True Crime thread

[MichaelWinicki]

If you're interested in true crime post away!

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Recently I had been listening to a podcast on the unsolved Burger Chef murders of 1978...

On November 17, 1978 the Burger Chef (a chain that was eventually taken over by Hardees) in Speedway, Indiana (just outside Indianapolis) was robbed and the 4 employees kidnapped.

The 4 employees were found murdered the following day. They had been driven to a neighboring county and were led into an overgrown area and executed.

Since then there have been numerous theories on the case.

And there is even a supposed eye-witness.

But the case has never been solved.

Here's a link to the podcast...

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podca...eet-presents-you/id1538289354?i=1000496727148

 

[Seven]

It was 25 years ago when 9-year-old Amber Hagerman was abducted while riding her bike outside an abandoned Winn-Dixie. She was later found dead in a drainage ditch.

Amber’s death gave rise to the Amber Alert system, which is credited with saving almost 800 missing or abducted children across the country.

Thousands of tips later, investigators say they’re no closer to solving the Arlington girl’s slaying.

Amber and her younger brother were riding bikes in a grocery store parking lot just a few blocks from their home on Jan. 13 1996, when a man pulled Amber off the bike and drove away with her in a black pickup truck.

When police found Amber four days later, her throat had been cut. Police haven’t publicly said if the girl was sexually assaulted.

Police have investigated 8,000 tips about Amber’s abduction but said that they are no closer to identifying a suspect than they were in 1996.

It amazes me how simple it is to get a license plate number yet in a state of shock, amazement maybe, that's the last thing most of us think of doing.

In this stage of our lives with all that is at our finger tips.......she may have been saved.

 

[HungryLion]

It was 25 years ago when 9-year-old Amber Hagerman was abducted while riding her bike outside an abandoned Winn-Dixie. She was later found dead in a drainage ditch.

Amber’s death gave rise to the Amber Alert system, which is credited with saving almost 800 missing or abducted children across the country.

Thousands of tips later, investigators say they’re no closer to solving the Arlington girl’s slaying.

Amber and her younger brother were riding bikes in a grocery store parking lot just a few blocks from their home on Jan. 13 1996, when a man pulled Amber off the bike and drove away with her in a black pickup truck.

When police found Amber four days later, her throat had been cut. Police haven’t publicly said if the girl was sexually assaulted.

Police have investigated 8,000 tips about Amber’s abduction but said that they are no closer to identifying a suspect than they were in 1996.

It amazes me how simple it is to get a license plate number yet in a state of shock, amazement maybe, that's the last thing most of us think of doing.

In this stage of our lives with all that is at our finger tips.......she may have been saved.

Wow. I never knew the history behind the Amber alert. Thank you for sharing.

 

[HungryLion]

Recently I had been listening to a podcast on the unsolved Burger Chef murders of 1978...

On November 17, 1978 the Burger Chef (a chain that was eventually taken over by Hardees) in Speedway, Indiana (just outside Indianapolis) was robbed and the 4 employees kidnapped.

The 4 employees were found murdered the following day. They had been driven to a neighboring county and were led into an overgrown area and executed.

Since then there have been numerous theories on the case.

And there is even a supposed eye-witness.

But the case has never been solved.

Here's a link to the podcast...

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podca...eet-presents-you/id1538289354?i=1000496727148

My sister is a huge true crime fan. She is also a forensic scientist and works for a crime lab.


She goes to “crime con” every year. This year it is in Austin, TX in June.

 

[Seven]

Wow. I never knew the history behind the Amber alert. Thank you for sharing.

You're very welcome.......

 

[Seven]

My sister is a huge true crime fan. She is also a forensic scientist and works for a crime lab.


She goes to “crime con” every year. This year it is in Austin, TX in June.

Guilty......I gravitate towards true crime..... it's not a "I love true crime" thing for me but rather a I just cannot fathom what some human beings are capable of.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Guilty......I gravitate towards true crime..... it's not a "I love true crime" thing for me but rather a I just cannot fathom what some human beings are capable of.

I think that's how it works for a lot of us.

