Fatal Episode The Producers Story 48 Hours Mistery

9/6/2016

'Survivor' Producer Speaks Out From Mexican Prison: "There Is Less of Me and My Soul Every Day"

In his first interview since sentencing, and after six years behind bars, Bruce Beresford-Redman still proclaims innocence for the murder of his wife. Though a Mexican federal court found his 2015 conviction problematic, it may have little impact on his imprisonment.

Bruce Beresford-Redman has seen his share of defeats in the last few years. In an exclusive interview, his first since his sentencing in March 2015, the former Survivor producer — incarcerated for the murder of his wife in Mexico — describes the agony of not seeing his two children for years, the horror of prison conditions and now the disappointment of another unfavorable ruling from a Mexican court. 

His children, Camila and Alec, are growing up without their father’s physical presence. Beresford-Redman’s aging parents, Juanita and David, are raising them, largely on their own. They haven’t seen each other in four and a half years. The absence from them is particularly difficult, he says. 

“There is less of me and my soul every day,” says Beresford-Redman, who is serving a 12-year sentence for the 2010 murder of his wife, Monica Burgos, at a vacation resort in Cancun, a crime he maintains he did not commit.

"My parents are doing a great job with them, and they are both excelling in school and growing up,” he adds. “I'm enormously proud of them, they are remarkable. We miss each other, and as the years go by I am ever more heartbroken to be kept apart from them, but they are both doing well, which is perhaps the only consolation I can find in this whole stinking mess.”

That mess continued to grow with a ruling last month by a Mexican federal court, which took on an appeal that offered Beresford-Redman a slim ray of hope. In a lengthy ruling, the federal court that has jurisdiction in the state of Quintana Roo found that a state appeals court had erred in several substantive ways during a review of his conviction, ignoring key evidence and failing to properly analyze documents and testimony that could have proved exculpatory.

That ruling came from the highest court that Beresford-Redman has at his disposal, and it was one of his last legal remedies. But instead of examining the merits of the case, the high court sent it back to the lower court magistrate with an order to re-evaluate the evidence.

The higher court criticized the lower judge for not properly reviewing the bona fides of the person who translated Beresford-Redman’s initial police interview, for failing to indicate which of the numerous forensic experts called to testify was being used to bolster the case for conviction, and for improperly reviewing testimony from at least three witnesses whose stories supported Beresford-Redman’s case. 

Taking a stand on the merits of the case would “run the risk of denying [Beresford-Redman’s] appeal," the higher court found. The decision was an elaborate way of avoiding having to take a position on the substance of the appeal – but it did give Beresford-Redman another shot at a legal victory.

That was not to be. It is not clear in what manner the state appeals court reevaluated the evidence, but it is clear that the court declined to reverse the conviction. Instead, the appeals court affirmed the original ruling, saying that it had re-examined the original evidence and had found nothing new.

“It’s ridiculous, but that’s what [the state magistrate] did,” Beresford-Redman tells The Hollywood Reporter in a late August telephone interview from prison. “It’s ludicrous, but hardly unexpected.” 

“[This] was the first time my case was looked at by a competent and independent authority,” he says. "In essence they found it incomplete.”

Beresford-Redman remains in the same prison where he was incarcerated when THR paid him a visit in 2014. At the time, he shared a cell with several other inmates. Since then, he says, his condition has declined.

“The conditions in the prison are much as they were when you were here,” he says. “My condition has deteriorated. I invite you to think of all you've done and seen and where you've been in the years since I met you here. In that time, I've been exactly where and as you saw me. It’s unbelievably frustrating to live such a small existence.” 

Burgos was found dead in 2010 during a family vacation to the Moon Palace Spa and Golf Resort just outside of Cancun, on the pristine shores of the Gulf of Mexico. The couple and their children, 5 and 7 at the time, had traveled from Los Angeles, where Beresford-Redman worked as a producer on Survivor and Burgos ran Zabumba, a trendy Brazilian restaurant in West L.A.

Most Evil S1 Ep 6 Deadly Desires

Most Evil is an American forensics television program on Investigation Discovery presented by forensic psychiatrist Michael Stone of Columbia University during seasons 1 and 2 and by forensic psychologist Dr. Kris Mohandie during Season 3.On the show, the presenter rates murderers on a scale of evil that Stone himself has developed. The show features profiles on various murderers, serial killers, mass murderers and psychopaths.

"Deadly Desires"
Jerry Brudos, Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, David Parker Ray, Westley Allan Dodd 

The Perfect Family 48 Hours

May 14, 2016

Jeffrey Pyne’s “Downward Spiral” Began 2 Months Before Mother’s Murder.

Jeffrey Pyne was 22 years old when he was found guilty of murdering his mentally ill mother Ruth Pyne. In May 2011, the 51-year-old stay-at-home mother was found dead in her Highland Township, Michigan garage. She had been brutally beaten with a two-by-four and stabbed repeatedly in the neck. There was no physical evidence that connected Jeffrey to the crime scene. The prosecution presented circumstantial evidence including testimony from Jeffrey’s ex-girlfriend and co-workers who said two months prior to his mother’s murder, Jeffrey Pyne had begun a “downward spiral.”

During the trial, co-workers said they doubted Pyne’s story about how he got the blisters on both his hands. (Pyne, who worked at an apple orchard, said he got them from working with pallets.) Jeffrey’s father Bernie Pyne believes his son is innocent. After listening to the prosecutor present all the circumstantial evidence, Bernie Pyne said: “It is very difficult because it’s not rooted in fact.” 

Jeffrey Pyne was 22 years old when he was found guilty of murdering his mentally ill mother Ruth Pyne. In May 2011, the 51-year-old stay-at-home mother was found dead in her Highland Township, Michigan garage. She had been brutally beaten with a two-by-four and stabbed repeatedly in the neck. There was no physical evidence.

Nurses Who Kill Charles Cullen

Angels of Death tells how nurse Charles Cullen killed patients.

January 5, 2015

HIS job was to look after the sickest of the sick. People recovering from horrific burns and life-threatening illnesses. But ‘Satan’s Son’ betrayed their trust in the greatest way imaginable murdering dozens of patients. Emily Webb tells his story in a new book.

LOVE was what Charles Cullen, a nurse in New Jersey, USA, believed could save him from the death wish that had been his companion since he was a child.

At just nine years of age, Cullen had made his first suicide attempt by drinking a mixture from a home chemistry set. The attempts to end his life would continue for years until he found another way to channel the self-disgust, low self-esteem and depression that had plagued him for most of his life. In fact, Cullen’s mental torment and victim mentality belied a rat cunning that saw him prey on some of the most helpless, sick and trusting patients whose families believed they were safe and would be nursed with care and compassion.

Little did they know that their loved ones were in grave danger at the hands of Nurse Cullen, who had a compulsion to kill. Cullen was able to hide away by working graveyard shifts in intensive care units (ICUs). The unsociable hours and inability for patients to communicate with him meant that Cullen could murder easily. There was no one to watch him and there was effortless access to his weapon of choice — prescription drugs.

Cullen is serving multiple life sentences at Trenton State Prison, New Jersey, for the murders and attempted murders of 29 patients — he also pleaded guilty to seven murders and three attempted murders while he was working in Pennsylvania. After he was arrested in 2003, Cullen told investigators that he estimated he had killed between 30 and 40 patients during his 16-year career at 10 healthcare facilities. These are the crimes that he confessed to but investigators believe there were many, many more victims, possibly hundreds.

Cullen tried desperately to hide his dark desires by trying to squeeze himself into a so-called normal life that he had craved since childhood. Divorced with two daughters, Cullen was living with a nurse who was pregnant with his third child at the time of his arrest. This was his attempt to find the love he had always felt was missing from his life. He told investigators, during a marathon seven-hour interview, that he believed love could halt the sickness in his mind that made him kill.

But Cullen was always a loner and his life was not a success. Neighbours who knew Cullen as a child and young man, described him as socially inept and strange.

Charles Edmund Cullen was born on 22 February 1960 in West Orange, New Jersey, the last of eight children. His family were working class and strong Catholics. Florence Cullen kept the home, as most women did those days, and Edmond Cullen drove buses to pay the bills and feed his brood. Little did the couple know but their little Charlie would grow up to bring shame and shock to the ‘Garden State’.

New Jersey (NJ) is famous for musicians Bon Jovi, Frank Sinatra and Bruce Springsteen, among others, but also has a disturbing crime history. Mass murderer John List annihilated his family — mother, wife and three children — in 1971 in their Westfield, NJ, home and then disappeared for 18 years. He was arrested in Virginia in 1989, after a tip to television show America’s

Most Wanted when it revisited the crime and revealed a life-like, age-progressed bust of what List may have looked like.

The state is also home to the first documented ‘lone gunman’ killing spree in modern American history. In 1949, Howard Unruh, a 28-year-old war veteran, gunned down random strangers in a street in the town of Camden and killed 13 people, including three children. Unruh died in 2009 at age 88, having spent 60 years in a psychiatric institution.

Tragedy struck the Cullen family when Charles was just seven months old. His father, who was in his late 50s at the time of his youngest son’s birth, died and left his wife to struggle alone, raising her children on a pension.

