Wicked Women of Ohio


Book Description

"The Buckeye State produced its share of wicked women. Tenacious madam Clara Palmer contended with constant police raids during the 1880s and '90s. Only her death could shut the doors of her gilded bordello in Cleveland. Failed actress Mildred Gillars left for Europe right before World War II. Because she fell in love with the wrong man, she wound up peddling Nazi propaganda on the radio as "Axis Sally." Volatile Hester Foster was already doing time at the Ohio State Penitentiary when she bashed in the head of a fellow inmate with a shovel. The sinister Anna Marie Hahn dosed at least five elderly Cincinnati men with arsenic and croton oil and then watched them die in agony while pretending to nurse them back to health. Award-winning crime writer Jane Ann Turzillo recounts the stories of Ohio's most notorious vixens, viragoes and villainesses"--Back cover.




Wicked Women of Northeast Ohio


Book Description

In Wicked Women of Northeast Ohio, author Jane Ann Turzillo recounts the misdeeds of ten dark-hearted women who refused to play by the rules. They unleashed their most base impulses using axes, guns, poison and more. You'll meet Perry's Velma West, a mere slip of a girl who was unfortunately too near a hammer during an argument. New Philadelphia's Ellen Athey, no lady herself, had a similar problem with an axe. Ardell Quinn, who operated the longest-running brothel in Cleveland, would simply argue that she was a good businesswoman. Grim? Often. Entertaining? Deliciously so.




Wicked Cleveland


Book Description

Award-winning true crime author Jane Turzillo brings together the strippers, gangsters, robbers, shady politicians, and more from Cleveland's rough and rowdy past. From world-class museums and popular sports teams to peaceful parks and charming neighborhoods, Cleveland has a lot to offer. But it has a wilder, darker side. Along the one-block passageway called Short Vincent, tourists and celebrities mixed with bookies and mobsters for drinks and dinner, underworld gossip, and all kinds of "entertainment." In 1969, Ted Conrad disappeared with $215,000 in stolen cash. An obituary more than fifty years later finally told authorities where he went. In the wee hours of March 24, 1970, someone slipped up to the front of the Cleveland Museum of Art and planted a bomb on the marble pedestal that supported Rodin's The Thinker. Who and why remain unknown.




Unsolved Murders & Disappearances in Northeast Ohio


Book Description

The Agatha Award–nominated account of Northeast Ohio’s most chilling unsolved crimes from the author of Wicked Women of Ohio. Cold case files litter the desks of authorities all across Northeast Ohio. Louise Wolf and Mabel Foote, Parma teachers, were on their way to school one winter morning when a maniac sprang from the bushes and bludgeoned them to death. When young Melvin Horst went missing on his way home from playing with friends in 1928, many thought he was kidnapped or accidentally killed by a bootlegger’s car. Charles Collins’s death looked like suicide but was proved otherwise by two preeminent surgeons and has remained a mystery for more than one hundred years. Author Jane Ann Turzillo recounts eight unsolved murders and two chilling disappearances in Northeast Ohio’s history. Includes photos!




Ohio Heists


Book Description

Ohio history overflows with tales of enterprising thieves. Vault teller Ted Conrad walked out of Society National Bank carrying a paper sack containing a fifth of Canadian Club, a carton of Marlboros and $215,000 cash. He was never seen again. Known as one of the most successful jewel thieves in the world, Bill Mason stole comedian Phyllis Diller's precious gems not once, but twice. He also stole $100,000 from the Cleveland mob. Mild-mannered Kenyon College library employee David Breithaupt walked off with $50,000 worth of rare books and documents from the college. John Dillinger hit banks all over Ohio, and Alvin Karpis robbed a train in Garrettsville and a mail truck in Warren. Jane Ann Turzillo writes of these and other notable heists and perpetrators.




Wicked Women


Book Description

This collection of short, action-filled stories of the Old West’s most egregiously badly behaved female outlaws, gamblers, soiled-doves, and other wicked women by offers a glimpse into Western Women’s experience that's less sunbonnets and more six-shooters. Pulling together stories of ladies caught in the acts of mayhem, distraction, murder, and highway robbery, it will include famous names like Belle Starr and Big Nose Kate, as well as lesser known characters.




Wicked Women


Book Description

In Wicked Women, Dennis Stevens, a criminology professor and prison counselor, shares the fascinating life stories of fifteen super predators, detailing their early life experiences and criminal activities through the time they interacted with him in prison. Withholding their names and identities, he presents disturbing evidence and chronicles the long, destructive journeys of these super predators. Dr. Stevens spent several years among high-risk felons in some of the most heavily researched penitentiaries in America while teaching criminology at various universities. He uses his vast professional experience to create fictional vignettes based on real-life situations, offering a glimpse into the souls of creatures who carry out wicked acts under the cover of a mask of sanity. While presenting bizarre accounts of incredible human cruelty of every varietyincluding border raids, brutal beatings, cannibalism, rape, and gang warfareDr. Stevens provides a never-before-seen look into the backgrounds and twisted minds of people like Margo, a transgendered drug addict obsessed with setting fires, and Mary, a former New Orleans police officer convicted of killing her partner. Without censorship or interference from political police, Wicked Women presents eye-opening, unforgettable accounts of the outrageous thoughts and gruesome destruction of super predators.




Murder & Mayhem on Ohio's Rails


Book Description

Ride Ohio's rails with some of the bravest trainmen and most vicious killers and robbers to ever roll down the tracks. The West may have had Jesse James and Butch Cassidy, but Ohio had its own brand of train robbers. Discover how Alvin Karpis knocked off an Erie Railroad train and escaped with $34,000. Learn about the first peacetime train holdup that took place in North Bend when thieves derailed the Kate Jackson, robbed its passengers and blew the Adam's Express safe. Make no mistake--railroading was a dangerous job in bygone days.




Ohio Train Disasters


Book Description

In nearly a century of heavy rail travel in Ohio, a dozen train accidents stand out as the most horrific. In the bitter cold, just after Christmas 1876, eleven cars plunged seventy-five feet into the frigid water below. The stoves burst into flames, burning to death all who were not killed by the fall. Fires cut short the lives of forty-three people in the head-on Doodlebug collision in Cuyahoga Falls in 1940 and eleven people in a train wreck near Dresden in 1912. Author Jane Ann Turzillo unearths these red-hot stories of ill-fated passengers, heroic trainmen and the wrecking crews who faced death and destruction on Ohio's rails.




Heroes of Ohio


Book Description