15 Minutes of Infamy

  Neighbors hadn't seen Willian Druse for days, but little did they know that his wife and daughter were exacting their revenge with rope, a hatchet, a revolver--- and several cauldrons of boiling water. On December 18, 1884, a man named Eckler noticed plumes of black smoke rising in the direction of the home of William Druse, a Herkimer County farmer who lived with his family about three miles from Richfield Springs. Other neighbors noticed the smoke, which carried with it a foul odor and lasted nearly two hours. They also noticed something very strange-- all the windows had been covered with newspaper.  Concerned neighbors knocked on the door asking for William, but his wife, Roxalana, said that he had gone to New York City to take care of some business matters. From that day forward, William Druse was never seen again.  Charles Pott and Mrs. Eckler, neighbors of the Druse family, eventually pulled aside 14-year-old Frank Gates and asked about the mysterious smoke. Fran...

The children of Reverend William Christy, a traveling preacher from Ohio, were flabbergasted. Their father hadn't mentioned anything about marriage, and so when they learned that he had tied the knot in January of 1926, they were left speechless. William's wife had died three years earlier, and his children, though stunned, were happy for the 56-year-old preacher, even though they knew nothing about his new 48-year-old bride, Laura.  Not even William's son, Carl, knew much about the love affair. Carl was also a preacher, and the two men often traveled throughout Ohio together as members of the United Christian Missionary Workers, spreading the Gospel to anyone willing to listen. It was during one of their trips through southern Ohio when William purchased a house in East Liverpool, making an offhand remark that he was thinking about marrying a woman from Toledo. But Carl hadn't expected his father to go through with it; he first learned of Mrs. Christy on a radio broadc...

The case of the East River Torso Murder stumped New York's best detectives and probably would've remained unsolved-- if not for a thirsty newspaper reporter and a discolored duck. On the Saturday afternoon of June 26, 1897, three boys playing along East 11th Street and the East River found a bundle bobbing on the surface of the water. It contained part of a man's body-- the shoulders, arms and chest, to be precise.  Dr. Philip O'Hanlon, the coroner's physician, examined the torso at Bellevue Hospital. His examination concluded that the man had been tall and muscular; the hands were soft and free of calluses. The victim's chest had been mutilated, as if to destroy evidence of a tattoo. O'Hanlon concluded that the man had been dead for about 24 hours. Meanwhile, detectives examined the oilcloth in which the torso had been bundled. It was red with golden flowers, the sort of design one might choose for a tablecloth or drapes.  The following afternoon, a second ...

Mildred Mowry was a lonely widow who thought her bad fortunes had finally been reversed after meeting a handsome doctor. Little could she have known, hoever, that things were about to go from bad to worse. This is the astonishing tale of a most peculiar killer-- with a peculiar penchant for teddy bears. Shortly before six o'clock on the morning of February 23, 1929, James Boyle of Newark, New Jersey, turned his car off the main highway to take a shortcut to the town of Cranford. He had traveled just a short distance when he saw flames on the snowy ground off the edge of the road. He pulled over for a closer look, and what he saw chilled the blood in his veins-- the burning object was the body of a woman. Boyle raced into Cranford to report the ghastly sight he had seen, and Chief of Police James Hennessey decided to drive out and have a look for himself, convinced that Boyle's eyes had been playing tricks on him. But the chief of police had no difficulty finding the object-- it...

The Bay Area was intrigued after an eccentric chemist explained how he had mastered a secret process for manufacturing artificial silk-- a process he claimed to have discovered as an Allied spy. But, after a deadly explosion rocked his laboratory, the truth about the mad scientist finally came to light-- and the truth was much more sinister than anyone could've imagined.  In 1924, Charles Henry Schwartz, a married 35-year-old chemist from the Bay Area of California and father of three small children, took over an abandoned factory at Walnut Creek and started a business called the Pacific Cellulose Chemical Company. The community was intrigued after Schwartz explained that he had mastered a secret process for manufacturing artificial silk-- a process he claimed to have discovered in Germany during his stint as an Allied spy in WW1. Schwartz, who was born in Germany, was an eccentric man-of-the-world who made many dubious claims-- that he had once held the rank of captain in the Fren...

This is the true story of a self-taught lawyer whose never-before-used defense not only saved him from execution, but turned the entire judicial system on its head.  On the afternoon of Saturday, February 27, 1859, the nation's capital was thrown into a state of excitement over an incident which took place at Lafayette Square. At 2 o'clock, two distinguished gentlemen met each other on the square. One offered his hand for a handshake, the other refused. Instead, he put his hand in his pocket and drew a pistol. As the wounded victim reeled from the shot he advanced on his attacker, who fired a second shot. And finally, aiming for the groin, the man fired a third shot, before casually walking away. Stunned onlookers dragged the victim into a nearby club house, where he died. The victim of the Lafayette Square shooting was Philip Barton Key, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. His killer was 40-year-old New York congressman Daniel Edgar Sickles. But what was the c...

Minnie, a mild-mannered widow from Atlanta, had a lot of explaining to do after the body of a missing housewife was discovered stuffed into a trunk in her basement in 1941. Did she take the fall in order to protect her troubled teenage son? Or was the timid widow a twisted, cold-blooded killer? Perry Williams, an insurance salesman from Atlanta, last saw his wife, Mildred, when he kissed her goodbye on the morning of November 21, 1941. Mildred worked late that day at the shoe store where she was employed as a saleswoman, and she was supposed to return home shortly after 10 o'clock that evening. Perry didn't panic when his wife didn't come home, as she frequently spent the night with her mother, Mrs. Allen, who lived on Lee Street. In the morning, Perry Williams telephoned Mrs. Allen, who told him that Mildred hadn't come over. Next, he called the shoe store, but learned that she hadn't showed up for work the previous day. Now he began to grow frantic. He called fam...