Spine Chilling Murders In The Quad Cities

Spine-Chilling Murders in the Quad-Cities is a collection of true-life stories - most of them rescued from old newspaper accounts published over 100 years ago. Only a few of the events in this book have ever made it into print, except maybe in musky-old county histories. Even then, they are lucky to rate a paragraph. Cities covered include Davenport, Bettendorf, Muscatine, and Clinton, Iowa, and Rock Island, Moline, and Silvis, Illinois. Stories include: The murder of Herman Peetz by his former friend, Walter J. Hill, in Rockingham, West Davenport, Iowa. When Anna Kilduff shot and killed her husband John at the Bar Fish and Oyster Market on Brady Street in Davenport. The Black Hand killing of Beni Scatura on West Third Street in Davenport by Joe Campanelli. The story of how Irene Dolph shot and killed her husband, Fritz, in Lyons, now Clinton, Iowa. A pair of shootings in the Silvis Railroad Yards in the early 1900s. Dan Chasteen killed Special Officer Hugo Alvine, and Alfonanso Petrone fell victim to the Black Hand. Ethel Collicott was murdered at the River-to-River Garage on Davenport's Main Street during an attempted robbery. His killer Norman O. Luce was captured nine years later in Plattsburgh, New York. Lulu Bennett whacked her neighbor Mary Mason over the head and killed her over a racial slur. Manuel Rocha killed his friend Harry Carey with an ax on Brown Street in Davenport. Rudolph Brandenburg's stepfather Claus Muenter was a mean drunk who constantly abused Brandenburg's mother. One day Brandenburg snapped, and unloaded seven rounds from his Colt Automatic into Muenter, then turned the gun around and beat his head with the butt of his revolver. Maria Mota and her lover, Antonio Silva, murdered her common-law husband, Pedro Medjia in the boxcar settlement outside of Walcott, Iowa, so they could run away and get married.< Fred Smith shot and almost killed Davenport Policeman Henry Janssen on a routine burglary call. After he was caught, Smith said he didn't want to be taken in with a gun in his pocket. Maurice Meyer killed Rose Gendler and tossed her warm body over the Rock River bridge in Moline, Illinois three days before Christmas in 1932. He said she took a fall on the ice and he disposed of the body rather than face questioning. The coroner said she didn't die until her body hit the ice below the bridge. Read them now, if you dare!

Ever wonder what evil lurks in your hometown? Spine-Chilling Murders in Iowa takes you behind the scenes of some old-time killings in Iowa. Nettie Schwab married Jerome Hoot in Kansas City in 1899. When she woke up on the second day of her honeymoon, she found him bending over her, holding a handkerchief laced with chloroform close to her face. Another time, Hoot tried to drug her with a tablet, but she spit it out when he wasn’t watching. Not long after that, she received an infernal machine in the mail. The Saturday Night Murderer butchered eight people overnight in the sleepy little town of Villisca in June 1912. Investigators believed the killer rode the rails into town, then once his bloody work was done, hopped back on the train. “Tonight, I’m going to hold up the Handy Store,” bragged Floyd Sheets. “If there is any resistance, someone is going to be filled with lead. So, watch tomorrow evening’s papers if you think I’m kidding.” Sure enough, he killed the owner’s son at the Davenport, Iowa grocery store. No one was particularly surprised when they learned Earl Throst killed schoolmarm Inga Magnusson near Dorchester, Iowa, in 1921. When captured, Throst told detectives he planned to marry Magnusson the following week even though she was engaged to another man. Myrtle Cook’s death contained all the elements of a good murder mystery—rum runners, and an estranged husband who fumbled some of the details of his alibi. Cook, age 51, was shot to death in her Vinton, Iowa home on September 7, 1925. Read them if you dare!

