Carlyle Harris, not quite what he seemed.

The case of Carlyle Harris was a classic of its time and links well into another of New York’s classic murders, that committed by another doctor named Robert Buchanan a couple of years later. I’ll be covering the Buchanan case in due course but, for now, we’ll be looking at Harris’s crime.

Carlyle Harris was a medical student in New York in the 1890’s. Like so many murderers he was outwardly respectable, charming, polite and something of a ladykiller. In his case, literally. Behind the respectable exterior lay a darker, more cynical, more ruthless personality. He enjoyed being seen as a respectable young man-about-town, but he also enjoyed extra-marital sex, drinking and money. He had expensive tastes by the standards of a typical student and was keen to preserve his outwardly reputable image. So keen, in fact, that he was prepared to kill for it.

So he did.

On February 1, 1891 his paramour, a nice, decent young lady named Helen Potts, was found dead at the Comstock Finishing School in New York. Initially, her death was attributed to a stroke, at least at first. It wasn’t long before doctors noticed something odd and more than slightly suspect about her body. When they examined her eyes they noticed that her pupils were pinpointed which isn’t a symptom of a normal, typical stroke. It is, however, a normal symptom of something altogether more sinister.

Morphine poisoning…

The first thing doctors needed to do was to establish whether or not morphine poisoning was the actual cause of death and this, in the 1890’s, wasn’t as easily done as it would be today. Today’s toxicologists would simply order blood tests and use simple procedures that could ascertain both the presence of morphine and even how much has been administered. In the 1890’s it was a major exercise in forensic science even to prove its mere presence in a deceased person. Carlyle Harris, a medical student and who just happened to be Helen Potts’s fiancé, would have known that. Which was probably why he chose morphine as his weapon of choice. He was probably reasoning that morphine might not even be noticed in an autopsy which would allow him to commit the perfect murder. The perfect murder isn’t the murder where authorities investigate without finding a murderer. It’s the murder that authorities don’t even know has been committed in the first place. Carlyle Harris was clearly a very clever and very ruthless young man.

Harris met his fiancé and victim in 1889 at their Ocean Grove cottage. The attraction was both instant and mutual. Harris enjoyed the attentions of a young and well-mannered young woman and Helen Potts was equally smitten with Harris. To her he was brilliant, charming, intelligent, witty and, in general, a fine young gentleman. He was so keen that, despite being barely 20 years old, he proposed marriage. Unfortunately for both of them her parents vetoed the idea due to the young couple being just that little bit too young for their liking.

Neither Harris nor Potts were pleased by her parents’ decision but, not wanting to cause havoc by simply eloping, elected instead to marry in secret without the consent or even knowledge of either his family or her own. Had they simply eloped and been able to marry openly then the future may have been very different in that Potts might not have been poisoned and Harris might not have taken a seat in ‘Old Sparky.’ As things turned out, despite being legally married, they were obliged to enjoy married life and a sexual relationship in secret. It was a situation that would, in time, seal both their fates.

On February 8, 1890 they were married in secret. Helen Potts elected to marry under a false name, that of Helen Nielson, and Carlyle Harris simply became Charles Harris, at least according to their marriage certificate. Their deception, crude though it is by modern standards, proved successful. So successful, in fact, that it wasn’t until August of 1890 that her mother discovered that they (fraudulently) became man and wife. In August 1890 Helen became dangerously ill as a result of post-operative infection, what was then called ‘septic poisoning’. She’d had a number of operations in her young life, operations performed by none other than her ‘husband’ Carlyle Harris, still himself only a medical student and not a qualified doctor. She finally confided in her uncle when the illnesses became too much to bear. He, in turn, informed her mother. Their secret was now out, at least between the two families. Within a couple of months it would make headlines all across the United States.

The couple still weren’t living together. Harris had a place of his own and he’d induced Helen’s mother to pack her off to an exclusive boarding school until arrangements could be made to introduce the young couple onto the New York society scene in what was then considered the proper manner. The irregular nature of their relationship was to be concealed where possible and glossed over where necessary to preserve the names and reputations of both families. Unfortunately, that plan died with Helen Potts in February 1891. Now Helen Potts, Carlyle Harris and the social reputations of both families were about to be consigned to history.

Harris had been clever when he plotted Helen’s death. He knew that she was suffering from insomnia as she’d complained to him regularly and, equally regularly, asked him if he could obtain something to help her sleep. He supplied her with a sedative made up by the teaching hospital pharmacist in the form of capsules. She was to take one a day with water to try and ease her insomnia. Unfortunately for her, Harris, who by now considered his young ‘wife’ more of a burden that anything else, wanted his freedom and to preserve his decent outwardly respectable image. If their domestic arrangements were exposed, reasoned Harris, then he would be personally and professionally ruined. In those days how gentlemen conducted themselves in private often impacted on their professional prospects and Harris knew full well that his medical career would be ruined before it really started if his love life came to light. He decided to solve the problem by permanently silencing his troublesome spouse, thus freeing himself to continue being outwardly respectable while philandering his way through New York’s débutantes.

Harris’s weapon of choice, easily obtained from the hospital pharmacy

Harris’s plan was simple and it very nearly worked. He knew where Helen kept her sleeping capsules, he knew the ingredients, and he also knew exactly where to obtain the right quantity of morphine and how difficult it was to detect after death. In order to be able to feign shock and surprise at Helen’s impending ‘accidental’ death he simply opened one of the capsules, removed the medication, and replaced it with a lethal dose of morphine sulfate. His plan for after Helen’s death was simply to blame the pharmacist and accuse them of bungling the prescription, thereby ruining them and diverting any attention or suspicion away from himself. Essentially Harris was playing Russian Roulette, not knowing exactly when Helen would die but knowing, as certainly as any poisoner can do, that she would definitely take the doctored capsule sooner or later. On February 1, 1891 would be the day she did exactly that.

Her mother was instantly suspicious and started pressing for a formal investigation of her death. Once the initial idea of a stroke had been discounted and her pinpoint pupils noted, doctors began looking for morphine. To Harris’s surprise, dismay and ultimately his downfall, Doctor Allan Hamilton and one of New York’s senior medical figures, Professor Rudolf Witthaus, managed to prove conclusively that Helen Potts had been poisoned. On March 23, 1891 Carlyle Harris was arrested and a Grand Jury promptly indited him for capital murder.

The trial began on January 19, 1892 and was a media sensation. Not since the case of Chester Gillette (immortalized by famed author Theodore Dreiser’s ‘An American Tragedy’) had New York society and gossip columnists had something so juicy to chew over — a secret marriage, pre-marital sex, a defendant who was outwardly respectable but soon exposed as having so scandalous a personal life and suchlike. And, of course, prior to 1965, this whole sordid melodrama was conducted in the shadow of the electric chair. Trial watchers and gossip columnists had a field day recounting every sordid detail of Harris’s secret personal scandals and the jury’s verdict was awaited with ever-increasing tension. Would Harris walk free having been acquitted? Or would he be given the ultimate sentence and walk instead from a cell at Sing Sing along the dreaded Last Mile and pay for his crime before an invited audience? As the jury deliberated, reporters, gossip columnists, New York high society and people all over the country were asking that very question.

On February 2, 1892, almost exactly one year after Helen Potts unwittingly took Harris’s lethal capsule, the jury reached their verdict. Guilty as charged, with no recommendation for mercy. The prosecution case had been so overwhelming that they had deliberated for only eighty minutes. Recorder Smyth promptly passed the mandatory sentence under New York law, condemning Harris to die in Sing Sing’s electric chair during the week beginning on March 21. An appeal was immediately filed by Harris’s defence team.

It wasn’t until January, 1893 before the appeal was heard. It took far less time for it to be denied. Harris’s lawyers then filed affidavits with Recorder Smyth, claiming to have new evidence that hadn’t been heard at the original trial. Recorder Harris considered them carefully before, on March 16, denying their request for a new trial. On March 20 Recorder Smyth was sat on the bench and he set Harris a new date of execution. His new date with death was set for May 8, 1893.

Their legal options exhausted, Harris’s supporters turned to the Governor of the State of New York, Governor Flower. They showered him with requests to commute Harris’s death sentence and, the case having been a national sensation, similar requests began pouring into Flower’s office from almost every state in the Union. Flower was pushed into appointing a special commission to examine whether or not Harris really deserved a commutation. The commission looked again at the case, the evidence, and Harris’s colorful life and decided he didn’t. On their recommendation and with the execution date looming ever closer, Governor Flower finally made a decision. He wouldn’t intervene.

The original Sing Sing death chamber.

On May 8, 1893 Carlyle Harris walked his last mile. His head was shaved and he walked wearing the then-traditional garb of New York’s condemned, a black shirt and trousers with shower shoes. His right leg had also been shaved so the second electrode would make a clean contact when the switch was thrown. Before an invited audience composed of prison officials and reporters he made a final plea of innocence before he sat down and was swiftly strapped in. With everything ready the Warden made a silent signal to ‘State Electrician’ Edwin Davis, who promptly slammed the switch into position and watched Harris’s body carefully, manipulating the voltage to avoid burning Harris’s body more than was necessary. After a two-minute cycle Davis shut off the power and the prison doctor stepped forward to make the standard check.

Carlyle Harris was dead.

Shortly after Harris was electrocuted another medical man, Doctor Robert Buchanan, acquired a habit of sitting in bars loudly and openly stating that Harris was a bungling incompetent. In Buchanan’s opinion, of course it was possible to disguise morphine poisoning simply by dripping atropine into the victims eyes and dilating their pupils, thus removing the most obvious indication of morphine poisoning. What nobody knew at that time was that Buchanan, tired of his wife and after her sizable insurance policy, had every intention of proving his theory with a practical demonstration. His bar-room boasting would later form part of the prosecution’s case that sent him to ‘Old Sparky’ as well.

But that’s for another time.

For weeks I’ve been closely following a news story about a number of women who were found dead or missing in a small town in Southern Ohio named Chillicothe and the potential of a serial killer on the loose. Living in Ohio myself and being nearly the same age as some of the young victims, I was immediately interested in this case and knew I needed to write something about it. Unfortunately, breaking cases rarely make good articles and though I was still keeping an eye open for any new developments, I felt I had to wait a bit longer in order to have a genuinely good story.

The woman who shot Neal Falls with his own gun in her kitchen, identified only as “Heather”.

That news finally came on July 18, 2015. A West Virginian prostitute identified only by the name “Heather” ran to a neighbor’s home screaming and clearly shaken. Heather said that a man she had met through the website Backpage.com – an online advertisement site similar to craigslist, but more accommodating to those looking to sell “adult services” – had knocked on her door and pointed a gun at her. She said the man gave her two options, “live or die”, before attacking the woman and attempting to strangle her. Heather fought off her attacker with a rake (a term used for a large, wide toothed comb) until Falls made the fatal mistake of setting down his pistol. Heather was quick to pick up the gun Falls had set down during the scuffle and shot behind her back. Falls was killed instantly.

After running to her neighbor’s home and making the 9-1-1 phone call, investigators arrived on the scene and made an unusual discovery. Inside Falls’ Subaru Forester was what they called a serial killer’s “kill kit”. A bullet proof vest, two sets of handcuffs, trash bags, a bottle of bleach, several knives, a sledgehammer, two large axes, and a throwing ax were among the items in Falls’ possession at the time of Heather’s attack. Within his pocket was a small yellow post-it note listing names and numbers of at least six other women Falls had intended to meet with. Some of these women were as far away as San Diego, CA, suggesting that not only could Falls potentially have been an active serial killer, but missing persons cases in at least 20 states could possibly be connected to him. There is little doubt that without Heather’s quick thinking, Falls would have gone on to kill a number of other women.

The only photograph of Falls known to exist, taken from his drivers license photo.

Shortly after Falls’ death, media speculation began to focus on Falls as the mastermind behind the murdered and missing women in Chillicothe, along with another group of female prostitutes in the Las Vegas area. These cases are currently under investigation and little is known on whether Falls had ever been in the Chillicothe area, though there is significant evidence which shows Falls had been residing in the Las Vegas area at the time of the women’s murders and disappearances.

I immediately began my research into Neal Falls, trying to find out any information I could about him and the murders he may have been connected to. Scouring Google for news was more or less and fruitless effort. What information was available was the same re-hashed story over and over. I knew someone had to have known this guy, but, for obvious reasons, were probably reluctant to speak with the media directly. I tried searching social media but even those efforts seemed to spin me around in circles, and all I found were the same articles I had already recovered through Google, with little new information on either Falls or the murders coming out.

That’s when I decided to start my own Facebook group. I knew it was only a matter of time before someone who had been associated with Falls would be willing to give us some additional details on who this man was and where he may have traveled. The Neal Falls Investigation group was born, and though it is mostly comprised of fellow amateur sleuths, we were able to not only track down some pretty interesting information on Falls, but managed to come into contact with a former co-worker who had worked with Falls during his time as a security guard at the Hoover Dam.

It was through him that I was able to gain some insight on this man, who is still largely an enigma within the mainstream media. The man, who I will refer to as David, declined a full interview, but did reveal that Falls would often arrive to work early and drive into Arizona. David said that he has no doubt in his mind that Falls may have been stashing bodies in the the Arizona desert. David claims that he and Falls maintained a somewhat friendly co-worker relationship, at times grabbing lunch together, but Falls’ behavior had never sat right with him and he and other Hoover Dam employees would joke that Falls was probably killing hookers. Little did Falls’ co-workers realize that their joke rang all too true.

Falls was limited to only working the Arizona side of the Dam check-point. According to David this was due to Falls’ poor dental hygiene and unfriendly demeanor with the general public. When I asked David if Falls had ever talked with him about weekend plans or any other sort of small talk that goes on between co-workers, David said that all Falls would ever discuss were weapons, military, police, and survivalist topics. David recalled that Falls was particularly interested in “going off the grid” and was known to collect weapons. One day, before the start of the weekend, a fellow Dam employee asked Falls what he was going to do that evening. Falls responded with “urban night ops”. Though David and the other employees involved in the conversation laughed off Falls’ bizarre answer to the question, in hindsight he believes that Falls probably wasn’t joking in light of recent revelations.

Falls would eventually be dismissed from his position as a Hoover Dam traffic control guard after a woman claimed he had sexually harassed her. Few of his former co-workers would know of Falls’ whereabouts until the news of him being fatally shot in West Virginia broke. David and his former co-workers were just as shocked and disturbed by the news as the rest of us, though none of them were particularly surprised to hear that Falls may have been a serial killer.

David directed me to a post he had made about the incident on his Facebook wall. He and other former Hoover Dam employees exchanged stories about Falls and some of what you’re about to read is downright disturbing. These screen captures of the post have only been altered in order to protect the identities of Falls’ former co-workers.

While this information doesn’t necessarily help investigators in cracking any of the unsolved murders or disappearances believed to be linked to the case, it does give us a few more pieces to the puzzle that was Neal Falls and what may have drove him to travel across the country in order to kill women he met online.

