Criminals on the Crossing

It was 111 years ago today, on April 14, 1912, that the British luxury passenger liner Titanic struck an iceberg while sailing west across the North Atlantic. “She brushed the berg so gently,” wrote Walter Lord in The Light Lives On, his 1986 sequel to the classic A Night to Remember, “that many on board didn’t notice it, but so lethally that she was instantly doomed.” Within three hours, on the morning of April 15, that mammoth pride of the White Star Line disappeared beneath the frigid waters, causing the deaths of more than 1,500 passengers and crew, and settling on the seabed 2.5 miles below.

To mark this anniversary, CrimeReads has posted an article by journalist James T. Bartlett, which looks back at felons among the crew and passengers on board that “unsinkable” maritime wonder.