CLEWS The Historic True Crime Blog

The True Crime Genre Circa 1570

My dearest reader, this is unfortunately, may God have mercy, one piece of horrifying news after another ... so that my heart nearly breaks and my eyes fill with tears. I don't know how it seems to you, for there are many who will refuse to believe, since it does not affect them and appears to be false and invented.

-A German true crime author, writing in 1582

True crime stories started rolling off the presses as soon as presses were invented. A recent article delving into some of Germany's oldest machine-printed crime accounts contains some surprises for those who think Truman Capote or William Roughead "invented" true crime, such as the morons who wrote the absurd and error-laden Wikipedia entry on the true crime genre.

In a long piece exploring in detail early typeset German true crime accounts, New Jersey history professor Joy Wiltenburg sets the cultural record straight.

And what were these Germans reading in the late 1500s? Of all the crimes in the calendar, which captivated Germany in that time? Most of the accounts, says the professor, told stories of family annihilators. "Murder within the family was by far the most common theme, accounting for over half of the reports," she says.

The professor has a theory about why this particular rare form of murder dominated the early German genre: economics. "In their evocation of the horror of household bloodshed, a number of works pointed also to economic strain: The children were hungry and reminded the raging father of his economic failure; the greedy youths demanded their inheritance; the father's anger over debts drove him to violence."

In the piece she also explains:

* The authors and collectors of early publications were often ministers interested in exploring moral questions. "Virtually all crime accounts published during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries connected their stories with an edifying Christian message," the professor notes. (I am reminded of the Ogden Standard-Examiner, which produced fascinating true crime accounts for decades, not coincidentally a Mormon mecca, birthplace of Donny & Marie. It too focused on charting, with specific examples, "the descent and destruction of the human spirit.")

* The authors probably did not "make money off murder," that tired old charge. Professor Wiltenburg says true crime, from its earliest days, "almost certainly brought little reward to authors."

* The accounts were written for and purchased by the upper classes.

* A great emphasis was placed on the truthfulness of the accounts; it was strictly a non-fiction genre, or sold as such, at least.

* The accounts were extremely gory. (They might not even see print today, except as fiction.)

* Many accounts heaped praise upon police officials, singling them out for their pursuit of justice.

* Authors focused on the victims; "the perpetrators were usually not examined closely as individuals, nor was the audience offered vicarious entry into their minds."

* Some of the most famous cases were revisited decades later; one account, republished many times, told the story of a family annihilated in 1504.

Point being, the true crime genre is much older than some would have it - as is the historic true crime genre.

John List is Dead

The man whose name is synonymous with family annihilation is dead at the age of 82. Steve Huff has details.

For more: Associated Content's The Pursuit, Capture, and Trial of John Emil List by Timothy Benford

The Tragedy at Scotts Mills

Most of the town heard the series of shotgun blasts. Some did not learn until the next day what horror had been inflicted on all of them. Since then, many residents of Scotts Mills, Oregon have written of that day in 1995 and the effect that family annihilator David Whitson has had on this small Quaker community.

Chris Anderson has written Life & death at a distance.

Peggy Senger Parsons has written I Saw Heaven Answer Hell.

I have tried to learn what became of Whitson without luck.  He is apparently not incarcerated in either Oregon or Washington. One hopes he's paying penance elsewhere.

Old Clipping of the Week

This story comes from the files of the venerated Kansas City Star. Unfortunately the digitized archive for the Star is no longer online (sniffle) but someone was kind enough to send me a page containing the most remarkable story of family annihilator Lowell Lee Andrews, who makes a minor appearance in In Cold Blood as he awaits his execution.

 

                                                                                                

Genre News & A Review of Scoundrels to the Hoosegow

Still Recoiling from the Charlie Lawson Tragedy When Charlie Lawson slaughtered his family and took his own life on Christmas, 1929, it affected an entire community. Generations later, the effects of that devastating mass murder are still heartfelt.

CLEWS includes a couple of posts devoted to the case, both inspired by the documentary A Christmas Family Tragedy, a new film that explores the case in depth. The comments left by folks on one post have gotten very heated. Perhaps feelings were stirred by the recent passing of one woman who was interviewed for the film, Dorothy Montgomery. Perhaps those feelings have been there for decades.

