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Timeline Murders: High Profile
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The A-Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (1997) by Harold Schechter
The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (2000) by Michael Newton
969 Dec 10, Nicephorus II Phocas, Byzantine co-Emperor (963-69), was murdered.
1034 Apr 11, Romanus III Argyrus, Byzantine emperor (1028-34), was assassinated by his wife.
1480 Apr 18, Lucretia Borgia (d.1519), murderess, was born. Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara, was the daughter of Pope Alexander VI, and the sister and political pawn of Cesare Borgia. She was also considered a patroness of the arts.
(HN, 4/18/98)(WUD, 1994, p.171)
1531 Apr 5, Richard Roose was boiled to death for trying to poison an archbishop.
1733 Feb 4, In England the widow Mrs Lydia Duncomb (80), her long term infirm companion Mrs Harrison (60), and servant Ann Price (26) were murdered during a robbery. The servant Sarah Malcolm (22) of County Durham was indicted. She strongly defended herself but was convicted and executed on Mar 7.
(Econ, 9/28/13, p.80)(http://tinyurl.com/kcbjla7)
1792 Mar 16, The popular Swedish King Gustavus III was murdered by Count Ankarstrom at an opera. It became the inspiration for Giuseppe Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera.
1796 Mary Lamb (31) killed her mother with a carving knife. England deemed her a lunatic and released into the custody of her brother Charles. In 1806 they published "Tales From Shakespeare." In 2005 Susan Tyler Hitchcock authored "Mad Mary Lamb."
(WSJ, 2/18/05, p.W6)
1829 Jan 28, William Burke, murderer, body snatcher, was executed in Edinburgh.
1836 Apr 10, Helen Jewett, a prostitute in a Thomas St. bordello in Manhattan, was murdered. Her boyfriend, Richard P. Robinson (17), a clerk for a local merchant, was tried for the murder but acquitted. In 1998 Patricia Cline Cohen published "The Murder of Helen Jewett," an account of the story.
(WSJ, 8/21/98, p.W6)
c1850 Jan 30, Charles Steingraff (50), a bachelor farmhand, was hanged in Ohio for the murder of a deaf and blind, 12-year-old girl. An estimated 25,000 spectators watched the execution.
(ON, 10/02, p.3)
1869 Apr 12, Henri-Desire Landru (Bluebeard), French sex murderer, was born.
1873 Mar 24, Mary Ann Cotton (b.1832), English serial killer, was tried and hanged. She was said to have killed three of her four husbands, a lover, her mother and 11 of her 13 children.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Cotton)(Econ, 1/7/17, p.34)
1878 Sep, Herbert Hayden, a prominent Connecticut minister, used arsenic to murder Mary Stannard, a young servant girl that he thought he had made pregnant. The reverend, who was tried 1st for physical assault and later for murder was acquitted. In 1880 he produced an exculpatory account of the case. In 1999 Virginia A. McConell authored "Arsenic Under the Elms: Murder in Victorian New Haven."
(WSJ, 6/24/05, p.W9)(http://tinyurl.com/amrk5)
1885 Nov 1, In San Francisco Cecelia Bowers (29), the wife of Dr. J. Milton Bowers (45), died following a two-month-long illness. An autopsy revealed that she had died of phosphorous poisoning. Dr. Bowers was later found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to hang. In 1887 the body of Henry Benhayon, the brother of Cecilia, was found murdered at a boarding house at 22 Geary St. He left three letters confessing to the murder of his sister. Thomas Dimmig (33), the husband of a staunch supporter of Dr. Bowers was charged with killing Benhayon. Dimmig was later acquitted and the case against Dr. Bowers (d.1904) was dismissed.
(SFC, 1/24/15, p.C1)
1888 Aug 6, Martha Turner was murdered by an unknown assailant, believed to be Jack the Ripper, in London, England. Between August and November 506 women were murdered in London's Whitechapel district. In 1994 Philip Sugden authored "The Complete History of Jack the Ripper."
(HN, 8/6/98)(WSJ, 1/31/09, p.W8)
1888 Aug 31, Mary Ann Nicholls, a 42-year-old prostitute, was found murdered in London's East End. She is generally regarded as the first of at least five murder victims of "Jack the Ripper." [see Aug 6]
1888 Sep 30, "Jack the Ripper" butchered 2 more women, Elizabeth Stride (45), aka Long Liz, on Berner St. and Kate Eddowes (45). Donald Rumbelow later authored "The Complete Jack the Ripper."
(SSFC, 10/21/01, p.T7)
1888 Sep 30, Catherine Eddowes became Jack the Ripper's fourth victim. In 2014 sleuth Russell Edwards said that Jack has identified through DNA traces found on a bloodied shawl from Eddowes. Edwards identified the killer as Aaron Kosminski (1865-1919), a Jewish emigre from Poland, who worked as a barber.
1890 Aug 6, Convicted murderer William Kemmler became the 1st person to be executed in the electric chair. He was put to death at Auburn State Prison in New York for murdering his lover, Matilda Ziegler, with an axe. In 2003 Jill Jonnes authored "Empires of Light," and account of how Edison, Tesla and Westinghouse brought electric power to public use. In 2003 Mark Essig authored "Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death."
(AP, 8/6/97)(HN, 8/6/98)(MC, 8/6/02)(WSJ, 8/19/03, p.D5)(Econ, 9/20/03, p.81)
1896 May 7, Dr. Henry Howard Holmes (b.1860), serial killer, was hanged to death in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Born as Herman Webster Mudgett in Gilmantown, New Hampshire, to a devout Methodist family, Holmes spent much of his childhood torturing animals. He later graduated from the University of Michigan with a medical degree. Holmes financed his education with a series of insurance scams whereby he requested coverage for nonexistent people and then presented corpses as the insured. In 1886, Holmes moved to Chicago to work as a pharmacist. A few months later, he killed the elderly owner of the store but told everyone that the man had left him in charge. With a new series of cons, Holmes raised enough money to build a giant, elaborate home across from the store. The home, which Holmes called "The Castle," had secret passageways, fake walls, and trapdoors. Young women in the area, along with tourists who had come to see the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, and had rented out rooms in Holmes' castle, suddenly began disappearing. Medical schools purchased many human skeletons from Dr. Holmes during this period but never asked how he obtained the anatomy specimens. Holmes was finally caught after attempting to use another corpse, his assistant Benjamin Pitezel, in an insurance scam. He confessed, saying, "I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than a poet can help the inspiration to sing." Reportedly, authorities discovered the remains of over 200 victims on his property.
1905 Dec 30, Governor Frank Steunenberg of Idaho was killed by an assassin's bomb. The former Gov. of Idaho, was blown up by a booby-trapped gate in front of his home in Caldwell, Idaho. Three Western Federation of Miners leaders in Colorado, Charles Moyer, George Pettibone and William Haywood, were "legally kidnapped" to Idaho and put on trial for the murder. The event and surrounding circumstances were described by J. Anthony Lukas in his 1997 book: "Big Trouble."
(SFEC, 10/5/97, BR p.1,6)(HN, 12/30/98)
1906 Feb 23, Johann Hoch, US murderer, was executed.
1908 Apr, Hootch Simpson, a saloon keeper in Skidoo, Ca. (Death Valley), shot and killed Joe Arnold, the town banker. Simpson was hung and buried the next morning, but was dug up and re-hung for a newspaper reporter.
(SSFC, 1/19/03, p.C5)
1908 Belle Gunness (48), reportedly died in a fire at her farm in Laporte, Indiana. Many locals believed Gunness, dubbed Lady Bluebeard, staged her death and had killed at least 25 people before the fire.
1913 Apr 26, Mary Phagan (13) was killed at an Atlanta pencil factory. She had stopped to pick up her check on her way to Peachtree Street to see a Confederate Memorial Day Parade. Leo Frank (29), a Jewish factory manager, was falsely accused of raping and murdering the young working-class girl. Georgia Gov. John M. Slaton later commuted Frank's sentence to life, but a vigilante crowd dragged him out of prison and lynched him on Aug 17. In 1968 Leonard Dinnerstein authored "The Leo Frank Case." The story is covered in the 1997 novel "The Old Religion" by David Mamet. In 1998 the musical "Parade" was produced based on the Frank lynching.
(SFEC, 1/4/98, BR p.6)(WSJ, 12/22/98, p.A16)(WSJ, 6/9/00, p.A12)(WSJ, 1/17/09, p.W8)
1918 Dec 14, Sidonio Pais, prince of Portugal, was murdered.
1921 May 27, Caryl Chessman, kidnapper who got death penalty in 1960, was born.
1922 Sep 16, Rev. Edward Wheeler Hall and his mistress, choir member Eleanor Mills, were found shot to death in a New Jersey apple orchard. Hall's wife and her 2 brothers were indicted for the murder, but they were acquitted at trial. In 1964 William Kunstler authored "The Minister and the Choir Singer, " an account of the double murder and trial.
(WSJ, 11/10/07, p.W8)
1923 French courtesan Maggie Meller (aka Marguerite Alibert) was acquitted in a high profile trial at London's Old Bailey despite the evidence stacked against her. She had blackmailed the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII, to avoid the gallows after murdering Egyptian Prince Fahmy Bey, her playboy husband. Six years before her trial, Meller had an affair with the British prince. In 1991 Andrew Rose authored "Scandal at the Savoy." In 2013 Rose authored his follow-up "The Prince, The Princess, and The Perfect Murder."
1924 Feb 8, The gas chamber was used for the first time to execute a murderer. Major D.A. Turner of the US Medical Corps used hydrocyanic gas on an alleged Chinese Tong member named Gee Jon at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City, Nev.
(HN, 2/8/98)(SFC, 6/27/98, p.E4)(AP, 2/8/99)
1924 May 21, Bobby Franks (14) was murdered in a "thrill killing" committed by Nathan Leopold Jr. (19) and Richard Loeb (18), two rich college kids of the University of Chicago. The meticulously planned crime might never have been solved had Leopold's unique eyeglasses not been found near Franks' body. They were defended by Clarence Darrow, who pleaded his clients guilty in order to keep the case from a jury. Richard Loeb was a cousin of Bobby Franks. The sensational two-month trial generated an outcry in favor of execution, but Judge John Caverly sentenced the two to life imprisonment. Loeb was killed in a prison fight in 1936. Leopold, with the support of Prosecutor Crowe, was released from prison in 1958 and died of a heart attack in 1971. In 1956 Meyer Levin authored "Compulsion," an account of the case. A play dramatizing the case was written in 1995 by John Logan. In 2008 Simon Baatz authored "For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Chicago."
(AP, 5/21/97)(WSJ, 12/1/95, p.A-12)(AP, 5/21/97)(WSJ, 11/10/07, p.W8)(WSJ, 8/8/08, p.W8)
1926 Oct 11, Walter Swanson, Michael Petrovich and John Duane were murdered. Clarence "Buck" Kelly was hanged at San Quentin Prison for the murders on May 12, 1928.
(SFC, 5/9/03, p.E5)
1927 Apr 14, In California lobbyist Harry Hill (b.1880) shot and killed Marybelle Wallace, who had spurned his romantic advances. Hill, a Sacramento lobbyist, then shot and killed himself. Wallace was an employee of Sen. Lyon.
(Sacramento Bee, 4/15/27, p.1,30)(http://tinyurl.com/by6o9t3)
1929 In Nagyrev, Hungary, some 40 men were poisoned by their wives or daughters-in-law with arsenic laced duck soup, tea and wine. 6 local women were sentenced to die, but only 2 were executed. The midwife ringleader, who extracted the arsenic from flypaper, committed suicide. The 2003 Hungarian film "Hiccup" was based on the poisonings.
(WSJ, 5/20/04, p.A1)
1932 Jan 8, Joseph Kahahawai (21) was kidnapped and killed by a vigilante group following an alleged gang rape. Thalia Massie, her husband, mother, and 2 other suspects were convicted of manslaughter in the Kahahawai murder, but their sentences were commuted to one hour in the custody of Territorial Gov. Lawrence Judd. They then sailed to SF to avoid a new trial. In 2005 David E. Stannard authored "Honor Killing: How the Famous Masie Affair Transformed Hawaii."
(SFC, 5/28/05, p.E1)
1932 Mar 1, Charles Lindbergh Jr. (20 months), the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh was kidnapped from his nursery at the family home near Hopewell, (Princeton) N.J. A handwritten note left at the scene demanded a $50,000 ransom. Under relentless public scrutiny, the Lindberghs complied with the ransom demands, but on May 12, the child's remains were found two miles from their home. German immigrant Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested and convicted for the crime amid a frenzy of biased media coverage. Hauptmann maintained his innocence until his execution in 1936. In 1961 George Waller authored "Kidnap," an account of the kidnapping and trial.
(TMC, 1994, p.1932)(AP, 3/1/98)(HN, 3/1/98)(HNPD, 3/1/99)(WSJ, 11/10/07, p.W8)
1934 Mar 3, John Dillinger broke out of jail using a wooden pistol.
1934 Apr 1, Bonnie and Clyde killed 2 police officers near Grapevine, Texas.
(OTD)(ON, 7/02, p.2)
1934 May 23, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were shot some 4 dozen times early in the morning in a police ambush by Texas Rangers as they were driving a stolen Ford Deluxe along a road in Bienville Parish, near Sailes, La. This ended the most spectacular manhunt seen in America up to that time. The pair had spent the previous 2 years killing and robbing banks in the Midwest. Bonnie Parker was 19 and Clyde Barrow was 21 when they met in Dallas in 1930. By the time the Barrow gang's crime spree ended four years later, Bonnie, Clyde, Clyde's brother Buck and Buck's wife had terrorized the Southwest and Midwest and were believed to have committed 13 murders. In 1997 Clyde's bullet-ridden shirt was auctioned off to a Nevada casino for $85,000. His largest theft was estimated at $4,000. In 1979 Ted Hinton and Larry Grove authored "Ambush: The Real Story of Bonnie and Clyde."
(SFC, 4/3/97, p.A13)(SFC, 4/15/97, p.A13)(AP, 5/23/97)(HNPD, 5/29/99)(HN, 5/23/02)(ON, 7/02, p.3)
1935 Feb 13, A jury in Flemington, N.J., found Bruno Richard Hauptmann guilty of first-degree murder in the kidnap-death of the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. Hauptmann was later executed.
1936 Aug 14, Rainey Bethea was hanged in the last US public execution.
1939 Jan 16, Albert Fish, mass murderer, was executed.
1939 Jul 13, Howard Long was hanged at the New Hampshire State Prison for the sex-killing of 10-year-old Mark Neville Jensen of Alton.
1941 Dec 6, Richard Speck, mass murderer (killed 8 student nurses in 1966), was born.
1942 Mar 17, John Wayne Gacy, serial killer (32 boys), was born in Chicago, Ill.
1947 Jan 15, A grisly, still-unsolved murder case came to light in Los Angeles as the mutilated remains of 22-year-old aspiring actress Elizabeth Short, known as the "Black Dahlia" for the dark outfits she wore, were found dumped in a vacant lot. Her body was severed at the waist, drained of blood and fully posed in a vacant lot. The Black Dahlia murder case remained unsolved even though 500 hundred men confessed to the murder. In 1977 John Gregory Dunne authored "True Confessions," a novel based on the case. In 1987 James Ellroy authored "The Black Dahlia." In 2003 Steve Hodel authored "Black Dahlia Avenger," in which he held that the killer was Dr. George Hodel, his own father.
(SFEC, 12/1/96, BR p.3)(SFEC, 4/5/98, p.C16)(AP, 1/15/01)(NW, 4/21/03, p.59)(SFC, 1/2/04, p.D1)(SFC, 4/16/04, p.B7)
1948 Jul 3, Kidnapper Caryl Chessman was sentenced to death.
1948 Dec 18, Janet Fay was hammered to death by Honeymoon Killers.
1949 Sep 6, Howard Unruh (28) killed 13 neighbors in 12 minutes in Camden, New Jersey.
1954 Jul 4, Marilyn Sheppard (31 and pregnant) was killed at her home near Cleveland and her husband, Dr. Sam Sheppard (d.1970), was later accused, tried and jailed for the murder. Sam was released from jail in 1964. His story inspired the TV series "The Fugitive" and a film in 1993. DNA evidence in 1997 indicated a third person was involved. Cleveland's chief prosecutor ruled in 1998 that the DNA samples were too old. A civil trial in Cleveland in 2000 rejected the claim of Sam Reese Sheppard that his father was innocent.
(SFC, 2/5/97, p.A6)(SFC, 3/5/98, p.A3)(SFC, 3/6/98, p.A3)(SFC, 4/13/00, p.A2)
1954 Dec 21, Dr. Sam Sheppard, an osteopathic surgeon, was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife, Marilyn, and was sentenced to life in prison. Sheppard spent 10 years in prison before the Supreme Court overturned the verdict; he was acquitted at retrial in 1966 and died four years later. [see Jul 4]
1955 Apr 28, Stephanie Bryan (14) failed to return home from school at Willard Jr. High in Berkeley, Ca. She was allegedly kidnapped by Burton Abbott, a married accounting student at Cal. Abbott was convicted and executed at San Quentin in 1957 just minutes before Gov. Knight called for a stay. In 1995 Keith Walker authored "A Trail of Corn," covering the case. [see Jul 20]
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.D5)(SSFC, 5/2/04, p.A2)
1955 Jul 13, Ruth Ellis, last English woman (murderess), was executed by hanging.
1955 Jul 20, The body of Stephanie Bryan was found in Trinity County, Ca., where Burton Abbott owned a fishing cabin. Burton W. "Bud" Abbott, an ex-GI, was later convicted and executed for her murder. The story is covered in the 1997 book: "Shallow Grave in Trinity County" by Harry Farrell. [see Apr 28]
(SFC, 12/2/97, p.D5)(SFEC,12/28/97, p.D5)
1955 Oct 31, William "Billy" Woodward, Jr. (b.1920), heir to the Hanover National Bank fortune (later Manufacturer's Hanover), the Belair Estate and stud farm and legacy, and a leading figure in racing circles, was shot to death by his wife, Ann. In 1985 Dominick Dunne (1925-2009) authored "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles," based on the Woodward murder case. The book was turned into a television movie in 1987.
1956 In Edmonton, Canada, John Etter Clark, a provincial politician who served as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for four years, killed his wife, son, three daughters and an employee of their family farm before taking his own life.
1957 Mar 15, Burton Abbot was executed for the 1955 abduction and killing of 14-year-old Stephanie Bryan.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, p.C17)
1957 Dec 3, Maria Ridulph (7) disappeared while playing in Sycamore, Illinois. In April, 1958, two people foraging for mushrooms found her remains. In 2011 prosecutors in Sycamore charged Jack Daniel McCullough (71), a former police officer, in the abduction of Ridulph after an ex-girlfriend's discovery of an unused train ticket blew a hole in his alibi. At the time, McCullough's name was John Tessier. On Sep 14, 2012, McCullough was convicted of the murder. On Dec 9 McCullough was sentenced to life in prison.
1959 Feb 20, Joel Rifkind, NY serial killer, was born.
1959 Jun 25, Charles Starkweather, spree murderer, was executed.
1959 Nov 15, Richard Hickok and Perry Smith savagely murdered the Clutter Family in Holcomb, Kansas. The murders inspired Truman Capote's book "In Cold Blood" (1966). Hickok and Smith reportedly fled to Florida. Investigators later linked them to the Dec 18, 1959, murders of Cliff Walker, his wife and two children.
(www.crimelibrary.com)(SFC, 8/23/11, p.A5)(SFC, 12/5/12, p.A8)
1959 Dec 18, In Florida Cliff Walker, his wife and two children were murdered on a ranch in Osprey. Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, the killers of a family in Kansas on Nov 15, were later linked to the murder of the Walker family. In 2013 sheriff's deputies failed to make a DNA link between the family, Hickock and Smith.
(SFC, 12/5/12, p.A8)(SFC, 8/14/13, p.A6)
1960 Apr 16, In Texas teacher and ex-beauty queen Irene Garza (25) was killed following her confession at a Roman Catholic church in McAllen. On April 21 police found Garza's body face down in a McAllen canal, along with a candelabra from Sacred Heart and a Kodak slide photograph viewer that police said belongs to priest John Feit. In 2016 former priest John Feit (83) pleaded guilty to her murder.
(www.cnn.com/2013/05/31/justice/garza-cold-case-timeline/)(SFC, 3/15/16, p.A6)
1960 May 17, Connecticut executed Joseph "Mad Dog" Taborsky in the electric chair for a series of murders and robberies.
1961 Feb 16, Wilbert Ridieu (19) robbed the Lake Charles, La., Gulf National Bank. He walked out with $14,000 and 3 hostages, 2 of whom he shot and left for dead. Rideau stabbed to death Julia Ferguson on a rural Louisiana road following the bank robbery. He confessed and was sentenced to death 3 times. Rideau escaped death in the 1970s when the death penalty was outlawed. In 2003 his case was still in court. While in prison Rideau became a self-educated writer and elevated the prison magazine, the Angolite, to national acclaim. In 2005 Rideau was set free for time served after a racially mixed jury found him guilty of manslaughter.
