Wanted Comics #35

When insurance investigator Larry Jameson's superiors at Hercules Insurance start noticing a suspicious pattern of fires destroying struggling businesses, they discover that Thomas Mara—a former convict with a talent for manipulation—has built a ruthless arson racket that preys on desperate owners facing bankruptcy. Mara offers to burn down their shops in exchange for a cut of the insurance payout, leaving his victims trapped between financial ruin and becoming unwilling accomplices to fraud. As the operation grows bolder and more violent, the insurance company moves to shut down the conspiracy before Mara's gang can torch another business.

John Crain, a lawyer obsessed with a woman named Ruth, hatches an elaborate murder scheme against her fiancé Bob Javitt—luring him to a remote shack, drugging him, and keeping him chained while he figures out how to dispose of the body without a trace. But Crain didn't count on his prisoner's resourcefulness or the desperate signal Bob manages to send out before his captor can complete the perfect crime. This gritty 1951 crime tale, based on actual police files, follows the twisted cat-and-mouse game between killer and captive in a race against time.

Glen Roy Wright's criminal career stretches back to 1917, when an insubordinate act during his Army service led to a dishonorable discharge and prison time—a turning point that set him on a lifelong path of crime. Over decades of armed robberies and penitentiary stretches, Wright's defiant attitude never wavered, culminating in a life sentence in 1933 for an armed robbery in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 1948, he escaped from McAlester State Penitentiary and remains at large, wanted by the F.B.I.

In the quiet town of Ashford Falls, tightfisted bank teller John Travis is known for pinching every penny—until a brazen bank robbery in 1939 gives him an unexpected opportunity. When Travis discovers he can pocket six thousand dollars from the heist without anyone knowing, he thinks he's found the perfect crime, but a single moment of uncharacteristic generosity sets the police on his trail. Based on actual crime files, "Shoe Shine" shows how one small, out-of-character act can unravel even the most careful plan.

When a young woman named Emma Brewster is found murdered in her locked home, suspicion falls on John Henry, a man accused of leaving London on a suspicious train just hours before the crime. The evidence against him crumbles under scrutiny—witnesses contradict themselves, tickets don't line up, and the murdered woman's stolen jewelry mysteriously reappears in the sealed house while Henry sits in jail, proving him innocent beyond doubt. But Henry's freedom comes at a terrible cost in this baffling true crime tale from *Wanted* Magazine's new "Great Unsolved Mysteries" series.

When an electrician named Loftus stages a daring robbery at the Jessup mansion, Lieutenant Dundy and Doctor Gage of the crime lab must piece together a case that hinges on an unexpected clue: aspirin tablets and invisible ink. Using the science of the spectrograph and ultraviolet light, the investigators devise an ingenious trap to catch their suspect—but Loftus isn't ready to go quietly.

In 1947, Morley Vernon King seemed like the perfect hotel dining room manager in San Luis Obispo, California—until he murdered his own wife and vanished into hiding. This true-crime wanted notice tracks a dangerous fugitive with multiple aliases, distinctive physical marks, and fluency in five languages, urging readers to contact the FBI with any information on his whereabouts.

Steve Spencer, an ex-con jewel fence with an irresistible way with women, reunites with his old prison pal Lefty Callahan to pull off a jewelry heist—but Spencer's charm proves dangerously divisive when he sets his sights on Nella Moss, Lefty's girl. As Spencer's criminal enterprises flourish and his romantic conquests multiply, his past and present finally collide in ways that threaten to unravel everything he's built.