Author: CrimeScribe
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Huddie ‘Leadbelly’ Ledbetter – Bluesman, Convict and Murderer.
William Huddle Ledbetter. AKA ‘Lead Belly’, was one of the archetypal blues icons of the Deep South. He wasn’t from Mississippi or Chicago, unlike so many contemporaries, but he still had a prodigious appetite for music and the talent to match. His fondness for life’s many rich pleasures (mainly involving boozing, brawling and bumping monkeys)…
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Paul Jawarski – Pennsylvania’s Phantom Dynamiter.
Meet Paul Poluszynski, alias ‘Paul Jawarski’, known throughout Pennsylvania as ‘The Phantom.’ Before the end of his extremely violent (and, some might say, mercifully brief) criminal career he claimed to have killed twenty-six people including four police officers and a payroll security guard. His gang, the ‘Flatheads’, also committed the first-ever robbery using a landmine.…
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True Crime Blogs And Websites: Some Top Picks.
So, as you’re no doubt aware, I have an interest in true crime and I ted to cover the more unusual bits and pieces. If you’re interested in the subject generally then it’s hard to avoid the plethora of websites and blogs out there that deal with it, although the tone and style of some…
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The Strange Case Of Leroy Henry
The strange case of Leroy Henry attracts me for two reasons. One is that I like to look at the unusual. Even if posting on a widely-known and common story then I prefer one with a twist. It helps keep things interesting. Leroy Henry’s case was very interesting. Private Henry was one of the hundreds…
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Happy Birthday, ‘Doc’ Holliday, Born Today In 1851.
Wyat Earp on ‘Doc’ Holliday: “The nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun that I ever knew.” ‘Doc’ (when asked whether his conscience troubled him): “I coughed that up with my lungs, years ago…” John Henry ‘Doc’ Holliday, born in Griffin Georgia today in 1851, died in Glenwood, Colorado on November…
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Ronnie Biggs – Master Criminal..?
Today we’ve got an unusual double anniversary involving a well-known, but curious, character, Ronnie Biggs. Biggs helped carry out the Great Train Robbery on August 8, 1963, 38 years ago today. August 8, 1963 was also his 34th birthday.. A lot of people also persist in thinking that he was some sort of master criminal…
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‘To Commute, Or Not Commute..?’
That is the question for any State Governor with the power to do so. Some agonise over the decision, some don’t and a great many will base their decision more on their approval rating than on justice and the law. What, as far as I’m aware, no other Governor has ever done was stand peering…
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Mathieu Orfila – ‘Father Of Toxicology.’
Meet Professor Mathieu Orfila, the ‘Father of Toxicology.’ He was born on April 24, 1787 on the island of Minorca and died on March 12, 1853 in Paris. He was a graduate of both Barcelona and Valencia in toxicology and chemistry and is one of the most influential, respected and overlooked figures in criminal…
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Trial Watchers – A Strange Breed.
“Prisoner at the Bar, the sentence of this court is that you be taken from this place to a lawful prison and thence to a place of execution where you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead. And that afterwards your body shall be cut down and buried within the precincts of…
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Killing Them Nicely? The Myth Of ‘Humane Execution.’
Arizona’s botched execution of Joseph Wood, during which he received a lethal injection that took almost two hours to actually kill him, was the latest in a long, long line of botched executions in the US. The method used is immaterial. All execution methods are evolved with human experimentation, by executioners testing new methods or…
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