Murder of Kathleen Jo Henry

The murder of Kathleen Jo Henry occurred on September 4, 2019, in Anchorage, Alaska. The murder occurred at a local TownePlace Suites hotel, operated by Marriott International. The murder of Kathleen Henry, who was also sexually assaulted before her death, made international news when it was revealed that her alleged killer, Brian Steven Smith, recorded her death in both still photograph as well as numerous videos which he recorded on an SD card. Henry's remains were found along Alaska's Seward Highway on October 2, 2019. Detectives with the Anchorage Police Department recognized Smith from a previous investigation involving him, and obtained a warrant for his arrest. On October 8, 2019, Smith was arrested at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, where he arrived after returning from a trip. Smith was subsequently booked into an Anchorage jail. Police have stated that they discovered thirty-nine photos and twelve videos related to Henry's assault and murder on the SD card, which was found by a woman on the street in the Fairview section of Anchorage. On October 17, 2019, Smith was charged with the murder of a second woman, Veronica Abouchuk, whom Smith allegedly confessed to killing. Smith allegedly admitted to her death, and told authorities where they could find her body. Kathleen Jo Henry: Kathleen Jo Henry was born December 22, 1988 in Bethel, Alaska. An Alaska Native woman, Henry obtained her GED in 2012, while incarcerated in Alaska's Highland Mountain Correctional Center, a state prison in the Anchorage neighborhood of Eagle River. A divorcee who was single at the time of her death, Henry struggled with addiction and misdemeanor run ins with law enforcement over the years. She was a frequent user of Facebook and other social media, and enjoyed writing poetry. At the time of her death, she was 30-years-old. Suspect: Brian Steven Smith was identified as the suspect in the murder of Kathleen Henry, based on photograph and video evidence obtained by the Anchorage Police Department. Since then, Smith has been implicated in another murder, and authorities consider him a serial killer. His past in both the United States, as well as in South Africa, is the subject of an ongoing, international investigation. Brian Steven Smith was born in South Africa, in the Cape Town area, and later immigrated to the United States. Smith became a U.S. citizen in September 2019. In 2019, Smith was arrested in Anchorage, Alaska after he returned from an out of state trip, and was charged with the sexual assault and murder of Kathleen Jo Henry that past September, at a Marriott International affiliate, where he was an employee and had rented a discounted room from September 2-4. Police believe the murder of Henry occurred on September 4, 2019. On October 17th, 2019, Smith was charged with murdering a second woman, Veronica Abouchuk, after allegedly confessing to her murder and telling authorities where they could find her body. Detectives with the Anchorage Police Department, as well as the U.S. FBI, continue to look into Smith's past.

caring friends

i have some very caring friends. a few of them are super concerned about my welfare. I'm glad about that but i also like being super independent.

Disappearance of Diane Suzuki

Diane Suzuki was a nineteen-year-old dancer and student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa who disappeared on July 6, 1985, and has since been the focus of one of the most notorious modern criminal investigations in the history of the state of Hawaii. The Diane Suzuki investigation was the first instance in which the Honolulu Police Department used luminol and other technological advances in forensic science. Disappearance: Suzuki was a female resident of Halawa, 4 feet 11 inches tall, 109 pounds, with a slim build, and of Japanese descent. Suzuki was last seen at about 5 p.m. on July 6, 1985,outside the Rosalie Woodson Dance Academy in Aiea, where she was employed as a dance instructor. At the time of her disappearance Diane was dating Lester Gantan. During the same time period in Hawaii, there were the unsolved killings of at least nine women on Oahu, including the deaths of Lisa Au, Regina Sakamoto, and others all over the island. Five, including that of Sakamoto, in which the victims were found with their hands tied behind their back, were attributed to an unidentified serial killer known as the Honolulu Strangler. However, Suzuki's disappearance did not fit that profile. Investigation and aftermath: The discovery of blood evidence at the site led to legislation that overhauled Hawaii's harassment laws to include stalking, and changed the status of TRO violations to a class C felony (with a maximum penalty of 5 years in jail) in the hope of preventing further violence against women. In 1993, Keith Kaneshiro, who was then prosecuting attorney for the City and County of Honolulu, attempted to re-open the case, but after more than 300 hours of grand jury testimony and thousands of dollars spent on the investigation, no charges were filed. The case remains unsolved. Media: Retired Honolulu Police Department Major Gary Dias wrote a book entitled Honolulu Cop including details on his investigation into the Au and Suzuki murders.

Daniel Lind Lagerlöf

Daniel Lind Lagerlöf is a Swedish director, screenwriter and producer who is presumed dead. Career: Lagerlöf began his work in television as an assistant, and directed his first film, Föreställningen (The Performance) in 1990. In 1997, he began working on Skärgårdsdoktorn, a highly successful drama series in Sweden and Norway. After it ended in 2000, Lagerlöf worked on several Beck-films, before returning to television. His last completed project was the three-part mini-series Bibliotekstjuven (the Library Thief), written by his wife Malin Lagerlöf. Personal life: Lagerlöf married his long-time girlfriend Malin Lagerlöf in 1997. They had three children together. A screenwriter, Malin Lagerlöf often wrote projects for her husband to direct, including his final series, Bibliotekstjuven. Disappearance: On 6 October 2011, Lagerlöf disappeared during preparations for the filming of Camilla Läckberg's Fjällbackamorden - Strandriddaren while scouting a planned filming location in the Tjurpannan nature reserve, leaving a wife and three children. It is believed Lagerlöf was caught on slippery rocks by large waves sweeping the area and pulled out to sea near the steep cliffs outside Tanumshede in Bohuslän. There were no witnesses to what actually happened. As of 2016 no remains have been found, and Lagerlöf is presumed deceased. Selected filmography: -1999 – Breaking out (Vägen ut) -2001 – Making Babies (Hans och hennes) -2002 – Beck – Annonsmannen -2002 – Beck – Pojken i glaskulan -2003 – Miffo -2005 - Buss till Italien -2005 - Medicinmannen -2006 - Svalan, katten, rosen, döden -2007 - The Pyramid -2009 - The Man Under the Stairs (TV-series) -2009 - Johan Falk: Operation Nightingale

Murder of Neveah Gallegos

Neveah Janey Gallegos was a child in Denver, Colorado who was murdered by her mother's live-in boyfriend. After her death, Denver's child protection service called Department of Human Services said that they would make improvements to their agency. Death: On September 21, 2007, the Denver Police Department received a 911 call from Miriam Gallegos, the mother of Neveah. She claimed that her daughter had been kidnapped, having been snatched from her arms. She even gave a description of the supposed kidnapper and the car he was in, adding that he was the passenger and that she was unable to see the driver. Nevaeh’s mother gave police permission to enter her apartment in order for them to obtain a photograph of her daughter to aid them in their search. Once inside the apartment police noticed a "paper towel on the floor of the living room that had blood or some other type of bodily fluid on it". Later that day Miriam Gallegos agreed to answer questions from the police. She told them she had received a telephone call at work, the same day as she made the 911 call. The call was from her boyfriend who she named as Angel Montoya. He told her to come home but did not explain why. Miriam Gallegos left work and walked home. When she entered her apartment she discovered her daughter, Neveah, who was not breathing. She claimed she had tried to "put air into Neveah" but was unable to revive her. She informed the police that she and Montoya decided not to call an ambulance but instead opted to put the body of Neveah into a "white trash bag" which they then put inside a "black trash bag" and placed the bagged body of the little girl into a duffel bag. She claimed that she and Montoya left the building and he, with the duffel bag, went a different way. During the interview police showed Miriam Gallegos a photo of Montoya, whose full name is Angel Ray Montoya. She confirmed the photograph was of him. Neveah, dressed in red sweat pants, a red shirt with a cartoon character on it and pink tennis shoes, was found on September 24, 2007, three days after being reported missing, in a white plastic trash bag under a tree stump in a ravine. She was found about 2 miles from the couple's apartment. At the time cause of death was undetermined, though it was later determined to be asphyxiation. On September 25, 2007, a candlelight vigil was held for her, with dozens of people placing flowers and stuffed toys at the ravine where Neveah was found. A permanent memorial was dedicated to Neveah on November 2, 2007. Angel Ray Montoya: Montoya was born on January 19, 1985. In December 2000, he was charged with indecent exposure to minors. In 2003, he failed to register as a sex offender and was charged with a misdemeanor to which he pleaded guilty. In 2005, he was charged with false imprisonment and child abuse, which he pleaded down to one count of misdemeanor child abuse. He was given a 270-day jail sentence that was suspended and 18 months of supervised probation. Officials had also expressed concerns about Montoya living with his niece and nephew, aged one and three, at his mother’s house but did not follow through with the concerns. Miriam Gallegos: Miriam Gallegos also has a criminal history, having been convicted on marijuana charges in 2006. Criminal proceedings: Montoya had previously been investigated in July 2006 for sexual assault that involved vaginal penetration on Nevaeh, then 23 months old. But the case was subsequently dropped due to Miriam Gallegos not cooperating with detectives. Subsequent to Neveah's death, Angel Ray Montoya was arrested for first-degree murder. Miriam Gallegos was arrested on charges of being an accessory to murder, false reporting, and fatal child abuse. The couple was released October 1, 2007 without being charged pending an autopsy. Montoya was again arrested in late October 2007 for failing to register as a sex offender. A news report from March 2008 stated that Montoya had again failed to register and was on the run. Extremely frustrated with the lack of arrest of her own daughter Miriam Gallegos and Angel Montoya, the child's grandmother, Janet Gallegos, reached out to attorney/author Donna Thomas for help in procuring justice for Nevaeh. Thomas had a grand jury convened. On April 22, 2009, Montoya and Miriam Gallegos were indicted for Neveah's death. Montoya was indicted on one count of first-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death. Gallegos was indicted May 6, 2009, on one count of child abuse resulting in death and being an accessory to a crime. Montoya, already in custody on another charge when indicted for Neveah's death, was being held in jail without bond, and Gallegos was being held on $500,000 bond. Prosecutors considered seeking the death penalty. On October 30, 2009, Montoya and Miriam Gallegos both pleaded not guilty in Neveah's death. On January 6, 2011, Miriam Gallegos was sentenced to 12 years in prison and five years of parole for child abuse resulting in death. On May 15, 2012, Angel Montoya was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder, child abuse resulting in death and abuse of a corpse. Appeal: Montoya appealed his first degree murder conviction. The Colorado Court of Appeals upheld his conviction on 20 August 2015.

