In 1951, at age 27, Joseph Taborsky was convicted and sentenced to die for the holdup-murder of Louis Woolson, a liquor store proprietor in west Hartford, Connecticut. Taborsky's accomplice -- and the chief witness against him -- was his brother Albert, sentenced to a term of life imprisonment for his participation in the crime. Four years later, after Albert had been ruled insane, the state supreme court overturned Joseph's conviction, ordering a new trial. Deprived of its key witness, the prosecution dropped all charges against Taborsky, and he was back on the street by 1956, joining forces with 33-year-old Arthur Culombe for a new series of holdups and murders. On December 15, the duo turned up at a gas station in New Britain, Connecticut, executing owner Edward Kurpiewski and one of his patrons, 30-year-old Daniel Janowski, with close-range shots to the back of the head. The day after Christmas, 65-year-old Samuel Cohn was gunned down in his East Hartford liquor store. Moving on to North Haven, the killers held up a shoe store on January 5, 1957, murdering owners Bernard and Ruth Speyer before they escaped with $50 in cash. John Rosenthal, a 68-year-old Wartford druggist, was the last to die, shot down in his store on February 10. Arrested on February 23, Culombe swiftly confessed to the series of crimes and fingered Taborsky as the "brains" behind the rampage. By March 1, police had Taborsky's signed confession in hand, and both gunmen were sentenced to life imprisonment on conviction for murder.