Unsolved Murder Mysteries

By Charles E. Pearce

This third volume in Stanley Paul’s Library of Crime was published in 1924. Although Pearce was still rabidly productive in the last year of his life (he died in November), many of the episodes here were previously covered in his serial, Romances of Crime, from a decade earlier.

Some of the stories here are still well known, such as the Campden Wonder and the murder of Mary Rogers, immortalised by Poe as Marie Rogêt, but others have lessened their grip on the imagination over time. There are frustratingly few dates in these pages, but I am working on a timeline of the crimes that I will add later.


  1. Introduction
  2. A Secret of St. James’s Palace
  3. Who Killed Benjamin Nathan?
  4. Motiveless Murders
    1. Eliza Grimwood
    2. Annie Yeats
    3. Kate Dungay
    4. Jane Roberts
    5. Jane Maria Clousen
    6. Elizabeth Camp
    7. Sarah Millson
    8. Mrs. Noel
    9. Mr. G. H. Storrs
    10. Robert Kenyon and William Uttley
    11. The Campden Wonder.
  5. Dr. Harvey Burdell
  6. Romantic Tragedies
    1. Rose Carrington
    2. Mary Ashford
    3. Adelaide Bartlett
    4. The Secret of a Cobham Coppice
  7. Shop Murders
    1. Paul Koczula
    2. Mrs. Squires
    3. Williams, the Ratcliff Highway Monster
    4. Mrs. Reville
    5. Chung Ong.
  8. Self-Convicted Poisoners
    1. Palmer
    2. Thomas Wainewright
    3. Neill Cream
    4. Christiana Edmunds
    5. Drs. Pritchard, Lamson and Smethurst
    6. Winslow.
  9. The Mistakes of Murderers
    1. The Mannings
    2. Henry Wainwright
    3. Muller
    4. Lefroy
    5. Hocker
    6. John Watson Laurie
    7. Mullens.
  10. The Last Resource
    1. Greenacre
    2. The Carpet-bag Mystery
    3. Gardelle
    4. Cook of Leicester
    5. Kate Webster
    6. Dr. Parkman
    7. Box Murders
    8. The Harley Street Mystery
    9. Elizabeth Rainbow
    10. William Huntley
    11. William Deeming.