True Crime Stories

The year 1927 was full of sensational crime stories.  Just as those in New York were preparing for the start of the trial of criminal idiots, Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray they were hit with another very similar crime, with at least one participant who did not seem to have much more intelligence as his predecessors.  One would think that with all the news that the Snyder/Gary had generated these criminals would have at the very least waited a bit before committing their crime.  They must have thought they were smarter than that, history proved differently. One of the biggest difference in this crime is that the wife, Elsie Whipple, came from a very prominent local family. As we all know, money and prestige play a large role in the justice system.  The crimes of this era were of no exception.  Her father, Abraham Lansing, died when she was young and she was raised by her mother and grandmother. However, her father's family was wealthy and by 1927 she was livin...

Crimes and trials usually become sensational and nationally known due to things such as the people involved or the details of the crime are especially heinous.  That was not the case with the Ruth Snyder/Henry "Judd" Gray case.  This case became famously known and talked about because the criminals were so inept people were mystified as to their stupidity.  In modern times they likely would have appeared on America's Dumbest Criminals. Ruth Brown and Albert Snyder were married in 1915.  In 1925 Ruth met Judd Gray and began an affair.  Reports differ on if this was her first affair or the last of many.  Ruth claimed that from the time of their marriage that Albert had been at the very least emotionally abusive.  Albert had been involved with another woman.  It was unclear as to if his affair with the other woman continued through the beginning of their marriage or if the woman had already passed away, to which she evidently eventually did. Accord...

Just like many of these old cases, after researching I am left with many questions and inconsistencies that have been reported over the years. This case is no different.   The short, quick facts of this case is that a 12 year old girl, Marian Parker, the daughter of a prominent Los Angeles banker, Perry Parker, was kidnapped from her school on December 15, 1927.  Her kidnapper was 19 year old William Edward Hickman.  Four days later after her father delivered the demanded ransom, Hickman delivered him his daughter, who was now dead and dismembered.  After a manhunt that lasted just a few more days Hickman was arrested, tried and convicted.  He was hung at the gallows at San Quentin prison on October, 19, 1928. On December 15, 1927 William Edward Hickman went to Marian's school telling the principal that her father had either become ill or was in an accident (reports vary) and he was to fetch her.  Hickman did not know that Marian had a tw...

Cases from history are often hard to research properly.  Sure, we are able to access many old newspapers from the times, as we have for many years through things like microfilm and what not, but the problem lies in the newspaper accounts themselves.  Actually in all truthfulness, newspapers should not be isolated as being the only source that was unreliable. I am certain that books of the time, as well as the infamous 'murder pamphlets' as they were called, recalling crimes, also fall into this category.  I have mentioned before in previous blogs about what was known as 'yellow journalism.'  To put this in a type of modern terms it could be equated with The National Enquirer  or even movies based on true events.  Things were not just exaggerated but often flat out fabrications in order to make the story more interesting.  Today true journalism, at least when it comes to newspapers are generally more reliable than they were back in the mid-l...

Obviously the fact that I compose this blog based on true crime stories tells you that I am fascinated by them.  I am especially interested in stories I have not heard of and those that have been lost to history. Recently I have read several books that entail crimes from the late 1800's and early turn of the century crimes. I am currently reading "Psycho USA" by Harold Schecter.  Prior to this I read another of his books based on a woman serial killer, Jane Topper who poison her victims in the late 1800's.  Psycho USA is a book to show us that "The Good Ole Days" never really existed and that crimes ranging from Columbine to The Oklahoma City Bombing and people such as Susan Smith and Andrea Yates are not even close to being new. Schecter asked a curious question.  Why is it that we can remember the Halls/Mills murder but not the LeBoeuf/Dreher crime. Why is it we can remember names like Leopold and Loeb from the early 1900's but not the names of  St...

While this case takes place in the early 1930's and the same issues as previous cases, when it comes to time and accuracy occurs, this case is a little easier to separate most of the fact and fiction.   This is the case of Winnie Ruth Judd.  She was born in 1905 in Indiana and by 1931 she had been married to a much older man, Dr. William C. Judd, for about 7 years.  Her marriage was waning and reports differ on some things involving where each of the married parties were at particular times.  Some reports say that Dr. Judd had moved from Phoenix, where they lived together, to Los Angelos in 1931 to reestablish a practice where other reports claim that he was in Mexico moving from town to town practicing.  Some reports also claim that Dr. Judd's practice was waning also due to a drug addiction.   What is known is that in 1931 Winnie Ruth was working as a medical secretary in Phoenix and by at least October of that year Dr. Judd was not with her and ...

While I so often find the long ago stories interesting, as in "The Bloody Benders" or the trial of Leopold and Loeb, they are also difficult to get all the true information.  It is often like playing telephone from a time prior to secure records, newspapers and especially the Internet.  It is often hard to distinguish the difference between fact and fiction. The case of John and Sarah Makin is just one of those stories. The Makin's resided in Australia in the late 1800's.  During that time, as well as continued well into the 20th century, when an unwed woman became pregnant there was the stigma that shame would be brought not just to her and her family but to the child as well.  A practice was started called "Baby Minding."  In essence what generally happened is that an unwed mother would seek out a baby minder to care for her child for a fee.  Sometimes the mother, and sometimes the father was involved too, would make agreements to continue seeing the ch...