived as a respectable gentleman in Peckham until a Blackheath break-in.Charles PeaceJesse James (1876–1882): 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.Jesse JamesSam Bass (1877–1878): 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.Sam BassNed Kelly (1878–1880): Three police dead at Stringybark Creek, two bank raids and a last stand in plough-iron armour: how the Kelly outbreak ended on a Melbourne gallows.Ned KellyBilly the Kid (1878–1881): 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.Billy the KidGunfight at the O.K. Corral (1881): 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.Gunfight at the O.K. CorralGarfield Assassination (1881–1882): A disappointed office-seeker shoots President Garfield in a Washington railway station in 1881. The doctors' probing may have done the rest.Garfield AssassinationAdelaide Bartlett (1886): A London grocer died on New Year's Day 1886 with liquid chloroform in his stomach and no burns in his throat. His wife was tried for murder and acquitted.Adelaide BartlettJack the Ripper (1888): Five women killed in ten weeks in London's East End in 1888, a name invented in a letter, and a killer the police never identified.Jack the RipperFlorence Maybrick (1889–1904): An American wife, a Liverpool cotton broker who dosed himself with arsenic, and a verdict so doubtful the Home Office reprieved her within weeks.Florence MaybrickButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1889–1908): 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.Butch Cassidy and the Sundance KidThomas Neill Cream (1891–1892): A McGill-trained doctor gave strychnine to young women in south London in 1891-92, then wrote blackmail letters that led Scotland Yard straight to him.Thomas Neill CreamH. H. Holmes (1891–1896): Swindler, bigamist and killer of at least nine people, hanged in 1896. The '200 victims' and the murder castle of legend are another matter.H. H. HolmesLizzie Borden (1892–1893): 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.Lizzie BordenDalton Gang at Coffeyville (1892–1907): 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.Dalton Gang at CoffeyvilleDreyfus Affair (1894–1906): A torn note from a wastebasket, a Jewish captain sent to Devil's Island, and the real spy acquitted in three minutes: the injustice that split France.Dreyfus AffairAmelia Dyer (1896): 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.Amelia DyerBelle Gunness (1900–1908): When her Indiana farmhouse burned in 1908, searchers found a dozen people buried on her land. Belle Gunness was declared dead. Many doubted it.Belle GunnessMcKinley Assassination (1901): Buffalo, 1901: a young anarchist hides a revolver under a handkerchief in the president's receiving line. Eight days later McKinley is dead.McKinley AssassinationThérèse Humbert (1902–1903): For twenty years Paris lent fortunes against an American millionaire's legacy locked in Thérèse Humbert's safe. In May 1902 they opened it.Thérèse HumbertCassie Chadwick (1904–1905): A Cleveland doctor's wife hinted she was Andrew Carnegie's secret daughter. Banks lent her millions on notes no one dared check.Cassie ChadwickCaptain of Köpenick (1906–1908): 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.Captain of KöpenickStanford White (1906–1908): 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.Stanford WhiteIrish Crown Jewels theft (1907–1908): 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.Irish Crown Jewels theftDr Crippen (1910): 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.Dr CrippenFrederick Seddon (1911–1912): 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.Frederick SeddonMona Lisa theft (1911–1914): 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.Mona Lisa theftGeorge Joseph Smith (1912–1915): Three newly married women drowned in small baths in three towns. A grieving father's newspaper cutting exposed the bigamist behind all of them.George Joseph SmithVillisca axe murders (1912–1917): 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.Villisca axe murdersGreat Pearl Robbery of 1913 (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.Great