The History Press [New Releases]

Desire, Deceit and DebaucheryTombstone was a wild place during Arizona’s territorial era, with violence and criminal activity running rampant. It wasn’t just the Earp brothers’ iconic gunfight at the O.K. Corral that left behind a trail of death and destruction—lawlessness and vigilante justice reigned throughout the Old West era. Driven by tension between the sheriff’s office and the local Deputy Marshal, daily life for infamous outlaws, corrupt civil servants, and even ordinary customers of the saloons and brothels was apt to devolve into chaos at any moment.Join author Cody Polston as he brings to life the characters who walked the dusty streets and left their mark on Tombstone's bloody past.

Local historians Geoffrey Fleming and Amy Folk uncover this gruesome 19th-century story of revenge and murder on Long Island.

In the mid-19th century, James Wickham was a wealthy farmer with a large estate in Cutchogue, Long Island. His extensive property included a mansion and eighty acres of farmland that were maintained by a staff of servants. In 1854, Wickham got into an argument with one of his workers, Nicholas Behan, after Behan harassed another employee who refused to marry him.

Several days after Behan's dismissal, he crept back into the house in the dead of night. With an axe, he butchered Wickham and his wife, Frances, and fled to a nearby swamp. Behan was captured, tried, convicted and, on December 15, became one of the last people to be hanged in Suffolk County.

This collection of twenty-four legendary murders spans 160 years of Upper Michigan's history and dispels the notion that murder in the Upper Peninsula is an anomaly.

Residents of the idyllic villages scattered throughout the Upper Peninsula's richly forested paradise live in quiet comfort for the most part, believing that murder rarely happens in their secluded sanctuary3/4but it does, and more often than they realize. From the bank robber who killed the warden and deputy warden of the Marquette Branch Prison to the unknown assailant who gunned down James Schoolcraft in Sault Ste. Marie, Sonny Longtine explores the tragic events that turned peaceful communities into fear-ridden crime scenes.

Death & Destruction in the Queen City

Cincinnati's history is rife with reprehensible crimes and great tragedies. In 1874, a brutal murder caught the attention of a strange and notorious journalist who turned the crime into a legend. In the 1930s, Cincinnati resident Anna Marie Hahn became Ohio's first female serial killer and the first woman executed in its electric chair--but she isn't the only serial killer to have darkened the dangerous streets of the city. Murderers are not the only monsters. Microbes did the dirty work in 1849 and 1919, and Mother Nature herself turned killer in 1937 when the Ohio River lethally overflowed its banks.

Explore stories of murder and catastrophe as author and history lecturer Roy Heizer leads this dark journey into the sinister side of Cincinnati.

During the 1800s, when northeast Oklahoma was part of Indian Territory, many fugitives from US justice, like Henry Starr and Cherokee Bill, sought refuge in its hills and hollows. Statehood in 1907 did little to tame the area. Northeast Oklahoma remained a hideout for outlaws into the gangster era of the 1930s, when one of the biggest manhunts in history failed to flush Pretty Boy Floyd from the rugged Cookson Hills. Even in modern times, the region has been home to its share of desperate characters and notorious incidents. Join award-winning author Larry Wood as he chronicles dramatic criminal episodes in northeast Oklahoma history. 

Murder & Mayhem in Coeur d'Alene and the Silver Valley uncovers pain and punishment in the panhandle

Northern Idaho’s natural beauty shrouds tales of gamblers, prostitutes and violent prospectors. Illegal gambling, excessive drinking and vicious disputes were commonplace from Coeur d’Alene to Kellogg. Bordellos lined the streets, and some tempted soldiers mysteriously never returned to Fort Sherman. Former Wallace Mayor Rossi shot a man in cold blood in front of numerous witnesses and was somehow found not guilty. One mining dispute led to the gruesome murder of Idaho’s ex-Governor Steunenberg. Legendary Wyatt Earp lived in the valley, until he got caught claim jumping in Murray. Author Deb Cuyle exposes accounts of Coeur d’Alene and the Silver Valley’s debauchery, secrets and sin.