Dawson College shooting

The Dawson College shooting occurred on September 13, 2006 at Dawson College, a CEGEP located in downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The perpetrator, Kimveer Gill, began shooting outside the de Maisonneuve Boulevard entrance to the school, and moved towards the atrium by the cafeteria on the main floor. One victim died at the scene, while another 19 were injured, eight of whom were listed in critical condition, with six requiring surgery. The shooter later committed suicide by shooting himself in the head, after being shot in the arm by a police officer. It was the third fatal school shooting in Montreal, after the École Polytechnique massacre in 1989 and the shooting spree at Concordia University in 1992. Timeline of events- Shooting: At 12:30 p.m. EDT, Gill parked his car on de Maisonneuve Boulevard near the college campus and was seen removing weapons from his trunk by bystanders. Gill briefly took a passerby hostage and forced him to carry a bag containing a fourth gun and additional ammunition. Gill opened fire at students outside on the steps of Dawson College at its rear entrance with a semi-automatic carbine, and the passerby fled the melee, leaving Gill's bag. Gill then entered the school and made his way to the cafeteria, almost directly ahead of the school entrance. He positioned himself in the corner of the building, near the microwave oven, and set his bag on the floor. He loaded a pistol, fired a shot into the floor and then shot students who were standing in front of him. He then raised his weapon and ordered the remaining students to lie down on the floor. He continued shooting at students until confronted by two police officers who had been visiting the school at the time regarding an unrelated incident. The police officers entered after hearing the gunfire, and rushed to the cafeteria. Additional police officers surrounded the campus. Confronted by police officers in the school cafeteria, Gill briefly took two more people hostage. He was shot in the arm by police officer Denis Côté and then committed suicide via a gunshot wound to the head at 12:48 EDT. The police officers attempted to resuscitate him, but failed. At 1:30 p.m., police officers dragged his body outside the building, covered it with a yellow bag, then continued the evacuation and the search for possible accomplices. Authorities concluded the attack was premeditated, after a short suicide note was found on Gill's body during the autopsy. Immediate aftermath: Police cordoned off the campus area and swept the school for students left inside. Local radio reports placed the number of police vehicles at approximately 80 and up to 24 ambulances surrounded the building. Students and faculty were evacuated from the campus or left the vicinity of the shooting. Two shopping centres adjacent to Dawson, Place Alexis Nihon and Westmount Square, directly linked to the Atwater metro station, were evacuated and the green line of the Montreal Metro was shut down for several hours between Lionel-Groulx and McGill. The Pepsi Forum entertainment centre, opposite the eastern corner of Dawson, was open when many of the students came running into the premises moments after the shooting began. Shortly afterward, the Pepsi Forum went into lockdown under the directives of the Montreal Police. Eventually, one of the Forum's entrances onto St. Catherine Street re-opened under police/security guard to allow monitored access and egress. A large number of the evacuees were also directed to the nearby Concordia University, where the Concordia Student Union (CSU) is located. The CSU cancelled all remaining Orientation activities, and instead used its venues to temporarily shelter the evacuated Dawson students and provide them with food, water, blankets, and phones to reach other loved ones. A coordination team was put in place from the CSU and the DSU used the Sir George Williams campus as a temporary crisis centre and offered counselling (psychologist, psychiatrist) to traumatized students and staff. Claude Dauphin (Mayor of the borough of Lachine and Vice-President of the City of Montreal executive committee) had a very close relationship with both of the student unions during the night of the events; Dauphin went to the CSU office's the night of the shooting to meet with both unions to inform them of what the city was doing, and to ask how he could help. The police also established several phone numbers for parents and friends of the students. Police reported that they needed a few days to process the crime scene. As a result, officials from Dawson College stated that the school would be closed until Monday, September 18, 2006, scheduled to open its doors at 11:00 a.m. and remain open until 7:00 p.m. and have an "Open House" feel to the day. Classes were scheduled to resume as usual on Tuesday, September 19, 2006. During a police search at Gill's home, an apology note to his family was found. In addition, police seized firearm accessories including holsters and manuals, including those of the firearm he used during attack; they also found a letter praising the actions of Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Firearms: Gill was armed with a Beretta Cx4 Storm pistol-caliber carbine, a Glock pistol, and a shotgun. He fired sixty shots, ten of which were fired outside the school. With the exception of five shots from his pistol, including the one to kill himself, all the shots came from the rifle. There were reports of an additional firearm in a bag that he forced a hostage to bring along as he arrived near the campus site. According to TVA's crime reporter Claude Poirier, Gill briefly held a lawyer hostage and demanded that he bring the bag containing the fourth gun and additional ammunition. When the first shots were fired and police arrived, the lawyer fled the scene and hid Gill's bag. Gill had a restricted firearm license. His firearms were registered with the Canadian gun registry. The transportation, storage, and use of his firearms in the incident were not legal as per Gun politics in Canada, despite the acquisition and possession being legal. Victims: The police confirmed the death of one victim, an 18-year-old woman who was shot in the abdomen and died on the scene. Canadian newspapers later identified the woman as Anastasia Rebecca De Sousa. The Montreal Police Service later reported that 19 other people had been wounded. One victim, who was reportedly at Dawson College to visit friends, suffered two shots to the head. He underwent intensive surgery; the doctors removed one bullet, and he remained in a coma for one week after the shooting as doctors determined whether they should try to remove the second bullet. After two weeks on a ventilator, he emerged from the coma and as of 3 November 2006 was recovering. Perpetrator: Gill was a 25-year-old Canadian born in Lachine, Quebec, Canada. His parents were of Punjabi descent, and moved to Saint-Laurent, Quebec from India in early 1981. The family later settled in the Fabreville area of Laval, Quebec in 1987. Kimveer attended Twin Oaks Elementary School in Laval from 1988 to 1993. Gill later attended Rosemere High School, where he was remembered by teachers as quiet and unassuming. Despite early media reports, he performed well academically, and most students remember him as having friends and certainly never being bullied. Kimveer graduated from Rosemere High School in June 1998. He enrolled in Vanier College with his friends Steven Kulczycki, Andrew Page, and Jason Rust. However, he dropped out in January 1999. Gill briefly received military training from the Canadian Forces Leadership and Recruit School in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, from January 17 to February 16, 1999. He had told his friends he wished to eventually become a mercenary. He did not complete his basic training for unknown reasons. He was deemed unsuitable for military service and was voluntarily discharged before receiving extensive weapons training. Gill was a member of a rifle club and visited the Ville Saint-Pierre facility the day prior to the shooting. Police initially looked for as many as three suspects, but Montreal Police Chief Yvan Delorme later confirmed that there was only one shooter, who was shot and killed on the scene. Many eyewitnesses described a man with a Mohawk hairstyle, wearing a black trenchcoat, black trousers with metal studs, and combat boots. The suspect carried three weapons, including a semi-automatic carbine. That evening, a Sûreté du Québec spokesperson confirmed to LCN TV reporters that the shooter was a 25-year-old male, born in Québec. Police found his car, a black Pontiac Sunfire, parked close to the school, and later searched the house where he lived with his mother, seizing a computer and other belongings. Around midnight on Wednesday, police confirmed to the media that the suspect was Kimveer Gill, a 25-year-old Laval resident, a graduate from Rosemere High School. An autopsy later revealed that Gill committed suicide after being hit in the arm by police officer Denis Côté's gunfire. It was also revealed that the shooting was premeditated, as a short suicide note was then found on Gill's body. The killer's profile was discovered on a website called VampireFreaks under the screen name "fatality666." The last login was at 10:35 a.m. on the day of the shooting. The profile was subsequently restricted to registered users, and then removed entirely. The television network TVA reported that security camera footage from Place Alexis Nihon showed Gill staking out the area as far back as August 10, more than a month before the shootings. Response- Students and faculty: -Some student leaders criticized the immediate response of the Dawson College administration. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that "if it hadn't been for help from the Student Union at nearby Concordia University... many of the Dawson students would have had no one to turn to for help." -Dawson's director-general Richard Filion called the student charges harsh. "We did our best to evacuate the building. We were in a state of shock. We were scattered everywhere around the city," Filion said, noting many staff members were out on lunch break. Dawson does have an emergency plan, he said, but it was designed with fire safety in mind. -Filion announced that staff and faculty would return to the College on Friday, September 15, and that classes would resume on Tuesday, September 19, 2006. The school invited all students to join them on Monday, September 18, 2006 to meet with staff and faculty for information and support, as well as to retrieve belongings that had been left behind. It was announced that grief counseling and support services would be available on an ongoing basis. -In addition, one of the victims, 18-year-old Hayder Kadhim, who received two bullet wounds to the head and neck, challenged Prime Minister Stephen Harper to a gun control debate in a public speech on CBC in response to the shooting. Politicians: -Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated the shootings were "...a cowardly and senseless act of violence..." -Interim Liberal Party leader Bill Graham and Member of Parliament (MP) Lucienne Robillard: "We must act as a country to show our compassion for those whose lives have been dramatically altered by this inexplicable event." -Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe: "It's tragic. We can never explain why these things happen. At the Polytechnique women were targeted. But here, we have no idea." Duceppe also suggested the need for a national gun registry. -New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton mentioned that it "was a grim reminder of previous school shootings" and that it hit particularly close to home for him; Layton was born and raised in a suburb of Montreal and attended McGill University, a short distance from Dawson College. -Quebec Premier Jean Charest stated "We are deeply saddened for the victims, the families, the parents of the children who study at Dawson." -Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay stated "This is so tragic. How do we talk to the parents who are going through this? All I can say is that I feel for them, and I care for them." Video gaming community: -Danny Ledonne, creator of Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, expressed his sorrow at the shootings, asked members of his web site to "... be aware of the sensitive nature of Montreal right now and of those who were affected by this shooting," and explained how his game is not designed to train shooters. -Ian Bogost of Water Cooler Games says "A tragedy like this saddens and disturbs us all... Gill was a disturbed man he clearly needed help he did not get." Complaints about media coverage- Jan Wong controversy: An immediate controversy arose about an article regarding the Dawson shootings by journalist Jan Wong, of the Toronto-based The Globe and Mail. Three days after the event, Wong, who was born and raised in Montreal and is the daughter of Chinese immigrants, wrote a front-page piece titled Get under the desk, in which she drew a link between all three school shootings in Quebec history (the École Polytechnique, the Concordia University and the Dawson College killings) and the nature of Quebec society under its protective language laws. Wong suggested the fact that the three perpetrators were not old-stock French Quebecers (the shooters were Algerian, Belarusian, and Indian in descent) was related to their murderous actions since, she claimed, they were alienated from a Quebec society concerned with "racial purity." Accused of "Quebec bashing," Wong's writing soon created public outcry in Quebec and political condemnation. Quebec Premier Jean Charest called the article a "disgrace", stating that it "betrays an ignorance of Canadian values and a profound misunderstanding of Québec." On September 20, 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper pronounced it "prejudiced, absurd, irresponsible and without foundation"; the same day, the House of Commons of Canada unanimously passed a motion requesting an apology for the column. Wong's writing followed the comments of Professor Elliott Leyton, a social-anthropologist who is a widely consulted expert on serial homicide. Interviewed by CBC Newsworld on September 14, 2006 about the Dawson College shooting, Leyton stated that because all three such murderous rampages in Quebec involved a killer who was either an immigrant or a child of immigrants, it warranted an examination of government and societal attitudes. Broadcast Code violation: In 2007, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council faulted CKNW, a radio station in Vancouver, British Columbia for airing "potentially dangerous information" during the Dawson College shooting. During the incident, CKNW had simulcast content from its sister stations in Montreal which included students speaking by cellphone from inside the school. A Vancouver man complained that the content could have told the gunman where the students were. The council said that as a result of modern technology reducing geographic distance as a barrier, CKNW had breached Section 10 (coverage of violent situations) of the broadcast code. The station broadcast the decision as required, but did not air an apology. Megadeth: Gill mentioned the song "À Tout le Monde" by the thrash metal band Megadeth on his blog on VampireFreaks.com on the day of the shooting. Megadeth was blamed for the shooting by many news outlets and watchdog groups as a result. Later in 2006, Megadeth performed live in Montreal, and responded to the blame that had been placed on the band and their music as a result. Band leader Dave Mustaine told the crowd: The guy who went to Dawson College and shot everyone, it's terrible. Aside from the fact that what he did was wrong, we have a relationship with Montreal, and that really pissed us off. Before the concert in an interview for CBC News Mustaine said: I was so angry that this guy would use my song, and that he would try and turn that beautiful song into something ugly and nasty. It's for those who lost their lives, and it's a gift to those who are in the process of healing and Gill was not worthy of being a Megadeth fan. Natural Born Killers: This is the ninth mass killing to implicate the movie Natural Born Killers, per the gunman's blog at vampirefreaks.com, which he called one of his favourites. At some point prior to September 20, 2006, the blog was deleted. Long-term effects: A follow-up study conducted by the McGill University Health Centre Research Institute found that 30% of Dawson students at the time of the shooting suffered mental health consequences including post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression, alcohol dependence, and social phobia, a level twice that found in the general population. Approximately 18% of respondents developed a mental health disorder despite never having had one before.

