On 26th May 2013, Nigerian sailor Harrison Okene was the twenty-nine-year-old cook on board the Jascon-4 tugboat. The tug had been helping stabilise an oil tanker, twenty miles off the coast. The ship had been fighting heavy swells when it capsized and sank thirty metres to the sea floor just off the coast.

The eleven other members of the crew were killed in this freak accident, but Harrison survived in the smallest of air pockets with only a can of Coke for company.

His story became one of the greatest feats of survival known.

Read more

Eleven days later, the Queen of Crime was discovered living under an assumed name at a spa hotel in Harrogate. Was it a shameless publicity stunt, an attempted murder, or a tragic psychological breakdown?

In this episode of Murder Mayhem UK, host Sam H Arnold uncovers the real story behind Agatha Christie’s real-life mystery.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• The marital breakdown and personal tragedy that preceded Christie's sudden vanishing.

• How over 1,000 police officers, civilians, and aircraft joined forces in a historic search effort.

• The chilling detail behind the alias Christie used while checking into the hotel.

• Why modern experts believe a "dissociative fugue state" explains her missing eleven days.

Subscribe to the podcast for more British crime and history, and check out the Murder Mayhem UK Substack for additional stories.

Margaret Dickson, known as Maggie Dickson and later Half-Hangit Maggie, lived in the early 18th century as a fish seller. When her husband deserted her in 1723, she was forced to leave the city and move to Kelso, near the Scottish Borders.

Baby Death

In return for basic lodgings, she worked for an innkeeper. Soon after she arrived, she started a relationship with the innkeeper’s son and fell pregnant. Afraid that she would be dismissed from her job, she kept the pregnancy secret.

The baby was born prematurely and died within a few days of birth. She carried on hiding the baby’s existence, planning to throw the child into the River Tweed. In the end, she couldn’t do this, so she left the baby on the riverbank.

The same day, the baby was discovered and traced back to Maggie. She was arrested and tried in Edinburgh. The Act Concealing of Child-Baring (1690) made concealing a pregnancy grounds for a presumed murder charge if the infant died, so she was tried under this specific statute which carried a mandatory death penalty.

She was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged.

Resurrection

Maggie was hanged on 2 September 1724 and pronounced dead. Her body was cut down, nailed into a coffin, and put into a cart. On the route to Musselburgh to be buried, a knocking and banging was heard coming from the coffin.

When the lid was lifted, there was Maggie, quite alive. She was well enough to walk the rest of the way to Musselburgh.

Under Scottish law, you were sentenced to be “hanged until dead.” Maggie was freed because her sentence had been carried out and her official death certificate was treated as fulfilled The public viewed her survival as an act of God, making a second execution politically and socially dangerous to attempt. Incidentally, she was now free from her marriage. This would not have been the case had she been hanged in England.

Maggie lived for another forty years. She became a local celebrity and picked up the nickname of “Half-Hangit Maggie”.

Some are happy to see her survival as an act of God, while others state she may have seduced and manipulated the rope maker into making a weaker noose. Whatever the story, Maggie survived to see old age.

An Edinburgh pub was named after Maggie, and free beer is given to all patrons on the day of her resurrection.

Subscribe today: I spend hours digging through archives, old testimony, and forgotten files to bring these cases to life. Free posts are just the beginning, paid subscribers keep this work possible and get access to my full vault of articles.

If you’ve enjoyed this story and want to see more, please consider upgrading. It’s readers like you who keep Murder Mayhem UK alive.

Subscribe now

Don’t want to commit then consider leaving me a tip if you enjoyed this article.

She was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Her body was perfect in every line, her face clear and angelic, and her blue eyes the gayest, the most innocent eyes one can imagine. And yet Irma Grese was the most depraved, cruel, imaginative pervert I ever came across.—Dr. Gisella Perl

Gisella Perl, a female inmate in Auschwitz-Birkenau, spoke of a woman who proved that Nazi cruelty was never exclusive to men.

Grese epitomised the Nazi poster child with her blonde hair and blue eyes. Rising swiftly through the ranks, she became the highest-ranking female SS overseer at Auschwitz. The twenty-year-old struck absolute terror into every prisoner.

Early Life

Born Irma Ilse Ida Grese on October 7, 1923, she grew up in the small village of Wrechen in Northern Germany. Her father, Alfred Anton Albert Grese, was a farmer; her mother was Bertha Wilhelmine Winter-Grese. Irma was one of five children.

Tragedy struck early. After discovering her husband’s infidelity, Bertha committed suicide, leaving nine-year-old Irma behind.

Alfred Grese was a conservative farmer and a strict, churchgoing Christian who regularly beat his children. His religious convictions bred a deep antipathy toward the regime, leading him to forbid his daughters from joining the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM) or any other Nazi organisations.

Yet he could not insulate them forever. Following the passage of the Hitler Youth laws, participation became unavoidable, and Irma proved a willing convert. Even as a child, she viewed the Weimar Republic as decadent, overly liberal, and corrupting. She naturally gravitated toward extreme right-wing ideology. Soon enough, she and her sister defied their father and joined the BDM.

At fourteen, Irma left school. She spent six months working at a dairy factory in Fürstenberg before taking a job as a retail clerk in Lychen. Domestic discord drove her away—specifically, the friction caused by her oppressive father, who had rigidly controlled her movements since the onset of her puberty.

Read more

While the jury reached a surprising verdict of Not Guilty by reason of insanity, the true mystery of the Esher Murders began after the trial when the entire story vanished from history.

In this episode, Sam unpacks:

• ​The Tragic Night: The shocking discovery inside the Brough home and the desperate signal for help that came too late.

