Congressman Daniel Sickles murdered Philip Barton Key on February 27, 1859, just steps from the White House. The day before, […]
“Charlie Says” and the Santa Cruz Prison Project
Joan Didion, Again “Many people I know in Los Angeles believe that the Sixties ended abruptly on August 9, 1969.” […]
Blinded by the White: Race and the Exceptionalizing of Ted Bundy
Take care of yourself, young man. And I — I say that to you sincerely. Take care of yourself. It’s […]
Sherlock Holmes Comes to Paris: True Crime and Private Detection in the Belle Époque
What’s the appeal of true crime? There’s the mystery to solve and the lure of thinking about violence from a […]
Witness to Pain: The Migraine Art Collection
“Good morning Katherine, I just wanted to let you know that we have located the Migraine Art.” For four years, […]
Fictional Detectives and Real-Life Forensic Science
On April 10, 1935, Lord Hugh Montague Trenchard, the Commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police, invited policemen and politicians to celebrate […]
True Fake Crime
On April 1, 2019, news broke that Awkwafina and Ike Barinholtz are producing and starring in a movie named Crime […]
Louis “The Laughing Eel” Ross and the Road of No Return: Incarcerating the “Criminally Insane”
In 1921 a burglar called the “Laughing Eel” began serving a ten-year prison term, but it was 33 years before […]
Armchair Detectives and the Allure of Death in Miniature at the Smithsonian
It was one of the coldest January days in recent memory, but that didn’t seem to deter the crowds inside […]
Murder, She Miniatured: Frances Glessner Lee and The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death
Homemaking and Homicide From the outside, Frances Glessner Lee’s childhood home resembled a prison. H. H. Richardson designed the home […]
