The History Press [New Releases]

Mischief and Mayhem in the Midlands.

A thrilling account of dramatic and menacing crimes that shaped the central region of the state. Crimes that captured the attention of residents in the area and statewide over the years from gamblers with too much debt to insurance fraud and a famous cat burglar. A well-known televangelist had a run in with arson, and a murderer made his presence felt all the way in California. This collection of headlining stories features notorious serial killers, families divided, vicious politics and marital strife. Author Cathy Pickens brings her eye for a great story to Columbia and recounts with a novelist's detail the infamous crimes that rocked a region.

In 1880, there was a brutal murder in sunny paradise. This is the story of greed, violence, and a sensational trial that still captures the public's imagination even well after 100 years have passed.

Archie Newton stepped off the river steamer in 1880 with a letter of introduction and a secret, the young man hoping for a new life on the Florida frontier. Samuel McMillan was a miserly Sanford bachelor who carried large sums of "greenbacks" and trusted no one. One would think that since the ambitious Newton had his eye on purchasing McMillan's profitable orange grove, he wouldn't be foolish enough to do something reckless, but on his way back from Newton's home one evening, McMillan disappeared, and he wasn't seen again until his headless, mutilated corpse was pulled from a nearby lake. Newton's trial was sensational and the evidence gruesome, and local legends grew of a headless ghost rising from the lake, but was the young man in the courtroom innocent or guilty? Author Andrew Fink chronicles the twists and turns of this shocking story.

A kidnapping, a brutal murder, an international manhunt, and a diabolical priest… This is the true story of the murder of eight-year-old Alma Kellner.

On a bitterly cold day in December of 1909, young Alma Kellner simply disappeared from the altar of St. John's Church in Louisville. Her body was found four months later near the site of the church, and news of the murder rocked the city. The manhunt for the suspect Louisville police Captain John Carney eleven thousand miles across the country, and even to South America, to return the killer to justice. While a man was tried and convicted to life in prison for the crime, suspicion lingers that the true culprit was the murderous and maniacal Catholic priest Hans Schmidt, the only priest to have ever been executed in the United States. Author Shawn M. Herron details the fascinating story of a tragedy that still remains a source of mystery to this day.

From 1917 to 1919, terror struck the streets of Akron. As soldiers marched off to World War I and Spanish influenza ravaged the community, police officers faced a sinister threat.

Murderous kingpin Rosario Borgia placed a bounty on officers' heads for interfering with his criminal enterprises. Gangsters gunned down seven cops, killing five, in a series of brazen attacks over fifteen months. Author Mark J. Price chronicles the crimes, victims, gangsters and the relentless pursuit of justice.

Award-winning author and historian Kerriann Flanagan Brosky uncovers some of the most ghastly and fascinating historical crimes committed on Long Island.

Beyond the idyllic countryside and suburban communities of Long Island lies a murky history of murder and mayhem. A Victorian romance went awry in Huntington when wealthy farmer Charles Kelsey was tarred, feathered and murdered in 1872. Thirty-five years before the famous witch trials of Salem, East Hampton had its own Puritan hysteria among charges of witchcraft. The 1937 kidnapping of wealthy heiress Alice Parsons shook the quiet town of Stony Brook and remains a mystery to this day.

Truth lies behind the grim and grisly legend of Patty Cannon.

Using surprise and treachery, Cannon even employed a free African American accomplice to lure her unsuspecting prey. Captives who survived confinement in Patty's cells were sold south. The position of the Cannon home on the shadowy border between Delaware and Maryland allowed her to dodge the law until a local farmer unearthed the remains of her victims in 1829. Patty mysteriously died in jail awaiting trial. Author Michael Morgan investigates the chilling history of one of the nation's first serial killers.

Author and historian Chris Dier reveals the horrifying true story behind the St. Bernard Parish Massacre.

As African American men gained the right to vote, white Democrats of St. Bernard Parish feared losing their majority. Armed groups mobilized to suppress these recently emancipated voters in the hopes of regaining a way of life turned upside down by the Civil War and Reconstruction. Days before the tumultuous presidential election of 1868, the parish descended into chaos. Freedpeople were dragged from their homes and murdered in cold blood. Many fled to the cane fields to hide from their attackers. The reported number of those killed varies from 35 to 135. The tragedy was hidden, but implications reverberated throughout the South and lingered for generations.

