For Christmas I got a soft cover trade paperback published by Time-Warner,covering what they think are the worst/most notorious crimes in American history. I thought I'd take some time to discuss some of them here.Please feel free to add your thoughts on any of these or add what you think is an American tragedy.
The Kidnapping Of Patty Hearst On the night of Febuary 4,1974,Patricia Randolph Hearst was kidnapped frm her Berkley apartment and stuffed half naked and blindfolded into the trunk of a car.The kidnappers turned out to be members of a domestic terrorist organization called the Symbionese Liberation Army. Patty's father was the multi-millionaire head of the Hearst publishing empire and after being with the SLA for about 2 weeks,Patty allied herself with them,changed her named to "Tania" and participated in a bank robbery whose footage can still be seen on YouTube. September 18,1975 was a memorable day for me.I was living in San Fransisco with my Mother and had gotten home from school when I heard a massive crowd out in the street.I tried to go outside but I literally could not,the TV showed me Patty Hearst being arrested four doors down from my house.She used the defense that she had been brainwashed.The jury didn't buy it.
Now,Patty is a regular citizen after serving only 21 months for her participation in the bank robbery.Presedent Jimmy Carter had her term commuted and Presedent Bill Clinton pardoned her.
"There's someone for everone," the article says, "The brief romance of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungeon seemd to afferm that adage in a terribly sad way." Sid Vicious,real name John Simon Richie,had become affiliated with the British punk rock band The Sex Pestols playing the bass,even though he had to be shown to play the right notes and couldn't read any music.Sid and Nancy fell in love and soon became inseperable
Nancy had a troubld childhood as written by her mother Deborah Spongen in a book about Nancy's life. There had been many episodes with Nancy through her childhood and adolesence that the family asked Nancy to find another place to live,which she did,and soon she was gone from suburban Philidelpheia.
Nancy moved to London and made the local scene,trying to make friends and make her dream of marying a rock star come true.Unfortunately,Nancy only develoved a fierce heroin habit and an inability to care for herself.Things only went down the more heroin she shot up.When she and Sid decided to come back to America,the end was sadly close.One night,while living in The Chealea Hotel in New York City,there was a phone call asking the managenment to check on Room 100.
There,paramedics found Nancy dead from from a stab wound to the stomach.Sid was taken to the police station and after several releases and and suicide attempts,John Simon Richie aka Sid Vicious was found ovedosed before he ever went to trial for the murder of Nancy Spungen in Febuary,1979
In 1959,the world was a much different place than it is now.The commomplace crimes we see daily aren't like the ones we see in everyday now.In a jail in a town called Oliathe,Kansas,a man namned Richard Hickock was released and and knew just what he had on his mind.
While being inside,a fellow inmate had discussed with him that a former employee contaned cash and jewelry.When the time was right, they invaded the home and after interrogating the family.They took everything of value,killing the dog and raping the older daugter,the Richard Hickock and Floyd Wells left town.They were finally caught up with and confessed on January 3,1960.
It has been long regarded as one of the first "true crime" books,written by about this crime,by the author Truman Capote.
Timothy McVeigh was a soldier for his country. Believing in the American government,and patriotic,he enlisted in the miilitary and according to his supervisors,was an exmplentory soldier.He was always exlempery in his duties and as his military career went on,he collected many medals.When his term was over,Tim come home and saw a world that didn't respect him for the soldiers duties he had worked so hard to perform.
Tim drifted a little from job to job,finally finding one as an armed car driver.He had a gun,a tiny tank and a uniform.But it just wasn't the same.He began reading books like"The Turner Diaries" and researching gun laws.He considered David Koresh a hero.He became more and more disgusted with the government.
Tim decided to make a statement that the whold world would look at and be in shock,and in his mind,awe. The Branch Davidian Compound in his mind,he vowed to avenge them and show the government they could not be controlled. In April 1995,he drove a truck loaded with two and a half tons of explosives to Oklahoma City.He parked it it in front of the Alfred P. Murrah bulding,thinking that the governmen agents responsible for Waco were there,and set off the explsion that killed 168 and leaving 800 injured.
McVeigh was excuted for his crime on June 11,2001. You can read McVeigh's manifesto here on our site.
Pamela Wojas Smart seemed to have it all:an adoring husband,a good job,a cute little condo in Maine and the little Shtztu puppy.But Pam like the wild side.Heavy metal music,partying and danncing till all hours of the nitght.She had a guest DJ spot where she called herself "The maiden Of Metal' [Editors note,give me a break.]