Ever wonder what evil lurks in your hometown? Spine-Chilling Murders in the Northeast takes you behind the scenes of some old-time killings in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and more. Joseph Elwell, the Whist Wizard of Manhattan, was shot to death in his home overnight on June 11, 1920. Roy Harris, an aspiring novelist, confessed to the crime, but it soon turned out to be nothing more than a publicity stunt to help sell his new book. Louise Lawson led a double life. The folks back home in Walnut Springs, Texas, knew her as a shy young girl aspiring to a big-time musical career. Her friends in New York knew her as a Broadway Butterfly, one of those kept girls who lived in a fancy apartment. When she was found dead in 1918, it turned out she was the victim of a gang that targeted the working girls of New York. Marie Williams (aka Boots) was the prettiest girl ever arrested in West Virginia. She told police that she, and her boyfriend, Peter Treadwell, were in the room when Henry Pierce was murdered, but they did not have anything to do with the crime. The police wanted to believe her, but... When nineteen-year-old Avis Linnell turned up dead at the Y. M. C. A. in Boston, suspicion quickly fell on her fiance, Reverend Clarence V. T. Richeson. The Boston Globe said Richeson had a "soft" and "musical" voice, almost too much for a girl to resist. It didn't help the Reverend any that he was carrying on with Avis, while he announced his upcoming marriage to wealthy Boston socialite, Violet Edmands. Pretty Josephine Amore killed her neighbor/lover Michael Martelle in Newark, New Jersey, in August 1908. Martelle kissed her and threatened to harm her family unless she ran away with him. "I got me a great big gun," said Josephine, "and killed him." Detectives didn't believe her for a minute. They were convinced her husband, Carmine Amore, was the killer, but could never quite pin the killing on him. Alfred Morrison shot his wife in his sleep and told police he didn't know anything about it. He was lost in a dreamlike state much like Walter Mitty. The newspapers quickly labeled him the Mount Vernon Dream Killer. Hans Schmidt, a New York Priest, became known as the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Killer after he murdered Anna Aumuller and scattered her dismembered remains in the North River. He told detectives he tasted her blood first, then when she was dead dragged her body into the bathroom and carved it up. George White, a man of color, was arrested for sexually assaulting and murdering seventeen-year-old Helen S. Bishop in Wilmington Delaware in June 1903. A mob broke him out of the Castle County Work House as guards stood by and did nothing to stop them. White was dragged out into the woods and burned alive. All he could say in his defense was, "You would not have done this if I was a white man." Read them if you dare!

Spine-Chilling Murders in Des Moines is a collection of true-life stories - most of them rescued from old newspaper accounts published over 100 years ago. Only a few of the events in this book have ever made it into print, except maybe in musky-old county histories. Even then, they are lucky to rate a paragraph. Read them if you dare.

Throughout the Upper Mississippi Valley, George Davenport's name was widely known as a trader with the Sauk and Mesquakie, the U.S. Army, and settlers who were attracted to the untapped waterpower surrounding Davenport's home on Rock Island. The Trader at Rock Island tells the story of George Davenport and his entry into the Indian trade and his eventual transition into services and businesses marketed toward the new settlers. After the Black Hawk War, Davenport promoted land development as the frontier turned from Indian land to commercial centers of industry. By the time of Davenport's murder in 1845, the cities now known today as the Quad Cities in Iowa and Illinois were in their infancy.

Bert has always nurtured a fascination with mysteries and tackling complex challenges. His wife, Norah, has finally learned to embrace her psychic abilities. After they adopt a coywolf puppy to live with them in Wyoming, Bert and Norah open the doors of their new private investigation business. Using Norah’s abilities and coywolf, Missy’s, tracking skills, they become known for finding missing persons. As they continue their important mission under the big sky of the upper Midwest, Bert and Norah are eventually drawn into an unexpected and fast-paced hunt for an evil killer preying upon the trusting people living amid the beauty of this vast land. After it becomes apparent that they alone possess the unique skills to bring the pursuit to a conclusion, Bert and Norah race against time as their challenging investigation launches them on a collision course with a destiny they never could have foreseen. Bert and Norah: The Nickel Dime Murders is the tale of a husband and wife investigative team as they pursue a killer instigating terror within big sky country known for its beauty, not invading evil.