Chasing the Barefoot Bandit

'Barefoot Bandit'

Once on the run, Harris-Moore was dubbed the "Barefoot Bandit" because he committed a few of his crimes shoeless, and left behind chalk footprints at the scene of one. He was soon accused of stealing speedboats to travel to nearby islands to rob empty homes. In November 2008, Harris-Moore hot-wired a Cessna and crash-landed it 300 miles away, on an Indian reservation. Though it is uncertain how or where he learned to fly, Harris-Moore is thought to have stolen at least five planes and crash-landed all of them, unscathed. 

During his two years on the run across multiple states, Harris-Moore is suspected of committing more than 100 burglaries, stealing everything from powerboats to cash to cars. He also inspired Facebook tribute pages and pro-"Barefoot Bandit" T-shirts for his stunning ability to elude police, and became a bona fide anti-hero sensation. 

Harris-Moore's life on the run came to an end shortly after he again crash-landed a stolen plane, this time in the Bahamas; he was captured on a stolen motorboat in the Bahamas, on July 11, 2010. When police fired shots at the boat's engine, Harris-Moore threw a laptop into the water and held a gun to his head. Police officers talked him out of pulling the trigger.

Sentencing & Aftermath

In January 2012, Harris-Moore was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for his crimes. In 2016, his mother died from cancer and that August it was reported that Harris-Moore would be released to a half-way house.  The film rights for a biopic of Harris-Moore based on a biography by author Bob Friel were sold to 20th Century Fox in 2011. As part of the deal he would relinquish his right to profits from the project.

Body of lies

Aug 24, 2012

An inmate was sentenced to 16 years in prison for soliciting the murder of two Barstow police officers, the two children of a woman he murdered, and an ex-girlfriend while he was imprisoned at the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi.

Kern County Deputy District Attorney Ken Green offered the following summary of the chain of events preceeding Jeami Chiapulis' most recent sentencing.

Chiapulis lived in Barstow and pretended to be a decorated Army veteran while his wife, who was in the Army, lived elsewhere. He had several girlfriends, including Leisa Hurst. Chiapulis killed Hurst and then buried her in the desert.

In November 2009, Chiapulis was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and revealed where Hurst's body was hidden, the Desert Dispatch reported.

Another woman Chiapulis was involved with, Joyce Fransson, pleaded no contest to accessory to murder charges for helping Chiapulis get rid of Hurst's vehicle, telling him where to bury the body and lying to detectives about what she knew about the murder, according to the Desert Dispatch.

Chiapulis was brought to the Tehachapi prison where he met another inmate from Barstow, Green said. Chiapulis wanted the other prisoner to arrange the murder of two police officers who investigated his case, Fransson and Hurst's two daughters. He hoped to get a new trial and to prevent the two girls from testifying at parole hearings, Green said.

The other inmate contacted Barstow police and provided credible information about the plot, including where Fransson lived and the color of the car she drove, according to Green.

The Kern County District Attorney's Office filed five charges of soliciting another to commit murder against Chiapulis in September 2010. He pleaded no contested to two charges and the three remaining counts were dismissed Tuesday, according to Kern County Superior Court records.

Green said the 16-year sentence is appropriate and that because it runs consecutively with his current term, Chiapulis will still be imprisoned even if he is granted parole for the 15 years to life sentence. But Green said "trying to solicit the murder of five people including cops and children" doesn't endear an inmate to the parole board.

Chiapulis was also ordered to pay $25,000 in restitution to Hurst's daughters "who were targeted for murder," according to a district attorney's news release.

Chiapulis is now serving his time outside of Kern County, Green said.

Monster Christine SCHÜRRER

Murders and arrest

Christine had arrived in Sweden during the summer of 2007 where she settled in Södermalm, in central Stockholm. She later found a new apartment in Skarpnäck, a suburb of Stockholm. During this time Christine tried for a third time to commit suicide. She was admitted to Södersjukhuset hospital and was later released with only minor cuts on her arms. She had earlier tried to commit suicide as a result of feeling betrayed by the Swedish man leaving her after a two week romance in Greece.

Police believe that Christine arrived in Arboga by train on the afternoon of March 17. She went to the victim's house and knocked on the door. When the mother, 23-year old Emma Jangestig, answered the door, Schürrer snuck inside and struck her over the head 15 times with a hammer. She then attacked the woman's two children, 3-year old Max and 1-year old Saga, causing fatal trauma to their heads.

Schürrer had visited Arboga two times before on March 12 and March 14, possibly to get more information on where to locate the mother who she would attack days later. The mother's ex-boyfriend, the father of the two children, was arrested, but he was released the day after as it was established he was not the killer.

Schürrer was arrested in Germany on March 22, 2008, but was released again the same day. On March 24, German police sent DNA samples from the suspect to Swedish police for testing. The mother had begun to wake up from her coma in a hospital around that time, and she could identify Christine as the attacker.

Swedish investigators also examined a surveillance camera from the railway station in Arboga and a witness identified Christine, which proved that she had been in Arboga on that day during the time of the murder. She left Sweden and headed home to Germany on March 18 where she was arrested by German police on March 30, the day after an arrest warrant had been signed. She was later transferred to Sweden for the trial.

Fatal choice

The wife of a wealthy Bainbridge Township doctor was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison Monday for the murder of her husband.

On May 7, a Geagua County jury convicted Sandra Franklin, 58, of murdering 73-year-old Dr. Peter Franklin  in their home by stabbing him with a large kitchen knife. She was convicted of murder, felonious assault and involuntary manslaughter.

Franklin proclaimed her innocence even at the sentencing Monday by Geauga County Common Pleas Court Judge David Fuhry. She said she stabbed her husband in self defense.

Prosecutors said Franklin killed her husband on Aug. 16 out of greed and anger because she believed he was having affairs.

Her attorney, Steve Bell, said Dr. Franklin knocked the woman to the ground and attacked her with a knife. Bell said the couple had a knife fight and she won. He presented an expert witness who said the woman's knife cuts on her body were from the attack. The prosecution said the cuts were self-inflicted.

The jury deliberated for two days before reaching a verdict.

Serial killer Harold Shipman aka Doctor Death

Addicted to Killing

July 24, 2002

Until late July, 2002, Britain's worst serial killer was Victorian serial poisoner, Mary Ann Cotton, who murdered an estimated 21 people in the 1870s. Now that dubious distinction is claimed by Dr. Harold Shipman.