I debated what on earth to do about it (it still surprises me when people leave sharp comments for one another on this site; picture me startled, looking up from a dusty old book at the sound of raised voices coming from the back of the library). I was inclined to edit or delete some of them. But at some point the depth of emotion generated by a thing like this becomes part of the tragedy. After thinking hard about it I decided to let the comments stand for that reason.

Another Annihilator Professor Mitchel Roth at Sam Houston State University, an historian of crime and justice who has authored several books, is now writing a book about notorious multiple murderer George Hassell, per a note the professor left on the Clews summary of the Hassell story. That is one case that ought to be more widely known because its lessons in the nature of human misbehavior would surprise a lot of people. Professor Roth's report will be the first book on the case.

A Blog for Chester Gillette & Grace Brown Lizzie has several, the Villisca case has one, and now there is a blog devoted to the case of Chester Gillette. It is found at http://bloggillette.blogspot.com.

Gillette was the most beautiful man the United States ever executed. New York was actually the one that ordered him dead; the Empire State was more strict back in Chester's day when it came to punishing the premeditated murder of the inconveniently pregnant.

His story was also the inspiration for the classic Theodore Dreiser novel An American Tragedy (yep, long before Truman Capote, our best novelists penned fictionalized accounts of our worst cases).

Photo: Auburn Prison, where Chester Gillette was executed in 1908. Via

Thumbs Up for Scoundrels Your county courthouse has born witness to your town's greatest dramas, to tales of murder, assault, adultery, madness, and other sins small and large.

But after a dollop of that gritty business, who wouldn't want to retire to the closest lounge for more lighthearted fare in the theme?

If you're interested in true crime tales told by insiders, alas, few books by criminal lawyers show the inside workings of that human gristmill known as a court of law. Occasionally a prosecutor (or very occasionally a defense attorney) will write a memoir. They usually carry titles that bespeak dour themes. Recent books include Bronx D.A.: True Stories from the Sex Crimes and Domestic Violence Unit by Sarena Straus and "Ready for the People": My Most Chilling Cases as a Prosecutor by Marissa N. Batt and Johnnie Cochran.

Now a prosecutor has shared his own best tavern stories in a delightful new book from the University of Missouri Press. It's Scoundrels to the Hoosegow: Perry Mason Moments and Entertaining Cases from the Files of a Prosecuting Attorney by an experienced, elected prosecutor from Missouri, Morley Swingle. I was taken with the title and theme and put several questions to the author, who was kind enough to grant an interview to CLEWS (which you can find here).

Now I've read and enjoyed the book. With more than a quarter century of experience, the author had plenty of gems to share. Each chapter begins with quips on prosecutors from the smartest lawyers and thinkers of recent times. The author includes not only his own most eye-popping courtroom moments (and there are some doozies here) but the best stories of his closest colleagues as well. My favorite is the Case of the Millionaire Murderer.

Some of my favorite bits:

"Had Oprah Winfrey chosen to be a courtroom lawyer, she could have been the Clarence Darrow of our generation."

On a man representing himself in a criminal case: "Then it was Bixby's turn [to give a closing argument]. Ethical rules prohibiting prosecutors from lying to the jury did not apply to him; he could tell a few whoppers without worrying about a perjury charge. Bixby was off and running. It was his chance to testify without being cross-examined about his prior convictions. Truth be damned! He soared like an eagle."

On introducing a new character in a murder drama: "The fact that this biker was someone a murderer would call when he needed help disposing of a corpse told you basically all you needed to know about the man."

On meth: "Methamphetamine, for those law-abiding, non-news-watching readers who may be unfamiliar with the substance, is a highly addictive drug made by cooking the ephedrine contained in routine cold medication with such appetizing edibles as Liquid Drano, anhydrous ammonia, and lithium batteries."

I learned and laughed so much I almost wish I had entered criminal law instead of insurance defense. (Almost....) And I appreciated the reminder, applying to everything important, that preparation is a virtue. Congratulations go out to an author who not only found but shared the sort of precious anecdotes usually only heard over a round.

Charlie Lawson Songs and Contextualizing the Annihilator

It's how mountain folk respond to terrible mysteries: with music.

The producers of the documentary A Christmas Family Tragedy, which told the story of the shame of North Carolina, family annihilator Charlie Lawson, have put together a CD of songs inspired by the tragedy. 

Last year saw the release of a new documentary about the case (see the Clews review) and now the soundtrack has just been issued, which includes music from the film plus more.

