The Reaction of the Modi government

The issues of reining in corruption and curtailing black money had stumped previous Indian governments, but there was an expectation that things would be different when Narendra Modi stepped in as Prime Minister.

“On its first day in office and at the very first cabinet meeting on 27 May 2014, the government had announced that it would constitute a Special Investigating Team (SIT) ‘to implement the decision of the Honorable Supreme Court on large amounts of money stashed abroad by evading taxes or generated through unlawful activities’.”

After the Panama Papers were released worldwide on 5 April 2015, the Modi government swung into action to set up an exclusive probe team to trace undisclosed offshore investments. As per a statement issued by the finance ministry, the Multi Agency (MAG) was to include:

“…officers from Investigative Unit of CBDT (Central Board of Direct Taxes), FIU (Financial Intelligence Unit) and FT & TR (Foreign Tax and Tax Research) division and representative of RBI (Reserve Bank of India).”

Meanwhile, the three Indian Express journalists began giving TV interviews—including one to Ravish Kumar—about their nine-month-long investigation. They also conducted an hour-long AMA on Reddit, and, a month later, participated in an off-the-record two-hour event to acquaint 200 of the newspaper’s readers about the Panama Papers. Additionally, separately, they gave talks at student gatherings, plenary sessions, and conferences in India and abroad.

Public reaction was mixed. Many people were outraged and angrily demanded that action be taken against the 500 Indian citizens that the Panama Papers had revealed to have illegal offshore investments. Others received the news with jaded scepticism and said that this government, like the ones before it, would do precisely nothing.

Tax Sleuths Take Action

The book also covers how the tax authorities in India began to investigate and take action against many of the people named in the Panama Papers. They also sent out feelers for international cooperation. On 13 April 2016, director level officer from India’s CBDT attended an OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) meeting in Paris.

“At the Paris meet, a coordination plan was formulated under the aegis of the Joint International Tax Shelter Information & Collaboration Network (JITSIC), which itself is tasked with responding to global tax-compliance issues and ensuring fast and effective information exchange between tax administrations.”

The tax sleuths in India sent the named Indians detailed questionnaires about their offshore investments, and then began raiding their residences and offices. They also sent official notices to NRIs named in the investigation and requested tax authorities for information in other countries with whom India had tax treaties. They then filed prosecutions in Indian courts under the Income Tax Act and the Black Money Act provisions.

“…RTI reply received from the Ministry of Finance by Ritu in June 2019 revealed that the ‘undisclosed investments’ traced in the Panama Papers case had gone up to a whopping Rs 1564 crore.”

Nevertheless, many people were left disappointed by the secrecy in the search operations and prosecutions. The income tax department, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), and the MAG did not make any of the names public.

“This, understandably, resulted in questions being asked as to whether the ‘big fish’ named in the Panama Papers had been let off the hook and only the ‘small fry’ were being dragged to court.”

The government prosecuted little-known traders and businessmen in Mumbai, Sikkim, Ahmedabad, West Bengal, and Bengaluru, and that led the Congress and the AAP to accuse the Modi government of being selective in the official probe. They wanted the probe to be monitored by the Supreme Court of India. A lawyer also filed a public interest litigation plea towards this end, but it ended up being dismissed. 

“With that, the Panama Papers investigation would remain an internal probe with the identities of those facing the heat and the details of their undisclosed assets known to only a select few.”

However, as the book goes on to detail, the Panama Papers revelations did succeed in showing how the rich and powerful can bypass tax laws or find legal loopholes to avoid taxation. It also states that, ultimately, business transparency will be difficult to achieve without political transparency.

The post Newly Released Book The Panama Papers Unveil the Indian Side of the Biggest Global Corruption Scandal appeared first on .

Photo of Bonnie and Clyde, March 1933. (Library of Congress)

The notoriously popular duo, Bonnie and Clyde, were criminals who operated during the years of the Great Depression. The pair was responsible for several crimes, including countless murders and robberies.

Clyde was responsible for several killings and was wanted for robbery, murder, as well as state charges of kidnapping. Despite Bonnie and Clyde’s activities since 1929, it was only in late 1932, that the FBI, then known as the Bureau of Investigation, first became interested in the duo’s activities.

The origin of ‘Bonnie and Clyde’

The pair first met in January 1930, in Texas, and fell in love. Bonnie, 19, was married to a man who had been imprisoned for murder. While Clyde Champion Barrow 21, was unmarried. Shortly afterwards, he was arrested for a burglary and sent to jail. He tried to escape prison by using a gun, which Bonnie had smuggled to him. However, he was recaptured and sent back to prison. In February 1932, Clyde got out on parole and joined Bonnie as they embarked upon a life of crime.

Bonnie and Clyde were suspects for innumerable criminal activities. In their many years of living a criminal life, they were believed to have committed at least thirteen murders. Clyde was under suspicion for the murder of two police officers in Joplin, a place near Missouri. He was also suspected to have kidnapped two people in rural Louisiana.

The pair was spotted many times and was allegedly connected to multiple bank robberies and automobile thefts. Clyde’s long list of criminal activities kept growing exponentially.

The Barrow Gang and their crime spree

In 1932, after Clyde was released from prison, the pair began traveling. In 1933, Clyde’s brother, Ivan M. “Buck” Barrow was released from the Texas State Prison and was granted a full pardon by the Governor. Buck, and his wife Blanche, joined Bonnie, Clyde, and Jones. The gang carried out several huge robberies and were in the headlines for days. They narrowly escaped encounters with the law several times. However, on July 29, 1933, in Iowa, they were caught in a shootout with the police. During this encounter, Buck Barrow was heavily injured and Blanche was arrested. Later in November 1933, Jones was also taken into custody by the sheriff’s office in Houston.

The same year, on November 22, the sheriff and his deputies of Dallas, Texas set up a trap for the duo. The police tried to catch Bonnie and Clyde near Grand Prairie in Texas, but they escaped. They stole an attorney’s car on the highway which was later found abandoned in Miami, Oklahoma. Later that year, on December 21, they robbed a citizen at Shreveport in Louisiana.

In 1934, on January 16, five prisoners escaped from Eastham State Prison Farm in Waldo, Texas. It was Bonnie and Clyde who helped the prisoners escape. Among the prisoners who escaped, Raymond Hamilton (whose sentence was to be over 200 years in prison) and Henry Methvin of Louisiana were included.

The ambush and death of Bonnie & Clyde

In 1934, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow stole a Ford Fordor Deluxe Sedan, which they subsequently used to roam around all of the Midwest, leaving a trail of murders and robberies in their wake. The car they stole was an extremely popular variant among criminal gangs and gangsters of the era, owing to its inconspicuous and rather common appearance. It also had a V8 engine, and the odds of escaping law enforcers were quite high, as the cars used by the police were relatively much slower.

Their shortcoming, however, was taking the stolen vehicle out of the state they stole it in. As it still retained the original number-plate belonging to that particular state, it attracted quite a bit of attention. It is also important to remember that Bonnie and Clyde were operating during the Great Depression, and people did not really have the money to drive long distances- thereby making the duo’s ‘inconspicuous’ car, rather conspicuous.

The police ambushed the pair at a roadblock in Louisiana after following them. The police feared that issuing any kind of warning to the two would enable them to escape once again. Instead, the officers kept shooting at Bonnie and Clyde trapped within their own vehicle, until all signs of activity ceased. The infamous criminal duo died a desperate death on 23 May 1934, in this police encounter. Even though the two had died, their stolen car continued to go places.

The rendezvous of the death car

Interestingly, even after the duo was eliminated, Bonnie and Clyde’s famous rendezvous car continued to go places. The ‘Death Car’, as it was popularly known, with its bullet holes and blood splatters became a huge tourist attraction. Since then, it was moved around to serve as an attraction at carnivals, flea markets, state fairs, as well as amusement parks.

The car (Ford Deluxe V-8) Bonnie and Clyde died in. (Wikimedia Commons)

For a considerable period of time, the ‘Death Car’ was in Princeton, Massachusetts,  at the Museum of Antique Autos. In the 1970s, the car was relocated to a race track in Nevada where people could sit in the car paying a dollar. A decade later, it was moved to a car museum in Las Vegas, and just ten years after, to a casino located near the California-Nevada state line. However, the Death Car was once again reallocated- this time to another casino situated on the other side of the freeway. Since then, Bonnie and Clyde’s infamous get-away car has been spotted in multiple casinos in Iowa, Missouri, and northern Nevada- and a few replicas have also been reported.

Where is the death car now?

In recent years, the real Death Car is parked in Primm, Nevada, at its home casino called ‘Whiskey Pete’s Casino’. It can be found on a carpet which is right next to the cashier’s cage. To vouch for the authenticity of the car it is accompanied by several letters.

The car has been put on display behind glass panels with doors tied and shut to prevent visitors from sitting inside it. The interior of the car is clearly visible, and the exterior- peppered with bullet holes, is quite a sight to behold. Two mannequins on display next to the car, cradle weapons as they strike a pose like Bonnie and Clyde.

Bonnie and Clyde in pop culture

Crime, romance, and a tragic end- the lives of Bonnie and Clyde were practically a recipe for a Hollywood blockbuster. A film titled “Bonnie and Clyde” was made in 1967, directed by Arthur Penn and starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, that definitely lived up to the expectations. It became a cult classic and turned the crime duo into a pop-culture phenomenon. Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot released a duet, “Bonnie and Clyde” romanticizing the life of the pair, in 1968. The song was based on a poem called “The Trail’s End” written by Bonnie a few weeks before her death. This song became the forerunner of many songs to come, by artists ranging from Beyonce and Jay Z to Scarlett Johansson, and stage performances.

Decades after their infamous death, the duo are still alive in pop-culture as the “Romeo and Juliet” of the crime world.

Enjoyed this article? Also, check out “The Story of the Ingenious and Daring Escape from the Alcatraz“.

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Mug shot of Carl Panzram. (Wikimedia Commons)

Evil is portrayed in myriad shades and description in stories, folklore, films and literature. It is a qualitative trait. Measuring it quantitatively, in terms of less and more, is not tenable. Evil is evil, and that’s it. Yet, could there be something like top-end evil? Or top-end villainy? If yes, then Carl Panzram, the serial killer, could be the answer. His gruesome and brutal ways defy description. Verily the vilest in human history, he didn’t fear God. Never regretted his treacherous trail. Seconds away from death, he spat on hangman’s face and bullied him for being so-damn-slow in hanging him.

A juvenile criminal at eight

Carl Panzram was born on 28th June 1892, at East Grand Forks, Minnesota, America. When he was just a growing child, his father ran away from family. Denied family care, he fell into bad company. When 8 years old, he was tried in Juvenile court for being drunk and delinquent. As he continued with his errant ways, he was sent to the Minnesota State Training School, a centre for reform and rehabilitation. There, he was beaten and raped by some staffers. That hardened him all the more. On 7th July 1905, he set the school on fire and ran away.

Sacked from army

When 15, he lied about his age to get enrolled in the army. Before long he was caught in an act of stealing and sacked. Simultaneously, he was sentenced to hard labour at Leavenworth. His prison sentence was signed by no less a person- William Howard, the then Secretary of War. Later on, when Howard retired as President of the United States, he had another brush with Carl. When he came out of Leavenworth prison, he was a hardened criminal who took vicarious delight in Vandalising the holy Church.

Inspired by the cruelty of Pascual Orozco

After discharge from prison in 1910, he went to Mexico and joined a rebel leader Pascual Orozco. He was privy to mass murder of prisoners by Orozco during Mexican revolution. The sight of this wholesale slaughter conditioned his attitude towards his future victims. With the passage of time he became more and more audacious, gruesome and unrelenting. He picked up the weak, the harmless, the unsuspecting, and killed them like a fun game.

Carl Panzram enjoyed revealing his own crimes

With none to fear, not even God, he went full steam, killing, raping and robbing. In between, he was arrested and jailed, but that was no deterrent. He was chillingly cool and collected in all his villainy. If it was not for his own revelations, we wouldn’t know about most of his crimes. Did he reveal all his misadventures? There is no way of verifying this. There may have been a lot more than what he divulged. The law of the land was generally oblivious to most of his orgies and blood baths.

Even the former president of America was robbed

In August 1920, he broke into the house of William Howard Taft, the former president of America. And came out with substantial money, and a Pistol, the personal weapon of the President. Cash money was used to purchase a Yacht. The watercraft was used for bootlegging, rapes and murder, and the victims were thrown in the sea.

Changed places to avoid arrest

Changing places, by design and default, he arrived at Angola and picked up the thread of serial crimes. Six men were killed and fed to crocodiles. Three boys were sodomised, and one of them murdered. And soon, it was time to move to a different location. His next ground, once again, was his birthplace, America.

Met his nemesis in a robbery case

On reaching America, Carl Panzram stole a boat and faked it as one he owned and destroyed it to escape police hunt. The Police finally nabbed him in 1928. He was arrested in connection with a robbery at Washington DC. Without fear, he not only accepted the crime in question, but went on to reveal the chain of his other crimes, for most of which he was never caught or questioned. His account seemed outlandish to the state officials, and the only cognizance they took was of his robbery at Washington DC. Accordingly, he was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment. It’s while passing this sentence that his deeds got better of him. He battered a prison foreman to death and was officially convicted of murder. This single murder led, he was sentenced to be hanged to death.

Wrote his autobiography before walking to the gallows

During the time he waited for execution, a patronizing jail guard persuaded him to write his autobiography. He agreed and gave horrific details of crimes he committed as well as crimes he planned to commit but couldn’t. The details embodied in the book Panzram: A Journal of Murder are nauseatingly base. Like, his resolve to break all laws made by men, as well as God. Sadistic delight in killing the innocents. His idea of using rectum for carnal pleasures. His abhorrence of vaginal sex and obsession with anal intercourse. His derision for Jesus Christ. Wining and dining and then killing fellow revellers as they slept after the event. Cajoling a 12-year boy to an isolated spot, sodomising him, and then hitting him on head till his brain out from ears. The list is long.

Unrequited plans were equally gruesome

Then, there were crimes he wanted to commit, but couldn’t. Train robbery was one. A bomb was to be planted in the middle of a tunnel. It would blow the train and tunnel would cave in. Loads of sulphur and formaldehyde, strategically placed, would fumigate the passengers to death. For those who survived, Carl Panzram would be ready with his gun at the open end of tunnel, to shoot them dead. He also mooted blowing up a train station in New York and poisoning the water of village Dannemora. The weirdest of all plan was to trigger a war between Britain and the United States. He would somehow sink the British warships in American waters. And that was all required to begin the war. The money looted from train blasts was to be invested in stocks, which, in the event of a war, would go up, and make him a multimillionaire.

