Sarah Peterson-Camacho

Murrieta’s Midnight Ride: The Legend of California’s Headless Horseman Part 2

by Sarah Peterson-Camacho
What began as a joke by a San Francisco pundit in 1906—the earliest Joaquin Murrieta ghost reference I could find in the California press—would become a headless paranormal powerhouse by mid-century.
First appearing as a put-upon spirit placating the weepy wraith of Scottish pirate Captain Kidd in A.J. Waterhouse’s “Occidental Accidentals” humor column in The San Francisco Call and Post, the ghost of Joaquin Murrieta retained his head—but not his sense of humor—in Why Kidd’s Ghost Wept.

Murrieta’s Midnight Ride: The Legend of California’s Headless Horseman, Part 1

by Sarah Peterson-Camacho
The Weekly Alta has recently begun the publication of the story of Joaquin Murrieta, revised. The story is more attractive in its new form than ever before, and the publishers have been unable to supply the demand for back numbers.” --The Santa Barbara Times, Saturday, November 26, 1870, p. 2

Pretty as Poison: The Life, Crimes & Accomplices of California’s First Black Widow Part 2

by Sarah Peterson-Camacho
Albert N. McVicar was most definitely dead.
With his 6’4”, 185-lb. frame doubled up like a pretzel inside the four-foot Saratoga steamer trunk, his “corpse was found curled up with wounds on his head,” writes true crime author J’aime Rubio. “His nose had been completely fractured…Blood that poured from his head and nose settled at the bottom corner of the trunk…”

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