Major Crimes and True Crime

Joan Mae Etzler, who went by Jo was born on November 12, 1952 to parents Wilhelm & Virginia Etzler in Van Wert, Ohio. She grew up on a farm in Van Wert and was described as being very outgoing, friendly, and gregarious. She loved country music, animals, and was a happy person who could talk to anyone and never knew a stranger. In high school, she began dating a boy named Hal Rogers, who was a few months older and a year ahead of her. Unlike herself, Hal was reserved and introverted but they got along well despite their different personalities and they both loved wearing shaded glasses. By the end of her senior year in 1971, they discovered that Jo was pregnant. Jo’s parents weren’t happy that she had become pregnant out of wedlock, so Jo & Hal got married a few months after she graduated. The wedding wasn’t ideal, Jo’s parents didn’t allow her to invite friends or wear a white dress and were still disappointed about the pregnancy. They spent their honeymoon at a...

On this day – 17th March 1941 A young Frenchman named Francois Scornet, just 22 years old, became the only civilian to be executed by firing squad in Jersey during the German occupation of the Channel Islands in World War II. Francois was one of 16 young men from the French Army Cadets who tried to escape Nazi-occupied France. They got a small boat and set out for England, hoping to join the Free French forces and help fight for their country. Sadly, rough seas and bad weather caused them to get lost. They thought they had reached the Isle of Wight in England, but they had actually landed in Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands, which was under German control. They came ashore singing the French national anthem, the Marseillaise, not knowing they were in the wrong place. German soldiers were waiting. The group was arrested, sent to Jersey, and put on trial. Francois was chosen by the Germans as an example to others. They called him the leader of the group and gave him t...

Iranian court sentences pop star Tataloo to death for blasphemy An Iranian court has sentenced the popular singer Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, known as Tataloo, to death on appeal after he was convicted of blasphemy. The 37-year-old underground musician had been living in Istanbul since 2018 before Turkish police handed him over to Iran in December 2023. He has been in detention in Iran since then. Tataloo had also been sentenced to 10 years for promoting “‌p‌r‌o‌s‌t‌i‌t‌u‌t‌i‌o‌n‌” and in other cases was charged with disseminating “propaganda” against the Islamic Republic and publishing “obscene content”. The heavily tattooed singer, known for combining rap, pop and R&B, was previously courted by conservative politicians as a way of reaching out to young, liberal-minded Iranians. Tataloo even held an awkward televised meeting in 2017 with the ultra-conservative Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who later died in a helicopter crash. In 2015, Tataloo published a song i...

An Iranian man was sentenced to death for murder then .. At the execution site, the victim's mother forgave the man and removed the noose from his neck, which was supposed to be used to hang him. Normally, at the execution site, the victim's parents kick the chair under the gallows to complete the execution. In this photo, seconds before the execution, the victim's mother chose to forgive the man. Because she didn't want the perpetrator's mother to feel the same pain of losing her son. The condemned man's mother hugged the victim's mother and cried.  Continue reading

They got lucky to just get kicked out of Singapore. The legal system in Singapore is extremely tough for any type crime at all. Even just eating or drinking in the Singapore Mass Transport system is a $500 fine, and smoke it is $1,000 fine. “Singapore society is highly regulated through the criminalisation of many activities which are considered as fairly harmless in other countries. These include failing to flush toilets after use, littering, jaywalking, the possession of pornography, the sale of chewing gum, and, prior to December 2022, sexual activity such as oral and anal sex between men.Nonetheless, Singapore is one of the countries with the least crime in the world, with a low incidence of violent crimes. Singapore retains both corporal punishment ( in the form of caning ) and capital punishment (by hanging) as punishments for serious offences. For some offences, most notably trafficking in drugs above a certain specified quantity, the imposition of these penaltie...

In 1945, a teenager from the Cajun town of St. Martinsville was arrested in Texas. A few months prior, a local pharmacist had been found shot dead, catalysing a months-long investigation that ultimately came to naught. After that 15-year-old Willie Francis was taken into custody though, they found the dead pharmacist’s wallet on his person. Francis subsequently made an obscure confession without counsel present,  "It was a secret about me and him." Despite two separate confessions, he chose not to plead guilty. When the trial came to pass, the court appointed defence attorneys did nothing to defend him and the jury very quickly found him guilty. He was sentenced to death by electric chair. At the end of May 1946, the dreaded day arrived and Francis took his seat on ‘Gruesome Gertie’, a portable electric chair well-known to Louisianan inmates. The chair had been improperly set up by a drunk prison guard though, so when it was switched on, it didn’t execute h...

