 His looks might have been ruined but his reputation was assured.  
These mugshots show mobster Al Capone the day he entered Terminal Island Prison in California today in 1939, having been sent up for eleven months for tax evasion. The photos caught our eye because Capone generally tried to hide his scars, but in the second shot you see them clearly, three parallel slashes along his cheek, jaw, and neck. Capone told various stories about how he acquired these marks, but in truth he got them by being a little too familiar with fellow thug Frank Galluccio's kid sister Lena. It happened in 1917 in Frankie Yale’s Harvard Inn, a bar and brothel in Coney Island, New York. After numerous insinuating comments to young Lena, Capone finally told her, “You got a nice ass, honey, and I mean that as a compliment. Believe me.” At as result of that overture Frank Galluccio went at Capone with a knife—aiming for a fatal wound to the jugular but missing three times.
Capone had a notoriously short temper accompanied by a long memory, but even though he'd been disfigured for life during this incident he never sought revenge, even after he became basically the most powerful mobster in the U.S. Again, there are different stories about this, but the consensus seems to be that Capone had violated mob rules by messing with Galluccio's sister, and seeking revenge over what had been his own breach of ethics would have caused him no end of trouble. Galluccio worried about possible revenge, but never regretted what he'd done, saying in an interview many years later, “Fuck him. He deserved it.” Ultimately, maybe Capone should have thanked Galluccio for both his gruesome appearance that made many a rival wither, and his nickname that was fearfully whispered coast to coast—Scarface.
 Woman accidentally kills boyfriend in encyclopedia stunt gone wrong. 
A Minnesota woman has been charged with second degree manslaughter this week after fatally shooting her boyfriend in the chest with a 50-calibre Desert Eagle handgun. Monalisa Perez and Pedro Ruiz wanted to be YouTube stars, and in a bid to increase viewership of their channel about being teen parents had conceived a stunt where Ruiz would stop a bullet with an encyclopedia held to his chest. Perez had posted on social media earlier in the day that it was her boyfriend's idea, but of course there's nothing in the posting to suggest she had doubts the crazy idea would work. Firing from a foot away, Perez ventilated her boyfriend as their three-year-old child and thirty neighbors watched.
 The couple should have read the encyclopedia instead of shooting it. If they had turned to the entry marked “handguns,” they'd have learned that a 50-calibre Desert Eagle is about as powerful as a sidearm gets, and its round will go through a refrigerator. Turn past the handgun part and there's an entry on “hearts,” which explains that because it's one of the body's primary organs and people generally can't live without an intact one, any stunt that puts it at risk is idiotic by definition. And beyond that section there's the entry “hubris,” which would be defined as excessive self confidence, often leading to one looking like an ignoramus. In this instance a dead one. Yes, we know it's not really a joking matter. But we aren't joking—there's real value in reading, and we highly recommend it.
 A case of double trouble for wrongly convicted Kansas man.  
Speaking of doubles, put this one in the amazing coincidences file. A Kansas man who spent seventeen years in prison was released Monday when a judge admitted that an exact double may have committed the crime for which he was jailed. Richard Jones, the man who was released, appears on the right in both mugshots, while an almost identical man appears on the left. This doppelgangbanger is an ex-convict who lived in Kansas City, Kansas in the vicinity of where several people were robbed at gunpoint in 1999, while Jones lived with his wife and kids across the state line in Kansas City, Missouri. Since Jones was convicted only on eyewitness identification by the victims, and there was no physical, DNA, or fingerprint evidence to link him to the crime, a judge ruled that there was sufficient cause to order his release. Interestingly, after years of failed legal appeals it was Jones himself who broke the case by finally chatting with inmates in prison, who told him that he bore an uncanny resemblance to an ex-con named Ricky. Just over a year ago Jones contacted the Midwest Innocence Project, and they located a photo of this Ricky character, who it turned out had actually been questioned about the original robbery but had denied involvement. Why his interrogators failed to notice the resemblance to the accused is a mystery that is yet to be unravelled. Maybe Ricky had a perm that day. Anyway, photos were presented to one of the victims of the robbery, two eyewitnesses, and the prosecutor of the case, and none could tell the two men apart. Jones, who maintained his innocence all along, said, “When I saw the picture of my double it all made sense to me.”
