Smithereen Street: the West 117th Street explosion (1953) -- Friday on his mind: the Spanish fly killer (1948) -- Gangsters' gangster: the improbable story of "Big Jim" Morton (1884-1960) -- Cuyahoga death trip: the Willow Bridge scow disaster (1896) -- The man with the twisted life: the sad saga of Ernst Watzl (1929-1930) -- "They'll never take me alive!": the Mary Sheperd slaughter (1906) -- Death in the deep pit: the terminal tower tragedy (1928) -- A quiet, middle-aged man: the assassination of Dr. Alfred P. Scully (1930) -- A most unquiet grave: the Sarah Victor Story (1868) -- Paddle wheel deathtrap: the G.P. Griffith disaster (1850) -- When monsters walk: Mary Jane Brady & the Collins twins (1943) -- Killer from the attic: the Reichlin murder (1903) -- Sooner or later: the Thompson trophy tragedy (1949) -- Jazz age hit-skip: the Alice Leonard story (1928) -- "I am settling for all past wrongs . . .": William Adin's cross-town bloodbath (1875) -- Damn the torpedoes: the fireworks factory horrors (1902-1903) -- "No mother, nor no mother, nor nothin'": the death of Alfred Williams (1900) -- Death of the dancehall girls: the Anna Kinkopf/Eva Meyer murders (1905) -- Burning ... burning ... burning river: the Cuyahoga river fires of 1912, 1922, 1930, 1948, 1952, and 1969 -- Three distaff poisoners: Elsie Bass (1917); Anna Kempf (1928); and Dorothy Kaplan (1956) -- Orville's "little boy blue": the melvin Horst mystery (1928) -- The body in the harbor: Samuel Smith's fatal jetsam (1904) -- A victorian scandal: the Thomas Axworthy affair (1888) -- Shot in his own bed: the murder of David Skinner (1868) -- Rampant criminality: the legend of Shondor Birns (1906-1975) -- When nature frowns: the Lorain tornado (1924).