Keller On The Loose

Deadly Women Volume 22

2026-03-15T22:19:00.000-07:00

20 classic true crime cases of women who kill, including;

Amber Bray: A bloody murder committed in front of witnesses, a killer caught at the scene, a confession. It looked an easy case to close. It wasn’t.

Na Cola Franklin: It was meant to be a joyous occasion, the wedding of long-term partners. It ended with the groom in the morgue and the bride in handcuffs.

Olga Hepnarova: Ever since she was a child, Olga had been at war with the world. Now, she’s checking out of this life. But she won’t be going alone.

Shaye Groves: The couple enjoyed kinky sex, sometimes involving ‘knife play.’ The problem with such things is that they can quickly get out of hand.

Chelsea Cook: The marriage was over. Travis was moving on with his life. Chelsea was having a harder time of it, seething with hatred, plotting revenge.

Tracy Lea Fortson: As a former police officer, Tracy thought she had what it took to pull off the perfect murder. A twist of fate would prove her wrong.

Huajiao Zhaung: Peter and Selina had a happy life until mother-in-law from hell, Huajiao, arrived for a visit. Then, things quickly turned toxic.

Gina Spann: A military veteran is shot to death on his front porch. But who killed him? His estranged 30-something wife... or her 17-year-old lover.

Plus 12 more fascinating cases . Download your copy now.

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Deadly Women Volume 22

Jennifer Fletcher

The woman on the line was calm, given the circumstances. She identified herself as Diane Bates and told the 911 dispatcher that she had just arrived home to find her son-in-law, Joel Shanbrom, stretched out on a couch in the living room, bleeding from a head wound. “It looks like a suicide,” Diane said, “Please send someone quickly.” The date was March 18, 1998. Officers were immediately directed to the scene, a tidy double-story in Northridge, California. There, they found Diane pacing outside. She pointed them into the house, where they found the victim. One of the cops recognized him immediately. Joel was employed as a school resource officer by the Los Angeles Police Department. What was absolutely clear, even at first glance, was that this was no self-inflicted injury. Joel had been shot more than once, and there was no weapon visible. Moreover, the position of the body suggested that he’d been ambushed while sleeping on the couch. That raised the prospect that the shooter might still be inside the house.

“Does anyone else live here?” one of the officers asked.

“My daughter and my four-year-old grandson,” Diane replied.

“Where are they now?”

Diane replied that she didn’t know. The officers then drew their weapons and started a search of the house. The ground floor was mostly orderly, but the upstairs was in disarray, with drawers pulled out and clothes scattered all over the floor. Then one of the cops heard a noise coming from a bathroom. He identified himself as a police officer and ordered whoever was in there to come out. A terrified female voice replied that she did not believe he was a cop. The officer slid his badge under the door as proof. Moments later, the door swung open. A woman and a little boy emerged, clinging desperately to each other. Jennifer and Jacob Shanbrom were safe.

So what had happened inside this family home in suburbia? What terror had this mother and child been put through? According to Jennifer, she had been giving Jacob his bath around 7 p.m., when she heard a noise from downstairs, then raised voices, and then a gunshot. Terrified, she’d locked the bathroom door, sealing her and her son inside. They’d cowered there in terror, listening to the sounds of someone tramping through their home, terrified that they’d be discovered. They had remained there until the police arrived.

On the face of it, Jennifer’s story made sense. The city was in the grip of a crime wave at the time. There had been multiple break-ins in the immediate neighborhood over the last few months. But this one was different. This time, there was no obvious sign of forced entry, and the burglar had left empty-handed. Despite his thorough ransacking of the residence, he had somehow missed jewelry and a valuable coin collection that was on open display.

And, of course, there was violence in this case. A man was dead. The autopsy would reveal that Joel had been shot three times in the head with a .410 shotgun. The first two rounds were buckshot and had maimed but not killed. The third was a solid round that entered through Joel Shanbrom’s eye and severed his brainstem. This was the kill shot.

Something else would emerge from the autopsy, a problem with the timeline. Jennifer was adamant that the intruder entered the house while she was bathing her son at around 07:00 p.m. The medical examiner pegged the time of death later than that, sometime between 08:00 and 09:15, when Diane got home. Still, time of death is an inexact science. Perhaps Jennifer and Diane could shed some light on the subject.

Re-interviewed by detectives, Jennifer told much the same story. She’d been bathing her son; she heard raised voices, then a gunshot; she locked herself in. Diane said that she’d gone out on her own to dinner and a movie, something she often did to give her daughter and son-in-law some alone time. She returned home around 09:15 p.m. and found Joel dead on the couch. She did not see anyone in or near the house, although she did notice that the blinds in the living room were closed, which was unusual.

So this was where the police stood after 48 hours. A man shot to death in his own home during a botched burglary, no eyewitnesses, no forensics, plenty of questions. Why did the burglar leave valuables behind despite ransacking the house? How was it possible that Jennifer had heard an altercation when everything seemed to indicate that Joel was asleep when he was shot? Why the discrepancy around the time of death?

All of these questions led detectives to believe that there was more to this crime than a botched burglary. It is helpful, in such circumstances, to determine who might benefit from the victim’s death. In this case, the answer was obvious. Joel Shanbrom was heavily insured, with a $300,000 policy from his employer and additional life insurance worth $500,000. People have been killed for less. Just how solid was the Shanbroms’ marriage?

That depended on who you asked. Jennifer’s friends and family thought everything was great. Joel’s family said that the couple clashed frequently over finances, that they had lost their home to foreclosure, and that Joel was forced to work two extra jobs just to make ends meet. He wanted to go for marriage counseling. She did not. It was as though she’d already given up on the relationship. According to them, there was a good reason for that. Jennifer was cheating.

The third party in this supposed love triangle was a man named Matthew Fletcher. Fletcher worked as an insurance salesman for Primerica, where both Joel and Jennifer had part-time jobs. The three of them started hanging out together, but Joel soon began to suspect that there was something going on between Jennifer and Matthew. He confided in his sister, Barbara, that he was thinking of speaking to a divorce lawyer. He was dead before he got the chance.

Jacob Shanbrom was laid to rest on March 23, 1998. Both Jennifer and Matthew attended the funeral, but there was absolutely no emotion from the widow. Neither did she stay for the wake put on by Joel’s family. Instead, she and Matthew convened to a hotel, where they threw their own party, ordering several bottles of champagne from room service.

These details, however, would only emerge later. For now, the police were trying to determine if there was a case to answer. Jennifer and Matthew were brought in for questioning, where they both denied that they were anything more than friends. When a detective asked Matthew to account for his whereabouts on the night of the murder, he said that he’d had an appointment with a client in the San Fernando Valley at 07:00 p.m. This was, of course, the time that Jennifer claimed her husband was shot, a time the medical examiner disputed. It gave Matthew an alibi for the time of the shooting. However, no one could vouch for his whereabouts during the crucial window between 08:30 and 09:15.

Nonetheless, there was nothing directly implicating either Matthew or Jennifer in the murder, and they were free to go. Jennifer received her $300,000 payout from the LAPD but ran into a problem when she tried to cash in the additional $500,000. Joel had canceled the policy in the months before his death. It was subsequently reinstated in February 1998, but the insurance company was disputing the authenticity of the document. It believed that Joel’s signature had been forged and was refusing to pay. Jennifer did not press the issue, suggesting that the insurers were probably right.

Still, she and her lover had a $300,000 windfall to enjoy. Jennifer received her check in October 1998 and immediately transferred half of it into Matthew’s bank account. In February 1999, the pair traveled to Hawaii and tied the knot in a beach wedding. Matthew filed the paperwork to adopt young Jacob, and the couple subsequently had a child of their own. They were living the life, blissfully unaware that justice was coming for them.

By 2002, Joel Shanbrom had been six years in the grave. These were good years for his former wife and her new husband. They were financially secure, very much in love, building their young family with two children and a third on the way. They also had a weak link in their conspiracy of silence. The police had never quite believed the story that Diane Bates told them on the night that Joel was shot. They decided to circle back to her, to apply some pressure, to see if she would crack.

Brought in for questioning, Diane was initially steadfast in her resolve, repeating the story she had told six years earlier. But it is difficult to withstand a skilled interrogator, especially when you are selling a false narrative. Cracks began to appear, inconsistencies, outright lies. Eventually, Diane was backed into a corner where she was offered a stark choice – either come clean or spend the rest of your days behind bars. Offered full immunity in exchange for her testimony, Diane agreed to cooperate. With that in place, the police moved in and arrested Jennifer and Matthew Fletcher.

Diane Bates did not exactly stick to the terms of her plea deal when the matter came to trial. She was evasive on the stand, refusing to directly implicate Jennifer. Nonetheless, skillful interrogation by the prosecutor managed to coax several admissions out of her. Taken in conjunction with the circumstantial evidence, it was enough to convince a jury of Jennifer’s guilt. She was convicted and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. Jennifer Fletcher was pregnant on the day that she entered the prison system. Her third child was born behind bars. All three of her children were later adopted by her sister.

Matthew Fletcher appeared before the courts in March 2004. He chose to represent himself and was about as slick as you’d expect an insurance salesman to be. Fletcher’s argument relied heavily on his alibi, which, according to him, ruled him out as the shooter. Unfortunately for him, this was easily debunked. The argument presented by the prosecution was that he had finished his appointment in the Valley, then driven to Northridge, arriving around 8:30 p.m.

Joel was fast asleep on the couch when Jennifer let her lover into the house. It was she who fired the first two rounds, but she was jittery and pulled her shots. Despite the close quarters, much of the buckshot went astray. Joel was seriously injured, rendered unconscious, but not killed. Fletcher then took over, reloading the gun and shooting Joel through the eye, killing him. This was what the prosecutor theorized and what the jury believed. Matthew Fletcher got the same sentence as his wife.

Jennifer and Matthew Fletcher remain behind bars. Having exhausted all of their appeals, they have no hope of ever being free again. One has to wonder how they feel about that, late at night, when they are lying all alone in their cells. Was it worth it? Were six gilded years worth a lifetime in a cage? More importantly, was it worth the life of an innocent man?

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Killer Kids Volume 18

2026-02-15T11:08:00.000-08:00

22 shocking true stories of kids who kill, including;

Alexis Shields & Desiree Linares: Being a foster mom is tough, thankless work, harder still when the kids in your care are plotting your demise.

Thomas Purcel: A young woman disappears on a night out in Belfast. A suspect emerges. He’s just a boy, a dangerous boy indeed.

Dominic Sylvester: According to Dominic, he’d found his grandmother beaten and bleeding on the floor. The truth was rather more sinister than that.

Amanda McGhee: Terrance has just found out that his 15-year-old daughter is dating a 21-year-old. He’s putting a stop to it. Dangerous move.

Quentin Schafer & Carlos Delgado: A high school student is stabbed and beaten to death by his supposed friends. Why? They wanted to know what it felt like.

Dustin Lynch: A teenage girl persuades her father to take in a young runaway for a few nights. That turns out to be a very bad mistake.

Spencer Lewis: A 14-year-old looking to make a name for himself as a tough guy. He has a gun and a plan. Things are about to turn deadly.

Jason Harless & Jason McCoy: Thursday afternoon in the high school cafeteria. It’s as raucous as always. Then someone pulls a gun.

Plus 14 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now

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Killer Kids Volume 18

Nathan Ybanez

It was four in the morning on June 6, 1998. In Highlands Ranch, Colorado, a patrol officer was driving through Daniels Park when he spotted the lights of a vehicle in the distance. The car was stationary, and at this location, that normally meant one thing. Local teens, either making out or doing drugs. Either way, the officer had to check on it. He turned his vehicle in that direction and soon had a blue Lexus in his sights, standing at the roadside, its trunk open. A scrawny teen stood beside the Lexus. At his feet lay a sleeping bag containing something vaguely human in shape.

The youth didn’t run when the officer approached, didn’t move, didn’t say a word. He just stood there, a deer in the headlights. Asked for his name, he said that he was Nathan Ybanez. “What’s in the sleeping bag?” the officer asked. To this, the boy suggested that he see for himself. The officer did just that. The bag contained the battered body of a woman, Nathan’s mother, Julie. He’d been about to bury her.

Nathan Ybanez was born in Davenport, Iowa, in 1982, into a family plagued by marital strife and insecurity. His father, Roger, was a born drifter, changing careers and locations as easily as other people change their clothes. During his storied life, he’d spent time in the military, worked as a baker, done a stint as a golf pro, and hawked insurance products, to name just a few. He’d also dragged his family to multiple locations, including some overseas. By the time the family arrived in Highlands Ranch, Nathan had lived in 30 different towns over just 15 years.

Still, home is where the heart is, and the heart of the home is usually the mother. If only that were true, in this case. Nathan’s mother, Julie, was a devout Christian whose faith bordered on fanaticism. She’d made it her life’s mission to protect her son from the influence of Satan. And she saw that influence everywhere. Every aspect of Nathan’s life was vetted by Julie – his friends, the music he listened to, everyone outside the tight-knit Ybanez family unit. Julie tapped her son’s phone, she followed him around town, she accused him of not loving her if he spent too much time away. Later, after the disaster that was to befall the family, Nathan would make some disturbing claims about just how deep his mother’s obsession ran. He’d claim that she made him sleep in her bed when his father was out of town and that she sometimes forced him into sex acts.

We can’t say for certain whether this allegation is true. What we can say is that Nathan was certainly abused physically by both his parents. Roger was the main culprit here. Family members had seen him yanking the boy around, throwing him against walls, choking him, striking him with household objects. Roger later admitted to these transgressions, saying that he sometimes “lost his temper.” But Julie was not averse to inflicting corporal punishment either. Her favorite weapon was a long-handled kitchen spoon. Perhaps she thought that she was beating the devil out of the boy.

And so to late 1996, the year that the nomadic Ybanez clan arrived in Colorado. Here, Nathan was enrolled at Highlands Ranch High School. It was at the school that he met Brett Baker and Erik Jensen, two classmates who had a punk rock band called Troublebound. They had a vacancy for a guitarist, and Nathan had some talent on the instrument. Just like that, he was in.

Troublebound had a rehearsal room in Erik Jensen’s basement. Nathan started hanging out there and soon turned it into a refuge, a place where he could escape his chaotic home life. Erik’s parents liked him, finding him a personable young man, although somewhat introverted. However, they noticed a distinct change in Nathan’s demeanor whenever either of his parents came to pick him up. Suddenly, the boy was wired with tension, his eyes darting from side to side as though alert to an imminent attack.

Gradually, Nathan started to open up to his newfound friends. He told Erik that his father beat him, relating a particular incident where his dad had dragged him from his bed in the middle of the night, beaten him, trashed his room, and then choked him until he blacked out. All the while, his mother Julie stood in the doorway, making no effort to intercede.

Both Erik and Brett urged Nathan to report the abuse to the authorities. When he declined to do so, the boys took the matter to their parents. The adults held a conference and decided to alert social services. They were told that the department’s resources were stretched and that they believed a 16-year-old should be able to take care of himself.

And so, Nathan remained trapped in his unfavorable circumstances, finding other ways to cope with his situation. He began drinking and doing drugs. He ran away from home multiple times, only for the police to deliver him back into the arms of his abusive parents. Things were heading for a showdown. The catalyst arrived in June 1998.

Actually, the seeds of the coming storm had been planted months earlier. Julie’s religious mania was becoming more and more pronounced. She saw the presence of Satan everywhere, in her son’s friends, in his school, especially in the music he loved. In one notable confrontation, she confiscated Nathan’s entire record collection, calling it satanic. Then, she threatened to send him to a Christian military school in Missouri, where he could “learn the right path.” Nathan was determined that would never happen.

On the night of June 5, 1998, Nathan worked his shift at a fast food restaurant, then called Erik to pick him up. The pair drove to Nathan’s home, where Nathan planned to change his clothes and then head back out. Before stepping out of the car, he told Erik to wait 20 minutes. “If I’m not back by then, come upstairs to check on me.”

Erik did as he was told, waiting the full 20 minutes before going up. Julie let him in, and he went directly to Nathan’s bedroom. Only, his friend wasn’t there. Then, as he waited for Nathan to appear, he heard a ruckus that he would later describe as a “fight to the death.” He went to check on the commotion. As he entered the living room, he saw Julie on the floor in a pool of blood. Nathan was standing over her, striking her with a pair of fireplace tongs. “Get some plastic wrap!” Nathan screamed at him.

Julie Ybanez had suffered a terrible beating. The coroner would later document over twenty injuries to her head alone. Several of her fingers were fractured as she tried to ward off the onslaught. However, it wasn’t the beating that had killed her. Nathan had used the tongs to squeeze down on her windpipe as she lay unconscious on the floor. Julie had died of suffocation.

Now, Nathan and Erik had a decision to make. What were they going to do? Were they going to call the police or try to cover up the crime? After a brief discussion, it was decided. They were going to bury the corpse, clean up the blood, and make it seem like Julie had quit town. Nathan would be going too. His days as a member of Troublebound were over. There was much work to do. They decided to bring in Brett Baker to help.

Now followed a frantic effort at a cover-up. The boys wiped down the apartment, and disposed of the bloody cleaning materials in dumpsters. They stuffed Julie’s body into a sleeping bag and carried her down to the trunk of the Lexus. Then they tossed in some of her clothes and personal belongings to support their story that she and Nathan had skipped out in the middle of the night. The plan was for Nathan to bury his mother’s body in Daniels Park. That fell apart when the lights of the Lexus were spotted by the patrolman.

Nathan Ybanez was charged as an adult with first-degree murder. Erik and Brett were charged as accessories. However, a few days in juvenile detention loosened Brett’s tongue. Offered full immunity from prosecution, he decided to flip on his friends. He was now claiming that Nathan had not acted alone. Erik had admitted to him that he had struck Julie “at least three times” with the fireplace tongs. Erik denied this but was charged with first-degree murder. He was ultimately convicted and sentenced to life without parole.

At Nathan’s trial, the defense had a clear and obvious strategy – introduce evidence of the terrible abuse this young man had suffered at the hands of his parents. That would not get him off the hook, but it would, at least, provide mitigation, perhaps getting him a lesser sentence. But the lawyer who represented Nathan was hired and paid for by his father. Roger ordered him not to mention the abuse, and he never did, calling not a single witness. It was no surprise when Nathan was found guilty as charged and sentenced to life without parole. It was only later that the stories of abuse would emerge.

Today, Nathan Ybanez is an inmate at the Sterling Correctional Facility, 120 miles northeast of Denver, Colorado. While serving his time, he has earned his GED. He is currently studying philosophy and chemistry. He practices meditation daily. His situation is by no means ideal, but as he once told a reporter, he feels safer in prison than he ever did at home.

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Murder Most Vile Volume 54

2026-01-13T02:47:22.941-08:00

18 Chilling true murder cases, including

No Prayer for the Dying: The preacher claimed he’d found two of his elderly parishioners brutally beaten to death. The truth was rather more sinister.

It Takes a Village: A sweet little girl is slowly and systematically tortured to death by her stepmother. Why did the villagers stand by and let it happen?

The Best Laid Plans: They had been friends for over two decades but then Michael found out that Andrew was bedding his wife. That would not stand.

If Evil Had a Name: Two babies were dead and the third had barely survived a couple of close calls. The common denominator? Their father.

Bad Time: A head on collision leaves a woman and her young daughter dead. But there’s a severed head at the crash site, a head that doesn’t belong there.

The Dinner Party: The food was good, the company convivial. Then one of the guests opened the freezer to stash some leftovers.

Weird Mike: Three teenage girls are dead, cut down in cold blood. Their killer? A man described variously as a good worker, a devout Christian, and a weirdo.

Sex, Lies, and Anti-Freeze: Scott Dell is in love with a woman unworthy of his affection, a liar, a cheat, a cold-hearted poisoner.

Plus 10 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now

Click the "Read More" link below to read the first chapter of

Murder Most Vile Volume 54

No Prayer for the Dying

It was a late autumn romance. Leo Gleese was 83 years old when he asked Hazel Stanley to be his wife. Hazel, of similar age, hesitated for barely a second before she said yes. She and Leo were inseparable and had much in common. They were God-fearing folk, devoted to their community and to the Sebring Fountain of Life Church, of which they were both founder members. Leo, a draftsman by trade, although long retired, was from Warren, Pennsylvania. He’d moved to Sebring, Florida, in 1969. Hazel Stanley, a former hairstylist from Tolley, North Dakota, had moved to the Sunshine State in 1974. Their romance was a slow burn. It took Leo nearly 14 years to pop the question. Nonetheless, everyone was delighted for them, none more so than their pastor, John Canning. It was he who presided over the wedding ceremony.

Fast forward seven years, and we find Leo and Hazel still living in Sebring, still very much in love, still regular attendees at their church. Unfortunately, both were in declining health by now. Leo had recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Hazel’s eyesight was failing. She was functionally blind. Social workers were keen to move them to a group home, but Leo and Hazel were against the idea. Despite their disabilities, they were confident that they could look after themselves, determined to spend their last years together. A call went out to Hazel’s niece, Shirley Hinton, to ensure that would happen.

In July 1994, Shirley and her husband Charles made the long drive from their home in Yuma, Arizona. What they found in Sebring was distressing. Leo and Hazel’s house was in an unkempt state, the couple clearly unable to maintain it. It would take Shirley and Charles several hours to bring it back to a livable condition. Maybe the county was right, after all. Maybe it was time for Leo and Hazel to go to an assisted living facility.

But the Gleeses were adamant that they did not want to do that, and they had a strong ally in John Canning. Canning had met Shirley and Charles at the house, although he had not lifted a finger to help as they labored in the stifling Florida heat. Now, he was offering his services. He would ensure that the house was kept clean and tidy, he said. He would also call on Leo and Hazel every day to ensure that they were well. With that assurance from a man of the cloth, a man who her aunt and uncle clearly trusted, Shirley departed for Arizona.

Reverend John Canning did not keep up his end of the bargain, although he did devote himself to the sale of Leo Gleese’s old house. Despite moving in with Hazel years ago, Leo had been loath to sell the property until Canning talked him into it. Then, in late December, Shirley Hinton heard some disconcerting news. A neighbor of her aunt phoned to share something Hazel had told her. Apparently, $8,000 had gone missing from the sale of the house, money that Hazel believed had been pocketed by Canning. There were also unauthorized withdrawals from the elderly couple’s bank account, again, believed to have been made by the preacher. Hazel intended to challenge him on it the next time she saw him.

On the evening of January 3, 1995, an apparently distressed Reverend John Canning walked into a police station in Sebring to report a crime. According to the preacher, he had paid a routine visit to the Gleese residence the previous day and found the couple lying dead on the floor in a pool of blood.

The officer who took the report was dumbfounded. Why had Canning waited 24 hours to report this? Canning said that he’d needed time to process what he’d seen. Where had he been during the intervening hours? He’d gone to dinner with friends and had spent the day at the beach. That immediately aroused suspicion.

Officers who arrived at the house that evening walked in on a distressing scene. Any homicide is a tragedy, but there is something particularly hurtful when the victim is someone defenseless – a child, a disabled person, or, in this case, an elderly couple. And the couple had not died an easy death. After a combined 180 years on this earth, their end had been exceptionally violent. A blunt instrument had been brought to bear on their heads, causing severe trauma and distorting their features into a mass of blood, bruising, and broken bones. Leo was on the floor of the living room. Hazel, who had apparently tried to flee, was found in the kitchen. The autopsies would reveal that their killer had bludgeoned them with a narrow cudgel, a cane perhaps (Leo’s was missing). He’d then ended their lives with his crushing hands around their throats.

Who had done this terrible thing? The obvious suspect was Reverend John Canning, the man who’d found the bodies and then gone to dinner and to the beach before contacting the police. Several strands of evidence pointed in his direction. First, there was no sign of forced entry to the home, suggesting that the Gleeses knew their killer. Second, Canning had bruises and scratch marks on his arms, which he could not adequately explain. Third, Hazel had told several parishioners that she was getting ready to confront Canning over the missing money.

Two weeks after Leo and Hazel’s terrible death, a memorial service was held at the Fountain of Life Church, presided over by the Reverend John Canning. Here, the preacher delivered a lengthy eulogy describing the deep bond he and his wife shared with the elderly couple. He was the one who had married them, seven years earlier, he said, and since they had no children of their own, he had filled that void in their lives. Leo had called him “son.” He’d called them “Mom and Dad,” and had been proud to do so. There was barely a dry eye in the house by the time he led his congregation in the closing prayer.

What those worshippers didn’t know was that while their preacher was delivering that silver-tongued sermon, the police were building a strong case of murder against him. During the intervening two weeks, inquiries had been made. What they revealed was informative. The Reverend Canning was a man of many facets, most of them criminally inclined. He’d been dismissed from a string of churches on his way to Sebring, starting with Granby Pentecostal Tabernacle in Connecticut back in 1968.

That had been for theft and sexual misconduct, and Canning would face similar accusations at his next two positions. By the time he arrived in Florida, the 58-year-old preacher seemed to have reigned in his sexual shenanigans, although he had not lost his appetite for larceny. An audit of the Gleeses’ finances revealed that Hazel was right. Leo’s house had sold for $28,000, of which only $20,000 had made it to his bank. There were also several large withdrawals from their checking account that could not be accounted for. The numbers ran to tens of thousands of dollars. It was time for Sebring PD to pay Reverend Canning a visit.

Confronted by detectives, Canning appeared outraged that he was considered a suspect. However, a search of his house would firm up the case against him. Here, officers found a watch with a broken strap that would deliver up traces of blood. Three DNA profiles were lifted from the timepiece. One belonged to John Canning. The other two matched Leo and Hazel Gleese.

The police also visited a building site, where the new Fountain of Life Church was under construction. In a rubble pile, they found a shirt belonging to Canning, with bloodstains matched to his alleged victims. They also retrieved Leo’s walking cane. Blood on the handle confirmed that this had been used to club the helpless elders into submission. On March 3, 1995, John Canning was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

Winning a murder trial relies heavily on pulling the disparate strands of evidence together into a cohesive narrative. Proving motive is not a requisite, although few murder trials are won without it. Jurors like to know what drove the accused to kill. In the Canning case, that was easy. The preacher had a clear financial motive. Prosecutors believed that he’d arrived that morning for one of his rare visits, only to be confronted by an irate Hazel, wanting to know what he’d done with their money. Perhaps she’d threatened to go to the police. Either way, Canning was in trouble. He was either going to jail or he’d end up being ejected from another parish in disgrace. He was not going to allow that to happen.

It was in that moment that Canning made a terrible decision. Snatching up Leo’s cane, he chased after Hazel, who had fled into the kitchen. There, he mercilessly beat down the elderly woman before returning to the living room and attacking her husband. One can only hope that Leo, afflicted as he was with Parkinson’s, did not fully comprehend what was happening. It is galling to think of the despair he would have felt at seeing his beloved Hazel beaten to death and not being able to help, to see the killer then approaching him with the bloody cane in his hand. Finally, before leaving the house, Canning snuffed out whatever life was left in his victims by choking them. He then went to dinner with friends and spent the next day at the beach before finally going to the police.

Florida executes more killers than any other state in the nation, bar Texas. If you’re going to commit a murder, Florida is not a good place to do it. And few murders meet the criteria for capital punishment as thoroughly as this vile act. John Nelson Canning undoubtedly knew this. In February 1996, his attorney asked for a deal. Canning would enter a guilty plea and accept whatever punishment the court handed down, as long as it wasn’t the death penalty. He was in no hurry to meet his maker.

This left prosecutors in a quandary. The crime was easy to prove, but the argument for premeditation was stacked against them. Canning’s defense would likely argue that he’d snapped when confronted by Hazel Gleese. They might argue for a reduced charge of second-degree murder or even voluntary manslaughter. And it might just work. A jury might be reluctant to believe that an ordained preacher could be so wantonly evil. Who knows how they might lean?

In the end, the D.A. decided not to gamble. A deal was struck. John Nelson Canning entered his guilty pleas and was sentenced to two life terms with no possibility of parole. He is presently incarcerated at the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida.

Cold Cases Solved Volume 14

2025-12-14T21:32:00.000-08:00

18 Baffling True Crime Cold Cases, including;

Storm Warning: A blizzard is raging across Colorado. For two women caught out in the storm, that's the least of their worries.

Dead In The Water: Bodies start showing up in the water off the Florida Coast. The police fear they might have a serial killer. They're right.

In God’s Hands: Two seemingly unrelated murders, 750 miles apart, are linked by DNA. The killer will never face justice. He has a third victim. Himself.

The Coldest Case: It was the oldest unsolved homicide on the department’s books. But even a 57-year-old case is no match for DNA.

Hell Awaits: Colleen was getting on with her life, leaving her abusive husband, Ron, behind her. There’s only one problem. Ron’s not ready to let her go.

Concerned Citizen: The murder looked likely to go unsolved. Then a letter arrived from a ‘Concerned Citizen, a letter containing a striking level of detail.

Heartless: A chance discovery in a cemetery sends an author on a quest to solve a murder. What she finds is stunning.

Zombie Hunter: He was a local celebrity with an odd claim to fame. He was also a murder suspect and, most likely, a serial killer.

Plus 10 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now

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Cold Cases: Solved! Volume 14

Storm Warning

The weather in Colorado gets pretty brutal in the winter, especially at higher altitudes. Yet, even to those who had lived through multiple winters in the Rockies, January 6, 1982, stood out. This was a day of negative 20-degree temperatures; of driving blizzard-like winds; of massive snowdrifts. Anyone caught outside in these conditions was likely to be in big trouble, and, as it turns out, somebody was.

His name was Alan Lee Phillips, and he worked at a mine near the popular ski resort town of Breckenridge. Phillips had miscalculated when he’d set out in his truck that evening. Now he was caught out in a raging snowstorm on unpassable roads. He would surely have died out there but for a moment of ingenuity and a spectacular piece of luck.

Caught in the storm with the temperature in the cab of his truck rapidly dropping, Phillips had struck upon the idea of flashing an SOS in Morse code with his headlights. In the most incredible case of good fortune, a commercial jetliner was passing overhead at that time. On board was a sheriff who was looking out into the dark when he picked up the flashing lights and realized what they meant. He alerted the crew, who radioed down to the local authorities.

The call was picked up by Fire Chief Dave Montoya, who set off in a vehicle properly equipped for the conditions. To his surprise, the stranded traveler turned out to be someone he knew. He and Alan Phillips had once been co-workers at the mine. Phillips had a prominent bruise on his face when Montoya found him. He said that he’d suffered a fall while wandering around in the snow.

