Typically, when people talk about felons and criminals, they’re usually referring to men. Though certainly in the minority, there are plenty of female offenders as well, and they can be even more deadly than their male counterparts. These criminals all hail from the great state of Nebraska, and their photos were found at https://www.nebraskahistory.org.

Let’s examine the rap sheet, shall we?

 

 

When elderly farmer Eli Feasel disappeared in 1903, suspicion fell at once upon his housekeeper Nannie Hutchinson, and her 21-year-old son, Charles. They were questioned, but with no evidence of a crime, police had to set them free. After an uneventful winter, Feasel’s neighbor, Mr. Stanley, began to work the missing farmer’s land in the spring. As he worked the field one day, Stanley discovered a human hand was poking through the dirt. When authorities were summoned, the mystery of Feasel’s whereabouts was solved. The Hutchinsons were convicted of second-degree murder. Nannie got 10 years and Charles was sentenced to 12. They were both released in 1911.

 

In 1925, Mary Shannon was sent up to Nebraska State Prison for 2 years for mayhem. Most unfortunately, we don’t know what that entailed specifically, but mayhem was regarded as a felony and the legal definition at the time was “the criminal act of disabling, disfiguring, or cutting off or making useless one of the members (leg, arm, hand, foot, eye) of another either intentionally or in a fight, called maiming.”

 

Minnie Bradley, age 27, lets the Omaha Police know she isn’t about to be made to look at the camera. The police note that Minnie was arrested for pickpocketing and her occupation was prostitution. They noted she was wearing a wig.

 

Who would suspect the demure and petite Mrs. H. C. Adams of so much as passing a bad check? And yet, she was picked up by police in 1900 for blackmail. When asked her profession, she calmly replied that she was a prostitute. Apart from the other funny things about this particular picture, it’s bizarre that the police didn’t bother to get her first name.

 

Ruby Fox and Myrtle Hetrick met while incarcerated at the State Reformatory for Women in York, Nebraska. Ruby was serving time for breaking and entering, while and Myrtle was there for vagrancy. They must have been thoroughly unreformed for Ruby and Myrtle engineered an escape and made it as far as Wyoming. When they were captured and returned to Nebraska, they were sentenced to one year at the Nebraska State Prison for their escape.

 

At 5’ tall and 110 pounds, Goldie Williams, alias Meg Murphy, was a petite woman. When Omaha Police took her mugshot in 1898, she said she lived in Chicago and gave her occupation as a prostitute. Williams sports an elaborate hat with satin ribbons and feathers. I couldn’t find what she was picked up for.

 

Nora Courier, better known as “Red Nora”, was arrested in March 1901 for horse theft. Back in the day, a horse thief was the most lowdown thing a person could. be. This perp was 22 and stood at 5’3. Red Nora just looks like trouble to me.