March 3, 1819 - Edward Rulloff
Rulloff spent decades moving between genuine intellectual pursuits — linguistics, law, medicine — and a parallel life of theft, violence, and murder, the two tracks running simultaneously rather than in sequence. His facility for reinvention allowed him to operate across multiple states and identities, making him difficult to track and prosecute during his lifetime. The breadth of his legitimate credentials made his criminal history all the more disorienting to contemporaries, and his case drew serious attention from figures like Mark Twain, who wrote about him in the press.
From Wikipedia
John Edward Howard Rulloff (also known as Ruloff, Rulofson, or Rulloffson, as well as several aliases; 1819/1820 – May 18, 1871) was a Canadian-born American medical doctor, lawyer, schoolmaster, photographer, inventor, carpet designer, phrenologist, and philologist, in addition to a career criminal and serial killer. This dichotomy was exemplified in the title of a 1871 biography, The Man of Two Lives!. He was also known as "The Genius Killer". Rulloff's brain is said to be among the largest on record.
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