June 25th 1906, was the opening night of the musical revue
Mamzelle Champagne on the roof of
Madison Square Garden. In attendance were Stanford White, renowned architect
(Washington Square Arch, Judson Memorial Church, Madison Square Garden itself), and
Harry Kendall Thaw, eccentric coal and railroad scion. During the performance of the song
I Could Love a Million Girls, Thaw "
left his seat near the stage, passed between a number of tables, and, in full view of the players and of scores of persons, shot White through the head."
(pdf) Standing over White’s body, Thaw said “You’ll never go out with that woman again.”
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posted by davidjmcgee
on Dec 22, 2011 -
14 comments
The National Library of Medicine has put a selection of
murder pamphlets from the late 1600s to the late 1800s online.
These pamphlets have been a rich source for historians of medicine, crime novelists, and cultural historians, who mine them for evidence to illuminate the history of class, gender, race, the law, the city, crime, religion and other topics. The murder pamphlets in the NLM's collection address cases connected to forensic medicine, especially cases in which doctors were accused of committing-or were the victims of-murder.
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posted by gman
on Nov 7, 2010 -
7 comments
The bumping off of a famous person is the
sort of oyster that any detective delights to open, so you can just bet the
family jewels that I was pretty much elated when my Chief, the late Thomas
Lee Woolwine, District Attorney of Los Angeles County, called me into his
private office on the morning of February 3rd, 1922, and assigned me to
represent his office in the investigation of this greatest of all murder
mysteries. -- Excerpted from an article archived at
Taylorology, a site exploring the life and death of William Desmond Taylor, a silent movie actor and director whose unsolved murder was among the earliest Hollywood true crime scandals. Researcher
Bruce Long first published his accumulated information about the case as a small fanzine which evolved into a monthly electronic newsletter and is now a vast archive of articles and interviews, official documents, photos, and more. Although the Taylor case is the main focus, there's also a wealth of supplemental information about the silent film industry and its stars.
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posted by amyms
on Feb 22, 2009 -
7 comments
Dying Speeches & Bloody Murders digitizes over five hundred broadsides owned by the Harvard Law Library, all of them devoted to "last dying speeches"--that is, sensational accounts of crime, punishment, and (fictional) confession, intended to be
sold at public executions. The New York State Historical Association has an
online exhibition devoted to nineteenth-century American murder pamphlets. You can find a couple of seventeenth-century examples at the
Early Modern Web and the
Folger Library.
Old Bailey Online briefly puts this literature into context. (Main link via C18-L.)
posted by thomas j wise
on Jan 4, 2008 -
11 comments
T.R.A.N.S.I.T. is, by a wide margin, my favorite animated short ever produced. Set in the art deco Europe of the 1920's and (and released in 1997) it tells the story of a journey throughout several major vacation destinations of a wealthy tycoon, his young wife with wandering eyes, and a murderous turn of events. The story is told in reverse, from the final stage of the "vacation" back through each prior stop, and the artwork for each segment is painted in the style of the luggage travel sticker for that stop.
posted by jonson
on Sep 2, 2007 -
14 comments
"Approximately 250,000 persons viewed and passed by the bier of little Emmett Till. All were shocked, some horrified and appalled. Many prayed, scores fainted and practically all, men, women and children wept". Chicago Defender, September 1, 1955.
Federal officials this morning
erected a white tent over the grave of Emmett Till in
Alsip, Ill.,
in preparation to exhume the body to shed light on the
Chicago teenager's death 50 years ago.
Till, 14 years old at the time,
was killed in a hate crime in Money, Miss., that
sparked the Civil Rights movement. (previous Emmett Till MeFi threads
here and
here)
posted by matteo
on Jun 1, 2005 -
5 comments
Homicide in Chicago: 1870-1930 July 25, 1899
Murphy, James, 28 years old, shot dead, saloon 1210 Wabash Av., by Lorezo Sodini, proprietor. Murphy refused to pay for drinks and ran out of saloon and threw stone through window. Sodini ran out and fired at him, killing him instantly. Harrison St. Station. Held by Coroner's Jury, July 29. Acquitted Dec. 9, 1899, by jury in Judge Baker's court.
Case number: 1498
posted by tcp
on Jul 2, 2004 -
1 comment
