The Servant Girl Murders were one America’s earliest serial killings, predating Jack the Ripper by three years.

In 1948, a corpse was found on a beach in Adelaide, Australia. His identity, and how he died, remains a mystery.

In 1964, a Ku Klux Klan “hit squad” rode into Ferriday, Louisiana and set Frank Morris on fire. Nearly a half-century later, one of the alleged participants is still a free man.

In 1982, seven people ingested Tylenol sprinkled with a fatal dose of cyanide. The case has never been solved.

An oral history of Motown Records, its founder Berry Gordy, and 1960s Detroit.

On wandering through the city’s “post-American” landscape.

A response to the national media’s mourning.

On Mayor Dave Bing’s plan to demolish 10,000 abandoned homes throughout the city.

On his last day at the paper, memories from Kaplan’s 15 years at the helm.

A profile of Beatty as Bulworth hit theaters.

A profile of post-Observer Kaplan.

Kaplan on 9/11 and the city he loved.

On the Wise and Cranky Kaplan Twitter feeds.

A profile of Gardner in her twilight.

Three Dallas prostitutes were found dead in as many months. Charles Albright might be the last person you’d suspect—unless you knew about his unique, lifelong obsession.

How two love-struck, type-A high-schoolers almost got away with murder.

A charming assistant funeral home director in a small Texas town murders a wealthy widow, keeps her in a freezer for months, finally gets caught, and still has the town’s sympathy as his case goes to trial.

Lance Butterfield was the captain of the football team, had a 4.0 GPA and a girl he loved. It wasn’t enough for his dad. And then his dad became too much for him.

Peggy Jo Tallas, a soft-spoken bachelorette, spent much of her adult life doing two things: taking care of her ailing mother and robbing bank after bank dressed as a pudgy, bearded cowboy.

The story of Dean Corll and his accomplices, who killed more than 20 teenage boys in the Heights neighborhood of Houston in the early 1970s, and the families searching for their missing sons.

An excerpt from Whitey Bulger: America’s Most Wanted Gangster and the Manhunt That Brought Him to Justice.

A view of the Barefoot Bandit from his hometown.

Can a writer disappear in America for a month with a $5,000 bounty on his head?

The story of how Benjamin Holmes, wanted by the FBI for arson, spent two decades hiding in plain sight. (Also the story of how, when Holmes finally came back to see his wife, she shot him.)

On the run in Canada with Randy Quaid and his wife Evi as the try to evade “the Hollywood Star Whackers.”

A visit to the French hideaway of Ira Einhorn, co-founder of Earth Day, who had avoided arrest on murder charges for nearly 20 years. Einhorn was extradited to the United State. in 2001 and is now serving a life sentence.