The case of William Fish was the first recorded official use of dogs by police to capture a murderer. On March 28, 1876 seven-yearold Emily Agnes Holland went missing from Birley Street, Blackburn, after telling friends at St. Alban’s School that she had met a nice man and was going to run some errands for him. She was never seen alive again.
On March 27, 1911, the British Court of Appeals upholds the death penalty conviction of Stinie Morrison. Leon Beron was born in Poland but his family left to settle in London. In 1894 he bought nine ramshackle houses in Stepnsey in the East End. He rented them out for ten shillings a week and lived off the rental income. He was a man of habit each day he would have a meal at a local restaurant. He dressed smartly, a large gold watch and chain dangled from his waist coat.
Robert Stroud aka The Bird Man of Alcatraz
Robert Stroud better known as the Birdman of Alcatraz was in prison for the killing of F.K. Van Dahmer in Juneau, Alaska when he committed his second murder. On March 26, 1916 he stabbed to death prison guard Andrew Turner in front of 1,200 witnesses in the mess hall after Turner criticized Stroud for a minor rule infraction. Stroud was tried and sentenced to die on May 27th but, after three trials and four years, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, after his mother appealed to President Woodrow Wilson.
The Scottsboro 9 with attorney Samuel Liebowitz
On March 25, 1932, The U.S. Supreme Court hands down its decision in the case of Powell v. Alabama. The case arose out of the infamous Scottsboro case, where 9 young black men were arrested and accused of raping two white women on train in Alabama. The boys were fortunate to barely escape a lynch mob, but were railroaded into convictions and death sentences.
Class photo of Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden
On March 24, 1998, Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, shoot their classmates and teachers in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Golden, the younger of the two boys, asked to be excused from his class, pulled a fire alarm and then ran to join Johnson in a wooded area 100 yards away from the school's gym. As the students streamed out of the building, Johnson and Golden opened fire and killed four students and a teacher.
Orlando Letelier
On March 23, 1979, Guillermo Novo and Alvin Ross Diaz are sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Orlando Letelier, former Chilean ambassador to the United States. The murder to place on September 21, 1976, when a car bomb exploded while victims, Orlando Letelier, and his friends Michael and Ronni Moffitt were driving on Washington D.C.'s Embassy Row.
The McMartin Pre-School in Manhattan Beach
On March 22, 1984, seven teachers at the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California are indicted on child molestation charges by a Los Angeles County grand jury after hearing testimony from 18 children. Among the charged are Peggy McMartin Buckey, the head of the school and her son Ray Buckey.
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