On July 12, 1926, Frances Bowermaster McBride, a forty-year-old divorcee, called off her affair with twenty-seven-year-old Norman Morrison. Driven into a rage, Morrison tracked Frances to her home in Carlisle's East End, where she sat on the porch with her three-year-old daughter, Georgia, on her lap. Morrison shot and killed Frances before turning the pistol on himself. Morrison lived but was blinded. Young Georgia fell to the pavement unharmed. Eventually standing trial, Morrison was convicted of first-degree murder. Historian Paul D. Hoch goes beyond the conviction as he traces the later lives of Morrison and Georgia McBride as she came of age in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Hoch spins a tale of murder, perseverance and, ultimately, redemption.

The murders that shocked Michigan

In the early morning of Tuesday, August 11, 1931, a Washtenaw County farmer found the smoldering remains of a car. Inside were the bodies of four teens, burned almost beyond recognition. Police immediately began an investigation, even tapping Harry Bennett, head of the Ford Motor Company Service Department, for assistance. Three killers stood trial two days later as a mob gathered outside the Ann Arbor Courthouse clamoring for a lynching. With the mob held back by the Michigan National Guard, Bennett delivered the killers to Jackson Prison by midnight Thursday. At the time, the so-called Torch Murders were deemed the most gruesome act of homicide in Michigan’s history—and perhaps the nation’s.

Peeling away myth from truth, author James Mann tells the story in full for the first time ever.

Discover crimes that made headlines across northern Virginia in the 1950s and 60s. As the suburbs of Washington, D.C. expanded in the mid-twentieth century, growth inevitably led to increasing crime, and grisly murders began to shock local communities. Learn the story of the killer and his victim who are buried only a few yards apart. The truth behind the tale of the murderous toddler and the sad story of the death of an agent at National Airport belie the picture perfect image of those decades. Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church and Prince William witnessed atrocities that grabbed headlines in their day but have since faded from collective memory. Local author Zachary Ford uses detailed research drawn from contemporary accounts to bring these stories to life.

Daring raids, sporadic gun fights, and midnight chases filled the headlines in 1920s Delaware.

Prohibition attempted to kill John Barleycorn, the personification of intoxicating drinks, but in Delaware the notice of his death was premature. Government agents tried in vain to stop bootleggers and rumrunners who fed the speakeasies that quenched the thirst of the people of the First State. Against the backdrop of the Roaring '20s, bootleggers sped up and down the new Du Pont Boulevard while enforcement agents, such as the bible-thumping Three Gun Wilson, tried in vain to stop them. The stock market crash and the Great Depression ended dry laws and brought about Barleycorn's resurrection.

Local author and historian Michael Morgan recounts dramatic tales of rumrunners, bootleggers, dry laws and wet politicians.

With a bitterly divided nation plunged into the War of 1812, a fiery young Federalist editor named Alexander Hanson risked his life to defend a newspaper that dared express unpopular views.

His words provoked a violent standoff that crippled the city of Baltimore and left Hanson beaten within an inch of his life. This little-known episode in American history - complete with a midnight jailbreak, bloodthirsty mobs and unspeakable acts of torture - helped shape the course of war, the Federalist Party and the nation’s very notion of the freedom of the press. Josh Cutler’s history of the Mobtown Massacre offers a lesson in liberty that reverberates today.

Author Dale Richard Perelman tells the tragic story of the 1978 murders and the mystery surrounding them.

In the summer of 1978, a mother and her four-year-old were stabbed to death in the quiet town of New Castle. Police suspected the husband, Lou Kadunce, but were unable to find either a weapon or a motive. Sitting in a Lawrence County jail in 1981, convicted serial killer Michael Atkinson accused Frank Costal - a carny, petty thief and Satanist - of having an affair with the Kadunce husband and participating in the murder. A series of intense trials ensued as Costal was convicted of the homicides and a jury found the husband not guilty. Questions surrounding the case gripped the region and grabbed headlines in the Pittsburgh Press.

Organized crime was born in the back of a fruit store in Marion. Before America saw headlines about the Capone Mob, the Purple Gang and Murder Inc., the specter of the Black Hand terrorized nearly every major city.

Fears that the Mafia had reached our shores and infiltrated every Italian immigrant community kept police alert and citizens on edge. It was only a matter of time before these professed Robin Hoods formed a band. And when they did, the eyes of the world turned to Ohio, particularly when the local Black Hand outfit known as the Society of the Banana went on trial. Authors David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker unfold this first and nearly forgotten chapter on crime syndicate history.