Killing, he said, was the only key to reforms

Utterly remorseless and incredibly wayward, Carl Panzram showed no emotion even in face of death. He rebuffed people who intervened to get his sentence commuted. Hanging, he told them, would be good for him. He lived and breathed rape, robbery and murder and remained defiant to the very end. He wished all his sympathizers had just one common neck, which he could grab, and kill them all in one stroke. That was his way of saying thanks to people who wished him well. He never believed in reform. To those who wanted to reform him, he said that the only way to reform people was to kill them.

Consistently cruel up to the end

The cold-blooded murder of 21, more than a hundred sodomy, thousands of robberies and arson; was no big deal for him. His 6 feet, 200 pounds body was a killing machine with brute power. His mind was focussed on death and destruction. Not only for the humans around, but also for his own self. No wonder, his last words to the hangman were, “Hurry it up, you Hoosier bastard! I could hang a dozen men while you’re screwing around!”.

Enjoyed this article? Also, check out “Leonarda Cianciulli: The Ill-fated Correggio Killer who Made Soap and Cookies of Her Victims“.

Fact Analysis:
STSTW Media strives to deliver accurate information through careful research. However, things can go wrong. If you find the above article inaccurate or biased, please let us know at [email protected].

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The famous billboard seeking information about the missing Sodder children. (Wikimedia)

There is nothing more chilling than a murder mystery. The reason being, that when a crime is unsolved then automatically the worst case scenarios will reel through a person’s mind. This would have been the torturous case for parents George and Jennie Sodder after five of their children seemed to have miraculously survived a house fire, their remains were never found.

A billboard was erected offering a generous reward for information leading to their recovery. Many people came forward with rumours, some relating to the Sicilian Mafia.

History of Sodder family

The location and background are both essential to the mystery. It occurred on Christmas Eve, 1945 in Fayetteville, West Virginia. Nicknamed ‘The Mountain State’, it is predominantly covered by the Appalachian mountain range. Much of the state was rural with many villages separated from the major towns and cities, located to harvest coal and other fuels.

The father George Sodder, moved to the US from Sicily at 13 years old with his brother. An exact reason was never specified but it was common for Italians to make the move for economic reasons. Eventually launching his own trucking company, George married Jennie and had 10 children settling in Fayetteville, a village with a strong Italian community. It was a community in dispute, however political tensions during World War II and the reign of Benito Mussolini caused division. George Sodder openly criticized the Italian government which made him enemies around town.

Sodder Children disappearance 

In the run-up to the fire, some weird things happened. Two months previous, a stranger appeared at the house inquiring about work. He claimed the fuse boxes were unsafe even though George had them checked regularly. Around the same time, another man came to sell insurance. He threatened the family after they declined and quoted George’s dislike for Mussolini in his insults.

Weeks before, the older boys noticed a man in a vehicle parked along the nearest highway, watching them as they walked home from school. Christmas day was hours away – under normal circumstances the happiest time of year for families. 10 PM was the usual bedtime for the kids but they were allowed to stay up late with some early Christmas gifts. So Maurice (14), Martha (12), Louis (9), Jennie (8) and Betty (5) played upstairs while the others went to sleep.

Later, the mother Jennie awoke to a call coming from the office. An unfamiliar female voice asked for an unknown name with much laughter in the background – it was a wrong number. Jennie noticed that the living room lights were still glowing and the curtains were left open. On checking the main door, she found it unlocked – things that the children were meant to take care of. She saw Marion (17) sleeping on the couch in the living room and presumed other kids to be asleep too. She went back to sleep after locking the door, closing the curtains and turning off the lights. Moments later, again she awoke, after hearing a loud bang on the roof.

Shortly after, smoke began to bellow. Instinctively, four of the nine children present escaped to the garden with their parents. The two eldest brothers made it down from the attic but the younger kids a floor below were nowhere to be seen (although their voices were apparently heard). George attempted to get upstairs but the staircase was now alight. He ran for his ladder but it was not in its usual place. He tried to drive either of his two coal trucks to the house to climb atop but neither started, having worked perfectly during the day. One daughter ran to their neighbours to call the Fire Department but none of their phones were working. So a neighbour drove into town to find Fire Chief F.J Morris who set off the alarm.

The house had been completely destroyed in 45 minutes with F.J Morris not arriving until 8 AM (claiming he had to wait for a driver first). By then it was assumed that the five children had died. No remains were found with Morris suggesting the blaze consumed everything and the police deemed it faulty wiring. George and Jennie made the site into a memorial soon after, covering it with dirt and five graves.

The five missing Sodder Children. From left: Maurice, Louis, Martha, Jennie, Betty.

Investigation and leads

As the weeks passed the family began to doubt what happened. They kept wondering how the bodies of five children left no remains behind. A crematorium employee stated that even after bodies are burned for two hours at 2,000 degrees, the bones would still remain. More evidence came to the fore: A telephone repairman told the Sodders that their electricity lines appeared to have been cut, not burned. 

An eye-witness came forward and said they saw a man with some car engine removing tools walking through town. They later found a napalm bomb called a ‘Pineapple Bomb’ in the garden area.

Then emerged reports of sightings. A resident of Fayetteville claimed to have seen the missing children exiting the village in a car while the fire was in progress. A woman operating a restaurant in a nearby city served them breakfast the morning after. Another woman met them in a hotel with adults of Italian extraction who kept the kids quiet.

Investigating further, in 1947, George and Jennie the Sodder couple sent a letter to the FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. He agreed to help the family after taking permission from the local authorities but unfortunately, they were declined by the Fayetteville Police and fire department. So they hired a private investigator named C.C. Tinsley. 

His investigations revealed that the insurance salesman who threatened George was a member of the jury who declared the Sodder house fire to be accidental. In 1949, the Sodders hired a pathologist to excavate the site. He found human vertebrae but on examination,  it showed greater skeletal maturation than the oldest child of 14. He also found an organ but it was tested to be beef liver and untouched by fire. A bizarre rumour was heard about the Fire Chief – Morris. The investigator told that Morris buried it himself hoping that the family would find it and cease their investigation.

A ray of hope

The famous billboard was then put up on Route 16 offering $5,000, later hiked to $10,000, for information. Over the next few years, many people took the opportunity. A letter arrived from a nearby state St. Louis stating that Martha, the eldest girl, was living there in a convent. Another news came from Florida claiming that the children were staying at a relative’s house known to Jennie. 

George saw a newspaper photo of school children in New York City, he believed was Betty. Few mentioned incriminating conversations across the US about a Christmas Eve fire in West Virginia. George spent his life travelling the country to investigate but never found anything concrete.

In 1968, more than 20 years after the fire, Jennie received the most compelling piece of evidence that her children were still alive; a letter containing the photo of a man. The cryptic note with it read “Louis Sodder. I love brother Frankie. Ilil Boys. A90132 or 35.” Both zip codes were from Palermo, a city in Sicily, Italy. Once again they hired a private detective and sent him to Italy for further investigations.

Louis Sodder as a child (Left) and the photo that was sent to the Sodder family years later claiming it to be Louis (Right). (Wikimedia Commons)

They never heard from him again. In 1989, 44 years after the incident the billboard was finally put down. The Sodder parents have since died but their children and grandchildren continue the investigation as do many members of the public fascinated by the story. It is the very definition of a mystery because there are no strong theories on why the children were never discovered. Or if they died, why their remains were not found.

Enjoyed this article? Also, check out “Greenbrier Crime: When Trial Court was Forced to Record Version of Ghost from Netherworld”.

Recommended Read:
Sodder Family Tragedy: The Mystery of Five Missing Children | By Douglas MacGowan

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Sodder Children. What Happened to Them?

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STSTW Media strives to deliver accurate information through careful research. However, things can go wrong. If you find the above article inaccurate or biased, please let us know at [email protected].

The post Remembering the Bone-Chilling Story of the Missing Sodder Children appeared first on .

Mugshot of Leonarda Cianciulli. (Wikimedia Commons)

How unlucky can one get? Is life already programmed at birth, or even before it? Is one’s journey in life a foregone conclusion? These questions relate to a girl born to a raped woman, in Italy. The woman married her rapist, but went on to despise her daughter, Leonarda Cianciulli, who grew up to make soap and cookies for a living at Correggio. Highly superstitious about her bad luck, she mixed her trade with a spree of serial killings. Held to account by the law of the land, she spent 30 years in jail, and died in a criminal asylum, doing the remaining part of her sentence.

Leonarda Cianciulli was a neglected child of a raped woman

Born on 18th April 1894, Leonarda, the unwanted child of a raped woman, had a disturbed childhood. Her father, the man who raped her mother (and married her later), died when she was a toddler. Living in extreme poverty, her mother remarried but her financial hardships persisted. A jinxed mother couldn’t care less for her daughter. Leonarda, thus, grew up as a bundle of nerves. So much so, that the girl tried to kill herself on two different occasions.

Riled about her mother’s curse

Stepping into youth from a turbulent childhood brought a new set of problems for Leonarda. Her parents chose a wealthy match for her, but she refused to marry him. Instead, she married a registry office clerk, much older than her age. Then on, she always believed that her marriage was cursed by her mother. Curse mattered to her. Pushed to the wall with hardships since birth, she found succour in soothsayers and fortune-tellers. She realised she was already ill-fated and didn’t want any addition to her woes. So, she feared the curse. Ironically though, her fears came true.

Young Leonarda Cianciulli. (Wikimedia Commons)

Devastated by earthquake

The newlywed Leonarda Cianciulli shifted to Lauria (present-day Potenza) in 1921. Even as she settled down and bore children, financial problems dogged her. Frantic to support her growing family, she ventured into illegal transactions, and was jailed for fraud in 1927. Upon her release from jail, she shifted base to Lacedonia (present-day Avellino) and tried to rebuild her life all over again. But bad luck continued to haunt her. An earthquake in 1930 destroyed her house, and the family was on the streets. Forced to move for survival, they then settled down in Correggio, Reggio Emilia, Italy. Here they found some peace of mind. Leonarda opened a soap shop and became a popular businesswoman.

Tried black magic to solve her problems

By now Leonarda had come a long way. She got pregnant 17 times and had 3 miscarriages. 10 of her children died at various stages of their growing period. Only 4 siblings survived. A staunch believer of astrology, palm reading and fortune telling, she believed her misfortunes were predestined. A fortune-teller had told her that none of her offspring would survive, all would die. Her mother’s curse too rankled her. Could she do something about it, and save the life of her remaining children? To her great concern, her eldest son got enrolled in the Italian army in the wake of ongoing World War 2. Deeply superstitious, she desired to counter the evil spell that killed her children, bode ill for her still alive, and made a mess of her life. Her knowledge of black magic said that the nether world could be appropriated to spare one life in exchange for another. So why not kill an unrelated person to save the life of her dear ones? She did just that, and added her bit of creativity to the macabre slaying of three unsuspecting ladies. She was practising fortune-telling herself, and her victims were beholden to her for solving their problems.

Killed three with astute planning

Her first victim was Faustina Setti, a middle-aged spinster wanting to get married. Leonarda promised her a husband in Pola (present-day Croatia) on condition that latter keeps it a secret. She also got some letters written by her victim. These were welfare intimations which Leonarda would post to the relatives of the victim from Pola. But the victim, Faustina Setti, wasn’t taken to Pola. She was served a spiked drink. When she fell unconscious, Leonarda killed her with an axe, cut the body into pieces and collected blood separately. Body pieces were boiled in caustic soda and made into soap. Coagulated blood was added to cake and served as a snack.

Her second victim, Francesca Soavi, was promised a job at Piacenza. Same modus operandi was followed. The victim was directed to keep the matter a secret and given a bunch of welfare letters which could be posted to her relatives. And then, done to death. In the third victim though, she met her nemesis.

The third victim did her in

Her third victim was Virginia Cacioppo, a 53-year-old ex-opera singer living in penury. She was offered a job in Florence, as secretary to a fictitious theatre personality. Of course, with the same secrecy clause. Virginia too met with the same gory end. Leonarda enjoyed making her soap bars, and edibles and went on record saying Virginia gave her the best output. To her bad luck, Virginia’s sister-in-law had seen her in Leonarda’s company, and concerned at her disappearance, she reported the matter to Police.

Died passing jail term for her crimes

Leonarda Cianciulli was arrested, tried for her crimes, and awarded 30 years’ prison sentence. An additional 3 years’ stay in women’s criminal asylum, after 30 years’ jail term, was also pronounced. During her stay in asylum she suffered from cerebral apoplexy and died on 15th October 1970.

A gypsy had righty prophesied to her that she saw her one hand in prison and another in a criminal asylum.

Enjoyed this article? Then check out “Amelia Dyer: The Nurse Who Killed Babies for Business“.

Fact Analysis:
STSTW Media strives to deliver accurate information through careful research. However, things can go wrong. If you find the above article inaccurate or biased, please let us know at [email protected].

The post Leonarda Cianciulli: The Ill-fated Correggio Killer who Made Soap and Cookies of Her Victims appeared first on .

Mr. Bhattacharyya thought it was high time they did, and hence this book.

In the introduction, he asks,  

“What is it that attracts us to the stories of and the heinous crimes committed by a serial killer?” and “Is it because of a vicarious pleasure that we derive from the macabre methods of these killings?”

 “Or maybe something that appeals to our basic, primal instincts. Perhaps we all have a latent serial killer in us…waiting for that push to the dark side.”

 K.D.Kempamma

Of the 12 Indian serial killers that Mr. Bhattacharyya profiles, let’s have a look at the life and times of K.D.Kempamma, also known as Cyanide Mallika for reasons that will soon become obvious.

The account begins on 19 October 1999 at the Jalageramma temple in Hoskote, a district in Bangalore Rural. Mamatha Rajan, a vulnerable and troubled 30-year-old woman, visits the temple to seek some mental relief. Here, she meets an older woman, who introduces herself as Lakshmi and proceeds to lend her a sympathetic ear.

‘Sister, whatever seems to be bothering you, you must leave it to god. He challenges us in many ways. He puts obstacles in our path to test our faith. You must never lose hope and faith,’ Lakshmi said calmly. Her words were like a balm to Mamatha’s agitation.

 ‘How do you know something is troubling me?’ Mamatha asked.

 ‘I know many things, child.’ Lakshmi raised Mamatha’s chin and continued, ‘Your eyes are sad. And in your heart you carry a great burden. You find it difficult to sleep at night.’

Here, while it may have been apparent that Lakshmi is a manipulator, Mamatha is far too needy for reassurance and fails to find anything fishy about the woman’s behaviour.

