Born on December 23rd, 1874, in Sangerville, Maine, to a prosperous lawyer father and his wife, Harry Oakes was one of five children. He attended Foxcroft Academy, briefly studied at Bowdoin College, and spent two years at Syracuse University Medical School before abandoning academia in 1898 to chase fortune in the Klondike Gold Rush. For … More Sir Harry Oakes

On the afternoon of March 22nd, 1944, eleven-year-old Betty June Binnicker and eight-year-old Mary Emma Thames set out on their bicycles from their homes in Alcolu, South Carolina, a lumber town divided by railroad tracks separating Black and white residents. The girls were looking for maypops, a type of wild passionflower common in the area. … More Betty June Binnicker and Mary Emma Thames

The Carteron family lived a simple, impoverished life on their small farm called Ajoncs-Barrats, located a little over three hundred feet from the nearest neighbor’s house in a remote area near Bommiers in Indre département, central France. The head of the household, Kléber Carteron, was a peasant farmer who supplemented his meager income with occasional … More The Carteron Family Murders

The Cameo Cinema, a modest 200-seat venue converted from a former Methodist chapel, stood at the corner of Bird Street and Webster Road in the Wavertree neighborhood of Liverpool, England. On the evening of March 19th, 1949, patrons settled in to watch Bond Street, a lighthearted British comedy-drama, oblivious to a horror that would shortly … More Leonard Thomas & Bernard Catterall: The Cameo Cinema Murders

Born on July 17th, 1921, in Barnsley, Yorkshire, England, Joan Woodhouse was the only child of John and Nellie Woodhouse. Doted on by her parents and adoring aunts Annie Blades and Ida Sheriff, she grew up in a close-knit, working-class family. Educated at Barnsley Girls’ High School from 1933 to 1939, Joan developed a passion … More Joan Woodhouse: The Arundel Murder

Jerzy Strzadala was born on April 18th, 1915, in the rural village of Zabozorzy in southern Poland. Trained as a wheelwright, his early life was upended by the outbreak of World War II. In 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, and Strzadala lived under occupation until 1943, when he was briefly conscripted into the German Army—a … More Jerzy Strzadla

Thirty-nine-year-old Caroline Evans had carved out a respected life as headmistress of the infants’ school in Wern, in the quiet village of Coedpoeth in Wrexham, North Wales. She was married to Edward Daniel “Dan” Evans, a forty-year-old clerk at a local leather works. The couple resided at 20 Park Road, a modest home overlooking the … More Caroline Evans

Fifty-six-year-old William “Bill” Murfitt had built a reputation as a hard-driving, modernizing farmer with a lively social life. He and his family had leased Quays Farm in Risby, Suffolk, England earlier in the decade and were well known in the Bury St. Edmunds area. On the morning of May 17th, 1938, Bill collapsed and died … More William “Bill” Murfitt

On June 30th, 1926, forty-three-year-old James White died in Acorn Wood, on the outskirts of Nottingham, England. Early press digests and later crime compendia preserve a brief but striking outline: White was found at the foot of a tree as if he had run into it—yet the medical opinion was that the collision wasn’t what … More James White

On the cold Monday night of February 4th, 1929, the quiet clifftop bungalow colony of Limeslade, above the Mumbles on Swansea Bay in Wales, was shattered by a scream. Minutes later, forty-three-year-old Kate Jackson lay outside her back door with devastating head injuries. Within six days she would be dead, and a century later her … More Kate Jackson: The Limeslade Mystery