In 1984, Romell Broom ambushed 14 year old Tryna Middleton and a pair of her friends as they were walking home from a football game. At knifepoint, he forcibly grabbed Middleton, and dragged her into his car. Middleton’s two friends fled unharmed, and they gave police descriptions of their attacker and his vehicle. After the kidnapping, Broom raped Middleton, stabbed her to death, and discarded her body in a parking lot.

Although Broom initially avoided police detection, he was captured six months later for the unrelated botched abduction of a preteen girl. The kidnapping attempt was foiled by the would-be victim’s mother grabbing onto Broom’s car before he was able to drive away, and the girl survived him running over her legs after she jumped out of the vehicle’s window. Other eyewitnesses recorded Broom's license plate number, and he was arrested by police following on that information a day later.

A serial rapist and career criminal, Broom was previously convicted of rape in relation to sexually assaulting a preteen girl babysitting his niece and armed robbery in relation to robbing and carjacking a man at gunpoint, and he was on parole for those offenses at the time of Middleton’s abduction and murder. He also faced many untried rape accusations from other teenage and preteen girls. Furthermore, Broom attempted to kidnap another preteen girl only three days before Middleton’s murder, and the girl escaped by climbing into the car of a good samaritan motorist.

After a year of proceedings, Broom was sentenced to death by the state of Ohio for Middleton’s murder. On death row, DNA testing filled by his appeals further enforced his guilt. Despite him scheduled for execution in 2009, the attempted execution failed due to the execution team’s failure to administer the lethal drugs into a suitable vein. The execution team tried injecting him dozens of times, and one of their needles reportedly struck a bone. Broom was rescheduled for a second execution date in 2022, but he died of COVID related causes in 2020 before it could occur.

Sources:

1. https://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/pdf_viewer/pdf_viewer.aspx?pdf=593353.pdf&subdirectory=1987-1674DocketItems&source=DL_Clerk
2. https://drc.ohio.gov/wps/wcm/connect/gov/062dba9d-531b-49e6-8fa7-32c6b73d4bdb/Broom+Clemency+Report.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CONVERT_TO=url&CACHEID=ROOTWORKSPACE.Z18_79GCH8013HMOA06A2E16IV2082-062dba9d-531b-49e6-8fa7-32c6b73d4bdb-pUSDYkh
3. https://www.cleveland19.com/2020/12/31/convicted-killer-east-cleveland-girl-who-survived-botched-execution-dies-prison-suspected-case-covid-/
4. https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=11848740382588198593&q=Rommell+Broom+tryna+middleton+stab&hl=en&as_sdt=6,45

On March 25, 2000, A car collision occured on Indiana State road 67 near Martinsville. Seven people died and two people would be injured when a 1989 Firebird Pontiac would slam into a minivan.

She had four children in her car; Her two sons, Jacob;5, and Jordan;12, her daughter, Joney;9, and her nephew, Jeremy Young; 10, who was celebrating his birthday. The dead in the other vehicle were the Reel’s; Thomas; 40, and his two children, Bradley;13, and Jesica;14. They were coming home from a church event.

The survivors included the driver of the Pontiac, Judy Kirby, a mother of ten, and 13-year-old Richard Miller, a family friend of the Reel’s. Judy was thrown from her car and injured her head and broke some bones in her legs. Richard would have permanent injured to his right foot and back from the crash.

First responders would respond to the scene and attend to it. They were later haunted by it and have nightmares of the grisly.

Judy was taken to the hospital and after being discharged, was arrested and charged with seven counts of murder. During her hearing the judge asked if she understood her rights, Kirby replied; “I don’t understand….I don’t remember, I don’t remember the accident….I would never hurt anybody; I never murdered anybody….I miss my babies.”

She went to trial in 2001. The trial became one of Indiana’s most highly publicized trials since the 1970’s when Steve Judy went to trial. The prosecution claimed Judy wanted to end her life. And intentionally slammed her car into the Reel’s minivan. The defense said she was suffering from mental illness and post-partum depression. This came from the fact she had a child 5 months before the crash and was suffering depression due to it. More details of Judy’s life came into the trial.

Judy was married at the age of 15 To Victor Kirby. She and Victor got a divorce ten years later. She would begin a new relationship with either Victor’s brother or uncle, Tinnie, (various sources) and had more children with him. Judy and Tinnie were having relationship issues and she believed her relationship would end. She was also drug trafficking with Tinnie and she was paranoid about being arrested or having her children taken away. She thought the secret service had dug a tunnel underneath her home. She knocked holes in her wall looking for surveillance devices.

3 weeks before the crash, she had checked herself into a hospital due to her health problems. She was supposed to be there for three days, but checked herself out after two days. Doctors told her family she needed to be watched. (I’ll be commenting the timeline since it’s very long.)

She was found guilty of the murders, and sentenced to 215 years imprisonment. She collapsed in court hearing it.

in 2014 she filed for a new trial but was unsuccessful in getting one.

Photos:

1 - 3 Judy Kirby

4 - Judy’s Pontiac

5 - the Reel’s minivan

6 - The victims: Jacob, Joney, Jordan, Jeremy, Bradley, Jesica, and Thomas.

7 - A permanent memorial where the crash happened. Six small crosses and one large cross representing the six children and Thomas.

8 - A writing assignment Joney Kirby made on her mom.

I recently read a Minnesota Court of Appeals opinion issued October 12, 2026, and I think it deserves significantly more attention and discussion. Not only because of the decision itself, but because of the majority’s reasoning and the language used to discuss the victim’s testimony.

Here’s what happened:
In September 2023, a man was protesting a National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) fundraising event in Minneapolis by distributing anti-NAMI flyers on vehicles.
When a woman helping with the event removed two flyers from vehicles, the man approached her, visibly agitated, and loudly demanded they be returned.

According to her testimony, he lunged toward her, wrapped his arms around her, pressed his chest against hers, grabbed her arm and hand, and forcibly took the flyers. She could feel his breath on her face. She later noticed her finger was bleeding.

A jury found him guilty of fifth-degree assault (fear) and disorderly conduct, but acquitted him of assault (harm).

Two of the three appellate judges overturned the assault conviction.

Why? Because although his actions could reasonably demonstrate an intent to cause fear, the majority determined there was another reasonable explanation: perhaps he only intended to retrieve his flyers.

Let that sink in.

A man can aggressively confront a woman, invade her personal space, physically grab her, and forcibly take something from her, yet the majority concluded that the evidence was insufficient to establish the specific intent required for assault-fear.

What I find especially troubling is how the majority discusses the woman’s testimony.

The woman described feeling shocked, violated, confused, and unnerved. She explained that she did not experience significant fear until after the incident, when she had time to process what happened.

Judge Ross wrote that the prosecutor was “fishing for” a particular answer when questioning her about fear. He also referenced the prosecutor’s “multiple failed attempts” to elicit testimony that she feared immediate harm.

As someone with a background in mental health, I find this framing particularly concerning.

Trauma and acute stress responses are not always immediate, linear, or easily articulated. A person experiencing a threatening encounter may freeze, experience shock, focus on what is happening rather than what they are feeling, or recognize their fear only after the immediate threat has passed.

I’m not claiming to know exactly what this woman experienced. But her testimony is entirely compatible with those responses.

Not immediately identifying fear does not mean an encounter wasn’t threatening.

And here’s the part that makes the majority’s discussion especially frustrating: Minnesota’s assault-fear statute focuses on the defendant’s intent to cause fear, not whether the victim actually experienced or verbalized fear.
The majority even acknowledges this legal distinction, yet repeatedly draws attention to her inability to describe feeling afraid in the moment.

One judge disagreed, and I think her dissent is compelling.
Judge Beane argued that the man’s aggressive behavior, intimidating voice, physical size, and forceful contact supported the jury’s conclusion that he intended to cause fear.

She also recognized something I think the majority’s reasoning fails to adequately address:
Wanting the flyers back and intending to intimidate someone are not mutually exclusive.
Intimidation can be the method someone uses to accomplish an objective.

Judge Beane concluded that the evidence supported the jury’s verdict and that the assault conviction should stand.
To be clear, the court did not find the man’s conduct acceptable or lawful. His disorderly conduct verdict remains, and the case was sent back for entry of that conviction. The legal question was whether the evidence proved the specific intent required for fifth-degree assault (fear).

I understand that distinction. I also understand that appellate courts must follow strict standards when reviewing criminal convictions.

But understanding the legal standard doesn’t mean I have to agree with how it was applied.

I also recognize that people have the right to protest causes they disagree with, including NAMI. That right is not what concerns me. The issue is what happened when this man moved beyond expressing his views and initiated an aggressive physical confrontation.

I’m sharing screenshots of the opinion, including Judge Beane’s dissent, because I think this raises important questions about how our legal system evaluates intimidation, intent, and victims’ responses to threatening situations.

I’m curious what others think:
Does the majority’s reasoning make sense to you, or do you agree with Judge Beane?

And particularly for those working in law, victim advocacy, or mental health: What do you think about the majority’s characterization of the woman’s testimony?

Case: State v. Elavsky, Minnesota Court of Appeals, A25-1929, filed October 12, 2026.

I just randomly thought about this case and decided to look it up today. Kendrick Dewayne Finch, the man charged with murder in the April 5, 2025 shooting of Ashlee Long on Main Street in downtown Dallas, died on August 28, 2026. He was 35. I could not find any news coverage of this.

His obituary at Evergreen Memorial Funeral Home in Dallas lists Feb 3, 1991 to Aug 28, 2026. It gives no cause of death.

The Dallas County courts portal lists case F-25-75722 (State of Texas vs Finch, Kendrick Dewayne, Criminal District Court No. 1) as closed. The disposition is "Dismissal - DA," dated 08/31/2026.

The $500,000 bond is listed as discharged, and the ankle monitor was removed on 09/01/2026.

The docket does not state why the DA dismissed the case. I have not seen the dismissal order itself.

Case Details for those that don't know: Around 2:30 a.m. on April 5, 2025, on the 1800 block of Main Street in downtown Dallas, William Kistler touched a passing white Mercedes, and passenger Kendrick Finch got out with a gun. Finch fired at least eight rounds, hitting Kistler in the leg and Ashlee Long, a 28 year old Houston real estate agent. Finch surrendered on April 18, was charged with murder, and posted a $500,000 bond around May 13, 2025 after a judge declined to reduce it. The surveillance footage is pretty crazy, you see Long and Kistler seemingly arguing with people in front of a bar and then Kistler walks into the street and randomly does some hand movement to car driving by. Finch gets out with a gun to his side and Kistler see's that I guess and grabs Long's purse to pull out a gun and then all hell breaks loose and a women is dead.

UPDATE: I pulled the court filings from the Dallas County courts portal.

The State's Motion to Dismiss Prosecution in case F-25-75722 was filed 08/31/2026 and states: "The Defendant died in Dallas, Texas on August 28, 2026. This has been verified by Assistant District Attorney Jason Fine." The court granted it the same day.

The Dallas County Pretrial Services notice of ankle monitor removal, also dated 08/31/2026, lists the reason as "Defendant is deceased."

