Background: Gary Ridgway remains one of the most prolific serial killers in history. He haunted police for years, earning the nickname “The Green River Killer” when investigators uncovered five of his victims near Green River. As a child Ridgway was determined to have a low IQ and was the target of abuse at school and at home. At only 16 years old, Ridgway exhibited violent behavior, stabbing a 6-year-old boy. Sexual Depravities: Mary Ridgway, Gary’s mother, often told her son inappropriate stories about her work in the men’s section of a department store.
On August 18, 1992, police were invited to a burning home in Somerville, Texas, where they found the bodies of 45-year-old Bobbie Davis, her 16-year-old daughter, and her four grandchildren, ages 4 to 9. Davis and the grandchildren had been stabbed, beaten and strangled. Davis’s daughter, Nicole, had been fatally shot. A few days later, police arrested Robert Carter, 26, the father of one of the grandchildren, after they noticed he had burns and bandages at the children’s funeral.
Over about 20 months from 1962 to 1964, 11 women ages 19 to 85 were brutally murdered in Boston and in nearby cities, many were sexually assaulted and killed in their homes. Anna Slesers, Evelyn Corbin, Helen Blake, Ida Irga, Jane Sullivan, Nina Nichols, Patricia Bissette, Sophie Clark, Beverly Samans, Joann Marie Graff, Mary Brown, and Mary Sullivan were all victims of the killer known as “The Boston Strangler.” Albert DeSalvo is the name that’s most associated with the Boston Strangler cases, and although he was never convicted of any of the murders, he did confess to them. Mr. DeSalvo was killed in 1973 in prison, where he was sentenced to life for unrelated sexual assault and robbery charges. During the 1960’s when the murders were first being discovered, the technology was not as
William Mullins-Johnson, a victim of wrongful conviction, spent more than 11 years in prison for a crime that never occurred, due to egregious errors made by the physicians who conducted the post-mortem examination. On June 26, 1993, twenty-two-year-old William Mullins-Johnson, or Bill for short, babysat his four-year-old niece, Valin. Valin had been running a fever earlier that day before she went to bed. The next morning Valin’s mother went into her daughter’s room and found Valin dead.
Today, there is nearly a total of three thousand serial killers and ten thousand victims of their violent rampage in the United States. Part of those ten thousand victims are the eight, casualties of Dayton Leroy Rogers, aka The Molalla Forest Killer. Although their deaths were unfair and tragic, Roger’s experience allowed for more information to be contributed to help solve and prevent future crimes. Born in Idaho on September 30, 1953 and quickly moved to Oregon, Rogers was enrolled into a life full of crime, already shooting cars with BB guns in the seventh grade. By the time he was nineteen his desire for crime was fulfilled when he reached over to kiss a girl on their second date, but “according to police reports, he stabbed her in
On June 1,1985, Greg Wilhoit’s wife, Kathy, was found murdered, leaving their two daughters of four and fourteen months old left in the care of their father. The small necessity of having a family was abruptly altered when Kathy was murdered, and even more so when Wilhoit was falsely convicted by evidence of a bite mark, matched to him by two dental “experts.” To worsen the situation, Wilhoit’s lawyer, who once was one of the best, fell into alcoholism, resulting in his not preparing a defense, and showing up to the trial drunk. Wilhoit said, “"The judge told me I was to die by lethal injection. Then he said, 'But if that fails, we'll kill you by electrocution.
On September 13, 1983, Delbert Bakers was found dead at the school of cosmetology he owns in Auburndale, Florida. Bakers suffered three gunshot wounds and throat slashed. During the early stages of investigation, a witness claimed that Baker was seen with two men shortly before being murder. Police didn’t consider taking the tip seriously since the person was a convicted felon with prior history of drug abuse and was also a police informant. A $5000 reward was posted for any information that would lead to the suspect behind the murder of Delbert Bakers.
