Download or read book Crime Buff s Guide to Outlaw Pennsylvania written by Ron Franscell and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Pennsylvania is the ultimate guidebook to the crime, injustice, and seedy history of the Keystone State. With photographs, maps, directions, and sites to visit, this collection of outlaw tales serves as both a travel guide and an entertaining and informational read. It is a one-of-a-kind exploration into well-known and more obsure sites in Pennsylvania that retain memories of bandits and their scandalous deeds. The Crime Buff series offers indispensable guidebooks for criminal-history enthusiasts and travelers. Each site description includes a brief summary of the spot’s significance, historical context, maps, directions, and photos. Appealing to both residents and visitors, the books reveal the exploits of famous and less famous outlaws in an irresistable and informational manner. Readers will be shocked, unsettled, and captivated by the true stories and secrets illuminated in the Outlaw collection.

Download or read book Kill for Thrill written by Michael Sheetz and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the horrifying tale of the random crime spree that shocked residents of southwestern Pennsylvania in 1979. During the winter of 1979, southwestern Pennsylvania was rocked by a series of sensational murders, sparking a thirty-year criminal justice saga. A week of brutal, seemingly random killings culminated in the provocation and fatal shooting of Patrolman Leonard Miller, an officer new to the town of Apollo's police force and only twenty one years old. Little more than a year later, two men were convicted of the rash of homicides and sentenced to death - yet both are alive today. Incorporating details of the central characters' personal lives as well as the state's court system, criminologist Michael W. Sheetz here relays the awful story of the so-called kill for thrill crime spree with the drama of a novelist and the insight of an officer of the law.

Download or read book Gangs and Outlaws of Western Pennsylvania written by Thomas White and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2012-07-24 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Violent bank heists, bold train robberies and hardened gangs all tear across the history of the wild west--western Pennsylvania, that is. The region played reluctant host to the likes of the infamous Biddle Boys, who escaped Allegheny County Jail by romancing the warden's wife, and the Cooley Gang, which held Fayette County in its violent grip at the close of the nineteenth century. Then there was Pennsylvania's own Bonnie and Clyde--Irene and Glenn--whose murderous misadventures earned the "trigger blonde" and her beau the electric chair in 1931. From the perilous train tracks of Erie to the gritty streets of Pittsburgh, authors Thomas White and Michael Hassett trace the dark history of the crooks, murderers and outlaws who both terrorized and fascinated the citizenry of western Pennsylvania.

Download or read book True Crime Philadelphia written by Kathryn Canavan and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Serial killer H.H. Holmes built his murder castle in Chicago, but he met the hangman in Philadelphia. Al Capone served his first prison sentence here. The real-life killers who inspired HBO’s Boardwalk Empire lived and died here. America’s first bank robbery was pulled off here in 1798. The country’s first kidnapping for ransom came off without a hitch in 1874. A South Philadelphia man hatched the largest mass murder plot in U.S. history in the 1930s. His partners in crime were unhappy housewives. Catholics and Protestants aimed cannon at each other in city streets in 1844. Civil rights hero Octavius V. Catto was gunned down on South Street in 1871. Take a walk with us through city history. Would you pass Eastern State Penitentiary on April 3, 1945, just as famed bank robber Willie Sutton popped out of an escape tunnel in broad daylight? Or you might have been one of the invited guests at H.H. Holmes’ hanging at Moyamensing Prison on a gray morning in May 1896. It still ranks as one of the most bizarre executions in city history. Or, if you walked down Washington Lane on July 1, 1874, would you have been alert enough to stop the two men who lured little blond Charley Ross away with candy? You might have stopped America’s first kidnapping for ransom, the one that gave rise to the admonition, “Never take candy from a stranger.” The case inspired the Leopold and Loeb kidnapping. Then there was the bank robber whose funeral drew thousands of spectators and the burglary defendant so alluring that conversation would stop whenever she entered the courtroom. Mix in murderous maids, bumbling burglars, and unflinching local heroes and you have True Crime Philadelphia.