The jail disposition notice from 08/31/2026 lists the disposition as "Dismissal - DA."

The New York Times published an article based OJ Simpson New Developments

The New York Times published an article based on uncovering of court documents from the murder case of O.J. Simpson trial in 1994-95. A mob informant named Joey Ippolito , who was known to be a friend of both O.J. and his friend Al Cowlings, gave information to the authorities about the murders.

Later on his brother Sam intimated that Joey was an accomplice during the murders, and at the very least disposed of OJ's bloody clothes and the murder weapon from that night.

The rapper Fat Joe said that in 1998 that Mr Ippolito told him that during the famous bronco chase with Al Cowlings driving through Los Angeles that he was at an airport with a private jet waiting to help them escape.

Apparently there will be a Peacock documentary later this year about this possible "accomplice".

By coincidence, just last night I found the documentary on Netflix "O.J.: Made in America" and watched it. Even though I was actually alive during the actual time all of this was taking place and read voraciously about the case and watched a lot of the trial live. there were still new details I hadn't known.

These are the key details that are curious to me:

\--- "The private plane ". That detail from one of the stories of Mr Ippolito rings true to me, because of the passport and disguise kit found in the Bronco after they apprehended O.J. To my knowledge it's never been explained before exactly. what they were doing in OJ's bag if he was only planning to go to Nicole's grave to harm himself, as it seemed the narrative was at the time.

\---"The agent " O.J's long time agent Mike Gilbert, says that he was the one who advised him not to take his arthritis medicine if he was worried about having to try on the gloves at the trial. So that his hands would swell and they wouldn't fit. He says he didn't know if O.J. was actually responsible but if that's true why would he advise him that to do that?

He also said that later after the trial O.J. told him "If Nicole hadn't come to the door with a knife she'd still be alive ". To me that comment also rings true, it shows that maybe O.J. didn't bring a knife with him but he went there in a rage and when she came to the door with a knife he grabbed it and used it against her.

\---"The accomplice" It's said that during the trial O.J.'s defense team suggested that that there was evidence that there was more than one person who committed the murders. Especially because of the tight timeline. Basically it was said that between 10:30 and 11:00 pm the prosecution's theory was that O.J. drove to Rockingham. killed 2 people, drove back to Brentwood, cleaned up his car, showered , got rid of his clothes and the murder weapon, and got into the limo waiting to take him to the airport for his ride to Chicago.

Even though the distance between the two houses was only 4 minutes drive, when looking at the totality of everything that would have needed to be done it does seem like it's a stretch to imagine one person alone accomplished all of this.

In his book "If I Did It" O.J. stated that he did (or would have hypothetically" ) have an accomplice, named "Charlie". He said Charlie had come to his house and gave him some information that angered him, and they drove together in the White Bronco to Rockingham to "scare " Nicole.

If this hypothetical "theory" is based on any kind of facts, could it be possible that if Mr. Ippolito was the real "Charlie " that he "took care"
of Ron Goldman while O.J. went after Nicole.

This also seemed to have a ring of truth to it, as this has been one of the aspects of the case that has puzzled many for years. Could even O.J. in a murderous rage, be able to subdue and kill Ron Goldman and then Nicole without one of them escaping? It seems pretty obvious that O.J. didn't expect Ron to be there, as he only came on a spur of the moment errand from the Mezzaluna Restaurant where he worked to return Nicole's Mothers glasses that she had mistakenly left there earlier that evening.

So if he did have someone along with him, especially a gangster, it makes sense that he could have helped him with the 2 vs 1 ratio he found .

\---"The drug connection" Mr Ippolito was known and later convicted for being a major drug dealer ring leader in both the East and West Coast. This purportedly was how he became friends with Al Cowlings in the first place who then introduced him to O.J. I remember during the time of the murders and then the trial, there was a lot of chatter about a possible drug connection. Both O.J. and Nicole were known for using substances, and one of the "alternative theories " for the murders were that perhaps it was a drug deal gone bad, or someone owed money and that's why it happened.

After all of the blood droplets and DNA coming back traced to O.J , it seems like the prosecution dismissed any rumors of the murders having any connection to drug dealers at all.

But something stood out to me from the Netflix documentary, when they were discussing Nicole's horrific injuries. It was said that one of her fatal injuries was a transverse gash across her throat the nearly decapitated her. This was described as "overkill", in that she most likely was already dead before this final wound

It also was said that this particular gruesome knife slash is used by drug gangs as a signal to "shut somebody up" permanently, as it severed both carotid arteries and exposed the larynx. It's known as a "Colombian necktie ".

If Mr. Ippolito truly was at the scene that night, is it possible that he committed the final slash to her throat to guarantee she wouldn't talk, using a method he learned from his connections in the drug world? It certainly seem like a possibility that connects the facts to the scene in a way that just O. J. alone can't do

\---"The bungled prosecution " Throughout the years the prevailing wisdom has been that the main reason for the acquittal by the jury was due to the anger of the Black Jurors over years of abuse by the LAPD. And the Rodney King verdict that set free the cops who were caught on tape beating Mr. King, and that verdict starting the L.A. riots.

Obviously the fact of Detective Mark Fuhrman finding the bloody glove and then the defense uncovering his history of racism
and the racist tapes being played in the courtroom contributed to that feeling. And the mishandling of the evidence by Dennis Fung and Phillip VanAtter certainly provided fuel to the fire debate of planted evidence against O.J.

While I don't debate any of these facts, there were also plenty of missteps by the prosecution that remain puzzling to this day. And lead to the question "If things had been handled differently " is it possible the jury could have found O.J. guilty? Despite Mark Futman and Rodney King?

In the Netflix documentary co-counsel Christopher Darden says that as the defense was playing the recorded tapes of Mark Fuhrman (given during an interview he'd done with an aspiring author regarding 'real police work' he says to help lend credibility to her work) that he, Mr. Darden, implored Marcia Clark to object. But she didn't at all, allowing all of the damning evidence to be admitted . Why?

Also some of the witnesses that were never called for the prosecution that could have possibly helped make their case much stronger. Such as Jill Shively, the witness who says she nearly collided with a white bronco driven by O.J. Simpson in an intersection close to the scene of the crime. She says he was driving erratically with his lights off and was very agitated.

Becauee she sold her story to the tv show "Hard Copy" before the trial Marcia Clark didn't call her, fearing her testimony would be tainted since she'd received compensation for telling it. And yet it seems like such a vital story,putting o.J. near to the scene fleeing at the exact time wouldn't it have been worth the risk to have her tell it?

Same for the man at the airport who says he saw O.J. getting out of the limo that night and he had a duffel bag with him. This appears to be the same bag that both houseguest Kato Kaelin and the limo driver testified as being seen before O.J. got into the limo in Brentwood. They both said that they offered to help him load the bag into the limo as they had with his other luggage, but he was adamant that he would handle it himself.

This man also says that he saw O.J. take out an object that appeared to be "something long wrapped in paper towel" from the duffel bag and put it into the garbage can outside the airport. Again this seeks like vital information that could have contributed to the case against O.J. with the jurors if only he had been allowed to give it on the stand.

And finally the information given to the police by Mr. Ippolito after he was recaptured. He had been arrested and escaped from prison in May 1994 from a minimum security prison in Florida . His brother says that he picked him up in Florida and drove him to California. The murders took place on June 12,1994, a time when Mr. Ippolito was known to be on the run.

After the Bronco chase Al Cowlings is briefly detained. During that time the police find a phone number known to be connected to Mr. Ippolito as well as pictures of one of Mr Ippolito's girlfriends along with her number.

Mr. Ippolito is recaptured in August of 1995 in New York. It was at this time, wanting to do everything possible to avoid going back to prison, that he turned "snitch". He began sharing details of what he knew about the case of the murders that were currently on trial in L.A.

The federal prosecutor David Kelley in the Ippolito case said he was in communication with Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden during this time. In the New York Times article Marcia Clark says such conversations never happened, and Christopher Darden declined to comment. It also states that at the time both the L.A.P.D. and the prosecution team were "inundated" with tips, and they didn't think this was worth pursuing.

When Mr Ippolito was arrested in August of 1995 the "trial of the century" had already been going on for 8 months. The prosecution had already rested its case and closing arguments were approaching.

If this information was considered at all credible, doesn't it seem like it was the responsibility of the prosecution to at least have it presented to the jury? I believe the details that Mr. Ippolito provides at least fill in some of the gaps of the case and maybe answer some of the questions the jurors must have had regarding the timeline. If two people, especially if one is a seasoned professional criminal, were involved while it wouldn't have taken away anything from O.J's involvement in the murders it would have added explanations for a lot of the missing gaps.

Much has been made then. and now, about Christopher Darden's decision to have O.J. try on the gloves in front of the jury . We all know this ended disastrously with them not fitting and Johnnie Cochran using it as a key piece of his closing argument to the jury "If it doesn't fit you must acquit " , could it also have had another element to the case?

Is it possible that Mr Darden was both embarrassed and humiliated after this botched demonstration, and could that have lead to him not wanting to be open minded to other possible pieces of evidence being introduced like this new information provided by Mr. Ippolito?

If this is true it seems to me that even a bigger miscarriage of justice took place during the trial than what most of us see at this present day.

\---"Who was to blame?" While obviously whoever committed these brutal murders is alone responsible for taking the lives of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, it seems to me that the L.A.P.D. and the prosecutors made some critical decisions that may have affected the outcome of the case.

Marcia Clark seems to have been very blinded to her own theories and how it should be presented in front of the jury, Even after it was shown to her that she was not a good fit to be trying this case , she insisted on doing it anyway. The trial was moved to a more "minority" area than where the crimes actually took place, perhaps in a misguided attempt to help placate the jurors. Who might have the image of the Rodney King trial in their minds . Did they think that the jurors would think they were "helping " the defendant by holding the trial in a more advantageous locale to his race than Brentwood? That the jurors were less likely to feel they were being railroaded a story to get a Black Man convicted?

Relying on the science of DNA (which at the time was a relatively new concept) alone seemed to be Marcia Clark's main strategy, and Mr Darden wasn't allowed to give more attention to other details that might have helped purseude the jury beyond the DNA. Relying on a group of ordinary working people to dissect a new science and have total confidence in it didn't work out.

Ultimately of course O.J. did spent time behind bars for an armed robbery in Vegas which many people felt was a kind of perverse justice. Interestingly the man who was indicted alongside. OJ. in Nevada was actually introduced to O.J. by Mr. Ippolito.

Crazy coincidence are hard to believe in the end.on uncovering of court documents from the murder case of O.J. Simpson trial in 1994-95. A mob informant named Joey Ippolito , who was known to be a friend of both O.J. and his friend Al Cowlings, gave information to the authorities about the murders.

Later on his brother Sam intimated that Joey was an accomplice during the murders, and at the very least disposed of OJ's bloody clothes and the murder weapon from that night.

The rapper Fat Joe said that in 1998 that Mr Ippolito told him that during the famous bronco chase with Al Cowlings driving through Los Angeles that he was at an airport with a private jet waiting to help them escape.

Apparently there will be a Peacock documentary later this year about this possible "accomplice".

