The Black Sox
On July 5, 1921, Judge Hugo Friend denies a motion to quash the indictments against eight members of the Chicago White Sox, who were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series, and their trial begins with jury selection. The players, including stars Shoeless Joe Jackson, Buck Weaver, and Eddie Cicotte, subsequently became known as the "Black Sox" after the scandal was revealed.
Martha Ann Johnson
On July 3, 1989, Martha Ann Johnson is arrested in Georgia for the 1982 murder of her oldest child, Jennyann Wright, after an Atlanta newspaper initiated a new investigation into her suspicious death. Johnson's three other children had also mysteriously died between 1977 and 1982.
The assassination of President James Garfield
On July 2, 1881, only four months into his administration, President James Garfield is shot as he walks through a railroad waiting room in Washington, D.C. His assailant, Charles J. Guiteau, was a disgruntled office seeker who had unsuccessfully sought an appointment to the U.S. consul in Paris.
Glen Godwin
On June 30, 1981, Glen Godwin is convicted of murder in Riverside County, California, and sentenced to 26-years-to-life in prison. According to his roommate's testimony, Godwin stomped on, choked, and then stabbed Kim LeValley, an acquaintance and local drug dealer, 28 times before using homemade explosives to blow up his body in the desert near Palm Springs. Godwin, who had no previous record, eventually found his way onto the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List.
Dirk Greineder
On June 29, 2001, Boston doctor Dirk Greineder, 60, is found guilty of first-degree murder of his wife. Dirk Greineder was a distinguished allergist. His wife, known as May, worked for him as a nurse and was pursuing an advanced degree in healthcare. The couple had raised three children, and lived in Wellesley, a quiet suburb of Boston. Neighbors and friends saw the couple as especially close and devoted to each other. Nearly every day, they walked their German shepherds together in a nearby park.
On June 28, 1993, a knife-wielding serial rapist and murderer attacks Denise Sam-Cali in her Allentown, Pennsylvania, home. Although he succeeded in raping Sam-Cali on the front lawn outside her house, the courageous woman survived and later proved instrumental in bringing him to justice.
Joseph Smith
On June 27, 1844, Joseph Smith, the founder and leader of the Mormon religion, is murdered along with his brother Hyrum when a mob breaks into a jail where they are being held in Carthage, Illinois.
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
