Vintage Photos, Genealogy & Crime Stories
A Brooklyn resident named Rosa Rivera had her fortune told on Thursday, January 16, 1947. During the session Rosa mentioned that she had $800 socked away in her bank account. The fortuneteller’s ears perked up when she heard about the nest egg. She told Rosa to go to the bank, remove the cash, bring it … Continue reading Brooklyn Bad Fortune
The body of W.J. Trotter being removed from his shop by police. Collection of the author. Shortly before 8 a.m. on the morning of February 2, 1948, Ples McWilliams discovered the body of William Jonas Trotter, a 59-year-old white man, lying in a pool of blood on the floor behind the counter of his snack … Continue reading Can’t Hear Nobody Pray
Born in Texas on July 14, 1876, 100 years and ten days after the United States, Nathan Bridgeforth became prisoner #2007 at Leavenworth on February 26, 1900. Seven weeks earlier, he pleaded guilty to forgery in the Northern District Court of Muskogee, Indian Territory. The details of the crime that sent him to Leavenworth have … Continue reading The Cowboy
Bess was the wife of Harry A. Nelson, the Deputy Assessor of Alameda County, California. It was the Great Depression, and many people were suffering financial hardship, but the Nelsons were not among them. They lived in a comfortable home at 5314 Boyd Avenue in Oakland with their daughter Jessie and Bess’s mother, Mae Hulett. … Continue reading The Chauffeur in the Bedroom with the Lead Pipe
It’s not often that you come across a photograph of a policeman looking amused while escorting a prisoner, so the expression on the face of the burly cop caught my eye. The prisoner — the guy in the center with the cigarette hanging out of his mouth — has a curiously cheery look on his … Continue reading Dodging the Law
The burglaries started in November 1931. Witnesses described the culprit as a well-built man with thick blond hair. He was in his early twenties and about 5 feet 10 inches tall. The homes he robbed were all in St. Louis, Missouri. The bizarre thing was that he removed his clothing before breaking in. Stripped down … Continue reading The Shorts Burglar
On April 25, 1900, Sanichi Kanda waited with about 50 other young Japanese men to board a British steamship, the Sikh, which sat in the port of Yokohama, Japan. The ship had arrived a day earlier from Kobe with about 150 people, mostly young men, on board. Its final destination—the United States of America—was halfway … Continue reading The Japanese Butler
What do rattlesnakes have to do with crime? In this case the answer is nothing. Why are the two young men in the news photo holding a large, venomous snake? The explanation is on the back of the photo: Leonarde “Nard” Keeler, the young man on the left, was one of the fathers of the … Continue reading The Milkman
A quarrel over a woman ended last night in the slaying of an escaped convict by one of his three pals and the wounding and capture of the other three men by the police following a pistol battle. — The St. Louis Star and Times (St. Louis, Missouri), July 7, 1931 It started out as … Continue reading The Argument
Henry King was about as squeaky clean as they come in a place as rife with scandal as Hollywood. He was married to the same woman, a silent film actress named Gypsy Abbott, until her death in 1952. He and Gypsy raised four children and lived in the same beautiful home at 645 S. Muirfield … Continue reading Henry King’s Mysterious Mugshots
Fairhaven, Mass., Feb. 19 (Special) — An attractive “girl” of 17, who had been a perfect lady’s maid for a New York family and a hootchy-kootchy dancer with a carnival, was unmasked today as a young man who had fooled associates with his female impersonation for more than a year. The young man, Albert … Continue reading Female Fraud
Pauline Wernovsky had been waiting a long time to marry her sweetheart. In fact she’d been waiting two and a half years for her fiancée, Joseph Kanefsky, to get out of Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia and he’d finally been released after serving time for burglary. But on January 20, 1937, he and two prisoners and … Continue reading Cupid Pleaded
Captured and Exposed 