Murder & Mayhem on Staten Island (Murder And Mayhem Ser.)

By: Patricia M. Salmon

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Synopsis: New York City&’s own Lizzie Borden, and eleven other true crimes &“as ghastly as anything in American Horror Story&” (SILive.com). Today, Polly Bodine&’s name is lost to history. But on Christmas night of 1843, she was accused of murdering her sister-in-law and infant niece in ways so heinous that the great showman P.T. Barnum, proclaimed her &“The Witch of Staten Island.&” Even Edgar Allan Poe weighed in on the female fiend, fearing she&’d escape justice. He was right. Polly was tried three times, finally acquitted, and disappeared into anonymity—and legend—until her death fifty years later. Her story is just one of a dozen horrific murders unearthed by historian Patricia M. Salmon in this fascinating peek into the gruesome history of the New York borough. Among the other headline-making cases: The Baby Farm Murders, The Jazz Age Kiss Slayer, The Body in the Barrel, and more. These turn-of-the century tabloid tales of serial killers and psychopaths, love gone wrong, cold-blooded revenge, and unsolved mysteries are still the stuff of nightmares.