The CD, A Christmas Family Tragedy Soundtrack: Music From & Inspired By Legends of the 1929 Lawson Family Murders, includes songs like The Murder of the Lawson Family, The Song of the Lawson Family Murder and other musical explorations of the case.

Why music? Some may wonder. What's the purpose of writing a ballad about a mass murder?

As a heavy metal musician with a true crime obsession recently explained on In Cold Blog, "Murder and true crime have long had a place in popular music. As long as there have been horrific violent acts against humanity, there have been songs recounting them."

And this was a horrific, violent act. As the producers of the Charlie Lawson film and CD explained --

"A Christmas Family Tragedy" explores the Lawson Family Massacre of Christmas Day, 1929.  On that day, respected tobacco farmer Charlie Lawson brutally murdered his wife and 6 of his 7 children before committing suicide; one of the most horrible and mysterious mass murders in North Carolina history.

"The Lawson murders became immortalized in a classic bluegrass murder ballad, ghost stories, tours of the crime scene, and legends known coast to coast.  But this southern documentary shows for the first time the real tragedy: the story of the families' devastation, the continuing effect it has on the community, and the ongoing plague of domestic violence in rural areas."

The film about the family annihilator, who was not insane despite the number of people who sought comfort in that thought, taught me to look at these cases not as rare and unusual and impenetrable homicides but as the extreme end of a continuum we call domestic violence.

Recently I was struck by the news coverage of another man who murdered his wife and child in June - professional wrestler Chris Benoit. Once again the media focused on this crime as though it had never happened before. There was no context -- there rarely is. The media focused not on how this case is similar to so many others but on what was different - the man's use of steroids - as though that could explain his crimes.

Eric Calhoun, co-producer of the Charlie Lawson film, was thinking the same thing. He recently wrote a private note to me that expressed this frustration. I was struck by his analysis and the reasons he cites for remembering cases like Lawson's.

Sometimes it sucks to be relevant again in the news. It's sad while everyone, including the DA, holds their heads in their hands and says things like "I don't think we'll ever be able to wrap our minds around this," we can see all the same events in the Lawson murders, and many other family murder-suicides, and why we still need to study the dark parts of our history to make these tragedies a thing of the past.

In both cases, the community talks so much about what a GOOD MAN the killer was, even to the point of the WWE televising a 3-hour tribute to Benoit. It's just as common that an abuser goes out of their way to be a good neighbor as a drunken a-hole.

Even the bizarre details of the case make much more sense in the context of domestic homicides. Benoit placed Bibles by his wife and child; Charlie Lawson put pillows under their heads. This ritual of forgiveness, protection, love is called "undoing" and is particular to domestic homicides.

Also, the search for answers always looks at excuses for why such a good man would suddenly lose it. In the Lawson case, it was the mattock that people say Charlie hit himself with. In Benoit, the media is getting righteous about steroid use in wrestling, using 'roid-rage' to explain away Benoit's actions. Instead, we should be focusing on his history of violence against his wife and face the fact that there WERE warning signs.

Now maybe you or I couldn't do anything for Nancy Benoit, but the stats are bad - odds are we all know someone getting beat, and by educating ourselves to the warning signs, we can do something for those around us.

Some proceeds from the Charlie Lawson projects will help domestic violence victims. The CD is available from http://www.bodproductions.com/.

Early American Annihilators

Husband & I were awake at 3h ys morn by mrss Heartwel and Gillbard who brot us ye horrible tydings that Capt Purington had murdered all his famely Except his Son James who must have Shared the Same fate had he not been So fortunate as to make his Escape ....

--From the 1806 diary of Martha Ballard

Patriarchal familicide – the slaughter of a family by the man of the house – is a very, very rare form of homicide. It is, in my opinion, the worst, the most unthinkable crime in the calendar.

On those occasions when it does occur, it generates a lot of media attention. Invariably the media publishes nonsense about how this crime is becoming more common today. These sentiments are usually mouthed by ignorant reporters asserting guesswork as fact; these folks also (coincidently?) tend to take a narrow view of the Second Amendment.

Unfortunately, American history is rife with examples of the phenomenon. We have always experienced this form of homicide, and we have struggled for hundreds of years to understand it. Centuries before the FBI developed the science of “behavioral profiling,” students of such crimes have tried to classify the phenomenon according to motive.

