In March of 1930, one Harrisburg woman suffered the sort of death typically reserved for horror movies or nightmares.

In 1909, Harry Keener confessed to murder. What makes this case truly remarkable is that it is one of the few instances in which a man who confessed to murder was set free, even

In September of 1930, the peaceful village of Spry was the

Warning: This episode contains graphic depictions which some listeners may find disturbing. On February 14, 1891, Edward McMillan of Exeter Township committed one of the most revolting murders in the history of Luzerne County-- a crime which, according to one newspaper reporter, outshone Jack the Ripper in terms of sheer brutality.

On Friday, June 28, 1929, William Kennedy was building a new fence on his farm near York Springs when the circling of vultures led to shocking discovery on the banks of Bermudian Creek, about a hundred yards from the old Gettysburg-Harrisburg highway. It was the badly-decomposed body of a woman lying face-down in the mud. The victim, a 27-year-old deaf mute and mother of four from Harrisburg named Carrie Shellenberger Weiss, hadn't been seen or heard from since June 22. Though her husband was questioned, he was never arrested-- though evidence seems to point the finger directly at him.

Lined with quaint shops and historic buildings, Annville is one of the most charming towns in the Lebanon Valley. However, in 1887, Annville became the scene of horror after 60-year-old William Showers committed two of the most sensational murders in the county's history on the outskirts of town.

Penn State Altoona, built on the site of a defunct amusement park, has a dark secret. At the center of the campus is a pond, the remnant of the warming dam which once fed Ivyside Park's massive swimming pool. There is one particularly sad tragedy associated with this pool-- a tragedy involving a distraught mother who drowned herself and her children one spring evening in 1930.

In February of 1900, a tiny, middle-aged German tramp found himself confined to a steel cell in the basement of the Lebanon city hall. He had been brought to Lebanon from the Berks County, where he had been picked up on a vagrancy charge. This was nothing out of the ordinary for 50-year-old Leopold Rowe, who had been drifting from town to town for the past ten years of his life. Rowe was no stranger to county jails and small-town lockups, and, under normal circumstances, he would've been out on the streets in a day or two. But this time, things would be different. This time, Leopold Rowe admitted to murder-- and claimed that the ghost of his victim had tormented him into confessing his crime.

In 1915, a group of boys skating on a frozen swamp discovered a headless body entombed in ice. All signs pointed to foul play, but who was the victim?

Over one thousand criminals have paid for their crimes in Pennsylvania with their lives. But one man, Lorenzo Savage, holds the distinction of being the only voodoo doctor executed by the Commonwealth.

The story seems like a tale ripped from the pages of a dime-store novel: A lovelorn nurse is brutally slain, her body found outside an abandoned mansion. In her hand detectives find an arrangement of playing cards, which they soon learn is the black magic "hand of death". But the tragic tale of Elsie Barthel is not a work of fiction. It really happened in Pittsburgh in the fall of 1923.