With an eye for bizarre, macabre detail, Keven McQueen tracks down seventeen true crimes and unsolved mysteries in this collection of historic Hoosier homicides.

This grim collection of tales includes unimaginable incidents like the Indianapolis businessman whose car contained suspicious hams and the man who handed his new bride a drink of carbolic acid. It also reveals the tragedy of Gary's beautiful Arlene Draves, killed by her football player boyfriend, as well as a surprisingly comic courtroom revelation by Hammond's Hazel McNally that cleared her of all charges.

Author Keven McQueen is an instructor in the Department of English at Eastern Kentucky University. He is the author of twelve books on biography, history, folklore, ghost lore, natural disasters and historical true crime.

Dastardly Deeds of Corruption and Violence.

Known for friendly people, traditional family values, and the Packers, Green Bay is a big city with a small-town feel. But resting beneath its welcoming demeanor is an underbelly of wickedness that has been there from its very formation.

The city’s downtown district rests atop one of Wisconsin’s oldest burial sites, and the west side was the location for the state’s second recorded hanging, which was at the time the punishment for murder. And the city’s beloved football team once drafted one of America’s worst serial killers.

Compiling stories of stolen skulls, underground gangs, and crimes so horrendous and shocking they made national news, Timothy Freiss reveals a side of Green Bay few have seen.

Gruesome Tales From the Gem City of the Great Lakes

From the French and Indian War to Oliver Hazard Perry at the Battle of Lake Erie, the city of Erie has a prideful place in the American story, but there also exists a seedy history of crime and murder.

In 1905 Detective James “Jimmie” Higgins was mysteriously killed at Central High School and the drawn-out manhunt for his murderer occupied headlines for months. On a cold January night in 1911, a massive explosion rocked the Erie waterfront when criminals bombed the Pennsylvania Railroad Coal Trestle, leaving it a smoldering mass of steel and debris. The unsolved murder of Manley W. Keene inspired a local newspaper to bring in the “Female Sherlock Holmes,” Mary Holland, who defied gender expectations and reshaped detective work in Erie for generations.

Author Justin Dombrowski uncovers dark stories from Erie’s illicit past.

Discover the dark corners of Norton, Ohio, history

For such a small city, Norton's past is rife with bloody deeds, tragic accidents, and destructive disasters. This community on the edge of Akron had its share of train wrecks, plane crashes, and devastating fires, but other events were decidedly more sinister in nature. In 1931, a young robber allowed his twelve-year-old brother to ride along on a bank heist--to little brother's great delight. A labor dispute in 1950 resulted in two bombings of a local farm in a single year. In the 1970s and 80s, serial killers Robert Buell and Edward Wayne Edwards left their evil mark on the city. Digging through two centuries of news coverage, local author Lisa Merrick uncovers Norton's most loathsome crimes and heartbreaking calamities.

From railroad towns like Ladore to cow towns like Newton and Wichita, southeast Kansas pulsed with rowdy activity during the late nineteenth century.

The unruly atmosphere drew outlaws, including the Dalton Gang, and even crazed serial killers the likes of the Bender clan. Violent incidents, from gunfights to lynchings, punctuated the region’s Wild West era, and the allure of the frontier also attracted the everyday people whose passions sometimes spawned bloodshed as well. Award-winning author Larry E. Wood explores thirteen of these remarkable episodes in the criminal history of southeast Kansas.

The author of Michigan's Haunted Lighthouses shares tales of disaster and misfortune on the Great Lakes.

Losing one's life while tending to a Great Lakes lighthouse sadly wasn't such an unusual occurrence. Death by murder, suicide or other tragic causes--while rare--were not unheard of. Two keepers on Lake Superior's Grand Island disappeared one early summer day in 1908, their decomposed remains found weeks later. A newly hired and some say depressed keeper on Pilot Island in Wisconsin's Door County slit his own throat after a consultation with a local butcher about the location of the jugular vein. A smallpox outbreak in the late 1890s led to the tragic death of a lighthouse hired hand on South Bass Island in Lake Erie.