Officially, Dr. Harold Shipman murdered at least 215 of his patients — 171 women and 44 men ranging in age from 41 to 93. After a year-long public inquiry, the 2,000-page report into his 23-year murder spree was released by High Court Judge Dame Janet Smith. The records of nearly 500 patients of Shipman's who died while in his care between 1978 and 1998 were scrutinized in the investigation.

Another investigation, conducted by University of Leicester professor Richard Baker determined that the real minimum number of Shipman victims was 236. Associated Press reported that Judge Janet Smith said "the full toll may be higher, citing a 'real suspicion' that Shipman had killed 45 more people for whom there was insufficient evidence to be certain. In another 38 cases, there was too little information to form any opinion on the cause of death."

Despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt, the 56-year-old former physician maintains his innocence, continuing to shroud the motives for his extraordinary crimes. The official report speculated that the doctor was "addicted to killing" much like he was addicted to painkillers around the time the murders started. Like other death angels such as Dr. Michael Swango, the American doctor who killed patients in both Africa and the U.S., there was no hint of a sexual interest in his victims. Rather, as South Manchester coroner John Pollard speculated, Shipman "simply enjoyed viewing the process of dying and enjoyed feeling the control over life and death."

A fatal fascination with death, dying and drugs is consistent with the behavior of the 17-year-old Shipman who spent hours comforting Vera, his cancer-stricken dying mother. In the young man's mind, there was a powerful emotional connection between the visit of the family doctor and the relief that his injections of morphine brought to her suffering. Is it just a coincidence that he began abusing painkillers himself and shortly after he began practicing medicine, he used a lethal injection of pain medication to murder his first victim?

Judge Smith found Shipman's "non-violent" killing almost incredible. "The way in which Shipman could kill, face the relatives and walk away unsuspected would be dismissed as fanciful if described in a work of fiction." Even more incredible was that his murders of so many people did not arouse suspicion for decades, even though there were supposedly safeguards in place at that time.

Clearly new safeguards are needed and a number of them are now in the works in Britain. For example, after he murdered a victim, Dr. Shipman would often arrange for the body to be cremated if the family did not object, thereby destroying evidence of his crime. Judge Smith points out that new pre-cremation procedures are needed to prevent future abuse. Also, the system failed tragically when Shipman, after being convicted of drug abuse in 1975, was allowed to obtain enormous quantities of painkilling drugs. For example, in the name of a dying patient, Dr. Shipman obtained enough of the painkiller diamorphine to kill 360 people.

Is Shipman a one-off monster as some have suggested? There is growing evidence that he is not as rare as one hopes him to be. Disguised in the aura of respectability that normally surrounds medical professionals, a number of monsters like Shipman have gradually been unmasked, but only after numerous deaths have taken place. These "angels of death" are not only doctors, but nurses, therapists, hospital workers and proprietors of care facilities for the sick and the elderly. Dr. Michael Swango killed his patients because it gave him a thrill and a feeling of power; Beverley Allitt and Genene Jones, pediatric nurses, killed their young patients to get more attention for themselves; Dr. Marcel Petiot and Dr. H.H. Holmes killed for money; Dr. Josef Mengele killed for political beliefs, and so on. The medical profession clearly needs more oversight if the world is to rid itself of this problem.

The boardinghouse killer CRIME SCENE

Murders

Puente's reputation in the boarding house was mixed. Some tenants resented her stinginess and complained that she refused to give them their mail or money; others praised her for small acts of kindness or for her generous home-made meals. Puente's motives for killing tenants were financial, with police estimates of her ill-gotten income totaling more than $5,000 per month. The murders appear to have begun shortly after Puente began renting out space in the home at 1426 F Street. In April 1982, 61-year-old friend and business partner Ruth Monroe began living with Puente in her upstairs apartment, but soon died from an overdose of codeine and Tylenol. Puente told police that the woman was very depressed because her husband was terminally ill. They believed her and judged the incident a suicide.

A few weeks later, the police were back after a 74-year-old pensioner named Malcolm McKenzie (one of four elderly people Puente was accused of drugging) accused Puente of drugging and stealing from him. She was convicted of three charges of theft on August 18, 1982, and sentenced to five years in jail, where she began corresponding with a 77-year-old retiree living in Oregon, named Everson Gillmouth. A pen-pal friendship developed, and when Puente was released in 1985 after serving just three years of her sentence, he was waiting for her in a red 1980 Ford pickup. Their relationship developed quickly, and the couple was soon making wedding plans. They opened a joint bank account and paid $600-a-month rent for the upstairs apartment at 1426 F Street in Sacramento.

In November 1985, Puente hired handyman Ismael Florez to install some wood paneling in her apartment. For his labor and an additional $800, Puente gave him a red 1980 Ford pickup in good condition, which she stated belonged to her boyfriend in Los Angeles who no longer needed it. She asked Florez to build a box 6 feet by 3 feet by 2 feet to store "books and other items". She then asked Florez to transport the filled and nailed-shut box to a storage depot. Florez agreed, and Puente joined him. On the way, however, she told him to stop while they were on Garden Highway in Sutter County and dump the box on the river bank in an unofficial household dumping site. Puente told him that the contents of the box were just junk.

On January 1, 1986, a fisherman spotted the box sitting about three feet from the bank of the river and informed police. Investigators found a badly decomposed and unidentifiable body of an elderly man inside. Puente continued to collect Everson Gillmouth's pension and wrote letters to his family, explaining that the reason he had not contacted them was because he was ill. She maintained a "room and board" business, taking in 40 new tenants. Gillmouth's body remained unidentified for three years.

Puente continued to accept elderly tenants, and was popular with local social workers because she accepted "tough cases", including drug addicts and abusive tenants. She collected tenants' monthly mail before they saw it and paid them stipends, pocketing the rest for "expenses." During this period, parole agents went and visited Puente, who had been ordered to stay away from the elderly and refrain from handling government checks, a minimum of fifteen times at the residence. No violations were ever noted.

Suspicion was first aroused when neighbors noticed the odd activities of a homeless alcoholic known only as "Chief", whom Puente stated she had "adopted" and made her personal handyman. Puente had Chief dig in the basement and cart soil and rubbish away in a wheelbarrow. At the time, the basement floor was covered with a concrete slab. Chief later took down a garage in the backyard and installed a fresh concrete slab there as well. Soon afterward, Chief disappeared.

Serial killer Dorothea Puente

Puente, Dorothea Montalvo

Biography of Ed Gein

"I had a compulsion to do it."

