“Alphonso poysoneth his owne Mother Sophia, and after shoots and kils Cassino (as hee was walking in his Garden) with a short Musket (or Carabyne) from a Window. Hee is beheaded for those two murthers, then burnt, and his ashes throwne into the River.”

Featured on PDR in the collection John Reynolds’ Book of Murder Tales (1621–1635)

We don’t know the year of John Reynolds’ birth or death, but according to the Dictionary of National Biography, he “flourished” between 1620 and 1640, at which time he must have been in his thirties and forties (give or take a few years). Born in Exeter — and known to his contemporaries as “John Reynolds, merchant of Exeter”, to distinguish him from other writers of the same name — he traveled on business to France, Spain, and probably Italy, where he collected the stories that make up his six-volume Triumphs of Gods Revenge and the Crying and Execrable Sin of (Wilful and Premeditated) Murther — one of the earliest examples of “true crime” writing in English.