As Pam became more and distant she confided to her student intern,Cecilia Peirce,"I think I'm in love with Bill," who was another student in a program she was working with.The shock of the that statement made Cecelia more and more afraid.Pam started telling Billy that Greg beat her and she couldn't just leave him because he'd take everything and her little dog too.
The boys Billy hung around agreed to help murder Greg for a cut of the the insurance policy.The night in question. March 6,1990,they set off for the condo which Pam had left,with the instructions to make it look a robber.And the strewered and ransacked condo looked exactly that.But there was one person who who the truth and was gong to tell what she know.
Cecelia Pierce told the police what really happened,and before too long going to the extreme of even wearing a wire.That was all the cops needed. Billy was guilty and senteced to 15 to life.At this writing,he is petitioning to the court to seek for early realease on the grounds he has been rehabitilted.
Tomorrrow:Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate
Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate:The "Original" Natural Born Killers
In 1957 the kids down the block were in fluffy sweaters and laughing at high school pranks.They hadn't gotten to the point where Charles Starkweather had. He had a good start but after being bullied and getting poor grades,he became a bully himself.The 19 year old Starkweather developed a fascination with James Dean and soon met a 13 year old girl named Caril Ann Fugate.
Caril had an accident in Charles' car and the senior Starkweather became furious when he had to pay for the damages.Throwing his son out of his house,I suspect,was the one act that started the explosive anger that led to Charles murdering a liquor store clerk and choosing a gift for Caril,going to her home.She was out,and her father told him in no uncertain terms,never to return.He responded by pushing into the house and shooting Caril's parents and stabbing her 2 year old sister Betty Jean.
When Caril came home,they stayed there for several days and then took off.They stole several cars and killed at least 7 people before they were caught by a dragnet of 1200 police,where Starkwether was shot and gave up at once. It has been noted in pop culture many times,they have been modeled in the movies "Badlands","Natural Born Killers","Wild At Heart" and the Bruce Springsteen song,"Nebraska."
Eddie Gein was born at the turn of the century on in small farming comunity 1906 in Wisconsinsin. He was raised by his mother who was obsessively religious and kept the young boy to herself on the 275 acre farm.The Gein father died in 1940 and one has to wonde what exactly what he was thinking about the way his youngest child was being raised. Gein's older brother died from a stroke in 1944 and his mother in 1945,leaving him alone in a huge ramshackle house to do with what he pleased.
Thanks to federal subsidies,Ed no longer had to farm the land,and he became obsessed with the human body and cutting it up.He left all his mother's possessions exactly as they had been when she died,but he began to collect other things:human skulls,a box of noses,belts made of human skin.Edward was caught when in November 1957,he was seen near the hardware store that the owner had gone missing. The sherriff went to the Gein home and found the owner "strung up like a deer,"
Gein admitted his main crime was graves robbing and confessed to dismembering the corpses that reminded him most of his mother. Hollywood has made Ed Gein into a star,with all the movies from "Psycho" to "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre",and will recieve noteriaty with his sickness. He died in an institution for the criminally insane in in 1984 at the age of 77.
Tomorrow:The Murder Of Nicole Brown Simpson And Ronald Goldman
The Murder Of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman
On the night of June 12,1994,there was a double homicide in the Brentwood district of Los Angeles. A woman, in the gated area of her home and her friend,coming to return a pair of glasses to her from the resteraunt her family had just dined at.
If only it had been that simple.
The woman was Nicole Brown Simpson,wife of the former football star O.J. Simpson and the young man was Ronald Goldman,a friend of hers from the neighborhood and her crowd of friends.It was a particularly brutal slaying.Nicole had been slashed across the throat,almost decapitating her.She had been stabbed in the scalp and head as well. Ronald had been stabbed to death as well as Nicole. He died from mulitple stab wounds to the chest,the throat,the arms and body.Injuries indicate he tried to fight his attacker back but unfortunately was subdued and died.
Nicole's Akita "Kato" was making a long and plaintitive wail,drawing a neighbor and his companion to the scene.They saw the dog's bloody paws and the virtual river of blood pouring down the tiled walkway of Nicole's condo and they immidiately called 911.Who could have committed such a henious act?
O.J was supposedly at home chipping golf balls,and getting readly for a flight to Chicago.But many people,including the LAPD had produced evidence even at that early stage of the game that implicated O.J. as a suspect before he ever left town. He did make his flight to Chicago and he did find out there,that Nicole had been murdered.Many believe,as do I,he already knew Nicole was dead,as he is the one that killed her.
