There were plenty of poems to go around in the readings. I felt like I was in a graphic Dr. Seuss book. So first off, there was a poem called Poor Naomi. This was the only poem that actually had a melody to it, which made the poem more interesting. In this poem, a couple who wanted to get married. Unfortunately, the man, Lewis, decided to kill his fiance by drowning her in the river and leaving her there. He left, and was never caught for the murder. The next poem was about the bad man Stackalee. Stackalee and a...Read More

I found this ballad to be very interesting. Another different reading, compared to the types public executions we read about, it was also captivating. This is about a girl who fell in love with a town, then fell in love with a girl. They planned to get married but it was impossible. So Alice decided to disguise herself as a man. However, they got caught. At first their relationship, as friends, was just over looked by the eyes of the public. But after a while, people caught on to what was happening. Alice was cut off from Fred’s contact. Alice...Read More

My group met yesterday to start the planning stages of our segment for the TV show. I won’t go into too much detail about what we are planning to, just in case people are still looking for ideas. We decided to pull in the three criminals we read about throughout the course of week 3, Powers, Mountain, and Fly. They are going to be the stars of a new game show! (Name has yet to be created). I specifically pulled in Fly, and I wrote his part for the background and helped write some of the questions (this will make...Read More

I really like how this reading was a comic book. It added was refreshing to read instead of the past readings we have had. The reading was the story of how much corruption President Harding allowed to happen during his administration. There was a ton, including embezzlement and other crimes. Harding had a child with his mistress. Most of the head staff members of the Ohio gang ended up killing themselves because of the guilt and the reputation. This is interesting to see the political side to crimes. As well as taking a look inside of the journalism. The other...Read More

I loved how there were different stories of the homicides going on. Each one came from newspapers. I thought Senor Felipe Carillo was insane, he poisoned his mother when she was over 100? Why would he do that!? She was already living a wonderful life. However, he ended up committing suicide because he missed her immensely. And Mr. Johnson killed a woman when he was extremely tired and he didn’t even remember it! Insanity is a true theme throughout this reading. I found it fascinating that Nathaniel loved the book so much that he damaged the binding. It is kind...Read More

First off, I thought it was cool that “Benjamin Franklin” was blogging about this crime. He mentioned a lot about how the girl died. And I particularly found this one very interesting because it is now in a time period that I am familiar with but also this is a new type of punishment given. “To be burnt in the Hand” is basically being branded for the crime that you committed. The mother and father both received an M on their hand for manslaughter, or murder, for killing the daughter. As I was reading this, I was horrified to see...Read More

Well, in the first reading, Strang and Mrs. Whipple poisoned Mr. Whipple. They put arsenic in his tea. However, this didn’t kill him right away. I was strongly confused when I read this because I figured he would’ve died right away from the arsenic poisoning, but he didn’t. I was surprised when Mrs. Whipple gave her son some of the sulfur, the other poison! Well she didn’t technically give him it directly, but Mr. Whipple gave him the rest of his portion. Mrs. Whipple gave her son the anecdote, salt. Se even told Strang to kill him while Mr Whipple...Read More

I really liked these readings, It was a little palette cleanser to the Foccualt. I especially loved the Pirates. You normally think that piracy happens in other places around the world, but it really happened in our backyard, most of the time many ships were boarded at Cape Hatteras. Most of the ships were headed to Virginia. After the pirates would take over the ship, they would request a pilot. The “head” pirate would pretend to be the pirate  They would hold  them hostage to guide them to the harbor. And they would do this from ship to ship until...Read More