cold case – CrimeFeed

The murder trial of Quinton Tellis in connection with the horrific burning death of 19-year-old Jessica Chambers has begun in Mississippi.

The trial, which began on Tuesday, will reportedly last up to two weeks, and dozens of witnesses are expected to testify.

LawNewz is carrying a livestream of the court proceedings — and several local news outlets, including the Clarion-Ledger, are also providing links to the trial.

Chambers had been set on fire on a rural back road in Courtland, Mississippi, on the night of December 6, 2014, when paramedics and police found her. She was still alive and conscious, but died a few hours later in the hospital.

Officials say that Chambers was last seen walking toward a gas station around 90 minutes before her death.

During opening remarks, prosecutors alleged that Tellis — whom Jessica’s family were aware knew Jessica for around 12 days — tried to suffocate her after the two had sex in her car that night. Tellis then doused Chambers’ car with gasoline and set both it and her on fire, according to the prosecution.

“When we start showing you the number of lies that he told and how he had to when he’s confronted with the physical evidence and the cell phone data, there was no way out for him,” DeSoto County, Mississippi, District Attorney John Champion said.

But Tellis’ defense attorney Darla Palmer argued that her client could not have been responsible, because he was at a store purchasing a pre-paid debit card at the time of the attack. Palmer also stressed the fact that Jessica allegedly told police that another person attacked her as she was dying.

“She said, ‘Eric set me on fire,’ ” Palmer argued in court. “She didn’t say any other name, she didn’t mention any other person. She said, ‘Eric did this to me.’ … She didn’t know the person’s last name. She knew Quinton. Quinton Tellis is his name.”

Champion said Chambers’ body was so damaged from burns that she may not have been able to speak.

Tellis was indicted in her death in February 2016, and is also suspected in the death of a second woman. If convicted, he faces life in prison without parole.

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Main photo: Jessica Chambers [FBI]; Quinton Tellis [Ouachita Parish Sheriff]

The post Here’s How To Watch The Jessica Chambers Murder Trial Live appeared first on CrimeFeed.

IDAHO FALLS, ID — Christopher Tapp, who spent 20 years in prison before being cleared earlier this year of a 1996 murder, is back behind bars again.

Police say that Tapp has been charged with two misdemeanor counts related to a domestic-violence incident. Shortly after 1 P.M. Monday, Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office deputies were called to a home on O’Bryant Street in Idaho Falls on a report of a disturbance.

Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sergeant Bryan Lovell said that Tapp and his wife got into an altercation that had turned physical.

“During the altercation, it was reported that Mrs. Tapp attempted to get a cell phone to call police, but was prevented from doing do by Mr. Tapp. Deputies also observed minor injuries to Mrs. Tapp at the scene,” he said.

Tapp, 41, was arrested and booked into the Bonneville County Jail for misdemeanor domestic battery and misdemeanor interruption of a telecommunication device.

Stacy Tapp, Chris’s wife, identified herself on the EastIdahoNews.com Facebook page as the second party involved in the case. She claimed that the incident was a “misunderstanding” and said law enforcement was out to get her husband.

She wrote in a post:

“Everyone is asking where I am…well I’m still here and still standing by what I said earlier about nothing happened. I’m not afraid of my husband nor have I been. When I said I was scared/affrad [sic] I said I was scared of the situation and what everyone has been saying. I told him I was scared that people are beleieveing [sic] what everyone is reporting. He never told me what to say rather the opposite. He told me to tell the truth and that’s what I’m doing. We both are truly the only ones that know what happened and both if us will tell you NOTHING HAPPEND [sic]. I never said I was gonna call the cops again rather the opposite I told him I have nothing to call them about. Again he is the one that called just to defuse a situation. Every married couple has their issues and has an argument here or there we are just like any married couple. I truly love him not affriad [sic] of him nor am I afraid of when he gets out.”

Christopher Tapp was originally convicted of murdering 18-year-old Angie Dodge after she was found sexually assaulted and murdered in her Idaho Falls apartment in June of 1996. After being interrogated for hours, he eventually confessed — but DNA evidence taken from the scene didn’t match Tapp or any of the other suspects in the case.

For years, groups including the Idaho Innocence Project and even the victim’s mother, Carol Dodge, advocated on Tapp’s behalf. Last year, an Idaho judge vacated Tapp’s rape conviction and re-sentenced him to time served.

Tapp was released in March 2016.

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Main photo: Christopher Tapp [Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office]

The post Christopher Tapp Is Back In Jail On Domestic Violence Charges appeared first on CrimeFeed.

GARY, IN — On October 18, 2014, Darren Deon Vann was arrested for the murder of 19-year-old sex worker Afrikka Hardy at a Motel 6 in Hammond, Indiana.

When Hardy opened the door of Room 158 the day before, she had no way of knowing that her client was a serial killer who had already brutally murdered at least six other women.

Vann later told police that after sex with Hardy turned rough, he strangled her with his hands first and then with a brown extension cord he had brought with him. He then placed Hardy in a bathtub, threw used condoms on her body, and fled the scene.

Police were able to trace Vann’s SUV from motel security footage, and they arrested him a few hours later. But this was only the beginning of Vann’s horrific story.

Soon after his arrest, Vann confessed to killing more women, and then took police on a gruesome tour through several abandoned homes in nearby Gary where he had stashed the bodies of six other victims.

But some authorities believe that there could be more victims out there — and there are large gaps in knowledge about Vann’s history and previous addresses.

Vann was born on March 25, 1971 in Gary, Indiana. While in his 20s, he was married a woman 30 years his senior in Texas.

Public records show that Vann was stationed at a military base in Cherry Point, North Carolina, from 1991 to 1993.

He had multiple addresses listed in the decades that followed, but according to voter registrations compiled by The Daily Beast, Vann could have been in the Austin, Texas, area at the time of the murders of four women strangled there from 1996 to 2006.

Vann has a long criminal history of violence, including arrests for domestic violence and a six-year conviction for raping a prostitute in Austin. His first major brush with the law came in April 2004, when he he threatened to burn down or blow up the home of a man who he believed was sheltering his girlfriend. After holding his girlfriend hostage with a can of gasoline and lighter, he spent 90 days behind bars.

Thomas Hargrove, the journalist who wrote to authorities in Gary in 2010 to warn them of a possible serial killer, began collecting FBI homicide data as part of a project for Scripps News Service. He found a pattern: Women in Gary were being strangled to death by an unknown killer or killers beginning in the mid-1990s until 2007 — when Vann was sent to prison.

None of the murders have been solved, and police in Texas have so far refused to discuss whether they believe that any of the strangulation murders could possibly be connected to Vann.

Hardy’s mother, Lori Townsend, told The Daily Beast that Hammond Police Detective Shawn Ford, who heard Vann’s confession, told her at her daughter’s memorial: “He’s evil. He’s pure evil. He has no remorse. He has no soul.”

