Browsing: Crime

A Brief History On May 23, 2014, a mentally disturbed 22 year old man took his mental illness to a new level by killing 3 people with a knife, another 3 with pistols, and injuring another 14 with gunshots and his car, eventually taking his own life as well, in an incident known as the Isla Vista Killings. Digging Deeper Despite having psychiatric care since the age of 8, Elliot Rodger had not been officially diagnosed with a mental illness, even though he had been prescribed anti-psychotic medicine.  (Is it me, or does that seem like the doctors thought he…

A Brief History On May 21, 1924, a pair of well to do college students from the University of Chicago kidnapped and murdered a 14-year-old boy, just for the thrill of committing murder and getting away with it.  They did not get away with it! Digging Deeper Richard Albert Loeb was the son of a wealthy lawyer that had been a vice president of Sears, a highly intelligent lad that skipped several grades in school, graduating from the University of Michigan at the age of 17.  Despite his intellect, Richard was described as lazy and obsessed with crime and detective…

A Brief History On May 17, 1974, the Los Angeles Police Department engaged the radical Symbionese Liberation Army in one of the most famous gun fights in the history of the LAPD, a fight in which an incredible 9000 rounds of ammunition were expended! Digging Deeper The SLA was the radical group that had kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst and turned her into one of their minions. Led by an escaped African-American criminal, Donald DeFreeze, known to his members as “General Field Marshal Cinque” (and apparently the duped group members did not find this hilarious?), DeFreeze was in fact the only…

A Brief History On May 16, 1957, 54 year old ex-lawman Eliot Ness, he of future television and movie fame as leader of the “Untouchables,” died nearly broke and so forgotten that the Chicago newspapers did not even run an obituary. Digging Deeper Ness was a native Chicagoan, born in 1903, and even attended The University of Chicago, graduating with a degree in economics in 1925.  Taking a job as a background investigator for a credit company, Ness became interested in Law Enforcement and went back to The University of Chicago where he got a Master’s Degree in Criminology, the…

A Brief History On May 14, 1878, the town of Salem, Massachusetts, was fittingly (in a way) the scene of the last known trial for the crime of witchcraft in the United States. Had people gone mad? Was there some sort of time warp? Were there ghosts from 1692 at work here? Digging Deeper Goofy as it sounds to us today, there are still plenty of people who believe in witches and witchcraft, and even the former Republican Vice Presidential nominee and erstwhile Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin can be seen on video being cleansed and protected from witchcraft by…