Conrad's Crime

*Could not find images of J.K. Rideout, image is of Hong Kong in the 1950's

June 30, 2026

On February 16, 1950, John Kennedy Rideout, a brilliant British linguist and professor of Oriental Studies, vanished in British Hong Kong under circumstances that remain as unsettling today as they were at the time. Rideout was only 37 or 38 when he disappeared, a scholar whose career had already taken him from Oxford to the School of Oriental and African Studies, to the University of Sydney, and finally to the University of Hong Kong. His expertise in Chinese language and literature made him a rising figure in the academic world, someone whose life revolved around manuscripts, translation, and teaching.

Rideout had arrived in Hong Kong during a period of profound political and social upheaval. The colony was still recovering from the Japanese occupation, and the victory of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949 had triggered a massive influx of refugees and heightened geopolitical tension. It was a time when borders were tightening, allegiances were shifting, and the region was becoming a pressure point in the early Cold War. Against this backdrop, Rideout’s disappearance felt especially ominous.

What is known is starkly limited. Rideout was last seen on February 16, 1950, and soon afterward his body was discovered on Lantau Island, though the circumstances of his death were unclear enough that the case was initially treated as a disappearance. Archival records from the Colonial Office reference reports concerning his death, suggesting that officials investigated the matter closely, but no definitive public explanation ever emergedThe National Archives. Whether Rideout died by accident, suicide, or foul play remains unresolved.

His disappearance and death left a deep mark on the academic communities he had touched. Rideout had left the University of Sydney after only a year, frustrated by the lack of Chinese texts available for his work, and had hoped Hong Kong would offer a more fertile environment for scholarship. Instead, it became the site of one of the most enigmatic academic tragedies of the era.

June 25, 2026

On the afternoon of July 30, 1975, Jimmy Hoffa, one of the most powerful and polarizing labor leaders in American history, drove his green Pontiac Grand Ville to the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Township, Michigan. He believed he was meeting two men he knew well: Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano, a New Jersey Teamsters official with deep Mafia ties, and Anthony “Tony Jack” Giacalone, a Detroit mobster. Both men later denied ever arranging or attending such a meeting.

Hoffa arrived shortly before 2 p.m. Witnesses later reported seeing him pacing the lot, agitated, checking his watch. Then, sometime after 2:30 p.m., he vanished. No confirmed sighting has ever followed. His disappearance remains one of the most enduring mysteries in American criminal history.

Jimmy Hoffa was born in 1913 in Indiana and rose from warehouse worker to president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, serving from 1957 to 1971. Under his leadership, the Teamsters became the largest labor union in the United States, wielding enormous political and economic influence. Hoffa’s charisma and relentless organizing made him a hero to many working‑class Americans, but his alliances with organized crime figures, relationships he saw as necessary to strengthen the union, made him a target for federal prosecutors and political rivals.

In 1964, Hoffa was convicted of attempted bribery, jury tampering, conspiracy, and mail and wire fraud, receiving a 13‑year sentence. President Richard Nixon commuted his sentence in 1971 on the condition that Hoffa refrain from union activity until 1980Crime Museum. Hoffa ignored that condition almost immediately, working behind the scenes to reclaim his power base. His return threatened both mob interests and the Teamsters leadership that had replaced him.

By the summer of 1975, Hoffa was a man surrounded by rising tensions, fractured alliances, and dangerous ambitions.

Hoffa left his home in Lake Orion, Michigan, around 1 p.m. He told his wife he was meeting Provenzano and Giacalone at the Red Fox. When they didn’t show, he called his wife and a friend from a nearby payphone, irritated and suspicious. Those calls were the last confirmed communications he ever made.

His car was found in the restaurant parking lot later that evening, locked and empty. There were no signs of struggle. No witnesses reported seeing him forced into a vehicle. The quiet normalcy of the scene only deepened the mystery.

The FBI launched an enormous investigation, codenamed Hoffex, interviewing hundreds of witnesses and informants. Over the decades, the case has spawned countless theories, books, documentaries, and even major films like The Irishman. Yet only a handful of facts have ever been confirmedCrime Museum.

Some of the most persistent theories include:

Mob Retaliation: Many investigators believe Hoffa was killed by the Mafia to prevent him from regaining control of the Teamsters and disrupting mob‑controlled pension funds. This remains the most widely accepted explanation among experts.

Buried Under Giants Stadium: A sensational but unproven theory claimed Hoffa’s body was buried beneath the old Giants Stadium in New Jersey. Multiple searches found nothing.

Cremation: Some informants claimed Hoffa was killed and immediately cremated at a Detroit‑area funeral home with mob connections. No physical evidence has ever supported this.

A Detroit Farm: The FBI searched a farm in Michigan in 2006 based on a tip, but found no remains.

Even fifty years later, journalists and crime historians continue to propose new theories. A 2025 CBC report highlighted a Detroit crime writer who believes he has the most credible explanation yet though even that remains unverified.