The most infamous family annihilator from early U.S. history is James Purrinton (sometimes Purrington), who slaughtered his wife and children in 1806 -- the oldest boy escaped (just as in the Charlie Lawson case). The crime is well known today because the story was a bestseller at the time and many copies of Horrid Massacre!! Sketches of the Life of Captain James Purrinton still survive today, easily available at dozens of libraries across the country, and a second contemporary book on the case (which went into three editions) is also easy to find in libraries. The famous Horrid Massacre cover is above.

A much more personal account of the crime also survived the centuries. Purrinton's neighbor was Martha Ballard (Wikipedia), a midwife whose daily diary was the subject of A Midwife's Tale, a Pulitzer-winning book a few years ago by famous historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.

Purrinton's massacre is not the sole early example. Social historian Daniel Cohen wrote a fascinating article about early annihilators that appeared in The Journal of Social History more than a decade ago. Thanks to this miraculous internet of ours, the article is online and free.

Cohen studied the stories of seven familicides between 1780 and 1850 and comes to some interesting conclusions. I happen to disagree with some and wonder about the rest. Cohen found seven early broadsides and pamphlets detailing family murders in:

• 1781 (Yates, New York);
• 1782 (Beadle, Connecticut);
• 1784 (Womble, Virginia);
• 1805 (Clemmens, Virginia);
• 1806 (Purrinton, Maine);
• 1835 (Cowain, Ohio);
• 1836 (Young, Pennsylvania).

Cohen lays out the "profiles" of a family annihilator generated 200 years ago and then adds a list of common denominators that he has found in these early cases. Cohen says the murders evince "extreme rage, brutality, even sadism." Each man suffered either (1) hallucinations (i.e. psychosis) or (2) severe depression and suicidal thoughts or (3) delusional jealousy. I think it an appropriate framework, but it seems to be incomplete.

No one, as of yet, has come up with a definitive typology for this crime, and Cohen's proposed typology does not explain them all. Unfortunately, some cases fit nowhere in this theoretical structure, such as the Jeffrey MacDonald case, where none of the classic signs and symptoms of the family annihilator -- psychosis, religious delusion, severe depression, suicidal history and so on -- make their appearance. (Disagree with me? Read the accounts of these 7 early annihilators and tell me how MacDonald compares to these men.)

He also expresses some wonder that these crimes were "curiously clustered" in certain time periods, and expresses the view that cultural forces played a strong role in the crimes. I'm not so sure that's true at all; there are dozens more examples of this crime in American history than Cohen has mentioned. But the article is a fascinating exploration of the nature of this crime and a reminder that the full expression of the deepest human cruelty is not a new phenomenon, and we are still struggling, hundreds of years later, to fully understand it.

For more:

Read the text of the inquest into the Purrinton murders

Read Martha Ballard's diary on the Purrinton murders

Strange Maine on the Purrinton murders

Christmas Murders and the Lawson Christmas Massacre

Note: Are you in North Carolina? There is a program on this case Saturday, 17 Feb. 2007 at 1:00PM at the Library in

High Point

, North Carolina. It is FREE. This is a presentation by Patrick Boyles and Esther Johnson.

So here's what it's all about...

_________

We remember the Christmas murders.

Our celebration is tempered by a certain pathos that makes any notorious crime more tragic when it falls on or even near it. The worst crime of all, at least on this holiday meant for family and the enjoyment of children, is the murder of a family. We may always remember how Scott Peterson betrayed Laci and Connor on Christmas Eve.

The "family annihilators" -- men who cooly plan the murders of their wives and children -- sometimes choose this holiday to do it. In 1954, in Pasadena, California, Harold Oilar killed his family after their Christmas party. On Christmas Day, 1929, Charlie Lawson committed the unforgivable sin of killing his wife and six youngest children in southern Appalachia.

A Christmas Family Tragedy is the name of the new documentary just out about the Lawson family murders in 1929. Your correspondent had a chance to see it. The movie is filled with photos and interviews with local residents, historians, genealogists, Lawson experts, and descendants of the surviving family. The movie is a fascinating exploration of the many ways to ask why in the Lawson case.

Why did a 37-year-old farmer kill his family?

Why did people drive for miles to see the murder house?

Why did 5,000 people attend the funeral?

Why do we make music of such a thing?

How could it be that a recording of a hillbilly murder ballad about the Lawson Christmas tragedy actually cracked the top five in record sales in 1930?

Why is it that some locals refused to discuss the case, ever, while others take stones from atop the gravesite?