Alan Lee Phillips had survived a close encounter with death that January night. Not everyone was so lucky. Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer had been at a pub with friends and had called her husband, Jeff, just after 6:20, telling him that she’d be home soon. Jeff asked if she wanted him to pick her up, but Bobbie Jo said there was no need. She had a ride. Jeff then stretched out on the couch to watch some TV and soon dozed off. When he awoke just after midnight, he was alarmed to find that his wife still wasn’t home.

The storm had spent much of its fury by now, but conditions were still far from favorable. None of that mattered to Jeff. He hit the darkened streets, looking for Bobbi Jo. Finding no sign of her, he stopped at the Sheriff’s station and tried to report his wife missing. He was told he’d have to wait 24 hours. Jeff then returned home, praying that Bobbi Jo would be there. She wasn’t. When his phone rang just after dawn, he snatched it off the cradle, hoping it would be her.

But it wasn’t Bobbi Jo. It was a local rancher who told Jeff that he’d found Bobbie Jo’s driver’s license lying in the snow on his property. Jeff told him to hold onto it and rushed right over. He was driving along the road at speeds that were dangerous for the conditions when he spotted something at the roadside. It was Bobbie Jo’s distinctive blue backpack. Jeff stood on the brakes, scrambled from the cab, and went to collect it. Then he spotted two items that sent a chill up his spine that had nothing to do with the weather. One was Bobbie Jo’s right glove. The other was a wadded-up tissue. Both had traces of blood on them.

With the police still sitting out their 24-hour waiting period, Jeff and several of Bobbie Jo’s friends formed their own search party and went out on skis to look for the missing woman. At around 3 p.m. that afternoon, one of them had the misfortune of finding her. Bobby Jo was sprawled out in a snowbank, a patch of blood staining the back of her coat, shot to death.

Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer was fully clothed and had a pair of zip ties pulled around one of her wrists. Nearby lay a special key chain her husband had made for her, a defensive weapon of sorts. It could be positioned between the fingers and used to strike an attacker. In this case, it had not saved her.

No sign of sexual assault was found during the autopsy. However, the zip ties suggested that this had been the killer’s intention. Bobbie Jo had likely used her key chain weapon to strike out while he was trying to secure her wrists. That had given her the chance to make a run for it, only to be gunned down as she fled. One other clue was found at the scene, an enigmatic one. Lying near the body was a single orange sock. It did not belong to the victim. No one knew if it had any connection to the crime scene.

Two days after the disappearance of Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer, police in Frisco, Colorado received a report of another missing woman. Annette Schnee was a housekeeper at a local Holiday Inn. On the afternoon of January 6, she’d left work early to visit her doctor. She’d then hitchhiked to a drug store in Breckenridge to pick up a prescription. After that, she vanished, failing to show up at work on the 7^th and 8^th. That was when one of her co-workers decided to call the police.

Six months passed with the murder of Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer and the disappearance of Annette Schnee both unsolved. These were difficult months for Jeff Oberholtzer. Not only had he lost his beloved wife, but he would soon find himself a suspect in her murder. It is not unusual for the surviving spouse to come under suspicion in a case like this. Jeff was put through several interrogations but ultimately cleared. However, he remained a suspect in the court of public opinion. Many believed that he had killed his wife and gotten away with it. His status as a pariah would endure for years to come.

On July 3, 1982, nearly six months after Annette Schnee vanished, a young boy was fishing a stream about 23 miles from Breckenridge when he spotted something floating in the water. That turned out to be Annette’s body. The autopsy showed that she’d died from a single bullet to the back. The slug was never recovered, but the angle of entry suggested that she was running downhill toward the stream when she was shot, likely trying to escape her attacker. Investigators believed that she’d been sexually assaulted, but the time she’d been in the water made it impossible to say for sure.

None of this was the most remarkable piece of evidence found on the victim, though. The most remarkable thing was a single sock on her left foot, an orange sock, the twin of the one recovered from the Oberholtzer crime scene. No one had linked the two cases up to this point. Now, with the discovery of the sock, it seemed obvious. The man who’d killed Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer was the same man who had murdered Annette Schnee.

Piecing the timeline of events together, investigators theorized that this individual had been cruising the backroads on that snowy day, looking for a victim. He’d picked up Annette first, assaulting her in his truck. Then Annette had jumped from the vehicle and fled, losing her orange sock in the process. She did not make it far before she was gunned down.

Most killers would have sated their bloodlust by now, but not this man. He was still trawling. Later that day, he picked up Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer. Bobbie Jo had told a little white lie to her husband, Jeff. She did not have a ride home. She just did not see the point in bothering him when it was just as easy to hitch a ride. She was standing at the roadside with her thumb in the air when the killer stopped for her. His previous victim had nearly gotten away from him. This time, he was taking no chances. He attacked Bobbie Jo and tried to secure her hands with cable ties. But Bobbie Jo fought back, hitting him in the face and trying to flee, dislodging the orange sock from the cab as she ran. She was stopped by a bullet in the back.

That explained the how of the murders, and police already knew the why. The man they were hunting was a sex fiend. What they didn’t know was his name. That would remain an unfathomable secret until technology caught up.

In early 2020, Park County Detective Sgt. Wendy Kipple was reading an article about the successful use of genetic genealogy in solving cases that had long been considered “uncrackable”. Kipple was fascinated and wondered if the technique might he used to unravel Park County’s coldest cases, the murders of Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer and Annette Schnee.

This was a perfect candidate for DNA processing, of course, since the police had the bloody tissue and glove found at the Oberholtzer crime scene. The items were sent to United Data Connect, a genetic genealogy company located in Denver. On January 9, 2021, Kipple got a call. A genealogist from UDC was on the line, offering up the names of two siblings – Bruce Phillips and Alan Lee Phillips.

It was easy for the police to decide where to focus their attention. Bruce Phillips lived out of state and had never visited Colorado as far as they knew. Alan Phillips, on the other hand, had lived in Breckenridge since the 70s. In fact, the police knew that he’d been out on the road on the night of January 6, 1982, the night that two women were murdered. The story of his miraculous rescue had been covered by the local newspaper.

Phillips still lived in the area, running an auto repair shop. He was arrested at his place of work in February 2021, nearly four decades after the murders. Subsequent DNA tests removed any doubt that he was the man responsible. On November 7, 2022, Phillips was sentenced to two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.

No one was more pleased by this outcome than Jeff Oberholtzer. Jeff had continued to live in the area after his wife was murdered, continued to be a figure of disparagement, shunned by former friends and associates. “It was very painful,” he said in an interview. “Being under suspicion from not only the authorities, but also being tried in the court of public opinion. People didn’t want a suspected murderer in their house.” Now, those people had humble apologies to make. All these years, they had been persecuting an innocent man.

FOOTNOTE:

Alan Lee Phillips would serve barely three months of his life sentence. On February 27, 2023, he was found dead in his cell, the victim of an apparent suicide.

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Deadly Women Volume 21

2025-11-17T04:10:00.000-08:00

20 classic true crime cases of women who kill, including;

Marie Poling: A headless corpse shows up in the undergrowth beside the highway. The investigation uncovers a twisted tale of manipulation and deceit.

Jordan Linn Graham: A man goes missing on his honeymoon, his body discovered at the bottom of a ravine. Did he fall or was he pushed?

Debby Foxwell: A dispute between neighbors spirals out of control. It ends in a deadly confrontation, medieval in its savagery.

Barbara Scott: Benny Scott is gone and his wife Barbara claims he’s in Oklahoma visiting a friend. What then is that freshly turned patch of dirt in the garden?

Victoria Mendoza: Their romance had been blighted by fights and accusations of infidelity. Then things turn physical. Knives are involved.

Elizabeth Wettlaufer: The patients were elderly so their deaths attracted little attention. But the death toll is mounting. Is there a serial killer on the wards?

Stella Lipcynska: For years rumors hung over the church, rumors of a dead nun buried in the basement. Those rumors turned out to be true.

Lena Driskell: At the grand old age of 78, Lena’s fallen in love again. But her elderly beau is a bit of a ladies’ man. Lena won’t stand for that.

Plus 12 more fascinating cases . Download your copy now.

Click the "Read More" link below to read the first chapter of

Deadly Women Volume 21

Marie Poling

It started with a report of a body lying in the undergrowth along Interstate 79, near the old Meadows racetrack in western Pennsylvania. That sent officers racing to the scene where they expected to find the victim of an auto accident, perhaps a pedestrian or cyclist killed in a hit-and-run. What they found instead was one of the most gruesome homicides any of them had encountered. This wasn’t the victim of an accident. This was a murder victim, naked, partially decomposed, minus a head.

The dismembered corpse was of a white male. It was wrapped in blankets, drapes, and garbage bags. The cuts to the neck were crude, inflicted with a bladed instrument like an ax. However, if the intention was to conceal the victim’s identity, the killer had erred. The hands were still intact, and from these the police were able to roll fingerprints. That allowed them to put a name to the man. He was 33-year-old Richard Poling, a married father of three from Warren, Ohio. That gave investigators a place to start their investigation. Their first call would be Richard Poling’s wife, Marie.

Marie Poling seemed surprised when she opened her door and found a couple of detectives standing on her porch. Then they told her the purpose of their visit, and Marie went into meltdown. To the officers, her overt display of emotion seemed contrived. Then again, people respond differently to tragedy. Perhaps Marie was prone to histrionics. As trained homicide investigators, they knew not to jump to conclusions.

Finally, Marie was calm enough to answer questions. Through her snivels and occasional sobs, she told a sad story of a marriage gone wrong. She and Richard had wed young, she said, and had three children in their 20s. She’d been blissfully happy in their relationship and assumed that Richard was too. But then, two weeks earlier, on January 9, 1988, he’d dropped a bombshell on her. He’d been having an affair and was leaving her and the children to be with his lover. He’d driven away that day, and she hadn’t seen him since.

Marie was keen to add the salacious details of her husband’s infidelity. She claimed that she’d found a receipt from a local florist for a rose arrangement that Richard had sent to his lover. She’d also found some of his love letters, she said. That had made her so mad that she’d thrown the letters out into the front yard, along with Richard’s clothes. The memory of that incident got her crying again. The officers knew they’d get no more from her that day. They put an end to the interview and left.

What the police had so far was this. A man’s dismembered corpse shows up along a stretch of highway across the state line. His widow claims that he deserted her two weeks earlier and that she hadn’t seen him since. If they took that story at face value, then perhaps they had a motive. What if Richard Poling’s lover was married or in a relationship? What if a jealous husband or boyfriend murdered Richard and disposed of his body? It wasn’t only possible, it was plausible. Murders like this happen all the time. To follow the theory to its conclusion, they’d have to identify Richards’s lover. Maybe his friends or co-workers would know.

But everyone they spoke to told them the same thing. Richard wasn’t the cheating kind. He was a solid guy who loved his wife and children and worked long shifts at the steel mill to provide for them. The words the detectives heard over and over again were “honest, devoted, reliable.” No one they interviewed had a bad thing to say about Richard Poling. The next stop was at the florist that Richard had supposedly used to send flowers to his lover. Turns out, that never happened. The florist had no record of the transaction. Marie had lied to them. In doing so, she’d just elevated herself to the top of the suspect list.

Then other evidence started building up. The blankets and drapes that Richard’s body had been wrapped in were from the Poling residence. The drapes had been a gift to Marie from her cousin. Then the police learned that while Richard had been faithful to his wife, Marie had not returned the courtesy. She’d been sleeping with a co-worker at the care home where she worked, a man named Rafael Garcia Jr., who was several years her junior. According to sources, Marie had Rafael wrapped around her little finger. He’d do just about anything for her.

There were other revelations, each more devastating than the next. Apparently, Marie had talked openly about getting rid of her husband. She’d spoken about hiring a hitman from New York. Then she said that she might kill him herself and was asking around about where she might obtain a silencer. She also spoke about disposing of a body. To one shocked colleague, she described testing out acid on a frozen chicken leg, to see how long it would take to dissolve flesh. She also spoke about dismembering her husband’s corpse and dispersing the remains in different locations.

The case against Marie Poling was building. But was it enough for a murder conviction? The answer to that question was no. Any defense lawyer worth his or her salt would be able to talk up reasonable doubt. What the police needed was physical evidence. What they needed was the testimony of someone close to Marie. Their next move was to bring in Rafael Garcia Jr.

Rafael made little effort to deny his affair with Marie. He seemed almost proud of having seduced an older, married woman. However, he was firm in his denial of murder. He was not involved in Richard’s death, he insisted, and neither was Marie. The detectives then decided to call his bluff. They told him that they were arresting him for the murder of Richard Poling. They’d barely spoken the words when Rafael cracked. He was ready to talk.

Garcia insisted, however, that he was not involved in the actual murder. It was Marie who had killed her husband. The first he knew about it was when he was summoned to Marie’s house and arrived to find Richard dead on the couch, bleeding from a bullet wound to the head. According to what Marie had told him, Richard had arrived home from work exhausted after a long shift at the mill. He’d spread out on the couch to watch TV, as he always did. And as was common, he was soon asleep. That was when Marie fetched the revolver that she’d borrowed from Rafael. She snuck up on her husband and placed a pillow over his head to muffle the gunshot. A single bullet was all it took. Richard Poling died in his sleep.

You might think that Rafael Garcia would have freaked out when he found what Marie had done. But Rafael was, as always, at his lover’s beck and call. First, he helped her carry the body down to the basement. Then, Marie pointed to a chainsaw and told him to cut off Richard’s head. Rafael wasn’t going to do that. He told her that the chainsaw would make too much mess. An ax was a better option. Two swipes was all it took to detach Richard Poling’s head from his body.

Now followed one of the most bizarre episodes of this already gruesome murder. With Richard’s severed head lying on the concrete, Marie suggested, “Let’s laugh our way through this.” She and her lover then took turns tossing the head around, abusing and kicking the corpse. When they eventually tired of this macabre game, they wrapped the body in blankets and drapes. The corpse was loaded into Garcia’s Chevrolet Cavalier and taken on the two-hour drive to Pennsylvania. There, the torso was dumped beside Interstate 79, while the head was thrown into a wooded area, 20 miles away in Washington County. Garcia later directed officers to the site, where the dismembered head was recovered.

Marie Poling was arrested and charged with the first-degree murder of her husband. Rafael Garcia, who agreed to testify for the prosecution, was charged with abuse of a corpse and obstruction of justice. That created a problem for Marie. With her former lover spilling the beans, she could hardly deny culpability. She was in a tight spot, but, as always with Marie, she saw a way out.

That involved a tactic commonly employed by defense attorneys in cases like this – putting the victim on trial. According to Marie, Richard had been a cruel and violent man who constantly abused her and the children and subjected her to spousal rape. On the night she killed her husband, Richard had a gun to their youngest child’s head. She thought he was going to pull the trigger. She was acting in self-defense.

Unfortunately for Marie, there was forensic evidence that disproved her story. After killing her husband, Marie had thrown out the couch that he’d been sleeping on when she shot him. But investigators were able to track it down, and the police lab retrieved blood and bullet fragments. It all proved that Marie was lying. Richard was flat out on the couch when she shot him. He presented no threat at all.

Quite aside from that, several prosecution witnesses contrasted her characterization of the victim. Richard wasn’t a violent abuser, they told the court. He was a kind, considerate man who was devoted to his children and loved his wife. His only crime was that he stood in the way of the life Marie wanted to live, a life of sexual promiscuity and prescription drug abuse.

Marie Poling was convicted on one count of aggravated murder and one count of abuse of a corpse. She was sentenced to life in prison with no parole eligibility for 20 years. That minimum term has long since expired. Marie has come up before the parole board on five occasions and has been turned down each time. Now in her 60s, she remains an inmate at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, Ohio. Rafael Garcia Jr. was sentenced to 20 years and served 13 before his release in 2001. He probably dreads the day that he crossed paths with this deadly woman.

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Murder Most Vile Volume 53

2025-10-02T02:29:00.000-07:00

18 Chilling true murder cases, including

Gone Girls: Felix Vail had a way with women... and beautiful women had a way of disappearing when he was around.

Drive to Kill: The divorce had cost her everything – her kids, her home, her financial security. Then her ex found a new lover. That’s when Dana cracked.

An Attitude Adjustment: It was meant to be fun, a late-night excursion to a supposedly haunted house. This night, the horror turns out to be real.

Bad Blood: In a quiet parochial house in Ireland, a war is brewing between the housekeeper and the gardener. There will be casualties.

Orange is the New Green: The divorce was done, a settlement agreed. Then Mary Ellen had an idea. Why settle for half when you can have it all?

Lady Fingers: Henry and Joseph work long hours for scant pay. Their wives have found an easier way to make money. Henry takes exception.

Knives, Drugs, and Money: A juvenile gigolo extorts money from his gay lover. That’s all fine and dandy until the lover refuses to pay. Then things turn bloody.

Hunting Humans: What’s a hunter to do when he tires of the same old game? Load up the guns, load up the truck, go looking for a new kind of prey.

Plus 10 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now

Click the "Read More" link below to read the first chapter of

Murder Most Vile Volume 53

Gone Girls

Growing up in a family of limited means, in the rural backwater of Eunice, Louisiana, Mary Horton had always had some strikes against her. But Mary was never going to let that hold her back. A determined, committed, and above all, kind young woman, she excelled academically and was popular among her classmates. She was elected Homecoming Queen in her senior year. By the time she arrived at McNeese University, there were no fewer than five sororities vying for her to join their ranks. She also created quite a stir among the male contingent on campus. They were falling over themselves to date the pretty blonde. Mary turned them all down. She did not want to be distracted from her studies.

But then there was Felix Vail, tall, handsome, and athletic, with piercing blue eyes and a blond buzzcut. He was also persistent, and that tenacity eventually paid off. After the umpteenth time of asking, Mary agreed to go out with him. Thus began a passionate relationship that ran hot and heavy but burned out fast. By late 1960, Mary was expressing doubts about her new beau. She detected a coldness in him, a cruel streak. She decided to end the relationship.

Felix, however, was not about to let go of the woman he called the love of his life. He put on such a pathetic display of contrition that Mary decided to give him a second chance. When he proposed, she said yes. They were married in 1961 and returned to Mary’s hometown, where she began her career as a teacher. A year later, she gave birth to the couple’s son, William “Bill” Vail.

Mary was besotted with her baby boy, but the feeling wasn’t exactly shared by the child’s father. He seemed totally uninterested in his son. That uncaring, cruel streak had emerged again. Just one year into the marriage, and Mary was beginning to wonder whether she’d made a mistake. To her mother, she confided that she was thinking of asking Felix for a divorce. The only thing holding her back was her staunch religious beliefs. She’d made a commitment before God. She did not take that lightly.

That decision, whether to divorce or stay married, would ultimately be taken out of Mary Vail’s hands on October 28, 1962. That was the day that she and Felix took his boat out on the Calcasieu River, and only he returned. Felix was in a panic, saying that Mary had fallen overboard when he swerved to avoid a floating log. He had dived into the water to try and save her, but could not locate her in the dark. He’d therefore raced the boat back to the jetty to get help.

A search was launched for Mary that night. It would be tragically resolved two days later, when her body was pulled from the water. Immediately, suspicions were raised. Mary had severe bruising to her head, and a scarf was wrapped around her throat and stuffed into her mouth. Then the police learned that Felix had recently added a double indemnity clause to his wife’s life insurance and had already made inquiries as to when he might expect his payout. One day after Mary’s funeral, Felix was arrested on suspicion of her murder.

Felix Vail would remain in police custody for three days. During that time, he was put through several lengthy interrogations, all the while maintaining his innocence. Offered the chance to take a polygraph and clear his name, he refused. That only reinforced the belief that he’d murdered Mary. But then the medical examiner changed his ruling from “undisclosed” to “accidental death,” and a sympathetic D.A. decided not to press charges.

Felix was off the hook. He left town soon after, taking his four-month-old son with him to his home state of Mississippi. There, he handed the boy off to his parents while he hit the road to California. He would remain here throughout the decade as the hippie movement took hold. It was an ethos that appealed to Felix: plenty of drugs, lots of free love. Gone was the young man with the severe crewcut that Mary had fallen for. In his place was a bearded beatnik with lanky blond locks.

Back in Mississippi, meanwhile, Bill Vail was thriving under the care of his grandparents. Then, one day in 1968, Felix showed up and announced that he was taking his son back to California with him. His motive for this sudden parental instinct is unclear. Felix had never wanted children and had never bonded with the boy. Now the child was thrown into the midst of his father’s haphazard world, where he often went unfed and uncared for, where he did not attend school, where he was routinely given marijuana and LSD.

Felix was dating a woman named Robin Sinclair at this time, but he abandoned her when she told him that she was pregnant, running back to Mississippi with Bill. Robin gave birth to their daughter alone. When Felix returned to San Francisco and tried to reconcile with her, Robin refused to see him. That was a wise move. It would spell disaster for the next woman in Felix’s life.

Sharon Hensley was ten years younger than Felix, a beautiful brunette who, like him, was committed to the hippie way of life. She and Felix met in 1970 and soon fell into a vagabond lifestyle, wandering the countryside, sleeping in the open, sustaining themselves by picking fruit or relying on the kindness of strangers. Eight-year-old Bill was dragged along for the ride, longing for the day when he could return to his grandparents’ farm. Then, one night, while he lay on the ground pretending to be asleep, he overheard a conversation between his dad and Sharon. Felix was telling Sharon that he’d killed his first wife. Sharon seemed incredulous, telling him that it was okay to feel guilt. “No,” Felix assured her, “You don’t understand. I killed her.”

This overheard conversation totally changed Bill’s perception of his father. The next day, while Felix and Sharon were passed out, he walked into town, entered a police station, and told the duty officer that he was hungry and that his dad had been forcing him to take drugs. Felix and Sharon were arrested as a result, with Felix sentenced to six months for drug possession and for corrupting the morals of a minor. Bill, meanwhile, was sent back to Mississippi, where his grandparents were granted sole custody.

Felix’s incarceration presented Sharon with the perfect opportunity to escape his clutches. Unfortunately, she did not take it. She was waiting for him when he was released. In 1972, the pair showed up at Sharon’s family home in North Dakota, shocking her parents with her appearance. Sharon was rake-thin and unkempt, her brunette locks knotted and unwashed, clumps of hair under her armpits, her clothes dirty and threadbare. It was a long way removed from the teenager who’d dreamed of becoming a fashion model. She also seemed to be totally under the control of her companion. Whenever someone asked Sharon a question, it was Felix who answered. Eventually, Sharon’s dad snapped and told him to shut up and let her talk. She and Felix left the next day, ignoring her parents’ desperate pleas for her to stay. It was the last time they’d see their daughter.

Sharon’s mom, Peggy, did have one last telephone conversation with her, though. That was in 1973, when Sharon told her that she and Felix were going to be traveling to South America. A year later, in March 1974, Peggy received a letter from Felix telling him that he had not seen Sharon for a year. According to him, she’d left him to join a couple of Australians on a round-the-world yacht trip. Before she departed, she’d burned all her identity documents, saying that she wanted to become a new person and cut all ties with the past. Peggy did not believe a word of it. She was convinced that her daughter had come to harm and that Felix Vail was responsible. With no evidence to back up this belief, the police were not prepared to take up the case.

Over the years that followed, Felix continued his nomadic life, living in multiple states and worming his way into the affections of several women. Some he married, but they were clever enough to dump him after just a short time. Annette Craver was not so wise. After all, she was just 15 when the 41-year-old Vail showed up in her life in 1981.

Annette was in an emotionally vulnerable state at this time, still struggling to cope with the tragic death of her father, in an auto wreck two years earlier. Then, one day, she and her mom were holding a yard sale, and Vail rode up on his motorcycle. He was easy to talk to, a good listener, the father figure that Annette had been yearning for. She found herself confiding her deepest feelings in him. But of course, Vail was only paying lip service. His real intention was to seduce the teenager. The only thing standing in his way was Annette’s mom, Mary Rose. It was by a twist of fate that this barrier would be removed.

Mary Rose had been struggling to find a job. With the bills stacking up, she was getting desperate. When an opportunity did arise, it was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, hours away from her home in Texas. Still, Mary Rose felt that she had to accept. The problem was that Annette was months away from graduation, and Mary Rose did not want to disrupt that.

Eventually, a plan was conceived. Mary Rose would move to Tulsa. Annette would stay behind with relatives in Texas and would join her mother after she finished high school. This was just the opportunity that Vail needed to wheedle his way into the young girl’s heart. By the time Annette graduated high school and was reunited with her mother, she and the 40-something Vail were a couple. When Vail announced that they were going on a cross-country trip on his motorcycle, Mary Rose begged her daughter to stay. But Annette was smitten, and Mary Rose was afraid of pushing her too hard. Having lost her husband, she couldn’t bear the thought of losing her daughter too.

And so, Vail and his teenage lover departed on their trip, with their only source of support the small allowance that Annette received from her father’s estate. During this time, they traveled to Mexico and California, where Vail was arrested on a parole violation and served six months in jail. Annette also became pregnant during the road trip and underwent an abortion. Then they were back in Tulsa with alarming news for Mary Rose. They were getting married.

Annette was just 17 years old, meaning that she would require her mother’s permission to wed. Initially, Mary Rose refused. But then Annette told her that she and Vail would just go to Mexico and get married there. Pushed into a corner, fearful of losing her daughter, Mary Rose eventually backed down. Annette and Felix were married on August 15, 1983. A few months later, the bride turned 18 and came into a $98,000 bequest from her father’s estate. Felix, of course, knew that this money was coming his wife’s way. It was probably why he’d married her. He immediately embarked on a spending spree.

In April 1984, less than a year after Felix and Annette’s wedding, Mary Rose arrived home to find her daughter on her doorstep. Annette was in tears, saying that her marriage was over. She was divorcing Felix and had plans to go to college. Mary Rose could hardly hide her delight at the news.

Unfortunately, Annette’s resolve would not hold. Felix showed up again like a bad penny and cajoled, coerced, and threatened her to come back to him. To Mary Rose, it must have appeared that this man had cast some sort of spell on her daughter. As Annette explained to her, she could not be without Felix. He was the wisest man she’d ever met. She could not make any decision without consulting him first.

And so, Annette and Felix were back together, and they soon embarked on another of their road trips. This time, Felix returned alone. Asked where his wife was, he said that she had gone to Denver to visit friends. When Mary Rose got to hear of this, she contacted Felix, demanding to know Annette’s whereabouts. To her, Felix told a different story. He said that he and Annette had split by mutual agreement and that she’d decided to go to Mexico. He’d put her on a bus, he said, and had not seen her since. Then he added a detail that made this far-fetched tale even more unbelievable. He said that Annette was carrying $50,000 in cash when they parted.

On October 22, 1984, Mary Rose Craver went to a police station and filed a missing person report on her daughter. Mary Rose was forthright in her opinion of what had happened to Annette. She believed that she had come t harm and that Felix Vail was responsible or that he at least knew more than he was saying. A short while later, Vail received a visit from a detective and repeated the story that he’d told Mary Rose.

Vail’s story had one big hole in it. Customs and Immigration had no record of Annette Vail crossing the US/Mexico border. Confronted with this detail, Felix had a ready answer. He said that she had left the country on false papers. He then stated that Annette had wanted to get away from Mary Rose, who he described as an abusive, controlling mother. Vail was then asked to take a polygraph, which he refused. Still, the police had nothing on him and were forced to let him go. Two weeks after that interview, Vail filed for divorce from his wife, citing abandonment.

But Vail had made a powerful adversary in Mary Rose Craver. Over the next six years, she never stopped looking for Annette, following up on any scant lead she could find. In 1990, she tracked down one of Vail’s sisters in Texas and arranged to meet with her. It was now that she learned more of her former son-in-law’s history. His first wife had died in a supposed drowning accident. Another of his former companions, Sharon Hensley, had disappeared. That did not bode well for her chances of finding Annette alive. Mary Rose finally had to admit to herself that her daughter was probably dead. She was determined that Felix Vail would not get away with it.

Mary Rose began her quest for justice by tracking down the brother of Mary Horton, Felix’s first wife. From him, she learned the details of Mary’s death and the family’s continued belief that Felix had murdered her. Then she contacted Peggy Hensley, and the two mothers met and exchanged notes on their daughters’ disappearances. They were certain that Sharon and Annette were the victims of a serial killer. Unfortunately, the authorities did not agree with them. In the state of Oklahoma, murder charges cannot be brought without a body.

More frustrating years passed. Peggy Hensley died in June 2009, without ever seeing justice for her daughter. That same year, Bill Vail died of cancer. He was just 47 years old. Only Mary Rose remained to continue the fight, but she was as determined as ever. In 2011, she was listening to a radio program where investigative journalist Jerry Mitchell was being interviewed. Mitchell had been involved in several high-profile cases involving the assassinations of civil rights leaders. Mary Rose contacted him and asked if he was interested in investigating a serial killer from his home state of Mississippi. Mitchell was intrigued and promised to look into it. His findings formed the basis of an article that would blow the case wide open.

Felix, it seemed, had been less than discreet about his many improprieties. This was a man who liked to boast that he’d bedded hundreds of women. He also liked to talk about his more nefarious deeds. Bill had once heard him telling Sharon that he’d murdered Bill’s mother. He’d told that same story to several other witnesses. Some of those individuals came forward after the article was published.

Their stories were remarkably similar. One man said that Felix had told it to him while they were driving to work one day. He said that he’d decided to murder Mary because she had wanted another child, and he didn’t want one. “I didn't even want the one we had. And I didn’t want to be occupied with this poor bitch,” he said. He’d gone on to describe how he’d struck Mary on the head, then strangled her with a scarf before throwing her into the water. The man wasn’t sure whether to believe him. Nonetheless, he was so disgusted by Vail’s callous attitude that he never drove with him again.

Another witness had first-hand knowledge of Mary’s tragic end. Isaac Abshire Jr. had been present when her corpse was laid out on the jetty. His father had taken some photographs of the body. He’d kept them all these years in an envelope marked “KEEP.” Now, Isaac handed that envelope over to the authorities. One look at the scarf forced into the victim’s mouth and the medical examiner declared that this was categorically not an accident. An exhumation order was then obtained, and a new autopsy sanctioned. It confirmed the M.E.’s initial impression. Mary Vail hadn’t drowned. She had been strangled.

