An Almanac of Infamy

Margaret and Graham Backhouse A detective displays the notes that Graham Backhouse tried to implicate his neighbor with. April 9, 1984, started out as an ordinary day for Margaret Backhouse, a resident of the rural farming community of Horton, England. That day, she intended to go into town to run errands. It didn't strike her as unusual when her husband, Graham, insisted that she take his station wagon. After all, she needed the cargo space as she would be bringing back supplies for the family farm. However, Margaret Backhouse's day turned into a waking nightmare as soon as she started the car. It turns out that Graham's station wagon contained a pipe bomb filled with nitroglycerine and shotgun pellets. The pellets were so numerous that they nearly tore Margaret's legs away. While the damage to her legs was severe, most of the bomb's force was deflected away from Martha, and she was taken to the hospital by some neighbors who happened to be passing by. Alt...

On this day in 1968, Bernard Josephs arrived at his Bromley, England, home to find the body of his wife Claire under the couple's bed. Her throat had been cut so deeply that it was severed to the spine. Defensive wounds on her hands indicated that she had been attacked with a serrated knife. When police arrived at the scene, they could find no murder weapon, and it appeared that there was no other evidence to go on. However, this brutal murder would be solved, and Claire Josephs' killer would be convicted within four months of the crime, thanks to police determination and forensic evidence. As investigators examined the Josephs home, they noticed that Claire Josephs had been in the middle of preparing a meal. They could find no signs of forced entry and observed a half-empty cup of coffee on the kitchen table. Clearly, Claire knew her attacker. As detectives began to focus on Bernard and Claire's relatives and circle of friends, one man stood out. Roger Payne had met Clai...