Vann’s other victims included Anith “Deja” Jones, 35, on whom he used the same brown extension cord to kill that he used on Hardy.
In another home, Ford found the badly decomposed body of 28-year-old Teira Batey. They later located the mummified body of Tracy Martin, 41 — and an autopsy later found that Vann killed Martin by choking her with a necklace she was wearing. Vann told Ford that he “toyed with” Martin and “made her suffer.”

The final three victims were Cristine “Casper” Williams — who Vann said he beat and strangled to death over $40 worth of crack — and Tanya Gatlin and Sonya Billingsley, who were both found dead in a flophouse.

Regarding a motive, Vann told Ford that he was angry and felt that he had been unjustly sent to prison in the first place — since he paid the prostitute that he had raped.

According to The Daily Beast, no other women in Gary were strangled to death until 2014 — after Vann was released from prison.

Authorities say a gag order prevents anyone in Gary from discussing Vann’s case. His trial is set to begin in March 2018.

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Main photo: Darren Deon Vann [Lake County Sheriff’s Office]

The post “Gary Strangler”: Could There Be More Victims Of Indiana Serial Killer Out There? appeared first on CrimeFeed.

A convicted murderer has claimed to be the serial killer behind the deaths of 11 adolescent girls who disappeared from the state of Texas in the 1970s.

Edward Harold Bell provided detailed descriptions of his victims, whom he referred to as the “Eleven that went to Heaven,” and the sites where he buried them.

Bell, 72, is behind bars serving a 70-year sentence for the murder of a former Marine in 1978. His victim, Larry Dickens, confronted Bell after he exposed himself and began masturbating in front of a group of girls in Pasadena — and Bell shot him dead.

In a series of prison interviews with the The Houston Chronicle in 2011, Bell claimed that he had killed 11 girls. Bell’s alleged victims include 15-year-olds Debbie Ackerman and Maria Johnson, who disappeared while hitchhiking on November 15, 1971.

Edward Harold Bell Claims He’s At The Center Of A Vast Government Conspiracy from Houston Matters on Vimeo.

Their abductor tied them up, stripped them from the waist down, and left their bodies in a river.

At the time, Bell lived in an apartment on a beach and had bought a surf shop that both girls were known to have visited. The other victims include Sharon Shaw and Rhonda Renee Johnson, both 14, 13-year-old Colette Anise Wilson, and Gloria Ann Gonzales, 19.

Maria Johnson [Handout]

Bell also confessed to allegedly killing a reddish-blonde Houston teen named “Pitchford“‘ — who medical records have identified as Kimberly Rae Pitchford, a 16-year-old who never returned home after taking a driver’s-education class at her Houston high school. Her body was found in a thicket in January 1973.

According to excerpts from letters Bell wrote confessing the alleged crimes, which were obtained by the Houston Chronicle, Bell stated that a brainwashing program started by his father forced him to “be a flasher,” become a sex offender, and rape and kill girls.

Bell reportedly first sent prosecutors in Texas letters containing his confession in 1998. Investigators have long suspected that Bell, a well-known sex offender who was caught exposing himself to several young girls in the 1970s, may be involved in more crimes — but prosecutors have so far declined to press charges due to lack of evidence.

After murdering Larry Dickens, Bell was released on bail. For almost 20 years, he was on the lam in Mexico and Central America. During this time he guided dive trips, lived on a boat, and assumed the identity of a dead cousin. He also married, for the third time.

In the early nineties, Matthew McConaughey played Dickens in an episode of Unsolved Mysteries.

Matthew McConaughey Oscar Worthy Acting on Unsolved Mysteries – watch more funny videos

Bell was finally captured in Panama in 1993.

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Main photo: Edward Harold Bell [Texas Department of Criminal Justice]

The post “Eleven That Went To Heaven”: Imprisoned Killer Claims He Murdered 11 Missing Girls appeared first on CrimeFeed.

Senator Ted Cruz has caused a stir on Twitter after posting an image of a secret code penned by the unidentified Zodiac serial killer to the police.

Zodiac Wanted Poster [San Francisco Police Department]

Conspiracy theorists and comedians have stated that Cruz could be the Zodiac for years, based on his alleged resemblance to the famous sketch of the Zodiac killer. Liberal activists capitalized on the meme during the 2016 presidential election.

The latest joke started on Wednesday after Senator Ben Sasse accidentally spilled Dr. Pepper on Cruz during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

MEMO TO OFFICE:

Please place a picture of @BenSasse above the @drpepper fridge in our lobby.

He is now cut off. https://t.co/C9tj5wQ6tD pic.twitter.com/6PH6HCFSoJ

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) October 18, 2017

Cruz then tweeted a picture of a fridge full of soda and announced that the senator from Nebraska had been “cut off.”

Sasse responded by joking that he was wearing a shirt reading “Lee Harvey Oswald Was Framed” when the beverage accident occurred — Cruz has also been subject to rumors that his father played a role in former president John F. Kennedy’s death.

Despite the fact that Cruz was not born when the first Zodiac killings took place, when questioned some of the theory’s defenders respond by saying that Cruz has “never denied it.”

pic.twitter.com/CRKdrSDWes

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) October 18, 2017

Over the years, the Zodiac jokes and Internet memes have continued to multiply — and in 2016, Cruz’s wife Heidi stated that her husband was definitely not the elusive serial killer in a Vanity Fair profile.

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Main photo: Ted Cruz [Wikimedia Commons] and the symbol used by the Zodiac Killer to sign his correspondence [Wikimedia Commons]

The post Ted Cruz Encourages Killer Conspiracy Theory By Tweeting Zodiac Cipher appeared first on CrimeFeed.

SHASTA LAKE, CA — It’s been almost exactly a year since California “supermom” Sherri Papini was allegedly abducted while jogging near her home in Redding – and then freed by her captors three weeks later.

On Wednesday, the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office released new details in the mysterious case, including FBI sketches of the suspects (above). They also announced that the DNA of two other people was found on Papini when she was discovered partially clothed and shackled alongside Interstate 5 on Thanksgiving Day last year. Investigators revealed that they collected male DNA from the clothing that Papini was wearing when she was found — and female DNA on Papini’s body.

Papini told police that her kidnappers covered their faces and usually had a bag over her head, but she described them as two women who spoke Spanish most of the time. She said that one of them had long curly hair, pierced ears, thin eyebrows, and a thick accent.

The second captor was described as being older, with thick eyebrows and straight black hair with some gray.

Sherri Papini [Shasta County Sheriff’s Office]

The department also revealed that Papini’s texts with a man in Detroit, Michigan, are being investigated. Officers traveled to the Michigan city on November 9 last year, according to the Redding Record Searchlight. Authorities revealed that Papini had planned to meet the man when he was in California a few days before her abduction. Police later said that he was not involved in the incident.

Papini vanished on November 2, 2016, while she was out for a jog in the small town of Mountain Gate. Her husband, Keith Papini, reported her missing after he realized that she had not picked her children up from daycare — and her cell phone and headphones were found around a mile away.