Instead, she even asks,

“Are you a saintly woman?”

She is willing to accept spiritual advice from a complete stranger, and agrees to her suggestion that she conduct a mandala puja at her home to get rid of her personal problems.

The Mandala Puja

 ‘I perform a special mandala puja that will help your prayers reach the gods faster and more efficiently. The puja has the power to make your wishes come true,’ Lakshmi said.

Mandala puja is considered to be the ultimate prescription in Hinduism to transform one’s life for the better. It is usually done to please the favourite deity of the person, whichever god it might be, and thereby be blessed with boons and good tidings.

They agree to perform the mandala puja ten days later on the night of 29 October at Mamatha’s house. However, Lakshmi has a non-negotiable condition. 

“But you must send everyone away from your house for at least a couple of days. Remember, no one must know about it or else the prayer will not work.”

Mamatha arranges for her family members to leave the house on that fateful night. She is alone at home, all bedecked in her finery and jewellery, when Lakshmi shows up at the appointed time with all the paraphernalia for the puja.

She then begins the puja in all earnestness, and, after a while of chanting on her own, decides to get the victim involved.

The Cyanide Holy Water

Lakshmi asked Mamatha to close her eyes and pray. Mamatha closed her eyes, her heart exploding with joy and gratitude. Then she heard Lakshmi say: ‘When I give you the holy water, you must swallow it at once or else the prayer will not be complete. Understood?’

Mamatha nodded. Lakshmi pulled back Mamatha’s braid and poured the liquid into her mouth. Then she clamped down on her nose and mouth to prevent her from breathing. As soon as Mamatha gulped down the holy water, which was cyanide, she started gasping for air. She opened her eyes to see Lakshmi’s kind face now contorted into a vicious sneer. Mamatha struggled to free herself from Lakshmi’s death grip, but Lakshmi only tightened her hold. Within moments, life ebbed away from Mamatha.

Lakshmi then strips the dead woman of all her jewellery, stuffs it into her purse, and walks out.

We now learn that she has used many aliases for her murder sprees, including the one that would eventually become the most well-known, Mallika.

Evolution of a Murderess

The author then gives us a brief account of Mallika’s impoverished background in her hometown of Kaggalipura.

‘Tell your mother that I am no longer giving her things on credit!’ the grocer told a ten-year-old Mallika. ‘If she cannot afford to buy rice, she should cook with sawdust!’ The crowd gathered at the shop laughed at her loudly.

Mallika ran as fast as she could, tears streaming down her face, the laughter echoing in her head. She hated her life and she hated poverty. She wanted to be rich.

This explains the main motive that led her down the criminal path.

As she is a Class V drop-out and needs to earn money to survive, she begins working as a maid. She marries Devraj, a tailor who works at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bengaluru. Marriage does not bring any material benefits, so she begins stealing from her employers and, from there, it is a step down to murdering people.

Fortunately, Mallika is no longer at large. The police nabbed her after her sixth murder and the court sentenced her to death. She was the first women to receive the death penalty in Karnataka. However, that was later commuted to life imprisonment.

She was in the news briefly in 2017 for sharing the cell next to V. K. Sasikala, the convicted money launderer and aide of J. Jayalalithaa, the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Apparently, Sasikala wasn’t too happy about having her in her vicinity, and so Mallika was moved to another jail. She remains there, at the time of this writing.

To read more about Cyanide Mallik and other Indian serial killers, we recommend the book:

The Deadly Dozen India’s Most Notorious Serial Killers | By Anirban Bhattacharya

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The author, Arita Sarkar, is a journalist who has investigated a large number of kidnapping cases around the country. In this book, she gives us the details of ten kidnapping cases that occurred in recent times.

In the excerpt about Mukta and Ritesh Jain from Coimbatore, we realize just how scary it can be to let young children go off on their own. Even in their seemingly safe neighbourhood, only 500 metres from their home, danger can lurk.

The Kidnapped Children – Mukta and Ritesh Jain

The Jain family, who had moved down South from Pali in Rajasthan, lived in Kathan Chetty Lane in Coimbatore and ran a store selling bath and furniture accessories. Rajan and Swati Jain had two children, 11-year-old Mukta and 7-year-old Ritesh, who were in Class VI and Class III, respectively, at Suguna Rip School in the Tatabad area.

As the school was six kilometres away, the Jains had arranged for a school van to pick up and drop off their children. Several other children of the neighbourhood also used this school van service, Surya Cabs. Every morning, at 7:30 a.m., the children walked down the narrow lane from their home to the pickup point in front of the Vinayak Temple on the main Rangai Gowder Street. It was only a short distance of 500 metres and was considered safe enough for the children to go on their own.

On the day that they were kidnapped—29 October 2010—Mukta and Ritesh went as usual to await their school van. However, instead of their regular van, a different vehicle—a white Maruti Omni—arrived to pick them up. A 23-year-old man, Mohan Krishnan, was driving it. Although he was not their regular driver, the children were familiar with him. So, even though the other usual students were not in the vehicle, they didn’t think there was anything strange about the situation. They got in and settled down to be driven to school.

“Instead of driving in the direction of the school, Mohan took the road to Pollachi, a town around 50 kilometres from Coimbatore.

When Mukta and Ritesh realized they were nowhere near their school, they began to panic. They repeatedly asked Mohan where he was taking them and begged to speak to their parents. Soon both were in tears.”

The Kidnappers – Mohan Krishnan and R. Manoharan

Mohan Krishnan hailed from Angalakurichi, a village in the outskirts of Coimbatore. Along with his parents, he had moved to the city in search of employment about seven years earlier. Mohan Krishnan had kept in close touch with his childhood friend, R. Manoharan, and the two of them plotted together to kidnap the Jain children.

“Based on the confessions of the two men, the mahila court’s judgment would later note that the two had chalked out their plan to kidnap the two children five days before abducting them.”

The original plan was to take the kidnapped children to the secluded hilltop Gopalsamy temple in the Western Ghats and to keep them there until their parents paid the ransom. They assumed that they would get the money before the week was up and, in the meantime, nobody would realize where the children were. As the local villagers came to the temple only on Saturdays, it was pretty much deserted at other times.

The Kidnapping Goes Wrong

The two kidnappers had tried to make their heinous plan as foolproof as possible. First, they got the children away without any trouble. Second, they kept them quiet and from attracting the attention of passing motorists by lying that they were taking them to their school picnic. Third, they meant to hide them in the secluded temple until they received the ransom. Fourth, they had decided on calling from a landline to ask for Rs. 20 lakhs, instead of using their mobiles.

“‘They knew that if they made the call from a mobile phone, the police would eventually track their location and find them. They had planned to demand a ransom of Rs 20 lakh. They decided to keep the children somewhere and make the ransom call from a landline,’ said Thiru Kanagasabapathy, the investigating officer.”

What they hadn’t counted on was the now-terrified children becoming hysterical and uncooperative, and their own vicious natures that now eclipsed any remaining remnants of sanity and decency.

They tried to herd the frightened, weeping children along a steep, forested path to the temple, but that did not work out. The children climbed a short distance up the hill and then refused to go beyond that. They said they were too tired and did not want to walk anymore. The kidnappers debated whether they should forcibly drag the children up the hill but decided not to risk anyone hearing their screams and protest.

From Kidnappers to Murderers

So, they got the children back down the hill and into the vehicle and drove off. They were not sure what they were to do next. They didn’t have any other hideout where they could take the children. And it is difficult for two young men to keep two unwilling children—and especially a girl child—in an urban area without arousing the suspicions of the neighbours. And, without a hideout, where were they to keep the children until they received the ransom?

The realization that their kidnapping plan was unravelling put the kidnappers in foul tempers. Not only would they not get the money, but the children would also identify them to the police as well.

Perhaps it was then that they decided to take the step from kidnappers to murderers.

Before that, though, they unleashed their baser instincts on 11-year-old Mukta. Driving to a mango orchard, they forced her little brother into the front seat and threatened him with violence if he turned around. Then the two of them raped her.

“Investigating Officer Thiru said, ‘Mukta was too young to understand what was happening to her. They warned the boy not to turn around as they took turns raping her. Mohan raped her first, while Manoharan kept an eye on the boy and hit him every time he tried to turn his head.’ The postmortem report would later note that Mukta suffered ‘injuries to her vagina and anus due to forcible sexual assault’.”

Keep Your Children Safe

The disturbing incidents in this book will send chills down the spines of readers and should serve as a warning to all parents in India and elsewhere. You never know who may be keeping track of your children’s movements and with what evil intent. Unfortunately, kidnapping is not a crime that it is possible to always foretell or completely stamp out. There will always be greedy, amoral people who can harm your children for their nefarious ends.

And that’s why, you need to be more vigilant about your children’s safety—always know where they are, who they interact with, and what activities they are engaged in, for instance— and take more definitive steps to shield them from harm.

For more, read the book: 

Kidnapped: True Stories of Abduction, Ransom and Revenge | By Arita Sarkar

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Amelia Dyer. (Wells Asylum authorities / Wikimedia Commons)

The reign of Queen Victoria of England (1837-1901) is generally seen as the period of all-round peace and progress in British History, except for one blemish. The ruling, that a child born out of wedlock would have no paternal rights. The law was made to discourage illegitimacy. But it ended up putting unwed mothers, and their newborns, on a slippery road. Baby care centers, called baby-farms, sprang up in huge number, promising to bring up such children on a contract fee. Some mothers desired death for baby, setting in motion the practice of killing babies covertly, and showing it as a natural death. Amelia Dyer was one such baby-farmer who was caught, convicted, and sentenced to death.

Eventful childhood, unconventional marriage and career shift from nursing to baby farming

Born in Bristol, England in 1836, Amelia grew up in a well to do family. When she was 10 years old, her mother died following a spell of mental illness. Amelia then moved to live with her aunt. At 24, she married a much older man (59 years old) and thereafter got trained in nursing. She began her nursing career with a midwife, Ellen Danes, who worked as a baby – farmer.

Amelia’s husband, George Thomas, died in 1869 and the charge of raising their young child fell on her. The 1836 act of Parliament absolving men of any accountability towards illegitimate children had left unmarried mothers high and dry. They could either kill their newborn, become prostitutes for survival or seek help from baby farmers. Most turned to baby farms. Widowed Amelia Dyer saw better prospects in baby farming and settled down into this business.

Baby farming was more about disposing of babies than good care of them

The underbelly of baby farming was an open secret. Many ladies would want their child smothered during delivery and shown born-dead. If the midwife didn’t agree to do this, the baby farm was their next choice. At the baby farm, the newborn was ill-treated, doped and starved to death. As greed overtook business, quick death by strangulating and other means became frequent. That spared money that would otherwise be spent on children, howsoever miserly. Dyer took sadistic delight in choking her charge and see them gasp to death. Mothers who really cared for their children were given evasive replies. When pressure from mothers mounted, baby farmers would run away to an undisclosed location.

Cashing in on her image as a female nurse, Amelia Dyer killed babies unchecked

Amelia Dyer’s deceit worked for 30 long years, thanks to her feminine gender and nursing profession. Getting married for a second time and bearing 2 more children didn’t change her ways. She spent time in mental asylum feigning madness, shifted places, and changed names; all to escape the law. But a doctor, in 1879, pinned her down. Alarmed at a number of death certificates she wanted for children in her care, he suspected foul play and reported the matter to Police. Dyer, surprisingly, wasn’t charged for murder. She was only charged for neglecting her duty and sentenced to a 6-month jail term. However, that didn’t deter her. She came out of the jail like a hardened criminal and decided to remain away from doctors in future.

Discarding babies in river Thames proved to be her undoing

A clever and long inning in crime ended in 1896. Dyer was then living with her daughter Polly and son-in-law at Readings, Berkshire. On March 30th, a package was seen floating in river Thames. On inspection, it revealed the corpse of a human baby wrapped in a paper carrying name and address of Mrs. Thomas. That was her identity with respect to her first husband. On given address, the neighbors redirected cops to Kensington Road, Reading, the new address of Dyer.

Search at Dyer’s house revealed incriminating evidence. These included dressmaker’s tape, purchase of baby clothes, ads inviting mothers to baby farm, correspondence related to adoption and mothers inquiring welfare of their wards. There were no dead or living children in the house, but in some corners, the stench of dead bodies prevailed. In the meanwhile, River Thames was extensively searched and many more cadavers recovered.

Accepted her crime in all humility

Stunned Dyer had little to say in her defence. All bodies recovered from the river weren’t her doing, she said. Only those with white tape around the neck were her victims, she blurted. The truth weighed heavy on her mind as her sins stared her in the face. She had taken care to attach weights to bodies trashed in the river. Obviously, weights weren’t heavy enough to sink babies deep. Bodies floated on the surface, and Dyer was fixed. She confessed to her crime and was awarded capital punishment. Convinced that her end was justified, she wrote a detailed confessional statement while interned in jail. When asked about her last-wish as she walked to gallows, she said her confessional statement was enough for her last wish.

Her death restored human rights of the illegitimate children

It was saving grace forAmelia Dyer that her daughter and son-in-law were not convicted along with her. She pleaded vehemently for their release saying she alone, and none else was guilty of killing babies. Two years after her execution though, her daughter Polly’s name surfaced in a case of ‘baby disposal’. But by and large, by then, it was a safer environment for illegitimate children. Local authorities were empowered to monitor baby farms and the adoption laws were made more stringent. By the dawn of the 20th century, the British Parliament was forced to ensure that illegitimate children got financial security and other rights from their biological fathers.

Though Dyer was formally charged with 14 murders, experts believe she killed more than 400 children. And that made her Britain’s most notorious serial killer.

Enjoyed this article? Then check out “Leonarda Cianciulli: The Ill-fated Correggio Killer who Made Soap and Cookies of Her Victims“.

Fact Analysis:
STSTW Media strives to deliver accurate information through careful research. However, things can go wrong. If you find the above article inaccurate or biased, please let us know at [email protected].

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Stanley Clifford Weyman (left) impersonating as a naval officer with Princess Fatima Sultana of Afghanistan and her entourage. (Library of Congress)

Not all people are satisfied with what they are. The idea ‘If I were him’ dogs them perpetually. Some find ways to sublimate their desire through creative activities. Those who don’t, act their thoughts and suffer consequences. Stanley Clifford Weyman was one such want-to-be-someone- else, who acted his thoughts, and became a notorious impersonator. On the flip side, his misadventures earned him admiration too.