One final chilling piece of information that David shared with the group is that while working at the Hoover Dam, Falls had been in contact with a woman in the Philippians and believes there is a good chance he may have gone to visit her there. If what David has speculated is true, then we may have a man who not only could have committed murders across the United States, but foreign countries as well.

The story of Neal Falls and all of the unsolved cases he may be connected to are far from over and it is my belief that we may never know the full scope of Falls’ crimes. I will remain diligent in my own efforts to help provide any information I can in order to assist the families of the victims who are still unaccounted for in finding closure or to track down their missing loves ones. Until then we can only wait and see what new details emerge on this man who went to great lengths to hunt down prostitutes and murder them for his own sadistic pleasure.

Police sketch of the Isdal Woman.

Elisabeth Leenhower, also known by at least eight other aliases, according to the multiple passports found within her bags, including: Jenevive Lancia, Claudia Tjelt, Vera Schlosseneck, Alexia Zarna-Merchez, Claudia Nielsen, Vera Jarle, Elizabeth Leen Hoywfer, and Finella Lorck, but perhaps more familiarly known as “the Isdal Woman”, has remained a complete enigma for 45 years. None of her nine known aliases could ever be substantiated as her true identity and what is known about her only leads to more questions on who this person really was.

Her story began on November 29, 1970. A woman with her two daughters were hiking through the Isdalen valley, near Bergen, Norway. The women stopped for a little rest in the Isdalen Valley, also known by locals as “Death Valley” – a name that came about after a number of skiers had met their end there. The women began to walk again and stumbled upon a ghastly scene.

They were in what seemed to have been someone’s camp site. In the middle of a smoldering camp fire laid the body of a woman with pink sleeping pills littered around her body. Located within the camp was an empty bottle of liquor, a silver spoon with the monogram filed off, a packed lunch, and 2 water bottles smelling of gasoline. Even stranger was that the woman’s clothing and shoes had the makers’ tags cut off, with the exception of a Swiss “Solo” watch found on her wrist.

An autopsy revealed that the woman had died from a combination of burns from the fire and carbon monoxide poisoning. Over 50 sleeping pills were still present within her system and she had a noticeable bruise on her neck. Additionally, her teeth showed evidence that she had undergone dental work in South America at some point, based on the techniques used. Perhaps the most perplexing detail is that the woman’s fingerprints had been completely removed, either by sanding or some other means. Her death was quickly ruled a suicide.

Photos of the investigation after the mysterious woman’s body was discovered by hikers.

A hiker, possibly one of the last people to see the woman alive, claimed that he had passed her in the Isdalen Valley area that day. He reported that he distinctly remembered seeing her because she had been dressed like she was getting ready to leave town, rather than someone going on a hike. She was being tailed by two men, Mediterranean in appearance, and recalls that she appeared to be distressed. The hiker further recollects that it seemed as if she wanted to say something to him, perhaps cry out for help, but both she and the hiker, feeling intimidated by the two men following behind her, instead parted ways. The unidentified hiker said that he phoned police the moment the woman’s body was discovered in order to report what he had seen. His story was cut short by the officer on the other end. The hiker was advised to forget about the incident and the pessimistic officer assured him that the case would never be solved.

Bergan police interviewed nearly 100 people during their investigation. They learn that the woman had visited Bergan three times between March and November of 1970. Her last visit would be on November 18 of that year. The first day she stayed at the Hotel Rosenkrantz, checking in under the name Elisabeth Leenhower. On her second day she moved to the Hotel Hordaheimen, where she stayed until November 23, mostly keeping to herself and appearing “watchful”, as witnesses recall. One guest reported seeing the woman using a payphone in the hotel lobby and told the person on the other line “Ich komme bald”, which translates from German as “I am coming soon”.

Another police sketch of the woman as described by witnesses.

On November 23 she checked out of the Hotel Hordaheimen, paying in cash, and asked for the clerk to call a taxi for her. She was later seen that day at the train station. She placed two suitcases into a storage locker. Inside the suitcases the woman’s 9 passports were discovered, along with clothing – again with the makers’ tags removed, a postcard from an Italian photographer, wigs, non-prescription eyeglasses, and silver spoons similar to those found at the camp. Sewn into the lining of on of the bags were 500 German marks and 130 Norwegian crowns. A bottle of prescription lotion was also found, but the label had been removed, and all items located within the suitcases had been wiped clean of fingerprints.

Aside from the passports, perhaps one of the most important pieces of evidence within the luggage was a black notebook. It was written in numerical code, but seemed to have been the woman’s travel log. Some of the notebook was able to be decoded and assisted in constructing a timeline of events leading up to her death.

• March 20, 1970 – travels from Geneva to Oslo.
• March 21-24, 1970 – stays at Hotel Viking in Oslo using the name “Genevieve Lancier”.
• March 24 – flies from Oslo to Stavanger, takes the boat to Bergen, stays the night at Hotel Bristol using the name “Claudia Tielt”.
• March 25 – April 1 – stays at hotel Scandia in Bergen, still as “C. Tielt”
• April 1 – travels from Bergen to Stavanger, and on to Kristiansand, Hirtshals, Hamburg and Basel, Germany.
• October 3 – travels from Stockholm, Sweden to Oslo, Norway, and on to Oppdal, Norway, a popular ski resort.
• October 22 – stays at Hotel Altona in Paris.
• October 23 – 29 – stays at Hotel de Calais in Paris, France.
• October 29 – 30 – goes from Paris to Stavanger and on to Bergen, Norway.
• October 30 – November 5 – checks in to hotel Neptune using the name “Alexia Zerner-Merches”; meets an unknown man at the hotel.
• November 6 – 9 – travels to Trondheim, Norway, and stays at the Hotel Bristol using the name “Vera Jarle”.
• November 9 – goes to Oslo and on to Stavanger; stays at Hotel St. Svitun using the name “Fenella Lorch”.
• November 18 – goes with the boat Vingtor to Bergen; stays at Hotel Rosenkrantz using the name “Elisabeth Leenhower” from Belgium.
• November 19 – 23 – stays at Hotel Hordaheimen, remains in the room and seems watchful.
• November 23 – leaves the hotel in the morning, pays in cash and goes to the railway station where she places 2 pieces of luggage in a depository box.
• November 29 – located dead in Isdalen.

Following what few leads they had to go on, investigators learned that the woman spoke at least four languages including English, German, Flemish (Belgian Dutch), and French, all of which she spoke with an indistinct accent. According to some documents signed by the woman, her profession had been listed as an antiques dealer or a traveling saleswoman. Hotel staff at some of the places the woman had stayed in said she often ordered porridge with milk. An analysis of the woman’s clothing material revealed that they were similar to the style of clothing popular in Italy at the time.

A photo of the woman’s funeral service, attended mostly by police officers.

Sketches of the woman were spread throughout Norway but reached out in order to identify the mysterious Isdal Woman. There was only one man who authorities were able to connect to her. An Italian photographer – the same photographer who had taken the picture for the postcard located within the woman’s luggage – had taken her out for dinner. He didn’t offer many clues on the woman’s identity other than she had told him that she was an antiques dealer from South Africa, born just outside of Johannesburg, and was in town during a six-month tour of Europe.

Placed into a galvanized coffin and lowered into an unmarked grave, only 18 people presided over the woman’s funeral. Her procession, comprised mostly of police officers, was undoubtedly a solemn ceremony with no one whom was acquainted with the woman to say their final goodbyes. Pictures are kept in police archives, along with other information pertaining to the case, waiting to be claimed by any family relation to the woman who wishes step forward. Requests for these documents have been denied to the public, and it is unlikely that the woman’s family will ever identify her.

It’s been 45 years since the discovery of the Isdal Woman and still the question remains. Who was this mysterious woman and why had she met such a grisly fate in the arctic valley of Norway? Some speculate that the most likely conclusion is that the woman had been a spy, offering a logical explanation for her various aliases, known languages, disguises, and the extreme lengths the woman went to conceal her true identity. Others speculate that she was a fugitive on the run or even an international smuggler. Whatever the case, much like the story of the Somerton Man, this is one mystery that may never be solved.

The first woman to ride the lightning.

As regular readers are probably aware, I like to seek out crime’s more unusual events and people. There are only so many times a reader wants to see yet another article on Jack the Ripper, Ted Bundy, and the already well-known ‘celebrity criminals’, after all.

So, with that in mind, today we’re going to look at Martha Place. Her crime wasn’t especially notable, except in the fact that no murder is something to be blithely written off as just another unfortunate event, but her own end was exceptional. Martha Place was the first woman in history to take a seat in Old Sparky, thereby booking herself a singular spot in criminal history.

Now, Martha wasn’t what you’d call a ‘people person.’ In fact, she was well known as a martinet, especially in how she ran the home she shared with her husband William and Ida, his teenage daughter from his first marriage. William tended to toe the line, handy for Martha because it was always her way or the highway and usually with no compromise between the two. Ida, however, was a different matter altogether. She was a teenager when Martha killed her, aged only 17. Like most 17-year olds Ida was willful and headstrong, keen to establish her own identity. She was especially keen to live her own life in her own way, causing regular conflict with Martha.

Ida had never accepted Martha as an authority figure to be respected and obeyed. Martha was William Place’s second wife, who he’d married not much more than a year after his first wife, Ida’s biological mother, had died of illness. Ida wasn’t the only one who disliked Martha and her martinet attitude. William Place’s relatives had shunned Martha right from the start which did little to improve the often combative and always tense atmosphere prevalent in the Place household. The more Martha cracked down, the more Ida rebelled and, the more Ida rebelled, the more Martha tried to break the will of what she saw as an insolent, uppity brat who deserved and needed to be cut down to size one way or another. The two women were constantly at daggers drawn which made life miserable for William, caught as he was between his second wife and his only daughter. This could not be called a happy family.

It was about to get an great deal unhappier.

By the day of the murder, relations between Martha and Ida had finally passed breaking point and descended into mutual hatred. Months of tit-for-tat behaviour had broken any chance of a peaceful resolution their feud. Unfortunately for Ida, William and ultimately herself, Martha had decided to resolve the family feud. Permanently.

On February 7, 1898 Martha struck. She attacked Ida in her bedroom. Ida never saw it coming as Martha threw phenol in her face and eyes, blinding and disfiguring her. That not being enough to kill her, Martha then suffocated Ida and went downstairs to find her husband, after having visited the backyard and picking up a large ax normally used for chopping firewood. As William later testified, she attacked him from behind with every intention of hacking him to death. She failed. William survived her frenzied assault and his cries alerted neighbours who were well-used to sounds of conflict coming from the Place household. They in turn alerted the police who smashed down the door only to find that Martha, believing that she’d successfully killed both her husband and her stepdaughter, had turned on the gas in an effort to take her own life. She failed in that as well, leaving her facing charges of attempting to murder her husband and the capital murder of Ida. The brutality of Ida’s death, Ida having been blinded, disfigured and finally suffocated, coupled with her being only 17 years old, inspired revulsion among the jury. Their lack of sympathy wasn’t mitigated by Martha adopting a cold, indifferent demeanor throughout the trial, a demeanor suggesting that she’d acted perfectly within her rights to commit the crime and virtually asking judge and jury who they were to interfere in Martha’s personal conduct.

The outcome of the trial was virtually a foregone conclusion. William Place testified as to Martha’s attempt on his life and inspired immense sympathy for the brutal, callous way in which he had lost his only daughter. His testimony as to the constant feuding between his wife and daughter was compelling, his pain at losing his only daughter was palpable, his desire to see his wife pay in full for the crime was restrained and reasoned. All in all, William Place impressed everybody as a man who had endured immense suffering, but was seeking justice rather than vengeance. He was to have his wish.

The jury deliberated for only three hours before delivering their verdict. Their verdict was ‘Guilty as charged, with no recommendation for mercy.’ They had virtually unlocked the Death House door for the first woman ever to be electrocuted. On June 12, 1898 Judge Hurd pronounced the then-mandatory sentence in New York State, death by electrocution at Sing Sing Prison in upstate New York.

New York’s legendary Sing Sing Prison.

Old Sparky was then a relatively new method and the very first electrocution, that of William Kemmler at Auburn in August, 1890, had been an appallingly botched affair, so botched that electrical mastermind George Westinghouse bluntly commented that the executioners would have done better with an ax. Martha already had and, by bitter irony, was going to ride the lightning for doing exactly that. She was transported to the dreaded ‘Death House’ at Sing Sing under heavy guard while the customary legal issues were resolved.

An interesting part of her case comes in the protests against her execution or, to be exact, the intended method. New York had performed many electrocutions since Kemmler’s and was slowly managing to refine the process into something resembling a professionally-performed execution. The press and public, however, fiercely disputed the right of New York State to deliver the same punishment on Martha purely because she was a woman. The courts and the State Governor, future President Theodore Roosevelt, didn’t see it that way and that sealed Martha’s doom.

The original Sing Sing death chamber.

As Roosevelt himself put it:

‘The only case of capital punishment which has occurred since the beginning of my term as Governor was for wife murder, and I refused to consider the appeals then made to me after I became convinced that the man had really done the deed and was sane.’

‘In that case, a woman was killed by a man; in this case, a woman was killed by another woman. The law makes no distinction as to sex in such a crime. This murder was one of peculiar deliberation and atrocity. I decline to interfere with the course of the law…’

With all hope now exhausted, the grim ritual of preparing Martha for her execution began.  This process had become almost standard for male prisoners, but was slightly more complicated when it came to executing a woman. Female matrons had to be employed to take care of her needs while on Death Row, there were concerns about the technical side of things as well. For instance, how would a female body respond to the same standard voltage as a male prisoner? Nobody knew and everybody involved feared that Martha Place might suffer the same horrors as William Kemmler. In the end, she didn’t. At 10:57pm on March 20, 1899, Martha walked the dreaded ‘Last Mile’ from her cell to the death chamber. The stocking on her right leg was slit to ensure the leg electrode made a clean contact. As a concession to her gender, her hair had been expertly coiffed so the shaved patch for the head electrode was as unobtrusive as possible. At precisely 11pm she entered the death chamber, sat quietly in the chair and waited while the straps and electrodes were applied. All was quiet, all was ready for history’s first female electrocution.  Martha herself said nothing as she was prepared for death.

Martha Place, first woman to ride the lightning.

At 11:01pm criminal history was made. ‘State Electrician’ Edwin Davis set his controls and threw the switch. 2000 volts seared through Martha’s body, locking every muscle and filling the chamber with the odours of scorched hair and burnt flesh. At 11:03pm it was all over. Martha Place was dead, the law had taken its course and history had been made.

Professional musicians pour their life into their music. The stress and the lifestyle associated with making it big in the music industry begins to take its toll on a person and more often than not their lives are cut short. These stories are all too common. Whether it’s from the excesses of the rock ‘n roll lifestyle, the pressures of performing and being on tour leading to the deterioration of a musician’s health, or the shock of instant rock star status becoming too much for a person to handle, the death of popular musicians are a grim reminder that no one is immortal.

