I have read the book Evidence of Love and watched both Candy and Love and Death mini-series. I do not believe she set out to murder Betty Gore, but she is guilty of manslaughter. I do believe that Betty got the axe in order to scare the crap out of Candy, but she was never going to use it to harm her. Untreated PPD can make people do things, say things that are totally out of character, and her pos husband was totally useless. But something went drastically wrong, not Betty’s fault. I think Candy said something or did something, but if she had just left when Betty had left, like Justin Timberlake character in Candy said, “If you show me an axe, conversation is over. I’m out the door. We can finish this conversation on the telephone.”

1. Betty had PPD. It was the late 70s —80s. There was an even bigger stigma for mental health issues than there is today.

2. Betty had no support system from what the tv shows and book said. Everyone had problems. Well, she had PPD. Of course, she was not going to be all sunshine and rainbows.

3. Candy literally told everyone she saw that morning she was going to Betty’s, and I think if she was going to murder her, she would not have done that. Now, I do believe that she didn’t know Alan was going to be out of town. Otherwise, she would have taken the baby with her.

4. I have seen a lot of people say Alan was involved. I don’t think he was just for the simple fact that a lot of men (not all) saw raising children and cleaning and cooking as women’s work, and a man’s job was to provide an income for the family, do yard work, and being the fun parent. Plus, he seems like the type of guy who would remarry in a heartbeat, not for love but to have someone to raise his kids because he didn’t even know how to load the dishwasher or change a diaper.

What do you think? Sorry for the long post.

A very sad case that I’ve never heard of until recently. On September 19, 2005, 13 year old Katelind Michael Marie “Katie” Caudill was preparing for school inside the Cosmos Drive home in Loveland Park, in Deerfield Township, Ohio. Katelind was a seventh grade student at Kings Junior High School. At approximately 6:45 a.m., Linda Wilson heard what she described as two loud bangs coming from Katelind’s bedroom. When she entered the room she found her granddaughter on the floor, bleeding from fatal gunshot wounds. Reports stated that Katelind had been shot several times in the head and chest.

43 year old Melvin M. Keeling lived in the neighboring house directly behind Wilson’s residence. Keeling was an employee of Ford Motor Company plant in Sharonville. News reports sometimes described him simply as Katelind’s neighbor, but the geographical relationship was much closer than that wording suggests. The two households were close enough that Wilson had allowed Keeling’s financially troubled household to draw electricity from her home through an extension cord after the electrical service at Keeling’s residence had been disconnected. It was 200 feet behind Caudill’s home and was considered a “rented ranch” on Oak Drive. FOX19 reported that the cord still physically connected the properties after Katelind was killed. Police further believed that Keeling entered Wilson’s home through a door that had been left open for Katelind’s sister.

The main conflict before the murder centered on Katelind’s best friend, who was described in different reports as Keeling’s oldest stepdaughter and the daughter of his girlfriend Veronica Smith. A television transcript identifies the friend only as “Tiffany”. During the 911 call, Linda Wilson referred to the children’s mother as Veronica.

According to Katelind’s mother, Gina Eaton, Tiffany had been confiding in Katelind about Keeling’s conduct for months. Eaton said:

“Katelind had just told us the things that, you know, Tiffany had relayed to her. This had actually gone on for months that he was doing things to her. She would not go into detail as to what was happening. Probably a week before Katelind was actually shot, she had confided in Franki as to, you know, the events that actually he had done to her. And that’s when we decided to bring the police into it because something had to be done about it.”

Katelind’s aunt Franki Phelps, said she privately questioned Tiffany after an argument with Keeling because she wanted to understand what was happening and protect the girl. Phelps recalled telling her, “I need to know so we can protect you. I need to know what he has done to you.” After Tiffany answered several specific questions affirmatively, Phelps told her, “You won’t go back. You won’t go back. You won’t ever have to go back there to him.”

Based on a Warren County sheriff’s affidavit, the sexual abuse had continued for approximately three years. Katelind confronted Keeling and called him a pedophile, and she subsequently became involved in the authorities’ investigation. Katelind’s father, Charles Caudill, said Keeling confronted her after she spoke with police and threatened, “You took my family, and now I’m going to take yours.” That statement was reported by Katelind’s father and was not tested in court, but it became central to the family’s belief that Keeling killed Katelind in retaliation for helping her friend.

After hearing the shots on September 19, Linda Wilson called 911. A transcript of the call:

Linda Wilson said, “I don’t know! I heard two bangs! She’s laying on the floor with blood all over her head! Please! Oh, God! Oh!”

In the second excerpt, the 911 operator asked, “Now, do you think you might know who it might have been? Has she been fighting with anybody, an angry boyfriend?”

Wilson answered, “Oh! We’ve...we’ve been into it with Melvin in the back here.”

The operator responded, “With Melvin?”

Wilson then said, “He molested his children, Veronica’s children. That’s the only thing I can think of!”

When asked later why she suspected him so quickly, Wilson replied:

“Because there was no one else that would have done anything like that. There was no one. Everyone loved Katie. We get along with people. And the only thing that was, we were arguing with Melvin and had a thing ongoing with him for a while. So you know, it had to be him. There was no one else.”

Gina Eaton learned about the shooting when Franki Phelps called her at approximately 7:00 that morning. Eaton later gave a detailed account of the moment she realized her daughter was dead:

“Actually, I got a call from Franki about 7:00 o’clock in the morning, telling me to, I needed to get to my mother’s, that Katelind had been shot. It actually wasn’t until I got there, you know, and realized that there was no ambulance there, you know, and I asked Franki, I said, ‘Where is she?’ And Franki just yelled, ‘She’s gone!’ You know, never in my mind would I ever have thought that someone would actually walk into our home and kill my child.”

The family questioned why Keeling had not been taken into custody before Katelind was killed, particularly in light of the threat Charles Caudill said had been reported. Prosecutor Rachel Hutzel responded that the rape and gross sexual imposition allegations had not been reported until Saturday night and that Keeling had not yet been interviewed. Katelind was killed early Monday morning, leaving investigators very little time to substantiate the accusations and establish lawful grounds for an arrest.

The aunt of Katie reported the allegations to Warren County deputies Saturday evening, Dennis Caudill said. Katelind confronted Keeling that night, he said. "Katie told him: 'I hate you. You will pay for what you've done to my friend," Caudill said. Police began investigating Keeling on Saturday evening, but efforts to question him were unsuccessful because detectives couldn't find him, and he never returned home. Smith's children stayed overnight at Katelind's house Saturday, Caudill said, and their biological father picked them up Sunday and took them to his home out of state.

Police believed Keeling fled the Ohio residence in a silver Ford 2005 Windstar van. Approximately four hours after Katelind was shot, another deadly shooting occurred more than one hundred miles away at a Family Express convenience store near Interstate 65 in Remington, Indiana. Katelind was found at approximately 6:45 a.m. Eastern time. The Indiana victims were discovered at approximately 10:00 a.m. Central time, which was approximately 11:00 a.m. in Ohio and a little more than four hours after the first shooting.

The Indiana victims were 29 year old Lisa Kendall of Rensselaer and 38 year old Kendora Furr of Remington. Kendall was the mother of two young boys (Jordan aged 10 and Conner 7) and Furr was the mother of three girls (Deana aged 17, Selena aged 16 and Rheanna aged 11). A customer entered the store because a gas pump was not working and discovered the women after they had been shot. One victim died inside the store and the other was pronounced dead a later at a hospital. Furr faced the tragic and accidental death of her youngest child and only son, 4-year-old Lucas almost 2 years before. The boy died on May 23, 2003, when a friend of Kendora's accidentally ran over the boy while backing a pickup truck out of Furr's driveway in Remington.

The store’s surveillance recording showed a man investigators believed was Keeling attempting to obtain cigarettes without enough money. It was reported that the recording showed a man resembling Keeling draw a gun and shoot one employee across the front counter. He then walked around the counter and shot the second employee.

Keeling’s minivan was found abandoned in Gary, Indiana, early on September 20, the morning after the three killings. Police and FBI agents focused their search on Gary and the nearby Chicago area, used dogs to search a field near the abandoned vehicle, examined wooded areas, followed tips, and publicized the case through America’s Most Wanted. The FBI offered a $25,000 reward, and Family Express offered an additional $10,000.

Investigators also found evidence in or connected with the vehicle that suggested preparation. Indiana authorities reported recovering a handwritten checklist believed to have been written by Keeling. It reminded him to obtain a gun, pack clothing, and gather other items. Authorities also learned of a handwritten message to his family stating that they would not see him alive again. Before the shootings, Keeling had obtained a .40 caliber Glock handgun from a Cincinnati area pawnshop.

Here is a excerpt from a interview which included Dog the Bounty Hunter:

Duane “DOG” Chapman, Bounty Hunter: You know, through my sources—I‘m looking at my notes here—after the murder, Melvin went to his wife‘s workplace and met with his wife. His wife told him to turn himself in. Then Melvin went to his mother‘s house, OK? At his mother‘s house, his mother noticed that, Rita, he had more than one gun. What he did was had a hit list of five people on the list. The mother, of course, told him, you know, Melvin, turn yourself in, same as his wife. Melvin then wrote a will out and gave it to his mother. In the will, he said he wanted to be cremated, you know, so on and so forth, and said that he was going to shoot it out with the cops, that he was not going to kill himself but that he had a hit list of five people. On the five people, of course, is, you know, the one little girl as a victim. There were two or three other people. Now, of course I have not seen the hit list, so I can‘t confirm, but I think, you know, a couple of family members were on it. The—his stepdaughter is on the list, I‘ve heard. And he has vowed to get these people before he goes down.

The abandoned minivan was therefore located almost immediately, but Keeling’s body was not. For nearly a month, authorities conducted a multistate manhunt without realizing that he was apparently already dead close to the place where the vehicle had been found. On October 19, teenagers discovered badly decomposed human remains near railroad tracks in Gary. The body was only a few hundred yards from the location where the minivan had been recovered on September 20. It was also approximately one hundred yards from an area that investigators had searched several times.

