True Crime: Murder, Criminals, and Mystery
Are you fascinated by True Crime? This list gives you the resources to find your own stories, research for your true crime content, or just dig deep into the stories that fascinate us.
ARchival and Research Resources for Researching true crime.
Like all pages on History on a Whim, additions are always ongoing. Each new list category has been thoroughly researched and with dozens of sources to add, it takes time to get there! (Updated 1/8/2026)
If you’re wondering how you can find websites on true crime, or how to research true crime period, this is a great place to start. This guide lists resources needed to find information on the history true crime, true crime statistics, crimes throughout history, and whatever else you desire!
Murderpedia: Murderpedia might sound like something disconcerting, but for true crime junkies, this is a great place to start. The sites boasts that they are the largest database about serial killers and mass murderers in the world. The site holds over 1500 articles, so it’s a good place to start research.
Homicide in Chicago, 1870-1930: This site is owned by Northwestern University and offers information on over 11,000 Chicago murders and homicides between 1870-1930. This link leads to a homepage where you can access their database. From there, search by keywords, topics, etc.
Northwestern University Pritzker Legal Research Center, Digital Collections: Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law offers a ton of information on different categories of crime and areas of criminology research. Most of their primary source holdings center on the Chicago area, which offers an ample supply of true crime sources to draw from.
Federal Bureau of Investigations Digital History Exhibitions: Since the FBI is the preeminent criminal justice organization in the United States, they have a great variety of digital collections to check out. This link includes: Famous Criminal Cases, histories and sources on the different FBI directors throughout the years, artifacts, reports and publications, and a link to the FBI vault, which I listed below as its own site.
Kent State University Borowitz Collection: This massive collection, donated by Albert and Helen Osterman Borowitz is filled with primary and secondary sources on true crime, from medieval times to the present. This site contains books, artifacts, photos, and other media. It can make your true crime research much richer, or be a good place to start looking for inspiration, ideas, or sources.
University of Kentucky Crime in History, Digital Collections Research Guide: This is a university library research guide. If you’re not familiar with this type of resource, every single library in the US, university and regular, offers research guides albeit on different topics, depending on what the librarians decide to make them on. Research guides point you in the direction of resources, databases, book collections, digital collections and onward. This research guide on crime is very thorough and points you towards resources that would be deemed adequate for any deeply researched project on true crime. Take advantage of research guides, they can be invaluable! This guide is for online resources, so you can still dig in using the web.
Chicago History Museum True Crime Digital Research Guide: Like the University of Kentuck guide above, this is another research guide. This one will point you in the direction of statistics, digital collections, donated collections, and plenty more. Being the Chicago History Museum, shocker, most of these sources focus on Chicago! Many of the collections are the donated papers and other resources of prominent Chicago criminal justice and legal authorities.
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Lloyd Sealy Library, Crime Digital Research Guide: I know you’re thinking “More Chicago stuff??” Well, yes! The Lloyd Sealy Library has an endless list of Chicago-centric resources concerning true crime. Remember, all resources available here at History on a Whim are constantly updated. This short list is in its infancy and will be added to regularly. So, for now, Chicago is a good place to start. Check back regularly for more.
Stockton University, Richard E. Bjork Library, Special Collections for Criminal Justice and Forensic Psychology: Stockton University in Galloway, New Jersey is home to this digital collection and finding aid/research guide. Most of the sites, or collections listed here pertain to New Jersey.
Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913: This website regularly makes its way onto my research guides, especially for anyone researching crime. This is one of the largest databases of trial records, criminal records, etc in the world. This database comes from the court records on London’s Central Court over the span of hundreds of years. If you want true crime stories, or information, this is definitely the site for you.
Federal Bureau of Investigation: The Vault: The “Vault” is kind of like a research guide that leads you into sources on different topics covered by the FBI. This one has specific sources on famous criminals, famous crimes, and other sources the FBI finds shareable to the public. This website feels like it’s something from 2003, but don’t let that deter you, it’s the information that you need to do your research!
Library of Congress, Chronicling America Digital Collections: Historic Newspapers: It’s kind of hard to go wrong using historic newspapers to research crime. With this database just search anything you want and the site will give you what feels like infinite examples from American newspapers throughout history.