While these circumstances are always tragic, few things are more tragic than a popular musician becoming a murder victim at the height of their success. The stories listed below will explore this frightening side of fame and fortune and expose the harsh reality, that even the respect and adoration by millions cannot save a person from the evil the lurks within the world around us.

Tupac Shakur

On the night of September 7, 1996, someone within Shakur’s entourage alerted the rapper that a member of the Southside Crips gang had been seen loitering around the MGM Grand lobby. Shakur, along with his record producer, Suge Knight, and other Death Row Records associates had been at the hotel attending a boxing match between Bruce Seldon and Mike Tyson. Having had prior altercations with the notorious Southside Crips, the group immediately breaks out into a fight with the man, as shown in hotel surveillance footage.

After the fight, Shakur and other Death Row Records associates, including Suge Knight, make their way to a Vegas nightclub. At approximately 11:15PM an older model Cadillac pulled up to the passenger side of the vehicle driven by Suge Knight and opened fire. Shakur was hit four times, including in his chest, abdominal area, thigh, and in the finger. In spite of also sustaining gunshot wounds, Knight was able to drive to the hospital. Knight was treated and Shakur was stabilized after undergoing two operations.

In spite of the hospital’s best efforts, the rapper and urban poet who acted as the voice for disenfranchised black youth across the nation, took his last breath on September 16, 1996. Neither Shakur, nor anyone within the caravan of cars following the rapper to the club that night would reveal the identity of the shooter. Bungled police work and the lack of cooperation from Death Row Records associates lead to the murder never officially being solved.

Rumors began to swirl and several names came up. Some suspected it was associates of Shakur’s rival rapper the Notorious B.I.G., others said Suge Knight set it up in order to profit off of Shakur’s death, and then there are some who claim that Shakur was never murdered at all.

Although it may be comforting to imagine that the talented rapper is hanging out with Elvis on the beaches of Brazil sipping margaritas, his highly publicized death certificate and autopsy photos can safely dispel this myth. As for the involvement of Suge Knight or the Notorious B.I.G., while respectively they both remain plausible theories, the most widely accepted explanation, initially reported in the The L.A. Times and completely disregarded by police investigations, claims that it was the Southside Crips who were responsible for Shakur’s death.

The Notorious B.I.G.

It would be almost impossible to write about the death of Tupac Shakur without also mentioning the East Coast rapper Christopher Wallace, more commonly known as his stage name the Notorious B.I.G. or “Biggie Smalls”, gunned down in a similar fashion just six months after Shakur. It was perhaps this coincidence that added fuel to the existing rumors of Wallace’s involvement in the murder of Shakur, in spite of Wallace having credible alibis who witnessed Wallace and his associates working in a New York recording studio the evening of Shakur’s shooting.

Associates from the Bad Boy record label, as well as his personal body guards all accompanied Wallace on a trip to Los Angeles, CA in order to promote his newly released album, Life After Death. Wallace had expressed his concerns for his safety in multiple past interviews and this concern only grew after rumors began to circulate of his involvement in the death of Shakur.

After a party at the Petersen Automotive Museum was broken up by police, two GMC Suburbans waited in the parking lot. One of the SUVs contained Wallace and several fellow rappers who were also signed to Death Row Records, while the other contained Wallace’s body guards and owner of Death Row Records, Sean “P-Diddy” Combs, who attended the party with Wallace that evening. Additionally, Death Row’s director of security also followed behind in a Chevy Blazer. As the caravan began to leave the Museum’s parking lot and stopped at a red light, a Chevy Impala pulled alongside the Suburban containing Wallace and opened fire.

Wallace had been shot four times. Three of these wounds were identified as non-fatal, while the shot sustained to his thigh traveled through several vital organs and out through his shoulder. Wallace was rushed to a local hospital where doctors performed an emergency thoracotomy, but it was no use. Wallace would be pronounced dead hours later.

Sketch of the suspect as described by witnesses, who opened fire on the GMC Suburban Christopher Wallace was traveling in.

A black man wearing a blue suit and a bow tie was described as the shooter, but there remains to be no leads on the shooter’s identity. Like in the death of Shakur, rumors and speculations began to run rampant. Some say it was Suge Knight that put the hit out on Biggie, looking to avenge the death of Shakur, others speculate that it may have involved the Southside Crips – whom had also been named as the most likely culprits in Shakur’s murder. A mortgage broker by the name of Amir Muhammad, also came up as a person of interest based on description alone.

The shootings of both Wallace and Shakur lead to a cottage industry of books and films full of wild speculation and unsound explanations as to what and whom was behind the murders. One documentary even insinuated that the LAPD, in cooperation with Suge Knight, had a hand in rapper’s death. Whatever the circumstances may have been, the untimely death of a rapper who pulled himself up from a rough upbringing on the streets of Brooklyn to become one of the most famous rappers in the industry may never be solved. If there had been any sort of battle between East Coast and West Coast rap artists, the death of some of the greatest talent from both sides seems to have put an end to the feud.

Marvin Gaye

It seems like a bittersweet irony that the man who wrote the anti-violence anthem What’s Going On would die a violent death at the hands of his own father, but that’s exactly what lead to the demise of singer Marvin Gaye.

After a dispute between Gaye’s mother and father broke out over a misplaced insurance document, Gaye became enraged over his father’s shouting and accusations towards his mother. Gaye succumbed to his growing anger over the incident and began shouting at his dad, Marvin Gaye Sr., which lead to a physical altercation. Gaye Sr. went into another room and grabbed a pistol Gaye Jr. had purchased for him as a Christmas gift. Gaye Sr. returned to Gaye Jr.’s bedroom and opened fire, shooting him directly in the heart.

Marvin’s brother Frankie, whom had been living in the guest house, heard the commotion and went to investigate. Marvin’s mother ran screaming through the home as he laid dying. Frankie held his bloodied brother and consoled him in his final moments. Frankie quoted his brother’s last words, spoken in just barely a whisper, were “I got what I wanted… I couldn’t do it myself, so I had him do it… it’s good, I ran my race, there’s no more left in me.”

Police arrived to the Gayes’ mansion approximately 20 minutes after the shooting occurred. Gaye Sr. was taken into custody and later stood trial for Marvin’s death. He was sentenced to a six-month suspended sentence and five years probation for involuntary manslaughter.

The Wailers Murders

Grammy award winning artist, Peter Tosh, was tortured and murdered in his own home by gang members.

One may believe that the Wailers were cursed from the very beginning. Things seemed to go downhill for the members in 1973, when a car wreck left passengers of founding member, Peter Tosh’s, vehicle dead and Tosh with a critical head injury. A fallout between the band and Tosh forced the Wailer’s most famous member, Bob Marley, to take the lead, but a black cloud would continue to follow the group well after Tosh’s departure.

In 1976 the band’s bad luck would continue, with the unsuccessful assassination attempt on their charismatic front man, Bob Marley, along with his wife Rita, a friend of the couple, and Marley’s manager outside of their Jamaican home. Marley was quickly treated and released after the incident, but his life would be claimed five years later after a lengthy battle with a rare form of melanoma.

Carlton Barrett replaced drummer for the Wailers after Bunny left the group

In spite of their leader’s tragic death in 1981, the Wailers continued to perform and remained the most popular act in reggae. Founding member Peter Tosh continued to enjoy his solo success, but still remained close to the band. In September of 1987, after returning to his home in Jamaica, Tosh was ambushed and tortured by a group of men in an attempt to extort money from him. The gang grew frustrated with Tosh’s insistence that he had no money to give them. Once associates of Tosh’s began to arrive to welcome him home, the gang’s leader held a gun to Tosh’s head and killed him. Additionally six other people, including Tosh’s common-law wife, were shot by the gang.

Tosh’s murder wasn’t the only homicide with a link to the group that year. Carlton Barrett had been brought in to replace the Wailer’s original drummer, Bunny Livingston, in 1973. He remained with the group until Bob’s death and had been credited with writing several songs on some of the band’s commercial albums. Earlier in April of 1987, before Tosh literally walked into death’s door, Barrett had been shot down in his own driveway by a contract killer hired by his wife, her lover, and an associate. His wife only served a year in prison for her involvement in Barrett’s murder.

Junior Braithwaite was gunned down in front of a friend’s home after returning to Jamaica in hopes of reviving his musical career.

Junior Braithwaite’s death in 1999 would make him the third murder victim to be involved with the group. Braithwaite left the band in 1964, before the Wailers become commercially successful, and settled in the U.S. to pursue a medical career. Life in the U.S. was a difficult adjustment for Braithwaite and his medical career never quite panned out. He moved back to Jamaica in hopes to revive his interest in playing music, but that dream was cut short after being gunned down in front of a friend’s home.

Braithwaite died without a dime to his name and his killer was never apprehended. Some believe that Braithwaite’s death may have been contracted by other founding members of the Wailers in order to prevent Braithwaite from receiving royalties for his work with the group.

Dimebag Darrell

Former member of the popular heavy metal group Pantera, Darrell Abbot AKA “Dimebag Darrell”, was in Columbus, OH in order to perform with his newly founded group Damageplan. Seconds after the band entered the stage and began performing their set, a deranged man rushed the stage, shooting and killing Darrell, along with three other people.

A person within the crowd rushed to resuscitate Abbot but was killed by the gunman. Seven police officers stormed into the venue and shot the gunman, later identified as former marine Nathan Gale, killing him instantly. Two other people within the audience performed CPR on Abbot until help arrived, but it was already too late. Dimebag Darrell was pronounced dead on arrival. Gale’s motive behind the shooting is still unclear, but some claimed to have heard him yell “You broke up Pantera!” before opening fire. In light of this senseless tragedy, at least fans and those who were close to Abbot can take comfort in the fact that he died doing what he loved.

John Lennon

Killer Mark David Chapman staked out rock idol, John Lennon, for days before Chapman shot and killed him almost instantly as he entered into the archway of his apartment building on that fateful day in 1980. Apprehended moments later by a doorman across the street from Lennon’s apartment complex, Chapman claimed that his motive behind killing the legendary rock musician stemmed from resent over his belief that Lennon caused the breakup of the Beatles and Lennon’s perceived hypocrisy in telling his fans to live a simple life, while he himself lived a life of excess.

Chapman was sentenced to 20-years-to-life in prison. Although the man who shot John Lennon claims to have found Jesus, Chapman says he still brags about all the planning that went into the murder. He has had several parole meetings since his initial conviction. All of his requests have been denied.

Robert Johnson

The name “Robert Johnson” may not be as well known as some of the other artists on this list, but it is certain that if you’ve listened to music within the past 50 years you’ve either heard his work or his indisputable influence.

Johnson was a renowned bluesman, and while he may not be a household name like Son House, even Son House had a favorite. The growing popularity of blues infused rock ‘n roll in Britain helped Johnson’s popularity soar to new heights, having a major influence on acts like the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, and Eric Clapton. Folk artist Bob Dylan has also cited Johnson as an influence, and later artists such as Rush and Slipknot have hailed Johnson as the great grandfather of heavy metal music.

The biography of Johnson’s life is a blur of fact and fiction. For instance, it is extremely doubtful that he was able to develop his distinctive style of Delta blues guitar playing from a pact made with the devil or the other story that alleges he had learned to play guitar in a cemetery through spirits he contacted there. Much like his life, the facts surrounding Johnson’s death have been widely disputed, but based on claims made by witnesses who were with Johnson during his final hours, including Johnson’s own mother, the story goes like this.

Johnson had been attending a dance near Greenwood, Mississippi. While at the dance a woman had struck Johnson’s fancy and he began flirting with her, unaware that the woman was married. The woman handed Johnson a bottle of whiskey and in spite of protests from his friends to never drink from a bottle that hadn’t been opened in front of him, he went ahead and drank it anyway.

The next day Johnson was dead, allegedly caused by a heavy dose of strychnine placed in the bottle by the woman’s jealous husband. An alternate version of this story claims that it was the woman who poisoned the whiskey, after she caught Johnson flirting with other women at the dance. However far fetched this story may seem, it sure beats the story believed by music scholars, which alleges Johnson’s death had been the result of an untreated syphilis infection.

Euronymous

The band Mayhem went down in music history for many things, but their most positive contribution was the creation of the black metal genre of music. Anyone interested in heavy metal music has at least heard of the band and all of the other heinousness things going on within the black metal scene during the early days of its conception.

Øystein Aarseth, known as Euronymous, had agreed to meet with creator of the black metal music project Burzum and fellow bandmate, Kristian Vikernes (AKA Varg Vikernes, AKA Count Grishnackh), presumably to discuss matters regarding contracts and royalty payments. Vikernes was suspicious of Euronymous’ motives, claiming that he had heard from mutual friends that Euronymous planned to kidnap him and make a snuff film, but agreed to meet with him anyway. Vikernes arrived at Euronymous’ home and alleged that Euronymous immediately attacked him at the door. Vikernes grabbed a knife and stabbed Euronymous to death in self-defense.

Others close to Vikernes paint a very different picture. Associates of both men have said that Vikernes began to grow jealous of Euronymous’ status as the reigning king of black metal and he wanted his competition out of the way. Vikernes had also expressed anger over Euronymous stiffing him on royalty checks from Burzum record sales. Whatever the case may have been, it didn’t seem like any of those close to either men cared much either way. One friend of Euronymous was quoted in the book, Lords of Chaos, as saying:

“I think many people felt relief once he was gone”

Vikernes was sentenced to 21 years in prison for Euronymous’ death, along with a number of church arsons he was linked to.

Ronnie Biggs

Today we’re looking at a well-known, but curious, character, Ronnie Biggs. 52 years ago today Biggs helped carry out the Great Train Robbery on his 34th birthday. A lot of people persist in thinking that he was some sort of master criminal who set up and led the whole thing. He wasn’t, by a very long shot. He was a very minor figure in the ‘Crime of the Century’ and not in any way a criminal big-shot.

It was actually Bruce Reynolds who planned and masterminded the robbery. It was Reynolds (known in the London underworld as ‘The Professor’) who agreed to let Biggs, a small-time thief and robber of no particular notoriety, join the gang because Biggs said he could recruit a retired train driver. He could, it was just that the retired train driver couldn’t actually drive that type of train, which meant that Jack Mills (who’d already been coshed with a steel bar) had to be dragged into the driver’s cab and forced to move the train instead.

Bruce Reynolds

As far as the robbery itself goes, the rest is history. The gang stole 120 mailbags containing nearly three million pounds (worth around forty-six million in today’s currency) and split the loot at their hideout, Leatherslade Farm. Biggs himself took a share of £147,000 (worth around 1.6 million pounds today). If the accomplice assigned to burn the farm to the ground and destroy any incriminating evidence had actually done so, then the gang would have had a far better chance of not being caught. He didn’t, and they were. Along with many other members, including Bruce Reynolds, Biggs received thirty years. He was sent to Wandsworth to disappear into obscurity as just a mugshot and a convict number, but didn’t quite follow the rules. After 15 months at Wandsworth (known to British inmates as the ‘Hate Factory’) Biggs escaped.

