Major Crimes and True Crime

In April 1981, the body of a young white woman was found in a ditch on Greenlee Road in Newton Township, Ohio. She was wearing a buckskin poncho, so investigators called her the "Buckskin Girl." That same day, her body was examined. It was found that she had suffered serious injuries to her head and neck before being strangled to death about 48 hours before her body was found. Despite many years of hard work by investigators, the identity of the Buckskin Girl remained unknown for over 30 years. On April 9, 2018, the Miami Valley Regional Crime Laboratory announced that they had identified the woman as 21-year-old Marcia Lenore King from Little Rock, Arkansas. Marcia had last been seen by her family in 1980. Although she wasn’t officially reported missing, her family had kept searching for her. The identification was made possible by detailed DNA testing. Sadly, the person who caused her death has still not been found. Continue reading 

Serial Killers Fred And Rosemary West Kept Company With Another Criminal Couple Throughout the 1980s and 1990s in Gloucester, England, Fred and Rosemary West used their local pub, Prince Albert, as a means to lure young women back to their house. While Rosemary ran a successful prostitution ring, Fred imprisoned women, some of which who appeared as the Wests' lodgers at 25 Cromwell Street. Fred was later charged for the murder of a dozen women but took his own life while awaiting trial. Rosemary was convicted for the death of her daughter Heather, among others. Even more shocking, the Wests' friends and owners of Prince Albert, David and Pauline Williams, were also arrested for running their own child sex ring. Investigators believe there's a connection between the criminal activities of the Wests and the Williams. Frederick Walter Stephen West (29 September 1941 – 1 January 1995) was an English serial killer, who committed at least twelve murders between 1967 and 1987 in G...

America’s First Serial Killers Were Kicked Out of a Pirate Gang For Being Too Violent Larry Holzwarth - October 9, 2017 The American Revolution opened the lands west of the Allegheny Mountains to settlement and Americans poured west to the rich farmlands of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Other than Daniel Boone’s Wilderness Road and a few other pathways which were little more than Indian trails, the trek to the Ohio country was best accomplished using the rivers as highways. From Pittsburgh and from Wheeling, then part of Virginia, settlers floated down Ohio and its tributaries to find their new homes, carrying with them all that they owned. It was inevitable that there would soon be present those who would try to take it from them. River pirates huddled on the banks, in caves and encampments, and preyed upon the passing travelers. Among the worst was the Cave in the Rock gang. Led by a notorious pirate named Sam Mason and using a natural cavern in Southern Illinois as their base, the Ca...

Michael Hernandez, Who Killed Best Friend in Middle School Bathroom in 2004, Dies in Prison Michael Hernandez may be one of the youngest serial killers to actually openly admit that he wanted to be a serial killer. His victim, Jaime Gough, was his best friend—and he stabbed him to death at only 14 years of age. When officials found Gough's body lying lifeless in the school bathroom, Hernandez was immediately investigated. Police found very detailed plans to kill two other students at his school. Hernandez claimed he wanted to be one of the most famous killers of all time. Technically, he achieved his goal. He's currently serving life in prison without parole, though he was tried at only 15 years of age. Michael Hernandez, the man known for the brutal murder of his best friend in a middle school bathroom in 2004, has died in prison. Hernandez, who was 14 years old at the time of the murder, was 31 years old when he died behind bars, records show. A cause of death was not immedia...

The Candy Man and The Houston Mass Murder's Dean Arnold Corll (December 24, 1939 – August 8, 1973) known as the "Candy Man" or the "Pied Piper" due to having worked in a sweet shop, often giving out free sweets to children and allowing teenagers to hangout at the shop where he had a pool table. Between 1970 and 1973, Corll is known to have killed a minimum of 28 victims. All of his victims were males aged 13 to 20, the majority of whom were in their mid-teens. Most victims were abducted from Houston Heights, which was then a low-income neighborhood northwest of downtown Houston. With most abductions, he was assisted by one or both of his teenaged accomplices: Elmer Wayne Henley, and David Owen Brooks whom he would pay $200 per boy.  Several victims were friends of the two. Corll's victims were usually lured into either one of the two vehicles he owned. This enticement was typically an offer of a party and the victim would be driven to his house. At Corll...