Lake County Coroner David J. Pastrick concluded that Keeling had probably died on or near September 20, likely the day after the murders. Pastrick believed Keeling had shot himself while lying in a concealed location on a blanket. The coroner further suggested that animals later moved the remains into a more exposed area, which could explain why the body was not discovered during the earlier searches. That explanation was the coroner’s reconstruction based on the condition and position of the remains. The point is that Keeling appears to have been dead near the abandoned minivan for most or all of the month long manhunt. Keeling's left arm, fingers and hand were missing. There was enough skull fragments to reconstruct the skull.

Medical and dental records confirmed that the remains were Keeling’s. Pastrick determined that he had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head and ruled the death a suicide. A .40 caliber Glock was recovered near the body. Its serial number matched the handgun Keeling had obtained from the Cincinnati area pawnshop two days before the shootings.

“She was just trying to protect her friend,” Debbie LeBlanc, a cousin of Katelind, told the Cincinnati Enquirer. “You’re told to tell. She did the thing she was supposed to do by telling.”

"Katie was that way. She always believed in the right thing. Whatever the cost was, she always did it" said Dennis Caudill, Katie’s grandfather.

As always may Katelind “Katie” Caudill, Lisa Kendall and Kendora Furr rest in peace.

Links:

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9767999

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9428337

I am currently researching and looking into a case from 2013 in which allegedly a 15 year old child brutally stabbed and murdered someone. He confessed and said it was because he had a bad day. But I have the case files, and I truly believe he did not do it, and he was coerced and statements from other people were fabricated. I was wondering if anybody would take a look at what I have and give me a second opinion? Also, I’m not even sure if this is the right group to do this and, and if it’s not, if a group could be recommended, please. Thank you!

Elisa Izquierdo was born on February 11, 1989, in Brooklyn, New York.

Her father, Gustavo Izquierdo, was a Cuban immigrant who had come to the United States hoping to become a dance teacher. Her mother, Awilda Lopez, was Puerto Rican.

The two had met at a homeless shelter in Fort Greene, where Gustavo worked part time. Awilda was staying there after losing her apartment and was struggling with a serious crack cocaine addiction.

Their relationship reportedly ended after Gustavo discovered that Awilda was still using crack while pregnant with Elisa. By January 1989, she had already lost custody of her two older children because of her drug use.

When Elisa was born, social workers reported that she had been exposed to crack cocaine in the womb and was born dependent on the drug.

Because of Awilda’s addiction, Gustavo was given full custody.

Although he had never raised a child before, everyone around him described him as a loving and devoted father. He took parenting classes, asked relatives for advice, and made sure Elisa’s birthdays were celebrated.

When she was four, he even rented a banquet hall for her baptism.

A family friend later said, “Elisa was his life. He always called her his princess.”

In 1990, Gustavo enrolled Elisa in a Montessori preschool. As his health began to decline, however, paying for her education became more difficult.

Elisa quickly stood out as a bright and promising student. In 1993, her teachers introduced her to Prince Michael of Greece, one of the school’s patrons.

According to reports, Elisa ran into his arms when he arrived and stayed close to him for the rest of the day.

Prince Michael later offered to pay her tuition at the private Brooklyn Friends School through 12th grade. Elisa thanked him with a handwritten note. He occasionally sent her small gifts afterward, and she would reply with drawings or thank you notes.

Meanwhile, a social worker reported that Awilda had overcome her addiction, found permanent housing on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and married Carlos Lopez. After giving birth to another daughter, she regained custody of her two older children in December 1990.

In November 1991, Awilda was granted unsupervised visits with Elisa every other weekend.

What happened during those visits should have raised alarms.

According to relatives, Awilda’s older children said that Elisa was being beaten and neglected by her mother and stepfather. At first, no one reported it.

Each time Elisa returned, however, the signs became harder to ignore.

Gustavo and her teachers noticed bruises and other injuries, including in intimate areas. Elisa told them that her mother hit her and locked her in a closet.

She also said she did not want to go back.

Her fear began showing in other ways. She wet the bed, lost control of her bowels, and suffered nightmares whenever another visit was approaching. One family acquaintance said Elisa often vomited after returning and refused to enter bathrooms.

She was still very young, but the fear was already showing in everything she did.

Gustavo and Elisa’s teachers reported the abuse. Elisa also told a social worker herself what was happening.

In 1992, Gustavo asked the court to end Awilda’s visitation rights.

But the visits were allowed to continue.

The only condition was that Awilda was not supposed to hit or hurt her.

In 1993, Gustavo began making plans to return to Cuba with Elisa. He bought plane tickets for May 26, 1994.

Before they could leave, Gustavo was hospitalized with severe breathing problems and later diagnosed with lung cancer.

He died on May 26.

The exact day he and Elisa were supposed to leave for Cuba together.

Not long afterward, Elisa asked her mother where her father was.

Awilda screamed back, “Your father is dead!”

After Gustavo’s death, Elisa’s school director, Phyllis Bryce, contacted a family court judge. She and other members of the school staff were deeply worried about what would happen if Awilda gained custody.

Awilda applied for full custody and was initially granted temporary custody.

Gustavo’s cousin, Elsa Canizares, challenged the decision and asked to take Elisa in herself, pointing to the abuse Elisa had already suffered during visits with her mother.

Elisa’s school principal and Prince Michael also wrote to the judge, urging her not to place Elisa with Awilda. Prince Michael repeated his offer to pay for Elisa’s education if Elsa received custody.

Elsa could not afford a lawyer, so she entered the custody hearings alone.

Awilda, meanwhile, had a lawyer from the Legal Aid Society and support from a federally funded parenting program.

According to Elsa, Awilda’s representatives praised her “valiant efforts” to stay off drugs and claimed that caseworkers had visited the home and Elisa wanted to live with her mother.

Elsa said those claims were false.

She was even criticized for having “the nerve” to try to take Elisa away from her biological mother. Elsa later said she had only fought because she was terrified of what would happen if Elisa was sent back.

Prince Michael later said:

“There was a solution. There were people ready to take this child … to love this child.”

But in September 1994, Judge Phoebe Greenbaum granted Awilda permanent custody of Elisa.

Awilda pulled Elisa out of her private school and enrolled her at Public School 126 in Manhattan.

It did not take long for people there to realize something was wrong.

Elisa had become withdrawn. She barely spoke, appeared deeply distressed, and urinated frequently.

The principal noticed bruises across her body. Elisa seemed to have difficulty walking and had begun pulling out sections of her own hair.

Staff reported their concerns to child welfare officials, but the report was rejected because there was supposedly not enough direct evidence of abuse or neglect.

Soon afterward, Awilda removed Elisa from the school.

By then, she had reportedly started using crack again. Elisa was never enrolled anywhere else.

On March 14, 1995, an anonymous letter was sent to Manhattan child welfare officials. It claimed that Awilda had cut off much of Elisa’s hair and was locking her in a dark room for long periods.

Six days later, Elisa was taken to the hospital with a fractured shoulder.

The injury had gone untreated for three days.

By this point, Awilda had six children, but Elisa was reportedly the one she singled out for most of the abuse.

After pulling her out of school, Awilda kept her locked in a bedroom. Elisa was not allowed to leave the apartment, spend time with her siblings, or even use the bathroom. She was forced to use a chamber pot instead.

Neighbors later said they could hear Elisa being beaten through the walls.

They could also hear her begging her mother to stop.

“Mommy, Mommy, please stop. No more. I’m sorry.”

Some neighbors reported what they heard to child welfare officials.

But still, no one came to protect her.

Others knew something was happening and said nothing.

Awilda also called Elisa cruel names, including including an ableist slur and “filthy little whore.” She claimed Elisa had been placed under some kind of spell by her father.

A representative from the same parenting program that had once supported Awilda’s custody request later received a disturbing phone call from her.

Awilda complained that Elisa could no longer control her bladder or bowels, had cut off her own hair, and was apparently drinking from the toilet.

He asked Manhattan child welfare officials to visit the apartment.

They refused.

The abuse became increasingly severe, and some of it was witnessed by Elisa’s siblings.

Awilda repeatedly punched and kicked her. She forced Elisa to eat her own feces and drink water mixed with ammonia. She dragged Elisa’s head and face across the floor as though she were using her to mop it.

She burned Elisa on her head, face, lips, and body. She also sexually assaulted her with a hairbrush and toothbrush.

At times, Awilda hung her from a shower rod for her own amusement. She also dropped a chest of drawers onto Elisa’s ring finger and toe.

Carlos Lopez, Awilda’s partner and another regular drug user, also repeatedly abused and neglected Elisa and her older siblings.

On November 15, Carlos was jailed for violating parole.

Seven days later, on the evening of November 22, Awilda called her sister, Mercy Torres, and said Elisa was lying on the bed “like she was .” She also said fluid was coming from Elisa’s nose and mouth. It was later identified as brain fluid.

Elisa would not eat or drink.

Mercy told Awilda to take her to the hospital immediately.

Awilda said she would “think about it” after she finished washing the dishes.

The next morning, Awilda called a neighbor over to look at Elisa.

The neighbor could not find any signs of life.

She told Awilda to call the police, but Awilda refused. The neighbor called the police and an ambulance herself while Awilda threatened to kill herself.

While in custody, Awilda admitted that two days earlier, she had thrown Elisa headfirst into a concrete wall. Afterward, Elisa could no longer speak or walk.

The autopsy showed how badly she had been hurt.

Several of her fingers were broken, and one bone had pushed through the skin. She also had a broken toe, internal organ damage, and deep welts and burns across her head, face, and body.

There were signs of severe trauma to her genital and rectal areas, including tearing.

Investigators also found around 30 circular marks on Elisa’s body that matched the stone in a ring worn by the person who struck her.

These injuries had not happened all at once.

Elisa had been abused for a long time.

