On April 15th, 1920 in South Braintree, Massachusetts, a robbery right outside the Slater-Morrill shoe factory took place. Two men carrying the payroll boxes outside were shot and killed. The robbers retrieved the boxes and sped off in a getaway car, firing wildly at nearby company workers. To this day, it is undetermined who the robbers are. However, two men were tried and convicted: Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Unfortunately, both these men suffered the immense pain and mortality of the electric chair. Injustice within the courts, panic during the Red Scare, and influence of the media all impacted the punishments faced by Sacco and Vanzetti.…
On the morning of December 18, 1992, two brothers were shot and killed in their Houston home. Police were called by a neighbor who heard the gunshots, and then seen a “dark colored” car fleeing from the house. It was later found out that defendant, Genovevo Salinas, was at the residence where the murders took place the night before December 18th. When officers went to Salinas’ house, they arrived to a dark blue vehicle that matched the witness’s account of the car. Police asked Salinas a few questions, he let the officers have his shotgun, and then the police asked him to come down to the station to answer a few questions so they could “clear him as a suspect.”…
Newton, Michael. The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes, Second Edition. Facts On File, 2009. Infobase eBooks. ebooks.infobaselearning.com/View.aspx?ISBN=9781438119144&InstID=1187. Accessed 1 Feb.…
The following suspects were ‘favored’ by officers who were conducting or investigating the murders: Montague John Druitt (August 15, 1857- December 31, 1888); Seweryn Klosowski aka George Chapman (December 14, 1865- April 7, 1903); Aaron Kosminski (September 11, 1865- March 24, 1919);Michael Ostrog (1833- 1904); John Pizer (1850-1897); James Thomas Sadler; and Frances Tumblety. There is a lack of real evidence to link any of these men to the murders, but they all had extreme suspicion again the investigators after the…
The popular television show, CSI: Crime Scene Investigations has been on the air for 12 years, and it has brought forth the behind-the-scenes actions of criminal investigations, even if its portrayals are not always scientifically accurate. This has caused an interest in the forensic sciences that has led most people to a skewed view of how a criminal investigation actually works. The reality of a criminal investigation is that it is generally more tedious and difficult than the theory of criminal investigation would have you believe. By examining the forensic and investigative procedures of the case of Pamela Foddrill, it is apparent that the theory of criminal investigation was not representative of the procedures concerning examination of the body, but that it was demonstrative of much of the investigatory steps taken by police, like search warrants. On August 18th, 1995, 44-year-old Pamela Foddrill disappeared from the town of Linton, Indiana. Pamela went to buy some groceries at the local IGA and was abducted: her body was found wrapped in a sleeping bag near Russellville, Illinois four months later. Roughly four years later, five individuals were held responsible for their part in the abduction, rape, and murder of Pamela Foddrill: Roger Long, John Redman, Jerry Russell Sr., Wanda Hubbell, and Plynia Fowler. Long, Redman, and Russell are serving life sentences, while Fowler pled out to 14 years and Hubbell pled out to 20 years of incarceration.…
A little over a century ago an atrocious double murder was committed, in the two-half story house at 92 Second Street, in Fall River, Massachusetts. This crime shocked the city of Fall River, as well as the nation, as Lizzie Borden, a 32-year-old Sunday school teacher, went on trial for the murder of her father and her stepmother. (Augustine). An all male jury eventually acquitted her on the accusations.(Aiuto). To this day, the murderer of Andrew J. Borden and Abby Gray Borden is still unknown, but in the public mind everyone believes it was Lizzie Borden.…
Mid October 1970, a man in this early thirties moves into a quiet little neighborhood. He seems nice, quickly making friends with people in and outside the close nit Norwood Park Township. He throws large parties and dinners and gains the trust of all who make his acquaintance. He had a typical suburban life until 1975. By 1978, his world came to a screeching halt and Norwood Park Township was left inside a never ending nightmare of lies, deception and the ever lasting smell of decay. The man in question is John Wayne Gacy Jr. born 1942 and died 1994 by lethal injection(Clarke,1994).…
Recently, an interesting case of murder involving a young married woman was unravelled by the crime scene team. The collection of evidence and laboratory examination of exhibits provided the corroborative evidence necessary to prove the victim’s in-laws were trying to mislead the Investigating Officer by fabricating a story of looting and murder…