In 1982, seven years after his disappearance, Hoffa was declared legally dead. His family never received closure. His body has never been found. No one has ever been charged.

Hoffa’s disappearance endures because it sits at the crossroads of labor history, organized crime, political power, and American folklore. It is a story about ambition, loyalty, betrayal, and the shadows that form when powerful worlds collide.

June 23, 2026

On October 15, 1992, along a quiet stretch of Blue Creek Road in rural Berrien County, Michigan, a man walking past the ditch noticed something strange. At first it looked like discarded trash — a bundle wrapped tightly in layers of plastic bags, tied with twine, sitting awkwardly against the weeds. But as he drew closer, the shape became unmistakable. It was a human body.

Inside the plastic was an elderly woman, carefully and deliberately wrapped, as though someone had taken great pains to contain her. She had no identification, no clothing that could anchor her to a particular life, no jewelry or personal items that might whisper her name. Whoever left her there had stripped her of everything except her body.

Investigators began calling her “Betty the Bag Lady,” a nickname born not from disrespect but from the need to keep her case alive. She was an older woman, likely in her sixties to eighties, small in stature, with gray hair and the physical signs of someone who had been cared for by others. Nothing about her suggested a transient life. If anything, she seemed like someone who had once lived quietly, perhaps dependently, in a home or facility where others helped manage her needs.

The way she was wrapped became one of the most haunting details of the case. Layer after layer of plastic, tied with twine, sealed her body like a fragile object someone was afraid to expose. It wasn’t rushed or sloppy. It was methodical. Intentional. The kind of wrapping that suggests privacy, time, and a desire to hide her, or protect her, from the world. Ironically, that same wrapping preserved her remains well enough for investigators to gather more forensic information than they otherwise might have.

Still, nothing led to her identity.

Over the years, theories have swirled. Some believe she died naturally or close to it, and that a caregiver panicked, fearing legal consequences or exposure of neglect. Others think she may have lived with family who couldn’t afford burial or didn’t want authorities involved. Another possibility is that she came from a small, unregulated care home or nursing facility where record‑keeping was poor and oversight was minimal. If she had no close relatives, her disappearance might never have been noticed.

What makes her case so chilling is how personal it feels. Betty wasn’t a runaway teenager or a victim of a serial predator. She wasn’t someone living on the margins of society. She was an elderly woman, someone who had lived a full life, someone who should have been surrounded by dignity and care at the end. Instead, she was left in a ditch, wrapped like refuse, her identity erased by the very hands that prepared her body.

The DNA Doe Project eventually took up her case, but her DNA profile proved difficult to work with. It was later transferred back to law enforcement or another lab for further testing, and her name remains locked behind degraded genetic material and the absence of close relatives in public databases.

Betty’s story lingers because it exposes a quiet kind of tragedy, the invisible disappearances of the elderly. We assume older adults are accounted for, that someone is watching, that someone would notice if they vanished. But Betty shows how easily a person can slip through the cracks, even after a lifetime of being known.

June 18, 2026

On June 12, 1993, a man walking along the shore of Bone Lake in New Scandia Township, Minnesota, noticed something bobbing in the water. At first, it didn’t click. Then it did. It was a human head.

The next day, about twenty miles away near Pig’s Eye Lake in St. Paul, a different body of water, connected by the Mississippi system, someone found a severed foot on the bank. Clean cuts. No body. No clothing. No obvious crime scene. Forensic analysis confirmed they belonged to the same woman.

She is known only as Bone Lake Jane Doe.

She was white, estimated 30–65 years old, with dark brown spiky hair and brown eyes. Her ears were triple‑pierced, a small but intimate detail, and two of her toenails were painted red. She was likely between 5'0" and 5'4", and her remains suggested she’d been in the water only a short time before discovery. Both the head and foot appeared to have been removed cleanly, with a sharp instrument suggesting dismemberment after death.

No torso. No hands. No clothing. No personal items. Nothing that could easily anchor her to a specific missing‑person report.

The case has haunted investigators for more than three decades. Early hopes that the head with distinct facial features and hair would lead to a quick ID never materialized. Facial reconstructions came and went. NamUs, local press, and the DNA Doe Project all took up her case. The Doe Project has described her as a funded case undergoing testing, but recent efforts have stalled due to degraded DNA and technical hurdles in building a viable profile.

The geography is as chilling as the facts: a quiet fishing lake in Scandia for the head, a foot washed up near an industrial, working stretch of river around Pig’s Eye Lake. Whoever killed her had at least a practical understanding of how water can disperse and separate remains or was simply using the nearest bodies of water to dispose of evidence.

We do not know who she was. We do not know who dismembered her. We do not know whether she vanished from a life of stability or from the already‑dangerous margins.

June 16, 2026

On July 22, 1990, four kids set out into the woods of Monroe Township, Clarion County, Pennsylvania, the way kids do in the summer, wandering, berry‑picking, crossing under an old railroad trestle. They saw something in the shallow stream below that they thought was a deer. It wasn’t.