Bridego Bridge, site of the Great Train Robbery

Between 1965 and 2001 Biggs was a fugitive. First in Australia (reporters found him before the police) and then Brazil by way of Panama (reporters found him in Brazil as well, also before the British police). Once he’d fathered a child in Brazil and as Brazil had no formal extradition treaty with the UK, Biggs was effectively free to taunt the British authorities from afar and taunt them he did. The robbery had made him a little famous, his escape made him very famous, and repeatedly flaunting himself in the media made him internationally-known, not just to the police. He collaborated on a popular jazz album in 1977. He was barred from working and forced to obey a curfew under Brazilian law as a known felon, so he started entertaining tourist parties with accounts of the robbery at his home. Around that time he also started marketing merchandise, T shirts, coffee mugs, cups and so on, all over his adopted home of Rio de Janeiro. 1978 would see even more outrageous excesses.

In 1978 he collaborated with notorious punk rockers the Sex Pistols, appearing in their film ‘The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle’ and providing vocals on two song, one being ‘No-one is Innocent’ which had the delightful alternate title of ‘Cosh the Driver’ a crude reference to Jack Mills. He also provided vocals on the equally-delightful ‘Belsen Was A Gas’ and managed to be photographed for the album cover as well. Scotland Yard was unlikely to forget him and he seems determined to ensure that they couldn’t even if they’d wanted to. Especially when ‘No-One is Innocent’ reached Number Seven in the UK Singles Chart in July, 1978. For a man on the run, he seems to have spent a lot of it standing out very visibly while flicking two fingers at the British authorities and saying ‘Catch me if you can.’ In 1978 a group of British ex-soldiers did. They kidnapped him to try and claim the reward.

Discretion wasn’t Ronnie’s strong suit.

They didn’t return him to the UK and they didn’t get their reward, either. Suffering mechanical problems their boat was forced into Barbados. Barbados didn’t have an extradition treaty with the UK and they don’t aid and abet kidnappers either. Biggs was simply returned to Brazil and took full advantage of his latest escape from the law. He gave Independent Television News exclusive access to him and to cover his return to Brazil (in exchange for a very large fee) and made sure the British authorities knew they hadn’t got their man. It was another two-fingered salute to the system.

In 2001, he’d finally had enough. He wanted to come home to die. He was arrested as soon as he arrived and wasn’t released until 2009 on compassionate grounds (he was dying). He finally died in December 2013 and, on January 3, 2014, he was cremated. But he couldn’t resist one last dig at the authorities he’d confounded and infuriated for so long. His coffin had two flags on it, one British and the other Brazilian. The Brazilian flag largely hid the British one from view, a final dig at British justice for pursuing him so relentlessly and for so long. His coffin had a guard of honour, composed of Hell’s Angels. And, in the rear window of the hearse where it couldn’t be seen by anyone looking on, one last message for British officialdom.

A floral wreath showing two raised fingers.

Biggs was a small-time villain who lucked into a big-time robbery. He didn’t even perform his role in the robbery very well, having recruited an engine driver who couldn’t actually drive the engine, but one thing he was extraordinarily good at was playing the celebrity villain. He managed to parlay a walk-on part in a major robbery into lasting fame simply by escaping from prison and evading extradition for nearly 40 years. He was, in reality, a small-timer when he was an active criminal, but as a celebrity villain he was immensely successful.

A tribute written for Jeannette DePalma in the 1974 Jonathan Davis High School yearbook.

It was August 7, 1972. A Jonathan Davis High school student, 16-year-old Jeannette DePalma, told her mother she was heading out and planned to take a train to a friend’s house. It began to grow later into the night and Jeannette’s mother became worried because her daughter had not called or returned home. As it would turn out, DePalma never made it to her friend’s home that day either. After authorities were alerted, DePalma was listed as a missing person within the Springfield, NJ police department.

On September 19, 1972, a person walking with their dog near Springfield’s Houdaille Quarry discovered DePalma’s body after the dog came running back with a piece of decomposed forearm. At this point in the case the lines begin to blur between fact and fiction. Witnesses who claimed to have seen Jeannette’s body high up on the ridge, referred to by locals as “The Devil’s Teeth”, said that her body was surrounded by various occult or possibly Satanic items.

The nature of these items depends on who you talk to. Some say the body was found in the center of a pentagram and dead animal remains were festooned around the corpse, along with other wild and exaggerated claims that were denied by investigators. The only consistency within the far out claims of the locals was that a coffin-shaped perimeter had been constructed around the body using fallen tree branches and other forest debris, along with several crosses fashioned out of sticks.

The town of Springfield was buzzing with talks of the DePalma case, ruled to be a homicide by local police. Many were quick to believe that paranormal or occult forces were at work and DePalma had been an innocent sacrifice to some evil entity or another.

The autopsy and other publicly known details of the case didn’t help put to rest any of the rumors either. A medical examiner could not determine the exact cause of death for DePalma, but for unknown reasons suspected it to have been the result of strangulation. A toxicology report also showed that a high amount of lead was present in DePalma’s system, but there’s no logical explanation to account for that either.

Two weeks after DePalma’s body was found, local papers added fuel to the rumors by publishing articles confirming her death was a result of black magic and witchcraft. These are copies of the articles both the Sun Star and another local paper published:

The only person to confirm these claims was Rev. James Tate. Law enforcement involved in the investigations declined to comment on the ongoing case.

Through unconfirmed sources it has been alleged that DePalma was close with Rev. James Tate, regularly attending church services and working with him in a program designed to assist drug addicted teens through the First Assemblies of God Church in Elizabeth, NJ. The source further alleges that DePalma once found herself caught in the web of addiction, but had turned to God and her faith to lead her down the right path and later became involved in Tate’s program in order to help other teens struggling with similar problems.

While rumors of a coven of teenage murderers was becoming the commonly accepted explanation for DePalma’s death around town, detectives believed they had found one solid lead in the case. A homeless man was reported to have been camping out within the quarry area where Jeannette’s body had been discovered. Identified only as “Red” the man was taken in for police questioning, but was later cleared as a suspect.

With no further leads, wild inconsistencies within the stories collected from acquaintances of the DePalmas, and the media sensationalism surrounding her death, the case went cold. The files on DePalma were eventually sealed and many later lost or destroyed by the Springfield Police Department. The case would be long forgotten until sometime in the late 1990s, when the magazine Weird NJ was asked to take a look at the case.

The publication’s editor and co-founder, Mark Moran, discovered a number of suspicious details involved in the investigation of DePalma’s death. Most notably he found it odd that many locals wanted no involvement in the case and many declined to be interviewed, including Springfield’s police department. Those who did agree to comment anonymously confirmed that there was some occult overtones in the case and most believed there to be a cover-up by the local police. Since the case’s reemergence after Weird NJ’s coverage of the story, several interesting theories have been made on DePalma’s mysterious death.

Serial Killer

Some have concluded that Jeannette DePalma’s death may have been the work of a serial killer. Desperate to sweep the evidence under the rug in order to avoid the impact the truth would have on the town, investigators may have hid other details within the case pointing to this theory.

The Hudson Reporter Newspaper ran the story on the slaying of two young girls in 1974, roughly the same age of Jeannette DePalma when she had gone missing two years prior. The girls had been beaten, sexually assaulted, and strangled before their bodies were dumped in the wooded area of Montvale, NJ. Pointing out the similarities between the cases, including the facts that Montvale is approximately a 45 minute drive from where DePalma’s body had been discovered, all three bodies were dumped in a wooded area, all 3 had been strangled (at least suspected in DePalma’s case), and to date no killer has been indicated in any of the crimes; it would appear that the cases are somehow related.

The paper’s reporter also uncovered another unsolved murder. This time out of South Orange, NJ, a 24-year-old graduate student at Columbia University was found strangled and left in a ditch after leaving a party located five minutes from her home. However, one inconsistency that remains in the case of this woman, Joan Kramer’s, death is that several days after she went missing a person began calling the Kramer residence asking for ransom money.

While the article does make some interesting correlations between the crimes, they gloss over some pretty key facts that set the cases apart. Kramer’s murder can almost automatically be ruled out in connection to the other cases, as the only details that are consistent with the other crimes are the cause of death and the body being dumped in an open area. DePalma’s body was found with crosses and a coffin-like perimeter surrounding her remains. If these other unsolved cases were the work of a serial killer, one should not be privy to the consideration that the other bodies would be found in a similar fashion, almost like a calling card for the killer. Although there are similar facts surrounding both the DePalma case and the case of the two murdered girls in Montvale, it has never been confirmed nor speculated that there had been any sexual assault involved in the DePalma case.

Rev. James Tate

There have been many who have speculated that the Rev. James Tate, the man who was quick to point to Satanic involvement in DePalma’s death, presided over the DePalma family’s church, and allegedly worked closely with DePalma through a drug rehabilitation program, may have been involved in the murder.

One user on a post regarding the case on the Topix message board writes:

Although Rev. Tate was not employed at the church located near the quarry DePalma’s body was discovered, it is my belief that he should still be considered a person of interest involving this case. His eagerness to immediately run to the media and spout claims of a murderous coven in the area seems highly suspicious, as if he were attempting to detract attention from the real culprits in this tragic murder.

Another user, this time on a post in the /r/UnresolvedMysteries subreddit, also believes Rev. Tate should be considered a person of interest. The poster shares this information regarding topics discussed in an interview with the author of an upcoming novel covering the case:

Perhaps Rev. Tate seemed so “spooked” by the author’s interview because he knew more than he was letting on about the crime?

In addition to the two widely accepted theories among those interested in the case, other theories have also emerged involving the possibilities of either a drug overdose, based on the allegations that DePalma had prior involvement with drugs, and suicide. With the damage or destruction of the police files regarding the case, sadly, we may never know what actually happened to Jeannette DePalma.

While much of this story is based on nothing more than rumors and the speculations of amateur internet detectives, the take away is that somewhere right now someone knows what happened that day to Jeanette DePalma. Whether it was a serial killer, Rev. Tate, the Springfield police department, a friend, or a neighbor, that killed DePalma, there’s information about this case that is being withheld. It is for that reason, and for that reason alone, that the tragic murder of a 16-year-old girl will never truly find closure.

The thing about monsters is that, most of the times, they know how to deceive everyone and make them believe that they are normal, every-day people. Most of them do not think themselves as criminals or mad and they don’t meet any difficulty playing their part since they don’t believe that they have one. Bonnie Heady, however, was not one of them because she knew what she and her partner, Carl Hall, were capable of.  Bonnie Heady knew that she and Carl were monsters.

The bell of the French Institute of Notre Dame De Sion rang at about 10:55 a.m. on September 28, 1953. The students were in their classes and it was just another cloudy day in Missouri’s Kansas City. Sister Morand opened the door and was confronted by Bonnie Heady, who claimed that she was Bobby Greenlease’s aunt.

Robert (Bobby) Cosgrove Greenlease, Jr., was a privileged child and his family planned his life the day he was born. Son of a millionaire automobile dealer,  Robert Cosgrove Greenlease, Sr., he was destined to study in expensive schools, travel the world, create his own business or continue his family’s legacy. If Bonnie Heady had not rung that bell, Bobby would be living a wealthy, full life. Or, at least, Bobby would be living.

The woman at the door appeared upset and informed Sister Morand that Bobby’s mother had just suffered a heart attack and had been taken to St. Mary’s Hospital. The Sister took Bobby to the woman, after telling him that his aunt was looking for him, and as he was walking towards her he did not show any sign of hesitation. They took a taxi.

About an hour later, Sister Morand felt the need to call the Greenlease house to ask about Bobby’s mother. After talking to Mrs. Greenlease herself, Sister Morand told the family everything that had happened an hour before and they notified the police of Kansas City, who reported the matter to the FBI. The race had just begun.

A few hours after the kidnapping a ransom note arrived at the Greenlease house. The first letter demanded $600,000 in a duffle bag, and Bobby would be back home in 24 hours as long as there were no tricks in delivering the money. After a week, six letters, and fifteen phone calls, Mr. Greenlease gave the money and the kidnappers confirmed that little Bobby would be returned in 24 hours. But Bobby was already dead.

Carl Hall and Bonnie Heady had killed the boy a few hours after the abduction and they had buried the body near their house in Missouri. After receiving the ransom money, they travelled to St. Louis, where Hall left Heady $2,000 and ran away with the remaining $598,000 while she was sleeping.

John Oliver Hager, driver, called St. Louis Police Department providing them with information that helped the authorities to arrest Carl Austin Hall on October 6, 1953. After hours of interrogations, he told the officers where his girlfriend was staying at and Bonnie Emily Heady was taken into custody.

After admitting planning the kidnapping, having the money in his possession and burying the body, the FBI agents kept asking if he was the one who killed Bobby Greenlease, but he kept denying it, until eventually, he broke and told the truth. Bonnie Heady admitted helping Hall in the preparation of the letters to the family and taking the boy away using the ruse that his mother was ill.

The body was found buried near the Heady residence wrapped in a plastic back on October 7, 1953. On the basement, FBI agents found blood stains, some caliber shell casings from Hall’s revolver, a fiber rug and a nylon blouse. The murderers had just lost.

Judge Albert L. Reeved says that the Hall/Heady case is the most coldblooded, brutal murder he has ever tried. After pleading guilty, the couple was sentenced to be executed on December 18, 1953.

Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie Emily Heady were executed together in Missouri’s lethal gas chamber.

Over half of the ransom money was never recovered and Lieutenant Louis Ira Shoulders and Patrolman Elmer Dolan, who were the arresting officers, were indicted for perjury.

Other theories say that the cab driver who drove Hall to the Coral Court Motel had told mob boss, Joe Castello, about the money, and that the money was hidden in the walls of the motel Hall was staying, but its demolition in 1995 came up with nothing.

It was that time of the year when soccer lovers had their eyes wide open in front of a television watching the 1994 World Cup in the U.S. Also, it was that time of the year when mobsters had placed their bets on the games, and no one would mess with their plans.

During the Soccer World Cup of 1994, Colombia was one of the teams that had proven its strength, winning Argentina 5-0. Colombia’s supporters were convinced that they would win the game against the United States of America and the drug cartels were thirsty for more money. The underworld had placed their bets and the players of the Colombian national team had to win if they wanted to stay alive. But they didn’t.

The game on 22 June 1994, between Colombia and USA, was not that impressive until its 35h minute when a shocking own goal by Andrés Escobar gave the U.S. a shock 1-0 lead. American John Harkes crossed the ball towards the Colombian defender, Earnie Stewart, and it was deflected by Andres Escobar into the Colombian net. Andrés Escobar was stretching out to cut the cross and clear the ball out of the penalty area. The USA took the lead and Colombia tried to repair Escobar’s error, but the USA won Colombia 2 – 1 shocking almost everyone. 4 days after the game, on 26 June 1994, Andrés Escobar wrote an article for the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo apologizing for his mistake. His last line was: “We’ll see each other soon because life does not end here.” He was dead wrong.