Growing up, little Charles was not popular and was the target of bullies. He was a weedy, pale kid and one that teachers and fellow students would have found hard to remember, had it not been for the fact that he grew up to be one of America’s most prolific murderers. He was intelligent but odd and this was what attracted the attention of the other children who would target Cullen’s weaknesses and inability to connect with his peers and tease him.

Such was his unhappiness with life that Cullen made his first attempt at suicide by drinking a concoction made from a chemistry set. It did not give him the escape he craved so he plunged deeper into a fantasy life and a nihilistic view of the world. He had few friends at Our Lady of Lourdes Grammar School and later, West Orange High School.

Most Evil S1 Ep 5 Psychotic Killers

Most Evil is an American forensics television program on Investigation Discovery presented by forensic psychiatrist Michael Stone of Columbia University during seasons 1 and 2 and by forensic psychologist Dr. Kris Mohandie during Season 3. On the show, the presenter rates murderers on a scale of evil that Stone himself has developed. The show features profiles on various murderers, serial killers, mass murderers and psychopaths. Ed Gein, Arthur Shawcross (interview), Gary Heidnik.

Nurses Who Kill Colin Norris

Leeds nurse convicted of murdering four pensioners is ‘hopeful’ over new evidence.

Tuesday 15 March 2016

A LEEDS nurse convicted of murdering four elderly women and attempting to kill another is “hopeful” new scientific evidence will be sent back to the courts, according to a justice campaigner. Colin Norris was jailed for life with a minimum 30-year term in 2008 for murdering four patients and attempting to kill a fifth while working at Leeds General Infirmary and St James’s Hospital in 2002. A jury convicted Norris after being told he had injected them with lethal doses of insulin. But Norris has always protested his innocence and denied injecting patients. Norris was convicted of the attempted murder of Vera Wilby, 90, along with the murders of Doris Ludlam, 80, Ethel Hall, 86, Bridget Bourke, 88, and Irene Crookes, 79. Justice campaigner Paul May, who chaired the London-based campaign for the Birmingham Six from 1985 until the men’s release in 1991, said he believes the four patients died from natural causes and is convinced Norris is innocent. Mr May is representing Norris in his application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, who have been considering new scientific evidence in the case since late 2011. Speaking yesterday, on the 25th anniversary of the day the six men wrongly convicted of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings walked free from prison, Mr May said: “The scientific evidence which convicted Colin indicated low blood sugar among people who do not have diabetes is very rare. Back in 2008 it was considered to be very rare, recent research shows it is not at all rare. “We think the commission should refer the case back to the Court of Appeal for the evidence to be examined in detail by the court.” Mr May, who has regularly visited Norris over the past four years at high-security prison HMP Frankland in Durham, said: “I have formed my own impression of him and the one thing I can say with reasonable confidence is that Colin is not a murderer. He is hopeful that the new evidence will be sent back to the courts. “He is remaining very positive and he is hoping to get a positive decision from the Criminal cases Review Commission.” Mr May added: “He is a very mild-mannered individual. He works on his wing as a mentor to other prisoners, helping them with various problems. “He is optimistic and basically he is looking forward to getting out of prison. I’m confident that Colin is not a murderer. For anybody to commit the crimes he is convicted of they would have to have a severe personality disorder. In other words, they would have to be a psychopath. Colin is nothing of the kind. He really doesn’t understand what’s happened and why it has happened. He ended up being convicted and sentenced to a very long time in prison for doing his job. This could happen to any nurse in any hospital.” A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said: “Norris was arrested, prosecuted and, on the basis of the evidence presented to the court, he was convicted and sentenced. His conviction was upheld at the Court of Appeal in December 2009. The case is currently under review by the Criminal Cases Review Commission and we will consider their findings when they are presented to us.” A spokesman for the Criminal Cases Review Commission said: “ “We are not in a position to predict how long individual cases are likely to take to conclude, but Mr Norris’ case is being actively worked on.”

Nurses Who Kill Nils H

26 February 2015

Nurse who admitted killing 30 patients after injecting them with drugs so he could show off his resuscitation skills is jailed for life in Germany 

Nils H was found guilty of murder and attempted murder at a German court

The 38-year-old, whose full name is withheld has been jailed for life 

He previously admitted he brought cardiac arrests in 90 of his patients 

Said he did this by giving them overdoses of specialist heart medication 

He claimed 30 of the patients he gave medication to ended up dying 

Prosecutors said he was bored and wanted to practice his 'excellent' resuscitation skills.

A nurse in Germany who admits killing up to 30 patients by injecting them with heart medication so he could show off his resuscitation skills has been jailed for life.

Nils H, was found guilty at Oldenburg Regional Court of two counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder relating to his time working at a clinic in the German town of Delmenhorst.

The 38-year-old, whose full name is being withheld under German privacy laws, was then told he would have to spend the rest of his life in jail.

It also emerged that he had previously been sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison in 2008 for attempted murder.

Now, police are investigating claims he may actually be responsible for at least another 200 deaths at other clinics where he worked in Oldenburg and Wilhelmshaven.

Earlier in the case, H told the court he brought about cardiac arrests in some 90 patients because he enjoyed the feeling of being able to resuscitate them.

He used Gilurytmal, a medication which should only be used by doctors under strict supervision, it was said and claimed 30 of these patients died.

Prosecutors in the district court of Oldenburg said he was bored and wanted to practice his 'excellent' resuscitation skills.

According to the prosecution, if the first attempt at resuscitation was a success, H would sometimes make a second attempt.

Side effects of the drug he administered include an irregular heartbeat, a drop in blood pressure and uncoordinated functioning of the heart muscle.

The death rate in the Delmenhorst clinic nearly doubled in the time H worked there, and use of the heart medication also increased dramatically.

But it took nearly a decade before an investigation was launched, angering relatives of the dead who are demanding information.

A senior doctor who gave evidence in September said H was a 'passionate medic' who made a good impression on staff at the clinic. 

But the doctor added: 'I found it strange that he was always on hand when patients were being resuscitated, often helping younger doctors with intubation - inserting a breathing tube into a patient's airways.'

'No one wants to believe that a colleague would rather kill patients, instead of helping them,' said Erich Joester, a lawyer for the clinic.

Vegas Heat 48 Hours Mystery

This story originally aired on Nov. 6, 2008. It was updated on Sept. 18, 2010.

On an early December morning outside Las Vegas, firefighters responded to a report of a possible brushfire. But what they found instead was a burning car, with the body of a woman inside.

Who was this woman and what led to her murder? Correspondent Peter Van Sant reports for "48 Hours Mystery."

The Clark County Coroner's Office had a mystery on his hands: a charred corpse with an unrecognizable face, discovered inside a car on Sandy Valley Road.

Clark County Coroner Mike Murphy said medical examiners could tell the victim was female, but they had little else to identify her. "Fingerprints were not a possibility because of the burning of the body, facial recognition was not a possibility."

He named the body "Sandy Valley Jane Doe" after the desert area where it was found. It would take weeks to make a positive identification.

"It was found the face was covered with duct tape…so the next question why would that occur?" Murphy says. "I can tell you there was evidence of some type of an accelerant being used."

To investigators, it appeared that an accelerant, like lighter fluid, had been used to start and spread the fire.

It was dawn on Dec. 14, 2005, that Las Vegas Homicide Detectives Robert Wilson and Dean O'Kelley came upon the smoldering car.

"This is as it was. The whole dash was burned away. The steering wheel was completely consumed. Fire investigators that came out to the scene told us that we were lookin' at a fire in excess of 1,200 degrees," O'Kelley explains, looking at the burnt-out car. "I certainly believe that the objective is not to destroy the vehicle, but to destroy the body in the trunk."

The plates checked back to a Kelly Ryan. Detectives headed to her house expecting to find out that the body in the car was Kelly Ryan's, and that's when Detective Wilson got his first surprise: "So I just went ahead and knocked on the door. She says, 'Well I'm Kelly Ryan,'" he recalls.

Kelly Ryan is one of the most famous fitness athletes in the world, whose nickname was "Flyin' Ryan."

Megan Foley trained with Kelly and was her best friend. "She was 'Flyin' Ryan.' She would fly through the air, do crazy different things in the air that nobody else could do," Megan remembers.

Kelly was born to be a star. She had once been on the U.S. gymnastics team, trained by legendary Olympics coach Bela Karolyi.

In a 1996 interview, Kelly described what helped make her a champion in her sport. "You can be athletic," she said. "And there's a lot of passion in this sport. I think that comes through in our routines and the way we carry ourselves on stage."

Back at Kelly's house - still trying to figure out who was in that trunk - Det. Wilson was in for another surprise: Craig Titus, Kelly's muscle-bound husband.

A champion in his own right, Craig Titus was known as the bad boy of bodybuilding. Craig was such a star, he was hired by Motley Crue lead singer Vince Neil to whip the hard-partying rock star back into shape for a special that aired on VH-1.

After meeting Craig, Wilson asked Kelly if she knew where her car was. "And she said, 'No, I don't. I think maybe our assistant took it,'" Wilson remembers. "And that was the first time that we heard anything about someone named Melissa."