She was found three weeks later on the side of Interstate 5 in Yolo County with her hair cut, a chain around her waist, and hose clamps around her wrists. According to her family she was “emaciated” and suffered multiple bruises, a branding, and a broken nose. Papini was rescued after flagging down a driver who dialed 911. Police are reportedly still unsure of a motive for the apparent kidnapping.

Authorities have said that Keith Papini passed a lie-detector test related to his wife’s disappearance. After his wife disappeared, he launched a GoFundMe account to raise funds for the search. Managed by his sister Suzanne, who now lives in Long Beach, California, the Bring Sherri Home Safe appeal eventually raised a total of $49,070 – just short of the $50,000 goal. It is not clear what has happened to the money.

The case is still under investigation, and anyone with information is asked to call the Sacramento FBI office at (916) 746-7000.

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Main image: Sketches of suspects in Sherri Papini case [FBI]

The post “Supermom” Kidnapping Update: Male & Female DNA Found On Sherri Papini appeared first on CrimeFeed.

MONTICELLO, MA — Police say a New York woman who vanished 42 years ago has been found alive at a nursing home in Massachusetts.

The Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office says that Flora Stevens, then 36, disappeared in August 1975 after her husband dropped her off for a doctor’s appointment at a Catskills hospital. When he returned to pick her up, she had vanished.

Flora Harris [Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office]

Over the years, police investigated the case but were never able to locate Stevens.

In September, New York State Police were working on a different cold case when they found someone using Stevens’ social security number at an assisted-living residence in Lowell, Massachusetts.

The detectives visited the residence and confirmed the person was Stevens, who now uses the last name Harris.

Police say Harris has lived there since 2001, is suffering from dementia and apparently has no living relatives.

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Main photo: Flora Harris with Sullivan County detectives Ed Clouse and Rich Morgan [Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office]

The post Cold Case Solved: Woman Missing Since 1975 Found In Nursing Home appeared first on CrimeFeed.

HUNTSVILLE, TX — On November 1, 1980, the nude body of a girl, estimated to be between the ages of 14 and 20, was found lying face-down by a passing truck driver on Interstate Highway 45.

The driver called police, and investigators estimated that the victim had been dead for around six hours, placing the time of death at about 3 A.M.

The victim, who would eventually be known as the “Walker County Jane Doe,” had been strangled with pantyhose — and fragments of the hose were lodged in her vaginal cavity, along with her underwear.

She also had multiple bruises, a visible bite mark on her right shoulder, and had been sexually assaulted with a large, blunt instrument. It was not known if she had been raped, since there was no evidence at the scene.

Police say that the victim was between five feet and five foot five inches in height, and weighed between about 105 and 115 pounds.

Her eyes were a hazel color, and her hair was long and reddish brown. She had a distinctive scar above her right eyebrow, and her right nipple was inverted.

Investigators believe that the young woman was from a middle-class household, due to the fact that she had evidence of dental work. Her ears were pierced, and her toenails had been painted pink.

Police recovered a pair of high-heeled red leather sandals with light brown straps that she had been seen carrying from the scene, but the rest of her clothing was missing — except for a rectangular brown pendant containing a smoky blue or brown glass stone on a thin gold chain necklace, which was found around her neck.

Inmates and staff members at the Ellis Prison Farm were shown photos of the victim, but none could identify her. Despite a lengthy investigation, police were unable to locate a match for her.

On January 16, 1981, the body was buried at Oakwood Cemetery, located in the town she was found, under a donated tombstone.

Over the years, several theories have been proposed as to the identity of her killer: Some believe that she was killed by the same perpetrator as a victim nicknamed “Orange Socks,” who had been murdered almost exactly a year before “Doe” and found in Georgetown, Texas.

Others have named serial killer Henry Lee Lucas as a suspect, but the bite marks on the victim’s shoulder could not be matched to Lucas’ dental charts.

Some have even voiced their belief that the girl may have been murdered by a female.

Over the years, several forensic facial reconstructions of Walker County Jane Doe have been created, including two from the National Center For Missing & Exploited Children.

The remains were exhumed in 1999 to obtain DNA samples, and investigators have reached out to the public through various news and television reports in hopes to generate leads.

In November 2015, the case was officially reopened — and in December of the same year, a photograph surfaced, taken in 1980, of a 14-year-old white female, 5 foot four in height, a possible runaway named “Cathleen” or “Kathleen” from Corpus Christi, Texas.

The photograph of Cathleen came from a collection of a brother and sister who were 12 and 10 at the time and who had met her in a motel in Beeville, Texas, in summer 1980. The siblings believe that the girl they met could be the Walker County Jane Doe, and have posted images of her on the Facebook page, “Who Was Walker County Jane Doe?”

To this day, she has yet to be identified.

If you are in search of a missing person, make sure to enter their information into the database of the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

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Facebook – Who Was Walker County Jane Doe?

Main photo: Most recent reconstruction of the victim by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

The post A Look Back: Who Was The “Walker County Jane Doe”? appeared first on CrimeFeed.

At around 10 P.M. on Thursday, May 3, 2007, three-year-old Madeleine McCann vanished without a trace while on vacation with her family in Portugal.

Madeline went missing from her bed at the now-infamous address of apartment 5A on Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva as her parents, Gerry and Kate, dined with friends at a restaurant nearby. It’s been 10 years since the little girl seemed to vanish into thin air — and no trace of her has been found since.

The mystery of Madeline’s disappearance has made headlines around the world over the years, and police and other experts have followed countless leads.

Today marks the 10 year anniversary of Madeleine McCann's disappearance I have thought about her ever since, I used to tie a yellow ribbon around my ankle in support of her. Madeleine is 14 in 9 days. The last picture is an age progression, she could look similar to this. I believe she is out there. I believe she is alive For information on how you can help, go to findmadeleine.com All hate will be deleted/blocked.

A post shared by Rєвєккα (@flaneur_11) on May 3, 2017 at 9:27am PDT

Some believe that she was murdered by accident as the result of a burglary gone wrong; others accused her distraught parents of involvement. Detectives pursued other tips as well: Had she been abducted and killed by a local pedophile? Kidnapped by a European sex-trafficking gang? Snatched by a childless couple desperate for one of their own?

Twelve days after Maddie’s disappearance, 34-year-old British-Portuguese property consultant Robert Murat was named as the first “arguido,” or person of interest, in the case. After searching areas including his home, investigators concluded that Murat had no link to Madeline’s disappearance, and his arguido status was removed in July 2008.

The first senior detective on the case, Goncalo Amaral, believed Madeleine died in the family’s rented holiday apartment, and her parents covered up her death and disposed of her body. This would be the beginning of an often contentious relationship among Gerry and Kate — who have always denied any role in their daughter’s disappearance — and the Portuguese police.

According to media reports in 2007, British sniffer dogs trained to detect body scent and blood reacted in the vacation apartment. There were also reports that Madeline’s DNA had been found in a car that Gerry and Kate McCann rented 25 days after Madeline disappeared.