Zombie Hunter  In December 1992, in Phoenix, Arizona, Angela Brosso went for a bike ride on her 22nd birthday and never came back. Her body was later found in a field behind her home. She had been badly hurt and her life taken in a very brutal way. A few days later, her head was found in a canal about 3 kilometers from where her body had been discovered. The next year, in September 1993, another young woman, 17-year-old Melanie Bernas, also disappeared while riding her bike in the same area. Her body was found floating in the Arizona Canal, the same one where Angela’s head had been found. Police didn’t share many details, but said she had been hurt in a violent way, though not in the same exact manner as Angela. DNA found at both scenes linked the two murders, but it took years before police began to suspect one man. He had attacked two other women—one as a teen, which landed him in juvenile detention, and another in 2002, though he was found not guilty in that case...

In the summer of 1993, she decided to plan a hike to the Khamar Daban mountain range in Siberia with six of her best students, familiar with the area, which was a popular tourist spot and considered a safe hiking destination. The six students were Aleksander (Sacha) Krysin, 23, Timur Bapanov (15), Viktoriya Zalesova (16), Valentina Utochenko (17), Tatyana Filipenko (24), and Denis Shvachkin (19). Arriving at the mountain range on August 2, 1993, the seven were excited to begin their journey, encouraged by the promise of clear, sunny skies according to the weather forecast. Although the first two days of the hike went more smoothly than expected, on August 4, as they began their descent, the weather forecast proved inaccurate and the group encountered heavy rains. The additional weight of the wet supplies slowed each hiker’s progress, and despite the availability of nearby tree cover, Lyudmila hastily chose to set up camp in an open area due to the group’s fatigue. That night, the group...

The disappearance of Brian Shaffer Shaffer was a medical student at Ohio State university. On the night of March 31, 2006, he went out with friends to celebrate the beginning of spring break at the ugly tuna saloona. Later, he was separated from them and they assumed he had gone home. However, a camera near the entrance to a bar recorded him briefly talking to two women just before 2 a.m., April 1, and then apparently re-entering the bar. He has not been seen or heard from since. There was reportedly only two exits in the bar and both do not show Brian leaving (LE have looked at the security tapes numerous of times and can account for every person leaving; except for Brian). Brian was out with two friends that night, Clint and Meredith. When asked to take a polygraph by police Meredith complied but Clint did not (His reason was that he had nothing to hide and had told the police everything he knew). Web sleuths theorize that Brian was murdered and disposed of by...

Vanished into thin air” On June 13, 2001, 19-year-old Jason Jolkowski walked out of his house in Nebraska and vanished without any trace. Jason worked at a local restaurant and would soon start working on being a DJ. That day, he was asked to report to work early since another employee was absent. A coworker was to pick him up near Benson High School (where Jason had studied). He helped his younger brother carry trash cans into the garage before he was supposed to leave. Carrying trash cans was the last time anyone ever saw Jason. He never arrived at the school as no CCTV cameras captured him. He was 6′1″ and disappeared during the day in an area with pedestrians and flowing traffic. He had a mild learning disability but wasn’t dependent on others. There are no significant clues, hence, no likely scenario to suggest, but theories are abundant: A hit-and-run case. His body was disposed of (highly unlikely) Accidental death near a construction or a freak accident leading ...

The hinterkaifeck axe murders -1922 It is one of the most gruesome murder mysteries of all time. To explain in a nutshell, there was a small town named Hinterkaifeck in Germany, and there lived a family in a farmstead, consisting of parents, their 3 wards and a maid . They were all living peacefully until the housemaid started feeling something spooky happening in the house. She claimed that she heard creepy noises and random scratching from the attic when the house is silent. So she quits her job accusing that the house is haunted. The story doesn’t end there, but only begins. After that, the father notices that some newspaper unfamiliar to the house were kept within. And then the keys of the house goes missing. Most chillingly, as it was winter, the family noticed footprints showing people entering the house but no prints were found leaving the house. Time passes by and a new maid joins the family to serve them. The true horror is unvieled on that very night. All th...

America’s National Parks are home to some of the most gorgeous sights in the world. Many people seek solace in the calm serenity offered by getting in touch with nature. While these locations are beautiful, reports of disappearances within the parks offer dark and chilling mysteries. What’s even more perplexing is that in many cases, the individuals who go missing are experienced in the outdoors. Morgan Heimer Source: The Strange Outdoors Morgan was a commercial guide working for Tour West, a rafting company, who went missing in the summer of 2015. He was a guide for a group taking a trip through the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. Source: The Colorado Plateau He went missing on day 6 of an 8 day trip. Morgan was a college student from Cody, Wyoming who was described as an experienced outdoorsman and excellent swimmer. According to park officials[1], Morgan went missing on Tuesday, June 2nd and was never seen again. He was last seen at a...