Join author Dianna Stampfler as she uncovers the facts (and debunks some fiction) behind some of the Great Lakes' darkest lighthouse tales.

From the author of Lost Milwaukee comes an exploration of the criminal side of the Cream City.

Milwaukee saw its share of violence as it transformed from frontier village to modern metropolis. The city was barely established when an argument over a bridge linking east and west was nearly settled with cannon fire. A local developer killed his estranged wife, severed her head, and burned it in the furnace of the apartment building he built. A wronged woman murdered her lover on a busy downtown street and was found innocent by a sympathetic jury. Another woman lethally poisoned her family and laughed about it in the press.

From a robbery in which the bandits got away by stealing a streetcar to the attempted assassination of President Theodore Roosevelt, local historian Carl Swanson uncovers dramatic true stories of villainy and murder from Milwaukee's long-forgotten past.

Rockford rightly prizes its prosperous heritage, earned by manufacturing concerns like the Rockford Watch Factory and the Manny Reaper Company. But the town once named Midway also harbors a history of crime and calamity.

Gunfire broke out in the streets when networks of Prohibition informants slid sideways. In 1893, John Hart forced his own sisters to drink poison. Three years later, James French shot down his wife in the street. Over the years, a courthouse collapsed, a factory exploded and trains collided. Join local historian Kathi Kresol as she explores the mayhem milling about in Rockford's past.

Explore the dark side of Davidson County’s past.

After killing his brother-in-law in 1904, wealthy businessman Henry Clay Grubb of the Churchland community was himself killed in 1913. In 1918 an adulterous affair led Graham Hege to kill his best friend, Frank Deaderick. Though most perpetrators were caught, if not convicted, the identity of the murderer of Sarah Holland Springs remains a mystery to this day. These twelve stories explore the shadowy side of this portion of the Piedmont.

Join author Caleb Sink, a lifelong resident of Davidson County, on his quest to uncover two centuries of secrets.

A fledgling community in the midst of stunning natural scenes, the St. Paul of yesteryear had a well-earned reputation for beauty and danger.

Whiskey made the river city a byword for peril. Men brawled over small offenses and killed one another with near impunity. As crime flourished beyond the power of police control, vigilantes patrolled the streets. Irresponsible speculation and white-collar crime wrecked the local economy, devastating families and driving thousands out of town. The remaining St. Paulites rebuilt their community and economy, stimulating immigration, but more people meant more crime. In the 1870s, vice and violence spiraled into the Bloody Fall of '74, and St. Paul regained its reputation as a "dead tough" town.

Historian Ron de Beaulieu reveals the past travails of life in this turbulent city.

Same Crime, Different Time

Oregon gained statehood in 1859, but law and order had a harder time gaining a foothold in the West. Born and raised near Eugene, popular Lane County Sheriff W.W. Withers was shot while investigating a horse theft. The trial for his murder would end in the county’s last official hanging. Convicted killer Claude Branton, desperate to escape prison, went so far as to try to hold up the guards with a potato carved into the shape of a gun. The risk of death in the logging industry was high, and even technological advancements like electric streetlights posed a hazard for locals.

Author Jennifer Chambers brings to life the love, greed and madness of early Eugene.

Long forgotten tales of crime and chaos from Ohio's capital city

Every city's history has its dark underbelly of crime. Columbus is no exception. From the turn of the century to the dawn of World War I, scandals involving an opium den and a sadistic murderer rocked a respectable downtown community. Around the same time, a cop killer masterminded a plot to free himself from the Franklin County jail by having his gang attempt to blow the place up with nitroglycerin. In 1946, dead bodies kept popping up after a prim, young teacher disappeared from a quiet Grandview Heights neighborhood. Two years later, a middle-aged housewife was killed with a butcher knife the same day that a tattooed mystery woman was found knifed to death in a downtown hotel.

Join Nellie Kampmann as she explores the back alleys of Arch City history.