The misinterpretation by Portuguese investigators of the results of these forensic swabs taken led to the McCanns being questioned and seen as official suspects. When they were questioned over the DNA discoveries, Kate was asked 48 questions over an 11-hour interrogation, but instead of answering them she used her right to remain silent, speaking only once.

Some of the questions she were asked were: “Did you manage to sleep? Did Maddie suffer from any illness or take any medication? Did you work every day?” Kate’s refusal to answer seemingly innocuous queries led to police to accuse her of negatively affecting the search for Maddie.

The couple were finally ruled out when the Portuguese case was closed, unsolved, after 15 months.

‪#10Years since #MadeleineMccann when missing! Please share and help bring her HOME #FindMadeleine ‬

A post shared by Prince Christopher (@chris_billows) on May 3, 2017 at 1:30am PDT

Gerry and Kate continue to and have always denied any role in their daughter’s disappearance, and two Portuguese investigations and a Scotland Yard inquiry have found no evidence to suggest otherwise.

After hearing a report that Madeleine had been photographed by a stranger on the beach before her disappearance, another theory investigated by Portuguese police was that she could have been stolen by human traffickers. Human-trafficking gangs are known to operate in the northwest African country of Mauritania, which became the last country in the world to abolish slavery, in 1981.

This theory appeared to be bolstered when several witnesses reported possible sightings of Madeleine in Morocco. Her parents visited Morocco, but could find no evidence that she had been there.

In 2011, Portuguese detectives reopened their investigation after studying a series of attacks in resorts along the Algarve coast in the years up to 2007 — in which a man entered apartments of British vacationers and molested young girls while they slept. Investigators’ main suspect, Ocean Club waiter Euclides Monteiro, who had been killed in a freak accident in 2009, was ruled out by DNA evidence — and the perpetrator of these attacks remains at large.

Convicted British pedophile Raymond Hewlett was also reportedly considered as a potential suspect. He had been staying in a converted truck at a camping site near the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz in 2007. He died in Germany in 2010.

Another possible theory that has been suggested was that Madeleine left the apartment to look for her parents, and then had some sort of accident — perhaps falling into a pit at a construction site, which was later filled, or being killed in a hit-and-run car accident in which the driver panicked and hid the body.

A post shared by ☯️ (@dualityreality69) on May 3, 2017 at 10:41am PDT

Detectives recently revealed they are working on a final theory that the youngster was kidnapped by a European trafficking gang. The “spotters” are believed to have targeted the charismatic blonde toddler and taken photographs of her while she was playing on the beach and beside the pool at her holiday apartment.

In an interview to mark the 10th anniversary of Maddie’s disappearance, Gerry and Kate spoke of their enduring hope that they will find out what happened to their daughter someday. They recently suffered a setback when they lost their eight-year libel battle against former police chief Goncalo Amaral who published a book accusing them of hiding their daughter’s death. He claimed in the book The Truth Of The Lie that Madeleine had died in their holiday flat and they had faked her abduction to cover up the tragedy.

Scotland Yard shut down its investigation in 2016, but Madeleine’s family has vowed to continue to search for answers.

If you are in search of a missing person, make sure to enter their information into the database of the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

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Main photo: Madeleine McCann in 2007, age three, and forensic artist’s impression of what she may have looked like in 2012 [Wikimedia Commons]

The post 10 Years Later: What Really Happened To Madeleine McCann? appeared first on CrimeFeed.

On November 3, 1978, a 19-year-old Canadian college student named Theresa Allore disappeared from Champlain College Lennoxville in the Eastern Townships of Quebec.

She was reported missing after failing to show up for an activity with friends that night. Police initially suspected that Theresa may have been a runaway. On April 13, 1979, her body was discovered in a small body of water approximately half a mile from her dorm. On April 20, 1979, Teresa’s wallet was found on a road around six miles from the place where her body was found.

When her body was discovered, investigators stated that she could have taken a drug overdose, perhaps with the assistance of fellow college students. But Theresa’s family and friends never believed investigators’ theories.

In the summer of 2002, the family of Theresa Allore enlisted the support of an investigative reporter and friend, Patricia Pearson, who produced a series of articles for the National Post newspaper that presented compelling evidence that Theresa Allore was a victim of murder. The articles also theorized that Allore’s death was possibly linked to two other unsolved local cases; the death of 10-year-old Manon Dube in March 1978, and the murder of Louise Camirand in 1977.

The theory was supported by geographic profiler and then FBI consultant Kim Rossmo, who suggested a serial sexual predator may have been operating in the Quebec region in the late 1970s. He told police that he suspected that the three murders were connected.

In 1998, Rossmo suggested that Vancouver police create a serial killer task force to investigate the multiple cases of missing women from Vancouver’s Eastside.

Pig farmer Robert “Willie” Pickton was eventually arrested and found guilty of six murders — though he was accused of an additional 26 killings. Horribly, he fed the remains of his victims to his pigs, and may have even served a mixture of pig and human meat to party guests.

The deaths of Theresa Allore, Manon Dube, and Louise Camirand remain unsolved cold-cases, although some suspect that they met their fates at the hand of Pickton.

Since 2002, Theresa’s brother John Allore, who maintains the website “Who Killed Theresa?” has continued the investigation. He has said he believes that the Canadian police are “completely incompetent.” He has identified several failures in the investigation into his sister’s murder, including the fact that he claims the police have destroyed vital evidence.

Theresa’s unsolved murder was finally added to the website of the Quebec provincial police force’s cold case unit in 2016.

Allore has stated that he believes that one or more serial killers have been active in the same geographic regions of Canada for decades. Allore has geographically identified an additional 15 unsolved murders from 1975 to 1981 which may be associated. The victims are: Sharron Prior, Lise Choquette, Louise Camirand, Jocelyne Houle, Chantal Tremblay, Johanne Dorion, Hélène Monast, Katherine Hawkes, Denise Bazinet, Manon Dube, Lison Blais, Theresa Allore, Nicole Gaudreaux, Tammy Leakey, and Johanne Lemieux.

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Main photo: Theresa Allore [Sûreté du Québec Police]

The post Cold Case: Was This Canadian College Student Murdered By A Serial Killer? appeared first on CrimeFeed.

Between 1976 and 1986, a serial killer who earned the nickname the “Golden State Killer” terrorized California from Sacramento to Orange County by attacking and murdering victims while they slept in their beds.

The case of the mysterious murderer, who authorities believe committed 12 murders, 45 sexual assaults, and 120 residential burglaries during the 10-year period and who remains at large to this day, is the subject of a new episode of People Magazine Investigates on Investigation Discovery.

The GSK was originally suspected to be two separate criminals: the “East Area Rapist” and the “Original Night Stalker,” as his MO evolved through the years. First he targeted women who were home alone, and he would pry open the doors and windows of his victims, who were aged 12 to 41.

Once he entered their homes, he would creep into the bedroom and shine a flashlight into their eyes before tying them up — often with strips from their own bedsheets — and attacking them.

