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The Roman empress who used forensic science to identify her rival’s head
Image of Lollia Paulina from “Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum” by Guillaume Rouille (1518?-1589). From Wikipedia. In 49 AD, a Roman soldier carried a decaying human head into Rome to present it to the...
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Beauty to die for: How vanity killed an 18th century celebutante
Portrait of Maria Gunning, Countess of Coventry (1733-1760) by Jean-Etienne Liotard, Turkish painter ca. 1749. Image credit: Office of Graphic Arts Museums of Art and History, Geneva, property of the...
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The discovery of a 5500-year-old cold case
Gebelein Man pictured on a plate published in By Nile and Tigris (1920) on page 360. Image credit: Budge, Ernest Alfred Wallis from Wikipedia. In 1896, Sir Wallis Budge, Keeper of the Egyptian...
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Saint Catherine of Siena’s divine head
The head of Saint Catherine of Siena displayed at the Basilica of San Domenico. Image credit: Giovanni Cerretani via Wikipedia (license CC BY-SA 3.0) One of the most captivating displays of saintly...
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The murder that instigated the UK’s most dangerous autopsy
There is an ivy-covered grave in London’s Highgate Cemetery that looks no different than the other graves around it. This particular burial, however, holds the lead-lined coffin and radioactive corpse...
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Paul Revere: The first American forensic dentist
The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull (1786). Image credit: Wikipedia Paul Revere inadvertently became America’s first forensic dentist when he was given the...
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Halloween Horror Post #1 (2017): The curse of Rowland Jenkins
History is full of stories about curses spoken by prisoners, either rightfully or wrongfully convicted, on the way to their execution. The hexes were a prisoner’s supernatural retribution for perceived...
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Halloween Horror Post #2 (2017): The haunted bones of the Fighting Fairy Woman
A Witch by Salvador Rosa (1646). Image Credit: Wikipedia. In the mid-19th century William Hicks, the mayor of Bodmin, in Cornwall, hosted a dinner party. As the story goes, rather than entertaining...
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Facial reconstruction of ‘Mary Magdalene’ skull revealed
Skull supposedly belonging to Mary Magdalene in its reliquary at Saint-Maximin-la-Saints-Baume. Image credit: Cicero Moraes via Wikipedia Last month National Geographic reported that biological...
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Halloween Horror Post #3 (2017): The cinematic after-life of an unidentified...
Halloween skeleton from PublicDomanPictures.net. I recently read an article by John Squires, published in 2014, over at Halloween Love about how Dawn of the Dead unintentionally featured a real dead...
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Halloween Horror Post #4 (2017): The bizarre reality of Walking Corpse Syndrome
Image credit: Max Pixel For me, zombies are probably the scariest of the iconic horror monsters because humans are either zombie food fighting for survival in a post-apolocalypic landscape or they are...
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Halloween Horror Post #5 (2017): The grisly legends behind the “Sultan...
The Gardette-LePrete Mansion, 716 Dauphine Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. Exterior view from Orleans Street side, 1958. Image credit: Robert Koch via Wikipedia. Guides that lead ghost tours in New...
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Murder for the Holidays: The unsolved Walker family murders
Editor’s Note: I recently found out about a European, pagan tradition of celebrating the Winter Solstice, a time when “the dead would have particularly good access to the living,” with ghost stories....
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Murder for the Holidays: The slaying at Sandringham
Sandringham EstateImage credit: Elwyn Thomas Roddick via Wikipedia Editor’s Note: I recently found out about a European, pagan tradition of celebrating the Winter Solstice, a time when “the dead would...
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Dissecting the true age of Old Tom Parr
William Harvey dissecting the body of Thomas Parr. Oil painting, ca. 1900. Image credit: Wellcome Images (Wellcome Trust) via Wikipedia. Library reference: ICV No 17478 Photo number: V0017135 Click...
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Unraveling the deception of the Mississippi Capitol’s ‘Egyptian Princess’
San Diego Giant on display at side show. In December of 1896, a group of anatomists and anthropologists from Washington, D.C. traveled to a sideshow in Atlanta to examine a mummy known as the San Diego...
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The legend of Blackbeard’s silver-plated skull
The pirate flag of Captain Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard. The flag shows a skeleton spearing a heart and toasting death. Image credit: Fred the Oyster via Wikipedia. There is an area of land on the west...
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Is this the face of ‘Bella in the Wych Elm’?
Facial reconstruction of ‘Bella in the Wych Elm’. Digital reconstruction by Dr. Caroline Wilkinson. To see full size image click here. In February 2018, Dr. Caroline Wilkinson, forensic anthropologist...
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How an instructor of Frances Glessner Lee’s ‘Homicide School’ helped to solve...
Image credit: D. Wiberg at Wikipedia Commons. Frances Glessner Lee (25 March 1878 – 27 January 1962) is best known as the creator of the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death that are miniature,...
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Where is the grave of Revolutionary War hero Captain Margaret Corbin?
Margaret Corbin’s grave and memorial at West Point Cemetery. Image credit Ahodges7 at Wikipedia. A contractor tasked with constructing a new retaining wall for the Molly Corbin Enhancement Project at...
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