Centenaries - whole and half

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1964 June 16 - Twelve-year-old Keith Bennett is abducted by British serial child killers Ian Bray and Myra Hindley. As per Ms. Hindley, they took the boy to Saddleworth Moor where he was sexually assaulted, strangled and buried. Extensive searches have failed to locate his body. After committing two more murders, the couple were arrested and sent to prison for life. In 2002, Hindley died while still being held. Brady is still incarcerated at age 76.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1964 June 21 - Three civil rights activists, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, are shot and killed in Mississippi. There were eventually seven men convicted of conspiracy in the murders including Klan leader Sam Bowers Jr.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1914 June 28 - Gavrilo Princip, 19, shoots and kills Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and, his wife, the Duchess Sophie in Sarajevo. The assassination is usually credited as the event that triggered World War One. Princip was sent to prison where he was kept in squalid conditions and died from disease in early 1918 as the war still raged.

50 years ago - 1964 June 28 - Two British youth find the decomposing remains of Peter Thomas. The victim had been killed with a blow to the neck. It was determined that William Brittle owed Mr. Thomas money and found it more cost effective to kill him rather than repay. Brittle was sent to prison for life.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1964 June 30 - A Florida millionaire named Jacques Mossler is found beaten and stabbed to death in his home. His wife Candace, 44, and Melvin Powers, her 22-year-old nephew with whom she was having an incestuous affair, were charged with the murder but were acquitted. No further actions were taken leaving the case officially unsolved. Both Candy and Melvin are now deceased.

[harry]

Stan,
Did the Thomas murder occur near Lydney,in the Forest of Dean,western England? I believe it was that case in which a friend or neighbour of Thomas,declared under oath,that he had seen Thomas in the city of Gloucester,some time after medical evidence d écided Thomas had been killed.

[sdreid]

Yes, I think that was the case Harry

[sdreid]

150 years ago - 1864 July 9 - Franz Muller, a German immigrant, beats and robs Thomas Biggs, a 69-year-old banker, on a London train. Mr. Biggs died the next day without regaining consciousness. Muller was identified after he tried to sell the gold watch that he'd stolen but not before he sailed for America. A trans-Atlantic ship chase followed and Muller was arrested in New York, returned to England and hanged for murder later in the year.

[harry]

Stan,
I remember having a discussion with my father about the Thomas murder.The trial was held at the Gloucester Assizes,and my father who was retired,attended every day of the trial.I lived,at one time,afew miles from the murder scene.An acquaintance of the murdered man swore on oath that he had met and spoken to the murdered man in Gloucester,in the week after evidence proved the man was killed.

[sdreid]

Yes Harry, I remember reading there was some significant disagreement about the time of death.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1964 July 11 - Lemuel Penn, a black Army Reserve officer, is gunned down while driving through Georgia. Two men who were Klan affiliated, named Cecil Myers and Howard Simms, were tried for the murder but were acquitted by an all white jury. Both were later convicted on a federal charge of violating Penn's civil rights and served about 6 years in prison as a result.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1964 July 14 - The nude body of Mary Fleming is discovered at the end of a cul-de-sac west of London. She is the fourth official victim in the still unsolved Jack the Stripper serial killer case. An unidentified man in a van, who was likely the killer, was seen frantically driving away from the site right before the remains were found but he was never identified.

[sdreid]

250 years ago - 1764 July 16 - Twenty-three-year-old Ivan VI, who was, as an infant, briefly Tsar of Russia before being deposed, is murdered by his prison guards. There was an attempt to free him but Catherine the Great had given orders to kill him if any attempt was made to effect such.

Note: Russia then was still on the Old Style Calendar so it was July 5 there at the time.

[Mayerling]

50 years ago - 1964 June 30 - A Florida millionaire named Jacques Mossler is found beaten and stabbed to death in his home. His wife Candace, 44, and Melvin Powers, her 22-year-old nephew with whom she was having an incestuous affair, were charged with the murder but were acquitted. No further actions were taken leaving the case officially unsolved. Both Candy and Melvin are now deceased.

Mosler's fortune came from the Mosler Safe Company. At the time the scandalous incest issue made the case big news. Although Candace got acquitted, she never recovered socially or emotionally from the entire ordeal.

[Mayerling]

150 years ago - 1864 July 9 - Franz Muller, a German immigrant, beats and robs Thomas Biggs, a 69-year-old banker, on a London train. Mr. Biggs died the next day without regaining consciousness. Muller was identified after he tried to sell the gold watch that he'd stolen but not before he sailed for America. A trans-Atlantic ship chase followed and Muller was arrested in New York, returned to England and hanged for murder later in the year.

The recent book, "Murder in the First Class Carriage" was a study on this cse, the first known railway murder in England. There had been a notorious one in France in 1860, of a French jurist, and a Prussian was suspected, but not caught. William Thackeray noted this and wrote about it in the Cornwall Magazine in December 1862, suggesting that it could occur in England. After the crime occurred Matthew Arnold also discussed it in his writings. Arnold was upset that train passengers he met were more concerned about this than about the humongous bloodshed in the American Civil War.

The case (which in it's sea chase is like a forerunner to Dr. Crippen's race to Canada in 1910) has never been totally satisfactory to students of the evidence. The identification of at least one critical witness as to Muller's identification was questionable when it became apparent that 1) the witness's verity was questionable; and 2) the witness was after the large reward offered. There was some issue as to if Muller was actually sharing the compartment on the train with Briggs (the identification of him being at the station being incomplete). The basic clue that tied it up for the jury appears to be the matter of the two hats. Muller apparently left his own hat and grabbed Briggs before he left the train car. He later redesigned and resewed the hat (creating a new style called - fittingly - a "Muller cut-down") and wore this hat until arrested. It was proof of some involvement (probably robbery) but had Muller planned to murder Briggs, or did that just happen? His final moments on the gallows were also troublesome - as the clergyman with him tried to emotionally force Muller to admit to the crime. Allegedly his last words (in German) were "Yes, I have done it!", but his head was covered by a canvas bag and so whatever he said was indistinct as well as in a foreign tongue.

The case also caused two diplomatic problems. In the extradition trial in New York City, the lawyer for Muller tried to prejudice the jury against the British because of their giving the Confederacy shipping raiders like "The Alabama". Later the Prussian Government tried to step in on behalf of Muller, claiming he was the victim of anti-German bigotry.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

250 years ago - 1764 July 16 - Twenty-three-year-old Ivan VI, who was, as an infant, briefly Tsar of Russia before being deposed, is murdered by his prison guards. There was an attempt to free him but Catherine the Great had given orders to kill him if any attempt was made to effect such.

Note: Russia then was still on the Old Style Calendar so it was July 5 there at the time.

Apparently what happened was that an ambitious aristocrat learned where Ivan VI was imprisoned), and spurred on by the palace coup (and murder) of Tsar Peter III by a cadre of supporters led by Count Gregori Orlov (Catherine's current lover), the ambitious aristocrat tried to trump this by bringing forth Ivan. He did not realize that Catherine had set those orders up just in case someone should do exactly that.

Jeff