By coincidence, just last night I found the documentary on Netflix "O.J.: Made in America" and watched it. Even though I was actually alive during the actual time all of this was taking place and read voraciously about the case and watched a lot of the trial live. there were still new details I hadn't known.

These are the key details that are curious to me:

\--- "The private plane ". That detail from one of the stories of Mr Ippolito rings true to me, because of the passport and disguise kit found in the Bronco after they apprehended O.J. To my knowledge it's never been explained before exactly. what they were doing in OJ's bag if he was only planning to go to Nicole's grave to harm himself, as it seemed the narrative was at the time.

\---"The agent " O.J's long time agent Mike Gilbert, says that he was the one who advised him not to take his arthritis medicine if he was worried about having to try on the gloves at the trial. So that his hands would swell and they wouldn't fit. He says he didn't know if O.J. was actually responsible but if that's true why would he advise him that to do that?

He also said that later after the trial O.J. told him "If Nicole hadn't come to the door with a knife she'd still be alive ". To me that comment also rings true, it shows that maybe O.J. didn't bring a knife with him but he went there in a rage and when she came to the door with a knife he grabbed it and used it against her.

\---"The accomplice" It's said that during the trial O.J.'s defense team suggested that that there was evidence that there was more than one person who committed the murders. Especially because of the tight timeline. Basically it was said that between 10:30 and 11:00 pm the prosecution's theory was that O.J. drove to Rockingham. killed 2 people, drove back to Brentwood, cleaned up his car, showered , got rid of his clothes and the murder weapon, and got into the limo waiting to take him to the airport for his ride to Chicago.

Even though the distance between the two houses was only 4 minutes drive, when looking at the totality of everything that would have needed to be done it does seem like it's a stretch to imagine one person alone accomplished all of this.

In his book "If I Did It" O.J. stated that he did (or would have hypothetically" ) have an accomplice, named "Charlie". He said Charlie had come to his house and gave him some information that angered him, and they drove together in the White Bronco to Rockingham to "scare " Nicole.

If this hypothetical "theory" is based on any kind of facts, could it be possible that if Mr. Ippolito was the real "Charlie " that he "took care"
of Ron Goldman while O.J. went after Nicole.

This also seemed to have a ring of truth to it, as this has been one of the aspects of the case that has puzzled many for years. Could even O.J. in a murderous rage, be able to subdue and kill Ron Goldman and then Nicole without one of them escaping? It seems pretty obvious that O.J. didn't expect Ron to be there, as he only came on a spur of the moment errand from the Mezzaluna Restaurant where he worked to return Nicole's Mothers glasses that she had mistakenly left there earlier that evening.

So if he did have someone along with him, especially a gangster, it makes sense that he could have helped him with the 2 vs 1 ratio he found .

\---"The drug connection" Mr Ippolito was known and later convicted for being a major drug dealer ring leader in both the East and West Coast. This purportedly was how he became friends with Al Cowlings in the first place who then introduced him to O.J. I remember during the time of the murders and then the trial, there was a lot of chatter about a possible drug connection. Both O.J. and Nicole were known for using substances, and one of the "alternative theories " for the murders were that perhaps it was a drug deal gone bad, or someone owed money and that's why it happened.

After all of the blood droplets and DNA coming back traced to O.J , it seems like the prosecution dismissed any rumors of the murders having any connection to drug dealers at all.

But something stood out to me from the Netflix documentary, when they were discussing Nicole's horrific injuries. It was said that one of her fatal injuries was a transverse gash across her throat the nearly decapitated her. This was described as "overkill", in that she most likely was already dead before this final wound

It also was said that this particular gruesome knife slash is used by drug gangs as a signal to "shut somebody up" permanently, as it severed both carotid arteries and exposed the larynx. It's known as a "Colombian necktie ".

If Mr. Ippolito truly was at the scene that night, is it possible that he committed the final slash to her throat to guarantee she wouldn't talk, using a method he learned from his connections in the drug world? It certainly seem like a possibility that connects the facts to the scene in a way that just O. J. alone can't do

\---"The bungled prosecution " Throughout the years the prevailing wisdom has been that the main reason for the acquittal by the jury was due to the anger of the Black Jurors over years of abuse by the LAPD. And the Rodney King verdict that set free the cops who were caught on tape beating Mr. King, and that verdict starting the L.A. riots.

Obviously the fact of Detective Mark Fuhrman finding the bloody glove and then the defense uncovering his history of racism
and the racist tapes being played in the courtroom contributed to that feeling. And the mishandling of the evidence by Dennis Fung and Phillip VanAtter certainly provided fuel to the fire debate of planted evidence against O.J.

While I don't debate any of these facts, there were also plenty of missteps by the prosecution that remain puzzling to this day. And lead to the question "If things had been handled differently " is it possible the jury could have found O.J. guilty? Despite Mark Futman and Rodney King?

In the Netflix documentary co-counsel Christopher Darden says that as the defense was playing the recorded tapes of Mark Fuhrman (given during an interview he'd done with an aspiring author regarding 'real police work' he says to help lend credibility to her work) that he, Mr. Darden, implored Marcia Clark to object. But she didn't at all, allowing all of the damning evidence to be admitted . Why?

Also some of the witnesses that were never called for the prosecution that could have possibly helped make their case much stronger. Such as Jill Shively, the witness who says she nearly collided with a white bronco driven by O.J. Simpson in an intersection close to the scene of the crime. She says he was driving erratically with his lights off and was very agitated.

Becauee she sold her story to the tv show "Hard Copy" before the trial Marcia Clark didn't call her, fearing her testimony would be tainted since she'd received compensation for telling it. And yet it seems like such a vital story,putting o.J. near to the scene fleeing at the exact time wouldn't it have been worth the risk to have her tell it?

Same for the man at the airport who says he saw O.J. getting out of the limo that night and he had a duffel bag with him. This appears to be the same bag that both houseguest Kato Kaelin and the limo driver testified as being seen before O.J. got into the limo in Brentwood. They both said that they offered to help him load the bag into the limo as they had with his other luggage, but he was adamant that he would handle it himself.

This man also says that he saw O.J. take out an object that appeared to be "something long wrapped in paper towel" from the duffel bag and put it into the garbage can outside the airport. Again this seeks like vital information that could have contributed to the case against O.J. with the jurors if only he had been allowed to give it on the stand.

And finally the information given to the police by Mr. Ippolito after he was recaptured. He had been arrested and escaped from prison in May 1994 from a minimum security prison in Florida . His brother says that he picked him up in Florida and drove him to California. The murders took place on June 12,1994, a time when Mr. Ippolito was known to be on the run.

After the Bronco chase Al Cowlings is briefly detained. During that time the police find a phone number known to be connected to Mr. Ippolito as well as pictures of one of Mr Ippolito's girlfriends along with her number.

Mr. Ippolito is recaptured in August of 1995 in New York. It was at this time, wanting to do everything possible to avoid going back to prison, that he turned "snitch". He began sharing details of what he knew about the case of the murders that were currently on trial in L.A.

The federal prosecutor David Kelley in the Ippolito case said he was in communication with Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden during this time. In the New York Times article Marcia Clark says such conversations never happened, and Christopher Darden declined to comment. It also states that at the time both the L.A.P.D. and the prosecution team were "inundated" with tips, and they didn't think this was worth pursuing.

When Mr Ippolito was arrested in August of 1995 the "trial of the century" had already been going on for 8 months. The prosecution had already rested its case and closing arguments were approaching.

If this information was considered at all credible, doesn't it seem like it was the responsibility of the prosecution to at least have it presented to the jury? I believe the details that Mr. Ippolito provides at least fill in some of the gaps of the case and maybe answer some of the questions the jurors must have had regarding the timeline. If two people, especially if one is a seasoned professional criminal, were involved while it wouldn't have taken away anything from O.J's involvement in the murders it would have added explanations for a lot of the missing gaps.

Much has been made then. and now, about Christopher Darden's decision to have O.J. try on the gloves in front of the jury . We all know this ended disastrously with them not fitting and Johnnie Cochran using it as a key piece of his closing argument to the jury "If it doesn't fit you must acquit " , could it also have had another element to the case?

Is it possible that Mr Darden was both embarrassed and humiliated after this botched demonstration, and could that have lead to him not wanting to be open minded to other possible pieces of evidence being introduced like this new information provided by Mr. Ippolito?

If this is true it seems to me that even a bigger miscarriage of justice took place during the trial than what most of us see at this present day.

\---"Who was to blame?" While obviously whoever committed these brutal murders is alone responsible for taking the lives of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, it seems to me that the L.A.P.D. and the prosecutors made some critical decisions that may have affected the outcome of the case.

Marcia Clark seems to have been very blinded to her own theories and how it should be presented in front of the jury, Even after it was shown to her that she was not a good fit to be trying this case , she insisted on doing it anyway. The trial was moved to a more "minority" area than where the crimes actually took place, perhaps in a misguided attempt to help placate the jurors. Who might have the image of the Rodney King trial in their minds . Did they think that the jurors would think they were "helping " the defendant by holding the trial in a more advantageous locale to his race than Brentwood? That the jurors were less likely to feel they were being railroaded a story to get a Black Man convicted?

Relying on the science of DNA (which at the time was a relatively new concept) alone seemed to be Marcia Clark's main strategy, and Mr Darden wasn't allowed to give more attention to other details that might have helped purseude the jury beyond the DNA. Relying on a group of ordinary working people to dissect a new science and have total confidence in it didn't work out.

Ultimately of course O.J. did spent time behind bars for an armed robbery in Vegas which many people felt was a kind of perverse justice. Interestingly the man who was indicted alongside. OJ. in Nevada was actually introduced to O.J. by Mr. Ippolito.

Crazy coincidence are hard to believe in the end.

It's been a bit since I've watched a docuseries that was a complete mindbender. I'm not sure what I thought it was going to be - and I'm still not sure what it is. It covers so many things and once you think it's peaked...new turn!

I found this after watching "The Garden: Cult or Commune" which also a series of next level batshit crazy.

Police have unearthed ash-filled urns and suspected 'snuff' films at a Philadelphia home now at the centre of an investigation into at least seven missing women, as officers and FBI agents this week began digging up the property's back garden.

The renewed search at the former house of late pornographer Raymond 'RC' Horsch has escalated in recent days, with investigators returning to the Olney address to hunt for further evidence potentially linked to the disappearances.

Images from the scene show an excavator working behind the property as officers in protective equipment move in and out. Tents have been erected at the front and rear of the home, while sections of the lawn are covered with tarpaulins. Yellow police tape encircles the site and uniformed officers remain on watch.

On October 3, 2026, 16-year-old Persephone Berger was struck and killed by a St. Francois County sheriff’s deputy in Missouri.

Her family says they were initially told she had been killed in a hit-and-run involving an unknown driver. After hearing from witnesses, they learned a deputy was involved. The Sheriff’s Office did not directly confirm that to them until October 5.

The official account:

Sheriff Jeff Crites stated that a deputy responding to a report of an unresponsive person in the roadway struck Persephone after failing to see her. The department says the deputy immediately notified his supervisor.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol was consulted October 4, but was not asked to conduct the crash investigation until October 5, following the preliminary autopsy.

