TIL the youngest person executed in US history was only 14 years old...and he was likely innocent.

I'm a Senior Staff Writer based in New York City, where I've been covering classic BuzzFeed-style content since 2020.

We also used suggestions from these four Reddit threads.

*It was unclear whether Bocock knew about the murder as Smith said, "He just said that it was sort of dangerous to have a gun, you could hurt somebody. He said, 'I'll fix it for you if you want.' I figured it was the best thing to do."

Thomas later sued the city for $200 million due to remaining under suspicion for all that time, claiming police had "adopted an official policy of slander" that led to him losing the life he should've had. I could not find the outcome of the case.

Suggested by u/Bluecat72, u/ohherroeeyore, and u/tdoylekovich

The man's wife also mentioned another man who may have been involved. Calvar interviewed him in prison, as he was serving time for another murder; he'd been questioned about Billig before, and continued to claim he was not involved.

A few people had stayed in Stella's home, a boardinghouse, around the time the babies were born, including Stella's mother, so it's possible another person was responsible.

Suggested by u/the-electric-monk, u/coreconcept_phrasing, and u/MFAWG

Jones's then-girlfriend, Anna Wohlin, also blamed Thorogood.

Suggested by u/Bluecat72 and u/SideQuester

As for the boy in the photo, 9-year-old Michael Henley's family believed it was him, as he had gone missing while camping in New Mexico the same year as Tara, but his body was later found, and it was determined he'd died due to the elements after getting lost in the woods.

Diller had actually initially been a suspect, but there was nothing to connect him to the crime. He had acted alone, shimmying through a window after using a crowbar to pull apart the bars. The alarm was broken, which Diller knew after staking out the site.

Comments have been edited for length/clarity.