Kermit Gosnell

Kermit Barron Gosnell is an American physician and former abortion provider who was convicted of murdering three infants who were born alive during attempted abortion procedures; he was also convicted of involuntary manslaughter of one woman during an abortion procedure. Gosnell owned and operated the Women's Medical Society clinic in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was a prolific prescriber of OxyContin. In 2011, Gosnell and various co-defendant employees were charged with eight counts of murder, 24 felony counts of performing illegal abortions beyond the state of Pennsylvania's 24-week time limit, and 227 misdemeanor counts of violating the 24-hour informed consent law. The murder charges related to an adult patient, Karnamaya Mongar, who died following an abortion procedure, and seven newborns said to have been killed by having their spinal cords severed with scissors after being born alive during attempted abortions. In May 2013, Gosnell was convicted of first degree murder in the deaths of three of the infants and involuntary manslaughter in the death of Karnamaya Mongar. Gosnell was also convicted of 21 felony counts of illegal late-term abortion, and 211 counts of violating the 24-hour informed consent law. After his conviction, Gosnell waived his right to appeal in exchange for an agreement by prosecutors not to seek the death penalty. He was sentenced instead to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Background and early career: Kermit Gosnell was born on February 9, 1941, in Philadelphia, the only child of a gas station operator and a government kin an African-American family. He was a student at the city's Central High School from which he graduated in 1959. Gosnell graduated from Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA with a bachelor's degree. Gosnell received his medical degree at the Jefferson Medical School in 1966. It has been reported that he spent four decades practicing medicine among the poor, including opening the Mantua Halfway House, a rehab clinic for drug addicts in the impoverished Mantua neighborhood of West Philadelphia near where he grew up, and a teen aid program. He became an early proponent of abortion rights in the 1960s and 1970s and, in 1972, he returned from a stint in New York City to open up an abortion clinic on Lancaster Avenue in Mantua. Gosnell told a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter in October 1972: "as a physician, I am very concerned about the sanctity of life. But it is for this precise reason that I provide abortions for women who want and need them". In the same year, he also performed fifteen televised second-trimester abortions, using an experimental "Super Coil" method invented by Harvey Karman. The coils were inserted into the uterus, where they caused irritation leading to the expulsion of the fetus. However, complications from the procedure were reported by nine of the women, with three of these reporting severe complications. The 1972 Inquirer article also said that Gosnell was a "respected man" in his community, a finalist for the Junior Chamber of Commerce's "Young Philadelphian of the Year" because of his work directing the Mantua Halfway House. By the late 1980s, however, public records showed state tax liens were piling up against the halfway house, and the abortion clinic had a $41,000 federal tax lien. Gosnell has been married three times. His third and current wife, Pearl, had worked at the Women's Medical Society as a full-time medical assistant from 1982 until their marriage in 1990. They have two children; the younger, being a minor, is being cared for by friends. Gosnell has four other children from his two previous marriages. In covering his background, media commentators drew attention to the "incredibly diverse" portrayals of Gosnell, touching on both his community works – the creation of a drugs halfway house and teen aid program – contrasted with portrayals of his practice as an abortion mill in which viable fetuses and babies were routinely killed following illegal late-term procedures. Medical practice: In 2011, he was reported to be known in Philadelphia for providing abortions to poor minority and immigrant women. It was also claimed that Gosnell charged $1,600–$3,000 for each late-term abortion. Gosnell was also associated with clinics in Delaware and Louisiana. Atlantic Women's Services in Wilmington, Delaware, was Gosnell's place of work one day a week. The owner of Atlantic Women's Services, Leroy Brinkley, also owned Delta Clinic of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and facilitated the hiring of staff from there for Gosnell's operation in Philadelphia. Legal case- Known prior complaints: 1989 and 1993 – cited by Pennsylvania Department of Health for having no nurses in the recovery room. 1996 – censured and fined in both Pennsylvania and New York states, for employing unlicensed personnel. Around 1996 – Pediatrician Dr Schwartz – the former head of adolescent services at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and as of 2010, Philadelphia's health commissioner – testified in the 2010 hearing that around 1996 or 1997, he had hand-delivered a letter of complaint about Gosnell's practice to the Secretary of Health's office and stopped referring patients to the clinic, but received no response. 2000 – Civil lawsuit filed on behalf of the children of Semika Shaw, who had called the clinic the day after an abortion to report heavy bleeding, and died 3 days later of a perforated uterus and a bloodstream infection. The case alleged that Gosnell had failed to tell her to return to the clinic or seek emergency medical care. It was settled out of court in 2002 for $900,000. Around 2001 – Gosnell claimed to be providing children's vaccines under a program administered by the Health Department's Division of Disease Control, but was repeatedly suspended for failing to maintain logs and for storing vaccines in unsanitary and inappropriate refrigerators, and at improper temperatures. December 2001 – ex-employee Marcella Choung gave what the Grand Jury would later call "a detailed written complaint" to the Pennsylvania Department of State, one which she followed up with an interview in March 2002. 2006 – Civil lawsuit filed by patient but dismissed as out of time. The complaint was that Gosnell had been unable to complete an abortion, but then apparently failed or refused to call paramedics or other clinical emergency personnel, after the patient had needed help. The patient reported, "I really felt like he was going to let me die." In total during the course of his career, 46 known lawsuits had been filed against Gosnell over some 32 years. Observers claimed that there was a complete failure by Pennsylvania regulators who had overlooked other repeated concerns brought to their attention, including lack of trained staff, "barbaric" conditions, and a high level of illegal late-term abortions. 2010 raid: The Women's Medical Society was raided on February 18, 2010, under a search warrant by investigators from the FBI and state police. The raid was the result of a months-long investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Philadelphia Police Department, and the state's Dangerous Drug-Offender Unit into suspected illegal drug prescription use at the practice. The investigation had also revealed the suspicious death of patient Karnamaya Mongar in 2009, which had in turn brought to light further information about unsanitary operations, use of untrained staff, and use of powerful drugs without proper medical supervision and control. Thus, when the February 2010 raid took place, staff from the Pennsylvania Department of State and Pennsylvania Department of Health also attended, as these issues were under their remit: When the team members entered the clinic, they were appalled, describing it to the Grand Jury as 'filthy,' 'deplorable,' 'disgusting,' 'very unsanitary, very outdated, horrendous,' and 'by far, the worst' that these experienced investigators had ever encountered. There was blood on the floor. A stench of urine filled the air. A flea-infested cat was wandering through the facility, and there were cat feces on the stairs. Semi-conscious women scheduled for abortions were moaning in the waiting room or the recovery room, where they sat on dirty recliners covered with blood-stained blankets. All the women had been sedated by unlicensed staff – long before Gosnell arrived at the clinic – and staff members could not accurately state what medications or dosages they had administered to the waiting patients. Many of the medications in inventory were past their expiration dates… surgical procedure rooms were filthy and unsanitary… resembling 'a bad gas station restroom.' Instruments were not sterile. Equipment was rusty and outdated. Oxygen equipment was covered with dust, and had not been inspected. The same corroded suction tubing used for abortions was the only tubing available for oral airways if assistance for breathing was needed… Fetal remains were haphazardly stored throughout the clinic– in bags, milk jugs, orange juice cartons, and even in cat-food containers... Gosnell admitted to Detective Wood that at least 10 to 20 percent... were probably older than 24 weeks the legal limit In some instances, surgical incisions had been made at the base of the fetal skulls. The investigators found a row of jars containing just the severed feet of fetuses. In the basement, they discovered medical waste piled high. The intact 19-week fetus delivered by Mrs. Mongar three months earlier was in a freezer. In all, the remains of 45 fetuses were recovered at least two of them, and probably three, had been viable." Gosnell's license to practice was suspended on February 22, 2010, and these and other findings were presented to a grand jury on May 4, 2010. Public discussion focused on claims of unsanitary conditions and other unacceptable conditions at the practices. Media reports stated that furniture and blankets were stained with blood, that freely roaming cats defecated wherever they pleased, and that non-sterilized equipment was used and reused on patients. According to the grand jury report, patients were given labor-inducing drugs by staff who had no medical training. Once labor began, the patient would be placed on a toilet. After the fetus fell into the toilet, it would be fished out, so as not to clog the plumbing. In the recovery room, patients were seated on dirty recliners covered in blood-stained blankets. Prosecutors alleged that Gosnell had not been certified in either gynecology or obstetrics. The grand jury estimated that Gosnell's practice "took in $10,000 to $15,000 a night" of additional income from his exceedingly high level of prescriptions. 2011 arrest: Gosnell was arrested on January 19, 2011, five days after the certification of the grand jury's report. He was charged with eight counts of murder. Prosecutors alleged that he killed seven babies born alive by severing their spinal cords with scissors, and that he was also responsible for the death in 2009 of Karnamaya Mongar, a 41-year-old refugee from Bhutan, who died in his care. Gosnell's wife, Pearl, and eight other suspects were also arrested in connection with the case. The Drug Enforcement Administration, The Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Office of the Inspector General also sought a 23-count indictment charging Gosnell and seven members of his former staff with drug conspiracy, relating to the practice's illegally prescribing highly-addictive painkillers and sedatives outside the usual course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose. The third-degree murder charge relates to Karnamaya Mongar; according to prosecutors, Gosnell's staff gave the 90-pound woman a lethal dose of anesthesia and painkillers. The seven other murder charges are all of first-degree murder; they relate to babies, whom staff have testified they saw move or cry after complete birth, and whose deaths are alleged to have resulted from subsequent lethal action. They arise because of the "born alive rule", a principle of common law which stipulates that by default, for legal purposes, personhood arises – and therefore unlawful killing constituting murder becomes possible – immediately upon the victim's being born alive (several US states as well as Federal legislation have more specific laws to protect fetuses and newborn babies; see fetal rights and born alive laws in the United States). Steven Massof, a clinic employee who pleaded guilty to similar charges in 2011, testified that he (Massof) had snipped the spines of more than 100 infants after they had been born alive, and that this was considered "standard procedure" at the clinic; a number of other employees had also testified to the same point. No physical evidence exists for five of the seven cases – charges are based on staff testimony and denied by Gosnell. A photograph exists of the sixth, who allegedly had a gestational age of 30 weeks, and the physical remains were obtained of the seventh. The grand jury report states that "A medical expert with 43 years of experience in performing abortions was appalled. This expert told us, 'I've never heard of it cutting the spinal cord being done during an abortion'." The United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania also alleges that Gosnell's former office staff at Family and Women's Medical Society (WMS) ran a prescription "pill mill". From June 2008 through February 18, 2010, Gosnell allegedly engaged in a continuing criminal enterprise by writing and dispensing fraudulent prescriptions for thousands of pills of the frequently abused tablets OxyContin, Percocet, and Xanax, and the frequently abused syrups Phenergan and Promethazine with codeine. Authorities further allege that Gosnell and his staff allowed customers to purchase multiple prescriptions under multiple names. For the first office visit, Gosnell allegedly charged $115, but around December 2009 he allegedly increased the initial office visit fee to $150. Staff at the clinic went from writing several hundred prescriptions for controlled substances per month filled at pharmacies in 2008 to over 2,300 filled at pharmacies in January 2010. Gosnell, with the assistance of his staff, is said to have distributed and dispensed more than 500,000 pills containing oxycodone; more than 400,000 pills containing alprazolam; and more than 19,000 ounces of cough syrup containing codeine. Gosnell's lawyer states that "Everybody's made him the butcher, this, that and the other thing without any trial, without anything being exposed to the public and everybody's found him guilty, that's not right". He accused the government of a "lynching" and stated, "This is a targeted, elitist and racist prosecution of a doctor who's done nothing but give (back) to the poor and the people of West Philadelphia."

