The Halifax Slasher

1049 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The history of halloween essay

The Slasher
The town of Halifax in West Yorkshire had never experienced such a manhunt in it’s history (Glover 3). During a short, but long lasting in feeling, time period in late November through early December in the year 1938, the town of Halifax underwent a period of mass hysteria. A mysterious “slasher” hid in the shadows and lunged out with a razor blade at people who passed by (Halifax Slasher).
On November 16, two mill workers, Gertie Watts and Mary Gledhill, reported that they had been attacked by a man while they were walking on Old Bank Lane between Barkisland and Ripponden. They quickly ran to a nearby house for help. Blood was pouring continuously from their heads. Their wounds appeared to be caused by a razor blade (Glover …show more content…

Police had to escort him home because they were scared for his safety. Eventually that rumor died out when the slasher struck again (Sutfin 3). Fred Baldwin was also accused of being the slasher. Fred Baldwin was walking home alongside his bicycle through the village of Copley, which is a mile South of Halifax. As he was passing the Standard of Freedom Inn, a group of boys stopped him and began questioning him. One of the boys grabbed him by his shirt and yelled out “It’s him”. All the boys began punching Fred due to the fact that they thought he was the slasher. A few policemen arrived later on and Fred was brought into the Halifax Borough Court on December 6. He pleaded not guilty to the assumptions that he was the slasher (The Halifax Slasher-Copley). The next reported slasher attack, Hilda Lodge was the victim. She was attacked on Green Lane near Martin’s Mill, Pellon Lane. She was walking down the street when suddenly an arm flung out from around a wall and cut her on her face and both arms. This attack joined the others and the hysteria spread like wildfire (Glover 3). The panic spread as far as London (Halifax

Show More
Related

  • Compare And Contrast Herbert And Bonnie Clutter

    494 Words  | 1 Pages

    Dick and Perry, who were former employees of Herbert Clutters. Perry confessed to killing Mr. Clutter with the knife and the shooting of the rest of the family. Dick confessed that he couldn’t bring himself to do the killing.

    Read More

  • The Butcher's Tale Sparknotes

    1561 Words  | 4 Pages

    Tragically, the butchered upper-torso of Winter’s once-robust body was stumbled upon by his father, who had noticed the absence of his son since Sunday, March 11 (Smith 2002, 25-26). Unsurprisingly, an investigation occurred to obtain the identity and whereabouts of the murderer. When the various pieces of the body are found in differing areas of the town, theory begins to formulate that the murder was conducted by one of the two butchers in town; Adolph Lewy, a Jew, and Gustav Hoffman, a Christian, due to the precision of the cuts made upon Winter’s body (Smith 28).

    Read More

  • Richard Ramirez: The American Serial Killer

    1370 Words  | 3 Pages

    The husband was shot first, then the wife, “Mrs. Zazzara had a large T-shaped stab wound below her left breast, Uloth said. Upon closer examination, he added, investigators discovered the horrifying damage to her eyes as well as stab wounds to her neck, cheek, abdomen and pubic areas.” After the Zazzara case the police were now sure that these murders were committed by a disturbed serial killer. However the police were unsuccessful in tracking him down. Meanwhile Ramirez brutally attacked and killed an elderly couple named William and Lillie Doi. During the next couple of months the quantity of his victims increase rapidly and the police were facing pressure to catch this psychopathic killer. Therefor a taskforce of several law-enforcement officers was established for tracking the serial killer and also the FBI stepped in to

    Read More

  • Case Study

    1263 Words  | 3 Pages

    When horrific crimes occur in large cities, many of them can be chalked up to gang violence or to the larger population of that specific city. But when horrific crimes happen in small cities like Lincoln, Nebraska, people begin to ask questions like who did this and why. In 1958, a nineteen year old man named Charles Starkweather put the entire state of Nebraska and possibly the entire nation in a state of terror. With his murder spree taking only three days, Starkweather had collected a body count of ten bodies, including two teenagers and a young child. Understanding Starkweather’s past and state of mind begins to answer the second question of why.

    Read More

  • Psychopathy: Ed Gein's Bad Parents

    2876 Words  | 6 Pages

    Hunting season had started, and the vast majority of men spent a good deal of time out in the woods enjoying the sport; apparently nothing could disrupt the peace and ordinary in this village. However, shock came when a store clerk found his mother and truck missing upon his arrival to his store. He also found a puddle of blood and traces going back to where the truck originally parked. The traces led the police department to a middle-aged man’s tattered barn. This man, Edward Gein, did not really prove suspicious to anyone in Plainfield. He preferred solitude, and did not mingle with others much. He spent much of his time alone in his barn, and promptly contributed to the peace and quiet predominant in the village, but no one would have ever guessed what this man stored deep beneath his outer semblance. Upon entry to his unlit barn, the policemen made a gruesome discovery.

    Read More

  • A Common Psychological Views Of Nature And Nurture: Dick Vs. Perry

    1008 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dick Hickock stood motionless, watching as his companion, Perry Smith fired his shotgun into the heads of each member of the Clutter family, sending blood and brains splashing against the wall. What would drive a man to do this? With a cold-blooded fire in his eyes, Perry moved from one person to the next, splattering the country house with brain matter. This terrible

    Read More

  • The Killing Cousins: David Alan Gore and Fred Waterfield

    832 Words  | 2 Pages

    David Alan Gore and Fred Waterfield are also known as the killing cousins, these men were two of the most brutal killers of their time. Not only did they kill their victims but they would brutally rape and torcher them before ending their lives. Throughout this paper I will discuss their biography, the crimes they committed, their criminal cases, and a theory of why the committed the crimes that eventually led to the death of one of these men.