The irony is strong with this case. Consider: it was mere proximity to the thief that got Jones sent upstate, but it also turned out to be proximity that led to convicts in the same prison as Jones knowing of Ricky. If Jones had been sentenced to a different prison he'd still be behind bars, which, while he must be thrilled to be breathing the sweet air of freedom, is a thought we imagine keeps him up nights. But that's not the only irony here. Ricky will not be charged with a crime. How can he be? The victims and eyewitnesses can't be relied upon. Absent physical evidence, DNA, or fingerprints there's no way to be sure he was the perpetrator. It could have been Jones, his double. It wasn't. But technically, it could have been. The lesson here is crystal clear—if you hear of someone that looks like you, take the opportunity to commit a heinous crime and you'll get away scot-free.
 You’re nobody ’til somebody arrests you.  
Some items fall into the our-website-is-not-complete-without-them category, so here are Frank Sinatra’s mugshots after being arrested in Bergen County, New Jersey today in 1938 and charged with seduction, which involved having sexual intercourse with a “single female of good repute.” He was locally famous at this point—he had performed with a group called The Hoboken Four, and had sung live on Dance Parade, a show broadcast on New York City’s WNEW radio station. The woman in question was Antoinette Della Penta Francke, better known as Toni Francke. Sinatra had trysted with Francke at least twice, then stopped calling her after his mother Dolly decided she was “cheap trash.” Spurned, Francke went to the police, claimed she had been tricked into intercourse, and was pregnant as a result. But when the authorities later determined that Francke was married they dismissed the charge, since seduction involved staining the reputations of single women.
Francke was persistent, however, and filed a new complaint, this time for adultery, which was basically the same as seduction, but with even more serious implications because it made the cuckolded husband a complainant. Sinatra’s response: “She’s got some nerve, that one. She was the one committing adultery. I didn’t even know she was married.” The Hudson Dispatch reported the second arrest under the headline: Songbird Held on Morals Charge. According to biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli, Sinatra called the newspaper in a rage. “I’m comin’ down there and I’m gonna beat your brains out, you hear me? I’m gonna kill you and anyone else who had anything to do with that article. And by the way, I ain’t no songbird, you idiot. A dame—that’s a songbird.” The adultery charge was also dropped, under circumstances that remain hazy, but we suspect it had to do with elements of falsehood in Francke’s account of what happened. When all was finally said and done Sinatra was free as a… um… bird, but the great shots above survive.
 It’s when the second set of photos were made that she probably felt like hiding. 
Is Suzanne Somers really a femme fatale? Good question. Well, before she became extremely famous playing Chrissy Snow on the 1970s/80s sitcom Three’s Company, she had bit parts in such films as Bullitt, Magnum Force, and the populist thriller Billy Jack Goes to Washington. She also guested on Starsky and Hutch and The Rockford Files. Some may consider all of that a thin résumé. In that case, check out her booking photos below—that’s instant fatale credibility. Those are from March 1970, when she was arrested in San Francisco for passing bad checks, and the bikini shot showing her having a much better time in Puerto Vallarta is from later the same year. 
 It’s better to look good than to feel good. 
When in doubt, grin idiotically. That’s the mantra in American politics, and that’s why we were completely unsurprised when Texas governor Rick Perry’s mugshot showed him smiling like he’d just learned a dirty secret. For the most part, we think that if a person under arrest were guilty he’d be distressed he got caught, thus not smiling, and if he were innocent he’d be even more distressed to have been railroaded, thus doubly not smiling. But Perry certainly wasn’t the first politician to pull the I’m-smiling-because-I’ve-got-nothing-to-worry-about routine, which is why his photo inspired us to locate more examples. Below we have a small rogues gallery of cheerful mugshots. Charges cover a range—campaign finance violations, criminal trespass, drunk driving, drug charges, and nobody here has served prison time. Hmm, do you think they knew all along they never would? Maybe that’s the dirty secret.       
 A very bad end to a very bad night. 
