A year ago on this site, I posted a Halloween themed article about Ten Crimes That Shocked 1920’s America and a couple of folks seemed to be intrigued with my piece.

Well one year later and the month of October is wrapping up so what better time to make a sequel to my previous work then now; Here are 10 Crimes That Shocked 1920’s America…Part 2.

#10. The Case of the Ragged Stranger

On June 21st 1920, the mother of twenty year old Ruth Johnson found her daughter shot and killed by a mysterious individual which led to Johnson’s then husband, Carl Wanderer to murder this person with a Colt M1911 which was a gun he obtained from his service in the military.

At first, Wanderer was praised for killing the unknown drifter who murdered Ruth, however the Chicago police department not to mention two reporters for the Chicago Daily News and Chicago Examiner: Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur began to question the reasoning behind all of this leading to an investigation about the crime.

During the investigation, it’s revealed that Wanderer and Johnson’s relationship wasn’t so great at least from the formers perspective as he was disheartened to learn his wife was pregnant with their child….It also came to light that Carl was having an affair with a young 17 year old girl named Julia Schmitt and was looking to be with her if he could divorce Ruth.

Evidently the filing for divorce thing didn’t work, so Wanderer supposedly concocted a scheme to get some bum on the street to shoot his wife with some believing the motive to be either for money, the aforementioned affair with Schmitt, Wanderer wanting to return to military service or he was just done with being a married man.

Regardless of the motive as well as the unclear identity of the ragged stranger who killed Ruth, Carl Wanderer was sentenced to 25 years in prison before meeting his end via hanging on September 30th 1921.

#9. Joseph Bowne Elwell

Ten days before our previous entry, another murder took place this time in Manhattan New York when a 44 year old bridge player by the name of Joseph Bowne Elwell was shot in the head at his home with a .45 automatic revolver.

Unlike the Ragged Stranger case, it’s unclear who shot Elwell or what the motive was as no items or money were stolen and even weirder than that, the house and the room Elwell was in was locked from the inside.

Despite newspapers like the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune writing pieces about the murder, no culprit was ever connected to the crime and thus remains an unsolved mystery…Elwell’s death would go on to be the inspiration for S.S. Van Dine’s 1926 mystery novel, The Benson Murder Case.

#8. The Lawson Family Massacre 

On Christmas day in 1929, a sharecropper by the name of Charles Davis Lawson sent his oldest son Arthur out to run some errands, unfortunately for Arthur or anyone else in the family this Christmas was going to end up being a bloody affair.

Sometime in the afternoon, Lawson took a 12 gauge shotgun and proceeded to gun down his entire family before bludgeoning them, storing their bodies inside the barn before ending his own life with a self inflicted gunshot wound.

The slaughted remains were discovered by neighbors just hours later with many shocked as how something like this could happen.

While the motives for Charles Lawson’s rampage died with him, some have speculated it might of been the result of a head injury or having an incestuous relationship with his oldest daughter Marie; Whatever the case maybe, it’s gone down as one of the biggest tragedies to occur on Christmas.

#7. The Perry Massacre

As mentioned in the first article I did on this subject, the 1920’s was not a great time for minorities especially if you were African American as racial violence became the norm around this time such is the case with our next entry.

On December 2nd 1922, a schoolteacher named Annie Hendry was brutally murdered with her throat slashed open, her face bludgeoned and left laying in her own blood. When word of this was made public, the police in the county of Perry Florida soon deputized many locals in the area all of whom were white and began hunting for the person or people responsible for Hendry’s death.

Almost a week after the murder, a man by the name of Charles Wright was believed to be connected to the crime with Wright later confessing to killing Hendry although he refutes the claim that another man, Albert Young was also involved or witness the act.

Nevertheless, the white community in the area captured Wright whilst being transported and burned him alive on December the 8th and Albert Young was also killed by a mob however they gunned him down a few days after Wright’s death.

As if this story couldn’t get any worse, there are accounts that the deputized white mob killed two other black men who weren’t in any way connected with the murder while predominately black houses, schools and churches were burnt to the ground, plus many of Charles Wright’s bones, clothes and other parts of his body were being sold as “souvenirs”….Truly horrendous stuff I’m sure you’ll agree.

#6. The Lake Lava Murders

Between December of 1923 and January of 1924, three men who were experienced fur trappers were found shot and beaten to death in the Deschutes National Forest in the Deschutes County of Central Oregon.

Three men were identified to be Dewey Morris, Edward Nickols and Roy Wilson and all three spent time in a log cabin reportedly in good spirits during their time together until tragedy struck.

Their bodies were soon discovered by way of a search team who also found various frozen animals caught in traps and a claw hammer which many believed to be one of the murder weapons.

Even though a few suspects were named including a shady character by the name of Charles Kimzey who was later arrested for the murder of another man in 1923, this case still remains open with it being the oldest unsolved murder mystery in all of Oregon history.

#5. The Ocoee Massacre 

Also known as the Election Day Massacre, this racially motivated incident occurred right around the same time as the Presidential Election of 1920, however it wasn’t arguments about political beliefs that led to physical harm, but rather prejudice and refusing to pay taxes.

On November 2nd 1920, African American residents in the Ocoee County of Florida (Yup, it’s Florida again) were told to paid poll taxes and had to prove they were registered voters in order to vote, but many refused to do so which sparked what some have called the “Single bloodiest day in Modern American Political History.”

