Historical Crimes

Nov. 14, 2011

Marie Besnard

In France, in the 17^th Century, alchemists became wealthy grinding arsenic rock into a colorless and odorless powder and selling the powder to their countrymen who wanted to do away with a wealthy old parent, grandparent, uncle or aunt. There was even an “epidemic” of arsenic poisonings in the year 1670 so that the substance became known as the “succession powder.” Three centuries later, kind and homely Marie Besnard amazed her female friends when she described arsenic as an excellent substitute for divorce. They thought she was joking. But was she? 

by Marilyn Z. Tomlins

Illness and death were no strangers to Marie Antigny, yet, cradling Auguste, her dead husband, in her arms she sobbed uncontrollably.

Marie was 31 years old and she and Auguste, who was two years her senior, had been married for seven years. The two were first cousins – her mother was his father’s sister – and Marie had fancied Auguste since she was 17 years old, but it was not until she was 18 that her parents allowed the two to step out together, and another six years had to pass before they’d given their consent for the two to walk down the aisle. By then Marie was 24 and Auguste 26, and what doctors had described previously as his weak constitution had been diagnosed as tuberculosis. It was 1920 and tuberculosis was an incurable, even untreatable illness, but in Marie’s own words, “We were in love!”

Marie was born Marie Josephine Philippine Davaillaud in the village of Saint-Pierre-de-Maillé, 200 miles south-west of Paris, in the Vienne department close to the beautiful Loire valley.  Her parents, well-to-do farmers, adored her because before she arrived, they lost two infant sons to long illnesses. Her father Pierre Eugène used to cuddle her when he came in from working his fields, and her mother Marie-Louise never failed to tell her that she loved her “for three,” including the girl’s two dead brothers in her affection.

March 6, 2011

Mata Hari

To protect its deep infiltration into French intelligence during World War I, German intelligence conned the British and French into believing that Mata Hari was its superspy.  

by Robert Walsh

Dawn, Vincennes Barracks, October 15 1917.

Brought from her cell at the Saint-Lazare Prison less than an hour after hearing that her final appeal had been denied by the President of France, alleged superspy Mata Hari faced her firing squad seemingly calm and unafraid. She may well have led a somewhat ethically questionable life, but in death she seems to have shown considerably greater courage, fortitude and integrity than those who had conspired to place her there.

Mata Hari has long been the stuff of legend and myth, the glamorous, sexy superspy effortlessly using her feminine wiles and her physical charms to extract the highest level secrets from foolish, lecherous and indiscreet Allied officers through pillow talk before daringly passing the stolen secrets on to her German handlers. But how much spying did she actually do? What level of secrets, if any at all, did she manage to extract? Was she really the stuff of legend, a female James Bond with an equal talent for high-level espionage and flagrant promiscuity? Did she really cause the deaths of 50,000 Allied soldiers as her prosecutors claimed? Was she really, as has long been believed by so many, deserving of a place in the Pantheon of espionage legends?

Sept. 23, 2010

William Hare and William Burke

William Burke and William Hare are the most famous grave robbers of 19^th century Scotland, but none of the 16 fresh corpses they turned over for dissection in the anatomy classroom of Dr. Robert Knox at 10 Surgeon Square in Edinburg, came from any graveyard.  

by Mark Pulham

Up the close and down the stair,
In the house with Burke and Hare.
Burke’s the butcher, Hare’s the thief
Knox, the man who buys the beef. 

Children's rhyme

It is dark, and the only sound is that of someone digging. As quietly as they can, the grave robbers remove the earth from the newly interred and remove the lid of the coffin. Fearful of capture, they remove the corpse and hurriedly get away before someone discovers them. It is a profitable and fast growing business. And the most famous body grave robbers of all are Burke and Hare. In films and stories, they are shown committing this dreadful act. But the films and stories got it wrong, Burke and Hare never dug up a body.  No, they were far worse.