(NW, 1/13/03, p.52)(AP, 1/16/05)(SFC, 1/17/05, p.A5)
1963 Mar 6, Jimmy Lee Smith and Gregory Powell abducted 2 Los Angeles police officers from a Hollywood street, drove them to an onion field in Bakersfield and shot officer Ian Campbell to death. Officer Karl Hettinger managed to escape. Smith served 19 years for his role in the case before he was paroled. In 1973 Joseph Wambaugh authored "The Onion Field," a novel based on the murder. The novel was turned into a film in 1979.
(SFC, 6/28/05, p.B8)
1963 Mar 16, Phung Vuong, murderer (FBI Most Wanted List), was born in Saigon, Vietnam.
1963 Jul, Serial killers Myra Hindley (d.2002) and her boyfriend, Ian Brady (the Moors Murderers), began abducting, molesting and killing children in Britain. The pair were caught in Oct, 1965.
1964 Jan, Mary Sullivan (19) was raped and strangled in her Boston apartment. In 2001 there was evidence that she was not killed by Albert DeSalvo (d.1973), the suspected Boston Strangler. In 2013 DNA evidence linked DeSalvo to Sullivan's slaying.
(SFC, 12/7/01, p.A2)(SFC, 7/12/13, p.A10)
1964 Mar 13, In a notorious case 38 residents of a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens reportedly failed to respond to the cries of Kitty Genovese (28), a gay woman, as she was being stabbed to death. Winston Mosely was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In 2014 Kevin Cook authored "Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime That Changed America." Here he refutes the story of 38 witnesses and details the what happened.
(AP, 3/13/97)(AARP Bulletin, 3/14, p. 24)
1964 Jun 21, Three young civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman 20, Michael Schwerner 24, and James Chaney 21, disappeared near Meridian, Mississippi. Their car was found burning late in the day. Forty days later their bodies were found buried in an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Miss. Eight Klansman went to prison on federal conspiracy charges but none served more than 6 years, and murder charges were never filed. The event inspired the 1988 film Mississippi Burning. In 2005 Edgar Ray Killen (80) was arrested in Philadelphia, Miss., and convicted of manslaughter in the 1964 abduction and killing of 3 voter-registration volunteers.
(SFEC, 2/16/97, p.A12)(AP, 6/21/97)(HN, 6/21/01)(SFC, 6/22/05, p.A1)
1965 Apr 14, Perry E. Smith and Robert E. Hickok, US murderers (In Cold Blood), were hanged.
1965 Oct, In Britain child serial killers Myra Hindley (d.2002) and her boyfriend, Ian Brady (the Moors Murderers), were caught. [see 1966]
1966 Jul 14, In Chicago Richard Speck murdered 8 student nurses in a Chicago dormitory. He made a videotape in prison and admitted to the killings. Gloria Davy, Patricia Matusek, Nina Schmale, Pamela Wilkening, Suzanne Farris, Mary Ann Jordan, Merlita Gargullo, and Valentina Paison; all nursing students at the South Chicago Community Hospital; were raped then strangled or stabbed to death by Richard Speck. One survivor, Cora Amurao, identified Richard Speck, and he was put in jail. He was serving consecutive sentences of 50 to 150 years and died of a heart attack in 1991 at age 49. The video shows him having sex and snorting cocaine in prison.
(USA Today, 5/14/96, p.3A)(TMC, 1994, p.1966)(AP, 7/14/97)(MC, 7/14/02)
1966 Aug 1, Charles Joseph Whitman (25), architectural engineering student and ex-Marine, shot and killed 15 people at the University of Texas before he was gunned down by police. His mother and wife were the first victims before he climbed to the tower at the Univ. of Texas in Austen and shot 14 people dead and wounded 31. The 1997 film "The Delicate Art of the Rifle" by the Cambrai Liberation Collective of North Carolina was a reimaging of the attack at the Austin Campus.
(AP, 8/1/97)(SFC,10/18/97, p.E1)(SFC,11/19/97, p.A3)(MC, 8/1/02)
1966 Oct 30, The Zodiac killer murdered a female college student in Riverside. In 1985 Robert Graysmith authored "Zodiac" in which he identified the killer with the pseudonym of "Robert Starr," and later identified him as Arthur Leigh Allen (d.1992), a convicted child molester from Vallejo. Graysmith authored "Zodiac Unmasked" in 2002. In 2009 Deborah Perez (47) asserted that her father, Santa Ana resident Guy Ward Hendrickson (d.1983), was the Zodiac killer and that she had accompanied him on some of the killings.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W20)(SSFC, 5/12/02, p.M6)(SFC, 4/30/09, p.A9)
1966 Myra Hindley (d.2002) and her boyfriend, Ian Brady (the Moors Murderers), were sentenced to life in prison for the murders of 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey and 17-year-old Edward Evans. Brady was also found guilty of killing John Kilbride, 12, and Hindley for sheltering her lover after that murder. The pair confessed in 1987 to murdering Pauline Reade, 16, and Keith Bennett, 12. The serial killings from July 1963 to October 1965 horrified Britain. In 1997 a 13-foot high painting titled "Myra" by Marcus Harvey was displayed at the Royal Academy of Arts. It was created from children's handprints and based on a mug shot of Myra.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.E5)(AP, 11/16/02)
1967 Jan 18, Albert DeSalvo, who claimed to be the "Boston Strangler," was convicted in Cambridge, Mass., of armed robbery, assault and sex offenses. Sentenced to life, DeSalvo was killed by a fellow inmate in 1973. DeSalvo had confessed to being the Boston Strangler and killing 13 women. He was never convicted of murder. A portrait of him with police interviews was made in 1996 for TV show Biography. In 1999 DNA evidence was sought to confirm DeSalvo's claims.
(SFC, 6/6/96, E9)(AP, 1/18/98)(SFC, 7/10/99, p.A4)
1967 Jun 5, Murderer Richard Speck (1941-1991) was sentenced to death in electric chair for the murder of 8 student nurses on July 14, 1966. The Illinois Supreme Court upheld his conviction and death sentence on November 22, 1968.
1968 Feb 8, In South Carolina Lee Roy Martin, called the editor of a local newspaper, and told him where to find the bodies of two women he'd dumped in the woods. He threatened to kill even more women until he was "shot down like the dog I am." Clues in the area led to Martin's arrest. He was convicted of four murders and sentenced to four life terms. In 1972, he was stabbed to death in his cell.
1968 Linda Harmon (14) was raped, beaten and stabbed to death in SF. In 2003 DNA evidence identified William Speer (61), a convicted sexual predator, as the murderer.
(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A13)
1969 Mar 3, Sirhan Sirhan testified in a court in Los Angeles that he killed Robert Kennedy.
1969 Aug 8, Actress Sharon Tate (26) and four other people were brutally murdered in her Beverly Hills home; cult leader Charles Manson and a group of his disciples were later convicted of the crime. The best writing on the Manson murders was by Joan Didion in "The White Album."
(SFEC, 3/16/97, z1 p.4)(AP, 8/9/97)(HN, 8/9/98)(SFEC, 9/19/99, BR p.6)
1969 Aug 10, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca were murdered in their Los Angeles home by members of Charles Manson's cult, one day after actress Sharon Tate and four other people were found slain.
1969 Aug 31, Andrew Phillip Cunanan, serial killer, was born. His victims included fashion designer Gianni Versache.
1969 Sep, Susan Nason (8) of Foster City, Ca., was bludgeoned to death. Her body was found 2 months later near Crystal Springs. In Dec 1989 Nason's neighbor and schoolmate, Eileen Franklin-Lipsker, told police that she suddenly remembered seeing her father batter her friend and hide the body. In 1990 George Franklin was convicted in the first case to use recovered-memory testimony. Franklin was released after 6 1/2 years when a federal judge ruled a mistrial. DNA evidence showed Franklin was not responsible.
(SFC, 2/4/00, p.A21)(SSFC, 2/8/04, p.A28)
1969 Dec 31, In Clarksville, Pa., Joseph Yablonski was murdered with his wife and daughter. Yablonski had lost an election for the presidency of the United Mine Workers 3 weeks earlier. [see Jan 5, 1970]
(SFC, 11/8/99, p.C2)
1970 Jan 5, Joseph A. Yablonski, an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the United Mine Workers, was found murdered with his wife and daughter at their Clarksville, Pa., home. Nine people were later charged in the killing including UMW Pres. W.A. Boyle.
(AP, 1/5/98)(SFC, 11/8/99, p.C2)
1970 Oct 19, John Linley Frazier murdered Dr. Victor Ohta, his wife, 2 children and secretary in Santa Cruz, Ca. He was convicted in Nov. 1970, and sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 1/27/05, p.B7)(www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/serialkillers/frazier.htm)
1971 Jan 25, Charles Manson and three female followers were convicted in Los Angeles of murder and conspiracy in the 1969 slayings of seven people, including actress Sharon Tate.
1971 Feb 20, Shalanda Burt, US murderess, was born.
1971 Apr 19, Charles Manson and 3 accomplices were sentenced to death for the Sharon Tate murders.
1971 May 18, Vampire rapist Wayne Boden's last victim was found.
1971 May 26, In northern California Juan Corona (1934-2019) was arrested for 25 murders. Authorities had found 25 mutilated bodies of male farmworkers in orchards along the Feather River in Sutter County. The farm labor contractor from Yuba City Ca., was convicted in 1973 and again in 1982 and sentenced to life in prison.
(SFEC, 5/4/97, p.B12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Corona)(SFC, 3/5/19, p.C4)
1971 Aug 28, Nathan Leopold, US kidnapper, murderer of Bobby Franks (1924), died.
1971 Oct 30, Mack Ray Edwards, California serial killer, hanged himself while on death row. He admitted to 6 sexually motivated murders in the 1950s and 1960s and later told a jailer that the number was closer to 20.
(SSFC, 10/12/08, p.B7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mack_Ray_Edwards)
1971 Nov 27, Eric Menendez, accused with his brother of killing their parents (1989), was born in New Jersey.
1971 John Linley Frazier, hippie revolutionary, was convicted of killing 5 people in Santa Cruz and was sentenced to death.
(SSFC, 2/8/04, p.A28)
1972 Feb 4, In California the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders when Yvonne Weber (13) and Maureen Sterling (13) were seen thumbing a lift on Guerneville Road. Their bones were found 10 months later six miles into the hills north of Santa Rosa. By December 1973 five more young women had disappeared in the area. They included Kim Allen (19), Jeannette Kamahele (20), Lori Kursa (13), Carolyn Davis (15) and Theresa Walsh (23).
(SFC, 7/7/11, p.A9)
1972 Dec 25, Lois Petrie was raped and killed in the San Pedro area of Los Angeles. In 2003 Adolph Theodore Laudenburg (77) was arrested for the murder based on DNA evidence. He was suspected in a total of 6 murders between 1972 and 1975, 3 in LA and 3 in SF.
(SFC, 9/9/03, p.A13)
1972-73 Edmund Kemper III (b.1948) murdered 6 female college students and chopped up their bodies in the Santa Cruz, Ca., area. In 1964, at age 15, he had shot and killed his grandparents. He killed his mother and a friend of hers in Santa Cruz on Easter weekend, 1973, and soon surrendered. He was sentenced to life in prison at Vacaville, Ca.
1972-1994 Russian Andrei Chikatilo convicted and executed in 1994 for killing and mutilating 52 women and children in Russia over a 12-year period.
1973 Feb 5, Juan Corona was sentenced to 25 consecutive life terms for 25 murders.
1973 Aug 19, In Santa Cruz, Ca., Herbert Mullin (b.1947) was declared guilty of first-degree murder in the cases of Jim Gianera and Kathy Francis, because they were premeditated, while for the other eight murders he was found guilty of second-degree murder because they were more impulsive. His story was alter told by Donald T. Lunde and Jefferson Morgan in "The Die Song: A Journey in the Mind of a Mass Murderer."
1973 Oct 20, The San Francisco Zebra murders began and lasted for 179 days. 15 people were killed and 8 wounded by a gang of racial extremists. Police cracked the case in 1974 after Mayor Alioto personally grilled an informant. Police used a special radio band, Z for zebra, during their hunt for the killers. In 1976 Jesse Lee Cooks, Larry Green, Manuel Moore and J.C. X. Simon (d.2015) were convicted and sentenced to life.
(SFC, 6/21/96, p.E2)(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.C6)(SSFC, 10/12/02, p.AD3)(SFC, 3/14/15, p.C4)
1973 The 6 members of the Alday family were killed on their farm during a robbery in southwest Georgia. In 2003 Carl Isaacs (49) was executed for his role in the killings.
(SFC, 5/7/03, p.A7)
1974 Jan 15, In Wichita, Kansas, 4 members of the Otero family were found murdered. Their murder was later associated with the BTK serial killer. In 2005 Dennis Rader pleaded guilty to 10-counts of 1st degree murder for killings from 1974-1991.
(SSFC, 2/27/05, p.A3)(www.kansas.com/214/story/16542.html)
1974 Jan 27, In San Francisco Gerald Kavanaugh (50) was found dead on Ocean Beach with 16 stab wounds. He was the first of at least five gay victims stabbed to death over the next year and a half by a serial killer, dubbed the Doodler, for his pattern of sketching victims in diners and bars before asking them to have sex.
(SFC, 2/7/19, p.A9)
1974 Feb 1, Lynda Ann Healy, 1st Bundy murder victim, was abducted in Seattle.
1974 Mar 12, Bundy victim Donna Manson (b.1954) disappeared from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wa.
1974 Apr 17, Ted Bundy victim Susan Rancourt disappeared from CWU, Ellensburg, WA.
1974 May 6, Bundy victim Roberta Parks disappeared from OSU, Corvallis, Ore.
1974 Jun 11, Georgann Hawkins, Bundy victim, disappeared from UW, in Seattle, Wash.
1974 Jul 14, Bundy victims Janice Ott and Denise Naslund disappeared at Lake Sammamish, WA.
1974 Oct 2, Nancy Wilcox, believed to have been a victim of the serial killer Ted Bundy (d.1989), disappeared in Salt Lake City, Utah.
1974 Oct 28, Missionaries Mark Fischer (19) of Milwaukee, Wis., and Gary Darley (20) of Simi Valley, Calif., disappeared in Austin, Texas. Their bodies were never found. Robert Elmer Kleasen, taxidermist, was convicted for their murder and sentenced to death in 1975, but was released after 2 years due to a faulty search warrant. He moved to Britain and in 2001 was convicted again based on DNA evidence, but died in 2003 while awaiting possible extradition.
1974 Oct 31, Suspected Bundy victim Laura Aime disappeared in Utah.
1974 Nov 8, Debi Kent disappeared in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was later identified as another victim of Theodore "Ted" Bundy (1946-1989), the Green River Murderer, who would be officially convicted of killing 36 women and executed on January 24, 1989, in Florida.
1974 Nov 24, Susan Murphy, 3-months pregnant, was killed in her Oakland home on her 19th birthday. In 2002 DNA evidence identified and arrested Ellis Lorenzo Lockett for the murder.
(SFC, 7/19/02, p.A23)
1974 Dec 1, L.A. Skid Row slasher killed 1st of 8 victims.
1975 Mar 15, Ted Bundy victim Julie Cunningham disappeared from Vail, Colo.
1975 Apr 6, Bundy victim Denise Oliverson disappeared from Grand Junction, Colo.
1975 Apr 11, John Dadian (67), cab driver, was shot and killed by Brandy Giggey (16) during a robbery attempt on Ocean Beach, SF.
(SFCM, 11/10/02, p.13)
1975 May 6, Bundy victim Lynette Culver disappeared from Pocatello, Idaho.
1975 Jun 4, In San Francisco Harald Gullberg was found stabbed to death in the area of Golden Gate Park. He was the 5th gay man stabbed to death by the Doodler serial killer over the last year and a half.
(SFC, 2/7/19, p.A9)
1975 Jul 1, Shelley Robertson, a Bundy victim, disappeared in Colorado. Her body was found on August 21,1975, in a mine in Berthoud Pass, Colorado.
1975 Jul 4, Nancy Baird (23), a Bundy victim, disappeared from a convenience store where she worked in Layton, Utah.
1975 Sep 29, Peter Sutcliffe, who became known as the Yorkshire Ripper, killed his 1st victim.
1975 Sep 30, In Rome Donatella Colasanti (17) was found bloodied and battered, but alive in the boot of a car. Beside her was the dead body of her friend Rosaria Lopez (20). Both had undergone hours of torture before Lopez was finally drowned in a bath. Colasanti had escaped the same fate only by playing dead. Andrea Ghira was found guilty in the "Circeo Massacre," named for the town near Rome where two girls were held captive for 36 hours and then left wrapped in plastic in a car trunk, where one girl died. He was convicted in absentia for the slaying. In 2005 his body was found in a cemetery in a Spanish enclave in Morocco, where he was buried in 1994.
(AP, 10/29/05)(http://rome.wantedineurope.com/articles/complete_articles.php?id_art=559)
1975 Oct, Deborah Gardner (23) was stabbed (22 times) to death in Tonga by Dennis Priven (24), a fellow Peace Corps volunteer. In 2004 Philip Weiss authored "American Taboo: A Murder in the Peace Corps."
(SSFC, 6/27/04, p.M2)
1975 Dec, The bodies of Tourists Connie Jo Bronzich (29) and Laurent Armand Carriere were found badly burned in a field outside Kathmandu, Nepal. In 2003 Charles Sobhraj (59) was ordered to stand trial for their murder. Police said he had killed as many as 20 people. In 2004 he was convicted in Nepal and sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 11/21/03, p.D1)(www.abc.net.au/am/content/2004/s1175776.htm)
1975 Thailand issued a warrant for the arrest of Charles Sobhraj on charges of drugging and killing six women, all wearing bikinis, on a beach at Pattaya. Sobhraj is also accused of killing more than 20 young Western backpackers across Asia, usually by drugging their food or drink, in the 1970s and 1980s. Sobhraj, serving 20 years in India, escaped from prison in the mid-1980s, but was caught and returned to jail until 1997. In 2003 French national Sobhraj was arrested from a casino in Kathmandu on charges that he traveled to the Himalayan nation on a fake passport 32 years ago. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison for murdering an American backpacker in 1975.
(Reuters, 12/19/07)
1976 Jan 8, In Pacifica, Ca., the body of Ronnie Cascio (18) was discovered at the Sharp Park Golf Course. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed 30 times. Over the next few months four more young women were found murdered, Tanya Blackwell (14) of Pacifica; Paula Baxter (17) of Millbrae; Denise Lampe (19) of Broadmoor; and Carol Lee Booth (26) of South San Francisco. In 2014 police linked the Feb 24, 1976, murder of Reno resident Michelle Mitchell (19) to the Bay Area murders. In 1979 Cathy Woods, a psychiatric patient at the Louisiana State Univ. Medical Center, told staff that she had killed a girl named Michelle in Reno. Woods was ultimately convicted of murder. In 2014 DNA evidence linked Rodney Halbower (66), an inmate at the Oregon State Penitentiary, to the murder of Mitchell and 5 women in the SF Bay Area. Woods was released to her family.
(SFC, 3/7/14, p.D8)(SFC, 9/9/14, p.C1)
1976 Feb 15, In Los Angeles Elizabeth McKeown (67) was beaten, raped and strangled. A young homicide detective found her body 3 days later in a car trunk. In 2009 John Floyd Thomas Jr. (72), an insurance claims adjuster, was arrested based on DNA evidence. A series of attacks stopped in 1978, the year Thomas went to prison for the rape of a Pasadena woman.
(AP, 5/1/09)(SFC, 9/24/09, p.D3)
1976 Oct, William George Bundy (b.1957), construction worker, disappeared in Cook County, Ill. Bones of 33 men and boys were found in late 1978 under the home of John Wayne Gacy (1942-1994). In 2011 authorities identified Bundy's bones among those found under Gacy's Chicago house.
(SFC, 11/30/11, p.A12)(http://tinyurl.com/7s5utyc)
1976-1977 David Berkowitz, aka "Son of Sam," killed six people and wounded seven others in New York City. Serving six consecutive 25-years-to-life sentences.
1977 Jan 17, Gary Gilmore (b.1940), convicted for two murders he committed in Utah, was shot by a firing squad at Utah State Prison in the first US execution in a decade. In 1979 Norman Mailer authored his Pulitzer Prize winning book: "The Executioner's Song," the story of Gary Gilmore.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Gilmore)(AP, 1/17/98)(Econ, 11/17/07, p.103)
1977 Aug 10, Postal employee David Berkowitz was arrested in Yonkers, N.Y., accused of being the "Son of Sam" gunman responsible for six slayings and seven woundings. Berkowitz was sentenced to six consecutive 25-years-to-life sentences.
1977 Aug 15, Police in Cape Girardeau, Mo., found Mary Parsh (58) and her daughter, Brenda (27), lying nude side by side on a bed at home, their hands tied behind their backs. Each had been shot in the head. In 2007 Timothy Krajcir (63), a graduate from Southern Illinois with a degree in law enforcement, confessed to their rape and murder and at least 4 more.
1977 Sep 11, Lou Ellen Burleigh (21) of Walnut Creek, Ca., went missing. Roger Kibbe was later identified as a suspect confessed to her rape and murder. In 2009 Kibbe, who had become known as the I-5 strangler, was convicted of her murder and that of 5 others. In 2011 remains of Burleigh were found in a dry riverbed near Lake Berryessa.