On the second day of July in 1994, after Andrés Escobar had cancelled a family trip to the United States and he had chosen to visit his hometown, Medellin, he was hanging out with some friends at a bar in the El Poblado neighborhood. He and his friends left the place and they went to the nightclub El Indio, where Escobar was alone in the parking lot. Three men appeared and started arguing with him when, some moments later, two of them took out their handguns and shot him six times shouting “Goal!” Escobar was rushed to the hospital by some strangers passing by and bled to death 45 minutes later. The 27-year-old soccer player was lying dead and everybody knew who was behind the crime.

Humberto Castro Muñoz

Humberto Castro Muñoz was arrested the night Escobar died confessing the next day to killing the Colombian soccer player. Muñoz used to work as a bodyguard for the powerful Gallon brothers who had lost heavily betting on the outcome of the game and everyone believed that they wanted him dead. Gallons had gained their power after Pablo Escobar’s death in 1993 when smaller gangs tried to take advantage of the Heroin King’s absence. Even though Pablo Escobar was not related to Andrés, if he was still alive the Gallons would never have killed the soccer player. Pablo was a huge fan of soccer and he would never allow anyone to kill one of the country’s most important and most beloved players, and Gallons, of course, would have neither the right or the power to disobey the Mob King.

Andrés Escobar’s Statue

120,000 people attended Andrés Escobar’s funeral and, every year since 1994, people bring photographs of him to matches honoring him. Eight years after his death the city of Medellin unveiled a statue in honor of his memory and his family founded a charity organization, which provides all the basic supplies poor children need in order to get started with professional soccer.

Humberto Castro Muñoz was found guilty of Escobar’s murder and he was sentenced to 43 years in prison. The sentence was later reduced to 26 years, but he was released on good behavior after serving 11 years. His three accomplices were acquitted.

Rainey Bethea, last American to die in public.

Rainey Bethea probably isn’t an instantly familiar name, but he holds as unique a status in American crime as names like William Kemmler (the first man to be electrocuted) or Martha Place (Old Sparky’s first female victim). But his place in the annals of American crime isn’t secured by his case being a first, but a last. He was the last American ever to suffer the indignity of being publicly executed.

Born in Roanoke, Virginia some time in 1909, Bethea’s crime was nothing unusual. Brutal and cruel, definitely, but not otherwise notable to armchair criminologists. He was convicted in 1936 of raping and murdering Lischia Edwards. In 1930’s Kentucky, the fact that the victim was white and the perpetrator was black might well have guaranteed Bethea a death sentence, quite apart from his having confessed and the brutal nature of the crime.

Bethea was an orphan and a drifter. He’d arrived in Owensboro, Kentucky in 1933. Like so many Depression-era transients, he was looking for work, food and a home.  He didn’t do so well by being arrested for breach of the peace in early-1925, then being convicted of grand larceny and drawing one year in the Kentucky State Penitentiary at Eddyville. Bethea served only a few months, being paroled on December 1, 1935.

Within a month of his release he was arrested again and charged with housebreaking, later reduced to a charge of being drunk and disorderly. Unable to afford to pay his $100 fine, Bethea languished in the Daviess County Jail until April, 1936.

On June 7, 1936 Bethea, heavily intoxicated, broke into Lischia Edwards’ home. After raping her he left behind her beaten, strangled corpse and took with him several of her rings. Unfortunately for Bethea, he also left behind a celluloid prison ring, later identified as being his. Lischia Edwards’ neighbours later discovered her body and police soon found Bethea’s prison ring at the scene, a ring that several people identified as Bethea’s property. Police labeled him their prime suspect almost from the start.

Bethea spent the next several days on the run. Homeless, friendless and penniless, he didn’t remain free for long. He was spotted hiding under a boat on a nearby riverside and promptly arrested and charged with first degree murder. During his time in custody he issued no fewer than five separate confessions, most of which contradicted each other at least once. But at trial his guilt was indisputable and the jury quickly found him guilty as charged. Hardly surprising when you consider that his ring had been found at the scene of the crime, that he had been unco-operative with his court-appointed lawyers, had issued five confessions, was black, his victim was elderly and white and that he was unable to provide any alibi or character witnesses. Even with a solid defence, which he didn’t have as his lawyers cross-examined no witnesses, raised no objections and called no witnesses of their own, Rainey Bethea was guilty, pure and simple.

And Bethea himself, unusually in a capital case, acknowledged as much. He ordered his lawyers to change his plea during the trial from not guilty to guilty. His motives for that are unclear. Was he hoping for mercy by pleading guilty? Had he simply given up on being acquitted? Or had he simply given up on life itself? Whatever his motives, Rainey Bethea more or less did the prosecution’s work for them. His guilt was established, but the question of his sentence remained unclear.

Not for long. After the judge instructed them that, having pled guilty, Bethea could be sentenced to a ten-to-twenty year prison term or death, they went out and deliberated. For four minutes and thirty seconds. Their sentence?

Death.

Despite Bethea acquiring a new legal team who worked tirelessly to save his life, Bethea’s case moved quickly. His attorneys appealed repeatedly alleging that his previous lawyers had been incompetent, that his confessions had been falsified and forced from him and doing all they could to delay the inevitable.

What they couldn’t actually do was save Bethea’s life. On August 6, 1936 Kentucky Governor Albert Chandler signed Bethea’s death warrant, setting the time and date as dawn on August 14. He also specified that the gallows be constructed in the courthouse yard. Sheriff Florence Thompson asked for a change of location, not wanting to damage the expensive refurbishments made in the yard. With Governor Chandler now out of contact Deputy Governor Keen signed a new death warrant. Rainey Bethea would now hang at dawn on August 14 as originally planned, but he would now hang in an empty lot near the courthouse.

Preparations moved quickly. A hangman, former police officer Albert Hash, volunteered his services on condition that his name not be given to the media. Sheriff Thompson, anxious to avoid doing the job herself, swiftly hired him. She also hired an expert from out of state, G. Phil Hanna, who had a hobby of supervising hangings without ever having pulled the lever himself. Rainey Bethea would be his 70^th execution. The gallows was constructed and tested to ensure all was well. The afternoon before his execution Bethea ate a large last meal in his cell in Louisville Jail. He was transported back to Owensboro at 1am for his date with the hangman.

Around 20,000 Kentuckians gathered in the pre-dawn light awaiting what would be America’s last public execution. At 5:21am Bethea was taken from his cell and instructed to stand directly on a large ‘X’ in the centre of the trapdoor. As he marched through the crowd under armed escort he must have been surprised, even bewildered, by the sheer size of the crowd. A hush descended over the vast crowd as Bethea was escorted towards the gallows.

He was secured with several heavy leather straps, ensuring that he would drop cleanly through the trapdoor. After taking final Confession with a Catholic priest and ascending the traditional thirteen steps of the scaffold, Bethea stood on the trapdoor ready to take his part in the proceedings.

20,000 people viewed America’s last public execution.

Arthur Hash wasn’t ready, in fact he was drunk. Very drunk. As Hanna carefully placed the heavy hemp noose around Bethea’s neck and slipped the black hood over his face, Bethea stood calmly, having spoken no final words. All was ready and the expert nodded to the drunken hangman. The hangman, so intoxicated he couldn’t stand up straight, did nothing.

Hanna, disgusted by Hash’s condition, glared furiously and snarled at him: ‘DO IT!’. After some seconds of inaction a sheriff’s deputy  managed to lean against the lever. The doors dropped with a deafening crash, entirely obscuring the sound of Bethea’s neck snapping as he dropped eight feet to an instant death. After death he was cut down and buried in a pauper’s grave.

The press, never ones to let the truth get in the way of a good story, misleadingly reported the execution. Stories reported the crowd, far from behaving well and quietly watching the proceedings, were reported as being riotous and drunk, treating the legal execution of criminal as though it was a Roman holiday. Scenes of entirely non-existent debauchery around the gallows were reported, to the indignation of those who were there and the considerable embarrassment of Kentucky’s legislators.

The Kentucky Legislature had to wait until the next session in 1938 to amend the laws governing executions. In the meantime two men were hanged in Kentucky, but a judge ordered that both executions were conducted privately, without spectators. In the 1938 session Senate Bill 69 provided for removing the requirement that hangings be carried out in public within the county in which the crime was committed.

From now on all executions in Kentucky would be the responsibility of the Kentucky State Prison at Eddyville. Eddyville had been carrying out electrocutions for murder for some years, while executions for rape were conducted by hanging and in public. Senate Bill 69 ended public executions entirely, while another bill removed the gallows. Kentucky’s last hanging, that of Harold Venison on June 3, 1938, was conducted privately and then Kentucky’s gallows passed into history.

Some state that America’s last public execution was that of Roscoe ‘Red’ Jackson in Galena, Illinois in 1938. They’re wrong. Jackson’s execution was conducted before a ticket-holding audience of around 400 people and with a stockade erected to keep non-ticketholders from seeing the gallows trapdoors drop. This, Rainey Bethea truly was the last inmate whose execution was fully open to spectators.

In the story of Anneliese Michel, we learned how a mentally ill woman was allowed to slowly starve herself to death, based only solely upon the belief by both herself and her family that she had been possessed by demons. It would seem that this reliance upon faith healing is a relatively rare occurrence, however, there are many who still believe that the devil and demonic spirits can possess the living. Sometimes the consequences of these beliefs are relatively benign, but other times these beliefs can have fatal results.

E’Dena Hines

E’Dena Hines seen with her grandfather, Morgan Freeman.

On August 9, 2015, police officers were called to a domestic violence situation where a woman’s boyfriend had stabbed her on the sidewalk in front of a Manhattan apartment complex the two had been living. The woman had been identified as Broadway actress and granddaughter of actor Morgan Freedman, E’Dena Hines. Hines was stabbed 15 times, including in her heart, liver, and lungs during what police have described as a “drug induced psychosis” her boyfriend had been experiencing at the time.

Witnesses heard Hines’ boyfriend, Lamar Davenport, screaming “Jesus Christ is born!” and “I cast you out, devils, in the name of Jesus Christ! I cast you out!” as he stood over Hines stabbing her to death. Davenport has been charged with second-degree murder for the actress’ death. If convicted he faces life in prison.

The East Bay Exorcism

Five fundamentalist Christian women were charged with beating a Korean woman to death during a ceremony they believed would help cast out evil spirits.

Kyong-A Ha had become acquainted with the group after her family urged her to meet with fundamentalist Christian sect leader Jean Park. According to Park, the ritual was intended to treat Ha of insomnia. Instead the ritual escalated out of control. Ha was hit over 100 times in the chest and face by Park and other group members, causing her to suffer broken ribs as her cries for help were muffled by a towel.

Rather than alert authorities immediately, Ha’s body was left in the three bedroom East Bay apartment the group had used as a meeting place. The women wrapped Ha’s corpse in an electric blanket and a quilt believing that she had gone on a “heavenly journey” and would soon return. Several days passed and the smell of Ms. Ha’s decomposing body forced Park into calling Ha’s family. The women deny any wrongdoing in Ha’s death and claim that “It’s a victory for Jesus Christ.”

Demonic Baby?

Guzman-Rodriguez claims he was trying to rid his 2-year-old of a demonic spirit when the spirit transfered itself into his body and forced him to strangle his daughter to death.

Eder Guzman-Rodriguez strangled and knocked his wife unconscious before performing an exorcism ritual on the couple’s two-year-old daughter. Guzman-Rodriguez claims that as he was performing the ritual the demon that had possessed his daughter entered into his body. The demon forced him to punch and strangle the little girl to death.

Police arrived to find people standing around with bibles outside of the couple’s trailer. The child had been wrapped in a blanked and surrounded in bibles and other religious items as her mother sat wailing on a couch inside. It was clear that the mother had also sustained injuries to her face and neck.

Guzman-Rodriguez admits that he was the only one present to injure the child. His wife testified that Guzman-Rodriguez had “gone off the deep end” and that the devil had possessed him. Guzman-Rodriguez was sentenced to 20 years and 11 months in prison.

One Monstrous Mommy

A one and a two-year-old were murdered and two more children were injured when the children’s mother and a roommate were believed to be performing an exorcism on the children. Police were called to the scene when a concerned neighbor saw the woman’s car door open and a knife on the ground.

Zakieya L. Avery and Monifa Sanford told investigators that they believed evil spirits had been possessing the children and moved from child to child. Monifa stabbed the children during the ritual, resulting in the death of two of the children and leaving another two critically injured. Had Avery’s neighbor not phoned the police, officials say that the two older children would likely have been found dead as well.

Both women were indited on two counts of first degree murder, as well as two additional counts of attempted first degree murder.

A Teen Terrorized

A pastor told family members of a teenage girl to cut out her eyes in order to drive out demonic forces responsible for her hallucinations.

After seeking help from their local pastor, an Argentinian family came to the belief that a teenage girl had been possessed by the devil. Under the pastor’s instruction, the family gang-raped and savagely beat the young women. Her sister then took a knife and cut out the teen’s eyes in order to stop the terrifying visions the girl was reportedly having.

The teen is now recovering in an intensive care unit. The teen’s older sister as well as the men believed to have been involved in raping her have been placed under arrest. No word on what charges the group is facing for the teen’s assault.

Many killers are known to be egocentric. They can’t help but to brag about their heinous crimes or take credit for their handiwork in some manner and the killers we’ll be looking at today are no exception. Unlike the traditional trophies killers sometimes like to collect from their victims, these killers liked to take photos. Interestingly enough, they weren’t necessarily of their victims, as others have done, but of themselves.

Dennis Rader

A shocking photo of Dennis Rader posing in a pair of one of his victim’s underwear.

Better known as BTK, Dennis Rader was a serial killer who delighted in his crimes and derived sexual pleasure from the act. Not only did he take souvenirs from the crime scene, but it would appear that he enjoyed murder roleplay. Found in Rader’s possession were a number of photos were he can be seen dressed up in his victims’ underwear and restrained. Some of the photos show Rader burying himself in shallow graves and suspending himself from trees. Others present Rader completely wrapped in plastic, as one would wrap up a body for disposal. More of these explicit photos can be found here. Rader was convicted in 2005 for 10 counts of first-degree murder and is currently serving 10 consecutive life sentences.

Maxwell Marion Morton

Maxwell Morton sent a photo of himself to a friend posing with the corpse of a 16-year-old classmate he had shot in the face.

In February of 2015, 16-year-old Maxwell Morton shot another 16-year-old boy in the face. Rather than making an attempt to cover up his connection to the crime, Morton then decided his best course of action was to brag about it. Unlike egocentric killers in the past, Morton didn’t causally bring up the murder to acquaintances or write any cryptic letters to the newspaper, he did what most millennials do when they’re looking to show off these days. He uploaded a selfie of himself with his victim’s body to snapchat, a social media application which allows users to share photos and are then deleted several minutes after they are received.

The friend Morton sent the photo to was able to quickly take a screenshot of the image and then showed the gruesome photo his mother. The family immediately contacted the police who were already investigating the homicide. Morton was quickly apprehended and confessed to the murder when police uncovered a 9mm handgun within his home.

Daniela Poggiali

Poggiali posing with a dead patient.

