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The Strange Execution of John Langford
John Langford, a 22-year-old citizen of Sheridan, Kansas, who ‘had led a desperate life all over the border,’ was sentenced to be hanged by a vigilance committee at Pond City at 2 am on the morning of 25 August 1869. On discovering his fate, Langford admitted to the killing of six men; he added, ‘if… Continue reading
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‘Good God! How Grief Has Altered Him!’ Thomas Carson’s Gaol Break
On 27 August 1800, brothers Thomas and John Carson, members of the Meath Yeomanry, stood trial at Trim Assizes for the ‘Wilful murder’ of ‘one of His Majesty’s subjects’, Charles Casliny. Kilmainhamwood (Irish: Cill Mhaighneann), where the killing occurred, is a village on the River Dee in County Meath, Ireland.The Carsons were tried in front… Continue reading
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Dreadful Accident at St. James’
The following story was reported in the Bristol Mirror on Saturday, 3 August 1816. Miss Burrowes of Red Lion Street, Clerkenwell, was to be buried in the afternoon of Wednesday, 31 July 1816, at St. James’ church.The gravediggers were instructed to dig the grave to a depth of twenty feet to thwart resurrectionists. When Miss… Continue reading
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The Burford Highwaymen
One night in early November 1784, the bodies of Tom and Henry (Harry) Dunsdon were removed from the gibbets, which had displayed them as a warning to others who chose the path of lawlessness. The brothers had hung in chains, their bodies open to the elements, in Wychwood Forest, just outside the west Oxfordshire village… Continue reading
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First World War Veteran Killed in Wolf Attack?
When the First World War broke out, Carl Lynn enlisted in the Canadian army at North Battleford, Saskatchewan. He served as a sniper for four years in the trenches of the Western Front. After returning from Europe, Lynn worked as a fur trapper in northern Saskatchewan. It was ‘in the hinterland of Saskatchewan’where he lost… Continue reading
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Inkpaduta, Henry Lott and the road to Spirit Lake
A bloody massacre. Illustration for True Stories of the American Indians by Edward S Ellis, nd. Credit: Look and Learn On Wednesday, July 1st, 1857, dawn had barely broken when a detachment of Company D, 10th Infantry soldiers from Fort Ridgely reached the Yellow Medicine River, five miles from the agency that bore the same name.The… Continue reading
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‘He is alive; go in and kill him.’ The Murder of George Morrey
Hannah Evans had not long retired to bed when she was awoken by ‘a great noise and two or three blows.’. It was the early hours of 12 April 1812. Hannah, a maid working at a farmhouse belonging to George and Edith Morrey in the village of Hankelow, Cheshire, had stayed up with her mistress… Continue reading
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Alias ‘Galloping Dick’
The man now most closely associated with Jerry Abershawe was Richard Ferguson Born in either Herefordshire or Hertfordshire, sources differ; sometime in the 1770s, Ferguson earned a reputation as a juvenile delinquent as a young man, leading a gang of teenage boys in myriad criminal activities. Richard’s father was employed as a gentleman’s servant and, consequently,… Continue reading
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Judge George Gordon Belt and the Mason-Henry Gang
George Gordon Belt arrived in San Francisco on 7 March 1847, as part of Colonel Jonathan Drake Stevenson’s Seventh Regiment of New York Volunteers after enduring an arduous six-month voyage around Cape Horn. Stevenson’s force, 770 men strong, was to form part of the American army occupying California. The Mexican-American War had broken out the… Continue reading
Apache, California, Civil War, Crime, history, Jack Gordon, Jim Henry, John Mason, Judge George Belt, Justice, Killers, Law, Lynching, Mariposa War, Mason-Henry Gang, Mexican-American War, mexico, Murder, Patriot Rangers, San Bernardino, Stockton, Tom Bell, True Crime, united-states, Vigilantes, Wild West
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Hellish Fiends, and Brutish Men 