In September of 1924, a shocking act of violence stunned the residents of Carlisle when a jealous man shot his sweetheart and her mother before turning the gun on himself in the back yard of the Dotter family home at 118 Elm Street. The ghastly act was said to have left such an impression that witnesses reported seeing the ghost of the killer near the scene of the crime just weeks after the tragedy... and, strangely, an eerily similar brush with death occurred inside the very same house six years later.

The tiny borough of Hawley, in Wayne County, was the scene of horror on March 4, 1904, when the body of an elderly widow was found drenched in a pool of blood on the floor of her candy shop on Marble Hill. Although a veteran of the Spanish-American War was later arrested and tried for the crime, the evidence against him was flimsy at best, and the suspect was eventually acquitted. To this day, the heinous murder remains unsolved, although many residents of Palmyra Township insisted that they knew who the real killer was-- a mentally unbalanced man who lived next door to the victim.

There is a statue in a Lancaster cemetery that is said to come alive at night and descend from her pedestal when the moon is just right. It is the statue marking the final resting place of Augusta Harriet Bitner, a young woman whose death in 1906 has spawned many rumors and ghost stories. But is there any truth to this local legend?

During the 19th century, one riverfront tavern served as the secret hideout for some of Pittsburgh's most dangerous criminals. There was Brocky McDonald, the bank robber who would eventually meet his demise at the hands of his own gang. There was Booby Adams, Blinky Morgan, Kid Munn, Patsy McGraw, Dutch Tony and an assortment of criminals whose exploits were known all over the country. There was also Joe Anderson, the bartender who operated his own crime syndicate when he wasn't pouring drinks for Oyster Paddy.

Welcome to Natalie (pop. 371): A small town with a big murder problem.

Of the hundreds of murderers who have hanged for their crimes in Pennsylvania, only a handful have been female. Lena Miller, who was one of these women, also holds the distinction of being the first person sentenced to death in Clearfield County. This is the story of one pioneer woman who went to considerable lengths to kill her seemingly destructible husband. 

Once a thriving lumber camp on the banks of Potato Creek in McKean County, the village of Betula lies halfway between Smethport and  Emporium. The few people who call this backwoods location home are friendly folks, who are likely to point you to the best fishing spots or give you directions to nearest gas station. However, during the height of the lumber boom in the early 20th century, Betula was known around the region as home to some of the meanest characters who ever wielded an axe-- and home to the ghost of a murder victim named Edward Ralph.

On a sunny Sunday in June, 1907, a pretty little girl with golden hair walked the short distance home from her grandfather's farm near the  village of Avondale in Chester County. Accompanying five-year-old Mary Robbins Newlin was her little sister, Fannie. At a fork in the road where an old, abandoned church stood, the sisters parted and it was at this lonesome spot where Mary was last seen alive.

The history of the Pennsylvania Coal Region wouldn't be complete without one, or several, chapters devoted to organized crime. During the Prohibition Era, crime rings could be found in just about every nook and cranny of the anthracite region. The nefarious plots of many mobsters were hatched in dozens of area "houses of ill repute", such as the notorious Sunset Inn in Numidia, which was just one of the many seedy establishments owned by Louis Moff, who met his death in a hail of gunshots outside his Atlas home in 1931.  

Somewhere in the historic Cross Creek Cemetery in Washington County, about thirty miles west of Pittsburgh, there is a lost grave that holds the dust of a frontier wife named Mary Wallace, whose death in 1782 led to one of the most famous, and horrific, massacres in American history.