Archive for June, 2012

Russian Serial Killer

MOSCOW A former policeman suspected of raping and murdering 23 women in eastern Siberia in the 1990s has been detained after years of searches and hundreds of tests, Russian authorities said on Friday.

The man from Angarsk, a small industrial town in eastern Siberia, is believed to be behind the serial killings that occurred between 1994 and 1999, investigators said.

All the victims disappeared in similar circumstances and their bodies were later found in the woods just outside the city, in a local cemetery or on the roadside, said Moscow-based investigators. “Most of the women were naked, and their bodies bore signs of being raped,” the investigators said in a statement, adding that some of the victims had also been robbed of money and jewellery.

During a decade-long manhunt, the authorities conducted DNA tests on 3,500 individuals and questioned more than 1,000 people. The suspect was serving in the police at the time of most of the killings but retired in 1998.

Tests so far have found that his DNA matches biological material discovered on the bodies of three of the women, investigators said.

The suspect, who has not been identified, was detained on Saturday in the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok and taken back to Siberia, they said, adding that the investigation was continuing.  Police in Siberia’s Irkutsk region, which includes Angarsk, said the suspect’s involvement in all the murders has yet to be proved.

“Right now it is not that important who the criminal is at the end of the day: a former policeman, soldier, doctor or someone else,” the police said in a statement. “The most important thing is for the principle of inevitability of punishment to work.”

Full article

It is impressive that after all this time they are still working on the cases and solving them. It is also good to see them releasing information on the cases. There was a time when Russia denied having serial killers at all.

2012
06/30
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5 comments

Winnipeg Serial Killer Caught

A Canadian drifter with an extensive criminal background is now accused of becoming a Winnipeg serial killer.

Shawn Cameron Lamb, 52, has been charged with three counts of second-degree murder for the deaths of Tanya Nepinak, Carolyn Sinclair, and Lorna Blacksmith, police announced Monday morning. Police are also investigating whether the accused could be involved in other unsolved cases of murdered or missing women, the source says.

All three women worked in the city’s sex-trade industry. Police said the bodies of Sinclair and Blacksmith have been located – reportedly in dumpsters and wrapped in plastic – while the search for Nepinak’s remains is ongoing.

Court records obtained by the Free Press show police believe Nepinak was killed Sept. 13, 2011, Sinclair was killed Dec. 18, 2011 and Blacksmith was killed Jan. 12, 2012.

Lamb has an extensive criminal history over the past 10 years, according to court documents obtained by the Free Press. They include dozens of convictions for robbery, carrying weapons, uttering threats, fraud, forgery, assaulting police officers, possessing stolen property, break-and-enter and breaching numerous court orders.

The revolving doors of justice really need to be nailed closed. It is sickening to hear that a serial killer has a criminal history like this. There were so many chances to stop him and save so many lives.

Winnipeg police Chief Keith McCaskill said Lamb was identified as a suspect in a serious sexual assault last Thursday. After he was arrested on that case, evidence came to light that tied him to the three killings.

That makes 4 recent victims, one survived in my opinion.

Guyader said a team of 24 investigators – 10 from the Winnipeg Police Service and 14 from the RCMP – are part of the ongoing investigation into the possibility other homicides may be linked to the same suspect..

McCaskill said Lamb has travelled extensively across the country and that investigators will be in contact with other police agencies to see if he is connected with any unsolved homicides in other communities.

Guyader said he could not confirm that any of the three women were involved in the sex trade. McCaskill said it’s irrelevant how the murdered women made their living.

“They are victims and they should never have been,” McCaskill said.

Amen

Guyader would not disclose where else Lamb has travelled across the country or why he travelled so much. Guyader said the bodies of Blacksmith and Sinclair are too badly decomposed to determine a cause of death or to know if they had been sexually assaulted, adding however that forensic work is being done to answer those questions.

Guyader said the families of all three women were spoken to by investigators in person late Sunday. McCaskill said AMC Grand Chief Derek Nepinak was briefed this morning.

In addition to the three killings and last week’s sex assault, Lamb is also accused of an Oct. 30, 2011 sexual assault, sexual interference and procuring of a child under the age of 18 to work in the sex-trade. He is also accused of failing to abide by a previous court order by abstaining from drugs and alcohol.