Author William L. Tabac describes the extraordinary legal proceeding with the twists and turns of a modern television drama and the fall of a prominent attorney.

Tommy Osborn's star was rising. The young Nashville lawyer led a band of Tennessee reformers to victory in a landmark Supreme Court case. Hailed by Chief Justice Earl Warren as the most important of his career, Baker v. Carr's one man, one vote mandate revolutionized how Americans chose their representatives. Osborn was hired by Jimmy Hoffa to take on Bobby Kennedy for the fourth time. Unfortunately, the young lawyer met his match in Walter Sheridan, Kennedy's top aide and brilliant spymaster.

The Professor & the Coed documents the history of this Ohio University scandal--an illicit affair and murder.

In the sweltering summer of 1929, the people of Columbus, Ohio, were enthralled by news of the Ohio State University veterinary professor and Olympic gold medal, winning pistol shooter on trial for the murder of his twenty-four-year-old lover, who was a medical student. Local writer Mark Gribben reveals how Dr. James Howard Snook was captured and interrogated, including his gory confession of Theora Hix's death. During the trial, the details of the illicit love affair were so salacious that newspapers could only hint about what really led to the coed's murder and the professor's ultimate punishment. For the first time, read the full account of this astonishing story, from scandalous beginning to tragic end.

As Atlanta finished rebuilding after the Civil War, a new horror arose from the ashes to roam the night streets.

Beginning in 1911, a killer whose methods mimicked the famed Jack the Ripper murdered at least twenty black women, from prostitutes to working-class women and mothers. Each murder attributed to the killer occurred on a Saturday night, and for one terrifying spring in 1911, a fresh body turned up every Sunday morning. Amid a stifling investigation, slayings continued until 1915. As many as six men were arrested for the crimes, but investigators never discovered the identity of the killer, or killers, despite having several suspects in custody. Join local historian Jeffrey Wells as he reveals the case of the Atlanta Ripper, unsolved to this day.

Before Butch Cassidy, there was Patrick Coughlin.

It began with the theft of some strawberries from a street peddler in Park City, Utah Territory, in 1895. By the time it was over, two lawmen were dead, and Patrick Coughlin was facing a firing squad. The young gunslinger, in a desperate bid to escape the punishment for his initial crime, caused one of the most thrilling manhunts in the state’s history. The outlaw and his sidekick went on a crime spree, escalating from stealing horses to gunfights, all with the posse tailing them, ending in a shootout at a remote cabin. When Patrick Coughlin was finally recaptured and tried, he would become the first prisoner sentenced to death in the state.

Join author and lawyer Brian Craig as he recounts the thrilling story of Patrick Coughlin, Utah’s original desperado.

Authors Cary O’Dell and Richard L. Sprehe lead a literary investigation of a brutal cold-case murder. 

In May 1975, in the small Southern Illinois town of Centralia, the body of one of its best-known residents, John Shakespeare, was found nearly nude, bound, and shot, execution-style, in the basement of his home. Shakespeare, sixty-nine, was a wealthy bachelor, an eccentric, an heir to the Shakespeare fishing fortune, a world-renowned collector of vintage cars, and, maybe, a possessor of a few secrets.

Despite the victim being well liked in the community, state and local police, and eventually even the FBI and Interpol, found a plethora of suspects while investigating the crime. Could it have been his longtime business associate? Or the mysterious hitchhiker seen in town just days before his body was found? Or a long-ago name from his past?

Discover the South's Most Notorious Murders, Mysteries, and Criminal Masterminds

Journey from Texas to Virginia in this gripping collection of haunting criminal cases. Follow a relentless serial killer as he leaves a bloody trail across Louisiana and beyond, witness a cunning lonely-hearts swindler terrorize Texas, and uncover Arkansas's bizarre wave of strychnine poisonings that baffled investigators. Experience the supernatural when a West Virginia murder is revealed through dreams and meet a one-armed conjure-man whose murder-for-hire schemes shocked North Carolina.

Watch forensic science evolve as crimefighters expand their arsenal of detection tools in this compelling tour of the South's most notorious crimes, where fact proves stranger than fiction.

Crime writer Cathy Pickens brings a novelist’s eye to the sinister South and its defining—and quirky—crime stories.

In this revised and expanded edition, a harrowing new arrest in the cold case, intense trial and key developments are presented alongside the original narrative.