Download or read book True Crime Pennsylvania written by Patricia A. Martinelli and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2008-08-18 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of criminal offense in Pennsylvania is documented in this book, beginning with a general survey of crime in the state and then focusing on its headline cases.

Download or read book Pennsylvania Oddities written by Marlin Bressi and published by Sunbury Press, Inc.. This book was released on 2018-12-26 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Researcher and author Marlin Bressi has compiled a panoply of unsolved mysteries and unusual happenings throughout the history of the Keystone State. From unsolved mysteries, headless corpses, missing persons, to ghosts and missing treasure, Bressi's compilation is sure to entertain: CONTENTS: PART I: UNSOLVED MYSTERIES 1. The Lamb's Gap Murder Mystery 2. Berks County's Missing Skeleton 3. Who Buried the Babies in the Church Cellar? 4. A Cat's Funeral and a Philadelphia Mystery 5. Allison Hill's House of Mystery 6. The Broad Mountain Mystery 7. The Kulpmont Mob Murders of 1939 8. The True Story of Shamokin's Famous Missing Head 9. The Mystery of the Murder Marsh PART II: STRANGE PLACES AND PEOPLE 10. The Cripple's Curse and the Kings of Pittsburgh 11. The Aeronaut's Fate: The Story of Wash Donaldson 12. Witchcraft in Stony Creek Valley 13. The Strange Connection Between Bucknell University and the RMS Titanic 14. The Tragic Fate of Homer Swaney 15. Simeon Pfoutz: Lord of the Manor 16. The Headless Horseman of Lawrence County 17. Mount Carmel's Mysterious Suicide Cell 18. A Tragedy in Ghost Hollow 19. The Loomis Street Affair: Haunting or Hoax? 20. The Ticking Tombstone 21. A Ghost in the Furnace PART III: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT 22. Dynamite and Diphtheria: The Strange Trial of Lloyd Wintersteen 23. The Hanging of Charles Chase 24. The Lutz Axe Murder 25. The Ghost of Adam Volkovitch 26. Mount Carmel's Night of Terror: The Strantz & Yorkavage Crime Spree of 1937 27. The Murder of Daisy Smith PART IV: ODDS AND ENDS (A collection of interesting newspaper clippings)

Download or read book Blood Crimes written by Fred Rosen and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2015-07-01 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two brothers turn from Jehovah’s Witnesses in Allentown, PA, to neo-Nazi murderers in this true crime investigation from the author of Lobster Boy. Raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses and frustrated with their parents’ repressive rules, Bryan and David Freeman rebelled as teenagers. Encouraged by an acquaintance he met while institutionalized at a reform school, Bryan became a neo-Nazi. Bryan then indoctrinated David, and their flare for defiance took a dark turn. After callously murdering their father, mother, and younger brother, the skinhead brothers took flight across America, with police from three states in hot pursuit. They were eventually captured in Michigan and returned to Pennsylvania for trial. During the trial, author Fred Rosen uncovered evidence that one of the brothers might not have been as culpable as authorities claimed, and divulged the history of a family torn apart by stringent religious beliefs.

Download or read book Massacre at Duffy s Cut written by William E. Watson and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2018-10-22 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The shocking murder of railroad laborers in nineteenth-century Pennsylvania—and the centuries-long coverup that followed—is revealed in this true crime history. In June 1832, railroad contractor Philip Duffy hired fifty-seven Irish immigrant laborers to work on Pennsylvania's Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad. They were sent to a stretch of track in rural Chester County known as Duffy's Cut. Six weeks later, all of them were dead. For more than 180 years, the railroad maintained that cholera was to blame and kept the historical record under lock and key. In a harrowing modern-day excavation of their mass grave, a group of academics and volunteers found evidence some of the laborers were murdered. Authors and research leaders Dr. William E. Watson and Dr. J. Francis Watson reveal the tragedy, mystery, and discovery of what really happened at Duffy's Cut.