(SFC, 6/28/11, p.C6)
1977 Sep, In Philadelphia Helen "Holly" Maddux, a Bryn Mawr College graduate from Tyler, Texas, was murdered and stuffed into a steamer trunk for 18 months until her body was discovered. Ira Einhorn, "hippie guru" was arrested for the murder in 1979 but released on bail. He fled to hide in France. Fred Maddux, Holly's father, committed suicide in 1988. Einhorn was convicted in absentia in 1993. In June,1997, he was arrested in France. A French court ruled against extradition and released Einhorn. Einhorn was arrested in 1998 under a new extradition warrant. The events were broadcast as a TV crime story in 1999 titled "The Hunt for the Unicorn Killer." In 1999 The French Supreme Court ruled that Einhorn should be returned to the US. In 1999 a civil suit ordered Einhorn to pay $907 million to the Maddux family. Einhorn was extradited to the US in 2001. he was convicted of murder Oct 17, 2002.
(SFC, 6/17/97, p.A2)(SFC,12/5/97, p.A17)(SFC, 9/22/98, p.A3)(WSJ, 5/3/99, p.A20)(WSJ, 5/12/99, p.A23)(SFC, 5/28/99, p.D3)(SFC, 7/29/99, p.A8)(SFC, 7/20/01, p.A14)(SFC, 10/18/02, p.A7)
1977 Dec 30, Ted Bundy (1946-1989), serial killer, escaped from jail in Colorado. His absence was not noticed until the next day. He was re-captured in Florida on February 15, 1978, after 3 more murders.
1979 Jul 23, Ted Bundy was convicted of 2 Florida slayings. In 1980 he was convicted of the murder and rape of Kimberly Leach (12). Bundy eventually confessed to more than 30 killings and was executed in 1989.
(AP, 1/13/04)(www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/notorious/bundy/14.html)
1977-1993 In Missouri a serial killer committed at least 12 murders during this period. In 2004 Kansas City police used DNA technology to charge Lorenzo Gilyard with 12 murders.
(WSJ, 4/20/04, p.A1)
1978 Oct 12, Nancy Spungen (b.1958), girlfriend of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious, was found dead on the bathroom floor of their NYC hotel room.
1978 Jan 15, Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman, two students at Florida State University in Tallahassee, were murdered in their sorority house. Theodore Bundy (1946-1989) was later convicted of the crime, and executed.
1978 Feb 9, Kimberly Leach (12) was killed by Ted Bundy in Lake City, Fla.
1978 Feb 15, Ted Bundy (1946-1989), American escaped serial killed, was recaptured in Pensacola, Fla. Bundy eventually confessed to 29 murders.
1978 May 11, Carol Schmal (23) and Lawrence Lionberg (29) were murdered in Chicago. Four men were arrested for rape and murder and 2 of the men were sentenced to death. In 1999 Kenny Adams, Willie Rainge, Verneal Jimerson and Dennis Williams were released after a journalism class proved their innocence. The men then filed a suit and settled with Cook County for $36 million.
(SFC, 3/6/99, p.A3)
1978 Jul 23, Franklin Bradshow was killed in SLC, Utah. His daughter, Frances B. Schreuder (d.2004), had persuaded her son to kill her wealthy father due to "his stinginess." Schreuder was convicted in 1983.
(SFC, 4/3/04, p.B6)
1978 Sep 6, Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov, living in London, was stabbed in the leg by a man carrying an umbrella; Markov died four days later, an apparent victim of the Bulgarian secret police.
1978 Sep 11, Kippi Vaught and Rhonda Scheffler (17) were kidnapped from a shopping mall in Sacramento. Their bodies were found 2 days later east of town. Gerald Gallego (b.1946) and accomplice Charlene Williams (24) began a rape and murder spree that left 9 women and one young man dead. Williams served 17 years in prison. Gallego was sentenced to death but was still alive with appeals.
(www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/serialkillers/gallego.htm)(SFC,10/28/97, p.A17)
1978 Sep 11, Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian defector, died at a British hospital four days after being stabbed by a man wielding a poisoned umbrella tip. British investigative reporter Peter Earle (d.1997 at 71) revealed that Markov was jabbed by an East German agent with a poison tipped umbrella on Waterloo Bridge. The original report stated that Markov died of a heart attack. In 1993 Danish authorities charged a Dane of Italian origin, Francesco Guillino, with killing Markov. Guillino, who reportedly had worked for the Bulgarian secret services since 1972, denied any wrongdoing and eventually was freed. In 2005 journalist Hristo Hristov authored "Kill Vagabond," in which he presented new evidence confirming that the hit was planned and carried out by Bulgaria's communist-era secret service.
(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.B8)(AP, 9/11/98)(AP, 6/16/05)(SFC, 6/17/05, p.W5)
1978 In Italy Maurizio Minghella was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for killing 4 women. In 1995 he was given partial liberty and prosecutors say he killed 4 prostitutes. In 2002 his trial continued in Turin.
1978-1983 Scottish-born Dennis Nilsen (b.1945), British serial killer, murdered 15 men during this period. In 1983 Nilsen was sentenced to life in prison after admitting the murders.
(AP, 1/13/04)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Nilsen)
1978-1992 Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 men and boys, most in Milwaukee, during this period. He was convicted and sentenced to 16 consecutive life terms and was killed in prison in 1994.
1979 Jan 12, Kenneth Bianchi, LA's Hillside Strangler, was arrested in Bellingham, Wa. He and his cousin Angelo Buono (d.2002 at 67) sexually assaulted and murdered as many as 13 young women (12-28) in 1977-1978, and dumping their bodies on LA-area hillsides. Bianchi testified against Buono to escape the death penalty. Buono was convicted on 9 of 10 murder counts and was sentenced to life in prison
(SSFC, 9/22/02, p.A7)(SFC, 10/1/02, p.A17)
1979 Jun 20, Robin Samsoe (12) was kidnapped in Huntington Beach, Ca. Her dismembered and decomposing body was found 12 days later in the Angeles National Forest. Rodney Alcala was arrested and convicted of the slaying in 1980, but the sentence was overturned. He was convicted again in 1986 but a judge faulted the ruling in 2005 and a retrial was scheduled. Alcala pleaded innocent to 4 other sex-torture killings that dated back to 1977.
(SFC, 11/23/05, p.B3)(www.kleph.com/story/ruling.htm)
1979 Jun 24, Brenda Lynn Judd (13) and Sandra Colley (14) were kidnapped in Reno by Gerald Gallego (33) and Charlene Williams. The bodies of Judd (14) and Colley (13) were found in Dec 1999 in Lassen Ct., Ca., near the Nevada state line. Gallego died in 2002 at age 56.
(SFC,10/28/97, p.A17)(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A3)(SFC, 7/20/02, p.A15)
1979 Jul 24, A Miami jury convicted Theodore Bundy of first-degree murder in the slayings of Florida State University sorority sisters Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy.
1979 Aug 14, In northern Wisconsin Rob Pfiel (27) was killed by a shotgun blast to the back of his head. 2 months earlier Rusk County sheriff's deputies killed his 3 dogs because they had gotten loose. Rusk County DA Robert Rogers (d.1984), his wife Cherie Barnard, and 3 brothers were later accused of plotting to kill Pfiel, who had threatened to get even. In 2005 police arrested 2 of the Rogers brothers for Pfiel's murder as well as Barnard.
(SFC, 8/4/05, p.B1)(SFC, 10/17/05, p.A1)
1979 Oct 21, In SF the body of Mary Frances Bennett was found at Lands End. She had been stabbed at least 25 times. In 2010 DNA evidence tied her murder to David Joseph Carpenter, who was on death row at San Quentin for 7 other murders.
(SFC, 2/24/10, p.A7)
1979-1981 In Georgia a string of homicides terrorized the black community of Atlanta. At least 25 African American children and several adults were killed in the late 70s and early 80s. In 1982 Wayne Williams was convicted in the deaths of two adults.
(http://tinyurl.com/y6xbnhz6)(SFC, 3/25/19, p.A5)
1980 Mar 10, "Scarsdale Diet" author Dr. Herman Tarnower was shot to death in Purchase, N.Y. Jean Harris (56) shot and killed her unfaithful lover, cardiologist Herman Tarnover, co-author of "The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet" in Purchase N.Y. She was granted clemency by Gov. Mario Cuomo after she served 12 years of a 15 year sentence. Harris was released in January 1993.
(SFC,10/27/97, p.A3)(AP, 3/10/00)
1980 Mar 11, Marilyn McIntyre (18) was beaten, stabbed and strangled to death at her home in Columbus, Wis. In 2009 Curtis Forbes, a friend of her husband, was charged with 1st degree murder based on DNA evidence.
(SFC, 3/31/09, p.A6)(www.nbc15.com/home/headlines/11251061.html)
1980 Mar 12, A Chicago jury found John Wayne Gacy Jr. guilty of the murders of 33 men and boys. The next day, Gacy was sentenced to death; he was executed in 1994.
1980 Apr 5, Sister Margaret Ann Pahl (71) was stabbed about 30 times and strangled to death. Her body was found in the chapel of Mercy Hospital, Toledo, Ohio. In 2004 Rev. Gerald Robinson (63) was arrested for the murder.
(SFC, 4/24/04, p.A2)
1980 Jun 4, In northern California the body of Anna Menjivas was discovered in Mt. Tamalpais State Park. Her murder had not been connected with the "Trailside" slayings at the time. Investigators later learned she was a long-time friend of David Carpenter, who often let him drive her home from work. In 1988 Carpenter was convicted of 4 killings in Marin County.
(www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/serialkillers/carpenter.htm)(SFC, 2/24/10, p.A7)
1980 Oct 11, In northern California Cynthia Moreland (18) and fiance Richard Stowers (19) were shot to death on Mount Wittenburg in the Point Reyes National Seashore. David Joseph Carpenter was arrested in May 1981. In 1984 he was convicted of 2 murders in Santa Cruz and sentenced to death. In 1988 he was convicted of 4 killings in Marin County and again sentenced to death.
(SFC, 2/24/10, p.A7)
1980 Oct 13, In northern California Anne Evelyn Alderson (26) of San Rafael was raped and shot to death on Mount Tamalpais. David Joseph Carpenter was arrested in May 1981. In 1984 he was convicted of 2 murders in Santa Cruz and sentenced to death. In 1988 he was convicted of 4 killings in Marin County and again sentenced to death.
(SFC, 2/24/10, p.A7)
1980 Nov 17, Clifford Olson (1940-2011) began a murder spree killing 3 girls and 8 boys, ages 9 to 18, in British Columbia over an eight month period. The victims were tortured and sexually assaulted. Olson, who had an extensive criminal history, was arrested on August 12, 1981. He later confessed to the murders and, in a controversial deal, gave police information on the location of the victims' bodies in return for a C$100,000 ($95,000) payment to his family.
(Reuters, 10/1/11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Olson)
1980 Dec 4, In El Salvador the bodies of four American nuns slain two days earlier were unearthed. Colonel Edgardo Casanova was the military commander of the area at the time. Five [four] national guardsmen were later convicted of murder and sentenced in May 1984 to 30 years in prison. In 1998 the guardsmen admitted that they were acting on orders from above. In 1993 a UN Truth Commission report concluded that Colonel Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, director of the National Guard and brother of Edgardo, and Gen'l. Jose Guillermo Garcia, the minister of defense, had organized an official cover-up. Both men were granted residence in the US. 3 of the 5 convicted guardsmen were released in 1998 due to prison overcrowding. In 1999 families of the victims filed suit against Casanova and Garcia who were living in Florida. In 2000 a federal jury cleared the 2 retired generals.
(AP, 12/4/97)(SFC, 4/3/98, p.B2)(SFC, 4/23/98, p.A16)(SFC, 6/25/98, p.A10) (SFC, 7/23/98, p.C2)(SFC, 5/13/99, p.C3)(SFC, 11/3/00, p.A3)
1980 Dec 8, John Lennon, musician and one of the Beatles, was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman outside his New York City apartment building. Chapman was a schizophrenic with the delusion that he himself was John. In 1984 Prof. Jonathan M. Wiener wrote a book on Lennon and later got the FBI to surrender its secret files on Lennon.
(Beat. For., 1995, p. 74)(SFC, 9/25/97, p.A2)(AP, 12/8/97)
1980-1990 Herbert Baumeister (1947-1996), an Indianapolis businessman, killed 16 men, most of them gay, and dumped them in the woods behind his home and along rural roads in Indiana and Ohio. Baumeister committed suicide in Canada at age 49.
1981 Jan 2, "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe (b.1946), murderer of 13 women, was arrested on a traffic violation. On Jan 4 he declared he was the ripper and charges were filed on Jan 6. Stuart Kind (d.2003), a leading forensic biologist, helped British police crack the "Yorkshire Ripper" serial murder case. Sutcliffe was convicted on May 22 on 13 counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison. In 2003 Michael Bilton authored "Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sutcliffe)(AP, 4/30/03)
1981 Feb 24, A jury in White Plains, New York, found Jean Harris guilty of second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of "Scarsdale Diet" author Dr. Herman Tarnower.
1981 Mar 3, In Los Angeles, Ca., Stanley "Tookie" Williams (1953-2005) was convicted in the 1979 killing of 4 people and sentenced to death. The co-founder of the Crips street gang (1971), who denied the murders, took up writing for children while in prison and created the Internet Project for Street Peace. In 2000 a member of the Swiss parliament nominated him for the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. A TV film on Williams, "Redemption," was scheduled to air in 2004. In 2005 he received a "President's Call to Service Award." Williams was executed Dec 13, 2005.
(www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/williams1003.htm)(SFC, 2/13/04, p.A25)(SFC, 8/6/05, p.A2)
1981 Mar 20, Former girls' school headmistress Jean Harris (1923-2012) was sentenced in White Plains, New York, to 15 years to life in prison for slaying "Scarsdale Diet" author Dr. Herman Tarnower. Harris was released in 1993 following a grant of clemency by Gov. Mario M. Cuomo.
(AP, 3/20/01)(SFC, 12/29/12, p.A9)
1981 Mar 29, In northern California Ellen Hansen (20), a UC Davis student, was shot to death after resisting a rape attempt at Henry Cowell Redwood State Park, near Santa Cruz. Her boyfriend was wounded but survived and later identified David Joseph Carpenter as the assailant. Carpenter was arrested in May 1981. In 1984 he was convicted of 2 murders in Santa Cruz and sentenced to death. In 1988 he was convicted of 4 killings in Marin County and again sentenced to death.
(SFC, 2/24/10, p.A7)
1981 Apr 23, Stacy Benjamin (19) and Patty Geddling (23) were murdered in Redwood City, Ca., under drug-related circumstances. Beardslee had killed a woman in Missouri in Dec, 1969. In 2003 A federal appeals court upheld the conviction of Donald Beardslee of San Mateo. Psychiatric evidence later showed that Beardslee suffered from brain damage due to an accident in 1964. His execution was set for Jan 19, 2004.
(SFC, 1/21/02, p.A4)(SFC, 12/17/04, p.B4)(SSFC, 1/16/05, p.A1)
1981 Apr 29, Truck driver Peter Sutcliffe admitted in a London court to being the "Yorkshire Ripper," the killer of 13 women in northern England during a five-year period. He convicted and was sentenced to serve a minimum of 30 years.
1981 Jun 13, Tom Snyder interviewed Charles Manson on "Tomorrow."
1981 Jul 1, The "Wonderland Murders" took place at 4763 Wonderland in the Hollywood Hills. Ronald Launius, William Deverell, Barbara Richardson and Joy Miller were murdered. The killings were said to have occurred in retaliation for a drug robbery 2 nights earlier. Federal prosecutors unveiled in indictment in 2000 against Eddie Nash, a former nightclub owner, Gregory DeWitt Diles, his bodyguard, and porn star John Curtis Holmes. Holmes died in 1988 of an AIDS-related illness. In 2003 the film "Wonderland" starred Val Kilmer as Holmes.
(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.B5)(ST, 10/17/03, p.22H)
1981 Aug 27, Rene Soto clubbed to death Anselmo Covarrubias in LA County. Maria Suarez (21), a battered "sex slave" to Covarrubias and witness to the murder, was convicted of first-degree murder and sent to prison. In 2002 Gov. Davis rejected a recommended parole for Suarez. In 2003 Gov. Davis issued a parole. Suarez was released in 2004.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.A20)(SFC, 6/22/02, p.A1)(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.A12)(SFC, 5/26/04, p.A1)
1981 Nov 3, In Milpitas, Ca., Anthony Jacques Broussard, a high school student (16), strangled and killed Marcy Conrad, his girl friend (14), dumped her body on a river bank and gave tours to his friends, who never reported the crime. The 1986 film "River's Edge" was later made based on the murder.
1981 Nov 30, Porn star John Holmes was arrested on fugitive charges.
1981 Dec 9, Porn star John Holmes was charged in the Los Angeles Laurel Canyon murders. He was later released.
(MC, 12/9/01)(ST, 10/17/03, p.22H)
1982 Feb 27, Wayne B. Williams (b.1958) was found guilty of murdering two of the 28 young blacks whose bodies were found in the Atlanta area over a 22-month period.
1982 Dec 3, Rebecca Marrero (b.1962) was last seen in Seattle, Wa. She was believed to have become a victim of Gary Ridgeway, the so-called Green River Killer. In 2010 her skull was found by children playing in a ravine south of Seattle. On Feb 7, 2011, Ridgeway, already serving 48 life terms, was charged with her murder.
(SFC, 12/24/10, p.A6)(SFC, 2/8/11, p.A6)
1982-1998 Gary Ridgway killed a number of women in the northwest US. He later pleaded guilty to killing 48 women in the Seattle-area "Green River" killings and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
1983 Jun 4, In Chino Hills, Ca., Douglas and Peggy Ryen and their 10-year old daughter, Jessica, were killed in the master bedroom of their home. Christopher Hughes (11), a neighbor, was also killed. Joshua Ryen (8) survived despite serious wounds. Kevin Cooper, who escaped from Chino prison on June 2, was arrested 47 days later and was convicted for the murders in 1985 and faced execution. Cooper claimed he was innocent and called for DNA testing of the evidence in 2000. In 2003 an execution date of Feb 10, 2004, was set for Cooper. Cooper won a last minute reprieve on Feb 9 pending a re-examination of the case.
(SFEC, 7/23/00, p.B3)(SFC, 12/18/03, p.A21)(SFC, 2/11/04, p.A4)
1983 Aug 31, In Fairfield, Ca., Kyle Stracner (15) returned home after visiting with friends and found his mother, Priscilla Strole (40), naked and beaten to death on the floor. In 2014 investigators used DNA evidence to identify Robert Hathaway (48), a childhood friend of Kyle, as the murderer. Hathaway hanged himself on Feb 15, 2014.
(SFC, 3/6/14, p.D2)
1983 Sep 25, Leslie Michelle English (2) was raped and murdered in Griffin, Georgia. Her uncle, Eddie Albert Crawford was convicted of the murder and sentenced to death. After 20 years on death row Crawford was executed July 19, 2004.
(SFC, 7/19/04, p.A4)
1983 Oct, In Australia Edwina Boyle disappeared from her Melbourne suburb home. Her husband Frederick William Boyle (35) of Carrum Downs, dismembered her, and hid her body in a 44-gallon drum. In 2006 his son-in-law opened the drum a found her remains. A post-mortem showed she died of a bullet wound to the head. In 2008 Boyle was convicted of murder.
(AFP, 1/31/08)(Reuters, 2/9/08)
1983 Nov 26, Angela Bugay of Antioch, Ca., 5-years-old, was found in a shallow grave in Concord, Ca. She had been kidnapped a week earlier. Larry Graham, who dated Angela's mother, was later arrested as a suspect and prosecutors in 1995 received a court order to draw his blood for DNA evidence. In 1996 police matched the DNA of Graham, with samples recovered from the girl's body and arrested him on charges of murder. Use of the DNA evidence was cleared in 1998. Graham was convicted Aug 20, 2002, and sentenced to death Oct 22.
(SFC, 4/26/96, p.A-19)(SFC, 5/20/98, p.A19)(SFC, 3/18/99, p.A19)(SFC, 4/15/02, p.A1)(SFC, 8/21/02, p.A15)(SFC, 10/23/02, p.A16)
1983 In the SF Bay Area Anthony Sully (39), a former Millbrae policeman, killed 6 people over six months while he ran an electrical contracting business in Burlingame. 4 of the victims were prostitutes, one a pimp and a woman who helped him buy cocaine. In 2013 a federal appeals court upheld his conviction and death sentence.
{SF Bay Area, USA, Murder, Rape}
(SFC, 8/7/13, p.D2)
1984 Jul 18, James Huberty opened fire at a McDonald's fast-food restaurant in San Ysidro, Calif., killing 21 people before being shot dead by police.
1984 Jul 24, In American Fort, Utah, Ron and Dan Lafferty stabbed to death their sister-in-law, Brenda Lafferty, and her daughter Erica, aged 15 months. In 2003 Jon Krakauer authored "Under the Banner of Heaven," an account of the murder and the Mormon background of the Laffertys.