In 1910, Fish attacked Thomas Bedden in Wilmington, Delaware and in 1919, he stabbed an individual with an intellectual disability in Georgetown, Washington, D.C (Berry-Dee, 2011). On Tuesday, July 15th in 1924, Fish abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered Francis McDonnell who was just 8 years old at the time (Berry-Dee, 2011). This was the first of the three murders that Fish admitted to (and was later found guilty of committing). Fish’s second murder was that of 4 year old Billy Gaffney (Berry-Dee, 2011). The murder occurred on February 11th 1927, and it was this particular case that Fish was given the nickname “the boogeyman” by the media (Berry-Dee, 2011).
The ages for the victims ranged anywhere from 12 to 28 years old (Chaleff, 1988). Buono and Bianchi would would strangle the victims to death and many of the autopsies reported instances of aggressive torture (Chaleff, 1988). The killings were slow in procedure to ensure that the victim had felt every ounce of pain (Cable et al., 2012). Buono would kill frequently and the murders were random; this caused moral panic throughout Los Angeles (Chaleff, 1988). The cousins had also experimented with lethal injection (Cable et al., 2012).
Gary Kinder’s book, Victim: The Other Side of Murder, offers a disturbing record of the murder and attempted murder of five individuals in a murder/robbery planned by an individual who should have never been free to commit such a heinous crime to begin with. Kinder’s book allows the reader to essentially get into the heads of the people who must experience the fallout of this devastating event, and offers a unique perspective on how the indirect victims of crime can be impacted just as direct victims are. The purpose of this paper is to examine the experiences of a father, Byron Nasibitt and his son Cortney Naisbitt; one an indirect victim of crime and the other, a direct victim, both of whom were forced to deal with the devastating effects
This paper is about the homicide of Jose and Mary Louise Menendez in California in 1989 by their own sons Erik and Lyle Menendez. This paper will be discussing the investigation in the homicide, how the detectives come up with the probable cause that the brothers committed this crime, the trials, and the sentences of the brothers. This paper discussed the warrant for the brother’s therapist to use to tapes and the notes in the court about what the brothers confess about the murder, the arrest warrants, and the different of the two trial. Keyword: investigation, homicide, detectives, court Background José was born on May 16, 1944 in Havana, Cuba, the youngest son of three children to an upper-middle class family. Then in 1959 his family
Kathy Gonzalez was sentenced to ten years after agreeing to plead guilty and testify falsely to her alleged role in the crime of raping and murdering a 68-year-old woman in Beatrice, Nebraska. The case all started on the night of February 5th, 1985; Helen Wilson was in her apartment, where she lived alone, when she was sexually assaulted, stabbed, and suffocated to death. Semen, blood, along with fingerprints, were all found and collected at the crime scene. A car was seen near Wilson’s home the night of the crime, an Oldsmobile Cutlass similar to one driven by Gonzalez’s co-defendant Thomas Winslow, it was searched and eventually returned. Investigative officers were aware of similar crimes in the neighborhood in the summer of 1983, which is approximately 18 months before this attack, attempted sexual assaults of elderly women within four blocks of Wilson’s home.
One such case was the case of Kenneth Bianchi, also known as “The Hillside Strangler.” Between October 1977 and January 1978, Bianchi and his cousin raped and killed 15 women, leaving them on the hillsides of Glendale-Park area. Bianchi was arrested in October of 1979. During his trial, he attempted an insanity defense, insisting that an “alter” named Steve had done the killing, however, his argument didn’t stand up to experts and Bianchi later changed his plea to guilty to avoid the death penalty. Another case in which the argument has flopped was in the case of Ricardo Caputo.
(Victim’s son wants clemency for death row inmate) However, not all families feel this way, which is why the death penalty provides more closure and reassurance. In 1978, Darrell Keith Rich violently and sexually assaulted nine women and young girls, leaving two bodies in a dump. The families of the victims said, “‘We've all had 22 years of
