True Crime Stories

The death of Ada Applegate in Baldwin New York was one too many deaths in the life of Mary “Frances” Creighton and would contribute to her undoing. Ada's initial cause of death was said to basically be a heart attack but then authorities realized that there had been several unexpected deaths surrounding Frances Creighton and re-examined Ada's death. In fact in 1923 both Frances and her husband, John Creighton were put on trial for the death of Frances' brother, Raymond Avery. Ada Applegate's cause of death would be changed to arsenic poisoning. In 1935 Frances, her husband John, their son and their teenage daughter, Ruth lived with Everett and Ada Applegate and their young daughter. It was the Depression Era so this was not that uncommon. Families came together to conserve finances and things just to get by. It was said that at some point Frances and Everett began having an affair. It was not clear whether John knew of this but it was said tha...

Once again I have chosen and “old” case that involves a murder that was said to have been committed by a woman. Unlike the case of The Cold Spring Murders in which I just posted, there is much more information on this case, especially the evidence again Cordelia Botkin. This case is notorious because it is said to have been the first case in which the United States Postal Service was used to commit murder. John Dunning married Mary Penington on February 12, 1891 in Dover Delaware. The Penington's were prestigious and wealth as her father served as Congressman. Within a short period the couple moved to the San Francisco area and they became parents. One strange thing about this case is I was never able to learn if their child was a boy or a girl as it always referred to the child as “the infant” or baby or simply their child. It has been said John Dunning would meet Cordelia Botkin sometime around 1892 or 1893 and they began a secret affair. Cordeli...

It has long been said that a woman's choice for murder is poison. In fact this will be my third post just recently about women murderers in which they used arsenic as their weapon. I promise the next case will be different. The cases of Lizzie Borden may not be one of the earliest cases in which poison was suspected to be used, but few can argue that it is not one of the most infamous. However, most people do not remember or realize that arsenic was even thought of in that case. When you think of Lizzie Borden you think of the rhyme that talks about the ax and the “wacks” she gave her father and mother, even though it was her step-mother. But, there was talk that arsenic had been used the night before when the family ate dinner and had made them sick. Prosecutors in that case were looking to put arsenic in Lizzie's hand. In 1892 when that case went to trial one could walk into a pharmacy and ask for arsenic. It was used to get rid of pests like rats and mice but i...

This case was rather difficult to search adequately. Sure if you search Janie Lou Gibbs you can find plenty of websites to click on but when you start reading through them you start find a lot of inconsistencies. They are not necessarily simple and excusable ones. Later I will be blogging a case that took place in the early 1900's and in that case I expect the inconsistencies to things only because of the time period and how difficult those cases are to find consistent facts. I did not expect those same issues in this case mainly because it occurred in the mid to late 1960's. One of the biggest issues I had involved names. Several things state that Janie Lou's middle sons name was Lester so this is what I presumed was his name. Quite often in the cases that I research there will be a link to the Findagrave.com website but I do not always look over the site. Generally by the time I get to that point I have most of the information I need, but I also know that th...

Despite the fact that Blanche Taylor-Moore was convicted of only the death of her ex-boyfriend and sentenced to death for that crime she is considered to be a serial killer. It is not uncommon when someone is accused of murdering more than one person that they are convicted of all of the crimes. For instance I recently blogged about Anthony Shore who was executed in Texas recently. He had confessed to several different murders and assaults but he was only convicted of one of the murders and in essences the charges for the rest were dropped. Authorities often believe that once they have convinced a jury of one's guilt that there is no need for more trials. They can seem to be a waste of time and taxpayers money. In the same respect this has worked in the favor of prosecutors in the past. In the case of Carl Eugene Watts who had been convicted of murder in Texas, authorities in Michigan had decided not to pursue their case against him. Due to a loophole in Watts' se...

This case was a rather quick case to research although I took a bit longer to not just get some statistics but to also add to my ever growing list of cases to look into.  This is case is considered to be more rare than most.  This is about a case not only of a woman in which was sentenced to death, but one in which the execution was enacted.  Sure we know the cases of Aileen Wurornos, Karla Faye Tucker, or even Mary Surratt but they really are rare, especially in what is considered to be the modern age of the death penalty.  For the record, the "modern age" of the death penalty is considered as beginning in 1976.  While during the 1940's and 50's support for the death penalty was waning and the numbers were coming down a bit it took until 1972 for the United State Supreme Court to officially abolish the death penalty.  It was then that anyone who was current on death row, some of the most famous were Charles Manson and his followers, were re-sentenced to li...