Dr. James Hitchcock, professor of history, lists the top 10 most interesting murder cases in England and America before 1945. Hitchcock became interested in true crime by reading detective stories. In 1995 he published an article, "Murder as a Liberal Art," in American Scholar. He now is writing a book on true crime that will be published in two to three years.

By Dr. James Hitchcock

1. The Wallace case, Liverpool, 1931. Julia Wallace was bludgeoned to death in her home. Her husband, Herbert, was convicted, but his conviction was overturned on appeal. The case's fascination lay in the fact that every single clue pointed both toward and away from his guilt. Years later, it was discovered that Wallace had been skillfully framed by an enemy.

2. The Jack the Ripper case, London, 1888. By modern standards, this first "serial killer" did relatively little, killing five prostitutes over a period of three months. But the circumstances of the murders, including the (probably mistaken) belief that he coined his own nickname, imprinted themselves indelibly on the popular imagination. The case was unsolved; the most likely killer was an obscure lunatic named David Cohen.

3. The Borden case, Massachusetts, 1892. The elderly Andrew and Abigail Borden were hacked to death in their home. Lizzie Borden, Andrew's daughter and Abigail's stepdaughter, was acquitted, although she was almost certainly guilty. The fascination of the case is in its psychology -- how and why a highly respectable New England spinster was able to commit two atrocious murders, yet keep her aplomb.

4. The Road Hill House case, Wiltshire, 1860. The infant Francis Savile Kent was taken from his crib during the night and was found in an outhouse with his throat cut. Years later, his half-sister, Constance, confessed to the murder, which she had committed out of resentment of her stepmother. After serving a prison term, Constance lived to be 100 years old and spent the rest of her life nursing the sick. This is perhaps the only "true crime" case that rises to the level of a Greek tragedy.

5. The Croydon Poisonings, Surrey, 1928. Over a period of a year, three members of the same family -- a retired colonial administrator, his wife's sister and his wife's mother -- were poisoned in their homes. The murderer must have been one of the family, but no one was ever charged.

6. The Gorse Hall case, Cheshire, 1909. Wealthy George Storrs expected to be attacked in his home and rigged up an elaborate alarm. One night a young man broke in, wrestled with Storrs for some minutes and stabbed him to death. Several witnesses saw the prolonged struggle but were uncertain in their identifications, so that two young men were tried independently of one another and were both acquitted. The major fascination of the case is the motive of the intruder. One of the acquitted was probably the murderer, who may have thought that he was Storrs' illegitimate son.

7. The Lindbergh Kidnapping, New Jersey, 1932. The infant son of the great aviator Charles Lindbergh was taken from his crib in the Lindbergh home, and a note was left demanding ransom for his return. The money was paid, but a few months later the boy's body was found in woods not far from the kidnap site. Bruno Hauptmann, a German immigrant, was convicted and executed, mainly because he possessed some of the ransom money. Hauptmann was probably guilty but probably also had accomplices, including someone inside the Lindbergh home.

8. The Godfrey case, London, 1678. Edmund Berry Godfrey, a magistrate, took the depositions of several witnesses in connection with the fraudulent claim that there was a Popish plot to murder Charles II. After expressing fear for his safety, Godfrey disappeared and a week later was found stabbed and strangled in a field. Several Catholics, including several Jesuits, were executed for the crime, but the most likely murderer was the Earl of Pembroke, an insanely violent man who had once been prosecuted in Godfrey's court.

9. The Hall-Mills case, New Jersey, 1922. An Episcopal minister and a woman who sang in his parish choir were shot to death in a "lovers' lane," their love letters scattered around their bodies. Edward Hall's wife and two of her relatives were tried and acquitted but may have been guilty. It also has been proposed that the murders were committed by the Ku Klux Klan.

10. The Taylor case, Los Angeles, 1922. The film director William Desmond Taylor was shot to death in his home, obviously by someone he knew. Amid conflicting rumors of various kinds, his film studio managed to suppress a good deal of the evidence, and no one was ever charged. The most likely culprit was Charlotte Shelby, who thought that Taylor was having an affair with her daughter, the ingenue Mary Miles Minter.

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