Face‑down in the water lay the decomposed body of a young woman. The remote area, off State Route 322 (near road 535), was a place you only really found if you knew it was there. No ID. No car. No obvious story, just a body in a streambed under a bridge.

Investigators would later estimate that she’d been there for months, likely since late 1989 or early 1990. She was white, between 4'10" and 5'6", estimated 20–40 in early reports (some later analyses narrow that to late teens–early twenties). She’d been beaten to death; her cause of death was blunt-force trauma. Her body was badly decomposed, but one detail would give her a name: in each front pocket of her jeans, she had a penny.

They called her “Penny Doe.”

Her clothing and circumstances suggest she wasn’t wealthy or transient in the extreme, more like an everyday young woman whose life intersected with someone violent. She wore a size 12–14 blue top, denim jeans, and underwear that may have been a smaller size, hinting at either weight change or hand‑me‑down clothing. No shoes were found. No purse. No jewelry that could say “this is who I was.”

Over the decades, investigators have compared her to numerous missing women, at least 13 exclusions have been publicly listed but no match has stuck. Her dental and skeletal characteristics, along with isotope and forensic work, suggest she likely grew up in the Northeastern United States, possibly in or near Pennsylvania itself.

Her case has been revisited many times: by Dateline, cold case bloggers, and independent investigators like Gavin Fish, who helped bring renewed attention to the scene, the original forensic reports, and the likelihood that her killer is still anonymous, somewhere out there.

June 11, 2026

In the late autumn of 1928, the quiet farming community of York County, Pennsylvania, found itself at the center of a story that felt centuries older than the automobiles parked along its dirt roads. This was Pennsylvania Dutch country, a place where folk healing, powwow magic, and whispered hexes lived alongside churchgoing respectability. And it was here, in a lonely farmhouse in Rehmeyer’s Hollow, that Nelson Rehmeyer met a violent and superstitious end.

Rehmeyer was a powwow doctor, a practitioner of traditional folk healing rooted in Germanic charms and scripture. He was known as gentle, solitary, and a little strange, but hardly dangerous. Yet to John Blymire, a local man plagued by misfortune, Rehmeyer became the embodiment of a curse.

Blymire believed he had been “hexed.” His crops failed. His health declined. His luck evaporated. In desperation, he sought the advice of another powwow practitioner, who told him that the person who had cursed him was someone he knew, someone with “the strongest power.” Blymire became convinced that the culprit was Rehmeyer.

On the night of November 27, 1928, Blymire and two accomplices, John Curry, age 14, and Wilbert Hess, age 18, went to Rehmeyer’s farmhouse. Their plan was rooted in superstition: steal Rehmeyer’s copy of The Long Lost Friend, a powwow book believed to hold protective spells, and bury a lock of his hair to break the curse.

But when Rehmeyer resisted, panic took over. The men beat him, strangled him, and left his body on the kitchen floor. They attempted to burn the house to hide the crime, but the fire mysteriously failed to spread, a detail that fed local legends for decades.

The murder shocked the nation. Newspapers called it the “Hex Murder,” framing it as a relic of medieval superstition surviving into the modern age. Blymire and his accomplices were arrested, tried, and convicted, but the deeper story, of fear, folklore, and the dangerous power of belief, lingered long after the courtroom closed.

June 09, 2026

In the late 1890s, Londoners flocked to the Borough district for cheap lodgings, cheap meals, and the kind of anonymity only a crowded city can offer. Among the many small establishments was a barber shop run by a quiet, intense Polish immigrant named Severin Klosowski, who later adopted the name George Chapman.

Between 1897 and 1902, three women who lived with Chapman, Mary Spink, Bessie Taylor, and Maud Marsh, all died after prolonged, agonizing illnesses. Their symptoms were eerily similar: vomiting, abdominal pain, wasting, and collapse. Doctors initially attributed the deaths to natural causes.

But Maud Marsh’s family grew suspicious. She had been healthy before moving in with Chapman. She deteriorated rapidly under his care. And Chapman seemed disturbingly calm as she died.

An autopsy revealed antimony poisoning.

Police exhumed the bodies of Chapman’s previous partners. All three showed signs of the same poison. Chapman had administered it slowly, over weeks or months, in small doses that mimicked common illnesses. He nursed them, comforted them, and then inherited their money.

Chapman was arrested in 1902 and convicted of Maud Marsh’s murder. He was hanged in 1903.

His case became even more infamous when investigators noted that he had lived in Whitechapel during the Jack the Ripper murders. Some theorized he might have been the Ripper. Most historians reject the idea, Chapman was a poisoner, not a mutilator but the speculation added a lurid sheen to his already chilling legacy.

June 04, 2026

On the morning of August 10, 1893, on the sprawling Ardlamont Estate in Argyll, Scotland, 20‑year‑old Windsor Dudley Cecil Hambrough set out for a shooting lesson with his tutor, Alfred John Monson, and a servant named Edward Scott. The trio walked into the woods carrying rifles. Only two returned alive.