(WSJ, 7/11/03, p.W15)
1984 Jul 26, Ed Gein (78), mass murderer (movie "Psycho" based on him), died.
1984 Delores Dye was murdered in a New Orleans supermarket parking lot. Curtis Kyles was tried 5 times for her murder and walked free in 1997. In 2005 Jed Horned authored "Desire Street: A True Story of Death and Deliverance in New Orleans."
(SSFC, 2/27/05, p.B4)
1984 Michael Ross, former life-insurance salesman, was arrested in Connecticut. He had strangled at least 6 girls and young women. He later pleaded guilty to 2 killings in 1985 and was convicted of 4 killings in 1987. He was sentenced to death in 1997 and signed a letter in 1998 to be executed. Ross was executed May 13, 2005.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.A6)(Econ, 1/22/05, p.31)(SSFC, 1/30/05, p.A10)(SFC, 5/14/05, p.A4)
1985 Aug 18, Peter and Barbara Pan were found in their blood-soaked bed in Lake Merced, a housing development in San Francisco. Both had been shot in the head. Peter Pan (66), an accountant, was pronounced dead at the scene. Mrs. Pan (64) survived but would be an invalid for the rest of her life. Scrawled on the wall in lipstick were an inverted pentagram and the words "Jack the Knife." The murder was later attributed to Richard Ramirez, the "night stalker."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Ramirez#Peter_and_Barbara_Pan)(SSFC, 8/22/10, DB p.42)
1985 Aug 31, Richard Ramirez, later convicted of California's "Night Stalker" killings, was captured by residents of an East Los Angeles neighborhood.
1985 Sep 22, The body of Betty Stuart (22) was found at Aquatic Park in Berkeley, Ca. In 2008 prosecutors using DNA evidence said Anthony McKnight (54), already in prison for rape and attempted murder, was responsible for her murder. He had been arrested in 1986 and was already serving a 63 year sentence for the rape and murder of 3 other women. In 2008 McKnight, a former sailor, was convicted on an additional 5 counts of first-degree murder.
(SFC, 7/17/08, p.B2)(SFC, 9/18/08, p.B2)
1985 Sep 29, The body of Diane Stone (17) was found near an elementary school in Oakland, Ca. In 2008 prosecutors using DNA evidence said Anthony McKnight (54), already in prison for rape and attempted murder, was responsible for her murder.
(SFC, 7/17/08, p.B2)
1985 Oct 8, The body of Talita Dixon (13) was found on a trail in Redwood Regional Park in Oakland, Ca. In 2008 prosecutors using DNA evidence said Anthony McKnight (54), already in prison for rape and attempted murder, was responsible for her murder.
(SFC, 7/17/08, p.B2)
1985 Dec 9, The body of Monique Davis (18) was found behind a business in Richmond, Ca. In 2008 prosecutors using DNA evidence said Anthony McKnight (54), already in prison for rape and attempted murder, was responsible for her murder.
(SFC, 7/17/08, p.B2)
1985 Dec 16, Reputed organized-crime chief Paul Castellano was shot to death outside a New York City restaurant.
1985 Dec 24, The body of Beverly Bryant (24) was found at an elementary school in Oakland, Ca. In 2008 prosecutors using DNA evidence said Anthony McKnight (54), already in prison for rape and attempted murder, was responsible for her murder.
(SFC, 7/17/08, p.B2)
1986 Jan 22, The body of Yvonne Coleman (15) was found in a park in Inglewood, California. In 2008 DNA evidence linked Michael Hughes (51), already in jail for 4 other murders (1992-1993), to her murder and 3 others. In 2011 Hughes, a former security guard dubbed the "Southside Slayer," was found guilty of strangling three more victims in a series of attacks that stretched over a decade.
(SFC, 7/4/08, p.B6)(SFC, 11/4/11, p.C5)
1986 Aug 20, Mail carrier Patrick Sherrill of Edmond, Ok., shot 14 fellow workers dead.
1986 Sep 16, In Wichita, Kansas, Vicki Wegerle (28), homemaker and mother of 2, was found strangled in her home. Her murder became the 8th and last associated with the BTK serial killer.
(SSFC, 2/27/05, p.A3)
1986 Sep, In Ohio University of Akron students Dawn McCreery (20) and Wendy Offredo (21) were sexually assaulted and killed. Richard Cooey (19) and a co-defendant (17) were convicted for the sexual assaults and slayings. The co-defendant was sentenced to life in prison because of his age. Cooey was executed in 2008.
1986 Dec 15, Army cook Ronald A. Gray raped and killed Army Pvt. Laura Lee Vickery-Clay of Fayetteville. She was shot four times with a .22-caliber pistol that Gray confessed to stealing. She suffered blunt force trauma over much of her body. Gray (42) was convicted in connection with a spree of four murders and eight rapes in the Fayetteville, NC, area between April 1986 and January 1987 while he was stationed at Fort Bragg. He was convicted at Fort Bragg in April 1988 and unanimously sentenced to death.
1986 Dec 17, Richard Kuklinsky, a Mafia hitman known as the Iceman, was arrested in New Jersey. He was found guilty of all charges May 25, 1988. Anthony Bruno later authored "The Iceman."
1986 In California 5 women were murdered in the Central Valley along I-5. In 2008 Roger Reese Kibbe (68) was charged with the 5 murders along with a 1977 murder of a woman from Walnut Creek. He was already serving a life sentence for the murder of a West Sacramento prostitute, whose body was found in 1987.
(SSFC, 3/9/08, p.B3)
1986 In Florida Manuel Pardo, a former policeman, murdered 9 people, most of whom were involved with drugs, during a crime spree. Pardo was executed on Dec 11, 2012.
{Florida, USA, Murder}
(SFC, 12/12/12, p.A5)
1986-1987 Joseph Martin Danks stabbed to death 6 Korean immigrants in Los Angeles. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In 1990 he strangled his cellmate, Walter Holt (67). Danks was sentenced to death in 1993 and the decision was upheld by the state Supreme Court in 2004.
(SFC, 2/4/04, p.A19)
1987 Jul 27, In Warwick, RI, Craig Price (13) crept across his neighbor's yard, broke into a little brown house on Inez Avenue and stabbed Rebecca Spencer 58 times. She was a 27-year-old mother of two. On Sep 1, 1989, he butchered Joan Heaton (39) with kitchen knives she had bought earlier that day. The bodies of her daughters, Jennifer 10, and Melissa 8, were found in pools of blood, pieces of knives broken off in their bones; Jennifer had been stabbed 62 times. Price was scheduled to be released in 1994 but was sentenced to 15 years, seven to serve and eight suspended, following contempt charges and belligerent statements. Fights in prison added more time to his sentence. As of 2007 Price's scheduled release date was February 2022. He will be 48.
(AP, 12/16/07)(www.projo.com/extra/2004/craigprice/content/timeline.htm)
1987 Aug 19, In Britain Michael Ryan (27) shot 16 people dead in Hungerford, Berkshire. He wounded another 15 before turning the gun on himself.
(Econ, 6/5/10, p.63)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_massacre)
1987 Dec 28, The bodies of 14 relatives of R. Gene Simmons were found at his home near Dover, Ark., following a shooting spree by Simmons in Russellville that claimed two other lives. Simmons was later executed.
1987 Donald Harvey (b.1952) pleaded guilty to killing 37 people, mostly while he worked as a nurse's aide in Cincinnati and London, Ky. On March 31, 2017, He died he died at a state prison in Toledo two days after he was attacked while serving multiple life sentences.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Harvey)(SFC, 3/31/17, p.A6)
1987 William Thompson (61), a San Diego newspaper publisher, was found dead with 55 stab wounds. In 2005 DNA evidence linked prison inmate Stanley Clayton to the murder.
(SFC, 2/24/05, p.B3)
1987-1998 Chester D. Turner, a pizza delivery man, raped and strangled at least 10 women in South Los Angeles. In 2004 DNA Turner (39) was charged with 10 murders based on DNA evidence.
1987-2001 In France Michel Fourniret, dubbed the "Ogre of the Ardennes", admitted in his 2008 trial to murdering, raping and kidnapping seven young girls and women during this period. His wife, Monique Olivier, was accused of helping him trap victims. Both were convicted and faced life in jail.
1988 Feb 16, Richard Wade Farley gunned down 7 people at ESL Corp. during an office rampage in Sunnyvale, Calif. Farley was later convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
(AP, 2/16/98)(SFC, 10/27/04, p.B1)
1988 Mar 25, In New York City's so-called "preppie murder case," Robert E. Chambers Jr. pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the death of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin. Chambers was convicted of the killing after what he described as a session of rough sex. Chambers received a sentence of five to 15 years in prison. He walked out of the Auburn Correctional Facility in Auburn, N.Y, Feb, 2003, after serving a full 15-year maximum sentence for the 1986 Central Park killing.
(AP, 3/24/98)(Internet)
1988 May 20, 30-year-old Laurie Dann walked into a Winnetka, Ill., elementary school classroom, where she shot to death 8-year-old Nicholas Corwin and wounded several other children. After wounding a young man at his home, Dann took her own life.
1989 Jan 24, Confessed serial killer Theodore Bundy (42) was put to death in Florida's electric chair for the 1978 kidnap-murder of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach.
1989 Mar 23, Joel Steinberg was sentenced to 25 years for killing his adopted daughter.
1989 Apr 10, In Ohio Jeffrey Lundgren (b.1950), a self-proclaimed prophet, led his cult in planning and executing murders of the Avery family in order to bring about a prophecy he interpreted from the Old Testament. Lundgren was convicted of five counts of murder and executed on October 24, 2006 at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio.
1989 Apr 14, Former winery worker Ramon Salcido killed 6 relatives, including his wife and daughters, and a co-worker in Sonoma County. He was tried and convicted in Oct. 1990 by Judge Littrell (d.1997) and sentenced to death. In 1997 Salcedo was still on death row with his case in the appeal process.
(SFC, 1/31/97, p.E2)(AP, 4/14/99)
1989 Apr 20, Ramon Salcido, a California winery worker later convicted of killing six relatives and a co-worker, was deported from Mexico to the U.S.
1989 May, In Portland, Maine, Jessica Briggs (16) was repeatedly stabbed before being thrown into Portland harbor. Hope Cady (13), a lone witness, testified at trial in 1992 that she saw a group of boys surround Briggs and then saw Tony Sanborn (16) stab her. Sanborn was sentenced to 70 years in prison. Cady claimed she'd watched the event unfold from a nearby pier. In 2017 Cady recanted and Sanborn was freed on bond after serving 27 years in prison.
(http://digitalcommons.portlandlibrary.com/news_pph/3212/)(SFC, 4/14/17, p.A6)
1989 Aug 20, Entertainment executive Jose Menendez and his wife, Kitty, were murdered in their Beverly Hills, Calif., mansion. Eric and Lyle Menendez stood accused of murdering their parents. In their first trial the jury deadlocked, but in 1996 they were convicted of first-degree murder. They based their defense on a history of parental abuse.
(SFC, 4/18/96, p.a-15)(WSJ, 3/21/96, p.A-1)
1989 Dec 6, 14 women were shot to death at the University of Montreal's school of engineering by Marc Lepine, who then took his own life.
1990 Jan, In Oregon Keith Hunter Jesperson began his career as a serial killer with the sexual assault and murder of Taunja Bennett. He went on to murder 8 women. In 2002 Jack Olsen (d.2002) authored "I: The Creation of a Serial Killer."
(SSFC, 8/18/02, p.M2)
1990 Mar 8, NYC's Zodiac killer shoot his 1st victim, Mario Orosco.
1990 May 1, In Hampton, NH, William Flynn (16) and a friend shot and killed Gregory Smart (b.1965), the husband of Pamela Smart (23) with whom Flynn was having an affair. Flynn was sentenced 28 years to life. Smart had enlisted Flynn to kill her husband and was sentenced to life in prison. On June 4, 2015 Flynn was released from prison. Patrick Randall, who had held a knife to Gregg Smart's throat, was also released on parole.
(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7090228)(SFC, 6/5/15, p.A11)
1990 May 31, NYC's Zodiac killer shot a 3rd victim, Joseph Ponce.
1990 Aug 26, The bodies of two slain college students were found in their off-campus apartment in Gainesville, Florida; three more bodies were discovered in the days that followed, setting off a wave of panic.
1990 James Michael Wilcox was murdered in Texas. Robert Smith (22), with an IQ estimated at 63, was convicted and sentenced to death. In 2004 Gov. Rick Perry commuted the death sentence due to a 2002 Supreme Court decision barring the execution of developmentally disabled inmates.
(SFC, 3/13/04, p.A2)
1991 Mar 22, High school instructor Pamela Smart, accused of manipulating her student-lover into killing her husband, was convicted in Exeter, New Hampshire, of murder-conspiracy.
1991 Jul 22, Police in Milwaukee arrested serial killer Jeffrey L. Dahmer, who was later murdered in prison. He was murdered while in prison in 1994.
1991 Aug 10, Nine Buddhists were found slain at their temple outside Phoenix, Arizona. Two teen-agers were later arrested; one pleaded guilty to murder, the other was convicted of murder.
1991 Dec 5, Richard Speck, who murdered eight student nurses in Chicago in 1966 died of a heart attack in prison a day short of his 50th birthday.
(USA Today, 5/14/96, p.3A)(AP, 7/14/97)(AP, 12/5/97)
1991 Dec 19, Donna Ann Morrow was murdered in Menlo Park, Ca., following an argument with her husband, Joseph Morrow, who fled the country. Her body was found in 2003 in the Santa Cruz Mountains on property that had been owned by Joseph Morrow. Police tracked Morrow to Manila, where he was arrested.
(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A14)
1991 Jennifer Soto (19), a Taco Bell manager, was killed during a robbery attempt in Dallas. LaRoyce Lathair Smith (19) was tried, convicted and sentenced to death for her murder. In 2004 his sentence was overturned by the US Supreme Court because jurors did not consider his learning disability and other evidence. Smith's IQ was reported to be 78.
(SFC, 11/16/04, p.A4)
1991 In Margate, Scotland, Vicky Hamilton (15) was last seen. In 2007 her skeleton was discovered at a house where handyman Peter Tobin used to live. Her remains were found during a search for another missing teenager, Dinah McNicol (18) from the county of Essex, eastern England, who was last seen returning from a 1991 music festival. The remains of McNicol were found a few days after the Hamilton find. Tobin (61) was charged with the murders.
1992 Jan 13, US serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer pleaded guilty but insane in fifteen of the seventeen murders he confessed to committing.
1992 Jan 24, The state of Arkansas executed convicted cop-killer Rickey Ray Rector after Gov. Bill Clinton refused to intervene.
1992 Jan 27, Aileen Wuornos, a Florida prostitute, was convicted of slaying the first of seven men she'd admitted killing, claiming self-defense.
1992 Feb 15, A Milwaukee jury found that Jeffrey Dahmer was sane when he killed and mutilated 15 men and boys.
(440 Int'l., 2/15/99)(AP, 2/15/02)
1992 Feb 17, Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced in Milwaukee to life in prison. He was beaten to death in prison in November 1994.
1992 Mar 11, Manuel De Dios Unanue (48), US anti-drug journalist, was murdered.
1992 Mar 30, Walter Mickens Jr. robbed, attempted sodomy, and stabbed Timothy Hall (17) 143 times in Newport News, Va. Mickens was convicted of murder in 1993 and was executed in 2002.
(SFC, 3/28/02, p.A3)(SFC, 6/13/02, p.A5)
1992 Apr 9, Barbara Muszalski disappeared from her Livermore, Ca., goat ranch. Her slashed body was found 2 days later at the SF airport parking garage. Benjamin Pedro Gonzales, who had stayed at the ranch for odd jobs, was arrested in San Diego for the murder. He was also accused of the murder of a Los Angeles college student and a New York stripper.
(SFC, 11/16/98, p.A15,19)
1992 Apr 21, Robert Alton Harris became the first person executed at San Quentin by the state of California in 25 years as he was put to death in the gas chamber for the 1978 murder of two San Diego teen-age boys. Harris left some art that was later put on sale at Expressions Art Gallery in Oakland.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, p.C17)(AP, 4/21/97)(SFC, 2/6/99, p.A13)
1992 Sep 2, Nine-year Michael Nguyen was murdered in San Francisco. Two men were later found guilty of murdering the boy for profit based on insurance claims.
(SFC, 6/12/96, p.A13)
1992 Oct 9, In Alabama Jack Trawick abducted and killed college student Stephanie Gach (21) in Birmingham. Trawick (62), a serial murderer, was executed in 2009.
(SFC, 6/12/09, p.A6)(www.prodeathpenalty.com/Pending/09/jun09.htm)
1992 Dec 1, In Mineola, N.Y., Amy Fisher was sentenced to five to 15 years in prison for shooting and seriously wounding Mary Jo Buttafuoco. Fisher was released in 1999 after serving 7 years.
(AP, 12/1/97)(SFC, 5/11/99, p.A9)
1992 Dorthy Harris (41) and Louis Oates (63) were shot to death at their oil company office in Palestine, Texas. Kelsey Patterson, a paranoid schizophrenic, was arrested and convicted of the murder. Patterson was executed May 18, 2004.
(SFC, 5/19/04, p.A7)
1992-1993 Australian Ivan Milat killed seven young backpackers in the nation's worst serial killing. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
1993 Jan 5, The state of Washington executed Westley Allan Dodd, an admitted child sex killer, in America's first legal hanging since 1965.
1993 Jan 8, In Palatine, a suburb of Chicago, 7 people were shot to death at a fried chicken restaurant. In 2002 Juan Luna and James Degorski were arrested and confessed to the killings. "They just did it to do something big."
(SSFC, 5/19/02, p.A9)
1993 Jun, Volunteers picking up litter in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Ca., discovered a suitcase containing the remains of a woman later identified as Stephanie Jensen (31). Police used DNA to identify her in 2004 and in 2005 arrested her boyfriend Kirk Bennett (54) in Idaho.
(SFC, 7/12/05, p.B8)
1993 Jul 7, Mia Zapata (27), a rising punk-rock star, was last seen alive in Seattle. In 2003 Jesus C. Mezquia was arrested in Florida on DNA evidence.
(SSFC, 1/12/03, p.A6)
1993 Aug 3, James Jordan, the father of basketball star Michael Jordan, was found dead in a South Carolina creek, 11 days after he was slain; his remains were not identified until Aug. 13.
1993 Aug 26, Landlady Dorothea Puente was convicted in Monterey, Calif., of murdering three of her boardinghouse tenants; she was later sentenced to life without parole.
1993 Nov 24 Two 11-year-old boys, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, were convicted of the February murder of 2-year-old James Bulger of Liverpool, England. Shortly after the trial, Lord Taylor of Gosforth, the Lord Chief Justice, ordered that the two boys should serve a minimum of ten years behind bars. Thompson and Venables were released on a "life license" in June 2001, after serving eight years of their life sentence. An injunction remained in force following their release, so that details of their new identities and locations could not be published.
(AP, 11/24/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Bulger)
1993 Dec 1, US Navy Ensign George Smith shot and killed his ex-fiancée and a friend and then himself. In Oct. he had passed a Navy screening test to gauge his psychological fitness for nuclear submarine duty.
(SFC, 5/27/96, p.A2)
1993 Little Rock, Ark., hit a record 76 murders for the year.
(SSFC, 8/11/02, p.F6)
1993 In Canada Karla Homolka pleaded guilty in the sex slayings of two southern Ontario teenagers Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French. She was sentenced to 12 years in prison and was set for release in 2005. Her husband Paul Bernardo, eventually convicted of raping 13 Ontario women or girls, committed many of the assaults during the first three years of his relationship with Homolka.
1994 Feb 15, Andrei Tsjikatilo, [Rostov Ripper], Russian mass murderer, was executed.
1994 May 9, Mass murderer Joel Rifkind was found guilty in NY.
1994 May 10, The state of Illinois executed convicted serial killer John Wayne Gacy (52) for the murders of 33 young men and boys. He was executed at Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet. A search for more bodies was continued in 1998. Gacy left behind some clown art that was auctioned and purchased for $20,000 by Joe Roth, who burned all of it.
(AP, 5/10/97)(SFEC, 11/22/98, p.A2)(SFC, 2/6/99, p.A13)
1994 May 11, Arkansas put to death two convicted murderers; it was the first time a state executed two people on the same day since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to restore the death penalty in 1976.
1994 Jul 22, O.J. Simpson pleaded innocent to the slaying of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
1994 Jul 29, Abortion opponent Paul Hill (40) shot and killed Dr. John Bayard Britton (69) and Britton's bodyguard, James H. Barrett, outside the Ladies Center clinic in Pensacola, Fla. Hill was later convicted and sentenced to death. Hill was executed Sep 3, 2003.
(AP, 7/29/99)(SFC, 9/2/03, p.A7)
1994 Aug 22, DNA testing linked OJ Simpson to the murder of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman.
1994 Nov 1, In Cherry Hill, Pa., Len Jenoff and Paul Daniels clubbed to death Carol Neulander (52), the wife of Rabbi Fred J. Neulander (53), under a contract from Rabbi Neulander. Neulander stood trial in 2001 in New Jersey and was convicted of murder Nov 20, 2002.
(SFC, 10/20/01, p.A18)(SFC, 11/21/02, p.A6)
1994 Nov 2, A jury in Pensacola, Fla., convicted Paul Hill of murder for the July 29 shotgun slayings of an abortion provider and his bodyguard; Hill was sentenced to death. He became the first person to be executed for killing an abortion provider when he was killed by electrocution on September 3, 2003 at the age of 49 at the Florida State Prison in Raiford, Florida.
