Category: True Crime
Lawmakers, laws and those who break them.
She was the last woman in France to face the dreaded ‘Timbers of Justice.’
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Category: History, True CrimeTags: Angers, beheaded, beheading, bourreaux, capital punishment, Charles Henri Sanson, Christopher Lee, crime, criminal, death, death penalty, Eugen Weidmann, executed, execution, executioner, France, guillotine, headmans, History, Jules Henri Desfourneaux, last, last mile, last time, last walk, murder, murdered, murderer, Paris, punishment, Sir Christopher Lee, true crime
The original ‘Hanging Judge’ his name became a byword for bias, ruthlessness, callousness and cruelty, Jeffreys would die as a prisoner himself.
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Category: True Crime, UncategorizedTags: bias, bloodshed, bloody assizes, crime, drawn, execution, executions, gallows, hanged, hanging, hanging judge, hangman, History, judge, King James II, law, Lord Chancellor, Lord Chief Justice, Monmouth, Monmouth Rebellion, Politics, prison, prisoner, prisoners, punishment, quartered, rebellion, Taunton, Tower of London, traitors, treachery, treason, trials, true crime, Wells
Posted on April 13, 2018
by robertwalsh1975
4 Comments
For my 100th post, I’m going to offer you something special, something a little different from the usual fare. The story of this ‘unidentified man’ at the moment of his death. True crime buffs and historians will have seen this particular image many, many…
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Category: True CrimeTags: Angels with Dirty Faces, Arthur Mayhew, crime, crime and punishment, death house, Edwin Davis, executed, execution, executioner, History, Hollywood, James Cagney, journalism, movies, murder, murderer, New York, New York Daily News, Picture Snatcher, pop culture, prison, punishment, Robert Elliott, Ruth Snyder, Sing Sing, Sing Sing death house, Sing Sing Prison, State Electrician, Tom Howard
Executioners are seen as a strange breed. Usually tolerated, sometimes celebrated, frequently feared and often despised, the man (for it usually is) who drops the blade, swings the axe, pushes the lever or throws the switch remains a breed apart. With their particular profession…
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Category: True CrimeTags: capital punishment, crime, criminals, death, death penalty, devil's island, England, executed, execution, executioner, executioners, French Guiana, gallows, gas chamber, guillotine, hanged, History, Ireland, Jack Ketch, National Razor, Paddington, Papillon, punishment, San Quentin, scaffold, Tyburn, UK, USA
As regular readers know, I do like crime’s more unusual case, the firsts, lasts and onlys. Minnesota’s George Sitts is certainly one of those. Born in Leroy, Minnesota on October 29, 1913, he was a serial felon, escape artist and double cop-killer. He was the…
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Category: True Crime, UncategorizedTags: 1947, capital punishment, crime, Deadwood, death penalty, electric chair, electrocuted, electrocution, George Sitts, History, Minnesota, murder, murderer, South Dakota, Stillwater, true crime, USA, Wyoming
West Virginia has never been known as a hard-line death penalty State, abolishing capital punishment in 1965. After 1899 there were 104 hangings and, with a change in method, nine electrocutions. Elmer Brunner’s, on April 3, 1959 was the last. Brunner wasn’t a…
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Category: True CrimeTags: 1959, Cecil Underwood, condemned, crime, death, death penalty, Death Row, death sentence, electric chair, electrocuted, electrocution, Elmer Brunner, executed, execution, History, last mile, Moundsville, old sparky, punishment, true crime, USA, West Virginia
Posted on March 28, 2018
by robertwalsh1975
2 Comments
For most crime buffs the name ‘George Kelly’ inspires memories of rattling Tommy guns, bank robberies and the kidnapping of Charles Urschel, all attributed to American crook George ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly. Kelly, a second-rate gangster at best, was made out to be far…
