A Hanging in Detroit

A Hanging in Detroit PDF Author: David Gardner Chardavoyne
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 0814337392
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
The first historical study—and a riveting account—of the last execution in Michigan. On September 24, 1830, Stephen G. Simmons, a fifty-year-old tavern keeper and farmer, was hanged in Detroit for murdering his wife, Levana Simmons, in a drunken, jealous rage. Michigan executed only two people during the fifty-year period, from 1796 to 1846, when the death penalty was legal within its boundaries. Simmons was the second and last person to be executed under Michigan law. In A Hanging in DetroitDavid G. Chardavoyne vividly evokes not only the crime, trial, and execution of Simmons, but also the setting and players of the drama, social and legal customs of the times, and the controversy that arose because of the affair. Chardavoyne illuminates his account of this important moment in Michigan's history with many little-known facts, creating a study that is at once an engrossing story and the first historical examination of the event that helped bring about the abolition of the death penalty in Michigan. Simmons execution came at a time when Michigan had begun to change from a sparsely populated wilderness to a thriving agricultural center, and Detroit from a small military outpost to a metropolis founded on trade, manufacturing, and an influx of immigrants and other settlers. The hanging was a defining moment during this period of dramatic social change. Thousands of spectators crowded into Detroit expecting to see a thrilling public execution. Many of those spectators, however, left deeply disturbed by the spectacle they had witnessed. Chardavoyne, a lawyer, probes the unsettling incident which sparked a profound shift in attitudes toward capital punishment in Michigan, examining along the way such mysteries as why Simmons was hanged for his crime when other contemporary killers were hardly punished at all. A Hanging in Detroit will fascinate legal historians and lay readers alike with its incisive look into Great Lakes regional history and crime and punishment in Michigan.

A Hanging in Detroit

A Hanging in Detroit PDF Author: David Gardner Chardavoyne
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 0814337392
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 259

Get Book Here

Book Description
The first historical study—and a riveting account—of the last execution in Michigan. On September 24, 1830, Stephen G. Simmons, a fifty-year-old tavern keeper and farmer, was hanged in Detroit for murdering his wife, Levana Simmons, in a drunken, jealous rage. Michigan executed only two people during the fifty-year period, from 1796 to 1846, when the death penalty was legal within its boundaries. Simmons was the second and last person to be executed under Michigan law. In A Hanging in DetroitDavid G. Chardavoyne vividly evokes not only the crime, trial, and execution of Simmons, but also the setting and players of the drama, social and legal customs of the times, and the controversy that arose because of the affair. Chardavoyne illuminates his account of this important moment in Michigan's history with many little-known facts, creating a study that is at once an engrossing story and the first historical examination of the event that helped bring about the abolition of the death penalty in Michigan. Simmons execution came at a time when Michigan had begun to change from a sparsely populated wilderness to a thriving agricultural center, and Detroit from a small military outpost to a metropolis founded on trade, manufacturing, and an influx of immigrants and other settlers. The hanging was a defining moment during this period of dramatic social change. Thousands of spectators crowded into Detroit expecting to see a thrilling public execution. Many of those spectators, however, left deeply disturbed by the spectacle they had witnessed. Chardavoyne, a lawyer, probes the unsettling incident which sparked a profound shift in attitudes toward capital punishment in Michigan, examining along the way such mysteries as why Simmons was hanged for his crime when other contemporary killers were hardly punished at all. A Hanging in Detroit will fascinate legal historians and lay readers alike with its incisive look into Great Lakes regional history and crime and punishment in Michigan.

