On this date in crime history – April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr., was shot to death at a hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. A single shot fired by James Earl Ray from over 200 feet away struck King in the neck. He died an hour later at St. Joseph's Hospital. The death of America's leading civil rights advocate sparked a wave of rioting in the black communities of several cities around the country.
On this date in crime history – April 3, 1882, Jesse James, one of America's most notorious outlaws, was shot to death by Robert Ford, a member of his gang. James was born in Clay County, Missouri in 1847. During the Civil War, he joined a Confederate guerrilla band led by William Quantrill, which included several future members of the James Gang.
On the night of November 29, 1988, near the impoverished Marlborough neighborhood in south Kansas City, an explosion at a construction site killed six of the city’s firefighters. It was a clear case of arson, and five people from Marlborough were duly convicted of the crime. But for veteran crime writer and crusading editor J. Patrick O’Connor, the facts—or a lack of them—didn’t add up. Justice on Fire is OConnor’s detailed account of the terrible explosion that led to the firefighters’ deaths and the terrible injustice that followed. Also available from Amazon
