Centenaries - whole and half

[Mayerling]

100 years ago - 1915 October 12 - Edith Cavell, a British nurse and noncombatant, is executed by a German firing squad in Belgium. She had been charged with aiding the Allies.

After the "Lusitania" torpedoing in May 1915 this became the biggest anti-German piece of propaganda of the War up to that time. It would be still big during World War II, when a film, "The Woman the Germans Shot" was made. Sadly Edith is somewhat forgotten today.

Ironically Edith was helpful to any foreign soldiers in her care. There was some evidence she helped some German soldiers earlier who were in danger of being captured. If so, the Germans "conveniently" forgot this.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

450 years ago - 1565 October 12 - In Florida, Jean Ribault, a French naval commander, and majority of his men are executed after surrendering to Spanish forces. Ribault and most of his men were Protestants and thus judged heretics by the Spaniards. Boys and Catholics in Ribault's force were spared.

The incident (Francis Parkman deals with it in his "Pioneers of France in North America"). The incident (seven years before the anti-Huguenot St. Bartholemew's Day Massacres) was avenged actually within a year. A Spanish fort was built near the site, and it got attacked by a French fleet - and the Spanish were massacred this time.

Jeff

[sdreid]

450 years ago - 1565 October 12 - In Florida, Jean Ribault, a French naval commander, and majority of his men are executed after surrendering to Spanish forces. Ribault and most of his men were Protestants and thus judged heretics by the Spaniards. Boys and Catholics in Ribault's force were spared.

100 years ago - 1915 October 12 - Edith Cavell, a British nurse and noncombatant, is executed by a German firing squad in Belgium. She had been charged with aiding the Allies.

100 years ago - 1915 October 12 - In Idaho, Robert Dooley dies from arsenic given him by his wife, the former Lyda Trueblood. She also murdered his brother, her daughter and four future husbands with the same substance. The serial killer was sent to prison and died in 1958 from natural causes.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1965 October 9 - While returning home alone from a lake outing with friends, Elsie Frost, 14, is stabbed in the head and back as she passes through a West Yorkshire tunnel. One of the two stabs to the back penetrates her heart and kills her. No motive for the assault was ever determined and the murder was never solved.

[Ginger]

I wonder if Brady ever has nightmares about what happened or regrets or attacks of conscience. Probably not.

He never really struck me as having a conscience. I'm sure he understands that other people find his deeds appalling, but I really don't think he understands why in anything more than an academic way.

[Mayerling]

50 years ago - 1965 October 6 - Edward Evans, 17, is attacked with an axe and strangled with an electrical cord by Ian Brady in the killer's home. Brady's girlfiend and accomplice Myra Hindley is present as is Hindley's brother-in-law, David Smith. Mr. Smith agrees to help the pair dispose of the body the following day then leaves to report what he's seen to police. The two British serial child killers are arrested and sent to prison for life. They are believed to have slain at least five in the past two years including a 10-year-old girl whose screams they recorded on audio tape as she was being raped, tortured and killed. Brady is still confined but Hindley died of natural causes in 2002 while still incarcerated.

I wonder if Brady ever has nightmares about what happened or regrets or attacks of conscience. Probably not.

[curious4]

50 years ago - 1965 October 6 - Edward Evans, 17, is attacked with an axe and strangled with an electrical cord by Ian Brady in the killer's home. Brady's girlfiend and accomplice Myra Hindley is present as is Hindley's brother-in-law, David Smith. Mr. Smith agrees to help the pair dispose of the body the following day then leaves to report what he's seen to police. The two British serial child killers are arrested and sent to prison for life. They are believed to have slain at least five in the past two years including a 10-year-old girl whose screams they recorded on audio tape as she was being raped, tortured and killed. Brady is still confined but Hindley died of natural causes in 2002 while still incarcerated.

This was so horrible. Still can't listen to that Christmas carol. :-(.

C4

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1915 October 8 - An Oregon rancher named William Booth is shot and killed. His wife Anna and a man named William Branson, who is 23 and about 12 years her junior, are rumored to be secret lovers and are arrested for the crime. After several judicial balks, the couple are convicted for the killing. There were significant doubts regarding the guilt of this couple and at least one man confessed to the murder while the pair were incarcerated. Mostly as a result, Anna was paroled in early 1920 and Mr. Branson was granted an unconditional pardon later in that same year. Today, the solution to the crime remains inconclusive.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1965 October 6 - Edward Evans, 17, is attacked with an axe and strangled with an electrical cord by Ian Brady in the killer's home. Brady's girlfiend and accomplice Myra Hindley is present as is Hindley's brother-in-law, David Smith. Mr. Smith agrees to help the pair dispose of the body the following day then leaves to report what he's seen to police. The two British serial child killers are arrested and sent to prison for life. They are believed to have slain at least five in the past two years including a 10-year-old girl whose screams they recorded on audio tape as she was being raped, tortured and killed. Brady is still confined but Hindley died of natural causes in 2002 while still incarcerated.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1915 October 4 - In Iowa, 27-year-old Joseph Busemi is beaten and slashed to death while he is out in the evening to pay some bills. Authorities had theories ranging from a family dispute to organized crime but the case was never solved.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1915 September 29 - Two babies are found floating in New York City's Hudson River. The two little girls were the 13th and 14th infants to be found in the waterway since the early part of this year. They had been thrown into the river to drown. This case was never solved but it was presumed that it was the result of a baby farming operation. In all the examples where baby farming crimes were solved, the singular culprit and/or ringleader was a woman.

[sdreid]

150 years ago - 1865 September 26 - In New Zealand, Mary Finnegan, a widow, and her three young sons are battered to death with a hammer as they sleep. James Stack, the killer, then buried the family in their own garden. A forth son was away in the military and was the spared. Stack was captured after a few months and executed in the following year.

[sdreid]

250 years ago - 1765 September 23 - Maria Jenkins is hanged in England for the murder of, what was referred to in contemporary parlance as, her bastard child. The maid had secretly given birth to the little boy then dropped him into the pit of the latrine in her employer's backyard.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1965 September 20 - In Amsterdam, gay filmmaker Claude Berkeley, 30, is beaten to death. In the following week, his remains were found, bound up in a tarp, in a nearby canal. Hans van Zon, a serial killer, confessed to the murder but later retracted his admission and was never convicted of the crime.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1965 September 15 - Shortly after 9 P.M., Mary Klinsky, 18, is abducted while out mailing a letter. Her nude and beaten body was found near a New Jersey park the following morning. She was the first of a group of unsolved murders that occurred in the state during this year and the next that led many to believe that an unknown serial killer was on the loose.