For many people who lived in Houston in the early 1970s, trick or treat brings up memories of "The Candy Man," serial killer
Dean Corll. He, along with accomplices David Brooks and
Wayne Henley (YouTube), kidnapped, raped, and tortured to death 27 boys between the ages of thirteen and eighteen between 1970 and 1973. Thirty-seven years after the bodies of their victims were discovered in mass graves in southwest Houston and the Bolivar Peninsula, three still were unidentified until recently when the efforts of forensic anthropologist
Sharon Derrick identified victim ML73-3349, now known to be
Randall Lee Harvey.
posted by WolfDaddy
on Oct 31, 2008 -
32 comments
Hans Reiser leads police to the body of his wife. Software engineer Hans Reiser, who was convicted in the murder of his wife, Nina, long denied he killed her. His defense was based on the theory that she was hiding out in her native Russia and her body could not be found. Today, in a possible exchange for a shorter sentence he led police to the shallow grave of Nina Reiser, just a moment's drive from the house he lived in with his mother and two children.
Previously,
previously.
posted by parmanparman
on Jul 7, 2008 -
131 comments
"Nobody in the antipoverty community and nobody in city leadership was going to welcome the news that the noble experiment that they’d been engaged in for the past decade had been bringing the city down, in ways they’d never expected. But the connection was too obvious to ignore, and Betts and Janikowski figured that the same thing must be happening all around the country."
American Murder Mystery.
Page 2.
Page 3.
Page 4.
posted by wittgenstein
on Jul 7, 2008 -
57 comments
NURSE CHILD WANTED, OR TO ADOPT -- The Advertiser, a Widow with a little family of her own, and moderate allowance from her late husband's friends, would be glad to accept the charge of a young child. Age no object. If sickly would receive a parent's care. Terms, Fifteen Shillings a month; or would adopt entirely if under two months for the small sum of Twelve pounds. This kindly nineteenth-century advertisement had a hidden meaning. If a woman paid her adoption fee to a
baby farmer and handed over her infant, no one ever had to worry about that baby, ever again.
[more inside]
posted by Countess Elena
on Jun 7, 2008 -
38 comments
Performance Artist Killed on Peace Trip. Pippa Bacca, performance artist, and friend wearing white wedding dresses, planned to hitchhike from Italy to the Balkans to the Middle East to send a message of peace and “marriage between different peoples and nations.” After three weeks on the road, Pippa Bacca was killed by a driver who offered her a ride. Her naked body was found and local authorities said Ms. Bacca had been raped and strangled.
posted by semmi
on Apr 21, 2008 -
106 comments
What happens when a US President declares war on a concept? In 1964, Canadian photojournalist Hugh O'Connor traveled to eastern Kentucky to document the battlefields of Lyndon Johnson's
war on poverty and was shot for trespassing.
The incident is the subject of a wonderful documentary,
Stranger with a Camera by filmmaker
Elizabeth Barrett, produced by
Appalshop, a non-profit organization in Whitesburg, Kentucky, that works with local artists to promote self-representation in media and the expediency of culture to counteract a stagnating local economy.
Makes you think twice about
nostalgic representations of poor Appalachian coal miners plucking their banjo strings in the hollers, doesn't it?
posted by billtron
on Apr 15, 2008 -
14 comments
Kevin Ray Underwood found guilty of first degree murder in the April 2006 killing of 10-year-old Jamie Rose Bolin. The jury only needed 20 minutes to decide on his guilt.
Previously on Metafilter, because he linked here. How could a seemingly
normal, albeit "single, bored and lonely", young man become a cannabalistic child rapist and murderer? Exhibits: The
blog he kept for almost four years up until the day
after the murder. A
collection of misc information about Underwood, including (near the bottom) the text of an online chat he had with a friend after killing Bolin. An
extremely disturbing transcript of his confession to the FBI.
Video footage of the trial. Deliberations will begin Monday as to whether or not he will be sentenced to death.
posted by banishedimmortal
on Feb 29, 2008 -
150 comments
Dying Speeches & Bloody Murders digitizes over five hundred broadsides owned by the Harvard Law Library, all of them devoted to "last dying speeches"--that is, sensational accounts of crime, punishment, and (fictional) confession, intended to be
sold at public executions. The New York State Historical Association has an
online exhibition devoted to nineteenth-century American murder pamphlets. You can find a couple of seventeenth-century examples at the
Early Modern Web and the
Folger Library.
