Major Crimes and True Crime

Remembering the Bangladesh Liberation War: The Struggle for Independence and the Atrocities of 1971. The Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 was a pivotal moment in the history of South Asia. The conflict was sparked by the refusal of the government of Pakistan to recognize the results of the 1970 elections in East Pakistan, where the Awami League, a Bengali nationalist party, had won a majority of seats. The Pakistan Army launched a military operation in East Pakistan, known as Operation Searchlight, in an attempt to suppress the Bengali nationalist movement and maintain control over the region. The military operation led to widespread atrocities, including mass killings, rape, and forced displacement. The Pakistan Army targeted civilians, particularly members of the Hindu minority, in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. The Bengali nationalist movement, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his Awami League party, organized resistance against the Pakistani military and formed a provision...

99-Year-Old Former Nazi Secretary’s Final Appeal Denied for Holocaust Complicity In a courtroom in Germany, an elderly woman named Irmgard Furchner faced a final chapter of her long and dark past. At 99 years old, Furchner, who once worked as a secretary at the Stutthof Nazi concentration camp during World War II, lost her last chance to appeal a conviction. This marked a significant moment in the pursuit of justice for the Holocaust. Back in December 2022, Furchner had been found guilty of helping with the murder of over 10,000 people at the camp. Despite her defense’s efforts to overturn the verdict, the Federal Court of Justice upheld her two-year suspended sentence, making it a final decision. Furchner's role at the camp involved taking dictation and handling letters for the camp's commander. She was aware of the severe conditions that prisoners endured, including the horrific sight and smell of their suffering and deaths. Her duties were crucial in running the cam...

The Nazis kill pregnant women during WWII The Nazis did abort pregnant women in World War II--and with intent. It was not a gratuitous violence. It was to clear entire populations, predominantly Jews and Roma. A pregnant woman to the Nazis was a bearer not just any individual, but the future of a collectivity they were out to destroy. They took away the life of her before it even lived, by killing her. Once in the camps such as Auschwitz, pregnant women would most likely be dispatched directly to the gas chambers. They were not of any use in work and thus the Nazis simply did away with them. Expecting in the camps and the ghettos was basically a death sentence. A lot of women were induced to abort. Alive children went and were killed. The severe circumstances were severe conditions, starvation, sickness, lack of medicine, which also resulted in the majority of the mothers not living long. This was not coincidence or war by-product. It was an inhuman agenda to divide families, abolish b...

The Grimes sisters. Chicago’s most infamous unsolved murders. Barbara and Patricia Grimes, aged 15 and 13 respectively, had lived in the Brighton Park neighborhood and had walked to the now-closed Brighton Theater to see Love Me Tender on 28 December 1956 and never returned home. Their nude bodies were found a month later, on 27 January 1957 in Willow Springs. There had been rai,n and the snow had thawed, and construction workers saw the bodies at German Church Road and County Line Road. The theater was on Archer Avenue, a diagonal artery which eventually ends near Willow Springs Road. There has always been speculation that they were offered a ride home after going for something to eat. And there were numerous suspects, ranging from a dishwasher with a low IQ to a kid who looked like Elvis and was later in life sent to jail for murder, and a guy who had a dream about where the bodies were (and, in fact, the bodies were found only a few miles from the location in his dream). Th...

It's the summer of 1921, and actor Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle is on top of the world Successful, wealthy, and adored by silent film audiences, Chaplin is the king of laughter. Despite his imposing physical appearance, he is agile and comical, and his performances are a family favorite. Paramount Pictures has paid him $3 million over three years to star in 18 films, and he has just signed another million-dollar contract with the studio. To celebrate his new six-figure deal, his best friend Fred Fischbach has organized a huge party. It will be held in three adjoining apartments rented at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, and will last for three days. It's 1921, and a scandal of unprecedented proportions is about to engulf the Hollywood community. The party is attended by about fifty people, who, following the flow of alcohol, are becoming increasingly uninhibited. In the midst of the party, Fatty, wandering around in pajamas and a bathrobe, retreats to a private room...

