Spine-Chilling Murders in San Francisco

Spine-Chilling Murders in San Francisco is a collection of true-life stories rescued from old newspaper accounts published over 100 years ago. Few events in this book have made it into print, except maybe in musky-old county histories. Even then, they are lucky to rate a paragraph.

Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle, stage name "Fatty" Arbuckle, one of the hottest stars of the silent film era, hosted a party at the posh St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco in early September 1921. There was a lot of drinking, and one of the guests, a beautiful young starlet named Virginia Rappe, died several days later from an affliction that started at the party. Conkling was charged with manslaughter and tried three times.

The bodies of two young women were discovered in the Emanuel Baptist Church in 1895. The primary suspect, W. H. Theodore Durrant, was a dental student at Cooper Medical College in San Francisco. The thing was, Durrant wasn't someone you'd suspect of being a killer. He was active in the church and served as the church librarian and secretary for the Christian Endeavor Youth group. And yet, all signs pointed to Theodore Durrant as the killer.

Albert Hoff, the San Francisco Troll, admitted to being in the house with Mary Clute when she was killed. However, he insisted he didn't do it. Hoff was dirty, shifty, and nervous as detectives questioned him. Chief Isaiah Lees took an immediate disliking to Albert Hoff.

Cordelia Botkin had a long-running affair with war correspondent John P. Dunning. She had picked him up out of the gutter and reinvigorated him spiritually, financially, and sexually. And then, not long before Dunning's wife was murdered, he told Cordelia Botkin that he intended to move back to New York with his wife when the war ended. Suspicion quickly fell on Cordelia Botkin. The prosecution had a strong case against her, but there were several obstacles they needed to overcome to try her.

Of course, there are more stories, but you get the idea. Criminals roamed the streets of San Francisco at the turn of the century. Some killed for money, some for love, and others for the thrill of it.

Read them if you dare.