On October 20th, 1970 in the small town next to us, a nurse by the name of Carol Ann Fitzmaurice was murdered in her home (seems to have been a possible "passion" sort of murder in that she was stabbed an excessive number of times).

I was just a youngster and it scared me to death... How could something like that happen? What would motivate someone to do something like that?

Tough enough questions for adults to deal with and here I was a little kid.

And then to top it off, my grandparents had taken me on a weekend trip and on our way back we came across a road block where they were looking for person who did this.

That was the first punch of reality.

The second was the "Candy Man".

Not the movies!

But Dean Corll, the serial killer in the Houston area.

My grandparents use to get the weekly news magazines like Time.

I quite often spent time with them during the summer, and one day in August 1973, the latest weekly news magazine showed up in the mail and there they were...

One color picture after after of what this guy had done... Pictures of graves in the boat house where he buried the bodies... Pictures of attendants taking stretcher loads of bodies to waiting hearses.

It shocked my world.

And here I am today.

 

[SlammedZero]

I love true crime!! I'm actually starting to run out of true crime shows on all my paid subscription tv services. I blew through Forensic Files and Cold Cases. I've watched most of all the documentaries (Night Stalker, Evil Genius, I'll Be Gone In The Dark, etc. etc.). I've recently been watching The Hunt with John Walsh. There is a series about friends/lovers that have murdered each other (I think on HBO and I can't think of the name of it) that I've been slowly getting through as they're OK episodes.

Like some of you that have commented, it's so insane that humans are doing these things to each other and at such a high occurrence, that it is fascinating to me. Also, I get pretty enthralled with how they get caught. It's always the little things. Plus, I love seeing bad people get caught.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

I love true crime!! I'm actually starting to run out of true crime shows on all my paid subscription tv services. I blew through Forensic Files and Cold Cases. I've watched most of all the documentaries (Night Stalker, Evil Genius, I'll Be Gone In The Dark, etc. etc.). I've recently been watching The Hunt with John Walsh. There is a series about friends/lovers that have murdered each other (I think on HBO and I can't think of the name of it) that I've been slowly getting through as they're OK episodes.

Like some of you that have commented, it's so insane that humans are doing these things to each other and at such a high occurrence, that it is fascinating to me. Also, I get pretty enthralled with how they get caught. It's always the little things. Plus, I love seeing bad people get caught.

I would suggest podcasts... Many good podcasts out there.

And a slew of great books.

I just finished one:

"Choking in Fear" by Mike McCarty

It's the story of the Hollandsburg, Indiana massacre on Valentines Day 1977– but with a twist.

McCarty was a 9 year-old kid when the murders occurred and only lived down the road where the spot of the murders. McCarty's father was a member of the Indiana State Police during that time.

Also what's interesting about the book is that one of the convicted murderers contributed to the story.

Anyway highly recommended!

The trouble with the on TV true crime shows is that they seem to cover the same criminals and crimes over and over again... Gacy, Bundy, Dahmer, Ramirez, the Dating Game Killer.

To get to the cases that aren't mainstream you need to hit the podcasts.

 

[trickblue]

Love watching True Crime shows... unfortunately I knew two women killed by serial killers. One was never found, but they are quite certain her remains along with another were in a barrell filled with acid and discarded in the woods...

I've seen stories on both of them on different Crime Shows... very sad...

 

[JohnnyTheFox]

Great thread, a few cases come to mind that i have always been interested in..

First is the Girl Scout murders at Camp Scott in my home state of Oklahoma, they occurred in 1977 and still remain unsolved til this day.
Oklahoma Girl Scout murders - Wikipedia
"Less than two months before the murders, during an on-site training session, a camp counselor discovered that her belongings had been ransacked and her doughnuts had been stolen. Inside the empty doughnut box was a disturbing hand-written note, stating in capital letters, "We are on a mission to kill three girls in tent one." The director of that camp session treated the note as a prank, and it was discarded"

