Silas Jayne

popular name: Sevilla Jones

date_of_death: January 13, 1854

age: 17

cause_of_death: Murdered - 4 gunshot wounds to the head

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: In the 1800s Sevilla Jones was a 17-year-old girl who was shot dead by Henry Sargent one morning as she was walking to school with her younger brother. Henry loved Sevilla, and he believed that she had “given him encouragement.” However, he had a rival in another young man, named Bartlett. Henry used a revolver to shoot Sevilla four times, killing her instantly. He then shot himself, but with less immediate success. It has been said that a doctor was fetched, but this doctor was so angry that he refused to treat Henry’s wound. Henry died hours later. What makes this horrible deed so fascinating is the Sevilla's mother made sure the history would not forget her daughter and named the murderer and his deed right on her tombstone.

popular name: Frank Rio

date_of_death: February 23, 1935

age: 39

cause_of_death: Heart attack - coronary occlusion

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: One of Al Capone's most trusted and loyal bodyguards. Frank Rio was an alleged gunman in the famous 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre where seven members and associates of George “Bugs” Moran's bootlegging gang were lined up against a wall and shot dead inside the garage at 2122 North Clark Street during the Chicago Beer Wars

popular name: H. H. Holmes

date_of_death: May 7, 1896

age: 34

cause_of_death: Execution by hanging

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: The country’s first serial killer was a smooth-talking doctor who ran a murder hotel in Chicago. The tale of H. H. Holmes and his Murder Castle is perhaps one of the most fascinating cases in American criminal history. Born Herman Webster Mudgett, he was a bright young doctor who had graduated from high school at sixteen and always had a penchant for anything to do with death. While enrolled in the University of Michigan’s Department of Medicine and Surgery, he worked under Professor William James Herdman in the university’s anatomy lab. The pair were said to have aided body snatching to supply bodies as medical cadavers, which Mudgett then burned or disfigured with acid, then planted to it look as if they had been killed in an accident. Mudgett began taking out insurance policies on these people—before he stole, disfigured, and planted them—and would later collect the insurance money once the bodies were discovered. After graduation, Mudgett started a new job working at a Philadelphia drugstore. When a child died after taking medicine purchased from the drugstore Mudgett was employed at, the young doctor denied any involvement and immediately left the city. Before he moved to Chicago, he changed his name to avoid any connection to his previous scams. Herman Webster Mudgett, M.D., donned the name Henry Howard Holmes. In 1893, the bustling city of Chicago won the honor of hosting the World’s Columbian Exposition. While the World’s Fair brought millions of visitors from all over the world, nearby, a clever killer hid in plain sight, capitalizing off of the slaughter of naive tourists. For the next two years Holmes either killed or is suspected of killing around two dozen people using his murder mansion residences to facility cruel and diabolical murder of men, women, and even children. He was finally caught and convicted of murder in 1894 and executed in 1985. Until the moment of his death, Holmes remained calm and amiable, showing very few signs of fear, anxiety, or depression. Despite this, he asked for his coffin to be contained in concrete and buried ten feet deep, because he was concerned grave robbers would steal his body and use it for dissection. Despite popular belief, Holmes's neck did not break; he instead strangled to death slowly, twitching for over fifteen minutes before being pronounced dead.