The name was part of the game

He was born at Brooklyn, New York, on Nov 25th, 1890, as Stephen Jacob Weinberg. When 21, he dribbled with his own name, shuffled it and moderated it into new formations, to fit his myriad treacheries. So, sometimes he was ‘Swift’, at other times S. Clifford Weinberg, Ethan Allen Weinberg, Sterling C. Wyman, Rodney S. Wyman, Allen Stanley Weyman, C. Sterling Weinberg, Ethan Allen Weinberg, and finally, when 50, Stanley Clifford Weyman. He wasn’t content to be a common man, a Mr Nobody. When impersonating an officer in the French navy, he chose the name ‘Royal St. Cyr’. Strange as it may seem, Stanley made no facial alterations to look different while impersonating.

Couldn’t have fulfilled all his career ambitions, so chose a short cut

As a growing child, Stanley wanted to be a doctor. His poor parents couldn’t afford it. In time, Stanley acted as a doctor for one of his phoney roles. As an attaché of William Gaynor, the Mayor of New York, his deception lasted till the Mayor himself called his bluff. Then he became a bomber pilot of Balkan war who bombed the Sultan of Turkey. And, funnily, honoured by the same Sultan for his bravery.

What made Weyman tick? It was the blitzkrieg of his trickery that worked for him. Rather than facial makeup, he relied on being well dressed for the occasion. He took care to research his role and hence was rarely suspected till much later on. Acting Ethan Allen Weinberg in 1915, he inspected USS Wyoming, an American battleship undergoing repairs on Hudson river. Posing as Consul General for Romania, deputed by the Queen, he fixed a date with Naval Administration on phone. He arrived in Naval Uniform, wearing Admiral’s hat, and received a 21-gun salute at New York Harbour. In full airs of a senior officer, he castigated seeming inconsistencies around. In a bit of an overdrive though, he arranged for a lavish party for officers at Astor hotel. That did him in. The spies zeroed down on him as he was in the midst of a sumptuous meal. He famously lamented missing his sweet dish. He should have been arrested after he had finished his dessert, he remarked in a lighter vein. Naval Officers were aghast, but couldn’t help admiring his grit and ingenuity.

Was humble when caught in the act

No trace of remorse on being caught. No panic, no melodrama, just plain submission to the law of the land. That was the enigmatic Stanley, acting phoney, not for material gains, but just to allay his never-ending itch to be someone else. Itch happened once again in 1921. Princess of Afghanistan, Fatima, came to America for business. Simultaneously, she wanted to meet, Warren G. Harding, the President of America. But because of administrative hiccups, she couldn’t. Enter Stanley, and she could.

Stanley read about Princess Fatima in a newspaper and decided to meet her. The meeting happened in her hotel suite, and Weyman introduced himself as Naval Liaison Officer, an imaginary post. Apologising profusely for the problems she faced, he assured her of arranging her meeting with the President. Princess couldn’t have asked for more and gave him all the money he needed for the job. Then, it was quintessential Weyman on his mission. On 5th July 1921, he escorted Princess Fatima and her group to the White House and introduced her to the honourable President. Event’s group photo carried his picture and that proved to be his undoing. When picture went public, he was recognized, convicted for faking a Naval Officer, and jailed for 2 years.

Stanley Clifford Weyman (left) with Princess Fatima and her three sons. (Library of Congress)

Stanley Clifford Weyman: Earned admiration of even his victims, and tricked to the hilt

Undeterred, Stanley went on to act as a personal physician to Pola Negri, the widow of Rudolph Valentino, the superstar of the silent film era. When exposed, the lady took no offence and refused to take legal action against him, instead, she reportedly said “I don’t care. He is the best doctor I’ve ever had.”

By 1930 his infamy had peaked. That made it difficult for him to con anymore. But he still had wits about himself. When world war 2 broke out, service in the Army was declared compulsory. Stanley came to the rescue of those who were keen to avoid this compulsion. He opened a school to teach them how not-to-be-picked-up-for-army. They should act as mentally challenged, or deaf, he would coach them. Everyone had to imbibe his teachings well. Else, he would disable them for the army – by puncturing their eardrum. The macabre practice came to light in 1943, and Weyman was again in lock up. Clearly, his time was up and over.

Lived his hi-fi dreams but died a common man

The year 1960 saw him in as a real civil employee, a Night Manager at a Motel in Yonkers city, New York. Here, in an incident of robbery, he was shot dead. A man who impersonated a Doctor, Psychiatrist, Naval Officer, Sanitary Expert, Liaison man, diplomat and aviator, all for a personal high – met with a pedestrian end.

Enjoyed this article? Also, check out “The Story of the Ingenious and Daring Escape from the Alcatraz“.

Fact Analysis:
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William Burke (left) and William Hare (right). (Wikimedia Commons)

As hideous a thought it is; corpses can be a lucrative business. And we are not just talking about animal carcasses. The human cadaver trade was more common in the past of course, when medical science was in its infancy but it still transpires today for many reasons, depending on the part of the world. One of the most famous cases of corpse-snatching came from Scotland in the year 1828. Not only were the corpses stolen, but the perpetrators actually killed their victims in order to make money from the remains. Their names are infamous but how did Burke and Hare manage to commit sixteen murders while making a small fortune of cash before they were noticed?

The Setting

In this era, much internal anatomical research was resigned to taking a blade to a dead body. For this reason bodies were sought after by universities and hospitals alike but this could usually be provided in a legal way. For example, the deaths of prisoners, orphans or those who committed suicide was considered just within the Scottish Law system. It became such a successful endeavour in terms of medical enlightenment that there became a shortage of corpses. This eventually led to the term of body-snatching being coined much of which came from grave-digging. It was popular in the capital of Scotland, Edinburgh as it was one of the leading centres of anatomic study at said time. It was also known as ‘Auld Reekie’ [Old Smokey] to illustrate the amount of smoke plumes from the factories propped up by the ongoing industrial revolution. As a leading exponent of the British Empire, Edinburgh was a thriving city in this aspect. A rise of medical studies meant that more corpses were required than were readily available. In turn, this gave rise to some ill-willed people who were tempted by the prices these bodies could fetch – as much as ten pounds in the winter months – a decent sum for that time (a decent weekly wage was one pound). It became such a demand that citizens of Edinburgh started to take measures to stop the bodies of their relatives from being disturbed. Such tactics included protests, employing watchmen at graves and installing protective equipment like grave-cages or stone slabs to cover a mound. It meant that stealing corpses became so difficult that some extremely ill-willed people decided to target the living instead.

Grave cages in a churchyard, Logierait, Scotland. (Judy Willson / Wikimedia Commons)

The resurrection men

Burke and Hare were both called William but they led very different early lives and had very different characters according to reports. William Burke had a middle-class upbringing in Ireland and joined the army in his teens. He moved to Scotland where he took up employment at the Union Canal – a Scottish canal system primarily constructed to bring coal to Edinburgh. His character was judged by many to be jovial but hard working as well as religiously devout too. In 1827 he decided to go north to earn some money during the harvest. This is where he met William Hare, a fellow Irishman who had a clouded yet seemingly dark past. It was said he worked as a labourer and also spent some time on the Union Canal like Burke. Eyewitness reports stated that Hare had a lot of scars and was considered a very temperamental person – especially after a few drinks. When they returned to Edinburgh, Burke took a room at Hare’s lodging house in a street called Tanner’s Close and the pair developed a bad reputation fuelled by a love for the bottle.

A cursed lodging house

Causation paved the way for a truly horrific act. One of the lodgers at the Tanner’s Close Lodging House passed away whilst owning four pounds of rent. He was due to receive some of his army pension when this happened. William Hare decided to sell the body to an anatomist to retrieve the amount owed. They reported the death to the local authorities and while a local church donated a coffin for the burial, the two men hid the body and instead filled the coffin with tree bark. When darkness fell, they took the body to Edinburgh University and found a most willing Dr. Robert Knox, who negotiated the price with other doctors. They apparently hinted at wanting to receive more bodies.

Depiction of Dr. Robert Knox in Surgeons’ Hall Museums, Edinburgh, Scotland. (Kim Traynor / Wikimedia Commons)

The bad doctor

There is the famous epitome of a fine line existing between genius and madman. It seems a touch of this was inherent within an obvious talented doctor who was happy to accept corpses from far from obvious legal circumstances. This was a man who contracted smallpox when young, to the point of disfigurement and blindness in one eye. He served as a physician in the Battle of Waterloo between the British and Napoleon’s French as well as the Cape Frontier War in South Africa, in which the Xhosa Kingdom defended against European forces. After settling in Edinburgh, Knox gained employment at the Royal College of Surgeons and gave lectures using fresh cadavers which drew crowds of fascinated students. With at least two dissections a day he had a pressing need for the dead.

Doing anything for money

Burke and Hare soon turned to murder. Sources differ but it seems they decided to suffocate a lodger who had grown sick with fever. His name was Joseph and another woman tenant Abigail Simpson was killed with a similar method – she came to Edinburgh at times from her local village to sell salt. At that time, asphyxiation was impossible to detect in terms of a post-mortem examination. The next prey was an English seller who contracted jaundice. They used the same method of Hare suffocating while Burke – as the bigger man – lay on the chest to stop the struggle.

People would later call the practice burking. Dr Robert Knox would pay ten pounds for many of these bodies, complimenting them on their freshness according to Burke and Hare’s confession. Yet he never asked any other questions. Some of his colleagues would however, drawing no confessions from the killers. Another – Mary Paterson –had been befriended by the men and spent a day drinking together. They killed her in her sleep.  An old lady named Mrs Haldane met the same fate, as did her daughter who spent a night at the lodging house. However, this time it was only Hare who killed her and kept the fee for himself. The relationship of the two men became strained because of this, Dr Knox admitted buying a body from Hare alone – something Hare denied. Burke and Hare ended up in a drunken brawl but continued their illicit business. There were sixteen victims who met their end this way, plied with alcohol and when in the confines of the lodging house they were executed. An old woman and a possibly mentally disabled boy were two murders which truly disturbed Burke he would later say. They used a fish barrel to take the bodies to Knox.

Another chilling story is that when Hare’s horse could not transport the barrel far enough so he shot it dead in their garden. This shows the ruthless, unbalanced side to his nature – if true. Next up would be a lady who came to do laundry. Burke and Hare did the usual of getting their victim drunk and then suffocating them once both parties were inebriated enough. A relative of Burke’s wife came after, then a mentally disable eighteen year old boy called James Wilson. Wilson was well-known among the community because of his handicap. This meant that people noticed he went missing, and some students of Dr Knox believed the cadaver to be his. Knox denied it and began dissecting the body as soon as possible according to reports. The last murder was in October 1828 and the thread began to truly unravel from the most wicked of wool.

An Irish lady named Margaret Docherty was lured to the house. Two other guests saw Burke, Hare and both their wives drinking in high spirits within the common room with Docherty – singing, dancing and all. They had all become extremely careless. Later, they executed Docherty. The next day, the couple called the Grays – who had seen the festivities the day before – felt something wrong in the air. They found Docherty’s body in a bed of straw after surveying the house. The wife of Burke (both wives knew what their husbands were doing) tried to bribe them to keep quiet but they refused and bravely sought the Police. By this time Burke and Hare had taken the body to Knox, but the Police found enough blood in the lodging house to arrest them. Burke would admit to the murders. He confessed to sixteen kills all while being drunk or on opium. He stated that he could not sleep without a bottle of Whiskey next to him.

The Lord Advocate of Edinburgh decided that due to lack of evidence they would need another tactic. He would force a confession from only one man by offering immunity from prison. William Hare sang like a bird against Burke. Knox would not face any charges, as although what he did was abhorrent he did not encourage any murders, nor did he break the law.

The trial of Burke and Hare

The trial would take place on Christmas Eve, 1828. On Christmas day, William Burke was sentenced to death and the judge demanded he be publicly dissected and his skeleton to be displayed. An ironic case of an eye-for-an-eye. Both wives were acquitted for not having anything to do with the murders. After being hounded viciously by angry mobs the Police gave Hare’s wife safe passage back to Ireland, while McDougal (Burke’s spouse) escaped Edinburgh. Nothing was heard of the two women ever again. William Hare escaped to England through hordes of people wanting him trialled or dead. Dr Knox was never charged but he was harassed by the public, although not to the extent of the wives of the killers. Even though the Police told the public that he did not know the bodies had been murdered he lost his job and would struggle to find more work in Scotland. He then so, took a position at a surgery in England.

Death mask of Burke (left) and life mask of Hare (right). (kim traynor / geograph.org.uk)

Aftermath

A new year brought the end to the chaos but not the justice with William Hare walking free. William Burke was hanged in front of a crowd of over 25,000 people. His corpse was dissected in Edinburgh University shortly after and his skeleton remains to this day in the Edinburgh Medical School. New laws were passed to stop corpse-snatching from happening again. Especially after two men from London – known as the London Burkers – attempted the same thing. The Anatomy Act of 1832 meant that bodies could only be dissected if unclaimed after 48 hours. A truly, horrible story it is impossible to fathom the lives these men lead. To kill in the way they did takes a very wicked or disturbed person – even under the influence of narcotics and alcohol. The tale has been immortalised in multiple films, books and theatre shows. It will never be forgotten.

Enjoyed this article? Also, check out “H. H. Holmes: Life of America’s First Known Deadliest Serial Killer“.

Recommended Read:
Burke and Hare: The Year of the Ghouls By Bailey, Brian (2002) | Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84018-575-1.

Fact Analysis:
STSTW Media strives to deliver accurate information through careful research. However, things can go wrong. If you find the above article inaccurate or biased, please let us know at [email protected].

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The escapees from Alcatraz prison. (L-R) Frank Morris, Clarence Anglin & John Anglin. (Wikimedia Commons)

It’s about 57 years since the ingenious and daring escape from the Alcatraz, the island prison one mile off the San Francisco Bay.

One of the greatest daring & successful escapes from Alcatraz, known as the ‘Rock’, was that of four inmates. The four included Frank Morris the mastermind, Clarence and John Anglin (both brothers), and Allen West.

Frank was an armed burglar. As a foster child in Washington DC, Frank had become a drug dealer. John and Clarence were from Georgia. They had been robbing banks since they were young adults. Allen stole cars.

Frank shared his daring plan with his co-conspirators. Over the next 6 months, the four men stole spoons, saw blades and an improvised drill to slowly broaden the ventilation ducts in their prison cells.

Working mostly during nights, they executed their escape plan during June of 1962 through the ventilation shaft. Allen couldn’t escape as he was unable to remove the grill covering the ventilation shaft. He was left behind.

Fake head used for escaping. (National Park Service)

The cell from which the inmates escaped. On the bed, a fake head was placed. (Supercarwaar / Wikimedia Commons)

Prison officials detected the escape the next morning. After questioning Allen, prison and police officials found that the three escaped prisoners planned to sail to the inhabited Angel Island close to Alcatraz. Nothing was found on Angel Island except for some shreds of raincoat.