John Graham (Canadian activist)

John Graham, who allegedly went by the alias John Boy Patton and John Boy Patten in the presence of members of the American Indian Movement, is a former Native American activist. He is perhaps best known for being the person who shot and killed fellow American Indian Movement activist Anna Mae Aquash. Early life: Graham was born in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada and is a member of the Southern Tutchone Champagne and Aishihik First Nations ethnic group. One source indicates that Graham is from Haines Junction, Yukon. Graham's birth year falls somewhere between the years of 1954 and 1957. In 1974, when Graham participated in the Native People's Caravan in 1974, he was 17 years, meaning he was either born in 1957, or would be turning 18, and thus born in 1956 and 1957. Several sources also identify Graham as being 55-years-old at the time the guilty verdict was read. This would place his year of birth at 1954 (if he was 55-year-olds, and going on 56) or 1955 (if he had turned 55-years-old). Personal life: John Graham is a father of eight who was living in Vancouver, British Columbia. Career: Graham had spent many years in the capacity of an activist. He was known to participate in Lakota resistance for traditional territories, and protesting uranium mining Northern Saskatchewan. In 1974, when Graham was 17, he participated in the Native Peoples' Caravan from Vancouver to Ottawa, an unauthorized occupation event in which 300 participants from the Caravan moved into the abandoned Carbide Mill building on Victoria Island, behind the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, for 5 months. Graham was also active in protest throughout other Canadian provinces. In Vancouver, Graham also participated as a member the Beothuck Patrol, a First Nations group which conducted street level monitoring of police harassment. In June 1980, the Caravan for Survival, which included Graham as a protester, consisted of who drove from Regina, Saskatchewan, the capital city of Saskatchewan, to the northern Saskatchewan uranium boom town of La Ronge to protest the opening of government-operated Key Lake Uranium Mine Board of Inquiry. Following the conclusion of the Native Peoples' Caravan, Graham partook in his first armed occupation when he traveled to the state of New York group to provide support (as general security) to the Mohawk land re-occupation at Ganienkeh, also known as Eagle Lake. During the summer 1981, the AIM Survival Group, which included John Graham, opened the Anne Mae Aquash Survival Camp near the community of Pinehouse, located in northern Saskatchewan, on the Key Lake road, which was done to create a forum in which Native rights issues and the problems of the uranium industry could be openly discussed (it is said that Graham named the camp in honor of Anna Mae). During the months of May and June in 1984, John Graham spoke throughout Europe, which was organized by European anti-nuclear, native rights and environmental groups to raise understanding and awareness of on native rights and the environmental problems of uranium mining in Canada faced by the First Nations people. Legal history- Murder of Anna Mae Aquash: Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash was a prominent voice and female activist within the ranks of the American Indian Movement. On 12 December 1975, Aquash was forced out of the home of Denver AIM Troy Lynn S. Yellow Wood despite the latter's objection that something bad would happen to Aquash, and she was taken to an apartment in Rapid City owned by Russell Means' brother, and during interrogation, she was raped by Graham. Looking Cloud, one of Graham's and Nelson-Clark's accomplices, indicated that he heard Graham and Aquash having sex in the bedroom of a Rapid City apartment (whose ownership is attributed to Thelma Rios and her mother), which led to prosecutors alleging that Graham raped Aquash. Looking Cloud waited outside of the room while Graham raped Aquash, and Graham acknowledged in a taped interview/interrogation that Looking Cloud waited outside of the room Anna Mae was imprisoned inside of. Aquash was then forcefully moved to the Rosebud Indian Reservation where AIM supporters refused to house her. Looking Cloud, along with Theda Nelson Clarke and Graham, forced Aquash into the back of a car and drove her to a remote part of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where Aquash was shot execution style in the back of the head and left to die. Her body was located nearly two months later on 24 February 1976 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation at the bottom of a ravine located in close proximity to an isolated highway. Aquash was revealed to have been murdered with a firearm, as the autopsy showed that the muzzle of the gun had been pressed into the back of her neck. The coroner's report indicated that in addition to the fatal gunshot wound, exposure caused the death of Aquash, as her body was frozen by the time it was discovered. Graham indicated that he and his family were visited several times in the Yukon during the 1990s, and allegedly threatened to charge him with murder if he did not falsely identify AIM leadership for the murder. Arrest: On 30 March 2003, Graham was charged with the 1975 first-degree murder/pre-meditated murder of Anna Mae in the United States. Because Graham was a resident of Vancouver at the time, the case required Graham's extradition. On 1 December 2003, Graham was arrested in Vancouver for the murder of Pictou-Aquash, and his bail was set at $50,000.00. Graham resisted extradition, and despite being put under house arrest in December 2003, he filed an appeal within British Columbia to keep the case from moving forward. On 23 June 2006, the presiding judge extended Graham's bail to 23 June 2006, giving Graham's lawyer, Terry LaLiberte time to file an appeal following the British Columbia Supreme Court's decision to extradite Graham. Graham lost the appeal, had his bail revoked and he was taken to jail to await extradition, which happened on 6 December 2007. United States v. Graham: John Graham was charged in the United States on 30 March 2003 with the 1975 first-degree murder/pre-meditated murder of Anna Mae. After protracted litigation in the federal courts, the federal premeditated murder charge was dismissed in United States v. Graham, 572 F.3d 954 (8th Cir.2009). State of South Dakota v. Graham: However, before Graham could return to Canada, he was indicted by a Pennington County grand jury on state charges of premeditated murder and felony murder.  The underlying felony was alleged to be the kidnapping of Aquash. On 2 December 2010, South Dakota Judge John Delaney forbade any mention of a finding in the first autopsy report for Aquash that suggests she may have had sex shortly before her death to jurors, a finding which prosecutors said originated from Graham allegedly raping Aquash during her kidnapping. On 3 December 2010, Nichols-Ecoffey testified that an AIM activist later convicted of killing two FBI agents made an "incriminating" statement in front of her and Aquash, who was later shot and killed. The "incriminating" statement referred to Peltier's admission by "shooting the motherf***** that was begging for his life, and still shooting him." Ecoffey, the former common-law wife of AIM leader Dennis Banks, was forbidden by Circuit Court Judge John Delaney from telling jurors exactly what she alleges group member Leonard Peltier told her six months before Aquash was killed. The judge deemed it hearsay. But under questioning from prosecutors, she was allowed to say that Peltier made an "incriminating" statement. Graham was convicted of felony murder on 10 December 2010 after jurors heard evidence that he aided in the abduction of Aquash from Denver in December 1975. Graham was sentenced to minimum mandatory life in prison for the murder. 2012 Appeal: Graham continued to maintain his innocence and attempted to secure an appeal that would grant him a release from prison. The South Dakota Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding his 2010 conviction on 19 March 2012 in Vermillion, South Dakota. Graham's attorney, John Murphy, argued that the government should not have had the authority to transfer his case from federal to state jurisdiction following his extradition to the US, the South Dakota Supreme Court ruled that the state was within its rights to prosecute Graham, there was sufficient evidence to convict Graham, and his life-sentence imprisonment without parole was commensurate with the crime committed. The South Dakota Supreme Court thus dismissed the John Graham Appeal. Graham is currently incarcerated at the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. 2018 Appeal: On 30 March 2018, Graham appealed his conviction to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on the premise that, "the court lacked jurisdiction over him because he is a Canadian citizen whose extradition allegedly violated a treaty,". Graham's legal defense argued that his 2011 conviction in South Dakota was for felony murder, a crime which does not exist in Canada, and a crime that was not mentioned his extradition request. However, the Eighth Circuit ultimately upheld Graham's conviction, and his appeal was denied. The three-judge panel concurred that felony murder was not written in the original extradition request authored by the United States. However, the subsequent waiver issued by Canada expanded the authority of the extradition, and, based on the Eight Circuit Court's opinion, it is beyond the Eight Circuit's jurisdiction to interpret Canadian laws. Legacy: Graham's trial and sentencing have been the subject of both scrutiny and controversy. There are accounts which indicate that 'John Graham' and 'John Boy Patton' are not the same person. The "John Boy Patten" in question is the nephew of Theda Nelson Clarke (Patten's mother, Corky Nelson Patten, is the sister of Theda Nelson Clarke), is around the same age as Graham, and bears a striking resemblance to Graham. This view is corroborated by Graham's attorney, Terry LaLiberte, who indicated that the U.S. was looking for a Caucasian male, 188 cm tall (approximately 6 ft. 2 in), weighing 87 kg (approximately 192 lbs.), and that "the guy they (the U.S.) want is six inches taller than Mr. Graham, and there is a problem with the weight and the racial description." Additionally, LaLiberte has disputed that his client was known by the name John Boy Patton. "Also known by whom? We have requested that they clarify these points, and they have not proffered that evidence." There are also factions which claim Graham's imprisonment was the result of a corporate cover-up. Around the time Graham's appeal against extradition was denied, Cash Minerals Ltd., a Canadian-based company whose objective was to further uranium exploration in the Yukon, discovered uranium near Graham's property. Following Graham's extradition to the United States, the John Graham Defense Committee was formed. The organization's intent is to prove his innocence. Despite Looking Cloud's plea bargain which involved testifying against John Graham in exchange for a reduction in his prison sentence, the Graham Defense Committee indicated that it would help Looking Cloud form a legal appeals team. According to a representative from the Graham Defense Committee, in addition to Looking Cloud's conviction being based on a lack of forensic evidence, they also indicated that, "Yet the Graham Defense committee will help form a legal appeals team for Looking Cloud. Why help him when he implicated John? We don't believe he intended to implicate John."