Monson claimed that Hambrough had accidentally shot himself while climbing a fence. The story was thin from the start. Hambrough was an experienced shot. The wound was inconsistent with a self‑inflicted accident. And Monson’s behavior, calm, rehearsed, oddly detached, raised eyebrows.

Investigators soon discovered that Monson had recently taken out multiple life insurance policies on Hambrough, totaling thousands of pounds — a fortune in 1893. Worse, the policies had been arranged through dubious channels, with Monson listed as the beneficiary.

The case exploded into the press. Scotland was captivated by the image of a charming, educated tutor who might also be a calculating killer.

At trial, the prosecution argued that Monson had staged the shooting to collect the insurance money. The defense countered that the evidence was circumstantial and that Scott, the servant, was unreliable. The jury returned a verdict of “Not Proven,” a uniquely Scottish outcome meaning “we think you did it, but we can’t quite prove it.”

Monson walked free, but his reputation never recovered. Years later, he was convicted of fraud in an unrelated case, cementing public suspicion that the Ardlamont “accident” had been anything but.

June 02, 2026

On the morning of December 15, 1927, 12‑year‑old Marion Parker was sitting in her classroom at Mount Vernon Junior High School in Los Angeles when a man arrived at the office claiming her father had been gravely injured. He said he was a messenger sent by the hospital and that Marion needed to come immediately.

The school secretary, trusting the man’s calm demeanor and professional appearance, released Marion into his custody.

It was the last time anyone saw her alive.

Marion’s father, Perry Parker, was a respected bank executive at the Los Angeles First National Bank. When he received the call that his daughter had been taken, he was thrust into a nightmare that would grip the entire city.

Within hours, the first ransom note arrived. It was signed “The Fox.”

The handwriting was theatrical, almost gleeful. The language was taunting, self‑aggrandizing, and disturbingly playful. The kidnapper demanded $1,500, a significant sum in 1927, and insisted that Parker follow instructions precisely or Marion would die.

More notes followed, each more elaborate than the last. The Fox seemed intoxicated by the attention, by the drama, by the power of controlling a terrified father and a panicked city.

On December 19, after days of frantic waiting, The Fox contacted Parker with instructions for the exchange. Parker was to drive alone, follow a series of turns, and wait for a signal. At last, a car approached. Inside, propped upright in the passenger seat, was Marion. Her eyes were open. Her face was pale. She appeared dazed, weak, but alive. Parker, overwhelmed with relief, handed over the ransom money. The Fox sped away. Moments later, Parker realized the truth.

Marion had been dead the entire time.

Her body had been posed, her eyelids stitched open, her torso dismembered, her limbs wrapped in towels. The killer had staged her as a grotesque puppet to ensure the ransom was paid.

The horror of that moment reverberated across Los Angeles.

The man calling himself “The Fox” was William Edward Hickman, a 19‑year‑old former bank messenger who had once worked for Parker’s bank. He had been fired for theft. He had a history of petty crime, narcissistic behavior, and grandiose fantasies.

Hickman fled Los Angeles, sparking one of the largest manhunts in California history. He was captured in Oregon on December 22, still carrying some of the ransom money.

During interrogation, Hickman confessed but in a way that revealed his warped psychology. He claimed he had been acting under the influence of “superior beings.” He insisted Marion had been “happy” with him. He described her murder with chilling detachment.

His statements were inconsistent, self‑serving, and delusional.

Hickman’s trial began in early 1928 and quickly became a national spectacle. The defense attempted an insanity plea, citing his bizarre writings and erratic behavior. Psychiatrists debated his mental state, but the prosecution argued he was fully aware of his actions.

The jury agreed. Hickman was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. He was executed by hanging at San Quentin on October 19, 1928.

The murder of Marion Parker left a deep scar on Los Angeles. It fueled public fear about child safety, influenced early discussions about school release policies, and intensified debates about capital punishment and criminal psychology.

It also revealed something darker: the way certain killers crave not just violence, but audience, the thrill of being watched, feared, and talked about.

Hickman didn’t just want money. He wanted a stage.

And he used a child’s life to build it.

May 28, 2026

On the sweltering afternoon of December 30, 1921, twelve‑year‑old Nell Alma Tirtschke walked through the heart of Melbourne on an errand for her grandmother. It was the height of the Australian summer, and the city pulsed with holiday crowds preparing for the New Year. Alma, slight and soft‑spoken, wore a simple dress and carried a parcel list. She was known for her studiousness, her shyness, and her reliability, the kind of child who never wandered, never dawdled, and never disobeyed.

But that day, something was different.

Witnesses later said she looked anxious. One man claimed he saw someone following her. Others said she seemed hesitant, as though she sensed danger but didn’t know how to escape it.

