Centenaries - whole and half

[sdreid]

2018 is a major anniversary year with the 50th for the Tate-LaBianca Murders and the first murders of Zodiac and Bible John as well as the 100th for the first New Orleans Axeman murders plus more.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1968 January 26 - In Oregon, 19-year-old Linda Slawson has the misfortune of knocking on Jerry Brudos's door while selling encyclopedias. The future serial killer lures the young woman into his garage where he murders her. He then dressed the body in various undergarments he'd collected and posed the remains for his pleasure. Later, he cut off her left foot, which he kept, and dumped the rest of the body into a nearby river. Brudos went on to murder more women into the next year then was captured and sent to prison for a life term and died there in 2006.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1968 January 9 - Sixteen-year-old Jacqueline Dunleavy leaves her job at 6:35 PM in London, Ontario. At about 8:10 PM her partially clothed body is found in the driveway of a school. She had been strangled and beaten to death. Her murder remains unsolved.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1968 January 2 - In Eastern Pennsylvania, Arthur Noe, 5 months, is murdered by his mother Marie. Mrs. Noe began killing her infant children in 1949 and murdered 8, Arthur being the last, passing the deaths off as from natural causes such as SIDS. At present, she is on probation.

[Ginger]

sd, why is it always drifters in old murder cases from that era?

It was a different age than now. People could still disappear with very little effort, and drifters passing through left little evidence that they had ever been present. Most everyday transactions were paid in cash, and no-one had a cell phone, GPS, or internet presence to allow them to be tracked. If no-one saw or remembered seeing you, you effectively weren't there.

Think of all the old mystery movies and TV shows where an innocent suspect is trying to prove his alibi, and nobody remembers seeing him. That information vacuum often worked to the benefit of the wicked, and a drifter, who had no real relationship to the community but was just looking for some victim to rape and murder, could take full advantage of it.

[sdreid]

150 years ago - 1867 December 24 - Frederick Baker is hanged in England for the mutilation murder of 8-year-old Fanny Adams. Some consider the case the first modern sex murder.

[RockySullivan]

50 years ago - 1967 December 18 - In Northern Ohio, Eileen Adams, 14, disappears. Her remains were found across the border in Michigan after the first of the next year. Finally in 2011, Robert Bowman, a drifter who is a POI in other murder cases, was convicted of Eileen's slaying and given a life term.

sd, why is it always drifters in old murder cases from that era?

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1967 December 18 - In Northern Ohio, Eileen Adams, 14, disappears. Her remains were found across the border in Michigan after the first of the next year. Finally in 2011, Robert Bowman, a drifter who is a POI in other murder cases, was convicted of Eileen's slaying and given a life term.

[Robert]

Looks like he went on to Philadelphia :

http://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/12/bo...-novelist.html

[Mayerling]

Hi Jeff

I also saw Emlyn Williams in his one-man show about Dickens, at Shriver Hall on the Johns Hopkins campus in Baltimore. It was a good evening!

This link might suggest the year was 1981: http://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/15/th...s-dickens.html.

Cheers

Chris

Thanks for the link. It seems to be the right review of the show I saw but I saw it in Philadelphia with a college friend of mine. After seeing the show, because he did do a reading concerning Paul Dombey Jr. from "Dombey and Son", I finally read that novel. The reference to the final bit concerning about the "bloodcurdling" tale, was Williams as Dickens telling the story of "Captain Murderer" (a bluebeard type) from "The Uncommercial Traveller". The readings also included the beginning of one of the Christmas novels, "The Battle of Life", which has a rousing beginning (but when I read it I found it falls flat after awhile - not all of Dickens is good reading.

Jeff

[Qlder]

A little off-topic, but an interesting aside:
I was recently made aware that both Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis share JFK's date of decease (22 November 1963).

[ChrisGeorge]

Interestingly enough this was also the date (in 1963), when Ian Brady and Myra Hindley murdered John Kilbride, who I believe was their first victim (I could be wrong about that). When I read Emlyn Williams' account, "Beyond Belief" a few years later, I remember that the similarity of initials between President Kennedy and Kilbride impressed Brady and Hindley.

I once saw Williams on stage - in his one man show as Charles Dickens. But that was around 1980.

Jeff

Hi Jeff

I also saw Emlyn Williams in his one-man show about Dickens, at Shriver Hall on the Johns Hopkins campus in Baltimore. It was a good evening!

This link might suggest the year was 1981: http://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/15/th...s-dickens.html.

Cheers

Chris

[Mayerling]

Interestingly enough this was also the date (in 1963), when Ian Brady and Myra Hindley murdered John Kilbride, who I believe was their first victim (I could be wrong about that). When I read Emlyn Williams' account, "Beyond Belief" a few years later, I remember that the similarity of initials between President Kennedy and Kilbride impressed Brady and Hindley.

I once saw Williams on stage - in his one man show as Charles Dickens. But that was around 1980.

Jeff

[Ginger]

I was just about eight years old then, and the adults around me were all stunned. I didn't understand the impact until much later in my life, but even then I knew a very bad thing had happened.

I was almost three. I have a vague memory of sitting on my mother's lap watching the President's funeral on TV. My great-great grandmother, who lived just two doors down from us, had passed away a few weeks prior, so I had that
as a reference point, and was upset.

[Pcdunn]

Lest we forget. It was 54 years ago, on this date, November 22, 1962, that U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

Surely it was 1963, Chris?

I was just about eight years old then, and the adults around me were all stunned. I didn't understand the impact until much later in my life, but even then I knew a very bad thing had happened.