A former police chief named Sam Sailbury helped in leading a white mob with the aim of lynching Mose Norman who was defiant about the absurd voting requirements; Soon shots rang out with another African American male named July Perry shooting three white vigilantes…killing two, before eventually being hanged and killed by the mob with a sign using the N-word was draped onto his body.

More people from various Florida counties began descending onto Ocoee with violence continuing to spread as many Blacks fought back against the mob but ultimately they fleed the area and the state as a whole with Ocoee being an all white area until the 1980’s.

Property damages, a lack of accountibility when it came to the actions of the mob and over a dozen African Americans were brutally shot and killed…With this event and the history behind it only now are starting to get the attention and infamy it deserves.

#4. Leopold and Loeb

How does one commit the ‘Perfect Crime’ and get away with it?…That was a question that college students Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb tried to find the answer to.

After reading the works of Friedrich Nietzsche and performing acts of petty theft and arson, Leopold and Loeb decided to pull off what they believed to be the perfect murder on May 21st 1924 when they attempted to kidnap and murder 14 year old boy, Bobby Franks who was the son of a very rich watch maker.

Upon capturing Franks, the pair decided to bash the boy over the head with an object before eventually pouring acid over the body and disposing it near a pipe outside of town. Unfortunately for the duo, the police managed to recover the body way sooner than they had predicted and Loeb soon afterwards spill the beans whilst implicating his partner.

Both men were arrested and were put on trial in what soon became a media spectacle as the public were fascinated that two wealthy young men could do such a horrible deed just for the heck of it.

With help of famous Defense Lawyer, Clarence Darrow both men avoid the death penalty but where given life imprisonment plus 99 years on top of that; In 1936, Loeb was killed in prison after getting into it with another inmate while Leopold only served 33 years behind bars before being released in March of 1958 and dying on August 29th, 1971 at age 66.

#3. The Milaflores Massacre

Another case of mob violence in the 1920’s except this one isn’t predominantly targetting African Americans, but rather other mobsters in Detroit Michigan.

Following the death of Johnny Reid, a saloon keeper and former gangster, the Sugar Hill Gang aka The Purple Gang were furious over the actions of three thieves: Frank Wright, Joseph Bloom and George Cohen who were responsible for a number of kidnappings plus the death of drug seller and gang associate, Jake Weinberg.

Things came to ahead when on the morning of March 28th, 1927, Wright Bloom and Cohen were met with large amounts of gun fire upon opening the door to the Milaflores Apartment in room 308. The assailants escaped once they believed the deed was done, however Wright was able to cling onto life for several hours before succumbing to his injuries.

While Fred Burke and Abe Axler (gangsters for hire by the Purple Gang) were arrested in their alleged connection with the massacre, no charges were ever filed and it’s unclear to this day who killed the three burglars…Still the event helped in furthering the Purple Gang’s notorious reputation.

#2. William Hickman

19 year old William Edward Hickman committed one of the most heinous acts in 1920’s America when he kidnapped a twelve year old girl by the name of Marion Parker, who was the daughter of a Los Angeles banker before sending a ransom letter to the family with the offer of returning the girl in exchange for $1,500 (which would be $25,564 in today’s money).

On December 17th, 1925 two days after the kidnapping the grieving father appeared with the money before Hickman took it and drove off with Marion being pushed out of the moving vehicle. Upon attending to his daugther, the LA banker’s grief would only get worse when he discovered that his little girl had her eyes stitched open with wire, all of her internal organs removed and replaced with rags and her arms and legs had been cut off and later discovered in a park the following day.

A manhunt ensued for Hickman’s capture and despite narrowly escaping capture at one point, he was soon apprehended by the police when he attempted to buy something at a local store only for the serial numbers on the bills to give him away.

After his arrest, Hickman’s motive for his crime was based on his hatred for the LA banker who assisted authorities in an investigation regarding fraudulent checks the disturbed young man wrote whilst working at the bank.

Although he’d later tried to plead insanity for his actions, Hickman died by hanging on October 19th 1928.

#1. The Osage Murders

The 2023 film ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ directed by the legendary, Martin Scorsese is a cinematic retelling of an infamous series of events involving a Native American tribe known as The Osage living in 1920’s Oklahoma and I should say right now, if you haven’t seen the film or don’t know about the real life origins of the story…Be wary of spoilers for the rest of this entry.

Upon the discovery of oil on their property, the Osage people began to live quite wealth in contrast to other native tribes and they would be often supervised by an overseer to maintain their fortunes; The most well known of these overseers had to be William Hale the so called “King of the Osage Hills” who had endeared himself to the native Americans for several years.

By May of 1921, little did anyone least of all the Osage people predicted a road of betrayal, blackmail and murder would be on the horizon; On May 27th 1921 Anna Brown, an Osage woman was found dead in a creek with her decomposing body stunning many within the tribe.

From the early to mid 1920’s, a “Reign of Terror” befell the Osage community with around sixty people being dead either by murder or poisoning; It was only after the involvement of Officer Thomas White Sr. when the case began to get underway with White believing the guilty party for these murders being brothers Ernest and Byron Burkhart, their uncle William Hale, and John Ramsay one of the ranch hands in the area.

All would be convicted and sentenced to life in prison until being granted paroles in the late 1930’s and ’40’s much to the anger of the Osage communities; Hale, Byron and Ernest would eventually meet their makers in 1962, 1985 and 1986 respectively.

So I won’t ask if you enjoyed this article, but I hope you found it “Interesting”; If you did, leave your thoughts in the comments section below and for more content like this be sure to follow Lace‘ Em Up on Twitter/X @laceemupoffice and you can follow me also on Twitter/X @hakeemfullerton.