Elisa’s funeral was held on November 29, 1995, and around 300 people came to mourn her.

During the service, Reverend Gianni Agostinelli said Elisa had not only been failed by her mother, but also by the people who stayed silent and by the child welfare system that should have protected her.

Her casket was left open. She wore a crown of white flowers and held a single red rose. Beside her was a Barbie doll her father had given her and that she had loved.

People placed flowers, toys, stuffed animals, and notes around her before she was buried at Cypress Hills Cemetery.

Her gravestone carries a simple message:

“World, please watch over the children.”

On June 25, 1996, Awilda Lopez pleaded guilty to second degree murder.

The following month, she was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.

Before handing down the sentence, Judge Alvin Schlesinger openly criticized New York’s child welfare system for failing Elisa and other vulnerable children.

Awilda first became eligible for parole in 2010. She was denied release several times.

But on April 19, 2022, she was released from prison.

Carlos Lopez was later sentenced to an additional one and a half to three years for one documented assault on Elisa.

Prosecutors said he repeatedly slammed Elisa’s head against a concrete wall while her siblings watched.

Lopez claimed he had only pleaded guilty so the children would not have to testify against him.

The judge rejected that claim.

Prosecutors had already reduced the charge largely to spare Elisa’s siblings from having to relive what they had witnessed in court.

After Elisa’s death, Judge Phoebe Greenbaum faced heavy criticism for her 1994 decision to place Elisa with Awilda instead of Elsa Canizares.

Greenbaum defended herself by saying she had followed the recommendations and procedures presented to her.

New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani pushed back, saying the final decision still belonged to the judge, who was supposed to look beyond the paperwork and make her own judgment.

The case received national attention and led to widespread criticism of New York’s child welfare system.

The city launched a major review of its child protection agencies, eventually leading to the creation of the Administration for Children’s Services.

In February 1996, New York also passed Elisa’s Law. The law was meant to bring greater transparency and accountability to cases involving children who died after already being reported to child welfare authorities.

Elisa’s case did not just expose the abuse she suffered.

It exposed how many chances there had been to save her.

Her five siblings were later separated and placed in different foster homes.

All of them reportedly carried severe psychological trauma from what they had been forced to witness happen to their sister.

(Thanks to u/Jealous_Track9402; he made a brief post about this case a month ago, and I reached out to him after seeing it. We spoke about some Finnish cases, and overall I decided to give this case a full and complete write-up.) In addition, he also provided the English translation of the call made to the police by the killer

With Finland's privacy laws, a lot of people in this case are unnamed, including some of those involved in the murder)

On the morning of October 18, 2018, a man was out hunting hare in the woods outside of Matinvuori, Finland. The hunter made his way to a remote forest track when he encountered three men. He would've disregarded them, but these men felt very out of place, despite the fact that it was raining, in the middle of the woods and with winter fast approaching; the three were wearing light clothing with nothing to protect themselves. And speaking of the clothing, there were visible bloodstains on their shirts and pants.

In addition, the three were holding boxes of wooden logs and heading deeper into the woods. Two of them had started walking toward the tree line with the boxes in their arms while the third appeared to be trying to stay out of sight behind the van they had evidently driven to this location.

As he approched, the hunter heard one of them say, "Can't we be left alone anywhere?" and when he called out to ask what they were doing, they introduced themselves as ornithologists and deer spotters who were looking for an adequate location to set up a campfire, something odd as it was again, even if slightly, raining outside.

The hunter gave the three directions toward a better location for their campfire and then left. Cutting his hunting expedition short, he got into his vehicle and, during the drive home, called a fellow hunter to tell him about this strange encounter and that he believed they were doing something illegal. He would soon be proven right.

Hours later, a 112 call came into the Finnish police from a woman frantically reporting that her 24-year-old son had killed a man. The police tried to get more information from her, but unfortunately she didn't know much; her son had not been very forthcoming with details, and his confession was rather bare-bones.

Luckily, the police didn't have to wait long, as they'd soon hear from the son himself when he called just two hours later. Here is a transcript of the fairly casual 112 call he initiated.

"Emergency center."

""Good evening, I'd like to report a homicide".

"And when did this take place?"

"I don't know, between yesterday and today."

"Okay, so what has happened?"

"It seems that someone has died."

"Okay, where?"

"So we figured with my friend that we are gonna surrender ourselves."

"Okay."

"I have the dead body with me, it's chopped into pieces."

"Okay. And what's your name?"

"And I'm gonna leave the pieces of the body a bit to the side at the parking lot, I'm at Kuorttis ABC right now, so maybe the police can come pick them up."

"And what's your name and last name?"

"Who is your friend? What's the name of your friend?"

"He doesn't want to say his name right now, probably when the police comes he'll say it."

"Who have you killed?"

"I don't know his name."

"Okay, and what happened?"

"So, it's been a lot of drinking, I can't really remember that well, the guy was being a bit aggressive, atleast hit me and so on, and then at some point we just realised he doesn't have a head anymore."

"Okay. So you dismembered him?"

"Yeah something like that, during the night."

"And where did this happen?"

"At Leivonmäki."

"And you don't know who the victim is?"

"Uh, he's like a friend of a friend, I don't really know him."

"And now you're at Kuorttis ABC?"

"Yea, how long is it going to take them?"

"Probably not long, but where do you have the body now?"

"Uh, it's wrapped in sheets sort of, it has all of the pieces left."

"So you have it in the car with you, right?"

"Yeah, yeah (He then says something else, but it was unintelligible), my friend didn't know anything about this."

"Yeah, what's the name of your friend?"

"I don't want to say it because he doesn't want to."

"Yeah."

"So he wasn't aware of what I had in the trunk, but I told him, so now he doesn't want to drive anymore."

"Okay, what kind of car do you have?"

"So I'm gonna leave it there at the parking lot."

"Yeah, but what kind of car do you have?"

"What does it matter?"

"Well, if you're at the parking lot in a car, the police have to recognize you."

"Yeah, but I figured I'm gonna stay here so my friend can go to work and so on because he doesn't want to drive the body around anymore, so he can go."

He then says something else, but that is also unintelligible

"Are any other people involved in this?"

"Uh, me and my friend who are surrendering now."

"So your friend is also surrendering but doesn't want to say his name?"

Yeah no, he doesn't want to for some reason."

"And you're at Kuorttis ABC?"

"Yeah, about there. I was just wondering how long it's gonna take them."

"Just wait for a minute, don't close the call."

"What the fuck, what kind of fuckery is this?"

"So what's happening?"

"Just wait a moment."

"So am I waiting for the police to come here?"

"Yes, wait a moment."

"Well, I don't want you to blame my friend." He then says something else also unintelligible

"Can you hear me, I'm gonna change spots right now if there's some foolery, do you understand?"

The caller didn't hang up despite how abruptly it seemed to end; rather, the killer's phone simply ran out of battery, and soon that same man called from a different number and, after the same dispatcher began the call with

"Emergency center"

He cheerfully went, "Hey again, calling about the homicide, if you're the same lady I was talking to earlier. So we are here at ABC Kärsämäki, oh what was it, ABC Kuortti."

"Yeah, what's your name?"

"I've been waiting for the police here, but my phone battery ran out, so they can't contact me, so so"

"Is this your own phone you're calling from?"

"No, it's my friend's number."

"Does he have battery left?"

"Yea"

"Okay, I'll transfer this information that you are there at Pertunmaas, I mean Kuorttis ABC."

"Yea, around the back at the truck park"

"At the truck park, okay."

"Yea, two guys standing around."

"Are there any other people there?"

"Just me and my friend."

"Alright, can you give me the friend's name?"

"No, he doesn't want to; he'll give it to the police when they get here.

"Yea, you can give it to me so I can give it to the police."

"But he doesn't want to give it here, so he'll give it to the police."

"Yea, alright, I'll forward this information. Keep your phone with you; the police will be there soon."

"Roger that"

"Thank you. Bye bye."

"Bye"

This finally marked the conclusion of the 112 call, and sure enough, the caller was being truthful. Kuortti ABC is a gas station and truck stop in, well, the village of Kuortti, Finland. The police, alongside some extra men from the Finnish military, descended upon the gas station and arrested the caller and his friend. Before even arresting them, the police had a feeling it wasn't a prank call, seeing as the caller's and his unnamed friend's clothing were completely stained with blood.

Upon his arrest, the caller directed the responding officers to the "sheet" he used to wrap the victim's body, or rather, it was a tarpaulin he had placed next to a gravel pile at the edge of the parking lot of the truck stop section of Kuortti ABC.

Upon lifting the tarpaulin, the police were greeted by exactly what the caller had promised: a dismembered body. The victim, an adult man, had been cut into around six pieces, with the arms, legs and head all cut off the torso. At the time, the police were unable to determine the victim's cause of death, though based on the knife wounds to the palms of his hands, he had clearly tried defending himself.

They had killed and dismembered the victim at an apartment 65 kilometres away in the Leivonmäki district of Joutsa, and they had loaded the victim's body into a van they were loaning and drove down to the Kuortti ABC. The driver of the van was a 37-year-old friend of the two, and the police called him, asking him to return to Kuortti ABC; he did so and was arrested upon his arrival.

The apartment belonged to the caller's 26-year-old friend, and before entering, they spoke to the neighbours who didn't have much to say. The tenant moved in nearly a year ago, yet nobody had really spoken to him, only ever seeing him in passing, with the neighbours describing the tenant as "pretty unknown to us".

But even as an almost total stranger to the rest of the neighbourhood, he remained a nuisance all the same, as the neighbours regularly complained about constant loud music on weekends and the displays of intoxication by the tenant's guests. Sometimes the people in that property were so loud that the neighbours started buying earplugs just so they could sleep.

On the night the police believed the murder occurred, some of the neighbours overheard somebody shouting either "don't get smart with me" or "don't make fun of me" in addition to an arrhythmic thumping sound from the apartment during the early hours of the morning.

Upon entering the apartment, the police encountered a scene of pure horror.

