Download or read book Spine Chilling Murders in Chicago written by Nick Vulich and published by . This book was released on 2021-03-04 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever wonder what evil lurks in your hometown? Spine-Chilling Murders in the Chicago takes you behind the scenes of some old-time killings in Chicago. Nineteen-year-old Amelia Olesen was outraged, strangled, and dragged across the prairie in Northwest Chicago. Rumors spread through the city, that she was drugged and hauled away by a group of young men, or that a married neighbor stalked and murdered her. The primary suspect, Tom Shehan, had an airtight alibi, but police held him for over a month hoping for a break in the case. The Lady's Murder Club consisted of six women incarcerated in the Cook County Jail. They all had one thing in common. They murdered their husband, lover, or some other close relative and were set free because no jury would convict a woman for committing a capital crime. The club members included Rene Morrow, Louise Vermilya, Sadie Blaha, Jane Quinn, Lena Musso, and Florence Bernstein. Detectives believed Augusta Dietz waited until her husband, George Dietz, fell asleep, then crept into his bedroom and bashed his head in with a hammer. Afterward, she planted a false trail of evidence, placing a note from the killer under the hammer where the police could not help but find it. Chicago serial killer Henry Spencer took credit for killing twenty-nine people (mostly women) during his twenty-year run. He bragged to detectives he bagged twelve of them in as many months after being released from the Joliet Prison in 1912. The so-called "Man-Girl Murderer" was one of the most baffling cases to confront the Chicago Police Department in the 1920s. Mrs. Richard Tesmer told detectives Freddy Frances was the "girl bandit" she saw murder her husband, but when officers caught up with her, they discovered Freddy was a man in woman's clothes. Add to that, he had a husband and a wife, and things got confused. Someone bludgeoned twenty-year-old Theresa Hollander to death in the St. Nicholas Cemetery in Aurora, Illinois, in 1914. The police quickly focused their attention on a former suitor, Anthony Petras, but a jury failed to convict him after two trials. William Bartholin killed his mother and fiancé, Minnie Mitchell, in what came to be known as the Calumet Avenue Death House. Several months and suspects later, Bartholin's body turned up in a field in Riceville, Iowa. Detectives found a suicide note that cleared the other suspects yet refused to release them pending the decision of the grand jury. Six-year-old Paul Paszkowski disappeared from his home in 1903. A week later, his body was discovered buried in a gunny sack in a shallow grave. Suspicion immediately fell on eleven-year-old Julius Wiltrax. After being interrogated for a week, he blamed his parents, John, and Elizabeth Wiltrax. Actress Margaret Leslie was found dead in room 420 at the Palace Hotel in Chicago on October 18, 1906. Suspicion quickly fell on a one-legged theatrical producer, Howard Nicholas. He broke after a week of extreme "sweating" and gave police a 24-page confession implicating his partner, Leonard Leopold. Nicholas later recanted his confession, saying Assistant Chief Herman Schuettler hypnotized him into making it. Read them if you dare!
Download or read book Spine Chilling Murders in Illinois written by Nick Vulich and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2022-08-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spine-Chilling Murders in Illinois is a collection of true-life stories, most of which were rescued from old newspaper accounts published over 100 years ago. Few events in this book have made it into print, except maybe in musky-old county histories. Even then, they are lucky to rate a paragraph. Burglars killed Chicago millionaire Amos Snell during a home invasion in 1888. The investigation took detectives on a winding course across the country, but the killer was never found. Finally, twenty-five years later, a deathbed confession showed the police had the killer in their hands just days after the murder. But unfortunately, they let him go due to a lack of evidence. H. H. Holmes murdered as many twenty-seven people during his fifteen-year crime spree. Holmes's base of operations was his murder castle in Elgin, Illinois. Most of his victims died so Holmes could collect the insurance policies he took on their lives. The others were sold to body snatchers for $25 to $55 per head. The car barn bandits were every Chicagoan's worst nightmare-four bored boys, armed and out for thrills, let the consequences be damned. They killed eight men in less than a year and injured almost a dozen more. After Gustave Marx's capture, the gang leader told reporters: "There are too damn many people walking around town. They ought to be glad to be put out of their misery." Johann Hoch, the Chicago Bluebeard, married as many as fifty women in the ten years between 1895 and 1905. Most times, he took their money and disappeared. Unfortunately, at least nine of Hoch's wives died shortly after marrying him. Later, when asked what all his wives died from, Hoch chuckled and said, "kidney problems, I suppose. "Ask the doctors. They know better than I do." The Cambridge Curse defied explanation. During the three years between 1905 and 1908, Henry County experienced ten murders, five suicides, two attempted suicides, and a bank robbery. The statistics were totally out of whack for a community of 1500. Chicago Tribune crime reporter Jake Lingle was gunned down in cold blood in a city subway station on June 9, 1930. At first, the city mourned his passing as a martyr in the fight against crime. But, before the month was out, evidence surfaced that Lingle was in deep with the city's mobsters. He was a personal friend of Al Capone and worked as a go-between for the gangsters and police. Of course, there's more, but you get the idea. Illinois was a dangerous place at the turn of the century. Read them if you dare.
