Stories from Salem, Massachusetts, Estados Unidos

Salem: how accusations became trials, sentences and memory

Between 1692 and 1693, the Massachusetts witchcraft crisis spread from a minister's home through several communities and left 25 people dead. Examination records, petitions and later reversals show how untestable evidence gained force, and how survivors fought to undo the judgments.

215 km · New Haven

The Voynich Manuscript: the real book behind the unread script

Held at Yale as MS 408, the codex contains hard-to-identify plants, celestial diagrams, bathing figures and a script still without an accepted reading. This dossier follows the object, its ownership, the dating of its parchment and the actual limits of linguistic analysis.

293 km · Amityville

Amityville: six deaths, 28 days, and a house turned into legend

In 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. killed six relatives in Amityville. A year later, George and Kathy Lutz reported strange events in the same house and left after 28 days. The murders are documented; the haunting remains a disputed claim.

325 km · Nova York

Death Avenue: freight trains, children and cowboys on New York streets

For nearly a century, freight trains shared Manhattan streets with pedestrians. The nickname “Death Avenue” grew from real accidents and fueled protests, legislation and the High Line. This dossier traces the route, the West Side Cowboys, Seth Low Hascamp’s death, conflicting casualty figures and the railroad’s transformation into a park.