There are some elements in this case that the student of crime will recognize as inherent in the family annihilator. Like John List decades later, Charlie Lawson clearly planned for days or weeks. He took the whole clan to town ten days before Christmas to buy new clothes -- outfits that they'd be buried in -- the photo (above) that would run in newspapers across the region. After his awful deeds, Lawson, like List, collected them, posed some of them.

But the Lawson case is also unusual even within its type. Charlie Lawson was well regarded, a "good man," someone who was honest and did kind deeds for his neighbors. None of the "usual" explanations for family annihilators appear in this case. Lawson did not seem to suffer from religious delusion or any delusion at all. He in fact objected to his family attending church. There were rumors of incest, that his daughter was pregnant. But there doesn't seem to be much support for that. And if there were financial straits that drove him to do it, again there seems little proof.

One thing about Charlie Lawson is clear these many years later. He had a temper. Rages. A "strong hand." He beat a man in public once. His oldest son had begun sleeping in his clothes to protect the family from the patriarch.

In the end, the explanation for the Lawson Christmas tragedy may lie in the simple fact that murdering your family, "my family, and I can do what I want with them," may best be characterized as the ultimate act of domestic violence.

After exploring the why of it, the filmmakers remark --

The cold, hard, observable, tangible fact of the matter is that Charlie did it because he felt like he had the right to make that decision for his family by himself. He thought he had the right to make life-or-death decisions for other people without their knowledge or consent.

We hope we can give the spirits of the Lawson children a proper burial by honestly acknowledging their suffering and confronting the shocking brutality of what happened to them that day without blinking.

Maybe instead of forgiving and forgetting we should be acting on warning signs and preventing the next tragedy from happening in our own neighborhoods.

For more:

The filmmaker's website - featuring photos, links, a message board, and a place to order your own copy.

For more Clews, see The Lawson Family Tragedy In Music - about the Hillbilly music inspired by the murders.

A new book about the case -- The Meaning of Our Tears by North Carolina author Trudy J. Smith -- this is an update of the first and only other book about the case, White Christmas, Bloody Christmas (now out of print and in high demand). Trudy Smith first published White Christmas in 1990 along with her late father, M. Bruce Jones. The Meaning of Our Tears, which was published only weeks ago, is the enlarged and revised edition of the story.

***

An Interview with the Filmmaker

Matt Hodges, one of the producers of A Christmas Family Tragedy, was kind enough to answer a few questions about the film that I put to him. Here's the Q&A.

What ever came of the murder house?

As mentioned almost in passing in the film, the house was torn down in 1984 and the wood was used to build a covered bridge on the property.

Who owns the property today?

The current owner of the property is a rather private individual who specifically requested that we not include any info on him or his property in the film. That's the reason why it seems I only mentioned the fate of the house in passing at the beginning of the 1985 graveyard ghost story. I wanted to keep my promise to him, especially since he's currently Very upset that the book Did include a picture of the bridge he built without securing his permission. In a small community, it's a big deal, and I've done my best to not offend Any of the principals involved so as to contribute to the future goodwill attached to the project in the community.

The reason for their reticence seems to stem from a high volume of traffic to his home from curious onlookers, who in the past at least, vandalized a lot of things surrounding this story.

Did the one surviving member of the family ever speak at length about what happened and /or about his father? Did he leave any writings, any testimony?

Arthur 'Buck' Lawson to our knowledge never wrote any account of his life. We do have footage of more stories about his later life than we included in our film, but that's due in no small part to the need to contextualize every bit of info we got in a timely fashion within the structure of the overall film.

Strangely, we received stories that he sometimes accompanied the items from the house that toured local fairs as part of an exhibit, but we were unable to get anyone on record who saw him there or had any 1st hand account of it whatsoever, so we went with what we Did have, which was an apparent Lawson family imposter recounting the tale after Arthur's death. There are numerous newspaper accounts dating all the way throughout the 77 yrs of this story's history, but none that we found that referred to Arthur, except his obituary or the usual info we included.

Was there ever an inquest?

There was no inquest due to Dr. Helsabeck convening a jury on the scene of the crime announcing that the family was dead, Charlie was the killer, case closed. Again, there's newspaper stories from the time stating that a resident at Johns Hopkins University in the area, a Dr. James Spottiswood took the brain back to JHU to examine it, but followup stories on this are slim and inconclusive at best. After repeated efforts to track it's history at JHU, I was told that all records of it would have been purged long ago.

What is the family rift about today?