Born at the turn of the century into the small farming community of Plainfield, Wisconsin, Gein lived a repressive and solitary life on his family homestead with a weak, ineffectual brother and domineering mother who taught him from an early age that sex was a sinful thing. Eddie ran the family's 160-acre farm on the outskirts of Plainfield until his brother Henry died in 1944 and his mother in 1945. When she died her son was a thirty-nine-year-old bachelor, still emotionally enslaved to the woman who had tyrannized his life. The rest of the house, however, soon degenerated into a madman's shambles. Thanks to federal subsidies, Gein no longer needed to farm his land, and he abandoned it to do odd jobs here and there for the Plainfield residents, to earn him a little extra cash. But he remained alone in the enormous farmhouse, haunted by the ghost of his overbearing mother, whose bedroom he kept locked and undisturbed, exactly as it had been when she was alive. He also sealed off the drawing room and five more upstairs rooms, living only in one downstairs room and the kitchen.

"Weird old Eddie", as the local community know him, had begun to develop a deeply unhealthy interest in the intimate anatomy of the female body - and interest that was fed by medical encyclopedias, books on anatomy, pulp horror novels and pornographic magazines. He became particularly interested in the atrocities committed by the Nazis during the Second World War and the medical experiments performed on Jews in the concentration camps. Soon he graduated on to the real thing by digging up decaying female corpses by night in far-flung Wisconsin cemeteries. These he would dissect and keep some parts heads, sex organs, livers, hearts and intestines. Then he would flay the skin from the body, draping it over a tailor's dummy or even wearing it himself to dance and cavort around the homestead - a practice that apparently gave him intense gratification. On other occasions, Gein took only the body parts that particularly interested him. He was especially fascinated by the excised female genitalia, which he would fondle and play with, sometimes stuffing them into a pair of women's panties, which he would then wear around the house. Not surprisingly, he quickly became a recluse in the community, discouraging any visitors from coming near his by now neglected and decaying farm.

Gein's fascination with the female body eventually led him to seek out fresher samples. His victims, usually women of his mother's age, included 54-year old Mary Hogan, who disappeared from the tavern she ran in December 1954, and Bernice Worden, a woman in her late fifties who ran the local hardware store, who disappeared on the 16th November 1957. Mrs. Worden's son Frank was also the sheriff's deputy, and upon learning that weird old Eddie Gein had been spotted in town on the day of his mother's disappearance, Frank Worden and the sheriff went to check out the old Gein place, already infamous amongst the local children as a haunted house.

There, the gruesome evidence proved that Gein's bizarre obsessions had finally exploded into murder, and much, much worse. In the woodshed of the farm was the naked, headless body of Bernice Worden, hanging upside down from a meat hook and slit open down the front. Her head and intestines were discovered in a box, and her heart on a plate in the dining room. The skins from ten human heads were found preserved, and another skin taken from the upper torso of a woman was rolled up on the floor. There was a belt fashioned from carved-off nipples, a chair upholstered in human skin, the crown of a skull used as a soup-bowl, lampshades covered in flesh pilled taut, a table propped up by a human shinbones, and a refrigerator full of human organs. The four posts on Gein's bed were topped with skulls and a human head hung on the wall alongside nine death-masks - the skinned faces of women - and decorative bracelets made out of human skin. The stunned searchers also uncovered a soup bowls fashioned from skulls, a shoebox full of female genitalia, faces stuffed with newspapers and mounted like hunting trophies on the walls, and a "mammary vest" flayed from the torso of a woman. Gein later confessed that he enjoyed dressing himself in this and other human-skin garments and pretending he was his own mother.

The scattered remains of an estimated fifteen bodies were found at the farmhouse when Gein was eventually arrested, but he could not remember how many murders he had actually committed. The discovery of these Gothic horrors sent shock waves throughout Eisenhower-era America. In Wisconsin itself, Gein quickly entered local folklore. Within weeks of his arrest, macabre Jokes called "Geiners" became a statewide craze. The country as a whole learned about Gein in December 1957, when both Life and Time magazines ran features on his "house of horrors."

After ten years in a mental hospital, Gein was judged competent to stand trial. Although considered fit to stand trial, Eddie was found guilty, but criminally insane. He was first committed to the Central State Hospital at Waupon, and then in 1978 he was moved to the Mendota Mental Health Institute where he died in the geriatric ward in 1984, aged seventy-seven. It is said he was always a model prisoner - gentle, polite and discreet. He died of respiratory and heart failure in 1984.

The preachers wife

Matt Baker, a former Texas minister was convicted in Jan 2010 of slipping his wife, Kari, sleeping pills, smothering her to death with a pillow and faking her suicide note so he could be with his mistress. Jurors deliberated more than seven hours before convicting Baker, 38, of murder in his wife's 2006 death, which initially was ruled a suicide. He was sentenced to 65 yrs in prison.

Teen killer Tyler Witt

'I miss my mom... but I still love the boy who killed her': 'Romeo and Juliet' teenager reveals how love affair ended in tragedy

It was a modern day story of star-crossed lovers, a Romeo and Juliet of our times but with a more sadistic, violent twist.

When Tylar Witt, then 14, and her boyfriend Steven Colver, then 19, were banned from seeing each other by Tylar's devoted mother Joanne after she caught them in bed together, they decided they would take their own lives - but not before they took hers first. 

Now for the first time, Tylar Witt has spoken out about her regret over her mother's 2009 murder and about how much she misses her.

The 16-year-old was convicted of second-degree murder last month after testifying against Colver in court when the jury rejected his defence that it was Tylar who stabbed her mother and not him. She received a reduced sentence of 15 years-to-life in prison.

Shackled and in jogging bottoms and a sweat shirt, a baby-faced Tylar has now decided to open up about her mother's death to ABC's 20/20, accepting her role in it and talking about how wonderful she was.

In a show which will be aired tonight, she said: 'I miss her. She was a lot like a dad. What other mom catches snakes and lizards and puts them in aquariums?

'I don't think I ever appreciated what my mom did for me. When you are a kid, the only thing that you see are parents doing stuff for you and then them punishing you.'

Joanne Witt was a single mother by choice who did everything for her daughter, raising her only child in a wealthy community in the El Dorado Hills of California. 

The mechanical engineer gave her daughter everything from acting courses to riding lesson and they enjoyed spending time at home together cooking and watching movies.

But also revealed in the show tonight is a darker side to the mother-daughter bond. Tylar was actually taken off her mother when she was a pre-schooler after she allegedly beat her.

She was ordered to take anger management classes and vowed never to touch her daughter again.

Tylar reveals in the show that there were no more beatings but that they screamed and shouted at each other a lot due to what Tylar says was her mother's secret drinking problem.