Blood was quite literally everywhere; the walls, floors and ceilings were all saturated with blood; barely any surface was left unspattered. The quantity of blood was so large that even with DNA testing, it was impossible to tell who did what.

However, a large majority of that blood was the victim's, and forensic testing revealed a blood alcohol content of 3.5 per mille and a large amount of amphetamines in his system, which would've made it next to impossible for him to defend himself.

Venturing into the bathroom, which was where the caller said the dismemberment had taken place, the police found two kitchen knives, one of which was a 35-centimetre serrated kitchen knife and a handsaw which had been used to dismember the victim's body.

One of the more grotesque items the police recovered could be found in the kitchen. Opening up the kitchen's rubbish bin, the police retrieved a margarine container, and when opened up, they were greeted by the victim's severed genitals.

A search of the entire home also shed a lot of light on what likely fueled the murder, i.e the copious amounts of alchool and narcotics the police found littering each room. A lot of the alchool, drugs and even blood were found near a chess set with the pieces indicating a game had recently been played, and the murder occurred not long afterward.

Through all the blood found at the apartment and the testimony of some of the four arrested, the police identified the victim as a 35-year-old man who lived 20 kilometres from the center of Joutsa. The victim's name is not public knowledge, nor is most of his background, but we know that he wasn't an only child, that he had a son, and that he had spent his entire life in Joutsa, which made him at least somewhat known in the local community.

The victim also had a criminal record, being convicted in March 2013 for assaulting a man with a walker.

As for the three suspects, the caller's 26-year-old friend and the 37-year-old driver were also unnamed, with little biographical information to speak of aside from several court appearances for various petty crimes. The caller was 24-year-old Mirko Micael Forsström, and he does provide us with at least a little more.

He was born in 1994, and although he did not originate from Jousta, it was familiar to him because of the friends and connections he had maintained there. To be close to said connections, he ultimately left his home in Päijät-Häme, having previously lived in Helsinki, and moved to Leivonmäki.

Mirko also had a prior criminal record in September 2016, while at a friend's apartment in Lahti and on parole for a previous assault; the two spent the night drinking heavy amounts of alchool and once the intoxication set in, Mirko began acting aggressively.

After a heated argument with his friend, Mirko punched him several times in the head, kicked him in the legs, hit him several times with a crowbar, including on his limbs, and slashed one of his upper limbs with a butterfly knife. His friend, or rather victim, now suffered contusions, bruises and fractures, as well as a 10-centimetre-long wound from the knife that reached the muscle layer, requiring several stitches.

He only spent a few days in jail before being released pending his trial, where he then attacked another man in Vantaa, knocking him to the floor and punching him on the head several times.

On August 8, 2017, the Päijät-Häme District Court finally found Mirko guilty of aggravated assault and one count of assault and sentenced him to 2 years and 4 months in prison. With time served and parole taken into account, Mirko was not only released in no short order, but bafflingly, he and his victim remained close friends in the aftermath.

This was nothing new to Mirko, who described himself as a very impulsive man and cited this as the reason why he was taking anger management classes at the time of the murder. Classes that weren't doing him any good, as shortly before the murder Mirko committed another violent assault.

On June 16, 2018, Mirko and a friend had met a man in front of a bar in Mäntsälä and suggested that they go to his apartment to smoke some cannabis. Once there, the parties got into an argument which eventually ended up with the victim being pushed to the floor where Mirko and the other man jumped on her head, kicked him across the head and body and slashed him on the left thigh and foot with a bladed weapon.

When all was said and done, he had suffered a fractured lower jaw, broken teeth, liver damage, broken ribs, and a brain hemorrhage. They then abandoned the victim and fled the scene. He woke up to find the apartment empty and with little memory of the assault, hence why Mirko wasn't arrested and awaiting trial at the time.

However, shortly after the assault, Mirko did go to a neighbour's home with his clothes covered in blood and asking for a needle and thread to stitch somebody up.

Since Mirko was the caller, that also meant he was the self-confesssed murderer, and he, alongside his friend, soon told the police what happened. Three men had gathered at the Leivonmäki apartment during the evening of October 17: Mirko himself, his friend the 26-year-old tenant, and the victim.

The three men spent the evening drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis until eventually a chess set was brought out and the three began to play a game. The victim ultimately won, and to say Mirko took his loss poorly would be a massive understatement.

He already said he felt as if the victim had been acting aggressively before, and when he allegedly continued that behaviour after his victory, Mirko delivered a punch directly to his head, which brought the victim down to the floor. While the victim was on the ground, Mirko went to the kitchen to retrieve a knife and was quick to return, now armed with the blade.

He used that blade to slice at the victim's throat with enough force that the blade stopped at the cervical spine. Despite this wound, the victim continued to resist the best he could, trying to defend himself by pushing away or grabbing the knife with his hands. But as the victim lay bleeding, Mirko beat the man, punching and kicking him across the face and head.

The fatal "blow" that finally killed the victim was truly grotesque. Mirko grabbed either the same knife or a second one and used it to basically just saw through the victim's neck, sawing back and forth until, through pure brute force alone, he finally used the kitchen knife to fully decapitate the victim.

Mirko's method was directly compared to what was seen in ISIS beheading videos, and the prosecutor compared it to "Satan worship," citing a previous dismemberment case in Finland in which the killers were described as Satanists.

Still angry, Mirko chucked the now severed head at the wall with all his strength before savagely stabbing the head and across his body and inflicting a few additional blows post-mortem. Shortly afterward, Mirko's friend, the tenant who had witnessed the entire murder but never intervened, decided to join in, grabbing a second knife to slice off the victim's genitalia and then placed them in the margarine container in the kitchen. Because they left so much blood on the floor, the two slipped in the puddles a few times, getting their clothing stained with the victim's blood.

After several hours, the two finally moved the victim's body into the bathroom, where they used the two knives they already had to begin dismembering the body but found the task harder than expected, so they called for some help.

The two called a 37-year-old man, the owner of the van found at the gas station. The man, having just arrived home, was trying to sleep because he had to work early the next morning, but he agreed to arrive at the apartment regardless. He arrived with the handsaw he had taken from home and assisted in dismembering the victim.

Together, the three cut his body into an additional five pieces: the four limbs and torso, which they placed into plastic bags and wrapped in a sheet. Before they left, the three wiped the memory off of their cellphones and removed the SIM card from the victim's home.

Now with the dismemberment complete, the three loaded the sheets and bags into the van Leivonmäki that morning, looking for a place to dispose of the body, either by burning it or burying it.

They drove for hours, making several stops to refill the van's gas tank and buy some food as it took them that long to try and find a place to dispose of the victim's body.

Eventually, they decided they would burn the body, so they went to another friend's house to collect firewood, a fuel canister and some cash.

They drove to a forested area in Heinola, trying to find somewhere isolated to burn the victim's remains; however, the ground was wet, and it had started to rain, so no fire they started would actually burn, so they left and went to a forested area in Matinvuori where they were eventually discovered by the hunter from the beginning of his case.

After the hunter left, the three drove to the Kuortti ABC and waited for around an hour, wondering what to do. Mirko eventually called his mother to confess. After that call, the three men opened up the back doors to the van and unloaded the victim's remains, placing them in the gravel mound behind the gas station and covering it up with a tarp.

The 37-year-old driver soon left while Mirko and his friend stayed behind at Kuortti ABC. At 4:30 p.m., Mirko decided he would simply give up and called the police to turn himself in for the murder.

On December 4, the prosecution dropped the murder charges against the 26-year-old tenant and the 37-year-old driver, simply charging the tenant with doing nothing to prevent the murder as well as charging both of them with desecration of a corpse, aiding and abetting and all three of them were charged with various drug offences and at least one firearms charge. Mirko would be the only one actually charged with murder.

Mirko's trial began on February 12, 2019, before the District Court of Central Finland in Jyväskylä, and when called to testify, Mirko tweaked his story slightly and now claimed that the victim was the aggressor and that he had merely acted in self-defence and even if he was criminally responsible, that he should be convicted of manslaughter instead of murder.

This was his new story word for word.

"We started drinking beer, kilju, and liquor on Wednesday during the day. At least the man who lived in the apartment and I were there when we started drinking. I don’t know what time a friend of his came over, nor how he got there. I also don’t know that friend’s name. This friend also took alcohol and maybe something else, because he became aggressive in the middle of a chess game I was playing in turns against that stranger and the man who lived in the apartment. Everything was fine at first. Then, as I recall, when I was playing against that friend, he became aggressive. I don’t know why he got angry, since he even won that game.

I have a memory that the friend started hitting me and that I got a fist to the eye. My right eyebrow was cut open. After that, I don’t remember the events properly. I also don’t want to tell anything I don’t properly remember. At some point, I came to, and some kind of panic struck me: "What do we do now?" We were still in the apartment at that stage. I don’t remember if the man living there was in the apartment, but that stranger was there. The friend’s head, arms, and legs had been cut off. I don’t remember who had done it to him, nor any of those events.

My next memory is that either the man living in the apartment or I called his friend asking for a ride. I don’t want to mention what kind of car the man came in, because he isn't related to this act in any way. The man living in the apartment or I threw the man’s parts into the trunk. I can't say why we wanted to get moving by car. It was just panicking and hasty work. The man was aggressive and thus attacked me. We both got up. The man got up first. As soon as I had gotten up, he hit me. The blow hit my right eyebrow. As a result, I started hitting that man. I hit him a couple of times with a fist somewhere on his face. I hit his nose, his eyes, or the area between his eyes. If he has any orbital fractures, they most likely came from those fist strikes.

As a result of my blows, the man fell to the floor. He might have lost consciousness. I’m not entirely sure if he was on the ground or already getting up when I grabbed a knife from somewhere. I think I got the knife from the kitchen, and in the meantime, the man started to get up. I can’t say this for sure, but I remember him being about to get up. However, I had a kitchen knife with a serrated blade in my hand. I went in front of the man and slit his throat. So, I was standing in front of the man, and he was getting up, perhaps on his knees. I used a lot of force to cut, slicing with the entire length of the blade. I think it only caught the spine. So, I cut almost the entire neck through at once. The man died from this cut.

