So Far from Home The Pearl Bryan Murder Half price now through December! Paperback  $16.95 $8.47 eBook    $9.95 $4.97

 

An Illustrated Encyclopedia: The 1891 Murder Of Carrie Brown, a new book by Howard and Nina Brown of JTRForums.com, is a comprehensive summary of the people, places, and things associated with one of New York City’s most sensational murder cases. The brutal murder of Carrie Brown shocked the people of New York and challenged their police force. Many believed that it was the work of London’s Jack the Ripper, making the investigation even more urgent. The Browns’ new book profiles all of the characters involved and views the case from all angles.

Available at Amazon.

New! The Bloody Century 2

The long-awaited sequel to The Bloody Century takes the reader back to 19th-century America in all its gory glory.

The second volume of The Bloody Century presents 60 more true tales of murder. These sensational crimes present a fascinating journey through enforcement methods and legal procedures in the 19th century. Killers driven by Jealousy, Revenge, Insanity, and random violence are joined by remorseless serial killers. Most stories end with justice well served, while others remain forever unsolved.

Available at Amazon.

Read three sample stories.

More information.

Scott Jackson Courtesy of The Cincinnati Enquirer

Phrenologist, Dr. S. E. Hyndman, performed measurements on the head of Scott Jackson, accused killer of Pearl Bryan, shortly after his arrest in February 1896. He came to this conclusion: "My analysis of Scott Jackson reveals a bold, fearless, intense organization, with a perverted amativeness, and unwise gratification of this faculty has changed his physical, intellectual and moral condition and debased his higher mental qualities. He readily and quickly reasons from cause to effect; is intensely selfish in whatever he does; would mislead anyone to assist himself and has strong perceptive powers. He is a good planner and a fearless executer; once his mind is made up to do a thing, neither God, nor man, nor the devil, would prevent the attempt, every faculty would be perverted."

New Book!

So Far from Home 

The Pearl Bryan Murder

New book...

 



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A murderous atmosphere pervaded nineteenth century America unlike anything seen before or since. Lurid murder stories dominated newspaper headlines, and as if responding to the need for sensational copy, Americans everywhere began to see murder as a solution to their problems. The Bloody Century retells their stories -- some still famous, some long buried, all endlessly fascinating.

The Bloody Century is a collection of true stories of ordinary Americans, driven by desperation, greed, jealousy or an irrational bloodlust, to take the life of someone around them. The book includes facts, motives, circumstances and outcomes, narrating fifty of the most intriguing murder cases of nineteenth century America. Richly illustrated with scenes and portraits originally published at the time of the murders, and including songs and poems written to commemorate the crimes, The Bloody Century invokes a fitting atmosphere for Victorian homicide. 

The days of America’s distant past, the time of gaslights and horse drawn carriages, are often viewed as quaint and sentimental, but a closer look reveals passions, fears, and motives that are timeless and universal, and a population inured to violence, capable of monstrous acts. A visit to The Bloody Century may well give us insight into our own.

"I've been a fan of Robert Wilhelm's "Murder by Gaslight" blog for years and I'm so pleased that readers are being treated to the very best of his posts in this interesting and entertaining collection.  There's something here for everyone - tragedy and comedy, open-and-shut cases and wrongful convictions, rich and poor, city and country, and more.  Readers will delight in the period engravings, the emphasis on how the cases influenced popular culture, and the extensive research that provides for further reading.  The Bloody Century is a welcome and lively companion to Judith Flanders' recent  The Invention of Murder, with a decidedly American flavor."
--- James M. Schmidt, Author of Galveston and the Civil War and Notre Dame and the Civil War

Just three years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, the first settlers put down roots in what would later become Essex County, Massachusetts. If the legends are true, that the Plymouth colonists lived in harmony with one another and at peace with the natives, the same cannot be said of Essex. From the earliest days, life in Essex County reads like an adventure book filled with Indian fighters, highwaymen, pirates and witches. My new book, Murder and Mayhem in Essex County, published by The History Press, tells the stories of these nefarious characters and relates the dark side of Massachusetts history, north of Boston.

• In 1637 William Schooler and John Williams were hanged together for Essex County crimes. Schooler raped and murdered a young woman and Williams broke jail and killed his cellmate.
• In 1691, Elizabeth Emerson murdered her twin bastard infants; six years later her sister, Hannah Emerson Duston escaped Indian captivity by scalping ten of her captors.
• Essex County had a long history of witchcraft that neither began nor ended in Salem.
• The shores of Essex were plagued by piracy, including the terrorism of Rachel Wall, New England’s only female pirate.
• In 1795, Pomp, an African slave, dispatched his cruel master with an axe blow to the head.
• Highwayman Richard Crowninshield was hired to murder Captain Joseph White, by White’s two nephews, in 1830.
• In 1885, a successful inventor shot his business partner in cold blood, then pled insanity.
• An aspiring young singer was murdered by an obsessed ex-lover in 1894.
• In 1900, a dismembered corpse was found, stuffed into three feed bags, floating in a pond.

Essex is one of the oldest counties in America. In the 277 years between the first settlement and the turn of the twentieth century, murder and mayhem were never far from the lives of its citizens. Establishing a new country in a harsh land sometimes calls for harsh measures, but we can take pride in the fact that, more often than not, justice prevailed.

For more information on Murder and Mayhem in Essex County, go to www.Murder-in-Essex.com.

Anyone interested in reviewing the book, please contact info@Murder-in-Essex.com.

I found a very colorful book of lawmen and criminals published in 1888 entitled Defenders and Offenders (no author). It includes color portraits and brief but fascinating biographies of each subject.

Some of the offenders are well known— like Thomas G. Woolfolk who chopped up his family in Georgia in 1887—but most are fairly obscure. If I can find enough information I will feature some of the murderers, if not, they will probably turn up from time to time in the Little Murders series.











The defenders are all New York City police superintendents and inspectors like Thomas Byrnes who led the investigation of Carry Brown’s murder and most other major New York criminal investigations in the 1880s. Though not as interesting as the offenders, I will occasionally post their portraits as well.

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Defenders and offenders . New York: D. Buchner & Co., 1888.