Felix Vail was arrested in Texas in May 2013. Charged with the murder of Mary Horton, he was brought back to Louisiana to stand trial. He entered a not guilty plea, with his defense continuing to insist that Mary’s death was an accident. The physical evidence said different. Vail was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. A subsequent appeal blew up in his face when the court not only rejected his action but added hard labor to the original sentence. Now in his 80s, he remains behind bars, still insisting that he is an innocent man, wrongly convicted.

Sharon Hensley and Annette Craver have never been found, and Felix Vail has never been charged with any crime relating to their disappearances. According to Vail, they are still alive, he knows where they are, but has promised to keep their whereabouts a secret.

Cold Cases Solved Volume 13

2025-09-14T09:22:00.000-07:00

18 Baffling True Crime Cold Cases, including;

My Mother’s Killer: A call to the police department reignites a 32-year-old cold case. The wheels are set in motion, leading to a stunning conclusion.

The Wrong Man: A brutal murder is solved with the help of forensic odontology. Only, the police have the wrong man. The killers are still out there.

The Coward’s Way Out: The suspect has left behind a confession and a suicide note. The race is on the find him before he can kill himself and evade justice.

Hope And Faith: Two murdered infants are pulled from the water in Colorado. Are the cases connected? The mystery will take years to unravel.

Behind The Mask: He committed a senseless murder as a teenager. Now, as an adult, he seems determined to make amends. Some habits are hard to shake.

Shallow Grave: A teenager is snatched from her bed in the middle of the night. What happens next is the stuff of nightmares.

The Lost Daughter: As a teen, Cathy gave her daughter up for adoption. Years later, she tries to reconnect, only to learn a terrible truth.

Alligator: Two young girls are brutally raped and murdered. The common denominator? A family friend known affectionately as Uncle Joe.

Plus 10 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now

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Cold Cases: Solved! Volume 13

Hiding in Plain Sight

Laureldale, Pennsylvania had not seen a murder in 75 years before the night of January 13, 2007. This was a quiet place, a peaceful place, a place so typical of middle America that its residents jokingly compared it to Mayberry, the fictional town in the Andy Griffith Show. In the early morning hours of this frigid winter morn, that sense of serenity would be shattered forever.

Jackie Hollenbach and her husband, Terry, had a full house back then. Their niece, Audrey Giannotti, had a bedroom in the basement, sharing that space with her boyfriend, Bobby Haynes, and the couple’s two young daughters, Jaliyah and Jamora. Terry’s friend, Cory Vankeuren, also lived at the address. He was crashing on the pull-out couch. The conditions were somewhat cramped but devoid of any conflict... until that night.

It started with an argument between Audrey and Bobby. The pair had earlier attended a party with their two young daughters. Shortly after they arrived home, Bobby got a call from some friends, asking if he wanted to hang out. Audrey told him not to go. Bobby shot back that she wasn’t the boss of him and that he’d do as he pleased. Things got a bit heated, but then there was a beep from outside. Bobby’s friends had arrived. He left Audrey to sulk as he departed. She had already put the girls to bed, and now she, too, retired. So did Jackie and Terry and their other guest, Cory.

Silence fell on the house. It would be shattered just hours later.

It was Jackie who first noticed something amiss. She was awakened by a faint whiff of smoke. Concerned that there might be a fire, she got immediately out of bed, slipped on her robe, and headed downstairs to check it out. She was halfway down the stairs when she noticed something almost as alarming as a house fire. The drapes at the patio doors were fluttering in the breeze. Someone had pulled the door open.

Terrified that an intruder might have entered the house, Jackie crossed quickly to the fold-out couch and shook Cory awake. The two of them then crossed to the basement, intending to check on Audrey and the kids. However, when Jackie flicked the light switch, there was no response. The power was out.

Now, Jackie really was worried. Reinforcements were needed, and so she sent Cory upstairs to wake Terry. Meanwhile, she concealed herself in shadow, her mouth dry, her heart hammering in her chest. The sight of her husband, hair tousled with sleep, eased some of her anxiety. She whispered in his ear, updating him on the situation. Then the trio headed downstairs into the darkened basement. As they did, glass crunched under their feet. That, at least, clarified some of the odd events of this strange night. The light wouldn’t come on because the bulb had been smashed. That also perhaps explained the burning smell Jackie had detected.

The basement bedroom was a tight space. In the half-light from upstairs, Jackie could make out her niece, lying on her back under the covers, the girls in their cot. She crossed to Audrey, grabbed her by the shoulder, and shook, trying to wake her. No response. Then Terry stepped forward with his flashlight, and that was when they saw the blood.

At first, Jackie thought that the intruder might have come down here, accidentally awakened Audrey, and then beaten her unconscious to ensure her silence. Closer inspection revealed that it was far more serious than that. Even with that much blood in her hair, it was clear that Audrey had been shot. “Go upstairs and call 911,” Terry whispered urgently to his wife. Then he went to the cot, lifted the sleeping girls, and carried them upstairs. Thankfully, the children were unharmed.

Bobby Haynes arrived from hanging out with his buddies to find a flotilla of police vehicles outside the house, their roof lights projecting splashes of color onto the surrounding buildings. Crime scene tape was being strung. Officers were tramping in and out of the property. He tried to enter but was held back by a policeman and told he’d have to come down to the station to answer some questions.

Meanwhile, inside the property, officers were conducting a search and uncovering their first clue. Sixteen rounds of 9mm ammunition were found lying on the bathroom floor. The autopsy would later confirm that it was a 9mm round that had ended Audrey Giannotti’s life. The bullet had passed through her hand to enter her skull, leading investigators to believe that she had known what was coming, had tried in vain to ward off her attacker.

Down at the station, Jackie and Terry Hollenbach, Bobby Haynes, and Cory Vankeuren were taken to separate interview rooms for questioning. Haynes was flagged early on as the prime suspect. Hadn’t he argued with Audrey just hours before she was shot?

“That was nothing,” he told investigators. He also offered an alibi. He’d been out cruising with his friends, driving the darkened streets while his girlfriend was being murdered. Those friends confirmed his story, although it was far from the staunchest of alibis. Haynes was doing himself no favors, either. His response when told that his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had been killed, was one of disinterest. A shrug of the shoulders, a pursing of the lips. When a detective asked him outright whether he’d killed Audrey, his response was to issue a challenge. “If you think I did it, then arrest me,” he taunted. The police did not have the evidence to do that. Haynes was free to go.

Next, attention turned to the houseguest, Cory Vankeuren. However, Cory had little to add. He’d seen nothing, heard nothing. If an intruder had entered the house, jimmied the patio door, and walked past Cory on his way down to the basement, he’d done so undetected. Cory had heard not a sound. Ditto if this unidentified intruder had struggled with Audrey and then fired off a shot. Cory had dozed right through the commotion. “I’m a sound sleeper,” he told the detectives.

Be that as it may, there was one detail that caused investigators to take a closer look at Cory. He was the registered owner of an Intratec 9mm handgun. Cory admitted to owning the gun but said that it was in a gun safe at his mother’s house, miles from the crime scene. He had not fired it in months. Officers were dispatched to the address he provided and confirmed that the gun was where he claimed.

Jackie and Terry also confirmed that Cory barely knew Audrey. They’d hardly exchanged two words since Audrey moved in. Not that there was any animosity between them. That’s just the way Cory was, an introvert. Which brought up the question of motive. What possible reason could Cory have had for killing a woman who was essentially a stranger to him? There wasn’t one. Like Bobby Haynes, he was allowed to leave. He remained a person of interest but wasn’t considered a high-priority suspect.

So perhaps the intruder theory held true after all. Maybe someone had entered the house in the middle of the night, snuck downstairs, and shot Audrey Giannotti in the head. The motive was unclear, but when did a psycho ever need a logical motive?

Several days after the murder, investigators returned to the house to conduct a second search. The autopsy had offered up one additional detail. Audrey had not just been shot. She’d been struck on the head with some blunt instrument, believed to be a ballpeen hammer. Detectives did not have far to look. The hammer was under Audrey’s bed, encrusted with her blood. Unfortunately, it had been wiped clean of prints.

And so, the case ground to a standstill. Bobby Haynes remained the prime suspect, but the police lacked the evidence to charge him. In the weeks following the murder, Haynes moved out of the Hollenbach house, abandoning his daughters. They would be raised by Jackie and Terry, who soon decided that they could no longer live in the property where their niece had been murdered. They moved to a new house, where Cory Vankeuren was a frequent guest, spending the night on the pullout sleeper couch. “Cory and I were best friends,” Terry later told an interviewer. “He was like family.”

Three years passed with no progress in the investigation. In cases like this, it often helps to get a fresh pair of eyes to look at the evidence, and in January 2010, those eyes belonged to Detective Harold Shenk. Over the next nine months, Shenk retraced familiar ground, reading the crime scene reports, the autopsy reports, the witness statements. Like his predecessors, the conclusion he drew was that Bobby Haynes was the man he was after.

But then, Shenk posed himself a different question. What if it wasn’t Haynes? What then? That line of inquiry brought him to other suspects, notably Cory Vankeuren. Cory had been all but dismissed because of his lack of motive. However, he’d owned a 9mm at the time of the murder. Had that gun ever been test-fired? Had it been subjected to a ballistic examination? Shenk posed that question to his colleagues and found that it had not. It was time to rectify that.

One of the first things a savvy killer will do is to dispose of the murder weapon, usually in a place from which it can never be recovered. Cory had not done that, which suggested that he was either innocent of the crime or woefully naive. He still had the gun and handed it over when asked. From there, it went to the ballistics lab. Given the willingness with which Cory had produced the weapon, Shenk wasn’t holding up much hope that it would produce a match. Except that it did. This was the gun that had killed Audrey Giannotti.

Cory Vankeuren was taken into custody on March 15, 2011. Charged with first-degree murder, he wasted little time on denials. According to Cory, he had lusted over Audrey for a long time. After witnessing her argument with Bobby earlier that night and then seeing Bobby leave the house, he decided that this was his chance. With everyone in the house abed, he slipped out of his shorts and snuck downstairs, semi-naked. He had the 9mm tucked under his armpit. If need be, he was willing to force the issue.

In Cory Vankeuren’s mind, in the fantasy he’d constructed for himself, Audrey gave herself willingly, even eagerly, to him. The reality was somewhat different. Audrey demanded that he leave and threatened to tell Bobby. That angered Cory, so he snatched up a hammer from a table and struck her on the head. He thought that would knock her out, but it didn’t. Audrey was still conscious, still fighting. That was when he placed the barrel of the gun against her temple and pulled the trigger.

Having gunned down the young mother in cold blood, having orphaned her infant children, Vankeuren kicked into self-preservation mode. He decided to make it look like an intruder had entered the home and killed Audrey in her sleep. First, he smashed the lightbulb in the basement. Then he opened the patio door. Finally, he got into bed and pulled the covers up to his chin. He was there, pretending to be asleep, when Jackie came downstairs. “It makes us feel guilty because we allowed him here,” Jackie told a reporter. “To think this man has been in my house for four years, facing us, knowing what he’s done.”

Cory Vankeuren was found guilty of first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. The answer to the mystery was there all the time. The killer was hiding in plain sight.

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Deadly Women Volume 20

2025-08-02T03:08:00.000-07:00

20 classic true crime cases of women who kill, including;

Tashia Stuart: Judy had taken Tashia in as a baby, raised her as her own. Her reward for this lifetime of care? A death you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.

Tracey Grissom: An unarmed man is gunned down at the side of the highway in front of horrified witnesses. Murder? It’s more complicated than that.

Tawny Sue Gunter: The childminder had already escaped prosecution for one suspicious death. Now another child is dead. Will she get away with it again?

Kate Southern: Georgia 1878, a society ball. The band was just finished playing a popular polka when a cry goes up. There’s blood on the dancefloor.

Annette Cahill: A small town mystery. Who killed Corey Wieneke the local football hero? After 25 years, the truth comes out. It’s a shocker.

Sara Moore: An elderly man hires a live-in caregiver on Craigslist. She turns out to be a junkie and a thief. Then things get considerably worse.

Loretta Burroughs: Daniel wanted to move to Florida. His wife, Loretta, did not. The impasse gets resolved the old school way... with a knife.

Tracey Van Dungey: She was a hard-drinking, tough-talking woman with aggression on tap. You’d cross the street if you saw her coming. You’d be wise to.

Plus 12 more fascinating cases . Download your copy now.

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Deadly Women Volume 20

Tashia Stuart

In the beginning, Judy Hebert thought she was just being paranoid. After the incident in the garage, she’d have cause to rethink that assessment. Judy was a 58-year-old divorcee, living a quiet life at her well-maintained home on Salmon Drive in Franklin County, Washington. Quiet, that is, until her daughter, Tashia Stuart, showed up, asking if she could move in. Tashia did not come alone. Her husband, Todd, and 7-year-old daughter came with her. Judy welcomed them without a second thought.

Tashia wasn’t Judy’s biological child. She was the daughter of her twin sister, who’d proved such an unfit mother that Judy felt the need to step in. She took custody of Tashia when she was just six months old and raised her as her own. She and her husband, Rolfe, later made it official and adopted the little girl. They’d been there for Tashia through her childhood tribulations and troubled teens. They’d supported her as she grew into a flighty and somewhat irresponsible adult. Now, here she was, standing on Judy’s doorstep, broke and unemployed, asking for a place to stay.

But no sooner had Tashia and Todd moved in, than Judy started to form the impression that they were plotting against her. It wasn’t anything specific, just how they were always whispering together, how they stopped talking when she entered the room, how they always seemed to be directing sideways glances at her. Judy told herself that she was overreacting. Then came the incident in the garage.

It happened on the afternoon of February 20, 2011. Judy had been planning to build a wall in her garage and was looking to hire a contractor when Todd offered to do the job. First, though, he’d have to take some measurements. He asked Judy to help him by holding the tape measure. While she was doing so, he directed her to a spot in the middle of the floor. Judy had just reached that spot when something fell from a storage area in the ceiling. It was an 18-gallon tub filled with old paperbacks and quite heavy. It struck Judy on the head, knocking her out and driving her to the floor.

Just a few minutes later, at a nearby home, Rolfe Hebert’s phone started ringing. Rolfe and Judy were divorced but remained on good terms. Now, Rolfe had his daughter Tashia on the phone, telling him about the accident. Rolfe asked if Tashia had called 911. She said that she had not. She seemed more interested in obtaining the combination to her mother’s safe. She said that she wanted to retrieve Judy’s “do not resuscitate” order and her will. Rolfe told her to get her priorities straight, to hang up and call 911 immediately.

A short while later, Rolfe’s phone started ringing again. This time it was Judy who was on the line, telling him about the accident and saying that she felt “really beat up.” Rolfe urged her to go to the hospital, to at least have herself checked out. Judy insisted that she was okay. Later, once she had recovered somewhat, she began to reflect on the accident. It all seemed too much of a coincidence.

How was it that Todd had directed her to that precise spot in the garage? How was it that the tub of books (which she was certain had been secured) had fallen at that exact moment? The more she thought about it, the more she was sure that this was not an accident after all. She began to think that Tashia had been hiding in the partially-floored rafters and had dropped the tub on her once she was in position.

In fact, Judy became so convinced of this theory that she shared her suspicions with several of her friends and neighbors. She believed that Tashia and Todd were trying to kill her. She asked one neighbor to check on her from time to time, and the pair even agreed a code word they could use if Judy could not speak freely on the phone. She told another neighbor that if she disappeared, then Tashia and Todd had killed her, and she was likely buried in the backyard. To another, she shared her suspicion that her houseguests were messing with her medication.

And then, Judy Hebert had even more reason to suspect that something was going on. Two unauthorized ATM withdrawals appeared on her bank account, and there was an unknown retail purchase. After that, Judy called the bank and canceled her debit card. Then she called Rolfe, and told him about the unauthorized transactions and concerns over her medication. “I think Todd is trying to kill me,” she said. Perhaps she should have been more concerned about Tashia.

At around 2:25 p.m. on March 3, 2011, the Franklin County 911 line got a hang-up call from the Hebert residence. The dispatcher returned the call, which was answered by Tashia Stuart. She said that the fire alarm had been accidentally triggered while she was changing the battery. There was no need to send a unit. Everything was in order.

A short while later, a neighbor heard several loud bangs coming from Judy Hebert’s home. Concerned, he called her phone, which was again answered by Tashia Stuart. She said that something had exploded on the stove. Another neighbor, the same woman who Judy had asked to check on her, also called. She was given the same story. She then asked to speak to Judy and was told that she was unwell and was “throwing up in the bathroom.”

These were not the only inquiries that Tashia would have to field about the strange goings on inside the Salmon Drive residence that night. About ten minutes later, Officer Kevin Erickson arrived, following up on the failed 911 call. Tashia tried to convince him that there was nothing to be concerned about, but the officer insisted that he needed to talk to the homeowner. Tashia told him she’d have to put her dogs away before letting him enter the house. She then slammed the door in his face.

It did not take a genius to figure out that something was wrong here. Still, Officer Erickson waited. He was still standing outside when a neighbor approached and told him about the sounds he’d heard earlier. He was convinced that they were gunshots. Erickson then called for backup and unsnapped the holster of his gun. Then the door was flung open, and Tashia was standing there, an ax in her hand, a crazed look in her eyes. Erickson’s hand went to the butt of his pistol. He was sure she was going to come at him. He demanded to know about the shots neighbors had heard. “I shot someone,” Tashia admitted.

That “someone” turned out to be her adoptive mother, Judy Hebert, the woman who’d taken her in when she had nowhere else to go, the woman who’d raised her from a baby. Judy was sprawled out in the doorway of her bedroom, blood on her chest, a machete lying on the carpet nearby. Officer Erickson felt for a pulse and detected none. He then walked back to the living room and placed Tashia Stuart under arrest.

Tashia was taken to the police station, where she relayed her version of the day’s events. According to her, the trouble between her and her mother had started that morning, when Judy accused her of stealing from her by using her debit card without permission. Tashia admitted using the card but reminded Judy that she had given her the card and told her to withdraw the money. Judy refuted this and said that she was going to have her arrested.

This argument raged on and off throughout the day. At some point, according to Tashia, she asked her mother to open the safe so that she could check if her birth certificate was there. Todd had departed the house two days earlier, and she was afraid that he might have taken it. Judy agreed to do this. Tashia followed her to the closet where the safe was kept. She was standing behind Judy as she worked the dial.

However, when Judy turned towards her, it wasn’t the birth certificate she held but a machete, the same blade the police later found at the scene. She swung at Tashia, who only narrowly avoided injury. Tashia’s escape route was blocked. The only safe place was the closet, so she backed inside and pulled the door shut behind her. That was when she spotted her mother’s .357 Magnum.

She picked up the gun, not even knowing if it was loaded. Then she opened the closet door a crack. Not seeing her mother, she stepped out into the bedroom, holding the gun in a firing position for protection. That was when Judy came at her, swinging the machete like a madwoman. Tashia pulled off three rapid shots, hitting her mother three times, collapsing her to the floor. She couldn’t even remember pulling the trigger, she said. She was in fear for her life. It was self-defense.

There was one big problem with Tashia Stuart’s story. If this was really how it had played out, if she’d acted in self-defense, why had she lied to the 911 dispatcher, to the neighbors, to Officer Erickson? Why hadn’t she simply reported the shooting? Tashia said that it was because she was afraid her story would not be believed. She was right on that score. She was charged with first-degree murder.

As the matter headed for trial, the evidence continued to stack up against Tashia Stuart. Prosecutors learned of the incident with the falling tub, they learned of Judy Hebert’s fears that her daughter was planning to kill her, and they learned of the nature of the woman who Tashia claimed had attacked her. Judy was described as a kind soul who got along with everyone. Despite all of the trouble that Tashia had caused her, she loved her daughter unreservedly. This was a long way from the machete-wielding maniac Tashia had described. Tashia had also claimed in her statement that her mother was an alcoholic and was addicted to prescription drugs. Rolfe Hebert strongly disputed this, saying that Judy never used drugs or abused alcohol.

Prosecutors learned also of Tashia’s desperate attempts to get her hands on her mother’s will. This, they believed, was the motive for the shooting. Tashia was hoping to alleviate her money problems by moving her inheritance along. The theory was given credence in a damaging statement provided by Charles Adney, Tashia’s ex-boyfriend and the father of her child. Shortly after the falling tub incident, Tashia had called and offered him $1,000 to forge her mother’s will. “That bitch should be dead in a few days,” she’d told him. “I dropped something on her head. She is bleeding out of her eyes and nose.”

In the end, the prosecution’s case was strong enough to convince the jury of Tashia Stuart’s guilt. She was convicted of murder and sentenced to 45 years in prison, with parole eligibility in 25 years. Yet even now, found guilty by a jury of her peers, Tashia refused to take responsibility for her actions. She accused the prosecution witnesses of conspiracy. “Without their lies and deceit, there is no case against me,” she told the court. “I hope that I will get a new trial so that the truth really will come out.” Most would argue that the truth has already been told.

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Murder Most Vile Volume 52

2025-07-03T07:46:00.000-07:00

18 Chilling true murder cases, including

Running With Scissors: Raymond had some odd quirks. One of them was his collection of over 100 scissors. In the wrong hands, those things can be deadly.

Prove It: A woman is missing, presumed dead. Her husband knows more than he’s saying. He’s toying with the cops, treating this like a game.

Just Married: The bride spent her wedding night in the arms of a former lover. Her new husband won't stand for that. There will be blood.

In Harm’s Way: Single mom Tarah had no choice. She had to work to support her kids. The babysitter had always been trustworthy. Until now.

Plenty of Murder: A pretty, young teacher decides to try out the online dating scene. Her first hookup turns out to be a psycho.

Murder At The Prom: Melissa had spent the day of her prom complaining of stomach pains. Only, this is no ordinary belly ache. She’s keeping secrets.

The Island: Desperate for a new start, a young woman moves to a remote tropical island, population: 2,000. But even in paradise, danger lurks.

Plus 10 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now

Click the "Read More" link below to read the first chapter of

Murder Most Vile Volume 52

Love Kills

In the life of Independence, Missouri insurance agent Randy Stone, three things took precedence: his family, his God, and his country. Randy was a former Marine who had enlisted straight out of high school and served four years in the Corps; he taught Sunday School at New Hope Baptist Church, where he was also on the church board; he was a loving husband to Teresa, a devoted father to Michael and Miranda. He was also desperately unhappy.

The source of Randy’s despondency had to do with the state of his marriage. He and Teresa Greenwalt had been childhood sweethearts who had separated when he joined the military, but reconnected and married after his tour of duty was completed. He considered Teresa to be the love of his life. Lately, however, there were problems in the union. Teresa seemed distracted, uninterested, as though she didn’t care. He suspected that she might be having an affair, and those suspicions gained leverage in 2005, when Teresa announced that she was pregnant. Randy had undergone a vasectomy years earlier.

Teresa insisted that the child was his. Afraid of losing her, Randy did not argue the point too hard. Perhaps his operation had been botched. Such things are not without precedent. His mind in turmoil, Randy turned to the one place where he’d always found solace... his church. Pastor David Love was a friend of his, perhaps even his best friend. The pastor’s assurances convinced Randy that Teresa was a good woman, a godly woman. She loved him and would never cheat, Pastor Love said. He should put his trust in her and his faith in the Lord. Randy walked away, chastising himself for his lack of belief. A short while later, the crisis was resolved. Teresa suffered a miscarriage.

But the real crisis, the crisis in Randy Stone’s heart, remained unresolved. Everyone in Randy’s life knew how devoted he was to his wife. “He worshipped the ground she walked on” was an oft-repeated cliché. Now, after 19 years of marriage, he felt like he was losing her. Something just wasn’t right. His suspicions of an extra-marital affair resurfaced. Sooner or later, he was going to have to confront her on the issue. The only thing holding him back was the fear that she might confirm what he dreaded. He didn’t think he could bear that. These were the thoughts going through Randy Stone’s mind as he sat in his office in downtown Independence on the afternoon of March 31, 2010.

Usually, Teresa would be there in the office with him. They ran their small insurance brokerage together and had done so for many years. But today, Teresa had some errands to run, leaving Randy on his own. She returned around mid-afternoon and was surprised to find the blinds drawn when she arrived. Randy never drew them while he was in the office. Had he gone out? No, there was his car, standing in its usual space in the parking lot.

Teresa entered the office, calling out a greeting. No reply came. She poked her head into Randy’s office. He wasn’t at his desk. Perplexed, Teresa went looking for her husband, passing her own office and then entering a small room to the rear of the suite. This was where she found Randy, lying motionless on the floor with blood oozing from his ear and a puddle of it on the ground. Blood was spattered on the wall too, along with a gelatinous gray substance that looked ominously like brain matter. Teresa turned and ran down the hall to her office. She snatched up the phone and started dialing immediately. However, it wasn’t 911 that she called. It was her mother. “Come quickly!” she screamed down the line. “Randy’s been shot!”

The investigation into Randy Stone’s murder was led by Detective Keith Rosewaren, a military veteran who felt an immediate kinship with the victim. His initial examination of the Noland Road insurance office told him a clear story. Randy Stone had known and trusted his killer. Why else would he bring him into a back office? Why else would he turn his back, allowing the killer to draw a gun and shoot him in the back of the head? This wasn’t a robbery either. Randy’s wallet was still in his pocket, and there was $151 in cash sitting on a desk. No, whoever had done this had harbored a personal motive. But who?

One clue, found in a wastebasket under Teresa Stone’s desk, offered a possible answer. It was a sheet of notepaper, ripped into nine pieces. Detectives assembled the pieces on a desk. “Happy Birthday, Love!” it read. “You are so very precious to my heart. I care for you more than anyone on Earth. I’m not in control of things yet, but when we are fully together, your birthday will always be exciting, full of surprises, romantic, and all about loving you! You are the center of my world. I praise you. I adore you. I’m blessed by you. I need you. I love you.”

The letter was clearly written to Teresa, but the handwriting was not her husband’s. Who then had written it? Teresa said she didn’t know. She had a “secret admirer,” she said, someone who had left the note under the windshield wiper of her car almost a year earlier. There was no one else in her life, she insisted. She and Randy had been happy together and very much in love.

The explanation was delivered persuasively, even if Det. Rosewaren wasn’t entirely convinced. He’d soon receive validation for his suspicions. Left alone in an interrogation room, Teresa was caught on camera chastising herself over the letter. “Oh, great. I forgot about that,” she was heard to say. That was Rosewaren’s first indication that she might be involved in her husband’s murder.

One other important clue would emerge from the crime scene, a .40-caliber shell casing. Randy had been a firearms enthusiast and had owned a .40 semi-automatic. However, when the police did an inventory of his collection, there was no such weapon. Teresa suggested that he might have sold it. To investigators, that seemed too much of a coincidence.

Randy Stone was laid to rest at a funeral service just days after he was killed, with his friend and pastor, David Love, delivering a moving eulogy. Several detectives were among the mourners, scanning the congregation for anything unusual. By now, they’d developed the theory that Teresa Stone was having an affair and that her lover was someone her husband knew and trusted. Since the Stones were both very involved in church activities, this seemed the right place to start.

Something else to come out of the early investigation was that Randy Stone was insured to the tune of nearly $800,000. His wife had called the insurance company to find out about her payout the day after his death. She was in for a shock. Randy had amended the policy, removing her as a beneficiary and splitting the money between his two children. This suggested that Randy’s suspicions about his wife cheating on him had been confirmed. In fact, Randy had confided in a friend that he was thinking of resigning his position on the church board. His reason? He believed that Teresa was sleeping with Pastor David Love.

Here’s what the police had so far. A man is gunned down in his office in a seemingly motiveless crime. A .40-caliber shell casing is retrieved from the scene. The victim had owned just such a weapon. Now it is missing, with his wife claiming that he sold it. Meanwhile, there is evidence that the wife had been cheating, possibly with her husband’s friend and pastor. Rosewaren had read this script before – a cheating wife, a large insurance policy, a solution that comes from the barrel of a gun. Is that what had happened here? Had Teresa Stone and David Love plotted to murder Randy so that they could be together, with an $800,000 payday into the bargain? It was time to find out.

Teresa Stone was brought in for questioning on April 20, 2010, three weeks after her husband’s death. Insisting that she had nothing to hide, she signed a Miranda waiver and agreed to be interviewed without an attorney present. But that did not mean that Teresa was going to give herself up. She stuck steadfastly to her story, insisting that she’d had nothing to do with her husband’s murder and did not know who had killed him. It would take all of Detective Rosewaren’s expertise as an interrogator to break her down.

He did this by stages, first getting Teresa to admit that it was David Love who had written the letter the police found in her wastebasket. Then she admitted that she and the pastor had been involved in an extramarital affair lasting 10 years and that they had recently been talking about leaving their respective spouses so that they could be together. She denied, however, that she was involved in any plan to murder Randy. If Love had done that, it was all on him. She wasn’t involved. Finally, Rosewaren convinced her to meet with Love and try to get him to admit to murder.

But that meeting would never happen. Kim Love, the pastor’s wife, got wind of it and refused to let him meet with Teresa unless she was present. The police had no option but to move on Love, who they arrested on April 22. Love, however, was hanging tough, refusing to admit to any involvement in the murder and denying even the affair that Teresa had already disclosed. Jackson County prosecutors had a call to make. To charge David Love or let him walk. In the end, they decided that they did not have a winnable case.

Twenty-four hours after being taken into custody, David Love walked free. He immediately called a meeting of the church board and resigned his position as pastor of New Hope Baptist Church. Then he left the town and the state, moving to South Carolina, where he found a new line of work as a truck driver. He was still working at that trade seven months later, when the Missouri authorities filed a petition to extradite him.

By then, Rosewaren and his team had strengthened their case considerably. They had shell casings from the missing .40-caliber, which confirmed that Randy Stone had been shot with his own gun. They had Teresa Stone admitting that she had given Love the key to her husband’s gun safe, so that he could retrieve the murder weapon. They had extensive records of phone and e-mail messages that had passed between Teresa Stone and David Love. They had the testimony of Love’s estranged wife, Kim. They even had some X-rated pictures that the pastor had sent to his lover.

Any fool could see that the game was up, and David Love was no fool. When the D.A. offered a deal, allowing him to plead to second-degree murder, he accepted immediately. It meant the difference between 25 years to life and a life sentence without parole.

Teresa Stone subsequently struck her own deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit murder, in exchange for an eight-year sentence. As part of that plea bargain, she was required to give a full account of how the murder plot had unfolded. Some of the details were shocking.