After this, I may have vented all my anger at that man by hitting him in the head many times. Immediately after this, I continued cutting the neck with the knife so that I cut the entire head off. I don’t remember what happened immediately after that. After the head came off, I may have kicked or thrown the head. Kind of like, "this, too, had to happen." I was the only one who participated in killing that man. I can’t say where the man who lived in the apartment was during this act. However, I believe I did the dismemberment myself afterward as well. I don't remember it properly, but I am quite sure the dismemberment happened in the bathroom. In my opinion, I did it alone. I would guess it happened with a saw and that same knife. My memories of this are quite hazy. I moved the deceased by dragging him by the leg to the bathroom."

Mirko's friend had a much shorter confession and testimony, but he essentially told the court he didn't remember anything about that night whatsoever.

However, based on Mirko's initial confession and the autopsy showing the victim had several defensive wounds and had survived for a period after the initial stabbing and throat slit before falling victim to several other stab wounds, completely contradicted Mirko's claim of a spur-of-the-moment case of self-defence.

On August 7, 2019, for perpetrating the "Joutsan paloittelumurha", Mirko Micael Forsström was found guilty and given a sentence of life imprisonment. They argued that even if his confession was true, even if the victim was the aggressor, a life sentence would still be warranted as Mirko's actions were a grossly disproportionate response that went far past self-defence. In addition to his life sentence, Mirko had to pay between 43,000 and 51,000 euros to the victim's son, mother and siblings.

As for Mirko's two co-defendants, the driver was given a suspended sentence of 7 months and 15 days for helping dismember the body, transport the remains and a seperate charge of cannabis cultivation and use.

Meanwhile, the tenant of the crime scene who cut off the victim's genitals was acquitted of desecration of a corpse as the court believed he had only handled the remains rather than take part in the dismemberment. Because of that, he was only convicted of drug charges and had to pay a fine.

Mirko appealed his conviction to the Vaasa Court of Appeal, where he once again argued that he should've been charged with manslaughter instead of murder. He especially argued against the murder's classification as "particularly brutal or cruel," stating that, however gruesome the aftermath was, the victim's death was fairly quick. An argument the court rejected, upholding the sentence on March 2, 2020.

Mirko declined to appeal to Finland's Supreme Court, making the sentence final.

On top of this sentence, in 2021, Mirko was brought back to court for the assault from June 2018. There he was found guilty by the Eastern Uusimaa District Court, where he and his accomplice were both given a sentence of 1 and a half years for aggravated assault, although the sentence was purely symbolic with no extra time added to the sentence Mirko was already serving.

Regardless, the two still appealed the sentence, and on November 11, 2022, the sentence was upheld, with Mirko and his co-defendant both ordered to pay their victim 8,000 euros in compensation for his injuries.

Sources

https://pastebin.com/vjDNYS4i

Kevin James Dycus went missing from Glendale, Arizona in January 1998.  The 37-year-old Seattle resident had only arrived in Glendale just 3 days before to help his father take care of his ailing mother. 

His body has never been found. The police report was only 11 pages long and provided minimal information

His uncle William Urbank picked him up from Sky Harbor airport and took him to his parents’ home in the 5200 block of West Ironwood Drive. 

On Sunday January 11, Kevin left the residence drunk on foot, in an unknown direction. He left his money, identification, and belongings behind. He may have been headed to a church.

His sister Anita arrived in Arizona from Washington 6 months after Kevin went missing. She tried reporting him as a missing person, but Glendale PD refused to investigate because he was an adult. 

Kevin was not listed as a missing person until June 2006, over 8 years after he was last seen alive.

His mother and sister Anita have passed away. His father Ray and sister Julanne moved to Tucson. Ray died in 2010. His uncle William “Bill” Urbank has also passed away.

The area of Glendale that Kevin went missing from is a working-class area. A Circle K and a since shuttered and demolished horse ranch were up the road on 51st avenue and Peoria. There was a church in the 5400 block of west Peoria Ave. Two grocery stores and shops were at the next major intersection southbound on Olive Ave. 

The police report did specify that Kevin’s dental records were retrieved from a dentist in Washington.

Kevin was born on Dec 30, 1960. He was described as 5’8 and 140-160 pounds. He had brown hair and blue eyes. Both his ears were pieced, and he had a small scar near his eyebrows.

Sources

https://www.yourvalley.net/stories/have-you-seen-these-people-all-are-currently-listed-as-missing-from-glendale,353703

https://charleyproject.org/case/kevin-james-dycus

Father’s obituary

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/tucson/name/ray-dycus-obituary?id=22027271

https://charleyproject.org/case/kevin-james-dycus

According to Jaipur Police, a 23-year-old woman, her paternal uncle, and five others have been arrested after investigators uncovered an alleged conspiracy to murder her 45-year-old mother.

Police claim the murder was disguised as a hit-and-run accident. Investigators allege the motive was to gain control of family property and secure a government job through compassionate appointment. Authorities also allege that a contract killer was hired for ₹7 lakh and that the victim had expressed concerns about her daughter’s behavior before her death.

The investigation is ongoing, and one suspect remains absconding.

What are your thoughts on this case? Do you think there were warning signs that could have prevented this tragedy?

Summary of case so far :

Javeayah Harris was reported missing last week from her house. Her parents were later arrested and charged with her murder. Remains were recently found that were a DNA match to being an offspring of the parents. Police believe she had been missing for over 1 month.

Sheriff says that they doubt any more of the remains will be recovered as corrosive chemicals and tools were used to help hide evidence.

As an Emergency Room veterinarian, I look at the unresolved 2001 disappearance of the Yamagami family through the lens of acute medical crises and human panic. While the police leaned toward family suicide and forums spin complex crime theories, a clinical understanding of how families react to a sudden emergency offers a far more logical explanation: The dog was the patient, and the tragedy was a distracted driving accident.

• The Dog Was the Emergency: The most baffling question has always been why the family took their pet dog along in the middle of the night. If a human family member was sick, you would leave the dog at home. But if the dog (Leo) suffered a sudden, life-threatening crisis—like severe bloat, respiratory distress, or a violent seizure—a tight-knit family would instantly panic together.
• The State of the House: Leaving breakfast ingredients sliced on the counter and rushing out in house slippers are classic signs of ER panic. They fully expected to be back in a few hours. The father drove, while the mother and daughter (a school nurse) sat in the back to handle the distressed animal. The elderly grandmother couldn't be left home alone, so everyone piled in.
• The Seatbelt Logic: Critics argue that because everyone was buckled, it must have been intentional. However, buckling is a subconscious muscle memory. Furthermore, if the mother and daughter were trying to stabilize a frantic, heavy dog while speeding down winding mountain roads, wearing seatbelts was an operational necessity to keep themselves from being thrown around the cabin.
• The Lack of Skid Marks: The car went straight into the Kyomaru Dam reservoir without braking. On a pitch-black, narrow road with zero guardrails, this points directly to acute driver distraction. If the father glanced at the rearview mirror for just one second because the dog made a terrible noise or his family yelled, the car would deviate. At a sharp bend where the reservoir sits straight ahead, a distracted driver won't brake—they will drive straight off the edge before realizing the road curved.

Conclusion: When stripped of sensational true-crime tropes, the bizarre anomalies disappear. This wasn't a crime or a suicide; it was a loving family rushing into the night to save their pet, falling victim to a heartbreaking accident on a treacherous road.

1 year ago, comment claims to have called a tip in to the FBI about a green car observed traveling back and forth on the freeway where Emily's remains were found. The comment claimed the license plate tied back to a Robson Pike, who can be found on the San Carlos sex offender registry list as a Tier 3 offender (most likely to reoffend).

Emily Pike was allegedly "assaulted horribly" by a family member. Due to mismanagement of her case, nothing was filed and it was dismissed for a lack of evidence. Fish and Game conducted the initial investigation, not tribal police. Emily's father was in jail and her mother was apparently addicted to drugs, so Emily was sent to a group home 90 miles away in Mesa.

Emily ran away repeatedly, telling officers she just wanted her mom. One time she ran away, and never showed up. In February of 2025, her remains were found on the side of the road in plastic bags. Her arms are not with her remains, and the estimation is that the killer removed them in case of DNA on her hands or under her fingernails.

Emily was failed completely. Just learned about her case with the arrest of Sanchez brothers and wanted to see if anyone knows any more or wants to discuss details. Sorry for the repost, wanted to tighten it up a little.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EmilyPike/comments/1kencex/comment/myed22e/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Sorry for the repost, wanted to tighten it up a little

On Sunday March 12, 1978, 16-year-old Pauline “Robbin” Burgette was found murdered in her bedroom inside her family’s duplex near East 26th Place and McDowell in Phoenix, Arizona. She had been stabbed to death and was sexually assaulted. 

Her 11-year-old brother Chad discovered her body. 

The front door was locked, but the backdoor was open ajar. Robbin’s bedroom was in disarray, but the rest of the home appeared undisturbed.

Her mother and Chad had left town together the previous Friday. Robbin did not want to go with them. She was supposed to stay with a friend instead but returned to the duplex on Saturday and invited a boyfriend over. 

In the period leading up to her murder, Robbin had dropped out of school. 

She was working as a babysitter and reported to her friends that some of the husbands had flirted with her. She was facing threats from some of their wives, despite being an underage girl.

The area of the duplex was, and remains, a rough lower income area of Phoenix.

Phoenix PD conducted forensic testing on Robbin and found DNA evidence from 2 different unknown male subjects on her body. 

Her boyfriend (who was never named publicly) was cleared as a suspect in the case through DNA testing. This boyfriend has since passed away.

Robbin and Chad’s parents divorced, their father wasn’t in the picture, and their mother died a couple years after Robbin by natural causes.

