Browsing: Crime

A Brief History On January 18, 1967, self-confessed “Boston Strangler” Albert DeSalvo was convicted of several rapes and related crimes, but not of murder. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find no one was actually convicted of the murder of the 13 victims of the “Boston Strangler” although DeSalvo had confessed. Due to some inconsistencies in his details of the murders and in analysis of the manner of each murder, there is much disagreement about whether or not DeSalvo really was the murderer he said he was, with some researchers claiming there must have been more than one killer. Raping and…

A Brief History On January 15, 2005, the serial murderer known as BTK (bind, torture, kill) was finally arrested while driving near his home in Park City, Kansas. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find Dennis Rader, a Lutheran church deacon and president of the church council, living in suburban Wichita and 60 years old at the time of his arrest. Rader got his nom de guerre courtesy of himself, as he had suggested several possible names for him to be called in messages left for the police and the media.  In spite of the audacity of taunting police with messages, Rader…

A Brief History On January 11, 1960, by killing his own mother, serial murderer Henry Lee Lucas committed his first known murder of 3,000 he later confessed to! Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find drifter and loser Henry Lee Lucas leading a life of crime that he blamed on his miserable childhood. Lucas’ father had died young leaving a bizarre, abusive wife to raise the kids.  Lucas’ mother once shot a mule that had been a gift to Lucas and also severely beat him for accepting a teddy bear from a school teacher when he was a boy.  (Apparently, he was not allowed to accept…

A Brief History On January 4, 1903, Thomas Edison’s company filmed the execution of Topsy the Elephant, the largest purported casualty in the “War of the Currents”!  The big argument over whether to use alternating current as championed by Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse or direct current as championed by Thomas Edison had already been decided in favor of alternating current  a decade before Topsy became an afterthought and legend of the Current Wars. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find Edison, the most prolific inventor of all time (electric light, phonograph, motion pictures, etc.) had been engaged in a bitter struggle with rival…

A Brief History On January 2, 1979, the murder trial of punk rock legend Sid Vicious began. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find that the trial never came to a conclusion.  It was not because of a mistrial or legal wrangling, but because Vicious killed himself with a heroin overdose before the trial ended! Sid Vicious, born John Simon Ritchie, was a famous punk rock star with the group, Sex Pistols.  It is hard to say if Vicious committed suicide or died of an accidental overdose, but in light of previous suicide attempts and claiming that he and his girlfriend…