• ​A Broken System: How Victorian medical negligence and patriarchal custody laws pushed a grieving, sick woman over the edge.

• ​The Royal Connection: Mary Ann Brough’s past life as the wet nurse to the future King of England, Prince Edward VII ("Bertie").

• ​The Cover-Up: How Queen Victoria used her power to lock Mary away in Bedlam, erasing her from the public eye to protect the reputation and intellect of the Royal Family.

Was Mary Ann Brough merely a monster, or was she a victim of her health, her era, and a royal cover-up? Tune in to uncover the forgotten story the Monarchy tried to erase.

Subscribe & Follow: Enjoying Murder Mayhem UK? Hit the subscribe button to catch new deep dives into forgotten true crime cases every week!

Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda was an Imperial Japanese Army intelligence officer sent to garrison an island in the Philippines in 1944 towards the end of World War II. He left twenty-nine years later.

He was told not to surrender, and he followed his orders to the letter, refusing to resign even after the war ended. Onoda became the second-to-last Japanese soldier to surrender.

Military Induction

Born in Kainan, Wakayama, in central Japan, Onoda joined the Imperial Japanese Army at 18. He was drafted into specialised intelligence training.

The army sent him to Nakano Military School in Tokyo. There, instructors trained and indoctrinated him in guerrilla warfare, history, philosophy, martial arts, propaganda, and covert operations. He received strict orders that he was forbidden from taking his own life under any circumstances.

In late 1944, near the end of World War II, command posted him to Lubang Island, a small landmass in the Philippines near Luzon. His orders were to hold the island at all costs. Originally, commanders asked him to destroy the Lubang airfield and harbour to prevent an Allied invasion.

Within weeks of his arrival, superior officers changed priorities. They needed the harbour and airstrips to evacuate their men instead. Consequently, officers asked Onoda to help with the evacuation rather than destroy the structure.

American Forces

American forces soon attacked and gained control of the island. Allied troops killed, captured, or forced the escape of most Japanese personnel. Major Yoshimi Taniguchi gave Onoda and his three remaining men (Private Akatsu, Corporal Shimada, and Private Kozuka) explicit orders to stand, fight, and never surrender, promising: “It may take three years, it may take five, but whatever happens we’ll come back for you.”

Onoda was twenty-three when he retreated into the jungle. Shortly after, Emperor Hirohito signed the surrender with America. Aircraft dropped leaflets over Lubang informing the soldiers of their nation’s surrender. Onoda dismissed the leaflets as Allied propaganda.

Surviving the Jungle

The four men lived on stolen livestock, bananas, and game within the jungle. They would occasionally steal rice from the local population. It was not long before one of the group became suspicious that the war had ended. Akatsu broke away from the group and spent six months alone in the jungle before surrendering to Filipino forces.

Authorities interviewed Akatsu, who revealed that his three colleagues were still hiding in the jungle. In response, officials dropped family photos and letters into the trees. Again, Onoda dismissed them as propaganda.

The second member to leave the squad was Shimada, whom police officers shot in the leg during a raid on a fishing village; a search party later shot him dead.

Even though the Japanese government officially declared the soldiers dead, Onoda and Kozuka carried on gathering intelligence and engaging in sporadic clashes. They lived in underground caves and killed approximately thirty local villagers over the years, mistaking them for enemy soldiers.

Local police later shot and killed Kozuka whilst he was burning villagers’ rice. News of his death prompted the Japanese government to reassess whether Onoda was still alive and surviving alone in the jungle.

Stand-down Soldier

Norio Suzuki was an eccentric Japanese student who loved adventure. Intrigued by Onoda’s story, he visited Lubang to search for the missing soldier. Suzuki tracked him for four days before coming across Onoda. The two formed a friendship, but Onoda still refused to give up unless he received official orders from a superior.

Back in Japan, government officials located Major Taniguchi, who was working as a bookkeeper, and asked if he would travel to Lubang. Taniguchi travelled into the jungle wearing his official uniform, found Onoda, and rescinded his orders by command of Emperor Showa.

Onoda finally left the jungle at fifty-one after twenty-nine years of fighting. He surrendered his well-maintained service rifle, 500 rounds of ammunition, sword, hand grenades, and a dagger given to him by his mother to kill himself with if captured—creating a sharp personal contradiction with his officer’s strict command against suicide.

Life After Combat

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos granted Onoda a full pardon for his wartime actions and the killings he committed whilst in the jungle. Onoda was reunited with his family, who had long believed him dead.

He returned to Japan hailed as a hero and published his memoir, No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War. However, he struggled to adapt to modern Japanese society and his sudden fame. He followed his elder brother to Brazil to run a cattle ranch. He married a Japanese woman and lived between there and Japan.

Later in life, he saw young boys getting into trouble and established the Onoda Shizen Juku (Onoda Nature School) in Japan to teach youth survival skills and traditional values.

Onoda died of a heart attack at the age of ninety-one in Tokyo.

Not the Last

Strangely, Onoda was not the only Japanese soldier who took his orders beyond the end of the war.

A group of twenty-one soldiers and sailors persisted in fighting on the island of Anatahan years after Japan’s surrender before they finally turned themselves in.

Teruo Nakamura, a Taiwanese-Japanese soldier, lived in the jungle for twenty-nine years, growing crops alone on the island of Morotai, Indonesia. Authorities arrested and repatriated him to Taiwan in December 1974. Because Onoda surrendered earlier in March 1974, Nakamura is recognised as the second-to-last holdout to be discovered, but the final officially confirmed Japanese soldier to surrender.

There are also unsubstantiated reports of two former Japanese soldiers in their 80s still hiding in the mountains of Mindanao, Philippines, reportedly afraid of being court-martialled for desertion if they give themselves up.

