Murder
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A Case of Avunculicide: The Murder of Giovanni Kalabergo
Portrait of John Kalabergo. Engraved by E. Jewitt of Camden Town. The original was in the possession of Mr. Craddock, of Banbury, Oxfordshire. On Saturday, 10 January 1852, Dr. Harris’, a surgeon at the Queen’s Hospital, Birmingham, visit to his father’s house in the north Oxfordshire hamlet of Williamscote (now Williamscot), was disturbed by the Continue reading
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Ambush at Cooke’s Canyon
Cooke’s Canyon is a valley located in the Cooke’s Range, a southern continuation of the Mimbres Mountains, in present-day Luna County, New Mexico. The canyon was named for Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke, the commanding officer of the Mormon Battalion during the Mexican War (1846-48). He later served in the Union Army during the Continue reading
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‘As I Stand on the Brink of the Grave’: Who was ‘Sue Monday’?
On Sunday, 12 March 1864, a detachment of 50 men from the 30th Wisconsin Infantry, under the command of Major Cyrus Wilson, surrounded a tobacco barn at Webster, Kentucky, and after a brief firefight in which three members of the infantry were slightly, and one mortally wounded, captured the notorious Confederate guerrilla Sue Monday (Mundy, Continue reading
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Turning King’s Evidence: Hylas Parrish, Charles Callaghan and the Murder of Moses Merry
Hylas Parrish, an 18-year-old apprentice shoemaker, first met Charles Callaghan at Vauxhall Gardens in the summer of 1813, when he attended a fete held to celebrate the victory of Britain and her allies, Spain and Portugal, over Napoleonic France in the Battle of Vitoria. At the fete, Parrish paid a penny for a ride on Continue reading
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The Orcadian Pirate
Although he was inextricably linked with the Orkney Isles, John Gow was born on the Scottish mainland at Wick, a stone’s throw from John O’Groats, around 1698. Like numerous others of his ilk, Gow ended his days at Execution Dock on the banks of the River Thames at Wapping on 11 June 1725. Gow spent Continue reading
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A Dark and Lonesome Passage to Eternity
Edward Bonney, a 38-year-old alleged counterfeiter from Montrose, Iowa, arrived in Chicago on the steamship Champion early on Thursday, 25 September 1845. Bonney was accompanied by two other men, identified by the local newspaper, The Chicago Democrat, as ’two of the five murderers of Col. Davenport, Wm. F. Birch, alias Haines, and John Long, alias Continue reading
19th Century, 4th of July, Aaron Long, Banditti of the Prairie, Counterfeiting, Crime, Crime and Punishment, Detective, Edward Bonney, George Davenport, Granville Young, Hangings, history, Illinois, Iowa, John Long, Justice, Murder, Newspapers, outlaws, Public Execution, Rock Island, United States History -
‘To be Master of The Devil’: Richard Faulkner
The Isle of Ely Summer Assizes, held at Wisbech on Friday, July 10, 1807, only had one prisoner to try, but he was ‘so shockingly depraved and hardened’ that his story bears retelling. Richard Faulkner was 15 when, on February 15 1807, in an act of revenge, he killed George Burnham at Whittlesea (now spelt Continue reading
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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
Hellish Fiends, and Brutish Men 