Joanne's sister Mary Witt said there were also tension over her sister's reluctance to tell Tylar about her biological father but that the biggest - and most fatal - part of their relationship was when her mother caught her in bed with Colver when she was just 14 years old.

It was after that, when Joanne Witt reported the 19-year-old to police for statutory rape that their plan started to come together.

The couple vowed  to be together forever and made a pact to commit suicide, but not before brutally murdering Joanne Witt, who they believed stood in their way.

Speaking about the plan, Tylar told 20/20: 'It doesn't make sense, but I guess it did at the time.'

Police found the mutilated body of Joanne Witt locked in her bedroom in June 2009. She had been brutally stabbed 20 times.

At this stage the couple had already run off to San Francisco, and tried to commit suicide by taking rat poisoning, which Tylar said gave her nothing but a stomach ache.

Before they could attempt it a second time, the police had already found them after an off-duty police officer spotted them outside a shopping mall. 

During the trial, Colver - who at one point described to friends how he stabbed his girlfriend's mother with a butcher knife - changed his story and said Joanne Witt was already dead when he arrived at the home.

His defence lawyer Dain Weiner said: 'I think realizing the gravity of the situation after being in jail for a while, it took a while before he was willing to confirm, yeah, that she had done it and how she had done it.'

Tylar's story is that she had fallen to the floor before entering her mother's room and sat with her hands over her ears humming as Colver was stabbing her mother.

He was convicted of first-degree murder on August 12 and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Tylar, who confesses she still loves Colver, said she feels betrayed and hurt: 'It's like somebody telling you that they are gonna love you no matter what, and you have depended on them, and then they take it away.

'But I cant be angry with him - I was part of i.

Angel of Death aka Aileen Wuornos

Vagabond Existence

Having previously been a ward of the state, Wuornos subsisted on a vagabond existence as an adult, hitchhiking and engaging in sex work to survive. She was arrested during the mid-1970s for charges related to assault and disorderly conduct and eventually settled in Florida, where she met wealthy yachtsman Lewis Fell. The two were married in 1976, but Fell annulled the union shortly thereafter, upon Wuornos being arrested in another altercation. A decade later, having been involved in numerous additional crimes, Wuornos met 24-year-old Tyria Moore in Daytona, Florida, and the two embarked on a romantic relationship.

Series of Murders

It would later be revealed that from late 1989 into the fall of 1990, Wuornos had murdered at least six men along Florida highways. In mid-December 1989, the body of Richard Mallory was found in a junkyard, with five more men’s bodies to be discovered over subsequent months.

Authorities were eventually able to track down Wuornos (who had used various aliases) and Moore from fingerprints and palm prints left in the crashed vehicle of another missing man, Peter Siems. Wuornos was arrested in a bar in Port Orange, Florida, while police tracked down Moore in Pennsylvania. To avoid prosecution, Moore made a deal, and in mid-January 1991 she elicited a phone confession from Wuornos, who took full and sole responsibility for the murders.

Trial and Execution

A media frenzy ensued over the case, due in part to the lurid nature of the crimes. During the trial, Wuornos asserted that she had been raped and assaulted by Mallory and had killed him in self-defense. (Though not revealed in court, Mallory had previously served a decade-long prison sentence for sexual assault.) She stated that her killing of the five other men had been in self-defense as well, though she would later retract these statements.

On January 27, 1992, a jury found Wuornos guilty of first-degree murder for the Mallory case and she received the death penalty. Over the ensuing months, Wuornos plead guilty to the murders of the five other men whose murders she was charged with and received a death sentence for each plea. Outside of court, she later admitted to the killing of Siems, whose body was never recovered.

Spending a decade on death row, Wuornos eventually opted to fire her appeals lawyers, who were working for a stay of execution. But a court-appointed attorney was concerned about comments made by Wuornos that suggested she was profoundly disconnected from reality. In 2002, Florida governor Jeb Bush lifted a temporary stay of execution after three psychiatrists deemed her mentally competent to understand the death penalty and the reasons for its implementation.

Aileen Wuornos was executed by lethal injection on the morning of October 9, 2002. Her cremated remains were buried in her town of birth.

The Long Island serial killer

6 YEARS LATER: WHO IS THE LONG ISLAND SERIAL KILLER?

On January 25, 2011, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer confirmed that the dead bodies police found in Long Island were all women who worked as escorts, advertised on Craigslist — and were probably murdered by a serial killer.

The bodies of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, of Norwich, Connecticut; Melissa Barthelemy, 24, of Erie County, New York; and Amber Lynn Costello, 27, of North Babylon, New York, were discovered on an isolated strip of waterfront property in Gilgo beach in December 2010.

A few days later, police found the skeletal remains of Megan Waterman, 22, of Maine. All four women had been missing for months or years.

Police made the grisly discovery by accident while searching for 24-year-old escort Shannan Gilbert, who was last seen fleeing the home of a client she met on Craigslist in Oak Beach on May 21, 2010. Gilbert’s body was found on December 13, 2011, in the same area.

So far, more than 10 bodies have been found in the area, including those of a toddler and an Asian male. Many experts believe that all were the victims of the Long Island Serial Killer, or killers — but the murderer’s identity remains a mystery.

At the time Dormer said that the four bodies were found in an area of a quarter mile, “which indicates they were dumped there by the same person or persons,” Dormer said. “It’s too coincidental that there were four bodies in the same location.”

The case continues to fascinate armchair detectives, who hotly debate developments on sites like Reddit and Websleuths.

Some experts believe that there may also be a link between the Gilgo Beach murders and four bodies found in Atlantic City in 2006.

Recently investigators matched DNA from partial skeletal remains found on Ocean Parkway in 2011 to “Peaches,” an unidentified woman whose torso was discovered in Rockville Centre in 1997 and given the nickname because of her fruit tattoo. Authorities confirmed that this means that “Peaches” was the mother of the child recovered in the Gilgo Beach murder probe.

The case took another extraordinary turn when James Burke, the ex-Suffolk County Police Chief, was sentenced to 46 months in prison after pleading guilty to federal charges stemming from accusations that he beat a suspect in custody, threatened to kill him, and then coerced his fellow officers into covering up the misconduct.

Then last month, a sex worker known only as “Lee Ann” went public with her claims that Burke, who also allegedly obstructed the FBI from investigating the unsolved Gilgo Beach murders, attended “sex parties” in the area near the crime scenes.

She claimed that she had “rough sex” with Burke and saw him “grab a girl by her hair and drag her to the ground.”