"At around 7 p.m. on Sunday, June 12, 1977, the night before camp started, a thunderstorm hit the area, and the girls huddled in their tents. Among them were Lori Lee Farmer, 8, Doris Denise Milner, 10, and Michele Heather Guse, 9.[3] The girls were residents of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, a suburb of Tulsa. They were sharing tent #8 in the camp's "Kiowa" unit which was located the farthest from the Camp Counselor's tent,[4] and partially obscured by the showers for the camp. At around 6 a.m. on June 13, a camp counselor on her way to the shower found a girl's body in her sleeping bag in the forest. It was soon discovered that all three girls in tent #8 had been killed. Their bodies had been left on a trail leading to the showers, about 150 yards from their tent.[5] Subsequent testing showed that they had been raped, bludgeoned, and strangled.[6]

A large, red flashlight was found on top of the girls' bodies; a fingerprint was found on the lens, but it has never been identified.[6] A footprint from a 9.5 shoe size was also found in the blood in the tent.[6] Between 2:30 and 3 a.m. on June 13, a landowner heard "quite a bit" of traffic on a remote road near the camp"

Gene Leroy Hart (November 27, 1943 – June 4, 1979) had been at large since 1973 after escaping from the Mayes County Jail. He had been convicted of kidnapping and raping two pregnant women as well as four counts of first degree burglary.[7] Hart was raised about a mile from Camp Scott. Hart, a Cherokee, was arrested within a year at the home of a Cherokee medicine man. He was represented by Garvin A. Isaacs, a local Oklahoma attorney. He was tried in March 1979. Although the local sheriff pronounced himself "one thousand percent" certain that Hart was guilty, a local jury acquitted him.[8] As a convicted rapist and jail escapee, he still had 305 years of his 308-year sentence left to serve in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. On June 4, 1979, he collapsed and died of a heart attack, after about an hour of lifting weights and jogging in the prison exercise yard.[9]

Two of the families later sued the Magic Empire Council and its insurer for $5 million, alleging negligence. The civil trial included discussion of the threatening note and the fact that tent #8 was 86 yards (79 m) from the counselors' tent. In 1985, by a 9–3 vote, jurors decided in favor of Magic Empire"

Next up is the case of Dan Short a Missouri banker who was kidnapped/robbed and duct taped/weighted to a chair and thrown off a bridge into Grand Lake which is in the NE section of Okla. His murder was eventually solved from a small piece of duct tape that had washed ashore and recovered by a fisherman. Two brothers were arrested and charged with one being convicted and the other not but was already doing life for an unrelated crime.
Dan Short | Unsolved Mysteries Wiki | Fandom


The next case is the Sirloin Stockade murders from 1978, OKC Okla. Six employees were herded into the freezer and shot, 5 died there and the 6th at the local hospital. Roger Dale Stafford, his wife Verna and brother Harold committed the crimes. Verna is still in prison, the brother died in a motorcycle accident/suicide{?} and Roger Dale Stafford was executed in 1995. 1978 Sirloin Stockade murders remembered (oklahoman.com)

Also wanted to mention the case of Herbert Clutter who was murdered in 1959 along with 3 other family members in Kansas, both suspect were caught and eventually hanged. "In Cold Blood" the movie/book were based on the murders.
In Cold Blood - Wikipedia

 

[Seven]

I think that's how it works for a lot of us.

On October 20th, 1970 in the small town next to us, a nurse by the name of Carol Ann Fitzmaurice was murdered in her home (seems to have been a possible "passion" sort of murder in that she was stabbed an excessive number of times).

I was just a youngster and it scared me to death... How could something like that happen? What would motivate someone to do something like that?

Tough enough questions for adults to deal with and here I was a little kid.

And then to top it off, my grandparents had taken me on a weekend trip and on our way back we came across a road block where they were looking for person who did this.

That was the first punch of reality.

The second was the "Candy Man".

Not the movies!

But Dean Corll, the serial killer in the Houston area.

My grandparents use to get the weekly news magazines like Time.

I quite often spent time with them during the summer, and one day in August 1973, the latest weekly news magazine showed up in the mail and there they were...

One color picture after after of what this guy had done... Pictures of graves in the boat house where he buried the bodies... Pictures of attendants taking stretcher loads of bodies to waiting hearses.

