Anna Marie Hahn was a German immigrant living in Cincinnati in the 1930s. She cooked for people, spent time with them, and became part of their daily lives. And over time, the men she grew close to began to die.

Source Material

Franklin, Diana Britt. The Good-bye Door: The Incredible True Story of America’s First Female Serial Killer to Die in the Electric Chair. Kent State University Press, 2006.

Hunt, Amber. “Queen City Crime: How serial killer Anna Hahn rocked Cincinnati, made Ohio history.” The Cincinnati Enquirer, February 6, 2024.

Contemporary newspaper coverage, including:

The Cincinnati Enquirer (1937–1938)

The Cincinnati Post (1937)

The Pittsburgh Press (execution coverage, 1938)

Telfer, Tori. Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History. HarperCollins, 2017.

Vronsky, Peter. Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters. Berkley Books, 2007.

Queen, Chelsea. “Anna Marie Hahn: The Deadly ‘Arsenic Widow.’” Medium, 2024

In 1893, Sicilian banker and former mayor Emanuele Notarbartolo was murdered on a train traveling along the northern coast of Sicily. What followed was a case that moved through multiple trials, convictions, and acquittals, raising questions about political influence, financial power, and the limits of the legal system.

Source materials

John Dickie, Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia (Hodder & Stoughton, 2004)
https://www.hodder.co.uk/titles/john-dickie/cosa nostra/9780340935262/

Salvatore Lupo, History of the Mafia (Columbia University Press, 2009) https://cup.columbia.edu/book/history-of-the mafia/9780231131346

“Raffaele Palizzolo Describes the Mafia,” The New YorkTimes, July 12, 1908 https://www.nytimes.com/1908/07/12/archives/raffaele-palizzolo-describes-the-mafia-the-noted-sicilian.html

“Emanuele Notarbartolo: Banker and Politician,” Italy OnThis Day https://www.italyonthisday.com/2023/02/emanuele-notarbartolo-banker-and.html

Chelsea Queen, “Emanuele Notarbartolo: The Sicilian Mafia’sFirst Victim in 1893,” Medium, December 31, 2024 https://medium.com/@chelseaqueen/emanuele-notarbartolo-the-sicilian-mafias-first-victim-in-1893

In December 1811, two households on London’s Ratcliffe Highway were brutally murdered within days of each other. As panic spread through the East End, investigators searched for a killer moving through the dockside streets. A sailor named John Williams soon became the prime suspect but his death would leave the truth uncertain.

Source Materials

P. D. James and T. A. Critchley. The Maul and the Pear Tree: The Ratcliffe Highway Murders, 1811. Faber & Faber, 1971.

Judith Flanders. The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime. Thomas Dunne Books, 2011.

John Fairburn. Fairburn’s Account of the Dreadful Murder of Mr. Marr and Family, Who Were Barbarously Murdered in Their House on Ratcliffe Highway. London, 1811.

Peter Ackroyd. London: The Biography. Nan A. Talese / Doubleday, 2000.

The Proceedings of the Coroner’s Inquest on the Marr and Williamson Murders, London, December 1811. The OldBailey Proceedings Online. https://www.oldbaileyonline.org

Radzinowicz, L. “The Ratcliffe Murders.” The Cambridge Law Journal 14, no. 1 (1956): 39–66. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4504366