According to Teresa, David Love had first started talking about murder in 2009. He’d told her that God would forgive them just as he had forgiven King David, when he orchestrated the death of Uriah, so he could marry his wife, Bathsheba. Teresa claimed that she’d tried to dissuade Love, but he was adamant that murder was the best solution to their problem. God wanted them to be together, he said, and God had provided the way. Eventually, she was persuaded to give him the key to her husband’s gun safe, where he retrieved the .40-caliber that ended Randy Stone’s life.

But Randy was not the only one on Pastor Love’s hit list. According to Teresa, his wife, Kim, would have been the next to die. His plan was to break her neck, then load her into her car and push it down an embankment to simulate an accident. Thankfully, that plan never came to fruition.

David Love was 51 years old when he entered the Missouri penal system. He will be in his late 70s by the time he is eligible for release. Many convicted killers find God behind bars. Perhaps David Love will do the same.

Killer Kids Volume 17

2025-06-02T05:12:00.000-07:00

22 shocking true stories of kids who kill, including;

Cassandra Bjorge & Johnny Rider: Problem child Cassandra is on a mission... to free herself from adult authority. If that involves murder, then so be it.

Mychal King: Angry and frustrated after arguing with his family, Mychal goes looking for revenge. His target? A complete stranger, passing on a bicycle.

Claire Miller: A 19-year-old afflicted by cerebral palsy becomes the object of her younger sister’s jealousy. It culminates in an act of incredible savagery.

John Freeman: A single mom leaves her 5-year-old in the care of a trusted babysitter. He’s always been reliable in the past. This time will be different.

Rachel Pittman: A mother and her two young children are dead, their house set ablaze. The identity of the killer is shocking, her motive even more so.

De’Marquis Elkins: A 17-year-old wannabe tough guy with a gun; a mother taking her baby for a walk in his stroller; an impending disaster.

Paris Mayo: 15-year-old Paris couldn’t bear the idea of being pregnant, nor the thought of raising a child. Her solution is both heartbreaking and evil.

Nolen Buchanan: Sixteen-year-old Nolen has a plan to take over his father’s construction business. It involves three murders.

Plus 14 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now

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Killer Kids Volume 17

Cassandra Bjorge & Johnny Rider

Parenting can be a thankless job. No matter how much love, how much time, how many resources you put into it, the results are unpredictable. Most kids turn out just fine, of course, some excel and most go on to make great parents themselves. But there is always the exception, the black swan, the miscreant, the problem child. Cassandra Bjorge fell firmly into that latter category.

Cassandra, or Cassie, as she preferred, was born in 2000, in Duluth, Georgia. Not much is known of her early childhood, although it appears to have been chaotic. Cassie’s parents separated when she was young, and she grew up without much parental guidance. By 2016, we find her living with her mom, Amanda Sterling, in Duluth. The intervening years had seen her develop into a precocious teen, devoid of manners, boundaries, or common decency. Cassie lived by her own rules and had already racked up an extensive police record that included arrests for underage drinking, drug possession, shoplifting, and assault. She barely attended school and frequently stayed away from home for days and nights on end. Cassie Bjorge was out of control.

Amanda Sterling was ready to throw in the towel. Her teenage daughter was a lost cause, beyond saving, beyond redemption. Other members of the family were not so ready to quit. When Amanda turned to her parents for help, they immediately stepped up. That same year, they filed for custody of Cassandra and moved her to their home in Lawrenceville, a suburb of Atlanta.

Wendy and Randall Bjorge were highly respected members of their community, a quiet, loving couple who kept mostly to themselves but were nonetheless active in neighborhood affairs. Their home was a handsome and well-maintained double-story on a tree-lined street. Lawrenceville was a peaceful enclave of suburbia. If ever there was a place for Cassie to start again, to gain some perspective and equilibrium in her young life, it was here.

But Cassie had no intention of mending her ways. Right from the start, she made it clear to her grandparents how it was going to be. She lived by her own rules, not theirs. Enrolled at Peach Tree Ridge High, she simply refused to attend. Instead, she spent her days and nights wandering the streets, mixing with a bad crowd. When she was home, she frequently flouted the house rules by drinking and smoking in her room. She was rude, abrasive, and hostile to her grandparents, sometimes even physically aggressive. The local police logged over 30 calls to the house in under a year. On these occasions, Cassie was openly abusive, not just to her grandparents but to the responding officers as well.

Cassie Bjorge also continued another of her bad habits while living in Lawrenceville. She was a frequent runaway, staying away for days, sometimes weeks, on end. On these occasions, the long-suffering Randall and Wendy would paper the neighborhood with missing person posters, and Wendy would take to community forums on Facebook, asking for help. One such post appeared on April 1, 2017, after Cassie had disappeared yet again. At 11:18 that night, Wendy posted: “I’m going to bed soon. Maybe tomorrow will be better. All I can do is hope for the best and expect the worst. It shouldn’t be this hard for any of us.”

Several days after that post appeared, a concerned member of the extended Bjorge family contacted the police and asked them to conduct a welfare check on Wendy and Randall. Wendy had posted nothing since, and the family had been unable to reach them by phone. Officers were dispatched to the address but left after persistent knocking brought no response from within. The officers returned the next day and tried again, with the same result. The couple’s car was missing from the garage. Perhaps they’d gone on a trip without telling anyone.

A week passed with still no word from the Bjorges. Then, on April 8, the Lawrenceville Police received a call about a young couple who had been attacked in their home. The perpetrators of this incident were easily identified. The victim, Mindy Rider, reported that it was her 18-year-old brother, Johnny, who had assaulted her and her boyfriend. He’d been assisted by his girlfriend, Cassandra Bjorge. According to Mindy, she and her boyfriend had arrived home to find their house trashed, furniture and household items smashed beyond repair. In the midst of this carnage stood Johnny and Cassandra, smirking at them. An altercation followed during which she and her boyfriend were pepper-sprayed and then beaten with a baseball bat. The attackers then fled the scene in the couple’s car, leaving their own vehicle behind.

Only, this wasn’t their vehicle. When an officer ran the plate, it came back registered to Randall Bjorge. Now, those failed welfare checks at the Bjorge residence took on a more sinister tone. Officers returned to the address, and this time they forced open the door. The minute they stepped inside, they were overcome by the putrid stench of decay.

Wendy and Randall Bjorge were found laid out on the floor of their upstairs bedroom. The bodies were already considerably decomposed, but that could not hide the terrible deaths they’d suffered. The couple had been stabbed and beaten to death, each suffering multiple knife wounds and severe head trauma. It did not take a genius to work out who was responsible for this.

A task force was hastily assembled to track down the teen killers and take them into custody. It soon had a lead, tracking the fugitives to a nearby apartment complex. What followed was an hour-long standoff, with the couple barricaded inside and refusing to give themselves up. Eventually, a SWAT team was sent in to drag them out. They found the pair lying on the floor of the bathroom in a pool of their own blood. Rather than surrender, they’d slashed their wrists in an apparent suicide pact.

But, as with most killers, Bjorge and Rider were more adept at inflicting harm on others than on themselves. The wounds were superficial and easily treated at a nearby medical facility. Thereafter, detectives got down to the business of unravelling the double homicide. Both of the suspects seemed willing to talk. Playing true to type, each accused the other of committing the murders while they stood helplessly by.

It was Cassie Bjorge who broke first from this narrative. Cassie, the problem child, the attention seeker, the sociopath, wasn’t going to be denied credit for her most dreadful deed yet. The story she had to tell shocked even seasoned investigators. According to Cassie, she had grown tired of her grandparents trying to control her life. She’d decided to break free from their influence once and for all, roping in her boyfriend, Johnny Rider, to help. The scheme involved the cold-blooded murder of the two people who cared most for her in the world.

On the night of April 1, 2017, while Wendy Bjorge was upstairs making her last appeal for information about her missing granddaughter, Cassie was mere feet away, hiding in the shadows outside. She and Johnny were waiting for the lights to go out. Once they did, the pair entered the house using Cassie’s key. Johnny was carrying a tire iron and a hammer. Cassie was armed with a baseball bat and soon fetched a pair of knives from the kitchen.

Creeping up the staircase in the dark, tiptoeing along the hall, they entered the master bedroom. Here, they fell upon the elderly couple, Johnny raining down blows on Randall with the tire iron, Cassie clubbing her grandmother with the baseball bat. She then hauled Wendy from her bed, dragged her into the bathroom, and secured her hands with duct tape. Then she got to work with the knife, plunging the blade in to the hilt, withdrawing it, plunging it in again.

This was bloody, filthy work. It left the evil couple both exhausted and exhilarated. Afterward, they washed up and headed downstairs. They used Randall’s credit card to order Chinese takeout. The following morning, they sealed up the master bedroom door with duct tape, hoping to mask the putrid stench of death. That night, they hosted a drug and booze fueled party for their friends, who were oblivious to the brutalized bodies upstairs. The killers would remain at the house for a week before abandoning it to carry out their attack on Mindy Rider and her boyfriend.

Shockingly, these were not the only crimes they were planning. They had also decided to murder Johnny’s entire family and had even driven to his mother’s house before abandoning the plan when Johnny spotted an unknown vehicle in the driveway. But for that, more blood would have been spilled.

The savage murders of Wendy and Randall Bjorge shocked the city of Lawrenceville to its core. In fact, it went way beyond the city limits. The entire state was invested in the case. Many believed that the young couple deserved the death penalty. That wasn’t an option for Cassie Bjorge, but Johnny Rider certainly could have felt the sharp end of the needle had he not struck a deal and agreed to plead guilty. He offered a heartfelt apology at the trial in which he labeled his acts as evil and said that he “deserved hellfire” for what he’d done. As for Cassie, she made no statement but instead sat in the witness box, silently sobbing. Were those tears for her murdered grandparents or for herself? Knowing the nature of the young woman, it was likely the latter.

And Cassie had every reason to be tearful over her fate. The sentence of the court was life in prison with a minimum term of 60 years before she is eligible for parole. That puts her at 77 years of age before she has a shot at freedom, older than the grandparents she so brutally massacred.

Cassandra Bjorge is currently an inmate at Arrendale State Prison. Ahead of her lies at least six decades of incarceration. The girl who railed so fiercely against following the rules will spend the bulk of her life living under the strictest regulations imaginable. The girl who was so determined to follow her own path will now have that path plotted out for her in mundane detail. If ever there is poetic justice in the world, this is it.

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Cold Cases Solved Volume 12

2025-05-02T03:24:00.000-07:00

18 Baffling True Crime Cold Cases, including;

An Unfinished Life: He was a dangerous man with an unhealthy interest in underage girls. The parole board made a terrible mistake releasing him early.

Repeat Offender: Ruth loved riding the bike paths of the State Forest near her home. But predators lurk in those woods and some of them are human.

Stalker: He was the creepy guy next door. Teresa knew he had a thing for her but she figured he was harmless. She was wrong... dead wrong.

Precious: The mutilated corpse of a little girl turns up in a field. Years later, the identity of her killer emerges. It’s a shocker.

Wanted Man: He was an upstanding citizen, president of the local water board. He was also a fugitive from justice, wanted for a particularly brutal murder.

Amateur Hour: The police had tried for decades to solve the murder and had failed at every turn. Now, the victim’s sister wants to take a run at it.

In Life or in Death: A little girl disappears on her way to school. Half a century will pass before the truth of her vanishing is finally revealed.

Message 22: A popular hostess is butchered in her own home. Who killed her? The clues are right there, on her answering machine.

Plus 10 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now

Click the "Read More" link below to read the first chapter of

Cold Cases: Solved! Volume 12

An Unfinished Life

When Kristina Wesselman was 14 years old, she was part of the honor guard chosen by her school to appear at a campaign event for then-presidential candidate Ronald Reagan. Rather than being overawed by the occasion, Kristina – Kristy to her friends – took it all in her stride. That was typical of the girl, a confident, outgoing teen who did well at school, excelled at sports, and was popular among her peers. At Glenbard South High School in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, she played on the volleyball and softball teams (even though she’d have preferred to play football). She was also elected as vice president of her class.

In the summer of 1985, the now 15-year-old Kristy was taking summer classes at school. On July 21, she arrived home from class and announced to her mom that she was going to walk to the store to buy a soda. It was just after 3:30 when Kristy left the house. Sandy Wesselman expected her daughter to be back in no more than ten minutes. The store was nearby. When Kristy didn’t return, Sandy assumed that she’d run into some friends and decided to hang out. It was a lovely summer’s afternoon. No kid wants to be indoors on a day like this.

In the modern age, a parent concerned about the whereabouts of a child can quickly allay those fears by calling their cellphone. But this was back in the 80s. Cellphones were but a distant dream. Still, Sandy wasn’t unduly concerned. Kristy was a responsible teen. She knew to be home in time for dinner.

But when evening fell and there was still no sign of Kristy, Sandy did start to worry. She started calling her daughter’s friends, getting the same answer from all of them. None of them had seen Kristy. Her concerns rapidly turning to desperation, Sandy walked to the store to look for her daughter. The clerk knew Kristy well. He confirmed that she’d been in earlier and had bought a soda and a chocolate bar. He hadn’t seen her since. Sandy then hit the streets, walking the neighborhood for hours without success. At 01:50 a.m., she called in the police.

Officers quickly descended on the area, listened to the desperate mother’s anguished story, and then spread out to continue the search. They covered much of the same ground Sandy had, talking to the store clerk, rousing Kristy’s friends from sleep to question them, covering every inch of blacktop in the neighborhood. Nothing. Kristina Wesselman seemed to have vanished into thin air. By midday, the next shift of officers took over. One of them decided to track the exact route Kristy would have taken on her way home.

The first thing the officer noticed was a path leading through a field that stood between the Wesselman residence and the store. This was a shortcut frequently used by the local kids. It made sense that Kristy would have taken this route. The officer started down the path, which had high grass and weeds to either side. He was only a few yards in when he spotted a place where the vegetation was disturbed. Then he saw a swatch of pale skin, and then, among the weeds, a body. Kristy Wesselman had been found.

For Kristy’s mom, Sandy, this had all the elements of a waking nightmare. Her daughter, the youngest of her four children, was dead. The details of her final moments were too horrific to even contemplate. Kristy had been pulled from the path, sexually assaulted, stabbed eight times. Police officers quickly sealed off the area and brought in a forensics team to process the scene. They found very little that would pass as evidence. The only real lead was that Kristy’s pearl ring was missing. The police quickly alerted pawn shops in the area in case the killer tried to sell it.

Meanwhile, Kristy’s body had been transported to the county morgue, where a rape kit was performed. This yielded the perpetrator’s biological material, but that was of limited use in 1985, with DNA profiling still in its infancy. For now, the sample would remain on ice, waiting for some scientific breakthrough.

With no physical evidence to work with, the police focused instead on finding potential witnesses. Something was odd about this case. The murder had occurred in broad daylight, close to a busy road and quite a few houses. Several people had seen Kristy leaving the store, but no one had seen her enter the field. A family who were barbecuing in their backyard nearby had heard nothing. How was that possible? Surely Kristy would have screamed if she’d been accosted.

All of this led the police to believe that the killer was someone local, someone who knew that the path across the field was used as a shortcut. Perhaps he’d been hiding in the tall grass, waiting for a likely victim to pass. Perhaps he’d targeted Kristy specifically, following her from the store. Maybe she knew him. Maybe that was why she had not called out until it was too late.

Following this line of reasoning, investigators started looking into any male who might have known Kristy. When that failed to yield a viable suspect, they switched their attention to known sex offenders living in the area. This process took three long years and got them no closer to finding their killer. There was some better news on the forensics front, though. DNA technology had made rapid advances during that time. In 1988, investigators decided to test every male with even a tenuous link to Kristy, comparing their DNA against the crime scene sample. Everyone they approached agreed to submit to the test, everyone but one man. His name was Dana Henry.

Henry was 34 years old in 1988. His only connection to the crime was that his house bordered the field. The reason for his refusal was simple. He considered it an invasion of his right to privacy. To the police, that refusal made him look guilty. They obtained a court order compelling him to comply. When Henry still refused, he was charged with contempt of court and locked up for several days. That had the desired effect as he eventually agreed to be swabbed.

Dana Henry’s profile went to the lab. Investigators were confident that they had their man, but they were wrong. Henry’s DNA did not match. His stand really was a matter of principle. It had come at a cost, though. His legal fees of $50,000 had almost bankrupted him, and he’d also suffered damage to his reputation. Despite his exoneration, many locals believed that he was guilty. Why else would he refuse to co-operate with the police?

Over the next 12 years, the investigation into Kristy Wesselman’s death remained at a standstill. In 2000, the killer’s DNA was uploaded to the FBI’s CODIS database, where it failed to find a match. It was submitted several more times over the next 15 years, a necessary step since the database is constantly updated. Kristy had now been dead for 30 years, twice as long as she’d been on this earth. Hope was dwindling that there’d ever be a resolution. Her killer appeared to have gotten away with murder.

Then, in 2015, everything changed. That was the day that the DeKalb County police got a notification from the FBI. A match had been made. Their suspect was a 62-year-old man from Champaign, Illinois, recently arrested on a domestic violence charge. His name was Michael Jones.

Champaign is a small town 150 miles south of Glen Ellyn. Jones, it seemed, had lived there all of his life. He wasn’t local to Glen Ellyn as the police had always believed. In fact, he’d never appeared on their radar at all, not as a suspect, not as a witness.

So, who was Michael Jones? Turns out, he was a man with a long history of violence against women. His first run-in with the law came in the mid-70s, when he was arrested for assault. The charges were later dropped. Jones, however, had not learned his lesson. Just a year later, he was again under arrest for attacking a woman, leaving her unconscious in a hospital parking lot. This time, the consequences were more serious. Despite claiming diminished responsibility, he was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison. That should have seen him behind bars until the late 80s, but Jones was released on parole in 1983.

Jones married in ‘84, but his wife left him 10 years later, citing his unhealthy interest in underage girls. He was in trouble again in 1999, when he was arrested for assaulting a relative of his new girlfriend. The police also learned that Jones would often take long road trips on his motorcycle, usually heading north to visit relatives in Chicago. Those trips would have brought him close to Glen Ellyn, an outer suburb of the Windy City. Investigators now believed that he’d likely stopped in the town on that summer’s day in 1985, spotted Kristy Wesselman, and decided to attack her. He’d followed the teenager to the field and ambushed her there, probably putting a hand over her mouth to stifle her screams.

Michael Jones was arrested and charged with Kristy Wesselman’s murder in 2015. A fresh DNA sample backed up what the previous one had shown. This was the man who had dragged the teenager from the path, raped her, knifed her to death. Already, investigators were starting to wonder whether Kristy was his only victim. Given his volatile temper, his history of violence against women, his obsession with young girls, it does not seem a stretch to imagine that he’d done this more than once. Those long motorbike rides would have provided the perfect cover.

For now, though, Jones had just one murder to answer for. He initially denied everything, insisting that he had never been to Glen Ellyn in his life. By the time the matter came to trial in 2018, though, he was singing a different tune. Facing the prospect of life without parole, he decided to plead out. The agreement did not require him to provide a full confession, and Jones wasn’t inclined to do so. We will never know for certain what happened in the field that day.

Michael Jones might have thought that the plea bargain would spare him the prospect of life behind bars, but he was wrong in that respect. “You are evil incarnate, a real-life Jekyll and Hyde,” Judge George Bakalis told the killer, as he sentenced him to 80 years behind bars. The judge also ruled out parole for Jones, setting his earliest release date at 2095. Jones will never be free again and will die in prison, where he belongs.

That was a bittersweet victory for Kristy’s family. During her witness impact statement, Sandy Wesselman commented that if only Jones had served his minimum term back in the 1980s, her daughter would still be alive. Sandy also shared the poignant memory of attaching Kristy’s Communion pin to her older daughter’s wedding dress so that Kristy could have some small part of that family milestone. “The pain of having a child murdered is life-shattering,” she told the packed courtroom. “What she would have become will forever be an unfinished book.”

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Murder Most Vile Volume 51

2025-04-14T02:43:00.000-07:00

18 Chilling true murder cases, including

Loved and Lost: A gilded couple, two perfect kids, a life to be envied. Then depression sets in, then substance abuse. Things unravel quickly after that.

The Milkman Did It: A series of brutal attacks in an English village. The suspect is the last person you’d think of. He’s the guy who delivers your milk.

A Desperate Man: Continental Flight 11 has just taken off from Chicago O’Hare. There’s a man onboard with a death wish. He’s carrying a bomb.

Evil Walks Among Us: Daniel had saved for months to buy Christmas presents for his family. On the day he went shopping, he encountered a monster.

The Contract: A deeply disturbed young man obsessed with fame and fortune. He believes that a demon will grant his wishes... but only if he pays in blood.

Self Help: The killer had a strange defense. He said that the victim had asked to die and had paid him for the job. He was only fulfilling his obligation.

A Cold Day in Hell: On a cold, drizzly day, a little girl decides to play hooky from school. That turns out to be a dreadful mistake.

Kill for Me: She was a troubled teen, finding stability with her foster family. But one of her guardians has an ulterior motive, a motive that involves murder.

Plus 10 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now

Click the "Read More" link below to read the first chapter of

Murder Most Vile Volume 51

Too Mean to Die

There was a time when Hammond, Indiana was a boomtown. That was back in the day when its steel and oil industries were in full flow, when workers flocked in from all over the country to take advantage of the plentiful jobs. By the early 80s, though, those halcyon days were long gone. The factories were shuttered, and the city was looking the worse for wear, just another struggling metropole in America’s Rust Belt. In many ways, Paul Komyatti Sr was a manifestation of his hometown’s post-boom woes.

Back in his prime, Paul had worked construction, putting in long hours to provide for his wife, Rosemary, and their two children. Now, at age 65, he was retired, in poor health, bitter with the way his life had turned out. Most of his days were spent riding a stool at his local bar. Paul liked to drink and he was a nasty drunk. His wife could attest to that. Rosemary Komyatti could often be seen sporting bruises and black eyes. The insults and put-downs hurt almost as much.

But Rosemary wasn’t the only one to suffer under her husband’s tyrannical rule. Seventeen-year-old Paul Jr often found himself on the wrong side of his father’s ire. On one occasion. Paul Sr chased his son through the neighborhood with a gun. Paul Sr’s daughter, Mariann, was spared the beatings but not the verbal abuse. Mariann fled the family home when she was 18. She later married a man named William “Billy” Vandiver, a work-shy loser with a criminal past. Needless to say, her father hated him.

In fact, there was only one person who escaped Paul Komyatti’s all-encompassing hatred of humanity. That was his grandson, Jason, Mariann, and William Vandiver’s boy. Paul was devoted to the child. When Mariann and Billy fell on hard times and asked if they could move into the family home, Paul immediately agreed, just so that he could have his grandson around. His favorite pastime (other than visiting with his boozing buddies) was to take the boy to one of his favorite fishing spots along the Lake Michigan shoreline. It was only when he was with Jason that Paul’s crusty exterior gave way to anything approaching human kindness.

None of that kindness ebbed to the other members of the household, though. Paul was as cantankerous as ever, perhaps even more so now that he had his daughter and son-in-law living under his roof. The tension was ratcheted to boiling point, the arguments frequent and brutal. Eventually, Mariann had enough and said that she was leaving. Paul responded that she was welcome to go but that Jason was staying with him. The altercation turned physical. Mariann got the worst of it.

For Paul Komyatti’s longsuffering children, this was the last straw. Paul was out of control. Something had to be done to stop him. It was Mariann who first suggested murder as a solution to the problem. It took very little persuasion to get her brother on board. However, the scheme could not proceed without their mother’s approval. How would Rosemary feel about the plan to murder her husband?

At first, Rosemary was hesitant. She suggested that they wait it out. Paul’s health wasn’t what it had once been. He was afflicted with emphysema and had recently undergone open heart surgery. Given that he was still a chain smoker and a heavy drinker, it seemed only a matter of time before he keeled over and died.

Mariann, though, wasn’t willing to wait – not another month, not another week, not another day. “He’s too mean to die,” she told her mother. It was time to act, time to reclaim their freedom. Eventually, Rosemary was persuaded. Her only stipulation was that the murder could not take place inside the house. She didn’t want to be left with a mess to clean up. With their mother’s blessing thus obtained, Mariann and Paul Jr put their heads together to come up with a plan. They had an eager accomplice in Billy Vandiver.

The initial plan was to gun Paul down as he staggered home from his favorite drinking hole one afternoon, making it look like a mugging gone wrong. Billy had a friend who he thought might agree to do the job. However, the plan was soon abandoned as too risky. A murder committed on a city street in broad daylight would attract too much heat. And bringing someone from outside the family into the plot brought other risks. He might talk out of turn or perhaps decide to blackmail them. The assassination plot was out of the equation.

The next idea was to poison the old man by spiking his medication. Paul had been prescribed nitroglycerin to aid his recovery after his recent operation. They figured that if they could increase the dosage, they’d send him into cardiac arrest. This meant that Paul would have to be killed at home, but Rosemary was talked around to that. She just wanted to be rid of her abusive husband. It was she who started pouring out the capsules into his beverages, seeking to trigger the desired reaction.

But Paul would prove to be much tougher than any of them had anticipated. He showed no reaction, even as Rosemary kept upping the dosage. Eventually, Rosemary became frustrated and started spooning rat poison into her husband’s food and drink. All that achieved was to give him an upset stomach which made him more disagreeable than ever. It was time for a new plan.

This idea, discussed at length among the conspirators, involved injecting an air bubble into a vein with a syringe, triggering a heart attack. Of course, Paul was never going to lie still while someone stuck a needle in him, but Billy had a plan for that. He suggested that they might subdue their victim by holding an ether-soaked rag over his face. He knew where to obtain a quantity of the stuff.

The date for the murder was to be March 20, 1983. At around 1:00 p.m. that afternoon, Billy and Paul Jr sprang into action. Their plan went something like this. They’d enter the room while Paul Sr was asleep. Paul Jr would hold his father’s feet while Billy lay across his chest and forced the cloth over his mouth and nose. Then, once he was unconscious, they’d stick the needle into his arm and inject an air buddle into a vein. Simple.

To give the conspirators their due, it was a clever plan. Given Paul Sr’s tenuous state of health, no one was going to delve too deeply into an apparent heart attack. But the idea would fail over one small detail. When they went to retrieve the ether bottle from under the kitchen sink, they found that a significant quantity had evaporated. Would it be enough to knock Paul Sr out? Billy decided that it would have to be. The plan was going ahead.

Unfortunately for the would-be killers, Billy’s calculation of the amount of ether they required was way off. Paul Sr woke as soon as the cloth was placed over his face and started struggling. Realizing that it was Paul Jr pinning his legs, he started begging, “Please son, can’t we just talk about this.” Then he cried out to his wife for help, then in desperation to his grandson. Waiting anxiously in the living room, Rosemary and Mariann heard the cries and prayed for it to be over.

But the old man wasn’t giving up the fight. He continued struggling and almost broke free several times. In desperation, Billy pulled a gun he was carrying and used it to pistol whip his father-in-law. That only made Paul fight harder. Incredibly, he appeared to be gaining the upper hand. That was when Paul Jr decided to end this once and for all. In his pocket was a razor-sharp fish filleting knife. He pulled it now and started stabbing his victim, plunging the knife in, time and again. In the living room, Rosemary and Mariann heard a series of piercing screams. Then silence. Moments later, Billy emerged from the room, covered in blood. “It’s done,” he told them.

The plan had been to make Paul Sr’s death look like a cardiac arrest. That wasn’t going to work now, not with the body looking like it had come off second best in an altercation with a combine harvester. A new strategy was called for. They were going to have to get rid of the corpse. That would involve dismembering it. Billy and Paul Jr convened to the garage where they selected the tools for their macabre task, a pruning saw and a crosscut saw. However, a surprise awaited them when they returned to the bedroom. Paul Sr was still alive. Billy quickly remedied that, taking one of the saws and hacking through the old man’s throat. Paul Komyatti Sr was still alive when he was decapitated.

Now began the gruesome task of dismemberment, something that the conspirators somehow managed to interject with offbeat humor. At one point, Billy walked into the living room carrying Paul Sr’s severed penis which he offered to Rosemary. “I didn’t want it when he was alive,” she quipped. “Why would I want it now?” That brought peals of laughter as Billy returned to continue cutting.

Eventually, the horrific business was done, the body sectioned off and wrapped in garbage bags. Billy and Paul Jr loaded these up and drove with them to the lakefront where the body parts were dropped into a depression in the ground and covered over with a sheet of plywood. Meanwhile, Rosemary and Mariann were hard at work, cleaning up the bloody mess that had been left behind. The deed was done. Now, could they pull off the cover-up?

Paul Komyatti was quickly missed by his drinking buddies down at the local. When his usual seat remained empty for several days, a couple of them came asking about him. Rosemary told them that he’d gone on a fishing trip to Canada. They found that strange since Paul had said nothing about it. Nonetheless, they let it fly. Paul wasn’t required to share his plans with them.

But the fishing trip story was only going to hold up for so long. As the inquiries became more frequent and more insistent, Rosemary decided that it might be prudent to report her husband missing to the police. She used the same cover story, saying that Paul had gone on a fishing trip to Canada and hadn’t returned. The police weren’t overly concerned. It would not be the first time that a man had run out on his family.

Would this ruse have held up indefinitely? Debatable. However, events were about to take an unexpected turn, courtesy of Billy Vandiver. Billy had been angling for his share of Paul’s estate and had already managed to wheedle several thousand dollars out of his mother-in-law by hinting that he might go to the police and admit to the murder, dragging all of them into it. Rosemary was sure that he was bluffing. Nonetheless, she was afraid of Billy. She’d seen firsthand what he was capable of. What if he decided to do to her what he’d done to her husband? It was for this reason that she decided to talk to the police.

However, Rosemary wasn’t about to confess to her involvement in the murder plot. Instead, she came up with a convoluted story about a conversation she’d overheard between Billy and Mariann. They’d been talking about killing her husband, she said, and she now believed that they had followed through on their plan and had disposed of the body somewhere along the lakeshore.

Rosemary’s story had plenty of inconsistencies. However, the police believed there was at least some truth to it, specifically as regards the disposal of the corpse. A couple of detectives therefore drove to the area Rosemary had mentioned and began scouting it out. They’d been walking the shoreline for nigh on two hours when they picked up a scent that was familiar to them, the putrid aroma of death. It appeared to be coming from under a sheet of plywood. The officers lifted the board, unleashing a swarm of black flies. Paul Komyatti had been found.