    Read More

  • Investigation Techniques Of A Homicide

    1405 Words  | 3 Pages

    victims, he concluded that they were stabbed to death. The time of death was a

    Read More

  • The Sam Sheppard Case

    818 Words  | 2 Pages

    On the morning of July 4, 1954, Marilyn Sheppard was violently beaten in her home in Bay Village, Ohio, on the shore of Lake Erie. She was four months pregnant and had been felled by 35 vicious blows (Quade). Right away Sam Sheppard was accused of being the victim to do this. Sheppard had told investigators that he had been asleep downstairs and was awakened by his wife’s screams. Sheppard said when he went upstairs and entered the room he was knocked unconscious by the intruder. He denied any involvement and described his battle with the killer he described as “bushy-haired” (Linder). After a police investigation, Dr. Sam Sheppard was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. With the hectic media covering it, they were quick in decision that it was him that committed the murder. This was an unfair trial, ruined a man’s life, and gave him no time for a career.

    Read More

  • Edmund Emil Kemper III: Serial Killer

    1021 Words  | 3 Pages

    Edmund Emil Kemper III was raised by a verbally abusive mother and her succession of abusive husbands. He was 6'9'' and therefore there was really no where that he could hide once the police caught on to his murderous activities. At a young age Edmund tortured and killed animals and had fantasies that combined sex and violence (crime library, 2000). Edmund's younger sister said that "he would stage his own execution in the form of a childhood 'game' in which he had her lead him to a chair, blindfold him, and pull and imaginary lever, after which he would writhe about as if dying in a gas chamber" (Leyton: 1995, 43). By the time that Edmund was finally apprehended by the police he had killed ten people by strangulation , stabbing an shooting. These victims not only perfect strangers but his grandparents and his mother as well.

    Read More

  • Atco Ghost of the Southern New Jersey Piney Barrens

    1846 Words  | 4 Pages

    The sparsely populated towns and countryside of the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey have often been the ideal setting of various ghost stories, including the infamous tale of the Jersey Devil, that are told in the more heavily populated Northern New Jersey and Philadelphia metropolitan regions. One of those “Piney” towns is home to a lesser-known, but equally interesting, tale of a street that is haunted by the ghost of a young boy. The story is set in the town of Atco, within Waterford Township, and is located approximately half-way between Philadelphia and Atlantic City, right in the heart of the Wharton State Forest section of the Pine Barrens National Reserve.

    Read More

  • What Really Happened in the Boston Massacre?

    921 Words  | 2 Pages

    On the night of March 5th, it is believed that a small group of boys began taunting a British soldier. Over the boys’ nonsense, the soldier battered one of his oppressors with his musket. Soon after the alleged incident a crowd of about fifty or sixty people surrounded the frightened solider. The enraged crowd of people sounded the soldier, encouraging him to call for backup. Soon after calling for help, seven soldiers along with Captain Preston...

    Read More

  • Johnny and Ponyboy are Innocent of Murder

    632 Words  | 2 Pages

    This morning October 8th 1965 at about 5:13 am the body of Bob Sheldon was found lying next to the park fountain he was seen to be in a pool of blood. His body had a single stab wound in his back which had pierced his heart, killing him instantly. Supposed eye witnesses say that a small boy who was a member of the "Greaser Gang" attacked and killed Bob and intended to kill the rest of them. Cherry Valance claims that she was walking with Johnny and Ponyboy after the movies when Bob approached them in his car and threatened the two them. Be on the lookout for the two boys with the description of one that has long light-brown hair, green eyes, and is about five feet tall and another has long jet-black hair, large black eyes, and is about four feet six inches. The first one is considered to be Ponyboy and the second one is considered to be Johnny. The two are now on the run they were last seen at a party with Dally. Investigators report that Dally says he has no idea where these two are but he thinks that they are going to Mexico. A woman was taking a walk through the park and discovered the bloody corpse she said “I was hesitant at first because I thought they were watching me, but I gained some courage and called 911” the friends that were their helping Bob bully the 2 said they were there during the homicide, but decided not to call the police because they were drunk and they were scared after seeing him dead. They said, the murderer was a 16 year old boy named Johnny Cade.

    Read More

  • Toxin In The Film The Happening

    1168 Words  | 3 Pages

    Beginning in New York at Central Park, men and women went on with their daily lives and routines before being hit with a gust of wind accompanied by an altered mental state with profound confusion and short term memory. Victims lost memory of where they were, who they were and what they were doing. After confusion hit, a scream is heard by all and the most severe symptom occurred; suicide. A sensation to murder oneself that was so deep and overpowering,

    Read More

  • The Hollow Men

    1106 Words  | 3 Pages

    and solicitation of ‘pennies for the Old Guy’. Eliot’s images of scarecrows, a cellar, and violent souls recall this tale of a violent plot tha...

    Read More

More about The Halifax Slasher

Open Document