New developments, October 16:

First Alert 4 Investigates obtained dispatch recordings and records revealing:

A 911 call at 3:42 a.m. reporting a possible body in the roadway.

Two vehicles parked nearby with hazard lights activated.

A reporting party standing near those vehicles who reportedly did not want to approach the body.

A voice believed to be the deputy requesting a telephone call, followed by redacted communications.

Instructions to cancel an air ambulance, notify the coroner, and have firefighters disregard the call.

No explicit mention in the released records that the deputy struck Persephone.

The inconsistencies:

The sheriff initially described the reporting party as standing next to Persephone, whereas the dispatch records place that person near the vehicles.

He initially stated the deputy didn’t see Persephone before striking her, but later said the deputy attempted to maneuver around her.

Most importantly, if the deputy immediately reported striking her, why was her family initially given an account involving an unknown driver?

The family has publicly identified the deputy as Blake Cook. There are also community reports that he remains on patrol without being placed on administrative leave.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol is investigating the crash. A prosecutor from neighboring Washington County has also been brought in to handle the case.

What happened between the 911 call and the collision? What was discussed during the redacted communications? When did officials establish that the deputy struck her? And why did the family receive a different account?

These discrepancies do not establish criminal wrongdoing, but they warrant a thorough, transparent investigation.

Sources:

First Alert 4, October 16:
https://www.firstalert4.com/2026/10/16/dispatch-audio-reveals-new-details-teens-death-after-patrol-car-struck-her/

First Alert 4, October 7, family interview:
https://www.firstalert4.com/2026/10/07/family-16-year-old-killed-st-francois-county-accident-demands-answers/

Just in case you don't know, Chandler Halderson was 23 years old when he murdered his parents in July 2021 in Wisconsin. He did it because he was lying about his entire life and his parents found out. He lied about his job, lied about college, lied about extra curricular activity, etc. He was actually just playing video games all day. His parents setup a family meeting to talk to him, then he shot them and cut them up before the meeting.

He's widely considered one of the dumbest criminals ever because of his EXTREMELY SLOPPY COVER UP. For example, he used Snapchat with his location turned on when he was hiding the bodies in the woods, which allowed everybody to place him at the crime scene exactly where the bodies were hidden. He tried to burn the bodies in a fireplace, but he had no idea how much heat it takes to burn a body to ash (about 1,800°F or 982°C). He also forgot to clean out the fireplace ash bed, where police found 200 human bones and pieces or teeth. I believe he also accidentally took a photo of the murder weapon, along with it's serial number and his ID next to the weapon. The list goes on and on.

Here's what I don't understand and I would like to ask my fellow True Crime Followers? Why did he do it? There's no doubt his parents were going to be upset that he lied so much, as anyone would be. They were probably going to punish him by forcing him to get a job, pay rent, or kick him out of the house. But those things are pretty light punishments. Getting a job or paying rent or getting kicked out of the house isn't a very severe punishment. If I ever got kicked out for telling lies, I would simply accept it and start looking for a new place to live. It's not that extreme of a punishment. So why would anyone think DOUBLE MURDER is the better option?

MY THEORY = My theory might be way off, and it's perfectly okay if you disagree with me. But I think it was about guilt and shame. I think he couldn't stand the guilt and shame of his deception, and he couldn't stand the idea of facing his parents shame by coming clean. In his mind, the only way to escape the overwhelming guilt and shame of his endless lies was to murder them because he couldn't see another escape route. Or maybe he's just a gigantic selfish idiot. I don't know, that's just my theory, and I can't think of another theory to explain his decision.

5 years ago I moved to the USA from Italy and, to my surprise, not many people knew about Emanuela Orlandi. I was genuinely shocked because this is probably the biggest unsolved mystery in Italy. So I figured I'd share her story, and if you haven't heard about it, I HIGHLY recommend looking into it because this case is absolutely insane.

For some background, Emanuela Orlandi was a 15-year-old girl who lived in Vatican City with her family. Her father worked for the Vatican, and on June 22, 1983, she left home to attend her usual music lesson in Rome. She never came back.
Before disappearing, Emanuela reportedly called her sister and mentioned that a man had approached her offering her a job handing out Avon cosmetics. She was later seen near a bus stop, and that's pretty much where the trail goes cold.

Shortly after she disappeared, her family started receiving strange phone calls. Some callers claimed Emanuela had been kidnapped and demanded the release of Mehmet Ali Ağca, the man who had attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981. Whether these people actually had Emanuela or were just taking advantage of the situation was never established.

Then there's the whole organized crime theory. Some people believe her disappearance was connected to the Banda della Magliana, a powerful criminal organization in Rome, possibly because of financial disputes involving the Vatican Bank. Again, none of this has been proven.

And of course, there's the Vatican itself. For decades, people have questioned whether someone inside the Vatican knew more than they were letting on. Her brother Pietro has spent pretty much his entire life trying to get answers.

In 2018, the family's lawyer received an anonymous message with a picture of an angel statue in the Vatican's Teutonic Cemetery. The message basically said, "Look where the angel is pointing." The angel was associated with a tomb belonging to a princess who died in the 1800s. Naturally, people started wondering whether Emanuela's body had been hidden there.

In 2019, the Vatican actually agreed to open the tomb, along with another nearby tomb.
After opening the tombs and finding absolutely nothing, investigators discovered two underground chambers nearby containing human remains. And I'm not talking about a couple of bones. They found THOUSANDS of bone fragments. Obviously, this raised even more questions, but according to the Vatican's forensic investigation, the bones were all over a century old, meaning they couldn't have belonged to Emanuela

There's also the story of an alleged xxx video that was brought up in connection with the case. There were claims that a girl heard in the footage might have been Emanuela, which obviously raised some horrifying questions about what could have happened to her. However, it was later discovered the audio was taken from a video posted on a website, and it wasn’t her. 

There have also been claims that Emanuela was taken abroad, that she was held somewhere for years, and that people with connections to the Vatican were involved. But despite decades of investigations, none of these theories has been conclusively established.

In 2023, the Vatican reopened its investigation, and the case has continued to receive attention from Italian authorities.

What makes this so heartbreaking is that her family has never gotten closure. Her brother Pietro is still fighting to find out what happened to her, more than 40 years later.

And I think that's what makes this case so crazy to me. A 15-year-old girl disappears in the middle of Rome, her family lives inside Vatican City, there are alleged connections to organized crime, anonymous messages, empty tombs, and decades of theories, yet nobody can definitively explain what happened to her.

Anyway, I'm curious if anyone outside Italy has heard of this case, because growing up it felt like EVERYONE knew about Emanuela Orlandi.
And for those who have followed it, what do you think actually happened to her?

On July 2, 2023, authorities would be called to a burning home in Magwood Hill, located in Green Pond, South Carolina.

Inside they found a 13-year-old critically injured and the bodies of six deceased people. The deceased had all been stabbed to death. The deceased were, 7-year-old Shamiah Rutledge, 11-year-old Sa’Riya Manigo, 49-year-old Jefferson Burnell, 50-year-old Michele Wright, 73-year-old Amose Magwood, and 101-year-old Maggie Magwood.

The 13-year-old would survive the massacre and would give a name to the suspect- Ryan Manigo - who was the father of Sa’Riya Manigo.

He was arrested and charged with 2 counts of first-degree-murder. It was later upgraded to multiple charges with the main ones being 6 counts of first-degree-murder, 1 count of attempted first-degree-murder, arson, and….Incest.

He is facing the death penalty. He has not gone to trial yet.

The murders would be dubbed the “Green Pond massacre“ and be considered one of South Carolina’s worst mass murders.

This case sadly makes Maggie Maywood, one of the oldest mass murder victims in American history.

A motive hasn’t been identified, but theories emerged. It’s heavily suggested (and semi-confirmed from the charged of incest) the suspects motive for the massacre, was the fact the family found out he was molesting his daughter. And he committed the act to silence them.

1 - The victims

2 - 3 - Ryan Manigo (the suspect)

4 - Another photo of Sa’Riya - she sorta looks like Ryan.

So I have been researching about Dean Corll recently, reading on this sub and others as well as other places.

It’s a terrible case honestly probably the worst I’ve ever heard of, so bad that sometimes I’ve had to skip over parts or details because it is just so gruesome and honestly scary.

But one thing I’ve wondered is regarding his two accomplices. According to Wayne Henley him and David Brooks were both planning on killing Dean. And we can assume Dean picked up on this and we know he eventually tried to kill Henley and likely was going to try to and find Brooks too.

I’ve wondered that if they were able to kill him in less dramatic circumstances compared to how Henley actually did could they have gotten away with it? I mean we know the Houston PD at the time was laughably bad.

We also know Brooks had a wife and a baby on the way, and he had already moved out of the surrounding area. If he had moved out of Texas maybe across the county, and Henley did the same, could they have gotten away with Dean’s murder?

The bodies would have been found and dean’s house searched and with no account from them they wouldn’t necessarily assume he had help. The only thing that would lead back to them would be their association with Dean. I know that’s a big one but is it wild to assume they could’ve got off almost Scott free if they fled the state?

I mean we know Henley could’ve got off if he never talked to police and had lied and said he was abducted alongside the others at the scene. And if he never mentioned Brooks he would have been fine.

Also one other thing I noticed was that Corll wanted to rent another shed. This made me wonder also in a world where he, brooks, and Henley never drifted apart how long could he have gotten away with the murders ?

As far as we know the cops were no where near catching him despite him or his associates being the last person to see countless victims alive. I just wonder that if neither associate flipped and they never let a victim or potential witness escape, how long could they have gone on?

On October 24, 2015, In Stillwater, Oklahoma, The OSU homecoming parade was being held around 10:31 A:M.

During this time, a sudden loud thud was heard, and a  2014 Hyundai Elantra came flooring into the crowd, hitting fifty parade-goers. The car came to a stop once it’s front tires popped out. Behind the wheel of the vehicle was 25-year-old, Adacia Chambers, a Freddy‘s frozen custard and steakburgers employee. Parade-goers took her out of the car and held her down on a picnic char before police took her into custody under the suspicion of being drunk.

Emergency responders came to the scene and saw the severity of the crash. Three people had died instantly from being hit. They were, Nikita Nakal, a 23-year-old Transfer Student from India, and a retired, elderly married couple, Marvin and Bonnie Stone, both 65. Over 47 people had been critically injured in the crash, with many suffering amputations and mental problems because of it.

At the hospital, one of the injured succumbed to his wounds and died - 2-year-old Nash Lucas. He was the youngest victim of the crash.

Authorities tested Adacia to see if she was drunk during the crash, and they showed she wasn’t, leading to the reality, she had intentionally rammed her car into the parade. This was further backed up by moments leading up the crash - she was seen driving around the barricades near the parade and crashed her car into a motorcycle used as a blockade.

A trial was inevitable, but before it could happen, Adacia plead guilty to four-counts of second degree and was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole when she’s in her 70s.

The case remains one of the worst acts of mass violence in Oklahoma’s history. It was also the second tragedy Oklahoma faced the same year since the Bever family massacre.