In a murder investigetion,the husband or wife is always a suspect,and when O.J. couldn't concur on his wherabouts at the time of the killings,he was issued a warrent for his arrest.And when he didn't turn himself in,on June 17 the police came to his door.He was not home. He was driving down the freeway,whining he was going to take his own life.
We all know what happened.The so called "Trial Of The Century" let O.J.off the hook and even though there was a civil judgement,that has proven to be problematic for the Plaintiffs to collect.It is unfortunate that in my opinion,what is recognized as one of the most notorious cases in American criminal history is a failure to the victims of the crimes and their families.
Tomorrow:Charles Manson and the Manson Family Murderers
In 1969,the Hollywood hills were home to the rich and famous,but unlike today people were easily able to slip inside homes that would be considered million-dollar estates. Actress Sharon Tate,8 months pregnant with the son of director Roman Polanski entertained her friends on the hot night of August 9,Susan Atkins,Linda Kasabian,Paricia Krenwenkel and Tex Watkins followed the orders of Charles Manson and snuck into the home at 10050 N. Cielo Drive.
They were ordered to destroy everything they could,in the most "gruesome" way possible.There were 5 victims that night,and 2 the next. Manson's "family" carried out his every wish and followed his orders to create "Helter Skelter",Manson's idea of a race war named after the song by the Beatles.He was convinced that the White man was going to be slaughtered and only he and his "family" would be spared.
Manson didn't have any real family in contact and had spent most of his life in institutions.His crimes and those of his followers,for many,ended the era of peace and love. Manson and all his followers except Linda Kasabian,who recieved immunity for testifying against Manson,are all incarcerated in different prisons despite numerous bids for parole.
For us,Dr. King stands for what his famous speech epitomizes,"I have a dream," for which he won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Many strove to emulate the goal of a society where equality among races leads to harmony.He was outspoken against the war in Vietnam and had helped form the influential Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Sadly,Dr. King's dream was cut short by a man with a gun.James Earl Ray,a career criminal who had escaped the Missouri State Penetentary and hid in Canada.There he claimed to have been befriended by a man named "Raoul" who gave him the rifle used to kill King,on April 4,1968.
Ray pleaded guilty,but later recanted,claiming he was the fall guy for the mysterious "Raoul". The world lost Dr. King who in his last speech spoke the prophetic words,"I've been to the mountaintop....and I have seen the promised land."
The book has had some famous crimes but I've gotten some messages about the crimes that were NOT in the book and I have to agree.So let's do this.I'll list what they have left and you can comment on them if you want,and I'm going to comment on what *I* think are some of the most notorious crimes.This is what's left past what I already wrote about:
The Assination Of Aberham Lincoln The Draft Riots The Rosenbert Spy Case The Assination Of JFK Mississippi Burning The Assination Of Bobby Kennedy Watergate The Shooting Of Ronald Regan The Oklahoma Park Bombing The Stanford White Tragedy Ann Woodwood Kills Her Husband The Death Of Johnny Stompananato The Scarsdale Diet Doctor Murder Amy Fisher And The Buttofuocos Mary Kay Leteurneau The Murder Of Laci Peterson Sacco And Vanni The Saint Valentines Day Murder The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping The Great Brink's Robbery The Spark's Steakhouse Rubout The Gardnet Museam Heist The Heidi Fleiss Scandal Enron The Mountain Meadows Massacre The Murder Of Lizzie Borden's Parent's Leopold And Loeb The Bath School Disaster The Black Dahlia Murder The Sam Sheppaed Murder Case The Boston Strangler Richard Speck Fatal Vision [Dr. Jeffery McDonald] The Disapeararance of Jimmy Hoffa The Son Of Sam Ted Bundy The Murder Of John Lennon The Beltway Snipers The School Shootings [They just lumped all of them together which was LAME]
So there y'all go.And I'll be commenting tomorrow on what I think are the crimes that have changed us,and made us see things differently.And feel free to PM me. I didn't mind getting them.It's all good.Tell us what you think.
The Columbine School Shooting On April 20,1999 the world watched while Dylan Klebold and his best friend Eric Harris took a stockpile of weapons-guns,bombs,hand grenades-into their high school and proceededto slaughter as many people as they could. There have been so many people speculating as to why they did it and how they obtained the weapons.Some were purchased by others for the gunmen and some of the bombs were homemade. The gunmen went into the cafeteria and began open firing and throwing small pipe bombs.Dylan's car outside was rigged to explode,but it didn't go off.In fact,many of the bombs didn't go off.Unfortunately,they were good marksmen and managed to kill 12 people before committing suicide.To me,this is something that changed we see the way American schools.Sadly,it isn't a safe place for our kids anymore.
