Norway Attacks Very Graphic

#VERYGRAPHIC

2011 attacks

On 22 July 2011, Breivik allegedly bombed government buildings in Oslo, which resulted in eight deaths.

Within hours after the explosion he arrived at Utøya island, the site of a Labour Party youth camp, posing as a police officer and then opened fire on the unarmed adolescents present, reportedly killing 69. The youngest victim was Sharidyn Svebakk-Bøhn, who had just turned 14 years old.

Breivik confessed and stated that the purpose of the attack was to save Norway and Western Europe from a Muslim takeover, and that the Labour Party had to "pay the price" for "letting down Norway and the Norwegian people".

When armed police arrived on the island and confronted him, he surrendered without resistance. After arrest and outside court, Breivik was met with an angry crowd, some of whom shouted "burn in hell" or "traitor of country", while some used stronger words.

Arrest and preparations for trial

On 25 July 2011, Breivik was charged with violating paragraph 147a of the Norwegian criminal code, "destabilising or destroying basic functions of society" and "creating serious fear in the population", both of which are acts of terrorism under Norwegian law. He was ordered held for eight weeks, the first four in solitary confinement, pending further court proceedings. The custody was extended in subsequent hearings.

The indictment was ready in early March. The Director of Public Prosecutions had initially decided to censor the document to the public, leaving out the names of the victims as well as details about their slayings. Due to many reactions, this decision was reversed shortly prior to its release. On 30 March, the Borgarting Court of Appeal announced that it had scheduled the expected appeal case for 15 January 2013. It would have been conducted in the same specially constructed court room where the initial criminal case was tried.

Anders Behring Breivik has been remanded at Ila Prison since his arrest. There, he has at his disposal three prison cells: one where he can rest, sleep, and watch DVD movies or television, a second that is set up for him to use a PC without Internet connection, and a third cell with gym equipment that he can use. Only selected prison staff with special qualifications are allowed to work around him, and the prison management aims to not let his presence as a high-security prisoner affect any of the other inmates.

Subsequent to the January 2012 lifting of letters and visitors censorship for Breivik, he has received several inquiries from private individuals, and he has devoted time to writing back to like-minded people. According to one of his attorneys, Breivik is curious to learn whether his manifesto has begun to take root in society. Breivik's attorneys in consultation with Breivik are considering to have some of his interlocutors called to witness during the trial. Several media, both Norwegian and international, have requested interviews with Breivik. The first such was cancelled by the prison administration following a background check of the journalist in question. A second interview has been agreed to by Breivik, and the prison has requested a background check to be done by the police in the country where the journalist is from. No information has been given about the media organisations in question.

Psychiatric evaluation

Breivik underwent his first examination by court-appointed forensic psychiatrists in the autumn of 2011. The psychiatrists diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia, concluding that he had developed the disorder over time and was psychotic both when he carried out the attacks and during the observation. He was also diagnosed with abuse of non-dependence-producing substances antecedent of 22 July. The psychiatrists consequently found Breivik to be criminally insane.

According to the report, Breivik displayed inappropriate and blunted affect and a severe lack of empathy. He spoke incoherently in neologisms and had acted compulsively based on a universe of bizarre, grandiose and delusional thoughts. Breivik alluded to himself as the future regent of Norway, master of life and death, while calling himself "inordinately loving" and "Europe's most perfect knight since WWII". He was convinced that he was a warrior in a "low intensity civil war" and had been chosen to save his people. Breivik described plans to carry out further "executions of categories A, B and C traitors" by the thousands, the psychiatrists included, and to organise Norwegians in reservations for the purpose of selective breeding. Breivik believed himself to be the "knight Justiciar grand master" of a Templar organisation. He was deemed to be suicidal and homicidal by the psychiatrists.

According to his defence attorney, Breivik initially expressed surprise and felt insulted by the conclusions in the report. He later stated that "this provides new opportunities".

Norway's Massacre

Anders Behring Breivik (born 13 February 1979) is the perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks. In a sequential bombing and mass shooting on 22 July 2011, he bombed government buildings in Oslo, resulting in eight deaths, then carried out a mass shooting at a camp of the Workers' Youth League (AUF) of the Labour Party on the island of Utøya, where he killed 69 people, mostly teenagers. He was convicted of mass murder, causing a fatal explosion, and terrorism in August 2012.

Breivik described his far-right militant ideology in a compendium of texts entitled 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, which he distributed electronically on the day of the attacks. In it he lays out his worldview, which includes Islamophobia, support of Zionism and opposition to feminism. It regards Islam and "cultural Marxism" as "the enemy", and argues for the violent annihilation of "Eurabia" and multiculturalism, and the deportation of all Muslims from Europe based on the model of the Beneš decrees. Breivik wrote that his main motive for the atrocities was to market his manifesto. Breivik had been active on several anti-Islamic and nationalist blogs, including document.no, and was a regular reader of Gates of Vienna, the Brussels Journal and Jihad Watch.

Two teams of court-appointed psychiatrists examined Breivik prior to his trial; in the first report Breivik was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and a second evaluation was commissioned following widespread criticism of the first report. The second psychiatric evaluation was published one week before the trial, concluding that Breivik was not psychotic during the attacks nor during the evaluation; he was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. His trial began on 16 April 2012, and closing arguments were held on 22 June.

On 24 August 2012, Oslo District Court found Breivik sane and guilty of murdering 77 people. He was sentenced to 21 years of preventive detention, a special form of prison sentence, with a minimum of 10 years and the possibility of extension for as long as he is deemed a danger to society; he will probably remain in prison for life. This is the maximum penalty in Norway. Breivik announced that he does not recognize the legitimacy of the court, and therefore does not accept its decision—though he claims he "cannot" appeal, as this would legitimize Oslo District Court.

The 22 Calibre Killer Ronald Glenn West

In May 1970, two suburban housewives are killed in their homes within a week of one another, leaving the inhabitants of the rural areas surrounding Toronto in fear.

Thirty years later, the murders are solved and the man responsible is caught, thanks to the meticulous collection and preservation of DNA evidence. But there is a surprising twist - Ronald West was a Toronto police officer at the time of the murders.

The first victim, Doreen Morby, was killed at her rural Gormley home May 6, 1970, while she was home alone with her 21-month-old son. She was shot five times in the head and twice in the back with a .22-calibre gun. Her son was left unharmed.

