The Kneeling Corpse Murders

In the mid-1950s, six chilling murders tightened the grip of fear on the residents of southwest Indiana and northwest Kentucky. Victims and locations were random: a pregnant woman working in the family store, a filling station attendant, a rural housewife, and three members of one family. There was one significant common factor in all the murders. Each victim was made to kneel, their hands tied behind their backs, and shot once in the head with a .38 caliber weapon. Newspapers dubbed the slayings 'The Kneeling Corpse Murders.'

With no leads, no suspects, and virtually no clues to point to one, police were stymied in their attempts to identify the murderer. A chance encounter would bring the break they needed. After he was apprehended, it would be a long time before the tumult caused by Mad Dog Irvin was finally over. The relaxed and trusting days before the killings would be forever altered and the case would go on to the U.S. Supreme Court producing a decision that affects legal journalism to this day.