Showing results for "Lovers" in Murder

Best-selling writer and criminologist Christopher Berry-Dee turns his attention to a new kind of victim: the wives or partners of serial murderers who remained unaware of exactly who they had fallen for until after their other half's arrest or, in some cases, conviction, for multiple murders.

In the small hours of the annual Punta Carnivale celebrations held by Central American communities of the West Bronx, residents witness flames and smoke coming from a popular nightspot known as Happy Land. Fire and rescue personnel arrive at the scene within three minutes, only to find all 87 party-goers trapped inside already dead. The victims have died at an unfathomable speed, succumbing to suffocation and the effects of lethal gases before the flames could even reach them.

Minnie was just 16 when she stood trial for the wrongful death of her first husband, a successful businessman and politician almost 40 years her senior. Despite overwhelming witness testimony that the Creole beauty from New Orleans had purchased the arsenic that killed him, Minnie's own testimony brought the entire courtroom to tears. She was acquitted. Minnie returned to New Orleans with James Walkup's fortune, but she still didn't have enough cash for her liking, so she successfully targeted, seduced, and murdered two more wealthy older men while evading justice in the courtroom.

In 1831, Lucretia Winslow Chapman was a wife and mother of five who had founded one of Philadelphia's first boarding schools for girls. But her comfortable life and marriage to prominent local scientist William Chapman changed forever the night Lino Espos y Mina appeared at their door, requesting lodging. It wasn't long before the Cuban con artist had entrenched himself in the Chapman home and begun an illicit affair with Lucretia.