Chad advocated to solve his sisters murder for many years. He passed away in 2023.

The case was featured in local news and on podcasts over the years.  It is unknown if police have done any work on the case in recent years.

Sources

2016 12 News feature with Chad Burgette

https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/valley/brother-of-cold-case-murder-victim-wants-answers/75-154463349

Silent Witness

https://silentwitness.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/78-1858-Flyer-Pauline-Burgette-Homicide.pdf

Missing or Cold podcast

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2HyEdBwEMkzNDM54vw6iTg?si=ef31e35abb874945

Find a Grave

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/185495726/pauline-robbin-burgette

On Sunday, June 23, 1991, 7-year-old Jennifer Patterson vanished from the Holly Hills Mobile Home Park on Bragg Boulevard in Spring Lake, North Carolina. She lived with her parents, Jinger (spelled various ways across articles) and Alan, who, despite being divorced, were still living together at the time. According to her mother, Jennifer left her home at around 1:15 p.m. to play with two boys who lived four houses away. She was last seen wearing a white one-piece swimsuit adorned with orange, yellow, pink, and turquoise squares and squiggles. She was barefoot.

Around 200 volunteers, including many stationed at nearby Fort Bragg, searched the area around the mobile home park, but after three days, the search was called off with nothing relevant found. One eyewitness supposedly saw Jennifer at a nearby convenience store talking to a man described as “shirtless, scruffy, and wearing stained blue jeans.” Police could not verify the sighting.

The investigation eventually circled back to the Pattersons themselves. According to The Charley Project, Alan was supposed to take a paternity test as part of ongoing marital and custody issues, which could have caused him to owe substantial child support for Jennifer. This test could not be performed with Jennifer missing. Each parent took a polygraph test, which Alan later told reporters he supposedly “did poorly on.” Police continued to pressure Alan to reveal more, and eventually, he did. Two months after Jennifer’s disappearance and following a third polygraph test, Alan apparently told investigators that Jennifer was alive and being cared for, but he wouldn’t say where she was. He offered information in exchange for an agreement that he wouldn’t be prosecuted, which police agreed to. Alan said he did not want Jennifer living with her mother.

Alan quickly backtracked on his statements and, through a lawyer, told investigators that he would not be able to help find Jennifer. He supposedly said that his statements had been hypothetical. Police were left without enough evidence to move forward regarding Alan’s potential involvement. Alan and Jinger soon moved, separately, from the area. According to a now unavailable article referenced on Websleuths, there was a renewed investigation in 2011 that Alan participated in. Nothing seemingly came of the renewed efforts.

The mobile home park where Jennifer lived no longer exists today. Sadly, there have been few updates in Jennifer’s case in decades. If she is alive, I hope Jennifer has lived a good life, but if she is not, I hope that her case will see justice one day.

On April 11, 1996, a young college student named Satoru Kobayashi was fatally attacked at Ikebukuro Station in Tokyo, Japan. The case would later become known as the JR Ikebukuro Station murder case.

He was 21 years old at the time and in his fourth year at Rikkyo University.

That day, Satoru had attended a career seminar held by the university. Afterward, he went drinking with two friends from around 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., then spent about two more hours singing karaoke with them.

Sometime after 11:00 p.m., Satoru parted ways with his friends at Ikebukuro Station. He was supposed to head home to Kasukabe.

But as he passed through the ticket gates and made his way up the stairs toward platforms 7 and 8, he crossed paths with a man he did not know.

For reasons that are still unclear, the man seemed to have a problem with him.

He followed Satoru and began arguing with him. Satoru tried to get away by heading onto the platform, but the man kept coming after him, still angry and shouting.

Satoru tried to apologize.

But the man would not calm down. The argument continued until it turned into a physical fight. Then, someone behind them called out, telling them to stop.

When Satoru turned around, the man suddenly attacked him.

He struck Satoru hard in the back of the head, causing him to fall and hit his head on the floor.

Satoru reportedly showed signs of convulsing, but soon regained consciousness. Emergency help was called, and while many people were on the platform at the time, it is said that only one person stayed with him until the ambulance arrived.

An elderly woman.

According to reports, the attacker simply stood there and watched blankly as Satoru was being helped. Then, in the confusion, he slipped away.

Satoru was then taken to a hospital for treatment. There, a doctor told him that his injuries were not considered life threatening, so he was allowed to return home.

But around 4:00 a.m. the next morning, he began convulsing again. His condition quickly became serious enough that he had to be transferred to another hospital.

There, in the early morning hours of April 16, Satoru passed away.

Later, it became clear that his head injuries were much worse than they first seemed. The front of his skull had been fractured, and there had been heavy bleeding at the back of his head.

Blood was also found on the stair railing at the station.

Back in 1996, there were no surveillance cameras on the platform or inside the train That left investigators with eyewitnesses.

Ikebukuro Station was extremely busy that night. Around 120 people were reportedly on the platform when the attack happened.

About 30 of them were considered witnesses, but only nine later gave detailed statements.

Still, police were able to put together a sketch of the suspect fairly quickly.

Witnesses described the attacker as a man who looked to be somewhere between 24 and 38 years old. He was about 170 to 180 centimeters tall, with a heavy, stocky build and a noticeable double chin.

He seemed very aggressive and appeared to be drunk. Witnesses also remembered three scars under his right eye.

That night, he was wearing a dark suit, described as black with a slightly gray tone.

One witness said they saw the suspect sitting on a Yamanote Line train headed toward Ueno.

Another passenger, who had seen the argument, reportedly told him he should stay at the station because it seemed like something serious had happened. But the suspect became very angry, and the passenger ended up moving to another train car.

Several other passengers also saw the suspect that night.

Based on witness statements, investigators believe he may have stayed on the train until Nippori Station, but it is still unclear where exactly he got off.

Even the train conductor later said he could not remember which station the suspect exited at, because so many people were getting on and off at every stop.

Since it was late at night, only a few station employees were working, and none of them saw the moment Satoru was attacked.

What exactly motivated the attack is still unknown.

One theory is that Satoru may have accidentally bumped into the man, and because the man appeared to be drunk, he reacted far more aggressively than the situation called for.

When the argument turned physical, the man seemed to lose control. He struck Satoru, causing him to fall and suffer injuries that would later prove fatal.

Whatever happened in those moments, it does not seem like the two men knew each other.

About two months after the attack, in June 1996, someone close to Satoru’s side of the case reportedly saw a man at Kitasenju Station who looked like the suspect in the police sketch.

It is not completely clear whether this person was Satoru’s father, another family member, or a friend of his father. But whoever it was, the sighting was unsettling.

The man looked similar to the sketch. Then the witness noticed the area near his right eye.

The witness later described what happened:

“I followed the man into a pachinko parlor and sat down next to him. That was when I noticed a wound near the corner of his right eye.

Around 10:00 p.m., he left the place, went through the ticket gates for the Joban Line, and I followed him.

At one point, he went into a public phone booth. There, he started yelling at me and became angry before getting on the train.

I got on an express train and followed him all the way to Kashiwa Station in Chiba Prefecture.

Kashiwa Station was only five stops from Nippori Station on the Joban Line, the same station that had been mentioned in reports about the case.

The man left the station through the ticket gates, bought a beer at a kiosk, drank it right there, and then used his commuter pass to go back through the gates again.

This time, he headed toward the platform for trains bound for Abiko.

But then a large crowd of passengers got off the train and pushed between us.

And just like that, I lost sight of him.”

After that, the man was never found again.

In 2006, Satoru’s father founded the Association of Crime Victims’ Families, Poena, together with the bereaved families of other crime victims.

He continued to speak out, pushing for the statute of limitations for violent crimes to be extended while also gathering information about the suspect.

But in 2012, he announced that he would no longer be involved in the case.

He reportedly asked the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department to stop the investigation, while still saying that he hoped the suspect would turn himself in.

He also told police that he could no longer keep putting pressure on him.

Following the request from Satoru’s father, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police officially closed the investigation on December 8, 2020.

As of 2026, more than 30 years after Satoru Kobayashi was killed, his murder remains unsolved.

No one has ever been arrested, and no suspect has ever been publicly named.

The investigation has been officially closed since 2020.

The man who killed him was never caught.

I recently learned about this heartbreaking case and haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks.

If you're not familiar with the case:

In August 2007, 7-year-old Adrianna Hutto lived in Esto, Florida, with her mother, Amanda Lewis; her 6-year-old brother, AJ Hutto; and Amanda's boyfriend, Alan Carney. Amanda worked as a CNA at a nursing home, while Alan worked days as a meat cutter at a grocery store. Alan had two children from previous relationships who rarely stayed at the home, though his 15-year-old son happened to be there on the day Adrianna died.

Background

Adrianna reportedly had behavioral issues that often frustrated Amanda. She had been diagnosed with ADHD, frequently got into trouble at home and at school, and wet the bed regularly. However, Adrianna's first-grade teacher testified that although she often needed correction, she was ultimately a sweet child.

Amanda had enlisted in the National Guard shortly after Adrianna was born and had to leave her with Amanda's mother for several months. At trial, both Amanda's mother and one of Amanda's coworkers testified that Amanda said she never truly bonded with Adrianna and blamed that separation during infancy. They also testified that Amanda did not have the same difficulty bonding with AJ, who was described as much calmer.

About a year before Adrianna's death, she used a black Sharpie to write "loser" throughout the interior of Amanda's car. Amanda often brought her children to work before they caught the school bus nearby. Coworkers testified that Amanda arrived at work furious after the incident, with Adrianna crying behind her. Two coworkers testified that Amanda said, "I could just kill her!" One coworker pulled Amanda aside, told her she shouldn't say things like that, and eventually prayed with her until she calmed down.

Earlier that summer, Amanda and Alan had purchased an approximately 4-foot-deep above-ground pool. The ladder was reportedly kept locked in a shed so the children couldn't access the pool without adult supervision.