After the media reported that he only attacked women at home alone, he targeted couples. He would use a knife or gun to force the women to bind up the men with shoelaces he brought with him. He would then stack teacups or plates on the male victim’s back, and threaten to kill everyone if he heard any of them fall.

The killer was also known for stealing items from the house, and eating and drinking from the refrigerator. Over the years, clues have emerged about items the killer stole, which the FBI has shared.

Golden State Killer ring
[Courtesy Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office]

Among the items that the Golden State Killer snatched from his victims was a woman’s 1965 Lycoming College class ring in 1976 in Carmichael, California.

In 1977, the killer stole a woman’s ruby ring in Sacramento and a 14-karat white gold 1970 Modesto Junior College class ring, which was swiped from the home of one of his victims.

In addition, 14 place settings of Noritake Polonaise china were stolen from a GSK rape victim in Concord in October of 1978. During the same attack, the killer also stole 14 settings of Reed and Barton Majesty silverware and a Reed and Barton Butter dish.

On December 9, 1978, authorities discovered the so-called “homework evidence” near a trail after a Danville rape — three pieces of paper torn out of a spiral notebook that they believe the GSK may have accidentally dropped as he fled the scene. In the notebook, the author recounts his “dreadful” memories of sixth grade and how much he hated his teacher.

On another page, investigators found a highly detailed diagram of what appears to be a subdivision (above) with the word “punishment” misspelled on the back.

Subdivision sketch [Sacramento County District Attorney]

Contra Costa County DA investigator Paul Holes told People that he believes the sketch is the work of an intelligent, “white collar guy,” explaining, “This is a very sophisticated diagram that someone who has got a career along these lines has done.”

The Golden State Killer remains at large. The FBI has asked that anyone with information about the killings to contact 1 (800) CALL-FBI or go to tips.FBI.gov. There is a $50,000 reward for his arrest.

To learn more about this case, watch the “Golden State Killer” episode of Investigation Discovery’s People Magazine Investigates on ID GO now!

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Main photo: Sketches of the Golden State Killer [FBI]

The post People Magazine Investigates: The Hunt For The Golden State Serial Killer appeared first on CrimeFeed.

NAPLES, FL — A man has been arrested in Florida in connection with the unsolved cold case murders of two young women who were strangled to death in New York.

Police have charged Christopher Gonzalez, a 36-year-old former New York resident who is now married and working for Toys “R” Us in Naples, Florida — with second-degree murder.

Investigators say that Gonzalez’s fingerprint, which was taken after a traffic stop, was a match to DNA evidence taken from the two unsolved crime scenes.

On December 2, 2000, the nude body of 19-year-old Dora Delvalle Almontaser was found in her family’s Bronx apartment.

The teen had been strangled to death with a phone cord. Bodily fluids were recovered from the young victim, and a fingerprint was left behind. The evidence did not lead to any matches in the system, however.

In 2005, state police found the body of Angel Serbay, a 25-year-old Yonkers woman, wrapped in a blanket and dumped on the shoulder of the northbound Sprain Brook Parkway. She had also been strangled — and forensic tests showed that samples from the crime scene contained the same, unknown DNA profile that was taken from Dora Delvalle Almontaser.

For years, the cases remained cold, and police were not able to identify a suspect.

Until earlier this year, when investigators with NYPD Bronx Homicide decided to resubmit a fingerprint taken Almontaser’s murder scene — and learned that the print was a match to Gonzalez, who had been pulled over in April 2017 by the Collier County Sheriff’s Office for driving with a suspended license.

After paying the $500 bond, Gonzalez was freed — until the NYPD identified him as a suspect.

Gonzalez has been served with a murder warrant for the killing of Dora Delvalle Almontaser — and is now fighting extradition to New York.

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Main photo: Christopher Gonzalez [Collier County Sheriff’s Office]

The post Suspect In 2 New York Cold Case Murders Is Caught In Florida After Traffic Stop appeared first on CrimeFeed.

On November 9, 1971, a New Jersey accountant named John E. List was looking for a way out of his life.

On the surface, the List family seemed to be a model of suburban success. List, his wife, his three children, and his 85-year-old mother, Alma, lived in an 18-room mansion on Hillside Avenue in Westfield and attended church each week.

But List was hiding a secret from his family: Beneath the surface, his life was falling apart. He had lost his job, and was unable to pay the bills.

So on that fateful morning, after seeing his children off to school, List walked into the kitchen and shot his wife, Helen, point-blank as she sipped her morning coffee. He then walked up to the third floor and fatally shot his mother.

Then List patiently waited downstairs to kill his children — Patty, 16; and Frederick, 13; as they came home from school. List then had lunch and drove to his bank to close his own and his mother’s bank accounts.

His next stop was Westfield High School, where he watched his 15-year-old son John, Jr., play in a soccer game. After driving the boy home, he killed him by shooting him repeatedly in the chest and face.

List laid the bodies of his wife and three children on sleeping bags according to size in the home’s grand ballroom, and then ate dinner and went to bed.

The next day, he simply disappeared — and the hunt for List, and his motive for the murders would remain a mystery until a a true-crime show on television led to his capture almost 18 years later.

After List left town, the neighbors began to wonder why the lights in his family’s house in Westfield were going out one by one, and a high school drama coach of List’s daughter had begun to worry about her absence.

Police finally entered the home on December 7, 1971, just over a month after the slayings. They were greeted by organ music on an intercom system and the decomposed bodies of the List family. The police also found a note from List to his pastor at a Lutheran church where List sometimes taught Sunday school. In it, List wrote that he saw too much evil in the world and that he had ended the lives of his wife, mother, and children to save their souls. List also admitted to taking money from his mother’s account to cover the bills, according to investigators.

Detectives discovered List’s car at Kennedy International Airport not long after the corpses were found — but neither the FBI nor New Jersey investigators found any trace of List himself.

The case went cold until 1989, when Union County prosecutors asked the producers of the TV program America’s Most Wanted to look at the case. The program brought in Frank Bender, a forensic sculptor, who was able to build a bust of what he imagined an older List would look like.

On May 21, 1989, the show aired, and a woman in a suburb of Richmond, Virginia, thought the bust looked like Robert Clark, a former neighbor of hers in Denver — who also happened to be an accountant.

Agents went to the home of “Robert Clark,” and were able later to confirm that he was in fact actually John List, by taking a set of fingerprints.

“Clark’s” wife, whom he had met at a church social, was shocked. The couple had been living a quiet life, much as he had before murdering his first family.

At List’s trial in 1990, a psychiatrist for the prosecution testified that List had been suffering from a “mid-life crisis” when he slaughtered his family. Regardless, List was convicted of murder and sentenced to five life terms in prison.

In a 2002 television interview on ABC with Connie Chung, List explained that he killed his family rather than take his own life because he believed that suicide would have barred him from Heaven, and that he hoped to be reunited there with his family. “I’m sure that if we recognize each other, that we’ll like each other’s company just as we did here, when times were better,” he stated.