Seven days later, Helen Ferguson was shot once in the head and twice in the back at her Palgrave home after she answered the door to a man. Her nine-year-old son was unharmed in his bedroom.

A young constable involved in the investigation soon quits and moves away, all is relatively quiet for years. He returned to the Valley in 1988 and they once again plunged into a dark time. West's crime spree continued with a series of violent robberies in 1995.

The police had staked out his home for 48 hours, watching their suspect's every move from a boathouse next door. West was on a cell phone outside when a half-dozen cruisers swarmed the property. His house was searched but nothing extraordinary was found, he was convicted of the robberies and sentenced.

The next tenant of the West house found the stolen jewellery along with an old registration for a .22-calibre handgun (the same used in the nurse murders in 1970) and photos of a naked woman, all hidden in the bathroom.

In 2001 West plead guilty to the 1970 murders and is serving 2 life terms.

Amish School Shooting Charles Carl Roberts

Amish school shooting

On October 2, 2006, Roberts entered the one-room West Nickel Mines School at approximately 9:51 a.m. with a 9 mm handgun, 12 gauge shotgun, .30-06 bolt-action rifle, about 600 rounds of ammunition, cans of black powder, a stun gun, two knives, a change of clothes, an apparent truss board and a box containing a hammer, hacksaw, pliers, wire, screws, bolts and tape. He used 2×6 and 2×4 boards with eye bolts and flex ties to barricade the school doors before binding the arms and legs of the hostages.

He ordered the hostages to line up against the chalkboard and released the 15 male students present, along with a pregnant woman and three parents with infants. The remaining ten female students he kept inside the schoolhouse. The school teacher contacted the police upon escaping at approximately 10:36 a.m. The first police officers arrived about nine minutes later and attempted (unsuccessfully) to communicate with Roberts using the PA broadcasters in their cruisers.

Police had to break in through the windows when shots were heard. The gunman apparently killed himself along with five school girls. Three of the girls died at the scene, with two more dying the next morning from related injuries. Five girls were in the hospital in critical condition. Reports have stated that the girls were shot execution style in the head. The ages of the victims ranged from 6 to 13. Roberts fired at least 13 rounds from his 9 mm semi-automatic pistol.

Roberts was last seen by his wife at 8:45 a.m. when they walked their children to the bus stop to go to school in Bart Township. When his wife returned home at 11:00 a.m., she discovered four notes he had left to her and their children. Roberts reportedly contacted his wife while still in the schoolhouse and stated that he had molested two young female relatives (between the ages of three and five) twenty years ago (when he would have been 12), and had been daydreaming about molesting again. Both of the relatives in question have denied these claims. Among the items he brought to the school was a tube of KY Jelly, which investigators surmised he might have intended to use as a sexual lubricant. His suicide notes stated that he was still angry at God for the death of a premature infant daughter nine years prior.

Amish response to the crime

Although the Amish community grieved deeply about the terrible incident and certainly were very shocked about the tragedy they also believed it was right to forgive. The Rev. Schenck reports a grandfather of one of the murdered Amish girls said of the killer on the day of the murder: "We must not think evil of this man."

Jack Meyer, a member of the Brethren community living near the Amish in Lancaster County, explained to CNN: "I do not think there's anybody here that wants to do anything but forgive and not only reach out to those who have suffered a loss in that way but to reach out to the family of the man who committed these acts."

Dwight Lefever, a Roberts family spokesman, said an Amish neighbor comforted the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them.

Dozens of Amish neighbors attended Charles Roberts' funeral on October 7, 2006. He was buried in an unmarked grave in his wife's family plot behind Georgetown United Methodist church, a few miles from the one-room West Nickel Mines schoolhouse. One mourner stated that Roberts' wife was touched by the outward gesture of forgiveness by the Amish community. The schoolhouse was torn down eleven days after the tragedy.

Red Lake Senior High School Shooting Jeffrey Weise

A tale of two boys

Jeff Weise is responsible for the worst school shooting since Columbine. On Monday, he went on a shooting rampage on the Red Lake Indian Reservation. He killed nine people, severly injured five others and then killed himself.

People who knew him as a child tell the story of a much different Jeff Weise. He spent the first ten or eleven years of his 16-year-long life in the Twin Cities.

Weise?s aunt, Kim Desjarlait, still lives in the metro area. She fondly remembers a younger Jeff, a more innocent, happy Jeff, ?Jeff, when he lived here in Minneapolis, was never in trouble. He was a good kid. The Jeff I know was into drawing, into video games, into watching movies. You know, he played a lot with his sister and his nephew. He just was not a bad kid.?

But around the time Weise was nine or ten, his life began falling apart. His father, 31-year-old Daryl Lussier, committed suicide in 1997 in Red Lake.

Two years later his mother was disabled after a car accident in Shakopee. Because she could no longer care for her son, Jeff Weise was sent to live with his grandfather on the Red Lake Reservation, more than 200 miles north of the Twin Cities.

His aunt says that move was really hard on the boy, ?I think probably what transpired is Jeff had no say in the very end where he was going to live. You know, your dad's gone, your mom's been in a car accident and everything you know that is normal has been wiped out and now you have to go live with people that you know and love, but it's not your daily routine.?

It seems that it was about this time that the shy, quiet boy, who liked to draw, turned to the internet for friends or understanding. Whatever reason, Weise began frequenting neo-nazi internet chat rooms. Last year, he claimed to be studying the Third Reich, expressed admiration for Hitler and claimed to be a "national socialist".

Eerily, he wrote "once I commit myself to something, I stay until the end."

Classmates in Red Lake, say Weise' was a loner, wearing black eyeliner and dressing in a black trench coat. They point to a high school class picture where he had twisted his hair into devil-like spikes.

About a month ago, his sketch of a guitar-strumming skeleton accompanied by a caption that read "March to the death song 'til your boots fill with blood" was displayed in his English class, said classmate Parston Graves Jr.

Graves, 16, said he was thinking about that picture Tuesday. "I thought that was him letting everyone know" that he was going to do something, Graves said.

Graves said Weise had also shown him comic books he had drawn, filled with well-crafted images of people shooting each other. "It was mental stuff," he said. "It was sick."

Michael Tabman, the FBI's agent in charge of the investigation, said Tuesday authorities had not established a motive for the shootings. Investigators said they did not know if there had been some kind of confrontation between Weise and his grandfather.