Friday, August 15, 1975, began as a typical summer day in the suburbs. Young children played with their friends; adults prepared for work or planned for their vacation at the Jersey Shore...

That all changed in the hours before noon, when Gretchen Harrington, the eight-year-old daughter of a Presbyterian minister and his wife, was kidnapped while walking to a Vacation Bible School less than a quarter mile from her house. Her body was found by a jogger in a state park nearly two months later. The crime forever changed the lives of the children who were about Gretchen’s age and their parents, many of whom chose to live in Marple Township because they considered it a safe refuge from the crime-ridden streets of Philadelphia.

Journalists Mike Mathis and Joanna Falcone Sullivan examine the kidnapping, murder, nearly five-decade-long investigation.

Authors Cary O’Dell and Richard L. Sprehe lead a literary investigation of a brutal cold-case murder. 

In May 1975, in the small Southern Illinois town of Centralia, the body of one of its best-known residents, John Shakespeare, was found nearly nude, bound, and shot, execution-style, in the basement of his home. Shakespeare, sixty-nine, was a wealthy bachelor, an eccentric, an heir to the Shakespeare fishing fortune, a world-renowned collector of vintage cars, and, maybe, a possessor of a few secrets.

Despite the victim being well liked in the community, state and local police, and eventually even the FBI and Interpol, found a plethora of suspects while investigating the crime. Could it have been his longtime business associate? Or the mysterious hitchhiker seen in town just days before his body was found? Or a long-ago name from his past?

When the police caught up with Johann Hoch, he’d already proposed to what they believed would have been wife number fifty-five.

For a decade, he traveled the country, marrying and deserting desperate women—and five of his wives were lying in their graves. He married Marie Walcker in Chicago in 1904, and when Marie died five weeks later, he proposed to her sister while the corpse lay on the bed. The sister agreed, only to be swindled out of her savings. Adam Selzer trails jovial, big-talking Hoch through a twisting tale of Chicago journalism, Chicago justice and the coming together of some of most daring and corrupt characters the city had to offer.

In this revised and expanded edition, a harrowing new arrest in the cold case, intense trial and key developments are presented alongside the original narrative.

Friday, August 15, 1975, began as a typical summer day in the suburbs. Young children played with their friends; adults prepared for work or planned for their vacation at the Jersey Shore...

That all changed in the hours before noon, when Gretchen Harrington, the eight-year-old daughter of a Presbyterian minister and his wife, was kidnapped while walking to a Vacation Bible School less than a quarter mile from her house. Her body was found by a jogger in a state park nearly two months later. The crime forever changed the lives of the children who were about Gretchen’s age and their parents, many of whom chose to live in Marple Township because they considered it a safe refuge from the crime-ridden streets of Philadelphia.

Journalists Mike Mathis and Joanna Falcone Sullivan examine the kidnapping, murder, nearly five-decade-long investigation.

Author John E. O’Rourke recounts the crime that rocked a sleepy community and brought the nation’s eyes to North Jersey.

On a spring morning in Morristown in 1992, authorities discovered a car idling in a driveway with the door open and the driver missing. After they learned the driver was Sidney Reso, the president of Exxon International, the FBI joined the investigation. Over the next two months, law enforcement received cryptic communications that led to a cat-and-mouse chase for those responsible. Retired cop Arthur Seale and his wife, Irene, demanded one of the largest ransoms in U.S. history, and authorities struggled to solve the case.

Burlington Police Department detective Jeff Beerworth explores the nature of crime and justice in the Queen City.

As Burlington grew into a city out of wilderness, more citizens meant more opportunities for crime. Horse thefts, murders and drunken brawls swamped the young and prosperous city. Those misdeeds inspired the first officers of what would become the Burlington Police Department to serve and protect. Step behind the scenes of the Griwold murder case, the Mad Riot of 1898 and the murder of Officer James McGrath. Glimpse the dangers of police work and the shared human experiences of the city's officers and the citizens they serve.

Alva Hunt and Hugh Gant began their infamous "careers" fencing automobile parts as the Florida land boom became a bust. After doing hard time in state jails, they emerged as bank robbers and embarked on a crime spree across the Deep South. In the end they were captured and served time in Leavenworth, Alcatraz and other penitentiaries. Their reign was one of terror for Florida and many Southern states. Their story reflects an intriguing period in Florida's own history--the Depression era and the desperate days when Southern gangsters were armed, notorious and deadly.