Maniac who stabbed nine children to death in China is executed by firing squad Villagers crowded along a Chinese road to watch police cars escort killer Zhao Zewei to an execution ground A CHINESE man who stabbed nine school children to death has been executed by firing squad. Zhao Zewei received the death sentence after being convicted of intentional homicide for the lethal knife attack which also saw him injure 11 other pupils. The execution was carried out in the Mizhi county of Shaanxi yesterday, according to a statement from the Yulin City Intermediate Court. Zhao, 28, had not appealed against the death sentence after it was approved by China's Supreme Court. He reportedly took knives into his former middle school in April to carry out revenge for bullying. Zhao launched the vicious attack in Mizhi count, north-western China, to vent his anger over being tormented while a pupil there, a court statement said. But his motives for depriving others of life were "despicable...

Just moments after this image was captured, SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau was snatched into the jaws of the orca pictured here and brutally killed. Her body was then thrashed about over the course of 45 minutes while the horrified crowd helplessly looked on. The autopsy report said that Brancheau died from drowning and blunt force trauma. Her spinal cord was severed, and she had sustained fractures to her jawbone, ribs, and a cervical vertebra. Her scalp was completely torn off from her head, and her left elbow and left knee had been dislocated. Dawn worked with orcas at SeaWorld Orlando for fifteen years. She was killed by an orca called Tilikum. Tilikum was also involved in the deaths of two other people: Keltie Byrne and Daniel P. Dukes. The orca that killed her, Tillikum, was captured in Iceland in 1983; about a year later, he was transferred to Sealand of the Pacific in Victoria, British Columbia.  He was subsequently transferred in 1992 to SeaWorld in Orlando, Flo...

Edith Thompson was diapered before being executed This is Edith Thompson, who was executed in Holloway Prison, London in 1923. Thompson was executed by long drop hanging (quick neck break) as was the method in the UK. Unfortunately for Thompson, the hanging may have been botched, and it appears she strangled slowly to death on the rope. In her death throes, as well as voiding her bowels and bladder, she bled profusely out her vagina because of internal haemorrhaging (not uncommon for women who get short drop or strangulation hangings). Because of the mess in Thompson's hanging, from 1923 condemned women in UK or UK administered hangings were required to wear thick canvas underwear on the day of their execution to catch any blood or excrement. Men as far as I'm aware did not wear special underwear - just women. The UK abolished the death penalty in the 1960s. As to other countries, it probably depends (or depended) on the country and its processes around executions, and the meth...

The killer who made a request for his own autopsy Charles Whitman was a smart kid who grew up in a troubled home. His father was a firearm enthusiast who kept several guns and taught his kids how to use gun. Things going south when he started experiencing uncontrollable surges of rage, for this he visited several doctors; some even prescribed valium for him though his symptoms remained. Feats of uncontrollable anger and incessant headaches lead him to do the unspeakable. In the early morning of Monday, August 1, 1966. Whitman stabbed his mother, Margaret in the chest and also shot her in the head. He then went to his wife who was asleep, and stabbed her three times Whitman proceeded to the Main building of the University of Texas at Austin, disguising as a research assistant he carried several firearms to the observation deck of the university and fired upon people at the ground level. He killed fourteen people and wounded 31 in the 96 minutes of shooting before he as shot dea...

On the morning of February 14, 2000, in Shelby, North Carolina, the parents of 9-year-old Asha Degree, who entered her room to wake her, discovered that she was not in bed. The little girl shared a room with her one-year-younger brother, who, upon waking up, declared that he had not heard anything, nor had the slightest idea of ​​what had happened to his sister. Several witnesses stated that they had seen a little girl who matched Asha's description, walking alone, around 4 in the morning, along North Carolina Highway 18. The mystery further deepened when some of Asha's belongings were found about a mile and a half from her home, while her backpack, wrapped in a garbage bag, was found a good 25 miles away. Since then, despite a mammoth and timely search, nothing more has been heard of the little girl.  Continue reading