Now followed a roundup of the suspects. Rosemary and Paul Jr were arrested first, then Mariann. Meanwhile, a warrant was issued for Billy Vandiver who had skipped town and was on the run, considered armed and dangerous. He was eventually tracked to his parents’ farm in Missouri and arrested there. The gang was all together again and one of them was talking. Paul Jr was the first to crack, spilling the beans on the murder plot and sparing none of the gruesome details.

Rosemary and Paul Jr were the first of the conspirators to go on trial. Both admitted to their part in the crime although they claimed to have done so under duress. They’d only participated because they were terrified of Billy, they said. The jury rejected that excuse and found them guilty. The sentences were harsh – 100 years behind bars for each of them, with Paul Jr’s sentence later halved by the judge on account of his youth. “This family seems genetically free of feelings and shows a blackened character of epic proportions,” his honor said in his summation.

Next, it was the turn of Mariann Komyatti Vandiver. She entered a guilty plea to conspiracy and received a sentence of just eight years. Given that it was she who first came up with the idea of killing her father, she got off lightly. The same could not be said for her husband. William Vandiver received the ultimate penalty. He was sentenced to die in the electric chair.

Death row inmates in the United States typically spend years, even decades, awaiting execution as they work their way through the appeals process. But William Vandiver did not want to wait decades. He wanted it to be over as soon as possible and thus barred his attorneys from filing an appeal on his behalf. He got his wish on October 16, 1985, when he was led to the death chamber at the State Penitentiary in Terre Haute. The execution was badly botched. Three jolts of electricity were passed through Billy Vandiver’s body before he was eventually declared dead. Like his victim, it seemed that he was almost too mean to die. Almost.

Deadly Women Volume 19

2025-03-17T00:29:00.000-07:00

20 classic true crime cases of women who kill, including;

Taylor Schabusiness: It started as a kinky sex session, fueled by drugs and alcohol. It ended in an orgy of torture, death, and mutilation.

Martha Freeman: Jeffrey was desperate to hold onto his failing marriage. Perhaps he’d have felt differently if he knew what his wife was hiding in the attic.

Wendy Evans: Sleeping with your best friend’s ex is never a good idea. That applies two-fold when your friend is a psycho with money to spend on a hitman.

Anne Gates: Raymond swore he’d never love again after his wife died. But then there was Anne, young, beautiful, intriguing... exceptionally dangerous.

Robyn Lindholm: She had the looks of a supermodel and the morals of a viper. The media called her the most dangerous woman in Australia. They were right.

Marquita Burch: The babysitter claimed that the little boy had vanished from a park while she was momentarily distracted. The truth was far more sinister.

Teresa Perez: Teresa had a thing for older men with lots of money. This time, she’s hit the motherlode. Try getting between her and her prize.

Amina Chaudhary: A romance gone awry, a woman hungry for revenge, an innocent child who will pay a dreadful price.

Plus 12 more fascinating cases . Download your copy now.

Click the "Read More" link below to read the first chapter of

Deadly Women Volume 19

Amina Chaudhary

Sarabjit Minhas was young, beautiful, free-spirited, living the best life that her adopted homeland of Canada had to offer. Like any teenager, she enjoyed dressing up, hanging out with friends, listening to music, and going to clubs. Unfortunately for Sarabjit, the time for such frivolous pursuits was rapidly nearing its end. Her 18^th birthday was approaching. She’d be required to marry and settle down. Her family already had a potential husband lined up. They were strict Sikhs and expected her to marry within their religion.

But Sarabjit was in love with someone else. His name was Vijay Gupta, he was 19 years old, and he and Sarabjit had been carrying on a secret affair for several months. The problem was that Vijay was Hindu. Sarabjit’s parents would never consent to the relationship. They continued pressing her to marry the man they’d chosen for her, a successful businessman twice her age. Sarabjit refused, enraging her family.

Then came an angry confrontation with her younger brother, during which he accused Sarabjit of dishonoring the family name. He threatened to kill her if she continued to refuse the arranged marriage. Sarabjit challenged him to do his worst. That was a mistake. The teenager pulled a knife and stabbed her in the upper arm, using so much force that the blade penetrated her bicep and embedded itself in her chest. Had the knife been half an inch longer, she would surely have been killed.

This intervention, as crude and violent as it might have been, had the desired effect for the family. Afraid of becoming the victim of an honor killing, Sarabjit fell into line and married the man chosen for her, a man old enough to be her father, a stranger for whom she had no affection. Marriage, however, did nothing to dim her passion for Vijay. She continued to see him in secret, to hope against hope that they might still be together someday.

But Vijay was facing family pressures of his own. He too was expected to marry and had already become engaged to a woman back in India, a woman chosen by his family, a woman he’d never met. Sarabjit was blissfully unaware of this arrangement. She and Vijay continued to sneak around, sometimes accompanied on their outings by Vijay’s eight-year-old nephew, Rajesh. This was a sweet kid who Vijay was exceptionally close to. The boy also developed a bond with Sarabjit, addressing her by the affectionate epithet, “auntie.”

In 1981, Sarabjit discovered that she was pregnant. Since she had been intimate with both her husband and Vijay, the paternity of the child was uncertain. Not to Sarabjit, though. She was convinced, as only a woman can be, that the child’s father was Vijay. She could hardly wait to tell him and intended to do so when they next met. However, on this day, Vijay had a bombshell announcement of his own. He was going to India for a few weeks to visit his family. Sarabjit was crushed by the news. She decided in that moment to hold back on telling him about her pregnancy. She wasn’t that far along. It would wait until Vijay got back from his trip.

What Sarabjit didn’t know, what Vijay had failed to tell her, was that this wasn’t just a family reunion. He was going back to his homeland to be married. When she eventually found out, via a mutual friend, she refused to believe it. Then, after confirming the news with another acquaintance, she broke down in tears. She felt betrayed, deceived, dejected. Never mind that she was married to another man, she had always considered Vijay to be hers and hers alone. Now, the dream that they might one day be together, was gone. She had lost him.

Sarabjit’s period of dejection did not last long. Within a few days, her sadness had hardened into something else, something primal. She wanted to get back at her lover, to hurt him as he’d hurt her, to teach him what loss felt like. Briefly, she considered killing herself. Then, she thought that she might find another lover, to show him what he was missing out on. But neither of those solutions seemed adequate. She wanted something that would crush his soul. Then she had it. His nephew Rajesh, the little boy he loved almost as a son. That would get to him. That would hurt as much as she was hurting.

On the morning of February 3, 1982, eight-year-old Rajesh Gupta left his home in the Toronto suburbs to make his daily walk to school. It was a frigid day, with snow on the ground and a brisk wind arrowing between the buildings. Rajesh was bundled up against the elements in a scarf, coat and hoodie, with gloves on his hands. Still the cold managed to find a way in. When a car pulled up beside him and a familiar voice called out his name, he got right in. Sarabjit offered him a ride to school. Rajesh was more than happy to accept.

First, though, Sarabjit had to make a stop at her house. Rajesh didn’t mind. It was on the way and he had time. He even followed Sarabjit inside when she suggested it. In doing so, he walked right into a trap. Rajesh was standing in the living room when Sarabjit crept up behind and struck him on the back of the head with some heavy object. Rajesh was knocked unconscious and collapsed to the floor. Then Sarabjit straddled him, pulled the drawstring from his hoodie and drew it around his throat. She held it tight until the boy stopped breathing. Rajesh died right there, strangled to death by the woman he’d affectionately called “auntie.”

Sarabjit had planned every aspect of this heartless crime, including the disposal of the body. She needed it to be found. She wanted to make a statement. The child’s corpse was crammed inside a cardboard box and loaded into the trunk of Sarabjit’s car. She then drove to the spot where she regularly rendezvoused with Vijay and dumped it there, face down in the snow. The body was discovered later that same day. Officers who responded to the scene initially thought the child was the victim of a hit-and-run. Then they saw the distinctive bruising on Rajesh’s neck and knew it was something more sinister.

The Gupta family was devastated by the cruel death of this much-loved child. What kind of a monster would inflict this on an innocent little boy? Vijay Gupta was still on his honeymoon when he got the news. He immediately made plans to return to Canada, leaving his new bride behind. There, he found his beloved Sarabjit waiting for him, ready to ease his suffering in her loving arms.

But Sarabjit’s revenge was not yet complete. She needed Vijay to know that it was she who had murdered his nephew. Only then would he understand the extent to which his betrayal had hurt her. A few days after Vijay’s return to Canada, the two of them were in bed together when she blurted out, “I did it.” “Did what?” Vijay wanted to know. “I killed Rajesh,” Sarabjit responded.

It is uncertain what response Sarabjit expected to her confession. The response she got was for Vijay to scramble out of bed, pull on his clothes, and go directly to the nearest police station. Sarabjit soon found officers knocking at her door, wanting answers to some pressing questions. She told them that her story was a lie. She’d only said it to get a rise out of Vijay.

Unfortunately for Sarabjit, she had underestimated the power of modern forensics. The police obtained a search warrant for her car and in it found all the evidence they needed for an arrest warrant. There were glass fragments and yellow paint chips that matched traces found on Rajesh’s clothing. There were also fibers in the trunk that were forensically matched to the dead boy’s scarf. Rajesh had been inside this trunk. There was only one reason why he’d have been placed there and only one person who could have done it.

Still, Sarabjit wasn’t going to make it easy for prosecutors. She entered a not guilty plea at trial and tried to deflect responsibility to her husband. The jury saw right through that and convicted her of murder. She was sentenced to life in prison. Under Canadian law that meant a minimum of 25 years behind bars.

But the controversy surrounding Sarabjit Minhas did not end there. Indeed, it was just getting started. While awaiting trial, Sarabjit met another convicted murderer, Anees Chaudhary. The two started corresponding and were eventually given permission to marry. They were then granted conjugal visits, resulting in the birth of three children over the years. Sarabjit, now going by the name Amina Chaudhary, would have little time with the children before they were put up for adoption. Meanwhile, Amina continued to make news. It was reported in the media that she obtained two university degrees while incarcerated, plus a hairdressing license. She was also given a nose job on the taxpayers’ dime.

Amina Chaudhary was released on provisional parole in 2006, one year after her husband walked free. She and Anees settled in Kitchener, Ontario, where they put a deposit on a home with money they had saved while incarcerated. However, Amina soon found herself embroiled in another legal battle. She was not a Canadian citizen, making her eligible for deportation, either to India or the UK. The action was dropped when neither country would accept her. Then, in 2009, both she and her husband were back in custody after they were accused of concealing assets and lying about their income.

These latest arrests proved a death knell to the relationship. By the time that Amina was released again in 2012, she and Anees had split. Amina has since tried to reconcile with her children, her “cellblock babies,” as the media had dubbed them. The children, now adults, reportedly want nothing to do with her.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, Amina Chaudhary continues to insist that she did not murder Rajesh Gupta on that frigid winter’s day in 1982, that she is the victim here, a woman wrongly convicted of a terrible crime. There aren’t many who believe her.

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Killer Kids Volume 16

2025-02-02T01:57:00.000-08:00

22 shocking true stories of kids who kill, including;

Aidan Von Grabow: Aidan’s acne medication came with a deadly side effect. It turned the mild-mannered teen into a vicious killer.

Jason Hartley: A 15-year-old, desperate to lose his virginity, pays a classmate for sex. Then she mocks his performance and things turn bad... very bad.

Dakotah Eliason: Dakotah’s grandparents had taken him in when his parents failed him. He loves them dearly. Why then, is he planning their destruction?

Berenice Juarez: Bernice does not approve of her mother’s lifestyle and she specifically does not like her new lover. She has a plan for that.

John Totherow: The boy claimed that someone had broken in and murdered his mom. The truth was closer to home... and far more shocking.

Krissi Caldwell & Bobby Gonzales: Krissi’s parents disapprove of her boyfriend. She won’t give him up. A clash is coming. There will be blood.

Aiden Fucci: A 13-year-old cheerleader sneaks out in the middle of the night to meet up with a classmate. She thinks they might fool around. He has other plans.

Alsa Thompson: She was a sweet and intelligent child who delighted all who encountered her. She may also have been a serial killer.

Plus 14 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now

Click the "Read More" link below to read the first chapter of

Killer Kids Volume 16

Adam Barney

Jury duty isn’t something that most of us would opt to do, given the choice. But, in a country where the legal system relies on such things, there is always the chance that you will one day receive that dreaded summons in the mail, instructing you to appear. Then all you can hope for is that the case is mundane and quickly resolved so you can get on with your life. You certainly do not want to be assigned to a matter like the Adam Barney case.

Adam was a 15-year-old from McKinney, Texas, who stood accused of murdering his 50-year-old mother. The details of the crime were disturbing. Stacey Barney had been clubbed into submission with a hammer before the last vestiges of her life were extinguished by her son’s strangling hands. Testimony of such an event would be traumatizing to anyone who had to hear it. This case, however, had an extra dimension of horror. There was video footage to be viewed. The murder, in all its savagery, had been caught on film.

To call Adam Barney a troubled child, would be to vastly understate the issue. This was a kid with severe behavioral and psychological problems, a kid who’d spent much of his youth in treatment centers and juvenile detention, who’d once told his mother that he wanted to murder his entire family. He was just seven years old at the time. Since that troubling revelation, his parents and siblings had lived through years of abusive behavior, manipulation, unprovoked aggression. It did not take much to set Adam off and when he unleashed he was a destructive force of nature.

Craig and Stacey Barney did what they could for their son, seeking out the help of specialists and treatment facilities. But nothing seemed to work. It was as though something was broken in Adam, something severely off-kilter. “There is nothing more hurtful than to hear that he wanted to kill all of us,” Stacey recorded in her journal. She and Craig eventually took to locking their bedroom door at night, lest Adam pay them an unwanted nocturnal visit. They took the same precaution for their other two children and made sure that all of the knives in the house were under lock and key. Such were the measures needed to ensure their safety.

In January 2021, large swathes of the country were under a storm warning. A severe ice storm was predicted, one that would paralyze several states over the next few days. At their home in west McKinney, Craig and Stacey Barney were cloistered together in earnest conversation. They’d just received good news. An out-of-state treatment facility had agreed to take on Adam’s case. The experts there had reviewed his medical and psychiatric records and were confident that they could treat him. They’d had success with similar cases. That was all very well but Craig and Stacey still had to break the news to their son. They were not at all sure how he would take it.

In the end, Craig decided that the direct approach was best. Adam was called to the living room where his parents told him how much they loved him, how much they wanted him to get well. They then informed him about the treatment center and explained that they would be bringing him there in a couple of days. To their surprise, Adam showed little response. He listened attentively, nodded solemnly at the end, did not raise any questions when given the opportunity to do so. He then asked if he could be excused and went to his room. Craig and Stacey could hardly believe that it had gone so well.

Craig Barney retired to bed soon after this exchange with his son. Stacey stayed up, watching TV in the living room. She was still out there when Craig woke some hours later. He looked at the bedside clock. Well past midnight. Stacey had probably dozed off on the couch, he decided. He should probably go and wake her. Swinging his legs out of the bed, he left the room and padded down the hall. The TV was still on, the sound turned down low so as not to disturb the other residents of the house. Craig rounded the couch to shake his wife awake. That was when he saw the blood. He’d barely had time to register what was happening when a figure detached itself from the shadows and came at him. It was Adam, and he was wielding a screwdriver.

Just after 01:00 a.m. on that January morning, a 911 call came into the McKinney Police Department. The caller identified himself as Craig Barney and said that his teenage son had attacked his wife, who was covered in blood and did not appear to be breathing. The boy then tried to attack him, he said, but fled into the night after he fought back.

Units were immediately dispatched to the scene. They were there within minutes but arrived too late to do anything for Stacey Barney. Stacey was dead, the back of her head beaten to a pulp by some blunt object. She also bore the marks of manual strangulation on her throat, telltale bruises where her killer had fastened his grip. It was hard to believe that a child could have done this to his own mother.

But any doubts as to who was responsible were removed when Craig Barney handed over the tapes from his home surveillance system. Here, every gory detail of the lethal attack was caught on film. Adam is seen walking into the garage. He rummages through a toolbox and selects a hammer and a screwdriver. Then, he re-enters the house, coming up beyond his mom as she sits watching TV. He says something, then attacks before Stacey even has time to turn around.

The first strike is inflicted with extreme force. It renders the unfortunate woman unconscious before she can cry out. But Adam isn’t stopping, he continues to rain down blows on his mother’s head, clubbing her ten more times before casting the hammer aside and putting his hands on her throat. It is uncertain whether Stacey is still alive at this time, although Adam maintains his death grip for several minutes before releasing. Perhaps he has heard his father approaching. The surveillance footage then shows the brief tussle between father and son before Adam breaks off and flees.

A search was now launched for Adam Barney, a massive manhunt that had every available officer out in the difficult conditions. It was supported and coordinated from the air by a police helicopter. It is easy to understand why the police took such robust action for a juvenile offender. Given Barney’s mental health issues and history of violence, there were genuine concerns that he might attack someone else. Not only that but he wasn’t exactly dressed for the extreme weather conditions. He might freeze out there.

In the end, neither of those things happened. Barney was arrested at around 08:00 a.m. that morning, walking down a road, hunched up against the cold with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. He offered no resistance when an officer snapped the cuffs on him.

Adam Barney was charged with first-degree murder, with the Collin County District Attorney stating his intention to try the teen killer as an adult. That left Barney’s defense team with few options. The entire murder was caught on tape. Denial was pointless. The only issue up for debate was the appropriate punishment for such a brutal act.

Defense attorney April Steele argued that her client’s history of mental illness should be taken in mitigation. She also contended that he’d suffered sexual abuse at various treatment centers, physical abuse at home, and bullying at school. The second of those claims was fiercely contested by the prosecution. Every piece of testimony suggested that Craig and Stacey had been devoted parents who had done everything they could to get help for their son. He had repaid their devotion with years of intimidation, culminating in an act of extreme violence. According to the prosecutor, the boy was “beyond rehabilitation” and should be locked away for life.

This was where the jury came in. This was where the unfortunate twelve had to sit through a screening of the savage murder. Many could not make it to the end and the judge called a stop before the video played out. They’d all seen enough. One small detail was added during this process. It was the words that Adam Barney spoke before landing the first blow on his mother’s head. Taken in context, they are chilling. “Goodnight. I love you.”

Adam Barney was sentenced to life in prison, with the jury taking just over three hours to reach its decision. Parole was not ruled out. However, it will take many years, perhaps many decades, before it is deemed safe to let him rejoin society.

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Murder Most Vile Volume 50

2025-01-04T01:41:00.000-08:00

18 Chilling true murder cases, including

A Terrible Truth: John Sharpe has decided that he no longer wants to be married. He’s bought himself a speargun. It’s cheaper than a divorce.

Poor Twisted Me: He was good-looking rich kid obsessed with losing his virginity. If it doesn’t happen soon, he might just do something rash.

Permission to Kill: The killer offered a bizarre defense for murder, he claimed that the victim had asked him to kill her.

Showtime: A petulant man-child and his doting mother get into a war over her refusal to pay for concert tickets. One of them won’t survive the fall-out.

Pinky Swear: An infant dies in the care of a babysitter. The ruling is SIDS, but the child’s family never believed that. Years later, the dreadful truth emerges.

Killer Ratings: As a crime reporter, Wallace was always looking for a good story. And if the headlines weren’t compelling enough, he’d make them himself.

Evil Fantasies: Tanya has a bucket list of things she wants to do, like watching her boyfriend rape and murder a young girl.

Victim of Love: A woman dies in a tragic fall from a horse. At first glance, it looks like an accident. A closer look reveals murder.

Plus 10 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now

Click the "Read More" link below to read the first chapter of

Murder Most Vile Volume 50

A Terrible Truth

Sometime in September 2003, John Sharp visited a sporting goods store in Melbourne, Australia, and came home with a speargun. This was a surprise to his wife, Anna, since John wasn’t a particularly sporting type and had never shown any interest in the ocean. Neither did he give any indication that he planned on taking up scuba diving. His sole use for the gun seemed to be firing its two projectiles into a board in the backyard, retrieving them, firing again. Anna, watching bemused from the kitchen window, wondered what her husband might be up to. Had she known the answer to that question, she’d have taken her baby daughter and run.

John Myles Sharpe was born on February 28, 1967, in the Melbourne suburb of Mornington. He would never stray far from the area, spending his childhood there and remaining in the general vicinity as a young man. By then, John had landed a job with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and it was here that he met his wife-to-be. Anna Kemp was an attractive, vivacious transplant from New Zealand. She was four years older than John, but that proved no obstacle to romance. The couple started dating, and things moved pretty quickly from there. They were married in October 1994.

To everyone who knew them, to colleagues, friends, and family, John and Anna seemed like a normal, happy couple. But that would change with the birth of their daughter in August 2002. Gracie Louise Sharpe was born with a congenital condition called hip dysplasia, which required her to wear a corrective harness for the first three months of her life. She was also subjected to painful orthopedic treatments. She had difficulty sleeping and cried a lot. This put a strain on the marriage, with Anna trying to do the best for her child and John becoming increasingly tetchy. Tempers flared and John complained to friends that his wife was “moody and controlling.”

Was the marriage in trouble? Apparently not, if the couple’s next move was anything to go by. In September of 2003, the Sharpes made a substantial investment in their future by signing the deeds on a new house at 116 Prince Street, Mornington. It was in the backyard of this property that John would practice his speargun skills.

2003 would turn out to be quite a momentous year for the Sharpes. In November, Anna discovered that she was pregnant again. The pregnancy was unplanned, and Anna had mixed feelings about it. For John, there was no such ambiguity. He didn’t want the child. He and Anna already had their hands full with Gracie. How were they going to cope with another kid? It would take him weeks to come to terms with the idea that he was to be a father again. Once he accepted the inevitable, though, things seemed to improve between him and Anna. When they attended a nephew’s birthday party on March 21, 2004, they seemed to be a happy family again. That, as it turned out, was a pretense.

On March 29, Anna’s mom received an e-mail from her daughter saying that she had left John for another man, that she was pregnant by her new lover, and that she was happy for the first time in ages. The concerned mother then called her son-in-law to find out what was happening, and John confirmed that Anna had walked out on him, taking Gracie with her. However, this did not ring true to Anna’s family. In fact, they were so concerned that they went to the police in Dunedin and filed a missing person report. The New Zealand authorities then contacted their counterparts in Australia and asked them to do a welfare check. Officers who knocked on John Sharpe’s door that day found him home alone. To them, Sharpe repeated his story. He said that Anna had left him for another man and had moved with their daughter to the nearby suburb of Chelsea.

However, the Melbourne police found no trace of Anna or Gracie Sharpe in their subsequent search, and now concerns were growing for their safety. They would remain among the missing over the weeks that followed. During that time, a distraught John Sharpe appeared on national television, issuing a heartfelt appeal that said in part, “Anna, our marriage may be over, but I still love you and you are the mother of our beautiful daughter Gracie, whom we both adore more than anyone else. Please let me know that you are okay.” A week later, Sharpe informed the police that the message had generated a response. Anna had called and told him that she and Gracie were fine. She’d also told him not to look for them and had refused to reveal her location.

Not everyone was convinced by this story. In New Zealand, Anna’s family was pushing the authorities for an official inquiry, and that pressure was being relayed to the police in Melbourne. On May 20, the New Zealand authorities issued an official request. That same day, Sharpe was interviewed at his home and repeated what he’d said earlier, that Anna had left him. He would stick to that narrative during another interview on June 10. When the police returned for a third time, two weeks later, it was with a warrant in hand. John Sharpe was arrested on suspicion of murder.

The questions now were more pressing, and they were being asked by homicide investigators who’d done this many times before. Sharpe hung tough through the first session, but by the second, he was showing clear signs of strain. Eventually, he asked for a break so that he could speak with his family. When he returned, he said that he was ready to tell what had happened. It was now that the terrible truth would be revealed.

Sharpe started his confession by admitting outright that he had killed his wife and baby daughter. He had done it, he said, because Anna was “moody” and because she was trying to “run his life.” Things had come to a head on March 23 when, after another argument, Anna stormed off to bed while he stayed up, angry and brooding. Eventually, he decided that he wasn’t going to take her abuse anymore. He walked to the garage and fetched his speargun, loading it with one of the bolts. He then returned to the bedroom where Anna was asleep. Holding the gun just inches from her face, he’d pulled the trigger and fired the spear into her brain.

Anna was fatally wounded but not killed. It would take the second spear to end her life. Sharpe then covered her body with a towel and went downstairs, where he folded out the sofa bed and went to sleep.

The following morning, Sharpe tried to remove the spears from Anna’s head but couldn’t. They were too deeply embedded. All he was able to do was unscrew the shafts and separate them from the heads. That done, he went about his day, even dropping Gracie at daycare and later collecting her there. He also stopped at Sport Phillip Marine and bought another bolt for his speargun. Later that night, he dug a hole in the backyard and committed his pregnant wife to a shallow grave. Before putting her in the ground, he dug the two spear points out of her skull.

What John Sharpe had done would already qualify him as one of the most depraved, cold-hearted killers in Australian history. But Sharpe wasn’t done yet. He had still deeper depths to dredge. On March 27, four days after he’d killed his wife, he decided to alleviate himself of responsibility for his daughter.

According to Sharpe, he put Gracie to bed in her cot and then drank several glasses of whiskey and Coke to “numb his senses.” He retrieved the spear gun from the garage, loaded it with the newly acquired spear, and re-entered his daughter’s bedroom. Standing over the baby, he fired a bolt into her brain at close range. He expected Gracie to die instantly, but she did not. Instead, she started screaming in pain. Sharpe had to run to fetch his other two bolts to finish the job. And still, Gracie wasn’t dead. He had to pull out one of the spears and fire it again to kill her. This murder, he claimed, was not premeditated. “I was thinking of taking care of Gracie by myself,” he told the officers. “Amongst all this madness, I just lost the plot.”

This was difficult testimony to hear, even for hardened homicide cops. But there was more to tell. With Gracie dead, Sharpe wrapped her tiny corpse in garbage bags and a tarpaulin and bound it with duct tape. He then drove the body to the Mornington Refuse Transfer Station and dumped it there, along with a boxful of the baby’s clothes and toys. The speargun and its projectiles were also tossed in.

The following day, Sharpe purchased two tarpaulins and an electric chainsaw. He exhumed his wife’s body and hacked it into three pieces. These sections were wrapped and taped and thrown into the same waste collection bins where he’d disposed of his daughter. Thankfully, these remains would be retrieved by police after a massive three-day search. Mother and daughter and unborn son would at least have the dignity of a Christian burial.

John Myles Sharpe appeared for trial at the Supreme Court of Victoria in August 2005. He entered a guilty plea to the murders of Anna and Grace Sharpe and was sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum non-parole period of 33 years. Sharpe was sent to serve his time at HM Prison Barwon, where fellow inmates made it clear that they’d kill him if they could get their hands on him. As a result, the family killer spends his time in protective custody, cut off from the prison population.

One further detail would emerge in the aftermath of the Sharpe trial, a detail that paints John Myles as even more of a monster than you might previously have assumed. A member of the extended Sharpe family suggested an alternative motive for the murders. Sharpe, it appears, had a history of molesting children and might have been sexually abusing his daughter. Once Anna found out, the deadly plot was set in motion. Two innocents would be brutally slain to cover up the dirty secrets of a debauched pedophile.

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Cold Cases Solved Volume 11

2024-12-14T23:08:00.000-08:00

18 Baffling True Crime Cold Cases, including;

The Last Detective: A cheating husband; a missing wife. The case looks like it will go unsolved. Enter a detective who won’t let it go.

Jukebox Hero: Kevin was working his dream job in the music industry. Then he uncovered a grift and decided to speak up. Dangerous move, very dangerous.

One Night in Elkhart: An ambush at a traffic light; a teenager abducted. What awaits is a night of pure terror... at the hands of a particularly sick individual.

The Truth About My Murder: The body of a young woman is found in the trunk of her car. Several suspects emerge. One of them is the lead detective on the case.

Slaughter in Sitka: A young Californian goes missing while working in Alaska. Years later, the truth about his disappearance emerges. It’s a shocker.

Little Runaway: Donna had run away many times before. This time is different. This time, she’s run straight into the grasp of a depraved child killer.

The Bone Collector: A teenager goes missing from a small town. Then a man reports that his dogs have been bringing back strange bones from the woods.

Major Crimes: Meet Bill Major. He’s a regular guy, the kind of man you might like if you got to meet him. He’s also a pedophile and a cold-blooded killer.

Plus 10 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now

Click the "Read More" link below to read the first chapter of

Cold Cases: Solved! Volume 11

The Last Detective

Growing up on picturesque Lake Sammamish, Washington, Nicole Schneider had an idyllic, if somewhat unconventional, life. Her mom, Gael, worked as a flight attendant for Pan Am, traveling the world and often away for extended periods. Gael had divorced Nicole’s father when her two daughters were still young, so this arrangement meant that Nici and her sister, Tonia, were often left in the care of relatives. Nonetheless, this was a close-knit family, a bond that would be maintained even after the girls were grown and Gael relocated with her husband, Rod, to Arizona.

Childhood wasn’t easy for Nici. At 13, she developed endometriosis, a painful gynecological condition that necessitated three surgeries over the next eight years. The pain of the recoveries, and of the condition itself, necessitated that she was permanently on prescription painkillers. And as often happens in these cases, she became addicted. By the time she went off the college, she was a full-blown addict.

But here’s the thing about Nicole Schneider. This was an exceptional young woman, a strong woman who was not prepared to play the victim. Rather than wallow in her addiction, she decided to fight it. At 23, she made the decision to go into rehab, to join AA, to get herself clean. Life started coming together then. Nici got a job as a receptionist at a health club, a job that suited her personality well. Those who knew her said that she was a real “people person.”

It was also at the club that Nicole met David Pietz, a tall, handsome salesman who showed an interest in her almost from the moment they met. Nici was attracted too. She accepted the offer of a date, and the two of them became an item. What Nici didn’t know was that David was a player. At the same time that he was declaring his love for her, he was also making moves on a young woman named Sabrina Strieck, who worked at one of the health club’s other locations. In such an insular world, it was always likely that Nici was going to find out about it.

