'The Crime of the Century,' a Century Later

Illustration by Emily Lankiewicz The past hundred years have seen more than one high-profile prosecution branded as the “crime of the century.” The shocking 1924 crime that was among the first to carry the title turned out to be a harbinger of how public mania around criminal cases could influence the legal system, and how psychiatry would be used and abused by prosecutors and defense attorneys alike as the 20th…