However, court records show Lamb wasn’t arrested on those charges until late May. It’s not immediately clear if, or when, he was granted bail. However, he was obviously released at some point since he was arrested in the community last Thursday.

If they had kept the bastard locked away after he was arrested the last time (not to mention al the other times) for sexual assault, sexual interference and procuring of a child under the age of 18 to work in the sex-trade there would be 3 women alive today.

Really he pimped out a child (according to the report above) and he was freed? Sexual assault still free. Not found guilty but let to walk the streets until trial!!!

WTF?!?!?!?!

Full story here.

2012
06/26
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Canada True Crime
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7 comments

Serial killer Michael Hughes sentenced to death

As the judge handed down the death sentence for convicted murderer Michael Hughes, the room murmured in agreement. Heads nodded and a few people even smiled.

The 56-year-old South Los Angeles serial rapist and murderer was sentenced to death Friday for killing three women between 1986 and 1993.

Adell McKinley had been waiting four years for this day.

“It brings some closure in the fact that my sister has been vindicated and justice has been served,” said McKinley, who was notified by detectives four years ago that they had linked the death of her sister, Deborah Jackson, to Hughes.

I am so happy that she is finding some kind of closure.

Hughes was convicted in November of first-degree murder in the slayings of Jackson, 32; Yvonne Coleman, 15; and Verna Williams, 36. A month later, a jury ordered that he be sentenced to death. He was already serving a term of life in prison without the possibility of parole for four other killings.

4 other victims that we know of making 7 victims for this one guy.

All of the women’s bodies were found in public places, at least half-naked and posed in an explicit manner. L.A. County Superior Court Judge Curtis B. Rappe said these acts “show[ed] an intent to shock the public.”

At the sentencing, Rappe rejected an automatic motion to reduce the sentence to life without the possibility of parole, citing later that the “aggravating evidence substantially outweighs the mitigating evidence.”

I appauld this judge. There is no reason to let this predator off easy, or to put the staff of the prison at risk for the resrt of his life. Michael worked hard to earn that death sentence, let him have it.

Hughes is “nothing short of a sadistic sexual predator…. [We’re] looking at a man that is a serial killer,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman said in opening arguments.

Defense attorney Aron Laub argued that early life circumstances should be taken into account when considering punishment. Hughes was beaten as a child and witnessed his mother perform a forced abortion on his sister.

Several victims’ family members who arrived in the morning at the downtown courtroom said Hughes had to take responsibility for his actions.

“I’m not a serial killer,” said McKinley, who said she was sexually molested until she turned 12. “That’s his choice.”

Thank you Ms. McKinley. That is so important a serial killer makes the choice to kill. There are so many abused, mistreated, neglected kids that do not become serial killers as adults and it is almost insulting that someone would make that claim. That someone would say that they for some reason have a ‘right’ or excuse to kill others because of what someone had done to them.

“Everyone in here has been through something as a child,” said Jackie McFarlin, mother of one of the victims in the earlier case, Theresa Ballard. “I have no love for this man.”

Very true, we all have our histories but none have a right to harm another because of our past.

At the time of his conviction in the current case, Hughes was already doing time for the slayings of Theresa Ballard, 26; Brenda Bradley, 38; Terri Myles, 33; and Jamie Harrington, 29. At the time the killings took place in the 1980s and ’90s, Los Angeles was facing a rash of violence. At least five serial killers were active in the South Los Angeles area, authorities said.

I know that this is California and that more than likely he will die of natural causes but the sentence fits and should be seen through.

2012
06/25
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2 comments

Serial Killer Alcala Pleads Not Guilty in NY

“Dating Game” serial killer Rodney Alcala seemed amused Thursday as he left a Manhattan courtroom after pleading not guilty to two murders in Manhattan in the 1970s.

With shackles jangling around his orange prison garb and his gray frizzy curls pulled into a ponytail at the nape of his neck, Alcala, 68, had a slight smile on his face after Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Bonnie Wittner ordered him to be held without bail.

After all, what could New York do to him? California already has him on death row for strangling five females including a 12-year-old girl.