"Melissa" was Melissa James, Kelly and Craig's 28-year-old live-in assistant.

Kelly told detectives that Melissa had just left Las Vegas the day before, heading to New Jersey to spend Christmas with her mother.

Maura James, Melissa's mom, went to Newark Airport to pick up her daughter, but she wasn't there when the plane landed on the morning of Dec. 14.

Meanwhile, Melissa's friend Samantha Anderson was trying to reach her best friend. Desperate, she called Maura. "And she [Maura} said, 'She [Melissa] didn't get off the airplane!'" Samantha remembers.

Melissa was missing.

Three days had passed and Maura was growing frantic. She'd been told about the body in the car, but it still had not been identified. Then, Craig Titus called. "He said that the police had come and talked to him and that he didn't even think it was her in the trunk," Maura remembers.

Craig told Maura he was sure Melissa was alive. "But then I thought, 'Who's in the trunk then? And where's Melissa?'" she remembers.

Nurses Who Kill Kimberley Saenz

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Haunting mystery of 'Killer Nurse' discussed at Coldspring book review.

The Friends of the Library held their annual book review on July 13 at the Coldspring United Methodist Church for the Coldspring Area Public Library with guest speaker and author John Foxjohn discussing his bestselling book called "Killer Nurse."

According to Sue Jackson of the Friends of the Library, Foxjohn has a career that spans across the United States military, law enforcement and education. He is a citizen of Lufkin, Texas.

"He epitomizes the phrase 'been there, done that,'" she said.

Foxjohn has published stories in a variety of genres, both fiction and non-fiction with focuses on mystery and crime thriller stories among others. One of his most compelling novels is "Killer Nurse," which is a work of non-fiction. Foxjohn interviewed numerous individuals involved in the case to write his novel.

The original title for the novel was "DaVita Nurse," but was changed due to the name involving a Fortune 500 company. Foxjohn tried the name "Lethal Injection" before the title "Killer Nurse" was chosen.

Foxjohn heard about the trial when it came up on a news report on television. The details intrigued him as a former homicide detective.

"This is the weirdest, strangest thing I've ever heard in my life," he said.

The story focuses on a DaVita Dialysis Center located in Lufkin, Texas, in the spring and summer of 2008. On April 1, 2008, a patient died under their care. Minutes later, a second patient died.

According to Foxjohn, the chances of a patient dying while on dialysis is 640,000 to one.

"DaVita also knew there was a problem," said Foxjohn.

The dialysis company had a team of monitors try and determine the issue at the Lufkin clinic, but to no avail, Foxjohn said.

"No matter what they did, no matter what they looked at, it didn't stop," said Foxjohn.

He went on to say that some patients continued to die while others ended up on life support with no brain activity. One patient who passed at the clinic was named Opal Few.

"Things are getting really, really tense at DaVita and they still don't know what's going on," said Foxjohn.

All of this changed on the morning of April 28 when two patients reportedly stepped forward.

"Two of these patients saw something that scared the living daylights out of them," said Foxjohn.

According to Foxjohn, they had seen a nurse, Kimberly Clark Saenz, put bleach into a syringe and inject it into two patients. The patients then flagged down a Patient Care Technician and informed the employee what happened.

"This was so farfetched that nobody believed it," said Foxjohn.

Saenz was sent home while the cases were investigated. The syringes were retrieved from their respective sharp containers and tested them for bleach.

According to details in Foxjohn's book, Sgt. Stephen Abbott of the Lufkin Police Department handled the case alongside Corporal Mike Shurley and Crime Scene Technician Christy Pate. Abbott received evidence from the clinic, including a list of all of their patients who had died and equipment used on the deceased patients.

He wrote that Abbott also received 32 sharp containers containing various syringes. The challenge proved to be testing them for both blood and bleach.

Saenz reportedly claimed she filled syringes with bleach to measure how much she needed to wipe off the seats in the clinic. According to Foxjohn, Saenz acted as if she were smarter than those who interrogated her in the case.

"That's kind of a trait for most criminals," said Foxjohn.

District Attorney Clyde Herrington was also involved in the case. Like many others, he also felt it was farfetched, according to Foxjohn.

However, Pate and Abbott went through the syringes in the sharp containers. Pate soon stumbled upon one used on Few, Foxjohn related in the book.

"She said her hands were literally shaking when she saw it," said Foxjohn.

The syringe tested positive for bleach and the detectives started searching for signs of aggravated assault. On May 30, Saenz was arrested for two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Taking a medical professional to trial is difficult especially when the defendants choose not to confess. The same proved to be true in the case against Saenz, Foxjohn said.

Foxjohn says at the time there was not a single crime lab in the world that could test the syringes to see if they were positive with blood.

"She chose almost the most perfect weapon to kill someone," said Foxjohn.

Bleach can cause an effect similar to having a heart attack if injected into someone's blood stream. Foxjohn says the individuals working on the case believed they were dealing with a serial killer.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stepped in and tested them, finding 10 samples to be positive for the evidence needed in the case.

"They found a way to find a bleach marker in blood," said Foxjohn.

Nurses Who Kill Daniela Poggiali

28 October 2015

Nurse nicknamed 'Angel of Death' admits 'taking selfies with dead patients was wrong' but denies multiple murder charges before Italian judge 

Daniela Poggiali, 42, had pictures on her phone of her grinning and laughing next to the bodies of dead patients at a hospital in Lugo, Italy

Has said the pictures were a 'mistake', but blamed a fellow medic for taking what were meant to be 'private' images between the pair

Poggiali was present at 93 deaths in just two years - double that of any other colleague. Suspicious fellow health workers called in police

Officers claim she drip-fed potassium chloride to patients - the chemical used in lethal injections in the U.S.

Poggiali: 'I haven't killed anyone. Rather, I always lived to help others'  

Prosecutor said that she is a 'megalomaniac with a God complex'

An Italian nurse branded the 'Angel of Death' has admitted she was 'wrong' to take selfies with dead patients, but has blamed a colleague for the sick images.

Alleged serial killer Daniele Poggiali, 42, has said the shocking pictures were a 'mistake' and were meant to be kept 'private' between her and the fellow female health worker she accuses of taking them.

She told the Corriere della Sera newspaper: 'I was wrong and I recognize that. 

'It wasn't my idea but that of my colleague, who took the photos. Also, I never could have imagined they would be circulated. 

'It was something private between me and her. Anyhow, it was a mistake.'

If convicted of anywhere near 90 murders, Poggiali - who has been a healthcare worker for 17 years - would go down in history books as the most prolific serial killer nurse in the world.

The current holder of the dubious record is Charles Cullen. He is suspected in up to 400 deaths but only admitted to authorities that he poisoned up to 40 patients during his 16-year nursing career in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

In 2006 he was sentenced to six life sentences for what he claimed they were 'mercy killings'.

Detectives say Poggiali's alleged murders were not a twisted form of euthanasia but the power trip of 'a megalomaniac with a God complex.'

However, Poggiali has no history of mental illness and none of the traits of a psychopath, police said.

To add to the horrific list of accusations, police also suspect she stole cash and belongings from her vulnerable elderly patients as she plotted to kill them because they 'annoyed' her.

Poggiali, who was photographed laughing as she was hauled handcuffed into court last week, claims she is innocent of murder and is the victim of a plot by a colleague with a grudge. She is even suing the hospital for wrongful dismissal.

8 July 2017

A 45-year-old Italian nurse jailed for life for murdering a patient and widely suspected over the deaths of many others at the time has been acquitted on appeal, Italian media reported on Saturday.

Daniela Poggiali was arrested in October 2014 in Lugo, northern Italy, and sentenced to life behind bars in March last year. A court acquitted her on Friday.

 

Publication in the media of pictures of her smiling next to recently deceased patients had caused uproar in Italy, amid reports that she had given huge doses of drugs to sick patients she found "annoying".

 

At the emergency room where she worked she was always engaging and tireless with patients' families, but seems cold and unpleasant with colleagues.

 

And in the first three months of 2014, 38 of the 83 deaths registered in her department occurred when she was on duty, against an average of no more than 10 for her fellow nurses.

 

At the start of April a series of troubling coincidences alerted the authorities. And when a 78-year-old woman died shortly after being taken care of by the nurse, an investigation was launched.

 

The autopsy showed that she had been given a massive dose of potassium chloride. Prosecutors said it could not have been a mistake, and Poggiali was the only person who could have given the injection.

 

Potassium chloride is detectable in the body only for a few days after death, therefore the other suspicious cases raised by prosecutors -- around 10 over a period of a few months -- could not be added to the official file.

 

But an expert called by Poggiali's lawyers during the trial over the death she was convicted of found that, if the injection had occurred as claimed, the patient would have died in a matter of minutes, and not over an hour as was the case.

 

"The facts do not stand up," the Bologne appeal court ruled on Friday.

The former nurse was released on Friday evening, after nearly three years behind bars.

 

"They described me as someone who I am not, and now I am going to be able to get my life back again," she told reporters.

