The Virginia Penitentiary Records Collection is a deep well of characters and stories that would fit right into any hardboiled crime fiction novel. An LVA archivist processing the collection was impressed by the documents and artifacts included in the file for Joseph “Cocky Joe” Robinson who committed suicide while on death row. See this week’s Out of the Box blog to see a small part of the history of crime and punishment in Virginia. http://www.virginiamemory.com/blogs/out_of_the_box/ To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html