Alacala, aka John Berger, was formally charged with the deaths of Cornelia Crilley, a TWA flight attendant strangled with her pantyhose in her Upper East side apartment, and Ellen Hover, the daughter of a Hollywood nightclub owner, whose body was found on the Rockefeller estate in Pocantico Hills, N.Y.

Read more

I am sure that he is enjoying the attention and the new location. The saddest thing is that the article is right, what else can N.Y. do to him?

What the trial can do, hopefully, is give the families some closure and maybe even some peace.

2012
06/24
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Serial Killer Elmer Wayne Henley is up for parole

HOUSTON (FOX 26) -An infamous serial killer is up for parole. Elmer Wayne Henley participated in a plot that ultimately took the lives of almost 30 Houston-area teenagers. Many of them vanished from The Heights in the early 1970s. One of them was an 18 year old named Frank Aguirre. One month shy of graduation, Aguirre clocked out of his job at a Heights fast-food restaurant and vanished.”He was fun,” recalled his younger sister, Deborah Aguirre. “He was fun-loving, had a lot of friends. And Henley was one of them.”

Frank Aguirre didn’t know it, but Elmer Wayne Henley was helping an older man, Dean Corll, satisfy his sadistic desires.

 “[Henley] was the one that sought out the boys, brought them there,” said Houston victim advocate Andy Kahan, “knowing full well that they were going to be not only abducted, raped and tortured, but eventually murdered in a horrific manner.”

And so it continued. For three years.

Boys from the working class Heights would go missing. Many of them were friends of Elmer Wayne Henley.

 “Couple months after my brother disappeared, [Henley] actually did come back to our house,” remembered Deborah Aguirre. “[He] asked my mother, ‘Have you heard anything?’ He knew where my brother was. He helped bury him.”

Police eventually found them – bodies stacked upon bodies – but only after Henley shot Corll dead on the heels of an argument.

“Even though he got six life sentences in 1973 — in 1980, because of the way the statutes were written, he was eligible for parole,” said Kahan.

Life needs to mean life!

 It’s unprecedented, says Kahan, but this is the 20th time Henley has come up for parole.

Through a quirk in the law, he adds, while murderers can be set-off up to five years until their next review, capital murderers can only be set-off three years, max.

“Criminal justice and logic sometimes don’t meet. This is living proof of that.”

It’s a joyless hamster wheel for folks like Deborah Aguirre. They’re constantly battling to keep behind bars Henley and his accomplice, David Brooks.

 The victims’ relatives now have a Facebook page devoted to denying the killers parole.

I have tried to friend them.

And Aguirre has just a few questions she wants to ask the panel that will ultimately decide Henley’s fate, this summer.

  • “Would you want this guy living next door to you?
  • Do you have small children?
  • Do you have little boys? Because that’s what he likes.”

She hopes to have her say in August at Henley’s review.

But it will give her no more joy than visiting her brother’s burial plot at Forest Park Lawndale.

Deborah at Frank’s grave

“It’s hard to go there,” said Deborah Aguirre. “That’s all we have left is a headstone.”

The Harris County Medical Examiner’s office told FOX 26 News that two victims of the murderous trio remain unidentified, to this day.

The ME’s office is actively seeking DNA samples from the families of young men who disappeared, here in Houston, between 1970 and 1973.

Read more

2012
06/23
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3 comments

Another Green River Killer Victim Identified

She vanished 30 years ago. Now, her disappearance is solved. It turns out she was a victim of the Green River killer.

The young woman’s remains were one of four sets King County detectives had yet to identify. For the last 27 years, she’s been known to detectives simply as “Bones, victim #16.”

Today, she finally has a name. Sandra Denise Major is victim #16 out of 49.

Sandra Denise Major
R.I.P.

Detective Tom Jensen joined the Green River task force in 1984. He remembers Ridgway leading investigators the site of Sandra Major’s remains, along with two others.

“One of the places he took us was to Mountain View Cemetery and he described how he had left these victims there,” he said.

DNA analysis has come a long way in recent years, far enough to create a complete profile of the unidentified victims found at that cemetery, including Major.

In April, Major’s cousin in New York called Det. Jensen after seeing a TV show about the Green River killer. They knew Sandra had moved out to Seattle, and when they learned four women still hadn’t been identified, they feared she was among them.