Old Bailey Online briefly puts this literature into context. (Main link via C18-L.)
posted by thomas j wise
on Jan 4, 2008 -
11 comments
Dutch nurse Lucia De Berk has had her case
reopened 5 years after her conviction for multiple counts of murdering her patients.
[more inside]
posted by Jakey
on Jan 4, 2008 -
6 comments
Stop Snitchin' may be the hidden link between
hip hop and the 1980s alternative rock group,
House of Freaks. According to the New York Post, journalist
Ethan Brown has accomplished
"making the Stop Snitching movement seem reasonable" in his new book
Snitch: Informants, Cooperators, and the Corruption of Justice. Brown argues that harsh
mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses have created a "cottage industry of cooperators" and
informants who fabricate evidence, because
Provision 5K1.1 of federal sentencing guidelines gives leniency in exchange for "substantial assistance to authorities." According to Brown, two of these
criminal cooperators included
Ray Dandridge and
Ricky Gray, the perpetrators of the
Richmond spree murders that ended the life of
Brian Harvey of House of Freaks, his wife, and his two children. On the other hand,
Mark Kleiman argues that the Stop Snitchin' movement has driven
homicide clearance rates so low that, in some cities, "you have a better than even chance of literally getting away with murder."
[more inside]
posted by jonp72
on Dec 11, 2007 -
61 comments
All hail 70s-era Shatner! He began his career with some rather prestigious projects, appearing in
The Brothers Karamazov and
Judgment at Nuremberg, as well as some rather high profile appearance in
Twilight Zone and
Alfred Hitchcock Presents. But even then, there were hints of exploitation, such as 1961's
The Explosive Generation, in which Shatner played a teacher whose job is endangered when she speaks
candidly to kids about sex. And there was 1962's
The Intruder, a Roger Corman film from 1963 in which Shatner
played a carpetbagging racist inciting violence in a southern town. (
Clip.) And, of course, there was
Incubus from 1965,
a horror film in Esperanto. (
Clip.) But, after
Star Trek, at the start of the 70s, something went haywire.
[more inside]
posted by Astro Zombie
on Nov 16, 2007 -
63 comments
For lovers of old-time, mountain banjo styles and songs,
Roscoe Holcomb and
Dock Boggs are revered figures. To many, however, plucker and singer
David Akeman remains uncelebrated or unknown, even by his stage name of
Stringbean. Is it because he
was for a time actually
famous as a
country music showbiz staple, and therefore lacks
folk cred? Or maybe the purists just can't get with those
low-hanging pants the man was known for, his original
hillbilly homeboy styling? Or was it cause on any given tune his
left hand would likely be
off the neck of the banjo more than on it? Whatever the reason, it's time folks took a new look at Stringbean. After all, the lines between
folk and commercial styles have
always been blurry in American music. Let's hear it for
Stringbeeeeeeeaaan! [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Oct 17, 2007 -
15 comments
McHenry and his "roommates" -- GOP Rep Patrick McHenry (NC), co-owner of a DC home with Scott G. Stewart, former chair of the College Republican Nat'l Cttee (and bilker of many senior citizens), received a DC home-ownership reduction improperly. McHenry's actual home in North Carolina was apparently also home to quite a collection of young men:
(convicted fraudulent voter) Michael Aaron Lay, Neil Everett Capano, Matthew Allen Hamilton, and
(multiple violations, including "death by vehicle") Jason Jent Deans. Also, McHenry's 04 consultant Ralph Gonzales was one of the men involved in a recent FL murder/suicide, and links to
Robert Drake, the killer (political work in NC and escort service connections), are still being documented. Stay tuned!
[more inside]
posted by amberglow
on Sep 28, 2007 -
67 comments
A gay Republican news story that you probably didn't read about in the paper: In late August,
Ralph Gonzalez--Republican strategist, former Georgia GOP executive director, and
"political powerhouse"--was
murdered (along with his roommate, David Abrami, another Republican political consultant) by Gonzalez' "friend" and former Marine Jason Robert Drake. Characterized as the result of a "lovers' quarrel," it's a bizarre crime story that should've made at least a ripple in the national news, given some other
recent incidents. But it never did.
[more inside]
posted by cowboy_sally
on Sep 19, 2007 -
30 comments
