Never caught
1170–1174 · United Kingdom
Thomas Becket
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.
Kind of crime
Murder
Killings that the courts or the record have settled, and some they never did.
46 cases28 solved7 unsolved1170–1949
Never caught
Unsolved
1483 · United Kingdom
Princes in the Tower
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.
Executed
1677–1682 · France
Affair of the Poisons
Fortune tellers selling 'inheritance powders' to the Paris elite, a secret court lit by torches, and testimony that reached the king's own mistress.
Executed
1696–1701 · United Kingdom
Captain Kidd
Sent by powerful backers to hunt pirates, William Kidd came home accused of being one, and was hanged twice at Execution Dock in 1701.
Executed
1734–1739 · United Kingdom
Dick Turpin
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.
Disputed verdict
1811 · United Kingdom
Ratcliff Highway murders
Seven people killed in two East London households twelve days apart in 1811. The suspect hanged himself before trial, and doubts have outlived him.
Executed
1827–1828 · United Kingdom
Maria Marten and William Corder
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.
Convicted
1839–1840 · France
Marie Lafarge
A Parisian bride, a crumbling former monastery in Corrèze, a husband dead of 'cholera', and the Marsh test that made toxicology a courtroom science.
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
1849 · United Kingdom
Frederick and Maria Manning
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.
Executed
1855–1856 · United Kingdom
William Palmer
A Staffordshire doctor deep in racing debts, a friend's winnings at Shrewsbury, and a strychnine trial moved to London by Act of Parliament.
Acquitted
1857 · United Kingdom
Madeleine Smith
A Glasgow architect's daughter, a secret lover, his bundle of letters and three purchases of arsenic. In 1857 the jury said: not proven.
Convicted
1860–1865 · United Kingdom
Constance Kent
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.
Executed
1864–1865 · United Kingdom
Dr Edward Pritchard
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.
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.
Executed
1876–1879 · United Kingdom
Charles Peace
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.
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
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
1878–1880 · Australia
Ned Kelly
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.
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.
Acquitted
1886 · United Kingdom
Adelaide Bartlett
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.
Disputed verdict
1889–1904 · United Kingdom
Florence Maybrick
An American wife, a Liverpool cotton broker who dosed himself with arsenic, and a verdict so doubtful the Home Office reprieved her within weeks.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Executed
1920–1922 · United Kingdom
Herbert Rowse Armstrong
'Excuse fingers': a Hay-on-Wye solicitor handed his rival a buttered scone, and the arsenic trail led back to his wife's grave.
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
1922–1955 · Germany
Hinterkaifeck
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.
Executed
1922–1923 · United Kingdom
Thompson and Bywaters
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.
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.
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.
Disputed verdict
1931 · United Kingdom
William Herbert Wallace
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.
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.
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.
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.