Historical Crimes
Cases from American history that still resonate today — from frontier outlaws to Prohibition-era violence.
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The Azaria Chamberlain Case: A Dingo, a Grieving Mother, and Australia’s Most Infamous Wrongful Conviction
When nine-week-old Azaria Chamberlain vanished from a tent at Uluru in August 1980, her mother cried that a dingo had taken her. Australia didn’t believe Lindy Chamberlain — and it took 32 years to prove her right. Continue reading
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The Ed Gein Case: The Antifreeze Receipt That Led Police to a Plainfield Farmhouse in 1957
On the opening day of deer season in 1957, Bernice Worden vanished from her Plainfield hardware store, leaving one receipt behind. It led police to Ed Gein’s farm, and to the crimes that inspired Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,… Continue reading
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The Candy Montgomery Case: 41 Axe Blows, a Church Affair, and the Texas Jury That Set Her Free
On June 13, 1980, Candy Montgomery walked into Betty Gore’s home in Wylie, Texas, to pick up a child’s swimsuit and left her friend dead from 41 axe blows. A jury called it self-defense, and 46 years later people still… Continue reading
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The Hitler Diaries Hoax: How Sixty Fake Notebooks Humiliated the World’s Press
In 1983, a German magazine announced the discovery of Adolf Hitler’s secret personal diaries and paid a fortune to acquire them. A respected Oxford historian vouched for their authenticity. Newsstands sold out worldwide. Then chemists opened the notebooks — and… Continue reading
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Han van Meegeren: The Forger Who Fooled the Nazis — and Had to Prove His Own Guilt to Escape a Firing Squad
A failed Dutch painter sold a fake Vermeer to Hermann Goering himself, one of the greatest cons in art history. Then the war ended, and the same forgery that made him rich threatened to get him executed as a Nazi… Continue reading
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Ferdinand Waldo Demara: The ‘Great Impostor’ Who Performed Real Surgery Aboard a Warship
He had no medical degree, no surgical training, and no legal right to be aboard a Royal Canadian Navy destroyer during the Korean War. He amputated a soldier’s leg anyway — and the man lived. This is the story of… Continue reading
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Victor Lustig: The Con Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower — Twice
He printed fake official letterhead, invited France’s top scrap-metal dealers to a secret hotel meeting, and calmly offered to sell them the Eiffel Tower. Then he did it again. Then he conned Al Capone — and still came out ahead. Continue reading
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The Great Brink’s Robbery: Boston’s “Crime of the Century” and the Confession That Came Just in Time
On January 17, 1950, seven masked men pulled off what newspapers called “the perfect crime”: a $2.7 million Boston robbery that took the FBI nearly six years to crack. The confession came just days before the statute of limitations expired. Continue reading
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Vanished Before the King Arrived: The Theft of the Irish Crown Jewels
Four days before a royal visit, Ireland’s most valuable jewels disappeared from a locked strongroom inside a heavily guarded castle — and nobody had broken in. More than a century later, the diamonds have never resurfaced, and the case file… Continue reading
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Charles Ponzi and the $20 Million Postal Stamp Scam That Gave Fraud Its Name
In 1920, a broke Italian immigrant convinced Boston that he had found a legal loophole to double anyone’s money in 90 days. For a few dizzying months, people mortgaged their homes to hand him cash. Then the math stopped working,… Continue reading