Ramadan Abdel Rehim Mansour, also known as "al-Tourbini", was a street gang leader and serial killer who raped and murdered at least 32 children in the course of seven years, throughout several locations in Egypt including Cairo, Alexandria, Qalyoubeya and Beni Sueif. All of his victims were 10 to 14 years old, most of them boys. Mansour was arrested in 2006 along with his six accomplices, and subsequently sentenced to death. Mansour left his home in Tanta, a town north of Cairo, and joined a street gang at an early age. Gang leaders taught him skills of survival, allegedly cutting him with razors when he made any mistakes. According to his confession, Mansour soon learned the method of getting back at those who crossed him by raping them, and murdered anyone who threatened to go to the police afterwards. One of the victims, 12-year-old boy Ahmed Nagui, had been a member of Mansour's gang. When Mansour tried to sexually assault him, Nagui reported him to the police, and M...

Elizabeth Short was born in Boston, Massachusetts; she grew up and lived in Medford. She was the third of five daughters of Cleo Short and Phoebe Mae Sawyer. Her father built miniature golf courses until the 1929 stock market crash, in which he lost much of the family's assets. In 1930, he parked his car on a bridge and vanished, leading some to believe he had committed suicide. Short's mother moved the family to a small apartment in Medford and found work as a bookkeeper. It was not until later that Short would discover her father was alive and living in California.  Troubled by asthma and bronchitis, Short was sent to live for the winter in Miami, Florida, at the age of 16. She spent the next three years living there during the cold months and in Medford the remainder of the year. At age 19, Short travelled to Vallejo, California, to live with her father, who was working nearby at Mare Island Naval Shipyard on San Francisco Bay. They moved to Los Angeles in early 1943, but an...

Serial killer Peter Tobin seems to be on his death bed, if so, good riddance. Peter Britton Tobin (born 27 August 1946) is a convicted Scottish serial killer and sex offender who is currently serving three sentences of life imprisonment with a whole life order at HM Prison Edinburgh for three murders committed between 1991 and 2006. Prior to his first murder conviction, Tobin served ten years in prison for a double rape committed in 1993, following which he was released in 2004. In 2007, he was sentenced to life with a minimum of 21 years for the rape and murder of Angelika Kluk in Glasgow in 2006. Skeletal remains of a further two young women who went missing in 1991 were subsequently found at his former home in Margate, Kent. Tobin was convicted of the murder of Vicky Hamilton in December 2008, resulting in his minimum sentence being increased to 30 years, and of the murder of Dinah McNicol in December 2009, resulting in a whole life order. Tobin has been labelled a psychopath by a s...

Serial killer Robert Ben Rhoades stalked the highways of Texas in his mobile torture and death chamber. Rhoades, a long-haul trucker, converted the sleeper cab of his 18-wheel semi truck into a small, makeshift sex chamber where he would torture his victims and rape them for weeks on end. Eventually, he’d kill them in the most brutal manner imaginable—a vicious cycle of “kidnap, torture, kill.” According to the numerous biographies and documentaries about him, Rhoades was also involved in the swinger and BDSM scene in Houston during the ’80s with his wife. Eventually, Rhoades became a sadist who took his sexual fetish on the road. As he traveled throughout the United States using interstate highways, it’s believed that Rhoades’ picked up and killed more than 50 people beginning in 1975, although he was only convicted of three murders. Rhoades’ was finally caught on April 1, 1990 (after a self-admitted 15-year murder spree) when Arizona State Trooper Mike Miller found Kathleen Vine nude...

A Polaroid photograph of victim Robert Wyatt Loggins, sitting on Kraft's couch. Kraft took this image at his Long Beach residence in August 1980. Randy Steven Kraft (born March 19, 1945) is an American serial killer and rapist known as the Scorecard Killer, the Southern California Strangler, and the Freeway Killer, who committed the rape, torture, and murder of a minimum of sixteen young men between 1972 and 1983, the majority of whom he killed in California. Kraft is also believed to have committed the rape and murder of up to fifty-one other young men and boys. He was convicted in May 1989 and is currently incarcerated on death row at San Quentin State Prison in Marin County, California On September 3, 1980, one month after Kraft's return to California from Oregon, the bound body of a 19-year-old Marine named Robert Loggins was found discarded in a trash bag close to the El Toro Marine air base. Loggins had last been seen alive by two fellow Marines close to the Pacific Coast...