Murder of Anthony Walker

Anthony Walker was a Black British student of Jamaican descent who was murdered with an ice axe by Michael Barton (brother of footballer Joey Barton) and Barton's cousin Paul Taylor, in an unprovoked, racially motivated attack on the night of 29–30 July 2005 in Huyton, Merseyside. Walker was eighteen years old and was in his second year of A-levels. He lived with his parents, Gee Walker and Steve Walker, his two sisters and one brother. Murder: Anthony Walker spent the evening of 29 July 2005 at home with his girlfriend, Louise Thompson, babysitting his nephew. At 11 p.m., the couple left the house and walked to the bus stop along with Walker's cousin Marcus Binns. There, they encountered Michael Barton, who shouted racial abuse at Walker and Binns. As Walker, Thompson and Binns walked to another bus stop, near McGoldrick Park, Barton and his old friend Paul Taylor followed them in a car and drove to the park, ambushing them when they reached it. Binns and Thompson managed to escape and ran away to get help, while Walker was fatally wounded when Taylor hit him in the head with an ice axe, which got lodged in his skull and left him brain dead. He was taken to Whiston Hospital and then to the Walton Centre, where he died at 5:25 a.m. By the next morning, Barton and Taylor had fled to Amsterdam. When police named them as suspects, Barton's brother, footballer Joey Barton, appealed for them to return to the UK and turn themselves in. They flew back to Liverpool on 3 August and were arrested and charged with Walker's murder. Their trial took place between November and December, and on 1 December, they were convicted of the murder. Passing life sentences on Taylor and Barton, with minimum terms of 23 years and eight months for Taylor and 17 years and eight months for Barton, Lord Justice Leveson said that the cousins had perpetrated a "terrifying ambush" and a "racist attack of a type poisonous to any civilised society". Aftermath: In April 2006, it was reported that Barton had been attacked by fellow inmates at Moorland Closed Prison near Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Three other people were later found guilty of helping Barton and Taylor flee to the Netherlands before their eventual arrest. On 10 May 2006, Robert Williams was convicted of providing money and booking a hotel room for the pair. He was sentenced to two years and four months. Paul Morson was sentenced to 11 months in prison for providing a getaway car. Tracy Garner admitted assisting an offender and received an 11-month suspended sentence and 50 hours of community service. Although they drew frequent comparisons, many denied that there were similarities between Walker's killing and that of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. One such critic was Labour MP Edward O'Hara, who stated that, although there was a "certain surface comparison", Walker's killing was "random, exceptional and representative of absolutely nothing". Walker's mother explained her attitude towards her son's killers, saying "I have to forgive them. I can't feel anger and hatred, because that is what killed my son". However, Walker's girlfriend Louise, who was present on the night of his murder, said she never would forgive them adding, "I hate them for what they have done. Anthony and I shared something special. Now he has been taken away from me by those two evil young men. I still feel that he (Anthony Walker) is around. Yesterday, I sent Anthony a text and just told him he (Barton) had been found guilty. It seemed the natural thing to do." Reporting: Walker's murder and the subsequent trial of the perpetrators received a huge amount of media coverage in the UK, with a media pack congregating at John Lennon Airport awaiting the return of the accused. His funeral was broadcast live on television and the BBC ran a special Real Story programme about the crime. Anthony Walker Law Scholarship: On 2 April 2008, the Crown Prosecution Service announced a legal scholarship in Walker's memory. The scheme will offer one place in CPS Merseyside to a trainee solicitor who wants to become a fully fledged solicitor or barrister. It is open to any black or ethnic minority person who has secured or intends to apply for a place to study the LPC or BPTC full-time.

2014 Colchester murders

On 29 March 2014, 33-year-old James Attfield, who had a brain injury after a previous car accident in 2010, was stabbed to death in Colchester, Essex. Three months later, on 17 June, Nahid Almanea, a 31-year-old Saudi student of the University of Essex, was also stabbed and killed. Teenager James Fairweather was apprehended while planning a third murder in May 2015, and in January 2016 he pleaded responsible for both deaths. In April 2016 he was found guilty of both murders and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 27 years. Perpetrator: James Fairweather was 15 years old when he committed his murders, and 17 at his conviction. He attended Colchester Academy. He was bullied for his prominent years. At school, he was involved in violent incidents, but none to suggest that he would become a murderer. He was in the lowest sets of each class, and classmates recalled him choosing "murderer" when asked to explain his desired career, as well as threatening a Columbine-style massacre in the final assembly; his peers brushed this off as posturing. Fairweather was convicted of knifepoint robbery of cigars in January 2014, and sentenced to a year's supervision. He was also convicted of criminal damage of a house in 2013. Murders: Attfield, a father-of-five with brain damage after a car accident, was passing through Castle Park when he was attacked by Fairweather. He was found bleeding to death by paramedics, who could not save his life. The violence committed towards him startled the police, and the BBC decided that the details were too "gruesome to describe". In court, Fairweather said that voices had chosen Attfield to be his victim, and the voices began to laugh as he stabbed him. Almanea was killed in overgrowth on Salary Brook Trail near her home. He stabbed her in the abdomen before forcing the knife into her eyes and ultimately her brain, so that she could not "see evil". Legal proceedings- Initial investigation: Essex Police questioned 70 locals with a history of knife crime, including Fairweather, who gave an alibi and was not questioned further. As of January 2015, more than 900 potential witnesses had been interviewed. Det Supt Hawkings, Head of Major Crimes for Essex Police called the attack "brazen" for occurring in a public space where passersby were likely. Police said that despite no firm evidence, one line of enquiry was a possible hate crime. During the trial, by which time it was known that Almanea and Attfield were killed by the same person, it was announced that both had been selected randomly. Premature assumptions that it was a hate crime led the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to threaten revenge attacks, using the Twitter hashtag #Colchester. The fact that Almanea and Attfield were unconnected people, and had been killed at different times of the day, led to a line of investigation that there could have been two separate killers. Fewer people went out in Colchester in public, and overgrowth was cleared to remove hiding places. Arrest and investigation of Fairweather: Fairweather did not attempt another murder for over a year because the public were wary of the danger: on 27 May 2015 he was spotted loitering early in the morning by a concerned dogwalker. The police were called and interviewed Fairweather, who was wearing rubber-gripped gloves and bearing a knife. He was arrested. In August 2015, he told a psychiatrist some of the "most anti-social and violent thoughts" the professional had heard, saying that voices were telling him to burn babies and maim prostitutes. Searches of Fairweather's possessions included documentaries about serial killers such as the Yorkshire Ripper, but prosecutor Paul Scothern clarified that not all people with such interests are intent on imitating the killers. Trial and sentencing: At the Old Bailey the following January, his name not disclosed to the public for reasons of age, he denied two charges of murder and possessing an illegal weapon, but admitted to two charges of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Fairweather claimed to have psychosis, which was not found by a court psychiatrist. However, all four psychiatrists who testified agreed that Fairweather suffered from an autistic spectrum disorder. He was found unanimously guilty by the jury on 22 April 2016, and was to be sentenced a week later, with Judge Robin Spencer, QC, saying that the minimum sentence would be 12 years. After the conviction, Attfield's mother Julie decried Fairweather as a "monster", condemning his cruelty to her son. On 29 April 2016, Fairweather was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 27 years.

