Nick Vulich

Gruesome Quad-Cities: Murder, Madness, and the Macabre Along the Mississippi - Gruesome Nick Vulich

Gruesome Quad-Cities is a collection of true-life stories - most of them rescued from old newspaper accounts published over 100 years ago. Only a few of the events in this book have ever made it into print. Except maybe in musky-old county histories. Even then, they are lucky to rate a paragraph. Read them now, if you dare! Included inside: Albert Kling threatened to kill his wife and behead his seven children if she didn't prostitute herself to support him. After he beat her nearly to death, Mrs. Kling told authorities, she loved him "more than life." Edwin Cochran asked Davenport barber John Hassam for a job. When Hassam laughed at him, he returned with a Savage Automatic revolver and unloaded five shots into the barber. And don't forget Henry Bastian. He murdered nine people on his Milan "murder farm" rather than pay them. Of course, there's more, but you get the idea. Gruesome Quad-Cities covers 16 brutal murders that occurred in Davenport, Moline, Rock Island, Bettendorf, Silvis, Muscatine, and more between 1867 and 1920. Book 6 in the Gruesome Series.