Pressly was unconscious and bleeding from a head wound THE CRIME: Born in South Carolina on 28 August 1982, blonde, beautiful Anne Pressly moved with her family to Little Rock, Arkansas when she was in secondary school. She was educated at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee but returned to Little Rock and, in 2004, landed… Read More »
“Killer” Sheppard THE CRIME: Sam Sheppard was a neurosurgeon at Bay View Hospital, a medical establishment he owned with his father and two brothers. Unknown to his wife Marilyn, for 15 months Sheppard had been having an affair with Susan Hayes, 21, a colleague. The Sheppards had been high school sweethearts and had married in… Read More »
“The evidence is entirely devoid of any fact that would justify accusing any man or woman” THE CRIME: Joseph Elwell began his working life as a hardware salesman before his talent for bridge made him rich and famous. His book Elwell on Bridge was the definitive work on the game. He was regarded as a… Read More »
“There’s a man down there – and he hasn’t got any head!” THE CRIME: The Cleveland Torso Murderer (also known as the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run) was a serial killer who struck between 1935 and 1938 in the Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Youngstown areas of Ohio. He killed a dozen but some believe that there… Read More »
“Dey’ve killt Massa!” THE CRIME: Irish-born Hollywood director William Desmond Taylor escorted numerous film stars, including Mabel Normand and Mary Miles Minter. By 1922 Taylor was head director at Famous Players-Lasky, a Paramount subsidiary. On the evening of 1 February 1922 Mabel Normand visited Taylor. His butler, Henry Peavey, a black man who spoke for… Read More »
“I’ll catch up with you and it won’t be long either” THE CRIME: Alfred “Jake” Lingle was born on 26 July 1891 and joined the Chicago Tribune in 1912 as a copyboy, earning $12 a week. He progressed up the ranks to become a cub reporter but never made it to full reporter. The problem… Read More »
“I suggest the possibility strongly exists this was a monoxide murder!” THE CRIME: Blonde Thelma Todd won the Miss Massachusetts beauty contest in 1925, which led to a call from Hollywood, and Thelma made her film debut in Fascinating Youth in 1926. That led to a highly successful movie career, working as a foil for… Read More »
“I want the cops to chase me some more” THE CRIME: It is unlikely that anyone would now know the name of Elizabeth Short, if not for the appalling circumstances of her death. Born in poverty in Hyde Park, Massachusetts on 29 July 1924, she moved to Santa Barbara where she was noticed because of… Read More »
All three were strapped to crosses and machine-gunned to death THE CRIME: On the evening of 8 June 1946 King Rama VIII Ananda Mahidol, the 20-year-old monarch of Siam, called the court physician, complaining of feeling unwell. He had spent most of his life in Switzerland and found the heat and humidity of what is… Read More »
“The missingest man in New York” THE CRIME: Born on 5 January 1889, Joseph Force Crater’s childhood ambition was to be a judge. Having qualified at Columbia Law School in 1916 he joined a Manhattan law firm where his colleagues believed he was on his way to a seat on the United States Supreme Court.… Read More »