(AP, 11/2/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Jennings_Hill)
1994 Dec 30, John Salvi opened fire at two abortion clinics in suburban Boston and killed 2 clinic receptionists, Lee Ann Nichols and Shannon Lowney. He committed suicide in prison on Nov 29, 1996. His conviction was voided in 1997 because he died before his appeal was heard.
(SFC, 11/30/96, p.A1,15)(SFEC, 2/2/97, p.A3)(AP, 12/30/99)
1994-1995 South African Moses Sithole raped and strangled 38 women in the Johannesburg area. He was sentenced in 1997 to more than 2,400 years in jail.
(AP, 1/13/04)(http://members.skcentral.com/html/articles.php?cat_id=13)
1995 Jan 1, Briton Fred West hanged himself in his London prison while awaiting trial in the murders of a dozen girls and women. The victims included his wife's 16-year-old daughter and 8-year-old stepdaughter and several young runaways.
1995 Jan 20, Bruno Jordan, suit salesman and brother a drug enforcement officer, was shot dead in El Paso. In 2002 Charles Bowden authored "Down By the River," an account of the murder and narcotics traffickers.
(NW, 1/13/03, p.61)
1995 Feb 17, Colin Ferguson was convicted of six counts of murder in the December 1993 Long Island Rail Road shootings. He was later sentenced to a minimum of 200 years in prison.
1995 Mar 22, Convicted Long Island Rail Road gunman Colin Ferguson was sentenced to life in prison for killing six people.
1995 Mar 31, Mexican-American singer Selena Quintanilla-Perez, 23, was shot to death in Corpus Christi, Texas, by the founder of her fan club. Yolanda Saldivar was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
1995 Jul 22, In San Luis Obispo, 15-year-old Elyse Pahler was murdered by 3 teenagers of the death metal band called Hatred patterned after the group "Slayer." Her body was not found for 8 months until revealed by Joseph Fiorella (16), who received a 26 year to life sentence in 1997 as part of a plea bargain. Royce Casey (18) and Jacob Delashmutt still faced trial as adults. Death metal was a sub-genre of heavy metal that featured explicit lyrics dealing with murder, torture and occult practices.
(SFC, 3/8/96, p.A15)
1995 Sep 11, In Florida Jimmy Ryce (9) was kidnapped, raped and murdered. In 1998 Juan Carlos Chavez, a Cuban ranch hand was convicted. His defense was that he was framed by his bosses into a confession for fear of being deported. The defense held that Edward Sheinhaus, the son of Chavez's bosses, was the killer.
(SFC, 9/19/98, p.A4)
1995 Oct, In Kewanee, Ill., Scott English killed Jami Pollock (3) as she and her mother slept. Tabitha Pollock, the mother, was later convicted of 1st degree murder for not preventing the murder and sentenced to 36 years in prison. In 2002 the state Supreme Court overturned the sentence. English was sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 11/29/02, p.J3)
1995 Dec 5, Stanley Keith Runcorn (73), a professor in geophysics, was killed by Paul Bradford Cain (26), a kickboxer, at the Hotel San Diego. Cain was convicted in 1997 of first-degree murder.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.A20)
1995 Dec 7, US paratrooper James N. Burmeister (21) shot and killed Jackie Burden and Michael James. He was convicted on Feb 27, 1997 of 1st degree murder and conspiracy in the hate crime and faced the death penalty. The jury deadlocked 11 to 1 in favor of death so the judge sentenced him to 2 consecutive life terms in prison. He will have to serve at least 50 years before becoming eligible for parole. Malcolm Wright, a fellow soldier, was also charged in the murders and convicted on May 2, 1997.
(SFC, 2/28/97, p.A24)(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A3)
1995 Dec 20, Three teenagers were found shot through the head on a remote logging road in Lane County, Oregon. One was a 15-year old girl, who was also raped. Later Jonathon Wayne Susbauer, 22, and Conan Wayne Hale, 20, were arrested. Authorities taped a confession by Hale while he confessed to a Roman Catholic priest. Catholic leaders in Portland have requested that the tape be destroyed.
(SFC, 5/11/96, p.A-3)
1996 Feb 16, In Vista, San Diego County Joshua Jenkins, 15, stabbed his parents and grandparents to death. The next day he axed his sister. In 1997 he was sentenced to 116 years in prison.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.A22)
1996 Mar 13, Thomas Hamilton killed 16 kindergarten children, a teacher and himself in a classroom in Dunblane, Scotland.
(WSJ, 3/14/96, p.A-1)(AP, 3/13/01)
1996 Mar 18, Rejecting an insanity defense, a jury in Dedham, Mass., convicted John C. Salvi III of murdering two women in a pair of attacks at two Boston-area abortion clinics in December 1994. Salvi later committed suicide in his cell.
1996 Apr 30, In Fort Myers, Florida, members of a teen militia called the Lords of Chaos slew high-school band director Mark Schwebes. They had begun a crime spree on Apr 13 with acts of arson and vandalism. Arrested were Kevin Foster,18, Derek Shields, 18, Peter Magnotti, 17, Christopher Black, 18, Christopher Burnett, 17, and Thomas Tarrone, 16.
1996 May 3, Gregory Clepper was charged with killing 12 women on the South side of Chicago in a string of slayings that began in 1991.
1996 Jun 1, The bodies of Julianne Williams (24) and Laura Winans (26) were found in Shenandoah National Park, a week after they were last seen alive. Their hands were bound and their throats were slashed. On Apr 10, 2002 Darrel David Rice (34) of Maryland was indicted for the murders along with hate charges.
(SFC, 4/11/02, p.A15)
1996 Aug 5, A jury in San Jose, Calif., recommended the death penalty for Richard Allen Davis, convicted of kidnapping and murdering 12-year-old Polly Klaas.
(WSJ, 8/6/96, p.A1)(AP, 8/5/97)
1996 Aug 15, Frederick Davidson, a graduate student at San Diego State University, shot and killed three engineering professors; he was later sentenced to three life terms in prison.
1996 Aug 28, In Poland Agnieszka Kotlarska, fashion model, was knifed and killed by a thief outside her home.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.A14)
1996 Dec 3, In Mexico Fernando Balderas, lawyer-journalist, and his wife Yolanda Figueroa and 3 children were beaten to death. The couple had reported exposes on drugs and corruption in the government. Balderas published the magazine Fourth Power. Alejandro Perez, the family chauffeur, later confessed to participating in the killings with 2 others because Balderas had raped the gardener's wife and attempted to rape his wife. Balderas had helped his wife write "The Boss of the Gulf," about drug cartel leader Juan Garcia Abrego.
(SFC, 12/7/96, p.A10)(SFC, 12/26/96, p.B4)
1996 Dec 26, In Boulder, Colorado, 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family home 8 hours after the mother discovered a ransom note demanding $118,000. To date, the slaying remains unsolved.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A3)(AP, 12/26/97)
1996 Eric Nesbitt (21), an airman at Langley AFB, was shot and killed after he was abducted and forced to withdraw money from an ATM machine by Daryl R. Atkins and another man. Atkins scored 59 on an IQ test in 1998, below the Virginia cut-off of 70 for retardation. In 2002 the US Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded. In 2004 Atkins scored 74 and faced another trial.
(SSFC, 2/6/05, p.A9)
1996 Vincent Groves (42), serial killer, died in prison of natural causes while serving time for the murders of three women. In 2012 investigators in Denver said DNA evidence could link him to as many as 20 more killings.
(SFC, 3/8/12, p.A7)(http://tinyurl.com/7j7l9xj)
1997 Jan 3, In NY in Centereach, Long Island, William Sodders (21) shot and killed, James Halverson, a firefighter out on a jog, in a random murder. Sodders was later turned in to police by his father after admitting to him the murder. Sodders was said to be influenced by the film "Natural Born Killers." Halverson left a wife pregnant with twins and a 4-year-old daughter.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A7)
1997 Jan 5, In Rwanda a mother and father and 7 children were murdered. The mother had testified against the former mayor of Taba, Jean-Paul Akayesu, for the murder of some 2,000 villagers.
(SFC, 1/17/97, p.A13)
1997 Jan 7, Serial killer Henry Louis Wallace was convicted in Charlotte, N.C., of raping and murdering 9 women over a 20 month period.
(SFC, 1/8/97, p.A3)
1997 Jan 16, Enis Cosby (27), son of Bill Cosby, was murdered in Los Angeles while changing a tire in an apparent roadside robbery. A Ukrainian émigré teenager, Mikail Markhasev, was picked up and charged for the murder in March. Eli Zakaria and girlfriend Sara Peters were in a car with Markhasev. Markhasev was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Markhasev admitted his guilt in 2001 and made a public apology.
(SFC, 2/1/97, p.E4)(WSJ, 3/14/97, p.A1)(SFC, 3/15/97, p.A3)(AP, 1/16/98)(SFC, 6/27/98, p.A5)(WSJ, 8/12/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 2/12/00, p.A1)
1997 Feb 19, Larry Singleton murdered Roxanne Hayes, a prostitute, in Tampa, Fla. He had served 8 years of a 14-year sentence for the 1978 rape and maiming of 15-year-old Mary Vincent in Ca. A trial in Dec ended in a mistrial and another was set for 1998. He was sentenced to death in 1998 but died of cancer in a prison hospital in 2001.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.A3)(SFC, 4/15/98, p.A3)(SFC, 1/1/02, p.A13)
1997 Mar 9, In Los Angeles black Gangsta rapper Christopher G. Wallace (24), The Notorious B.I.G. or aka Biggie Smalls, was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting. He had been accused of being involved in a 1994 robbery in which Tupac Shakur was shot and robbed of $40,000. In 1999 Amir Muhammad, aka Harry Billups, was named as the suspected gunman. Muhammad was suspected to have been hired by former LAPD officer David A. Mack. In 2005 a judge declared a mistrial when large numbers of LAPD documents were found that hadn't been turned over to the court.
(SFC, 3/10/97, p.A8)(AP, 3/9/98)(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A11)(SFC, 7/7/05, p.A3)
1997 Mar 12, Authorities in Los Angeles arrested Mikail Markhasev as a suspect in the shooting death of Bill Cosby's son, Ennis, almost two months earlier. Markhasev, who later admitted his guilt, is serving a life sentence without possibility of parole.
1997 Apr 21, Police in Franklin, N.J., arrested 2 teen-agers they say lured two pizza deliverymen to an abandoned house before opening fire, killing both men. Thomas Koskovich and Jayson Vreeland were convicted in 1999 of murdering Jeremy Giordano and Giorgio Gallara. Koskovich was sentenced to death, but had the sentence overturned by the New Jersey Supreme Court, and faced a second sentencing trial; Vreeland was sentenced to life. [see Apr 19]
1997 May 27, In Kobe, Japan, 11-year-old Jun Hase was beheaded by a killer who left the note: "So, this is the beginning of the game. I desperately want to see people die. Nothing makes me more excited than killing." [see Jun 28]
(SFC, 6/5/97, p.C2)
1997 May 30, Child molester Jesse K. Timmendequas was convicted in Trenton, N.J., of raping and strangling a 7-year-old neighbor, Megan Kanka. The 1994 murder inspired "Megan's Law," requiring that communities be notified when sex offenders move in. Timmendequas was later sentenced to death.
1997 Jun 28, Japanese police announced the arrest of a 14-year-old boy for the murder and beheading of an 11-year-old on May 27. The 15-year-old boy was convicted and sentenced to a juvenile prison, where he would be treated for mental illness. He could be kept there until age 26. In 2015 the killer published a detailed memoir, which quickly became a bestseller.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, p.D1)(SFC,10/18/97, p.A11)(Econ, 8/1/15, p.37)
1997 Sep 2, In Miami Beach, Florida US postal worker, Jesus Antonio Tamayo (64) shot and critically injured his former wife, Manuela Acosta (62) and a friend and then killed himself.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.A3)
1997 Dec 1, Michael Carneal (14), opened fire on a prayer circle and killed 3 classmates and wounded five during a shooting spree at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky. In 1998 he pleaded guilty but mentally ill in a plea agreement and was given a life prison term with no parole for 25 years.
(SFC, 12/3/97, p.A3)(WSJ, 10/6/98, p.A1)(AP, 12/1/98)
1997 Dec 2, In California Vanessa Lei Samson (22) was abducted while walking to work in Pleasanton. Her body was later found off Highway 88 in Alpine Ct. Michelle Michaud and her boyfriend, James A. Daveggio, were later picked up by police. The couple had a van converted into a "murder and abduction chamber." The couple were arrested on a kidnap and rape charge for a separate attack on a Reno college student in Sep. and faced charges for raping 12 and 13-year old girls in Sacramento. Michaud confessed to Samson's murder. The pair were charged in 1998 for the kidnapping and murder of Samson. In 2001 Robert Scott authored "Rope Burns," an account of the case. Daveggio and Michaud went on trial in 2002.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.A21)(SFC, 11/7/98, p.A18)(SFC, 1/21/02, p.B1)
1997 Dec 4, In Santa Claus, Ga., Jerry Scott Heidler (20) was arrested for the murder of a couple and their two children and the kidnapping of three foster children.
(SFC,12/5/97, p.A3)
1997 Dec 9, In Texas Michael Lee Lockhart was put to death by lethal injection for the 1988 murder of a Beaumont police officer. He was also wanted by Florida and Indiana where in 1987 he killed a 14-year old girl and 16 year-old girl. He was the 37th to be executed by Texas this year.
(SFC,12/10/97, p.A3)
1997 Dec 9, In Virginia Michael Charles Satche (29) was put to death for the rape and murder of a woman. It was the state's 8th execution this year.
(SFC,12/10/97, p.A3)
1997 Dec 12, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the international terrorist known as "Carlos the Jackal," went on trial in Paris on charges of killing two French investigators and a Lebanese national. He was convicted and began serving a life prison sentence.
1997 Dec 30, In Algeria marauders slit the throats of 34 people in Ain Boucif. Later reports raised the number killed near the city of Relizane to over 400 for this first day of Ramadan. The single deadliest massacre in Algeria's insurgency began in four mountain villages as armed men killed 412 men, women and children in an attack that lasted from dusk until dawn.
(SFC,12/31/97, p.A8)(SFC, 1/3/98, p.A8)(AP, 12/30/98)
1998 Jan 4, Nirmal Singh Gill (65) was found beaten and bleeding in the parking lot of a Sikh temple in Surrey near Vancouver. He soon died. 5 young men linked to a white supremacist group, White Power, were later jailed on charges of murder.
(SFC, 4/23/98, p.A16)
1998 Feb 3, In Texas Karla Faye Tucker (38) was executed by lethal injection with sodium thiopental for the 1983 pickax slaying of 2 people during a break-in in 1983. She was the first woman executed in the United States since 1984.
(SFC, 2/4/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/4/98, p.R4)(AP, 2/3/99)
1998 Mar 10, In Alabama a teenager killed his parents with an ax and a sledgehammer. Jeffery Franklin (17) also wounded 3 siblings and led police on a "wild car chase" before being captured.
(SFC, 3/11/98, p.A3)
1998 Mar 11, In Los Angeles Efren Saldivar, a respiratory care therapist, claimed to have killed as many as 50 terminally ill patients from 1989 to 1997 at the Glendale Adventist medical Center. He later recanted his confession. Exhumations to verify the claims began Apr 30. In 2001 Saldivar was arrested for the murder of 6 patients whose remains indicated that they were murdered. In 2002 Saldivar pleaded guilty to murdering 6 patients. In 2002 Saldivar was sentenced to 6 life terms in prison plus 15 years to life for attempted murder.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A1)(SFEC, 5/2/99, p.C7)(SFC, 1/10/01, p.A5)(SFC, 3/13/02, p.A7)(USAT, 4/18/02, p.3A)
1998 Mar 21, In Germany Christina Nytsch (11) was found raped and murdered in woods 8 miles from her home in Struecklingen. In April Police began collecting saliva from 18,000 local men to test for a DNA match. Police found a match and arrested a suspect in Elisabethfehn in May, 1998. The man, a father of 3 children, confessed to another rape of an 11-year-old girl in Jan, 1996.
(SFC, 4/10/98, p.A18)(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.A24)
1998 May 10, In Clearfield, Pa., Kimberly Jo Dotts (15) was hanged to death by teenagers who planned to run away to Florida. Seven young people 14-24 were arrested for murder and the trial of Jessica Holtmeyer (16) and Aaron Straw (19) began in 1999. Holtmeyer was convicted Jan 28.
(SFC, 1/18/99, p.A8)(SFC, 1/29/99, p.A6)
1998 May 21, In Springfield, Ore., Kipland Kinkel (15) killed 1 classmate and wounded 19 more at Thurston High School. His parents, William (59) and Faith (57) were found shot dead at home. A 2nd student died the next day. Kipland had been expelled from school the previous day for bringing a gun to school.
(SFC, 5/22/98, p.A1)(SFC, 5/23/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 24, In Jonesboro, Ark., 2 boys, Mitchell Johnson (13) and Andrew Golden (11), opened fire on a group of schoolchildren and killed four girls and one teacher and wounded 11 others. The older boy was angry at a girl who had broken up with him. Golden had stolen 7 guns from his grandfather. The boys were remanded to the Division of Youth Services until their 18th birthdays.
(SFC, 3/25/98, p.A1)(SFC, 3/26/98, p.A1)(SFC, 8/12/98, p.A3)
1998 Apr 26, In Guatemala City Bishop Jose Gerardi (75) was killed. He oversaw the recent report: "Guatemala: Never Again." Marks on the bishop's body were made by a dog. In July a priest and a cook, Rev. Mario Leonel Orantes Najera and Margarita Lopez, were arrested in connection. In Oct. US forensic experts said that at least 2 attackers were responsible for the bishop's killing and described it as a political crime. In Oct Rev. Mario Lionel Orantes was charged with the killing. Orantes was released in Feb 1999. In 1999 Prosecutor Calvin Galindo resigned and fled the country in fear of his safety. Two judges had already quit the case. Three army suspects were arrested in Jan 2000. In 2000 Rev. Mario Orantes was again charged with the murder. In 2001 Col. Disrael Lima Estrada (60), Capt. Byron Lima Oliva (31) and Sgt. Jose Obdulio Villanueva (36) and Rev. Orantes were found guilty of the murder of Bishop Gerardi. The officers were sentenced to 30 years in prison and Orantes was sentenced to 20 years. Villanueva was killed during a prison riot Feb 12, 2003.
(SFC, 4/28/98, p.A1,8)(SFC, 8/19/98, p.C16)(SFC, 10/7/98, p.A10)(SFC, 10/22/98, p.C5)(SFC, 10/8/99, p.D3)(WSJ, 1/24/00, p.A1)(SFC, 3/11/00, p.A9)(SFC, 6/9/01, p.A8)(SFC, 2/12/03, p.A9)(AP, 3/19/10)
1998 Jun, In England Dr. Harold F. Shipman came under suspicion of murder when former Preston Mayor Kathleen Grundy (81) was found dead and toxicologists later found that she'd been given a large dose of heroin. Her revised will arrived at a law firm on the same day with her $640,000 estate willed to Shipman. 14 other female patients were also suspected to have been murdered by Shipman. Shipman was convicted in 2000 and sentenced to 15 life sentences. In 2001 Shipman was suspected of having injected hundreds of elderly women with diamorphine over his 24-year career. In 2002 an investigation reported that Shipman had killed at least 215 people over 23 years.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.C8)(SFC, 1/6/01, p.A1)(SFC, 7/20/02, p.A8)
1998 Aug 5, Marie Noe of Philadelphia (69), was arrested and charged with murdering 8 of the 10 children by suffocation over a 19 year period beginning in 1949. Noe later received 20 years' probation.
(SFC, 8/6/93, p.A3)(AP, 8/5/99)
1998 Aug 11, Mitchell Johnson (14), one of the shooters in the March 24 Jonesboro, Ark., schoolyard massacre, pleaded guilty to murder and battery. He and Andrew Golden (12) were both convicted. The boys were detained by Arkansas juvenile authorities until they turned 18, then transferred to federal custody. Federal authorities released the two when they turned 21. In 2008 a US District Judge sentenced Johnson (24) to 4 more years in prison for possession of a 9mm pistol, a Federal violation of his parole. Charges remained pending on the possession of marijuana and a stolen credit card.
(AP, 8/11/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Golden)
1998 Sep 7, In Colorado 6 people were found shot to death at 3 locations in Aurora. Two teenagers killed 5 people and then one of the teens killed the other.
(SFC, 9/8/98, p.A3)(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A3)
1998 Nov 29, In Muskegon, Mich., Seth Stephen Privacky (b.1980) shot a killed his father (50), mother (49), grandfather (78), brother (19) and brother's girlfriend, April A. Boss (19). Privacky pleaded no contest to the charges and was sentenced to life in prison on May 27, 1999. Privacky confessed that he committed the murders because his father had threatened to kick him out of the house. Privacky was shot killed during a failed prison escape attempt on July 15, 2010.