Pearl Robbery of 1913Franz Ferdinand Assassination (1914–1915): 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.Franz Ferdinand AssassinationHenri Désiré Landru (1915–1922): 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.Henri Désiré LandruMata Hari (1916–1917): 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.Mata HariRasputin (1916–1917): 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.RasputinAxeman of New Orleans (1918–1919): 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.Axeman of New OrleansCharles Ponzi (1920): Boston, 1920: an Italian immigrant promised 50% in 45 days on postage coupons. Eight months later his name was a byword for fraud.Charles PonziHerbert Rowse Armstrong (1920–1922): 'Excuse fingers': a Hay-on-Wye solicitor handed his rival a buttered scone, and the arsenic trail led back to his wife's grave.Herbert Rowse ArmstrongSacco and Vanzetti (1920–1927): Two Italian anarchists executed in 1927 for a Braintree payroll robbery and double murder. Their guilt is still argued; their unfair trial is not.Sacco and VanzettiWilliam Desmond Taylor (1922): 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.William Desmond TaylorThompson and Bywaters (1922–1923): A young ship's steward stabbed his lover's husband on an Ilford street in 1922. Her letters, not her actions, took her to the gallows beside him.Thompson and BywatersHall-Mills murder (1922–1926): 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.Hall-Mills murderHinterkaifeck (1922–1955): 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.HinterkaifeckLeopold and Loeb (1924): 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.Leopold and LoebRondout train robbery (1924): 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.Rondout train robberyVictor Lustig (1925–1947): Did Victor Lustig really sell the Eiffel Tower for scrap in 1925? His counterfeiting and Alcatraz are on record. The tower sale rests on one later book.Victor LustigPeter Kürten (1929–1931): For fifteen months Düsseldorf hunted a killer it could not see. The break came from a survivor's letter, misaddressed and opened at the post office.Peter KürtenSt. Valentine's Day Massacre (1929–1931): 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.St. Valentine's Day MassacreJudge Crater (1930–1979): 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.Judge CraterAl Capone tax evasion trial (1931): 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.Al Capone tax evasion trialWilliam Herbert Wallace (1931): A phone message sent a Liverpool insurance man to an address that did not exist. He came home to find his wife dead, and was sentenced to hang.William Herbert WallaceMa Barker (1931–1935): 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.Ma BarkerBonnie and Clyde (1932–1934): 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.Bonnie and ClydeLindbergh baby kidnapping (1932–1936): 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.Lindbergh baby kidnappingMachine Gun Kelly and the Urschel kidnapping (1933): 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.Machine Gun Kelly and the Urschel kidnappingJohn Dillinger (1933–1934): 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.John DillingerKansas City Massacre (1933–1938): 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.Kansas City MassacreGhent Altarpiece theft (1934): In April 1934 a panel of van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece was stolen and held to ransom. The man who seemed to know where it was died before he could say.Ghent Altarpiece theftHan van Meegeren (1937–1947): Arrested in 1945 for selling a Vermeer to Göring, a Dutch painter saved himself by proving he had painted it. Then he had to prove he had faked the rest.Han van MeegerenMarcel Petiot (1942–1946): In occupied Paris a doctor sold a secret route to safety for 25,000 francs a head. In March 1944 smoke from his chimney showed where his clients had gone.Marcel PetiotBlack Dahlia (1947–1949): Elizabeth Short, 22, was murdered in Los Angeles in January 1947. Hundreds confessed, dozens were suspected, and no one was ever charged.Black Dahlia