List died in 2008 of complications from pneumonia. He was 82.

To learn more about this case, watch the “Murder House” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Your Worst Nightmare on ID GO now!

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Main photo: John List [Wikimedia Commons]

The post Your Worst Nightmare: John List Murdered His Wife, Mother, 3 Children — Then Disappeared appeared first on CrimeFeed.

Has the mystery of Olivia Newton-John’s ex-boyfriend, who vanished without a trace 12 years ago during a fishing trip, finally been solved?

Patrick McDermott, who was working as a cameraman at the time he went missing, has reportedly been found alive in Mexico. A photograph has emerged apparently showing a shirtless McDermott lounging next to a mystery woman on a beach in the fishing town Sayulita.

McDermott had been dating Newton-John for nine years when he disappeared after an overnight fishing trip off the coast of California on June 30, 2005. The Coast Guard declared him dead in 2008, despite not one of 22 passengers on board the fishing boat Freedom having seen him go overboard .

Some investigators believed that McDermott, who owed several thousand dollars in backdated child-support payments, may have staged his own death to escape his financial woes.

Cover of New Idea magazine, featuring story on new Patrick McDermott photograph

Coleman-Rayner news agency found a picture last month on a noticeboard at the El Palmar del Camaron beach campsite that bears a striking resemblance to McDermott. The photograph is reproduced in an Australian magazine called New Idea.

Charlie Parker, who exposed con man Fredric Bourdin for impersonating missing teen Nicholas Barclay, believes that the photograph is very likely Patrick McDermott.

“The widow’s peak is exact. The eyes are very similar, and the ears extend down on the head in the same distance. I believe it’s him,” Parker says. He also has found a 90 percent match between the new photo and old photos of McDermott.

There have been several suspected sightings of Newton-John’s ex-lover in Sayulita, where he is reportedly living with a German lover.

Private investigator John Nazarian had previously claimed he believes McDermott took money out of a bank account and obtained a new passport under his birth name Patrick Kim.

Newton-John has stated that she found the mystery of McDermott’s disappearance hard to accept, and often thought about whether he was still alive. The Grease actress married her second husband, John Easterling, in 2008.

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Main photo: Olivia Newton-John and Patrick McDermott [SGranitz/WireImage]

The post Olivia Newton-John’s Ex Who Faked His Own Death Found In Mexico appeared first on CrimeFeed.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Zodiac Killer terrorized the nation in a series of heinous attacks — and taunted the press by sending cryptic letters. The Zodiac was never caught, and to this day remains one of the most notorious unidentified serial killers in history.

The killer is known to have murdered five victims and wounded two others in attacks that occurred between December 1968 and October 1969. The Zodiac claimed responsibility for 37 more murders in letters to the newspapers, but only those seven victims were confirmed by investigators.

The killer taunted the press and law enforcement with four cryptograms, or ciphers, basically daring investigators to figure out his identity. Over the years, hundreds of law-enforcement officials and amateur detectives have attempted to crack the code — but one of the four has ever been definitively solved.

The first murders widely attributed to the Zodiac Killer were the shootings of high school students Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday on December 20, 1968, on Lake Herman Road in Benecia. The couple, who were on their first date, drove to a well-known lovers lane where their bodies were found shortly after 11 P.M.

Investigators later determined that the killer shot Faraday in the head, and shot Jensen five times in the back before driving away.

The killer struck again just before midnight on July 4, 1969, when Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau were shot point-blank on a lovers lane in Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo, which was four miles from the Lake Herman Road murder site.

Ferrin died at the hospital, but Mageau survived — and described his attacker as a white male with short light brown curly hair who was around five foot eight inches tall and between 26 and 30 years old.

On July 5, 1969, a man phoned the Vallejo Police Department and claimed that he killed Ferrin and Magueau — and said he was also responsible for murdering Jensen and Faraday.

On August 1 that same year, three letters prepared by the killer were received at the Vallejo Times Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The San Francisco Examiner. The nearly identical letters took credit for the shootings at Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs — and each also included one-third of a 408-symbol cryptogram which the killer claimed contained his identity.

The killer demanded they be printed on each paper’s front page or he would “cruse [sic] around all weekend killing lone people in the night then move on to kill again, until I end up with a dozen people over the weekend.”

July 1969 Zodiac Letter [Public Domain]

Back page of the July 1969 Zodiac Letter [Public Domain]

On August 7, 1969, another letter was received at The San Francisco Examiner with the salutation “Dear Editor This is the Zodiac speaking.” This was the first time the killer had used this name for identification.

On August 8, 1969, Donald and Bettye Harden of Salinas, California, cracked the 408-symbol cryptogram.

Translated, it read:

I LIKE KILLING PEOPLE BECAUSE IT IS SO MUCH FUN IT IS MORE FUN THAN KILLING WILD GAME IN THE FORREST BECAUSE MAN IS THE MOST DANGEROUE ANAMAL OF ALL TO KILL SOMETHING GIVES ME THE MOST THRILLING EXPERENCE IT IS EVEN BETTER THAN GETTING YOUR ROCKS OFF WITH A GIRL THE BEST PART OF IT IS THAE WHEN I DIE I WILL BE REBORN IN PARADICE AND ALL THEI HAVE KILLED WILL BECOME MY SLAVES I WILL NOT GIVE YOU MY NAME BECAUSE YOU WILL TRY TO SLOI DOWN OR ATOP MY COLLECTIOG OF SLAVES FOR MY AFTERLIFE. EBEORIETEMETHHPITI

On September 27, 1969, Pacific Union College students Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were picnicking at Lake Berryessa when a white man with combed, greasy brown hair approached them wearing a black executioner’s-type hood with clip-on sunglasses over the eye-holes.

The hooded man claimed to be an escaped convict, and tied the couple up with precut plastic clothesline he had brought with him to the scene. The man then pulled out a knife and stabbed them both repeatedly before hiking back to Hartnell’s car, where he drew the cross-circle symbol on Hartnell’s car door — and wrote “Vallejo/12-20-68/7-4-69/Sept 27–69–6:30/by knife” underneath it with a black felt-tip pen.

Shepard later died. Hartnell survived.

At 7:40 P.M., the killer called the Napa County Sheriff’s office from a pay phone to report this latest crime. Detectives were able to lift a still-wet palm print from the telephone but were never able to match it to any suspect.

Two weeks later on October 11, 1969, a passenger entered the cab driven by Paul Stine near Union Square in San Francisco and asked to be taken to Washington and Maple Streets. The passenger shot Stine before stealing his wallet and car keys — and also snatching a bloodstained section of his shirt.

On October 14, 1969, the Chronicle received another letter from the Zodiac along with swatch of Paul Stine’s shirt tail as proof he was the killer. This was followed by yet another cryptogram on November 8, 1969 with 340 characters — and despite many attempts, the so-called “340 cipher” has never been decoded.

The Zodiac Killer’s 340 cipher [Wiki]

Experts say that the Z340 code, which contains a mix of ancient and modern symbols, ranks with the Nazi’s Enigma Code as one of the most difficult in history to break.

