Category: True Crime
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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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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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‘Doctor’ Crippen, Hanged Today In 1910. Innocent? Or Hanged For The Wrong Murder..?
Most people know the name. Most who know the name, know the story. ‘Doctor’ Hawley Harvey Crippen (actually a salesman of quack remedies) unwittingly became one of criminal history’s most infamous names. His wife Cora disappeared. Her remains were found beneath the coal cellar of their home, 39 Hilldrop Crescent. Crippen flees to Canada with […]
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Joseph Paul Franklin Will Die Tonight
This is Joseph Paul Franklin. He’s reportedly confessed to 22 murders, at least 16 bank robberies, several non-fatal shootings and a number of other crimes. Most famously, Franklin was the man who shot porn magnate Larry Flynt (leaving him permanently paralysed) and civil rights leader Vernon Jordan. Jr. (who also survived). Franklin, barring any last-minute […]
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Cars, Crooks and the Great Train Robbery
It’s rare that I get to combine two of my biggest interests in the same scribble, so I thought I’d indulge myself. This is Roy James AKA ‘The Weasel.’ Roy was, like so many aspiring racers, big on ability but short on cash. Even in the 1950’s and 60’s racing was still the most expensive […]
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