Whilst Onoda is heralded as a hero, it is worth remembering that the residents of Lubang Island have a different view. His refusal to surrender caused decades of atrocious violence and tragic loss of civilian life, further proving that history is written differently depending on the victors.

Subscribe today: I spend hours digging through archives, old testimony, and forgotten files to bring these cases to life. Free posts are just the beginning, paid subscribers keep this work possible and get access to my full vault of articles.

If you’ve enjoyed this story and want to see more, please consider upgrading. It’s readers like you who keep Murder Mayhem UK alive.

Subscribe now

Don’t want to commit then consider leaving me a tip if you enjoyed this article.

Michael Ventris was 14 when he first saw the Linear B script of Minoan Crete. He was on a school trip to the Royal Academy of Arts in 1936. That day, Sir Arthur Evans, who had found the script, was also there. Michael asked Sir Arthur if anyone had translated the script, and Evans replied, “Sadly not.” This started a lifelong obsession.

When he succeeded, Michael was not a university professor or classicist; he was a young British architect who loved codes and had studied Greek and Latin classics. It is the classic story of an everyday man who beat the academics through sheer enthusiasm and hard work.

Read more

All you ever need to translate many codes is a key. That was the problem many ancient academics faced when they encountered languages they had not seen before. The Rosetta Stone became the key they needed.

The inscriptions on the Rosetta Stone were carved in 196 BC, making it over 2,200 years old. We now know that the date marks the official anniversary of the coronation of the young Egyptian King, Ptolemy V.

The stone is a broken part of a bigger slab, known as a stela. It is dark-coloured granodiorite. What made it exceptional was the message, written in three scripts: Demotic, hieroglyphic, and Ancient Greek.

Discovery

In July 1799, French soldiers found the stone near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) during Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt. Napoleon had campaigned in Egypt with the intention of dominating the Eastern Mediterranean and threatening Britain in India.

The exact story of how the stone was found is fairly vague. Historians believe soldiers digging foundations for a fort extension at Fort Julien accidentally discovered the artefact, embedded in an old wall. The officer in charge, Pierre-François Bouchard, quickly realised the importance of the discovery.

After Napoleon’s defeat, the stone was handed over to the British, along with other artefacts, as part of the Capitulation of Alexandria.

The Key

Academics quickly discovered that the stone had three scripts: Demotic and hieroglyphics, both Egyptian, and Ancient Greek. Hieroglyphics, the language of priests, were used for writing, while Demotic, the administrative script of the Egyptian people, was used for everyday writing. Ancient Greek was the language of the Macedonian rulers of Egypt, installed following Alexander the Great. The exciting part was that scholars could read Greek.

Scholars began decoding Egyptian scripts using Greek as a key. They matched the phonetic sounds of the Greek names of kings and queens in the inscription to other scripts.

An infamous rivalry soon developed between two scholars attempting to decipher the hieroglyphs: Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion Young, the elder by seventeen years, made significant progress with both the hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts. However, Champollion led the final breakthrough. Champollion had dedicated his intellectual efforts since childhood to ancient Egypt and had studied Coptic under Silvestre de Sacy. These efforts paid off when Champollion confirmed the hypothesis that Egyptian hieroglyphs indicated phonetic sounds.

At this moment, he became the first person in well over a millennium to read the cartouches of Ramses and Thutmosis in their original language.

The Message

As valuable as the cypher was, so was the message portrayed on the stone. It states that the priests of a temple in Memphis, Egypt, confirmed Ptolemy V as a divine ruler he was Macedonian, not Egyptian. At the time, the king was just thirteen years old.

The decree mentions Ptolemy’s suppression of the Delta rebellion and the siege of Lycopolis. Despite their defeat, the Delta resistance persisted until 186 BCE, when royal authority was restored, as confirmed by the Rosetta Stone.

The decree itself is a complex document detailing the negotiation of authority between two powerful groups: the royal house of the Ptolemies and the collective associations of Egyptian priests.

Ptolemy V became king after his father’s death, but his official coronation in Memphis was delayed for nine years until he was older.

You can read the full translation here.

Modern Display

The British took possession of the stone and shipped it to England, arriving in Portsmouth in February 1802. King George III presented it to the British Museum in July of that year.

The stone has been on display in the British Museum ever since, with only one major break. Towards the end of the First World War in 1917, the museum was concerned about heavy bombing in London and moved it to safety 50 feet underground in a Postal Tube Railway station at Holborn, along with other important artefacts.

The Rosetta Stone is proof that all you need to break any code is one small key that unlocks it all. It is also a testament to the imperial ambitions of both France and England to establish empires across the globe.

Subscribe today: I spend hours digging through archives, old testimony, and forgotten files to bring these cases to life. Free posts are just the beginning, paid subscribers keep this work possible and get access to my full vault of articles.

If you’ve enjoyed this story and want to see more, please consider upgrading. It’s readers like you who keep Murder Mayhem UK alive.

Subscribe now

Christopher Marlowe has always held a special place in my heart. It isn’t just because of his legendary status in English literature, but a more personal connection: he was born and raised right in the area where I live. I’ve spent many an evening at the Marlowe Theatre, named in his honour, watching pantomimes and plays in the very city that shaped him.

Yet, for all his local fame, the man himself remains a shadow. Some have even whispered that he might be the true genius behind Shakespeare’s works, though, if I’m honest, that feels like one conspiracy theory too many for me. Like his contemporary from Stratford, most of what we know about Marlowe comes from the accounts of others rather than his own hand.

To his friends, he was a brilliant playwright but a man of questionable morals and dangerous atheism. The Victorians, desperate to enjoy his work without the scandal, rebranded him as a tortured artist chasing unreachable truths, excusing his vices as the side effects of genius.