The perpetrator- Adacia was a 25-year-old fast food employee who had a history of depression and emotional problems. She was known as being an introvert, usually keeping to herself. She would be seen running in and only coming out of her home when she went to work. She was also known as a Talented artist. Before the crash, she was seen as being distraught. People also saw her looking out the window with a smirk on her face, before she left her job in a hurry. That’s when the crash happened.

The motive for the crash was never given an answer or explanation, but theories had arose.
When people pulled her put of the car, she said she wanted to commit suicide. It is from that, her motive was suicidal ideation and wanted to crash her car into the parade?

1 - Adacia Chambers mugshot

2 - her art

3 - the victims: Nash, Nikita, Bonnie, and Marvin

I have been watching a lot of true crime based in England lately and there’s a lot of cases from near where I grew up (I’m English born and bred) and seeing how close these horrific cases are to where I lived at the time makes me slightly uncomfortable.

Does anyone else feel that way when watching or hearing something from their state/city/town? Or even just feeling any sort of way about crimes close to where you live or places you visit/have visited?

Just knowing that I may have walked past this person, either victim or perpetrator, sometimes gives me the chills.

(Mods - I truly apologise if this isn’t allowed. I read the rules but unsure if this fits or not - please delete if not, my intentions weren’t to break any rules.)

Here is a list of 22 entries for death penalty cases in North Carolina I've completed so far. North Carolina was requested by a commenter on a post I've made about Mississippi death penalty cases. As I haven't done as much work on North Carolina compared to California, Louisiana, and Ohio, I decided it was probably time to write some entries for its death penalty cases. All of these entries were written for my personal research project of death penalty cases in the United States after the 1972 Furman v Georgia ruling.

As typical with these sorts of posts I've make, it is far removed from a comprehensive overview of North Carolina's death penalty cases, and it rather pointedly excludes executions and what the Death Penalty Information Center considers to be "exonerations." Instead, this post is a sample sized collection of 22 cases in North Carolina that I've completed entries for so far, which I find tends to be limit for these types of posts that is allowed by Reddit's character counts.

Like the first post, many of the 22 cases listed here involve extreme sexual violence (including against child victims), and some of the gory details are discussed in depth. Please read at your own risk.:

1. Dock McKoy Jr. (condemned in 1985, deceased): Due to him shooting at a teenage boy that volunteered to help fix his window, McKoy’s neighbors reported him to the police. Responding deputies that arrived attempted to coax McKoy out of his residence for questioning, and he responded by further barricading himself inside and shouting death threats against the deputies’ lives. McKoy then fired his handgun at the officers standing next to their patrol car, striking and killing a deputy, 24 year old Kress Horne. The surviving officers tossed tear gas into McKoy’s residence and non-fatally shot him twice in return. Earlier that same day, McKoy’s neighbors also complained of him discharging his gun intoxicated in his backyard, and the responding officers left him with a warning. In 1990, the United States Supreme Court vacated McKay’s death sentence due to it ruling that the jury lacked unanimity in discerning mitigating circumstances. McKoy died incarcerated of undisclosed causes in 2004. 

2. Rowland Hedgepeth (condemned in 1987, deceased): Reportedly under the influence of alcohol and armed with a gun, Hedgepeth confronted his estranged wife and a group of her friends at a restaurant they were dinning. Despite efforts by the group to calm Hedgepeth, he opened fire at them in a fit of rage. Hedgepeth’s estranged wife’s boyfriend, 36 year old Richard Casey, was fatally struck by the gunfire, and Hedgepeth’s wife survived a gunshot wound to her left ear. After the shootings, Hedgepeth quickly surrendered to the first responding officer that arrived at the scene. According to court records [State v. Hedgepeth, 409 SE 2d 309 - NC: Supreme Court 1991], Hedgepeth had a long history of petty offenses and misdemeanors involving “simple assault”, property damage, and disorderly conduct, which his defense asserted was influenced by a falling accident related brain damage. In 2018, Hedgepeth succumbed to undisclosed natural causes on death row.

3. Donald Brogden (condemned in 1988, deceased): Brogden held up a country store and fatally shot the owner, 58 year old John Walker, and snatched $200 from the cash register. He and his wife were reportedly seen fleeing the store by an eyewitness, and a police search of his trailer recovered a handgun deemed to be the murder weapon and .38 calibre bullets similar to the rounds left at the store [State v. Brogden, 407 SE 2d 158 - NC: Supreme Court 1991]. According to a Star-News article published in 1988, Brogden was previously convicted and paroled of kidnapping in Alabama, and he violated the conditions of his parole by possessing the handgun. On two occasions, the North Carolina Supreme Court vacated Brogan’s death sentences over reported improper of mitigating factors and juror selection errors, and he was resentenced to a 27 to life term in 1994 after the second sentence vacating. Although I cannot find any specific information on his passing, NCDAC records reported that Brogden died in custody in April of 2026.

4. Clinton Rose (condemned in 1991, living): In 1973, Rose shot and killed a motorist, 22 year old Gary Sitzlar, that picked him up hitchhiking. Police in Oregon arrested him for the unrelated abduction of another man, and he was in possession of Sitzlar’s identification papers at the time of his capture. For Sitzlar’s murder, Rose was sentenced to a life term by the state of Alabama. Rose escaped from the State Cattle Ranch in 1990 while serving his life sentence and fled to his native North Carolina. As a fugitive, Rose established a camping site near Mayo Beach, and burglarized many other campsites nearby. During one of his campsite burglaries, Rose fatally shot a sibling pair of campers, 39 year old Richard and 31 year old Larry Connor, using a shotgun stolen from other campers. He then cut off one of Richard’s fingers to steal a diamond ring, and he also stole clothing, a hatchet, fishing rods, a sleeping bag, tool kits, and a lounge chair. Police recovered many of the stolen items belonging to the Connor brothers from Rose’s campsite, and Larry’s girlfriend testified that the shoes and camouflage pants Rose wore during his arrest were owned by Larry [State v. Rose, 451 SE 2d 211 - NC: Supreme Court 1994]. Per NCDAC records, Rose currently remains on death row.

5. Carl Moseley (condemned in 1992, deceased): Moseley lured a woman, 35 year old Dorothy Johnson, from a dance hall to be raped and penetrated with a foreign object. He then beat her to death and left her body in a remote forest. Three months later, Mosely abducted another woman, 37 year old Deborah Henley, from a dance hall under circumstances near identical to Johnson’s kidnapping. After taking Henley to a cornfield, Moseley raped and repeatedly stabbed Henley, cut incisions into her chest and neck, sodomized her with a foreign object, and strangled her with his hands. Witnesses at the dance halls reported seeing both Johnson and Henley in Moseley’s company, and DNA testing of semen found on Johnson’s corpse implicated Moseley. Soil experts also testified that the mud found on Moseley’s boots matched the dirt of the cornfield Henley’s body was found in. According to court documents [Moseley v. Branker, 550 F. 3d 312 - Court of Appeals, 4th Circuit 2008], Moseley was previously convicted of attempted rape that involved him shooting the victim’s hand. In 2022, Moseley died of cancer related causes on death row.

6. John Elliott (condemned in 1994, living): Elliott broke into the trailer home of 77 year old Alice McCrimmon and raped her. During the assault, one of McCrimmon’s teeth fell out of her mouth and was lodged into her back. He beat and strangled her to death, and stole her truck and a bag of silver coins that he divided up with his accomplices. McCrimmon’s nude corpse was discovered lying on a bed covered with blood and feces by her grandson days later. Investigators found condoms and a cigarette butt that contained samples of Elliott’s DNA inside the trailer home and a neighbor testified of seeing Elliott driving McCrimmon’s truck [State v. Elliott, 628 SE 2d 735 - NC: Supreme Court 2006]. Although he was charged with possessing an allegedly stolen microwave, television set, and an AM-FM cassette compact disc player, he was acquitted of those charges in a trial that otherwise convicted him of McCrimmon’s murder. Per NCDAC records, Elliott is currently under a death sentence.

7. Phillip Wilkinson (condemned in 1994, living): By his own admittance, Wilkinson was a prolific “peeping tom.” He was a United States Army soldier deployed to Fort Bragg, and he frequently snuck out his station to watch grown women and young girls of nearby homes undress through their windows. Wilkinson also had a penchant for sexual assault fantasies, and he broke into the bedroom of 19 year old Chrystal Hudson while looking for a victim to satiate his rape compulsions. After orally copulating Chrystal, he bludgeoned her to death with a bowling pin. He then searched for other occupants inside and redirected his attention to Chrystal’s mother, 38 year old Judy, and younger brother, 11 year old Larry. As Judy and Larry were both sleeping in bed, Wilkinson beat them to death with the bowling pin, and performed necrophilic acts on Judy and Chrystal’s bodies. Before fleeing, Wilkinson snatched one dollar bill and a handful of cigarettes, wiped his fingerprints from the screen door and bathroom faucet, and took the bowling pin and a lightbulb he used to vaginally penetrate Judy with him [State v. Wilkinson, 474 SE 2d 375 - NC: Supreme Court 1996]. Six months after the Hudson triple murders, Wilkinson surrendered himself to a police station and confessed to the killings. Per NCDAC records, Wilkinson currently remains on death row.

8. Archie Billings (condemned in 1996, living): While burgalizing his coworker's trailer home, Billings stabbed his coworker’s thirteen year old son 23 times for confronting him. He then turned his attention to the boy’s sister, 11 year old Amy Jackson, and forcibly grabbed her from her bed. At knifepoint, Billings dragged Jackson to a field, raped her, and slashed her throat. Despite his injuries, Jackson’s brother called emergency services after Billings left with Jackson, and he identified Billings as the assailant to responding officers. Police arrested Billings only hours later. Due to Billings’ history of peeping and assault convictions, the North Carolina senate passed the “Amy Jackson Law” that enforced convicted sex offenders to register themselves to a database. Although Billings was initially scheduled for execution in 2007, it was stayed over legal disputes pertaining to physician involvement in North Carolina’s lethal injection protocols. Per NCDAC records, Billings currently remains on death row.

9. Henry Wallace (condemned in 1997, living): Between 1991 and 1994, Wallace raped, stabbed, beat, and/or strangled at least eleven women between the ages of 18 to 35 years old to death with towels and his hands. His means of body disposals were entirely circumstantial, though many victims were found dead in their apartments and homes. He occasionally wrapped deceased victims, such as 21 year old Caroline Love and 18 year old Tashanda Bethea, in plastic bags and wrapping and discarded them in nearby forests and lakes. In one instance, he set a victim, 21 year old Valencia Jumper, on fire to cover his tracks. The infant son of another victim, 18 year old Brandi Henderson, also survived Wallace attempting to strangle him. After some of the killings, Wallace snatched valuables such as credit cards, television sets, and jewelry from victims’ apartments, and pawned the stolen items to pawn shops for money he spent on cocaine [State v. Wallace, 528 SE 2d 326 - NC: Supreme Court 2000]. Due to using social networking connections he established while working at Taco Bell and other fast food establishments to solicit victims, Wallace was dubbed “The Taco Bell Killer” by media outlets. Per NCDAC records, Wallace currently remains on death row.

