This date in 1828, throngs of thousands at Bury St. Edmunds saw the climax of the Red Barn Murder case in the form of the public hanging of William Corder. This broadside blockbuster got its start in a Suffolk village, where a local ladies’ man and his paramour plotted a rendezvous at the titular shed for the purpose of elopement — she having become pregnant by the young man’s offices. When the meeting was over, Corder had vanished from town … and Maria Marten had just plain vanished. Almost a year later, Maria Marten’s stepmother began reporting dreams that the...