True Crime

Name: The Downfall of Galveston's May Walker Burleson
Brand: Thomas Dorn
SKU: 9781467139663
Price: 24.99 USD
Availability: InStock

The True Crime American history book series dispels the shadows surrounding the insidious true crime stories that have gripped local communities. Cut through the myths and mistakes that plagued Brenda Joyce Holland’s murder case. Join the excavation of the mass grave of fifty-five railroad workers at Duffy’s Cut. Meet the infamous gangsters of Buffalo, New York, the outlaws of Western Pennsylvania, and the morally bankrupt moguls of Cleveland’s Millionaires’ Row. Featuring evidence from law enforcement, newspaper archives, and eyewitness accounts, these true crime books will force readers to look at their towns in a new light. [View all True Crime books]

3 products

Sort

The Downfall of Galveston's May Walker Burleson

Paperback

$24.99

The Goffle Road Murders of Passaic County

Paperback

$21.99

Lizzie Borden & the Family Curse

Paperback

$24.99

The Downfall of Galveston's May Walker Burleson

9781467139663

$24.99

“The story of May Walker Burleson’s murder of her ex-husband’s second wife . . . A meticulously researched work, [it] captures its era perfectly.”—Galveston County Daily News

Jennie May Walker Burleson was envied for having everything a woman of her time could want—the privileged upbringing, the dazzling good looks, the dashing war hero husband. She was admired for demonstrating that a woman could want more, from the front of the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession to the bottom of a Mesoamerican archaeological dig. But as she stood over the body of her husband’s second wife, gun in hand, society’s envy and admiration quickly hardened into pity and scorn.

T. Felder Dorn examines the complicated trajectory of May's life as socialite, suffragist and shooter.

“Dorn’s book gives small glimpses of history, especially on the 1913 Suffragist parade in Washington, DC. Plus, May was sent to Waverly Hills Sanatorium reputed to be one of the most haunted places in the U.S. One of the best features of the book is the historical photos interspersed with each chapter.”—Forgotten Winds

The Goffle Road Murders of Passaic County

9781609493165

$21.99

On January 9, 1850, Judge John Van Winkle and his wife, Jane, were brutally stabbed to death by their former farm hand, John Jonston.

The murder happened in their home on Goffle Road in Hawthorne, NJ (which is still standing). This story would go down in history as the first in Passaic County. Since the murder in 1850, it inspired the work of New Jersey's greatest poet William Carlos Williams. Williams would go on to inspire the works of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. In 1850, with the execution of Jonston, it became the first execution in Passaic County. The newspaper accounts of the day go into great depths to describe the day. As recorded in The New York Times in 1882 the abode of unearthly visitants, there have been documented occurrences of the unexplained occurring, and the current owner, Henry Tuttman is working to bring the house in the 21st Century while retaining the heritage of the house.