Download or read book Heartland Serial Killers written by Richard Lindberg and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-25 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lindberg, an accomplished local historian and true crime writer, presents a fascinating story of two contemporaneous serial killers, both weaving marriage and murder in and around Chicago during the 1890s and 1900s. Johann Hoch was a debonair bigamist and wife killer who boasted of having perfected a "scientific technique" to romance and seduction. Belle Gunness was a nesting "Black Widow" whose sprawling farm in Northwest Indiana was a fatal lure for lonely bachelors seeking the comforts of middle-age security by answering matrimonial advertisements placed by Gunness. Notorious in his own day, Hoch had faded into the dark background of Chicago crime history. But, in Heartland Serial Killers, Lindberg brings back vividly the horrors of one of Chicago's first celebrity criminals and uncovers new evidence of a close connection between Hoch and H.H. Holmes, the "Devil in the White City." Unlike Hoch, Belle Gunness, likely the most prolific and infamous female serial killer of the twentiethe century, has remained fascinating to the public. Here, Lindberg presents the most comprehensive and compelling study of the Gunness case to date, including new information regarding ongoing DNA testing of remains found at the site of Gunness' farm in LaPorte, Indiana, which may serve to resolve once and for all the mystery surrounding Gunness' death. Told in alternating chapters and rapidly paced, this book is true crime at its best—gripping, pulpy, and full of sharp historical tidbits. True crime fans, history buffs, and those interested in local lore will delight in this chilling tale of two ruthless killers.
Download or read book Murder Mayhem in Chicago s South Side written by Troy Taylor and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2019-11-11 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lurking below the Loop, behind the industry-driven energy of Chicago, lies the mysterious criminal underworld of the South Side. Recounting criminal exploits of legends like Alphonse Capone, as well as lesser-known stories like the Car Barn Bandits, Troy Taylor captures the intricacies of the most infamous stories of Chicago's South Side. From the gruesome murders committed by the unassuming H.H. Holmes to the mysterious death of Marshall Field Jr., join Taylor as he revisits the South Side's prosperous middle-class days and vividly depicts the strange and horrific crimes that have cast new light on the character of these too often overlooked neighborhoods.
Download or read book Spine Chilling Murders in the Quad Cities written by Nick Vulich and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2020-07-03 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spine-Chilling Murders in the Quad-Cities is a collection of true-life stories - most of them rescued from old newspaper accounts published over 100 years ago. Only a few of the events in this book have ever made it into print, except maybe in musky-old county histories. Even then, they are lucky to rate a paragraph.Cities covered include Davenport, Bettendorf, Muscatine, and Clinton, Iowa, and Rock Island, Moline, and Silvis, Illinois.Read them now, if you dare!
Download or read book Second City Sinners written by Jon Seidel and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-09-20 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Countless criminals have made their mark on Chicago and the surrounding communities. Chicago Sun-Times journalist Jon Seidel takes readers back in time to the days when H. H. Holmes lurked in his "Murder Castle" and guys named Al Capone and John Dillinger ruled the underworld. Drawing upon years of reporting, and with special access to the Chicago Daily News and Chicago Sun-Times archives, Jon Seidel explains how men like Nathan Leopold, Richard Loeb, and Richard Speck tried to get away with history’s most disturbing crimes. .