Seen alive

Ever since the now famous escape, there have been rumours about the three being seen at various places over the years.

In 2012, two sisters of the Anglin brothers are said to have claimed that John had made a phone call shortly after escaping from the prison.

Another sibling of the Anglin brothers, Robert is believed to have confessed in 2010 that he had been in contact with his brothers until 1987.

The family of the Anglin brothers believes that the two had gone to Brazil. Fred Brizzi, a family friend, is believed to have met the brothers in 2012. To prove that the Anglin brothers were alive, Fred produced pictures of the two.

In 2011, a man claiming to be Frank Morris’s cousin said he met Frank in San Diego. However, officials refused to accept these claims.

As for Frank, a man claiming to be his cousin came forward in 2011 saying that he had met Frank in San Diego. However, the authenticity of the claim could not be verified.

The history of Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

In the 30 years of the prison’s history since 1934, only 36 inmates had attempted to escape. Of them, 7 were shot and killed, 5 remained unaccounted, 2 drowned, and the rest got caught.

Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, 1950. (GOGA Park Archives / Flickr)

The big shot liquor smuggler and the dreaded Al Capone was one of the inmates at Alcatraz in 1930s. Al Capone lived at Alcatraz for 4 and a half years. He was transferred to the Rock in August of 1934 from the US Penitentiary in Atlanta.

Capone’s arrival was the cause of the endless myth called Alcatraz.

Alcatraz escape

For decades, the successful escape stumped the prison and investigating officials. The bodies of the trio were never recovered. This left the officials wondering whether they escaped to their freedom or perished in the choppy San Francisco Bay waters.

In 1979, the FBI officials finally closed its case saying the three inmates met their watery grave in the frigid waters of the Bay.

Whatever may be the fact, in the last 55 years the three men have become folklore spurred by Hollywood film. In the 1979 film ‘Escape from Alcatraz’ Clint Eastwood, Patrick McGoohan and Roberts Blossom essayed the key roles. The film was directed by Don Siegel.

Background

In 1775, Spanish Lieutenant Juan Manuel de Ayala was the first European to sail through the Golden Gate. The Lieutenant named the rock as “La Isla de los Alcatraces”. It means “Island of the Pelicans.” Over the years, the name got corrupted to “Alcatraz.”

The decade long Great Depression turned out to be the worst economic downturn in the history of the United States. As a result of the Great Depression from 1929 until the end of the 1930s, there was rampant unemployment. With a spurt in joblessness, crimes skyrocketed.

A new variety of violent criminals walked the streets of the US raising an alarm from the threatened citizens. To contain crimes and imprison criminals, the US Congress enacted several statutes and gave the federal government more powers over certain criminal offences.

On the advice of the former US Attorney General Homes Cummings, Congress established the US Penitentiary of Alcatraz in 1934. For the next 30 years, Alcatraz was home to America’s most wanted.

Alcatraz was a special penal institution having maximum security and minimum privilege. On average, the number of prisoners in the prison was 260. At times the count went up to 302.

Native American activists

A bunch of Native American activists formed an umbrella organization called “Indians of All Tribes”. In November 1969, they occupied the island and stayed there for about a year and a half. As a result, the Native American issues came to the limelight.

There were many supporters for the Native Americans. However, the occupation ended unglamorously when federal agents forcibly removed the occupiers in June of 1971.

Native Americans at Alcatraz. (GOGA Park Archives / Flickr)

Golden Gate National Recreation Area

Alcatraz Island was turned into a recreation and tourist centre in 1972.

The authorities formed the Golden Gate National Recreation Area on the island and ever since the National Park Service has been administering the island. The general public was allowed to visit the island as tourists.

Bird’s-eye view of the island. (Ralf Baechle / Wikimedia Commons)

Today, being San Francisco’s premier tourist attractions, Alcatraz has attracted over 1.5 million visitors every year.

According to Travelers’ Choice awards, the Alcatraz is the No. 1 landmark in the US. For tourists, Alcatraz Island is home to the first lighthouse on the West Coast. For the birdwatchers, it is a paradise.

In 1986, the island was tagged as the National Historic Landmark.

Enjoyed this article? Also, check out “D.B. Cooper: The Man Who Hijacked a Plane and Got Away“.

Fact Analysis:
STSTW Media strives to deliver accurate information through careful research. However, things can go wrong. If you find the above article inaccurate or biased, please let us know at [email protected].

The post The Story of the Ingenious and Daring Escape from the Alcatraz appeared first on .

Dawood Ibrahim (left) and Khalid Pehelwan (right). (© Penguin Random House India)

In Dawood’s Mentor, we visit the Bombay of the 1970s. It was an innocent time, even for the mafia of the city. They lived in rank and congested buildings in small lanes and mohallas, ruled their small areas and ran smuggling, bootlegging, black marketing, and prostitution operations, and fanned their interpersonal feuds.

This is the story of Khalid Pehelwan, who later mentored Dawood Ibrahim. At the start, as a newly rich gold smuggler who had once wanted to be a policeman, he decides to move away from the labyrinthine mohallas of Dongri and rent a plush flat in upmarket Bombay Central.

Dongri, incidentally, was where most of Bombay’s underworld lived.

“The areas of Dongri, Pydhonie, J.J. Market, Umarkhadi—popularly known as ‘3, 8 and 9’ (Bombay pincode numbers)—had back-to-back buildings that shared walls, with poor hygiene and no civic amenities… The lack of physical space had also impinged on the mind space of the gangsters, who had never thought bigger.”

The famous characters of the underworld included Bashu Dada of Teli Mohalla, a neighbor of Dawood Ibrahim, and Hassu Maharaj of Khanda Mohalla. And then there was Kareem Siddhi of Siddhi Mohalla, who looked so much like Idi Amin, the erstwhile dictator of Uganda, that even the police knew him by that name.

“Kareem Siddhi, of course, loved the moniker and began dressing up in military uniform to keep up the facade.

Every Friday, after the Jumma prayers, Kareem Siddhi used to don the military uniform with his black shades, trying to look every inch like Idi Amin. And then he would stand on a platform and give fiery speeches to an audience comprised mainly of his acolytes and some of his community members.”

The Siddhi community were Sufi Muslims of African origin; the Portuguese had brought them to India as slaves some 500 years ago. As a member of this community, Kareem Siddhi was a tough leader.

“As long as Kareem Siddhi was alive, no gangster, mafia don or policeman dared to cross swords with him. The Idi Amin of Mumbai ruled in his small fiefdom unchallenged.“

Between them, the brothers Abdul Rahim Khan and Abdul Karim Khan (Karim Lala) ruled Jail Road South and the Grant Road area of Baida Gully. Then there was Shahid, of Arab Galli, who ruled over the red-light areas of Kamathipura, Foras Road, and Playhouse.

“The gharwalis and pimps collected cash in the morning from the helpless prostitutes and gave it to Haji Umar, who was the head of all the pimps and was pejoratively referred to as ‘Bhadvon ka Boss’, meaning the ‘chief of pimps’. Umar used to make thousands of rupees every night and would keep bringing girls from the northern and southern Indian states as per the demand. At the time, Umar ruled the red- light area with an iron fist.”

Umar, the son of a prostitute named Ayesha, was a notorious homosexual that sodomized the women he pushed into prostitution. He was soon to lock horns with Shahid of Arab Galli.

Being an innovative goon, Shahid saw a lucrative opportunity in the huge appetite the public had for blockbuster Hindi films like Zanjeer and Bobby. They lined up for hours in long queues to book advance tickets for films at seedy cinemas like Taj Talkies, Shalimar, Nishad, Super Talkies, and Royal Talkies. So, to take advantage of these people, Shahid came up with the ‘chaar anna scheme’. If you didn’t want to stand in queue and wanted to move ahead of 10 people, you paid chaar anna or 25 paise. If you wanted to move ahead of 100 people, you paid Rs. 2.50. At that price, in those days, you could buy the movie ticket itself.

It turned out to be a successful scheme and made Shahid a lot of money, but, at the same time, it enraged Umar. He didn’t want someone else making money on his turf. However, Karim Lala intervened, and he wasn’t someone Umar dared to defy. Afterall, Karim Lala was a tough dada in his area, and, moreover, was allied to big muscles like VaradarajanMudaliar and Haji Mastan.

He told Umar:

“O Umar harami ka bachcha, tum bhadwagiri karo, usko phillum dekhne do (O you bastard Umar, you focus on pimping; let Shahid watch movies).”

With this support, Shahid made encroachments next into Umar’s particular speciality of prostitution.

He began supplying young virgins to Arabs who came from Saudi Arabia to Bombay on business trips and stayed in five-star hotels. Describing this disgusting trade as ‘ribbon-cutting ceremony’, Shahid charged Rs. 1000 for young girls and Rs. 5000 for virgins. He made huge profits from the business and then discovered that he could make even more money by selling underaged girls to the Arabs under the guise of marriage. He began persuading impoverished Indian Muslim families from Bombay and Hyderabad to sell off their teenage daughters. These young girls were ‘married’ by pseudo Qazis to elderly Arabs.

The Arabs thought it was a great business too. For a mere Rs. 10,000, they could take away young virgin girls.

The Indian government took notice in 1991 after the flight attendant of an Indian Airlines flight, Amrita Ahluwalia, courageously rescued 11-year-old Ameena Begum from being taken away by her elderly Arab ‘husband’. Even so, even after the incident made headlines, the horrifying trade continued.

Of course, everyone in the underworld wasn’t involved in these activities. Varadarajan Mudaliar, for instance, stuck to monopolizing liquor bootlegging.

“from Dharavi to Dahanu and on the central railway line until Dombivli, he had the sole authority to brew and distribute liquor.”

“Every turf was thus demarcated and restricted to a particular mafia group. Until the Pathan gang—led by Amirzada–Alamzeb, went on a rampage, opposed only by a twenty-year-old Dawood, who boasted a band of loyalists— none of the gangsters ever thought of consolidating their hold over the entire south Bombay area.”

That is until Khalid began to dream big. From smuggling gold, he went to the next level and began smuggling diamonds. It was more profitable and easier to smuggle diamonds than gold.

Khalid Pehelwan (left) with Dawood Ibrahim and the baap of dons—former head constable Ibrahim Kaskar. (© Penguin Random House India)

“Gold could not be carried on flights as the vigilance therein was too much, whereas diamonds could be easily smuggled in through airports. Diamonds worth several lakhs could be easily kept in the pocket, hidden in the underwear or camouflaged in other accessories.“

Furthermore –

“The diamonds, depending on the number of carats and the cut, could make a minimum margin of over 200 per cent and could be easily sold in the Surat or Ahmedabad diamond markets, if not in Opera House or Zaveri Bazaar in Bombay.”

Getting the hesitant Bashu Dada on board to finance the venture, Khalid went to Dubai to meet Abdul Wahab Galadari and get diamonds worth over Rs. 3 lakhs. It was a test run to see if Khalid could successfully evade the customs in Bombay.

“When Khalid reached Bombay, he hesitated and then walked towards a customs officer and declared that he was carrying a gold biscuit. The customs officer glared at him and then made him pay a duty of Rs 25,000 on it. The customs officer reprimanded him for carrying gold, which Khalid explained was for his would-be bride. Khalid was lightly frisked but no attention was paid to his shoes, in which the diamonds were hidden in the heels.”

This is an interesting book with some great descriptions and tongue-in-cheek writing. If you’ve lived in Bombay, you will recognize all the landmarks. Hopefully, you will not have experienced anything of the parallel universe of the underworld.

Khalid Pehelwan (centre) with Dawood Ibrahim on his right and Dawood’s brother Noor Hasan, also called ‘Noora’, on his left. (© Penguin Random House India)

For more details, read the book: 

Dawood’s Mentor: The Man Who Made India’s Biggest Don | By S. Hussain Zaidi

The post The Devil Behind Dawood Ibrahim appeared first on .

H. H. Holmes or Henry Howard Holmes. (Wikimedia Commons)

The United States of America appears to be the home of dreaded serial killers beginning with H. H. Holmes, the country’s first deadliest serial killer. There were at least 50 horrifying serial killers in America after H. H.Holmes, who was active between 1886 and 1896.

Some of the later serial killers of America include Alabama’s Thomas Warren Whisenhant, Arizona’s Mark Goudeau, California’s Ed Kemper and Florida’s Christine Falling.

Born on May 16, 1861, in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, H. H. Holmes’s real name was Herman Webster Mudgett. Of all the serial killers, Herman Mudgett was highly educated. He graduated from the medical school at the University of Michigan in 1884.

Highly intelligent

From an early age, Mudgett, who was born into a wealthy family, was highly intelligent and interested in medicine. Showing early signs of murderous nature, the young Mudgett used to trap animals and perform surgery on them.

There are unconfirmed reports that Mudgett is believed to have killed his childhood friend. In 1886, Mudgett moved to Chicago, where he changed his name to Dr H. H. Holmes and took up a pharmacist job.

H. H. Holmes’ murder castle

Soon after taking up his residence in Chicago, he began killing people with the purpose of stealing the property of the victims. Over a period of time, he built a house for himself, which later came to be known as the “Murder Castle”.

H. H. Holmes’ “Castle”. (Wikimedia Commons)

According to National Police Journal records, the “Murder Castle” had secret passages, soundproof rooms, trapdoors and gas jets to asphyxiate his victims. Also, there was a kiln to cremate the bodies of the victims.

In 1893, during the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, H. H. Holmes is believed to have seduced, got engaged to and then murdered innumerable women. Before killing the women, he is said to have taken control of their life savings.

Insurance fraud

Police records also reveal that H. H. Holmes forced his women employees to take life insurance policies with his name as the legal beneficiary. Later, he killed the women, took their insurance amounts and also sold their bodies to several local medical schools.

In 1893, after a fire at his house, H. H. Holmes was arrested for insurance fraud. However, he was released soon.

Holmes served a jail term

Benjamin Pitezel. (Wikimedia Commons)

Later, scheming to defraud an insurance company, H. H. Holmes made his close associate, Benjamin Pitezel, to buy a $10,000 life insurance policy. Then, he and Pitezel travelled from Chicago to Texas via Colorado, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

Along the way, the duo committed several frauds. H. H. Holmes even got married. However, in Texas, H. H. Holmes got arrested and was briefly jailed for trying to defraud a drug company.

While serving his jail term, H. H. Holmes befriended a career criminal named Marion Hedgepeth. Hedgepeth agreed to help Holmes and Pitezel in defrauding the insurance firm where Pitezel had a policy.