There are numerous causes of conflict amongst the surviving relatives. Some believe Charlie didn't do it, while others believe he did, but for different reasons. The one thing they all seem to agree on though is their universal unwavering hatred for the authors of WCBC. The 2 chief complaints being that by only interviewing one member of the family in depth, the rest of the family's opinions and considerations, not to mention feelings weren't taken into account. Thus the 'confirmation' of molestation was bitterly attacked by many who had at least as solid a connection to this story as Stella Lawson.

Secondly, that the authors exploited the story for their own private financial gain at the expense of family or any other needy cause affected by the issues raised in this story. Toward that end, to demonstrate our commitment to preserving history while using it to serve a greater good, we're donating 10% of the profits from the film for its lifetime toward domestic violence causes, which you can learn more about at http://www.bodproductions.com/domestic.htm.

Are there any good websites or forums for people to go on the net to discuss the case?

The forum for our film also serves as the only board I know of where folks are discussing this story and the myriad issues it raises and that's at http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/mb/maryc.

Thanks to the filmmakers for sharing their work with Clews readers.

The Lawson Family Tragedy in Music and Now Film

Comments to this post are now closed.

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The Lawson family massacre on Christmas Day, 1929 was news coast to coast when it took place, but the only ones who might know the case today are fans of hillbilly music.

Charlie Lawson was a "family annihilator" who killed his wife, six of his children, and then himself. The case has baffled and divided the folk of Stokes County, North Carolina for generations, and they've often expressed their feelings about the tragedy in music with ballads like "The Story of the Lawson Family," "Ballad of the Lawsons," "Murder of the Lawson Family," "The Murder of Charlie Lawson," "Charlie Lawson's Still," and many others. Poignant murder stories being a favorite subject of much mountain music, at least a dozen artists have recorded versions over the years on albums with titles like Ballads and Songs of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The most famous version of the song was by the Stanley Brothers. They grew up in the area where the family murder took place. Your correspondent is tempted to share some of the words, but lyrics are meant to be heard.

There's one book in print about the Lawson case, White Christmas-Bloody Christmas: Finally the True Story of the Lawson Family Murders of Christmas Day which cost as much as $100 for awhile but has been reissued due to new interest in the case.

For those interested in the true story behind the music, a new documentary is coming out this month. Having just had my socks knocked off by the Villisca film (see this post), I'm intrigued by news of the movie 'A Christmas Family Tragedy', which explores the facts and legends surrounding the Lawson murders and what they mean today for the descendants and the community. Santa might bring me a copy, and I'll provide you with some particulars.

Meanwhile, for more --

Another essay about Christmas Murders and the Lawson Christmas Massacre

The film's official website with photos and trailer

Clip: "Documentary explores notorious Stokes killing" by Mark Burger

Hear the Stanley Brothers play "The Story of the Lawson Family" on itunes

Clip: "Grisly Tale for Yuletime" by Jim Wicker: "The name “Charlie Lawson” is probably unfamiliar to most people today. But there was a time when it was on nearly every Tar Heel lip. By now, only a few spry old-timers in their late 70s, early 80s or older remain to remember the crimes that made Lawson’s name familiar in every North Carolina home for many years, along with those of John Dillinger and Al Capone..."

Clip: Hillbilly Ghost Hunters on the Lawson Family Murders by Betty Sue Haynes

Encyclopedia of Death and Dying on Folk Music

Please Note Comments to this post are now closed.

P.S. The ballads based on the Lawson case are so powerful that they inspire people to shoot each other -- to ask to be shot. No kidding. From the Charleston Gazette, January 1939:

On this date... another family annihilator

From the folks at The Daily Perspective, offering news with an historical slant, comes yet another story of a family annihilator, underscoring the First Principle of Clews, namely that there is no new crime under the sun. On this date in 1896, in Southern California....

Dunham murders entire family

Today, James Dunham murdered his wife, her family and two household servants. "The most terrible crime in the history of Santa Clara County, was enacted last night shortly after twelve o'clock, resulting in the wiping out of the entire family of Colonel R.P. McGlincy, one of the most prominent residents of Campbell District, six miles southwest of San Jose," The Oakland Tribune reported on May 27, 1896. The only survivors were Dunham's baby and a farmhand that managed to hide during the murders.

I seem to find a lot of these crimes in the 1890s, and it also underscores my working hypothesis that this crime was actually more common in the past than it is today, even though the population is so considerably higher now and crime stories are more heavily covered in today's media.

Knock on wood.