By the 20th century, historians flipped the script again, stripping away the polish to reveal a flawed, ordinary man with a rap sheet. So, who was the real Marlowe?

Read more

The world knows Betty Boop. She’s one of the most recognisable cartoon icons of all time.

But what most people don’t know is that Betty Boop was modelled on a young Black child star called Esther Jones. Known on stage as Baby Esther, she created the style and voice that made Betty famous. Yet Jones received no royalties or recognition; over time, her name was almost erased from history.

The Hidden Star Behind the Cartoon

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Baby Esther wowed audiences with her singing, dancing, and signature phrase: Boop boop-a-doop.

She was a trained scat singer, dancer, and acrobat, often compared to a miniature Florence Mills. Born in Chicago around 1919 or 1920, Esther’s parents initially managed her career. However, after she won a Charleston contest, talent manager Lou Bolton stepped in and propelled her onto bigger stages.

By 1928, she was performing in New York on the same bill as Helen Kane, who later adopted Esther’s vocal style and claimed it as her own. That same year, Esther appeared in a Movietone short film, though the footage has never resurfaced. At the time, the Chicago Defender reported that she was the highest-paid child star in the world.

From the USA to the Moulin Rouge

Baby Esther’s career took her far beyond the United States. In the early 1930s, she toured Europe to rave reviews, even performing at the legendary Moulin Rouge in Paris.

Although newspapers described her as just ten years old, her real age remains uncertain because show business managers frequently altered child performers’ ages for publicity. Whether older or younger, Esther was undoubtedly a child prodigy.

Racism on Tour

Esther’s fame cut across racial lines, with fans of every background eager to meet her. Yet racism was never far away.

While touring Sweden, a restaurant refused to serve Esther and her mother simply because they were Black. The incident caused severe public outrage, generating a backlash so strong that the establishment was eventually forced to close its doors.

Moments like this highlight the harsh contradiction of her fame: she could be idolised on stage yet discriminated against the moment she stepped off it.

The Lawsuit That Changed Everything

Returning to the American media landscape, a major conflict erupted in May 1932 when actress Helen Kane sued cartoonist Max Fleischer, claiming Betty Boop was based on her image and voice and demanding royalties.

Evidence in court quickly exposed the truth. Kane had watched Baby Esther perform years earlier and copied her style, while Fleischer had also seen Esther’s act in 1928. A sound recording of Esther performing confirmed she was the true origin of the boop-a-doop delivery.

The court ruled in Fleischer’s favour, meaning Kane received nothing. Tragically, Esther the real inspiration behind the phenomenon, was never officially credited or compensated either.

Fading Into Obscurity: What Became of Baby Esther?

What happened to Esther Jones after her brief stardom remains unclear, as historical reports conflict sharply. Some sources state she became a full-time acrobat before being replaced by newer child stars.

Others suggest she retired in 1934 after marrying and founding a Harlem dance troupe, while separate accounts contend that she died that same year.

Reports also exist in Harlem World claiming she lived until 1984, passing away from complications related to drug use. However, historians note that this 1984 passing almost certainly stems from a case of identity confusion, as journalists frequently conflated Baby Esther Jones with the R&B singer Little Esther Phillips (born Esther Mae Jones). The one thing we know for certain is that we have no definitive answer regarding her final years.

The truth of her later life remains clouded, deepening the injustice of how little she is remembered.

Why Her Legacy Matters

The confusion surrounding Esther’s story is partly due to sloppy reporting, with journalists mixing her up with Little Esther. It is also the result of misinformation deliberately spread by Helen Kane’s supporters to discredit Esther and protect Kane’s claim to Betty Boop’s fame.

Whatever the details, one fact is clear: Baby Esther was the original voice and spirit of Betty Boop. The fact that she was erased from the narrative reflects the deep racism of the entertainment industry an industry quick to exploit Black creativity whilst denying Black performers their rightful place in history.

Esther Jones deserves recognition not only as the hidden figure behind a cartoon icon, but as a symbol of how Black talent shaped popular culture, even when society tried to write it out of the story.

Talk about Atlantis being a civilisation that existed years ago which was far more advanced than ours, and some will call you a conspiracy theorist. However, there are some facts these sceptics cannot argue with, and that is the number of ancient technologies which we simply cannot replicate.

This is more than arguing about how the pyramids were built; these are inventions and technologies that the best minds of our time do not understand. Here are five, but there are many, many more.

Damascus Steel

This steel was found in many swords—swords that would slice through any other material. They were beyond sharp. Most of the swords found come from the 17th century, and they disappear completely from 1750.

The swords, which were discovered in 1990, were studied extensively by the best minds of the time. In 2023, they were found to contain carbon nanotubes in a swirling pattern. Scientists are sure that this pattern and unique formation of ores were achieved in the forging process, yet to date they have not been able to replicate it.

Read more

The idea that a woman helped write Einstein’s papers has gained ground. It is a concept that some of the greatest minds today find hard to contemplate.

It was an idea suggested in Marie Benedict’s book The Other Einstein. Although marketed as a work of fiction, it was based on fact.

Mileva Maric was Albert Einstein’s first wife. It is suggested that she contributed to some of his biggest theories. Did Einstein plagiarise his wife’s work to achieve success?

Who Is Mileva Maric?

Mileva was a Serbian physicist and mathematician. She was also the only woman at the Zurich Polytechnic in the same year as Einstein, and only the fifth woman accepted to the Mathematics and Physics department.

As a child, she showed exceptional talent for her studies, especially mathematics. Because of her intelligence, she was allowed to enter the all-male Royal Classical School in Zagreb. When she qualified to enter Zurich Polytechnic, she moved to the city, a woman on her own, in a man’s world.

