IN: Crane was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, and spent his childhood and teenaged years in Stamford. He began playing drums, and by junior high was organizing local drum and bugle parades with his neighborhood friends. He later joined his high school's marching and jazz bands and the orchestra. He played for the Connecticut and Norwalk Symphony Orchestras as part of their youth orchestra program.

At the 1994 trial, Crane's son Robert testified that in the weeks before his father's death, Crane had repeatedly expressed a desire to sever his friendship with Carpenter. He said Carpenter had become "a hanger-on" and "a nuisance to the point of being obnoxious". "My dad expressed that he just didn't need Carpenter kind of hanging around him anymore," he said. He testified that Crane had called Carpenter the night before the murder and ended their friendship.  Carpenter's attorneys attacked the prosecution's case as circumstantial and inconclusive. They presented evidence, including witnesses from the restaurant where the two men had dined the evening prior to the murder, that Carpenter and Crane were still the best of friends. They noted that the murder weapon had never been identified or found; the prosecution's camera tripod theory was sheer speculation, they said, based solely on Carpenter's occupation. They disputed the claim that the newly discovered evidence photo showed brain tissue, and presented many examples of "sloppy work" by police, such as the mishandling and misplacing of evidence--including the crucial tissue sample itself. They pointed out that Crane had been videotaped and photographed in compromising sexual positions with numerous women, implying that any one of them, fearing blackmail, might have been the killer. Other potential suspects proposed by defense attorneys included angry husbands and boyfriends of the seduced women, and an actor who had sworn vengeance after a violent argument with Crane in Texas several months earlier.  Carpenter was acquitted. He continued to maintain his innocence until his death four years later, in 1998. After the trial, Robert Crane speculated publicly that Crane's widow, Patricia Olson, might have had a role in instigating the crime. "Nobody got a dime out of [the murder]," he said, "except for one person," alluding to Crane's will, which excluded him, his siblings, and his mother, and left the entire estate to Olson. Robert Crane repeated his suspicions in a 2015 book. Maricopa County District Attorney Rick Romley, who prosecuted the case, responded, "We never characterized Patty as a suspect." He added, "I am convinced John Carpenter murdered Bob Crane." Officially, Crane's murder remains unsolved.

Was he eventually jailed?

OUT: Carpenter was acquitted. He continued to maintain his innocence until his death four years later, in 1998.


IN: Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan,  (nee Miller; 15 September 1890 - 12 January 1976) was an English writer. She is known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around her fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Christie also wrote the world's longest-running play, a murder mystery, The Mousetrap, and six romances under the name Mary Westmacott. In 1971 she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her contribution to literature.

Christie had long been a fan of detective novels, having enjoyed Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White and The Moonstone, as well as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's early Sherlock Holmes stories. She wrote her own detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring Hercule Poirot, a former Belgian police officer noted for his twirly large "magnificent moustaches" and egg-shaped head. Poirot had taken refuge in Britain after Germany invaded Belgium. Christie's inspiration for the character stemmed from real Belgian refugees who were living in Torquay and the Belgian soldiers whom she helped treat as a volunteer nurse in Torquay during the First World War.  Agatha began working on The Mysterious Affair at Styles in 1916, writing most of it on Dartmoor. Her original manuscript was rejected by such publishing companies as Hodder and Stoughton and Methuen. After keeping the submission for several months, John Lane at The Bodley Head offered to accept it, provided that Christie change the ending. She did so, and signed a contract which she later felt was exploitative. It was finally published in 1920.  Christie, meanwhile, settled into married life, giving birth to her only child, daughter Rosalind Margaret Hicks, in August 1919 at Ashfield, where the couple spent much of their time, having few friends in London. Archie left the Air Force at the end of the war and started working in the City financial sector at a relatively low salary, though they still employed a maid.  Christie's second novel, The Secret Adversary (1922), featured a new detective couple Tommy and Tuppence, again published by The Bodley Head. It earned her PS50. A third novel again featured Poirot, Murder on the Links (1923), as did short stories commissioned by Bruce Ingram, editor of The Sketch magazine. In order to tour the world promoting the British Empire Exhibition, the couple left their daughter Rosalind with Agatha's mother and sister. They travelled to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii.  They learned to surf prone in South Africa; then, in Waikiki, they were among the first Britons to surf standing up.

Did she get any awards for her books?

OUT: