Historical True Crime Blog

Ann Marie Ackermann's author website

Stolen Clothing: The Bather’s Nightmare

Stolen clothing. Does the greatest fear of every skinny dipper ever haunt you? Is a bather’s stolen clothing is just a TV trope? Or do you worry about someone stealing your clothes when you take a dip in the pool or lake? Maybe you should. A German...

Ann Marie Ackermann's author website

New Evidence on Rasputin’s Murder

An Interview with Russian Historian Margarita Nelipa Grigorii Rasputin: Russian mystic, counselor to the imperial family, and murder victim. Apart from the execution of the Romanov family in July 1918, the murder of Rasputin in December 1916 is...

Ann Marie Ackermann's author website

Benjamin Franklin as a True Crime Writer

Benjamin Franklin. You know him as a founding father, a drafter of the Declaration of Independence, the discoverer of electricity, a diplomat. But did you know he wrote true crime, too? He started his career as a printing apprentice and later...

The white squirrel is a rare morph of the grey squirrel.

A Murder, a World Record, and a White Squirrel

A triple insult As I scanned the ink scratched onto the yellowing letter, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for its author. It’s one thing to be falsely accused of a murder. It’s another to be driven out of your country. But the final insult is to...

Ann Marie Ackermann's author website

Villisca Ax Murders

This is the stuff slumber party folklore is made of. You’ve probably heard the story, perhaps even at a slumber party. Evil incarnate once waited in the attic for a family to retire. Then it slunk down the stairs to murder them all. It really...

Ann Marie Ackermann's author website

LeRoy Wiley Gresham, the Child Sage of Civil-War Georgia

In April 1865, more than just the Confederacy was dying in Macon, Georgia. LeRoy Wiley Gresham was dying too. Only 17, he succumbed to tuberculosis  a few months after the Civil War ended. What made LeRoy Wiley Gresham different was his writing...

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