She entered Einstein’s class and fell for him. Love letters of the time sent between the two show their intense relationship. She went on to have his first child out of wedlock: a girl named Lieserl. Mystery surrounds what became of this child; some say she died of scarlet fever, others that she was adopted. After marriage, the couple had two sons, Hans Albert and Eduard.

The couple divorced in 1919.

What did Mileva Contribute?

While studying in Zurich, Mileva took a term off to study in Heidelberg. In a letter dated 20 October 1897, she wrote about her fascination with the relationship between a molecule’s velocity and the distance between them. This topic is highly relevant to Einstein’s studies of Brownian motion, one of the four papers he published in 1905 during his landmark year.

There are doubts about whether Mileva helped him write his four groundbreaking papers in Annalen der Physik.

The fourth of these papers was the basis of his Theory of Relativity. Within the articles, Einstein pays tribute to his friends from the Olympia Academy. This small group of forward-thinking minds met regularly to debate and discuss theories. Along with Einstein, Mileva is mentioned as a member of this Academy.

The Evidence

In recent times, many minds have debated Mileva’s contribution to these theories. It is clear that at the time, theories from a man would have been far better received than from a woman, especially a woman who failed to graduate.

Mileva was pregnant during her finals and failed to reach the academic achievement she should have, even though in previous years she had scores equal to Einstein’s.

A recent documentary claims to have uncovered an original copy of the Theory of Relativity. The paper is signed by both Einstein and Marity. Is Marity a misspelling of Mileva, or perhaps the official Hungarian form of her surname used on official documentation? Abraham Joffe, an alumnus of Zurich Polytechnic Institute, claims to have also viewed this original document.

Letters exist between Mileva and a Serbian friend in which she claims that they had just finished important work that would make her husband famous.

John Stachel, a well-known physicist, argues that the letters referring to this collaboration were written during Einstein’s student days, long before the papers were published. He also points out that while Einstein often used the pronoun “our” rather than “I” when discussing his ideas in personal correspondence, this reflected romantic intimacy rather than concrete scientific co-authorship. This, he claims, supports the view that Mileva was not a co-author of the published theories.

Stachel suggested that letters from Mileva survive that directly respond to those from Einstein. When he speaks of his latest ideas, she gives no response at all. Her letters contain only personal matters or comments related to her Polytechnic coursework.

Stachel writes: In her case, we have no published papers, no letters with serious scientific content, either to Einstein or anyone else, nor any objective evidence of her supposed creative talents. We don’t even have hearsay accounts of her conversations with anyone else that have specific scientific content, let alone claims of reporting her ideas.

In contrast to Stachel’s view, Mileva’s eldest son and relatives remember her working on papers alongside her husband.

One of the most significant clues to these claims may be that Einstein put all the money he made from his Nobel Prize into a fund for Mileva and his two sons. Was he a father who provided for his family, or was he paying dues to a co-author?

Whether Mileva contributed to some of Einstein’s theories remains to be proven.

Einstein was a genius in his own right. Whether he refused to acknowledge his wife’s contribution does not necessarily make him a thief. It may be that his wife inspired him through their lively dinner conversations.

The papers that both parties have left are compulsive reading.

The primary issue remains that Mileva Einstein has been eliminated from mainstream history, like so many women. Very few people know the name of one of the most impressive female physicists of her time.

Subscribe today: I spend hours digging through archives, old testimony, and forgotten files to bring these cases to life. Free posts are just the beginning, paid subscribers keep this work possible and get access to my full vault of articles.

If you’ve enjoyed this story and want to see more, please consider upgrading. It’s readers like you who keep Murder Mayhem UK alive.

Subscribe now

In 1994, a teenager was seen walking around his area with a small electronic device in his hand. In today’s society, this would not be a surprise, but this was not a mobile phone; it was a Geiger counter he was holding.

Why?

He was monitoring whether the reactor he had built in his mother’s potting shed was working.

David Hahn was a regular Boy Scout. When his parents divorced, his dad was worried that he was isolated, so he sent him to Scouts. That decision changed the course of David’s life in a way neither of his parents could ever imagine.

When he started working through his badges, he wasn’t interested in the mundane, such as helping your neighbour or local community. Only one interested him, and that was in Atomic Energy; yes, that was actually a badge when he earned it in 1991. David’s passion for Scouts led to his arrest for making a nuclear reactor with everyday items.

Read more

One of the greatest mysteries in cinema history did not take place on the big screen; instead, it was the story of the cameras that filmed the first motion pictures. The story has everything you would expect of considerable screen suspense: intrigue, drama, and even possible murder.

Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince is credited as the Father of Cinematography and the inventor of motion pictures. However, it was not always this way; for years, no one knew Le Prince’s name, mainly because the man himself disappeared without a trace.

Some have argued that he committed suicide, unable to deal with the pressure his invention brought about. Others state that the incident is far more sinister and that he was murdered by one of his rivals.

Louis Le Prince

Le Prince was a French artist born in 1841 in Metz, France. His father was a major in the French army. During his childhood, his father’s friend, Louis Daguerre, who invented the daguerreotype, taught the young Le Prince photography and chemistry.

This passion followed him into adulthood, where he studied painting and chemistry in Paris and Leipzig. Having finished his university education, he moved to England. In 1869, he married Elizabeth Whitley, a talented artist.

The couple established the Leeds Technical School of Art, an applied art school. The college became a household name when they started fixing colour photographs to metal and pottery.

It wasn’t long before their work became so well respected that they were commissioned by Queen Victoria and Prime Minister William Gladstone to paint portraits.