If Weise was quiet in school, he became an extrovert in cyberspace. It appeared he may have posted messages on a neo-Nazi Web site expressing admiration for Hitler and calling himself "Todesengel," German for the "Angel of Death."

Several notes signed by a Jeff Weise, who identified himself as "a Native American from the Red Lake `Indian' Reservation," were posted beginning last year on a Web site operated by the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party.

In one posting, he criticized interracial mixing on the reservation and slammed fellow Indian teens for listening to rap music. "We have kids my age killing each other over things as simple as a fight, and it's because of the rap influence," he wrote.

To Weise's aunt Kim Desjarlait, that doesn't sound like the boy she watched grow up in Minneapolis. She said she?ll always remember the boy with the shy smile, not the angry teen who killed nine people and critically injured five others before killing himself.

Thurston High Crime Scene

*VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED*

The school shooting occurred just before 8 a.m. when up to 400 people were gathered in the cafeteria for a farewell ceremony for graduating seniors. Witnesses said they saw Kipland, dressed in a cream-colored trench coat, running through the cafeteria firing from the hip 51 rounds from his .22-caliber Ruger semiautomatic rifle.

He was also packing a .22-caliber Ruger semiautomatic handgun and a 9mm Glock semiautomatic pistol. In his backpack police found several fully loaded ammunition clips and an assortment of loose ammunition.

In retrospect Kip was nothing other than a budding psychopath. "He always said that it would be fun to kill someone and do stuff like that," said student Robbie Johnson. "Yesterday, he told a couple of people he was probably going to do something stupid today and get back at the people who had expelled him."

Kinkel allegedly gave a talk in speech class about how to build a bomb and bragged about torturing animals. According to Nissa Lund, 14, Kip told her he once stuffed lit firecrackers in a cat's mouth. Rachel Dawson, Kip's former girlfriend in middle school, said he boasted about shooting little cats. Clearly a serial-killer-in-the-making, Kip also talked about blowing up a cow. In a recent literature class Kip stood in the front of the room and read from his journal his plans of to "kill everybody." On the other hand, friends said when he was not busy with revenge fantasies, bombmaking and killing animals, Kip was a normal, boisterous, high school freshman who was into alternative rock bands like Nirvana and enjoyed playing guitar and football.

About a year ago, the Kinkels discovered Kip was downloading bomb-making instructions from the Internet and building bombs, said Kim Scott, a best friend of Kip's sister, Kristin. "They tried to discipline him and they tried to keep him from making more bombs, but at some point, Kristin said, they just pretty much had given up on being able to control him."

Friends of the family said the parents knew of the son's penchant for making bombs. Bill -- his father -- bought the guns used in the killings as a way to divert his son's obsession with weapons into a supervised hobby. They even hired an anger-management counselor who clearly had no success with the junior Charlie Manson.

Two days after the rampage, police disclosed that Kip had lunged at an officer in the police station with a hunting knife he had taped to his leg. When he arrived at the station the handcuffed freckle-faced killer was briefly placed in an interviewing room while his accompanying officer left to secure his weapon. When he returned, Kinkel attacked the officer with the knife and the officer pepper sprayed him.

With six instances of rampaging students in schools logged into the Archives, experts and psychologist are trying to explain this emerging phenomenon. In fact, they have coined a new term to classify this kind of schoolyard behavior: Intermittent Explosive Disorder. All occurences of IED seem to have taken place in predominantly white, semi-rural, middle-class school districts with no prior history of violent crime coupled with easy access to high-powered weapons. 

On November 2000 national elections Kinkel emerged as a central figure in the debate over an Oregon ballot measure that could reduce the sentences of thousands of inmates. "If Kip Kinkel is resentenced, I will be living in fear every day, along with my family and fellow victims, that if he is released he will hunt us all down," Jennifer Alldredge, a student wounded by Kinkel, wrote in the state's official voter guide.

The Republican candidate for attorney general is also featuring Kinkel in TV ads that accuse the incumbent of supporting the earlier guidelines, which theoretically could reduce Kinkel's 112-year prison sentence to one that frees him at 21.

State Representative Jo Ann Bowman, a leading repeal supporter, argued that opponents are using Kinkel as a scare tactic. Even if the ballot measure passes, she said, no judge would resentence Kinkel as a juvenile. "There's no way that anyone could kill four people and wound 25 without spending an extremely long time in prison," the Portland Democrat said.

Charles Whitman Crime Scene

*Viewer Discretion Advised*

Charles Jr.'s life got better in 1959 when he moved out of home and joined the Marines. He received a scholarship to attend the University of Texas, where he met his wife Kathy. But, as with all things good in this world, it didn't work out. He was court marshaled for money lending and gambling, which led to him loosing his scholarship. He left the marines in 1964.

Following this Whitman went back to University. he was in a hurry to graduate so he took on a big workload, taking extra classes. He was also studying to be an estate agent, and also worked part-time so his wife didn't have to support him.

In March 1966 Whitman's world began to fall apart. His parents broke up and his temper began to get worse. He spoke to his friends about leaving his wife as he was scared he would start to beat her, but they talked him into staying in the relationship. Around this time he also spoke with the University psychiatrist whom he told that he felt like he would "go up on the tower with a deer rifle and start shooting at people." He made a second appointment with the shrink but never showed up.

The end finally came on July 31, 1966. He sat down at his desk and typed: "I don't quite understand what is compelling me to type this note. I have been to a psychiatrist. I have been having fears and violent impulses. I've had some tremendous headaches in the past. . . . After my death I wish an autopsy on me performed to see if there's any mental disorder . . . I intend to kill my wife after I pick her up from work. I don't want her to have to face the embarrassment my actions will surely cause her. . . Life is not worth living"

After he picked his wife up from work he took a pistol over to his mothers apartment. In the ensuing struggle she had all the fingers on one hand broken.

She was also stabbed in the chest. But she was still breathing, so Whitman pushed her down onto the ground and put a bullet into the back of her head, killing her instantly. He then picked her up and put her to bed to make it look as if she were sleeping. Next to the body he left a note attacking his father.

The note signed off with - "I love my mother with all my heart."

When he got back home he added to the bottom of his letter - "12.30 a.m. Mother already dead." He then went into the bedroom and stabbed his wife to death. He then added to his letter again - "3.00 a.m. - Wife and mother both dead."