In Britain, the Murder Act of 1752 made it illegal for any doctor to perform a dissection on a corpse, unless the corpse was that of an executed criminal. In the 1700’s, any number of crimes could result in the death penalty. Even petty crimes such as cutting down trees, pick pocketing more than a shilling, stealing a horse or a sheep (hence the phrase, “may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb”) or being out at night with a blackened face could result in an execution.  As a result, there were hundreds of corpses available each year.

By the 1800’s, as the number of medical students began to grow, the demand for cadavers increased, but by now laws allowing more lenient punishments were on the books and the number of criminals executed had fallen to as low as 50 to 60 a year.

As always, with demand outstripping supply, someone would provide the bodies. Anatomists would turn a blind eye when the resurrection men came around with a recently interred corpse. Body snatching became a lucrative business and was so common that many graveyards built high walls and railings around them and erected watchtowers.

June 25, 2010

Dick Turpin

Dick Turpin’s romanticized image as the famed “Highwayman” of English lore was built on the big lie about his one-night ride from York to London on his faithful steed, Black Bess. Nor was he in any way a latter-day Robin Hood.

by Mark Pulham

“Stand and deliver,” Dick Turpin would shout, and with a brace of pistols levelled at the coachman, the romantic and reckless highwayman would relieve the passengers of their valuables. Dashing and daring, his tri-corn hat pulled low and a mask covering his face, he would flee on his gallant steed, Black Bess, into the night, his black cloak flowing behind him.

It’s an image that has been enhanced by numerous films going back to 1912, particularly by the Disney version and the 1970’s British television series. Who could ever forget his ride from London to York in a single night, his brave horse Bess dying from exhaustion to save his life? Who could not love the charming, handsome, courteous rogue that made robbery almost a pleasure? Certainly, this image of this latter day Robin Hood has passed down through the years with almost no change, thrilling generations of British schoolboys as the hero of numerous books. But is this an accurate portrayal of Turpin, was he really the handsome romantic hero we have seen in the movies? Hardly.

In the 18^th century, highway robbery was a common event throughout Europe and Great Britain, and anyone foolish enough to venture into the woods after dark risked robbery at gunpoint and even death. For the most part, highwaymen were ordinary criminals, but in England, on occasion, they were gentlemen who were maybe down on their luck, or were in it for the adventure. Dick Turpin, however, was not a gentleman.

January 15, 2006

Photo credit: New York World-Telegram and Sun archives, Library of Congress.

Long before 9/11 became the date most identified with terrorism, New York's Wall Street District suffered through a massive bombing on September 16, 1920 that shocked the world. Italian anarchists orchestrated the bombing five days after Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were indicted on charges of first-degree murder.

by Lona Manning

Prologue

Out of a clear blue sky, a deadly terrorist attack in New York City brought grief and outrage. Initially, the country rallied in a wave of patriotism and vowed revenge on the perpetrators. But critics said that the government was using the terrorist threat as an excuse to curtail civil liberties. They warned that aggressive action against the terrorists would only provoke more violence and was harming America's reputation in Europe. And some charged that the president was just a puppet and the decisions were really being made by a handful of government officials who lied and twisted intelligence reports to carry out their repressive agenda. Supporters of the government policy countered that these critics were aiding and abetting the enemy while posing as champions of free speech. Strong measures were needed to crush a dangerous enemy, not naïve and craven appeasement.

The year was 1920.

Victims attributed to Jack the Ripper (L-R): Mary Ann Nicholls, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catharine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly.

Jack the Ripper lives in lore, an icon of butchery, the most infamous murderer in history. But what of his hapless victims? Who were they?

by Denise M. Clark

The legend of Jack of the Ripper – the first serial killer in recorded history – conjures up visions of fog shrouded streets, the sound of footsteps clicking loudly and menacingly on cobble-stoned alleys, visions of a fiend with evil eyes, thin fingers and a black medical bag dangling from them. The London tours that celebrate his life feed off that image.

Despite the dozens of books written about Jack the Ripper, books crammed with speculation about his identity and his motivation, the fact is no one knows anything about the actual man who committed the most infamous murders in crime annals. The only thing positively known about the Ripper is who his victims were. Over time, they've been all but forgotten. Who were they?