John Ray, lawyer for the family of murder victim Shannan Gilbert, said that the parties were held in Oak Beach and involved drugs and prostitution. He said he hopes to question Burke under oath.

Suffolk County detectives continue to hold out hope that the biggest case in the department’s history will one day be solved.

Bullying Words can kill

Bullying is a distinctive pattern of harming and humiliating others, specifically those who are in some way smaller, weaker, younger or in any way more vulnerable than the bully. Bullying is not garden-variety aggression; it is a deliberate and repeated attempt to cause harm to others of lesser power. It's a very durable behavioral style, largely because bullies get what they want—at least at first. Bullies are made, not born, and it happens at an early age, if the normal aggression of 2-year-olds isn't handled well.

Many studies show that bullies lack prosocial behavior, are untroubled by anxiety, and do not understand others' feelings. They typically see themselves quite positively. Those who chronically bully have strained relationships with parents and peers.

Electronic bullying has become a significant problem in the past decade. The ubiquity of hand-held and other devices  affords bullies any-time access to their prey, and harassment can often be carried out anonymously.

Bullies couldn't exist without victims, and they don't pick on just anyone; those singled out lack assertiveness and radiate fear long before they ever encounter a bully. No one likes a bully, but no one likes a victim either. Grown-up bullies wreak havoc in their relationships and in the workplace.

Increasingly, children are growing up without the kinds of experiences that lead to the development of social skills, and free play has been in decline. Yet, it's in playing with peers, without adult monitoring, that children develop the skills that make them well-liked by age-mates and learn how to solve social problems.

Kelly Gissendaner

Gissendaner's execution was scheduled for February 25, 2015, then after a weather delay for March 2, 2015, and then again one of the execution drugs was found to have been spoiled through improper storage.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, on behalf of Pope Francis, urged the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles to spare Gissendaner's life. Gissendaner's clemency application to the Board of Pardons included support from a number of correctional officers that she met while in prison. Norman S. Fletcher, the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia, urged clemency because capital punishment was not proportional to her crime. The Georgia Republican Party’s general counsel and Republican Bob Barr also supported clemency.

The board again declined to commute her sentence on September 29, 2015. (Georgia is one of three US states in which the governor is not empowered to grant clemency to the condemned.)

Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison, the execution site

Gissendaner was scheduled to be executed on September 29, 2015, but was again delayed by appeals. She was finally executed via lethal injection at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Georgia, on September 30 at 12:21 a.m.

Gissendaner cried, prayed, sang "Amazing Grace", said, "Bless you all. Tell the Gissendaners I am so, so sorry that an amazing man lost his life because of me. If I could take it all back, I would." She was the first woman executed in Georgia since 1945.

The WEREWOLF of Wysteria aka Albert FISH

The letter

Seven years later, in November 1934, an anonymous letter was sent to the girl's parents which led the police to Albert Fish. The letter is quoted here, with all of Fish's misspellings and grammatical errors:

Dear Mrs. Budd. In 1894 a friend of mine shipped as a deck hand on the Steamer Tacoma, Capt. John Davis. They sailed from San Francisco for Hong Kong, China. On arriving there he and two others went ashore and got drunk. When they returned the boat was gone. At that time there was famine in China. Meat of any kind was from $1-3 per pound. So great was the suffering among the very poor that all children under 12 were sold for food in order to keep others from starving. A boy or girl under 14 was not safe in the street. You could go in any shop and ask for steak—chops—or stew meat. Part of the naked body of a boy or girl would be brought out and just what you wanted cut from it. A boy or girl's behind which is the sweetest part of the body and sold as veal cutlet brought the highest price. John staid [sic] there so long he acquired a taste for human flesh. On his return to N.Y. he stole two boys, one 7 and one 11. Took them to his home stripped them naked tied them in a closet. Then burned everything they had on. Several times every day and night he spanked them — tortured them — to make their meat good and tender. First he killed the 11 year old boy, because he had the fattest ass and of course the most meat on it. Every part of his body was cooked and eaten except the head—bones and guts. He was roasted in the oven (all of his ass), boiled, broiled, fried and stewed. The little boy was next, went the same way. At that time, I was living at 409 E 100 St. near—right side. He told me so often how good human flesh was I made up my mind to taste it.

On Sunday June the 3, 1928 I called on you at 406 W 15 St. Brought you pot cheese—strawberries. We had lunch. Grace sat in my lap and kissed me. I made up my mind to eat her. On the pretense of taking her to a party. You said yes she could go. I took her to an empty house in Westchester I had already picked out. When we got there, I told her to remain outside. She picked wildflowers. I went upstairs and stripped all my clothes off. I knew if I did not I would get her blood on them. When all was ready I went to the window and called her. Then I hid in a closet until she was in the room. When she saw me all naked she began to cry and tried to run down the stairs. I grabbed her and she said she would tell her mamma. First I stripped her naked. How she did kick — bite and scratch. I choked her to death, then cut her in small pieces so I could take my meat to my rooms. Cook and eat it. How sweet and tender her little ass was roasted in the oven. It took me 9 days to eat her entire body. I did not fuck her tho I could of had I wished. She died a virgin.

Mrs. Budd was illiterate and could not read the letter herself, so she had her son read it instead. Fish later admitted to his attorney that he did indeed rape Grace. Fish was a compulsive liar, however, so this may be untrue. He had told the police, when asked, that it "never even entered his head" to rape the girl.

The devils right hand aka Robert Browne

July 27, 2006

Thursday morning Robert Charles Browne pleaded guilty to the 1987 murder of Rocio Delpilar Sperry.

Sperry was 15 years old when she was killed in November 1987 at an apartment complex in Colorado Springs. Browne claims he put her in a dumpster after strangling her to death.

Browne told authorities he murdered 48 people from about 1970 until he was arrested and charged with the murder of Heather Dawn Church, 13, in El Paso County in March 1995.

Church was reported missing from her Black Forest area home in September 1991 and her body was discovered in September 1993.

Authorities have linked Browne to 19 slayings in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Washington, and South Korea.

In addition to Church, authorities have accounted for seven bodies connected with Browne's claims, one of the dead was Sperry, two others were in Texas, three in Louisiana, and one in Arkansas.

Browne claims he strangled Lisa Lowe, 21, to death in Arkansas in November 1991 and dumped her in a river.

Katherine Hayes, 15, went missing in July 1980 in Louisiana. Browne told investigators he strangled her to death with shoelaces.

Browne claims he killed 21-year-old Wanda Faye Hudson and 26-year-old Faye Self, both in Louisiana.

Melody Bush, 22, was killed in Texas after Browne says he picked her up on the side of the road in March 1984.