The above mugshot shows burlesque queen Bettie Page after being arrested in Hialeah, Florida. In response to an emergency call, police arrived at a local residence to find Page in the front yard battering her former husband Harry Lear. We can’t help but note that if Florida’s Stand Your Ground law had been on the books back then, Lear could have simply shot Page dead, no muss, no fuss. But Florida had a semi-sane legal code at the time, so when the police arrived they hauled her off to the precinct. That was in the wee hours today in 1972.
 Yeah, you caught me, but I'd probably do it again. 
This shot shows up everywhere on the internet, but it’s still worth posting. It’s of course Steve McQueen, a bit battered but basically looking as if he hasn’t a care in the world, under arrest in Anchorage, Alaska for suspicion of drunk driving. He was turning doughnuts in the snow, which sounds to us like a fine idea. That was today in 1972. Bailed, McQueen never returned to Anchorage and was convicted in absentia of reckless driving.
 Joliet police drop bombshell on shocked public regarding brutal January double-murder. 
Partying was the lure, but robbery was the motive. In the town of Joilet, Illinois in mid-January four people—Joshua Miner, Alisa Massaro, Bethany McKee, and Adam Landerman, seen from clockwise above, invited two acquaintances into Massaro’s house where they strangled them. When police arrived on the scene they found the bodies of Eric Glover and Terrance Rankins, below, face down inside the house with plastic bags tied around their heads. Local police chief Mike Trafton said at the time, “After the homicides were committed, [the killers] continued the party atmosphere, I guess I would say, without getting into it any further.” Yesterday the public found out what Trafton was so shy about revealing back in January. At least two of the killers allegedly had sex atop the bodies of the victims. Possibly it was even a two guy/one girl threesome. Apparently they spread a sheet on the freshly dead victims and went at it. Joshua Miner told police after his arrest that Massaro had said “years back that she wanted to have sex with a dead guy” and he wanted to help her fulfill part of her fantasy. Well, Massaro can cross that off her bucket list. Ordinarily we'd say prosecutors will make sure the entire group kicks that same bucket pretty soon, but luckily for them Illinois has no death penalty.
 Ghosts from Britain's past appear in online archive. Back in mid-August, the Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums put up a Flickr set consisting of mugshots taken in Newcastle upon Tyne in the 1930s. These kinds of collections are always a bit disconcerting, since everyone in them is just bones by now, but especially interesting is the physical data, listing missing fingers, eyes, and whatnot. It’s curious that many of these miscreants stood just over 5 feet tall and the tallest was 5' 9"-ish. Well, that's evolution in action—building better, taller criminals for the future! See the full mugshot collection here, and an even more interesting rogues gallery from Australia here.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1967—First Space Program Casualty Occurs
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when, during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after more than ten successful orbits, the capsule's main parachute fails to deploy properly, and the backup chute becomes entangled in the first. The capsule's descent is slowed, but it still hits the ground at about 90 mph, at which point it bursts into flames. Komarov is the first human to die during a space mission. 1986—Otto Preminger Dies
Austro–Hungarian film director Otto Preminger, who directed such eternal classics as Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Carmen Jones, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Stalag 17, and for his efforts earned a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, dies in New York City, aged 80, from cancer and Alzheimer's disease. 1998—James Earl Ray Dies
The convicted assassin of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., petty criminal James Earl Ray, dies in prison of hepatitis aged 70, protesting his innocence as he had for decades. Members of the King family who supported Ray's fight to clear his name believed the U.S. Government had been involved in Dr. King's killing, but with Ray's death such questions became moot. 1912—Pravda Is Founded
The newspaper Pravda, or Truth, known as the voice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg. It is one of the country's leading newspapers until 1991, when it is closed down by decree of then-President Boris Yeltsin. A number of other Pravdas appear afterward, including an internet site and a tabloid. 1983—Hitler's Diaries Found
The German magazine Der Stern claims that Adolf Hitler's diaries had been found in wreckage in East Germany. The magazine had paid 10 million German marks for the sixty small books, plus a volume about Rudolf Hess's flight to the United Kingdom, covering the period from 1932 to 1945. But the diaries are subsequently revealed to be fakes written by Konrad Kujau, a notorious Stuttgart forger. Both he and Stern journalist Gerd Heidemann go to trial in 1985 and are each sentenced to 42 months in prison.
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