Major Crimes and True Crime

Inside The Unparalleled Death Spiral Of St. Louis In 33 Eerie Images Despite once being one of America's most prosperous cities, St. Louis, Missouri is now considered one of the worst places in the nation to live — by pretty much any standard or metric. Considered the murder capital of the U.S. with the nation's highest rate of child poverty, St. Louis also battles an unprecedented police brutality problem as the seventh highest city with instances of police killings. Now ranked one of the most crime-ridden places in America, the once thriving history of St. Louis has all but been forgotten.  Relive the unprecedented boom and bust of St. Louis in 33 images Throughout the early 20th century, St. Louis, Missouri, was among the most progressive and prosperous towns in America. So what turned the Gateway City into a crime-ridden ghost town? Until the 1950s, St. Louis, Missouri was a bustling hub of industry. Given its location along the Mis...

How The Mafia’s ‘Pizza Connection’ Pumped America Full Of Heroin With The Help Of Neighborhood Pizzerias In April 1984, federal agents arrested Pietro "Pete" Alfano, the owner of a mom-and-pop pizzeria in the small town of Oregon, Illinois. Locals loved him for his food and because he often donned an apron and baked the pizzas himself. But few knew that Alfano was a crucial figure in an international heroin smuggling ring with ties to one of New York City's largest crime families and the Sicilian Mafia. Known as the "Pizza Connection," this drug pipeline trafficked heroin from Palermo to the U.S. using mob-run pizza parlors as wholesale distribution centers from Long Island to Wisconsin. In addition to Alfano, nearly 40 people were eventually arrested by federal agents in connection with this investigation. The resulting trial became the longest in U.S. history and cost an estimated $50 million to prosecute — but it resulted in a staggering 18 co...

He became the worst serial killer in US history FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — (TNS) Samuel Little, a 79-year-old man with a penchant for storytelling and drawing chalk pastel portraits in his California prison cell, was recently labeled by the FBI as the United States’ most prolific serial killer. Over the past two years, Little has confessed to charming, beating and strangling more than 90 women between 1970 and 2005 _ at least a dozen in Florida. About 50 of these murders have so far been confirmed by the FBI and local state detectives, but nine still are unsolved in southern and central Florida.  The vast majority of Little’s victims were homeless, runaways, drug users or prostitutes _ women so on the fringes of society that many investigators struggled to figure out their real names. Their bodies were found half-buried in wooded areas alongside highways or stuffed into dumpsters. Without the technology to perform DNA analysis, their deaths often were wrongly attrib...

What turned one city in Canada into the ‘serial killer capital’ of the world? London, Ontario once suffered the highest concentration of serial killers on Earth, and 16 of 29 murder cases were never concluded – but a new book looks to a former detective’s diary entries to offer new theories Two hours west of Toronto, along Highway 401, lies the small city of London, Ontario. Known as the Forest City, the town is the birthplace of Justin Bieber, Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams.  And between 1959 and 1984, it was home to the largest known concentration of serial killers in the world. Over the course of 25 years, the town was shaken by 29 gruesome murders. Thirteen of those murders were attributed to three killers who were eventually caught and convicted: Gerald Thomas Archer, known as the London Chamber Maid Slayer, Christian McGee, known as the Mad Slasher, and Russell Johnson, known as the Balcony Killer.   Sixteen of the murders have remained unsolv...

Richard Jenne, the last child killed by the head nurse at the Kaufbeuren-Irsee euthanasia facility The last child killed by the head nurse at the Kaufbeuren-Irsee euthanasia facility. Said by the Dr at the facility during his trial for killing the lame, "Death can mean deliverance. Death is life - just as much as birth." In the book The Life of Reason: Reason in Common Sense, Santayana wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Anyone who can kill a child or order it is absolute scum. RIP poor babies. The Kinderfachabteilung in Kaufbeuren was established in December 1941 (as the second of three in Bavaria) and was in operation until mid-April 1945 (and children were killed until June 1945). The clinic's medical director was Dr. Valentin Faltlhauser, who was directly responsible for this ward. The ward (an extension) in Irsee, which is close by, opened a few months later. Its medical director was Dr. Lothar Gärtner, th...

Teen gunmen kill 13 at Columbine High School On This Day in 1999 The Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado. On April 20, 1999, two teenage gunmen kill 13 people in a shooting spree at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, south of Denver. At approximately 11:19 a.m., Dylan Klebold, 17, and Eric Harris, 18, dressed in trench coats, began shooting students outside the school before moving inside to continue their rampage. By 11:35 a.m., Klebold and Harris had killed 12 fellow students and a teacher and wounded another 23 people.  Shortly after noon, the two teens turned their guns on themselves and died by suicide. The crime prompted a national debate on gun control and school safety, as well as a major investigation to determine what motivated the teen gunmen. In the days immediately following the shootings, it was speculated ...