After A 30-Year Investigation, Police Just Identified The ‘I-65 Killer’ As Harry Edward Greenwell Between 1987 and 1990, four female night clerks were attacked in motels located off of Interstate 65 in Kentucky and Indiana. Three of them were sexually assaulted before being shot to death, while the fourth escaped after being raped at knifepoint. Police suspected the cases were connected, but they never had a suspect — until recently⁠ ⁠ Using DNA technology, investigators have identified the "I-65 Killer" as Harry Edward Greenwell, an Iowa man with an extensive criminal history. Greenwell died in 2013 at the age of 68, but his victims' families are thankful that they finally have closure. Go inside this serial killer's macabre crimes by clicking the link in our profile.⁠ Harry Edward Greenwell targeted female night clerks at motels off Interstate 65 in Kentucky and Indiana in the 1980s and 1990s. For three decades, police in Kentucky and Indiana were stumped by a spree...

For two months in 1958, Charles Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, left a trail of dead bodies across Nebraska and Wyoming. Their victims were anyone unfortunate enough to get in their way, including Fugate's parents and a wealthy Nebraska couple they had robbed. Their crimes were considered so senselessly violent that Wyoming Governor Milward Simpson personally pushed for Starkweather's execution — even though he was against the death penalty. Fugate's involvement in the murders, however, remained more controversial, and some argued that she was likely Starkweather's captive. Nevertheless, she served 18 years in prison for her role in his spree.⁠ For two months in 1958, 19-year-old Charles Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate embarked on a killing spree across Nebraska and Wyoming that left 11 dead. He was probably the most notorious spree killer of the 1950s — and he was just a teenager. In the winter of 1958, 19-yea...

Enietra Washington Helped Put Her Attacker Behind Bars In 1989, Enietra Washington accepted a ride from a strange man. He shot her in the chest, then repeatedly assaulted her. Then repeatedly assaulted her. During the horrifying ordeal, Washington told the man.  If I die, I am going to haunt you. Miraculously, Washington lived, but she was still able to exact her revenge on the man - who turned out to be one of the most notorious serial killers of all time In 1989, 30-year-old Enietra Washington was walking to a friend's home in South Los Angeles, CA, when she reluctantly accepted a ride from Lonnie Franklin, Jr., after he repeatedly offered to give her a lift. He told her, "That’s what’s wrong with you Black women. People can’t be nice to you." Not wanting to seem aloof or rude, she made got into his vehicle. After making a stop at his uncle's house, Franklin - without warning - shot Washington in the chest. When she tried to flee the car, Franklin told her he would ...

Catherine, David Birnie: The macabre, sadistic Moorhouse murders David and Catherine Birnie from Perth, Australia thought they were able to pull off the perfect killing spree when they started abducting, raping and murdering girls from their area in October 1986. Luckily, the fifth victim was able to escape and led police to their house The first victim was a 22-year-old woman. David Birnie was working at a spare parts yard and had promised to sell her tires for her car if she'd come to his house to pick them up. She was strangled, stabbed and buried in a shallow grave. Over the next five weeks, they abducted four more women, the youngest being just 15 years old. The final victim was abducted on November 9. They forced her to call her mother and tell her that she was drunk and therefore staying at a friend's house. That night she was raped and forced to sleep in the couple's bed, handcuffed to her tormentor. The next day she was able to escape and knocked on the doors of se...

The Bitch of Buchenwald Also known as  Beast of Buchenwald", the "Queen of Buchenwald" and the "Red Witch of Buchenwald", Ilse Koch (22 September 1906 – 1 September 1967) was a German war criminal who was an overseer at Nazi concentration camps run by her husband, commandant Karl-Otto Koch. Working at Buchenwald (1937–1941) and Majdanek (1941–1943), Koch became infamous for her sadistic, brutal treatment of prisoners. While at Buchenwald, Koch allegedly engaged in gruesome experiments; selected tattooed prisoners were murdered and skinned to retrieve the tattooed parts of their bodies. This was allegedly done to help a prison doctor, Erich Wagner, in his dissertation on tattooing and criminality. In 1940, she built an indoor sports arena, which cost over 250,000 reichsmarks (approximately $62,500), most of which had been seized from the inmates. In 1941, Karl-Otto Koch was transferred to Lublin, where he helped establish the Majdanek concentration and extermina...