After release, Holmes killed Pitezel

While Holmes was undergoing his jail term, Pitezel moved to Philadelphia. There he opened a fake patent office with a view to swindle inventors.

Police records show that after being released from the jail, Holmes went to Philadelphia and killed his friend Pitezel and claimed the insurance money. He then killed three of Pitezel’s five children thinking that they may alert the authorities of their father’s death.

Meanwhile, for reasons known only to him, Hedgepeth alerted the insurance investigators about the fraud. Following which, Boston police arrested Holmes in 1894. Holmes trial began in Philadelphia in 1895. It lasted for just six days.

Confessed to 27 murders

During the trial, Holmes is believed to have confessed to 27 murders. Later on, there were speculations that Holmes killed more than 130, or even 200.

Before he was hanged to death, Holmes, alias Mudgett, sold his life story to the Hearst Corporation for an amount of $10,000.

As per his last wish, the jail authorities are believed to have buried Holmes 10 feet under the earth and encased in concrete. Apparently, he told the jail authorities that he didn’t want grave thieves to dig up his body and dissect it.

Holmes married thrice

It is interesting to note that Holmes married thrice in his lifetime. First, at the age of 19 years, he married Clara in 1878. Two years later, they had a son. However, Holmes soon abandoned them. In 1887, he married Myrta Belknap. At that time he was yet to divorce Clara.

A few weeks later, he filed for divorce, but the papers never approved. On January 17, 1894, Holmes again married Georgiana Yoke in Denver, Colorado. This was just before he was arrested for insurance fraud.

Curse of Holmes

Technically speaking, Holmes married three women at the time of his death in 1896.

Several strange deaths happened shortly after authorities buried Holmes’ body under solid concrete. A coroner’s physician named Dr William K Matten was the first to die due to blood poisoning. Later, the head coroner Dr Ashbridge, a trial judge and then the superintendent of Holmes’ prison died. Several others too exited the world for various reasons.

When the insurance company’s office gutted, common people felt it was due to the curse of Holmes.   

Rumours of fake death

Over the years rumours swirled around that Holmes had faked his death and escaped to South America or England. There were also speculations that Holmes transformed into the now infamous killer named Jack the Ripper.

Recently, however, biological anthropologists like Samantha Cox from the Penn Museum quashed the rumours and confirmed that Holmes has been resting since 1896 at his burial ground.

Cox and her team were requested to identify the remains after Jeff Mudgett, the great-great-grandson of Holmes, got a court order to have the grave exhumed.

The process of confirming Holmes’ identity was complex. A tissue sample from his body was sent to Kings College in England for DNA testing. The tests confirmed that the remains did belong to Jeff Mudgett’s relative.

Later, Cox’s analysis of the skeleton’s features matched with that of Holmes. After all the tests, including the dental examinations, Cox said the purpose of the tests was to give answers to the Holmes’s descendants.

Enjoyed this article? Also, check out “Burke and Hare: Two Body Snatching Serial Killers Who Sold Corpses for Anatomical Science“.

Fact Analysis:
STSTW Media strives to deliver accurate information through careful research. However, things can go wrong. If you find the above article inaccurate or biased, please let us know at [email protected].

The post H. H. Holmes: Life of America’s First Known Deadliest Serial Killer appeared first on .

Unverified photo of Zona and her husband Trout Shue. (Unknown)

Greenbrier Crime Case is the only legal case in the world which admitted evidence purportedly coming from the ghost of a dead woman. This is the story of a housewife in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, United States, which transpired in 1897.

A woman dies in mysterious circumstances and is cremated without much ado. But days later, there was a re-evaluation on her death case. Her mother was seized of the matter, who blames foul play and reopened the case. The woman’s dead body is dug up from the grave and post-mortem is conducted.          

The story

Elva Zona Heaster, aged 22 years and an unmarried mother of a child meets a man named Edward Stribbling Trout Shue in 1896. The man had moved to Greenbrier in search of work and started working as a blacksmith. The two fell in love and got married without the approval of Zona’s mother. Her mother instinctively disliked Shue and didn’t want her daughter to marry him.

Come January 24, 1897, Zona got buried in Soule Chapel Methodist Cemetery after her dead body was discovered at home, stretched on the floor a day earlier. Her mother had immediately called for a local doctor and a coroner (an official who confirms the identity of the dead within his jurisdiction).

In the pre-funeral mourning at home, the body language of Shue defied sobriety of the occasion. Expressing high pitch grief, he didn’t allow anyone close into the face of the dead body. Giving support of a pillow and a rolled-sheet to ‘head’ he explained that arrangement would help his wife rest easy. Tearful Shue also put a scarf around her neck saying it was her favourite wear. However, when the body was moved to the cemetery, many noticed that head of the corpse wobbled as if it was free of the neck.

Suspicion

Mary Jane Heaster. (Wikimedia Commons)

After the mourning ceremony, Mary Jane Heaster, the mother of the deceased removed the spreadsheet of the coffin and gave it to Shue who refused to keep it. So she kept the sheet to herself and noted that it smelt bad. She soaked it in water and saw that water turned red. It had blood stains which couldn’t be cleaned by washing. This convinced her that her daughter was murdered. A religious lady, she immersed herself in prayers beseeching her daughter’s spirit to manifest and reveal her side of the story. Her prayer was heard. Zona appeared in her dream and her spirit said that she was killed by her husband following an altercation at the dinner table. She turned around to enable mother to have a fulsome look at her broken neck.

Mother shouts foul

Crestfallen and charged, Jane met John Alfred Preston, the legal representative, and forced him to reopen Zona’s case. Preston already had inputs pointing to foul play in the matter. He promptly contacted Dr. Knapp who had inspected Zona’s dead body. Dr. Knapp confessed that the dead body wasn’t thoroughly examined. He had arrived on the scene an hour late and by then Shue had dressed up the corpse himself. The body wore stiff collared high-neck dress, face covered with a veil. Shue wailing bitterly holding Zona’s head made medical examination difficult. Dr. Knapp did see some injury marks on the neck but the manner of grieving husband prevented a closer examination.

Dead body dugout

Following doctor’s submission, authorities dug out Zona’s body from the grave. A 3-hour autopsy on February 22, 1897 revealed the neck and windpipe broken and ligaments torn. Shue had to be present during the post-mortem. He was livid throughout and asserted that no one could prove him guilty in the court of law. On the basis of the autopsy findings, Shue was arrested and jailed at Lewisburg. Reports of his shady past poured in suggesting he was married twice before he met Zona. The first wife divorced him for being cruel and second died mysteriously within a year of marriage. Even in jail, Shue joked about his ambition to marry 7 women. He was sure of going scot-free in trial saying that the evidence against him was negligible.

Trail & the Greenbrier Ghost

The trial of the case began on June 22, 1897.  Coroner, John Alfred Preston presented Zona’s mother, Mary Jane Heaster, as a key witness. He limited himself to the observed facts of the case and avoided referring the ghost sighted by Zona’s mother.  Shue’s lawyer though pointedly questioned the lady about her interface with the ghost, hoping to find holes in her statement. Undaunted by hassling, Heaster was consistent in her submission. The judge was forced to acknowledge ghost angle to the case as it was pushed by the defence lawyer. Finally, Shue was held guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. A lynch mob tried dragging Shue out of jail and kill him, but was dispersed by timely intervention.

Justice

Shue was shifted to West Virginia State Penitentiary in Moundsville. He remained incarcerated for 3 years and died in an unknown epidemic on 13th March 1900. Historical marker erected by the state of West Virginia near Zona’s grave says: “the only known case in which testimony from a ghost helped convict a murderer.”

Enjoyed this article? Also, check out “Burke and Hare: Two Body Snatching Serial Killers Who Sold Corpses for Anatomical Science“.

Fact Analysis:
STSTW Media strives to deliver accurate information through careful research. However, things can go wrong. If you find the above article inaccurate or biased, please let us know at [email protected].

The post Greenbrier Ghost: When Trial Court was Forced to Record a Testimony from a Ghost appeared first on .

Caged tiger. Image used for illustration. (Akbedu / Pixabay)

There is a natural order to this world that we have been hell bent on destroying. Humans take pride in their ability to be able to change the course of history and the shape of our planet. We, as a species have taken over this planet and it won’t be totally false to say that most other species survive here at our mercy. Though, we are not doing a very good job as the custodians of planet Earth.

The population of wild tigers in China went down drastically during the 1980s thanks to systematic poaching to fulfil the demands of the traditional medicine market. The Chinese government saw a business opportunity with huge guaranteed profits and hence funded large-scale farms to breed and slaughter tigers for their body parts. In 1986, 8 tigers from American zoos were brought to China under the pretext of starting a program to breed tigers for the conservation of the endangered species. This has since turned into one of the dirtiest businesses in the world, the commercial tiger farming.

A video of some tigers chasing a drone around one such tiger farm in China went viral last year giving people a better look at China’s commercial tiger farms. It has become very clear that they are not running these farms with the intention of conserving the endangered species. Even though they formally agreed to ban any trade of tiger body parts after they had signed the international treaty at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES) in 1981. It was their own State Forestry Administration (SFA) that approved the opening of the first tiger farm.

Tiger Farms in China

The main purpose of these tiger farms is breeding tigers for profit, primarily, to feed the Chinese traditional medicine market which relies heavily on tiger bones. These farms supply not only the tiger bones but hides, claws and, teeth to anyone who is willing to spend a good amount of money.

The wildlife tracking NGO traffic revealed the sale of tiger bone at US$257 for 500ml. On the other hand, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) recovered 1.2 million litres from one farm that estimates to US $617M. Tiger meat was priced at US$100 per dish and teeth at US$660 each. The whole skin was up for US$22,000 and wine from marinated tiger penis being the most expensive of all, at a price of US $490 per 500ml.

Photo of vendor selling body parts of various animals including tiger claws and tooth at Laomeng market, China. (Alpha / Flickr)

Response from the Chinese government

The worldwide population of wild tigers is less than 4000 today. While now, three decades later, there are more than 200 facilities that house 5000-6000 tigers across China. Some like Siberian Tiger Park in Harbin and Guilin’s Tiger Mountain Village hold more than 1000 captive tigers each. Here they are placed in gruesome conditions within extremely confined concrete enclosures. Their physical conditions have caused them to suffer from severe mental and physical distress. Many show signs of genetic deformities caused by serious inbreeding. Some are obese from overfeeding, while some are weak and starving. They are occasionally even used as props for photo-ops by tourists. These animals are not capable of adjusting to the wild. They can be a huge danger to humans and other species if released. And they are also a danger to other wild tigers.

When questioned about this, the Chinese government has taken the stand that if America can breed and slaughter cows to fulfil the feeding demands of their people, so can they. But what the Chinese government does not understand is that by creating a demand for tiger body parts, they indirectly promote the poaching of wild tigers. Who’s to know which parts come from a wild tiger or a tiger in captivity?

People across the globe are rightly asking for the ban of these farms to ensure the well-being of the tigers.

Enjoyed this article? Also, check out “Tiger Temple: A Clandestine Tiger-Breeding Facility Run by Monks“.

Fact Analysis:
STSTW Media strives to deliver accurate information through careful research. However, things can go wrong. If you find the above article inaccurate or biased, please let us know at [email protected].

The post Tiger Farms: Where a Shady ‘Tiger Conservation Business’ Puts the Entire Feline Population at a Greater Risk appeared first on .

Collar Bomb Heist: Photo from CCTV camera of Brian Wells leaving the bank after the heist. (Source: Erie Bureau of Police)

28 August 2003: It was a normal day for the people of PNC bank in Pennsylvania (US) until a pizza delivery man named Brian Douglas Wells walked in without any pizza boxes in hand. Passing a note to the teller, which read “Gather employees with access codes to vault and work fast to fill the bag with $250,000”, Wells pulled his shirt up to reveal what seemed like a big box like device strapped from his neck to confirm that this was no joke. 

The teller told Wells that the vault was inaccessible at the moment and hastily filled the bag with cash little less than $9000 and instantly handed it over. Wells walked out and drove away in his car. About 15 minutes later, Wells was caught by the police in a parking lot quite near to the bank. The police handcuffed him and push him onto his knees on the ground.

Brian Wells after being surrounded by law enforcement. (Source: www.thewrap.com)

Wells accused three blank men of forcing him of robbing the bank by chaining a collar bomb to his neck. He yelled to the policemen around him, “It’s gonna go off.” The police didn’t seem to buy it, still, the bomb squad was called and policemen took place behind their cars with weapons drawn. Wells asked a couple of times, “Why isn’t anybody trying to get this thing off me?” reports CNN. News cameramen arrived and started to film the event. Wells stayed stationary on the sidewalk for hard 25 minutes, hopeless waiting to be helped. Soon, the bomb started to beep and then it exploded, piercing a 5-inch wide hole in Wells’ chest, he grasped for his last breath and finally collapsed. The bomb also blew away any doubts that the authorities had with its authenticity. Three minutes post Wells’ dead, the bomb squad arrived.

Collar Bomb Heist: The investigation 

The police started looking for physical shreds of evidence to find a tail to the story. Inside Wells’ car, they found a homemade shotgun which was cleverly disguised ‘as a cane’. The collar bomb itself was a remarkable piece of craftsmanship. Upon examination, it was clear that the bomb was made by a professional using professional tools. It was made in such a way that any attempt to take it out would trigger it. It was filled with several wires leading to nowhere and deceptive warnings to slow down the defuser.

The cane gun found in Brian’s vehicle. (FBI)

But perhaps, the most intriguing piece of evidence was that the police managed to get its hands on was a set of handwritten instructions meant for the “Bomb Hostage.” Wells was instructed to first, rob the bank and then follow a set of instructions to drive through Erie (a city in Pennsylvania), searching for different passcodes, keys, and combinations to save his life. Initially, it appeared that he might have been able to free himself from the certain death that was ticking around his neck, had he done as he was instructed. It was like a treasure hunt in which the prize was none other than his life.

The police began to follow the instructions and complete the hunt themselves. The first instruction was quite simple; it read “Exit the bank with the money and go to the McDonald’s restaurant. Get out of the car and go to the small sign reading drive-thru/open 24 hr in the flower bed. By the sign, there is a rock with a note taped to the bottom. It has your next instructions.”

Wells was able to retrieve this clue but was promptly caught by the police. However, the cops went forward with the next clue which instructed them to go to an area covered with woods several miles up the Peach Street. There they were supposed to find the next clue in a container with an orange tape, which they did. This clue instructed them to go about 2 miles south to find a glass jar with the next set of the instructions. They did find the jar, however, it was empty, ending the hunt instantly. The bizarre case made it to the international headlines and set in motion, a series of investigations, interviews, trails and revelations in an attempt of tracking and hunting down the “Collar Bomber.”

