A TIMELINE OF CRIME
By Tim Lambert
44 BC Julius Caesar is assassinated
946 The Saxon King Edmund is murdered
978 The Saxon King Edward is murdered
1100 William Rufus is killed by an arrow in the New Forest. It is not known if it was an accident or murder.
1170 Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury is murdered
1327 Edward II is assassinated
1671 Thomas Blood attempts to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London
1685 Joan Bracey highwaywoman is hanged
1718 The pirate Edward Teach, otherwise known as Blackbeard is killed
1739 The highwayman Dick Turpin is hanged
1787 The first convicts are transported to Australia
1812 Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is shot
1828 William Burke is hanged. (His accomplice William Hare escaped by turning king's evidence. The two murdered people and sold the bodies to a surgeon.
1856 The poisoner William Palmer is hanged
1865 Abraham Lincoln is shot
1867 Frederick Baker is hanged to murdering Fanny Adams at Alton
1868 The last public execution takes place in Britain. Transportation ends.
1869 French serial killer Joseph Vacher is born
1870 Serial killer Albert Fish is born
1873 A family called the Benders flee their farm in Kansas. Shortly afterwards the bodies of people they murdered and robbed are found on their land. In England Mary Ann Cotton is hanged for poisoning many of her relatives.
1874 The first recorded kidnapping takes place. In the USA Charlie Ross is taken.
1880 In Australia Ned Kelly is hanged
1881 Billy the Kid is shot. James Garfield is shot.
1882 Jesse James is shot
1888 Jack the Ripper kills 5 women
1890 The electric chair is first used as a method of execution
1891 Serial killer Carl Panzram is born
1892 Dr Neill Cream is hanged for poisoning several women. Lizzie Borden kills her father and stepmother.
1897 Actor William Terris is stabbed by Richard Prince. French murderer Marcel Petiot is born.
1898 French serial killer Joseph Vacher is guillotined
1901 William McKinley is shot
1903 George Chapman is hanged for poisoning 3 wives
1905 Albert and Alfred Stratton are the first British murderers to be convicted by fingerprinting evidence. Both are hanged.
1909 John George Haigh the acid bath murderer is born
1910 Dr Crippen is hanged for murdering his wife
1915 Joseph Smith who murdered 3 wives by drowning them in the bath is hanged
1918 In Russia the Tsar and his family are murdered by the Communists
1922 Herbert Rowse Armstrong is hanged for murdering his wife. He is the only British solicitor to be hanged. In France mass murderer Henri Landru is guillotined.
1924 In Britain Patrick Mahon is hanged for killing and dismembering his lover Emily Kaye. In the USA Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb are sentenced to life for murdering 14 year-old Bobby Franks. The gas chamber is first used as a method of execution. In Germany serial killer Fritz Haarmann is beheaded.
1925 Norman Thorne is hanged for killing his lover Elsie Cameron
1929 In Chicago the St Valentines Day Massacre takes place. In Britain Sidney Fox strangles his mother in a hotel room then sets the room on fire to make it look like an accident. The ruse fails and Fox is hanged in 1930.
1930 Alfred Rouse gives a drifter a life. He knocks the man out and sets fire to his car. Rouse hopes the police will mistake the dead man for him so he can begin a new life with a new identity. The ruse fails and Rouse is hanged in 1931. In the USA serial killer Carl Panzram is hanged.
1931 German serial killer Peter Kurten known as the Vampire or Monster of Dusseldorf goes to the guillotine
1934 John Dillinger is shot
1936 Charlotte Bryant is hanged for poisoning her husband. In the USA Albert Fish child killer and cannibal goes to the electric chair
1942 In London Gordon Cummins known as the Blackout Ripper kills 3 women. In Melbourne, Australia US soldier Edward Leonski is hanged for killing 3 women.
1943 John Reginald Christie kills his first victim Austrian Ruth Fuerst
1942-44 Dr Marcel Petiot murders 27 people in Paris
1944 John George Haigh murders his first victim Donald MsSwan and dissolves the body in acid. Christie kills his second victim Muriel Eady.
1945 Haigh murders Mr and Mrs Swan (the parents of Donald) and disposes of their bodies in acid
1946 Neville Heath murders 2 women and is hanged
1947 Elizabeth Short the Black Dahlia is murdered
1948 Haigh murders Dr Archibald Henderson and his wife. Both bodies are dissolved in acid.
1949 John George Haigh murders Mrs Durand-Deacon and dissolves the body in acid. Haigh is caught and hanged. Christie murders Beryl Evans and her baby daughter.
1951 Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez the 'Lonely Hearts killers' go to the electric chair
1952 Christie murders his wife Ethel
1953 John Reginald Christie murders 3 more women. He is caught and hanged
1955 Ruth Ellis is the last woman in Britain to be hanged
1958 In Scotland serial killer Peter Manuel is hanged for 7 murders
1959 In the USA Charles Starkweather goes to the electric chair. Serial killer Harvey Glatman is also executed.
1962 James Hanratty is hanged for the A6 murder
1963 The Great Train Robbery takes place. John F Kennedy is shot.
1964 Australian serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke is hanged
1966 Child killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley are sentenced to life. In the USA Richard Speck kills 8 nurses.
1968 Martin Luther King is shot. Robert Kennedy is shot
1969 Ronald and Reginald Kray are sentenced to life. In the USA Charles Manson and members of his 'family' murder several people. In Britain the death penalty is abolished.
1971 In California Juan Corona is convicted of 25 murders
1973 In Texas serial killer Dean Corll is shot
1976 Donald Neilson the 'Black Panther' is sentenced to life
1977 The guillotine is last used in France. (The French abolish the death sentence in 1981). In the USA Gary Gilmore is shot by a firing squad.
1978 Serial killer David Berkowitz the 'Son of Sam' is sentenced to 365 years in prison. In Britain Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov is murdered.
1980 Serial killer John Wayne Gacy is sentenced to death. He is executed in 1994.
1981 Serial killer Peter Sutcliffe the 'Yorkshire Ripper' is sentenced to life
1982 Wayne Williams is convicted of 2 murders in Atlanta
1983 Serial killer Dennis Nilsen is sentenced to life
1986 Jeremy Bamber is convicted of 5 murders
1987 Robert Healey is sentenced to life for the murders of his wife and his 13 year-old stepdaughter Marie
1988 Colin Pitchfork is the first murderer to be caught by DNA evidence. Martin Duffy known as the Railway Rapist is sentenced to life.
1989 In the USA Serial killer Ted Bundy goes to the electric chair. Serial killer Richard Ramirez is sentenced to death.
1992 Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is sentenced to life
1994 Child killer Robert Black is sentenced to life
1995 Rosemary West is sentenced to life for the murders of 10 young women
1996 Australian serial killer Ivan Milat is sentenced to life imprisonment
2003 Child killer Ian Huntley is sentenced to life
2008 Steve Wright is convicted of the murders of 5 women in Ipswich