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Category: True CrimeTags: 1950, 1954, 2001, 2003, Albert Pierrepoint, appeal, appealed, black cap, Cameo Cinema, capital punishment, condemned, condemned cell, Court of Criminal Appeal, crime, death penalty, death sentence, executed, execution, framed, gallows, George Kelly, hanged, Harry Allen, History, injustice, innicence, innocent, justice, law, Leavenworth, Liverpool, Machine Gun Kelly, Merseyside, miscarriage of justice, murder, sentence of death, trials, tried, true crime, UK, Walton, wrongful execution
Posted on January 14, 2018
by robertwalsh1975
2 Comments
So, the State of South Carolina (previously responsible for executing then exonerating 14-year old George Stinney) is considering dusting off Old Sparky. Difficulties in obtaining lethal injection drugs have caused a backlog on Death Row. South Carolina has numerous condemned inmates, wants to start…
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Category: True Crime, UncategorizedTags: Arizona, Arkansas, capital punishment, Clayton Lockett, condemned, death penalty, Death Row, Donald Harding, electric chair, executed, executions, Federal Drug Administration, firing squad, gallows, gas chamber, George Stinney, James Wells, lethal injection, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, old sparky, Pfizer, Politics, South Carolina, Texas, USA, Virginia, William Timmons
Posted on October 19, 2017
by robertwalsh1975
2 Comments
It’s been quite some time since I last posted ere, but I have been extremely busy with paid work and earning a living. Part of that has been writing my first book. Criminal Curiosities is a collection of crooks, all with something about…
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Category: True CrimeTags: America, arsenic, art, California, capital punishment, convict, convicted, conviction, crime and punishment, crime history, criminal curiosites, cyanide, death penalty, electric chair, England, Eva Coo, executed, execution, executioner, firsts, forged, forgeries, forgery, France, gallows, gas chamber, Gee Jon, George Westinghouse, Goering, guillotine, Han van Meegeren, hanged, hanging, hangman, Herbert Rowse Armstrong, Hermann Goering, History, Holland, Japan Sadamichi Hirasawa, last, Lincoln, long drop, Luftwaffe, murder, Nazis, Nevada, New York, Nicolas jacques Pelletier, only, Paul Jaworski, Pennsylvania, poison, poisoned, poisoner, poisoning, prison, prisoners, punishment, robbery, Sing Sing, Thomas Edison, true crime, UK, Unit 731, USA, variable drop, Vermeer, Vermeers, William Horry, William Kemmler, William MArwood, writing
Posted on November 28, 2015
by robertwalsh1975
1 Comment
A couple of days ago I had the pleasure of talking to BBC West Midlands Radio on the subject of the last meal. Their interest resulted from a Daily Mail article showing that, like the condemned themselves, the majority of people asked wanted comfort…
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Category: True Crime, UncategorizedTags: Americans, BBC, BBC Radio, BBC West Midlands, Britain, British, capital punishment, comfort food, crime, crime and punishment, Daily Mail, death, death penalty, death sentence, execution, History, murder, prison, true crime, United States
Posted on October 10, 2015
by robertwalsh1975
3 Comments
‘The policy of the Administration is to kill, not to better or reclaim.’ – Rene Belbenoit. It is 1852. In France, Emperor Napoleon III, increasingly worried by rising crime and insufficient colonists to consolidate France’s empire, devises a new, dreadful solution. Napoleon isn’t interested…
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Category: True CrimeTags: capital punishment, convicted, conviction, court, courtroom, crime, cruel and unusual, death, death penalty, death sentence, Dustin Hoffman, Henri Charriere, Papillon, penal colonies, penal colony, prison, prisons, Rene Belbenoit, Steve Mcqueen
Posted on October 5, 2015
by robertwalsh1975
3 Comments
The Wild West, home of many colourful (often disreputable) characters. Native Americans, gold prospectors, gamblers, cattle ranchers, miners and immigrants scrambled to extend the new frontier. They spread further West in search of their fortunes. With law-abiding, hard-working citizens came criminals. The most notorious…
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Category: True CrimeTags: Abilene, America, Americans, casualties, Clay Allison, coach gun, Colt, crime, Dallas Stoudenmire, danger, Derringer, Dodge City, gunfighter, gunfighters, gunslinger, gunslingers, lawman, lawmen, Marshal, murder, outlaw, outlaws, rifle, shootist, shootists, shotgun, Tombstone, Wichita, Wild Bill Hickock, Wild West, Winchester
