Olin C. Bailey Library

Advanced Academic Writing - Arkansas Murder Cases

Arkansas Newspapers

Arkansas Gazette Index 1817-1894; 1957-1991 (print)
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Index 1992-1999 (print)
Arkansas Gazette (1828-1991) on microfilm
Arkansas Democrat (1898-1991) on microfilm
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (1991-present) on microfilm

 

Online Article Databases

LexisNexis Academic
Full text of newspapers, small and large, as well as radio transcripts and legal resources.

  • To search regional and smaller newspapers, go to the News tab.
  • "US Newspapers & Wires" will include Arkansas sources.
  • Clicking on the "i" will allows you to see which sources are included in each category.
  • Use quotations (e.g. "West Memphis Three") to search for phrases.
  • Re-sort from oldest to newest to get news of the time, or specify dates.
  • To search legal sources, go to the "US Legal" tab.  Search "Federal & State Cases" as well as "Law Reviews."

 

Historical Newspapers
Offers full-text and full-image articles from the Atlanta Constitution, Chicago Tribune, New York Times, and the Washington Post, dating back to their first issues.

  • Use the "Advanced Search" to set date and publication limits.
  • In the advanced search, use AND, OR, and NOT to connect concepts. Ex:  Arkansas and murder and (Orsini or McArthur)
  • Use an “*” on the end of your term to pick up variant endings
  • Use quotes around your terms to search phrases, or use the auto-complete options.

 

Academic Search Complete 
Contains newspaper, magazine, and scholarly journal articles in every discipline.  Contains lots of full text, but if you retrieve only a citation, check our Journals List to see if we have the journal.

  • Boolean/Phrase search mode requires "AND" to break your search terms.
  • Use * on the end of your term for variant endings, and ? to for variant spellings.
  • Limit by date to search articles from the time period.

 

Books (Online Catalog)

Bibliographies of biographies or other books covering these murders may produce more ideas for primary sources.  Feel free to search our collection, but you may want to check out these two important titles:

Widow's Web by Gene Lyon (364.1523 L995w)

Devil's Knot by Mara Leveritt (364.1523 L577d)

Websites

Information about the McArthur-Orsini murders from AY Magazine:
          http://www.aymag.com/AY-Magazine/June-2011/Scandalous-Arkansas-Trials/

Website on the West Memphis Three case and two related articles by Mara Leveritt:
          http://callahan.8k.com/introduction.html

Two articles by Mara Leveritt:
         TruTV 
         Arkansas Times
          
         

Last Modified on 2/20/2012