Jenny Ashford is a horror, true crime, and paranormal writer, graphic designer, and podcaster. Her most recent books are a three-volume true crime compilation collectively known as The Faceless Villain: A Collection of the Eeriest Unsolved Murders of the Twentieth Century. Volume One was published in 2017, Volume Two in 2018, and Volume Three in 2019. Her other books include four paranormal nonfiction books: The Unseen Hand: A New Exploration of Poltergeist Phenomena, The Mammoth Mountain Poltergeist (with Tom Ross), House of Fire and Whispers: Investigating the Seattle Demon House, and The Rochdale Poltergeist (both with Steve Mera); as well as three horror novels, Red Menace, Bellwether, and The Five Poisons; two short story collections, Hopeful Monsters and The Associated Villainies; and a graphic novel, The Tenebrist. A second edition of The Associated Villainies was published in 2019, featuring four new stories, an enhanced print layout, and an audio book version. A second edition of The Five Poisons was published in 2020. Her short stories have appeared in several anthologies, including The Nightmare Collective, History Is Dead, 2012AD, ChimeraWorld #3, and ChimeraWorld #4. Her horror blog, Goddess of Hellfire, contains writing news, short stories and articles, and her reviews and opinions on horror films and books. She also co-hosts a podcast with Tom Ross called 13 O'Clock, on which they discuss true crime, unexplained mysteries, paranormal weirdness, horror movies and books, food, and other fun, creepy topics. They recently collaborated on a 13 O'Clock cookbook. Jenny's graphic design work can be seen on everything from books and business cards to posters and packaging. She runs an online store called Gravecake selling products with her designs, and also has a board-and-card game concern called Giallo Games, which produces games based around the beloved Italian horror/crime genre, among many other themes.
In the summer of 1919, Mabel Greenwood lived in a comfortable house in Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire, in southwest Wales. Her husband Harold was a solicitor, originally from Yorkshire, and the couple had four children. On June 16th, Mabel was feeling under the weather and started complaining of stomach pains after eating gooseberry pie and a glass … More Mabel Greenwood
In early 1982, twenty-six-year-old Andrea Buchanan was an up-and-coming professional tennis player with a bright future ahead of her. Just a few months previously, she had competed in both the 1981 Wimbledon Championships and the 1981 US Open, acquitting herself well at both tournaments. She was a popular and well-liked player and was close friends … More Andrea Buchanan
Twenty-one-year-old Billy Stone worked the night shift as a telegraph operator at the Whitby Junction railroad station in Whitby, Ontario, Canada. Just after midnight on December 11th, 1914, Billy extinguished nearly all the lights in the station, as he usually did, leaving only his desk lamp burning. Suddenly, at around twelve-thirty-seven a.m., a single gunshot … More Billy Stone
It was the summer of 1909 in New York City, and twenty-year-old Elsie Sigel left her family’s apartment to visit her grandmother not far away. Elsie, who was the granddaughter of famed Civil War general Franz Sigel, was herself a missionary who worked in Chinatown, helping young women who had become involved in drugs and … More Elsie Sigel
On May 24th, 1970, sixteen-year-old Claire Gagnon was spending time out and about near her house in Dieppe, New Brunswick, Canada. She was seen alive by witnesses between two and three p.m., but afterward, her whereabouts were unknown. Her parents became concerned when the teenager didn’t come home for dinner at five o’clock as she … More Claire Gagnon
On July 16th, 1994, ten-year-old Marie-Chantale Desjardins left her home in Sainte-Thérèse, Quebec, Canada at around nine-thirty a.m. on her bicycle. She was heading to a friend’s house, but when she arrived, her friend was getting ready to leave, so Marie decided she’d find something else to do. According to witnesses, she spent some time … More Marie-Chantale Desjardins
On the evening of March 13th, 2015, fifty-year-old antique dealer Robyn Mercer had just finished dinner and then went out the front door of her house in West Molesey, Surrey, England, presumably to throw something into the garbage bins at the end of her driveway. She never returned to her home. The following morning at … More Robyn Mercer
It was New Year’s Day of 1902 in a rural town called Towitta, in South Australia. Thirteen-year-old Bertha Schippan and her twenty-four-year-old sister Mary were spending the evening at the family farm alone. Their parents, Matthes and Johanne, were visiting relatives, and their three brothers were away working on other nearby farms. Sometime around ten … More Bertha Schippan
At a little after six a.m. on the morning of August 9th, 1976, trucker Martin Durant noticed the fully-clothed dead bodies of a man and woman sprawled alongside a remote unpaved track between Interstate 95 and Lynches River Road in South Carolina. Each victim had been shot three times with a .357 caliber revolver: once … More Pamela Buckley and James Freund: Sumter County Does
On the morning of September 12th, 1976, a body was discovered near the back gate of a cemetery off Dogwood Road in Woodlawn, Maryland. The victim was a young woman between the ages of fifteen and thirty, who had been beaten, savagely raped, and then strangled to death. Police determined that she had been killed … More Margaret Fetterolf: Woodlawn Jane Doe
Crime Immemorial 