True Crime

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.

Diggs Nolen's name was the byword for crime in 1920s Memphis. As a child, he dreamed of becoming a swashbuckling outlaw. He turned his back on a promising career, his family and consorted with the worst elements of society. Under the tutelage of train robber Frank Holloway, Nolen became a notorious con artist. Later, he and his gun-slinging wife built an empire out of selling narcotics and trafficking stolen goods. Law enforcement caught Nolen, but they could not hold him. Nolen escaped from Leavenworth Prison, led the largest jailbreak in Memphis history and confounded prosecutors with legal wranglings. Author Patrick O'Daniel details Nolen's quixotic quest for criminal fame that earned him the title King of the Memphis Underworld.

Defined by a tangled web of deception for more than a century, Northwest Indiana's political culture involved secret handshakes, tapped phone calls, backroom deals and murder.

Found submerged in his car with a rock on the gas pedal, city official Babe Lopez's execution-style murder rocked East Chicago. Shot and killed at a political fundraiser, power broker Jay Given's murder occurred while four hundred guests mingled in a neighboring room. Former Lake Station mayor Keith Soderquist stole thousands of dollars from his reelection campaign and the city's food pantry account to gamble at local casinos. Author Jerry Davich explores the hidden political scandals and highly publicized court cases of public servants once sworn to serve and protect.

Author Brian Armstrong tells the shocking story of this "sundown town" and how it evolved into the diverse community that exists today.

On March 1, 1894, two African American men broke into a home in rural Franklin Park and murdered a white woman and her daughter before her husband fought and killed the attackers. The newspapers called it the "Franklin Park Tragedy," and the story captivated public attention nationally and abroad. Another tragedy came afterward, with the racist forced expulsion of many local African American residents.