Includes bibliographical references and index.

Fiends of the early Republic, 1782-1826 -- William Beadle, family annihilator -- Domestic slaughter then and now -- Samuel Green, prodigy of crime -- Jesse Strang and the Cherry Hill murder -- Hawthorne and Strang -- Antebellum maniacs, 1840-1860 -- Robert McConaghy, "the inhuman butcher" -- The Mohawk massacre -- Peter Robinson, the "tell-tale heart" killer -- Another tell-tale murder -- Polly Bodine, "The witch of staten island" -- "The worst woman on earth" -- Dr. Valorous P. Coolidge, the Waterville poisoner -- "The ballad of Edward Matthews" -- Henrietta Robinson, "The veiled murderess" -- The age of arsenic -- Return J. M. Ward, "The triple murderer" -- Burned alive -- Francis Gouldy, pre-civil war mass murderer -- The Saugerties bard, minstrel of mayhem -- Albert Hicks, "The worst man who ever lived" -- The resurrection of Albert Hicks -- Post-civil war monsters, 1866-1880 -- Martha Grinder, Lydia Sherman, and Sarah Jane Robinson: the -- "American borgias -- "Poison and pedophilia" -- Anton Probst, "The monster in the shape of a man" -- The eyes of Anton Probst -- Edward H. Ruloff, "The man of two lives" -- "His side of the story" -- Louis Wagner, the smutty nose butcher -- "A memorable murder" -- Franklin Evans, the Northwood murderer -- "Georgianna lovering, or the Northwood tragedy" -- "Was it a ghost?" -- Joseph Lapage, "The french monster" -- The Langmaid memorial -- The mystery of serial murder -- Charles Freeman and the "pocasset horror" -- The woman who killed her child for god -- Emeline meaker, "the Virago of Vermont" -- Mad Dorothy Talbot -- Hangings public and private -- Turn-of-the-century psychos, 1892-1896 -- Carlyle Harris, the libertine -- Dr. Robert Buchanan, copycat -- Harry Hayward, "the Minneapolis Svengali" -- "The fatal ride" -- A hypnotic villain -- Scott Jackson, who slaughtered poor Pearl Bryan -- Cal Crim, "sleuth-hound of the law" -- Murdered-girl ballads -- A year of horror, 1927 -- Andrew P. Kehoe, "the world's worst demon" -- The Wall Street bombing -- Ada Leboeuf, "the siren of the swamps" -- "Rules for murderesses" -- William Edward Hickman, "the Fox" -- Cashing in -- Demons of the Depression -- Pearl O'Loughlin, wicked stepmother -- Can Ground Glass kill? -- Harry powers, "the bluebeard of quiet dell" -- "The crime at quiet dell" (version one) -- "The crime at quiet dell" (version two) -- "The night of the hunter" -- Bluebeard : fact and fantasy -- Robert Edwards, the "American tragedy killer" -- Erased -- Robert Irwin, "the mad sculptor" -- Soldier, sailor, serial killer, 1941-1961 -- Eddie Leonski, "the brown-out strangler" -- No rest for the wicked -- Julian Harvey and the Bluebelle's last voyage -- Antone Costa, the "Cape Cod vampire" -- Final words -- Acknowledgments -- Index.

Bklst 08/01/2012

LJ 09/01/2012

PW 05/14/2012