Nurses Who Kill Genene Jones

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Genene Jones, a former San Antonio nurse convicted in 1984 of killing a child and labeled the “Angel of Death” for suspicions she killed dozens of other infants and children, now faces a second new murder charge.

Jones, who is in state prison serving a 99-year-term for murder, was indicted Wednesday by a Bexar County grand jury in connection with the the September 1981 death of Rosemary Vega, a 2-year-old girl.

The same grand jury had issued a murder indictment in late May, accusing her of killing 11-month-old Joshua Sawyer in December 1981. Bail was set at $1 million for each new murder charge.

In a case dating back more than three decades, the latest indictment alleges that Jones injected Vega with “a substance unknown.”

Vega’s mother told journalist Peter Elkind that she recalled watching Jones “push a drug into her daughter’s IV line shortly before she went into cardiac arrest,” according to an article this week published by Texas Monthly and ProPublica.

Now 66, Jones was suspected of killing dozens of infants in the pediatric intensive care unit at what was then called Medical Center Hospital in San Antonio, now University Hospital, in 1981 and 1982.

The 34 babies who died while she was on duty in that time caused the hospital’s infant death rate to increase 178 percent, the New England Journal of Medicine noted in 1985.

“Suspicions about Jones had been so widespread that other nurses had begun calling her hours on duty ‘the Death Shift,’” but after a secret internal probe, the hospital replaced Jones and six other licensed vocational nurses in the ICU with registered nurses in 1982 as a pretext for removing her — but gave Jones a good letter of recommendation, Elkind wrote.

After she was convicted for killing a child in Kerrville and given the 99-year term, it was widely thought Jones would never leave prison, but a Texas law designed to reduce prison overcrowding, in effect for only about a decade, entitled Jones to be released on March 1, 2018.

When this became known to Bexar County District Attorney Nico LaHood, he vowed to develop new charges to keep Jones in prison, calling her “pure evil,” according to a news release issued by his office when the May indictment was handed down.

“Justice warrants that she be held accountable for the crimes she committed. Our Office will attempt to account for every child whose life was stolen by the actions of Jones,” he said according to the release.

At a news conference Wednesday, LaHood said his office’s investigation was continuing, with the goal of securing more indictments. A member of his staff directed a San Antonio Express-News reporter to wait in a side room and did not allow him to attend the conference or ask questions. Jennifer Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for LaHood, also did not return calls.

Jones has always maintained her innocence, but has not spoken on the record about any specific baby deaths. She has not yet received a court-appointed lawyer.

Buried Secrets of Las Vegas 48 Hours Mystery

Lonnie Theodore "Ted" Binion (November 28, 1943 – September 17, 1998) was a wealthy U.S. gambling executive and one of the sons of famed Las Vegas casino magnate Lester Ben "Benny" Binion, owner of Binion's Horseshoe. His death has been a subject of controversy; girlfriend Sandra Murphy and her lover Rick Tabish were initially charged and convicted in Binion's death, but were later granted a new trial and acquitted on the murder charges.

Ted Binion was found dead on a small mattress on the floor of his Las Vegas estate home, 2408 Palomino Lane near Rancho Drive and Charleston Boulevard, on September 17, 1998. Empty pill bottles were found near the body, and an autopsy and toxicology report revealed that he died of a lethal dosage combination of the prescription sedative Xanax and heroin, with traces of Valium. The day before, Binion had himself purchased 12 pieces of tar heroin from a street drug dealer, and had earlier gotten a prescription from his next-door neighbor, a doctor, for Xanax, and evidence introduced at trial showed that Binion personally took the prescription to be filled at a local pharmacy.

Binion's death was initially treated as a probable suicide. His live-in girlfriend, Sandy Murphy, said that Binion had been suicidal ever since losing his gaming license a few months earlier. His sister Barbara, afflicted with the same kinds of drug problems as her brother, committed suicide in 1977, which also helped contribute to the perception that Ted could have been vulnerable to suicide as well. However, his sister Becky discounted any talk of suicide, saying that in her conversations with him that he didn't sound despondent.

Las Vegas homicide detectives suspected that the scene had been staged, as his body didn't show the typical signs of a drug overdose. Also, the stomach contained heroin and the police thought that neither an addict nor a suicide would take heroin in that manner. However, despite the urgings of Becky Behnen and Jack Binion, they refused to open a full-scale homicide investigation. Six months later, chief medical examiner Lary Simms ruled Binion had died of a heroin and Xanax overdose. After six months, however, the Clark County Coroner's office reclassified Ted's death a homicide on May 5, 1999. Although there were no specifics, law enforcement sources cited evidence that the death scene had been staged, as well as witness statements implicating Murphy and Tabish. Detectives had suspected for some time that Murphy and Tabish had been romantically involved, and had learned that Binion suspected Murphy was cheating on him.

In June 1999, Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish were arrested for Binion's murder, as well as for conspiracy, robbery, grand larceny and burglary. The prosecution contended that Murphy and Tabish had conspired to kill Binion and steal his wealth, drugging Binion into unconsciousness and burking him, a form of manual suffocation. The suffocation, in this theory, which was presented at trial by forensics pathologist Michael Baden, who testified for the prosecution, was done because the overdose was taking too long, and the pair feared discovery. They were each charged with murder and burglary charges connected to the removal of his fortune from the vault on the desert floor in Pahrump.

A police report that was not used in the first trial by Rick Tabish's first attorney Louie Palazzo revealed that a drive-by shooting occurred on June 5, 1997, in front of Ted Binion's Palomino Lane home. Included in the police report about the late night incident is a statement by Ted Binion alleging that Chance LeSueur and Benny Behnen were the shooters.

The case attracted national media attention. After two months of trial, Murphy and Tabish were found guilty, after nearly 68 hours of deliberation. Tabish was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison, while Murphy received 22 years to life.

Later that year, David Roger, who prosecuted the case, was elected Clark County district attorney, and David Wall, who second-chaired the prosecution, was elected district judge.

However, in July 2003, the Nevada Supreme Court overturned the murder convictions, ruling that Clark County District Court Judge Joseph Bonaventure erred in deliberation instructions to the jury. The justices found that Tabish should have received a separate trial for the assault and blackmail of another businessman. While the prosecution was never able to prove a link between this crime and Binion's murder, the justices said, testimony regarding the separate assault prejudiced the jury against Tabish. The justices also ruled that jurors should have been told to consider statements by Binion's estate attorney as statements of the attorney's mind, not fact.

The defendants were granted a new trial, which began on October 11, 2004 in Judge Bonaventure's courtroom.Murphy was sentenced to time served and did not return to prison.

Tabish was released on May 18, 2010.

Nurses Who Kill Benjamin Geen

An unusual pattern: Is Benjamin Geen a killer or England's unluckiest man?

Thursday 31 March 2016

Benjamin Geen is in prison for life. Convicted for two murders and over a dozen cases of grievous bodily harm, the former nurse insists he is innocent and that the evidence against him is entirely coincidental. Joel Werner asks: could anyone possibly be that unlucky?

Horton General Hospital is in Banbury, a market town in Oxfordshire, about an hour and a half north-west of London.

During the winter of 2003, something out of the ordinary happened at Horton's Accident and Emergency Department.

That winter, 18 patients admitted to A and E suddenly and unexpectedly stopped breathing.

Hospital staff might expect one, maybe two of these incidents a month, but 18 in two months? Something seemed amiss.

Hospital staff started pulling case notes and examining staff rosters, and before long their attention was drawn to a young nurse, Benjamin Geen.

Geen had been on duty each time one of these patients had collapsed. Geen was arrested as he arrived at work in February 2004.

On 10 May 2006, he was sentenced to a minimum of 38 years in prison for two counts of murder and 15 counts of grievous bodily harm.

Andy Taylor, then a detective superintendent with the Thames Valley Police and the lead investigator on Geen's case, commented during the sentencing: 'Ben Geen abused this position of trust. We may never know what motivated him to select and poison his victims.

'It is clear that he wanted to be the centre of attention and in order to fuel this desire brought some of the patients to the brink of death and coldly murdered two of them.'

At the time, Geen was 25 years old.

'Ben was a very outgoing guy,' says Geen's father, Mick. 'He loved outdoor life, he loved adventure, he liked challenges.

'He was initially a care assistant. Once he got qualified, he applied for a nurse's job in the A and E department.'

Colleagues of Ben's referred to him as a committed and enthusiastic member of staff, although there were concerns that his confidence outstripped his competence.

Leading up to the arrest, Ben told his father that A and E was a very hectic department, that he had opportunities to put himself into demanding situations, that he was learning a lot.

At this point, Ben didn't mention any difficulties to his father. It was all, as far as Mick was concerned, smooth sailing.

But on 5 February 2004, events were set in motion that would change Ben's life forever.

That day, two patients went into life-threatening respiratory arrest shortly after arriving at the emergency department. This was profoundly unusual. Suspicions were raised.

Stephen Smith, a consultant physician working in the Horton A and E that day, recalled bringing staff together to discuss these events.

'I held an impromptu meeting of minds at the bedside to explore all possibilities,' Smith said.

'There were up to 30 people present. The discussions ended up taking a wider path and a pattern began to emerge whereby similar unexplained events in the A and E were being included.