Medieval and early modern Before 1700

  1. 1170–1174 Thomas Becket Never caught Four of Henry II's knights cut down the Archbishop of Canterbury in his own cathedral in 1170. Within three years he was a saint and the king did penance.
  2. 1432–1440 Gilles de Rais Executed A Marshal of France who fought beside Joan of Arc was hanged at Nantes in 1440 for murdering children. Can his confession be trusted?
  3. 1483 Princes in the Tower Unsolved In 1483 a twelve-year-old king and his brother vanished inside the Tower of London and their uncle took the crown. What became of them is still debated.
  4. 1556–1560 Martin Guerre Executed In 1556 a man walked into a Pyrenean village claiming to be its missing husband. His wife accepted him for three years, until the real one came home.
  5. 1602–1614 Elizabeth Báthory Disputed verdict Hundreds of witnesses accused a Hungarian countess of killing young women. She was walled up without trial in 1610. Was it justice or a political purge?
  6. 1605–1606 Gunpowder Plot Executed Thirty-six barrels of powder under the House of Lords, an anonymous letter, and a man called 'John Johnson' with a lantern: the plot behind Bonfire Night.
  7. 1671 Colonel Blood Convicted In 1671 Thomas Blood flattened King Charles II's crown with a mallet and ran for the Tower gate. He was caught, then pardoned and given an Irish estate.
  8. 1677–1682 Affair of the Poisons Executed Fortune tellers selling 'inheritance powders' to the Paris elite, a secret court lit by torches, and testimony that reached the king's own mistress.
  9. 1694–1696 Henry Every Never caught In 1695 Henry Every's pirates plundered the Mughal emperor's greatest ship. A worldwide manhunt followed. Six of his men hanged; Every vanished.
  10. 1696–1701 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 eighteenth century 1700s

  1. 1716–1719 Blackbeard Killed before trial 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.
  2. 1717–1718 Stede Bonnet Executed 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.
  3. 1719–1722 Bartholomew Roberts Killed before trial A Welsh mate forced into piracy took hundreds of ships in under three years. A broadside off Gabon in 1722 ended him, and 52 of his men were hanged.
  4. 1720–1721 Anne Bonny and Mary Read Convicted Two women sailed with John Rackham for barely two months in 1720. Their trial in Jamaica is the solid record; almost everything else is later legend.
  5. 1734–1739 Dick Turpin Executed No night ride to York, no Black Bess: the real Dick Turpin was an Essex gang robber and killer, hanged at York in 1739 for stealing horses.

Regency and early Victorian 1800–1859

  1. 1811 Ratcliff Highway murders Disputed verdict Seven people killed in two East London households twelve days apart in 1811. The suspect hanged himself before trial, and doubts have outlived him.
  2. 1821–1826 Gregor MacGregor and Poyais Acquitted Gregor MacGregor sold bonds, land and passage to Poyais, a Central American country that did not exist. Most of the settlers who sailed there died.
  3. 1827–1829 Burke and Hare Executed Two Irish labourers killed sixteen people in Edinburgh in 1828 and sold the bodies to an anatomy lecturer. Only one of them hanged.
  4. 1827–1828 Maria Marten and William Corder Executed A Suffolk molecatcher's daughter left home in men's clothes to elope in 1827. Eleven months later her father dug her up from the floor of the Red Barn.
  5. 1833 Kaspar Hauser Unsolved A foundling who claimed a childhood in a dark cell, rumours of a stolen prince, and a stab wound in an Ansbach park in 1833. Murder or self-inflicted?
  6. 1839–1840 Marie Lafarge Convicted A Parisian bride, a crumbling former monastery in Corrèze, a husband dead of 'cholera', and the Marsh test that made toxicology a courtroom science.
  7. 1841–1842 Mary Rogers Unsolved 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.
  8. 1846–1847 Sweeney Todd Legend The demon barber of Fleet Street was born in a penny serial in 1846. No record shows he ever lived, yet the 'true story' claim has never quite died.
  9. 1849 Frederick and Maria Manning Executed In 1849 a Swiss lady's maid and her husband buried their dinner guest under the kitchen floor, then each tried to cheat the other of his fortune.
  10. 1855–1857 Great Gold Robbery of 1855 Convicted In May 1855 four men emptied the bullion safes on the London-to-Folkestone night train and refilled them with lead shot. Nobody noticed until Paris.
  11. 1855–1856 William Palmer Executed A Staffordshire doctor deep in racing debts, a friend's winnings at Shrewsbury, and a strychnine trial moved to London by Act of Parliament.
  12. 1857 Madeleine Smith Acquitted A Glasgow architect's daughter, a secret lover, his bundle of letters and three purchases of arsenic. In 1857 the jury said: not proven.

