True Crime Historian presents Pulp Nonfiction, a reading from the pioneers of true crime.

True crime history is not just about reviving the stories of America's scandals, scoundrels,

scoundrels, but also about exploring the history of true crime as a literary genre.

Although he became better known late in his career for his books on travel and on Japanese

legends and ghost stories, Lafcateo

Hearn began his professional writing career as a staff correspondent for the Cincinnati

Enquirer. He was such a devotee of Edgar Allan Poe that he carried the nickname

The Raven, given to him by an early mentor throughout his life. This devotion shows in much of his writing,

including this account of a tannered murder in 1874. Even though the author was visually impaired,

Hearn's account of this ghastly crime contains graphic details of the discovery of the body and the autopsy.

So if you are sensitive to such

things, you might want to fast forward through that part. The tanyard was situated next to a

soap factory that caught fire the previous night and attracted a crowd of 50,000 people, the

newspaper said, to watch the massive flames. Such was the mood of the city that Hearn begins his report with a quote from William Shakespeare's tragic Hamlet.

I'm true crime historian Richard O. Jones, and now that you've been warned, I give you Lothcadio Hearn's violent cremation, the terrible vengeance of a father.

Cincinnati, Ohio, November 9th, 1874.

One woe doth tread upon another's heel, so fast they follow.

Scarcely have we done recording the particulars of one of the greatest conflagrations that has occurred in our city for years,

then we are called upon to describe the foulest murder that has ever darkened the escutcheon of our state.

A murder so atrocious and so horrible that the soul

sickenes at its revolting details. A murder that was probably hastened by the fire, though vengeance

could be the only prompter of two of the accused murderers, fear of a dreadful secret coming to

...