The disappearance of Lars Mittank in 2014 In June 2014, 28-year-old German tourist Lars Mittank traveled to the popular Golden Sands resort in Varna, Bulgaria, for a holiday with friends. After displaying unusual behaviour on the trip following a suspected beating, he bolted from the airport and was captured by cameras disappearing into a field of tall sunflowers. No trace of him has ever been found. Footage of his final known movements has been viewed over a million times on YouTube, leading to him being named ‘the world’s most famous missing tourist’. Mittank and his friends arrived in Varna, a city on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, on 30th June 2014. A week later, while drinking in a bar with friends, Werder Bremen fan Mittank got into an altercation with fans of rival Bundesliga team Bayern Munich. After leaving the bar, Mittank disappeared, with his friends unable to locate him for the rest of the night.  However, he turned up at their resort room the following morning, tellin...

Traveller stabbed, dismembered and stuffed in a rucksack when she moved to paradise for a fresh start Yvonne Baldelli thought she’d found her dream home with her 'perfect man', but she’d actually been lured to her death… With crystal clear waters lapping on the soft white sands and endless palm trees providing coconuts for cocktails, the remote island of Carenero, just off the coast of Panama, was the perfect place for Yvonne Baldelli to escape to. It was a dream destination for the free-spirited divorcée from California, who was looking for a fresh start. With her boyfriend Brian Brimager and her beloved dog by her side, she thought she’d found paradise. Yvonne, 42, raved about her new life to her family, so they were stunned when, after just three months there, Brian revealed Yvonne had left him, claiming she’d gone travelling with another man. Brian’s story made no sense. But it took two years to discover the horrific truth behind her disappearance, stuffed inside a rucksack...

Woman torture to dead by inlaw in Lahore for not giving birth to a baby boy  A mother of two minor daughters was allegedly tortured to death by her in-laws in Gujjarpura area ‘for not giving birth to a baby boy’. Saba (30) died of severe torture marks on parts of her body, particularly on the neck, according to the first information report. The police nominated her husband Jahangir, her brother-in-law Saleem, mother-in-law Nilo Begum and Jehangir’s brother-in-law Shabbir alias Babu. The police officials, relatives of the woman and the FIR stated that Saba was first subjected to severe torture and then strangled. About the motive behind the murder, Abid Ali [in the FIR] alleged that his sister had married Jehangir some four years back and gave birth to two daughters, one of them was four months old. The in-laws of his sister wanted a son and they used to curse her for giving birth to daughters, he said. They had been abusing her and each time the matter was resolved on the intervent...

Defense rests in Andrea Yates trial On this day in 2002, the defense rests on the Andrea Yates trial. Yates confessed to killing her 5 children by drowning them in a bathtub. When the police arrived, she stated that she was saving her kids souls by killing them. During trial, Yates was found guilty and sentenced to life despite pleading for insanity. Interestingly, in 2005 the court reversed the decision because the expert witness used Dr. Park Dietz gave information to influence the jury. Therefore, in 2006 the court found Yates not guilty and since then she has been admitted to a mental hospital in Texas. The defense rests in the trial of Andrea Yates, a 37-year-old Texas woman who confessed to killing her five young children by drowning them in a bathtub. Less than a week later, on March 13, Yates was convicted and sentenced to life in prison; however, her conviction was later reversed. Andrea Pia Kennedy was born July 2, 1964, in Houston, Texas, and married Russell Yates on April 1...

In 1997 Melissa Drexler, 18, gave birth to and strangled her Baby at the prom On this day in 1997, “The Prom Mom,” Melissa Drexler gives birth and murders her baby at the prom. During her high school prom, Drexler gave birth to a baby boy which she dumped in the bathroom’s trash can. Drexler was able to cut off the umbilical cord on the edge of a metal sanitary napkin box in the bathroom. Somehow, Drexler was able to hide her pregnancy. She then returned to the dance floor. Eventually, Drexler was charged with murder, but she plead guilty to aggravated manslaughter. Drexler was sentenced to 15 years in prison, but she was released on parole after 37 months. Melissa Drexler (born 1979, a.k.a. "The Prom Mom"), delivered a baby in a restroom stall at her high school prom, and threw the body in the trash before returning to the dance. She pled guilty to aggravated manslaughter, and was sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment. After serving nearly 37 months, she was released ...