New Jersey is known for growing things, so it shouldn’t be surprising that our fertile soil has produced a thriving crop of authors and literature about our fair condition. Philip Roth, Judy Blume, Janet Evanovich, and Harlan Coben are just a few of the bestselling authors born in New Jersey. With these literary credentials in hand, we have compiled a list of some of our favorite crime stories of New Jersey, including murders, kidnappings, and even a story that sparked the state of the NAACP.
We’ve collected the best Crime Stories from New Jersey in the list below. Dive into these non-fiction crime stories of New Jersey.
*As an Amazon Associate, we earn commission on your purchases at no extra cost to you.
The 1910 murder of a white ten-year-old girl in Asbury Park led to the formulation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. This story follows the beginnings of Asbury Park as a famous shore town and the complex history of the racial divide in this then-small town. Ida Wells, the prominent black female journalist, and suffragette, also appears in this true crime story.
In 1948 Sally Horner was an eleven-year-old girl from Camden living with her widowed mother. Frank LaSalle, a grown man, met the child, told her he was an F.B.I. agent and convinced her to accompany him to Atlantic City. LaSalle kept Sally for twenty months and fled with her cross country until Sally was finally rescued from a trailer park in Southern California. The author's thesis is that Nabokov could have read the lurid details of this case splashed across the papers, and she feels the parallels between his "Lolita" and Sally's story are too similar to dismiss. I leave it to the reader to decide. Two years after her rescue, Sally died in a car crash. Her remains lie in a cemetery in Cream Ridge.
Set in Hoboken in 1938, this is the story of the early days of the dispensation of "welfare relief." Harry Barck, the poor master who doled out payments liked his power. Joe Scutellaro, not only being denied assistance – but offered the suggestion his wife should prostitute herself instead, did not appreciate this suggestion. After a scuffle, Barck lay dead. The trial of Scutellaro illustrates the social ills of the times.
I classify this book as a true crime because the fact that Robert Peace died the way he did is indeed a societal crime. Rob was raised by his mother, working long hours so she could send him to a private preparatory school. His father, a drug dealer, wound up in prison, and Rob would visit. He was brilliant, and his acceptance to Yale should not have been a surprise. He studied molecular biology and biochemistry. At Yale, Rob was a dedicated student. But on breaks, he returned home to the streets of Newark and dealt weed. It was living this double life that led to his tragic death. Reading this story, one can feel the duality of his existence as it strains and finally tears him apart.
In 1881 Margaret Klem was the last woman to be executed for the murder in New Jersey. This West Orange woman allegedly murdered her husband in a story that shocked the nation. Was she a battered woman or a calculating adulteress? You decide!