(SFC, 12/1/98, p.A4)(http://murderpedia.org/male.P/p/privacky-seth.htm)
1998 Dec 10, In Detroit Andrzej Olbrot (52), a Wayne State Univ. engineering Prof., was shot and killed while administering final exams. A 48-year-old graduate student turned himself in the next day.
(SFC, 12/11/98, p.D6)(SFC, 12/12/98, p.A2)
1998 Dec 30-1999 Jan 1, Some 500 people were massacred in eastern Congo during the 3 day New Year holiday. The killings were by soldiers aligned with rebels led by Tutsi, but the victims were not Hutu.
(SFC, 1/6/99, p.A7)
1999 Feb 15, In California Carole Sund (42), Julie Sund (15) and Silvina Pelosso were last seen at the Cedar Lodge motel in Portal. The trio were visiting the area from Eureka. Carole Sund's wallet and credit cards were found in Modesto on Feb 19. The FBI acknowledged Feb 21 that the disappearance was being treated as a kidnapping and a $250,000 reward was offered. Their rented Pontiac was found burned near Long Barn in Tuolemne County on Mar 18 and 2 burned bodies were found in the trunk.
(SFC, 2/23/99, p.A1)(SFC, 3/18/99, p.A1)(SFC, 3/20/99, p.A1)
1999 Feb 16, Testimony began in the Jasper, Texas trial of John William King, charged with murder in the gruesome dragging death of James Byrd Jr. King was later convicted and sentenced to death.
1999 May 3, A jury in Orange County declared that Charles Ng should die by lethal injection for the murder of 6 men, 3 women, and 2 baby boys during the 1980s.
(SFC, 5/4/99, p.A1)
1999 Jul 22, Joie Ruth Armstrong (26), naturalist for the Yosemite Institute, was found murdered in Yosemite National Park. Cary Stayner (38), a motel maintenance man, was sought in relation to the murder. Staynor was arrested and admitted to the February murders of Carole Sund, Juli Sund and Silvina Pelosso. Stayner pleaded guilty in 2000 to federal murder charges.
(SFC, 7/24/99, p.A1)(USAT, 7/26/99, p.1A)(SFC, 9/14/00, p.A10)
1999 Jul 26, Cary Stayner, a motel handyman, described in detail for an off-camera jailhouse interview with San Francisco TV station KBWB how he'd killed a naturalist and three Yosemite sightseers.
1999 Jul 29, In Atlanta Mark O. Barton (44) shot and killed 9 people in 2 day-trading offices in the Buckhead district of Atlanta. He wounded another 13 before shooting himself to death. Police also found the dead bodies of his wife Leigh Ann Barton (27) and 2 children, Matthew (11) and Elizabeth Mychelle (7) in suburban Stockbridge. Barton had been a suspect in the 1993 murders of his first wife and mother-in-law.
(SFC, 7/30/99, p.A1)(AP, 7/29/00)
1999 Aug 10, In Granada Hills, Los Angeles County, Buford Oneal Furrow (37) opened fire at a Jewish day camp center and wounded 1 adult, a teenager and 3 children. Buford also shot and killed postal worker Joseph Ileto.
(SFC, 8/11/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 8/11/99, p.A1)(SFC, 8/12/99, p.A17)
1999 Nov 22, Raymond Edward Wong called Pinole, Ca., police to report that Alice Sin (21) of Pinole, Ca., had not come home. Sin's decomposed and bullet-riddled body was found Jan 25, 2000, in Churchill County, Nevada. In 2011 police in Pinole, citing new evidence, arrested Raymond Wong, the father of her child. Wong's 2nd girlfriend, Jessica Tang, later testified that all three had driven into the desert and she and Wong shot and killed Alice Sin, who was reportedly pregnant at the time.
(SFC, 1/28/00, p.A1)(SFC, 12/31/11, p.C2)(SFC, 1/4/13, p.A1)
1999 Dec 3, In Monaco billionaire banker Edmund Safra (67), founder of the Republic National Bank of New York, was suffocated to death in a fire set by intruders at his home in Monte Carlo. His American nurse, Ted Maher (41), was jealous of other servants and later admitted that he had set the fire and fabricated the intruder story to gain attention.
(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 30, In Tampa, Fla., Silvio Izquierdo-Leyva, an employee at the Radisson Bay Harbor Inn, shot and killed 4 co-workers and a motorist as he tempted to steal a car before police arrested him.
(SFC, 12/31/99, p.A1)(AP, 12/30/00)
1999 The FBI helped launch the 1st Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory (RCFL) to support federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies. By 2005 there were 6 such labs.
(Econ, 3/12/05, TQ p.32)
2000 Jan 19, Michael Skakel, a nephew of Robert F. Kennedy, was charged with bludgeoning to death 15-year-old Martha Moxley in Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1975, when he was also 15.
2000 Feb 14, In Colorado 2 teens, Nicholas Kunselman (15) and Stephanie Hart (16), from Columbine High School were shot and killed in a sandwich shop near the school, which was still reeling from the April 1999 massacre.
(SFC, 2/15/00, p.A3)(AP, 2/14/01)
2000 Mar 20, In Texas Robert Wayne Harris (28) shot 5 people to death and critically injured one person at the Mi-T-Fine Car Wash in Irving. Harris was arrested the next day. He had recently been fired for exposing himself to 2 women at the business. Harris was sentenced to death on Sep 29.
(SFC, 3/21/00, p.A5)(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A4)(SFC, 9/30/00, p.A2)
2000 Apr 12, Detroit police arrested John Eric Armstrong (26), a suspected serial killer. Armstrong was reported to be responsible for killing some 20 prostitutes since 1992, when he served in the US Navy aboard the Nimitz.
(SFC, 4/14/00, p.A16)
2000 Apr 19, In Arizona Richard Glassel killed 2 women and injured 4 others in a retirement community in Peoria.
(SFC, 4/20/00, p.A10)(WSJ, 4/20/00, p.A1)
2000 Apr 19, In Tennessee Robert Glen Coe, convicted for the 1979 murder and rape of Cary Ann Medlin (8), was executed by injection. This was the state's first execution in 40 years.
(SFC, 10/12/99, p.A3)(SFC, 3/24/00, p.A5)(SFC, 4/20/00, p.A4)
2000 Apr 28, In Pennsylvania Richard Baumhammers (34) shot and killed 5 people in a racially motivated shooting spree in McKees Rocks. He was sentenced to death in 2001.
(SFC, 4/29/00, p.A3)(BS, 5/12/01, p.3A)
2000 May 24, Two gunmen killed 5 workers in a Wendy's restaurant in the Queens borough of NYC. John Taylor (36) and Craig Godineaux (31) were arrested 2 days later. Taylor was sentenced to death in 2002.
(SFC, 5/26/00, p.A2)(SFC, 5/27/00, p.A2)(WSJ, 11/27/02, p.A1)
2000 Jun 2, In Olathe, Kansas, John Edward Robinson was arrested on sexual assault charges. 2 female bodies were found on his property in La Cygne, Kansas, the next day and 3 more 2 days later in 55-gallon drums in a storage locker in Missouri. 3 of the women were identified as Beverly Bonner (49), who disappeared in 1994, Suzette Marie Trouten (28), and Izabela Lewicka (22). Another 6 missing women were linked to Robinson. In July Robinson was charged in connection with the death of Lisa Stasi, who disappeared in 1985. In 2003 Robinson pleaded guilty to another 5 murders in Missouri.
(SFC, 6/7/00, p.A10)(SFC, 6/16/00, p.A9)(SFC, 7/29/00, p.A7)(ST, 10/17/03, p.A7)
2000 Jun 21, In San Leandro, Ca., Stuart Alexander (39), owner of the Santo Linguisa sausage factory, shot and killed 3 government meat inspectors, Jean Hillery (56), Tom Quadros (52), and Bill Shaline (57). In 2004 Alexander was convicted of 3 counts of 1st-degree murder. In 2005 Alexander was sentenced to death.
(SFC, 6/22/00, p.A1)(SFC, 6/23/00, p.A6)(SFC, 10/20/04, p.B1)(SFC, 2/16/05, p.B5)
2000 Jul 1, Lucie Blackman (21), a British citizen working in Tokyo, became the 8th Western woman to disappear in the last 5 years. In 2001 police found her remains encased in concrete near the residence of Joji Obara, a wealthy businessman and prime suspect. Obara was formally accused Apr 6, 2001. Some 4,800 tapes were found that linked Obara to some 400 rapes over 25 years [see April 24, 2007]. On Dec 16, 2008, Obara was convicted for the abduction and dismemberment of Blackman, but acquitted of her murder. The court also upheld an earlier conviction for the rapes of 9 other women. In 2011 Richard Lloyd Parry authored "People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman."
(SFC, 10/17/00, p.A13)(SFC, 2/10/01, p.A11)(SSFC, 2/11/01, p.C2)(SFC, 4/7/01, p.A11)(SFC, 4/9/01, p.A7)(AP, 12/16/08)(Econ, 2/26/11, p.90)
2000 Aug 1, Glenn and Justin Helzer murdered Annette (75) and Ivan Stineman (85) in Concord, Ca. They were accompanied by Dawn Godman. In 2004 Justin Helzer was convicted for 5 murders. Godman was sentenced to 38 years to life. A jury gave Glen Helzer 5 death sentences on Dec 17, 2004. The brothers were formally sentenced to death Mar 11, 2005. On April 14, 2013, Justin Helzer hanged himself in his cell at San Quentin.
(SFC, 5/28/04, p.B1)(SFC, 6/17/04, p.B1)(SFC, 12/18/04, p.B1)(SFC, 4/16/13, p.C2)
2000 Aug 2, Glenn Taylor Helzer murdered Selina Bishop (22) in Concord. [see Aug 1,3]
(SFC, 5/28/04, p.B1)
2000 Aug 3, In Woodacre, Marin Ct., Ca., Jennifer Villarin (45) and James Gamble (54) were murdered in the early morning. Villarin was the former wife of blues guitarist Elvin Bishop. Bishop's daughter, Selina (22), was missing and police later arrested her boyfriend Glenn Taylor Helzer, along with Helzer's brother and roommate Dawn Godman (26) in Concord. Body parts were discovered Aug 7 on the banks of the Mokelumne River and linked to Helzer, as was the disappearance of an elderly couple, the Stinemans from Concord. The body parts were soon identified as the remains of Ivan and Annette Stineman and Selina Bishop. In 2004 Glenn Helzer (33) pleaded guilty to 18 counts. [see Aug 1,2]
(SFC, 8/4/00, p.A1)(SFC, 8/5/00, p.A15)(SFC, 8/9/00, p.A1)(SFC, 8/10/00, p.A1,6)(SFC, 12/4/01, p.A22)(SSFC, 2/07/04, p.A23)
2000 Aug 9, Nicholas Samuel Markowitz (b.1984), having been kidnapped in Los Angeles, was murdered near Santa Barbara after a feud over drug money between his half-brother Benjamin Markowitz and Jesse James Hollywood (20). The murder inspired the 2006 film "Alpha Dog." Hollywood was not present at the murder, but ordered it. He immediately skipped town, but was arrested five years later in Saquarema, Brazil with his pregnant girlfriend Marcia Reis. In July, 2009, he was convicted of first-degree murder and kidnapping and jurors recommended life in prison.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Markowitz)(SFC, 7/16/09, p.A6)
2000 Sep 2, In Alaska Joshua Alan Wade killed Della Brown (33), a native Alaskan, by smashing her head with a rock in Anchorage. Wade was acquitted in 2003 in her killing, but was convicted of tampering with her body and served several years in prison. In 2010 Wade acknowledged her murder.
(SFC, 2/17/10, p.A6)(http://www.ktva.com/iteam/ci_14413092)
2000 Sep 6, Michael Swango, a former doctor suspected in a string of poisoning deaths, pleaded guilty to killing three patients in a Long Island, N.Y., hospital, and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
2000 Dec 22, In Germany 3 American teenagers were convicted of murder for the Feb 27 deaths of 2 people, killed from rocks thrown from a freeway overpass.
(SFC, 12/23/00, p.A1)
2000 Dec 24, Susan Berman (55), writer and Las Vegas mobster's daughter, was found slain in her Los Angeles home. She authored "Easy Street" in 1981.
(SFC, 1/5/01, p.A1,14)
2000 Dec, Emile Louis (d.2013 at 79), a retired French bus driver and convicted sex offender, was arrested for kidnapping several mentally impaired women who disappeared from Auxierre in the late 1970s. He was convicted in 2004 for killing the 7 mentally impaired young women.
(SFC, 12/20/00, p.A18)(AFP, 10/21/13)
2001 Feb 23, David Edward Attias (18), a freshman at UC Santa Barbara, rammed his Saab into a crowd in Isla Vista and killed 4 students, Nicholas Shaw Bourdakis (20), Christopher Edward Divis (20), Ruth Dasha Golda Levy (20) and Elie Israel (27). A 5th victim, Albert Arthur Levy (27), was severely battered. Attias was charged with murder the next day. Attias was convicted on 2nd degree murder in 2002 and jurors found him insane.
(SFC, 2/26/01, p.A1)(SFC, 2/27/01, p.A13)(SFC, 6/13/02, p.A1)(SFC, 6/21/02, p.A17)
2001 Mar 5, Charles Andrew Williams (15), a freshman at Santana High School in Santee, Ca., a San Diego suburb, shot and killed 2 students and wounded 13 others. Williams was sentenced 50 years to life in prison on Aug 15, 2002.
(SFC, 3/6/01, p.A1)(SFC, 8/16/02, p.A3)
2001 Apr 28, A young girl's decapitated body was found near an intersection in Kansas City, Mo. In 2005 she was identified as Erica Michelle Marie Green. Her mother and stepfather were charged with murder.
(SFC, 5/6/05, p.A7)
2001 Apr 30, Chandra Levy (24), an intern from Modesto, Ca., was last seen at a health club near her apartment in Washington, DC. On July 5 the aunt of Chandra Levy reported that her niece told her of a relationship with US Rep. Gary Condit before she disappeared. Levy's remains were found May 22, 2002, in Rock Creek Park, Washington DC. In 2009 Ingmar Guandique (27), a Salvadoran immigrant already serving a 10-year sentence for attacking 2 women in the same park, was charged in her murder. In 2010 Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz authored "Finding Chandra: The True Washington Murder Mystery." In Nov 22, 2010, a jury found Guandique guilty of 2 counts of 1st degree murder. On Feb 11, 2011, Guandique was sentenced to 60 years in prison. In 2015 Guandique was granted a new trial. In 2016 the DC US Attorney's office said it has moved to dismiss the case against Guandique.
(SFC, 5/18/01, p.A3)(SFC, 7/6/01, p.A1)(AP, 4/30/02)(SFC, 5/23/02, p.A1)(SFC, 4/23/09, p.A4)(SSFC, 5/9/10, p.F1)(SFC, 11/23/10, p.A12)(SFC, 2/12/11, p.A6)(SFC, 7/29/16, p.A6)
2001 Aug 20, Near Sacramento, Ca., Nikolay Soltys (27), a Ukrainian immigrant, stabbed to death his pregnant wife and 4 other relatives including 2 young cousins. He fled the area with his 3-year-old son. The body of Sergey Soltys (3) was found the next day in a blood-soaked carton in Placer County. Soltys was caught in his mother's backyard near Sacramento Aug 30. Soltys committed suicide Feb 13, 2002.
(SFC, 8/21/01, p.A1)(SFC, 8/22/01, p.A1)(SFC, 8/31/01, p.A1)(SFC, 2/14/02, p.A17)
2001 Aug 30, In Iowa Leticia Aguilar (31) was found dead with her 5 children at her home in Sioux City. A 7th victim, Ronal Fish (58) was also found. Adam Matthew Moss (24) was arrested the next day and charged in the murders. Moss pleaded guilty on Sep 25 and was sentenced to 7 consecutive life terms.
(SFC, 9/1/01, p.A4)(SFC, 9/26/01, p.C12)
2001 Aug 30, Nikolay Soltys was captured hiding under a desk in his mother's back yard in Citrus Heights, Calif., after a ten-day nationwide manhunt for the Ukrainian immigrant accused of butchering six relatives. Soltys committed suicide in his jail cell in February. [see Aug 20]
(WSJ, 8/31/01, p.A1)(AP, 8/30/02)
2001 Sep 10, In Switzerland nurse Roger Andermatt (32) was reported to have confessed to killing of 27 elderly and ailing patients over a 6-year period (1995-2001). In 2005 he was sentenced to life in prison for killing 22 elderly nursing home residents.
(SFC, 9/12/01, p.C4)(AP, 1/28/05)
2001 Sep, Derrick Todd Lee began a series of murders in Louisiana that continued to Mar, 2003. He was arrested in 2003 and linked to the murder of 6 women.
(USAT, 1/16/04, p.1D)
2001 Nov 30, Gary Leon Ridgway (b.1949) was arrested in connection with 4 of 7 Green River serial killings in Washington state. Four murders were linked to him through DNA and three through paint he used at his job. In 2003 he pleaded guilty to 48 counts of aggravated murder, although the estimates ran much higher. On December 18, 2003, King County Superior Court Judge Richard Jones sentenced Ridgway to 48 life sentences with no possibility of parole and one life sentence, to be served consecutively.
(AP, 11/30/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Ridgway#Victims)
2001 Dec 6, In Indiana Robert L. Wissman, an employee of the Nu-Wood Decorative Millwork plant on the edge of Goshen killed manager Greg Oswald, wounded 6 others, and then killed himself. A love triangle was later aid to be the cause.
(SFC, 12/7/01, p.A3)(SFC, 12/8/01, p.A7)
2001 Dec 10, In Philadelphia a gunman opened fire outside the Great Valley Shopping Center in East Whiteland Township and killed 2 people. A 3rd was wounded.
(SFC, 12/11/01, p.A9)
2001 Dec 19-24, Christian Michael Longo (27) killed his wife and 3 children. The bodies of Mary Jane Longo and 2-year-old daughter were found in an inlet along the central Oregon coast a week after the bodies of 2 other Longo children were found. Longo was arrested in Mexico Jan 13. Longo was convicted and sentenced to death Apr 16, 2003.
(SFC, 12/31/01, p.A9)(SFC, 1/16/02, p.A3)(SFC, 4/17/03, p.A10)
2001 Dec 28, Lawrence Singleton (74), rapist, died at a Florida prison hospital where he was awaiting execution for a 1997 murder. Singleton had raped Mary Vincent (15) in 1978 and chopped off her forearms. He was paroled in 1987.
(SFC, 1/1/02, p.A1)
2001 In the SF Bay Area Eunsoon Jun was murdered. Her partially dismembered body was found in September, 2002, under a pile of cat litter outside of Richmond. In 2003 Curtis Mayo Kimball (aka Robert Evans), pleaded guilty to her murder. Evans, who died in prison in 2010, was later linked to five murders in New Hampshire. In 2017 New Hampshire authorities reported that his Evans was actually Terrance Peder Rasmussen (b.1943) and responsible for the murder of four victims in Allenstown as well as Denise Beaudin (32), who disappeared after they left New Hampshire.
(http://tinyurl.com/h46z2kk)(SFC, 1/27/17, p.D4)
2001 In South Carolina Christopher Pittman (12) killed his grandparents with a shotgun and then torched their rural home. He later blame the anti-depressant zoloft for his actions. In 2005 he was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(SFC, 2/16/05, p.A4)
2002 Jan 6, Christa Worthington (46), fashion writer, was found dead at her home in Truro on Cape Cod, Mass. Her 2-year-old daughter was next to her, covered in blood but unharmed. In 2005 DNA evidence identified Christopher Mccowen, a local trash collector, as the murderer.
(SFC, 4/16/05, p.A5)
2002 Feb 5, In Canada a police raid on the farmstead of Robert and David Pickton in Port Coquitlan, BC, turned up evidence of 2 missing women. Since 1984 at least 50 prostitutes had vanished from the streets of Vancouver. Robert Pickton was arrested Feb 22. In 2003 the murder charges against Pickton rose to 22.
(SFC, 2/9/02, p.A9)(SSFC, 2/24/02, p.A20)(SFC, 12/16/03, p.A14)
2002 Mar 12, In Houston a jury found Andrea Pia Yates (37) guilty of capital murder for drowning her 5 children. On Mar 15 she was sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 3/13/02, p.A1)(SFC, 3/16/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 15, Jackson Carr (6) was killed and buried by his older sister (15) and brother (10) in Lewisville, Texas. His body was found the next day.
(SFC, 4/17/02, p.A5)
2002 Mar 19, In California a 5th body was found in New Melones Lake near Sonora. Meyer Muscatel (58), a Sherman Oaks contractor, was found last October. A Russian crime gang was suspected.
(SFC, 3/20/02, p.A3)
2002 Mar 21, In Britain schoolgirl Milly Dowler (13) was kidnapped in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey. Her body was found 6 months later in nearby woods. As police pursued leads in the case the British tabloid News of the World hacked into Dowler's cell phone, listened to messages, and deleted some to make room for more. In 2010 Levi Bellfield (41), a former nightclub bouncer, appeared in court accused of kidnapping and murdering the teenager. On June 23, 2011, Bellfield was convicted and jailed for life.
(AFP, 4/13/10)(http://tinyurl.com/ykyb7la)(SFC, 7/6/11, p.A5)
2002 May 23, In Great Falls, Montana, Nathaniel Bar-Jonah (45), accused of butchering a 10-year-old boy and feeding his remains to unsuspecting neighbors, was sentenced to 130 years in prison without parole.