They were right.

Det. Jensen remembers the phone call.

“They were still kind of in shock but prepared for the answer. I think there was just relief,” he said.

Relief and a reminder that despite Ridgeway’s life sentence, this case is far from closed.

“One down, three to go. Not done yet,” said Jensen.

Despite advancements in DNA, it may still not be enough. Jensen says the ultimate result will likely come the old fashioned way.

“I suspect if we do get an identification it’ll be because a family member contacts us,” he said.

Major’s family released a statement thanking detectives for their hard work, and saying they are “grateful to finally know what happened to Sandra after all these years.”

Full Story Here

2012
06/18
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3 comments

Growing up in Prison – The Eric Smith Story

Growing up in Prison – The Eric Smith Story.

2012
06/16
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Suspected Serial Killer Asks For Death Penalty

Suspected Serial Killer Asks For Death Penalty

William Clyde Gibson Writes Letter To Prosecutor, Newspaper

INDIANAPOLIS — A man suspected in a series of killings in southern Indiana said he plans to plead guilty and wants the death penalty.

In a letter written from the Floyd County Jail, William Clyde Gibson told the Louisville Courier-Journal that he will be plead guilty and accept the death penalty in the slayings of three women because “after all, I am guilty,” the paper reported.

Stephanie Kirk, 35, of Charlestown, had been missing for about a month before her body was found in a makeshift grave in the back yard of Gibson’s home in April, police said

Gibson was already charged with murder in the deaths of two other women — Christine Whitis, 75, and Karen Hodella, 45.

 Gibson told the paper he has written to the prosecuting attorney and told him, “I will pled (sic) guilty to the death penalty … just to save some more heart ache.”

 The Floyd County Prosecutor’s Office confirmed to the newspaper that it had received a letter from Gibson.

 Indiana law does not allow defendants to plead guilty and receive the death penalty.

I see a game being played. If he really wanted the death penalty he would just help the defense build a strong case then let the jury sentence him to death.

 Not guilty pleas have been entered on Gibson’s behalf in all three cases. His first trial is scheduled for Aug. 27.

Personally I say grant his wish. He says he did it and he wants to die. ‘Nuff said.

2012
06/14
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5 comments

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/june/help-us-catch-a-killer/help-catch-killer-landing-page?utm_campaign=email-Immediate&utm_medium=email&utm_source=fbi-top-stories&utm_content=105835

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/june/help-us-catch-a-killer/help-catch-killer-landing-page?utm_campaign=email-Immediate&utm_medium=email&utm_source=fbi-top-stories&utm_content=105835.

2012
06/13
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POLL: Would You Take a Green River Killer Sightseeing Tour?

Plans for a local Gary Ridgway sightseeing tour are causing a stir in Pierce and King Counties. Would you pay to visit landmarks left by a serial killer, or is the idea disrespectful and inappropriate?

The most prolific serial killer in United States history has been convicted of 48 separate murders in Pierce and King Counties, and has confessed to nearly double that number since he was arrested in Renton in 2001.

Fascination with Ridgway’s story has led to many bestselling books, a Lifetime Original Movie and even inspired some band names and song mentions.

Now, a local man wants to take dark fascination with the crimes a bit deeper and start a local sightseeing tour that follows Ridgway’s gruesome landmarks, according to KOMO News. He hopes tourists will pay money to visit body dump sites along the Green River and places Ridgway frequented when he picked up his victims.

The entreprenuer and stay-at-home dad sees the tour as filling a gap in local history. Besides, murder tours are not unheard of across the United States. However, members of the community have voiced opposition to the venture. Throughout the KOMO article’s 80 comments, readers have said they believe the idea is disrespectful to victim families and a tribute to “capitalism at it’s finest.”

According to KOMO, the man plans to sell tour tickets at $45 a pop starting in July, with some of the proceeds going to charity.

Take (their) our poll now.

 

I have to wonder how much is going to charity and what charity? I think that would make a difference to many people.

2012
06/09
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4 comments

Center For Disease Control

If you're ready for a zombie apocalypse, then you're ready for any emergency. emergency.cdc.gov
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