Many people were pouring to the city, lots of young people who wished to find a living for themselves. Among the newcomers of the city were many young women like Helen Jewett. These young women came to the city with hopes of finding employment and living independently for the first time, what they didn’t expect to encounter was a murder lurking on young and naive women; “ Young women drawn to Chicago by the fair and by the prospect of living on their own had disappeared (pg 6)”. With the massive population expansion taking place in the city it was nearly impossible for the police to keep tabs on people. “There were too many disappearances, in all parts of the city, to investigate properly (pg 102)”. The expansion of population in the city showed the lack of awareness people had for their surroundings. The world’s fair was one of the largest gatherings of people in America at that time (class discussion Nov 30). No wonder why to people like Daniel Burnham and H.H. Holmes never even crossed paths throughout the entire duration of the…
On May 23, 1957, police officers in a Cleveland, Ohio suburb received information that a suspect in a bombing case, as well as some illegal betting equipment, might be found in the home of Dollree Mapp. Three officers went to the home and asked for permission to enter, but Mapp refused to admit them without a search warrant. Two officers left, and one remained. Three hours later, the two returned with several other officers. Brandishing a piece of paper, they broke in the door. Mapp asked to see the “warrant” and took it from an officer, putting it in her dress. The officers struggled with Mapp and took the piece of paper away from her. They handcuffed her for being “belligerent.”…
On October 31, 1963, while on a downtown beat which he had patrolled many times over a period of several years, Cleveland Police Department detective Martin McFadden spotted two men, standing on a street corner at 1276 Euclid Avenue. Detective McFadden thought that the men, John W. Terry and Richard Chilton were behaving in a suspicious manner. Detective McFadden noticed that the two men walking back and forth and stopping to stare at a particular store window. After each trip back to the window, the men stopped on the corner to talk. This ritual was performed by the men about five or six times apiece. McFadden observed that after one of the trips, they were joined by a third man. After speaking with Terry and Chilton briefly, the man left. Detective McFadden suspected that the men were planning a robbery. Therefore, he followed them. As a result, he witnessed them rejoin the third man in from of a store a few blocks away (Cole and Smith, 2007, p. 268).…
On May 23, 1957, police officers in a Cleveland, Ohio suburb received information that a suspect of a bombing case, as well as some illegal betting equipment, might be found in the home of Dollree Mapp. Three officers went to the home and asked for permission to enter, but Mapp refused to let them in without a search warrant. Two officers left, and one remained. Three hours later, the two returned with several other officers with a piece of paper and broke in the door. Mapp asked to see the warrant and took it from an officer, putting it in her dress. The officers struggled with Mapp and took the piece of paper away from her and handcuffed her for being “belligerent.”…
In the autumn of 1888, an air of mystery and terror cloaked and surrounded the city of London. An unidentified murderer who had given himself the name Jack the Ripper was loose on the streets of the east end, killing and mutilating innocent women whilst the police seemed helpless, unable to catch the killer. But why was Jack the Ripper never caught? In this essay I will investigate the reasons why the infamous murderer was never caught, including how the press interfered, how the area itself prevented the police from finding out who Jack the Ripper was and argue that the main cause was the police themselves.…
Individuals break crimes all the time but some cases take America by storm with the mass amount of media coverage. The Scott Peterson trail is a prime example of a criminal case that took the nation by storm. What makes the Scott Peterson trail special is the fact that for the first time in California an individual was sentenced to death based solely on circumstantial evidence. In this paper I will be discussing the Scott Peterson case in three key areas background/summary, evidence, and finally crime elements.…
A woman by the name of the Kitty Genovese was brutally murdered on Friday 13 March in 1964 in Queens, New York. The 28 year old was arriving home from a late night shift at work, when she was suddenly by a knife by a man named Winston Moseley. She screamed for help, but nobody did anything because they did not want to “get involved.” Winston left her but later returned to finish off what he started. When the police were eventually called, she was already dead. This all took place within half an hour, and thirty eight people were witnesses, but not one decided to help. (“Bystander Apathy”)…