Le Prince also liked experimenting with technology and looking for new ways to improve art. He became the first to make a working model capturing motion pictures.

He achieved this breakthrough at his workshop in Leeds.

One month before he was due to reveal his invention to the world, he disappeared.

The First Motion Picture Camera

In the 1880s, Le Prince became interested in cinematic technologies. He started by creating a sixteen-lens camera, applying for a US patent and receiving it in 1888. He built the apparatus in his workshop in Leeds.

On 14th October 1888, he recorded the Roundhay Garden Scene, capturing four family members walking in a garden. On the same day, he filmed a separate sequence featuring his son Adolphe playing the accordion. Both sequences were filmed using an improved single-lens camera.

Both Thomas Edison and the Lumière brothers have dominated the headlines for inventing equipment which made moving images possible. However, evidence shows that Le Prince preceded their inventions by several years.

The machine that Le Prince designed utilised paper-backed strip film to capture moving pictures. Although relatively primitive by today’s standards, his machine essentially started modern cinema.

Missing

Le Prince, having secured his patents, was preparing to travel to the US to publicly unveil his invention. Before travelling to America, though, he returned to France to visit his brother in Dijon.

He took a later train to Paris, missing his scheduled meeting with friends in the city. He was never seen again. His brother at the Dijon station was the last person to see Le Prince alive.

Both the French police and Scotland Yard took on extensive searches. The family also followed their own lines of enquiry. Unfortunately, all efforts were in vain, as he was never found.

Theories

With any disappearance without clear answers, theories abound, though none have been substantiated. The main theory strenuously believed by his wife, Elizabeth Whitley, was that Le Prince was assassinated by Edison or an accomplice as part of an aggressive patent war.

Others suggested he disappeared on the orders of his family and died in Chicago in 1898, claiming his family persuaded him to vanish after discovering he was gay.

In 1890, a drowned man was pulled out of the Seine, bearing a striking resemblance to Le Prince. However, this photo only came to light in 2003 when it was rediscovered in the Paris Police archives.

People have since speculated that he took his own life after failing to get his projector working perfectly and being overwhelmed with debt. Others have claimed the man pulled from the river was far too short to be Le Prince.

Patent War

In 1894, Edison was credited as the US inventor of motion pictures. The Lumiere Brothers were credited in France. They hosted the first commercial exhibition of motion picture films in 1895

Le Prince was declared legally dead in 1898. Shortly after, his elder son Adolphe was called as a key witness in litigation against Edison brought by the American Mutoscope Company.

The court case was unsuccessful in establishing Le Prince’s commercial priority, and in a tragic twist, Adolphe was found dead in New York in 1901. Many years later, Le Prince was finally recognised for his true contributions to motion pictures.

Whether his disappearance was an accident, an assassination, or something else, no one will ever know for certain. Nevertheless, the mystery of Louis Le Prince’s disappearance fascinates historians to this day.

The first time I heard about the World Fairs was when I read Erik Larson’s book, The Devil in the White City. I was initially drawn to the book by my fascination with HH Holmes, but I soon became captivated by the World Fairs.

My fascination with Victorian England led me to discover The Great Exhibition, one of the earliest and grandest fairs.

Today, we’ll explore three other Victorian fairs that introduced us to many inventions, many of which are now common household items.

Read more

H. H. Holmes was America’s first serial killer in the late 1800s. More famously, he is known for designing and building a murder castle where he killed many women.

Although he confessed to a kill count of twenty-seven people, it is thought he could have killed as many as two hundred. He also admitted to killings that were found to be untrue. One victim was found alive and well. It has also been suggested that he might be responsible for the Jack the Ripper killings.

Many believe that if it had not been for the fraud he committed, he would never have been caught.

The judge at the time refused to hear the information about all the victims. This meant that many of the facts were not committed to record, and became lost. Many of them were not even identified.

Did the women simply go missing or were they murdered is a question many families must have asked at the time.

Sadistic Tendencies

Holmes was always fascinated with death. As a young child, he would mutilate animals and corpses. In 1884, he married his first wife and was violent towards her. He held various jobs across the country and would always be moving. In 1886, he would marry his second wife, Marta Belknap, never having divorced his first.

His early moves were a result of unexplained deaths occurring in close vicinity to where he lived. He pursued several professions, including an early attempt to become a doctor.

As he got older, this fascination developed into murdering women. It was clear his sadistic tendencies were evolving.

Holmes evaded capture because there were never any bodies. He stripped the bodies at death. With the help of a professional, he turned the skeletons into resources for the local medical hospitals. It is possible that in a dusty cupboard sits a skeleton of a Holmes victim.

Murder Castle

Through a clever system of property purchases and using a range of contractors, Holmes turned his hotel into a murder castle. In a scene that would be at home in a horror film, Henry Howard Holmes, as he became known, would trap and murder women looking for shelter in Chicago.

During construction, Holmes would use cons and misdirection with contractors. They never realised what they were building. He would constantly be hiring and firing crews. The architectural plans were kept in only his possession. He released small portions, as needed, to specific contractors. None of these ever received the full picture, so suspicion was never raised.

When finished, Holmes could pass through the house unseen. He could lock doors from the outside and control dangerous gas chambers from his closet. The elaborate system of mazes, trapdoors and gas chambers meant Holmes could move anywhere in the hotel, unobserved. Using these passageways, he could move undetected to murder his victims.

The hotel had vaults, chambers and acid pits built into some of the rooms. The human-size furnace in the basement was used to dispose of the bodies without a trace; it was this furnace that would lead to his downfall when he seduced a lady called Emeline Cigrand.