'There was some acceptance that this was not the first time over the past few weeks that we were left scratching our heads in search of an explanation for events that had occurred in the A and E department.'

The next morning— 6 February 2004—some staff members ran their suspicions up the flagpole: they reported their concerns to hospital management, including the head of clinical risk and the director of the hospital. A serious incident investigation was initiated.

The investigation reviewed patient case notes and staffing records. The team worked over the weekend and identified 18 patients who had suddenly and unexpectedly stopped breathing after visiting the department.

The group identified a common factor: Geen had been on duty at every incident.

When he next arrived at work, Geen was wearing nursing scrubs and a fleecy jacket. When the arresting officers searched him they found a syringe in his jacket pocket, which was damp and cool.

In a panic, Geen had emptied the syringe's contents.

He claimed that he had inadvertently taken the syringe home after his last shift and was returning it. Police would go on to search Geen and his then girlfriend's apartments. At both locations they found prescription-only medications that were eventually traced back to the hospital.

Geen owned up to stealing these meds for personal use. The police cautioned him for theft, but that was the least of his worries. He was taken into police custody for questioning and agreed to answer any and all questions put to him.

He admitted to seeing each of the 18 patients named in the serious incident investigation, but denied any wrongdoing. To this day, Geen denies all the charges against him.

During questioning he told police: 'I seem to have a jinx.' Eventually, he was found guilty.

Then, in 2009, Geen assembled a new legal team to appeal his conviction and sentencing.

Murder in the Badlands Swamp Murders

Justice served in Broken Arrow teenager 10-year-old cold case.

6:46 AM, Jun 21, 2016

BROKEN ARROW, Okla. - The prime suspect in the murder of Broken Arrow high school graduate, Jarret Clark, signed a plea agreement Monday afternoon.

For around 10 years, Wagoner County grasped to find answers in the cold case investigation that baffled multiple law enforcement agencies.

Tammy and Eric Slater, Clark's parents, have lived in agony for the past decade, looking for justice for their son. Recently, Clark’s parents say they have discovered evidence to prove that their son was murdered.

In 2006, the Slaters said goodbye to their son for the last time as he left for a camping trip at Ft. Gibson Lake in Wagoner, and never returned.

"The people who murdered Jarret were the only witnesses, so all they had to do was lie," Eric Slater said.

Jarret was supposed to be home in time for a Mother's Day get-together which, according to Clark’s parents, is something the only child would never miss.

"Before he walked out that night, his last words to both of us were, 'love you guys.' What better words to be left with," Tammy Slater said.

Investigators eventually recovered his body from the lake five days later, and his death was ruled a suicide, but his parents knew better.

"The stories haven't matched from the start," Eric Slater said.

After OSBI failed to solve the case, former sheriff Bob Colbert assigned a full-time detective to the cold case.

The investigation led to the arrest of three suspects: Tony Wallen, Courtney Manzer and Dana Hargrove.

Wallen is accused of beating Clark unconscious after a fight at the campsite. Now, a decade later he's signed a plea deal, admitting to “conspiracy to commit second degree murder.”

"To me, no matter amount of what time that person may receive, it's not enough," Tammy Slater said.

Wallen will serve eight years in prison, and 12 years with supervision. Although the plea is not exactly what Clark's parent's wanted for their son, after 10 long years, a sliver of justice has been served.

As for the other two suspects, Hargrove and Manzer, the Wagoner County District Attorney expects them to plea to accessory to second degree murder.

Clark's parents want to thank all those involved in the case, and not giving up on the truth. 

Gregory Graf See No Evil

November 13 , 2015

Gregory Graf guilty of first-degree murder in stepdaughter's killing.

Six minutes.

That was almost the length of the video Gregory R. Graf recorded of himself sexually abusing his stepdaughter's corpse after he murdered her.

Six minutes.

That was also the amount of time that a Northampton County jury needed Friday before convicting the 54-year-old Allen Township man of first-degree murder, condemning him to life in prison without parole.

The quick verdict brought tears of relief and gasps of "Yes!" from the family of Jessica Padgett, a mother of three who was shot in the back of the head by Graf without warning at his home last year.

Gregory Graf said 'I'm not really a bad guy' during murder confession.

It capped an emotional trial and emotional final day of testimony. The last piece of evidence prosecutors presented was the disturbing video that Graf produced after he killed Padgett last November.

The emotion only continued after the jury reached its decision, as Padgett's sister, Kristi Davis, strode up to Graf before he was formally sentenced and denounced him as a selfish man who stole a beloved woman and shattered a family and a community.

"I know you probably don't care what I have to say, but for once someone isn't concerned about you," Davis said, looking directly at the impassive Graf. "You're going to listen to what I have to say for Jes and myself."

Graf, Davis said, could have pleaded guilty and taken the punishment he had earned. Instead, he forced Padgett's loved ones to endure "excruciating" testimony and relive a "nightmare," she said.

"What I've learned from this trial is that even now you don't regret it, you don't even care," Davis said.

Padgett's mother, Danelle Bittner, called her slain daughter her "best friend" and said life will never be the same.

"We are not here for Mr. Graf," Bittner, Graf's wife of 17 years, said in a statement read in court by a prosecutor. "We are here to be the voice of Jes, who can no longer speak for herself."

At trial, the defense conceded that Graf killed Padgett on Nov. 21, then hid her body, prompting a frantic five-day search for the missing Whitehall Township woman.

Graf attorney Jack McMahon told the jury his client was guilty and deserved to be convicted of murdering Padgett and desecrating her corpse. But McMahon argued that the killing wasn't premeditated, saying that "something snapped" with Graf.

District Attorney John Morganelli sought a conviction for first-degree murder and the life sentence it automatically brings. By contrast, third-degree murder, which does not require premeditation, carries a sentence of at most 20 to 40 years.

The jury also found Graf guilty of abusing Padgett's corpse. President Judge Stephen Baratta gave Graf a life sentence and added a one- to two-year term on top of that — the maximum on the other charge, a largely symbolic gesture.

"This is a crime against human nature, and what you did violates basic family bonds," Baratta told Graf. Padgett's relatives "will have to suffer from this crime for the rest of their life, and my heart goes out to them."

Graf said little before he was led away by deputy sheriffs, and he showed no signs of emotion.

"No, sir," he said Baratta asked him if had anything to say. "Just that I'm very sorry."

The video Graf recorded was a constant in the trial, even before it was played for the jury Friday in a darkened courtroom.

Throughout testimony, its mere mention carried emotional resonance. During jury selection last week, one-fifth of the members of the jury pool were excused after they said they would be unable to watch it.

But it is one thing to describe the recordings, which show Graf performing sex acts on Padgett's corpse several hours after he killed her. It is another thing to actually view them, as the nine men and three women who decided Graf's fate now know.

One juror's eyes filled with tears while the video played. Another's face twisted into a look of profound distaste. Another sat motionless with his hand over his mouth, his fingers pinching his eyes. The courtroom was silent.

The video was made up of eight recordings that were shot by Graf over a span of two hours using two cameras. It was presented on a screen that was purposefully placed away from the view of the audience, where many members of Padgett's family sat. Others chose to stay away — including Bittner and Padgett's father, Thomas Kaczmar, who took their seats only after it was over.

Even the sounds from the recordings were taxing to hear, with Graf at one point speaking profanely to Padgett's lifeless body, whose head he had covered in a plastic bag. The actual images were even worse.

McMahon, the defense attorney, didn't look at the display as the video played, keeping his eyes averted and swiveling his chair away. His client also did not look, busying himself reading court papers in front of him.

Cody Legebokoff Serial Killer

Cody Legebokoff admits being present at deaths of women

Accused killer claims others killed Jill Stuchenko, Cynthia Maas and Natasha Montgomery

CBC News

August 26, 2014

A B.C. man charged with murdering four women says he was present at the deaths of all the women he is accused of killing.

Cody Legebokoff told a B.C. Supreme Court jury in Prince George Tuesday that he was with Loren Leslie, 15, when she died. He testified to hitting her, but claimed he did so only after she injured herself.

He told the jury other, unnamed men killed Jill Stacey Stuchenko, 35, Cynthia Frances Maas, 35 and Natasha Lynn Montgomery, 23.

"At that time, I didn't expect to be what I actually did was murder," Legebokoff testified.

"But now, sitting here charged with it, I don't feel very good about it."

Charged with 1st-degree murder

Legebokoff is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Stuchenko, Maas, Leslie and Montgomery. The women died in 2009 and 2010.

Legebokoff identified the other men only as X and Y and Z. He said he wouldn't name them because he didn't want to be labelled a "rat" if he was sent to prison.

The 24-year-old told the jury he had sex with Stuchenko at his apartment. He claimed X told him she had to die and hit her with a pipe. He said X also ordered Montgomery's death. He testified that Z pulled out a weapon and X then killed her.

Legebokoff described watching X strike Maas in his apartment. He told the jury X hit her in the head with an "object," knocking her out. He claims he and Y then put Maas into his truck and drove her to a park.

"He opened the door and he pulled her out. She just fell to the ground," Legebokoff said.

"That was when he had said she was still alive."