Author Rick Jackson tells the stories behind some of the most famous, and most heinous, crimes in the history of the Old North State.

The smiling faces and southern hospitality of North Carolina promise a paradise for visitors and residents alike, but darkness still lurks in small towns as well as big cities. The state's dangerous past of violence and murder is never seen in tourist pamphlets. From the capture of Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph in the mountains to the seaside murder of the Hermit of Fort Fisher, dark deeds have touched every part of the state.

Delve into the Dastardly Deeds of the Valley

The Miami Valley of Ohio has a rich but gruesome and bloody history. In Dayton, Christine Kett murdered her daughter and confessed seventeen years later on her deathbed. William Fogwell of Beavercreek clung to life long enough to name his killer before he died. Joshua Monroe, a Yellow Springs man, killed his lover—also his sister in law—in a jealous rage. Reputed serial killer Oliver Crook Haugh was accused of murdering multiple women over several years, but he was ultimately convicted of killing “only” his family.

Author and founder of the Dayton Unknown history blog Sara Kaushal uncovers the violent and horrific crimes of the past.

Lake Erie is known for its beauty and tranquility, but a dark, deadly undercurrent lurks beneath its surface.

Bordering four states and two countries, the inland ocean offers the perfect getaway for criminals of all kinds. The bandits who held up the Ashtabula National Marine Bank as well as Ontario’s most elusive conman used the lake to avoid capture. Pirate Joseph Kerwin relied on his knowledge of the shipping industry to evade the law. Narene Mozee’s murderer quietly slipped away after completing his heinous deed on a luxury cruise ship, and when a lighthouse keeper found a corpse floating in the shallows near his post, all signs pointed to the killer fleeing by boat.

Local author Wendy Koile wades into the depths of this great, but deadly lake.

Spokane’s dark history is loaded with murders, mischief, and drama.

The beautiful city was once considered a millionaire’s paradise as well as a hobo’s playground, but danger lurked beneath the surface. The Black Hand gang, police hot on their trail, stalked the streets looking for local mobster Frank Bruno. A teenage boy picked up an ax for nefarious purposes. McNeil State Penitentiary housed notorious characters Charles Manson and the Birdman of Alcatraz, while Herbert Niccolls Jr., locked up at twelve years old, made history as the youngest inmate at Walla Walla Penitentiary. Join author Deborah Cuyle as she uncovers the Lilac City’s violent past.

Explore the chilling history behind some of southwestern Pennsylvania's most horrifying murders.

In 1907, a young girl was found dead in the Lyric Theatre, leaving behind an unwanted pregnancy and an abusive lover. On an otherwise quiet morning in 1891, a cartful of nitroglycerin exploded. The remains of the driver had to be gathered in a peck basket. The Cannonball Express lived up to its name in 1888, when an open switch caused it to shoot off the track, sending two cars flying. Local journalist A. Parker Burroughs resurrects these and other stories from southwestern Pennsylvania's shadowy past. From foul play at the Burgettstown Fair to the tragic murder of North Franklin's Thelma Young, follow the trail with Burroughs as he uncovers the crimes and intrigues of Washington County.

Author Noel B. Poirier takes readers into darkest reaches of Tuscarawas County history. Tranquility is the norm amid these rolling hills, but normal doesn’t mean always. In this version of county history, the Black Hand Syndicate whacks those they can’t extort, a Midvale man takes a hatchet to the head (a dozen times) and four teenagers happen upon a murder victim along Dover railroad tracks. From grave robbers looting the dead in New Philadelphia to a mutilated body turning up in Dennison and a bomb going off at Bolivar State Bank in 1910, author Noel B. Poirier takes readers on a harrowing journey into T-County’s unsettling past.

Crime ran rampant across Central Washington at the turn of the 20th century.

From jail breaks, lethal bootleggers and assassinations in Kittitas County to shootouts and burglaries in Benton County, lawlessness abounded. In Zillah, the Dymond Brothers Gang were known for stealing horses between prison stints. In Yakima, residents reeled in shock over the premeditated killing of a gambler, a riot and the discovery that a respected brewer committed murder. Through it all, sheriffs like Jasper Day tried to keep the peace with mixed success.

