Photographs of infamous criminals and notorious murder cases have always been produced as grizzly souvenirs. This selection of nineteenth century images includes examples from cases where photographers saw the possibility of commercial gain from the distress and morbid curiosity of others. After all that is why you as the viewer are here - we too are a part of the voyeurs of misery and intrigue!
 
The photographs in this exhibition include murderers, victims, crime scenes and the dog "Morgan" that found the mutilated remains of the Emily Holland at Blackburn in England on April 16th, 1876. Some of the characters are well know such as Lizzie Borden or Lord Frederick Cavendish, who was savagely slashed and slain in the Phoenix Park murders in Dublin in 1882, other have passed by with little achievement in life other than a tragic end.
 
The indistinct wooded crime scene at Pembroke, New Hampshire where local beauty Josie Langmaid was raped and decapitated on October 4th, 1875 appears as a tranquil location but the knowledge of the incident alters our response to an otherwise undistinguished landscape photograph.
 
Alan Griffiths (April 24, 2007)