Centenaries - whole and half

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50 years ago - 1962 May 31 - Adolf Eichmann is executed in Israel by hanging. He had been found guilty of crimes against humanity, war crimes and other charges related to his activities as a German officer in Nazi Europe.

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50 years ago - 1962 June 4 - Monika Tafel, 12, is slain by serial killer Joachim Kroll, the Ruhr Cannibal. Kroll continued murdering until 1976 when a toilet he was using was found to be clogged with the internal organs of a child. He was given a life sentence and died in 1991 while still in prison.

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100 years ago - 1912 June 5 - Mr. and Mrs. Rollin Hudson are slain in their Kansas home with a weapon alternately described as an ax, a hatchet or a coal pick. Henry Lee Moore, the suspected serial mass murderer, is thought to have perhaps been the culprit but he was never charged. Moore was later convicted of killing two members of his own family and sent to prison but was released in 1949.

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50 years ago - 1962 June 6 - William "The Sydney Mutilator" MacDonald kills his fifth and last known victim, Patrick Hackett. The killer only mutilates his victim's genitals this time rather than severing them as has been his recent practice. MacDonald became paranoid and fled leaving Hackett's remains in his shop. This led to the serial killer's arrest and life sentence in prison where he still resides.

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100 years ago - 1912 June 10 - In Villisca, Iowa, eight people are murdered in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Josiah Moore. There are no survivors. All six members of the Moore family were slain as well as Ina and Lena Stillinger, two sisters who were visiting. Although there is no shortage of theories, the case remains unsolved.

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50 years ago - 1962 June 14 - Fifty-five-year-old Anna Slesers is found dead in her apartment as a result of strangulation. She had also been sexually interfered with and is believed to be the first victim in the officially unsolved Boston Strangler serial killer case. Mrs. Slesers was a woman living alone and this will later prove to be the murderer's typical victim.

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50 years ago - 1962 June 19 - Murderer Marthinius Rossouw is hanged in South Africa for killing Baron Dietrich von Schauroth.

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50 years ago - 1962 June 22 - Paula Lepro, 57, is found strangled in her apartment. The murder weapon was her own stockings. She had also been sexually assaulted with a foreign object. She was left off some earlier lists but most often Ms. Lepro is now considered the second victim in the officially unsolved Boston Strangler serial killer case.

50 years ago - 1962 June 22 - Joseph Valachi beats Joe Saupp, a fellow prisoner, to death in Atlanta. The assailant mistook the victim for a Mafia hit man who'd been sent to kill him. Valachi became a prominent Mafia informer in the following year and died incarcerated in 1971.

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50 years ago - 1962 June 27 - Duncan Moodie is hanged for the murder of his wife Anita. A South African jury actually found him guilty twice because the first conviction was thrown out.

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50 years ago - 1962 June 28 - Mary Mullen, an 85-year-old, dies from a heart attack. The deceased had not originally been on the Boston Strangler victim list but in his questionable confession Albert DeSalvo claimed that Mary had died when he startled her in her apartment.

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50 years ago - 1962 June 30 - Helen Blake, 65, and Nina Nichols, 68, are found murdered due to separate events. In their apartments, both women had been sexually interfered with and strangled with their own nylon stockings. They are on the list in the still unsolved Boston Strangler serial killer case.

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150 years ago - 1862 July 7 - Jessie M'Pherson, a servant lady, is found axed to death on the bed in her quarters. A fellow servant and supposed friend named Jessie M'Lachlan was charged with the murder and convicted by a Scottish jury. Her sentence was death but this was later commuted to life in prison. The exact cause of the flare-up has not been adequately explained.

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100 years ago - 1912 July 13 - In England, Bessie Mundy is found dead by drowning in a bathtub. The deceased was a recent bride of George Joseph Smith, the Brides in the Bath Killer, and is thought to be the first of his three slayings. His motive was to gain financially from inheritance and life insurance settlements probably with a little sadism added in. G. J. Smith was eventually convicted of the murders and hanged in 1915.

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100 years ago - 1912 July 15 - An eighteen-year-old domestic servant named Dora Grey is found strangled on the beach at Yarmouth. Dora had a bit of a reputation but her autopsy showed that she had died a virgin. There was no sign of a struggle at the beach so the presumption was that she had been left there after being killed elsewhere. Ms. Grey had last been seen with a sandy haired man in a straw hat who appeared to be in his late 30s but this individual was never identified and her murder was never solved.

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100 years ago - 1912 July 16 - A gangster name Herman "Beansie" Rosenthal is rubbed out at a restaurant to keep him from turning rat. A crooked New York cop, Lieutenant Charles Becker, had set up the hit using four gunmen from the Jacob Zelig gang. The squad, Harry "Gyp the Blood" Horowitz, "Lefty" Louis Rosenberg, "Dago" Frank Cirofici and Jacob Seidenschmer aka Whitey Lewis, were all executed the following year. Becker tried some legal maneuvers but eventually also wound up in the electric chair in 1915.