Browne says he strangled Nidia Mendoza, 17, to death in Texas in February 1984.

Browne told police in many of the cases he had consensual sex with the women or girls before killing them.

El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa says Browne's claims of 48 murders could be credible.

"It's possible he's exaggerating, but I don't think you can conduct business assuming he's exaggerating," Maketa said. "We'll continue to pursue leads."

The sheriff's office says Browne claims to have strangled, shot or stabbed men and women he encountered at roadside turnouts, in bars or on the street. He would stab people with a knife, a screwdriver, or an ice pick. Browne told authorities he dismembered one victim in a motel room bathtub so he would not be seen carrying the body from the room, then put the parts in a suitcase and dumped it beside a road.

Browne discussed the slayings in sporadic meetings and an exchange of letters he had with Charlie Hess, a sheriff's department cold-case investigator, over four years.

Hess got involved after Browne started writing letters deputies described as "taunting" to the El Paso County Sheriff's Office, but the letters abruptly broke off. "We started by writing a very direct letter to Robert indicating who we were," said Hess.

Hess said Browne then started the correspondence, but he did not want the investigators to come and see him in person. However, when he broke off communication again, investigators went to see him and Browne agreed to resume the correspondence.

"Little by little he gave us bits of information," said Hess. "Being non-judgmental was necessary."

"It became obvious with Robert that most things were a negotiation: If I can have a single cell I'll tell you this. If I can have this, I can give you three murders," said Hess. "All of the things he asked for were reasonable, within the law, with the rules of DOC."

"It became obvious that we had to go on, and in my mind that there still was more," said Hess.

Hess, who said he is a former FBI and CIA agent, volunteers to help the sheriff's office investigate cold cases.

"We don't like to call them cold cases, we like to call them unresolved cases. A cold case would indicate to me a case that is put on the shelf and forgotten. We don't forget them," said Hess.

Hess says he was originally drawn toward helping the sheriff's department after his own son-in-law was murdered.

Browne is the youngest of nine children, severed in the military and has an extensive criminal record. He served time for a motor vehicle theft in Louisiana and also as a history of arson, cruelty to animals, and burglary.

He was born on Halloween in 1952 and was married six different times. Police say they believe all of his former wives are still alive.

The waitress and the millionaire Celeste Beard

May 14, 2003

All of Celeste Beard’s possessions from her years of wealth and extravagant spending now fit in a single, small closet.

“That’s quite a fall from the fairy-tale life,” says friend Marilou.

And as friends and foes gather on the first day of her murder trial, Celeste risks losing something money can’t buy -- her freedom.

“Celeste is innocent, and it’s all on my shoulders,” says DeGuerin, Celeste’s lawyer.

“A lot of people think the Bible says that money is the root of all evil,” says co-prosecutor Gary Cobb. “And what the Bible actually says is that the love of money is the root of all evil. Celeste Beard loved money more than she loved anything else. Because of that, she had Steve Beard killed.”

“She couldn’t stand Steve Beard,” says lead prosecutor Allison Weitzel, in her opening statement. “She talked to people about how she hated him. He disgusted her.”

Weitzel says while Celeste hated her husband, she loved his money, and used her lover, Tracey Tarlton, to get it.

“What happened here is a simple case of a greedy, manipulative defendant who took advantage of a mentally ill woman who was in love with her,” says Weitzel. “She told Tracey that with Steve gone, they could be together.”

“This is a case of fatal attraction. It’s a case of obsession,” says DeGuerin, Celeste’s attorney. “Tracey Tarlton is psychotic. She’s been diagnosed as having delusions, as hearing voices that aren’t there, as seeing things that aren’t there.”

DeGuerin made the case that Tracey had a mental condition that created rich fantasies that led to murder: “The sexual relationship existed solely in Tracey’s mind. Tracey shot Steven Beard for her own selfish and sick reasons.”

The prosecution first wants the jury to focus on Celeste’s money motive.

Steven Beard’s attorney, David Kuperman, who drew up the family will, testifies that Celeste stood to inherit millions more dollars in cash and property if Steven died.

“On his death, the half interest in the homes, the tangible personal property and the club memberships, and $500,000 would go outright to Celeste," says Kuperman.

Prosecutors say in the spring of 1999, six months before the shooting, Celeste chose murder over divorce as the best way to cash in on Steven’s fortune.

Crucial to the prosecution’s case of manipulation and murder is to prove Tracey’s claims of a sexual relationship with Celeste.

“She needed me. And I know that attracted me,” says Tracey.

“They would gaze at each other lovingly and it wasn’t the kind of affection that platonic girlfriends would share,” says Brandy Whitten, a co-worker of Tracey’s who saw the two of them together at a party just a few months before Steven was shot.

“They were very affectionate together,” says Whitten. “At one point, Celeste was sitting on Tracey’s lap and I saw Celeste nuzzle Tracey’s ear.”

Tracey says she was in love with Celeste, and that at the time, Tracey thought Celeste was in love with her. In fact, Celeste once bought a card that said, “To the one I love.” But she didn’t give it to her husband, Steven. She gave it to Tracey instead.

“I did love Tracey, as a friend,” says Celeste. “I cared very much for Tracey, as a friend.”

DeGuerin says it was Tracey who was the manipulator. He claims Tracey would get Celeste high on alcohol or marijuana brownies, and then try to seduce her.

“Celeste came onto me as much as I came onto Celeste,” says Tracey.

But when Tracey Tarlton takes the stand, DeGuerin has a surprise for her and the prosecution. DeGuerin had Tracey’s secret diary.

DeGuerin: In fact, you’d kind of forgotten about the existence of this journal. Right?
Tracey: Until you brought it up, yes.

In the pages of her journal, Tracey writes of her most private feelings. But something important is missing.

DeGuerin: Is there a single journal entry in which you say, “It finally happened. We finally had sex.”

Tracey: No.

Tracey testifies that from the first day they met, Celeste often complained that Steven was abusive toward her.

“I just saw this woman that I loved in a desperate situation trying to find a way to survive this man that was so awful,” says Tracey on the stand.

Tracey says she wanted to help. She also says Celeste had an idea.

“She had a plan. She wanted me to shoot him at Toro Canyon with my shot gun,” says Tracey. “I was willing to shoot him, and I went and did it.”

Tracey then said that she walked into Steve’s room, stood at the foot of his bed, raised her gun “and took aim where I was supposed to take aim and pulled the trigger. What I was thinking about was Celeste’s instructions. I was thinking about Celeste.”