Download or read book Shattered Sense of Innocence written by Richard C Lindberg and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2016-07-20 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In October 1955, three Chicago boys were found murdered, their bodies naked and dumped in a ditch in Robinson Woods on the city’s Northwest Side. A community and a nation were shocked. In a time when such crimes against children were rare, the public was transfixed as local television stations aired stark footage of the first hours of the investigation. Life and Newsweek magazines published exclusive stories the following week. When Kenneth Hansen was convicted and sentenced for the murders, the case was considered solved—until questions were raised about Hansen’s presumed guilt. Shattered Sense of Innocence: The 1955 Murders of Three Chicago Children tells the gripping story of the three murdered boys—thirteen-year-old John Schuessler, his eleven-year-old brother, Anton, and thirteen-year-old Bobby Peterson—and the quest to find and bring to justice their killer. Authors Richard C. Lindberg and Gloria Jean Sykes recount the bungled 1955 police investigation, the failures of multiple law enforcement agencies, and the subsequent convictions of Kenneth Hansen, in 1995 and 2002, and present new information concerning two suspects overlooked by police for five decades. The authors deftly examine all sides of this tragic story, drawing on exclusive interviews with law enforcement agents, with horse trainers affiliated with the so-called horse mafia, and with the man convicted of the murders, Kenneth Hansen. This intensely intimate account offers a rare glimpse into one community and examines how these atrocious crimes altered public perceptions nationwide. Shattered Sense of Innocence, which is also a story of political controversy, a determined federal agent’s quest for justice, and a community’s loss of innocence, includes fifty illustrations.
Download or read book Murder During the Chicago World s Fair The Killing of Little Emma Werner A Historical True Crime Short written by R. Barri Flowers and published by R. Barri Flowers. This book was released on with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From R. Barri Flowers, award-winning criminologist and bestselling author of Murder at the Pencil Factory and Murder of the Banker's Daughter comes the historical true crime short, Murder During the Chicago World's Fair: The Killing of Little Emma Werner.
Download or read book The Girls of Murder City written by Douglas Perry and published by . This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chicago, 1924. For intrepid "girl reporter" Maurine Watkins, a minister's daughter from Indiana, big-city life offered unimaginable excitement. Newspaperwomen were supposed to write about clubs, cooking, and clothes. But within weeks of starting at the Chicago Tribune, Watkins found herself embroiled in the scandalous, sex-fueled murder cases of Belva Gaertner and Beulah Annan, who had gunned down their lovers in mysterious circumstances.
Download or read book Fatal Drop written by William Griffith and published by Whitechapel Productions. This book was released on 2008-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Weirdest Tales of Chicago Crime! Discover a book of Chicago crime like no other you have ever seen before as Weird Chicago historian Bill Griffith presents the first volume ever produced about the true tales of the Windy City's gallows! Journey back in time to the days of public hangings and then discover the history of the city's old jail, the gruesome executions, the bizarre events, the terrible criminals, the cold-blooded killers, the strange Frankenstein-like experiments on the corpses of the dead - and even some of the ghosts that lingered behind! There is no other book like this one in the annals of Chicago crime literature and it's one that only the creators of the Weird Chicago Tours can bring you! Filled with remarkable anecdotes, strange history, dark deeds and plenty of contemporary photographs, this is the most chilling and gut-wrenching collection of Windy City crime stories ever put to paper. You'll be turning the pages of this one long into the night!
Download or read book Spine Chilling Murders in Iowa written by Nick Vulich and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2021-10-11 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever wonder what evil lurks in your hometown? Spine-Chilling Murders in Iowa takes you behind the scenes of some old-time killings in Iowa. Only a few of the events in this book have ever made it into print, except maybe in musky-old county histories. Even then, they are lucky to rate a paragraph. Read them if you dare.
Download or read book The Chicago Cap Murders written by Warren Friedman and published by BookBullet.com. This book was released on 2012-09-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if your life depended on the Chicago Cubs making it to the World Series? Diehard fans have always supported the team, which has not won a World Series since 1908, the longest drought in Major League Baseball, but this year people are dying for the Cubs to win-literally. A serial killer is killing fans when the team loses, leaving them alive when the Cubs win. Either way, the killer leaves a calling card-a Chicago Cubs cap. Can the police, the Cubs, and Major League Baseball stop the Cubs Cap Killer? The case falls into the lap of Detective Slats Grodsky, once Chicago's top cop but now resurrecting his career after a broken marriage and years of alcohol abuse. Grodsky's road to redemption is rocky, however. Will his demons, detractors, and blunders keep him from following the killer's trail? Tension mounts outside and inside Wrigley Field as the team fights to pile up wins-and not corpses.
