In the autumn of 1969, British Columbia, Canada would see the first occurrence in a more than fifty-year series of murders and disappearances of largely Aboriginal women from particular stretches of Highways 16, 97, and 5, an area which over the ensuing decades would come to be known by the eerily evocative name of the … More The Highway of Tears Murders
Before 1965 came to a close, a businessman would disappear without trace on a freezing cold night in Iowa, and his case would bleed over into the following year. Fifty-two-year-old Donald Amos Nervig was the co-owner of a speedometer and electrical services company in Des Moines. On Tuesday, December 14th, he reportedly told a coworker … More Donald Nervig
In the spring of 1980, twenty-two-year-old university student Jessie Earl was elated to have finished her exams, and was looking forward to taking a little break. A second-year graphics student at Eastbourne College of Art and Design in Sussex, England, Jessie lived alone in a small bedsit, but on Wednesday, May 14th, she called her … More Jessie Earl
Thirty-eight-year-old shoe-shine man Israel “Chuck” Fowler shared a house on East Clark Street in Pasco, Washington with thirty-seven-year-old waitress and seamstress Celeste Dixon—who had only arrived in town three days previously—and twenty-nine-year-old Robbie Jean Harris, who worked as an exotic dancer at the nearby Kingfish Club. On the night of August 11th, 1960, two other … More Truman H. Brown, Celeste Dixon, Israel Fowler & Robbie Jean Harris
On the HBO series Deadwood, which aired from 2004 to 2006, British actor Ian McShane portrayed one of the main characters, a saloon owner and ruthless pimp by the name of Al Swearengen. The series took some dramatic license with the real man behind the character, however, and by all accounts, the historical Al Swearengen … More Al Swearengen
In the spring of 1922, a shocking crime occurred that would capture the public imagination for decades to come, mostly due to its deeply unsettling details that were seemingly ripped straight out of a horror movie. On a remote Bavarian farmstead known as Hinterkaifeck, forty-three miles north of Munich, lived the Gruber family, consisting of … More The Hinterkaifeck Murders
It was the afternoon of April 9th, 1953 in Rome, Italy. The mother and sister of twenty-one-year-old Wilma Montesi invited her along to the movies, but Wilma declined, not particularly wanting to see the film in question. Wilma was quite a beautiful young woman, and had aspirations of her own to be an actress; she … More Wilma Montesi
Maria Hsiao had just turned twenty-one years old, and by all measures, had a bright future ahead of her. She had grown up in San Leandro, California, where she still lived, and was attending college at the California Academy of Art in San Francisco, where she was studying to be a digital effects designer. According … More Maria Hsiao
As the summer of 1954 faded into early fall, England would see a young woman fall victim to a faceless assailant in the night-time city streets. Jean Townsend was twenty-one years old, and worked as a costumer for many of the theaters around London’s famed West End. On the evening of September 14th, Jean had … More Jean Townsend
As June of 1978 neared its end in Scottsdale, Arizona, a crime occurred which still holds a fascination for the public more than forty years later, not only because of the violence of the killing and the sordid details which emerged in its wake, but also because of the immensely famous victim. Boyishly handsome actor … More Bob Crane
