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True Crime Through History
590 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
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June 27, 2009Enjoyed this, although it would have been nice to have the source of each extract properly cited under each. I often wanted to know when such-and-such had been written. Did finally find some acknowledgements tucked away at the back, but too late!
Random things of interest learned from this book:
- Samuel Dougal, wife-murderer, made many servant-girls pregnant. When not engaged in this, however, "another of his activities had been teaching girls to ride the new bicycles, which he thought best done without clothes on."
- Albert Fish really should have found another hobby. Besides molesting over 100 children, murdering several, and cannibalising at least one, he "had eaten his own excrement; he had put pieces of cotton, saturated with alcohol, up his rectum and set fire to them; he had, over a period of years, stuck needles into his body in the region of his genitals, and a series of x-ray photographs...showed that 29 of these needles - some eroded with rust - were still lodged in him".
- J.G. Haigh, the acid-bath killer, "spent his time in prison...doing some curious experiments with mice; he found they could be dissolved in sulphuric acid". Granted, the country had bigger fish to fry while he was incarcerated, but I still can't see how or why he would have been able to do this. I sure as hell wouldn't be giving convicts concentrated acid to do experiments with.
- Mark David Chapman was described by one friend in Hawaii as "nothing more than an innocuous soul 'who ate a lot of peanuts.'"
The book has not been copy-edited particularly well, and is full of mistakes that are often amusing.
- The pseudo-wife of one murderer migrated with him to the US in 1889, although apparently returned without him in 1981.
- The Boston Strangler apparently had "a 'record' - but only of pretty crimes, mostly breaking and entering".
Random things of interest learned from this book:
- Samuel Dougal, wife-murderer, made many servant-girls pregnant. When not engaged in this, however, "another of his activities had been teaching girls to ride the new bicycles, which he thought best done without clothes on."
- Albert Fish really should have found another hobby. Besides molesting over 100 children, murdering several, and cannibalising at least one, he "had eaten his own excrement; he had put pieces of cotton, saturated with alcohol, up his rectum and set fire to them; he had, over a period of years, stuck needles into his body in the region of his genitals, and a series of x-ray photographs...showed that 29 of these needles - some eroded with rust - were still lodged in him".
- J.G. Haigh, the acid-bath killer, "spent his time in prison...doing some curious experiments with mice; he found they could be dissolved in sulphuric acid". Granted, the country had bigger fish to fry while he was incarcerated, but I still can't see how or why he would have been able to do this. I sure as hell wouldn't be giving convicts concentrated acid to do experiments with.
- Mark David Chapman was described by one friend in Hawaii as "nothing more than an innocuous soul 'who ate a lot of peanuts.'"
The book has not been copy-edited particularly well, and is full of mistakes that are often amusing.
- The pseudo-wife of one murderer migrated with him to the US in 1889, although apparently returned without him in 1981.
- The Boston Strangler apparently had "a 'record' - but only of pretty crimes, mostly breaking and entering".
July 21, 2013
surprisingly boring book. i had high hopes for it, but i found it very boring and couldn't finish it
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews