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History’s Greatest Crime Sprees

Khalid Elhassan April 15, 2021 36 min

Italian mafiosi rounded up by the Fascists. Okruchy Historii

River piracy was an ever-present risk to nineteenth-century settlers, like these descending the Ohio River. Clermont County Park District

5. Big Harpe’s Most Depraved Crime Was Against His Own Infant Daughter

The Harpe Brothers were forced to flee to Kentucky, and began a lethal crime spree en route. They killed a peddler and stole his horse and goods, did in two travelers from Maryland, and slew a Virginian. They were pursued and captured but escaped the gallows by breaking out of the state prison in Danville, Kentucky. When a posse was sent after them, the Harpes retaliated by slaughtering a young son of a man who had helped the authorities pursue them. When Kentucky’s governor placed a $300 reward on their heads, the brothers fled northward to Illinois. Along the way, they slew five men.

Cave in Rock, the crime den where the Harpe brothers sheltered with river pirate Samuel Mason and his crew. Wikimedia

The brothers eventually made their way to Cave-In-Rock, a cave in bluffs overlooking the Illinois bank of the Ohio River. It was the stronghold of a ruthless river pirate named Samuel Mason, and the Harpes joined his crew. However, the Harpes’ sadism appalled even cutthroats like river pirates. Among other things, the brothers enjoyed taking captives to the top of the bluff, stripping them naked, and kicking them off. So Mason forced them to leave. They returned to Tennessee and continued piling up the bodies. Among them was Big Harpe’s own infant daughter, whom he killed in August 1799, because her crying annoyed him.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.