(SFC, 5/24/02, p.A8)
2002 Jun 20, The US Supreme Court ruled that the constitution bans the death penalty for mentally retarded convicted killers.
(SFC, 6/21/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 15, In Stanton, Ca., Samantha Runnion (5) was kidnapped. Her body was found the next day in Riverside county. On July 19 police arrested Alejandro Avila (27), previously acquitted for child molestation. In 2005 Avila was convicted of kidnapping, murder and sexual assault. On May 16 a jury called for the death penalty. He was sentenced to death on July 22.
(SFC, 7/17/02, p.A2)(SFC, 7/20/02, p.A1)(SFC, 4/29/05, p.A4)(SFC, 5/17/05, p.B8)(SFC, 7/23/05, p.B7)
2002 Jul 25, Cassandra Williamson (6) vanished from a suburban St. Louis home; her body was found hours later at an abandoned glass factory. Johnny Johnson (24), an acquaintance of Cassandra's father who had spent the night at the house was later indicted for murder.
(SFC, 7/27/02, p.A3)(AP, 7/26/03)
2002 Aug 4, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman vanished while walking near their homes in Soham, 12 miles northeast of Cambridge, England. [see Aug 16] On August 17, 2002 a game warden found their partially burned bodies in a six-foot-deep ditch close to the RAF Lakenheath airbase in Suffolk.
(AP, 8/9/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Huntley)
2002 Aug 16, In Soham, Cambridgeshire, England, police arrested two people on suspicion of murdering a pair of 10-year-old girls, Holly Wells (b. 10-4-1991) and Jessica Chapman (b. 9-1-1991), who vanished from a rural village on August 4th. On December 17, 2003 Ian Huntley (28), a caretaker at the local secondary school, was convicted by two eleven-to-one majority jury verdicts, and on that day began serving two concurrent life sentences. On September 29, 2005, the High Court announced that Huntley must remain in prison until he has served at least 40 years, a minimum term which will not allow him to be released until at least 2042, by which time he will be 68 years old. His girlfriend Maxine Carr (25), a classroom assistant, was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice. She was given three-and-a-half years for conspiring to pervert the course of justice but cleared of two counts of assisting an offender. She was freed and electronically tagged within 30 days, because she had already spent 16 months in jail.
(AP, 8/17/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soham_murders)
2002 Aug 24, In Oregon City, Ore., the FBI uncovered human remains in an outbuilding behind the house of Ward Weaver III, a suspect in the case of two missing girls who lived across the street. Authorities recovered the remains of Ashley Pond (12) and Miranda Gaddis (13). In 2004 Weaver pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and no contest to other charges of sexual abuse. A plea bargain allowed him to avoid the death penalty and he was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison.
(AP, 8/24/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Weaver_III)
2002 Sep 6, A jury in Pensacola, Fla., convicted 13- and 14-year-old brothers of murdering their sleeping father with a baseball bat in an unusual case in which an adult friend was acquitted of the crime under a different prosecution theory. The judge threw out the convictions and ordered mediation; Alex and Derek King later pleaded guilty to third-degree murder. Alex was sentenced to seven years and Derek to eight years.
2002 Sep 23, Hong Im Ballenger, a beauty shop manager in Baton Rouge, La., was shot to death. Her murder was later attributed to John Allen Muhammed, the Washington area sniper.
(SFC, 11/1/02, p.A3)
2002 Sep 23, Rachel Burkheimer (18) of Marysville, Wa., was shot to death by her boyfriend John Anderson. On Oct 5 Matthew Durham led police to her body. 8 people were later arrested for her murder. In 2004 Yusef Jihad, head of a gang involved in the killing, was convicted of 1st degree murder. Anderson was convicted of aggravated 1st degree murder on May 19, 2004. In 2004 Tony Williams (22) was sentenced to 9 years in prison and Maurice Rivas (20) to 26 years.
(ST, 4/6/04, p.B5)(ST, 5/20/04, p.B1)(ST, 7/29/04, p.B1)
2002 Oct 18, Brenda Sierra (15) was abducted on her way to high school in East Los Angeles. Her body was found the next day. On Feb 27, 2015, Rosemary Chavira (27), onetime friend of Sierra, was arrested and charged with murder.
(Reuters, 3/4/15)
2002 Oct 22, In Aspen Hill, Maryland, Conrad Everton Johnson (35), a bus driver, was shot in the chest and died during surgery. The shooting was suspected to be related to the serial sniper who already killed nine people this month. This was the 13th and final attack linked by authorities to the Washington-area sniper attacks.
(AP, 10/22/02)(SFC, 10/23/02, p.A1)
2002 Oct 24, John Allen Muhammad (41), an Army veteran who recently converted to Islam, and John Lee Malvo (17) were arrested near Frederick, Maryland, in connection with the sniper shootings that left 10 dead and 3 wounded.
(AP, 10/24/02)(SFC, 10/25/02, p.A1)
2002 Nov 23, At Loughborough, England, 4 people were charged with murdering Adam Morrell (14), whose body parts were found scattered around the town. The suspects included three men and a girl. On December 17, 2002 the following sentences were handed down: Matthew Welsh (19), the dominant figure in a gang, was sentenced to at least 20 years in prison. His girl friend Sarah Morris (17), was found guilty of deliberately assaulting the youngster but cleared of his murder. Nathan Barnett (27) was ordered to be detained indefinitely in secure accommodation under the Mental Health Act after he pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Daniel Biggs (19) was cleared of murder and inflicting grievous bodily harm, but sentenced to two and a half years in custody for conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
(AP, 11/23/02)(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire/3255720.stm)
2002 Dec 21, In Oregon the bodies of Renee Morris (31), Bryant (10), Alexis (8), and Jonathan (4), were found by hunters in Tillamook State Forest. Edward Morris (37) was arrested Jan 4.
(SSFC, 1/5/03, p.A7)
2002 In Belgium Andras Pandy (d.2013), a serial killer dubbed the "Devil's Pastor", was sentenced to life in prison. Arrested in 1997 he was convicted of killing his two wives, two sons and two step-daughters, and of raping three of his natural or adopted daughters, in a string of attacks in the late 1980s. His daughter Agnes was also found guilty of five of the six murders and was jailed for 21 years. She was a key witness against her father.
2003 Apr 12, Phoenix police arrested Corey Morris (24) in connection with the deaths of at least 5 prostitutes.
(SFC, 4/14/03, p.A9)
2003 May 9, In Cleveland, Ohio, Biswanath Halder (62), a camouflage-clad gunman, fired hundreds of rounds as he roamed the halls of the Case Western Univ. Weatherhead School of management, killing Norman Wallace (30), of Youngstown and wounding others. He was arrested after a 7-hour standoff. Halder was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 5/10/03, p.A3)(SSFC, 5/11/03, p.A1)(AP, 5/9/08)
2003 May 26, FBI and state police issued fugitive and murder warrants for Derrick Todd Lee, a prime suspect in the killings of 5 women in south Louisiana. Lee was arrested May 27 in Atlanta. Georgia.
(SFC, 5/27/03, p.A3)(AP, 5/28/03)
2003 Jun 11, Patrick James Dennehy (21), a Baylor Univ. basketball player, disappeared in Waco, Texas, and was feared to have been killed by team mates. Carlton Dotson (21) later confessed to the slaying and was arrested in Maryland on Jul 21. Dennehy's body was found Jul 25. In 2005 Dotson was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
(SSFC, 6/28/03, p.A25)(SFC, 7/22/03, p.A1)(SSFC, 7/27/03, p.A1)(SFC, 6/16/05, p.B5)
2004 Jul 19, Lori Hacking (27) of Salt Lake City, Utah, went missing. Her husband Mark (28) said she failed to return from a jog. She was reportedly five weeks pregnant. Police found her husband Mark Hacking running naked around a motel not far from his home the next day. He was put into a psychiatric hospital after police found him. Police arrested hacking on Aug 2 and filed 1st degree murder charges on Aug 9. In 2005 Mark Hacking pleaded guilty to her murder.
(SFC, 8/2/04, p.A3)(SFC, 8/3/04, p.A2)(SFC, 8/10/04, p.A4)(SFC, 4/16/05, p.A5)
2003 Nov 5, In Seattle, Wa., Gary Leon Ridgeway pleaded guilty 48 consecutive times for the Green River murders that began in 1982. On Dec 18 he was sentenced to 48 consecutive life terms and ordered to pay $480,000.
(SFC, 11/6/03, p.A1)(SFC, 12/19/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 4, Federal prosecutor Jonathan Luna was attacked after leaving his office in Baltimore around midnight. His body was found 6 hours later, stabbed 36 times apparently in a furious fight for his life before drowning in a Pennsylvania creek.
2003 Dec 15, Charles Cullen (43), a former nurse, was charged with murder after telling prosecutors that he killed 30-40 severely ill patients in Pennsylvania and New Jersey since 1987 by injecting them with drugs. In 2004 Cullen pleaded guilty to 16 murders in New Jersey.
(SFC, 12/16/03, p.A4)(SFC, 12/17/03, p.A3)(WSJ, 4/30/04, p.A1)(SFC, 5/20/04, p.A3)
2003 Dec 18, Lee Boyd Malvo (18) was convicted in Virginia for his role in the 2002 sniper shootings.
(SFC, 12/19/03, p.A3)
2004 Mar 12, In Fresno, Ca., Marcus Wesson (57) was arrested on suspicion of killing 9 family members, aged 1-24. He lived a bizarre life of polygamy and incest, even fathering two of his victims with his own daughters. In 2005 Wesson was convicted on 9 counts of murder and sentenced to death. In 2009 reporter Alysia Sofios authored "Where Hope Begins: One Family's Journey Out of Tragedy-and the Reporter Who Helped Them Make It."
(AP, 3/14/04)(SSFC, 3/14/04, p.A1)(SFC, 6/18/05, p.B7)(SFC, 7/28/05, p.B4)(SFC, 9/14/09, p.A1)
2003 Mar-2004 Jul, In Germany 29 patients died at a Bavarian hospital. The deaths at Sonthofen of 17 female and 12 male patients (aged 40-94) were caused by a male nurse. He used a mixture of the sedative midazolam, the anesthetic etomidate and the muscle relaxant lysthenon to kill the patients. In 2005 the nurse was charged with murder. In 2015 Neils H. expressed regret for his actions during his trial in Oldenburg. On Feb 26, 2015, he was sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 9/15/05)(SFC, 2/20/15, p.A2)(AP, 2/26/15)
2004 Jun 13, Robert Lees, former screenwriter, was decapitated at his Hollywood home. Keven Lee Graff (27) was later charged with Lees' murder and that of a neighbor.
(SFC, 7/29/04, p.B3)
2004 Oct 1, The Utah state medical examiner's office used dental records to identify Lori Hacking's remains about six hours after they were discovered in a landfill.
(AP, 10/2/04)(SFC, 10/2/04, p.A2)
2004 Geoffrey Abbott authored "The Executioner Always Chops Twice," a collection of vignettes of badly executed deaths over the centuries.
(WSJ, 4/9/04, p.W6)
2005 Jan 8, Richard P. Rodriguez (29) stabbed to death Angela M. Smith (51) in Tucson, Az. Rodriguez was found dead of a gunshot wound the next day in Blythe, Ca., near the Arizona border. He had grown up in the evangelical sex cult "Children of God" also known as the Family. Smith, a member of the cult, was involved in his upbringing.. The cult was later linked to the San Diego based Family Care Foundation.
(SFC, 1/11/05, p.B8)(SSFC, 2/6/05, p.A1)
2005 Feb 25, Kansas police arrested Dennis Rader, a 59-year-old city worker at his suburban home in Park City. They believe he is the notorious BTK (bind, torture, kill) serial killer who terrorized Wichita throughout the 1970s. He resurfaced about a year ago after 25 years of silence.
2005 Mar 1, In Geneva, Switz., Edouard Stern, French financier and former Lazard banker, was found dead in his home. Swiss police later arrested Cecile Brossard (36), his French lover, who allegedly confessed to the sex-related killing of banker Edouard Stern.
(WSJ, 3/3/05, p.A1)(AP, 3/16/05)(WSJ, 4/14/05, p.A1)
2005 Mar 31, It was reported that Shirin Gul (39), an Afghan housewife, stood accused with her lover and son (18) of murdering 27 men over the last 4 years in order to sell their cars across the border in Pakistan.
(SFC, 3/31/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 9, Sarah Michelle Lunde (13) was last seen in Ruskin, Fla. Her body was found April 16 at an abandoned fish camp about a half mile from her home. David Onstott (36), a sex offender who once dated the girl's mother, was arrested April 12. Onstott confessed and was charged with 1st degree murder on April 17.
(SSFC, 4/17/05, p.A13)
2005 May 10, In Riverside County, Ca., David McGowan (44) killed his wife, mother and 3 children, a boy (14) and 2 girls (8 and 10), while they slept. He then killed himself at their home in Garner Valley.
(SFC, 5/12/05, p.A5)
2005 David Buss, Univ. of Texas psychology professor, authored "The Murderer Next Door: Why the Mind Is Designed to Kill." Buss held that the male mind developed adaptations for killing because the trait provided an evolutionary edge for leaving more descendants.
(WSJ, 5/19/05, p.B1)
2005 John Emsley authored "The Elements of Murder," a history of the use of poison as a murder weapon.
(WSJ, 6/24/05, p.W9)
2005 Stacy Horn authored "The Restless Sleep: Inside New York City's Cold Case Squad." She noted that NYC had 8894 unsolved murders dating back to 1985.
(SSFC, 7/10/05, p.E6)
2006 Mar 2, "Killer nurse" Charles Cullen, who'd killed at least 29 patients, was sentenced in Somerville, N.J., to spend the rest of his life in prison. In 2010 a jury awarded $95 million in damages to families of 8 people who claimed their loved ones were among those killed by Cullen.
(AP, 3/2/07)(SFC, 3/11/10, p.A8)
2006 Apr 14, In Oklahoma Kevin Ray Underwood (26) was arrested after investigators found the body of Jamie Rose Bolin (10), missing since April 12, in a bedroom closet in his apartment. The girl's unclothed body was inside a large plastic tub. Police said she was killed as part of the neighbor's elaborate plan to eat human flesh. On February 29 2008, a jury found him guilty of first degree murder after deliberating for twenty-three minutes. This quick verdict was attributed to the showing of Underwood's videotaped confession. On Thursday, April 3, 2008, McClain County District Judge Candace Blalock approved a recommended death sentence.
(AP, 4/16/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Ray_Underwood)
2006 Jun 1, A German court jailed Sabine Hilschenz (40) for 15 years for killing eight of her newborn babies in the worst case of infanticide in the country's criminal history. She had buried them in flower pots and a fish tank at her parents' home.
(AFP, 6/1/06)(SFC, 4/8/08, p.A3)
2006 Sep 6, In Phoenix, Arizona, police arrested Mark Goudeau (42), a construction worker, for 2 sexual assaults. In December police identified Goudeau as the Baseline Killer and recommended charging him with 71 counts including 9 murders committed from August, 2005, to June, 2006. His trial opened in 2011.
(www.amw.com/fugitives/brief.cfm?id=39736)(SFC, 12/8/06, p.A13)(SFC, 6/7/11, p.A4)
2006 Sep 22, Yvan Keller (46), arrested a week earlier in France's eastern city of Mulhouse in connection with a robbery, hanged himself while in custody. Mr. Keller admitted to killing dozens of elderly women who lived alone, all within 40 miles of Mulhouse, in the border region straddling France, Switzerland and Germany, starting in 1989.
2006 Oct 19, In Malaysia Altantuya Shaariibuu (28), a Mongolian model, was kidnapped outside the house of Abdul Razak Baginda (46), who heads the Malaysian Strategic Research Center think-tank. Shaariibuu was allegedly extorting Baginda following an affair that had begun in 2004. She was killed and her remains blown up with military-grade C-4 explosives and later found in an isolated area south of the capital Kuala Lumpur. In Nov. Malaysian PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi vowed there would be no cover-up over her murder. Abdul Razak allegedly abetted two policemen, Azilah Hadri (30) and Sirul Azhar Umar (35), to commit the murder. In 2008 a court acquitted Razak of charges of abetting the murder of Shaariibuu. In 2009 a Malaysian court sentenced two policemen to death on charges of murdering Shaariibuu. An Appeals Court acquitted the men in 2013. On Jan 13, 2015, a Federal Court unanimously ruled that the Appeals Court was wrong in reversing the findings of the trial court.
(AFP, 11/9/06)(AFP, 11/16/06)(WSJ, 3/29/07, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/1/08, p.A8)(AP, 4/9/09)(AP, 1/13/15)
2006 Nov 1, Adrienne Shelly (b.1966), actress and director, was found by her husband hanging by a bed sheet in their Manhattan apartment in an apparent suicide. In 2008 Diego Pillco (20), an illegal immigrant from Ecuador, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrienne_Shelly)(SFC, 3/14/08, p.A4)
2006 Nov 6, In Danville, Ca., Dimitra Mantas (43) was bludgeoned to death by her son (16), a user of methamphetamine. In 2008 a judge ruled that Andrew Mantas was incompetent to stand trial. In 2011 Andrew was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
(SFC, 11/7/06, p.B1)(SFC, 5/31/08, p.B3)(SFC, 9/14/11, p.C4)
2007 Mar 26, Ann Hawker (22), a British language teacher, was found naked in a sand-filled bathtub at an apartment outside Tokyo. She had been beaten and then suffocated. Police hunted for the prime suspect, a 28-year-old Japanese male. On Nov 10, 2009, Tatsuya Ichihashi was arrested as the only suspect in the murder, after he had spent over two years on the run and altered his appearance with plastic surgery. In 2011 Ichihashi admitted the killing but said it was accidental.
2007 Apr 11, In Utah Michelle MacNeill (50) died following cosmetic surgery. In 2013 her husband, Dr. Martin MacNeill (57), was convicted of knocking her out with drugs and leaving her to die in a tub.
(SSFC, 11/10/13, p.A11)(http://tinyurl.com/knf5ao3)
2007 Jul 23, Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters were killed during a violent home invasion in Cheshire, Conn. Dr. William Petit, was badly beaten but escaped. His wife and one daughter were sexually assaulted. The girls, aged 11 and 17, were tied to their beds, doused in gasoline, and left to die in a fire. Steven Hayes (44) and Joshua Komisarjevsky (27), on parole at the time for other burglaries, were accused of their murder. Prosecutors later said they will seek the death penalty. On Nov 8, 2010, Hayes was sentenced to death. Komisarjevsky was convicted of murder in 2011 and was sentenced to death. In 2013 HBO aired "The Cheshire Murders," a documentary based on the case.
(AP, 7/23/08)(AP, 10/5/10)(SFC, 11/27/10, p.A5)(SFC, 10/14/11, p.A6)(SFC, 12/10/11, p.A6)(SFC, 7/22/13, p.E1)
2007 Aug 3, In Alaska Mindy Schloss (52), a nurse practitioner, was last seen alive in Anchorage. Her body was found on Sep 13 near Wasilla. In 2010 Joshua Alan Wade (29) acknowledged that he had shot and killed Schloss, who lived next door to him.
(SFC, 2/17/10, p.A6)(www.amw.com/missing_persons/recovered.cfm?id=47985)
2007 Oct 28, A Moscow court sentenced Alexander Pichushkin, convicted of 48 murders, to life imprisonment, ending one of Russia's worst serial killer cases.
2007 Nov 7, In southern Finland at least 7 people were killed and 11 wounded after an 18-year-old man opened fire at a high school.
2007 Dec 1, Cheryl Dunlap, a nurse from Crawfordsville, Florida, went missing. On Dec 16 her decapitated body was found in the Apalachicola National Forest. In 2011 a jury recommended the death penalty for Michael Hilton (64), who was already serving life in prison for the 2008 slaying of Meredith Emerson of Athens, Georgia.
(SFC, 2/22/11, p.A4)(www.wjhg.com/news/headlines/12542231.html)
2007 Dec 9, A Canadian jury in British Columbia convicted Robert 'Willie' Pickton (58), a pig farmer, of murdering six women, handing him an automatic life sentence but finding that the killings were not planned. Pickton still faced 20 more murder charges for the deaths of women, most of them prostitutes and drug addicts from a seedy Vancouver neighborhood. On Dec 11 Pickton was sentenced to life in prison with no hope of parole for 25 years. Canadian authorities spent more than C$100 million ($98 million) to catch and convict Pickton.
(AP, 12/9/07)(Reuters, 12/12/07)(Reuters, 11/17/10)
2008 Jan 5, Georgia authorities served a warrant charging Gary Michael Hilton (61) with the kidnapping with bodily injury of Meredith Emerson (24). Emerson was last seen on New Year's Day hiking with her black Labrador retriever, Ella, in Vogel State Park. On Jan 7 he led investigators to a spot in a wooded area in north Georgia where they found her body. In March Hilton was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 1/6/08)(AP, 1/8/08)(SFC, 3/24/08, p.A8)
2008 Jan 7, In Alabama Lam Luong (37), a shrimp fisherman and drug addict, threw his 4 young children into the Intracoastal Waterway from the Dauphin Island bridge. He initially reported the children missing and then confessed. On March 5, 2009, Luong pleaded guilty and asked to be put to death. On April 30 he was sentenced to death. In 2013 an appeals court ordered a new trial.
