On July 28, 1841, the body of Mary Rogers, a twenty-year-old cigar girl, was found floating in the Hudson-and New York's unregulated police force proved incapable of solving the crime. One year later, a struggling writer named Edgar Allan Poe decided to take on the case-and sent his fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin, to solve the baffling murder of Mary Rogers in "The Mystery of Marie Rog t."
Carefully and thoroughly researched, and told in Geary's gleeful tongue-in-cheek style with all the lurid details, Mary Rogers was a compelling and beautiful woman employed in a cigar store in New York City. She suddenly disappeared and her body was recovered in the Hudson off the Jersey side. The press had a field day with all the possible shocking possibilities. But the case was never solved. Geary recreates a fascinating picture of the nascent still somewhat anarchical soon-to-be metropolis of New York.
In 1836, the murder of a young prostitute made headlines in New York City and around the country, inaugurating a sex-and-death sensationalism in news reporting that haunts us today. Patricia Cline Cohen goes behind these first lurid accounts to reconstruct the story of the mysterious victim, Helen Jewett. From her beginnings as a servant girl in Maine, Helen Jewett refashioned herself, using four successive aliases, into a highly paid courtesan. She invented life stories for herself that helped her build a sympathetic clientele among New York City's elite, and she further captivated her customers through her seductive letters, which mixed elements of traditional feminine demureness with sexual boldness. But she was to meet her match--and her nemesis--in a youth called Richard Robinson. He was one of an unprecedented number of young men who flooded into America's burgeoning cities in the 1830s to satisfy the new business society's seemingly infinite need for clerks. The son of an established Connecticut family, he was intense, arrogant, and given to posturing. He became Helen Jewett's lover in a tempestuous affair and ten months later was arrested for her murder. He stood trial in a five-day courtroom drama that ended with his acquittal amid the cheers of hundreds of fellow clerks and other spectators. With no conviction for murder, nor closure of any sort, the case continued to tantalize the public, even though Richard Robinson disappeared from view. Through the Erie Canal, down the Ohio and the Mississippi, and by way of New Orleans, he reached the wilds of Texas and a new life under a new name. Through her meticulous and ingenious research, Patricia Cline Cohen traces his life there and the many twists and turns of the lingering mystery of the murder. Her stunning portrayals of Helen Jewett, Robinson, and their raffish, colorful nineteenth-century world make vivid a frenetic city life and sexual morality whose complexities, contradictions, and concerns resonate with those of our own time.
The gripping true story of a brutal serial killer who unleashed his own reign of terror in Nazi-occupied Paris. Dr. Marcel Petiot was eventually charged with 27 murders, although authorities suspected the total was considerably higher. The trial became a circus, and Petiot enjoyed the spotlight. A harrowing exploration of murder, betrayal, and evil of staggering proportions.
"Roger Vaillancourt was brutally murdered in a Minnesota cornfield 48 years ago. Until now, the silence surrounding his bizarre death has been deafening. Finally, through family, friends, and one priest's tireless investigation, the story of Roger Vaillancourt's gruesome death will be told. After a night of drinking and bizarre sexual teasing at The Kitten Club on October 6, 1957, in Mille Lacs County, MN, Roger Vaillancourt, 17, was allegedly hit by a car. His subsequent death was ruled accidental. Many people in the community knew more about Roger's death but remained silent due to dears of retaliation. The story has been buried for 48 years ... until now. More than just a story of torture, sex, murder, and an official cover-up, Raising Roger's Cross is a spiritual journey of reverence and healing."--Page 4 of cover.