Author: CrimeScribe
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The Black Museum
I wouldn’t drink out of that tea cup. Not if I were you… The chances are that many people will have heard the phrase and that some of them will know what it means. It’s based in Room 101 at New Scotland Yard and for the Orwell fans among us, it would probably…
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Bill Richmond – Boxer, Trainer, Socialite (and Hangman?).
A few days ago we looked at the tragic tale of Henry Flakes, the boxer who might have been something special had circumstance and crime not derailed his plans. Today, we’re going to look at Bill Richmond AKA ‘The Black Terror.’ This is another tale where crime and sport (apparently) mix but go (fortunately for…
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The Baker Street Bank Robbery of 1971.
Morning All. I’m about to blow my own trumpet (mercifully briefly, I promise) by plugging the latest episode of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Punt P.I’ series, in which I was an expert contributor. Most people who’ve seen the film ‘The Bank Job’ will have got the Hollywood version of 1971’s Baker Street bank robbery and I…
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On This Day in 1960 – Henry ‘Snow’ Flakes. Out For The Count.
Meet Henry Flakes. Chances are that even if you’re a boxing fan you’ve probably never heard of him, but you might have done if things had gone differently. Henry was a young up-and-coming heavyweight during the late 1940’s, tipped by many in boxing and the press as a future champion and the best young heavyweight…
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The Etymology Of Execution.
Tyburn, near to today’s Marble Arch and site of many executions. Today we’ll be looking at a tangent of the dark business of execution. Not at the technicalities or at any particular case, but at the etymology of execution. Like it or not (personally, I don’t) the death penalty is still a part of…
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Plymouth’s Own Duncan Scott-Ford – The ‘£18 Traitor.’
Duncan Scott-Ford’s mugshot taken after his arrest on a charge of treason. Plymouth, being a harbour and garrison town, has had its fair share of maritime heroes. Discuss the history of the place and you’ll certainly be told endless tales about Sir Francis Drake’s defeat of th Spanish Armada in 1588, the fact…
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Herbert Rowse Armstrong – A Poisonous Plymothian
Herbert Rowse Armstrong, the only British lawyer to be hanged for murder, Next up in a parade of deliberately-forgotten Plymouth folk is Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong. Retired Army Major, former MP for Plymouth, respectable small-town lawyer, embezzler, fraudster, repeat poisoner and one of Britain’s most notorious murderers. His case isn’t especially memorable in…
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Oklahoma: The Botched Execution of Clayton Lockett
Here’s an interesting link for the inside track on this debacle. It’s a preliminary summary from Robert Patton (Director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections) to Mary Fallin (Oklahoma State Governor): https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8bT8f-N8gQvT0liN0I3d1NIRlU/edit?pli=1 Here’s the text in full. Further comment by me is probably unnecessary:
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On This Day in 1865: The Last Stand of John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln. John Wilkes Booth was born into one of America’s most distinguished acting dynasties. He died one of America’s most notorious figures and its first Presidential assassin. On the evening of April 14, 1865, not long after the final surrender of Confederate forces that effectively ended the…
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The Brits Who Fought For Hitler.
The SS motto – ‘My honour is loyalty.’ As a freelance scribbler and long-time student of military history I love finding the more overlooked or forgotten aspects of the subject. For instance, the popular narrative of the Second World War holds that the British people pulled together, fighting as one for a common cause.…
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