Perhaps this should have been a warning to Nici, a glimpse into the character of the man she’d fallen for. But when you’re young and in love, such considerations often take a back seat to your emotions. Rather than sending the love cheat packing, Nici called her rival and warned her off. David, duly chastised, swore that it was over between him and Sabrina. He then proposed to Nicole. On April 20, 2002, the joyful couple exchanged vows on a beach in Maui, backdropped by the sun sinking into the ocean.

The marriage between Nici and David Pietz looked like a happy one, to outsiders at least. Nici had a new job at a cellphone company, she’d kicked prescription drugs and was looking forward to becoming a mother. To friends and family, she spoke glowingly of her husband, calling him “wonderful, brilliant, handsome.” Did she know at this time that David was cheating on her? We can’t say and will never know. That is because, on the morning of January 28, 2006, Nicole Pietz disappeared.

The first that Gael got to hear about her daughter’s disappearance was when she got a call from her son-in-law, telling her, “Nici’s missing.” Gael got on a plane that same day and flew to Seattle. There, she and her other daughter, Tonia, cross-questioned David, trying to get to the bottom of things. Had he and Nici had a fight? David said no. They’d had plans to meet up with another couple for dinner that night, and Nici had failed to show. Then he dropped a bombshell. He said that Nici had injured her back recently and had been given painkillers by her doctor. After she went missing, he’d found her recently filled prescription bottle. It was empty, all 56 pills consumed within a matter of days. He was afraid that Nici had relapsed.

David would make other perplexing and somewhat troubling comments over the days that followed. He said that Nici had recently stopped wearing her wedding rings. He also claimed that she had been wearing a gum guard. This was a device she usually wore to bed to stop her grinding her teeth. Now, he was claiming that she’d started wearing it all day. He couldn’t say why.

Meanwhile, the search for the missing woman went on. Gael appeared on Seattle TV, making a desperate plea for her daughter to get in touch if she was able. David made a public appeal, too. “We just want to know that you’re okay,” he said, “That you're loved and that everyone here cares about you.” Away from the camera, though, he seemed less concerned, almost matter-of-fact, when he spoke about his missing wife.

And then, on February 6, 2006, nine days after she went missing, the mystery of Nicole’s disappearance was resolved. Her naked body was found by a man who decided to take a shortcut through a wooded field near Sea-Tac Airport. The autopsy revealed that she had been strangled.

Several clues jumped out at the detectives who examined the scene. The first was that the soles of Nicole’s feet were clean. She hadn’t walked into the field; she’d been carried there. The second was that she was wearing her gum guard. This suggested that she might have been snatched from her bed in the middle of the night. But wait, hadn’t her husband been at pains to stress that she’d taken to wearing the guard during the day? That somewhat unconventional revelation now became a point of misgiving for investigators. Had David made the claim because he realized that he’d forgotten to remove the gum guard when he dumped Nici in the field? Detectives thought that it was a possibility. David would mention it again when he sat down to answer their questions.

He’d make other claims, too, including his idea of how Nicole might have died. She’d been using again, he said, and probably went out to score some pills. That had put her in the vicinity of the person who had killed her. Detectives had not discounted this possibility, of course, but it was contradicted by Nicole’s friends, who said that she’d been troubled by having to take painkillers again and had been very careful with them, only taking the meds when her pain became unbearable. Two opposing narratives were being offered, and the police were starting to lean towards one of them.

Nicole Pietz’s funeral was an emotional affair for everyone besides her not-so-grieving husband. At one point, he even told his mother-in-law that he didn’t realize she’d take it so hard. And his offbeat behavior continued after the funeral. After Nicole was cremated, he gave her ashes to a virtual stranger, the realtor who had sold them their home. Questioned about this, he said simply that he couldn’t bear to bring them home. Then he gave away Nicole’s beloved pets, to people she’d barely known, even though her friends would have been happy to take them.

All of these things might have been red flags, hints that all was not the way that David Pietz was telling it. But hints won’t make a murder case. The police needed evidence, and right now, they had none. As the months passed with no progress in the case, Gael Schneider’s grief started to harden into something else, into a determination to see justice done. Someone had stolen the life of her beloved daughter. That someone had a price to pay.

And so, Gael started applying pressure to the Seattle Police Department, phoning them constantly to demand updates. She also started what she called a campaign of psychological war against David Pietz. One time, she left a blond wig spattered with fake blood on his doorstep. If that was meant to pressure him into coming clean, it had no effect. Four years went by with no movement in the case.

Then, in 2010, there was finally some hope for Nici’s grieving family. That was when a King County detective named Mike Mellis called Gael and told her that he and his partner, Jake Pavlovich, had been assigned to the case. Detective Mellis made a promise that day. He told Gael Schneider that he was going to be the last detective assigned to the case. He was going to close it.

Pouring over the old files, the detectives quickly came to the same conclusion as the original investigative team. They believed that Nicole had been strangled in her bed while wearing her night guard. She’d been carried from there to a vehicle and driven to the field where her body was ultimately found. That put only one suspect in the frame. Looking at DNA evidence from Nicole’s car only strengthened their belief. Both Nicole’s and David’s DNA were lifted from the vehicle. That was to be expected. However, David’s DNA was more prevalent in the areas a driver would touch - the steering wheel, the gear shift, the turn indicator. It suggested that he was the last person to drive the car.

Was it enough for an arrest? The detectives didn’t think so. They needed at least one more piece to complete the puzzle. They got it from security camera footage at 24-hour Fitness, where David was working on the day Nicole vanished. The surveillance images showed David at the front counter at 11:48 in the morning. He then leaves the area and is out of camera range. Two minutes later, phone records show a call from Nicole’s cell phone. It lasts just 21 seconds. Then, David walks back in.

The theory that the detectives extrapolated from this was that David had made the call to make it look like Nicole was still alive. This was confirmed when they checked which cell tower the call had pinged off. David and Nicole’s phones had been in the same area. In March 2012, more than six years after his wife’s death, David Pietz was arrested and charged with her murder.

Pietz was brought to trial on September 9, 2013, charged with second-degree murder since prosecutors couldn't prove premeditation. He entered a not guilty plea. The prosecution theory was that Pietz had quickly tired of his marriage to his pretty, young wife. She wasn’t sexually adventurous enough for him. The defense countered that Pietz wasn’t really interested in sex and had a low libido.

But this turned out to be a foolhardy assertion to make. There were plenty of women willing to say otherwise. Sabrina Strieck, for example, testified that she and Pietz had carried on an affair while he was married to Nicole. Another witness spoke of a threesome she had with Pietz. Yet another woman said that David had once slipped Ecstasy into Nicole’s drink to try and get her to participate in a threesome.

Pietz had also been very active since his wife’s death, maintaining several relationships and having a child with one of his regular partners. Clearly, this was not a man suffering from libido problems. Pietz’s attorney was eventually forced to concede the point but still insisted that the case was purely circumstantial, with not a shred of verifiable evidence. He had a point. How would the jurors see it? The question was finally put to them on October 10, 2013.

Nearly eight years had passed since the day Nicole Pietz was murdered. The jury would keep her family hanging for at least a few days more. No verdict was forthcoming after a full day of deliberation. The jurors then left for the weekend with no decision yet. Finally, on Monday, October 13, the verdict was in. David Pietz was guilty of second-degree murder.

David Pietz was sentenced to 18 years and 4 months in prison, the maximum available under Washington state law. That hardly seems adequate for snuffing out the life of an innocent woman who never did him wrong. He will serve his time, earn his parole, walk the streets as a free man again. But David Pietz will always carry the stigma with him, the mark of a killer, the mark of Cain. David Pietz will always be known as the cold-hearted wife killer he is.

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Deadly Women Volume 18

2024-11-03T01:08:00.000-08:00

20 classic true crime cases of women who kill, including;

Denise Frei: Curtis thought that he had been invited to participate in his ultimate sexual fantasy. Instead, he’d been lured to a terrible death.

Amy Bosley: On the surface, they were a golden couple. But Bob Bosley had financial problems and he was cheating on his wife. People have been killed for less.

Pamela Lanier: Dorian Lanier is dead, sent to an early grave with arsenic, delivered by his wife. Now for the real shocker. She’s done this before.

Korena Roberts: A Craigslist ad lures an expectant mother into a deadly trap. The woman who placed it is desperate to have a baby…by any means possible.

Lianne Smith: Her pedophile husband is in custody, finally brought to book for his many crimes. His arrest sends Lianne into a tailspin. What she does next is beyond evil.

Katie Coursey: A wheelchair-bound rapper is abandoned to a particularly cruel fate along a country road. His killer? The woman who claimed to love him.

Michelle Willard: Forced to rein in her spending when her husband loses his job, Michelle casts around for a new source of funds. A $250,000 insurance policy will do nicely.

Miriam Helmick: The first murder scheme was stolen from the plot of a Hollywood blockbuster. The second was far simpler – a bullet to the back of the head.

Plus 12 more fascinating cases . Download your copy now.

Click the "Read More" link below to read the first chapter of

Deadly Women Volume 18

Denise Frei

In the small town of Marengo, Iowa, 45-year-old Denise Frei was living a contented life. Denise ran a thriving café on Main Street and was also in a committed, long-term relationship with Curtis Bailey, a construction foreman. Curtis was twelve years younger than Denise, but that seemed no impediment to their romance. Everyone who knew the couple said that they were perfect for each other. In fact, Curtis was so devoted to his lover that it was he who’d fronted the start-up capital for her business. Denise also lived rent-free in Curtis’s house, where she lacked for nothing.

This picture-perfect relationship, however, had one fatal blemish. It came in the form of Denise’s bone-idle 18-year-old son, Jacob Hilgendorf. Jacob also had a room at Curtis Bailey’s house, where he wasted away his days watching TV, playing video games, and listening to music. He also ate his host out of house and home and helped himself to his beers. As might be expected, this led to clashes between the two men in the household, with Denise always coming down on the side of her son.

Curtis Bailey was a “salt of the earth” kind of guy. He worked long hours and liked nothing better than to kick back with a few beers at the end of a hard day. He was also easygoing, and so he let much of Jacob’s gold-bricking behavior slide. But what Curtis would not tolerate was theft. One day in 2009, he noticed that $200 was missing from his wallet and asked Denise if she had taken it. When she said no, he rounded on Jacob, accusing him of stealing the money. Denise, of course, stood up for her son, but Curtis had finally reached his breaking point. He ordered Jacob to pack up his things and leave. He also barred the teenager from visiting his mother at the café.

The war between her son and her lover put Denise Frei in a difficult situation. Her natural inclination was to side with Jacob, but Denise was no fool. She knew where her bread was buttered. Life with Curtis was easy street, and she wasn’t about to give that up. Besides, Curtis held the lease on her business. Ticking him off might see her out on the street.

And so, Denise played both sides of the fence. At home, she remained the devoted partner; at work, she’d regularly slip Jacob a few dollars from the till or give him a free meal when he visited the café in defiance of Curtis’s ban. Jacob also had another reason for visiting the eatery, Denise’s pretty waitress, Jessica Dayton. The two had known each other since high school and had enjoyed an on-again-off-again, friends with benefits kind of relationship. Now, things got more serious, and they started dating.

Denise’s game of double bluff would continue for several weeks, enduring a couple of close calls along the way. In one incident, she had to sneak Jacob out of the back of the café when Curtis paid a surprise visit. That narrow escape got her thinking about her current situation and how she might resolve it. And those musings led her to a surprise conclusion. She realized that she no longer loved Curtis. She was sticking with him out of habit and for the financial security the relationship offered. But what if she could have it both ways? What if she could have the security without the man?

Curtis Bailey made good money in construction. And he was a thrifty man, a man of simple tastes who had a sizeable nest egg put away. He also had a $100k insurance policy, which named Denise as the sole beneficiary. Denise knew all of these things because Curtis had shown her his bank statements and policy documents. Now, suddenly, she realized that he was worth more to her dead than alive. From that moment on, Curtis Bailey’s life was effectively over.

Denise’s first two attempts at ending her lover’s life were clumsy science experiments. First, she spiked his beer with insulin, hoping to elevate his sugar level and cause a seizure. Curtis downed the drink and then several more before passing out. He showed no ill effects other than a hangover. Then, Jessica upped the ante and the dosage. This time, the drug did cause a reaction. Curtis woke clutching his chest and said that he was having a heart attack. He told Denise to call an ambulance, but she managed to calm him down, and his symptoms eventually subsided. Clearly, insulin poisoning was not going to work.

It wasn’t the only murderous plan that Denise had up her sleeve, though. She now devised a new strategy, one that would require the help of Jacob and Jessica. To get the teenagers on board, Denise told them that Curtis had been physically, sexually, and emotionally abusing her for years and that the abuse had escalated since Jacob had been evicted from the house. She would leave, she said, but Curtis had threatened to kill her if she tried. Her only option was to strike first, killing him before he could make good on his threat. Jacob and Jessica almost immediately agreed to participate in the murder. Denise then sweetened the pot by promising them $5,000 each for their help.

On the night of July 18, 2009, Curtis and Denise were in bed together when Denise rolled over and whispered something in his ear. Curtis was shocked at what she had to say. Denise was suggesting a threesome with her pretty waitress, Jessica. “Is this a trick?” he asked skeptically. “No, no trick,” Denise responded. “I just want to do something special for you. What do you say?”

What Curtis said was “yes,” of course. The following day, he could barely concentrate on his work, thinking about what was to come later that evening. At one point, his boss asked what he was grinning about, and Curtis just could not keep the secret to himself. He revealed what he had planned for that evening, much to the envy of the other man.

The night of July 19, 2009, was warm and clear in Marengo. In his tidy bungalow, Curtis Bailey sat sprawled on the couch, a beer in his hand, a bottle of tequila and a shot glass on the table in front of him. A few feet away, Denise and the 18-year-old Jessica were engaged in a suggestive dance. “Now you know the rules of the game,” Denise giggled. “Every time we do something sexy, you have to down a shot.” Curtis eagerly nodded his understanding. “Well, what are you waiting for, then?” Denise said as she drew Jessica in for a kiss.

And so it continued. For every touch and kiss and caress, Curtis was encouraged to take a shot of tequila. Usually, these were washed down with a swig of beer, and it wasn’t long before Curtis was listing heavily to starboard. Soon, his eyes glazed over, and he slid down on the couch and started snoring gently. Now, the conspirators swung quickly into action. While Denise ran to the kitchen, Jessica was on her phone, sending a text that would summon Jacob to the house. Then Denise was back, holding a roll of Saran wrap. Moments later, Jacob arrived, and the three of them were standing together in the lounge, looking down at their sleeping prey.

Denise’s plan was clever in theory. She was going to pull the Saran wrap tightly around Curtis’s head, closing off his air passages and suffocating him. She’d then report that he’d suffered a heart attack, a story that would probably be accepted since there would be no marks on the body to suggest any other cause. With a little luck, there’d be no autopsy. She’d be rid of Curtis, her son would be back in her life, and she’d be a whole lot richer into the bargain.

What Denise didn’t account for was how a person reacts when their air is suddenly cut off. Curtis came instantly awake and started thrashing around, trying to break free. Jacob and Jessica tried to pin him down, but Curtis was just too strong. They were not going to be able to hold him. It was at this point that Denise entered the fray, picking up a heavy glass ashtray and crashing it down on her lover’s head. Now, the battle became a free-for-all, with all three of the perpetrators raining down blows with anything that they could get their hands on. Curtis was struck with a candy jar, a rock from a nearby pot plant, a piece of ornamental driftwood. He was battered into submission, suffering as many as thirty head injuries. Eventually, the cumulative effect of these blows took their toll, and he stopped struggling and lay still.

Curtis Bailey was dead, but now Denise had a problem. This wasn’t the clean kill she had planned on. A new strategy would be required. Thinking on her feet, Denise believed that she had it. She ordered Jacob and Jessica from the house, admonishing them to say nothing of the murder if they wanted to stay out of prison. She then waited until 1:50 a.m. before eventually working up the courage to make the 911 call. “My boyfriend’s been murdered!” she wailed down the line.

The story that Denise Frei told the responding officers was this. She said that she’d been woken by angry voices and had heard sounds of a struggle coming from the lounge. She’d been too afraid to check, she said, and had remained hidden in the bedroom until she heard the front door slam and a car start up. She’d then snuck down the hallway and found her boyfriend beaten to death. She suspected that this might have been a drug deal gone wrong.

Unfortunately for Denise, there was one glaring problem with her story. The victim’s blood had already begun to congeal, indicating that he had been dead for considerably longer than Denise was claiming. She was therefore arrested on suspicion and taken into custody. Soon, her two co-conspirators were also brought in.

Denise’s initial strategy was to hang tough and deny everything. But that plan went out of the window when Jacob Hilgendorf decided to confess. According to Jacob, he alone was responsible for Curtis’s death. His mother and Jessica had nothing to do with it. Once Denise heard of this, she offered her own confession, taking sole responsibility and absolving Jacob and Jessica.

Denise would offer a variation on this same argument at her trial in September 2011. The intervening months had given her the opportunity to come up with a justification for her actions, and she played it to the hilt, claiming “battered wife syndrome.” That defense might have worked had Denise been able to back it up. But the defense could not put forward a single witness who had a bad word to say about Curtis Bailey. Neither could Denise offer evidence of injuries suffered or of complaints lodged with the police. Ultimately, the jury found her story unconvincing.

Found guilty of first-degree murder, Denise Frei was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Her two co-accused subsequently received the same verdict and the same sentence.

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Murder Most Vile Volume 49

2024-10-13T09:08:00.000-07:00

18 Chilling true murder cases, including

Walk in Shadow: John and Nancy had moved to Montana for the peace and quiet. What they’d find instead was cold, bloody murder.

The Cop and the Cannibal: He was an educated man with degrees in philosophy and computer science. He was also a meth addict, with a taste for human flesh.

Loved and Lost: Mourning the death of her infant son, Dynel goes looking for a child to replace him, targeting an expectant mother.

Taking Innocence: A little girl goes missing from a busy street. Years later, the truth emerges, unmasking a vile pedophile, hiding behind a mask of respectability.

Unspecified Psychosis: A young mother suffers a mental breakdown. Those around her, especially her children, are in mortal danger.

Wrong Turn: It started as a pleasant road trip and ended in a tragic death. It was compounded by a miscarriage of justice.

Making a Murderer: A former Marine with anger issues, dulling his pain with booze and pills, skirting the edge of a breakdown. When it comes, take cover.

A Killing in Whitechapel: Before the Ripper walked these streets, there were other killers around, preying on the weak and unwary.

Plus 10 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now

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Murder Most Vile Volume 49

Walk in Shadow

John and Nancy Bosco had come to Montana for the lifestyle. The couple had fallen in love with the rugged beauty of Big Sky Country during a visit from their native Colorado and decided that they wanted to live there. Just a few months later, they’d packed up their things and made the 1,000-mile trip north. They’d found a handsome property on the outskirts of Bigfork. John, a talented woodworker, was going to build and sell high-end archery bows. Already, he had a stack of orders.

But this dream of a new life, of escaping the rat race, of living close to nature, would last just six months. On August 19, 1993, the Flathead County Sherriff’s Department received a call from John Bosco’s concerned relatives in Boulder, Colorado. Several calls to the couple had gone unanswered in the last few days. A deputy was dispatched to check it out and arrived to the sight of newspapers piled up on the porch. Knocking on the door brought no response and so the officer rounded the house and found an open window to the basement. He noticed something else, too. The telephone line had been cut.

That was ominous, and it was only the first sign that something was not right. The power had been turned off, and there was a faint but unpleasant odor in the air, as though the food in the refrigerator had spoiled. There also seemed to be a lot of flies buzzing around, their high-pitched thrum increasing as the deputy climbed the stairs. At the end of the hall was the door to the master bedroom. Here, both the buzzing and the stench were at their worst. The officer already had a good idea of what he was going to find on the other side. He had to open the door nonetheless.

John and Nancy Bosco were lying on their bed, their blood-spattered corpses covered in black flies, crawling with maggots. John’s face was exposed, and it was quite obvious that he’d been shot in the head, the bullet entering just above the eye. Nancy had a pillow placed over her head. One curious detail was the different states of decomposition of the two corpses. John’s skin had already turned black; Nancy’s appeared to be considerably more well-preserved. That seemed to suggest that this might be a murder/suicide. Had Nancy shot her husband and later lay down beside him on the bed and taken her own life? That would be up to the coroner and the homicide squad to determine. The deputy backed out of the room, walked down to his cruiser, and called it in.

John Bosco had met his wife, Nancy, at a difficult time in his life. He’d just come through a messy break-up and was in the midst of a bitter battle for custody of his two daughters. Nancy proved to be the perfect antidote to his troubles. She was outgoing, active, beautiful. She shared his love of the outdoors. Sparks flew during their first meeting, and it wasn’t long before they were dating. They married in late 1990. Just two years later, they’d be making the big move to Montana, the big move that would end up costing both their lives.

But who had killed them, and why? The answer to that question was elusive. Nothing had been taken from the house, and the condition of the bodies made it impossible to determine whether Nancy had been sexually assaulted. One scenario that detectives could rule out was the murder/suicide hypothesis. No firearm was found at the scene. John’s .367 Magnum was missing, but it was not the murder weapon. The couple had been killed with a 9mm pistol. John, it appeared, had been shot in the head while he slept. Nancy, awakened by the gunshot, had been shot in the back as she tried to get up. She was then executed with a second shot that passed through her cheek.

So why the different rates of decomposition? That was down to the pillow that had been placed over Nancy’s face. It meant that flies could not access her open wounds to lay their eggs. These eggs, of course, hatch into maggots, which then begin consuming the flesh of the corpse. John, exposed to the elements, had simply been an easier target.

Bigfork, Montana is a small town with a population barely exceeding 4,000. Its police department was not equipped to deal with an investigation of this nature and jurisdiction therefore fell to the state police, the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation or DCI. Investigators of this force began by trying to establish a motive for the double homicide. This looked like it was personal. Was there anyone who might have harbored a grudge against the couple? As it turned out, there were quite a few.

The first and most obvious candidate was John Bosco’s ex. Their failed relationship and the custody fight that ensued had turned into open warfare. At one point, John had become disillusioned with the legal process and had moved the girls from Colorado to Montana without the approval of the court. That had resulted in a lawsuit and a mandated return of the children to their mother, a woman who John claimed was abusive to the girls. She, unsurprisingly, did not have a lot of good things to say about her ex. But she denied having anything to do with his death. She would not deprive her kids of their dad, she said.

But perhaps there were others who did not share those particular scruples. John Bosco appears to have been a combative individual with a healthy dose of paranoia thrown in for good measure. During the ongoing custody battle, he’d made allegations of corruption and conspiracy against court officials and had threatened to bring a legal case against them. He’d also told several people that if anything were to happen to him, it would be down to these individuals. The implication was that they might hire a hitman to silence him.

These claims, it seems, were totally unfounded. The DCI did not take them seriously. They were looking at suspects much closer to home and soon uncovered a complaint filed by the Boscos regarding local teenagers hiding in the bushes on their property to ogle Nancy while she sunbathed on the deck. Might one of these peeping toms have embarked on a testosterone-driven murder spree? It seemed unlikely. A far more promising lead lay in a property deal gone sour. Just a few months into his new life in Bigfork, John Bosco had managed to embroil himself in yet another contentious litigation.

This one had to do with the new home he and Nancy had purchased. They’d bought the property from a man named Joe Clark and John had enthused to his family back in Colorado about the great deal he’d got. But John had planned on running his woodworking business from the property and he soon learned that that would not be possible. The house did not have commercial rights. This angered John. According to him, he had specifically queried the seller on the issue and had been assured that it would not be a problem. He accused Clark of misleading him. Clark denied this and Bosco took legal advice. The dispute was still ongoing at the time of the murders.

Was a simple legal dispute sufficient motive for murder? Of course it was. People have been killed for far less. Was Joe Clark a likely murder suspect? On the surface, no. Clark was a well-respected local businessman. His family was staunchly Christian, active in church affairs. The only slight blot on their reputation was Joseph Jr., a mischievous teen who went by his middle name, Shadow. He’d been called up on some minor misdemeanors mostly relating to graffiti. Joe Clark was interviewed by the police and quickly dismissed as a suspect. At this stage, the case was colder than a Montana winter.

In fact, John Bosco’s mother, Antoinette, became so frustrated with the lack of progress that she employed the services of a psychic, Dannion Brinkley, to get to the bottom of the brutal double homicide. Brinkley claimed to have gained his abilities after being struck by lightning. Three months after the murders, In November 1993, he sat down with the grieving mother. He told her that the killer was a young man of 19 or 20 years, slightly-built with dark hair and deep-set eyes. He said that this individual had an intimate knowledge of the house where the murders happened. He also told Antoinette that the killer had since left Bigfork to attend a college ‘out west.’ None of this suggested much by way of an actual lead but Brinkley’s final prediction did at least offer hope of a resolution to the case. According to him, the killer would be caught within a month.

Antoinette Bosco must have been impressed with Dannion Brinkley’s psychic abilities because she enthusiastically shared his insights with the DCI. Or perhaps she was just desperate to see her son’s killer brought to justice. In any case, the DCI gave little credence to these paranormal insights. Police departments seldom do.

In December 1993, investigators received a call from their counterparts in Newberg, Oregon. A student at George Fox University, a Christian college in the town, had phoned in a tip. According to the tipster, one of his classmates, a young man known as ‘Shadow,’ had made some troubling pronouncements to a group of his peers. Shadow, who seemed to revel in his bad boy reputation, had boasted about a double homicide he’d committed in Bigfork. He’d even shown the group a 9mm pistol, which he claimed was the murder weapon.

To the DCI investigators, the case that Shadow had spoken about could only be the Bosco murders. But were these just empty boasts, aimed at bigging Shadow up in the eyes of his peers? There was only one way to find out. Investigators made the 600-mile trip to Oregon to question Shadow. He was pulled from class by local police on the pretense of answering questions relating to graffiti. Imagine his surprise when he entered the interview room and was introduced to a pair of DCI agents from his home state.

Still, Shadow hung tough, keeping up his denials for three hours. He admitted telling the story and even conceded that he was referencing the Bosco murders. However, he claimed that he was just blowing smoke to impress his classmates. He hadn’t killed anyone. He was just repeating what he’d read in the papers and seen on the news.

Three hours in, however, and Shadow was starting to crack. Now he started talking about a dream he’d had, a dream in which he enters a house and executes the occupants in their sleep. In the dream, he also has sex with a ‘faceless woman.’ This story stunned investigators. What Shadow was describing in his ‘dream sequence’ was the killing of John and Nancy Bosco. The faceless woman he was referencing was Nancy with a pillow placed over her head. Shadow was confessing to a double homicide and to an act of necrophilia.

Shadow was, of course, Joseph Shadow Clark, the son of Joseph Clark, who’d been involved in the ongoing property dispute with John Bosco. He was also one of the group of teens who had spied on Nancy. So, what was Clark’s motive for murder? Was it to do with the legal wrangle or had his lust for Nancy turned him into a killer? Clark wasn’t saying. Although he later gave a full confession, he’d never say why he did it.

Joseph Shadow Clark was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to 220 years in prison. That was reduced on appeal to 150 years but Clark will still have to remain behind bars for at least four decades. He will be in his 60s by the time he is eligible for parole.

There is one other aspect of this case that bears exploring, the predictions made by psychic Dannion Brinkley. Brinkley had said that the killer was a slightly built man, aged 19 or 20. Joe Shadow Clark was 5’7” and 127 pounds; he was 19 years old. He also had dark hair and deep-set eyes and had gone to a college out west, just as Brinkley had stated. The psychic also said that the killer knew the layout of the property where the murder occurred. Shadow grew up in the house. Lastly, there is Brinkley’s foretelling of the arrest. He had predicted in November that the killer would be in custody within a month. He was.

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Killer Kids Volume 15

2024-09-15T05:23:00.000-07:00

22 shocking true stories of kids who kill, including;

Caleb Sharpe: He was the kid everyone ignored, the hefty introvert, the outsider. Perhaps if he brings a gun to school, they’ll notice him.

William Bresnahan Jr: As an adult, he would be hailed as a compassionate doctor to the poor. As a child, he was better known as a murderer.

Robert Coombes: Their mother was visiting relatives, they said. Why then were they pawning her belongings? And what was that smell coming from their flat?

Dillan Easley: The hunting trip was meant to be a bonding opportunity for Michael and his foster son. It would turn into a war.

Ashley Jones & Geramie Hart: Getting in the way of teenage romance can be dangerous, especially when one of the teens involved is a psychopath.

Konrad Schafer: A gang of young thugs terrorize a city in a series of drive-by shootings. So far, no one has been hurt. That’s about to change.

Scott Kologi: New Year’s Eve in the Kologi household, the clock ticking down to midnight. Four members of the family won’t live that long.

Christopher Plaskon: A teenage girl is knifed to death in a school corridor. Did she really die for turning down a prom invitation?

Plus 14 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now

Click the "Read More" link below to read the first chapter of

Killer Kids Volume 15

Vincenzo Randazzo

The kid was trouble. Everyone in the Woodlake subdivision in Kenner, Louisiana knew that. If something went missing, if something was broken or vandalized, look to 16-year-old Vincenzo Randazzo, known to friends and family as Jake. The boy was on a self-destructive path. Everyone expected that he’d land himself in serious trouble sooner or later.

But not everyone was willing to write the boy off. When Jake’s father knocked on the door of his neighbors, Phillip and Anita Lynch, one day in 2017, and returned a gun that his son had stolen from their property, the couple made no judgments. When Randazzo Sr. insisted that Jake make amends for the theft by doing chores for them, they graciously accepted. That was how Jake Randazzo became a regular visitor to the Lynch residence on Teton Street. It was how an unlikely friendship sprung up between the troubled teen and the elderly couple.

Phillip Lynch was an extraordinary man. Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri in 1928, he later moved with his mother to New Orleans, where she worked as a realtor and property developer. But the pull of adventure was strong on the young man, and he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, serving in the Korean War as a fighter pilot. Later, after leaving the service, he sold single-engine airplanes, working out of Lakefront Airport. Then he followed his mother into realty. All the while, he played semi-pro football, turning out for a minor league team based in Kenner.

Phillip married and fathered five children with his first wife before the marriage ended. Then he met the woman he called the love of his life. Anita was 19 years his junior when they tied the knot in 1999. They remained deeply devoted to each other over the next two decades. By the time they met Jake Randazzo in 2017, Phillip was 89 years old, Anita 70.