A team of investigators, which includes a retired LAPD detective and several cryptologists, are attemping once more to decode the 340 cipher. The investigators are also working with a super-computer known as CARMEL — which is described as the first computer of its kind programmed to think like a serial killer.

In addition to the confirmed victims, investigators believe that the killer was responsible for several other murders — and one woman claims that she escaped the killer with her 10-month old daughter.

The Zodiac killer has never been caught.

To learn more about this case, watch the “Zodiac Killer” episode of Investigation Discovery’s True Crime With Aphrodite Jones on ID GO now!

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Main photo: Sketch of the Zodiac killer [San Francisco Police Department]

The post Cracking The Code Of A Serial Killer: The Hunt For The Zodiac appeared first on CrimeFeed.

LOYSVILLE, PA — A Pennsylvania has been arrested and charged with the cold case murder of his wife more than 30 years ago.

Investigators say that they believe Carl Rodgers, now 62, fatally beat his 23-year-old wife, Debra Rodgers, to death and then slashed her wrists to stage her apparent suicide.

Debra’s body was discovered in April 1983 in woods near the couple’s dairy farm in Loysville, Pennsylvania. The couple had a five-year-old daughter.

“For more than three decades, the family and friends of Debra Jane Rodgers have sought justice, and wondered if this day would ever come,” Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in a statement on Tuesday. “Thanks to a strong collaboration between the Pennsylvania State Police and our office, and the effective use of a statewide investigating grand jury, Carl Rodgers stands charged with murder.”

On April 22, 1983, Debra disappeared after coming home home late from her job at Little Buffalo State Forest.

Carl Rodgers gave a statement to police in which he claimed his wife suffered from depression. He also said that they had argued that night and he admitting to grabbing her by the arm. According to police, his statements were inconsistent — and friends and family contradicted Carl’s account and said that Debra had been happy.

The day after her disappearance, Carl Rodgers called Debra’s family and told them she was missing. They found her car in the forest, and Carl insisted that he drive Debra’s car back to their home, despite pleas from the family to keep it there in case Debra was using it for shelter, according to the district attorney’s statement.

During the second day of searching, Debra’s mother found the body in a heavily wooded area several hundred yards from where her vehicle had been parked. Investigators noted Debra’s body appeared to have been dragged to the location, and a knife was found near the scene with a sheath inscribed with the name “Carl.”

A coroner later determined that Debra had died of blunt force trauma to the head — and stated that her wrists had been cut after the fact “to imply suicidal activity.”

“The grand jury finds that Carl Rodgers concocted all the claims that Debra was depressed, as well as the claims that she was struggling at work in order to support his efforts to make her death appear to be a suicide and not a homicide. He was the only individual with the motive to make her death appear to be a suicide,” the grand jury said.

The grand jury did not hear any evidence that was unavailable to police and prosecutors in 1983, and it was unclear why charges were not brought at the time.

Carl Rodgers was arrested by Pennsylvania State Police Monday on murder charges and is being held without bail.

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Main photo: Carl Rodgers [Pennsylvania Attorney General]

The post Pennsylvania Man Charged In 1983 Cold Case Murder Of Wife — Faked Her Suicide appeared first on CrimeFeed.

On November 7, 2011, Michelle Parker’s episode of The People’s Court — in which she argued with her ex-fiancé over a lost engagement ring — aired on TV.

A few hours later, the mother of three vanished, and she has never been seen again.

Florida police said Parker’s former fiancé Dale Wayne Smith remains the prime suspect in their investigation — but that so far, even after all this time, they do not have enough probable cause to arrest him.

On the sixth anniversary of Parker’s disappearance, Detective Michael Moreschi of the Orlando Police Department told Fox News that the investigation remains active. “His status has not changed over the last six years,” Moreschi said of 46-year-old Smith. “He’s an uncharged suspect in the case. There’s no probable cause to arrest him.”

Police have pieced together a timeline of Parker’s last known movements: After spending the morning at a salon owned by her mother in Oviedo, at around 2 P.M., she drove to Smith’s condominium in Orlando to drop off their three-year-old twins for a planned visit. Investigators have said that this was the last known sighting of her.

Parker was reported missing after she failed to show up for her job as a bartender in Sanford. When her brother, Dustin, texted her to ask where she was, he got a reply that read simply, “Waterford.”

But Parker’s friends and family do not believe that this was sent by her, since they stated that she never replied with just one-word texts. They also claim that the devoted mother of three would never have left her children voluntarily.

Police were able to determine that Parker’s phone traveled westward from Smith’s home, and its last ping was off a tower in the Belle Isle area. Parker’s abandoned Hummer was found days later near an apartment complex just west of Mall at Millenia, and her iPhone was discovered by a dive team in a lake.

A 30-second video taken from a traffic camera and released by police in 2013 shows Parker’s Hummer at a red light at about 8:55 P.M. on the day she was last seen. In the video, it can be seen that, weirdly, the decals promoting her business had been removed from the vehicle. “At that point we don’t believe that she’s driving the car,” said Moreschi.

The couple, who friends and family said had a rocky relationship, appeared on The People’s Court to settle the cost of a lost engagement ring. Smith had sued Parker for $5,000, the statutory maximum, for an engagement ring after he claimed she threw it over a hotel balcony during an argument. The judge ruled that Smith and Parker should split the cost.

During the episode, a court reporter called their relationship a “fatal attraction” — chilling in retrospect. The clip from the episode provides a window into a troubled relationship as the couple traded insults.

Smith told the judge that the couple had dated on and off for four years beginning in 2006, and he proposed in Cocoa Beach, Florida, in June 2010. Smith recounted an argument that the couple had that began at DragonCon, a sci-fi convention in Atlanta where Smith had dressed up as Captain America. Smith said that he had made a comment about Parker “sleeping around,.” He said that Parker then threw a drink in his face.

But Parker told the judge that the verbal altercation had turned physical when Smith grabbed her arm. She stated that she became frightened of him, and went back to her room with a police escort to get the rest of her stuff. During the argument, she said she threw the ring over the balcony. She also hit back at his comments about her previous relationship.

“For the five years that we were together I could probably rattle off seven girls found in the house,” Parker said. “He’s cheated on me constantly, and I’ve always tried to keep it together for the kids.”

“He gets pretty malicious and vindictive, and he’s a mean person, especially when been he’s drinking,” Parker said of Smith during the episode. “Any of the problems that we’ve had, it’s always been alcohol related.”

Parker’s disappearance prompted an extensive search of the Orlando area by police and volunteers. A Facebook group devoted to the search for Parker has almost 24,000 followers and posts regular updates about the case.

In 2009, Parker filed a petition for a domestic-violence injunction against Smith. In 2010, Smith was arrested and hit with drug charges including possession of cannabis and selling or manufacturing a controlled substance.

In 2013, Parker’s mother Yvonne Stewart filed a wrongful death suit against Smith in which she alleged that her daughter’s former fiancé “was negligent or otherwise committed a wrongful act” that caused Parker to die. In 2014, a judge ruled that the lawsuit could go forward.