The Michigan Murders

The Michigan Murders PDF Author: Edward Keyes
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504025598
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Edgar Award Finalist: The true story of a serial killer who terrorized a midwestern town in the era of free love—by the coauthor of The French Connection. In 1967, during the time of peace, free love, and hitchhiking, nineteen-year-old Mary Terese Fleszar was last seen alive walking home to her apartment in Ypsilanti, Michigan. One month later, her naked body—stabbed over thirty times and missing both feet and a forearm—was discovered, partially buried, on an abandoned farm. A year later, the body of twenty-year-old Joan Schell was found, similarly violated. Southeastern Michigan was terrorized by something it had never experienced before: a serial killer. Over the next two years, five more bodies were uncovered around Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, Michigan. All the victims were tortured and mutilated. All were female students. After multiple failed investigations, a chance sighting finally led to a suspect. On the surface, John Norman Collins was an all-American boy—a fraternity member studying elementary education at Eastern Michigan University. But Collins wasn’t all that he seemed. His female friends described him as aggressive and short tempered. And in August 1970, Collins, the “Ypsilanti Ripper,” was arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison without chance of parole. Written by the coauthor of The French Connection, The Michigan Murders delivers a harrowing depiction of the savage murders that tormented a small midwestern town.

Detroit Rich Boys

Detroit Rich Boys PDF Author: Muscles
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1450296459
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
"Detroit Rich Boys" tells the story of James Mussellistine, better known as Muscles to his friends, a young teenager from the west side of Detroit. He ended up being part of the original Puritan Avenue gang known as the PAs. Although he was raised in a middle-class neighborhood off Six Mile Road, the young gangster couldn't stop hanging out with the likes of Niddy and Roni, two friends from across Puritan Road. When Muscles and his friends enroll in Mumford, Detroit's most volatile school, the roller-coaster lifestyle of gangbanging rolls from the school strait to the streets. The Puritan Gang was the poorest gang in the school, and their numbers were weak compared to their legendary rivals, the Six, Seven, Eight Mile Gangs. Even so, Mumford's Puritan leaders, the PAs, arose from virtual anonymity to become one of the most dangerous neighborhood gangs in Detroit history. "Once upon a time Detroit was once considered the promise land for black people in America. By the1980s, however, Detroit had become the land of bondage, where people were enslaved by drugs, poverty, and violence. From the Lunatic Assassins and the 8 mile Sconies to the Black Killers and the PAs. The streets of the Westside are all here." Al Profit Murder City

Michigan Genealogy

Michigan Genealogy PDF Author: Carol McGinnis
Publisher: Genealogical Publishing Com
ISBN: 9780806317557
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 518

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Book Description
This is one of the finest statewide sourcebooks ever published, a remarkable compilation of sources and resources that are available to help researchers find their Michigan ancestors. It identifies records on the state and regional level and then the county level, providing details of vital records, court and land records, military records, newspapers, and census records, as well as the holdings of the various societies and institutions whose resources and facilities support the special needs of the genealogist. County-by-county, it lists the names, addresses, websites, e-mail addresses, and hours of business of libraries, archives, genealogical and historical societies, courthouses, and other record repositories; describes their manuscripts and record collections; highlights their special holdings; and provides details regarding queries, searches, and restrictions on the use of their records.

How It Happens

How It Happens PDF Author: Jean Alicia Elster
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 081434870X
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Intergenerational story of three Black women and their struggle to stake their claim to the American dream. How It Happensfollows the story of author Jean Alicia Elster’s maternal grandmother, Dorothy May Jackson. Born in Tennessee in 1890, Dorothy May was the middle daughter of Addie Jackson, a married African-American housekeeper at one of the white boardinghouses in town, and Tom Mitchell, a commanding white attorney from a prominent family. Through three successive generations of African-American women, Elster intertwines the fictionalized adaptations of the defining periods and challenges—race relations, miscegenation, sexual assault, and class divisions—in her family’s history. A continuation of the plots begun in Elster’s two novels Who’s Jim Hines? and The Colored Car, How It Happens continues the story for an older audience and begins with Addie’s life before the turn of the century in the South as a married Black woman with three biracial daughters navigating the relationship between her husband and Tom Mitchell. Later the story shifts to Addie’s daughter Dorothy May’s experiences both as a child and later, as a teacher who, choosing between her career and marriage to a man she barely knows, moves to Detroit. The story moves along with Dorothy May’s daughter Jean, who, with the support of her mother and the memory of her grandmother, confronts and comes to terms with her role in society and the options available to her as a college-educated Black woman in the post–World War II industrial North. While there is struggle and hardship for each of these women, they each build off one other and continue to demand space in the world in which they live. Written for young adult readers, How It Happens carries the heart through the obstacles that still face women of color today and persists in holding open the door of communication between generations.