By mid‑afternoon, Alma was last seen near the Australian Wine Saloon in the Eastern Arcade, a drinking establishment that catered to men, not children. She passed by its doorway around 3 p.m., her small figure swallowed by the noise and heat of the city.

She never made it home.

At dawn on December 31, a laborer walking through a narrow laneway off Little Collins Street, a grim passage known as Gun Alley, stumbled upon a sight that would haunt Melbourne for generations. Alma’s naked body lay in the dirt, her clothing discarded nearby. She had been raped and strangled with a cord. Her pale skin was streaked with grime. Her hair, once neatly braided, was tangled and matted.

The brutality of the crime stunned the city. Newspapers erupted with headlines. Crowds gathered at the scene. Fear spread like wildfire. A child had been murdered in the center of Melbourne, and the killer was still out there.

Police were under immense pressure to find someone, anyone, to blame.

Within days, suspicion fell on Colin Campbell Ross, the 29‑year‑old owner of the Australian Wine Saloon. Ross had seen Alma pass by his doorway. He had spoken openly to detectives about it, believing he had nothing to hide. But his honesty became the rope that tightened around his neck.

The case against him was thin:

Two witnesses both with motives to lie, claimed he had behaved suspiciously.

A fortune teller and a disgruntled former employee provided statements that shifted over time.

A few strands of red hair found on a blanket in Ross’s home were declared a “match” to Alma’s, a conclusion modern science would later prove impossible.

Ross insisted he was innocent. He had an alibi. He had no history of violence. He had no connection to Alma beyond seeing her walk past his saloon.

But the city wanted a villain.

Ross’s trial was swift, fevered, and deeply flawed. The courtroom was packed with spectators hungry for justice. The newspapers painted Ross as a predator. The prosecution leaned heavily on the hair evidence, the only physical link between Ross and the crime.

On February 2, 1922, Ross was found guilty.

He was hanged at Melbourne Gaol on April 24, 1922. His final words were a declaration of innocence.

Alma’s family believed him. They always had.

For decades, the case lingered in the Australian consciousness as a symbol of wrongful conviction. Journalists, historians, and legal scholars questioned the evidence. Ross’s lawyer, Thomas Brennan, had fought tirelessly to appeal the verdict, but the system had been immovable.

In the 1990s, forensic experts re‑examined the hair samples using modern techniques. The results were unequivocal: the hair did not belong to Alma. The evidence used to convict Ross had been scientifically invalid.

In 2008, Ross received a posthumous pardon, the first and only judicially executed person in Australia to be pardoned.

The real killer was never charged, though later research pointed to George Murphy, a returned soldier with a history of predatory behavior and a connection to Alma’s extended family.

Alma Tirtschke’s murder remains one of Australia’s most haunting unsolved crimes. Her death shattered a family, terrified a city, and led to the wrongful execution of an innocent man. It exposed the dangers of public pressure, unreliable witnesses, and early forensic science.

May 26, 2026

On the night of March 17, 1934, a single gunshot cracked through the stillness of Ringtown Valley, Pennsylvania. It was the kind of cold, brittle night where sound carries for miles, echoing off the mountains and slipping through the dark seams of farmhouses. Inside one of those homes — a small, weathered structure perched on a lonely stretch of land, 60‑year‑old Susan Mummey fell to the floor, a bullet lodged in her heart.

Her death was instantaneous. The legend that followed was anything but.

For decades, locals had called her “The Witch of Ringtown Valley.” It was a name spoken with equal parts fear, fascination, and grudging respect. But behind the folklore was a real woman, widowed, isolated, and deeply misunderstood, whose life and death reveal far more about rural superstition and mental illness than about magic.

To understand why Susan became a figure of such intense speculation, you have to understand the world she lived in.

Ringtown Valley in the early 20th century was a place where Pennsylvania Dutch powwow traditions still thrived. Folk healing, charms, protective prayers, and whispered warnings were woven into daily life. People believed in signs. They believed in curses. They believed in the thin veil between the natural and the supernatural.

Susan fit neatly into that landscape.

She was known for:

her prophetic dreams

her belief in omens

her willingness to speak openly about spirits

her reputation for “second sight”

She wasn’t a witch in the Hollywood sense. She didn’t cast spells or summon spirits. But she lived in a community where being different, especially as a woman, was enough to earn the title.

Her husband had died in a gunpowder factory explosion in 1910, leaving her alone with her children and a growing sense of independence. She was outspoken, stubborn, and unafraid to confront neighbors or family members when she felt wronged. Over time, that boldness hardened into a reputation: Susan wasn’t just eccentric, she was dangerous.

Or so people said.

The man who killed Susan was William “Bill” Moyer, a neighbor who lived just across the fields. Moyer had been struggling for years with hallucinations and paranoid delusions. He believed he was being tormented by unseen forces. He believed someone was controlling his thoughts. And eventually, he became convinced that the source of his suffering was Susan.

In his unraveling mind, she wasn’t a widow living alone in a drafty farmhouse. She was a witch. A threat. A supernatural enemy.