(SFC, 1/10/08, p.A3)(SFC, 3/6/09, p.A6)(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A8)(SSFC, 2/17/13, p.A12)
2008 Apr 24, In England police in Leeds found Damien Oldfield (33) stabbed to death. Anthony Morley (36) attacked Damien Oldfield (33) during a night the pair spent together at Morley's home. Morley slit Oldfield's throat as he lay in his bed, stabbed him repeatedly and cooked some of his flesh. On Oct 20 Morley was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison.
(AP, 10/20/08)(http://tinyurl.com/6nw7hx)
2008 Jun 12, In Minnesota Katricia Daniels (36) and her son, Robert Shepard (10), were found murdered. Daniels was stabbed and cut more than 100 times and her son had a television smashed over his head. On June 18 Stafon Edward Thompson (17) and Brian Lee Flowers (16), both of Minneapolis, were charged as adults with first-degree murder.
2008 Jun 25, Brooke Bennett of Braintree, Vermont, disappeared and was found dead on July 2. Federal prosecutors later charged Michael Jacques (42) with drugging, sexually assaulting and killing his 12-year-old niece. Prosecutors also said that he coerced another girl into aiding his plot by claiming to be part of a child-sex club that sometimes selected girls for "termination."
2008 Dec 31, SF ended the year with 98 homicides. In Milwaukee, Wisc., the total number of homicides dropped 32%, from 105 in 2007 to 71 in 2008, the lowest number since 1985. Detroit had 344 slayings, a 13% drop from the 396 in 2007; Philadelphia's 332 killings were a 15% drop from the 392 in 2007; and the 234 homicides in Baltimore were 17% less than the 392 the year before. Cleveland recorded 102 homicides in 2008, down from a 13-year high of 134 in 2007. Homicides in New York rose 5.2%, to 522 from 496 the year before. Slayings in Los Angeles were down to 376 in 2008 compared to 400 the prior year. Preliminary data in Chicago showed 508 homicides were reported in 2008, the first time the city had more than 500 murders since 2003 and about 15% more than the 442 homicides reported in 2007. Washington, D.C., ended 2008 with 186 homicides, up from 181 in 2007.
(SFC, 1/2/09, p.1)(AP, 1/3/09)
2009 Jul 2, In South Carolina 2 victims were found in their family's small furniture and appliance shop near downtown Gaffney around closing time. Stephen Tyler (45) was killed, and his 15-year-old daughter was shot and seriously injured. A day earlier and about seven miles away, family members found the bodies of Hazel Linder (83) and her 50-year-old daughter, Gena Linder Parker, bound and shot in Linder's home.
2009 Jul 12, In Novato, California, James Raphael Mitchell (27) allegedly bludgeoned to death Danielle Keller, the mother of his one-year-old daughter. He was arrested late the same day. Mitchell's father, Jim Mitchell, was the co-founder of San Francisco's x-rated O'Farrell Theater. In 2011 Mitchell testified he did not kill Keller and had fought off two attackers at her home on the day of her death. Mitchell was convicted of 1st degree murder on July 12, 2011.
(SFC, 7/14/09, p.A1)(SFC, 7/6/11, p.C5)(SFC, 7/13/11, p.C3)
2010 Jul 19, In Tennessee Lorenzen Wright, a 13-year former NBA player, went missing. His body was found on July 28 in a wooded area of southeast Memphis. On Dec. 15, 2017, police arrested Lorenzen's wife, Sheera Wright (46), and charged her with his murder.
(AFP, 7/29/10)(SSFC, 12/17/17, p.A8)
2009 Sep 5, Milwaukee police arrested Walter Ellis (49) after DNA evidence linked him to the slaying of 9 women, including 8 suspected prostitutes, dating back to 1986. On Feb 18, 2011, Ellis was convicted in the deaths of 7 women and faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
(SFC, 9/8/09, p.A6)(SFC, 2/19/11, p.A6)
2009 Sep 8, In Connecticut Annie Le (24), a California graduate student at Yale, disappeared after entering a laboratory building. She was due to be married on Sep 13. On Sep 13 police found her body stuffed behind a wall in the high-security laboratory building where she worked. On June 3, 2011, Raymond Clark III was sentenced to 44 years in prison for the murder.
(SSFC, 9/13/09, p.A16)(AP, 9/14/09)(SFC, 6/4/11, p.A4)
2009 Sep 17, In Connecticut Raymond Clark III (24) was arrested at a hotel and charged with murdering Annie Le (24), whose body was found on Sep 13, stuffed in the wall of a research building at Yale on what would have been her wedding day. On March 17, 2011, Clark pleaded guilty to killing Le and faced 44 years in prison.
(AP, 9/17/09)(SFC, 3/18/11, p.A4)
2009 Oct 29, In Cleveland, Ohio, police found the remains of 6 bodies at the home of Anthony Sowell (50) as they tried to arrest him on charges of felonious assault and rape. Sowell, a convicted rapist, was arrested on Oct 31. 5 more bodies were soon found at Sowell's home.
(SSFC, 11/1/09, p.A20)(SFC, 11/5/09, p.A10)
2010 Mar 9, Rodney Alcala (66), an amateur photographer, was convicted in southern California of killing a girl and 4 women between 1977 and 1979. The Santa Ana jury recommended a death penalty. Photographic evidence from a Seattle storage locker linked him to at least one woman listed for decades as missing.
(SFC, 3/12/10, p.A8)
2010 May 14, In Tennessee truck driver Bruce Mendenhall (59) was convicted in the June 2007 death of a woman at a Nashville truck stop. Authorities said he preyed on prostitutes at truck stops. Mendenhall has also been charged with killing women in Lebanon, Ten., Indianapolis and Birmingham, Ala.
(SFC, 5/15/10, p.A4)
2010 May 16, In San Francisco Pearla Louis (52) was last seen alive at the Harcourt Hotel on Larkin St. Later this month her body washed up in a suitcase along the Embarcadero. On June 15, 2017, her boyfriend Lee Bell (55) was convicted of first-degree murder. On April 26, 2018, Bell was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
(SFC, 6/13/17, p.C2)(SFC, 6/16/17, p.D1)(SFC, 4/27/18, p.D1)
2010 Nov 15, In Germany a girl (14) was slain in Bodenfelde. On Nov 19 a boy (13) was slain nearby. On June 27, 2011, Jan O. (26), whose last name was withheld in accordance with German privacy laws, was convicted in Goettingen state court of two counts of murder for the slayings and sentenced to life in prison. Jan O., dubbed the "cannibal killer," had confessed to eating the flesh and drinking the blood of one of his teenage victims.
(www.thelocal.de/society/20101127-31449.html)(AP, 6/27/11)
2010 Nov 23, Alfred Gaynor (43), a serial killer from western Massachusetts admitted to strangling a woman in 1995, his first victim of eight.
(SFC, 11/24/10, p.A8)
2010 Dec 21, British man Stephen Griffiths (40), who called himself the "Crossbow Cannibal," was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to killing three prostitutes. Griffiths admitted murdering Suzanne Blamires (36), Shelley Armitage (31) and Susan Rushworth (43), who all worked as prostitutes near his home in Bradford.
2010 Dec 23, In South Africa serial killer Thozamile Taki (36) was convicted of murdering 13 women and dumping their bodies in sugarcane plantations around the country. The bodies of the women had decomposed in the fields when they were found in 2007.
2011 Mar 24, In London Delroy Grant (53) a former British taxi driver dubbed the "Night Stalker", was found guilty of preying on 18 men and women over a 17-year period. Grant had preyed on the elderly for nearly two decades and may have assaulted scores of victims.
2011 Apr 4, In NY investigators found 3 more sets of remains at a beach area 45 miles east of NYC bringing the total number of bodies to 8, all victims of a suspected serial killer.
(SFC, 4/5/11, p.A6)
2011 Sep 11, In Massachusetts Brendan Mess (25), Raffael Teken (37) and Eric Weissman (31) had their throats slit and their bodies were left with cash and marijuana placed on top of them. Authorites later said Tamerlan Tsarnaev participated in the killing, based on information provided by his friend Ibragim Todashev. Tsarnaev was killed by police in the aftermath of the April 15, 2013, Boston Marathon bombing. In May, 2013, Todashev was shot to death during questioning by FBI and Florida state police. He was shot 7 times, once in the head.
(ABCNews, 5/22/13)(SFC, 10/24/12, p.A8)
2011 Apr 11, New York police found human remains at two more locations at Jones Beach State Park on Long Island, bringing to 10 the number of potential victims of a possible serial killer.
(SFC, 4/12/11, p.A4)
2011 May 27, In Hayward, Ca., Michelle Le (26) was last seen after she went on break from a clinical lesson at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center. In September police arrested Giselle Esteban (27) after finding DNA evidence linking her Le's murder. Le's body was found on September 17 in Sunol Canyon, Alameda Ct. On Oct 30, 2012, Esteban was convicted of murder. She was sentenced to life in prison on Dec 10, 2012.
(SFC, 9/9/11, p.C3)(SFC, 9/21/11, p.C1)(SFC, 10/30/12, p.C1)(SFC, 12/11/12, p.C2)
2011 Jun 23, A British court convicted Levi Bellfield (43) of abducting and murdering Milly Dowler (13) after she walked past his home. It took Milly's parents Bob and Sally nine years to get justice, even though her killer had been living 50 yards from where she was last seen in Station Avenue, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey. The former wheelclamper and bouncer went on to kill Miss McDonnell and to murder Amelie Delagrange (22), and attempt to murder Kate Sheedy (18) in 2004. Bellfield was jailed for life for those crimes in February 2008 and was told he would never be released.
2011 Mexico recorded 22,852 murders this year as drug gangs battled security forces and each other for control of drug trafficking routes to the US.
(Econ 5/13/17, p.29)
2012 Mar 23, In San Francisco the bodies of 5 people were found in a row house at 16 Howth Street near City College. On March 25 police arrested Binh Thai Luc (35) in San Mateo on suspicion of murdering Hua Shun Lei (65), his wife Wan Yi Wu (62), their daughter Ying Xue Lei (37), their son Vincent Lei (32) and his wife Chia Huei Chu (30). On Dec. 11, 2017, Binh Thai Luc was found guilty of five counts of murder.
(SFC, 3/24/12, p.A1)(SFC, 3/26/12, p.A1)(SFC, 3/18/15, p.D3)(SFC, 11/29/17, p.D5)(SFC, 12/12/17, p.C1)
2012 Apr 2, In Oakland, California, gunman One Goh (43) opened fire at the Christian Oikos University, a small private school, which serves the Korean community with courses from theology to Asian medicine. 7 people were killed, and 3 more wounded. A manhunt ended hours later with his capture at a shopping center. On Jan 7, 2013, a judge ruled that Goh was incompetent to stand trial because of paranoid schizophrenia. On May 2, 2017, Goh pleaded no contest to all charges in the rampage. Goh died in prison on March 20, 2019.
(AP, 4/2/12)(SFC, 4/3/12, p.A1)(SFC, 1/8/13, p.A1)(SFC, 5/3/17, p.D1)(SFC, 3/28/19, p.C1)
2012 Sep 6, In Illinois Drew Peterson (58), the crass former Illinois police officer who gained notoriety after his much-younger wife vanished in 2007, was convicted of murdering Kathleen Savio (d.2004), his 3rd wife, in a potentially precedent-setting case centered on secondhand hearsay statements. On Feb 21, 2013, Peterson was sentenced to 38 years in prison for the murder of Savio.
(AP, 9/6/12)(SFC, 2/22/13, p.A7)
2012 Honduras had a record homicide rate of 90.4 people for every 100,000 inhabitants.
(Econ, 7/12/14, p.13)
2013 Feb 1, A court in northern Sweden ordered retrials in 2 remaining two cases against Sture Bergwall (62), an alleged serial killer who had confessed to more than 30 murders over three decades, and was convicted of eight of them. Bergwall later said his ghastly tales of slaughter, rape and even cannibalism were all lies, spawned by loneliness, a desire for attention and heavy medication. On July 31, 2013, prosecutors dropped the last remaining charges against Bergwall.
2013 Feb 14, In South Africa Reeva Steenkamp (30), the girlfriend of double-amputee Olympian runner Oscar Pistorius, was shot dead. Police arrested Pistorius on a charge of murder.
2013 Mar 8, In South Africa statistics say someone gets raped every four minutes. A woman is also killed by an intimate partner every eight hours, a probable underestimate because no perpetrator is identified in 20 percent of killings.
2013 Apr 20, In Pennsylvania Dr. Autumn Klein (41) died after falling ill at home. A coroner later found cyanide in her system. On July 25 her husband, Univ. of Penn. researcher Dr. Robert Ferrante, was arrested on charges that he had poisoned her. On Nov 7, 2014, Ferrante (66) was convicted of 1st degree murder and faced a mandatory life sentence.
(SFC, 7/26/13, p.A7)(SFC, 11/8/14, p.A5)
2013 Oct 24, Mexican officials said Juan Pablo Vazquez (20) has admitted to killing 45 people, and is being investigated for 34 more. Vazquez was caught earlier this month in Monterrey where he was allegedly selling drugs.
(Reuters, 10/24/13)
2014 Apr 25, In Milford, Connecticut, Maren Sanchez (16) died of stab wounds to her torso and neck on the day of her junior prom at Jonathan Law High School. Chris Plakson (16) was arrested and charged with homicide. In 2016 Plakson was sentenced to 25 years in prison. In 2017 the mother of Sanchez offered to settle a suit against the city of Milford and its school district for $23 million.
(SFC, 4/28/14, p.A6)(SFC, 9/15/17 p.A5)
2014 May 1, Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced that they have identified some 1,000 cases of murdered aboriginal women and girls over the last 30 years with most cases between 1990 and 2013.
(SFC, 5/3/14, p.A4)
2014 May 9, In Italy plumber Riccardo Viti (55) confessed to the recent slaying of a prostitute whose body was tied, crucifixion-style, to metal bars in the countryside near Florence. His DNA was being compared to samples from 10 other similar cases.
2014 Jul 3, In Mexico Filiberto Hernandez Martinez (43), a zumba and karate teacher, was detained and confessed to killing at least 4 girls and a woman since 2010 in the northern state of San Luis Potosi.
(Reuters, 7/5/14)
2014 Aug 1, In California Chester D. Turner (47), already on death row for 10 murders, was given four more death sentences for what a Los Angeles prosecutor called the city's most prolific serial killing.
2014 Oct 16, Brazilian police captured Tiago Rocha (26), a man who soon confessed to 39 murders. Police linked a gun found in the home of the suspect to the killings of at least six women this year.
2014 Oct 17, Indiana police found the body of Afrika Hardy (19) in a Motel 6 in Hammond. Police the next day arrested Darren Vann (43) of Gary. Vann confessed and told where the bodies of other women would be found. The body of Anith Jones of Merrillville, missing since Oct 8, was found the next day. Five more bodies were found on Oct 19.
(SFC, 10/20/14, p.A5)(SFC, 10/21/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 29, In Canada Cindy Duong (37) was fatally shot in a home in south Edmonton, while two men and three women between the ages of 25 and 50, and a girl and a boy — both under the age of 10 — were found dead a few hours later at a home in the northeast. The suspected killer was found dead by his own hand in a restaurant in the Edmonton bedroom community of Fort Saskatchewan.
2015 Nov 27, In Colorado Robert Lewis Dear (57) entered a family planning clinic in Colorado Springs and opened fire, killing 3 people, including a police officer, and wounding nine others.
2016 Feb 20, In Michigan a man randomly opened fire in Kalamazoo and shot dead 6 people, including a teenager in three separate incidents. Suspect Jason Brian Dalton (45) was arrested early the next morning. Officials and media later reported that Dalton was an Uber driver who may have picked up fares during the killing spree. Dalton later confessed to the killings but blamed it on the Uber app. On Jan. 7, 2019, Dalton pleaded guilty just as his trial was about to begin. On Feb. 5 Dalton was sentenced to life in prison.
(AFP, 2/21/16)(AFP, 2/22/16)(SFC, 3/15/16, p.A12)(SFC, 4/23/16, p.A4)(SFC, 2/6/19, p.A12)
2016 Mar 30, Italian policed arrested a nurse (55) on suspicion of murdering 13 elderly patients in the intensive care ward where she had worked for decades. The alleged murders all took place in 2014 and 2015, although she had worked there for many years prior to that.
(Reuters, 3/31/16)
2016 May 31, Jurors in Chester, Ill., found former suburban police officer Drew Peterson (62) guilty of trying to hire someone to kill the prosecutor who helped to convict him in 2012 in the killing of his third wife. Peterson was already serving a 38-year sentence for the 2004 murder of Kathleen Savio. On July 29 Peterson was given an additional 40 years in prison.
(SFC, 6/1/16, p.A8)(SFC, 7/30/16, p.A6)
2016 Jun 18, Colombian authorities said that farmer Jaime Ivan Martinez (44), being investigated for the disappearance of a woman, has confessed to killing 20 people, including the missing person.
2016 Jul 4, San Diego police found the body of a homeless man. A day earlier another body of a homeless man was found burned under a highway. Police soon released grainy images of a suspect taken from a convenience store camera. Over the next two days two more homeless men were attacked in the city. On July 7 police arrested Anthony Alexander Padgett (36) in connection with the murder and attempted murder of the sleeping men, some of whom were set on fire. A third victim died on July 10. Padgett was released on July 11due to lack of evidence.
(SFC, 7/6/16, p.A6)(SFC, 7/7/16, p.A6)(SFC, 7/11/16, p.A4)(SFC, 7/12/16, p.A12)
2017 Aug 28, German police said a nurse, identified only as Niels H., convicted in 2015 of two charges of attempted murder and two counts of murder by an Oldenburg court, is suspected of killing at least 84 other people.
(Reuters, 8/28/17)
2017 May 15, British child killer Ian Brady (79) died. He and his girlfriend Myra Hindley, had tortured and murdered five children between July 1963 and October 1965. Brady and Hindley were jailed in 1966 for the murders of John Kilbride (12), Lesley Ann Downey (10), and Edward Evans (17). Years later, the pair confessed the murder of Keith Bennett (12) and that of Pauline Reade (16).
(http://tinyurl.com/lwqxqxm)(AP, 10/13/17)
2017 Jun 9, In Chicago student Yingying Zhang (26), the daughter of a working-class factory driver from China, disappeared from the Urbana campus of the Univ. of Illinois. The FBI later offered up to $10,000 for information that would help locate her. Officials and the family of Zhang soon followed with an additional reward of $40,000 for information that would help locate her. Former graduate student Brendt Christensen (28) was charged in July with abduction and in October accused in a superseding indictment of kidnapping resulting in death "in an especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner, in that it involved torture or serious physical abuse to the victim." Zhang's body has not been found.
(SFC, 6/19/17, p.A5)(AP, 6/20/17)(AP, 7/2/17)(AP, 11/11/17)
2017 Oct 30, Japanese police found nine dismembered bodies hidden in coolers in an apartment southwest of Tokyo. Takahiro Shiraishi (27) confessed to cutting them up and hiding them in cold-storage cases.
2017 Dec 22, Mexico's interior ministry published figures showing that a total of 23,101 murder investigations were opened in the first 11 months of this year, surpassing the 22,409 registered in the whole of 2011. This was the highest Mexican murder total since modern records began.
(Reuters, 12/24/17)
2017 In Brazil a record 63,880 people were slain this year. Brazil has long been the world leader in overall homicides.
(SFC, 8/10/18, p.A2)
2018 Apr 25, California police booked Joseph James DeAngelo (72), a one time cop, into the Sacramento Cpounty Jail on suspicion of two counts of murder. He was accused of shooting a young couple to death near their Rancho Cordoba home in 1978. Authorities using DNA linked him to the serial killer know as the "East Area Rapist" responsible for at least 12 slayings anf 45 rapes in communties across the state from 1976 to 1986.
(SFC, 4/26/18, p.A1)
2018 Jul 3, British police arrested a female health care worker on suspicion of murdering eight babies and trying to kill six others at the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester, northwestern England.
2018 Jul 12, Japanese authorities raided the apartment of nurse Ayumi Kuboki (31), who's in custody on suspicion of fatally poisoning at least two elderly patients at a terminal care hospital. Local media have reported the woman confessed to police she poisoned about 20 patients.
2018 Sep 11, South African official statistics showed that the murder rate rose again last year, with over 20,000 killed across the country -- about 57 a day -- as police admitted they were struggling to keep control.
2018 Dec 10, In Russia Mikhail Popkov (54), a former police officer jailed for murdering 22 women, received a second life sentence for the murder of 56 more people, making him one of modern Russia's deadliest serial killers. He has been dubbed the "maniac of Angarsk" after his home city in Siberia.
(Reuters, 12/10/18)
2019 Jan 29, In Canada Bruce McArthur (67), charged with the murder of eight people who disappeared over several years, pleaded guilty in Toronto to the charges. On Jan. 8 he was sentenced to life in prison.
(Reuters, 1/29/19)(SFC, 2/9/19, p.A2)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Murders
End of file