The collar that was strapped around Brian’s neck. (FBI)

The investigation began at Wells’ place of work, Mama Mia’s Pizza-Ria. The cops got to know that Wells delivered his last order to a remote place in the suburbs. When the cops reached the location, they found Wells’ and his car’s prints on the dirt track. However, the location which was TV transmission tower site yielded no other evidence.

The next day, the newspersons managed to get an eye on Bill Rothstein, an unmarried fifty-nine years old handyman who lived in a house adjacent to the cordoned area. He cooperated with the authorities and seemed like a peaceful man who happened to have nothing with the case. However, on 20th September, Bill was arrested by the police. Bill had called 911 to inform them about a dead body that he has been keeping frozen in a freezer in his garage.

The dead man was identified as James Roden, the boyfriend of Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, Bill’s ex-girlfriend. After the investigation, it was stated that Marjorie had shot James with a shotgun after the couple had an argument over money. The police arrested Marjorie and she was sentenced to 20 years in prison after she pleaded guilty.

Bill confessed to feeling guilty and depressed. He said that he even went on to write a suicide note. The note started with a very strange line, “It has nothing to do with the Wells case.” Bills passed away in July 2004 due to lymphatic cancer. In April 2005, Marjorie gave the case a new direction. The feds had been paying little to no attention to the murder of James. She said that it had ‘everything to do with the case.’ In subsequent interviews with the feds, she confessed that she was the one who supplied kitchen timers for the bombs. Also, she said that she watched the whole incident unfurl with her own eyes. She reported that Wells was also a part of the plan until the bomb was fake, and alleged Bill to be the mastermind of the whole incident.

While Marjorie blamed Bill, the officers firmly believed that she was the one who engineered the whole crime. Marjorie was already one of the most infamous figures in Erie due to her dark history of dead lovers. Another development took place a few months after Marjorie’s interrogation. This brings another character into the scene, Kenneth Barnes. Barnes was former television repairman but was completing his sentence in jail due to some unconnected drug charges. He offered to cooperate in return for a reduced sentence.

Barnes made some shocking revelations, he ensured the interrogators that Marjorie was the mastermind of the crime as she needed money to get her father assassinated, who, she believed, had been wasting the money she had to inherit. Eventually, the feds had several rounds of talks with Marjorie who surprisingly continued to reveal details of her involvement formerly unknown. She didn’t realize how much to say and had revealed details enough to bring an indictment against her.

Trial and charges

In July of 2007, the then US Attorney for the state of Pennsylvania, Mary Beth Buchanan declared the investigation to be over. Charges were pressed against Marjorie and Barnes, both convicted of planning the crime. The unwilling participant, Brain Wells and the handyman, Bill Rothstein was also charged.

The trials were held. On trail’s fifth day, Barnes took the stand. He confessed the things the federals and the public had always believed in. He accused Marjorie of planning the whole crime. He informed the court that she persuaded Bill and Brian with the assurance of payday and both men in need of money, joined in. Subsequently, Marjorie took the stand, she did nothing more than shouting, crying and mocking the lawyers.

However, it seemed like the court had already decided that who was guilty and who was not. After 11 hours of deliberation, the jury declared the accused, guilty of all three charges- conspiracy, using a destructive device in a crime of violence and an armed bank robbery. The case had come to an end. The things were settled now, but that’s not how Jim Fisher, a retired FBI criminal agent saw them. He investigated and believed that Marjorie, given her mental condition, in no possible way could have planned such a horrendous and elaborate crime. The crime had multiple motives.

Bill Rothstein, the handyman, he thought, was the guy that had the required skills to craft such a bomb. Moreover, during his lifetime, he couldn’t achieve anything big in life and therefore, Fisher thought that he wanted to leave a legacy of his intelligence. This crime of his had been a big success, it managed to trouble the authorities for years and had gathered international attention. ‘He died with all of the secrets. He gets the last laugh in that sense. He left us with these idiots and a bunch of questions’ says Fisher.

What was the true motive of the heist? Who planned it? Who all were involved? These are some of the questions that we shall never find answers to.

Enjoyed this article? Also, check out “FBI’s Long Haul of Ted Kaczynski, the Schizophrenic Unabomber“.

Recommended Read:
Pizza Bomber: The Untold Story of America’s Most Shocking Bank Robbery | By Jerry Clark & Palattella

Recommended Watch:
Evil Genius: the True Story of America’s Most Diabolical Bank Heist | Netflix

Fact Analysis:
STSTW Media strives to deliver accurate information through careful research. However, things can go wrong. If you find the above article inaccurate or biased, please let us know at [email protected].

The post Collar Bomb Heist: A Nightmarish Idea That Happens to Find a Page in History appeared first on .

Enriqueta Marti. (Wikimedia Commons)

Serial Killing is an absolutely horrifying subject.  To the point that horrifying is too meek a word to describe it, although other synonyms have the same effect. Needless to say, the following article has some adult material.  It is an important subject none-the-less, important in the hope that understanding it may lead to abolishing it. Alas, as long as humans survive then there will surely be more. It is important and also thought-provoking because the more we read, the more correlations we discover.

Take the fact that three out of the four most prolific serial killers ever recorded were born in Colombia. Their murders ranging from 90-300. Does this say something about the socioeconomic demographics of the country? It would appear to be a massive co-incidence if not. And then take a seemingly safe country like Spain who does not have a large history of serial killers, with the most prolific convicted of sixteen. *Would the obvious historical factors come into play here or is it something far beneath the surface?

Let us take a look at one of Spain’s serial killers – the Vampiress of El Raval – to see if that helps us discover more…

There is a metropolitan area in Barcelona called El Raval which even today has an enchanting yet eerie quality about its narrow, odorful streets. Raval is famous for its never-ending nightlife which unfortunately brings about illegal prostitution as well as crime. It now houses around 50,000 people and retains a bohemian yet illicit reputation – I know because I used to live there.

Transport back one hundred years ago and these notions of eeriness and enchanting would heighten considerably. As would the element of fear which no doubt increased considerably during 1912 when a wave of Catalan children went missing. This was amid rumors of a vampire escalating through the port-side barrio.

By the early 1900’s the population of Barcelona was skyrocketing. Raval, also known as El Chino (Chinatown) became home to many immigrants as well as war veterans and deserters, seeking solace from the Spanish-American War – fought on Moroccan soil. There was a week of protests in 1909 known as the Tragic Week in which there were strikes leading to riots then eventual occupation by the National army.

Barcelona was becoming a famous port town known to many as the ‘Pearl of the Mediterranean’ meaning hotels and brothels were flourishing. El Raval became the Red Light district where prostitution was rife. Often, prostitutes were transported and sold in other developing cities such as New York and Rio de Janeiro. The streets were full of orphans and thieves, many children were sold by their parents due to economic struggles, ending up in sweatshops.

This way of life created a desperate situation in Ravalito. People would have been terrified for themselves and for their families. Fresh on the minds of the populace was Spain’s first documented serial killer- Manuel Blanco Romasanta – who killed twelve people north of the Portuguese border. He claimed to be a werewolf to which Queen Isabella II allowed him to be examined. Soon after was Juan Diaz de Garayo. He strangled five women and one girl in the northern Basque region of Spain. His nickname was Sacamantecas and he became a boogeyman figure along with ‘Hombre del Saco’ who had the myth of eating children.

Needless to say, the mindset was different back then in terms of belief of the supernatural. Other stories such as Jack the Ripper from across the sea in England would also be widely publicized. From 1982 onwards a larger number of children went missing in Barcelona. Many of which to the aforementioned brothels. The police raided one in Carrer Minerva in 1909 and this is where Enriqueta Martí i Ripollés would first become known to the authorities of Barcelona. She got arrested but was released with a lack of evidence. Some said her connections with the elite of Barcelona got her off the hook. Children continued to go missing.

History of Enriqueta Martí

Martí did not have a strange upbringing or childhood, reports would suggest. Born in Sant Feliu de Llobregat, on the outskirts of Barcelona in 1868 she moved to the city in her 20’s to become a maid and nanny but turned to prostitution thereafter. In 1895 she began a failed marriage with painter Juan Pujaló who stated that she had a strange character as well as affairs with other men.

Her most lucrative work consisted of working as a procurer for the rich and famous of Barcelona. She was prepared to get them anything and this disregard for humanity gave her a unique position. It highlighted her to people with perverted desires and such desires drive a hard price. Martí was prepared to do anything including kidnapping children to sell to such people. She gained access to the high life and was able to operate in famous places like the El Liceu theatre and the now abandoned casino on the hills of Barcelona called the Casino de la Arrabassada. There were rumors that she was a practicing witch doctor also, using the remains of her captives to make potions and elixirs.

Martí did her work very stealthily and it was not until 1912 when she was caught out. A feeling in the community that the police were not doing enough to find the captured children meant there was a public effort to find a girl called Teresita Guitart Congost. She was part of a popular local family and had been missing for two weeks. A neighbor of Enriqueta Martí called Claudia Elias believed her to be involved with many suspicious activities so had been watching her movements. One day Elias saw a girl peering out the window of Martí’s apartment but she had never seen kids in there before. Martí denied the claims when asked by Elias which arose even more suspicion. It was reported to the police who then launched an investigation and found the accused at a local park. They took her willingly to the flat and there indeed was Teresita Congost as well as another girl called Angelita. This is where the crimes of Enriqueta started to come to the fore.

The Rescue of Teresita Guitart Congost

Let it be known that the following testimonies come from the police and because of the times were not recorded. For that reason, the claims cannot be verified and some have even disputed them. Martí said she found the young girl Teresita lost and hungry so decided to care for her. However, Teresita told the police that Martí cut her hair after forcing her to the flat, telling her that her new name was Felicidad and that her parents were gone.

Martí claimed the other girl Angelita was hers but her ex-husband Juan Pujaló would later disclaim this. The girls told the police that their captor would only feed them potatoes and bread. She would pinch them if they misbehaved such as going to the windows, balconies or other rooms.  Those other rooms told a story even darker than kidnapping. The girls were first to explore them in their bored isolation beforehand and so guided the police inside. There they found bloody clothes and a myriad of evidence to incarcerate the supposed vampiress. Thirty small bones, many of which exposed to fire was one such proof. There were many jars with strange remains, blood, bones and hair.  There were clothes covered in blood, knives and bones. Angelita also spoke of a young boy called Pepito who she witnessed being killed by a knife on the kitchen table by Martí.

Enriqueta Martí had been apprehended by the law several times before but her association with her elite clients allowed her to escape unpunished. This time alas she would be sent to the infamous Reina Amalia prison. During which she tried to commit suicide by cutting her wrists but was stopped by the guards. More of her secrets were unraveled within the jail.

She gave locations of her previous abodes bringing about more evidence: Carrer dels Tallers, Carrer Picalques and Jocs Florals –all of which she rented with fake names. They were all composed of false walls with condemning features behind: Human remains, bones, books with recipes and potions in beautiful calligraphy, coded letters and a list of famous names. People believed it to be a list of her clients who would buy children or potions. However, the authorities did not act on this for fear of crowd retribution. They said instead, it was people that Martí tried to swindle.

Photo of the two rescued children Teresita Guitart and Angelita with Enriqueta Martí in the background. (Antoni Esplugas / Mundo Gráfico)

The prisoner began to tell the truth probably knowing she had no reprieve. She first claimed she studied anatomy but then indeed confessed to use the remains of children to make potions for the elite. Tuberculosis was a big killer and many believed that drinking young blood could cure it. She told police where to find everything she had. She did not name any of her clients however and never admitted to killing anyone. More witnesses came forward once Martí was ousted. A woman from the region of Aragon said Martí kidnapped her son six years ago after befriending her in Barcelona. The woman never saw her son again.

Death and aftermath

After 15 months in jail, it was proven that the Vampiress was far from immortal as her life was ended prematurely. She was killed in the prison grounds on May 12 1913, at the beating of her cellmates. This meant all of her secrets could not be revealed. Her body was buried in the Cemetery del Sudoeste on the mountain of Montjuic albeit secretly marked.

There are many works of people which dispute the claims of the police. For example, Elsa Plaza’s El Cielo Bajo Los Pies (The Sky Underfoot) is one such work with argues the Vampire’s innocence, or at least that she was not responsible for the murders. Many who have scrutinized the story closer believed that the police used Enriqueta Martí as a scapegoat for all the crimes sweeping through El Raval which they could not solve. Recent research has demonstrated that the only thing that can be proved about Martí is her kidnapping of the young girl, Teresita Guitart.

Plaza states Martí was never formally charged nor were any actual corpses found in her flats. She argues the blood on the clothes could have been Martís as she was suffering from uterine cancer and that the bones were most likely animals. Police closed many brothels around this time including one in Carrer Botella which used children.

Martí confessed to prostituting a girl of seventeen years on Carrer Sabadell as well as performing abortions but claimed to never have killed anyone. Plaza goes as far to say the trial was staged to wrap up the murders. Some have this view that so many children were sold by families needing money, that it was not a serial killer but economic hardship behind the missing children. More recent works points to Martí being a scapegoat, a strange character immersed in the dark arts but not a killer.

“She is a female killer, which is very unusual because 99 percent of serial killers are men.”

–Says Marc Pastor, a CSI agent who worked to imprison a serial killer called Remedios Sanchez in 2006

It is extremely doubtful that Enriqueta Martí will ever be concluded as a serial killer. She was however, without a doubt involved in the horrific events involving the many young kids of El Raval.

Enjoyed this article? Also, check out “H. H. Holmes: Life of America’s First Known Deadliest Serial Killer“.

Fact Analysis:
STSTW Media strives to deliver accurate information through careful research. However, things can go wrong. If you find the above article inaccurate or biased, please let us know at [email protected]

The post Enriqueta Martí: The Vampiress of El Raval appeared first on .

Sketch of Unabomber released by FBI during investigations.(FBI / Public Domain)

Anyone can whine over the rot that prevails in and around human society. One can take remedial measures at a personal level or suggest course correction for same. But one can’t ride roughshod over perceived injustice and go on a killing spree to neutralize perceived enemies. If one does it, it is déjà vu Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber.

Welcome to the world of a Schizophrenic, the person, the patient, the mentally ill. He is the Judge, the Executioner and the Legislature, all rolled into one for a cause that he deems fit. He brooks no argument against his precept, not even if it is a question of life and death. He will prefer death rather than cede that he was wrong. Death penalty stared him in the face as he stood trial for domestic terror. A submission that he was insane or mentally ill was the best bet to spare him a death sentence. But Ted consistently maintained he was sane and in full control of his mental faculties. State, in its wisdom, spared him death, albeit he must spend rest of his life in jail.