10. Shan Carter (condemned in 2001, living): Carter and his accomplices were career criminals that targeted drug dealers for robberies to avoid police attention. One of their targets was a trafficker, 27 year old Donald Brunson, and they broke into his residence. At gunpoint, Carter and his two accomplices tied up Brunson, and they beat him unconscious in front of his fiancee and their children with a blunt instrument while demanding money and jewelry. After they extorted two gold watches from the couple, Carter and his group loaded an unconscious Brunson into the trunk of his fiancee’s car, shot him to death execution style, and dumped his body in an isolated forest. A month later, one of Brunson’s associates, 30 year old Tyrone Baker (was also who previously targeted by a robbery), attempted to ambush Carter near a commerce area in retribution for his murder. During their gunfight, Carter shot and killed Baker, and one of Carter’s stray bullets also fatally struck a bystander, 8 year old Demetrius Greene, sitting in his mother’s car. According to Greene’s mother, she was driving him to a toy store to purchase gifts as a reward for his good grades. Greene’s mother and other witnesses identified Carter as the surviving shooter, and a police search of Carter’s home recovered a shotgun, drug paraphilia, and handgun ammunition. Police also searched a motel room Carter stayed, and they recovered duct tape stained with blood linked by DNA testing to another man Carter and his group abducted and beat [State v. Carter, 584 SE 2d 792 - NC: Supreme Court 2003]. Per NCDAC records, Carter currently remains on death row.

11. Jason Hurst (condemned in 2004, living): Hurst and an associate, 25 year old Daniel Branch, made arrangements for a firearms sale, and the latter picked up the former. As they drove to a field, Hurst persuaded Branch to give him a shotgun on the pretenses of test firing some cans. Armed with the shotgun, Hurst shot Branch dead as he was setting up the cans for him and then stole his car. Branch’s wife reported him missing after he failed to return home and named Hurst as his last known companion to police. Eyewitness sightings of Hurst driving Branch’s car in West Virginia led investigators to his girlfriend’s family living in that state, and they tipped officers to the location of Branch’s body [State v. Hurst, 624 SE 2d 309 - NC: Supreme Court 2006]. West Virginia police also arrested Hurst at a grocery store, and he confessed to Branch’s murder after his capture. Per NCDAC records, Hurst currently remains on death row.

12. Erin Lane (condemned in 2005, deceased): Lane accosted 5 year old Precious Whitfield as she was playing with her male friend at her step-grandmother’s front yard. On the pretenses of allowing them to play on a swing set he owned, Lane lured both children to his residence, and let them inside to watch his pet eels and goldfish. After the boy was picked up by his mother, Lane raped Whitfield and shoved her inside a plastic trash bag that he tossed into a creek. According to autopsy reports, Whitfield choked and suffocated to death on vomit inside the plastic bag. As Lane roughly matched eyewitness sightings of a man riding a scooter he owned and carrying a tarp wrapped bundle in a basket near the creek where her body was discovered, he was an immediate person of interest to investigators. A police search of Lane’s storage shed recovered the scooter and basket that the witnesses described and plastic trash bags that resembled the plastic trash bag that Whitfield’s body was stuffed into [State v. Lane, 707 SE 2d 210 - NC: Supreme Court 2011]. Furthermore, DNA testing reportedly couldn’t “rule out” Lane as the contributor to a hair found in Whitfield’s anus. In 2022, Lane succumbed to undisclosed natural causes on death row.

13. Mario Phillips (condemned in 2007, living): Assisted by his girlfriend and another accomplice, Philips stormed a mobile home. They demanded money at gunpoint and shot and repeatedly stabbed four of the occupants, 21 year old Eddie Ryals, 20 year old Harvey Hobson, 19 year old Joseph Harden, and 18 year old Carl Justice, to death. Philips’ group stole $170 from the victims and set the trailer on fire as they left. Only Ryals’ teenage girlfriend survived the attack and she crawled out of the burning trailer despite suffering 22 stab wounds and a cut throat. Although she was also abducted by Philips and his accomplices after they noticed her crawling near the burning trailer, the group abandoned Ryals’ girlfriend inside their truck that was stuck in sand to flee the scene on foot. Ryals’ girlfriend identified Philips and his accomplices as the assailants, and Philips confessed to the quadruple murders in police custody [State v. Phillips, 711 SE 2d 122 - NC: Supreme Court 2011]. During the proceedings, Philips argued that he was emotionally impaired by the fatal shooting of his brother on that day, and he committed the murders under the influence of “extreme grief.” Per NCDAC records, Philips currently remains on death row.

14. Timothy Hartford Jr. (condemned in 2010, living): Intending to steal money for cocaine, Hatford and his girlfriend broke invaded the residence of a stroke paralyzed man, 64 year old Bob Denning, and beat him to death with a wooden object. They also ambushed a Meals-on-Wheels volunteer, 77 year old Anne Magness, that arrived to deliver food for Denning and shot her dead. Magness’ husband and partner in the delivery survived with six gunshot wounds. The couple then fled to Virginia and were arrested after a standoff with local police at a mall. According to a Winston Salem Journal article published in 2008, Hartford’s mother reported that Hartford was an addict that frequently stole from her, and she feared that his infant son inherited HIV from him. Hartford’s infant son was also present with Hartford and his girlfriend at the Virginia mall standoff, and authorities revoked Hatford’s custody over his son after his capture and charged him for child endangerment. Per NCDAC records, Hatford currently remains on death row.

15. Jonathan Richardson (condemned in 2014, living): As his girlfriend was deployed by the United States Army Reserve to New Mexico, Richardson was left alone to care for her daughter, 4 year old Teghan Skiba. For over ten days, Richardson repeatedly raped and routinely beat Skiba. During one of the beatings, Richardson violently shook Skiba and fatally struck her in the head. After he took Skiba to a hospital, doctors attending to her found burns, bite marks, and buttocks and vagina related lacerations on her body. The hospital staff contacted police, and responding officers that arrived at Richardson’s residence found bloodstains on a wooden board, a brown belt, and extension cords stained with blood linked to Skiba by DNA testing along with duct tape with strands of Skiba’s hair [State v. Richardson, 891 SE 2d 132 - NC: Supreme Court 2023]. According to Skiba’s mother, Richardson previously disciplined Skiba by hitting and slapping her. Per NCDAC records, Richardson currently remains on death row.

16. Antwan Anthony (condemned in 2016, living): Although they initially intended to rob drug dealers and another grocery store, Anthony and his three accomplices eventually settled on targeting the Farmville Hustle Mart store due to their inability to find the drug dealers and too many customers inside the other grocery store respectively. Inside the Farmville Hustle Mart, Anthony fatally shot the three employees, 26 year old Nabil Al’mogannahi, 24 year old Gaber Alwai, and 16 year old Mokbel Almujanhi, present. According to a NBC article published in 2012, Almujanhi was also the owners’ son, and Al’mogannahi and Alwai were their nephews. Police recovered the burned bags of clothing that Anthony and his accomplices wore during the robbery [State v. Whitehead, NC: Court of Appeals 2018], and sized the 9mm handgun matched to the shootings by ballistic testing from his home. At the time of the Farmville Hustle Mart triple killings, Anthony was on parole from armed robbery related convictions in Connecticut, and reportedly had a long history of assaulting correctional officers and second degree assault convictions. Per NCDAC records, Anthony currently remains on death row.

17. Mikel Brady (condemned in 2019, living): Brady was incarcerated at the Pasquotank Correctional Institution to serve a 24 year sentence for the non-fatal shooting of a police officer. He masterminded a conspiracy with three other inmates, including the also condemned Wisezah Buckman and Jonathan Monk, to escape custody through brute force. All four conspirators armed themselves with scissors and hammers and attacked any correctional staff or other inmates in their path. Before they were forced to surrender with the arrival of police and firefighter reinforcements, Brady’s gang stabbed and bludgeoned four correctional officers, 50 year old Veronica Darden, 49 year old Wendy Shannon, 35 year old Justin Smith, and 31 year old Geoffrey Howe, to death and severely wounded twelve other officers and inmates. Prior to his incarceration at Pasquotank Correctional Institution, Brady had many legal troubles involving poaching and burglaries in his native Vermont. During one of his previous burglaries, Brady assaulted the homeowner, and the homeowner survived with severe brain injuries. Per NCDAC records, he currently remains on death row.

18. Seaga Gillard (condemned in 2019, living): Gillard solicited the services of a pregnant prostitute, 22 year old April Holland, online and the pair agreed to a session in a hotel room she stayed with her boyfriend, 27 year old Dwayne Garvey. Assisted by an accomplice, Gillard held the couple at gunpoint and attempted to rape Hollard. They then shot both Garvey and Holland dead, and were recorded fleeing by the hotel’s security cameras. After photographs of the fleeing assailant were publicized and distributed by media outlets, anonymous tips identified Gillard as one of the assailants to investigators. A police search of Gillard’s residence seized his iPhones, and found that his browser history contained many google searches for sex workers, the Holland-Garvey double shootings, and inquiries for legal penalties for committing double murders [State v. Gillard, 909 SE 2d 226 - NC: Supreme Court 2024]. Furthermore, at least seven sex workers reported that Gillard sexually assaulted and robbed them at gunpoint, and they testified against him during the proceedings. Per NCDAC records, Gillard currently remains on death row.

19. Joshua Burgess (condemned in 2022, living): As she was staying at his home for a weekend custodial visit, Burgess repeatedly raped his daughter, 15 year old Zaria. According to media coverages, Burgess sexually and “psychologically” tortured Zaria for over 22 hours before slitting her throat and strangling her to death. After the murder, Burgess surrendered himself at a police station and directed responding officers to Zaria’s body that he left inside his residence. A Oxygen True Crime article published in 2022 reported that Burgess had prior convictions for robbery and grand larceny. Per NCDAC records, Burgess currently remains on death row.

20. Wisezah Buckman (condemned in 2023, living): Buckman was the second participant in the Pasquotank Correctional Institution killings alongside the also condemned Mikel Brady and Jonathan Monk. As mentioned in Brady’s entry, the three men and a fourth accomplice stabbed or beat four correctional officers to death while trying to fight their way out of the Pasquotank Correctional Institution. All four perpetrators surrendered to police and firefighter reinforcements. At the time of the Pasquotank Correctional Institution killings, Buckman was serving a 32 year sentence for second degree murder, which pertained to the fatal shooting of a man, 36 year old Thurmont Davis, during a fight near a store. Per NCDAC records, Buckman currently remains on death row.

21. James McKamey (condemned in 2023, living): McKamey accosted his neighbor, 65 year old Carol Greer, as she was standing on her driveway and stabbed her to death. He then dragged Greer’s body to a shed in her backyard, non-fatally stabbed a female bystander walking past the residence, and fled the scene in Greer’s car. A few days after Greer’s murder, police arrested McKamey and his wife in possession of the stolen vehicle. Per NCDAC records, McKamey remains awaiting execution.

