We regret to report

Norwich Courier, November 8, 1826. I love the white-gloved, pornography-for-Puritans delicacy of that two-sentence preamble. “We shall barely mention some particulars as we understood them” is also quite good.

Cross post

Two items of apocalyptic import in this week’s Chicago Reader, here and here.

Other than that, how was the voyage?

American Weekly Mercury, January 1-8, 1733. Ouch!

Chop on pop

Ths Brattleboro, Vermont, Reporter, June 14, 1806. Hoo boy, heref a meffed-up ftory about a terrfically unhappy family. Bafically a confpiracy of children to kill their drunken, violent old man before he killed again. Gotta feel forry for the kidf, though my guess is the teenage murdereff probabaly fwung for thif.

Brother and sizzle

San Francisco Chronicle, June 4, 1909. I’m going to stipulate that this dude’s degree of interest in his sister’s personal life was inappropriate. He gets double zeitgeist points for using both a hatchet and acid though. Note that this is the third item in a row in which the kind of acid isn’t specified–seriously flawed reportage.

Father slew moron

I’ve completely lost track of when and where this was published. It irks me to no end to post an item without proper citation, but this being both an ax murder and “the strongest indorsement of the ‘unwritten law’ ever uttered from the bench,” I’m pretty much obliged.

Eccentric slayer

Chicago Tribune, February 10, 1930. I’ve actually vacationed in Muskegon, Michigan,–they have lovely beaches there–but I didn’t get a sufficient feel for local standards to comment on whether chopping up the women you love and stashing them in shallow graves qualifies as “eccentricity” or not. A wealth of gritty detail after the jump.

Searching for clews

Chicago Tribune, April 23, 1925. I find a lot of people tend to assume that horrors like this are signally modern, but take my word for it: the further back you look, the more such mayhem you’ll find. Don’t even get me started on the 19th century. Anyway, persons of delicate sensibilities should stop reading here, because the details get a whole lot hairier after the jump.

Ax of violence

Detroit News, March 27, 1931. Why does a stockbroker in Hawaii even own an ax? I can’t imagine he was splitting a whole lot of firewood. Plus he apparently had access to a perfectly good gun.