We know all crimes do not get solved. Some of the most famous of their time are still being talked about and analyzed today. One of these crimes happened on January 29, 1889 in Pinkerton, Arkansas. There is a reason this crime is still remembered and it is not only for the fact no one was ever charged with murder. John Middleton Clayton had just been defeated for a seat in congress. You would think a losing candidate would have no reason to be killed, but Clayton was gunned down in front of his home. The authorities put up a $5,000 reward. We are talking about a time when one could purchase a farm for a few hundred dollars. One dollar in that time was worth $26.82 today. This means the reward would have been about $134,000 + in today’s dollars. It turned out the winner of that race had committed election fraud, but was never implicated in the murder even after criminal investigations were conducted.

One of the things which strikes fear into the hearts of people living in certain area, is when a serial killer is found to be stalking people in that area. The Axeman of New Orleans was one of those killers. Starting in 1918 and lasting through most of 1919 the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas were terrorized by someone who would break through a back door and use mostly an axe, but sometimes a straight razor to kill the occupants. The axe usually belonged to the victims. Most of the people killed were Italian-American which made the police think at the time these killings were racially motivated. The police discovered the only time the Axeman killed men was when they tried to stop him from killing women. The police had been said to have received a letter from the killer which stated he would spare anyone who listened to jazz music. Armed citizens were challenging the Axeman to try and kill them. The Axeman was responsible for 7 deaths and 7 injured people. In the letter about listening to jazz, the Axeman said they would never catch him and unfortunately he was right. A series of murders began again in 1911 and were thought to be performed by the Axeman, but later police said they were not associated with the earlier murders.

In 1932 a very bizarre murder took place in Stockholm. A young prostitute had been found murdered in a park. Being a prostitute was a very dangerous profession and still is and history is full of cases of prostitutes being murdered. I guess they are easy pickings, because they are out late at night and often in isolated areas and lastly their absence is not noticed in many cases. This case was not just the usual murder of a prostitute however. What made this case different was the fact she had been drained of blood and the police came to the conclusion someone drank it. The police suspected a gravy ladle had been used to drink her blood. Many of her clients have been investigated and subjected to intense questioning, but in the end there were no suspects and the murderer was never caught.

In this country one of the most famous unsolved murder cases happened when a female body was discovered on January 15, 1947 in Leimert Park, Los Angeles. What made this case so famous aside from the brutality of it was the fact the body was of a starlet named Elizabeth Short. The case became known as The Black Dahlia. A newspaper got the name by using one from a famous murder mystery called The Blue Dahlia, the year before.  Miss Short was only 22 years old when she was killed. Her nude body had been found in two pieces. It was severed at the waist and completely drained of blood. The body had been washed by the killer. The killer cut each corner of her mouth up to her ears. This was known as the Glasgow smile. Pieces of flesh had been cut from her thigh and breasts. The lower half of her body was about one foot away and the intestine had been tucked back in. The body had been posed and her hands placed over her head and her elbows bent at right angles. Her legs had been spread apart. This was a terribly gruesome crime and must have been committed by a truly sick individual. A newspaper at the time did a truly repulsive act. When they found out the name of the victim they contacted her mother and told her Miss Short had won a beauty contest and got all the information from the mother they could then told her that her daughter had been murdered. Needless to say again, the murderer remains unknown.

Almost everyone has heard of Jack the Ripper, but how many have heard of Jack the Stripper. No this is not a joke. A copycat killer stalked London between 1964 and 1965. The murders had other names such as the London Nude Murders, the Hammersmith nudes and the Hammersmith murders. No one is sure about the amount of victims, it seems to be between 6 and 8. The victims were all prostitutes and dumped into the Thames River after being stripped of their clothing. The first one was a woman who was found dead, some of her teeth removed and her underwear stuffed down her throat. No one knows why the murders stopped. A description of a man and his car had been given to police by a prostitute who believed he could have been the murderer. Over 7,000 suspects were interviewed, I guess prostitution is a good business. It was thought many of the victims may have known each other and some were connected to the 1963 Profumo Affair.

The last case I would like to mention is the Zodiac Killings. The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who killed in northern California from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. No one ever found out his identity even though he wrote many taunting letters and sent them to the newspapers. It is believed he is responsible for the deaths of four men and three women. The letters were in the form of cryptograms and only one of four letters was ever decrypted. The killer gunned down parked couples. He made an exception when he killed one couple who were having a picnic on a small island connected by a sand spit. It is also believed the Zodiac Killer was responsible for the death of a cab driver who was shot. Over 2,500 suspects were investigated over the next few years by the San Francisco Police Department, but no one was ever charged with the murders.