Crimes & Mysteries in Newspapers
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel Capone (January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname “Scarface”, was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit. His seven-year reign as crime boss ended when he was 33. Wikipedia Learn more about through historical …Read More
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary
The Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary or United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz Island (often just referred to as Alcatraz or The Rock) was a maximum high-security federal prison on Alcatraz Island, 1.25 miles (2.01 km) off the coast of San Francisco, California, which operated from August 11, 1934, until March 21, 1963. Alcatraz was designed to hold prisoners …Read More
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
President Abraham Lincoln was shot on April 14, 1865, around 10 o’clock at night while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC. The assassin, actor John Wilkes Booth, entered the Lincolns’ box and shot the president in the back of the head before jumping over the railing and down onto the stage. A …Read More
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
Background On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. He was shot twice while riding in a motorcade on the way to give a speech. His alleged killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested that same day but was shot to death a few days later while in police custody. …Read More
Birmingham Church Bombing
The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was an act of white supremacist terrorism which occurred at the African American 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on Sunday, September 15, 1963, when four members of the Ku Klux Klan planted at least 15 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the steps located …Read More
Bonnie and Clyde
Background Both Clyde Barrow (March 24, 1909 – May 23, 1934) and Bonnie Parker (October 1, 1910 – May 23, 1934) grew up in the slums of Dallas, Texas, but while Clyde ended up on the wrong side of the law by his teen years, Bonnie seemed to stay out of trouble. The two met …Read More
Chappaquiddick Incident
On July 18, 1969, Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy accidentally drove a car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts; he survived, but his passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, died in the accident. On the night of the incident, Kennedy and Kopechne left a party on Chappaquiddick Island together after 11 p.m. in a car driven …Read More
D.B. Cooper Hijacking
On November 24, 1971, a man going by the pseudonym Dan Cooper bought a one-way ticket for a flight between Portland and Seattle. During the flight he informed a flight attendant that he had a bomb. The man requested that he be given $200,000 in cash and 4 parachutes. When the airplane landed in Seattle, …Read More
Ed Gein Murders
Edward “Ed” Gein (1906-1984), also known as the “Butcher of Plainfield,” murdered two women in the 1950s and stole bodies from the local graveyard in Plainfield, Wisconsin. His victims were Mary Hogan (killed in 1954) and Bernice Worden (1957). Gein, a middle-aged farmer and handyman, claimed to have been in a “dazed” state when he …Read More