He left the house at 9.00 a.m. the next morning and bought a second hand .30 M-1 carbine from a hardware store. He then went on to another store and bought hundreds of rounds of ammo. At 9.30 he was in Sears and Roebuck purchasing a 12-gauge shotgun. He then went on to a tool supply shop where he rented a trolley. He then took his supplies home where he altered the weapons a little, and even stopped for a chat with the postman. Later the postman spoke about how he knew that what Whitman was doing with the guns was illegal, but he didn't think there was any harm in it. Whitman then grabbed his own guns and put them with these two new ones (seven in all) in a metal trunk. He then put on a pair of grey nylon overalls, placed the gun trunk into his car and left to fulfill his destiny.

When Whitman reached his destination point, a 307 ft clock tower at the university of Texas, it had reached 98º F. A bloody hot day by all standards.

Whitman dragged his trunk to the tower elevator where he went to the 27th floor (as far as it went). He then took the trunk out of the elevator and walked toward a woman working behind a desk there. She was Edna Townsley, 51, and she was about to die. Whitman smashed her in skull with a rifle butt, but she was still alive at this point. He then dragged his guns up the four remaining flights of steps and walked out onto the platform overlooking most of Austin.

A few minutes later a family left the elevator and started to head upstairs to the tower top when Whitman jumped out and fired three shots into the group. He killed Mark Gabour, 15, and his aunt Marguerite Lamport, 45. He also injured two others. Whitman then barricaded the door, walked back to the receptionist, Edna Townsley, and put a shot into her already smashed head, killing her this time. He then went outside on to the viewing area of the tower where he found protection from the chest high, 18 inch thick, limestone parapet that surrounded the viewing area.

His first shot was fired at the people below at around 11.45 a.m. It was fired from his .35 Remington rifle and ripped through the leg of Alec Hernandez, 17, who was delivering newspapers around campus. He then fired at random at any and everything that he felt worthy of his bullets. The first call went through to police at 11.52 a.m. and soon after every single available policeman in Austin was at the scene. One cop, Billy Speed, 22, was sheltered behind a balustrade when a Whitman bullet tore though him, ending his life....

Virginia Tech Massacre Crime Scene

Investigation * Viewer Discretion Advised*

Through ballistics examination, law enforcement investigators determined that Cho used the Glock 19 pistol during the attacks at the West Ambler Johnston dormitory and at Norris Hall on the Virginia Tech campus.

Police investigators found that Cho fired 170 shots during the bloody killing spree, with evidence technicians finding at least 17 spent ammunition magazines at the scene. During the investigation, federal law enforcement investigators found that the serial numbers were filed off both the Walther P22 and the Glock 19 handguns used by Cho during the killing spree.

Investigators also learned that Cho practiced shooting during mid-March at a firing range in Roanoke, about 40 miles from the Virginia Tech campus. According to former FBI agent Brad Garrett, "This was no spur-of-the-moment crime. He's been thinking about this for several months prior to the shooting."

In the aftermath of the spree killing, Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine appointed a panel to investigate the campus shootings. Governor Kaine also invited former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to join the panel to review Cho’s mental health history and how police responded to the shootings. The panel plans to submit a report of its findings in approximately two to three months. To help investigate and analyze the emergency response surrounding the shootings at Virginia Tech, Governor Kaine also hired the same company that investigated the Columbine massacre.

Reaction of Cho's family

Cho's older sister, Sun-Kyung Cho, a 2004 graduate of Princeton University who works as a contractor for the United States Department of State, prepared a public statement on her family's behalf, publicly apologizing for her brother's actions and lending prayers to the victims and the families of the wounded and killed victims. "This is someone that I grew up with and loved. Now I feel like I didn't know this person," she said in the statement issued through a North Carolina attorney. "We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence." Cho's grandfather stated, "My grandson Seung-Hui was very shy. I can't believe he did such a thing."

Media package sent to NBC News

During the time period between the two shooting events on April 16, Cho visited a local post office near the Virginia Tech campus where he mailed a parcel to the New York headquarters of NBC News containing video clips, photographs and a manifesto explaining the reasons for his actions. The package was delayed in its delivery to NBC News because of an incorrect ZIP code in the address of the parcel.

Release of material

Upon receiving the package on April 18, 2007, NBC contacted authorities and made the controversial decision to publicize Cho's communications by releasing a small fraction of what it received.

After pictures and images from the videos were broadcasted in numerous news reports, students and faculty from Virginia Tech, along with relatives of victims of the campus shooting, expressed concerns that glorifying Cho's rampage could lead to copycat killings. The airing of the manifesto and its video images and pictures were especially upsetting to those persons affected by the shootings. Peter Read, the father of Mary Read, one of the students who was killed by Cho during the rampage, asked the media to stop airing Cho's manifesto.

Police officials, who reviewed the video, pictures and Cho's manifesto, concluded that the contents of the media package had marginal value in helping them learn and understand why Cho committed the killings.

Dr. Michael Wellner, who also reviewed the materials, believed that Cho's rantings offer little insight into the mental illness that may have triggered his rampage. Wellner stated that "These videos do not help us understand [Cho]. They distort him. He was meek. He was quiet. This is a PR tape of him trying to turn himself into a Quentin Tarantino character."

During the April 24, 2007 edition of the Oprah Winfrey Show, NBC News President Steve Capus stated NBC decided to show two minutes of 25 minutes of video, seven of 43 photographs and 37 sentences of 23 pages of written material. He also stated that the content not shown included "over the top profanity" and "incredibly violent images." He expressed hope that the unreleased material is never made public.

Contents

In his manifesto, Cho mentioned the Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold with respect and denigrated former teachers John Mark Karr and Debra Lafave. In one of the videos, Cho said:

“I didn’t have to do this. I could have left. I could have fled. But no, I will no longer run. It’s not for me. For my children, for my brothers and sisters that you fucked, I did it for them… When the time came, I did it. I had to.”

The Virginia Tech Massacre

Virginia Tech massacre

Around 7:15 a.m. EDT (11:15 UTC), Cho allegedly killed two students, Emily J. Hilscher and Ryan C. "Stack" Clark, on the fourth floor of West Ambler Johnston Hall, a high-rise co-educational dormitory.

Police had not positively stated that Cho was the perpetrator of that shooting in addition to the later one, although forensic evidence confirmed that the same gun was used in both shooting incidents.