Cigrand and Pitezel

Cigrand was born in 1868 in Lafayette, Tippecanoe, Indiana; it is thought she was murdered in December 1892. She was discovered by Benjamin Pitezel, who was a companion of Holmes and ultimately one of his last victims.

Pitezel was a known alcoholic; during his work with Holmes, he was sent to Dwight, Illinois, for alcoholism treatment. At the time, a doctor was stating that they had an elixir that would cure him. It is unclear whether he was sent there for the cure or to steal the idea for Holmes. Months later Holmes did produce his own ‘cure’ for alcoholism.

Whilst there, Pitezel met Cigrand, as she was the personal assistant to the doctor. He returned to Holmes with tales of how beautiful this young woman was and how she dazzled. Holmes knew he had to have her for himself.

Cigrand and Holmes

Holmes wrote to Cigrand offering her a job as his private secretary and stenographer. To lure her, he offered her twice her salary. She accepted; the pay was favourable, and she had long wanted to live in the glamour and excitement of Chicago.

As soon as she arrived, Holmes started to court her. He used his soothing voice, amazing blue eyes and gentle touch to enchant her. It was said that he brought her flowers and expensive gifts, including a bicycle, a new invention. Frequently they were observed riding together through Chicago.

Despite several people warning Cigrand about Holmes, it was no good. When his creditors came to his office, Holmes always had a tale to ease her mind. Often he told her that people were jealous of his success.

When Holmes started renting his apartments out in 1892, Dr Lawrence and his wife moved in. They became friends with Cigrand.

She was one of the prettiest and most pleasant young women I ever met - Dr Lawrence

It was clear to see that Cigrand was infatuated with Holmes, who had now convinced her that he was the son of a British Lord.

Throughout her time with Holmes, Cigrand wrote often to her family about the amazing man she had met and how wonderful her life in Chicago was. When the family visited, although they had concerns about the design of the ‘Murder Castle,’ they failed to convince Cigrand.

After one visit, where a cousin questioned the dead space in the apartments, Holmes proposed.

Cigrand Disappears

Everything seemed to be progressing well with the young couple. Until December 1892, when Cigrand visited the Lawrences with a handmade gift. Mrs Lawrence commented that she could have left such a present until Christmas. Cigrand explained she was going home to Indiana for Christmas. She implied this would be a final move and that she was not returning.

It is impossible to know what had changed her opinion on Holmes. Could he have stolen the £800 savings she had arrived with, or had his mask slipped?

The Lawrences never saw her again. She never said goodbye for her trip and vanished. Mrs Lawrence asked Holmes several times where she was; he always had a different explanation. Finally, he told her that Cigrand had married Robert Phelps. He even went as far as forging the wedding notices and delivering them to some of her family and friends.

Arrest

Holmes had committed several cases of fraud and insurance theft. In 1894, he was pursued on a charge of arson. He left Chicago. His next location was Fort Worth. Here he inherited property and started to build his second murder castle.

Holmes constructed a plan where Pitezel would fake his death for the insurance money.

Instead of faking Pitezel’s death, Holmes murdered him. He then blackmailed his wife to allow him to travel with three of their children, two girls and a boy.

Following the children’s disappearance, a police detective, Frank Geyer, was assigned to find them. Geyer followed the movements of Holmes, where he discovered the bodies of two girls in a cellar. Following the path further, he found the remains of a boy in a cottage Holmes had rented.

Holmes was arrested and claimed several murders within the hotel. The mystery into Cigrand also started to unravel. What was unknown at the time of her death was that Phelps was a well-known alias that Pitezel had used in the past. This became evident as the police searched for evidence.

On the first inspection of the Murder Castle, police found a large kiln in the basement. When they opened the door, they found a lady’s footprint etched there. It was believed to be Cigrand’s footprint, made in her attempt to escape the tomb. Even stranger was the fact that the footprint was etched into the door and could not be removed.

The best guess that scientists have for the footprint is that Holmes lured the woman into the vault shoeless. As she walked through the room, she stood on acid that Holmes used to increase the temperature in the vault. The mixture of the chemical and burning etched the footprint permanently into the metal door.

A few weeks after Cigrand’s disappearance, LaSalle Medical College received a female skeleton from their associate, HH Holmes, for their courses. Mysteriously, the murder castle, as it had become known, was gutted by fire in 1895.

Trial

On arrest, Holmes claimed that his first victim was a former medical student, Robert Leacock, in 1886. He stated this was so he could claim his insurance money. However, it was later discovered that Leacock died in 1889 in Canada.

This was one of many murders that Holmes claimed to have committed, which were later found to be untrue.

Holmes went on trial for the murder of Benjamin Pitezel and his children; he was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was hanged on 7 May 1896. Even this, though, was not a straightforward affair. His neck failed to snap as the trap door opened; instead, it took him fifteen minutes to die of strangulation.

The Jack the Ripper Connection

Over the last decade, Holmes’ great-great-great-grandson has come forward to say his relative was Jack the Ripper. He claims he found two diaries, in which Holmes writes about killing and mutilating prostitutes in London.

The time frame for the murders and the travel would fit in with this claim. It is also clear to see from studying the cases that both Holmes and the Ripper had similar psychopathy.

His grandson also stated that Holmes actually escaped the hangman’s noose. Instead of hanging Holmes, they hanged a stranger that Holmes tricked to take his place. Holmes was exhumed years later for DNA evidence to prove he was the person killed.

If you consider the lies, even if the diary is authentic, which I doubt, Holmes could have lied about being Jack the Ripper.

Given the fact that Holmes was a compulsive liar, and that his great-great-great-grandson had a book to sell, I would deny the claim that Holmes was Jack the Ripper. Further evidence of the false claim is found when you consider the hangman story.

