Vintage Photos, Genealogy & Crime Stories
The idea of throwing a couple jail because they're living together sounds like a throwback to the Victorian era. But for many years in Michigan there was a law on the books prohibiting "lewd and lascivious cohabitation." If a man and woman were discovered to be living together without the "benefit of marriage," their lives … Continue reading Lewd and Lascivious Cohabitation
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
Charles Boss was married to at least six women — simultaneously. Would that make him a sextagamist? Charles was described as Fitchburg’s “much-married man,” though he wasn’t really into matrimony. What he was into was larceny, and marriage got him not only into a woman’s heart, but also into her home and pocketbook. On March … Continue reading Bigamy Boss
Joseph Evans was a matrimonially challenged man. His first wife, Mary Jane, died of blood poisoning in 1899, leaving him with three sons under the age of nine. Joseph needed to find a woman to care for him and his children. Three years later Joseph married 35-year-old Rebecca Kane and the family moved into a … Continue reading Other Men’s Wives
Captured and Exposed 