Legebokoff claimed he then pulled a pickaroon from his truck and handed the spiked, log-handling tool to Y. He told the jury he heard Y hit her three or four times.

"I didn't feel very good about what was going on, or how I got myself into this mess."

Body found in park

Maas's body was found in a park on the outskirts of Prince George, naked from the waist down. Earlier in the trial, Crown counsel Joseph Temple told the jurors both she and Stuchenko suffered blunt force trauma to their heads as well as other wounds.

Montgomery's body was never found. However, Temple said several items, including shirts, shorts, bedsheets, a comforter and an axe found in Legebokoff`s apartment tested positive for her DNA.

All three older women were known to have worked in the sex trade.

Temple told the jury Legebokoff met Leslie in November 2010 after exchanging text messages and social media conversations on Nexopia and arranging to buy alcohol. Legebokoff told the jury Tuesday the two had sex and that Leslie then picked up a pipe from his truck and started striking herself.

He claimed she got out of his truck and then injured herself with a knife. Legebokoff said he then hit her several times over the head.

Leslie's body was found partially buried near a gravel pit off a bush road near Vanderhoof, B.C.

The trial is expected to last six to eight months.

Nurses Who Kill Beverley Allitt

10 APR 2016 - Survivor of killer nurse Beverley Allitt issues desperate plea to David Cameron over axed benefits

Kayley Asher, who suffered brain injuries when she was attacked by child killer Allitt as a baby, says the horror still plays on her mind.

A tormented survivor of Angel of Death Beverley Allitt has issued a direct plea to David Cameron over her axed benefits.

Kayley Asher, who suffered brain injuries when she was attacked by child killer Allitt as a baby, has spoken for the first time of how the horror still preys on her mind.

And she told how she must now pay for expensive drugs to stem the flashbacks – while Allitt has all her medical needs met free of charge.

In her first ever interview, Kayley, now 26, tells how she is haunted by the face of twisted nurse Allitt, who attacked 13 children on a hospital ward in 1991, killing four.

Kayley was 13 months old when she was left with brain damage after Allitt injected an oxygen bubble into her bloodstream.

She said: “I can still see her face.

“I just want her to stay inside for ever, it’s a nightmare. Allitt is very evil, she’s a bad person.

"The good comes down from heaven, but the badness can come from a person. I don’t want her to hurt me or anybody else again.”

And in a plea to David Cameron , she begged: “Prime Minister, please give me my benefits back.”

In a cruel twist, the only reason Kayley’s benefits were axed at all was because she won compensation for her ordeal at Allitt’s hand.

As a child, she was paid £11,500 for the ­injuries she suffered, which grew to just over £16,000 with interest by her 18th birthday.

That little nestegg meant she was not technically eligible for the employment support allowance she was getting because her brain damage prevents her from working.

So devastated Kayley was told to hand back £23,500 already paid out to her in benefits.

Social security officials claim that Kayley failed to declare the 

compensation.

They say she should not have received the means-tested payments – and it must all be paid back.

And the fact she is no longer on benefits means she loses the right to free prescriptions.

The decision has enraged Kayley’s family, who have dedicated their lives to caring for her.

Every day she must take psychiatric medication to calm delusions that Allitt will attack her again – costing up to £40 a month.

Allitt murdered four children at Grantham and Kesteven Hospital, Lincs, ranging in age from two-month-old Becky Phillips to Tim Hardwick, 11.

She attempted to murder three others.

She was convicted of causing grievous bodily harm to a further six – including Kayley.

Now 47, she is serving 13 life sentences at Rampton Secure Hospital, Notts, with a minimum tariff of 30 years.

Kayley’s adoptive dad Alan said: “Allitt can have savings at Rampton – and she can have all her medicines paid for by the NHS. How can that possibly be fair?”

Each night Alan and wife Sharon have to empty every drawer and wardrobe in Kayley’s bedroom to reassure her that Allitt is not lying in wait.

Alan said: “We can be up until 2am or 3am checking the room. Kayley will look behind ever door and check under the bed, even 25 years on.

"She went through a phase where she just shouted in fear. We always try to reassure her.

“There’s no doubt that what happened with Allitt has made her suffer more with her ­conditions.”

Kayley suffers from a rare birth defect called Kabuki Syndrome, which can affect both a child’s physical and mental development.

It is named after a style of Japanese theatre because it affects facial features such as eyelids, mouth and skin pattern, sometimes giving the appearance of oriental stage make up.

Alan added: “It’s terribly unfair that Kayley was told last year by the Department for Work and Pensions that she must pay back £23,500 in benefits.

"The compensation was there to secure her future. What happens when we are dead?

“Kayley can never have a job and we’re never far from her, caring for her. Kabuki Syndrome was only discovered in the late 1980s, so no one yet knows how it will develop in adults.

"Who knows what she will need, or how she will be provided for? She also lost eligibility for any free prescriptions and lost all her dental treatment.

"Kayley takes medicines for her digestion and needs psychiatric medicines to calm her delusions of Allitt.”

Kayley, who lives with her family in Grantham, only found out she was a victim of Allitt when a teacher let it slip at school.

She rushed home from her lesson and asked her parents: “Is it true a nurse tried to kill me?”

Kayley had been in hospital with a chest infection when she was targeted by Allitt. She stopped breathing twice and suffered two heart attacks.

She has never before spoken about Allitt’s crimes – even in the monthly meetings she still has with a psychiatrist.

And she began sobbing as she contemplated the possibility of Allitt being released.

Kayley said: “She might come out one day. She might remember me.

The Murders of Channon Christian and Chris Newsom

Eric Boyd was the first to go to trial in April 2008, but Boyd faced charges as an accessory after the fact, not for the murders or rapes, despite what the other suspects told police. His face was federal, meaning no cameras were allowed in the courtroom.

In a police interrogation tape, Boyd portrayed Davidson as the killer. The defense said Boyd stopped helping Davidson after learning his parts in the murders. The verdict was guilty and the sentence was 18 years. The Christian and Newsom families recognized this was only the start.

More than a year later in August 2009, Letalvis Cobbins was the defendant in the first state trial. A jury was brought in from Nashville because of all the publicity. Cobbins started the trial by entering surprise guilty pleas to lesser charges.

“Letalvis Cobbins made bad choices. He’s manned up this morning and taken ownership of them,” said his attorney at the trial.

Evidence from Channon Christian’s rape kit showed DNA from Cobbins and Davidson. The most graphic testimony came from the medical examiner: signs of multiple attackers and the news that both Channon Christian and Chris Newsom had been raped. Christian was raped repeatedly and left to suffocate in a trash can. Newsom was bound, gagged, shot execution style, and burned. Grim photographs left a mark on the people who saw them.

“I’ve seen autopsy photos of homicide cases, abuse cases for two decades. Once I saw three to four of those photos, I left the courtroom,” said Isaacs.

“I saw a few of the pictures. It’s just very difficult. I don’t know how the families listened to the testimony and looked at these pictures, but it was important, I think, for people to understand this is what happened to these people and this is what happened in Knoxville,” said former WATE anchor Gene Patterson.

The defense maintained that while Cobbins was there for the carjacking and kidnapping, and did rape Christian, it was his older half brother Davidson who had done the killing. Another surprise was when Cobbins himself took the stand.

“She said, ‘Please can you just convince him to let me go?’ I said I’ll try,” said Cobbins on the stand, describing an exchange with Channon Christian.

Then the verdict came. He was found guilty on all but five counts, but received the life sentence, not the death penalty. The families were let down.

“What do you got to do to earn the death penalty in this state?” asked Gary Christian, Channon Christian’s father, after the trial.

Mid-October 2009 brought Lemaricus Davidson’s trial and much of the testimony had been heard before. However, the defense was using its cross-examinations to raise questions about the victims, with talk of Adderall to cram for tests and marijuana use. Chris Newsom’s friend Josh Anderson spoke about their marijuana use.

“He’s not the one on trial. Those kids were totally, completely innocent,” said his mother Mary Newsom.

After a week of testimony and eight hours of deliberations, Davidson was found guilty of first degree felony murder of both Channon Christian and Chris Newsom. During the sentencing phase, the victims’ families told the jury of their loss.

“My life will never be the same because of a senseless crime by people who have no regard for life,” said Mary Newsom.

Davidson’s half-sister described a rough upbringing and an abusive mother, but the jury wasn’t swayed and sentenced him to death.

A few weeks later, in December 2009, George Thomas went on trial and a Chattanooga jury was brought in to hear the case. Prosecutors admitted they didn’t have much physical evidence to tie him to the murders, but Thomas was there and they argued he was responsible, showing the jury just how tiny the house was.

The defense argued it was reprehensible for Thomas not to help the victims, but not criminal. The jury convicted Thomas on every single charge from kidnapping to rape and handed him a sentence of life without parole.

Last to go on trial was Vanessa Coleman in May 2010 with another out-of-town jury, this time from Nashville. Coleman’s attorney at first said his client would take the stand, but that never happened. The jury returned not guilty verdicts on the charges related to Chris Newsom’s rape and murder and guilty verdicts on lesser charges for facilitating the rape and murder of Channon Christian.