On May 25, 1996, 19-year-old Kristin Smart attended a birthday party on her campus, California Polytechnic State University. Few hours into the party, she was found sleeping in a nearby lawn; she had been drugged. Two students who found her volunteered to take her back to her dorm room, but another student, Paul Flores, came out of the darkness and promised to ensure her safe return. That was the last time any human aside from Flores saw Smart alive. To date, Smart's remains have not been recovered. For 26 years, investigators pursued the case. They believed he had buried the body beneath the deck of the family house but moved it to an unknown location just before the police searched the apartment. The police obtained numerous pieces of evidence from Paul's apartment, including date drugs and video clips of him raping and sodomizing young girls. On March 10, Paul Flores was found guilty of the death and disappearance of Kristin Smart and was sentenced to 25 years to life on Mar...

The person pictured below is 13 year old Regina Kay Walters. This photo was one of the last ones taken of her. Ever. The person who took this photo was named Robert Ben Rhoades. Robert Ben Rhoades was serial killer. A few minutes aftter taking this photo, Rhoades murdered Regina. Her body was only found a few months later when the owner checking through the barn before burning it down. Regina Kay Walters was only 13 at the time of her murder However her murder was only the culmination of her horrific ordeal. It started when Regina and her boyfriend, Ricky Lee Jones were hitch-hicking and were picked up by a truck driver. Unfortunately, this truck driver was Robert Ben Jones. It is assumed that Ricky was murdered very soon after the two were picked up. His body has never been found. Regina however, was kept for at least a month inside a small ‘cell’ within the cab of Rhoades' truck. During this time, Regina was tortured and raped on multiple occasions. Her hair was cut and ...

This is one of the toughest true crime stories I’ve ever shared. On January 3, 2022, a 911 call came from Slaughter, Louisiana. Sheila Fletcher called and said her daughter, 36-year-old Lacey Fletcher, had died while she and her husband, 65-year-old Clay Fletcher, were away for the weekend. Police and ambulance came to the house and found a terrible scene. The coroner said Lacey’s body was one of the worst he had ever seen. Lacey was autistic and had Locked-in syndrome, which left her body completely paralyzed except for her eye muscles. She was badly neglected, very thin, and covered in urine and feces. Her parents let her sit on the couch for years, where she would urinate and slowly starve. Lacey was so hungry she even tried to eat the couch cushion. Her body was found almost stuck to the couch and covered in maggots.  Continue reading

The murder of Shirley Leach. The naked 66 year old, was discovered in a ‘semi’ closed toilet cubicle around 4.14 am, January 7, 1994, Manchester - England. (Note: Some articles said 66 and others said 65 years old)   The woman had been strangled and mutilated. A trace of her steps: Prior to her murder, Mrs Leach, aged 66, had visited her daughter, Beryl, at Fairfield General Hospital. She left the Rochdale Old Road hospital with her 19-year-old grandson, Darren, at 8.20pm and the pair stopped at a nearby pub for one drink before making their way to the bus stop. At 9pm, they caught the 469 bus into Bury town centre, with Darren getting off at Bell Lane and waving his grandmother goodbye. Mrs Leach arrived at the interchange at around 9.15pm, and while waiting for her connection home, she visited the toilets — a fateful decision that cost her life. source:  Shirley Leach killing 25 years on - the brutal murder that shook a town Detectives launched a hunt for the murder suspect,...

This is a mystery of  happiness and loss In 2015, William Fagan, an Irish photographer, bought a 1935 Leica camera with a roll of undeveloped film inside. When he developed the film 5 years later, in 2020, he discovered 22 images of (perhaps) a honeymoon through Switzerland and Italy. You have already seen the bride. Her wedding ring is on her right hand, European style. She immortalized him like this: They left snowy Bavaria for their road-trip in a BMW-315 that had been registered 1948 in post-war Munich, in the American occupation zone. But by the time they reached Lake Como, Italy, it was spring— —and no later than 1951, because this steamer was taken out of service the following year. It was so beautiful… and so was she. But afterwards, the camera lay idle—unopened—never used again—the lovers’ story forever closed— —and their identities  lost . Continue reading