Gatton murders

The Gatton Murders, also known as the Gatton Tragedy, the Gatton Mystery and the Murphy Murders, is the name given to an unsolved triple homicide that occurred 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the town of Gatton, Queensland, Australia. Michael Murphy, aged 29, and his younger sisters, Norah (Honora), 27, and Theresa 'Ellen', 18, were killed between 10pm and 4am on 26–27 December 1898, while returning home from a proposed dance that had been cancelled. Michael had been shot and bludgeoned, Norah strangled and bludgeoned, and Theresa 'Ellen' bludgeoned twice. Background: The Murphy family owned a farm at Blackfellow's Creek, some 8 miles (13 km) from Gatton and 61 miles (98 km) west of Queensland's capital, Brisbane. The 1901 census listed the population as 449 people. In the late 19th century the town was a major stopover point on the road from Brisbane to the Darling Downs, and with two major bridges and a railway line, the town was a rapidly expanding service centre for the district. Michael and Daniel Murphy had both left home, Michael working on a government experimental farm near Westbrook, while Daniel was a Brisbane police constable. Michael had returned home for the Christmas holidays and on 26 December (Boxing Day), 1898, had taken his sister Theresa 'Ellen' to the Mount Sylvia Races in nearby Caffey. At 8pm, Michael and his sisters Norah and Theresa 'Ellen', left home to attend a dance due to be held at the Gatton Hall. Arriving at 9pm, they found that the dance had been cancelled and began the return journey home, but failed to arrive. Early the following morning, Mrs. Murphy asked her son-in-law William M'Neill to go to Gatton to find out why they had not returned. Michael had borrowed M'Neill's sulky for the outing and while on the Tent-Hill road to Gatton, M'Neill recognised his sulky's distinctive tracks (the result of a wobbling wheel) turning off the road through a sliprail. M'Neill followed the tracks along a rough winding trail through wattle scrub for around .75 miles (1.21 km) before finding his missing relatives. The crime: M'Neill found the victims in a field 1.2 miles (1.9 km) from Gatton. Michael and Theresa 'Ellen' were lying back-to-back, within 2 feet (0.61 m) of each other. Norah lay in the same east/west orientation, on a neatly spread rug, 28 feet (8.5 m) to the east. Both women had their hands tied behind their backs with handkerchiefs. Forming a triangle, the sulky faced south, 17.5 feet (5.3 m) from Michael and 36 feet (11 m) from Norah. The horse had been shot in the head and still lay between the shafts. Their legs were arranged with the feet pointing west. This signature behaviour has never been repeated in Australian crime and, like the Gatton Murders themselves, remains a mystery. Inexplicably, M'Neill then contacted Acting-Sergeant William Arrell, who was in charge of the Gatton police station, who later arranged for police from Brisbane to attend. This led to further delays, with the investigating officers not arriving until 48 hours after the discovery of the bodies. The bodies were moved to the Gilbert's hotel and at 4pm Dr. Von Lossberg, the Government Medical Officer at Ipswich arrived and between 4-5pm began an autopsy. Michael had been shot and struck with a blunt instrument on the right side of the head. Theresa 'Ellen' had her skull fractured by two blows to the left side of her head. The wounds and position of the bodies when found indicated that Michael and Theresa 'Ellen' were sitting upright and back-to-back when struck. Norah had also been struck on the left side of her head, pulverising her skull to the extent that her brain was protruding. In addition, Norah had a harness strap tied around her neck, tight enough to have caused death. It is alleged that both women had been "outraged" (raped). In the absence of semen, based on the evidence of Sergeant Arrell that he found a pool of blood, which turned the soil to mud and stuck to the underside of the rug on which Nora's body was found, it appears that both women had been raped with the brass-mounted handle of a whip. An extensive police search for the whip met with negative results. Michael's purse: M'Neill later testified that, although Michael's hands were not tied when he first saw the body, it appeared that his hands had been tied behind his back at some point, with one holding an open purse. However, all other witnesses stated that Michael's hands were not tied, but that a breeching strap lay nearby, and that an empty purse was lying a short distance from the body. When his body was removed from the site at about 1.30pm, Michael was now found to have the breeching strap between his untied hands, with the empty purse held in one. Known to have had 15 shillings (2010: $100) in the purse the night before, it was speculated that someone may have untied Michael to access the purse: "Either Gilbert, one of the party, or M'Neill took the purse." This has never been explained. Exhumation and contradictions: The original post mortems were conducted by the Government Medical Officer Dr. Von Lossberg, with Sergeant Arrell supervising. From interviews with people who had seen the bodies, Chief Inspector Stuart determined that Michael may have been shot in the head, but this was not found by Dr. Von Lossberg, despite claims that he had been asked to look for a bullet. Stuart ordered that all three bodies be exhumed and it was found that the original post mortems were no more than superficial examinations. Although decomposition was advanced, it was now found that Michael had indeed been shot in the right side of his head then subsequently struck on the same spot with a blunt instrument, so that the later wound partially obscured the bullet hole. The bullet was recovered from the skull. Mr. Wiggins, J.P. testified that he had ordered the burials without an order for burial because he believed the post mortems had been completed and assumed that Von Lossberg had not carried any orders with him. Wiggins assumed an order would be forwarded from Ipswich. Sub-Inspector Galbraith testified that Von Lossberg had told him that he had completed the post mortems and that he had asked if Von Lossberg had found a bullet. Galbraith stated that Von Lossberg had told him that he had found what looked like a bullet hole with no exit wound but could not find a bullet in the skull. Dr. Von Lossberg testified that he had told Galbraith that he had not performed a post mortem at all because he was suffering from blood poisoning and for him not to have the bodies buried. Clerk George Baines testified that he was present at this conversation and that Von Lossberg had not mentioned not completing the post mortems, his blood poisoning, or the request for Galbraith not to bury the bodies. Von Lossberg replied that he had never seen Baines before in his life and that even if he had been present "what passed was said in a whisper." Failure of the police investigation: M'Neill contacted Sergeant Arrell at 9.15am on 27 December. Both men rode to the crime scene where they remained for 30mins before Arrell returned to Gatton to send a telegram to the Brisbane Commissioner of Police. Arrell took no notes while at the site, did not interview anyone present and made no effort to protect the site from the large number of people who had congregated. In Gatton, Arrell requested that the telegram be marked "urgent", only to be told that the police had no authority to send urgent telegrams; this was incorrect and Arrell was later criticized by a Royal Commission for not knowing he had that authority and also for waiting for the reply instead of returning immediately to the site with arrangements for the reply to be sent to him. The telegram was delivered to the Brisbane police headquarters at 12.52pm, however, because it was a holiday, it was not opened until 9am the next day (28 December). In actual fact, Arrell delegated Thomas Wilson, a magistrate, and William Devitt to look after the crime scene while he sent the necessary telegrams to the Commissioner in Brisbane and the Government Medical Officer at Ipswich. Wilson and Devitt did not discharge the duty entrusted to them by Arrell and allowed the crime scene to be contaminated. Suspects: Several people, including itinerant workers and family members, came under suspicion for the crime, but after a five-month investigation, no one was charged with the murders. The failure of the Queensland police to solve the crime led to accusations of cover-ups and rumours of incest within the Murphy family; these claims were also subsequently never resolved. Theo Farmer alias Thomas Day was the prime suspect for the Gatton murders. He died known as Thomas Furner in the Sydney Hospital on 25 October 1900, knowledge of which the police and governments in Queensland and New South Wales withheld from the public. Aftermath: The crime caused shock and outrage across the country. The ineffective investigation, alleging the police released one possible suspect without comprehensive interrogation, later became a subject of a Royal Commission in late 1899. 1899 Royal Commission: The Royal Commission was largely concerned with shortcomings in the Queensland police force in general and to a lesser extent the failures of the police investigations into both the Oxley murder of 14 December and the Gatton murders on 26 December. Daniel Murphy, a brother of the victims who was a police officer at Police headquarters had received a telegram from a family friend on 27 December informing him of the murders. Murphy applied for three days leave, had it granted and attempted to catch the 1pm train to Gatton but missed it. Returning to headquarters he went to the Criminal Investigation Branch but no action was taken by detectives as a rumour was circulating that the murders were a hoax. Murphy then caught the 5pm train to Gatton. When Inspector Frederic Urquhart, head of the C.I. Branch in Brisbane, opened Sergeant Arrell's telegram he took no action as he had heard the rumours of a hoax and had not been officially informed that there had been a murder. At 4pm Urquhart was informed that the murders were not a hoax, but as the information did not come through official channels did not inform the Commissioner until 9pm. The Commissioner ordered Urquhart to immediately take two detectives to Gatton, but despite a train leaving Brisbane at midnight, the team did not leave until 7:30 the following morning (29 December). The Royal Commission found this sequence of events incomprehensible, indicative of the existence of a rotten system of policing and a culpable indifference on the part of the Inspector Urquhart to his duty to the public. Thomas Day: Some evidence given before the Royal Commission pointed towards an itinerant labourer, Thomas Day, who had not been considered a suspect by the police investigation. Day lived in a hut around 900 feet (270 m) from the murder site. One local woman claimed she saw a man on foot chase the Murphy's sulky as it passed on its way to the dance. This man had been standing opposite sliprails blocking the little-known access road that led to the murder location, but she was unable to identify him. Day had been seen by a number of people on earlier nights, walking along the road. Another witness claimed that he had seen Day washing blood from a pullover a few days later. Moreover, Constable Robert George Christie gave evidence at the Royal Commission that he suspected it was Thomas Day who was handed the revolver used in the Oxley murder by Edward Litton Carus-Wilson, and that it was the same revolver used in the Gatton murders. In 1906, a revolver with four spent chambers was found in the Swamp Paddock on the Gatton side of Clarke's butchery where Thomas Day was employed. Four shots were fired in the Oxley and Gatton murders. The actual name of the prime suspect for the Gatton murders was Theo Farmer who used the aliases of Thomas Day and Thomas Furner. It was rumoured after the Oxley and Gatton murders that he, and Edward Litton Carus-Wilson, the prime suspect for the Oxley murder, were related to some "might magnate". There was no "mightier magnate" than William Farmer who left Australia for England in 1874, which was the year Theo Farmer was born. Several modern writers, including Australian author and crime researcher Stephanie Bennett, have suggested possible culprits. On 1 August 1918, Premier William Arthur Holman of the NSW Government confirmed the death of Theo Farmer alias Thomas Day and Thomas Furner in 1900 when he wrote a letter to Hugh Robert Denison about publishing an illustration in The Sun Newspaper. Theo Farmer alias Thomas Day was the prime suspect for the Gatton murders. Two weeks after the murders, Day asked the police if he was wanted for further investigation and was told that he was not. The records show that he later enlisted in the military but deserted in May 1899. The following year, a Thomas Furner was admitted to the Sydney Hospital in New South Wales suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. After his death on 25 October 1900, he was identified by Inspector Urquhart as Thomas Day. He died known as Thomas Furner in the Sydney Hospital on 25 October 1900, knowledge of which the police and governments in Queensland and New South Wales withheld from the public.

