Centenaries - whole and half

[sdreid]

250 years ago - 1767 August 9 - Fourteen-year-old servant girl Mary Clifford dies after being beaten with a bullwhip by her employer Elizabeth Brownrigg. A second equally mistreated servant girl was rescued in time and survived. Mrs. Brownrigg was convicted of murder by an English jury and sent to the gallows the following month.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1967 August 7 - Eastern Michigan University co-ed Mary Fleszar is found strangled after vanishing about 4 weeks previous. Serial killer John Norman Collins, a.k.a. the Ypsilanti Ripper, was responsible. The 19-year-old was an early victim in his assumed tally of eight. Collins was captured in 1969 and sent to prison for a life sentence that he is still serving.

[GUT]

50 years ago - 1967 August 7 - The body of Linda Peacock, 15, is discovered near her home in Scotland. She had been strangled and bite marks on a breast led to the arrest and incarceration of Gordon Hay who was 17-years- old at the time of the murder.

Bite mark matches have lead to many convictions.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1967 August 7 - The body of Linda Peacock, 15, is discovered near her home in Scotland. She had been strangled and bite marks on a breast led to the arrest and incarceration of Gordon Hay who was 17-years-old at the time of the murder.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1967 August 4 - Twenty-nine-year-old Rose Pazda vanishes in Connecticut. It will be neary two years before her skeletal remains will be discovered. She was believed to be the first of the five so-call "bra murders" thought to have been perpetrated by Benjamin Miller who, due to his mental state, was sent to an asylum after he was captured.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1967 July 9 - Eastern Michigan University co-ed Mary Fleszar is strangled by serial killer John Norman Collins, a.k.a. the Ypsilanti Ripper. The 19-year-old was an early victim in his assumed tally of eight. Her remains were found in the following month. Collins was captured in 1969 and sent to prison for a life sentence that he is still serving.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1967 June 17 - Two border guards, Theodore Newton Jr, and George Azrak, are abducted by drug smugglers Florencio Mationg, Victor Bono and brothers Alfed and Harold Montoya then taken to their California hideout and murdered with gunshots to the head. All four men got long prison terms.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1917 July 13 - In Connecticut, John Monahan dies from poison given him by his wife Annie. The serial killer had also murdered two previous husbands and a niece by the same method, also for profit. This was her last murder and she eventually got a sentence of life in prison.

[Bridewell]

Albert Cadosch - born 157 years ago today in Paris.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1967 June 8 - Enedine Molina and Fermin Rodriguez are shot to death in a California lover's lane. The murders have never been solved but some think the couple might be early victims of the Zodiac Killer.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1967 May 31 - Dutch serial killer Hans van Zon beats Jan Donse, 80, to death with a pipe although this murder was done during a robbery. He was eventually convicted for his killings and sent to prison for life but was released in 1986 and died in 1998.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1917 May 30 - In Missouri, 14-month-old Lloyd Keet is kidnapped from his residence. Although a $6,000 ramsom was paid, the child's mangled body was soon found in a well near his home. The Taylor Adams family and their boarder, Claude Piersol, were charged with the crime. Piersol was the subject of an attempted lynching but survived being strung up. All the accused subjects were sentenced to prison for kidnapping. They made the claim that little Lloyd's death had been accidental.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1967 May 29 - The dismembered body of Lucila Lalu is found scattered around Manila. A man who lived above her beauty shop, named Jose Santiano, was found guilty of the murder but his conviction was later overturned; leaving Lucila's slaying unsolved.

[Mayerling]

200 years ago - 1817 May 26 - Housemaid Mary Ashford is chased down, brutally assaulted and drowned in a pit. A man she'd recently dated, named Abraham Thornton, was put on trial for the murder but was acquitted by an English jury. The murder is still unsolved.

The case is remembered due to it's follow up. Ashford's brother made a personal request for justice decrying the jury verdict against Thornton. By right, Thornton had the right to demand personal satisfaction in a trial by arms against Mr. Ashford, and following custom Thornton (in court) through a leather gauntlet down in front of Ashton. Thornton was a muscular blacksmith. Ashton was as skinny as a rail. Ashton declined Thornton's demand, and the verdict remained the same. The old right was abolished in England a year later (see the volume in the old Notable British Trial series, "The Trial of Abraham Thornton"). Thornton emigrated to the U.S., and died in Baltimore, Maryland about 1860. Ashton lived a long time too.

Jeff

[sdreid]

200 years ago - 1817 May 26 - Housemaid Mary Ashford is chased down, brutally assaulted and drowned in a pit. A man she'd recently dated, named Abraham Thornton, was put on trial for the murder but was acquitted by an English jury. The murder is still unsolved.