Some of you may remember Daniela Poggiali, the Italian nurse who had been accused of killing many of her elderly patients with a lethal dose of potassium chloride. In addition to evidence against Poggiali participating in the patients’ murders, several leaked photos of Poggiali posing with deceased patients who had died while under her care have surfaced online. It was learned that the photos had been taken by a colleague of Poggiali’s, who said she was too frightened and disturbed by Poggiali to refuse the strange request. If convicted of the 93 deaths she is believed to have been responsible for, then Poggiali will become the most prolific serial killer of all time.

Bahsid McLean

Bahsid McLean stabbed his mother repeatedly, dismembered her corpse, then posed for a selfie in his bathroom mirror before scattering her remains around his Bronx neighborhood.

In February 2013, a Bronx man was accused of murdering and dismembering his own mother. Bahsid McLean had gotten into an argument with his mom after she suggested he move out on his own. During the argument McLean pulled out a knife and stabbed the woman repeatedly, then used a power saw to dismember her corpse. At some point after dismembering the woman, McLean took the opportunity to take a selfie, holding up his mom’s head in the bathroom mirror before a friend helped him place the body parts into garbage bags, some of which were then placed into suitcases. McLean and his accomplice then scattered his mother’s remains in at least four separate locations around his Bronx neighborhood.

Friends and family say McLean has a history of violence and had recently stopped taking prescription medication, though what that medication was has not been disclosed. McLean was last seen wearing a plastic suit to court because he wouldn’t stop urinating on himself. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but friends and family believe that he is over-exaggerating his mental illness in order to receive a reduced sentence.

Joanna Dennehy

One of several photos Joanna Dennehy and her boyfriend took of themselves during their ten day killing spree.

Over the course of ten days Joanna Dennehy and her boyfriend went on a killing spree, which left three men stabbed to death and two more injured. Dennehy had no clear motive for the crime, other than the need to prove to herself that she could be a cold and heartless killer. During her escapades she took several photos of herself, including one which shows Dennehy smiling in her car as she cruises for other victims and one where she’s seen posing with a large knife. Dennehy struck randomly and without any remorse for her crimes. One of the victims had been kept inside her garbage can for several days and she proudly showed off the corpse to company. When she was apprehended by police she can be seen on surveillance footage laughing and joking at the station. Dennehy pleaded guilty to the murder of the three men as well as the attempted murder of two others. When the judge told her she would be one of only three women to ever be handed an entire life sentence in the Britain, Dennehy laughed and thanked him.

There are some relationships you know, right from the start, that they are going to hurt you as hard as they can. The one described below is not one of them. It was pure love that unexpectedly turned into a blood bath for a young, beautiful woman whose life was taken by the man she loved.

Everyone in Veria, a small Greek town, was aware of the flirt between Kiki Kousoglou and Danos Mouratidis. The couple always seemed happy, in love, and connected in a very strong way, but when Kiki was turning 20, she decided to break up with him because of the turmoil in their relationship, and Danos’ jealousy causing fights. However, a month after their separation, they went out and, even though Mouratidis wanted to win his ex- girlfriend back, Kiki wanted to end it once and for all. They went to his house.

On April 11, 2005, Danos and Kiki were together at his house talking about their relationship. Kiki told her ex-boyfriend that she was not ready to get back together with him and, being tired, she fell asleep. Danos, whose jealousy was later acknowledged as one of the main attributes of his personality, read a text of another guy on Kiki’s phone breaking out shouting. He strangled her to death.

The next day, Kiki’s family got worried and started searching for her without result. To exhaust all means, they approached Angeliki Nikolouli, an investigator with her own TV show on Greek television, who devoted the whole TV season to finding Kiki. Danos had to make himself look innocent and participated in the investigation going live on national television begging for any information that would bring back Kousoglou. His goal was to look like the victim and there were many viewers who believe in him. So far, Danos Mouratidis was winning.

The truth was that Mouratidis had strangled Kiki and when he realized what he had done, he made a plan to get rid of the body. He took the car, put the corpse in the passenger seat and drove around the town so people would see her sitting next to him like an alive person. Later, he left the body to the Aliakmonas riverbank, a desert area where no one would ever search for his victim, and threw away her stuff to another spot to disorientate the investigation. He went back home waiting patiently for 24 hours. As you may know, the killer always returns to the scene of the crime, and at dawn the next day, Danos was back at the very same place he had disposed the body. With the help of his 40-year-old cousin, who, later, admitted his participation, he buried Kiki. Danos thought that he had committed the perfect crime. He was wrong.

Nikolouli was convinced that Danos Mouratidis was the killer and, as she would admit later, she arranged an interview between the two of them only to uncover his guilt. During the interview, Mouratidis was nervous, sweaty, and put himself in an awkward position losing the battle against an experienced reporter. Four months after Kiki’s death, he confessed.

In court, Danos did not lose his temper. During his plea, he kept asking for forgiveness, and, even though he never said the reason he had killed Kiki, he described to the judges their relationship in detail:

“She was the love of my life. We were together for five years. Sometimes we fought and parted, but we would always get back together eventually. We split two weeks before the day I killed her, but we kept talking and spending time together,” Mouratidis said and continued describing the moment he strangled her: “I held her in my arms. I don’t remember if she was screaming or if she was saying something. When I let her she was not breathing. I took her pulse and I realized she was dead. I lost it and I decided to dispose of the body. It was like I was not myself.”

Mouratidis was charged with intentional homicide and got sentenced to life in prison, while his cousin who helped him bury the body stayed four years in jail. The Kousoglou case was one of the most shocking in Greece, mainly because of Mouratidis’ hypocrisy and the way he appeared on television begging for some information.

Nikolouli still is recognized as one of the best police reporters in her country and Veria will never be the same place again.

There are murders that are not committed just for pleasure, money, or out of bad luck. There are some murders that have higher, more important goals and Iqbal Masih’s assassination was one of them. Because Iqbal was a hero.

Iqbal Masih was a young boy from Pakistan whose bad luck started the day his brother fell in love. Born in 1982, child of a poor family, he used to work in order to help his mother and his sisters, but when Iqbal’s older brother decided to get married, his life would change forever. It was the year 1986, and Iqbal was 4 years old. His family wanted to celebrate its oldest son’s marriage, but there was no money available for something like that. According to tradition, whenever a poor family wanted to celebrate a marriage they had to borrow money from a wealthy businessman, and, as an exchange, the family would offer its youngest member to work for the lender, but they would never repay the loan due to the interest rates. Iqbal Masih got sold as a slave for 600 Pakistani rupees.

Before we continue, we have to make clear that “peshgi,” this kind of agreement between wealthy men and poor families, was commonly accepted in Pakistan. The lender had the absolute power and authority over the borrower, and the working conditions that the children that were given as loan guarantees were under, were worse than we can ever imagine: they worked in sealed rooms avoiding sunlight, which is considered to destroy the carpets they knitted, they were not allowed to talk to each other, they were obliged to work sitting on the floor for more than 12 hours, and, whenever they could not control their tiredness, there was always a guard to wake them up hitting them.

Six years later Iqbal was 10 years old, and his family now owed 13,000 rupees. One day he was informed of a Bonded Labor Liberation Front (BLLF) meeting whose goal was to protect and set free children like him. At that meeting, he learned that the Pakistani government had declared peshgi illegal and they had cancelled the debts. Iqbal was, finally, free to go, but he wanted more. He wanted to set every single child free.

He studied at a BLLF school in Lahore, and he became quite popular as a student. He was determined to complete his work and he did not hesitate to go back to work as an “undercover agent” for the organization. He was the face of every protest against child forced labor and his participation in this big idea obliged many illegal carpet crafts to close their doors.

Gradually, Iqbal became a hero talking publicly about his experience in humanitarian events, giving interviews for the awareness of the important subject of child labor, and cooperating with international activists. People did not see just a child in him because the six years of the Hell he had been through were present, causing him a health development problem. He suffered from psychological short stature (PSS) causing his body development to stop, and, even though he was 10 years old, he looked like a 5-year-old boy. His popularity made him dangerous to those who gained more and more money from child forced labor, and he always received threatening messages. He ignored every single one of them.

On Sunday, April 16, 1995, Iqbal was visiting his family to enjoy the Easter holidays with them. After spending some time with his mother and his beloved siblings, he decided to pay a visit to his uncle along with his cousins. The three boys met, rode their bikes, and headed to Iqbal’s uncle’s house bringing him food from the family meal. A shotgun was fired.

Iqbal Masih died instantly while the one of his two cousins got wounded in the arm, and the other one was not hurt.

Iqbal’s murder still is a mystery, and no one knows who the man behind the trigger is. Some said that it was a neighbor having an argument with a farmer who fired at the boys by mistake and never wanted to kill Iqbal. However, what is, widely, believed is that Iqbal was the victim of an assassination by the leaders of the carpet industry who saw their sales dropping after a 13-year-old boy’s work. One thousand people attended Iqbal’s funeral on April 17, 1995, and his voice remains one of the most important inspiration for fighters against child labor.

Today, millions of children work under the same conditions Iqbal was describing in his speeches, manufacturing carpets, clothes, bricks, cigars, or jewelry. Iqbal would not be happy.

Major Raymond Lisemba AKA ‘Rattlesnake James.’

Another criminal curiosity beckons, this time the remarkable and, as far as I’m aware, singular case of one Major Raymond Lisemba, AKA ‘Robert S. James’, AKA ‘Rattlesnake James. His case is a singular one for two reasons, the first being that he was the last inmate to die by hanging in the State of California. The other (far more interesting) reason is that he’s the only murderer I’ve ever encountered who used rattlesnakes as his weapon of choice. Yes, rattlesnakes.

Now rattlesnakes aren’t exactly rare in California, as anyone living there will freely admit. They’re also greatly misunderstood creatures. Do they bite people? Yes. Are they lethal? Yes, if the bite is severe enough and the victim doesn’t get immediate medical attention. Are they as venomous as their murderous namesake? Probably not.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama on March 6, 1894 he, by his own admission just before being executed, led a bad life. He’d served time, been in and out of prison for various reasons, and there was a certain suspicion that Mary James might have been his fourth wife, but not his first victim. He’d had three wives already.

His first wife divorced him, alleging he was a sexual pervert into sadism. His second marriage had also ended in the divorce courts. His third wife, rather conveniently for her now extremely ex-husband, had ‘accidentally’ drowned in the bathtub. Her death was convenient for James as she happened to have an insurance policy, the payout on which was now rather healthier than she was.

James was never arrested or tried over her death but, as we’ll see shortly, it did a lot to increase suspicions when his fifth wife also happened to die, heavily insured and supposedly via drowning. This having come after his fourth wife had also left him. Apparently she was somewhat perturbed by his increasingly pushy efforts to make her sign a life insurance policy. She refused, saying that funny things happen to people who are heavily insured. She also left him when her refusals were ignored and he continued trying to push her into it. Possibly the death of his third (heavily-insured) wife might have served to concentrate her mind. After marrying Mary James she had the misfortune to die after letting him insure her life. This time in a duckpond. But we’ll be getting to that a little later.

On August 5, 1935 he made an emotional call to the emergency services. His wife had been found drowned in a bathtub and inquired if emergency services please come at once. They could and they did, too late to save Mary James, but just in time to begin her husband’s path to San Quentin’s gallows.

Mary James was, as her husband had told them, lying dead, face-down in the duckpond. But the responders noticed something more than a little odd about one of her legs. At some point, not long before she’d mysteriously drowned, they noted that she’d obviously been bitten by something which, at the time, they assumed was a severe reaction to an insect bite. Nasty insects aren’t unusual in California, either, and Robert James soon showed himself to be one of them.

Her cause of death was listed as drowning and several weeks after Robert James collected another insurance payout. It might have ended there, and ended well for him, if he hadn’t been so utterly witless as to make a deeply inappropriate, offensive and, for him, ultimately fatal pass at another woman while working at the barber shop he owned. The fact that he was only four weeks into being widowed caused disapproval from the lady concerned. It also caused immense suspicion among officers when she reported his behaviour to the police. His rattlesnakes were about to come back and bite him.

Now he might just have got away with murder. Rattlesnakes are resident in California. They’re not a common as in places like Texas or New Mexico but they do live there and they do sometimes bite people. Enter his accomplice, one Charles Hope. Hope was James’s helper at his barber shop, the same barber shop as where James had so offended the young lady who reported him to the Los Angeles police. He also had the unfortunate habit of getting drunk in bars and, like most people when they’ve taken a skinful, he tended to become rather chatty.

Rattlesnakes, his partners in crime.

Word reached the LAPD and he was swiftly picked up for questioning. The possibility of the gallows must have sobered him up considerably and he soon became more chatty when sober than when sloshed. He told them everything. According to Hope, James had bought two rattlesnakes, the delightfully-named ‘Lethal’ and ‘Lightning’ from a local dealer. He then persuaded Hope to join in his scheme by posing as a doctor. With Hope on board as a fake doctor James then persuaded his wife to submit to a termination on the grounds that he thought her having the baby she was expecting would be unhealthy for her. As it turned out, the bedside manner of ‘Doctor’ Hope would distinctly more so.

According to Hope, James persuaded his wife to lie on a table, be tied down,  blindfolded and gagged. Then he simply grabbed one of her legs and put it in a box where ‘Lethal’ and ‘Lightning’ coiled therein. The snakes, however, presumably following the old showbiz maxim that you should never work with children or animals, failed to deliver a lethal dose. At least one of them did bite her, leaving her delirious and very sick, but not dead.

James was somewhat frustrated by their non-cooperation. As they hadn’t proved willing accomplices. he insisted that Hope help him drag his wife to the pond where they laid her face-down in the water, waited until she was dead, and then reported the matter to the emergency services. With his wife safely dead and buried, James, according to Hope, simply collected the insurance and went about his daily business. With Hope’s confession and medical evidence confirming rattlesnake venom in her body, Robert ‘Rattlesnake’ James found himself without a chair. He was promptly arrested and charged with capital murder.

His trial was quite a sensation in California. Murder-by-rattlesnake had never been seen before or since, so reporters came from all over California and further afield. It began in 1937 amid a media frenzy, saw Charles Hope become the star of the show when he turned State’s evidence in an effort to cheat the hangman and saw James enter a singular and unwilling place in criminal history.

Hope’s efforts to avoid execution worked. He was handed down a life sentence for his part in the murder. James wasn’t so lucky. When the jury delivered a guilty verdict and James was identified as being the prime mover in the crime there was only one penalty available to the judge under California law. Guilty as charged without a recommendation to mercy meant only one thing: a death sentence.

James was escorted to California’s feared San Quentin Prison and lodged securely on Condemned Row to await the outcome of his appeals. They failed. His attorney even found State Governor Olsen aboard a train the day before James’s scheduled execution and still Governor Olsen wasn’t interested. Robert ‘Rattlesnake’ James would be the last inmate in California to keep a date with the hangman.

