Virginia

Did her rival for a man's love get away with murder? It was a story of violence, bigamy, race and a quest for justice. The strange but true story of James and Susan Watkins.

A drama played out in the mountains of southwestern Virginia in 1891 that attracted nationwide attention and held the citizens of the Roanoke Valley spellbound. The tale of the trial of Charles Watkins for the murder of his wife was marked by threats of lynching, a fugitive manhunt, a disappearing witness, mistaken identities, claims of insanity and finally a secret letter to break the case wide open. In its day, the story was as closely followed as a modern televised murder trial. Despite the rapt attention of the public then, it has entirely faded from the history books - until now. Historian John Long resurrects the truth of who killed Susan Watkins.

A Story of Hard Spirits and Defiant Souls Franklin County, Virginia has long been known as the Moonshine Capital of the World. That history can seem romantic, but the county has a dark and violent past. The descendants of the Scots-Irish who settled its rugged mountains openly defied the law and employed their own notions of justice to defend their traditions and livelihood. During Prohibition, the production of moonshine skyrocketed, but the liquor didn't stop flowing from the mountains when the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed. County and state officials struggled to maintain order in a region where unsolved murders, strange disappearances, and senseless killings were a way of life. The peak came in 1978, with nine murders linked to moonshine and drugs in the county. Historian and Virginia native Phillip Andrew Gibbs tells story of that horrific year and the history behind it.

When romance was met with murder… Arthur Jordan and Elvira Corder were young and unafraid, but their love was doomed. He was black, she was white, and this was Virginia in 1880. When Elvira became pregnant, the couple fled Fauquier County to live in Maryland. But her father found them and recruited neighbors to help kidnap them. Four nights later, a mob dragged Arthur from the county jail in Warrenton and lynched him. Elvira, taken to a hotel in Williamsport, Maryland, was never heard from again. Stories of lynching are all too common in the postbellum South, but this one tells a unique tale of a couple who were willing to sacrifice everything to be together—and did./Author Jim Hall tells a classic tale of forbidden love, one of hope crushed by hate.

When Crandal Mackey was elected commonwealth's attorney in 1903, he set his sights on the illegal bars, bordellos and casinos of Alexandria County. The Virginia county--now Arlington County and parts of Alexandria--was plagued by crime in the streets and corruption at City Hall. Armed with a shotgun and accompanied by an axe-wielding posse, Mackey embarked on a crusade, busting up saloons and conducting raids throughout the county. When the dust settled, Mackey had shut down an infamous racetrack in Del Ray and politicians on the take in Alexandria County's political machine. Yet, in 1915 he mysteriously withdrew his bid for another term. Author Michael Lee Pope uncovers the little-known story of one man's battle to rid Alexandria and Arlington of sinister vice and violent crime.

Discover crimes that made headlines across northern Virginia in the 1950s and 60s.

As the suburbs of Washington, D.C. expanded in the mid-twentieth century, growth inevitably led to increasing crime, and grisly murders began to shock local communities. Learn the story of the killer and his victim who are buried only a few yards apart. The truth behind the tale of the murderous toddler and the sad story of the death of an agent at National Airport belie the picture perfect image of those decades. Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church and Prince William witnessed atrocities that grabbed headlines in their day but have since faded from collective memory. Local author Zachary Ford uses detailed research drawn from contemporary accounts to bring these stories to life.

The three years from 1909 to 1911 were busy ones in Richmond, what with the misadventures of Adon A. Yoder, a muckraking
pamphleteer who gets beaten up, sued and thrown in jail; the organizing of women like Lila Meade Valentine to fight for their right to vote; the art of sculptor Ferruccio Legnaioli; the novels of Ellen Glasgow, Mary Johnston and James Branch Cabell; increased restrictions against African Americans; a public spectacle surrounding the murder trial of Henry Clay Beattie Jr.; exotic flying machines and automobile endurance contests; and the recording of Polk Miller and his Old South Quartette. Join local author Harry Kollatz Jr. (True Richmond Stories) as he revives the city of a century ago for a tour of Richmond in ragtime.

In 1932, a black man was found hanging on Rattlesnake Mountain in Fauquier County. A mob set fire to his body. Officials identified the remains as Shedrick Thompson, wanted for the abduction and rape of a local white woman. Some claimed Thompson killed himself--the final act of a desperate fugitive. But residents knew better, calling the tragedy a lynching--the last one known in Virginia. Author Jim Hall takes an in-depth look at the events to expose a complex and disturbing chapter in Virginia history.

In 1853 Lexington, Virginia, Mary Evelyn Anderson, one of the most beautiful women in the Commonwealth, spurned the advances of a young law student named Charles Burks Christian. Humiliated and heartbroken, Christian confronted, stabbed and killed the man he believed responsible for Anderson's decision. The man was her cousin, Thomas Blackburn, a VMI cadet and student of Stonewall Jackson. What followed was a circus of inept and brilliant lawyers dragging members of the most prominent families in antebellum Virginia through and all-too-public discussion of seduction, courtship, honor and self-defense. Author and historian Daniel S. Morrow chronicles the history of the events that led to Blackburn's death, the trials that followed and the impact on Lexington, its two colleges and the men and women who would soon find themselves engaged in a great Civil War.

The 1930s was a tough decade, one made even tougher by Prohibition. During this lawless time in American history, a group of criminals called the Tri-State Gang emerged from Philadelphia and spread their operations south, through Baltimore to Richmond, wreaking bloody havoc and brutally eliminating those who knew too much about their heists. Once termed the "Dillingers of the East," Robert Mais and Walter Legenza led their men and molls on a violent journey of robberies, murders, and escapes up and down the East Coast. Join historian Selden Richardson as he recounts the story of this whirlwind of crime and how it finally reached its climax in Richmond.