Late Victorian and Gilded Age 1860–1899

  1. 1860–1865 Constance Kent Convicted A three-year-old taken from his cot in a Wiltshire country house in 1860. Five years later his half-sister walked into Bow Street and confessed.
  2. 1864–1865 Dr Edward Pritchard Executed A Glasgow doctor poisoned his wife and her mother while nursing them, and in 1865 became the last man hanged in public in the city.
  3. 1865 Lincoln Assassination Executed Good Friday, 1865: an actor shoots the president at Ford's Theatre, a manhunt crosses two states, and a military court hangs four conspirators.
  4. 1866–1874 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.
  5. 1868–1895 John Wesley Hardin Convicted 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.
  6. 1872–1873 Mary Ann Cotton Executed A County Durham nurse buried husbands, children and a lover to 'gastric fever'. A seven-year-old stepson's death finally brought arsenic to light.
  7. 1874–1875 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.
  8. 1875–1888 Black Bart Convicted 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.
  9. 1876–1879 Charles Peace Executed A limping Sheffield burglar shot two men, let an innocent one take the blame, and lived as a respectable gentleman in Peckham until a Blackheath break-in.
  10. 1876–1882 Jesse James Killed before trial 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.
  11. 1877–1878 Sam Bass Killed before trial 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.
  12. 1878–1881 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.
  13. 1878–1880 Ned Kelly Executed Three police dead at Stringybark Creek, two bank raids and a last stand in plough-iron armour: how the Kelly outbreak ended on a Melbourne gallows.
  14. 1881–1882 Garfield Assassination Executed A disappointed office-seeker shoots President Garfield in a Washington railway station in 1881. The doctors' probing may have done the rest.
  15. 1881 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral Acquitted 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.
  16. 1886 Adelaide Bartlett Acquitted A London grocer died on New Year's Day 1886 with liquid chloroform in his stomach and no burns in his throat. His wife was tried for murder and acquitted.
  17. 1888 Jack the Ripper Unsolved Five women killed in ten weeks in London's East End in 1888, a name invented in a letter, and a killer the police never identified.
  18. 1889–1908 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Killed before trial 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.
  19. 1889–1904 Florence Maybrick Disputed verdict An American wife, a Liverpool cotton broker who dosed himself with arsenic, and a verdict so doubtful the Home Office reprieved her within weeks.
  20. 1891–1896 H. H. Holmes Executed Swindler, bigamist and killer of at least nine people, hanged in 1896. The '200 victims' and the murder castle of legend are another matter.
  21. 1891–1892 Thomas Neill Cream Executed A McGill-trained doctor gave strychnine to young women in south London in 1891-92, then wrote blackmail letters that led Scotland Yard straight to him.
  22. 1892–1907 Dalton Gang at Coffeyville Killed before trial 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.
  23. 1892–1893 Lizzie Borden Acquitted 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.
  24. 1894–1906 Dreyfus Affair Disputed verdict A torn note from a wastebasket, a Jewish captain sent to Devil's Island, and the real spy acquitted in three minutes: the injustice that split France.
  25. 1896 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.