Within the next two and a half hours, Cho returned to his room to re-arm himself and mailed a package containing pictures, digital video files and documents to NBC News. At approximately 9:45 a.m. EDT (13:45 UTC), Cho then crossed the campus to Norris Hall, a classroom building on the campus where, in a span of nine minutes, Cho shot dozens of people, killing 30 of them.

As police breached area of the building where Cho attacked the faculty and students, Cho committed suicide in Norris 211 with a gunshot to his head. The police identified Cho by matching the fingerprints on the guns used in the shootings with immigration records. Cho's rampage occurred on April 16, 2007, just four days before the 8th anniversary of the Columbine shooting.

Preparation

Weapons

During February and March 2007, Cho began purchasing the weapons that he later used during the killings. On February 2, 2007, Cho purchased his first handgun, a .22 caliber Walther P22 semi-automatic pistol, from TGSCOM Inc., a federally-licensed firearms dealer based in Green Bay, Wisconsin and the operator of the website through which Cho ordered the gun. TGSCOM Inc. shipped the Walther P22 to JND Pawnbrokers in Blacksburg, Virginia, where Cho completed the purchase transaction and picked up the handgun.

Cho bought a second handgun, a 9 mm Glock 19 semiautomatic pistol, on March 13, 2007 from Roanoke Firearms, a licensed gun dealer located in Roanoke, Virginia. Cho was able to pass both background checks and successfully complete both handgun purchases after he presented to the gun dealers his U.S. permanent residency card, his Virginia driver's permit to prove legal age and length of Virginia residence and a checkbook showing his Virginia address, in addition to waiting the required 30-day period between each gun purchase.

He was successful in completing both handgun purchases, even though he failed to disclose on the background questionnaire information about his mental health history leading to court-ordered outpatient treatment at a mental health facility.

On March 22, 2007, Cho purchased two 10-round magazines for the Walther P22 pistol through eBay from Elk Ridge Shooting Supplies in Idaho. Cho purchased additional ammunition magazines from the Wal-Mart and Dick's Sporting Goods stores. Based on a preliminary computer forensics examination of Cho's eBay purchase records, investigators suspect that Cho may have purchased an additional 10-round magazine on March 23, 2007 from another eBay seller who sold gun accessories.

Motive

During the investigation, the police found a note in Cho's room that in which he criticized "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans." In the note, Cho continued by saying that "you caused me to do this." Early reports also speculated that Cho was obsessed with fellow student Emily Hilscher and became enraged after his romantic overtures were rejected.

During the investigation, law enforcement officials could not find evidence that Cho knew Hilscher or the other students killed during the rampage. According to Heather Haugh, Hilscher's roommate, she also knew of no connection between Hilscher and Cho.

The Texas Tower Sniper Charles Whitman

A.K.A.: "The Texas Tower Sniper"

Classification: Mass murderer

Characteristics: Parricide - Shooting rampage

Number of victims: 15 + 1

Date of murders: August 1, 1966

Date of birth: June 24, 1941

Victims profile: His mother Margaret Whitman (43) / His wife Kathy Whitman (23) / Edna Townsley (47) / Mark Gabour (16) / Marguerite Lamport (45) / Paul Sonntag (18) / Claudia Rutt (18) / Roy Dell Schmidt (29) / Thomas Aquinas Ashton (22) / Thomas Eckmann (18) /Baby Boy Wilson (unborn) / Thomas Karr (24) / Karen Griffith (17) / Doctor Robert Boyer (32) / Harry Walchuk (39) / Billy Speed (22)

Method of murder: Shooting

Location: Austin, Texas, USA

Status: Shot and killed by Austin Police Officer Houston McCoy the same day

Columbine Crime Scene

#VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED

(CNN)- Here is some background information about the deaths of 13 people at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999.

Facts:

Twelve students and one teacher were killed by students Dylan Klebold, 17, and Eric Harris, 18.

The pair made home videos prior to the attack making references to what they were going to do and apologizing to their parents for it.

Harris and Klebold killed themselves with gunshot wounds to the head in the school's library at approximately 12:08 pm on the day of the shootings.

SWAT teams entered the school 47 minutes after the shootings started. Five hours passed before law enforcement declared the school under control.

The Columbine shootings rank as one of the worst mass shootings in US history as well as one of the deadliest episodes of school violence.

Victims: 

Cassie Bernall, 17

Steven Curnow, 14

Corey DePooter, 17

Kelly Fleming, 16

Matthew Kechter, 16

Daniel Mauser, 15

Daniel Rohrbough, 15

William "Dave" Sanders, 47

Rachel Scott, 17

Isaiah Shoels, 18

John Tomlin, 16

Lauren Townsend, 18

Kyle Velasquez, 16

Timeline:

January 1998 - Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are arrested after stealing items from a van. After pleading guilty, they are sent to a juvenile diversion program.

March 1998 - Randy and Judy Brown, parents of student Brooks Brown, file a report with the sheriff's office stating that Harris had threatened to kill Brooks and had written on the internet that he would like to kill people.

April 20, 1999 - At approximately 11:19 am, two students, Dylan Klebold, 17, and Eric Harris, 18, carrying guns and bombs, open fire inside Columbine High School, killing 13 and wounding 23 others before killing themselves.

November 12, 1999 - Mark Manes is sentenced to six years in prison for selling a gun used in the murders to minors Harris and Klebold.

April 2001 - Close to three dozen families of Columbine victims settle suits with the parents of the suspects and gun suppliers. The settlement totals close to $2.5 million. The Harris' and Klebold's homeowners insurance will pay a large part and the rest will come from insurance company payments on behalf of the gun suppliers. The family of victim Isaiah Shoels does not accept the settlement.

August 20, 2002 - The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office settles with the daughter of teacher Dave Sanders for $1.5 million.

June 2003 - Judge Robert Blackburn orders the family of Isaiah Shoels to accept a $366,000 settlement in the lawsuit against the gunmen's families.

August 12, 2003 - The families of victims Daniel Rohrbough, Kelly Fleming, Matt Kechter, Lauren Townsend, and Kyle Velasquez settle a wrongful death lawsuit against parents Susan and Thomas Klebold and Wayne and Katherine Harris, in which the victims' families claim that the suspects' parents should have known what their sons were up to before the shootings. The terms of the settlement have not been released.

October 22, 2003 - Home video of the two suspects is released by authorities. In the video, made six weeks before the murders, the suspects are seen in a forested area shooting at bowling pins.

