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Residents of Linn County probably had a bit of an edgy time over Thanksgiving in 1895. The county jail in Albany had played host, for the previous month and a half, to not one but two of the most notorious murderers in the history of the state. Linn County’s murder season kicked off in the tiny community of Jordan on Sept. 26, when mild-mannered housewife Emma Hannah put on a hat, fake mustache and glasses, pocketed a five-shot .32 revolver, and assassinated a dishy neighbor, whom she suspected of being overly friendly with her husband. Then, on Nov. 19, 18-year-old Lloyd Montgomery, black-sheep son of the Montgomery family of Brownsville, flew into a rage and murdered three people (including his parents) with his old man’s Winchester hunting rifle. It has to have been a holiday season to remember in Albany and the surrounding areas, as both of these cases came up for trial and sentencing right around Christmastime. (Albany, Linn County; 1895) (For text and pictures, see http://www.offbeatoregon.com/1810a.1812.montgomery-murder.html)