John Surratt, Conspirator

John Harrison Surratt, Jr. was certainly involved in the plot to kidnap Abraham Lincoln in 1864, but there was sufficient doubt in his involvement in Lincoln’s assassination in 1865 that, when extradited from Egypt, after something of a world tour of escaping, in early 1867, he was released on $25,000 bail and the case against him for murder was declared a mistrial. All the other charges relating to the kidnap plot had passed the statute of limitations.

This photo was taken in 1867, while Surratt was on, or awaiting, his trial. He is still wearing the uniform of the Papal Zouaves (Pope’s infantry), with whom he had briefly served while on the run, using the alias John Watson.

 

Original B&W photo from the Brady-Handy Photograph Collection.

Charles Manson

This is the notorious Charles Manson in late 1934 or early 1935.

His mother, Kathleen Maddox, was unmarried at the time of his birth, and he was initially called “no name Maddox”, then “Charles Milles Maddox“.  Soon after he was born, his mother married a laborer named William Manson, and took his name.

 

Original B&W photo.

The Wild Bunch

Front row left to right: Harry A. Longabaugh, alias the Sundance Kid, Ben Kilpatrick, alias the Tall Texan, Robert Leroy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy. Standing: Will Carver & Harvey Logan, alias Kid Curry. Photo taken at Fort Worth, Texas, in 1900.

Original sepia print.

Albert DeSalvo

Albert Henry DeSalvo is widely regarded as the infamous “Boston Strangler”, though he was never convicted of the 13 murders in the early 1960s attributed to the Strangler, but of a series of rapes for which he was given a life sentence, cut short by his own murder in 1973. He did confess, initially to a fellow inmate, George Nassar, who some think may be the Strangler.

This year, DNA testing proved that DeSalvo was the source of seminal fluid recovered at the scene of the last Boston Strangler murder, in 1964. Some people, however, insist that the Strangler murders couldn’t have been committed by one person, as the modi operandi were so different.

Original B&W photo.

Dr. Crippen

Hawley Harvey Crippen, an American homeopathic physician and salesman hanged for the murder of his wife, Cora Henrietta Crippen, in Pentonville Prison, London. He was the first suspect in a criminal case to be captured with the aid of wireless communication.

In recent years, doubt has been cast on his guilt but, persuasive as some of the arguments are, his innocence cannot be proved. In one scenario, the remains found at his house which led to his conviction are said not to be of his wife Cora, but of another woman, which leads to the suspicion that he was found guilty of the wrong murder.

 

B&W photo, originally published in 1910.

Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald in 1959, the year of his short-lived defection to the Soviet Union,. Four years later he would murder President John F. Kennedy.

Original B&W photo.

Charles Peace

Charles Peace was a Victorian criminal so notorious that he merited a mention by name in a Sherlock Holmes short story, “The Adventure of the Illustrious Client”.

As far as I can tell, this photo is from around 1858 when Peace would have been about 26, and near the start of his criminal career, which ended with his execution in 1879. Most of his crimes involved burglary, but he murdered two people along the way, including a policeman.

Original B&W photo.