The circumstances surrounding the final months on the bench by Judge Richard Baumgartner, the man overseeing the state trials in this case, are still shocking. Court watchers first got a clue that something was wrong at the end of the Vanessa Coleman trial. The judge was slurring his words and sounding sleepy as he led the jury through the charges.

Former district attorney Randy Nichols says his office didn’t know how bad off Baumgartner was.

“Everybody knew that Judge Baumgartner suffered from physical injuries and was not overly spry. We knew that, so when you would see him, it wouldn’t raise much suspicion,” he said.

On January 27, 2011, there was an announcement made that Baumgartner would be taking a leave of absence for medical reasons. The next day, the TBI confirmed it was investigating Baumgartner and had been for a while.

Then on March 10, he pleaded guilty to state charges of official misconduct and admitted his addiction to prescription painkillers.

“I have lately let this system, this community, let my family down,” he said.

The plea deal gave him judicial diversion and he resigned from the bench. Attorney in the Christian-Newsom cases began putting the wheels in motion for the sentences to be overturned.

In June 2011, there was a sign there might be more to Baumgartner’s case from the ex-wife of Chris Gibson, a man prosecutors identified as the judge’s drug dealer.

“Richard Baumgartner, he got a smack on the hand. He walked out and he should have had to do more than treatment, I think. He was buying multiple pills that I knowed of,” said Darlene Gibson.

It turned out she was right. The TBI’s report, released in December of that year, was full of eye-popping details. Deena Castleman, a woman in Baumgartner’s drug court, said the two had a sexual relationship and she supplied him with pills. He even visited her in the hospital during the Davidson trial to get his fix. Baumgartner ended up serving around five and a half months in federal prison over what was in that file. He was released in 2013.

Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood granted the motion for all four suspects to get new trials.

Prosecutors appealed that decision and the retrials were eventually whittled down to two: George Thomas and Vanessa Coleman. Coleman went first.

The jury was brought in from Jackson for the trial that began on November 13, 2012. The testimony revisited familiar yet still shocking facts. The prosecution said Coleman was left alone with Channon Christian when the others left to get rid of Chris Newsom.

“All the stuff that she knew. She had the opportunity to get herself out of the house. She had the opportunity to save Miss Christian,” said prosecutor Takisha Fitzgerald.

The defense tried to paint Coleman as a victim, a young woman who was too scared to leave. Her attorney said the prosecution couldn’t prove what Coleman’s role was.

“The government, with all its resources, has not put on not one witness to swear under oath what happened at Chipman Street. Not one witness took this witness stand to tell you what happened that day,” said defense attorney Ted Lavit.

After nine hours of deliberations, the jury found her guilty on 13 of the 17 counts. The most serious was facilitating the rape and murder of Channon Christian. She was found not guilty on the one count relating to Chris Newsom.

“Chris died protecting my daughter that night. She got enough justice for them both today,” said Channon Christian’s mother Deena Christian after the verdict was read.

“She deserves to spend the rest of her life in jail,” said Channon’s father Gary Christian.

Thomas’s retrial came around in May 2013, again with an out-of-town jury. Again prosecutors walked through the timeline – the missing couple, the tiny house where you couldn’t miss what was going on, and the gruesome discovery.

Thomas sat stoic as his attorneys continued to point out the lack of physical evidence linking him to the crimes. His only reaction was to shake his head in disagreement with the verdict: guilty on 38 counts.

“If I could sit in there and hear guilty over and over and over, I might get a little bit of sleep,” said Gary Christian.

The judge would later give Thomas back to back life sentences, plus 25 years, meaning he would have to live to the age of 147 before he would be eligible for parole.

Cobbins faces life without parole and Davidson was sentenced to death, a sentence which was just upheld in December 2016. Eric Boyd is still in prison on an 18 year sentence.

Vanessa Coleman’s sentence had been knocked down from 53 to 35 years and she only had to serve 30 percent before becoming eligible for parole, with time served and good behavior. In December 2014, she got her parole hearing, but it was denied.

Murder by Numbers The Bike Path Rapist

Link for USA viewers: http://www.tagtele.com/videos/voir/247683

Altemio Sanchez is an American serial killer who murdered at least three women and raped at least 14 others in and around Buffalo, New York, over a span of 25 years (1981-2006). He is also known as The Bike Path Rapist.

His victims were: Linda Yalem, a sophomore at the University of Buffalo who was killed September 29, 1990; Majane Mazur, murdered in November, 1992; and Joan Diver, who was murdered on September 29, 2006, and whose body was found on a bike path in Newstead, New York, on October 1, 2006.

The killer acquired the nickname due to the fact that many of his crimes took place near secluded bike paths. On May 16, 2007, Sanchez pleaded guilty to the murders of Linda Yalem, Majane Mazur, and Joan Diver.

Arrest of Altemio Sanchez

On January 15, 2007, police in Erie County, New York, arrested Sanchez and charged him with the murder of Majane Mazur, a charge to which Sanchez pleaded not guilty. On January 19, 2007, an Erie County grand jury voted to indict Sanchez for the murders of Yalem and Mazur.

Police say DNA found at eight crime scenes matches DNA secretly taken from Sanchez before his arrest.

Many of the rapes attributed to Sanchez will go unprosecuted due to the statute of limitations on the prosecution of rape that was in effect in New York at the time those crimes were committed. He is also a suspect in an ongoing investigation for the murder of a 15-year-old girl in 1985.

On August 15, 2007, Sanchez was sentenced to 75 years in prison with no chance of parole. He is currently being held in the Clinton State Prison; he may be moved to a facility closer to his family if he confesses to further murders.

Exoneration of Anthony Capozzi

In March 2007, Anthony Capozzi was freed from state prison after serving 22 years for two rapes with a similar modus operandi. After the arrest of Sanchez, investigators realized that the crimes were similar, took place in the same area, and that Sanchez and Capozzi resembled each other. A sample of DNA from Sanchez was linked to the rapes for which Capozzi had been convicted in 1985.

Capozzi had maintained his innocence, and was thus denied parole. Capozzi is schizophrenic, and his attorney hopes a civil lawsuit will force the state to provide for his medical care. Recently, State Assemblyman Sam Hoyt and State Senator Dale Volker introduced legislation that would expedite such lawsuits. This bill is known as Anthony's Law.

Nurses Who Kill Victorino Chua

14 JUN 2017

Stepping Hill murderer Victorino Chua got £779,000 in legal aid - more than the total compensation paid to the families of all his victims

The Ministry of Justice has revealed £370,991 was paid in solicitor fees while a further £308,445 was paid out for barrister costs plus another £90,566 in other legal expenses.

A hospital nurse who murdered two patients and poisoned 19 others received £779,000 in legal aid - more than all his victims got in compensation.

The huge cost of the defence for Filipino-born Victorino Chua - who is serving life behind bars - was today branded ‘absolutely wrong’ by the family of one of his victims.

It has emerged his victims have been paid a total of £760,475 - some £20,000 less than Chua got in legal aid.

Most of the compensation went to one patient who suffered a serious brain injury but others received payments of less than £5,000, the M.E.N. has learned.

The 50-year-old was jailed for a minimum 35 years in 2015 following a three-month trial in which he claimed he was a ‘scapegoat’.

Police believe he obtained bogus nursing qualifications in his native Manila - he may even have got someone else to sit one exam for him - before getting a job as a nurse at Stockport’s Stepping Hill Hospital.

But the the father-of-two from Heaton Norris, who was branded a ‘narcissistic psychopath’ by detectives, poisoned 21 patients in the summer of 2011 and in January 2012.

"He’s in prison now with with his Sky TV, regular meals and gym membership and my mum didn’t have any of that.

“She didn’t make anybody pay anything in her whole life. She got a death sentence basically. She was never the same after that.

"She went down hill rapidly. It makes me angry. I’m angry at the whole system more than I am of him. How could he even get a job here in the first place?”

Ministry of Justice has revealed £379,991 was paid in solicitor fees while a further £308,445 was paid out for barrister costs plus another £90,566 in other legal expenses, following a Freedom of Information Act request by the Daily Mail.

He was later convicted of 33 counts in total, including the murders of Tracey Arden, 44, and Derek Weaver, 83.

Unnoticed by unsuspecting colleagues, he injected deadly insulin into saline ampoules and bags, leaving them for unwitting medics to administer to patients and causing their blood sugar levels to collapse alarmingly.

One of his victims, Eileen Armstrong, then 83, from Hyde, was ‘never the same’ after the assault, according to her family. She died aged 88 in 2015.

Her daughter Lex Armstrong, 57, told the M.E.N: “I think it’s absolutely wrong he was paid that money, particularly because he had not even been in the country that long.

A Legal Aid Agency spokesperson said: “Anyone facing a crown court trial is eligible for legal aid, subject to a strict means test.

"Applicants who meet the relevant means thresholds may still be required to pay a significant contribution towards the costs of their defence. Depending on their means, applicants for criminal legal aid can be required to pay contributions up to the entire cost of the defence.

“The Government has taken action to reduce legal aid expenditure. It has been reduced by over 20 per cent since 2010.”