The more his mental state deteriorated, the more fixated he became.

On March 17, 1934, Moyer walked through the darkness toward Susan’s home. He carried a rifle. He believed, truly believed, that killing her was the only way to free himself from the torment he felt.

He stood outside her window. He raised the gun. He fired.

The bullet pierced the glass and struck Susan in the chest. She collapsed instantly, dead before she hit the floor.

The shot echoed across the valley, but no one knew what had happened until morning.

Moyer confessed quickly. He signed his statement in Tamaqua, explaining that he had been “hexed” and that Susan had been controlling him through supernatural means. His words were not the ramblings of a cold‑blooded killer, they were the desperate explanations of a man lost in his own mind.

The court declared him insane, and he was committed rather than executed.

Susan’s death, meanwhile, became a brief national sensation. Newspapers seized on the witchcraft angle, framing the murder as a relic of colonial superstition surviving into the modern age. But just as quickly as the story flared, it faded. The Great Depression swallowed it whole, and Susan’s name slipped into the margins of local memory.

The truth is that Susan was not a witch. She was not a murderer. She was not a villain.

She was a woman who:

lived alone

believed in the old ways

spoke her mind

and carried a reputation she never asked for

Her death was not the result of magic, but of fear, mental illness, and a community that blurred the line between folklore and reality.

The murder of Susan Mummey is a reminder of how easily a person can be transformed into a myth and how dangerous that transformation can be.

It is a story about:

the power of superstition

the fragility of mental health

the way communities create villains

and the tragic consequences of misunderstanding

Susan’s life and death sit at the crossroads of folklore and fact, a place where truth becomes tangled with fear and where a woman can be killed not for what she did, but for what people believed she was.

*Not actual photo of victim or house, photo is from 1904 Nebraska for reference of time period*

May 21, 2026

In the summer of 1904, 18‑year‑old Elva “Eva” Crouch, newly married and full of hope, was found dead in her Kentucky home. Her skull was fractured. Her body lay at the foot of the stairs. Her husband, James Crouch, claimed she had fallen.

But neighbors whispered that James had a temper. They had heard shouting the night before. They had seen Eva with bruises. They had watched her shrink into herself in the months since the wedding.

James’s behavior after her death raised eyebrows. He was calm. Too calm. He joked with neighbors. He smiled at the coroner. He seemed more annoyed than grief‑stricken.

The inquest was chaotic. Witnesses contradicted each other. The coroner vacillated. Some insisted Eva had been pushed. Others believed she had slipped. The community split into factions, those who believed James was a murderer, and those who believed he was a victim of gossip.

James was acquitted.

May 19, 2026

On Valentine’s Day 1945, in the quiet English village of Lower Quinton, 74‑year‑old farm laborer Charles Walton was found dead in a field on Meon Hill, a place steeped in centuries of folklore. His throat had been slashed. His chest had been pierced with his own pitchfork. His walking stick lay nearby, broken.

The brutality of the scene was shocking, but it was the symbolism that unsettled investigators. The pitchfork pinned him to the ground like a ritual sacrifice. A cross‑shaped wound marked his chest. Rumors spread instantly: witchcraft, curses, ancient rites.

Walton was a reclusive man, rumored to have “the evil eye.” Locals claimed he could stop machinery with a glance, that animals died in his presence, that he was touched by something uncanny. Whether these stories were superstition or scapegoating, they shaped the investigation.

Scotland Yard sent Detective Robert Fabian, who quickly realized the villagers would not talk. Doors closed. Eyes averted. Every question was met with silence or evasions. Fabian later wrote that he had never encountered a community so determined to hide something.

No suspect was ever charged.

May 14, 2026

In the isolated marshlands of Hyde County, North Carolina, the name Reverend George Washington Carawan once carried the weight of authority. He was a Baptist minister with a commanding presence, a man whose sermons could stir a congregation and whose temper could silence a room. To some, he was a spiritual leader. To others, he was a man to be feared. His life would end in a way that stunned the entire region, a violent spectacle inside a crowded courtroom, but the seeds of that ending were planted long before the final gunshot.

Carawan’s reputation had always been complicated. He was respected for his preaching, yet whispered about for his volatility. Neighbors spoke of his intensity, his pride, and the way he seemed to bristle at even imagined slights. Rumors clung to him like swamp mist: that his first wife had died under circumstances too convenient to be natural, that an illegitimate infant connected to him had perished suddenly, that a man whose wife Carawan had been involved with had met an early death. None of these suspicions ever reached a courtroom, but they lingered in the community’s memory, resurfacing with new force after his final act.

The event that brought Carawan’s life crashing down began in November 1852, when he became convinced that Clement H. Lassiter, a local schoolteacher, was having an affair with his wife. Whether this belief was grounded in truth or fueled by jealousy and paranoia is lost to history, but Carawan believed it with absolute certainty. One night, driven by rage and righteousness, he confronted Lassiter, shot him, and forced one of his enslaved men to help bury the body deep in the woods. It was a brutal, impulsive act, one that Carawan seemed to justify to himself as the defense of his honor.

