Gruesome Missouri: Murder, Madness, and the Macabre in the Show Me State

Have you ever wondered where the skeletons are buried in your hometown? Gruesome Missouri is a collection of murder mysteries from St. Louis, St. Joseph, Catawissa, Kirbyville, Bull Creek, and more.

Only a few of the events in this book have ever made it into print, except maybe in musky-old county histories. Even then, they are lucky to rate a paragraph.

Included inside:

Bertha Gifford wasn't your typical grandma. She had a fascination with gory wrecks and accidents, and poisoned 19 people, rather than watch them suffer.

Myrtle Eberly killed her boyfriend, then told police about an unwritten law that said if he promised to marry her and did not, it was only right that she should kill him.

Dan Greenhill, and his brother William, killed their sister Sadie Uren and her fiancé John Meloy, rather than see them marry. William Greenhill quickly broke down and confessed. "We would rather see her dead than his wife." All he wanted was her money.

Bob Ford and his brother Charlie Ford, made a deal with Missouri Governor Thomas T. Crittenden to kill Jesse James. Not long after that they killed the famous outlaw in his St. Joseph, Missouri home.

Bloody Island, now the site of East St. Louis, served as the field of honor in Missouri's dueling days. Thomas Hart Benton fought Charles Lucas there twice - first in 1816, and again in 1817. Joshua Barton, the United States District Attorney, met Thomas C. Rector there in 1823, and Major Thomas Biddle fought Spencer Pettis to the death in 1831.

Though not as famous for its feuds as West Virginia, Missouri had more than its share of famous feuds. This book details the Payton-Matthews Feud in Taney County, the Bilyeu-Meadows Feud on Bull Creek, and the Dooley-Harris Feud at Doe Creek.

Of course, there's more, but you get the idea. Gruesome Missouri covers 16 brutal murders that occurred in Illinois between 1867 and 1920.

Read them, if you dare.