Early life

Circa 1942, Ted is born to a Chicago family of Polish ancestry. His younger sibling, David, would in time get him arrested and be rewarded for same. Ted was reserved and a loner by temperament but academically brilliant right from school. At 16, he was accepted in Harvard University on full Scholarship even though he had skipped 11th class (after passing High School). He was consistently brilliant in studies, though chary of socializing or making friends. A surveillance study by psychologist Henry Murray scarred him for life.

The study was a sneak peek into the deep psyche and rubbed Ted the wrong way. He started believing that the world outside was conspiring against him; a cardinal symptom of Schizophrenia, the mental disorder in which a person lives in fantasy and delusion, far removed from ground realities of earthly existence.

Ted Kaczynski during his time at Harvard University. (Bergman, George M. / Wikimedia Commons)

Graduating in mathematics in 1962, Ted earned Master’s degree in 1964. He completed Doctorate (from the University of Michigan) in mathematics in 1967. The same year, at 25 years of age, Kaczynski was appointed Assistant Professor in University of California at Berkeley. Teaching geometry and calculus to undergraduate students, he was the youngest teaching faculty to have reached that rank. He held this post for 2 years and then resigned without any cogent reason; queer and unpredictable behaviour is a hallmark of a Schizophrenic.

Ted Kaczynski to Unabomber

After resigning from the University of California, for 2 years he lived with his parents at Illinois. In 1971 he shifted to woods outside Lincoln, Montana where he built a cabin with little housing amenities. That was his vision of a free life, close to nature and shorn of technology. The state of art in science and technology, he felt, was a bane for human society.

This idea defined his life and put him on a 17 years’ terror trail marked with mail bombs. He targeted academics, airline officials and whoever he thought was a harbinger of the machine age. His manner of insidious killing gave him the byname Unabomber (One who bombs University and Airports).

A reproduced model of bombs made by Unabomber. (Queerbubbles / Wikimedia Commons)

Ted’s anti-tech crusade began in the 1970s, leaving 3 dead and 23 injured. When the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) finally closed in on him, it was the longest and most expensive manhunt as Ted Kaczynski was no ordinary criminal. He lived outside Lincoln, Montana, like a hermit, in a shanty with no electricity, running water and toilet. Partly financed by his parents, he thrived by Spartan living. He picked up odd jobs and subsisted on raw vegetation and flesh of stray animals.

A life sans industry, in his opinion, was paramount to leading a free and a happy life. Modernity was an antithesis of human welfare. It weaned man from his pristine ‘wild nature’ and made him a slave of Science. Technology, he averred, made man dependent on machine and gizmos and thus robbed him of his carefree existence. He wanted human society to eschew technology, return to nature and be free like birds and animals in wild. All scientific research and meddling with nature for advancement must stop. That alone will end human miseries and bring peace and happiness on earth, he asserted.

The cabin where Unabomber resided. (FBI / Public Domain)

Targets and crime spree

The year 1975 saw him deeply anguished over encroachment of real estate and industry on his Spartan camp. Influenced by French philosopher Jacques Ellul, he vandalized construction works in the vicinity of his ham home. But his angst didn’t stop with just this. He had more sinister plans up his sleeves. Beginning in 1978, he started sending explosive parcels through the US Postal service to people/institutions he felt were against the ethos of his own lifestyle.

His first target, Buckley Crist, Professor of Engineering, Northwestern University, luckily escaped unharmed. He raised alarm over a package that carried his return-address. He never mailed any such parcel, the intrigued professor raised alarm. A security guard opened the package to his peril. The bomb inside the parcel exploded, injuring guard’s hand.

For the next 7 years, Kaczynski mailed 9 crude bombs, self-prepared using metal pipes. Mails were addressed to American and United Airlines, and academic administrators, injuring many, some seriously. The first fatality happened in December 1985. The victim was Hugh Scrutton, the owner of Sacramento computers.

By this time notoriety of Ted, as Unabomber, had climaxed. FBI was on tenterhooks and completely ceased of the matter. Crime pattern indicated one person, or one group, behind explosions. Significant links with Chicago and the San Francisco Bay area were also established. Identification of Ted, the criminal, was then just a matter of time.

The Unabomber Manifesto

By now Unabomber was a buzzword in media. In 1995, an overconfident Ted writes a 35000-word treatise titled `Industrial Society and its future’. It was a lucid exposition of his viewpoint. The industrial revolution, he argued, was a big mistake. Trash all technology. Modernity is a curse. Live like animals as that’s what real freedom and real happiness is, etc, etc.

He commanded his treatise be published in mainstream media if America wanted him to stop his bombing spree. Federal Bureau of Investigation couldn’t let go of this opportunity to close in on their target. Even as it seemed like bending to whims of a criminal, state administration approved publishing of the maverick treatise.

The public at large was finally reading a Schizophrenic masquerading as the mentor. One of the readers was the wife of his younger brother. She, in past, had perused through some letters of Ted with a similar message. She spoke to her husband that the mysterious bomber seemed like his elder brother. David, her husband, couldn’t agree more. He reported the matter to FBI.

Things moved at a fast pace. On April 3, 1996, Ted Kaczynski was arrested from his rural cabin, busy with his unfinished bombs and related tools.

Mugshot of Ted Kaczynski after his arrest. (FBI / Public Domain)

The interior of Ted Kaczynski’s cabin. (Queerbubbles / Wikimedia Commons)

Generally despised for domestic terror, Ted nevertheless touches a chord with many who, for good reasons, are chary of technology overload. Many thinkers and philosophers have voiced on similar lines as Ted. What makes him different is that he could change time and tide with his terror tactic.

But then what more can be expected of a Schizophrenic? A beautiful mind was neutralized by a gory action plan.

Enjoyed this article? Also, check out “D.B. Cooper: The Man Who Hijacked a Plane and Got Away“.

Recommended Read:
Every Last Tie: The Story of the Unabomber and His Family | By David Kaczynski

Recommended Watch:
Manhunt: Unabomber | Netflix

Recommended Visit:
Newseum | Museum in Washington, D.C., USA

Fact Analysis:
STSTW Media strives to deliver accurate information through careful research. However, things can go wrong. If you find the above article inaccurate or biased, please let us know at [email protected].

The post FBI’s Long Haul of Ted Kaczynski, the Schizophrenic Unabomber appeared first on .

File photo of Charles Arthur also known as Pretty Boy Floyd. (FBI)

Charles Arthur Floyd, affectionately known by Oklahoma locals as “The Robin Hood of the Cookson Hills,” was born in Adairsville, Georgia, on February 3, 1904. Soon after his birth, his family moved to Oklahoma, where they lived out a poor life. Scarcely assisted by a small farm in drought conditions during the late 1920s.

The poor conditions compelled him to try his hand at robbing banks which earned him a bad reputation and a nickname, “choc,” due to his affinity to Choctaw beer. In 1925, he was sentenced to four years imprisonment for robbing a Kroger store payroll delivery in St. Louis, Missouri. By then, he was already married to a woman named Ruby Hardgraves and the couple had a son who was born while Floyd was serving his sentence.

Floyd earned a parole in 1929. Soon he learned that his father was killed by a man named Jim Mills. Floyd allegedly tracked down Mills and killed him. He moved on to Kansas City’s criminal community, where he earned the nickname “Pretty Boy” from a local prostitute which he disliked. Along with some “friends” that he had made during his prison time, he started robbing banks along the stretch of Ohio River.

His crime spree resulted in a twofold increase in bank interest rates in Oklahoma. He was caught in Ohio and sentenced to 12-15 years in prison and during his prison transfer, Floyd jumped out of the speeding train and escaped.

His feisty antics did not deter him from being a popular person. He used to destroy mortgage papers at many of the banks he robbed, liberating debt-ridden public, which ultimately earned him the title “The Robin Hood of the Cookson Hills.” However, the destruction of the mortgage papers was never fully verified.

Kansas City Massacre

One of the substantial highlights of his criminal career was his apparent involvement in Kansas City Massacre. A runaway convict named Frank Nash was being returned to a federal penitentiary in an operation led by the federal agents and local police. As they were getting into a union car, unidentified men opened fire on the entourage using machine guns. Two local detectives, a police officer, and a federal agent were killed along with Frank Nash who was caught in the crossfire.

The authorities could not present any credible suspects responsible for the massacre until a stroke of luck ensured the arrest of another gangster who helped resolve the mystery. Frank Nash’s friends got in touch with a gangster named Verne C. Miller and enlisted his help to set Frank free. Miller, through some contacts, contacted Floyd and his companion Adam Richetti.

On the day of the incident, the trio manned the guns and fled the town. Floyd managed to find a safe house in Cookson Hills and used to retreat to that safe house whenever things heated up. Floyd’s involvement was asserted by the FBI and a nation-wide manhunt ensued. Information about Frank’s notoriety spread across the nation.

Soon, Oklahoma’s authorities declared a huge bounty for his capture, dead or alive. Less than 24 hours after FBI’s declaration of his involvement in Kansas City Massacre, he was flushed out of an Iowa farm. He showed the authorities he hadn’t lost his finesse, as he jumped into a runaway car with two companions and shot his way out using machine guns and automatic rifles.

Aftermath of Kansas City Massacre. (FBI)

Death of Pretty Boy Floyd

His encounter with the authorities drew a fiercer response from them, as bridges and highway junctions were barricaded and guarded. National Guard sent resources to help in the manhunt.

On October 22, 1934, Floyd was cornered in an East Liverpool cornfield and in a subsequent shootout, he was shot twice and killed. His last words, reportedly, were “I’m done for; you’ve hit me twice.”

His funeral drew thousands of mourners, and his saga lives on. Such was his popularity that, five years after his death, Woody Guthrie released an album with a song named “Pretty Boy Floyd,” memorializing him.

Enjoyed this article? Also, check out “Amelia Dyer: The Nurse Who Killed Babies for Business“.

Recommended Read:
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Fact Analysis:
STSTW Media strives to deliver accurate information through careful research. However, things can go wrong. If you find the above article inaccurate or biased, please let us know at [email protected].

The post Pretty Boy Floyd: Brief History of the American Bank Robber appeared first on .

Composite sketch of D. B. Cooper by FBI. (U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation)

D.B. Cooper is a name referred to an unidentified man responsible for the hijacking of a Northwest Orient Airlines aircraft on 24th November 1971. The case turned cold after an extended period of thorough investigation and it is still regarded as an unsolved case, with the real identity of the culprit being an inconclusive mystery.

Cooper boarded the flight that was scheduled to travel between Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon, on the afternoon of November 24th, 1971. Unlike the other well-known hijacking cases, Cooper remained calm throughout the ordeal without raising suspicions among most of the passengers who travelled with him.

In a description obtained from the flight attendants, he was described as a person in his mid-40s, weighing approximately 170 to 190 pounds and a height around 5′ 10” to 6′. He wore a business suit with a black tie which was later retrieved. Cooper reportedly ordered a drink and then handed over a note to the stewardess who stated that he had a bomb in his possession and instructed her to sit with him.

Boeing 727. Identical to the aircraft that was involved in the hijack. (Richard Silagi / Wikimedia Commons)

Tie that D.B. Cooper wore during the hijack. (FBI)

She did as told, following which he opened his suitcase and showed her a mass of wires and red coloured sticks asking her to deliver a note to the captain of the plane. This note contained his ransom demands – $200,000 cash in $20 bills, and four parachutes. The flight reached Seattle safely and the passengers were free to leave. Cooper received his ransom demands.

He asked the remaining flight attendants to deliver a precise set of instructions to the pilots, showcasing his knowledge of aeronautics and the local conditions. Then the plane took off, with a course set to Mexico City as per his demands. Somewhere on this route, the hijacker certainly pulled off the unthinkable. Cooper managed to take a plunge into the cold, dark night during the flight with a parachute and the money in his grip. The flight later landed somewhere safely, but Cooper was never found.

Digital copy of the demands made by the hijacker from the FBI. (FBI)

Boeing 727 with open Airstair, the access used by D. B. Cooper to flee the aircraft during the flight. (R. W. Rynerson / Wikimedia Commons)

Efforts to identify D.B. Cooper

He purchased his ticket under the name Dan Cooper, as found by the FBI in the early stages of the exhausting and unsolved investigation. The moniker D. B. Cooper became famous because of a media mix-up. The FBI interviewed countless persons, considered hundreds of suspects, and followed several leads across the country.

The ransom money handed over to him was extensively documented, down to the serial numbers of each individual bill and their arrangement in the stack. The investigators presumed that Cooper wouldn’t have survived the jump as the conditions were averse. He jumped out of the plane at night, into a wooded area and with unsuitable clothing for such a jump.

Evidence and dead-end

Thus began an extensive manhunt by the FBI, who analyzed the situation in all possible ways to try and locate Cooper’s landing zone, or to find out where he spent the ransom money. The FBI found their first material evidence in 1980 when an eight-year-old boy named Brian Ingram found a bag containing the ransom money in the Colombia River. The bills were found in the exact arrangement as they were on the day of the hijacking but in a partially rotten state.

Many of the case details were disclosed when FBI Agent Larry Carr took over the case. He speculated that Cooper had prior experience with the Air Force and that he could’ve been in the European region, based on the fact that the name Dan Cooper refers to comic books describing adventures of a French-Canadian Air Force test pilot. In 2007, FBI revealed that they sought the help of Tom Kaye, who was a palaeontologist under the banner of Cooper Research Foundation and tried to extract more details from the evidence using technology which was previously unavailable.

Kaye examined the tie retrieved from the plane, from which DNA samples were extracted in 2001, in the aftermath with an electron microscope in the hope of finding a clue. In January of 2018, FBI formally closed its investigation into the Cooper case citing that he could have died of exposure in the woods. Since then, a team of private investigators of the cold case, led by Tom Colbert, have revealed that they may have identified D B Cooper to be a Vietnam War veteran Robert W. Rackstraw.

They based their revelations on five taunting notes that Cooper supposedly sent to the media houses, which had enough clues to link his identity and his connection.

Enjoyed this article? Also, check out “FBI’s Long Haul of Ted Kaczynski, the Schizophrenic Unabomber“.

Recommended Read:
The Last Master Outlaw: How He Outfoxed the FBI Six Times But Not A Cold Case Team | By Thomas J. Colbert & Tom Szollosi

Recommended Watch:
The Skyjacker That Got Away (2009)

Fact Analysis:
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