Scott McCabe

Published: Wed, Apr 17, 2013

On this day, April 18, in 2003, Scott Peterson was arrested in the disappearance of his pregnant wife, Laci Peterson, in one of the most talked-about crimes in America. Peterson was reported missing on Christmas Eve 2002. Her body, and that of her fetus, were found April 14 in the San...

Scott McCabe

Published: Tue, Apr 16, 2013

On this day, April 17, in 1865, Mary Surratt was arrested as a conspirator in President Lincoln's assassination. Surratt operated a safehouse for Confederate spies in Prince George's County and a boarding house in the District, where John Wilkes Booth conspired against Lincoln. Three days...

Scott McCabe

Published: Mon, Apr 15, 2013

On this day, April 16, in 1997, Houston's top bookie, Robert Angleton, found his socialite wife shot to death at the couple's upscale home. It appeared to friends that Doris Angleton might have been killed by her husband's underworld rivals, but then Robert's brother Roger was found in Las...

Scott McCabe

Published: Wed, Apr 10, 2013

On this day, April 11, in 1947, matronly Southern belle Louise Peete was executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin for her second murder conviction. She was 66. Peete came from a wealthy Louisiana family, but everywhere she went friends ended up dead. In Texas, Peete was acquitted of murder...

Scott McCabe

Published: Tue, Apr 9, 2013

On this day, April 10, in 1936, Nancy Titterton, a novelist and wife of an NBC executive, was found raped and strangled in her home in New York City. A single horsehair helped reveal the killer. Titterton, 33, was discovered lying face down in her bathtub with her pink pajamas tied around her...

Scott McCabe

Published: Mon, Apr 8, 2013

On this day, April 9, in 1881, Billy the Kid was convicted of murdering the Lincoln County, N.M., sheriff and was sentenced to hang. Born Henry McCarty, Billy the Kid earned the nickname after he shot and killed Sheriff William Brady, the man supposedly responsible for killing McCarty's boss,...

Scott McCabe

Published: Sun, Apr 7, 2013

On this day, April 8, in 1911, a coal mine explosion in Littleton, Ala., claimed the lives of 128 men -- 122 of whom were convicts loaned from prisons. Of the prisoners killed at the Banner Coal Mine that day, all but five were black. Alabama's controversial convict-lease program was a...

Scott McCabe

Published: Sat, Apr 6, 2013

On this day, April 7, in 1922, the U.S. secretary of the interior secretly sold the rights to public oil reserves in what became known as the Teapot Dome bribery scandal. Teapot Dome, an oil field on public land in Wyoming, entered the lexicon as a synonym for government cronyism. President...

Scott McCabe

Published: Thu, Apr 4, 2013

On this day April 5, 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death for providing government secrets, including details of the atomic bomb, to the Soviet Union. The Rosenbergs helped recruit a network of spies that passed on secrets that helped the Soviet Union to produce its own...

Scott McCabe

Published: Wed, Apr 3, 2013

On this day, April 4, in 1958, Hollywood star Lana Turner and her boyfriend engaged in a struggle that ended in his death. Turner had a thing for bad boys, and Los Angeles hoodlum Johnny Stompanato -- the body guard for gangster Mickey Cohen -- fit the bill. But when Turner tried to break...