Centenaries - whole and half

[sdreid]

Thanks GUT. I think I started this in January 2008 so I will complete the full 50 year cycle in December 2057 when I'm 111.

[GUT]

G'day Stan

Thanks for all the interesting history.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1965 December 10 - Andrew Pixley is executed in a Wyoming gas chamber for the murders of Debbie McAuliffe, 12, and her 8-year-old sister Cindy. He had broken into the girl's hotel room while their parents were out. The victims were sexually assaulted and then beaten to death with a rock. Cindy was also strangled but their 6-year-old sister wasn't harmed.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1915 December 8 - In France, Berthe Anna Heon, 55, vanishes after a date to meet Henri Landru. She is believed to be the fifth victim of the serial killer. Landru's ploy was to seduce lonely older women then murder them after gaining access to their financial assets. It is believed that he killed at least eleven, disposing of their remains in his stove. He went to the guillotine in 1922.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1965 December 2 - Emogene Harrington, 56, is attacked and murdered in the basement of her apartment building. She is believed to be one of seven women slain by Posteal Laskey, aka The Cincinnati Starngler. The serial killer was actually only convicted of one later murder and sent to prison for life. In 2007, he died of natural causes while still incarcerated.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1965 November 26 - Sydney crime figure Robert "Jacky" Steele is gunned down on the street. He did live about a month but did eventually die from his wounds. No one was arrested in the hit but suspicion was that Australian crime boss Lenny McPherson was behind the operation.

[Mayerling]

100 years ago - 1915 November 19 - Labor organizer Joe Hill is executed by a Utah firing squad for a double murder that occurred during a grocery store robbery. Some have asserted that the conviction might have been politically motivated.

"I dreamt I saw Joe Hill last night,
alive as you and me.
But Joe I heard you're ten years dead?
"I never died!", said he...."

Only fitting way to mark the date.

Jeff

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1915 November 19 - Labor organizer Joe Hill is executed by a Utah firing squad for a double murder that occurred during a grocery store robbery. Some have asserted that the conviction might have been politically motivated.

[Rosella]

^ Thanks Mayerling, I'll search it out.

[Mayerling]

Error

The author of "The Overbury Affair" was Miriam Allen de Ford, not de Paige.

[Mayerling]

Thanks for the information, Mayerling. Ive forgotten a lot of what I've read about the Overbury affair. I do remember that James was very worried that somehow he was going to be dragged into the scandal and that poor Overbury died by inches. I believe Charles I had a bit of a crush on Buckingham, or perhaps it was hero worship, but James certainly adored George. He was reputedly extraordinarily handsome.

Charles actually had hero worship for Villiers, not a crush. But it did interfere with Charles marriage to Henrietta Marie in 1625. Villiers, as Duke of Buckingham, was an inept Prime Minister to Charles, especially as he faced as his foe Cardinal Richelieu of France (like a house cat facing a lion). In 1628 Buckingham was assassinated by John Felton, either for religious reasons (Felton was a Puritan), or for anger at not getting a promotion (more likely). After Buckingham's death Charles and Henrietta became closer until his death in 1649.

The main mystery of Overbury's horrible death was if James (who did assist Carr and Frances in trumping up the charges that put Overbury in the Tower of London) was involved in the poisoning. James sounds like he was an accomplice before the fact (like Dr. Mudd knowing Booth before the assassination and probably being aware of the actor's earlier "kidnapping of Lincoln" scheme, not the assassination plot). It is not likely he'd have seen any reason to be involved in the poisoning.

There is a book by Miriam Allan de Page, "The Overbury Affair" that was written in the 1960s and won the Mystery Writers Award for best true crime book.

Jeff

[Rosella]

Thanks for the information, Mayerling. Ive forgotten a lot of what I've read about the Overbury affair. I do remember that James was very worried that somehow he was going to be dragged into the scandal and that poor Overbury died by inches. I believe Charles I had a bit of a crush on Buckingham, or perhaps it was hero worship, but James certainly adored George. He was reputedly extraordinarily handsome.

[Mayerling]

Wasn't Overbury a close and personal friend of one of the boyfriends of James I of England, Robert Carr? Carr, and more likely his new wife Frances Howard, probably thought Overbury was surplus to requirements and likely to blab, so searched around for poisons.

Carr was James I of Great Britain's "favorite" (read his homosexual lover) from 1606 to 1614. Overbury was Carr's secretary, and something of a minor poet and literary figure (he wrote a book about "Character" types in English literature that was well respected in his day). Overbury was a smart guy - perhaps too smart. When Carr showed his heterosexuality by aiming for marriage with the Frances, Countess of Essex, Overbury disliked it because he felt it weakened Carr's relationship with the King. Francis, Robert Carr, and James conspired to give Francis grounds for her divorce from Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, and when that was attained in 1611 she married Carr. He was now Earl of Somerset, so she was still a Countess. Frances was a willful and selfish woman, and she manipulated Carr into having Overbury arrested and sent to the tower on a trumped up charge. There (with the aid of Mistress Turner, who was something of a female pimp and beautician, and three others) she made sure all of Overbury's food was poisoned. Yet it took him two years to die. Unfortunately for Carr and his wife they found 1) they didn't really have much going for them but power and sex - they couldn't stand each other elsewise; 2) James had a new toy-boy at court: George Villiers, who would eventually end up Duke of Buckingham in the reign of James' son Charles I.
By 1615 Carr's days of power were collapsing. Suddenly revelations concerning the death of Overbury arose, and Carr, Frances, Mistress Turner, and the other three were put on trial for murder. It was (in that day) the biggest murder case and political scandal ever to rock England. Carr and Frances and their four accomplices were found guilty, but only the accomplices were hanged (Mistress Turner had invented some dye for the ruffs on women's costumes that was a tin blue and yellow color - King James hated it, and ordered that she wear a ruff with that tint on it to her execution to help speed it's way to oblivion as a fashion statement). Carr and Frances were stuck in a country house they owned - ordered to stay there forever under house arrest. They did have a daughter they both showed actual affection for, but otherwise it was a torment for both of them living together.
Frances died of cancer of the overies in the 1620s (William Roughead said that she would have been better off if she died by hanging). Carr died in the 1630s.

[Rosella]

Wasn't Overbury a close and personal friend of one of the boyfriends of James I of England, Robert Carr? Carr, and more likely his new wife Frances Howard, probably thought Overbury was surplus to requirements and likely to blab, so searched around for poisons.

[sdreid]

400 years ago - 1615 November 15 - In England, Anne Turner is executed by hanging for the poisoning murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. There were five others involved in the plot and three of them were hanged as well.