February 26, 2004 - Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar releases an investigative report about the attack. Authorities also release thousands of pages of documents and physical evidence.

September 21, 2007 - The Columbine Memorial, adjacent to Columbine High School, is dedicated and opened to the public.

February 12, 2016 - In the first television interview since her son Dylan killed 13 people at Columbine High School, Susan Klebold speaks to Diane Sawyer. Klebold states that "If I had recognized that Dylan was experiencing some real mental distress, he would not have been there," she says. "He would've gotten help. I don't ever, for a moment, mean to imply that I'm not conscious of the fact that he was a killer, because I am."

Columbine High School Massacre

Day of the massacre

On April 20, 1999, while smoking a cigarette at the start of lunch break, Brooks Brown saw Harris arrive at school. Brown had severed his friendship with Harris a year earlier because Harris had thrown a chunk of ice at his car windshield; Brown patched things up with Harris just prior to the shooting. Brown scolded Harris for skipping the morning class, because Harris was always serious about schoolwork and being on time. Harris reportedly said, "It doesn't matter anymore" and also said, "Brooks, I like you now. Get out of here. Go home." Brown quickly left the school grounds. At 11:19 a.m., he heard the first gunshots after he had walked some distance away from the school, and he informed the police via a neighbor's cell phone.

By that time, Dylan Klebold had already arrived at the school in a separate car and the two boys left two gym bags, each containing a 20-pound propane bomb, inside the school cafeteria. When these devices failed to detonate, Harris and Klebold armed themselves with guns and launched a shooting attack against their classmates. It remains the deadliest attack ever perpetrated at an American high school. Harris was responsible for eight of the 13 confirmed deaths, including that of a teacher, while Klebold was responsible for the remaining five. There were 25 wounded, most in critical condition.

Suicide

At 12:02 p.m., Harris and Klebold returned to the library. This was 20 minutes after their lethal shooting spree had ended, leaving 12 students and one teacher dead, and another 24 students injured. Ten of their victims had been killed in the library, with their bodies strewn about the floor. Harris and Klebold went to the west windows and opened fire on the police outside. Six minutes later, they walked to the bookshelves near a table where Patrick Ireland lay badly-wounded and unconscious. Student Lisa Kreutz, injured in the earlier library attack, was also in the room, unable to move.

At 12:08 p.m., art teacher Patti Nielson, who had locked herself inside a break room with student Brian Anderson and library staff, overheard Harris and Klebold shout out in unison: "One! Two! Three!" followed immediately by the sound of gunfire. Harris had fired his shotgun through the roof of his mouth, damaging his face and blasting off the back of his head. Klebold had shot himself in the left temple with his TEC-9 semi-automatic handgun, a bullet slicing through his head.

Acquiring arms

Because Harris and Klebold were both underage at the time, Robyn Anderson (with whom Klebold attended the prom three days before the shooting), an 18-year-old Columbine student and old friend of Klebold's, made a straw purchase of two shotguns and Hi-Point carbine for the pair.

In exchange for her cooperation with the investigation that followed the shootings, no charges were filed against Anderson. After illegally acquiring the weapons, Klebold sawed off his Savage 311-D 12-gauge double-barrel shotgun, shortening the overall length to approximately 23 inches (0.58 m), a felony under the National Firearms Act, while Harris's Savage-Springfield 12-gauge pump shotgun was sawed off to around 26 inches (0.66 m).

The shooters also possessed a TEC-DC9 semi-automatic handgun, which had a long history. The manufacturer of the TEC-DC9 first sold it to Miami-based Navegar Incorporated. It was then sold to Zander's Sporting Goods in Baldwin, Illinois in 1994. The gun was later sold to Thornton, Colorado, firearms dealer Larry Russell. In violation of federal law, Russell failed to keep records of the sale, yet he determined that the purchaser of the gun was twenty-one years of age or older. He was unable to identify the pictures of Klebold, Anderson, or Harris shown to him by police after the shooting. Two men, Mark Manes and Philip Duran, were convicted of supplying weapons to the two.

The bombs used by the pair varied and were crudely made from carbon dioxide canisters, galvanized pipe, and metal propane bottles. The bombs were primed with matches placed at one end. Both had striker tips on their sleeves. When they rubbed against the bomb, the match head would light the fuse. The weekend before the shootings, Harris and Klebold had purchased propane tanks and other supplies from a hardware store for a few hundred dollars. Several residents of the area claimed to have heard glass breaking and buzzing sounds from the Harris family's garage, which later was concluded to indicate they were constructing pipe bombs. Harris purchased more propane tanks on the morning of the attack.

More complex bombs, such as the one that detonated on the corner of South Wadsworth Boulevard and Ken Caryl Avenue, had timers. The two largest bombs built were found in the school cafeteria and were made from small propane tanks. Only one of these bombs went off, only partially detonating. It was estimated that if any of the bombs placed in the cafeteria had detonated properly, the blast could have caused extensive structural damage to the school and would have resulted in hundreds of casualties.

The Writing on the Wall 48 Hours

Mar 13, 2015 9:17 PM

COLUMBIA, Il. (KMOV) -- May 5th marks the one year anniversary of when Chris Coleman was convicted of murdering his wife, Sheri, and their two sons, Gavin and Garrett. Coleman maintained his innocence in the first interview he’s done while in prison.

It was May 5th, 2009 when Sherri, Gavin, and Garrett were found strangled in their Columbia, Illinois home. Chris Coleman had said he was at the gym that morning. Now from prison he’s answering questions that many have been asking, like why does he think the jury found him guilty if he’s actually innocent.

“I don't know if you'd say wrong place, wrong time, but more of a moral thing in a small town community,” Coleman said. “With the affair going on and so forth.” He went on to add, “Then having 10 women on the jury and only 2 men.”

He now admits that affair with Tara Lintz. And that affair is a key part of his conviction. The jurors who initially wanted to find him not-guilty say dates of the affair were key to changing their minds. Coleman claimed the affair started in November. A picture of him kissing Lintz was traced to his phone in October. Jurors said if he lied about that then he could be lying about everything. Even with those phone records Coleman insists the affair didn’t start in October.

“There's no-- there's no way because it's just there is absolutely no way that's-- that can be true,” Coleman said.

During the trial Coleman never testified. He says his attorney said it wouldn’t be wise. When asked what he would have told the jury he said, “Just that I absolutely love my wife and my 2 kids. It's not me.”