Edwardian years and the Great War 1900–1919

  1. 1900–1908 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.
  2. 1901 McKinley Assassination Executed Buffalo, 1901: a young anarchist hides a revolver under a handkerchief in the president's receiving line. Eight days later McKinley is dead.
  3. 1902–1903 Thérèse Humbert Convicted For twenty years Paris lent fortunes against an American millionaire's legacy locked in Thérèse Humbert's safe. In May 1902 they opened it.
  4. 1904–1905 Cassie Chadwick Convicted A Cleveland doctor's wife hinted she was Andrew Carnegie's secret daughter. Banks lent her millions on notes no one dared check.
  5. 1906–1908 Captain of Köpenick Convicted 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.
  6. 1906–1908 Stanford White Acquitted 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.
  7. 1907–1908 Irish Crown Jewels theft Unsolved 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.
  8. 1910 Dr Crippen Executed 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.
  9. 1911–1912 Frederick Seddon Executed 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.
  10. 1911–1914 Mona Lisa theft Convicted 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.
  11. 1912–1915 George Joseph Smith Executed Three newly married women drowned in small baths in three towns. A grieving father's newspaper cutting exposed the bigamist behind all of them.
  12. 1912–1917 Villisca axe murders Unsolved 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.
  13. 1913 Great Pearl Robbery of 1913 Convicted 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.
  14. 1914–1915 Franz Ferdinand Assassination Convicted 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.
  15. 1915–1922 Henri Désiré Landru Executed 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.
  16. 1916–1917 Mata Hari Executed 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.
  17. 1916–1917 Rasputin Never caught 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.
  18. 1918–1919 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.

The twenties 1920s

  1. 1920 Charles Ponzi Convicted Boston, 1920: an Italian immigrant promised 50% in 45 days on postage coupons. Eight months later his name was a byword for fraud.
  2. 1920–1922 Herbert Rowse Armstrong Executed 'Excuse fingers': a Hay-on-Wye solicitor handed his rival a buttered scone, and the arsenic trail led back to his wife's grave.
  3. 1920–1927 Sacco and Vanzetti Disputed verdict Two Italian anarchists executed in 1927 for a Braintree payroll robbery and double murder. Their guilt is still argued; their unfair trial is not.
  4. 1922–1926 Hall-Mills murder Acquitted 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.
  5. 1922–1955 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.
  6. 1922–1923 Thompson and Bywaters Executed A young ship's steward stabbed his lover's husband on an Ilford street in 1922. Her letters, not her actions, took her to the gallows beside him.
  7. 1922 William Desmond Taylor Unsolved 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.
  8. 1924 Leopold and Loeb Convicted 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.
  9. 1924 Rondout train robbery Convicted 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.
  10. 1925–1947 Victor Lustig Convicted Did Victor Lustig really sell the Eiffel Tower for scrap in 1925? His counterfeiting and Alcatraz are on record. The tower sale rests on one later book.
  11. 1929–1931 Peter Kürten Executed For fifteen months Düsseldorf hunted a killer it could not see. The break came from a survivor's letter, misaddressed and opened at the post office.
  12. 1929–1931 St. Valentine's Day Massacre Unsolved 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.

Depression, war and after 1930–1951

  1. 1930–1979 Judge Crater Unsolved 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.
  2. 1931 Al Capone tax evasion trial Convicted 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.
  3. 1931 William Herbert Wallace Disputed verdict A phone message sent a Liverpool insurance man to an address that did not exist. He came home to find his wife dead, and was sentenced to hang.
  4. 1931–1935 Ma Barker Killed before trial 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.
  5. 1932–1934 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.
  6. 1932–1936 Lindbergh baby kidnapping Executed 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.
  7. 1933–1934 John Dillinger Killed before trial 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.
  8. 1933–1938 Kansas City Massacre Disputed verdict 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.
  9. 1933 Machine Gun Kelly and the Urschel kidnapping Convicted 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.
  10. 1934 Ghent Altarpiece theft Unsolved In April 1934 a panel of van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece was stolen and held to ransom. The man who seemed to know where it was died before he could say.
  11. 1937–1947 Han van Meegeren Convicted Arrested in 1945 for selling a Vermeer to Göring, a Dutch painter saved himself by proving he had painted it. Then he had to prove he had faked the rest.
  12. 1942–1946 Marcel Petiot Executed In occupied Paris a doctor sold a secret route to safety for 25,000 francs a head. In March 1944 smoke from his chimney showed where his clients had gone.
  13. 1947–1949 Black Dahlia Unsolved Elizabeth Short, 22, was murdered in Los Angeles in January 1947. Hundreds confessed, dozens were suspected, and no one was ever charged.