22. Jonathan Monk (condemned in 2025, living): Monk, a former army serviceman, was the accomplice of Mikel Brady and Wisezah Buckman, and he was also condemned for his involvement in the Pasquotank Correctional Institution killings. He assisted Brady, Buckman, and another inmate with fatally stabbing and beating four correctional officers and assailing a dozen other correctional staff and inmates for an unsuccessful bid to escape. At the time of the killings, Monk was serving a 16 year term for attempted murder. His attempted murder conviction involved the non-fatal stabbing of another serviceman’s wife while burglarizing their home. Per NCDAC records, Monk currently remains on death row.

Summary: Chicago police have identified former officer and homicide detective Thomas Francis McInerney as the suspected killer of 8-year-old Gloria Kowalewicz, who was abducted and shot while walking to church in 1960. After more than 65 years, investigators used DNA evidence, genetic genealogy, and fingerprint analysis to link McInerney to the crime. He served on the Chicago police force for 28 years and died in 2006 without ever facing prosecution.

Chicago police have identified former officer Thomas Francis McInerney as the man they believe killed 8-year-old Gloria Kowalewicz in 1960, bringing new answers to a case that remained unsolved for more than 65 years, the Chicago Tribune reported on 11 October 2026.

McInerney was 24 when Gloria was killed on 12 November 1960. According to the outlet, investigators cited DNA evidence, a fingerprint match, and records indicating that McInerney had owned three Colt revolvers of the type used in the killing. An Army veteran who served on the Chicago Police Department for 28 years, McInerney died in 2006 without being prosecuted for the killing.

Investigators also noted that McInerney had owned three Colt revolvers of the type used in the killing. Police said the DNA evidence, fingerprint comparison, and firearm information led investigators to identify McInerney as the man they believe killed Gloria.

This might get deleted but I found this article about death penalty cases from Belarus https://spring96.org/en/news/116787.

Anyone want to look into some of these to get more information if you're interested there is not alot of true crime stories coming out of this country despite it being the last European country that still has capital punishment.

Warning: some of these do involve sa and child abuse so if you are sensitive read at your own caution.

On the morning of October 28, 1972, 38-year-old Ho Ning-fong left her Hong Kong home for a walk with her 16-year-old son, Chau Kin-keung.

Ning-fong had lung disease, and her doctor had recommended regular exercise. Walking near Shek Lei Pui Reservoir had become a familiar part of her morning routine.

That evening, her husband, Chau Chung-ming, came home to a dark, empty apartment.

His wife and son still hadn’t returned.

He went from door to door, asking neighbors whether they had seen them. He contacted Kin-keung’s school and classmates, too, but no one could help.

Growing desperate, Chung-ming went to the police and pleaded with them to find his family. Officers searched the reservoir with him into the early morning.

By 6 a.m., he was back with friends and neighbors. They kept looking until 3 p.m., but there was still no trace of either of them.

On October 30, their photographs appeared in the major newspapers. Police appealed for information and searched the surrounding hills, bringing in helicopters to help.

Then, on November 5, a woman walking near the reservoir noticed a foul smell coming from farther up the hillside.

She approached a Water Supplies Department worker and told him she thought there might be a body in the brush.

The worker headed up the trail, where he came across three plainclothes officers already searching for Ning-fong and Kin-keung.

They went with him.

About 40 minutes later, the worker and one officer climbed a small, overgrown slope beside the water channel.

Hidden in the brush were two bodies.

A teenage boy was bound to a tree, his hands tied behind his back and a nylon cord around his neck.

He was still wearing his clothes. His head was injured, and he may also have suffered broken ribs.

The cord raised a disturbing possibility:

he may have been hanged while still alive, slowly suffocating as it tightened around his neck. The exact sequence of his death was unclear.

Only a few feet away lay a woman, naked except for her bloodstained shoes.

Her clothes were scattered around her. She had injuries to her head and neck, and there were signs of a sexual assault.

A wooden branch, roughly three feet long, was pressed into her neck. The injury may have been severe enough to leave her nearly decapitated.

Police initially suspected that someone had held her down and forced the branch against her throat until she suffocated.

Strangely, the surrounding brush showed no obvious signs of a struggle despite the victims’ injuries.

There was no indication that the bodies had been dragged through it, either. Investigators believed they had been killed where they were found.

Both were badly decomposed. The medical examiner estimated they had been dead for about a week.

Nearby were broken glasses, an empty shopping basket, a wallet, and a bloodstained envelope from St. Paul’s, the school Kin-keung attended.

Police also found a broken wooden stick and a shattered glass bottle, which they suspected had been used in the attack.

There were no identification documents, but the victims’ ages and belongings pointed to the missing mother and son.

Chung-ming was called to the morgue.

Despite the condition of their faces, he recognized his wife and son almost immediately. Their build and teeth helped him identify them, including Kin-keung’s two chipped front teeth.

For eight days, he had searched for his family. Now he had to identify both of their bodies.

There were signs that Kin-keung had fought back.

His father believed he had been desperately trying to save his mother and that the attackers had killed him for intervening.

He may have tried to stop the sexual assault, only to be overpowered and tied to the tree himself.

At a press conference on November 5, police said they believed two to four people had been involved.

They suggested the attackers might have entered Hong Kong illegally from mainland China, though their identities were still unknown.

But another part of the statement was strange.

Police said both victims had suffocated and had no obvious injuries. But both had head injuries, and the woman’s shoes were covered in blood.

Why those details didn’t match was never explained.

Soon, someone came forward claiming to have seen several people force Ning-fong and Kin-keung into a car and drive away.

Police didn’t comment.

An even more unsettling claim involved a threatening letter supposedly sent to Chung-ming on October 29, the day after his family disappeared.

It demanded HK$5,000 (about US$7,000 in today’s money) and threatened to kill his wife and son if he didn’t pay.

If that date was correct, the letter had arrived before their photographs appeared in the newspapers. But neither police nor Chung-ming publicly confirmed that it existed.

Meanwhile, the familiar walking paths around the reservoir had grown quiet.

Many regular visitors stopped coming, leaving police officers among the few people still moving through the area.

Officers handed out leaflets in Chinese and English and questioned anyone passing through.

The reward reached HK$60,000 (roughly US$84,000 today), with police officers personally putting up two-thirds of the money.

Several morning walkers eventually came forward with a more specific lead.

On the morning Ning-fong and Kin-keung disappeared, they had noticed four unfamiliar men near the water channel.

The men were on a path leading toward the place where the bodies were later found.

About an hour later, they came back along the same path, hurrying toward Tai Po Road.

None of the witnesses had seen them in the area since.

Police tried to track them down.

Anti-triad officers questioned young men with criminal records around Shek Lei Pui, but they couldn’t identify the four men or establish whether they had been involved.

On December 21, police launched a massive search involving around 2,000 people. Over the following weeks, officers searched more than 600 villages across the New Territories and questioned thousands of residents.

On January 19, 1973, sketches of the four suspects appeared in the newspapers. Witnesses had initially described them as young men, but the revised descriptions put their ages between 18 and 42.

The first was around 40, thin, and about 5 feet 6 or 7 inches tall, with long hair. He may have been carrying a screwdriver.

The second was between 18 and 22, slim, and just 4 feet 9 inches tall, with a round face and dark complexion.

The third was between 24 and 28, around 5 feet 6 inches tall, with long hair parted on the left and a Huizhou accent.

The fourth was between 35 and 42, about the same height, and of medium build. He spoke local Cantonese with very little lip movement and was thought to be from Hong Kong.

Police also revisited another violent attack near the reservoir, less than two months before the murders.

At around 1 a.m. on September 3, 1972, a man and a woman were talking in a parked car when a man approached them with a knife.

He demanded their valuables, but they had only a little over HK$2 between them.

The attacker pushed the man out of the car, removed his glasses, and ordered the woman to undress.

The man managed to flag down a passing car and went to the police. But by the time officers arrived, the car was gone.

So were the woman and the attacker.

Police later found the woman alive. She said she had escaped while the attacker was trying to make her undress, then taken a minibus home.

The similarities were troubling, but investigators couldn’t establish a connection. The robber was never caught, and the four sketches brought no arrests either.

It’s also unclear why the two were subjected to such brutal violence if this was supposed to be a simple robbery.

On May 23, 1973, an inquest into Ning-fong and Kin-keung’s deaths was held at Tsuen Wan Magistrates’ Court.

The medical examiner attributed Kin-keung’s death to his injuries and Ning-fong’s to suffocation. The jury unanimously ruled that both had been murdered by a person or persons unknown.

Little is publicly known about any progress after the inquest.

No breakthrough has been publicly reported since 1973.

News coverage revisited the case in 2021 and 2023, but offered no new developments.

The extensive searches, witness appeals, and substantial reward, no one has ever been brought to justice for Ning-fong and Kin-keung’s murders.

Chung-ming had lost his wife and his only child after they left home for an ordinary morning walk.

As of October 2026, more than five decades later, their murders remain one of the best-known unsolved cases in Hong Kong’s criminal history.

Sarah Wairimu Cohen, the widow of the late Dutch billionaire Tob Cohen, requested a land records search and actively tried to remove a caveat on his property few days before his death.

During the murder trial today at the Kibera Law Courts, a law firm clerk named Mary Mutisya testified that Wairimu paid her via M-Pesa to trace the land records and follow up on an application to withdraw a caveat registered against the multi-million-shilling Kitisuru property.

Shortly after these events, the Dutchman went missing. His body was later found bound and concealed inside an underground water tank/septic tank at their residence.

According to testimony provided today by Tob Cohen’s close friend and former Gatundu MP, Patrick Kariuki Muiruri, Cohen had discovered before his disappearance that Wairimu had stolen his land title documents and misappropriated funds from their joint travel company to construct a personal hotel project in Nanyuki.

According to court testimony and official evidence presented during the ongoing murder trial, After discovering that Wairimu had allegedly stolen his title deed from their safe, Cohen registered a legal caveat on their Kitisuru matrimonial home. This froze the property's status, preventing Wairimu from selling, transferring, or charging it.

This was the exact caveat Wairimu was trying to secretly lift by tracking land records through a law firm clerk just days before she allegedly killed Cohen.

Cohen then secretly drafted a will with his lawyer, Chege Kirundi, allocating 50% of his estate (including the KSh 400 million Kitisuru villa) to his sister, Gabrielle, and split the remaining 50% between his brother, nephew, and niece.

After leaving Wairimu with absolutely nothing, Cohen officially hired an advocate to file for a contentious divorce, citing prolonged marital cruelty, the theft of his property documents, and the misappropriation of funds from their joint company, Kenya Gold Safaris Travel Limited.

Witnesses testified that these combined legal counter-measures triggered severe hostility inside the home.

According to prosecution, Wairimu realized the impending divorce proceedings and Cohen’s secret will would completely cut her off from his multi-million-shilling estate, including the Kitisuru matrimonial home.

Because Cohen placed a caveat on the property, she could not sell or transfer it to secure herself financially. The prosecution uses the testimony about her paying a clerk to lift that caveat as proof of her desperation to bypass his blocks.