Coleman still maintains that his family was targeted because he worked for Joyce Meyers Ministries. Email threats to him and his family were ultimately traced back to his computer by experts. He maintains someone else sent those threats and could have used the ministry as a decoy.

When asked what he wanted to happen to the person who he thinks committed the murders, he said, “It would be nice if the same thing that happened to my family happened to that person.”

The prison interview was part of a 48 Hours Mystery investigation and the entire interview can be seen on Channel 4 at 9 p.m. Saturday night.

The WolfMan Robert Howard

Arlene accused had killed before

September 21, 2005

Kip Kinkel The Killer at Thurston High

Kipland Kinkel

15-year old Kipland "Kip" Kinkel was clearly a budding phsycopath. He seemed to be obsessed with guns and violence. He bragged about making bombs, even giving a lecture to his Literature class on how to make a pipe bomb. Young Kip also talked about killing and torturing animals. He said he shoved firecrackers into cat's mouths and skinned a squirrel alive. He even claimed to have blown up a cow.

Screen Pass Forensic Files

Robert Charles Browne

Age: 53

Hometown: Browne grew up in Coushatta, La., a town of fewer than 3,000 people about 50 miles southeast of Shreveport in northwestern Louisiana.

Family: He was one of nine children, including three sets of twins. Browne has a twin sister. His father worked at a dairy farm, and a brother, Donald Browne, was once a trooper for the Louisiana State Police.

Education: Browne dropped out of Coushatta's high school in 1969 and joined the Army, serving in South Korea as a medic.

First criminal trouble: Browne was jailed in Louisiana for a car theft. He moved to Colorado in 1987, after his parole.

Marriages: Browne has been married six times, including to Diane M. Babbitts after he moved to Colorado. She filed for divorce in 1995 in El Paso County.

Robert Charles Browne, serving a life sentence in Colorado for the 1991 murder of 13-year-old Heather Dawn Church, told an investigator that he has murdered dozens of other people, men and women. Here are some of the cases linked to him.

Katherine Hayes, 15, was reported missing July 4, 1980, in Louisiana. Hayes' body was found Oct. 16, 1980, in Nantachie Creek. She had been strangled.

Wanda Faye Hudson, 21, was found dead on May 28, 1983, in her Coushatta, La., apartment. She had been stabbed multiple times. Coushatta is Browne's hometown. Browne had done maintenance work on Hudson's apartment, including changing the lock on her door.

Faye Self, 26, was reported missing March 30, 1983, in Louisiana. Browne told authorities that her body was dumped in the Red River. She has never been found.

Melody Bush, 22, was found dead on March 30, 1984, in Fayette County, Texas. Her body was found in a drainage ditch and the coroner ruled Bush died of acute acetone poisoning.

Nidia Mendoza, 17, was reported missing on Feb. 2, 1984, in Texas. Her body was found on Feb. 6, 1984, in a ditch.

Rocio Sperry, 15, was reported missing on Nov. 15, 1987, in El Paso County. Browne, who pleaded guilty Thursday and was sentenced to life in prison in this case, told an investigator that he dumped Sperry's body in a trash bin after strangling her in his apartment. Sperry has never been found.

Heather Dawn Church, 13, was reported missing on Sept. 17, 1991, in El Paso County. Church's remains were found on Sept. 16, 1993, on Rampart Range Road northwest of Colorado Springs. Browne is serving a life sentence in her death.

Lisa Lowe, 21, was reported missing on Nov. 3, 1991, in Arkansas. Lowe's body was found on Nov. 26, 1991, in the St. Francis River.

Jeffrey Dahmer Biography

Some parts of the bodies he chose to keep as trophies, frequently the genitals and head. The genitals were preserved in formaldehyde. The heads were boiled until the flesh came off. Once the skull was bare, he painted it with gray paint to look like plastic.

Control

Not unusual with necrophiliacs is cannibalism. Dahmer claimed that he ate the flesh of his victims because he believed that the people would come alive again in him. He tried various seasonings and meat tenderizers to make the human flesh more tasty. Eating human flesh gave him an erection. His famous freezer contained strips of frozen human flesh. He had tried human blood too, but it did not appeal to his taste buds.

Like Eddie Gein, he tried to perfect the art of preservation and taxidermy so that he could practice the state-of-the-art on his victims.

Control was an all important issue for Dahmer. He could not tolerate rejection or abandonment. Even in his homosexual relationships, he did not want to please his sexual partner, he just wanted to have his own pleasures. Pleasure to Dahmer meant performing oral or anal sex on his partner, whether alive or dead.

This absolute need for control led him down some pretty weird roads. One of them was a kind of lobotomy that he performed on several of his victims. Once they were drugged, he drilled a hole in their skulls and injected some muriatic acid into their brains. Needless to say, it caused death right away in a few victims, but one supposedly functioned minimally for a few days before dying.

Not surprisingly, his need for control led him to dabble with Satanism. In fact, just having the bodies of his victims around him made him feel "thoroughly evil." "I have to question whether or not there is an evil force in the world and whether or not I have been influenced by it. Although I am not sure if there is a God," Dahmer said," or if there is a devil, I know that as of lately I've been doing a lot of thinking about both." He had plans to create a shrine in his apartment, featuring all of his trophies, his statue of a griffin, and incense burned in the skulls of his victims, so that he could receive "special powers and energies to help him socially and financially."

Why?

Why does a Jeffrey Dahmer happen? How does a man become a serial killer, necrophiliac, cannibal and psychopath? Very few convincing answers are forthcoming, despite a spate of books that propose to the understand the problem.

Many of the theories would have you believe that the answers can always be found in childhood abuse, bad parenting, head trauma, fetal alcoholism and drug addiction. Perhaps in some cases, these are contributing factors, but not for Jeffrey Dahmer.

His father, Lionel Dahmer, wrote a very sad and poignant book called A Father's Story which explores the very common phenomenon of a parents trying desperately to give their child a good upbringing and discovering to their horror that their child has built a high wall around himself from which their influence is progressively shut out. While fortunately, most parents do not have a Jeffrey Dahmer to raise, too many have seen their children succumb to drugs, alcohol, crime despite their very best and often frantic efforts to intervene.

"It is a portrayal of parental dread... the terrible sense that your child has slipped beyond your grasp, that your little boy is spinning in the void, swirling in the maelstrom, lost, lost, lost."