Author Ellen Allmendinger recounts the tales that once made this the roughest region of the Pacific Northwest.

Muncie epitomizes the small-town America of squeaky-clean 1950s sitcoms, but its wholesome veneer conceals a violent past. Public scandals and personal tragedy dogged the long, notorious life of Dr. Jules LaDuron.

Baseball ace Obie McCracken met a tragic and violent end after joining the police force. A mother's love could not stop James Hedges from committing murder. The paranoid delusions of Leonard Redden hounded him until one day he carried a shotgun into a quiet classroom. And newsman George Dale's showdown with the Klan prepared him for the political fight of his life. Douglas Walker and Keith Roysdon, authors of Wicked Muncie, introduce a new cast of characters from the city's notorious past.

Washtenaw County has enjoyed low crime rates, but extraordinary criminal acts occasionally pierced its calm and quiet.

A strange bank robbery at Dexter in 1894 and the 1897 murder of James Richards raised concerns. In 1937, the McHenry family suffered a terrible tragedy but found room in their hearts to forgive. After the murder of Eleanor Farver in 1970, detectives searching for suspect John Edward Burns probed his background, seeking clues to where he fled. They discovered John Edward Burns never existed. Attorney Peter Kensler was shockingly murdered in front of his home near Manchester with two shotgun blasts to the face. The case has never been solved.

Local historian James Thomas Mann leads a tour into some of the darkest corners of Washtenaw County’s past.

Explore the investigative intricacies and courtroom drama of crimes of passion, greed, and revenge in Stark County, Ohio.

Rendered in painstaking detail, accounts of high-profile killings and courtroom intrigue filled the pages of Stark County's early newspapers. The triple hanging of three teenage boys in 1880 seized the attention of the entire community. When George Saxton, notorious womanizer and President McKinley's brother-in-law, was shot dead on the front lawn of his widowed lover in 1898, the whole nation looked on. For the brutal slaying of his wife, James Cornelius became the first local prison inmate executed in the electric chair in 1906.

Using contemporary local newspaper accounts, Kim Kenney, author of Canton's Pioneers in Flight and coauthor of Stark County Food tells the story of eight Stark County murders, unfolding the grisly details while honoring the lives cut short by violence.

The Dark Side of Durham

Explore the dark side of the Bull City. If the red brick walls that once held tobacco warehouses and textile mills could talk, they would tell the tale of how the crossroads settlement of Pin Hook turned into the vibrant city of Durham in the Piedmont of North Carolina. Since its genesis, Durham has been a city where crime was woven into the very fabric of its existence. Over the years, there have been many murders, robberies and shootouts on the streets, in the alleys and on the outskirts of town. Some crimes have caught the attention of the entire nation, but most have remained just in the conscience of the locals. Local historian Rick Jackson narrates the mysteries of one of North Carolina's most important cities.

Explore the dark side of the River City's history.

Richmond has a curious share of horrific accidents, coolly calculated slaughter, and incidents of implacable deceit in its history. Here, the wronged, the devious, and the heartbroken enact their lives on the stage set of the River City’s ostensibly genteel neighborhoods, where a tree-shaded city street may have been the site of a crime of passion and an innocuous path in the woods recalls a grisly unsolved murder. Discover these and other lesser-known stories, from a young bride poisoned by her husband to the horrific fate of an entire airliner.

Local historian Selden Richardson explores tales from a time when murder and mayhem stalked the streets of Richmond.

Author Brian Allison illustrates the darker shades of Nashville's colorful past.

Nashville is known for its bold, progressive flair, but few are aware of the city's malevolent past. A rowdy red-light district called Smoky Row spawned several fatal episodes. A murderous temptress with a penchant for poison once strolled the city streets. Legends range from Andrew Jackson's bar fight with Senator Thomas Hart Benton to the macabre 1938 Marrowbone Creek cabin murders. In 1938, a state penitentiary fugitive escape triggered a tragic gunfight.

