Murder and Mayhem

Explores true crime in New Hampshire from 1883-1915, highlighting emerging forensic science, changing criminal methods, and fascinating case studies.

In Murder and Mayhem, veteran author and genealogist Milli Knudsen looks at true crime in New Hampshire. In the rapidly changing world of 1883-1915, criminals and good citizens learned to cope with new ways to commit crimes and how to protect themselves. Emerging forensic science became a valuable tool. In those pre-internet days, newspapers widely covered the crimes and trials and created an audience of true crime readers, much like what we have today. Murders, robberies, the rise of insurance coverage and therefore arson, the reaction to the 1915 influenza outbreak (including resistance to mask wearing), sex crimes and the advent of financial crimes are all included in case studies averaging 300 to 800 words.

Sometimes the lives of the investigators—the judges, doctors, and journalists who covered crime stories—are every bit as fascinating as the crimes themselves. Murder and Mayhem tells the stories behind the headlines and gives you a glimpse into life in New England in the years leading up to World War I. Illustrated with historical images of victims and criminals alike, and fully indexed, this volume is perfect for true crime buffs, and historians. Based on primary sources, including the second prison registry of the New Hampshire State Prison, at the New Hampshire State Archives, and NH court records of the time period, this volume is important for genealogists and a good choice for library acquisition.

The world changed in dramatic ways between 1883 to 1915. The ways to commit crimes and the ways to investigate crime changed as well. Knudsen has captured these fascinating stories, among many others, from those years in her newest volume. Two immigrant lumberman have a fiddling contest. What could go wrong? Fifty years after a brutal knife attack, what Christmas miracle happened to a woman in North Adams, MA? How should a $1,000 reward be split between those who help apprehend a murderer who fled to Canada? If you had an old alarm clock, wire and an explosive, could you rig up a device which could burn your house down when you were hundreds of miles away?

"Murder and Mayhem is both riveting reading and an agonizing reminder that the villains and monsters of our troubled time didn’t invent dishonesty and rage and hatred. The booty may have been smaller in the early days of our complicated history—a $6.00 payday instead of several billion in crypto crimes—but the intent was not dissimilar. Milli Knudsen, in her deceptively simple, Just the Facts, Ma’am compendium, has done an extraordinary job detailing ample proof of the duality of the human psyche and providing enough fascinating stories to fill a dozen seasons of a Netflix streamer." — Ernest Thompson, novelist, playwright, actor, director, Academy Award-winner for adapted screenplay of “On Golden Pond”