Yet they were still remarkably active. Phillip was a go-getter with a lifetime habit of setting goals and then going out and achieving them. He maintained this discipline even as he approached his 90^th birthday. He was also someone who believed in treating people with respect. Despite the unfortunate circumstances under which they’d met Jake, he and Anita treated the boy like their own grandson. They encouraged Jake to go out and achieve great things. And their kindness appeared to be wearing off on the boy. He seemed to be following Phillip’s counsel and staying out of trouble.

But Jake’s period of ‘community service’ was only for a specified time. All too soon, it was over. He’d paid his penance. Phillip and Anita hoped that it would not be the last they saw of him. They encouraged him to drop by any time he wanted. Jake thanked them for their kindness and said that he would. Perhaps inevitably, he broke that promise. The Lynches did not see him again until July 9, 2017, when Anita answered a knock at the door and was delighted to find Jake standing on the porch.

This was a different Jake than the boy they’d come to know. He was angry, agitated, on the verge of tears. Anita brought him inside and sat him down at the kitchen table. She called out to Phillip, and he came in holding a hammer, which he had been using to hang a picture. This he placed on a counter as he sat down to talk to Jake.

The boy had a story to tell. In a quavering voice, he explained that he’d been picked up for shoplifting at a local store. He hadn’t stolen anything, he swore, it was all a mistake. Nonetheless, the police were called, and Jake was brought home in a patrol car. This threw his father into a rage and the two of them got into a blazing row until Jake stormed off. Now he needed to get to Baton Rouge, 70 miles away. He wondered if Phillip would drive him.

Anyone who knew Phillip Lynch would tell you that he was the kind of man you could turn to in a pinch. If you needed a favor, he was the person you’d call. But this was different. Phillip simply could not drive a teenager out of town without his parents’ permission. It would amount to helping him run away from home. Calmly, he explained this to Jake. He’d be happy to drive him but only if his parents said it was okay.

This was not well received by the teenager. First, he started screaming obscenities. Then, he snatched up the hammer and attacked. Phillip was struck several times on the head and collapsed to the floor, where Jake continued the onslaught, raining down hefty blows on his skull. Anita bravely rushed in to defend her husband, but she was no match for the burly teen. She too was struck on the head, driven to the floor, beaten even as she lay there, helpless and exposed. Then, with his victims bludgeoned into submission, bleeding and unconscious, Randazzo broke off the attack, snatched up Phillip’s car keys from a counter, and left. He drove away in his victim’s car.

A short while later, a neighbor of the Lynches heard a faint knock at his front door. Going to answer it, he was shocked to find Anita on the doorstep, covered in blood and barely able to stand. The man immediately called 911, bringing police and paramedics racing to the scene. Phillip was found unconscious inside the house in a pool of blood. He and Anita were rushed to an area hospital, where Phillip went directly into surgery. He was in critical condition, with a severely fractured skull. Doctors would have to remove a fist-size portion of the carapace to relieve swelling on his brain. It was touch and go whether he’d make it.

But Phillip was a tough old bird with a strong will to live. His recovery over the days that followed astounded his doctors. Soon he was sitting up and talking to visitors. He was keen to begin his rehab work and was moved to a Kenner rehabilitation and nursing facility. Typical of the man, he bore no malice towards his attacker. He hoped that Jake would not be too harshly treated by the authorities and that he would receive the counseling that he so clearly needed. His main concern was for Anita, but she had received less serious injuries and was recovering well.

Jake Randazzo, meanwhile, was in police custody, having been arrested in Baton Rouge after he crashed Phillip Lynch’s car. He was being held at the Rivarde Juvenile Detention Center in Harvey, where he showed little remorse for what he’d done. Charged with two counts of attempted murder, he was claiming diminished responsibility. But things were about to get much more serious for the teenage thug. Three weeks after the attack, on August 4, Phillip Lynch took a turn for the worse and died.

The charge was now murder in the first-degree and with Randazzo to be tried as an adult, he was looking at the very real possibility of spending the rest of his life behind bars. Still Randazzo hung tough, with his public defender filing a motion to have him declared mentally unfit to stand trial. That attempt at evading responsibility ultimately failed. Randazzo was declared competent. He was going to have to answer for his actions after all.

The situation for the defendant was hopeless now. With a living witness to the attack, he was going down. Aware of his predicament, his attorney approached the D.A. for a deal. His client would plead guilty and accept a sentence of 25 years to life. Prosecutors are generally inclined to accept such plea bargains. Criminal trials are expensive to run. This was much easier on the public purse.

And so, Jake Randazzo avoided the possibility of life without parole and will spend a minimum of 25 years behind bars instead. Randazzo’s lawyer swore during the sentencing phase that his client was remorseful for what he’d done but the killer did not take the stand to articulate those words himself. He certainly did not seem weighed down by conscience as he sat at the defense table. Rather, he looked bored and disinterested.

Christy Lynch Chauvin wasn’t buying Randazzo’s act. She berated the teen killer during her victim impact statement. “My father wished no evil to you,” she said. “He was a good dad, and I am so glad he was mine. If you ever change your life, if you are even half the man he was, your life will be a worthy one.”

“I have watched you during the trial,” Christy added. “You are not sorry for what you did. Hopefully one day, you will be.”

Vincenzo Randazzo is currently an inmate at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, a corrections facility that has a reputation as one of the toughest in the nation. He will remain here, at least, into his forties.

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Cold Cases Solved Volume 10

2024-08-14T01:39:00.000-07:00

18 Baffling True Crime Cold Cases, including;

Dealing with the Preacher: He was a respected member of the community, a preacher, a philanthropist. He was also a man with a dark past.

Fallen Hero: The victim was a decorated Green Beret. Whoever took him down must have been tough as hell. Well, maybe not.

Ashes to Ashes: A body is found floating in the water off the Florida coast. Who is she and how did she die? The mystery will take three decades to unravel.

The Ring: A woman is dead. The police suspect her husband but can’t prove it. Then a piece of jewelry shows up in a place it shouldn’t be.

Last Suspect Standing: He was the last person anyone would have suspected. But when everyone else has been ruled out, there can be only one.

Buried in the Backyard: A WWI veteran vanishes on his way to get a haircut. Years later, a tipoff leads police to a shallow grave in a suburban garden.

She’s the One: Two women are gunned down in an apparent holdup at an ice cream parlor. The identity of the killer will leave everyone stunned.

Mortal Remains: An unfaithful wife; an angry husband. When she goes missing, there’s only one suspect. How do you prove it without a body?

Plus 10 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now

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Cold Cases: Solved! Volume 10

An Imperfect Murder

It was September 5, 1984, Ginger Hayden’s first day at the University of Texas at Arlington. Ginger, an auburn-haired beauty of just 18 years, had graduated from Arlington Heights High School, just three months earlier. Today, a new chapter of her life was beginning. She had dreams of becoming a physiotherapist and could hardly wait to get started with her studies.

Which made it odd that she was so tardy in rising, on this of all days. Lying in her bed in the adjacent room, Ginger’s mom, Sharon, could hear her daughter’s alarm beeping consistently without being turned off. Sharon had worked a late shift at her job the previous night, arriving home at around 2:00 a.m. The apartment had been dark and quiet when she’d entered, and she’d gone straight to bed. Now, the alarm had roused her from sleeping. Looking bleary-eyed at her bedside clock, she saw that it was 6:00 a.m. After yelling several times for Ginger to turn the alarm off, she got out of bed and walked wearily to her daughter’s room. What she found there was a waking nightmare.

Ginger was in a kneeling position, face down on the floor next to her bed. She was partially nude, her pale skin covered with ugly, red-streaked wounds. To her horror, Sharon realized that it was blood and that it was everywhere – on the bed sheets, the walls, the closet doors, seeped into the carpet. Sharon fell to her knees beside her daughter’s body, placed a hand on her back, and felt the cold, lifeless skin under her touch. She staggered to her feet, reeled into the passage, using the wall for support. Moments later, the phone was in her hand, and she was dialing. “My baby’s dead,” she told the operator in a monotone. Then she repeated that sentence, her voice rising hysterically. Then she screamed it down the line, screamed it so loudly that she woke her neighbors. Already, the operator was connecting the call to the police. On the day that should have been her first at college, Ginger Hayden left her apartment in a body bag.

The response from the Fort Worth Police was emphatic. CSIs swarmed all over the residence. Meanwhile, detectives and uniformed officers started canvassing the apartment complex to see if any of the neighbors had seen or heard anything. Sharon, numb with shock and grief, was also questioned. From her, officers learned that Ginger had been dating a young man named Jeff Green. Jeff was roused from sleep to the distressing news that his girlfriend had been murdered. He was then brought to the police station to answer questions.

Meanwhile, crime scene officers were methodically processing the Hayden apartment, collecting trace evidence – blood, hair, and fibers – meticulously photographing the scene, dusting for fingerprints. Perhaps the most important piece of evidence was the murder weapon, a wooden-handled knife found lying on the bedroom floor by the victim’s feet. The knife belonged to a set in the kitchen. It had been wielded with such savage force that the blade was bent, the handle broken. CSIs then moved into the bathroom where they found evidence that the killer had washed up before he left. They also found two bloody socks which he’d used as makeshift gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints on the murder weapon. The socks belonged to the victim. An important find was a single pubic hair. In those pre-DNA days, it was of limited use. Nonetheless, they bagged it.

Back at the police station, an apparently distraught Jeff Green was accounting for his whereabouts the previous day. According to Jeff, he and Ginger had spent the morning with a friend, Ryland “Shane” Absalon. He’d later dropped Ginger at her job, where she had to work an afternoon shift. He and Shane had hung out together until that evening, when he left Shane and went to pick up Ginger from work. He and Ginger then returned to her apartment, where they had sex. They also talked for a time about their future. Ginger had recently discovered that she was pregnant, and they were trying to decide what to do. He left her at around 11:30 p.m. That was the last time he saw his girlfriend.

Jeff Green had answered all the questions put to him in a forthright manner. Officers had no reason to believe that he was lying to them. Although he remained on the suspect list, he was allowed to go. Now, attention shifted to another person of interest, Ryland “Shane” Absalon.

Initial inquiries indicated that Shane lived with his father in the apartment directly above Sharon and Ginger Hayden. Questioning Shane’s father, detectives learned that he’d been awakened that morning by Sharon’s screams. He’d walked to the living room where he found his son already up. Shane’s t-shirt had a large reddish stain on it, which Shane claimed was from a strawberry soda he’d spilled. The officers asked to see the shirt. Shane said that he could not remember where he’d put it. They then asked if they could search the apartment. That search turned up a pair of Shane’s shoes, which had a small bloodstain on them. These were bagged as evidence.

Shane Absalon had now been flagged as a prime suspect in the case. However, the police had no real evidence to bring against him. No one had seen him enter Ginger’s apartment and he was adamant that he had not seen her since the previous morning. His dad could not account for Shane’s whereabouts. He said that he’d gone out drinking after work and had arrived home drunk and gone straight to bed. The forensics were not much use either. The technology of the day was simply not up to the task of matching any of it to Shane Absalon. Shane was then asked to take a polygraph but refused. Just like that, the case was dead in the water.

More than two decades went by. This was an era marked by incredible advances in forensic techniques, particularly in the area of DNA matching. In the mid-2000s, the Fort Worth Police Department announced the formation of a Cold Case Unit, specifically tasked with reviewing old, unsolved cases, using the technologies now at their disposal. But the technology was prohibitively expensive back then. Most law enforcement agencies could not afford it without federal funding. In 2009, Fort Worth PD received such a grant. One of the first cases flagged for review was the murder of Ginger Hayden.

The initial results were disappointing. The only DNA match that the lab was able to find was to Jeff Green. Since Jeff and Ginger had engaged in consensual sex on the night she died, this had been expected. But then, lab technicians tested a towel from the Hayden residence and found the DNA of an unknown male. This same DNA was later extracted from two biological samples. It matched the pubic hair found at the crime scene. It also was a match to the blood droplet found on Shane Ryland’s shoes. Whose DNA was it? The cold case investigators thought they knew. They’d need a swab from Shane Absalon to prove their thesis.

Absalon had since left the Fort Worth area and was living in Arizona. Approached by Fort Worth investigators, he flatly refused to give a DNA sample. Fortunately, they had anticipated this and came armed with a warrant. Absalon was compelled to submit. The buccal swab was brought back to Fort Worth for analysis. Several months later, the results were in. It was a match.

Ryland “Shane” Absalon was arrested at his home in Sierra Vista, Arizona, on August 29, 2010, nearly 26 years after the murder of Ginger Hayden. He was charged with capital murder and bound over for trial. It was here that the case took an unexpected turn. With the details of the murder splashed all over the media, the police received a call from a man named Shawn Garrett. Garrett had some interesting information to share. It seems Absalon had confessed the murder to him...two decades earlier!

At the time, Garrett and Absalon had both been enrolled in a substance abuse treatment program at Straight, Inc. The rules of the program required new enrollees to room with participants who were further along in their recovery. Thus, Absalon ended up living with Shawn Garrett and his parents. The two men shared a room, Garrett said, and often had long conversations at night. During one of these talks, Absalon made a startling disclosure. He said that he’d murdered a young woman some years earlier, after she’d rejected him. He’d wanted a romantic involvement with the woman. She’d said that she did not feel that way about him and just wanted to be friends. The rejection had left him embarrassed. He’d decided to have his revenge.

According to Absalon, he’d snuck into the woman’s apartment and hid in her closet. He’d waited for her to fall asleep and then crept up on her with a kitchen knife in his hand. He’d started stabbing her, keeping up the attack until she stopped struggling and lay still. Then he’d cleaned up the scene and left. “They’ll never catch me,” he boasted. “I did a real good job covering my tracks.”

As it turned out, Shawn Garrett wasn’t the only one who had heard this confession. Absalon had told the story several times in group therapy sessions. Those who’d heard it weren’t sure if they believed him. They were barred from repeating the story, in any case. The rules of the program were that anything said in group sessions was to remain confidential.

Ryland Absalon went on trial for murder in September 2012. The case against him was powerful, with a DNA match and several witnesses who had heard him confess to the murder. The defense would attack both strands of evidence. First, they tried to have testimony relating to Absalon’s admissions excluded. The argument was that these were protected by their client’s right to confidentiality. Unfortunately for Absalon, this wasn’t entirely true. The confidentiality clause only applied to those who had voluntarily enrolled in the program. Absalon had been ordered to attend by a judge. Besides, Absalon had made his confession to Shawn Garrett outside a therapy session. That, certainly, was not protected.

As for the forensic evidence, the defense took the obvious stance of stating that Absalon was a friend of the victim and had been inside her apartment on numerous occasions. It would have been unusual had his DNA not been found, his lawyer insisted. He then offered an alternative suspect. During the early 1980s, Fort Worth had been plagued by a series of murders of attractive young women. The police force had been so concerned that they’d formed a task force to investigate the murders. Several of the crimes remained unsolved. The defense was suggesting that a serial killer had killed Ginger Hayden.

Unfortunately for the defense, this unnamed serial killer (if he even existed) had not confessed to Ginger’s murder. The defendant had and now he was going to have to face the consequences of his actions. Found guilty of aggravated murder, Ryland “Shane” Absalon was sentenced to life in prison. The law in effect at the time of the murder means that he will be eligible for parole in 20 years. Absalon should consider himself lucky that the D.A. did not decide to seek the death penalty. But for that, he’d be sitting on death row right now. No one can say he wouldn’t deserve it.

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Murder Most Vile Volume 48

2024-07-15T00:54:00.000-07:00

18 Chilling true murder cases, including

You're Not Well, Mr. Blackwell: A deeply delusional young man concocts a fantasy life for himself. Those who oppose him are in grave danger.

Girl in a Box: A box sits on the platform, awaiting the Chicago-bound train. It’s giving off an oppressive odor, a hint to what’s inside.

My Father, the Serial Killer: As a boy, Matt learned that his dad had once shot a man by accidental. He could forgive that. He could not forgive what followed.

Hell House: He was an innocent child, betrayed by the system, abused to death by a truly evil woman who called herself his grandmother.

Death by Jacuzzi: According to Frank, his wife had drowned in their hot tub. If you’re going to lie to the police, it’s the small details that count.

No Way Out: A man is found dead inside a locked room, baffling even the NYPD’s best detectives. How did the killer enter? And how did he leave?

To Catch a Killer: A woman is butchered in her apartment. Then detectives make a startling discovery. Her neighbor is a suspect in a very similar crime.

A Dangerous Woman: She was a raven-haired beauty, an object of desire for every man she met. She was also selfish, manipulative...and a killer.

Plus 10 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now

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Murder Most Vile Volume 48

You're Not Well, Mr. Blackwell

All of his life, Brian Blackwell had been an achiever. A handsome, yet introverted boy, he had excelled academically throughout his schooling, routinely finishing at the top of the class. At Scarisbrick Hall, the posh private school he attended, his classmates had a name for him. They called him, “The Brain.” But Brian wasn’t all work and no play. He was also a talented tennis player, who won most tournaments at his local club. His parents, Sydney, a retired banker, and Jacqueline, an antiques dealer, were justifiably proud. Sydney was fond of telling his friends that his son was going to be “not just a doctor, but a surgeon.”

And by 2004, that dream was well and truly alive. The family was now living in Melling, an affluent village in Merseyside, England. Brian was 18 years old and had just sat his A-level exams at Liverpool College, another private school. No one was in any doubt that his results would be exceptional, A grades across the board. Already he’d received a provisional acceptance to study medicine at Nottingham University. His new girlfriend, Amal Saba, was also going to Nottingham. Amal was the daughter of two distinguished Jordanian physicians. She planned on following her parents into the medical profession.

If all of this sounds somewhat utopian to you, that’s because it was. Brian Blackwell’s path through life had been mapped. He was on a one-way trajectory to the top. Ahead of him lay wealth and renown, success in his chosen career, marriage to a beautiful woman, gifted children to continue his legacy. For most of us, the promise of such a gilded future would be the stuff of daydreams. To Brian Blackwell, it fell short.

That is because Brian was a young man plagued by the curse of perfectionism, a man who had to excel at everything, the King Midas of ability. Such a thing is impossible, of course, even for the most talented among us. We’re good at some things, mediocre at some, downright poor at others. We learn to choose our battles. But you’d never be able to convince Brian of that. He had to be at the top of the heap, no matter the field. And so, Brian started to fill in the gaps where reality did not quite match up to his desired outcome. He invented a fantasy world, a magical kingdom in which he was the lord of all he surveyed.

Take tennis, for example. Brian was good at the game, definitely good enough to blow away most of the weekend hacks at his local club. In the greater scheme of things, though, he was okay, no more, no less. Certainly, he was never going to make it to center court at Wimbledon. Novak Djokovic was never going to be looking back at him from the other side of the net.

Only, that wasn’t good enough for Brian. He enjoyed playing tennis and since he enjoyed it, he had to be the best at it. So, Brian made up a story. He told his impressionable new girlfriend that he was the number one rated junior player in Britain, had just received a wildcard entry to the French Open, and had signed a sponsorship deal with Nike, worth £70,000 a year. He explained to her that he needed a manager and asked if she’d take the job at a generous salary. Amal, of course, accepted, especially when Brian waved a check for £39,000 under her nose.

That check, unsurprisingly, bounced the minute it hit Amal’s bank. At the time that Brian wrote it, he had less than £1 in his account. But he was quick to recover when she queried him about it. He said that there was some delay with the sponsorship money and offered to make it up to her by buying her a new car. Then, to finance the transaction, he cashed in a £9,000 bond that his father had set up for his education. Sydney was outraged when the bank informed him of the withdrawal. He demanded that Brian return the Ford Ka to the dealership for a refund. Brian explained that it wasn’t possible, at least not without taking a substantial loss. He then persuaded his father to let Amal keep the car, saying that her family would pay him back. It was another lie. Brian had no plans to ever discuss the matter with his girlfriend.

But he did have a new scheme to raise the money required to fund his fantasy. He started applying for bank loans and credit cards, forging his parent’s names as co-signatories. Jacqueline Blackwell found out about this in June 2004 and then had to contact various banks, canceling the cards. Not that this upset Brian’s plans too much. On July 24, 2004, he booked two first-class tickets from Manchester to New York. Then he called Amal and told her to pack a bag. They were going on a promotional visit to the United States, first-class all the way, paid for by his sponsor, Nike.

But this deceit also would be uncovered and this time with tragic results. On July 25, Sydney Blackwell took his wife to dinner, arriving home to find Brian in his room, hammering a nail into the wall to hang a picture. Father and son then convened to the living room, where Sydney poured himself a whisky and eased into an armchair. Jacqueline was in the kitchen when she heard the pitch of their voices change, from the normal timbre of conversation to the more strained tones of conflict. Then she heard a loud ‘thwack’ and heard her husband grunt. Terrified, she picked a knife from the rack and entered the living room, holding the blade in front of her in a protective gesture. What she saw there was beyond the worst nightmare she could imagine. Sydney was sitting in the easy chair. Brian was standing behind him, raining down blows on his father’s head with a hammer.

When it was already too late, Jacqueline tried to run. She’d covered only a few steps when her son caught up with her, wrenched the knife from her grasp, and started plunging it repeatedly into her chest, inflicting at least 30 deep wounds. Jacqueline was butchered right there in the hall. Brian then dragged her corpse into the bathroom, where he left her, face down on the tile. He then returned to his father who was terribly injured but not yet dead. “I’m sorry, Dad,” he whispered as he plunged the knife into his father’s heart.

The father who had sired him, the mother who had birthed him, the parents who had coddled and indulged him all his life, were dead, butchered by his own hand. But Brian Blackwell wasn’t going to let that derail his US vacation. He and Amal flew to New York the very next day, checking into the presidential suite at the Plaza, where they stayed three nights and ran up a bill of £2,200, paid for on his dead father’s credit card. They then traveled to Miami, then to San Francisco and Barbados. By the time they returned to the UK on August 12, the card had racked up expenses totaling £30,000. Here, Brian cooked up another lie. He told Amal’s parents that his mom and dad had gone to Majorca for a holiday and had forgotten to leave him the house keys. Could he stay a week or two? They, of course, said yes. How could they refuse this impressive young man who they hoped to one day have as a son-in-law?

On August 19, one week after he returned from the United States, Brian Blackwell received his A-level results. As expected, he had recorded distinctions across the board, in mathematics, biology, chemistry, and Spanish. With that, his provisional acceptance to Nottingham University was made official. He was due to begin classes in October. Amal had also been accepted. Everything, it seemed, was right with the world.

But, of course, everything wasn’t right. In a bungalow just a few miles away, two butchered corpses lay undiscovered. No one had yet raised any alarms since the Blackwells often took short trips to Spain on the spur of the moment. It was thought that they’d done so again. The façade, though, could not hold indefinitely.

On September 5, a neighbor was passing by the Blackwell house when she noticed a particularly noxious odor emanating from the property. The stink only intensified as she approached the front door. And there was something ominous about it, ominous enough for her to notify the police. The officers who responded to the call knew that stench immediately. It was the unmistakable reek of putrefaction. Sydney Blackwell was found seated in his armchair in the living room, still clutching his spectacles. Jacqueline was in the bathroom, lying face down. The post-mortem examination revealed that they had been killed in the latter weeks of July.

Brought in for questioning by the police, Brian Blackwell initially pled innocence, claiming that his parents had been alive and well when he’d departed for New York. However, the questions became far more pressing once it was discovered that he had run up massive debt on his father’s credit card. Eventually, Brian could no longer sustain the pretense and admitted that it was he who had bludgeoned and stabbed his parents to death. His arrest came as a massive shock to Amal Saba and her family. Like everyone else who Brian Blackwell encountered, they were taken in by his lies.

Despite his admission of guilt, though, Brian Blackwell pled not guilty to murder when he appeared at the Liverpool Crown Court in June 2005. He admitted instead to manslaughter, with his counsel citing narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) as a mitigating factor. People with this condition typically have a vastly inflated opinion of their own brilliance. They believe that they are entitled to success in every aspect of their lives. Any threat to this belief system can throw them into a rage and they may turn violent if challenged.

This is probably what happened at the Blackwell residence that night. Most likely, Sydney sat his son down and informed him that he had uncovered the fraud on his credit card and was going to contact the airline in the morning to cancel the tickets. That would have thrown Brian into a panic. His carefully constructed fantasy was falling apart. Amal would know that he’d lied to her. He would be exposed for the loser he was.

But not if he could circumvent the evidence of his deception, not if he could eliminate those who sought to undermine him. Brian still had the hammer in his hand from hanging the picture. He used it now to attack his father, clubbing him from behind as he sat in his chair. Then Jacqueline came to investigate the ruckus and was met with the full fury of her son’s homicidal rage.

This was how investigators interpreted the evidence. Brian would neither confirm nor deny their theory. He claimed that he had blacked out during the attack. However, he did read out a statement in court, tearfully expressing remorse for what he’d done and saying that he missed his parents and would forever be haunted by causing their deaths.

The NPD defense had succeeded. Brian Blackwell was acquitted of murder and convicted, instead, of manslaughter. However, this would turn out to be a double-edged sword for the killer. Five psychiatrists testified at the trial and all of them said essentially the same thing. Blackwell was afflicted with NPD and NPD was untreatable. It would always be the driving force of his personality. That gave Justice Royce few options when it came to sentencing. He passed down a life term and offered the opinion that the defendant should never be released since he would always be a threat to society. As prosecutor David Steer had offered during the proceedings, “Brian Blackwell is a very sick man.”

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Deadly Women Volume 17

2024-06-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

20 classic true crime cases of women who kill, including;

Nicola Edgington: She’d already been convicted of murdering her mother. Now Nicola was free again, wandering the streets with a butcher’s knife in her pocket.

Helen Ryan: A marriage plagued by domestic violence, a divorce headed for a bitter court battle. But who needs courts when you have a 12-guage shotgun?

Stephanie & Gwen Hudnall: Bill has just survived a stroke, much to his wife’s annoyance. She wants him dead and is prepared to rope in her daughter to get the job done.

Jennifer Reali: A dissatisfied military wife begins an affair with a Bible-sprouting insurance salesman. Her new lover is married. Jennifer has a plan for that.

Martha Grinder: One person dying in agony under suspicious circumstances might be overlooked. But five? A classic case from 1860s Pennsylvania.

Shonda Dee Walter: Once she’d been a promising student. Now she was the member of a street gang, intent on earning her colors. Her elderly neighbor was in serious peril.

Rebecca Shuttleworth: He was a delightful little boy, loved by everyone who knew him. Everyone, that is, except his abusive mother.

Tausha Morton: Tausha was a sex addict with five failed marriages and several abandoned children behind her. Some people will kill to keep such secrets.

Plus 12 more fascinating cases . Download your copy now.

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Deadly Women Volume 17

Angela McAnulty

A mother’s job, indeed her core instinct, is to protect her children. This is true of humanity and it is true of most mammals. Mothers in the wild will fight to the death to defend their young, and they’ll literally starve themselves for the sake of their offspring. But then there are those mothers who run against the grain, those who not only fail to provide protection but who actively inflict harm. No one can say for certain what perverts the maternal instincts of these individuals, but their actions have devastating, even deadly, effects on their children. A prime example is a monster from Eugene, Oregon named Angela McAnulty.

Angela McAnulty was born in Sacramento, California on October 2, 1968. She suffered the first trauma of her young life when she was just five years old and her mother was murdered. Thereafter, she and her two brothers remained in the custody of their father, a brutal man who frequently beat his children and withheld food from them as punishment. Eager to escape this mistreatment, Angela ran away at age 16, eloping with a carnival worker. That relationship would be short-lived, drug-fueled, and turbulent. The next, with a man named Anthony Maples, would be slightly more stable. The couple had three children together – Anthony Jr., Brandon, and a daughter, Jeanette. There was also a fourth child, Patience, fathered by someone other than Maples.

By now, Angela’s drug habit had progressed to the point where it was getting her into trouble with the law. In 2000, she and Anthony Maples were locked up on possession charges and the children were placed in foster care. After they walked free in 2001, the couple split. At that time, Angela regained custody of the girls, Jeanette and Patience, but left her two boys in care. A year later, she fell pregnant by a trucker named Richard McAnulty and married him. Their son was born soon after the nuptials. In 2006, the family moved to Oregon. Angela wanted to take her sons with her, but a judge turned down her custody application after receiving an impassioned letter from the boys, begging to be allowed to stay with their foster parents.

Jeanette Maples was seven years old when she was placed back in the dubious care of her mother. She had spent six of those seven years in foster homes. By the time the family moved to Oregon, Jeanette was twelve years of age and had already endured half a decade of abuse at her mother’s hand.

In truth, none of Angela’s children were well treated. But she seems to have singled out Jeanette for maltreatment. It is difficult to understand why. By all accounts, Jeanette was a shy, well-behaved little girl who was a diligent student and did well at school despite being a target for cruel taunts by her classmates. This was because of the unkempt condition in which she was sent to school. Jeanette usually wore grubby, ragged clothes, her hair hanging down in a limp mess. It is a testament to the child’s resilience that she not only endured but even made some friends.

In 2008, one of those friends noticed bruises on Jeanette’s arms and legs during gym class. Asked about this, Jeanette admitted that her mother had beaten her with a belt buckle. That evening, Jeanette’s friend told her parents and they contacted Child Protection Services (CPS). A teacher at the school was then asked to interview Jeanette. During that interview, the child admitted that she was being abused and said that she was terrified of her mother. The subsequent report, made by the teacher, would bring a CPS caseworker to the McAnulty’s front door.

Had the agency done its job, then a little girl’s life might have been saved and we would not be discussing this terrible case. But CPS failed to take meaningful action. Angela claimed that the bruises were the result of “roughhousing” between siblings and said that Jeanette was a compulsive liar. The social worker accepted her version of events without question. The complaint was marked as resolved with “no further action required.” Shortly thereafter, Angela McAnulty withdrew her daughter from school, saying that she would take responsibility for her further education. If home-schooling can be taken as a euphemism for child abuse, then she was true to her word.

In 2009, the CPS was given another chance to redeem itself when an anonymous complaint was made with the agency. The caller (later revealed to be Lee McAnulty, Jeanette’s step-grandmother) said that the child was grossly underweight and carrying several fresh injuries. Mrs. McAnulty would make several follow-up calls over the months that followed, the last of these in early December. The agency did nothing. Their inaction would end up costing an innocent little girl her life.