Despite its early law enforcement presence, Prescott’s place in the violent history of Yavapai County is written in blood. .

The jealousy, greed and pure meanness of some of its citizens produced shocking trails of destruction and death. The Keystone Saloon couldn’t keep a proprietor—a series of owners was found dead with gunshot wounds. A driver-for-hire was brutally assaulted and his car stolen in Prescott’s first homicidal carjacking. Two nurses conspired to poison a rich patient in their care. From the shootout that began Virgil Earp’s career to knifings and dynamite attacks, Prescott history blogger Drew Desmond and Whiskey Row historian and author Bradley G. Courtney tell rarely heard stories that once rocked the town.

The charming adobe walls of Old Town hide a dark past rife with vice and violence.

These same streets were once home to the city’s first red-light district, where prostitution thrived behind closed doors, and hosted public hangings that drew morbid crowds. Rumors of riches hidden beneath the dusty streets lured treasure-seekers, and opium dens flourished. Confederate cannons from the Civil War were found beneath a chile patch in the late 1800s, but the unmarked graves of Confederate soldiers who died during the short-lived occupation remain a mystery.

Author Cody Polston reveals the fascinating and disturbing history of Albuquerque.

Malice, Menace and Mendacity

The cast of characters coloring the Black Hills’ raucous past has inspired memorable Hollywood productions. Al Swearengen, “Wild Bill” Hickok and Calamity Jane have become celebrities, but many of the most malevolent moments did not produce household names. One of the more bizarre and unsolved murders was the Chinatown killing of a beautiful and rich woman named Di Lee. In 1894, Lakota Sioux warrior Chief Two Sticks was hanged for his band’s involvement in the brutal slayings of several cowboys and a few policemen at the Isaac Humphrey Ranch. Swearengen’s Gem Theater often played host to violence involving prostitutes, performers and patrons. Soiled dove Kitty Clyde was the victim of her spurned lover Charles Wilson, while “Banjo Dick” murdered his lover’s ex-husband in supposed self-defense. Author Deborah Cuyle combed local archives to tell the unvarnished accounts of Deadwood’s most daring and dastardly denizens.

Mayhem on the Eno River 

Visitors to the Eno River don’t expect to encounter haunted houses, train wrecks or fun outings that turn into tragedy, but some of them have experienced just that. In 1771, a few of America’s first rebels were hanged near the river. An accident at a sawmill led to a series of hauntings. A Valentine’s Day dance became the area’s greatest murder mystery. Train-hopping teenagers had harrowing experiences, and a baby abandoned in a suitcase was found by a nearby farmer. Author and former Eno River State Park ranger Dave Cook details the scary side of a beloved tributary.

Visit the long ago crime and dire deeds in the Hudson Valley of New York.

The Hudson Valley is drenched in history, culture and blood. In the fall of 1893, Lizzie Halliday left a trail of bodies in her wake, slaughtering two strangers and her husband before stabbing a nurse to death at the asylum housing her. A Jazz Age politician, tired of fighting with his overbearing wife, murdered her and buried the body under the front porch. In 1882, a cantankerous old miner, dubbed the Austerlitz Cannibal by the press, chopped up his partner before he himself swung from the end of a rope. Author Andrew Amelinckx dredges up the Hudson Valley's dark past, from Prohibition-era shootouts to unsolved murders, in eleven heart-pounding true stories.

Hampton Roads is an iconic destination, but the "birthplace of America" has a nefarious past.

Dive into the story of cannibalism in the Jamestown colony and learn the gory details of the tale of the Witch of Pungo. Blackbeard and his men wreaked havoc in Hampton Roads before Virginians brought them to justice. Explore rarely told stories of lynchings, riots and a hoax involving none other than famed aviator Charles Lindbergh. Join author and historian Nancy E. Sheppard as she explores some of the darkest moments in Hampton Roads' vibrant history.