“We’re going to fight this all the way to the end … we’re going to see this thing through,” she said at the time.

Smith declined to comment when contacted by Fox News.

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The post Mom Of 3 Disappeared 6 Years Ago After “People’s Court” Appearance; Ex-Fiancé Still Prime Suspect appeared first on CrimeFeed.

OSPREY, FL — Six days before Christmas, in 1959, an unknown assailant or assailants entered the home of the Walker family and massacred Christine, 24; her husband Cliff, 25; and their children: three-year-old Jimmie and one-year-old Debbie.

It remains one of the most haunting unsolved cases in Florida history. Over the past decade, though, the Walker family murders have taken on another chilling dimension, as the prime suspects are, at present, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock.

About a month earlier, Smith and Hickock slaughtered the four-member Clutter family in Kansas, creating the tragedy that was immortalized in author Truman Capote’s 1966 true crime masterpiece In Cold Blood and its classic 1969 movie adaptation.

At about 4 P.M. on December 19, 1959, Christine Walker, 24, came home to a house she thought was empty. It wasn’t. She was raped and shot to death.

When Cliff arrived later with the kids, a gunshot cut him down immediately. The killer then also shot both Jimmie and Debbie. The one-year-old girl didn’t die immediately, though, so the perpetrator drowned her in the bathtub before leaving.

A neighbor found the bodies early the next morning. Amid the carnage, police turned up a bloody boot, a partial fingerprint on the tub faucet, and a cellophane cigarette wrapper. Not a lot to go on.

Investigators worked frantically to find the culprits, ultimately interviewing 587 potential suspects or witnesses.

Serial murderer Emmett Monroe Spencer wasted the authorities’ time by confessing in a letter that proved to be “cleverly constructed from real murders written up in newspapers and true-crime novels that he liked to read.”

The trail went cold, and the horror has hung over the community for nearly 60 years. In 2007, however, Sarasota County Sheriff’s detective Kimberly McGath reopened the file and worked for the next five years to connect the killings to Perry and Smith — who, it turned out, had been among the original suspects back in 1960.

Following the Kansas massacre, Smith and Hickock had stolen a Chevrolet Bel Air and hightailed it to Florida. On the morning of the Walker murders, the duo checked out of a Miami Beach motel. Later that day, they shopped in a store in Sarasota — only several miles from the crime scene. They were in the area.

Perry Smith and Dick Hickock [Kansas State Police]

On December 30, cops picked up Smith and Hickock in Las Vegas for the Clutter killings. Reportedly, Smith and Hickock passed a polygraph exam in regard to the Walker massacre, so police didn’t pursue it further.

The killers’ stolen car eventually supplied the angle that reignited the investigation nearly a half-century later. Sheriff’s documents indicated that the Walkers had been in the market to purchase a Chevy Bel Air.

When Smith and Hickock arrived that exact make and model, it’s thought that perhaps Christine Walker invited them inside, believing they showed up to sell the car.

In December 2012, the state of Florida exhumed the bodies of Perry Smith and Dick Hickock to collect DNA for testing against evidence in the Walker case. So much time had passed though, that the gathered samples turned out weak and proved inconclusive.

As a result, the Yuletide horror that befell the Walkers remains a mystery that Smith and Hickock may have taken to their graves — again.

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Main photo: (from left) Jimmie Walker, Cliff Walker, Christine Walker, Debbie Walker [Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office]

The post Did The “In Cold Blood” Killers Murder A Second Family In Florida? appeared first on CrimeFeed.

BROWNWOOD, TX — A Texas man confessed to a 2016 murder after investigators released a DNA composite phenotype “sketch” that was a dead ringer for him.

Ryan Riggs, 21, admitted to sexually assaulting his 25-year-old neighbor, Chantay Blankinship, and beating her to death with a lawn mower blade.

Investigators released the profile on November 8. It was developed by a lab in Virginia and included eye, skin, hair color, and ethnic background information — all based on the genetic data found at the scene of the crime.

The technique, which is called a “Snapshot,” compares DNA samples with a reference database of genomic data, and uses a mathematical model to predict traits the person likely has.

Brown County Sheriff Vance Hill told reporters at a news conference on Thursday that Riggs had not been a suspect at all prior to the sketch’s release. But he became a person of interest in the case within hours, when people who knew him began calling in with tips.

Riggs confessed first to his church congregation and then to investigators, according to Sheriff Hill.

According to the Brownwood Bulletin, Riggs knew both Blankinship and her boyfriend — and attended the same church as the victim.

Riggs was arrested on Wednesday and has been charged with capital murder. Right now, it’s unclear whether the death penalty will be pursued for Riggs. The investigation continues.

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Brownwood Bulletin

DailyMail.com

Main photo: Ryan Derek Riggs and the DNA sketch [Brownwood County Sheriff’s Office]

The post Dead Ringer: Man Confesses To Murder After Police Release Uncanny DNA “Sketch” appeared first on CrimeFeed.

Marion “Suge” Knight has sensationally revealed that his ex-wife — along with former Death Row Records security chief Reggie White, Jr. — killed Tupac Shakur. Knight also insists that he was the intended target of the drive-by shooting, which took place in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996.

Knight’s attorney Thaddeus Culpepper wrote in a signed affidavit that “Knight has known for many years that Reggie Wright, Jr., and his ex-wife Sharitha were behind the murder of Tupac and attempted murder of Knight.” He added that Knight also has information about Wright’s alleged involvement in the Biggie Smalls murder case.

The rapper, who has previously refused to identify the shooter, reportedly decided to speak out after hearing the theories put forward in the documentary Tupac Assassination: Battle for Compton.

Codirector Richard Bond reportedly claimed that Knight admitted to Culpepper that the theories in the movie were true — and said the rapper even sent private investigators to figure out how the writers learned what actually occurred.

According to the film, the drive-by shooting was orchestrated in order to help Knight’s estranged wife get control of Death Row Records, the label that was cofounded by Knight and Dr. Dre among others.

Russell Poole, the former LAPD detective who helped uncover widespread police misconduct throughout the LAPD’s Community Resource Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) unit in the late ’90s, agrees with the hypothesis put forward in the documentary.

#2Pac x #SugeKnight #DeathRowRecords #TheGOAT

A post shared by *HOPEMAN* (@kxnghope_adon) on Nov 20, 2017 at 6:10am PST

Poole told Vice in 2015 that Wright, Jr., and Knight’s ex, Sharitha Knight, orchestrated the murder. Since Sharitha was not divorced from Knight, Poole alleged that she believed that she could take over Death Row Records.

According to the documentary, the 1996 events may have been the first in a history of attempts on Knight’s life, culminating in the recent attempted killing of Knight at the 1OAK Club in Los Angeles, where Knight was shot six times.

DailyMail.com

Vice

Main photo: Suge Knight [TMZ / YouTube (screenshot)]

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