But Celeste denies ever giving Tracey instructions to kill her husband: “I don’t know why Tracey shot my husband.”

However, Katina Lofton, who shared a cell with Tracey for two months, says she knows why.

“She loved Celeste but Celeste didn’t love her,” says Lofton, who says Tracey was out to punish Celeste for refusing her sexual advances. “She just said that Celeste wasn’t going to live happily ever after while she rotted in jail.”

Although Lofton’s testimony gives Celeste hope, two other witnesses -- her twin daughters -- will leave her in despair.

“Well, she would sometimes make comments like, ‘Why doesn’t he just die already,’ says Celeste’s daughter, Kristina.

According to their mother, Kristina and Jennifer Beard were not out to defend her -- they were here to destroy her.

“She said that she married Steve for his money,” says daughter, Jennifer.

“It was kind of hard to keep up because she was always lying about something,” adds daughter Kristina.

“I just can’t imagine any child getting up on the stand and being able to do that to their mother,” says Celeste, crying.

“Obviously, I was a horrible mother. I mean, I have to admit that, because my kids wouldn’t be like they are today, if I wasn’t a bad mother. But I did the best I knew how.”

During several days of detailed testimony, the twins back up many of Tracey Tarlton’s claims, beginning with Celeste’s true feelings for Steven.

“She would say that he disgusted her,” says Kristina.

The girls also said they had suspicions about Celeste and Tracey’s friendship. Jennifer said that Celeste would sneak out at night and head to Tracey’s house after drugging Steve with sleeping pills.

“I saw her break apart the sleeping pill and put it in his baked potato,” says Jennifer.

What would make Celeste’s own children betray her? Celeste says her daughters are lying about everything, even their claims that they loved Steven.

“They’re the ones that talked behind his back. They hated Steven. They thought he was old. They thought he was no fun,” says Celeste. “I used to beg them, ‘Call him dad. He would love for you to call him dad.’ And they refused.”

“I hate to admit it, but the only reason why they could have turned on me was for the money. I mean, I have to face that fact,” adds Celeste.

Celeste says that if she’s convicted, the twins would get a share of her inheritance -- an estimated $2 million each. But if Celeste goes free, Steven Beard’s will calls for the girls to get significantly less.

“They have two million reasons to lie,” says Celeste.

Weitzel, lead prosecutor, disagrees. “I do not agree, for a minute, that they’re motivated by money. I think those girls, the growing up they had to do with the defendant, is just something that’s almost too horrible to imagine.”

 

The waitress and the millionaire Celeste Beard

May 14, 2003

All of Celeste Beard’s possessions from her years of wealth and extravagant spending now fit in a single, small closet.

“That’s quite a fall from the fairy-tale life,” says friend Marilou.

And as friends and foes gather on the first day of her murder trial, Celeste risks losing something money can’t buy -- her freedom.

“Celeste is innocent, and it’s all on my shoulders,” says DeGuerin, Celeste’s lawyer.

“A lot of people think the Bible says that money is the root of all evil,” says co-prosecutor Gary Cobb. “And what the Bible actually says is that the love of money is the root of all evil. Celeste Beard loved money more than she loved anything else. Because of that, she had Steve Beard killed.”

“She couldn’t stand Steve Beard,” says lead prosecutor Allison Weitzel, in her opening statement. “She talked to people about how she hated him. He disgusted her.”

Weitzel says while Celeste hated her husband, she loved his money, and used her lover, Tracey Tarlton, to get it.

“What happened here is a simple case of a greedy, manipulative defendant who took advantage of a mentally ill woman who was in love with her,” says Weitzel. “She told Tracey that with Steve gone, they could be together.”

“This is a case of fatal attraction. It’s a case of obsession,” says DeGuerin, Celeste’s attorney. “Tracey Tarlton is psychotic. She’s been diagnosed as having delusions, as hearing voices that aren’t there, as seeing things that aren’t there.”

DeGuerin made the case that Tracey had a mental condition that created rich fantasies that led to murder: “The sexual relationship existed solely in Tracey’s mind. Tracey shot Steven Beard for her own selfish and sick reasons.”

The prosecution first wants the jury to focus on Celeste’s money motive.

Steven Beard’s attorney, David Kuperman, who drew up the family will, testifies that Celeste stood to inherit millions more dollars in cash and property if Steven died.

“On his death, the half interest in the homes, the tangible personal property and the club memberships, and $500,000 would go outright to Celeste," says Kuperman.

Prosecutors say in the spring of 1999, six months before the shooting, Celeste chose murder over divorce as the best way to cash in on Steven’s fortune.

Crucial to the prosecution’s case of manipulation and murder is to prove Tracey’s claims of a sexual relationship with Celeste.

“She needed me. And I know that attracted me,” says Tracey.

“They would gaze at each other lovingly and it wasn’t the kind of affection that platonic girlfriends would share,” says Brandy Whitten, a co-worker of Tracey’s who saw the two of them together at a party just a few months before Steven was shot.

“They were very affectionate together,” says Whitten. “At one point, Celeste was sitting on Tracey’s lap and I saw Celeste nuzzle Tracey’s ear.”

Tracey says she was in love with Celeste, and that at the time, Tracey thought Celeste was in love with her. In fact, Celeste once bought a card that said, “To the one I love.” But she didn’t give it to her husband, Steven. She gave it to Tracey instead.

“I did love Tracey, as a friend,” says Celeste. “I cared very much for Tracey, as a friend.”

DeGuerin says it was Tracey who was the manipulator. He claims Tracey would get Celeste high on alcohol or marijuana brownies, and then try to seduce her.

“Celeste came onto me as much as I came onto Celeste,” says Tracey.

But when Tracey Tarlton takes the stand, DeGuerin has a surprise for her and the prosecution. DeGuerin had Tracey’s secret diary.

DeGuerin: In fact, you’d kind of forgotten about the existence of this journal. Right?
Tracey: Until you brought it up, yes.

In the pages of her journal, Tracey writes of her most private feelings. But something important is missing.

DeGuerin: Is there a single journal entry in which you say, “It finally happened. We finally had sex.”

Tracey: No.

Tracey testifies that from the first day they met, Celeste often complained that Steven was abusive toward her.

“I just saw this woman that I loved in a desperate situation trying to find a way to survive this man that was so awful,” says Tracey on the stand.

Tracey says she wanted to help. She also says Celeste had an idea.

“She had a plan. She wanted me to shoot him at Toro Canyon with my shot gun,” says Tracey. “I was willing to shoot him, and I went and did it.”

