You will be punished!

Last weekend, I went with Katie to the newly opened National Museum of Crime and Punishment located in DC's Chinatown. While it's $18 to go round (compared to the free Smithsonian museums including the zoo), this new addition to DC's landscape of museums is well worth it!

The museum is impressive mainly because it combines the history of crime, mostly the state torture that passed as punishment, while profiling modern criminals up to the present. Naturally, England, this means the museum includes sophisticated ballistics and CSI-style techniques! But the best bits were the stories of human arrogance and folly in criminals causing their own downfall!

One case that still puzzles today is that of D. B. Cooper who hijacked and ransomed a Boeing 727 in the seventies, only to leap from the back with the money and never be seen again! Check out Cooper's story here! His tale suits the strain of consiracy running through American culture - was he a genius who escpaed the Feds? Or was he too smart for himself and was probably killed on landing or shortly afterwards?

Check out my novel The Murderess and the Hangman about a maid who kills her landlady for a few pieces of furniture here!