Download or read book True Murder Mysteries of Southwestern Pennsylvania written by A. Parker Burroughs and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-05 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historical true crime stories from the southwestern corner of the Keystone State, reaching as far back as 1795. In the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, beyond the picturesque scenes of the Monongahela River Valley, there are long-forgotten mysteries of scandal and murder. Amid the hardship of life on the frontier of Washington County in 1795, young Isabel Stewart was found dead, and her killer never identified in the oldest unsolved murder in the region. La Mano Nera (the Black Hand) gangs from Calabria, Italy, extorted and slaughtered their way into the 1920s as Sicilian-style vendettas became a common occurrence. The disappearance of local huckster Harry Lane in 1893 caused a flurry of murder conspiracies, yet all that could be found was a bloodied hat; it took another one hundred years before the mystery was solved. Local author Parker Burroughs details gruesome homicides and puzzling whodunits in Pennsylvania coal country.

Download or read book New Castle s Kadunce Murders Mystery and the Devil in Northwest Pennsylvania written by Dale Richard Perelman and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2019 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Author Dale Richard Perelman tells the tragic story of the 1978 murders and the mystery surrounding them. In the summer of 1978, a mother and her four-year-old were stabbed to death in the quiet town of New Castle. Police suspected the husband, Lou Kadunce, but were unable to find either a weapon or a motive. Sitting in a Lawrence County jail in 1981, convicted serial killer Michael Atkinson accused Frank Costal - a carny, petty thief and Satanist - of having an affair with the Kadunce husband and participating in the murder. A series of intense trials ensued as Costal was convicted of the homicides and a jury found the husband not guilty. Questions surrounding the case gripped the region and grabbed headlines in the Pittsburgh Press.

Download or read book Jailing the Johnston Gang written by Bruce Mowday and published by . This book was released on 2010-10-16 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jailing the Johnston Gang: Bringing Serial Murderers to Justice is the inside story of the dedicated law enforcement team that brought to justice serial murderers Norman, David, and Bruce A. Johnston Sr. For more than a decade the Johnston Gang terrorized communities throughout the East Coast of the United States by stealing millions of dollars worth of property. When gang members couldn't intimidate witnesses to their many crimes, they murdered them. Thomas Cloud, former Pennsylvania State Policeman and Johnston investigator: "The Johnston gang terrorized communities throughout the Eastern United States. Bruce Mowday's account, Jailing the Johnston Gang, is the amazing true story of those dedicated law enforcement officers who chose to stand up to them." David Richter, former FBI agent and Johnston investigator: "Jailing the Johnston Gang is a book that proves the good guys win and murderers go to jail even if they use witness intimidation. As award-winning reporter and author Bruce Mowday depicts, FBI agents and state troopers witnessed gang members committing crimes and testified. They couldn't be intimidated." William Lamb, former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice and Chester County District Attorney: "Bruce Mowday is a capable and experienced author who has captured the essence of the Johnston cases. These cases are certainly the most notorious murder cases in Chester County. Their complexity has been detailed ably by Mowday in his book and is a great read." Book jacket.

Download or read book Little Girl Lost written by Tammy Mal and published by . This book was released on 2018-07-16 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When nine-year-old Mae Ruth Barrett failed to return home on the stormy night of January 2, 1945, her family immediately feared an accident. But when the child's brutally beaten body was found the next day, secreted in an abandoned house, the small town of Vandling was left reeling. Who could kill a child walking home from church? Stunned by the barbaric events, residents would become even more horrified when suspicion soon focused on a most unlikely suspect. In harrowing detail, learn how the police solved one of the most sadistic crimes in history, long before the use of computers, DNA, or modern forensic science.