Lionel seems to be fairly straightforward in recognizing the negative influences in Jeff's life. No family is perfect. Jeff's mother had various physical ailments and appeared to be high strung, coming from a background in which her father's alcoholism deeply affected her life.

Lionel, a chemist who went on to get his Ph.D., stayed at work more often than he should to avoid turmoil on the home front. Eventually, the marriage dissolved in divorce when Jeff was eighteen. However, none of this commonplace domestic discord accounts for serial murder, necrophilia, or Jeff's other bizarre behaviors.

Highway of Tears 48 Hours

Oct 24, 2016

A decade after the launch of the RCMP's high-profile Highway of Tears investigation into missing and murdered women in Northern B.C., police admit they may never find the killers or make more arrests.

'Perhaps they'll never be solved'

"I've been honest with our [victims'] families and I say perhaps they'll never be solved," RCMP Staff Sgt. Wayne Clary of the E-PANA unit told CBC host Anna Maria Tremonti during a town hall meeting on missing and murdered women packed with several hundred people in Prince George Thursday night.

For a decade, E-PANA has been investigating the cold case deaths and disappearances of 18 young women along a 720-kilometre stretch of Northern B.C. dubbed the Highway of Tears. "Pana" is an Inuit word for the god who cared for souls in the underworld.

At the height of E-PANA's work, 70 people worked the investigation. Now, just eight investigators are left.

"That's the reality and that's what I tell the families," said Clary. "We can't keep that going forever when there's no work."

RCMP have named 2 suspects in 4 women's deaths

E-PANA was launched in 2006 amidst outrage over the number of deaths and disappearances of mostly Indigenous young women in Northern B.C.

Indigenous leaders said 50 girls and women had been murdered or had gone missing between Prince George and Prince Rupert since 1970.

E-PANA took on 18 of those cases, re-interviewing witnesses and families, following new leads and tips and converting 700 boxes of dusty police files into a searchable database.

Officers have identified a suspect in three of the murders, but that man is now dead.

A different man has been charged in the death of Monica Jack, but that Highway of Tears case is still before the courts.   

Still, many families are still waiting for answers and justice for their missing and murdered loved ones. 

"We care and we're trying and we'll keep following up on the tips and interviews that come in," said Clary.

'These ... are the toughest to investigate'

"These kinds of stranger-on-stranger investigations are the toughest to investigate, especially in this area where it's very isolated, it's very lonely. A lot of these crimes happened a long time ago. Some of our victims don't get found, some don't get found right away, and evidence is lost," said Clary.

"Witnesses die. They may or may not know they had important information and [now] we'll never retrieve it. In some cases, some of the men who committed these crimes are dead," said Clary.

Still, Clary says when victims' families hold vigils or walk the Highway of Tears, the media attention often triggers a spike of tips to police.

"It's important to keep this alive," Clary said. 

'I imagine 50 women missing from West Vancouver'

"It's the people from the communities that are going to solve these crimes," he said. "We've turned over every stone we can."

"Who's protecting our young Indigenous girls and women?" asked Mary Teegee, the director of child and family services at Carrier Sekani Family Services in Prince George. "I often imagine 50 women missing from West Vancouver. What would be the outcry? For one thing, the [death toll] would never reach that in West Vancouver."

Mary Ann Cotton Lady Killers

Mary Ann Cotton (1832 – 1873) was a British serial killer in the 19th century. Employing poison, she is suspected of murdering up to twenty-one people. She was the most prolific British serial killer before Harold Shipman.

She was born Mary Ann Robson in 1832 in the village of Low Moorsley in Tyne and Wear, Northern England. Her father was a miner who died when she was eight, and Mary and her brother were raised by their mother, who was impoverished after the loss of her husband. Mary's mother later remarried, and Mary is said to have loathed her stepfather.

Conflict with her stepfather led her to flee the family home when she was 16. She married in 1852, aged 20, and had five children, four of whom died in infancy, a high rate of infant mortality even in the Victorian era. Mary frequently argued with her husband, who died suddenly in January 1865.

Now widowed, Mary returned to Sunderland and a few months later got married again, her new husband dying in October 1865 from an unexplained illness.

In 1866, Mary's mother died after a sudden illness. At the time Mary was enjoying a relationship with a widower, James Robinson, whom she soon married. Robinson had four children by his late wife, although two suddenly died soon after he met Mary. Robinson became suspicious of his new wife, especially when she kept pestering him to take out life insurance. In late 1869, having borne him a daughter, Mary walked out on Robinson, who was the only husband to survive a marriage to her.

In 1870 Mary married another widower, Frederick Cotton, whose surname she took and by which name she is usually known, even though the marriage was effectively null and void because Mary had not legally divorced her previous husband.

Mary Cotton had a son with Frederick Cotton. Soon, Frederick's sister, two sons from his previous marriage and a number of friends died after sudden illnesses. Frederick himself died in December 1871, soon followed by the baby Mary had by him. Mary quickly remarried, but her new husband quickly died after a short illness.

In the spring of 1872, one of Mary Cotton's few surviving stepchildren, Charles Cotton, whose father had been Frederick Cotton, died suddenly. Word quickly spread around the neighbourhood concerning the way so many of Mary's nearest and dearest had died so suddenly over the previous two decades.

Thomas Riley, a minor government official, was suspicious of the latest death. Mary Cotton had told him that Charles had been "in the way" of her plans of getting remarried. Furthermore, young Charles had appeared very healthy up until his sudden death, which was supposedly due to gastric fever. Mary tried to collect on the life insurance she had taken out on Charles Cotton's life, but the insurance company refused to pay until the body of the deceased had been investigated more thoroughly. Charles Cotton's remains were exhumed and a significant trace of arsenic was found in the deceased's stomach.

Charges soon followed and Mary Cotton was eventually tried for the murder of Charles Cotton, her final victim. She was convicted and sentenced to death.

On March 24, 1873, Mary Cotton was hanged. The execution was botched with Mary failing to die from the initial drop after the gallow's trapdoor opened. Instead, she slowly choked to death as she dangled on the end of the noose.

In spite of the fact that she maintained her innocence to the end, her reputation as the first female serial killer in Britain stands, and her story is the subject of a children's rhyme:

Mary Ann Cotton – She's dead and she's rotten! She lies in her bed With her eyes wide open.

Sing, sing! "Oh, what can I sing? Mary Ann Cotton is tied up with string."

Where, where? "Up in the air – selling black puddings a penny a pair."