He’d be the last because, while he was on Condemned Row, California had changed its method of execution. In 1938 two men, Albert Kessel and Robert Cannon, took their own singular place in Californian crime by becoming the first in the State to die in the then newly-installed gas chamber. California had switched to lethal gas after too many hangings had been bungled. Inmates had been dropped too far and had their heads torn from their bodies, which at least was an instant although messy death. Worse, others hadn’t been dropped far enough, ensuring they took as long as fifteen minutes to slowly strangle to death. Robert James would be one of the latter. Having been condemned before the gas chamber replaced the gallows, James was still going to hang atop the robins-egg blue painted gallows at California’s most feared penitentiary.

The biter bit. James would die slowly and great pain.

At 10am on May 1, 1942 Major Raymond Lisemba, AKA ‘Robert S. James’, AKA ‘Rattlesnake’ James, kept his date with history and the hangman. It didn’t go well. Warden Clinton Duffy, a noted opponent of the death penalty, oversaw proceedings and many reporters were in attendance. James himself was dressed well for the occasion in a smart suit, though without a shirt collar or tie The hangman had something else to fit round his neck, after all. James climbed the traditional thirteen steps to the top of the scaffold, was strapped, noosed and hooded and all was ready. All present were hoping that, unlike so often in California’s hanging history, he would die quickly when Warden Duffy gave the signal. He didn’t.

Warden Duffy nodded to the hangman who quickly pushed the lever and dropped the trapdoors. James’ hooded, strapped body plunged vertically through the doors, only to spend the next twelve minutes jerking and struggling at the rope’s end. It was a slow, painful and gruesome way to die. That said, many people might think that a murderer like ‘Rattlesnake’ James didn’t deserve any better.

Grady Stiles Jr. was born a human oddity. Coming from a long linage of carnival workers and born with a rare genetic defect called ectrodactyly, it wouldn’t be long before his father, best known by his stage name “Lobster Man”, would begin taking young Grady on long trips across the country traveling with a carnival freak show. It was through the carnival that Stiles’ persona of “Lobster Boy” was born.

Stiles Jr. would spend most of his young life on the road. Hearing the crowds ohh and ahh over his unusual pincer-like hands and feet that folded inwards towards his pelvis–  forcing him to walk on the tips of his four articulated fingers– in each new town the carnival rolled through that week. Though always a crowd pleaser, once the bright lights faded and the curtain fell, Lobster Boy found himself completely and utterly alone.

However, life wasn’t always lonely for the Lobster Boy. Lobster Boy began to grow into a lobster man and would eventually meet his wife, Mary. Mary ran away from home at 19 and hoped to travel with the carnival. Though she didn’t have a beard, nor did she swallow goldfish, she made her home with the human sideshow attractions and fell madly in love with Stiles Jr., in spite of his deformities.

By this time the public’s attitude on putting human beings on display as a form of entertainment began to shift and the freak show phenomena became a slowly dying spectacle. Lobster Boy continued to tour occasionally with others he had become acquainted with through his years of traveling with the carnival, but by and large fell into retirement. He and Mary had several children, two of which were born with the same genetic deformities as Grady.

Behind closed doors, Stiles struggled with alcoholism and Mary was often the brunt of Stiles’ violent drunken outbursts. Mary claimed that Stiles would wake up around 8am, start drinking at 10am, and by the time he emerged from his bedroom at 1pm he was a completely different person. Having used his arms and hands for mobility, Stiles possessed an amazing amount of upper body strength, which he would use to the fullest extent when in the midst of his drunken rages.

Stiles’ wife and children lived in fear of him, constantly walking on eggshells as to not upset him, lest they wished to feel his wrath. He has been described by his own son, Stiles III, as “Satan himself”. In 1973, Mary left Stiles after he threw her to the ground and ripped out her intrauterine device. She married another man, but for unknown reasons she returned to Stiles and to the domestic abuse.

In 1979, Stiles’ daughter Donna told Stiles that she had fallen madly in love with a man and wished to marry him. Stiles asked Donna if he could meet with her new fiancée in private and the man agreed to meet him in Pittsburgh. When Stiles arrived, he and the man walked into Donna’s fiancée’s home. A few minutes later she heard a shot and the man came stumbling out of the home.

Donna’s fiancée was dead. A jury found Stiles guilty of murdering his daughter’s fiancée, but due to Stiles’ medical conditions, no prison would be able to accommodate him. Instead Stiles was ordered to serve 15 years probation.

His court sentence was no deterrent, and Stiles continued to drink and and abuse Mary. Mary decided she was fed up with Stiles and talked her son, Harry, into offering someone $1,500 to kill her husband.

On November 29, 1992, as Stiles was sitting in his living room watching a movie, 17-year-old Christopher Wyatt walked inside Stiles’ trailer and shot him in the head. Neither his wife, whom had hired the hit man, nor is children cried over the news of Stiles’ death.

Stiles’ murderer was sentenced to 27 years in prison. Harry was also found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Mary, who had ordered the hit on her husband, had been sentenced to serve only 12 years.

Thomas Hardy, inspired by the case of Elizabeth Martha Brown

If you’re not British, chances are you’ve never heard of the town of Dorchester. Chances are you might never have heard of Dorset, the county in which Dorchester is located. It’s even more unlikely that you’ve ever heard of its second most famous resident, Elizabeth Martha Brown.

Except you possibly have and, until now, didn’t know it yet.

Dorset is perhaps best known as the home of celebrated author Thomas Hardy. Hardy’s most famous work was Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the tale of a wild, willful woman who comes to a terrible end at the hands of the public hangman. Elizabeth Martha Brown was the model for Tess. She was also the last woman to be publicly hanged in Dorset and Hardy, who had a grim fascination for watching hangings, was there to see her die.

Her story, like that of her literary alter-ego, is really rather a tragic one. She was born around 1811. Records of the time are at best sketchy, so we’ll probably never know exactly when. Her execution on August 9, 1856 made local history and inspired one of the great works of English literature.

She was a grocer by trade and unhappily married to a much older man. John Brown was her second husband, her first had died in 1851 and she married Brown in 1852. She’d also had the terrible misfortune of losing both her children to disease. Child mortality was far higher in 1840’s and 1850’s England than it is today and parents expected to lose one or more children through illness or disease, although this wouldn’t have softened what must have been a truly terrible blow. Nor did it soften her second husband’s treatment of her.

According to Elizabeth, John Brown wasn’t a pleasant man and she had only killed him after he attacked her with a whip. Apparently it wasn’t unusual for him to come home drunk, nor was it unusual for him to abuse her when came home intoxicated and in a foul mood. What was unusual was that, this time, she didn’t accept his abuse and hacked him to death with a hatchet. Aside from his violent temper and regular drunkenness, his equally regular infidelity probably hadn’t helped either.

Unfortunately for her, it was her own confession as much as anything else that saw her keep her date with the hangman. In her confession she stated that he had attacked her and that she had acted in self-defense. So far, so understandable. What sealed her fate, aside from the less-than-enlightened attitudes toward domestic abuse then existing in England, was her admission that she had struck him repeatedly with the hatchet even after he had ceased to be capable of attacking her.

Even today that would make a claim of self-defense unlikely to be either believed or even considered. What Elizabeth regarded as self-defense the local constables, the judge and the jury regarded as murder. In their eyes self-defense meant incapacitating n attacker and stopping, not repeatedly hacking at them with the seeming intent of finishing them off. Only days after he final confrontation with John Brown, his widow found herself in court on a charge of murder. A charge which at the time carried a mandatory death sentence if she was convicted.

Convicted she was. Neither judge or jury bought her pleas of self-defense and, having been found guilty, she now stood in court while the judge enacted the ultimate penalty. British judges had a curious tradition when pronouncing sentence of death, one that continued right up until the death penalty was finally abolished. The Clerk of the Court placed a square of black silk upon his wig and, with the dreaded ‘Black Cap’ securely placed, the judge began to pronounce what reporters of the day often called the ‘dread sentence.’ It went something like this:

“Elizabeth Martha Brown. You have been found guilty of the crime of willful murder. The sentence of this Court is that you shall be taken from this place to a lawful prison and thence to a place of execution, where you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead. Remove the prisoner.”

The gallows stood in what today is one of the prison’s car parks.

Elizabeth had committed her crime on July 5, 1856. She was arrested and charged the same day. Her trial had been arranged and finished only a week or so after her arrest. Her execution date was set for only three weeks after her conviction. English law at the time provided only a minimum three Sundays between sentencing and execution, time enough for appeals to be made, considered and often rejected All in all, Elizabeth Martha Brown had gone from married woman to condemned murderer in less than a month.

Given her unfortunate life history and the fact that Joseph Brown had been a far-from-loving husband, a campaign was swiftly mounted to secure Elizabeth a reprieve. A reprieve would doubtless mean a lengthy prison sentence, but at least she’d avoid the dancing the hangman’s hornpipe before a massive crowd. Her supporters lobbied and beseeched the authorities to halt her execution and show mercy, all to no avail. Meanwhile, public hangman William Calcraft had received word to visit Dorchester on business.

The fatal day dawned on August 9, 1856. A crowd of some 4000 people from all over the county had turned out to see her hang. Public executions weren’t a rarity, but hanging women certainly was. It wouldn’t be until the Capital Punishment Amendment Act of 1868 that British executions were moved within prison walls, much to the relief of the authorities if not the prisoners. It probably didn’t make any difference to them how many people turned out to watch them die.

William Calcraft, the public executioner.

The time was 9am and the gallows had been erected the night before and tested thoroughly. Elizabeth would have been treated well by her guards like all condemned prisoners (especially women). Policy at the time was to treat the condemned with a certain rough kindness not usually extended to ordinary inmates. While the 4,000-strong crowd milled around and local traders did their best to profit from an unusually large crowd of potential customers, the official escort went to Dorchester Prison’s condemned cell and collected her.

Her arms would have been strapped securely in her cell and then she was escorted out of the prison and up the traditional 13 steps of the scaffold. Scaffolds, including American ones, traditionally had 13 steps hence the idea that 13 is unlucky for some. It was certainly unlucky for Elizabeth Martha Brown.

She had dressed for the occasion, arriving in a long, black silk dress under the pouring rain. In the crowd was the 16-year-old Thomas Hardy, yet to begin his literary career. The scene outside Dorchester Prison would haunt him for the rest of his life. Calcraft placed a white cloth over her face, hiding her expression from the crowds who’d turned out to watch her die.

As Hardy himself described in a letter seventy years after her death:

‘I saw – they had put a cloth over her face – How, as the cloth got wet, her features came through it. That was extraordinary.”

Hardy went even further in recounting the grim scene. In another account he wrote:

‘I remember what a fine figure she showed as she hung in the misty sky against the rain and how the black silk gown set off her shape as she wheeled half-round and back.’

Poetic, literary and unnervingly intense Hardy’s account is, it was probably of no consolation to Elizabeth Martha Brown as she died that she would be resurrected in the form of Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

Honestly, we will never know for sure what turns a man into a monster. Is it the way their families treat them? Is it their criminal nature? If you want an answer to these questions, you have to know that the story below will not give you a single clue. The story below is about a criminal who loves being one. Meet Christa Gall Pike.

Christa was not an easy child to bring up and, according to her mother, she was one of those stubborn kids that would do anything to make it all about them. She didn’t live with her mother and the only person she was close to was her alcoholic grandmother, who died in 1988 when Christa Gall Pike started living between her mother’s and her father’s house. But there was a problem: she hated both of her parents. Christa’s mother dated a man who hit her, and her father had had another child whom Pike loved to beat and sexually abuse. That child was her sibling, and she was 2 years old.

Yes, criminality was in Christa’s blood, and she started using drugs before her 14th birthday. According to her mother, Colleen, she grew marijuana by the age of 9, and when she turned 14, Christa left her family home to live with a friend. Note that by the age of 14 she had already attempted to commit her first murder when her mother’s boyfriend hit her, and she attacked him with a knife before calling the police. However, not even one of her family members thought about offering help to Pike, despite the signs of criminal and abnormal behavior. In 1995, Pike dropped out of school.

While attending a seminar on finding a job, Christa told a friend of hers, Kim Iloilo, that she was going to kill one of the people in the room, because she “just felt mean that day.” Iloilo thought that her friend was just kidding, but the truth is that on January 11, 1995, Christa Gall Pike killed Colleen Slemmer, 19.

She was happy. She felt complete, and everything had gone as it was planned right from the beginning. She had killed, and, later that night, she visited Kim Iloilo’s cubicle to describe how she had done it. According to Iloilo, while Pike was describing the killing process, she was moving around the room in an ecstatic dance. The very next day, Pike told another student the same story, and she did not hesitate to show a piece of Colleen’s skull she carried with her, just to prove herself true.

Only two days after her murder, Colleen Slemmer’s body was found in a greenhouse and its condition was worse that any human being can ever imagine. Her face was crushed, her torso was full of scars and symbols, and her neck was, literally, shredded while parts of her body were just “not there.” The forensic surgeon could not count the number of the wounds and officially reported that they “were too many to count.” Sadly, Colleen was not dead while Christa Pike was torturing her, and she only left her last breath after a hit to the head.

Christa confessed her guilt describing the way she allured her and defaced her body. In her 46-page-long testimony, Christa noted that both of the girls liked the same boy and that Colleen was the first to threaten her some days before. Pike told her victim that they would hang out in the woods to smoke some marijuana, and, as soon as they arrived there, she started hitting her. Christa’s boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, and a close friend, Shadolla Peterson, helped her complete her work keeping Colleen still.

We will never know what made Christa Pike kill since tests suggested that she was “of sound mind and memory,” and the only thing that may had caused her problematic behavior may be her drug addiction causing her some borderline personality disorder.

But Christa is not mentally ill. She just doesn’t care that killing is a criminal offense and, after her imprisonment, she tried to strangle to death one of her inmates.

Today, Christa is 39 years old, and she is waiting for the death penalty since she is the youngest woman to be sentenced to death in the United States during the post-Furman period. We will never know what went wrong with her, and the truth is that she does not want us to. She still doesn’t care. She never will.

Atropine, the drug Buchanan thought would conceal his crime.

Not so long ago I covered the case of Carlyle Harris, a medical student who terminated his relationship (and his girlfriend) with a lethal dose of morphine. Harris’s case had repercussions long after his execution and not only for Harris and those who knew him. The Harris case was a sensation in the New York media and further afield and one of his severest critics was a fellow medical professional, Doctor Robert Buchanan.

Like Harris, Buchanan was an outwardly respectable medical professional. Like Harris, he disposed of an inconvenient spouse with a lethal dose of morphine. Like Harris, he had a clever means (or so he thought) of avoiding being found out by the authorities. But unlike Harris, Buchanan was foolish enough to sit in saloons bragging about how Harris was a bungler and how he, Buchanan, would have done a much cleverer job. It was Buchanan’s mouth that would seal his fate.

The eminently respectable professional man wasn’t quite as respectable as many people thought. Buchanan was a heavy drinker with a marked fondness for brothels in his spare time. New York at the time had a great many brothels and it was in one of them that he met Anna Sutherland. Not content to settle for a mere prostitute, Buchanan started an affair with Sutherland who was a brothel madam. In line with his inflated ego, no mere working girl was good enough for him.

