The Son Who Blew His Father Up With an Anti-Tank Mine and Other True Crimes from the 1940s

We're back! Apologies for the delay but we hope you enjoy these 5 stories from the 1940s.

People: "If only we could go back to the good old days, life was so much simpler." Also the good old days:

I know I shouldn’t laugh, but the first story is the most loony-toons way of murdering someone I’ve ever heard

The last story reminds me of one of the stranger stories I came across in my genealogy travels. I was helping a Hungarian colleague to trace the fate of a family member who had left Hungary following the 1956 uprising. The guy had moved to California and married a South American woman. Later in life when in a nursing home and dementia was setting in he confessed to one of his carers that he had killed his wife and buried her in a nearby woodland. The carer reported this to the police. The tragedy was that noone had ever reported the wife as missing. He was charged with murder and spent his final days in a prison nursing home.

It would be great if anyone was willing to put up the money for a genealogical investigation to give 'Bella' her real name and identity back.

I never heard of a bath chair before. You learn something new every day. Thank you very much for all of your impressive work.

I've been thinking a lot about your last question this week. Is it right that a 90+ year old man evades justice because of his age? Well, if you recall in Canada a few days ago they gave a standing ovation to an elderly SS officer... that old man (allegedly) committed many of his crimes near where I live, possibly even on my street. There are still a few very elderly witnesses alive, and many of his (alleged) victims' children and grandchildren still live here. They deserve some sort of closure. And I added allegedly because I do believe in innocent until proven guilty, even for the most heinous of crimes. But murder has no statute of limitations, so whether you're 19 or 90 you should stand trial. I'd even be open to him appearing via zoom or something if he's genuinely too ill or frail to travel, but I think it's important that the truth comes out.

Your videos always get an automatic like even before I play them because I know the story you're telling will be interesting and entertaining. You are a master storyteller. Top notch!

Yes, I do think it's worth making people face justice despite their age. Too often criminals get considerations that they never gave their victims and the victims are left suffering, while the perpetrator just carries on with life until they are too old to face justice.

Don't know many details but in 1944 when my nan was a small baby her mum was raped and killed. No one has ever been convicted for it but from the rumours I've heard the guy was likely an American soldier who then disappeared to France. My nan never knew her mother's full name and was adopted soon after the incident. She never showed it but we all think the lack of closure tormented her till she dies in 2003.

How thoughtful of him to come clean now that he has nothing to lose. Considering the cost of extradition & court fees plus medical treatments & incarceration, tax payers shouldn't be burdened. However, he should be exposed, he doesn't deserve anonymity.

Wonderful grouping of "crime noir" stories from the forties. My mum and dad grew up in Central England, Bradford and Brighouse. I can almost imagine the setting and the characters! Well done!!

Poor “Bella.” It strikes me as so sad that she was never reported missing by anyone, and never claimed after her remains were found. Hearing about the clothing she wore, I couldn’t help but imagine her putting on that pretty taffeta slip, her skirt, sweater and belt on what turned out to be the last day of her life. It is such a mark of how she was a young woman like so many we all know. And yet to this day, no one knows who she was in life. I wonder if there is anyway to use forensic DNA where they trace the victim’s DNA to known DNA and create a family tree, to see if they can place her within a given family. Whoever she was, I hope she is resting in peace.

Happy Birthday Paul! May your birthday be a super joyous one. Your kindness, compassion, generosity, and loving ways knows no bounds. I’m going to try to donate to the research, because I lost my mom on July 3rd of 1997 from aggressive breast cancer. She was only 47 when she passed away. I’m very sure that the guy in the first story felt like his family was a pain in his behind, but his son had made him feel what a pain in the behind actually felt like.

Happy Birthday Paul. As a cancer patient, I thank you for doing a birthday fundraiser for cancer research.

I always wonder how you would feel, if supposedly on your death bed you confessed to a terrible crime- then lived. However it's just occurred to me that perhaps sometimes confession was a type of boast, rather than a clearing of the conscience. We are always being shown, in fiction, that criminals and killers like to boast. It must be worse if you've gotten away with it for thirty or forty years. Nobody to appreciate how clever you've been, so, assured you're dying, you tell your story. (Aunty will forever be remembered if she confesses to killing those three husbands!) Then you close your eyes and wait for death's soft touch...only to wake up twelve hours later to find a policeman standing guard.

I don't know anything more about George Heath than what's presented here, but his picture doesn't show a man who deserved such a fate. He had kind eyes, and if he was willing to inconvenience himself for not one but two utter strangers, especially with one acting as oddly as Karl did, there was good in him. It's a hideous thing, that his death was what it took to find and arrest these two - and that his death came because he chose to be compassionate to strangers.

I appreciate the classy and professional manner in which this video is presented. The narrator/presenter speaks well, doesn't use profane and/or obscene language, calmly presents the material in an intelligent and objective manner, and he dresses professionally, rather than like a teen hipster or street thug.

I have just now found this channel, and am I ever impressed with the details given in each case, and with the urbane and avuncular personality of the narrator. Please keep up the good work!

My father joined the Metropolitan Police in 1937, after dropping out of university, by 1939 he was in the CID. When war was declared all CID were put back into uniform, this did not last long as it was realised that crime was rife and needed investigation. He told some very interesting tales of his time in the West End during the war.