Download or read book Black Clover written by C. Lee Ryder and published by Sunbury Press. This book was released on 2021-10-15 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carl Wade Ryder-brother, son, and all-around good person-was murdered on August 5, 2006.Blood was found at his home in Franklin County, PA.All evidence pointed to one suspect: Scott North, a former employee of Carl's, a regular attendee of Franklin County courts, and the son of a Chambersburg, PA cop. After burglarizing a tavern, a judge granted him work release, and then another dismissed a recent gun charge. Days later, he ran from his unsupervised worksite and began a crime spree that may have ended with the murder of Carl Wade Ryder.The evidence was all there, but the police ignored most of it.With nowhere else to turn, the family scoured the byways and hillsides of Amberson, Path Valley, and other areas in adjoining counties in search of Carl's body. And finally, they found him in Huntingdon County, PA, 27 minutes away from his home.When his body was found, the police revisited the investigation-but only by expanding the murder case to Huntingdon County, despite the blood in Carl's home. For a year and a half, the case was passed off between the counties. With no help from officials, how could the Ryder family bring their beloved son & brother justice?Black Clover is the true story of the heart-wrenching small town murder of the author's brother and the lengths at which the legal system can be manipulated, if the family doesn't fight back.

Download or read book No Crooked Death written by Dennis B. Downey and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Principal Suspect written by William C. Costopoulos and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early hours of June 25, 1979, a gruesome scene unfolded. The body of Susan Reinert, a suburban Philadelphia high school teacher, was found jammed into the hatchback of a car. She was in the fetal position. She was naked. Her two young children were missing. Thus began one of the most prominent murder cases in Pennsylvania's history. The Main Line murders, as they came to be known, would grip the nation and become the target of a seven-year investigation by the FBI and the Pennsylvania State PoliceDthe most massive homicide investigation in American history. The main suspect in the brutal murder turned out to be Jay Smith, the Principal of Upper Merion High School, where Reinert taught. The local and national media went on a rampage, especially as rumors of Smith's bizarre sexual habits emerged. There was one sensational headline after another about the "Prince of Darkness". There was a TV miniseries. Yet the truth, the whole truth, was never told. Until now. This legal drama is about crossing the fine. It's about fixing cases, rigging testimony, plandng evidence, and overzealous prosecutors. William Costopoulos, Smith's lawyer, takes you inside the case, right to the heart of the cover-ups, the corruption, and finally to the floor of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. You'll read portions of the actual transcripts. You'll meet the players in the case. You'll hear Costopoulos argue for Smith's life and fight for truth. Even if you know the outcome, this story will grip you with breathtaking suspense, and at times, make you want to rage at a legal system that went haywire. To this day, Susan Reinert's murderer has never been conclusively identified. The bodies of her childrenhave never been found. Many people think they know exactly who the real murderer is. But ultimately, when a legal system fails so miserably, it is you who must weigh the evidence. Did Jay Smith do it? It is you who must decide.t

Download or read book Crimson Stain written by Jim Fisher and published by Berkley. This book was released on 2000 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Including 8 pages of photos, this is the story of an Amish man rebelling against his community's traditional ways and finally committing an act of madness -- murdering and mutilating his wife in front of their two children.

Download or read book Famous Crimes the World Forgot Volume II written by Jason Lucky Morrow and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-03-24 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Famous Crimes the World Forgot Volume II uncovers more amazing true crimes that exploded into the national news, shocking Americans from coast to coast-crimes that were eventually forgotten-until now. Each one of these stories transports you back to the time they happened, propels you through all the suspense-filled developments, and explores each one with an in-depth look into the actions of humans so evil, it's hard to believe they were real. They include: a serial poisoner who laughed when thought he got away with murdering a brother and sister, but cried when he was arrested; a woman with a history of being robbed by two men until the third time it happened when they killed her husband, or so she said; a mail-order bride lured to her death 3,000 miles away by a man with a wife and five children; a serial-rapist and possible serial-killer who murdered two sisters on their way to church; a five-time loser turned drifter who gunned down four men for $40 inside a hermit's shack; an escaped convict turned serial-killer with a taste for red-heads; the mysterious car bomb murder of a wealthy Texas socialite which churned up a cast of sordid characters who captivated an audience for what was America's first live-televised murder trial; and Milwaukee's first serial-killer who stabbed young girls with a seven-inch stiletto.