There was, however, a small problem. In love triangles there usually is, and it’s usually that one member happens to be married to another with the lover as third wheel. Buchanan was married and his wife seemingly had as little idea about his extra-curricular activities as many of his friends and acquaintances. This, unfortunately for Buchanan and Anna Sutherland, didn’t last. In fact it exploded in quite spectacular fashion when Buchanan divorced his wife in 1890.

In those less liberal times a professional man divorcing wasn’t always fondly regarded by his social circle. In Buchanan’s case it was even less fondly regarded when, having set up home with known madam Anna Sutherland, he also installed her as the receptionist at his medical practice. This didn’t endear her to Buchanan’s patients. Sutherland was a blowsy, crude and vulgar individual and, as such, not the kind of person you’d expect to find behind your doctor’s reception desk. Being known for prostitution probably didn’t help either. Patients began transferring to other doctors. Those who hadn’t already transferred were openly threatening to do so. With a dwindling list of paying customers and his taste for expensive living, Buchanan knew trouble was fast approaching. Anna, whom Buchanan had secretly persuaded to make a will leaving him the sole beneficiary and to make out an insurance policy for $50,000 (also with Buchanan as sole beneficiary), was becoming a problem.

And the good doctor had some terminal ideas for how to solve it…

In 1892 Buchanan announced that he was going to visit the Scottish city of Edinburgh, known for its medical schools and producing some fine doctors. And he would be travelling alone. Four days before he was due to sail Anna Sutherland was suddenly (and conveniently for Buchanan) taken seriously ill. Buchanan announced he was cancelling his trip to stay take care of his sick wife which (in homicidal fashion) was exactly what he did. Anna Sutherland died shortly afterward, apparently of a cerebral hemorrhage. Buchanan inherited her money and property and pocketed the $50,000 from the insurance company. And then it all started to go horribly wrong.

All hadn’t been well in the Buchanan marriage. Sutherland (according to Buchanan) was insufferable, crude and he was going to get rid of her no matter what it took. Words that would come back to haunt him at his murder trial. Sutherland had threatened to leave him which would have seen him lose the inheritance and insurance payout he really needed and divorce would be messy, public and perhaps leave him worse off financially than he was at the time. If he was going to get rid of his wife then he’d have to find a lucrative way to do it.

Morphine.

Morphine, Buchanan’s weapon of choice.

At the time of Harris’s trial, sentence and execution Buchanan had been doing the rounds of his favourite haunts mocking Harris for his incompetence. Harris had been exposed because morphine poisoning affects the victim’s eyes, leaving them with pinpoint pupils, a cardinal sign of a morphine overdose. If Harris had dripped atropine into his victim’s eyes then the pupils would have dilated back to their normal size, Buchanan told his bar-room cronies, and so he might well never have been caught. Unfortunately, one of the people who heard this brazen bar-room chatter was a reporter working for the New York World. Reporters love bar-room gossip because it often leads to juicy stories and Buchanan’s recklessness did exactly that.

The reporter remembered Buchanan’s words and, when Sutherland died, did some digging. He soon found that Buchanan had had financial difficulties before Sutherland’s untimely death, that he enjoyed brothels and that he was the sole beneficiary of her death. He also found that, less than a month ater Sutherland’s death, the good doctor was so grief-stricken that he’d remarried his first wife (who was presumably more forgiving than most wives in similar circumstances). The reporter involved his police contacts, whose investigations revealed that Buchanan also had ready access to morphine. After further investigations into his personal history and the discovery of morphine in his wife’s body, Buchanan was arrested and charged with capital murder.

His trial was a sensation and a first in forensic history. At first there was no direct evidence linking Buchanan to his wife’s untimely death. But, at trial, the prosecution made sure they found some. Recalling Buchanan’s comments involving atropine investigators had performed an autopsy proving that she died of morphine poisoning. The question was, was Buchanan’s theory about masking the evidence with atropine sound? And was the circumstantial evidence strong enough to make a jury decide his guilt? It was, on both counts.

The prosecution brought a stray cat into the courtroom and, before a moderately disgusted audience, killed the poor creature with a lethal dose of morphine and then proved Buchanan’s theory. Before the court they dripped atropine into the animal’s eyes, proving conclusively that Buchanan’s atropine theory entirely correct, though not to Buchanan’s delight as it made a huge impression on the jury. Worse was to follow.

Buchanan might have been a clever murderer and a moderately-able doctor. That didn’t make him anything other than an awful witness under cross-examination. He came across as self-obsessed, whining, evasive and, worst of all for a man facing a possible death sentence, the prosecutor trapped him repeatedly in lie after lie. When giving evidence he did at least as much to convict himself as the prosecution did. And convicted he was. On April 25, 1893 the jury brought in their verdict. Guilty as charged, with no recommendation for mercy.

With his guilt decided by a jury Buchanan faced a mandatory death sentence and the judge duly passed one. He was transported to Sing Sing Prison under heavy guard to go through his appeals. They failed. The courts saw no legal reason to interfere in his case and the Governor wasn’t interested, either. Robert Buchanan was doomed. As a Canadian his counsel had even appealed to the British Ambassador to try and intercede on Buchanan’s behalf, claiming that it was the Ambassador’s duty as Buchanan was a British subject (Canada being part of what was then the British Empire). The Ambassador refused. Regardless of Buchanan’s nationality, this was a murder case in a foreign land and Buchanan broke American laws. As such, felt the Ambassador, Buchanan should face American justice. And face it he did.

The original Sing Sing death chamber.

On July 2, 1895 the sorry saga reached its end. Buchanan, who had been so keen to mock Carlyle Harris even while Harris was sat in the death house’ awaiting execution, had spent a couple of years trying to avoid the same fate. He’d failed. He’d been cruel enough to mock Harris’s fate. Vicious enough to murder his wife and cold-bloodedly try to evade punishment. He’d been evasive, dishonest, whiny and self-obsessed when he self-destructed under cross-examination. Now, with all hope lost, he must have realised as he watched the clock remorselessly ticking away his last hours, that perhaps he wasn’t as clever as he’d though he was. If he did, it was a little late for that.

At the appointed hour Buchanan was taken from his per-execution cell in the Sing Sing ‘death house.’ It was only twenty yards or so between his cell in the ‘Dancehall’ and a seat on ‘Old Sparky’ and Buchanan, to be fair, walked it firmly and in silence. As he sat down before the assembled witnesses and the straps and electrodes were applied, he still maintained a stony silence. With his prisoner strapped firmly down and the electrodes secured, ‘State Electrician’ Edwin Davis awaited the Warden’s signal.

Two minutes after the Warden nodded his head, Doctor Robert Buchanan, medic, professional man, egotist, liar, fraud and murderer, was finally pronounced dead. It would have been of no comfort at all to him to know that New York’s papers reported his execution as the most efficient and simple in Sing Sing’s grim history. Still, whether he liked it or not, Buchanan died far more quickly and cleanly than his unfortunate wife.

France’s last public execution.

France, like many civilised countries, has long abolished the death penalty. The last execution in France was that of Hamida Djandoubi in Marseilles on September 10, 1977. In 1981, France finally consigned its guillotines and executioners to the history books. Today we’ll be looking at the last time that ‘Monsieur de Paris’ got to perform his grisly trade before an audience.

French executioners were once employed locally so, if you were the executioner for Rennes you’d be known as ‘Monsieur de Rennes’, ‘the man from Rennes’ and so on. In the 19^th century French executions became more centralized with all executioners acquiring the communal nickname ‘Monsieur de Paris’ regardless of where they lived when they weren’t decapitating people.

Execution in France was a family affair. Executioners were known by a disparaging nickname ‘Les Boureaux’ and were generally shunned by the rest of French society which led to single families supplying generations of executioners to the French penal system. Even the tool of his trade had a number of nicknames. Like many Americans refer to the electric chair as ‘Old Sparky’, ‘the hot seat’, ‘the hot squat’ and various other delightful phrases, the French gave their guillotines names like ‘The Timbers of Justice’, ‘The National Razor’ and ‘The People’s Avenger.’

Eugen Weidmann was actually German. He was born in Frankfurt-am-Main on February 5, 1908 and had no occupation other than crime. Like most criminals he started off as a juvenile with petty theft, shoplifting and suchlike, eventually serving five years in Saarbrucken Prison for robbery. Little did anybody know what kind of man he would become. His crimes were to shock the entire French nation (it probably didn’t help that Weidmann was German, given the historical baggage between the two countries). His execution would prove equally debauched and historic as France’s last execution in public. After Weidmann’s death, executions would continue in considerable numbers, but ‘Monsieur de Paris would set up his ‘National Razor’ in private to administer French justice.

While serving his five years Weidmann met two other convicts, Roger Million and Jean Blanc, and together they hatched a plan. They would forgo crimes like robbery and burglary in favour of kidnapping for ransom. They would target wealthy tourists, snatch them and demand large sums for their safe return. As it turned out, the victims wouldn’t return safely, or even alive. The trio moved to the Paris suburb of Saint-Cloud to begin their crime spree. Paris, being the capital of France, is home to its highest concentration of wealthy potential victims so, following the laws of nature, the predators followed their prey.

Their first attempt failed. Their intended victim struggled and they had to let him go. They were determined that their subsequent victims wouldn’t get off as lightly. It was July of 1937 before the gang made their second attempt. It was successful and brutal.

Weidmann had met Jean de Koven a 22-year old dancer from New York who was visiting her aunt in Paris. Introducing himself to her as ‘Siegfried’ Weidmann quickly gained her trust, so much so that she agreed to visit him at his rented villa in Saint-Cloud. They drank, smoked and had their photos taken together which were later found beside her body and identified Weidmann as her murderer.

Weidmann, keen to get the ball rolling, promptly stangled her and buried her in the garden. The haul came to 300 francs in cash and $430 of traveller’s checks. But that wasn’t enough for Weidmann. De Koven’s promptly received a note informing her that her niece had been kidnapped and demanding $500 for her safe return. He brother Henry de Koven publicly offered a $10,000 reward for any information that might secure her freedom. Of course, she was already dead.

On September 1, 1937 Weidmann committed his second murder, that of a chauffeur named Joseph Couffy. He lured Couffy into a secluded forest near Tours before shooting him in the back of the head and relieving his corpse of 2500 Francs while also stealing his car. On September 3 he struck again, this time luring nurse Janine Keller into a cave in the forest around Fontainebleu where he shot her in the back of her neck and stole 1400 francs and her diamond ring. On October 16 the gang struck again. They promised to invest in productions from theatrical producer Roger LeBlond. Instead, they ended the business meeting by shooting him in the back of the head and taking 5000 francs from LeBlond’s wallet.

Fritz Frommer was an old prison acquaintance of Weidmann’s. Weidmann renewed their acquaintance on Novermber 22, shooting Frommer in the back of his head and burying him at the villa beside Jean de Koven. Weidmann’s final murder came five days after that of Frommer. Raymond LeSobre was a wealthy real estate agent. Again, LeSobre was lured with a fake business meeting. He met Weidmann to show him round a property that Weidmann supposedly wanted to buy. Instead, Weidmann shot him in the back of the neck, stole 5000 francs and buried him. But the spree couldn’t last forever.

The French Surete employs some of the finest detectives in the world, detectives who were under particular pressure because foreigners were disappearing and their Consulates were demanding action. The Surete were already working the disappearances and one of them, Inspector Primborgne, got lucky. He found a business card left in LeSobre’s office giving the address of the villa rented by Eugen Weidmann. He also discovered that Weidmann had been LeSobre’s last appointment before he mysteriously disappeared. When Weidmann returned home one evening two French detectives were waiting for him. He invited them in, pulled a pistol and fired three shots. He missed, was overpowered and immediately arrested. The Surete weren’t entirely sure who they had, but they definitely knew he was well worth further investigation. What that investigation uncovered shocked the people of France. They didn’t have to dig too deeply. Weidmann was entirely co-operative with his interrogators. He confessed to all the murders, only showing any remorse for the murder of Jeande Koven. He felt bad about his first victim but, as with so many multiple murderers, the more Weidmann killed the less he felt. He also obliged detectives by naming the other members of the gang who were promptly rounded up and taken into custody to await trial.

Weidmann during his trial.

The trial was the biggest media circus since the trial and execution of the notorious ‘Henri Desire Landru, known as ‘Bluebeard.’ Landru had been tried and executed for a series of murders 18 years earlier and one of Landru’s defence lawyers, Vincent de Moro-Giafferi, also defended Weidmann. It did none of them any good. Weidmann was condemned to death. So was Million although he was later reprieved. Blanc drew twenty months imprisonment and his mistress (who had cashed Jean de Koven’s traveller’s checks) was acquitted and gratefully disappeared into obscurity. It wasn’t long before Weidmann would pay the ultimate penalty. If the trial was a circus, the execution was, by civilised standards, a travesty. The guillotine and its executioners arrived at Saint-Pierre Prison on June 16, 1939 to set up their equipment and test it thoroughly. It worked efficiently and without a problem. All the ‘National Razor’ needed now was somebody to give the ultimate haircut. At dawn on June 17 Eugen Weidmann walked his last mile. He was brought from his cell to the prison yard where he was prepared for execution. His shirt collar was removed with scissors. His arms were tied behind his back. His ankles were hobbled so he could walk, but not run. In a curious twist of French bureaucracy, some paperwork had to be completed effectively paroling Weidmann from the prison into the very temporary custody of the executioners. With the preparations and paperwork completed Weidmann was ready to die.

Outside the prison a huge crowd had gathered and they weren’t well-behaved. They were noisy, they pushed, shoved and jostled each other, battling for a better view when the blade descended and Weidmann’s head fell from his body. Some were drunk even though it was only dawn. At the appointed time the executioners brought him out to the guillotine. He was laid face-down on a movable board and shunted forward so his throat rested on the neckpiece. A second neckpiece was eased downward, enclosing the back of Weidmann’s neck while the executioners strapped him firmly to the board. At a signal from the prison governor the executioner pulled a bolt from the guillotine. The fourteen-pound, razor-sharp blade descended and a thick gout of blood splashed in all directions as Weidman’s head tumbled into the basket. It was over in a matter of  minutes. The debauched behaviour of the crowd, unfortunately, wasn’t. Women rushed forward to claim souvenirs, dipping handkerchiefs and even the hems of their skirts in Weidmann’s blood. An enterprising journalist, defying official rules, had rented a room overlooking the guillotine and managed to film the execution. There was also a celebrity witness in the form of a young 17-year old Englishman then staying in Paris. The young man’s name was Christopher Lee, later distinguished actor Sir Christopher Lee of Hammer Horror films, James Bond and Star Wars fame. Yes, that Christopher Lee. As a result of the debauched scenes surrounding Weidmann’s execution, the French authorities decided something had to be done. French President Albert LeBrun immediately banned any further public executions in France, a ban that continued until the death penalty’s abolition in France in 1981.