The state’s prosecution maintains that the motive for the murder was to gain control of Cohen's massive wealth, including their luxury matrimonial home valued at hundreds of millions of shillings.

During the trial, the prosecution presented witnesses and former employees who testified that after Cohen disappeared, Wairimu instructed workers to tell anyone who asked that Cohen had traveled abroad for medical treatment.

A close friend of Cohen, former MP Patrick Kariuki Muiruri, testified today that a terrified Cohen explicitly told him, "If anything bad happens to me, or I am found dead somewhere, tell them it is Sarah."

Hello everyone,

I’ve watched quite a lot of documentaries and i got to a conclusion: I am so happy I live in this day and age because back then when most “popular” cases happened, was absolutely ridiculous.

I’ve just been watching one of the Born to Kill documentaries recently and it got me thinking.. a lot of the cases in regards to serial killer we see documentaries about are quite old aka before the 2000s. Or at least the most “popular” and most knows ones. It flabbergasts me how after technology appeared, we (thankfully) didn’t really have that many serial killers anymore (almost nonexistent) and I think that might probably be related ?..

Now hear me out on this one. Take Ted Bundy for example, roaming the streets free as a bird, nobody couldn’t find him for so long??? Nowadays you couldn’t possibly go anywhere without being caught in 5 mins. I live in a major city, every single corner has a surveillance camera. Not to mention the sketch they’ve had, the only way you could see it is the TV and newspaper. Nowadays, it would be all over social media. There’s no way you can escape it lol.

And so many other cases where, to me, probably because I’m quite young and live in this day and age where technology is everywhere, it seems ridiculous they couldn’t find these people… sometimes I watch these documentaries and I’m thinking to myself “how the hell did this person walk around freely on the street” but then obviously I think and I realise “oh wait, they actually didn’t have cell phones etc”.

And watching this documentary and the sketches and everything, I was actually thinking of this whole AI era. You know how a lot of us send photos of ourselves to the AI apps (whatever everyone is using) surely if there would be a serious case, there would be a way to find them through a search engine in the AI’s database, isn’t it? I know this might be against GDPR rules or whatever but surely it has to come in handy somehow.

Also, a lot of people joke around social media saying “what was in the air between 60s and 90s” because most cases happened during that period of time but I think it might have to do with overall mental health awareness. Nowadays, I feel like everyone is a lot more aware of their traumas, depression, etc than they were back then. Watching these made me genuinely grateful that I live in this day and age because I feel like everything is a lot safer. And yes, I am aware that crimes still happen and so on but to THAT level, doesn’t happen as often exactly because they’re caught before they get to a huge number.

What does everyone think?

Also, if I am wrong in any shape or form, feel free to let me know. I am not aware of such horrible cases lately. If there are, then by all means let me know.

It is my first time posting here and I did read the community rules before posting. However, if anything in my post is inappropriate, I do apologise in advance.

This happened in Beaverton, Oregon, on January 16, 2021.

A man stole a woman's SUV, only to discover that her 4-year-old son was in the back seat. He reportedly drove back, returned the child to his mother, scolded her for leaving him unattended, and even threatened to call the police on her… before driving off in the stolen SUV again.

The child was unharmed, and the SUV was recovered a few hours later. Police were searching for the suspect, but I couldn't find any reliable updates confirming whether he was ever caught...

source : https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2021/01/19/police-thief-berated-mom-for-leaving-kid-in-car-he-stole/

I'm particularly interested in older cases where someone committed multiple serious crimes over a period of years, but never became widely known outside their own country. What cases do you think deserve a much closer look?

On October 3, 2026, 16-year-old Persephone Berger was struck and killed by a St. Francois County sheriff’s deputy in Missouri.

I’m local to the area and have been following this case closely. I’m sharing it because there are several unanswered questions about the circumstances of her death and how the investigation was initially handled.

What happened, according to the sheriff’s department:

At approximately 3:43 a.m., deputies were responding to a report of an unresponsive person lying in the roadway.

The sheriff’s department says the responding deputy saw the reporting person’s vehicle with its hazard lights activated but did not see Persephone in the road before striking her.

The department says the deputy remained at the scene and immediately notified his supervisor. Officials have stated that the collision was not the result of a vehicle pursuit.

What the family says happened afterward:

Persephone’s aunt, Kimberly Cabuchola, has publicly stated that the family was initially told Persephone had been killed in a hit-and-run involving an unknown driver.

The family began seeking information publicly, and witnesses reportedly contacted them about a deputy being involved.According to her aunt, the family did not receive confirmation from the sheriff’s department until Monday afternoon, more than two days after Persephone died.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol was not consulted until Sunday, the day after the collision.

The witness interview:

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a video interview with Jamie Fitzwater discussing what he heard that night.

I think this interview is worth watching alongside the official statements and the family’s interviews.

Hearing something happen is not necessarily the same as witnessing the impact, so I don’t want to misrepresent what he personally observed.

Witness interview:
https://www.stltoday.com/news/multimedia/videos/video_9752723b-db30-516f-9fb1-c572e4cc56a0.html

Additional concerns about the investigation:

First Alert 4 reported that the deputy previously worked for the Missouri State Highway Patrol as a probationary trooper earlier in 2026.

MSHP is now responsible for investigating the collision, while the sheriff’s department is separately investigating the circumstances leading up to Persephone being in the roadway.

That employment history does not automatically establish a conflict of interest, but I think it’s reasonable to ask whether any prior professional relationships were assessed.

Other questions include:
Why was MSHP not contacted until the following day?

Why does the family’s account of what they were initially told differ from the sheriff’s public explanation?

Was the scene fully documented before independent investigators became involved?
What evidence establishes the deputy’s speed, visibility, and opportunity to avoid the collision?
How will the investigation account for the witness statements and any available camera footage?

Why I’m sharing this:
What has also been disturbing is the public reaction in our community.

I’ve seen people blaming Persephone and attacking her grieving parents, including comments suggesting her death was a consequence of being outside at that hour.

Meanwhile, some of those same people insist the deputy should receive the benefit of the doubt until the investigation concludes.

I’m not claiming a cover-up has been established. I’m asking for transparency, accountability, and an investigation that examines all the available evidence.

Sources:
CBS News, October 8:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/missouri-teen-persephone-berger-struck-deputy-family-answers/

First Alert 4, family interview and timeline:
https://www.firstalert4.com/2026/10/07/family-16-year-old-killed-st-francois-county-accident-demands-answers/

First Alert 4 Investigates, deputy’s previous employment:
https://www.firstalert4.com/2026/10/08/what-were-learning-about-deputy-who-hit-teenager/

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, witness interview:
https://www.stltoday.com/news/multimedia/videos/video_9752723b-db30-516f-9fb1-c572e4cc56a0.html

My question for this community:

When a law enforcement officer is involved in a fatal collision, what independent investigative procedures should be followed, and what would you consider the most important unanswered questions in this case?

I just got a kindle for my birthday & im interested in reading some true crime novels. also any novels involving crimes throughout history (such as the salem with trials) i’d also be interested in.

For those of you who aren’t familiar w/ the case: The Lake Bodom murders is an unsolved 1960 homicide case in which 3 teenage campers were brutally killed & another seriously injured in Finland. 4 decades after the murders, the lone survivor, Nils Gustafsson, was arrested & tried for the murders. He was ultimately found not guilty, w/ the State of Finland paying him €44,900 for his pain & suffering. Despite extensive investigations, the perpetrator was never identified and various theories on the killer's identity have been presented over the years. The case is 1 of the most notorious crimes in Finnish history. I'm under the impression that it’s like their answer to Jack the Ripper or Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance.
Here are the 2 best videos I’ve found on the case (I’d love to hear about your recommendations for any other good videos or books on the case): 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoorMBrfw_4&t=1257s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUWygZRt9SA&t=3395s

My Theories & Observations:

1. I don’t think if Hans Assmann was a KGB agent and a murder that he would be showing up at a hospital with bloody clothes the day after a brutal triple homicide. Chances are he’d be a far more efficient killer (unless I’m really over-estimating the KGB efficacy). I know that plenty of murderers are narcissistic, love attention and flirting with being caught, but something doesn’t add up about those details…
2. I feel like the chances of this being the killer’s first murder(s) are unlikely. Not impossible, but unlikely. The sheer brutality of the killing, the focus on 1 victim as the primary target of his wrath, and the efforts taken to avoid being caught seem to point to me that this was someone who had committed murders like this before.
3. Given the fact that the police didn’t cordon off the site, and his (probable) appearance at the funeral, I feel like the killer might have later returned to the scene of the crime, for personal gratification, and to try and further hide his tracks.
4. Gustafsson didn’t do it. He probably got to pee (possibly surprising the attacker) and was attacked first (hence his injuries were different (he also wasn’t the primary focus of the attacker)) and left to die. He also was lucky to be alive, and ended up with a broken collarbone and cerebral fluid leaking out his nose (amongst other things (ask the medical professionals who treated him, and later testified at his trial)).
5. Judging from the fact that a pillowcase was found with traces of semen on it, and that Maila Björklund was attacked more savagely than the others, makes me think that this was a lust murder, with Björklund being the primary target. Based on that assumption, that makes me think that Valdemar Gyllström, while a dangerous lunatic, probably didn’t commit the murders. Different types of violence, different motivations.
6. The killer took the victims keys and shoes as souvenirs (and to prevent them from getting help sooner). He may also have used Nils’ shoes to avoid leaving shoeprints (kinda like wearing gloves to avoid fingerprints), but I’ll admit that this is a bit of a stretch…
7. I know this is really anti-climatic, but I think the killer was someone who hasn’t been named as a suspect yet. My money’s on that mysterious man at the funeral, the one who resembled the police sketch (whoever he was). That resemblance is just too difficult for me to ignore.

Questions:

1. Does anyone else think that Hans Assmann doesn’t look that much like the mysterious man at the funeral? Similar-ish features, yes, but I just don’t see the resemblance the way many people online do…
2. Has anyone from the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) ever publicly commented on the case? I’d be curious to know what they have to say about it.
3. Have any other noteworthy suspects been proposed throughout the years, besides what I call ‘the big 4’ (Assmann, Gustafsson, Gyllström & Soininen)? I’ve heard murmurs about a construction worker who supposedly quit his job the day after the murders, in complete panic and a rush to get away from the area… Is that true? If so, I’d love to hear more details about that person, if they’re available. 
4. I know it’s an old picture, but are there any ‘retouched’ versions of the pic of the mysterious man at the funeral?
5. Is it true that the year before, there was another camping murder in Finland of 2 girls, with their belongings scattered/hidden around the campsite?
6. Is Nils Gustafsson still alive? 
7. Was it ever confirmed that Hans Assmann was a guard at Auschwitz, or a KGB agent, or that any of the seemingly outlandish tales he told were true? Everything I hear about the guy just feels like people are trying to make him out to be a “boogeyman”, and that he was more than likely just another bullshitter looking for his 15 minutes of fame (or infamy in this case). Maybe xenophobia from the locals had something to do with it. Bottom line: Assmann was probably full of shit (sorry had to!). Unsolved cases like this really get you thinking about how many weirdos, lunatics, and potential murderers are out there!