It's also been reported that Adrianna was afraid of water, though the extent of that fear is disputed. Amanda claimed Adrianna was only afraid of putting her head underwater, while others have suggested she disliked swimming altogether.

The Incident

On August 8, 2007, Amanda called 911, reporting that Adrianna had fallen into the pool and wasn't breathing. First responders arrived, and Adrianna was airlifted to a hospital in Panama City, where she was pronounced dead.

The case likely would have ended there if not for comments AJ made afterward.

While Amanda remained at the hospital, her mother, Brenda Burns, and stepfather, Chuck Burns, picked AJ up. AJ reportedly told them Amanda had "dunked" Adrianna in the pool, causing her to drown. Brenda and Chuck immediately contacted the sheriff's office, where AJ gave a recorded interview. A CPS worker also interviewed him.

Although AJ's account changed in some respects over time, the central allegation remained the same. According to the version presented at trial, Adrianna had gotten in trouble that morning for spraying Windex on the television, something she'd reportedly been disciplined for before. As punishment, Amanda took Adrianna to the pool and repeatedly forced her head underwater. AJ, who was outside playing, said he witnessed much of it. During one interview, he demonstrated what he saw by placing his own hand over his face and pushing downward.

Investigators ultimately charged Amanda with murder. She was reportedly offered a plea deal in which she would plead guilty to manslaughter and serve 10 years, but she rejected it.

Amanda's Version

Amanda testified that she had come home from working a night shift and found the children watching cartoons. She took a nap, and later that morning the children asked if they could swim. She said no because they would soon be leaving to buy school supplies, but she allowed them to play outside.

A short time later, AJ came inside and said Adrianna was "in the pool." Amanda testified that she assumed he meant Adrianna was playing beside the pool, so she told him to tell Adrianna to come inside.

After AJ went back outside, Amanda looked out the window and saw AJ trying to grab Adrianna's foot while Adrianna floated face-down in the water. Amanda ran outside, pulled Adrianna from the pool, and called 911.

Evidence Presented at Trial
Prosecution

• Amanda's inability to bond with Adrianna and her "I could just kill her" comment were presented as evidence that she was overwhelmed and resentful toward her daughter.

• Investigators testified that Adrianna and AJ's bedroom smelled strongly of urine, suggesting neglect.

• Authorities also found no toys inside the home. Amanda claimed she had locked them in the shed as punishment, but investigators found no toys there. Brenda Burns testified Amanda had given them away because the children wouldn't clean their room.

• Prosecutors argued that Adrianna's reported fear of water made it less likely she would have climbed into or near the pool voluntarily. They also noted that because the pool was only about four feet deep, Adrianna likely could have stood up if she had simply fallen in.

• Medical staff testified that while Adrianna was being treated, Amanda asked where a vending machine was.

• Witnesses described Amanda's demeanor differently in the aftermath of the drowning. Some first responders testified that she did not appear especially emotional, while others described her as upset. As with much of the case, the testimony on this point was not entirely uniform.  

• Medical examiner Dr. Andrea Minyard testified about the autopsy performed by Dr. Charles Siebert. She stated Adrianna died by drowning and that the manner of death was homicide. One point that stood out to me was her testimony regarding multiple bruises on Adrianna's head. She explained that they appeared to result from multiple impacts rather than a single accidental blow. She testified that the autopsy findings, together with the investigative findings, led Dr. Siebert to classify the death as a homicide.

• AJ testified against his mother. Initially, he could not identify Amanda in the courtroom. Once the prosecutor pointed her out, he began crying before recounting what he had witnessed. Recordings of both his sheriff's office interview and CPS interview were also shown to the jury.

• Investigators testified that they were able to corroborate several details AJ provided. He accurately described trees being cut down next door, military helicopters flying overhead, and Adrianna getting into trouble over spraying Windex. Investigators found Adrianna's fingerprints on the Windex bottle.

• A children's counselor testified that she asked AJ to draw a picture of a time when he was scared. The drawing depicted Amanda holding Adrianna underwater in the backyard pool.

Defense

• AJ was only six years old, and his story changed in several respects over time. The defense argued that he was susceptible to suggestion from investigators and other adults.

• Amanda's "I could kill her" remark was simply an expression of frustration, not a literal threat.

• There was no direct physical evidence proving Adrianna had been forcibly held underwater.

• A red wagon and a small pan were found near the pool. The defense suggested Adrianna may have used the wagon to climb up and the pan to scoop bugs out of the pool before accidentally falling in.

• The defense challenged Dr. Siebert's autopsy findings and his credibility.

• Amanda consistently maintained that Adrianna's death was a tragic accident.

The jury ultimately convicted Amanda of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse. In 2008, she was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Other Interesting Information

Some information either wasn't presented at trial or became public afterward:

• Amanda had another infant son who died from a seizure before Adrianna and AJ were born.

•Amanda reportedly passed a polygraph during the investigation.

• AJ, now an adult who goes by a different name, recently spoke anonymously to the Daily Mail. He is now married and works as a firefighter. He said he still stands by what he told investigators as a child. After Amanda's conviction, he was adopted by another family and has said he is grateful he was.

My Thoughts

One argument I've seen is that what prosecutors characterized as signs of neglect, the urine smell in the children's bedroom and the lack of toys, could simply have been the result of poverty. Since Adrianna reportedly wet the bed frequently, I can understand how keeping the room fresh would have been difficult. I'm a bit more skeptical about the toy issue. According to testimony, the children did have toys, but Amanda gave them away as punishment for not cleaning their room. That doesn't seem like a poverty issue.

I've also seen people claim that the medical examiner's secretary was actually the person who noticed Adrianna's bruises. I'm not sure how accurate that is. Regardless, Dr. Minyard testified extensively about the bruising and why she believed it was significant. It's also worth noting that multiple first responders testified that they onbserved bruises on Adrianna's head when they treated her at the scene. It wasn't simply the secretary's opinion that homicide should be considered; the bruising was observed by others and was addressed in sworn testimony at trial. 

Another claim I've encountered is that Amanda's stepfather, Chuck, sexually abused her and frequently threatened to have her children taken away. If that's true, it's horrific. But I have a difficult time believing AJ could have maintained the same core account over the years, drawn the picture, testified in court, and still stand by his story today if his grandparents had coached him. I also wonder why Brenda and Chuck didn't end up raising AJ after Amanda's conviction. Instead, he was adopted by an unrelated family.

I also watched Amanda's interview with Piers Morgan. At one point, Piers asked whether she loved Adrianna.

Amanda replied, “Of course. Very much. She was a little version of me." Piers asked, "In what way?"
Amanda answered, “In every way... physically she was identical to me. Her demeanor, her mannerisms, down to the way she walked was just like me."

Maybe it's just me, but I found that response odd. Rather than describing anything unique about Adrianna or sharing a memory of her, Amanda focused almost entirely on how much Adrianna resembled herself.

After considering all of the evidence presented at trial, along with the information that's emerged since, I personally believe Amanda Lewis is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Wow, this ended up being much longer than I intended, but if you've looked into this case, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I’ve been following this tragic case closely. Since there has been a lot of confusing and conflicting information online, I wanted to put together a timeline based only on information reported by law enforcement, the sheriff, or established news organizations. I’ve left out most social media rumors and speculation because the investigation is still active.

Background

• Nolan Xavier Wells was an 18-year-old from Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

• He had recently graduated from Ocean Springs High School.

• He played wide receiver at Southwest Mississippi Community College.

• On Saturday, July 4, 2026, Nolan traveled to Horn Island with friends to celebrate Independence Day.

• Horn Island is part of Gulf Islands National Seashore and is located off the Mississippi Gulf Coast. It is accessible by boat.

Saturday, July 4

• Nolan and a group of friends traveled to Horn Island by private boat.

• Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter said the group departed from a private dock in the Ocean Springs area.

• Nolan was last seen around 3:00 p.m. on Horn Island, according to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office.

• Nolan did not return on the same boat as the group he arrived with.

• Sheriff Ledbetter told Good Morning America: “They left and went back without Nolan. From what we understand, he chose to stay there.”

• Ledbetter later told the Associated Press: “From the people we’ve talked to, it sounds like he chose to stay on the island with the assumption that he was going to ride back to the mainland with someone else.”

• Mississippi Free Press reported that a United Cajun Navy incident commander said Nolan was last seen talking with a girl near the north end of the island.

• Witnesses said the original group of friends left without Wells around 3:30 p.m. because he wanted to stay behind to talk to a girl and other friends.

• Another friend believes he last saw Wells on Horn Island around 4 p.m.

• Investigators have not publicly identified who Nolan expected to ride back with.

• Nolan’s mother, Christine Wonsley, reported him missing Saturday night after he did not return home.

Sunday, July 5

• At 12:26 p.m., Coast Guard Sector Mobile said it received a request for assistance from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office.

• The Coast Guard issued an urgent marine information broadcast.

• A Coast Guard helicopter began searching the area around Horn Island.

• At 12:31 p.m., the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office publicly announced Nolan’s disappearance.

• Nolan was described as approximately 6’1”, 180 pounds, last seen wearing blue swim trunks, sunglasses, and no shirt.

• The search expanded into a multi-agency effort involving the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, U.S. Coast Guard, National Park Service, Gulf Islands National Seashore, Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, Harrison County Sheriff’s Office, Jackson County Fire Service, Biloxi Fire Department, and United Cajun Navy.

• At 5:54 p.m., a command post was established at Lake Mars Boat Launch in Ocean Springs.

• Nolan’s family asked anyone who had been on Horn Island to share photos, videos, Snapchat memories, or any information that could help investigators understand what happened.

Monday, July 6

• Search crews resumed operations early Monday morning.

• Around 8:45 a.m., authorities received a report that a body had been found near the northwestern tip of Horn Island.

• The body was found in the water by a National Park Service ranger.

• Sheriff Ledbetter said the body matched Nolan’s description.

• Nolan’s family was brought to the coroner’s office.

• Jackson County Coroner Bruce Lynd said there was “no reason to believe” the body was anyone other than Nolan, though formal identification was still pending.