In a small town in Canada called Saint Catharines,there was a young girl named Karla Homolka.Blonde and cute,she was bored with small town life and was looking for some big city fun.While on a convention for the pet store she worked at,she found it in one man named Paul Bernardo.
It turned out to be a match made in hell.
That first night they wound up having sex for hours and it went on from there,He eventually confessed he was the man the police were looking for called "The Scarborough Rapist".She thought that was cool.He went on,with her help to rape and videotape Karla's little sister,who choked on her own vomit from the alcohol and drugs they fed her to knock her out,and died. And there were two more:both raped,tortured and videotaped,then killed.One was dismembered with a chainsaw and thrown in a lake.In a vile miscarraige of justice,Karla got only 12 years for turning states evidence against Paul.She is now married with a new baby,rumored to be living in the Caribbean Islands.
You can read about this crime in our "Judicial Injustices" section.
755 Fifteenth Street,December 26,1996. A frosty winter night with crusty snow.All should have been quiet and no harm should have come to a little girl who's face we all have to come to know.A baby beauty queen,put on show for everyone like her mother before her.
Waking early,her mother,Patricia Paugh Ramsey came down the stairs to make coffe and found three sheets of paper lying on the stairs.Screaming,she saw the words that JonBenet had been kidnapped.Her husband came running and soon the police were there,despite the note's admonition not to call the authorities.Hours passed and no call,no contact.But soon the father,John and his friend Fleet White began to serch the house and in the basement wine celler,they found JonBenet dead.
For years there have been speculation the Ramsey's were involved,and the Boulder Policed Department made a multitude of mistakes that led to this being one of the most notorious crimes of this decade.It remains unsolved to this day.
You can read about this crime in our "Innocence Lost" section.
By Member Request The murders and cannibalistic crimes of Jefferery Dahmer
July 22,1991 was a date that many would remember in true crime history.A young,black man was running down the street and met up with two policemen.They listened to his story,saw the handcuff on his wrist and decided to go to the apartment where he claimed he'd been drugged and attacked.
The police saw the photos of mutilitated bodies,the human head in the refrigerator,the cut up body parts and that was all the needs to know to find the tenenant and arrest him:there was something very evil going going on.
Jefferey Dahmer had been drugging,raping and killing young men for many years before he got caught that night. Since 1978,he had been preying on young men and disposing of their bodies in the woods behind his Grandmother's house,and the crawlspace beneath her home.With a taste for alchol and promescuity,he spent the years until 1991 seducing and killing the young men he desired and then moving to the next one.
He finally did get get caught,and in a trial full of emotion,Jeffery admitted guilt and was sententenced.In a twist of fate,another inmate killed him in July 1994.Not a suprise considering what landed Mr. Dahmer there in there in the the firsrt place.Being released the Fall,"Rasing Jeffery Dahmer" is a compelling first person account film by his father about what his failures have been as a parent and what might have been wrong with him.
By Members Request Richard Rameriz:The Night Stalker
In June of 1884 in the city of Los Angeleles,the summer was hot and thick with fear.A sick,madman was raping and killing,stealing and slinking off in the dead of night.At first,not a clue as to who he was.But soon the clues came:dirty,smelly,Hispanic and raping and killing with no particular order.His attacks were horrific,raping and decapitating a 79 year old woman.
Rameriz claimed that while high on marijuana he saw his cousin,back from Vietnam,shoot his wife in the face,splattering her blood on his face.One might think that would be the thing to make him a killer.I would be hard to guess,but after that his drug useage became harder and heavier.
The crimes were also heavier.He began to paint pentograms and other symbols or his Occult worship in blood on the walls at his victims homes and thus,leaving more clues.By the spring of 1985 he was in a full blown crime rampage and killing and raping children as well as burgerlizing.The city had come to call him "The Night Stalker".
But that summer he ran into the wrong neighghborhood.After a trip out of town,he had no idea the police printed a sketch of him in every paper.When he saw it,he took off,looking for a car to steal.After running through a close knit neighborhood of Hispanics eager to take him down,he was literally beaten by an angry mob untill he was begging to call the police to be rescued.
To this day Richard "The Night Stalker" Rameriz is incarcerated for numerous rapes,murders and thefts.
