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Murder and dark deeds shadowed the extravagance of the Gilded Age in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. In the summer of 1893, a tall and well-dressed burglar plundered the massive summer mansions of the upper crust. A visit from President Teddy Roosevelt in 1902 ended in tragedy when a trolley car smashed into the presidential carriage, killing a Secret Service agent. Shocking the nation, a psychotic millworker opened fire on a packed streetcar, leaving three dead and five wounded. From axe murders to botched bank jobs, author Andrew Amelinckx dredges up the forgotten underbelly of the Berkshires with unforgettable stories of greed, jealousy and madness from the Gilded Age.

Boston's history is checkered with violence and heinous crimes. In 1845, a woman lured into prostitution was murdered at the hands of her jealous lover who used sleepwalking as his defense at trial. A leg was found floating along the Boston Harbor, wrapped in a burlap bag that would later be connected to a woman who was brutally murdered and dismembered by her handyman. In the 1970s, a string of seemingly unconnected murders led to a killer who became known as the Giggler. Christopher Daley explores the tragic events that turned peaceful Boston neighborhoods into disturbing crime scenes.

The bucolic image of central Massachusetts belies a dark and sometimes deadly past. Grisly crimes and grim misdeeds reach back to colonial settlement in Worcester County, from an escaped slave hanged for rape in 1768 at the Worcester jail to the Sutton choir singer convicted of drowning his wife in 1935. Henry Hammond's 1899 suicide and the others that followed shook Spencer residents to their cores. Some crimes still grip the imaginations of residents, while others have faded from collective memory. Author Rachel Faugno investigates this sinister history.

MetroWest is known for its rolling farmland, winding rivers and quaint white churches facing green town commons. But looks can be deceiving. Tales from these small towns captured headlines and shocked readers across the state with lurid details of betrayal, cruelty, greed and murder. Nina Danforth, spurred on by love and jealousy, made a midnight call to the home of Andrew Emery in Framingham seeking revenge. The murder of spinster Mabel Page in Weston sent a man to the electric chair, and forty years before Lizzie Borden, the grisly axe murder of a husband and wife sent shock waves through the terrified town of Natick. Authors James L. Parr and Kevin A. Swope reveal the stories behind these crimes and the motives of the desperate criminals who perpetrated them.

Rhode Island's Washington County hides a dark past riddled with macabre crimes and despicable deeds. In 1890, an argument over wages turned deadly when former hotelier George Kenyon shot and killed his carpenter on the grounds of the Gilbert Stuart House in Saunderstown. Senator Charles Burdick was shot and left for dead at his Charlestown home in 1930. Even the peaceful village of Woodville has a veritable rap sheet of thieving maids, speakeasies and murderously jealous wives. From chilling acts by the KKK to physicians practicing under the influence of narcotics, author Kelly Sullivan Pezza's collection of articles from the Chariho Times uncovers the violence and vices of Washington County.

On a dark, rainy night in October 1900, George E. Bailey, caretaker of Breakheart Hill farm, disappeared. He no longer made his daily milk runs to town or stopped at the tavern for his favorite cherry rum. Some suspected foul play right away, as Bailey's "wife" had recently gone to Maine, leaving Bailey alone with his farmhand, John C. Best, who was known to be a drunk and a potentially violent man. Nine days later, when Bailey's dismembered body was fished out of a local pond, all eyes quickly focused on Best. Crowds descended on the farm, and the sensational murder captured headlines in Boston's newspapers. Using official records and newspaper archives, authors Douglas L. Heath and Alison C. Simcox uncover the facts and bizarre circumstances of this shocking tale.

Join author & reporter Kelly Sullivan Pezza as she investigates and recounts the murder of 5-year old Maggie Sheffield.