This lie was proven scientifically. Although a horrific killer and famous as the USA’s first recorded serial killer, we cannot add Jack the Ripper to these accolades.

I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing. - HH Holmes

Subscribe today: I spend hours digging through archives, old testimony, and forgotten files to bring these cases to life. Free posts are just the beginning, paid subscribers keep this work possible and get access to my full vault of articles.

If you’ve enjoyed this story and want to see more, please consider upgrading. It’s readers like you who keep Murder Mayhem UK alive.

Subscribe now

It was 31st May 1902 when a torrential thunderstorm battered the quiet Suffolk village of Peasenhall. Under cover of a violent storm, a killer struck. The result was two trials which left no one convicted of the crime.

Many historians believe that the murderer was fortunate to escape prosecution; others have offered an alternative theory that exonerates William Gardiner. If not guilty, Gardiner lived with the stigma of a murder he had nothing to do with. If guilty, we can only hope Gardiner was haunted by his actions.

Whatever the truth, an innocent woman died, and this case remains one of the most sensational unsolved crimes in Edwardian England.

Read more

For nearly four decades, a dark cloud has hung over Phillip Island, Australia. What was originally recorded as a murder-suicide has faced growing scrutiny, with many asking whether it was, in fact, a double murder.

On the morning of September 23, 1986, 23-year-old Penguin Parade worker Elizabeth “Beth” Barnard was found savagely stabbed to death in her home in Rhyll. The letter A, an unmistakable reference to the mark of adultery in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, was carved into her chest.

It was an open secret in the close-knit community that Beth was having an affair with her married boss, Fergus Cameron.

Vivienne Cameron

That same morning, Fergus’s wife, Vivienne Cameron, vanished. The family’s Land Cruiser was later found near the San Remo bridge, leading authorities to a swift conclusion: a jealous wife had murdered her husband’s mistress in a rage and jumped into the water.

By November 1987, a coronial inquest backed this official narrative, closing the case with Vivienne presumed dead. But beneath the surface of this “open-and-shut” story lies a web of glaring discrepancies, ignored leads, and a silence that has blanketed the island for forty years.

The Flaws in the Official Narrative

From the beginning, the theory that Vivienne committed murder before taking her own life was riddled with holes. The knife found next to Beth’s body bore no fingerprints. Would a woman who was going to kill and then take her own life wear gloves or wipe her prints away? It seems unlikely.

In addition, a significant amount of Vivienne’s blood was found inside the Cameron home, including a drag mark across the bathroom floor that was never properly analysed. This heavily suggested she had suffered a severe, debilitating injury

For a severely wounded woman to then drive to Rhyll, commit a brutal murder, and take her own life seems improbable.

Despite extensive searches beneath the San Remo bridge, Vivienne’s body was never recovered. The only physical trace placing her near the bridge was her vehicle, which could easily have been driven there by someone else.

Witnesses and Unanswered Questions

After the inquest was closed, a key witness came forward stating he was actually with Vivienne on the night of Beth’s murder. His timeline matched statements from Fergus’s sister, Marnie, who said she was waiting with Vivienne for Fergus to return home.

Another witness reported seeing Fergus’s brother, Donald, along with his brother-in-law, Ian (the two men who discovered Beth’s body), digging a deep hole on Donald’s property the day Vivienne disappeared. Police never searched Donald’s property. Having settled on a conclusion early, investigators failed to look for evidence that might dispute it.

Police refused to consider alternative suspects, even though the physical evidence and blood spatter pointed toward a scenario far more complex than a straightforward murder-suicide.

Decades of Silence on the Island

The fallout from the crime created a heavy culture of silence on Phillip Island. The Cameron family rarely spoke of it, local media coverage was minimal, and mentioning the case publicly carried heavy social consequences.

Even decades later, the silence persists. Several local women recalled workplace bans on discussing the case, with one island business owner even losing customers after bringing it up to the wrong person.

Tragically, key figures in the case, including Donald, Marnie, and Ian, passed away without ever being formally interviewed by police. Fergus, who went on to remarry and build a life after the tragedy, remains in failing health.

Though a 2014 cold-case review maintained the original ruling, investigative work by journalists and authors has continued to challenge the official narrative.

Remembering the Women Behind the Headlines

Whatever the ultimate truth, it is essential to remember the two women behind the headlines, who have too often been reduced to one-dimensional figures: the ‘adulterer’ and the ‘murderer.’

Friends described Vivienne as a devoted mother of two young sons, a passionate equestrian who gave riding lessons, and a loyal friend who stood by loved ones in their darkest moments. Beth was remembered as a joyful, vibrant 23-year-old who brought her friends together and cared deeply for the island’s famous penguin colony.

It is entirely possible that both women were victims, and that Vivienne’s children were robbed of the truth about their mother. The hope remains that the full truth will eventually surface, bringing peace to the memory of two women lost to a tragedy far more complex than the world was led to believe.

Subscribe today: I spend hours digging through archives, old testimony, and forgotten files to bring these cases to life. Free posts are just the beginning, paid subscribers keep this work possible and get access to my full vault of articles.

If you’ve enjoyed this story and want to see more, please consider upgrading. It’s readers like you who keep Murder Mayhem UK alive.

Subscribe now

The 1994 World Cup was not without its controversy and heartbreak. Wednesday, we looked at the massacre in County Down which occurred; today we look at another death that was a result of the 1994 tournament. This time, it was a player.

Andrés Escobar was a Colombian player who made his debut for the national team in 1988. He was a defender who was described as a team player, one who always gave his best. Like many defenders, he was a player the rest of the team relied on heavily.

He was twenty-seven when he was selected as part of Colombia’s World Cup squad in the USA.

Read more