The New York Press & The Headless Torso Myste...

In the years following the American Revolution, when the country was still uncertain of itself and the frontier was still a place of violence, two brothers carved out a story of fear across the wilderness. When their story was first published in 1824, many people thought it was s ...  Show more

In the winter of 1864, two ships met their fate on one of the most remote and unforgiving stretches of the Southern Ocean. The Grafton and the Invercauld were wrecked thousands of miles from civilization, leaving their survivors stranded on the desolate Auckland Islands. What fol ...  Show more

In 1897, America looked very different. Carriages rolled through the streets of New York. Mass media was just growing up, and Hearst was convinced that carrier pigeons - hunted to extinction by 1914 - were what would give his paper the edge during the early days of the Headless T ...  Show more

On June 26, 1897, four boys discovered a package wrapped in red oilcloth floating in New York City’s East River. It contained the upper torso of an unknown man, launching one of the largest media murder mysteries ever, and igniting newspaper wars that would last a decade. Learn m ...  Show more

In 1897, the discovery of a severed torso led to an explosion of investigative activity in the media. The identification of the body and the arrest of the dead man’s murderers would prove to be one of the most incredible true crime stories ever told. Learn more about your ad choi ...  Show more

Annie Chapman’s murder sparked fears that a crazed killer was on the loose in London, prompting the burgeoning newspaper industry to flood Whitechapel with reporters. Those journalists wrote the first draft of Jack the Ripper’s history, and much of it survives in the story we tel ...  Show more