On a summer day in 1893, little Maggie Sheffield was murdered. Maggie's own father did the unthinkable against a backdrop of laughter and barrel organ music at Rocky Point Amusement Park. The tragedy aroused a strange reaction from the peaceable community of Warwick, Rhode Island. Many seemed to be more concerned for the murderer, Frank Sheffield, than for his young victim. Frank was rumored to be insane or addicted to drugs, and after a trial, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. The murder did not tarnish Rocky Point's reputation as a premier destination, and the park operated until 1995. Investigating official records and newspaper archives, author Kelly Sullivan Pezza uncovers the facts and oddities behind a grim crime in Rhode Island's summer paradise.

Cold Case Clues

On May 21, 1932, Arthur Oker, a mild-mannered Finnish tailor, was brutally murdered in his shop in the small seaside town of Rockport, Massachusetts.

While this unsolved crime terrified local residents, their fears increased after another horrifying murder, that of Swedish immigrant and fellow churchgoer Augusta Johnson in her home on Halloween night in 1933. Following the crimes, authorities searched every house and building in Rockport, and some 2,500 households were interviewed. A reward was posted, a mystic volunteered her services and local children wearing badges provided by a breakfast cereal company joined in the search. However, the crimes went unsolved. Local authors Robert Fitzgibbon and Wayne Soini reveal long-lost details about the crime, the investigation and a surprise suspect from the state police archives.

On a crisp September evening in 1899, a seventeen-year-old petty thief named Edwin Ray Snow shot and killed a bakery deliveryman named Jimmy Whittemore outside Yarmouth. The gunshots rang out for only a moment, but the effects resounded on Cape Cod for half a century. The idyllic atmosphere of turn-of-the-century Cape Cod was shattered in a flash. Soon after the crime, Snow pleaded guilty to murder in the first degree, and was the first person ever to be sentenced to death by electric chair in Massachusetts history. But his compelling story didn't end there, and his redemption--earned through decades of hard time--was as dramatic and uplifting as his crime was heinous. Drawing upon town records, historical documents, correspondence and newspapers of the day, The Cape Cod Murder of 1899 recreates the towns of Dennis and Yarmouth at the turn of the century and examines the details of a murder that shook Cape Cod to its core.

On a frigid day in 1843, Amasa Sprague, a wealthy Yankee mill owner, left his mansion to check on his cattle. On the way, he was accosted and beaten beyond recognition, and his body was left facedown in the snow. What followed was a trial marked by judicial bias, witness perjury and societal bigotry that resulted in the conviction of twenty-nine-year-old Irish-Catholic John Gordon. He was sentenced to hang. Despite overwhelming evidence that the trial was flawed and newly discovered evidence that clearly exonerated him, an anti-Irish Catholic establishment refused him a new trial. On February 14, 1845, John Gordon became the last victim of capital punishment in Rhode Island. Local historian Paul F. Caranci brings this case to life, graphically describing the murder and exposing a corrupt judicial system, a biased newspaper and a bigoted society responsible for the unjust death of an innocent man.

On November 5, 1976, twenty-seven-year-old Dorothy Milliken left her rural home in Sabattus, Maine, to go to an all-night laundromat. The following morning, her body was found slumped against the outside wall.

Despite various leads, there were no arrests for her murder. Dorothy Milliken became a name typed on an index card filed at state police headquarters, her crime scene displayed in grainy black-and-white photos in the evening newspapers. Nearly five decades later, author Sharon Kitchens examines the cold case, interviewing more than forty people, including Dorothy’s family, friends, former neighbors, law enforcement and forensic specialists. Who was Dorothy? Why has her killer never been found? Did she know her murderer, or was her death due to a random, frenzied attack?

A portion of the profits from the sale of the book are being donated to the Forensic Anthropology Identification and Recovery (FAIR) Lab at the University of New Hampshire. The FAIR Lab trains students to excavate, recover and identify human remains.

Burlington has long been known as the shining jewel in Vermont's crown, but a current of darkness flows beneath this charming port on Lake Champlain.

There is a sordid side to the city that top-ten lists routinely call one of the country's most livable cities,” with stories of dirty cops, notorious ladies of the night, knife wielding psychopaths, lovers off the deep end and famous serial killers.

Author and tour guide Thea Lewis showcases the cunning culprits who would go to any lengths to get what they wanted, and finally got what was coming to them.