What are some interesting, long-forgotten local crimes from your area?

I recently was looking at our History Link site, which I love, and came across the infamous Mahoney murder from the early '20s. It got national attention at the time. It really had it all - bigamy, wife in a trunk, all kinds of crazy stuff. This link gives a pretty good rundown of it.


On April 16, 1921, James E. Mahoney, a paroled convict, drugs his wife Kate, stuffs her in steamer trunk, and smashes her skull with a club. He then pours quicklime over her body. After locking the trunk and securing it with rope, he calls a transfer company to move it to a houseboat on Lake Union. There, the trunk is placed in a skiff and Mahoney rows to middle of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, just east of the University Bridge and throws it overboard. Kate Mahoney’s nieces, suspecting foul play, report to police that she has mysteriously disappeared. After authorities search the ship canal for weeks, the trunk finally bobs to the surface on August 8, 1921, and is recovered by the tugboat Audrey. Mahoney, already in custody for forgery, is charged with his wife’s murder. A King County Jury, after a 10-day trial, convicts Mahoney of first-degree murder on October 1, 1921 and sentences him to death. He is hanged at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla on December 1, 1922. Kate Mahoney’s murder, which received national media coverage, was pronounced to be one of the most elaborately planned crimes of the decade.
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=7285

I lived through that. :(

Here in Georgia, I just found out about the Moore's Ford lynchings-most people are probably dead, but the Feds think at least two are alive still.

East Point Georgia has Pat from Ann Rule's Eveything She Ever Wanted.

And that episode of Cold Case Files (the one that proves he's the Original Night Stalker) is the scariest one ever. I still get chills when I think of his voice on those answering machine tapes.... :scared:

I wonder what ever happened to that guy. I just hope he's dead.

There was a cheesey pic of some guy in a ski mask saying "I'm gonna kill you" (from the answering machine tape) over & over again. DH was gone for the weekend & I was awake all night. Totally relieved the entire 2 years he was terrorizing the city.

I think he's got to be dead or in prison for something else. I doubt he woke up one morning & thought Hey, this is wrong. I better stop.

The Starkweather killing rampage that occurred the late 1950s is probably the most famous criminal case in Nebraska history. I was just a kid at the time, but I remember clearly how nervous people in my town (Alliance, NE) were till Charlie and his girlfriend, Caril Fugate, were finally apprehended in Wyoming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Starkweather

The granddaughter of two of the victims wrote a novel, Outside Valentine, based on the case. (Valentine is a small town in the Nebraska sandhills.) An excerpt is available at Bookbrowse.com.

http://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm?book_number=1453

word "Nebraska" Of course, this probably reflects more on me than it does your state :)
Honestly, a couple of months ago, a friend told me that he and his Oregon-based girlfriend were going to meet in Nebraska. My immediate reply was, "Wow. Are you guys gonna follow the murderous trail of Charles Starkweather?"
"Uh..no. It's the midpoint between us."
"Ooops!"

The Starkweather killings really are dark mythic Americana.

He's not from that area, but it happened right around the time he was graduating from high school, and of course it was *huge* news all around the country. (I come from a long line of true crime buffs.) Plus it was very chilling. I didn't know about the novel - thanks for the tip, I'll have to check it out. :hi:

television coverage, and was being followed by every household in America (or at least those with televisions) The crime and its coverage are detailed in the book "The Murderous Trail of Charles Starkweather"
The crime spree happened a few years before I was born, but I can remember my parents (who had also been teenagers at the time) still making references to it when I was young.

I live in the mid-Willamette Valley in Oregon. In the late '80s, I think it was '89, a man named Michael Fayhe, who was rumored to be investigating "bookkeeping" irregularities inside Oregon's penitentary system for the state, among all manner of other godawful illegal activities committed by administrators within the prisons, was killed here. I don't remember exactly where--I think it was on the steps of one of the municipal buildings in Salem. Afterward, a large portion of all the material in his office regarding his investigation disappeared--some people found a few scraps of shredded paper laying around in the bushes outside or something and that was it. No suspects were ever seriously considered persons of interest, no charges brought against anyone, and the case has been cold for years as far as I know. Gee, I wonder who killed him and why? The case was actually discussed on an "Unsolved Mysteries" segment once.