It shocked my world.

And here I am today.

Well portrayed, Michael. I at least "hope" most are intrigued and personally y

I think that's how it works for a lot of us.

On October 20th, 1970 in the small town next to us, a nurse by the name of Carol Ann Fitzmaurice was murdered in her home (seems to have been a possible "passion" sort of murder in that she was stabbed an excessive number of times).

I was just a youngster and it scared me to death... How could something like that happen? What would motivate someone to do something like that?

Tough enough questions for adults to deal with and here I was a little kid.

And then to top it off, my grandparents had taken me on a weekend trip and on our way back we came across a road block where they were looking for person who did this.

That was the first punch of reality.

The second was the "Candy Man".

Not the movies!

But Dean Corll, the serial killer in the Houston area.

My grandparents use to get the weekly news magazines like Time.

I quite often spent time with them during the summer, and one day in August 1973, the latest weekly news magazine showed up in the mail and there they were...

One color picture after after of what this guy had done... Pictures of graves in the boat house where he buried the bodies... Pictures of attendants taking stretcher loads of bodies to waiting hearses.

It shocked my world.

And here I am today.

Candy man. This one was intriguing. Mom owned a candy business.

The Candy Man, because often he would treat children to free candy.

He was so ordinary and functional in life that he flew under the radar which allowed him to kill....and that's an understatement....27 young boys.

The Houston Mass Murders, as the case was later called, became one of the most horrific series of murders in U.S. history. There's plenty of close seconds.

Two, who were particularly close to Corll, who lured victims, was a 14-year-old boy named Elmer Wayne Henley and a 15-year-old boy named David Brooks. 14 and 15!!!

August 8, 1973, Henley shot and killed Corll at his home. When the police interviewed Henley about the shooting and searched Corll's home for evidence, a bizarre and brutal story of torture, rape and murder began to unfold.
Here's the kicker....poetic Justice, if you will, 27 young deaths later, unfortunately.

According to Henley, he made Corll furious when he brought his young girlfriend over to the house with another friend, Tim Kerley. The group drank and did drugs and fell asleep. When Henley awoke, his feet were bound and Corll was handcuffing him to his "torture" board. His girlfriend and Tim were also bound and with tape over their mouths. Henley was fully aware of what was to follow, having witnessed this same scenario before.

He managed to convince Corll to free him by promising to participate in the torture and murder of his friends. Once free, he went along with some of Corll's instructions, including attempting to rape the young woman. Corll meanwhile, was trying to rape Tim, but the young boy fought so much Corll, frustrated, left the room. Henley immediately went for Corll's gun which he left behind. When Corll returned, Henley shot him six times, killing him.

Again....I can't wrap my tiny mind around this. What happened in Corrls' life that would make what he did, several times.......ok to do?

 

[Hardline]

I'm a huge fan of the silent movie era and the one unsolved murder that fascinates me is murder of movie director William Desmond Taylor .It involves one of my favorite silent movie actresses Mabel Normand.

 

[Hardline]

 

[Hardline]

And of course one of the all time favorite.

 

[HungryLion]

And of course one of the all time favorite.

Always fascinated by this case. The fact that we will likely never know the killer for sure, makes it even more fascinating.

 

[HungryLion]

Does anyone remember “the hunt for the zodiac killer” which was a mini series on History Channel that aired a few years ago?


They had people trying to crack one of the zodiacs ciphers, which eventually was cracked and then they also were investigating his crimes with retired detectives.


The series was awesome I loved watching it. But it seemed to end so abruptly, abruptly to the point that I was waiting for the next episode to come and it never did.

I wish they would do more episodes of that.

 

[timb2]

This was a TV series I got into years ago I thought was interesting.. " Most Evil"

 

[MichaelWinicki]

This was a TV series I got into years ago I thought was interesting.. " Most Evil"

Edmund Kemper was one of the early serial killers... Early 70's. At the end (after several prior murders), murdered and beheaded his mother, then murdered her friend and next door neighbor.

He then turned himself in.

There are a couple interviews with him on Youtube, both an early one and one more recently (he's been in prison for close to 50 years now).