Tracey then said that she walked into Steve’s room, stood at the foot of his bed, raised her gun “and took aim where I was supposed to take aim and pulled the trigger. What I was thinking about was Celeste’s instructions. I was thinking about Celeste.”

But Celeste denies ever giving Tracey instructions to kill her husband: “I don’t know why Tracey shot my husband.”

However, Katina Lofton, who shared a cell with Tracey for two months, says she knows why.

“She loved Celeste but Celeste didn’t love her,” says Lofton, who says Tracey was out to punish Celeste for refusing her sexual advances. “She just said that Celeste wasn’t going to live happily ever after while she rotted in jail.”

Although Lofton’s testimony gives Celeste hope, two other witnesses -- her twin daughters -- will leave her in despair.

“Well, she would sometimes make comments like, ‘Why doesn’t he just die already,’ says Celeste’s daughter, Kristina.

According to their mother, Kristina and Jennifer Beard were not out to defend her -- they were here to destroy her.

“She said that she married Steve for his money,” says daughter, Jennifer.

“It was kind of hard to keep up because she was always lying about something,” adds daughter Kristina.

“I just can’t imagine any child getting up on the stand and being able to do that to their mother,” says Celeste, crying.

“Obviously, I was a horrible mother. I mean, I have to admit that, because my kids wouldn’t be like they are today, if I wasn’t a bad mother. But I did the best I knew how.”

During several days of detailed testimony, the twins back up many of Tracey Tarlton’s claims, beginning with Celeste’s true feelings for Steven.

“She would say that he disgusted her,” says Kristina.

The girls also said they had suspicions about Celeste and Tracey’s friendship. Jennifer said that Celeste would sneak out at night and head to Tracey’s house after drugging Steve with sleeping pills.

“I saw her break apart the sleeping pill and put it in his baked potato,” says Jennifer.

What would make Celeste’s own children betray her? Celeste says her daughters are lying about everything, even their claims that they loved Steven.

“They’re the ones that talked behind his back. They hated Steven. They thought he was old. They thought he was no fun,” says Celeste. “I used to beg them, ‘Call him dad. He would love for you to call him dad.’ And they refused.”

“I hate to admit it, but the only reason why they could have turned on me was for the money. I mean, I have to face that fact,” adds Celeste.

Celeste says that if she’s convicted, the twins would get a share of her inheritance -- an estimated $2 million each. But if Celeste goes free, Steven Beard’s will calls for the girls to get significantly less.

“They have two million reasons to lie,” says Celeste.

Weitzel, lead prosecutor, disagrees. “I do not agree, for a minute, that they’re motivated by money. I think those girls, the growing up they had to do with the defendant, is just something that’s almost too horrible to imagine.”

 

Ed Gein Crime scene and artifacts

What Makes an Ed Gein?

How does a child evolve into an Eddy Gein? A close look at his childhood and home life provides a number of clues. Edward Theodore was born on August 27, 1906, to Augusta and George Gein in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Eddie was the second of two boys born to the couple. The first born was Henry, who was seven years older than Eddie. Augusta, a fanatically religious woman, was determined to raise the boys according to her strict moral code. Sinners inhabited Augusta's world and she instilled in her boys the teachings of the Bible on a daily basis. She repeatedly warned her sons of the immorality and looseness of women, hoping to discourage any sexual desires the boys might have had, for fear of them being cast down into hell. Augusta was a domineering and hard woman who believed her views of the world were absolute and true. She had no difficulty forcefully imposing her beliefs on her sons and husband.

George, a weak man and an alcoholic, had no say in the raising of the boys. In fact, Augusta despised him and saw him as a worthless creature not fit to hold down a job, let alone care for their children. She took it upon herself to not only raise the children according to her beliefs but also to provide for the family financially.

She began a grocery business in La Crosse the year Eddie was born, and it brought in a fair amount of money to support the family in a comfortable fashion. She worked hard and saved money so that the family could move to a more rural area away from the immorality of the city and the sinners that inhabited it. In 1914 they moved to Plainfield, Wisconsin to a one-hundred-ninety-five-acre farm, isolated from any evil influences that could disrupt her family. The closest neighbors were almost a quarter of a mile away.

Although Augusta tried diligently to keep her sons away from the outside world, she was not entirely successful because it was necessary for the boys to attend school. Eddie's performance in school was average, although he excelled in reading. It was the reading of adventure books and magazines that stimulated Eddie's imagination and allowed him to momentarily escape into his own world.

His schoolmates shunned Eddie because he was effeminate and shy. He had no friends and when he attempted to make them his mother scolded him. Although his mother's opposition to making friends saddened Eddie, he saw her as the epitome of goodness and followed her rigid orders the best he could.

However, Augusta was rarely pleased with her boys and she often verbally abused them, believing that they were destined to become failures like their father. During their teens and throughout their early adulthood the boys remained detached from people outside of their farmstead and had only the company of each other.

The Green River killer crime scene

Wednesday, 5 November, 2003

Excerpts from confession by US lorry driver Gary Ridgway, who has pleaded guilty to murdering 48 women in the notorious Green River killings, as read in court by prosecutor Jeff Baird. [Source: Associated Press]

I killed the 48 women listed in the state's second amended information.

In most cases when I killed these women I did not know their names.

Most of the time I killed them the first time I met them and I do not have a good memory of their faces.

I killed so many women I have a hard time keeping them straight.

I have reviewed information and discovery about each of the murders with my attorneys and I am positive that I killed each one of the women charged in the second information.

'Common scheme'

I killed them all in King County.

I killed most of them in my house near Military Road and I killed a lot of them in my truck not far from where I picked them up.

I killed some of them outside. I remember leaving each woman's body in the place where she was found.

I have discussed with my attorneys the common scheme or plan, aggravating circumstance charged in all of these murders.

I agree that each of the murders I committed was part of a common scheme or plan.

The plan was I wanted to kill as many women I thought were prostitutes as I possibly could.

I picked prostitutes as my victims because I hate most prostitutes and I did not want to pay them for sex.

'Clusters'

I also picked prostitutes as victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed.

I knew they would not be reported missing right away and might never be reported missing.

I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.

Another part of my plan was where I put the bodies of these women.

Most of the time I took the women's jewellery and their clothes to get rid of any evidence and make them harder to identify.

I placed most of the bodies in groups which I call clusters. I did this because I wanted to keep track of all the women I killed.

I liked to drive by the clusters around the county and think about the women I placed there.

I usually used a landmark to remember a cluster and the women I placed there.

Sometimes I killed and dumped a woman intending to start a new cluster and never returned because I thought I might get caught putting more women there.