The first century of the wilderness-born Missouri capital was filled with villainous escapes from the state’s only prison, resulting in theft, abuse and even murder. The grandest of escape attempts ended with the city’s only triple hanging. The capital city had plenty of entrepreneurs willing to sidestep the federal Volstead Act, which attracted Ku Klux Klan activity and culminated in the election of a “law and order” sheriff, whose deputies broke laws to enforce them. Many other tragedies grieved the community, including the South Side murder of a German immigrant by a teen-aged deputy, who had been caught sleeping with the victim’s daughter. Author Michelle Brooks has collected a sample of some of the shocking events of Jefferson City’s first century.

Visitors gazing out over the Highlands of coastal New Jersey might never guess that these rolling hills have been a stage for mankind's darkest deeds.

Author John King shines a spotlight on the region's violent history of kidnapping, murder, smuggling, and extortion. From axe-wielding lunatics to killers who leave calling cards, King presents each case with the care of a criminal investigator, including details from coroners' reports and witness testimonies. In this sensational and gripping read, uncover the gritty history of the Highlands, where suspicious death typically meant foul play and staying in a hotel might cost you your life.

The safe and sedate Fox Cities have seen their share of horrible crimes. A must-read for fans of true crime and Wisconsin history.

Cold Blooded murder, kidnapping, prostitution, organized crime and other misdeeds shocked and appalled not just the community known as the Fox Cities, but the entire state of Wisconsin. Murderer Porter Ross tried to commit suicide by eating bedsprings. Wenzel Kabat mutilated and burned a man in order to take over his farm. The Appleton Butcher left dismembered human remains on a playground for children to find.

In this volume, crime writer and leading expert on the Milwaukee Mafia Gavin Schmitt turns his magnifying glass on the dark underbelly of small-town America. Revisit these skeletons in suburban closets that will have you looking over your shoulder as you read.

Caryl Hopson and Susan R. Perkins collect historic narratives of murder and mayhem in Herkimer County.

Herkimer County is steeped in history, from the settlement of the Mohawk Valley by Palatine German settlers to the flood of western migration with the opening of the Erie Canal. But the region also boasts an infamous history of high-profile homicides and crimes. Roxalana Druse murdered her abusive husband and became the last woman to be hanged in New York in 1887. The death of Grace Brown on scenic Big Moose Lake became one of the most famous cases in the country in 1906, inspiring author Theodore Dreiser’s novel An American Tragedy. Psychological tests of intelligence were admitted into court for the first time in an acquittal of sixteen-year-old Jean Gianini in 1914.

Ride Ohio's rails with some of the bravest trainmen and most vicious killers and robbers to ever roll down the tracks.

The West may have had Jesse James and Butch Cassidy, but Ohio had its own brand of train robbers. Discover how Alvin Karpis knocked off an Erie Railroad train and escaped with $34,000. Learn about the first peacetime train holdup that took place in North Bend when thieves derailed the Kate Jackson, robbed its passengers and blew the Adam's Express safe. Make no mistake--railroading was a dangerous job in bygone days.

Come with author W.C. Madden as he guides readers through the most lurid crimes, calamities and occurrences in the area's past. Read the last words of the men hanged in Lafayette's famous triple hanging and how a love triangle resulted in murder in Monticello. Find out why a bootlegger's body was found riddled with bullets in a strawberry patch and how Winnie Ruth Judd shot two people and stuffed their bodies into steamer trunks before carrying them onto a train. After reading these chilling accounts, you'll tread with more caution on your next trip through Tippecanoe and the surrounding counties.

Prepare to be surprised and unnerved as the dark side of Charlotte is brought to life by native and long-time writer David Aaron Moore. Learn about Nellie Freeman, who nearly decapitated her husband with a straight razor in 1926. Discover how the ghosts of Camp Green infantrymen, the doughboys of World War I, still scream in the Southern night. Read about the seventy-one passengers who lost their lives as Eastern Airlines Flight 212 fell to the earth one foggy night in 1974. Come along and experience the grisly past of the City of Churches.