body work

I'm doing a little bit of body work from yoga. it's awesome as it sucks the life out of me as my knee usually hurts. it's awesome as I'm able to stretch out my body that's massaged out of the muscles and my knee feel amazing out of that

Villisca axe murders

The Villisca axe murders occurred between the evening of June 10, 1912, and the early morning of June 11, 1912, in the town of Villisca in southwestern Iowa. The six members of the Moore family and two house guests were found bludgeoned in the Moore residence. All eight victims, including six children, had severe head wounds from an axe. A lengthy investigation yielded several suspects, one of whom was tried twice. The first trial ended in a hung jury and the second ended in an acquittal. The crime remains unsolved. Details: The Moore family consisted of parents Josiah B. (aged 43[1]), Sarah (née Montgomery) (39), and their four children: Herman Montgomery (11), Mary Katherine (10), Arthur Boyd (7), and Paul Vernon (5). An affluent family, the Moores were well-known and well-liked in their community. On June 10, 1912, Mary Katherine Moore invited Ina Mae (8) and Lena Gertrude Stillinger (12) to spend the night at the Moore residence. That evening, the visiting girls and the Moore family attended the Presbyterian church where they participated in the Children's Day Program, which Sarah Moore had coordinated. After the program ended at 9:30 p.m., the Moores and the Stillinger sisters walked to the Moores' house, arriving between 9:45 and 10 p.m. At 7 a.m. the next day, Mary Peckham, the Moores' neighbor, became concerned after she noticed that the Moore family had not come out to do their morning chores. Peckham knocked on the Moores' door. When nobody answered, she tried to open the door and discovered that it was locked. Peckham let the Moores' chickens out and called Ross Moore, Josiah Moore's brother. Like Peckham, Moore received no response when he knocked on the door and shouted. He unlocked the front door with his copy of the house key. While Peckham stood on the porch, Moore went into the parlor and opened the guest bedroom door, where he found Ina and Lena Stillinger's bodies on the bed. Moore immediately told Peckham to call Hank Horton, Villisca's primary peace officer, who arrived shortly thereafter. Horton's search of the house revealed that the entire Moore family and the two Stillinger girls had been bludgeoned to death. The murder weapon, an axe belonging to Josiah, was found in the guest room where the Stillinger sisters were found. Doctors concluded that the murders had taken place between midnight and 5 a.m. Two spent cigarettes in the attic suggested that the killer or killers patiently waited in the attic until the Moore family and the Stillinger guests were asleep. The killer(s) began in the master bedroom, where Josiah and Sarah Moore were sleeping. Josiah received more blows from the axe than any other victim; his face had been cut to such an extent that his eyes were missing. They used the blade of the axe on Josiah while using the blunt end on the rest of the victims. They proceeded into the children's rooms and bludgeoned Herman, Mary Katherine, Arthur, and Paul in the head in the same manner as their parents. They returned to the master bedroom to inflict more blows on the elder Moores, knocking over a shoe that had filled with blood, before moving downstairs to the guest bedroom and killing Ina and Lena. Investigators believed that all of the victims except for Lena Stillinger had been asleep when murdered. They thought that she was awake and tried to fight back, as she was found lying crosswise on the bed, and with a defensive wound on her arm. Lena's nightgown was pushed up to her waist and she was wearing no undergarments, leading to law enforcement speculation that the killer(s) sexually molested her or attempted to do so. Investigation: Over time, many possible suspects emerged, including Reverend George Kelly, Frank F. Jones, William Mansfield, Loving Mitchell and Henry Lee Moore (no relation). George Kelly was tried twice for the murder. The first ended in a hung jury, while the second trial ended in an acquittal. Other suspects in the investigation were also exonerated. Andrew Sawyer: Every transient and otherwise unaccounted-for stranger was a suspect in the murders. One such suspect was a man named Andy Sawyer. No real evidence linked Sawyer to the crime, but his name came up often in grand jury testimonies. According to Thomas Dyer of Burlington, Iowa, a bridge foreman and pile driver for the Burlington Railroad, S.A. (Andy) Sawyer approached his crew in Creston at 6:00 a.m on the morning the murders were discovered. Sawyer was clean-shaven and wearing a brown suit when he arrived. His shoes were covered in mud and his pants were wet nearly to the knees. He asked for employment and, as Dyer needed an extra man, he was given a job on the spot. Dyer testified that later that evening when the crew reached Fontanelle, Iowa, Sawyer purchased a newspaper and went off by himself to read it. The newspaper carried a front page account of the Villisca murders and, according to Dyer, Sawyer "was much interested in it." Dyer's crew complained that Sawyer slept with his clothes on and was anxious to be by himself. They were also uneasy that Sawyer slept with his axe next to him; he often talked of the Villisca murders and whether or not a killer had been apprehended. He reportedly told Dyer that he had been in Villisca that Sunday night and had heard of the murders. Afraid of being taken as a suspect, he had left and gone to Creston. Dyer was suspicious and turned him over to the sheriff on June 18, 1912. Dyer later testified that prior to the sheriff's arrival, he walked up behind Sawyer. He was rubbing his head with both hands and suddenly jumped up and said to himself, "I will cut your god damn heads off." At the same time, he made striking motions with the axe and began hitting the piles in front of him. Dyer's son (J.R.) testified that one day as the crew drove through Villisca, Sawyer told him he would show J.R. where the man who killed the Moore family got out of town. He said the man that did the job jumped over a manure box which he pointed out about 1½ blocks away, and then showed where he crossed the railroad track. J.R. said there were footprints in the soggy ground north of the embankment. Sawyer told J.R. to look on the other side of the car and said he would show him an old tree where the murderer stepped into the creek. According to J.R. Dyer, he looked over and saw such a tree south of the track about four blocks away. Sawyer was dismissed as a suspect in the case when officials learned that he could prove he had been in Osceola, Iowa, on the night of the murders. He had been arrested for vagrancy there, and the Osceola sheriff recalled putting him on a train (to send him away) at approximately 11 p.m. that evening. Reverend George Kelly: Kelly was an English-born traveling minister in town on the night of the murders. Kelly was described as peculiar, reportedly having suffered a mental breakdown as an adolescent. As an adult, he was accused of peeping and several times asking young women and girls to pose nude for him. On June 8, 1912, he came to Villisca to teach at the Children's Day services, which the Moore family attended on June 10, 1912. He left town between 5:00 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. on June 11, 1912, hours before the bodies were discovered. Reverend Kelly had confessed to the murders in court, but the jury didn't believe his confession. In the weeks that followed, he displayed a fascination with the case and wrote many letters to the police, investigators, and family of the deceased. This aroused suspicion and a private investigator wrote back to Reverend Kelly, asking for details that the minister might know about the murders. Kelly replied with great detail, claiming to have heard sounds and possibly witnessed the murders. His known mental illness made authorities question whether he knew the details because of having committed the murders or was imagining his account. In 1914, two years after the murders, Kelly was arrested for sending obscene material through the mail (he was sexually harassing a woman who applied for a job as his secretary). He was sent to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, the national mental hospital in Washington, D.C. Investigators speculated again that Kelly could be the murderer of the Moore family. In 1917, Kelly was arrested for the Villisca murders. Police obtained a confession from him; however, it followed many hours of interrogation and Kelly later recanted. After two separate trials, he was acquitted. Frank F. Jones: Frank Fernando Jones was a Villisca resident and an Iowa State Senator. Josiah Moore had worked for Frank Jones at his implement store for many years before leaving to open his own store. Moore reportedly took business away from Jones, including a very successful John Deere dealership. Moore was rumored to have had a sexual affair with Jones’ daughter-in-law, though no evidence supports this. William Mansfield: Another theory was that Senator Jones hired William "Blackie" Mansfield to murder the Moore family. It is believed that Mansfield was a serial killer because he murdered his wife, infant child and parents-in-law with an axe two years after the Villisca crimes. He is believed to have committed the axe murders in Paola, Kansas, four days before the Villisca crimes. He was also suspected in the double homicide of Jennie Peterson and Jennie Miller in Illinois. Each crime site was accessible by train, and all murders were carried out in virtually the same manner. Mansfield was released after a special Grand Jury of Montgomery County refused to indict him, on grounds that his alibi checked out. Nine months before the murders at Villisca, a similar case of axe murder occurred in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Two axe murder cases followed in Ellsworth, Kansas, and Paola, Kansas. The cases were similar enough to raise the possibility of having been committed by the same person. Other murders reported as possibly being linked to these crimes include the numerous unsolved axe murders along the Southern Pacific Railroad from 1911–1912, the unsolved Axeman of New Orleans killings, as well as several other such murders during this time period. The murders in Colorado Springs were closely related in execution to those in the Moore house. Nine months before the Villisca murders, H.C. Wayne, his wife and child, and Mrs. A.J. Burnham were found dead in Colorado Springs, murdered by axes. The Colorado Springs Police found it difficult to believe that the same person could perpetrate a similar crime in a city. As in the Villisca murders, bed sheets were used to cover the windows to prevent passersby from looking in. At the Moore house, the murderer hung aprons and skirts to cover the windows. As in the murders in Villisca, the murderer in Colorado Springs wiped the blood off his axe and covered the heads of the victims with bed clothes. Mansfield was also the prime suspect of the Burns Detective Agency of Kansas City and Detective James Newton Wilkerson, who suggested that he was a cocaine-addicted serial killer. According to contemporary news reports, Wilkerson believed Mansfield was responsible for the axe murders of his wife, infant child, father-in law, and mother in law in Blue Island, Illinois, on July 5, 1914 (two years after the Villisca murders), the axe murders committed in Paola, Kansas, four days before the Villisca murders, and the murders of Jennie Peterson and Jennie Miller in Aurora, Illinois. According to Wilkerson's investigation, all of the murders were committed in precisely the same manner, indicating that the same man probably committed them. Wilkerson stated that he could prove that Mansfield was present in each of the differing crime scenes on the night of the murders. In each murder, the victims were hacked to death with an axe and the mirrors in the homes were covered. A burning lamp with the chimney off was left at the foot of the bed and a basin in which the murderer washed was found in the kitchen. In each case, the murderer avoided leaving fingerprints by wearing gloves, which Wilkerson believed was strong evidence that the man was Mansfield, who knew his fingerprints were on file at the federal military prison at Leavenworth. Wilkerson managed to convince a grand jury to open an investigation in 1916, and Mansfield was arrested and brought to Montgomery County from Kansas City. Payroll records, however, provided an alibi that placed Mansfield in Illinois at the time of the Villisca murders. He was released for a lack of evidence, and later won a lawsuit he brought against Wilkerson, and was awarded $2,225. Wilkerson believed that pressure from Jones resulted not only in Mansfield's release but also in the subsequent arrest and trial of Reverend Kelly. However, R.H. Thorpe, a restaurant owner from Shenandoah, Iowa, identified Mansfield as the man he saw the morning after the Villisca murders boarding a train at Clarinda. This man said he had walked from Villisca. If proven to be true, this testimony would disprove Mansfield's alibi. Furthermore, it was reported that a Mrs. Vina Tompkins, of Marshalltown, was on her way to testify that she heard three men in the woods plotting the murder of the Moore family a short time before the killings. Henry Lee Moore (no relation): Henry Lee Moore was a suspected serial killer (who was not related to the slain Moore family) who was convicted of the murder of his mother and grandmother several months after the murders in Villisca, his weapon of choice being an axe. Before and after the murders in Villisca, the very similar axe murders on his mother and grandmother were committed, and all of the cases showed striking similarities, leading to strong suspicion that some, or all of the crimes were committed by an axe-murdering serial killer and, just like "Blackie" Mansfield, the axe-murdering Henry Moore can also be considered a suspect in some of these slayings. Sam Moyer: At the inquest, it was reported that Sam Moyer (Josiah's brother-in-law) often threatened to kill Josiah Moore; however, upon further investigation, Moyer's alibi cleared him of the crime. Paul Mueller: In their 2017 book The Man from the Train, Bill James and his daughter Rachel McCarthy James discuss the Villisca murders as part of a much larger series of murders which they believe were all committed by a single serial killer. They conclude the murderer was Paul Mueller (or Miller), an immigrant possibly from Germany who was the subject of an unsuccessful yearlong manhunt as the sole suspect in the 1897 murder of a family in West Brookfield, Massachusetts, who had employed him as a farmhand. James started his research in an attempt to solve the Villisca murders, and with his daughter found archival newspaper stories detailing dozens of families murdered under similar circumstances across the US. The Jameses thus believe that Mueller was guilty of the Villisca murders as part of a killing spree that lasted over a decade, killing at least 59 people in 14 separate incidents, including the Colorado Springs and Paola crimes. The Jameses identify common features to these crimes, many of which are also found at the Villisca scene. The killer selected families who lived near railroad tracks (hence their book's title), seemingly struck in ambush at about midnight while the victims were asleep, used the blunt side of an ax rather than the blade to strike the victims in the head and face, used an ax found at the victim's home and left in plain sight after the murders, the killer covered the victims with blankets to prevent blood splatter, covered windows from inside the house and locked the doors before departure. In Mueller's suspected crimes there was often but not always a sexual motive directed towards a pubescent girl, as with Lena's being partly disrobed. In a blurb on the dust jacket of the hardcover edition of The Man From the Train, professor and crime writer Harold Schecter writes that the Jamses offered the most probable solution yet for the Villisca murders. In popular culture; -The paranormal reality television series Ghost Adventures covered the story of the Villisca axe murders, in the episode "Villisca Axe Murder House". -The paranormal reality television series Scariest Places on Earth covered the story of the Villisca axe murders and hosted a paranormal investigation on the property. -The case was profiled on the television series Most Terrifying Places in America. -The murders were also described in Episode 16 of the podcast Lore, by Aaron Mahnke. As well as being referred to on the Lore tv show. -The murders and purported paranormal activity was described in Episode 21 of the podcast And That's Why We Drink. -The crime was also detailed in the August 3, 2017 episode of the podcast, Stuff You Should Know. -The slayings were the subject of a book, Morning Ran Red, by Stephen Bowman. -The murders were the subject of a 2016 book, Murdered in Their Beds, by paranormal author and researcher Troy Taylor, who discussed the murders as part of a larger pattern of axe murders throughout the Midwest. -Tony E. Valenzuela directed a 2016 horror movie, The Axe Murders of Villisca. The film establishes Reverend Kelly as the killer (albeit while possessed). -YouTube™ Studios Los Angeles made a film called The Axe Murders Of Villisca in 2016. -The podcast My Favorite Murder covered this case in their live episode in Des Moines, Iowa (episode 168, March 23, 2019). -The podcast ‘Scared To Death’ covered this case in their episode released on January 14, 2020.