After the killing, he fled the state, disappearing into Tennessee for nearly a year. He might have escaped justice entirely if not for the enslaved man he had coerced into helping him. When Carawan attempted to return home, the man recognized him and alerted neighbors. Carawan was arrested and brought back to North Carolina to stand trial.

The trial, held in Beaufort County during the fall term of 1853, drew crowds from across the region. Farmers, churchgoers, and curious onlookers packed the courtroom, eager to witness the downfall of a man who had once stood in the pulpit. The evidence against him was overwhelming. Witnesses described his jealousy and threats. The enslaved man recounted the burial. Carawan’s flight was seen as a silent confession. The jury deliberated, returned to the courtroom, and delivered a verdict of guilty.

What happened next became legend.

As the judge prepared to pronounce sentence, Carawan rose from his seat. In a moment that stunned everyone present, he reached into his clothing and pulled out a concealed pistol, a weapon he had somehow smuggled into the courtroom. Before anyone could react, he fired at the prosecuting attorney, the man who had secured his conviction. The shot rang through the room, sending spectators into screams and chaos. Deputies lunged forward, but Carawan was already turning the gun on himself. He fired a second time. The minister collapsed to the floor, dying almost instantly.

The courtroom, moments earlier a place of solemn judgment, had become the scene of a double shooting. Carawan’s final act was one of defiance, violence, and spectacle, a last attempt to seize control in a moment when all power had slipped from his grasp.

In the aftermath of his death, the old suspicions about him resurfaced with renewed intensity. People whispered again about his first wife, about the infant, about the man whose wife he had been involved with. Whether these stories were true or simply the community’s attempt to make sense of a man who had lived and died so violently, they became part of his legacy.

May 12, 2026

In the early hours of December 2, 1900, the quiet Iowa farmhouse of John and Margaret Hossack became the stage for a murder that would grip the nation. John, a well‑known and often‑feared farmer in Warren County, was struck twice in the head with an axe while he slept beside his wife. The blows were so forceful that they fractured his skull and sprayed blood across the bedding and walls.

Margaret claimed she awoke to the sound of the axe striking her husband. She said she saw a shadowy figure fleeing the room, then ran to her children’s bedrooms for help. By the time the family returned, John was dying. He lingered for hours, drifting in and out of consciousness, unable to name his attacker.

The farmhouse was locked. No windows were broken. No valuables were missing. And the axe belonged to the Hossacks. Suspicion fell immediately on Margaret.

The Hossacks were respected in their community, but their marriage was no secret. Neighbors whispered about John’s temper, his harshness, and the way Margaret seemed to shrink in his presence. Some said he ruled the household with an iron fist. Others insisted Margaret was long‑suffering, quiet, and dutiful.

But there were darker rumors too, that Margaret had once threatened to leave him, that she feared him, that the children had witnessed violent arguments.

In a time when domestic abuse was rarely acknowledged, these whispers carried weight.

Sheriff Lewis and his deputies found no signs of forced entry. The doors were locked from the inside. The family dog had not barked. Snow outside the house was undisturbed. The axe had been washed and placed neatly back in its spot.

Margaret’s story, that an intruder had slipped in, murdered her husband, and escaped unseen seemed increasingly unlikely.

But many in the community defended her. They knew John’s temper. They knew Margaret’s quiet endurance. They believed she was incapable of violence, or that, if she had struck the blow, she had been driven to it by years of suffering.

The case became a referendum on marriage, gender, and the private violence hidden inside rural homes.

Margaret Hossack was charged with murder.

Her trial drew crowds from across Iowa. Reporters filled the courtroom. The prosecution painted her as a cold, resentful wife who had finally snapped. They pointed to her calm demeanor, her inconsistent statements, and the lack of evidence for an intruder.

The defense countered with testimony about John’s cruelty. Neighbors described hearing arguments, seeing bruises, and witnessing Margaret’s fear. The children testified that their parents had quarreled the night before the murder.

Margaret herself took the stand, insisting she was innocent. Her voice was steady. Her story never wavered. She said she loved her husband, despite their troubles.

The jury deliberated for hours and found her guilty.

Margaret was sentenced to life in prison.

Public opinion shifted quickly. Many believed the verdict was unjust, shaped more by prejudice against a woman accused of killing her husband than by evidence. Editorials argued that Margaret had been condemned for failing to behave as a grieving widow “should.”

Two years later, the Iowa Supreme Court overturned the conviction, citing procedural errors.

Margaret was retried.

This time, the jury could not reach a verdict. The case was dismissed. Margaret walked free.

She returned to her children, lived quietly, and never spoke publicly about the murder again.

The murder of John Hossack remains unsolved.

Was Margaret a battered wife pushed to the brink? Was she an innocent woman trapped in a nightmare? Or was there truly an intruder, someone who slipped in and out of the farmhouse without leaving a trace?