At around 8 p.m. on December 9, 2009, a 911 operator in Eugene, Oregon fielded a call from a frantic woman who said that her teenage daughter was unresponsive and wasn’t breathing. Units were rushed to the scene and arrived to find 15-year-old Jeanette Maples lying on the living room floor. The child was topless and her hair was wet. According to Angela McAnulty, her daughter had taken a fall about an hour earlier but had seemed fine until she suddenly collapsed. A quick check revealed that Jeanette still had a faint pulse. She was rushed to the emergency room but was pronounced dead on arrival at 8:42. Given the terrible physical condition the child was in, medical staff alerted the police.

Jeanette was found to be severely malnourished, so much so that she looked like a child several years younger than her age. She had severe bruising to her face, cuts above her eyes, and to her lips. There were scars and open wounds, some of them infected, on her head, legs, and back. Her front teeth were broken and the inside of her mouth had disfiguring scars from untreated injuries. These had not been caused by a fall, as Angela had claimed. They were the result of severe and sustained abuse.

And yet, Angela McAnulty was sticking to her story, sticking to it even as the evidence stacked up against her. At the McAnulty residence, detectives found a blood-spattered bedroom that someone had recently tried to clean up. They also found blood and slivers of flesh on various belts and on a pair of pliers. Pressed on this, Richard McAnulty admitted that his wife had scrubbed the room down in an effort to destroy evidence of the sustained abuse. She’d done so before calling 911, even as Jeanette lay on the floor, desperately in need of medical attention. McAnulty also said that Angela had wanted to bury Jeanette in the backyard, rather than call for help. She’d only dialed 911 because he had insisted on it. He admitted that he wasn’t blameless and that he sometimes “disciplined” his stepdaughter. He insisted, however, that it was Angela who was responsible for the child’s death.

It was only when an investigator interviewed Angela’s younger daughter, Patience, that the true extent of the horror was dragged out into the light. Patience said that her sister was routinely beaten and starved by their parents. Usually, their mother would drag Jeanette into her bedroom and then turn on the vacuum cleaner so that the rest of the household wouldn’t hear her screams. Jeanette would be stripped naked and beaten with whatever was at hand – belts, shoes, sticks, coat hangers. She would also be tortured with pliers. Jeanette would then be forced to sleep on the floor, on a sheet of cardboard, so that she wouldn’t get blood on her bedclothes or on the carpet.

As if that were not bad enough, the child would be deprived of food and water for days at a time. If she complained that she was thirsty, she’d be forced to drink water from the toilet bowl. Angela would send her other children out into the yard to collect dog feces, which she’d then rub on Jeanette’s face, into her mouth and into her hair. Jeanette would also be forced to stand facing the wall for hours on end, with her arms raised above her head. Often, she’d have to do this standing on one leg, since her foot was severely mangled from Angela stomping on it. Another favorite “treatment” of Angela’s was to cut away scar tissue from her daughter’s old injuries. This was probably intended to hide the scars. Instead, it caused the wounds to become infected. One such injury, on the child’s hip, ran right to the bone.

Given the horrific abuse that Jeanette had endured, it was a minor miracle that she survived as long as she did. Now, someone was going to have to answer for her suffering, and that someone was Angela McAnulty. With the evidence stacked against her, Angela eventually cracked and admitted to mistreating her daughter. Even now, though, she failed to grasp the seriousness of what she had done. First, she tried to claim ignorance, saying that Jeanette’s malnourished condition was because she hadn’t known how to feed her after she fell and split her lip. Then she admitted, “I did wrong. I should never have spanked my daughter with a belt. I shouldn't have done that. That was horrible of me.” As though all she’d done was to get a little overzealous in applying discipline.

And even if Angela now admitted to striking Jeanette, she still refused to concede that she had caused her death. Regarding the blow to the head that was considered to have ended the child’s life, she told investigators. “I didn't do the injury on the head. I know that she probably died because of the injury on her head, through the skull when she fell. I did not kill my daughter over a spanking. I didn't do that.” She then made the absurd statement that she should probably have “taken up smoking” as a way to relieve the stress that Jeanette had caused her.

Angela and Richard McAnulty were arrested and charged with aggravated murder. The key prosecution witness at their trial was Jeanette’s half-sister, Patience. Her graphic testimony shocked the packed courtroom and left little doubt as to who was responsible for the horrific suffering and death of Jeanette Maples. It was no surprise to anyone when the jury returned guilty verdicts against both defendants.

Richard McAnulty was sentenced to life in prison and must serve at least 25 years before he becomes eligible for parole. For Angela, the consequences were even more dire. She was sentenced to death and currently awaits execution at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility.

FOOTNOTE: In the aftermath of the trial, Jeanette’s biological father, Anthony Maples, sued the Oregon Department of Human Services for the wrongful death of his daughter. The state eventually agreed to settle with Jeanette’s estate, of which her father was the sole beneficiary. Anthony Maples, who had not seen his daughter for ten years before her death and did not attend her memorial service, benefitted to the tune of $1.5 million.

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Killer Kids Volume 14

2024-05-12T23:05:00.000-07:00

22 shocking true stories of kids who kill, including;

John Christian: They were a class of exceptionally bright kids, led by the coolest teacher in school. Everyone loved Mr. Grayson. Well, perhaps not everyone.

Sarah White: There are two sides to the story. One paints Sarah White as a victim of abuse. The other paints her as a mass murderer. Both are true.

Colt Lundy & Paul Gingerich: Colt had taken one too many beatings at the hands of his stepfather. He was done with getting mad. Now he was getting even.

David Black: The boy liked carrying bullets in his pockets. He said he had a gun at home and knew how to use it. No one believed him. They should have.

Steven Miles: He was the odd kid in school, the weirdo, the outsider. Elizabeth was willing to give him a chance. Compassion will cost her everything.

Maxwell Morton: He claimed that it was an accident, that the gun went off in his hand. Why then did he pose for selfies with his victim instead of calling for help?

Miguel Cano: Michael liked to boast to friends that he was a serial killer who’d already claimed several victims. That was a lie. The victim count stood at one.

Dylan Schumaker: Two toddlers left in the unreliable care of a malevolent teen. One of them won’t make it through the night.

Plus 14 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now

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Killer Kids Volume 14

John Christian

They were known as the GTs, a group of eighth-grade students selected by Murchison Middle School, in Austin, Texas, for an advanced English program. GT stood for “Gifted and Talented,” and this group was certainly that. Yet the criteria that had gained them entry to the group wasn’t grade point average or IQ. Rather it was a series of abstract challenges like, “You’re on a desert island and all you have is a tin of sardines and a single matchstick. What do you do?” Or “You have an empty tuna fish can. What use can you put it to? Stuff like that. The object of the tests was to identify kids with a creative streak, kids who could think outside the box.

The mentor of this talented group was probably the coolest teacher in school. Wilbur “Rod” Grayson was young and lanky, and he wore a mustache. To the kids, he seemed incredibly sophisticated but what really made him stand out was the way he interacted with them. He spoke to them as peers and seemed genuinely invested in their growth, not just as students, but as people. The content of the classes was also different. They critiqued music and books and discussed current affairs. They performed skits with costumes and props. Everyone in the group loved it and it bonded them closely together.

If there was one outsider in the class, it was probably 13-year-old John Daniel Christian. Not that John was excluded in any way – he certainly wasn’t – rather it was that he was more introverted than the others, more mature. He dressed and spoke like an adult. In a modern context, he’d probably be called a nerd. John was the son of George Christian, who had served as White House press secretary under Lyndon Johnson. He was quiet and intense, intelligent and bookish. Classmates recall a boy who didn’t like to draw attention to himself, who seemed to want to blend into the background.

But in May 1978, something seemed to change in John Christian’s worldview. Now, the nerdy eighth-grader was suddenly an outspoken malcontent, spouting violent fantasies. He once speculated to a friend about what it would be like to climb a hill near the school and rain down fire from there with a sniper rifle, just to see “how the bullets landed on people.” Classmates who heard these utterings laughed nervously at them. Not in their wildest dreams would they have believed that John was serious.

May 17, 1978, was an unusual day for the GTs, a day when Mr. Grayson was not present in the classroom. A substitute had been brought in and had handed out an assignment. The group was to split into pairs and were to do a presentation on a book they’d been reading, Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. John Christian was paired with another John, John Ray, generally acknowledged as the class clown.

The substitute had given the pairs a lot of latitude in how they made their presentations. Even with that open-ended instruction, though, the class was left stunned by the show put on by the two Johns. From John Ray, they might have expected it. However, it was John Christian who was taking the lead, jumping onto tables, cracking jokes, presenting challenges to his classmates, like who could make the sound ‘sssss’ for the longest time. The result was pandemonium in the classroom.

While all of this was going on, the substitute teacher stood passively by. At the end of it, he expressed his disappointment at the boys’ behavior. “I am going to have to tell Mr. Grayson about this,” he said. “He is going to be so upset.” Later, as the boys were leaving the classroom, John Ray addressed the issue with his classmate. “Man, Mr. Grayson is going to kick our butts tomorrow for that,” he speculated. “Oh, don't worry,” John Christian responded. “I’m going to bring a gun.” He offered this comment deadpan, although John Ray knew, he was joking. “I’ll bring one too,” he joked back.

The following day, the GTs arrived at Mr. Grayson’s class with a sense of trepidation. The substitute had undoubtedly told their teacher about their unruly behavior the day before. At the very least, they were going to get a lecture. As they entered the class, there was a scramble for seats at the back. Everyone wanted to be as far away from the teacher’s accusing gaze as possible.

As it turns out, they need not have worried. Mr. Grayson was disappointed yes, but he wasn’t angry. The worst rebuke that he offered was, “You guys should know better than this, especially you, John and John.” It was now that someone realized that John Christian was not in the classroom. “Hey, where’s John?” somebody asked. “Here he is now,” someone else said, looking through a window. Moments later, Christian stepped into the room. In his hand was a rifle, held casually, as though he was quite used to handling it.

You might expect, given the scenario, that panic would have broken out. Yet, there was no reaction from the students. They’d frequently played out skits in the classroom, often with props. They assumed that this was another of those situations. Even Mr. Grayson appeared unconcerned by the weapon. “We’re glad you could join us,” he told John. “But what's with the gun? Is this some sort of a joke?” To this, John replied, “Well no, the joke's on you.” Then he raised the gun and fired, three closely spaced shots that spilled Mr. Grayson from his stool onto the floor.

The response to the shooting was not what you might expect. The class started laughing, then broke out in applause. They’d performed many skits in Mr. Grayson’s class, but this was the best of them. It had all seemed so real, right down to the blood that was, even now, blossoming on the teacher’s sweater.

However, it did not take long for someone to realize that this was no comedy sketch. This was real. Their teacher had just been assassinated before their eyes. This boy got up from his seat and ran to his fallen teacher. He realized right away that Mr. Grayson was seriously injured. He then walked directly towards where Christian stood in the doorway, brushed past him, and ran to the administration office. There, he shouted for someone to call an ambulance. At this moment, a mad scramble was going on, with students screaming and trying to flee the classroom. In their midst was John Christian, who walked casually from the scene with the murder weapon still in his hand. He was spotted a short while later, crossing the sports fields. One of the coaches tackled him to the ground and disarmed him.

The story, of course, was huge news in Austin, where the Christians were among the city’s elite. George Christian, as already stated, had served the LBJ White House. His wife, John’s mother, was a high-powered lawyer in the city. The boy would not be without funds for his legal defense, nor without first-class representation.

And what those lawyers were arguing was that this was a clear case of mental incapacity. According to psychiatrists who examined John Christian, the boy suffered from latent schizophrenia. Whereas the district attorney wanted John confined to a juvenile facility for five years, the defense argued that this would be detrimental to his mental health. Christian’s lawyers wanted him sent to a hospital, where he could receive treatment for his condition. In the end, it was this view that won out.

John Christian was placed at the exclusive Timberlawn Hospital in Dallas, where his parents paid $129 a day (around $600 in today’s money) for his treatment. He would remain at the facility for 17 months before he was declared cured and placed with a foster family. He later graduated from Highland Park High School in Dallas before attending the University of Texas, where he studied law and graduated with honors.

Aside from his assassination of Rod Grayson, John Christian has never committed another crime. He’s currently a successful tax attorney in Austin, living in the same suburb where he grew up, within walking distance of Murchison Middle School.

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Murder Most Vile Volume 47

2024-04-13T23:27:00.000-07:00

18 Chilling true murder cases, including:

Bloodlust: As a child, he loved stories of vampires and the undead. As an adult, he turned those stories into reality.

The Happiest Man on Death Row: Questions remained over his guilt, but Joe Arridy wasn’t bothered by them. He went smiling to the gas chamber.

Six Days of Terror: His family claimed he was a gentle giant, full of “love and kindness.” Tell that to the five people he butchered.

Angry Young Woman: Maria was tired of men, tired of their sexual innuendos and groping hands. Now she’s fighting back... knife in pocket, revenge in mind.

Insomnia: A sleep-deprived man drifts off one night and wakes up in a hospital bed, handcuffed to the frame. He has no recollection of what happened.

Prom Night: The deeply troubling story of a prom date gone horribly wrong, with deadly consequences for an innocent young woman.

Something Sweet: The split had been amicable but then one of the parties shows up dead, with anti-freeze in his blood. Who fed him the poison?

Dark Knight: All his life, Julian wanted to serve his country as a soldier. When the military decides he’s not wanted, he brings the war to them.

Plus 10 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now

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Murder Most Vile Volume 47

Bloodlust

With his black, slicked-back hair, sallow complexion, and dark, lifeless eyes, James Riva looked like he was straight out of central casting for some B-rate vampire movie. And such a role would undoubtedly have interested the 23-year-old Riva. Ever since childhood, he’d had a fascination with the undead. As early as kindergarten, teachers expressed concern over the dark images he conjured up in his drawings. While his classmates were sketching rainbows and butterflies, James’s pictures showed decapitated animals, haunted houses, and blood, lots of blood.

That should have been a red flag. And if the Riva family was hoping that it was a phase that he’d grow out of, they’d be sorely disappointed. The boy’s behavior only worsened as he got older. At home, he liked to mix up a gross concoction of ketchup and cooking oil, which he’d drink, claiming it had the look and texture of blood. He was also sneaking out at night, prowling the streets, catching and killing neighborhood pets, often torturing the poor animals and drinking their blood. In 1973, when James was 16, his family eventually decided it was time to intervene and took him to see a psychiatrist. The result should have surprised no one. James Riva was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

Over the years that followed, Riva would be in and out of institutions. He claimed that he was hearing voices and seeing visions, having conversations with the devil, conversing with centuries-old vampires. Medication was prescribed to still these hallucinations, but Riva seldom took it. He also showed very little response to the counseling he received. Through it all, he had a family who loved and supported him, who were always willing to house and feed him and put up with his bizarre and sometimes threatening behavior. His main supporter might have been his grandmother, Carmen Lopez.

Carmen was 74 years old, enjoying a quiet retirement at her beachfront cottage in Marshfield, Massachusetts. She was still active for her years but then in January 1980, she was diagnosed with a spinal tumor that necessitated surgery. The recovery time was three months, to be spent in the hospital. It coincided with James’s latest release from a psychiatric facility. Since Carmen’s house was standing empty, family members suggested that James might stay there while he was finding his feet. Carmen was happy for him to do that and so James moved in. He was still living there when Carmen was given the all-clear to return home in April 1980.

The operation had taken a heavy toll on Carmen. The once-vital woman was now wheelchair-bound, and her weight had plummeted to just 75 pounds. What she needed was rest and recuperation, something she was unlikely to get with the hyperactive James in the house. Still, Carmen insisted that he should stay. It was only when James’s behavior got out of hand, when he started launching into bizarre rants about vampires visiting him at night and sucking his blood, that the family stepped in and made other arrangements. James was sent to live with one of his uncles while his grandmother was left to recuperate. He was not too happy about having to move.

On the afternoon of April 10, 1980, the Marshfield Fire Department received a report of a house fire at Rexhame Beach. Units were rushed to the scene and soon had the blaze under control. Firefighters then entered the building to see if there was anyone inside. There was. 74-year-old Carmen Lopez was lying on the floor of her bedroom, curled into a fetal position, her body badly scorched by the flames. Already the experienced firefighters knew that this was no accident. The strong stench of methanol hung in the air, and it was clear where the fire had started. It appeared that someone had doused the elderly woman’s body with an accelerant and then struck a match. This looked like a case of murder.

And thus it would prove. Autopsy results showed that the victim had been shot four times. She had also been stabbed. Nonetheless, Carmen Lopez had still been alive when the fire started. There was soot in her lungs. Aside from that, there was one interesting detail to emerge from the coroner’s report. The bullets that had killed Carmen Lopez had been painted gold.

So who had done this terrible thing? Who had shot, stabbed, and set ablaze a frail old woman, and to what purpose? The answer wasn’t hard to find. Neighbors had seen someone exiting the property just before the fire started. It was Carmen Lopez’s grandson, James Riva.

Brought in for questioning, Riva did not deny that he’d killed his grandmother. According to him, he’d arrive at the house around 3 p.m. and headed directly to the basement. There was a gun down there, a weapon he’d hidden while he was living in the house. Now, he loaded it up from his box of special gold-painted bullets. His grandmother was sitting in her wheelchair, looking out on the beach, when he walked up on her, the gun in his hand.

Carmen must have guessed by his demeanor what was about to happen. She screamed and threw her glass at him. That was when he opened fire, pumping four bullets into her. Then he drew a knife and started stabbing the elderly woman’s prone form. Finally, he lifted her out of her wheelchair and carried her into the bedroom where he laid her out on the floor and emptied a canister of dry gas over her. One match was all it took to get the blaze going. Riva was not aware that his grandmother was still alive when he struck that match. It would have made no difference to him had he known.

That explained the how of this terrible crime. What investigators still didn’t get was the why. It was here that the case took a sharp left to the twilight zone, into territory that would ensure its infamy for years and decades to come. According to Riva’s convoluted explanation, his grandmother was a 700-year-old vampire who had been visiting him at night to feast on his blood. He was also a vampire and needed blood to survive. By killing his grandmother, he could free himself from enslavement while at the same time being able to “feed.” He admitted that he’d tried to drink his grandmother’s blood after killing her but said that he couldn’t because she was too “dry.”

Riva would offer even more bizarre stories once the matter got to trial. He was now claiming that he’d received instructions to kill from the “lords of the netherworld,” and that they’d promised to reward him with money and a nice car and make him irresistible to women. It was they who had instructed him to paint his bullets gold, since a gold bullet “cannot miss.” He was also claiming childhood abuse, saying that his mother was a powerful sorcerer who had performed “weird witch’s rituals” on him when he was a child and had forced him to drink “witch’s brew.”

With such a catalog of bizarre testimony on offer, it should surprise no one that Riva and his legal team were pursuing an insanity defense. In fact, Riva’s lawyer filed a motion to have the case dismissed, since his client was incompetent to stand trial. That motion was denied with the jury ruling that Riva was responsible for his actions. The state then outlined its case, rejecting the vampire narrative as a smokescreen. According to prosecutors, Riva’s real motive was revenge. He was angry about being ejected from his grandmother’s house and had decided to kill her in an act of vengeance.

That was the case that prosecutors presented and the case that the jurors chose to believe. After seven hours of deliberation, they found James Riva guilty of second-degree murder and arson. He was sentenced to life in prison.

But Riva’s run-ins with the law were far from over. He would prove a difficult inmate, almost uncontrollable when he did not take his medication. It culminated in a near-fatal attack on a guard in 1990, during which Riva slashed the officer’s throat with a prison shank. In the trial to follow, he defended his actions by saying that the guard had been sneaking into his cell at night to tap his spinal fluid. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

James Riva has come up for parole four times since his incarceration and has been turned down on each occasion. The most vociferous voices speaking against his release have been members of his own family, who believe that he remains a danger to society. Riva’s response has been to claim childhood abuse, not by the witches and vampires of his previous tellings, but of the more mundane parent/child variety. Among other things, he claims that his earliest memories are of his mother forcing his head into a tub of water and holding him under until he nearly drowned. He believes that this is what triggered his schizophrenia. Members of his family have roundly rejected these claims, insisting that he was never abused and that everything was done to help him. He repaid that kindness by murdering a gentle old woman who adored him.

The “Schizophrenic Vampire” will remain behind bars for the foreseeable future. The people of Marshfield, Massachusetts should be thankful for that.

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Cold Cases Solved Volume 9

2024-03-03T04:41:00.000-08:00

18 Baffling True Crime Cold Cases, including;

Black Summer: Two little girls are dead, and the authorities in Tacoma, Washington are deeply concerned. Does the city have a serial child killer?

Bad Obsession: A bizarre murder on the campus of Drexel University has police baffled. The motive will leave them stunned.

The Gambler: As a skilled poker player, Marcus knew how to judge the odds. His latest gamble is his most daring yet. Can he get away with murder?

Death Comes Calling: Beauty queen Tana has attracted the unwanted attention of a dangerous admirer. He lives across the hall. He’s also a psychopath.

Fourteen, Going on Psycho: He was a spoiled, rich kid who always got what he wanted. Just 14, he was already a serial rapist… and a killer.

Here Comes Trouble: Tommy thought he’d hit the jackpot with his attractive, young lover. But Clara’s not just a pretty face. She’s dangerously unstable.

When Hope Dies: The body of a little girl is found dumped beside a turnpike in New York City. How she got there is both heartbreaking and deeply unsettling.

The Accidental Detective: The case was cold, the killer apparently beyond the reach of the law. Then up stepped a rather unusual homicide investigator.

Plus 10 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now

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Cold Cases: Solved! Volume 9

Black Summer

March 26, 1986, was a beautiful sunny day in Tacoma, Washington, the kind of day when kids are loath to be indoors. Sisters Michella, Angela, and Nichole Welch had their piano lessons scheduled for that afternoon but that gave them plenty of time to head to Puget Park, about two miles from their home. The girls nagged their mom, Barbara, to let them go and Barbara eventually acceded. Why wouldn’t she? They lived in a safe neighborhood and the park would be teeming with visitors on such a gorgeous day. Besides, her oldest, Michella, was mature beyond her 12 years and could be trusted to watch over her younger siblings.

And so, the Welch sisters set off for Puget Park, a one-acre beauty spot bordering Commencement Bay. They arrived just after 11:30 and it was then that they realized they’d forgotten to bring the paper bag containing their packed lunch. “I’ll ride back and fetch it,” Michella told her sisters. “You guys stay here.” She then departed, leaving them with a stern warning not to wander off. Angela and Nichole promised that they’d stay put.

However, about a half-hour after their big sister left, Angela and Nichole felt the call of nature. Since there was no public restroom in the park, they decided to cross the road and ask if they could use the facilities at one of the businesses there. They were confident that they’d be back before Michella, but they were wrong. When they returned, they found her Schwinn leaning up against a picnic table, the bag containing their lunch sitting on the table beside it. Of Michella, though, there was no sign.

At first, this did not particularly alarm the girls. They assumed that Michella had gone looking for them and would soon return. When she did, they could expect one of her ‘big sister lectures.’ But as the minutes ticked by and Michella did not appear, they began to worry. Eventually, they started looking for their sister, calling her name. When that failed to get a response, they went back to the hair salon where they’d earlier used the bathroom and asked if they could call their mom at work. Barbara Leonard listened with increasing alarm as Angela explained what had happened. She told her and Nichole to stay where they were until she got there. Then she hung up the phone and called the police.

By 3 p.m., a search of Puget Park and its surrounding area was underway by a small contingent of police. By six, search and rescue were called in, along with a K-9 team. It was just after 11:30 when one of the dogs found Michella Welch. The little girl was discovered in a ravine in a densely wooded part of the park. She had been throttled and badly beaten and her throat was slashed. The autopsy would reveal that she had been sexually assaulted.

In the aftermath of this terrible murder, a report surfaced of a man seen lurking in the shadows, watching the girls. That generated an identikit and a slew of leads. One of the most promising came from a man named Robert Washburn who said that he’d been jogging in nearby Point Defiance Park when he spotted a man who fit the description of the suspect. According to Washburn, the man was “acting suspiciously.” This lead, unfortunately, led nowhere.

The community was up in arms. A little girl was dead, a child killer loose on the streets. What was the Tacoma Police Department going to do about it? In truth, Tacoma PD could not be faulted for its diligence. Detectives worked the case hard, drawing blanks at every turn. The best line of inquiry was the semen retrieved from the victim’s body, but DNA profiling was still in its infancy back then, and CODIS was still three years in the future. The case was slipping away. Then, on August 4, 1986, another child was missing.

At 13, Jennifer Bastian was only slightly older than Michella Welch. A keen cyclist, Jenni was a member of a biking club and was looking forward to competing in an upcoming tour. That afternoon, she called her dad at work and asked if she could do a five-mile training loop of Point Defiance Park on her new bike. He told her that was fine, but that she should be home by 6:30.

Only Jenni wasn’t home by 6:30, or by 7:30, or 8:30. The police were called and started a search of the park, bringing in the bloodhounds at 11:00 p.m. The dogs had helped find Michella Welch, but they were unsuccessful in this case. Jenni Bastian would be missing for three weeks before her body was discovered by a pair of joggers, buried under vegetation deep in the park. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death.

The method of murder was different, but the ages of the victims and the proximity of the crime scenes suggested a link. Investigators were convinced that a single perpetrator was responsible for both deaths. That made him a serial child killer, a terrifying prospect in a community with so many young families. As word of this latest atrocity spread, a siege mentality descended on the city of Tacoma. Home security was beefed up, children were kept off the streets, sales of firearms and ammunition spiked.

Meanwhile, the police identified a convicted child killer named David Fisher as their prime suspect and launched a concerted effort to track him down. Fisher, though, wasn’t making it easy for them. He would remain at large for three years. When he was eventually arrested, DNA cleared him. That was in 1989. By then, the investigation was already in deep trouble. Soon, it would stall completely.

Step forward in time two decades to 2011, and we find the Tacoma Police Department establishing a Cold Case unit, under the leadership of Detective Gene Miller. Miller had been a patrol officer at the time of the Welch and Bastian murders. One of his investigators, Det. Lindsey Wade, had been just 11 years old back then, similar in age to the victims. She could well remember the pall of fear she’d lived under at the time. In part, it was what had inspired her to sign up for the police academy straight out of high school. Now, Wade would get a crack at the case that had haunted her for over two decades.

During that time, the prevailing theory was that a single perpetrator was responsible for the deaths of Michella Welch and Jenni Bastian. However, it had never been possible to test the hypothesis since no biological material had been retrieved from the Bastian crime scene. Now, as Det. Wade looked over the evidence again, she realized that the bathing suit Jenni had been wearing had never been tested. This was now submitted to the lab and a semen stain was detected, producing a viable DNA profile.

It was here that the case took an unexpected turn. The profile was different from the one found in the Welch case. The police had always believed that a monster had snuffed out two young lives in the summer of ’86 in Tacoma. Turns out they were wrong. There was not one monster, but two.

Had either of these profiles found a match in CODIS at that time, then the police would at least have had something to show for their efforts. Frustratingly, there was no hit from the national database. Unperturbed, Det. Wade started working through the nearly 200 suspects that had been identified over the course of the two investigations. This was a mammoth task. Wade had to track down the men, ask them to submit to a test, and then send the samples to the lab for comparison and elimination. It was time-consuming and expensive. It is a testament to the resilience of the detective that she managed to process 160 of the 200 suspects before her retirement in 2018.

Lindsey Wade left the force believing that she’d failed. She was wrong. Just weeks into her retirement, she got a call from the detective who had taken over her cases. They had a match from the last batch of samples she’d submitted. The killer of Jenni Bastian had been identified. His name was Robert Washburn, the same Robert Washburn whose name had appeared as a witness in the Welch inquiry. He was the jogger who’d called the police to report that he’d seen a man matching the description of Michella’s killer. Washburn ultimately entered a guilty plea to murder and received a 27-year prison term. It remains a mystery why he sought to insert himself into the Welch inquiry just months before he committed an atrocity of his own.

One of the two killers was in custody. The other, as yet, had not been caught, having evaded justice for over three decades. But the Tacoma police were not giving up. Encouraged by the Washburn result, cold case detectives gave approval for Parabon NanoLabs to upload DNA data from Michella Welch’s killer to GEDmatch. This is a public, genetic genealogy database whose users voluntarily upload their DNA profiles, usually in the hope of tracing long-lost relatives. It has already been used by law enforcement to close several high-profile cold cases, most notably that of the Golden State Killer.

In this case, the results highlighted two brothers as potential suspects. The siblings were placed under police surveillance, with officers tracking them to retrieve any discarded object that might contain biological material – a soda can, a cigarette butt, a drinking straw. Here, it was a paper napkin, left behind at a fast-food restaurant, that would provide the breakthrough. The item was rushed to the lab where a profile was extracted. The comparison returned a match. Just like that, a decades-old mystery was resolved.

The suspect’s name was Gary Charles Hartman, he was 66 years old and until recently had worked at Western State Hospital as a psychiatric nurse. Hartman had a clean criminal record. His neighbors described him as a “nice guy, kind, always smiling.” He was married. He enjoyed restoring vintage cars. A Tacoma native, Hartman had lived his entire life in the city. He’d been living within a mile of Puget Park back in 1986, when 12-year-old Michella Welch was murdered. Aside from that atrocious crime, Gary Hartman had never gotten so much as a parking ticket in his life.

But now, Hartman stood accused of the ultimate evil. Arrested and brought before the courts in 2021, he initially entered a not guilty plea to murder. Later, after being convicted and sentenced to 26 years and six months in prison, he broke down and admitted his guilt. “I’m so sorry," he wept. “God knows I’m so sorry. That doesn’t help. I’m just sorry.” He will have plenty of time to contemplate his evil deed behind bars. More than likely, he will die there.

During the summer of 1986, two promising young lives were cut short in Tacoma, Washington. Michella Welch was 12 years old with blonde hair. She wore a pair of wire-framed glasses perched on her nose. Michella was a talented musician who excelled at the piano and violin. She was devoted to her younger sisters. Jennifer Bastian wore her blonde hair boyishly short and had strikingly blue eyes. She was an athletic 13-year-old who loved racing her bike and had already competed in several cycling tours. Who knows where that might have led, but for the intervention of a monster. Two innocent girls, two heartless killers, one black summer.

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