Crime

Supplying Dead Ringers Wax effigies, fake or substitute corpses used by criminals.

The Woman in Black – Victorian Mourning as Criminal Disguise A look at the rogues’ gallery of crimes committed in the United States from about 1860 to 1929 under the cover of crape by The Women in Black.

My Fatal Valentine Stories of fatal or threatening valentines.

Charles Dickens is Summoned to an Inquest Charles Dickens gives us an insider’s “slice-of-death” look at a Victorian coroner’s inquest on a dead infant.

In the Grip of la Grippe A few posts from the past.

Hung by a Corpse – Occupational Hazards for the Resurrectionist Life for the body-snatcher was nasty and brutish–and may have been gravely shortened by the job.

Rictus Mortis: Killer Clowns In these dark days of clown panics, can we identify the possible visual origins of Killer Clowns?

A Woman Wailing in Zululand Mysterious lights and wailings lead to a gruesome discovery.

“They wrapp’d his corpse in the tarry-sheet:” Burials at Sea In this excerpt from The Lost Story of the William & Mary: The Cowardice of Captain Stinson, guest author Gill Hoffs shares sad and evocative stories of burial at sea.