Download or read book Copping Out written by Anthony Stanford and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-03-30 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Chicago journalist reveals how pervasive police misconduct, brutality, and corruption are changing the perspective of the criminal justice system and eroding the morals of the American people. In this shocking yet fascinating volume, an award-winning Chicago journalist goes behind the headlines to provide a far-reaching analysis of brutality, vice, and corruption among men and women who have sworn to serve and protect. This timely book draws on actual cases to examine the widespread phenomenon of corruption inside law enforcement agencies. It looks at the effort of criminal elements and gangs to infiltrate police departments and the criminal justice system, and it discusses how vigilante justice is encouraged by claims of police misconduct. Of particular importance to readers, the book also exposes the trickle-down effect of police corruption as it affects American values and society as a whole. But the news is not all bad. Police departments across the nation are fighting back against abuse of power, and the author sheds light on the escalating battle they are waging against rogue police officers involved in criminal activity. Through Stanford's investigative work and firsthand interviews with leading law enforcement professionals, readers will be privy to the backstory of the struggle of police commands to insulate their departments against the criminality and corruption so prevalent today.
Download or read book Burden of Truth written by Robin James and published by . This book was released on 2021-02-20 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Memoirs of a Midnight Flower written by Carol Jon and published by Writers Club Press. This book was released on 2001-11-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Listen to the sounds of yesteryear as you travel back in time on a journey through the 1950's, which would be unimaginable to those of us who never lived through it. Based on the inspirational true story of some of life's unbelievable twists of fate, and the bittersweet reflections of a youngster growing up in the '50s, whose life had been touched by tragedy that could have taken many different paths. As the veil of secrecy is slowly lifted and removed, you'll become aquatinted with the guardian angels that are placed here on earth to protect, and watch over us. Witness the awakening of an understanding that began when a ten-year-old child, survives from a spiritual death with the help of a valiant spirit who guides her through life, and into a spiritual journey of acceptance. Finally, journey on a spine-chilling ride in the "Phantom Car of German Church Road," to one of the most horrific murders in Chicago's history, and even after four decades, still remains undiminished in its brutality and horror, as it mesmerized the entire city, of the unsolved murders of two teenage sisters who were last seen near the Brighton Park Theater, on the evening of December 28, 1956.Credit for graphic: Carol Jon, design by Rebecca D. Brown
Download or read book Lost Girls written by Caitlin Rother and published by Pinnacle Books . This book was released on 2011-10-24 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Rother is the next Ann Rule.” —Gregg Olsen Chelsea King was a popular high school senior, an outstanding achiever determined to make a difference. Fourteen-year-old Amber Dubois loved books and poured her heart into the animals she cared for. Treasured by all who knew them, both girls disappeared in San Diego County, just eight miles and one year apart. The families’ anguish galvanized the community and captivated the media. A desperate search led authorities to John Albert Gardner, a brutal predator, convicted sex offender hiding in plain sight—and a complex man whose own mother, a psychiatric nursing professional, failed to see the signs of trouble. Ultimately, Gardner shared a prison unit with Charles Manson. In 2010, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Chelsea's Law: anyone convicted of certain sex offenses against a child in California would get life in prison without parole. Based on Pulitzer-nominated author Caitlin Rother’s exclusive access, Lost Girls is an incisive, heartbreaking true-life thriller that strikes at our deepest fears. “A a cautionary tale and a horror story, done superbly.” —Los Angeles Times “A terrifying portrait of a man who was sweet and cuddly one day and a crazed killer the next.” —San Diego Reader “Gripping . . . chilling . . . a must-read.” —Sue Russell “Boldly dissects how a boy with psychological problems formed into a man indifferent to his monstrous acts.” —Katherine Ramsland “Caitlin Rother stirs up the lethal stew of family dysfunction, mental illness, substance abuse and deadly psychopathology. . . . Frank and riveting.” —Diane Fanning Includes dramatic photos
Download or read book Shock Theatre Chicago Style written by Donald F. Glut and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2012-08-09 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From December 1957 through October 1959, Chicago TV viewers were held in thrall by "Marvin," the ghoulishly hilarious host of WBKB-TV's late-night horror film series Shock Theatre. Marvin and his lady friend "Dear" (her face ever hidden from the camera) introduced thousands of Chicagoland youngsters to such classic Universal chillers as Frankenstein, Dracula and The Wolf Man. This history of Shock Theatre focuses on the series and its creator, Marvin himself--in real life, the multi-talented Terry Bennett, whose wife Joy played "Dear." Terry's son Kerry Bennett provides an affectionate foreword, while celebrated horror host Count Gore De Vol (Dick Dyszel) supplies the afterword. Included are dozens of photos and vintage advertisement reproductions, as well as two appendices featuring a resume of Terry Bennett's career and a list of films telecast during his two-year Shock Theatre run.