1894 Rock Island railroad wreck

The 1894 Rock Island railroad wreck occurred when a locomotive pulling two passenger cars was sabotaged on August 9, 1894, in Lincoln, Nebraska. The train was purposely derailed from a 40-foot trestle and eleven people died in the wreck. Today this trestle passes above the Jamaica North Trail at Wilderness Park in Lincoln. To date, the sabotage is one of the largest instances of mass murder in the state of Nebraska. The 1958 killing spree by Charles Starkweather resulted in eleven deaths, and the Westroads Mall shooting of 2007, which resulted in nine deaths, are other examples of mass murders by individuals. It is also the largest officially unsolved crime in Lincoln history. Crash: At 7:30PM on August 9, 1894, Locomotive 213 departed the station in Fairbury, Nebraska, with two passenger cars, due to reach Lincoln, Nebraska two hours later. At approximately 9:20PM, minutes away from its destination, the train reached a 400-foot-long trestle which was located southwest of town and carried trains forty feet above the waters of Salt Creek. The rails began to spread apart as the engine crossed the trestle and, as the passenger cars began to cross, the weight became too much for the structure, and the entire train crashed into the creek below. Upon impact, the engine burst, spilling hot coals on both the train and the wooden trestle, and soon flames covered both. According to a newspaper article at the time: It was an awful sight. The flames mounted high in the heavens coloring the entire southern sky a brilliant carmine while the moonbeams fell upon the glowing mass below from which mortal shrieks of agony and pain were heard to issue. Three men escaped the wreckage quickly. Colonel C.J. Bills organized an effort to rescue other passengers with the help of Jay McDowell and crewman Harry Foote. The three determined that the passengers in the first car and engine were beyond help and focused on the rear car, from which they rescued fifteen passengers. As Bills and McDowell ran to find help, Foote twice climbed onto the wreckage to pull out two fellow crewmen, despite having suffered a broken leg himself. The first building Bills and McDowell could see was the State Penitentiary, two miles away, from which they called the fire and police departments and the railroad. A train reached the scene around 40 minutes after the incident and carried the survivors to Lincoln. Due to the equipment available at the time and the conditions and location of the wreck, no fire wagons could reach the site. It was reported that "The only thing to do was just let the whole pile burn." Of the thirty-three passengers aboard when leaving Fairbury, eleven were killed in the crash. Investigation: Survivors of the crash began to tell police that, following the crash, they had seen an unknown man holding a lantern near the trestle. This, along with evidence found at the scene, suggested that the crash was not an accident but an act of sabotage. Police found that spikes had been pulled from the trestle, wrench marks were found on the rail, and gouges in the railroad ties showed that a crowbar had been used to pry them apart. In the grass by the trestle, a 40-pound crowbar was found. Within two days, police arrested George Washington Davis, an African-American man. Survivors claimed Davis had been the man with the lantern they had seen at the wreck. When police questioned Davis as to why he was at the scene of the wreck, he said that he had run four miles from a "colored club" in Lincoln to witness the wreck. However, Davis's description of the crash does not align with the timeline he presented. Most notably, when questioned about the sound of the crash, Davis claimed that it was "not too bad until the engine blew up." As the engine exploded immediately on impact, Davis's claim to have heard the train before its engine exploded does not fit the official account of the crash. Other members of the growing African-American community in Lincoln attested to his innocence. This was a period of African Americans leaving the South for better jobs in growing industrial cities. The police had almost no evidence to suggest that Davis was the perpetrator, Davis never admitted guilt, and investigators could not offer any explanation of motive for his supposed crime. Davis was tried twice for the sabotage. During the first trial, first-degree murder could not be proven, and the jury could not reach a verdict. During the second trial, the jury was informed by the judge that should prosecutors fail to prove Davis' guilt of first-degree murder, the jury could convict the defendant of second-degree murder. In 1895, Davis was convicted of second-degree murder. Ten years later, Governor John Mickey paroled Davis, citing a lack of evidence or motive, and "grave doubts" as to Davis' involvement in the case. Legacy: Joel Williamsen, a local author, happened upon the story of the crash while researching for his historical fiction novel Barrelhouse Boys. Williamsen was inspired by the actions of Harry Foote, and wanted to commemorate his bravery. Williamsen donated $1,200 and worked with the Nebraska State Historical Society and Lincoln Parks and Recreation to cast and install a historical marker at the site of the wreck in 2010, on the 116th anniversary of the event. The marker includes an 800-word summary of the crash and is found along the Jamaica North trail in Wilderness Park, at the site of the crash.