Darlie Lynn Peck Routier is an American woman from Rowlett, Texas, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of her five-year-old son Damon in 1996. She has also been charged with capital murder in the death of her six-year-old son, Devon, who was murdered at the same time as Damon. To date, Routier has not been tried for Devon’s murder.
Harriet Jacobs was an African-American abolitionist and writer whose autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, published in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent, is now considered an "American classic". Born into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina, she was sexually harassed by her enslaver. When he threatened to sell her children if she did not submit to his desire, she hid in a tiny crawl space under the roof of her grandmother's house, so low she could not stand up in it. After staying there for seven years, she finally managed to escape to the free North, where she was reunited with her children Joseph and Louisa Matilda and her brother John S. Jacobs. She found work as a nanny and got into contact with abolitionist and feminist reformers. Even in New York City, her freedom was in danger until her employer was able to pay off her legal owner.
Dame Rose Heilbron DBE, QC was a British barrister who served as a High Court judge. Her career included many "firsts" for a woman – she was the first woman to achieve a first class honours degree in law at the University of Liverpool, the first woman to win a scholarship to Gray's Inn, one of the first two women to be appointed King's Counsel in England, the first woman to lead in a murder case, the first woman recorder, the first woman judge to sit at the Old Bailey, and the first woman treasurer of Gray's Inn. She was also the second woman to be appointed a High Court judge, after Elizabeth Lane.
Graham Allen Kinniburgh was an Australian organised crime figure from Kew, a suburb of Melbourne. He became a victim of the Melbourne gangland killings, which were dramatised in the drama series Underbelly.
Corinne Cole is an American model and actress. She was briefly known as Lari Laine early in her career.
Bernard O'Mahoney is an English author, security detail,founding member of the essex boys and former soldier. After taking control of security at a nightclub he became associated with Tony Tucker, a drug dealer who was shot along with two others in what is known as the Rettendon murders.
And Be a Villain is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by the Viking Press in 1948. The story was collected in the omnibus volumes Full House and Triple Zeck.
The Man with a Cloak is a 1951 American film noir crime-thriller-drama directed by Fletcher Markle and starring Joseph Cotten, Barbara Stanwyck, Louis Calhern, and Leslie Caron, and based on "The Gentleman from Paris", a short story by John Dickson Carr.
Alice Mona Alison Caird was an English novelist and essayist. Her feminist writings and views caused controversy in the late 19th century. She also advocated for animal rights and civil liberties, and contributed to advancing the interests of the New Woman in the public sphere.
Christmas Eve is a 1947 American comedy film directed by Edwin L. Marin. It is based on the story by Laurence Stallings and Richard H. Landau and stars George Raft, George Brent and Randolph Scott. An independent production by Benedict Bogeaus it was distributed by United Artists. It was rereleased under the title Sinner's Holiday.
Matilda of England was an English princess of the House of Plantagenet and by marriage Duchess consort of Saxony and Bavaria from 1168 until her husband's deposition in 1180.
The McCulkin murders were the murders of Barbara McCulkin (34) and her two daughters, Vicki (13) and Leanne (11), in Queensland in 1974.
Pamela Marie Hupp is an American murderer serving a life sentence in Missouri's Chillicothe Correctional Center for the 2016 shooting of Louis Gumpenberger in her home in O'Fallon, Missouri. Hupp's claim that she had shot Gumpenberger in self-defense after he pursued her into her home wielding a knife was not accepted by law enforcement. She ultimately entered an Alford plea before charges of first-degree murder and armed criminal action could go to trial.
Troubled Blood is the fifth novel in the Cormoran Strike series, written by J. K. Rowling and published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The novel was released on 15 September 2020.
Sharper is a 2023 American psychological thriller film directed by Benjamin Caron and written by Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka. The film stars Julianne Moore, Sebastian Stan, Justice Smith, Briana Middleton, and John Lithgow.
The Tilly Escape occurred in October 1856 when an enslaved woman, Tilly, was led by Harriet Tubman from slavery in Baltimore to safety in Philadelphia. Historians who have studied Tubman consider it "one of her most complicated and clever escape attempts." It was a risky trip because Tubman and Tilly would not have been able to travel directly from Baltimore to Philadelphia without proof that they were free women. In addition, local slave traders would have recognized strangers. Tubman sought to evade capture by going south, before heading north, and using different modes of transportation over water and land.
Harriet Tyce is a Scottish barrister and novelist, the author of Blood Orange (2019), The Lies you Told (2020) and It ends at midnight (2022).
Nadine Lott was an Irishwoman who was murdered by her ex-partner, Daniel Murtagh, in December 2019. On 14 December, Lott, who was 30 years old at the time, was subjected to a "sustained and violent attack", in which Murtagh, a trained boxer, caused severe blunt force trauma with his bare hands, as well as stabbing Lott repeatedly.
Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical, or simply Matilda the Musical, is a 2022 musical fantasy comedy drama film directed by Matthew Warchus from a screenplay by Dennis Kelly, based on the stage musical of the same name by Kelly and Tim Minchin, which in turn is based on the 1988 novel Matilda by Roald Dahl. The film, co-produced by TriStar Pictures, Working Title Films, and The Roald Dahl Story Company, is the second film adaptation of the novel, following the 1996 film. The film stars Alisha Weir as the title character, alongside Lashana Lynch, Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, Sindhu Vee, and Emma Thompson. In the film, Matilda Wormwood (Weir), who is neglected and mistreated by her parents, develops psychokinetic abilities to deal with Miss Trunchbull (Thompson), the ruthless and cruel headmistress of Crunchem Hall School.
On 3 June 1991, 21 year old Alison Shaughnessy was stabbed to death in the stairwell of her flat near Clapham Junction station. Shaughnessy was newly married, but her husband was having an affair with a 20-year-old woman, Michelle Taylor. A witness reported seeing two women running from Shaughnessy's building after the murder, and fingerprints found at the scene matched Michelle and her sister Lisa Taylor, who claimed never to have been there. Michelle's diary included an entry reading "my dream solution would be for Alison to disappear, as if she never existed".
