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

It’s fairly rare for a football match to end in murder, witchcraft accusations and vomiting pins, but, as weird as it sounds, it apparently does happen. Or at least, it happened once, in 1605, when a small village in Oxfordshire had a kickabout that turned violent. Years later, a ...  Show more

SOURCES Brunt, Douglas (2023) The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel. Atria Books, London, UK. Edinburgh Evening Dispatch (1913) The Missing Inventor. Edinburgh Evening Dispatch, Thurs 2 Oct 1913, p2. Edinburgh, UK. New York Times (1913) Dr Diesel Vanishes From A Steamship. New Yor ...  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