The truth lies buried with the Hossacks, but the case endures because it reveals the hidden fractures inside a marriage, the limits of justice, and the way a community chooses sides when the walls of a home are breached.

May 07, 2026

When Johann “Jack” Unterweger walked out of an Austrian prison in 1990, he was not just a free man, he was a literary sensation. During his 15 years behind bars for the murder of an 18‑year‑old woman, Unterweger had reinvented himself as a writer, a poet, a symbol of rehabilitation. Intellectuals championed him. Journalists praised him. Politicians shook his hand. He became the poster child for the idea that art could redeem even the darkest soul.

But beneath the polished exterior, the monster had never left.

Unterweger’s first known murder occurred in 1974, when he strangled a young woman with her own bra and left her body in the woods. He was sentenced to life in prison. There, he discovered literature, or perhaps discovered how literature could be used. He wrote an autobiography filled with remorse. He published poems. He charmed the cultural elite. They lobbied for his release, convinced he had transformed.

The government agreed.

Within months of his release, sex workers across Austria began turning up dead. Their bodies were found in forests and riverbeds, strangled with their own lingerie, the same signature Unterweger had used before prison. But now he had a new advantage: he was a celebrated writer, a man who moved easily through police circles, a man who had become a crime reporter.

He covered his own murders.

He interviewed detectives. He visited crime scenes. He wrote articles criticizing the police for failing to catch the killer. He even traveled to Los Angeles to “study” sex work and violence against women. While there, three women were murdered in the same manner as the Austrian victims.

The pattern was unmistakable.

By 1992, investigators had connected the dots. Unterweger was arrested and charged with 11 murders across Austria, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and the United States. The trial was a media spectacle, the fall of a man who had convinced an entire nation that he was reformed.

He was convicted on nine counts.

Hours after the verdict, Unterweger hanged himself in his prison cell using a rope he braided from shoelaces and the cord of his tracksuit pants, a final act of control, and a final echo of the ligatures he had used on his victims.

May 05, 2026

On March 21, 1815, the Turner household at 68 Chancery Lane sat down to a simple dinner: beef, potatoes, and a batch of yeast dumplings prepared by their 20‑year‑old servant, Elizabeth “Eliza” Fenning. Within hours, every member of the family, Mr. Turner, Mrs. Turner, and their adult son was violently ill. Their symptoms were unmistakable: burning stomach pain, vomiting, and near‑paralysis. The cause was quickly identified as arsenic.

Eliza had eaten the dumplings too. In fact, she became so sick that she had to be carried to bed. But in the rigid social hierarchy of early‑19th‑century London, this detail did not protect her. It made her look reckless, not innocent.

The Turners were not an easy family to work for. They were known for their strictness, their suspicion of servants, and their belief that domestic staff were inherently untrustworthy. Eliza had been reprimanded earlier that day for entering the young master’s room without permission, a minor infraction, but one the Turners later framed as evidence of her “defiance.”

In a world where servants had little power and even less protection, this was enough to cast a shadow.

Arsenic was common in Victorian households, used for killing rats, cleaning, and even whitening laundry. The Turners kept a supply in the kitchen, stored in a drawer that multiple people accessed. It was not locked. It was not inventoried. It was not treated with caution.

When investigators found traces of arsenic in the dough bowl, the Turners insisted Eliza must have added it. They offered no explanation for how she could have done so without poisoning herself more severely. They offered no alternative suspects. They simply pointed to the servant girl.

And the authorities, eager for a quick resolution, accepted it.

Eliza’s trial lasted only a few hours.

There was no proof she had handled the arsenic. No witness saw her tamper with the food. No motive was established beyond the Turners’ vague claim that she had been “sullen.”

The prosecution argued that Eliza had eaten the dumplings only to “avoid suspicion,” ignoring the fact that she became violently ill, hardly the behavior of a calculating poisoner.

Her defense attorney was inexperienced. The judge was openly hostile. The jury deliberated for just minutes.

Eliza was sentenced to death.

On July 26, 1815, Eliza Fenning was hanged at Newgate Prison. She maintained her innocence until the end, telling the chaplain, “I am not guilty, sir, indeed I am not.”

Her execution drew an enormous crowd. Many came not to condemn her, but to mourn her. The public sensed something was wrong. Newspapers questioned the verdict. Writers and reformers argued that Eliza had been sacrificed to protect the reputation of a wealthy family.

Her funeral procession stretched for blocks. Thousands followed her coffin. Women wept openly. Men removed their hats as it passed.

Eliza became a symbol not of crime, but of injustice.

In the years that followed, new details emerged:

The Turners had enemies and business disputes.

Their kitchen was chaotic, with multiple people preparing food.

Arsenic was stored carelessly and could easily have contaminated the meal accidentally.

The Turners’ testimony was inconsistent and self‑serving.

Modern historians widely believe Eliza was innocent, a young woman condemned because she was poor, female, and powerless.