1938 Tiberias massacre “Jews and Arabs lived peacefully before 1948. It’s Israel that’s the problem” History: 1938, massacre of Jews in Tiberias, Arabs murder 19 Jews - 11 of whom were children. Nineteen Jews were killed by Arabs rebels today in one of the worst outbreak in current Jewish. Arab rioting over rival claims to Palestine as a homeland. Body of those Slain, about half of whom were young children. The Tiberias massacre took place on 2 October 1938, during the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Tiberias, then located in the British Mandate of Palestine and today is located in the State of Israel After infiltrating the Jewish Kiryat Shmuel neighbourhood, Arab rioters killed 19 Jews in Tiberias, 11 of whom were children. During the massacre, 70 armed Arabs set fire to Jewish homes and the local synagogue. In one house a mother and her five children were killed. The old beadle in the synagogue was stabbed to death, and another family of 4 was killed. At the time of the atta...

In 1938, a disaffected young man stalked his mountain village in Japan, killing dozens of his neighbors. It was the worst mass murder by a lone gunman in Japanese history. 30 died; three survivors sustained major injuries. Was the Tsuyama Massacre the first incel mass murder? The masscare occurred In Kaio, where many of the rhythms of life resembled those of Japanese villages for centuries previous. People farmed, held harvest festivals, and carted their crops off to larger communities for sale. Everyone in little Kaio knew each other. What motivated Toi Mutsuo, the perpetrator of the massacre, to shatter this small town's peace forever? Some speculate it was a combination of tuberculosis and his loss of access to yobai (夜這い), a custom that allowed men to sneak into the homes of female villagers at night. What was Toi Mutsuo's real motivation? And why did the story of what was Japan's worst massacre until 1982 remain buried for years? Find our more in our latest es...

Inside the Stalker Hell of Italian Footballer Fabio Quagliarella When Fabio Quagliarella joined Napoli in 2009, his childhood dreams came true. But the striker's solitary season at the Stadio San Paolo descended into a living hell. From crooked coppers to stalkers from hell, this is the true crime tale of a Neapolitan nightmare.  In 2009, when Naples native Fabio Quagliarella signed a five-year deal to play forward for his hometown club, it seemed life couldn't get any better for him, nor for arguably Italy's most passionate football fans. But after only one season, Quagliarella was sent packing from Naples to play for archrival Juventus. The Societa Sportiva Calcio Napoli faithful—once full of unremitting love for their native son—proved they could express their unmitigated hatred with equal passion.  What the fans did not know—what virtually no one, in fact, knew—until earlier this year was the torment Quagliarella was being subjected to during hi...

The Menendez brothers murder their parents After Kitty Menendez and her husband José were shot dead in their Beverly Hills mansion by their sons Lyle and Erik in the summer of 1989, her sons dumped their shotguns on Mulholland Drive before continuing to a local movie theater to buy tickets as an alibi. When the pair returned home, Lyle called 911 and cried, "Somebody killed my parents!"⁠  And for months the boys fooled the police, going on expensive shopping sprees with their inheritance money that included new cars, Rolexes, and vacations. The boys were only brought to justice when Erik confessed to his therapist and launched one of the most infamous trials in American history — learn more by clicking the link in our profile.⁠ ⁠ ⁠Lyle and Erik Menendez shoot their parents, Jose and Kitty, to death in the den of the family’s Beverly Hills, California, home. They then drove up to Mulholland Drive, where they dumped their shotguns before continuing to a lo...

Noir Crime: The Mad Killer Of Suffolk County A lone plate sat on the counter top at Bailey’s Restaurant in Westhampton Beach. There was a fried egg that lay untouched on the plate. Beyond the table, the cash register door was opened and all the cash was gone. A customer cautiously called out for the proprietors and got no answer.  It was still hot in the early morning hours of August 9, 1959 in Westhampton Beach and the weary customer had decided to stop at the new establishment for a cup of coffee. Bailey’s had been open for only six weeks. The customer later told police he had been wanting to try the coffee there. He also reported that as soon as he entered the restaurant, he felt that something was wrong. But he continued to call out.  Thinking the restaurant staff was most likely busy in the back area, he peered through the door marked “Employees Only” and noticed that the rest room door was ajar and something was lying on the floor.  As his eyes adjuste...