The Elusive Purple Gang

The Elusive Purple Gang PDF Author: Gregory A. Fournier
Publisher: Wheatmark, Inc.
ISBN: 1627877150
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
The Elusive Purple Gang: Detroit's Kosher Nostra is a concise history of one of America's most notorious Prohibition gangs. The Burnstein brothers and their associates were the only Jewish gang in the United States to dominate the rackets of a major American city. From their meteoric rise to the top of Detroit's underworld to their ultimate demise, this is an episodic account of the Purple Gang's corrosive pursuit of power and wealth and their inevitable plunge towards self-destruction.

Imprisoned by the Past

Imprisoned by the Past PDF Author: Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199967938
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
In 1987, the United States Supreme Court decided a case that could have ended the death penalty in the United States. Imprisoned by the Past: Warren McCleskey and the American Death Penalty examines the long history of the American death penalty and its connection to the case of Warren McCleskey, revealing how that case marked a turning point for the history of the death penalty. In this book, Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier explores one of the most important Supreme Court cases in history, a case that raised important questions about race and punishment, and ultimately changed the way we understand the death penalty today. McCleskey's case resulted in one of the most important Supreme Court decisions in U.S. history, where the Court confronted evidence of racial discrimination in the administration of capital punishment. The case currently marks the last time that the Supreme Court had a realistic chance of completely striking down capital punishment. As such, the case also marked a turning point in the death penalty debate in the country. Going back nearly four centuries, this book connects McCleskey's life and crime to the issues that have haunted the American death penalty debate since the first executions by early settlers through the modern twenty-first century death penalty. Imprisoned by the Past ties together three unique American stories. First, the book considers the changing American death penalty across centuries where drastic changes have occurred in the last fifty years. Second, the book discusses the role that race played in that history. And third, the book tells the story of Warren McCleskey and how his life and legal case brought together the other two narratives.

Darker than Night

Darker than Night PDF Author: Tom Henderson
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429997087
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
A chilling account of the murders of two hunters in rural Michigan—a mystery that haunted a community and baffled the police for two decades. In the bitter cold of 1985, two buddies from Detroit embark on a hunting trip to the Michigan wilderness, unaware they will soon become the hunted. The eerie silence surrounding their sudden disappearance is broken after nearly two decades when a relentless investigator inspires a terrified witness to break her silence. The witness narrates a haunting scene that had unfolded years back, pointing fingers at the prime suspects—the Duvall brothers. With no bodies unearthed, the justice system is riveted by the startling revelations during an electrifying trial in 2003. The brothers, Raymond and Donald Duvall, had bragged about the murders, evocatively explaining how they dismembered their victims and fed them to pigs. Despite the shocking confession, the case holds its ground purely on a single witness’s account, taking the courtroom through a labyrinth of dark secrets and sinister acts. This gripping thriller presents a vivid tale of crime that reveals the devastating power of evil.

One More River to Cross

One More River to Cross PDF Author: Bryan Prince
Publisher: Dundurn
ISBN: 1459701534
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Accused of the attempted murder of a plantation owner in Maryland during the early 1800s, Isaac Brown, a slave, survived harsh punishment, escaped, was recaptured, escaped again, and in the face of multiple challenges, ultimately made his way to freedom in Canada. This is his story.

Secret Societies in Detroit

Secret Societies in Detroit PDF Author: Bill Loomis
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1439671923
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
Secret societies have operated in Detroit for most of the city's history. Many started for fun and companionship. Others had more serious ends in mind. The African American Mysteries: The Order of the Men of Oppression helped enslaved people escape the South for freedom in Canada. During the Civil War, so-called black lantern societies like the Knights of the Golden Circle and the Union League waged a covert war in Detroit and across the northern Midwest. In the last century, it wasn't uncommon for a sober suburbanite to catch the train to Detroit and don yellow silk pantaloons, a purple fez and embroidered vest to drink "Tarantula juice." Join Bill Loomis in this fascinating look into the secret world of these groups.