The figure paid out by the NHS in compensation was confirmed by bosses at Stepping Hill Hospital.

A spokesman for Stockport NHS Fundation Trust said: “Payments are made through NHS Resolution, (the new operating name of NHS Litigation Authority) which is the national body who manage NHS claims.

"It is our understanding that all claims have been settled, with eighteen people receiving a total payment of £760,475.

“They received payment due to the impact on their health caused by Victorino Chua’s actions. We know that this was an extremely difficult time for the victims and their families and our thoughts have always been with them. We are sorry for the distress they suffered at the time of the incidents, but are pleased that Victorino Chua was brought to justice for his criminal and extremely malicious behaviour.”

Most Evil S1 Ep 4 Partners in Crime

Dr. Michael Stone uses his own “scale of evil” to rank and measure the depravity found within some of the most deadly criminals of all time. Profiles include: Ted Bundy, Dennis Rader (the “BTK” killer), Aileen Wuornos, Tommy Lynn Sells and Jeffrey Dahmer. Forensic psychiatrists, neurologists and psychologists use scientific evidence to understand the thinking of criminal masterminds. Experts are turning to science hoping to use this information to help prevent future criminal development. After a long hiatus, the series returned in 2014 with fresh episodes hosted by forensic psychologist Kris Mohandie. Also back is the infamous scale, a popular feature with viewers.

Episode 4: Partners in Crime

Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, David Parker Ray and Cindy Hendy, Charles Ng and Leonard Lake

We probe the physiology of love, and the look at the power of authority as we unravel the motive and methods of some of the most notorious accomplice killers. The secrets of these evil partnerships are revealed.

Myra Hindley Lady Killers

Victims

The full extent of Brady and Hindley's killing spree did not come to light until their confessions in 1985, as both had until then maintained their innocence. Their first victim was 16-year-old Pauline Reade, a neighbour of Hindley's who disappeared on her way to a dance in Crumpsall on 12 July 1963. That evening, Brady told Hindley that he wanted to "commit his perfect murder". He told her to drive her van around the local area while he followed behind on his motorcycle; when he spotted a likely victim he would flash his headlight, and Hindley was to stop and offer that person a lift.

Driving down Gorton Lane, Brady saw a young girl walking towards them, and signalled Hindley to stop, which she did not do until she had passed the girl. Brady drew up alongside on his motorbike, demanding to know why she had not offered the girl a lift, to which Hindley replied that she recognised her as Marie Ruck, a near neighbour of her mother. Shortly after 8:00 pm, continuing down Froxmer Street, Brady spotted a girl wearing a pale blue coat and white high heeled shoes walking away from them, and once again signalled for the van to stop.

Hindley recognised the girl as Pauline Reade, a friend of her younger sister, Maureen. Reade got into the van with Hindley, who then asked if she would mind helping to search for an expensive glove she had lost on Saddleworth Moor. Reade said she was in no great hurry, and agreed. At 16, Pauline Reade was older than Marie Ruck, and Hindley realised that there would be less of a hue and cry over the disappearance of a teenager than there would over a seven or eight-year-old child. When the van reached the moor, Hindley stopped and Brady arrived shortly afterwards on his motorcycle. She introduced him to Reade as her boyfriend, and said that he had also come to help find the missing glove. Brady took Reade onto the moor while Hindley waited in the van. After about 30 minutes Brady returned alone, and took Hindley to the spot where Reade lay dying, her throat cut. He told her to stay with Reade while he fetched a spade he had hidden nearby on a previous visit to the moor, to bury the body. Hindley noticed that "Pauline's coat was undone and her clothes were in disarray ... She had guessed from the time he had taken that Brady had sexually assaulted her." Returning home from the moor in the van—they had loaded the motorcycle into the back—Brady and Hindley passed Reade's mother, Joan, accompanied by her son, Paul, searching the streets for Pauline.

Hindley approached twelve-year-old John Kilbride on 23 November 1963, at a market in Ashton-under-Lyne, and asked him to help her carry some boxes. Brady was sitting in the back of a Ford Anglia car that Hindley had hired. When they reached the moor, Brady took the child with him while Hindley waited in the car. Brady sexually assaulted Kilbride and attempted to slit his throat with a six-inch serrated blade before fatally strangling him with a piece of string, possibly a shoelace.

Twelve-year-old Keith Bennett vanished on his way to his grandmother's house in Longsight during the early evening of 16 June 1964, four days after his birthday. Hindley lured him into her Mini pick-up—which Brady was sitting in the back of—by asking for the boy's help in loading some boxes, after which she said she would drive him home. She drove to a lay-by on Saddleworth Moor as she and Brady had previously arranged, and Brady went off with Bennett, supposedly looking for a lost glove. Hindley kept watch, and after about 30 minutes or so Brady reappeared, alone and carrying a spade that he had hidden there earlier. When Hindley asked how he had killed Bennett, Brady said that he had sexually assaulted the boy and strangled him with a piece of string.

Brady and Hindley visited a fairground on 26 December 1964 in search of another victim, and noticed 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey standing beside one of the rides. When it became apparent that she was on her own, they approached her and deliberately dropped some of the shopping they were carrying close to her, before asking for the girl's help to carry some of the packages to their car, and then to their home. Once inside the house Downey was undressed, gagged, and forced to pose for photographs before being raped and fatally strangled with a piece of string. Hindley maintained that she went to draw a bath for the child and found the girl dead (presumably killed by Brady) when she returned. The following morning Brady and Hindley drove with Downey's body to Saddleworth Moor, where she was buried, naked with her clothes at her feet, in a shallow grave.

On 6 October 1965 Brady met 17-year-old apprentice engineer Edward Evans at Manchester Central railway station and invited him to his home at 16 Wardle Brook Avenue in Hattersley, where Brady beat him to death with an axe.

Confessions of a Serial Killer Part 2

Iceman dead

March 8, 2006

Richard "The Iceman" Kuklinski, a Dumont hit man who turned raging psychosis into a string of lucrative killings, died Monday in the prison wing of a Trenton hospital.

Following him to the grave is a murder charge against Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, a former Gambino crime family underboss charged with hiring Kuklinski 26 years ago to kill a New York City detective in Upper Saddle River.

But an associate of the hit man's family said Monday that a new mystery has arisen: What killed the 70-year-old Kuklinski?

"He was healthy and robust and he got sick all of a sudden," said Philip Carlo, a New York author who is about to release an extensive Kuklinski biography and had been in constant contact with him the past two years. "Family members believe he was poisoned."

Four months ago, Kuklinski suddenly developed heart, lung and kidney problems, the author said. He also suffered from dementia and could not even remember his wife's phone number or the names of his three children, Carlo said.

Deirdre Fedkenheuer, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Corrections, confirmed that Kuklinski died at St. Francis Medical Center in Trenton, where he was being treated for an undisclosed medical problem.

Fedkenheuer said federal law prevents her from releasing a cause of death. She said only that Kuklinski died of natural causes in the hospital's prison wing.

Kuklinski had recently been moved from New Jersey State Prison to the hospital. Sources said he had been in declining health for some time.

With the demise of their star witness, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said Monday that authorities were dropping the case against Gravano.

"I cannot proceed with this particular matter at this juncture and will be requesting that the court dismiss [it]," he said, following a daylong review of Gravano's file.

At 6 feet 5 inches tall and weighing nearly 300 pounds, the heavily bearded and tattooed Kuklinski became a horror-movie-type villain not just in New Jersey but nationally. In a pair of HBO television specials, Kuklinski detailed the gruesome fates of what he said were 100 victims.

For Kuklinski, killing was a business tactic used to cover up numerous robberies and thefts. Kuklinski shot, stabbed, strangled and poisoned his way into the upper echelon of mass murderers. As a Gambino family enforcer, he was known for killing with such ease that even "wiseguys" became timid around him.

He claimed to have blown up one man with a grenade, stuffed another into a barrel of quick-drying cement and killed another by poisoning his hamburger and stuffing him under a North Bergen motel bed.

He said he also killed Robert Prongay, a Mister Softee ice cream truck driver whose bullet-riddled body was found hanging inside a garage on Tonnelle Avenue in North Bergen.

Kuklinski was arrested by New Jersey authorities in 1986 and charged with five murders. He was convicted in 1988 and sentenced to consecutive life terms for killing Gary T. Smith in 1982 and Daniel E. Deppner in 1983. The two Vernon men had worked under Kuklinski in a robbery and theft ring.

At the trial, Kuklinski was accused of strangling the men after poisoning both with cyanide.

He also pleaded guilty in 1988 to the robbery and shooting deaths of two Pennsylvania businessmen. He froze one of the bodies for months to confuse investigators about the time of death, thus earning him his "Iceman" nickname.

New Jersey State Police captured Kuklinski with the help of Dominick Polifrone of Hackensack, at the time a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent who, posing as a mobster, taped Kuklinski admitting to several killings. It was only after Kuklinski was arrested that Polifrone learned that he was next on the hit man's list.

"The problem was that I was one step ahead of him," the now-retired Polifrone said Monday.

"[Expletive] him," Polifrone added. "He is lucky he had this long life he had in prison. He should have died a long time ago."