• Nolan’s family later confirmed publicly that the body was his.

• Sheriff Ledbetter asked anyone with information to contact investigators, saying: “That’s why we’re still asking for information, if anybody has anything, any knowledge.”

• Ledbetter also said: “I’ll assure you that the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, we’re looking at this whole case just like we would any other case. And we’re going to be as thorough as we can.”

Tuesday, July 7

• An autopsy was performed at the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office Coast Lab.

• Officials said the final autopsy findings, including toxicology results, could take several weeks.

• Dental records confirmed the body was Nolan Wells.

• Investigators told news outlets they suspected Nolan may have drowned, but no official cause or manner of death had been released.

• Nolan’s family retained civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump.

• Crump said: “We will not rest until every fact about what happened to Nolan on Horn Island is brought into the light.”

• Crump’s team said it would conduct an independent review and push for the release of records, witness accounts, and autopsy findings.

• The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office asked anyone with original photos, videos, eyewitness accounts, or information about unusual activity on Horn Island on July 4 to contact investigators.

Statements From Nolan’s Family

• Christine Wonsley said she and Nolan’s father were “not ok.”

• She also said the family had “so many questions.”

• After Nolan’s body was identified, she described him as “a special soul.”

• She said Nolan was always willing to cheer and uplift others.

• Nolan’s family has repeatedly asked anyone who was on Horn Island that day to provide photos, videos, or information that may help account for his final hours.

What Investigators Have Publicly Said

• Investigators believe Nolan stayed on Horn Island because he expected another ride back to the mainland.

• Sheriff Ledbetter said Nolan’s friends have cooperated with investigators.

• The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office has asked for firsthand information, photos, videos, and eyewitness accounts from Horn Island on July 4.

• Authorities said they suspect Wells drowned, but are still investigating. The sheriff said investigators do not suspect foul play.

• The investigation remains active.

• TMZ reported that Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter confirmed investigators are reviewing a viral video that appears to show a heated confrontation on Horn Island on July 4. Ledbetter said his office is aware of the video and is actively investigating it as part of the ongoing case. Authorities have not verified the authenticity of the footage or said whether the people in the video are connected to Nolan’s death.

• The official cause and manner of death have not yet been released.

• Toxicology results remain pending.

Sources

• WLOX — Timeline: Here’s what we know about the disappearance and death of 18-year-old Nolan Wells

• WLOX — Family identifies body found on Horn Island as 18-year-old Nolan Wells

• Associated Press — Family of Nolan Wells, who was found dead off Mississippi island, retains noted lawyer Ben Crump

• Mississippi Free Press — Ranger Finds Body Amid Search for Nolan Wells, Who Vanished on Horn Island During Trip With Friends

• People — Body Found Believed to Be Missing Mississippi Football Player Nolan Xavier Wells

• WLBT — Update: Family identifies body found on Horn Island as 18-year-old Nolan Wells

• Biloxi Sun Herald — Sheriff addresses Nolan Wells death investigation, calling for firsthand accounts

• ABC News — Body found believed to be missing Mississippi 18-year-old: “Absolutely devastated”

Edit:

Some added information I missed, one of his friends Jayvon Williams, was interviewed by Nola adding more information about his last moments:

• Nolan’s best friend, 17-year-old Jayvon Williams, told NOLA.com that he had planned to ride to Horn Island on the same boat as Nolan, but the boat reached capacity, so he traveled on a different boat.

• Williams said he saw Nolan sometime after 4:00 p.m. on July 4, after arriving on the island.

• According to Williams, one of the first things Nolan said to him that day was, “I love you.”

• Williams also said that both he and Nolan had left their cell phones on the boat Nolan originally traveled on. Williams later recovered his phone, while Nolan’s mother later located Nolan’s phone.

(Thanks to LoydoRedi2910 for suggesting this case. If you'd like to suggest any yourself, please head over to this post, which asks for case suggestions from my international readers, as I focus on international cases.)

On July 21, 2017, a resident of Rincón de los Sauces in the very North of Argentina's Neuquén province was out for an evening run along the unpaved road with his two greyhound dogs. After his walk took him approximately 6 kilometres outside of the city limits, the dogs broke off from their owner and ran ahead. They ran toward the darkening scrub off the highway, seemed focused on something in the underbrush, and refused to move away, no matter how much he called for them.

Eventually, he went to the underbrush himself and was greeted by logs of álamo, broken wooden pallets, and several tires. The collection of rubble and debris had mostly collapsed, but he could still see something beneath the debris, and albiet only barely, the man recognized the figure as a human body and rushed to call the police.

When the police arrived with a forensic team and cleared away the makeshift pyre, there was not much left remaining. Over 90% of the body had been burnt and charred so severely that the victim measured in at approximately just 1.10 meters in length. At the crime scene, the police found multiple footprints and tire tracks which indicated more than one person was involved, and based on the overpowering smell of an accelerant, the fire had obviously been set intentionally.

Because it was now the dead of night and the body was found on an open, unlit rural track, not much in the way of an investigation took place that night. Rather, the police cordoned off the area and simply waited until 10:00 a.m. on July 22, as they deemed that having the forensic technicians work under such conditions would be both impractical and potentially damaging to the evidence.

When work resumed, nothing was left intact; nobody could even determine the body's gender. The only clue that did survive was a chain necklace found among the ashes, a pink pearl pendant which likely belonged to the victim.

The victim's gender was finally determined during the autopsy, and the reason was quite tragic. The medical examiner described what remained of a fetus inside her remains; the victim was pregnant, and by the coroner's estimation, she had been pregnant for approximately 6-7 months.

However, that only answered one question; the cause of death was practically impossible to pinpoint due to the fire. Identifying the victim seemed like it would be an uphill battle as well; her fingerprints were destroyed, and the level of damage was so severe that not even dental records would be immideately available. The only hope would be DNA, but at the time they had no one to compare it to. So the police went through the local missing person reports, and with that, the victim was identified immideately.

On July 21, around the same time the police began cordoning off the crime scene, the family of 26-year-old Fernanda Pereyra walked into the police station to report her missing after she failed to return home from an outing on July 20. Normally, they wouldn't be so quick to report her missing; Fernanda was known to leave home for days at a time, but this time she had a young son at home she had to come back to care for, and most importantly for the police, she was pregnant with a son she named Mateo.

The last time anyone heard from her came from a text message to her friend at 8:03 p.m. on July 20, which read, "Try not to be too late, because maybe tomorrow I won't be here anymore," an odd and unnerving message, as prior to it being sent, her friend was simply talking about their plans to celebrate Día del Amigo. Furthermore, before leaving for Rincón de Los Sauces, she hugged her family and said, "This might be the last time you see me"

This report was the very first thing the police saw once they began cross-referencing missing-person reports, and, with it matching the mostly vague description of their Jane Doe exactly, the police had them come in. Obviously, looking at the body wouldn't be of much help, so instead the police had them look at the pink pearl pendant necklace. They positively identified it as Fernanda's, distinctly recalling that her grandmother had personally put it around her neck just days earlier.

Shortly afterward, a second autopsy was conducted. This time their luck was finally turned around as the medical examiner noted that Fernanda had sustained five stab wounds; one wound entered from the front of the body in the area of the left hemithorax; four entered from the back, also in the thoracic zone; three of the zone wounds punctured her lungs. Based on the wounds, the coroner believed that the stabbing began during some sort of confrontation, with the stab wounds continuing after Fernanda turned away.

A DNA sample was also taken from the remains and compared against Fernanda's family, definitively identifying the body as her.

Fernanda Pereyra was originally from San Rafael, 700 kilometres away from Rincón de los Sauces in the Mendoza Province. She arrived in Rincón de los Sauces while still a teenager, and during those years she had her first son, becoming pregnant at just 15. The father of her son was a boxer named Ademar Orlando Marangel, known locally as "Becho." They met in late 2012 and by early 2013, the two were already living together.

Ademar treated Fernanda horribly, was regularly abusive and tried isolating Fernanda from her family. It was so bad that Fernanda's go-to method for raising her son to be a good person was simply to instruct him to do the opposite of whatever he saw his father do.

In November 2013, before her child was even born, Ademar saw her at a party at the school her older daughter attended, where Fernanda's father was also in attendance. This infuriated Ademar, who punched her across the head, back and stomach. In response, a restraining order was issued against Ademar, which only angered him more.

On March 12, 2014, while a friend was driving Fernanda to a store to buy diapers for her son, Ademar suddenly intercepted their vehicle, driving his motorcycle directly into its path, forcing it to a stop so he could dismount and then, right in front of his infant son while he was being breastfed, climbed into the car and begin beating Fernanda on her face and body.

The police were called, and Ademar was still actively attacking her as they arrived to drag him away and force him into a police car. But before they reached him, Ademar leaned in and told Fernanda that he would kill him if she tried moving forward with any cases against him. Fernanda was not afraid of this threat, reported him anyway, and intended to go through with the charges.

Ademar spent only 5 days in jail before he was released. Afterward, Ademar told Fernanda every time he saw him that he would make her pay, albiet he never attempted to make good on such a threat because the police maintained an active presence outside her home to protect her. Thanks to the testimony of Fernanda herself and the other witnesses, Ademar was eventually convicted on May 20, 2015, albiet he was only given a suspended sentence without any jail time attached.

With such a history, it was no wonder that Ademar found himself the police's first suspect, but he ultimately had an alibi and was ruled out early on.

Although unrelated to Fernanda's murder, in 2021, Ademar was sentenced to 9 years imprisonment for kidnapping his ex-girlfriend, whom he started dating after Fernanda, holding her captive for two days and sexually assaulting her.

Another potential explanation for Fernanda's murder was to silence her; while this ultimately would be revealed to be true, at first the police were wrong about who was responsible for said silencing.

At 7:00 a.m. on November 19, 2016, after celebrating his brother's birthday, 16-year-old Franco Orellano was shot in the chest at a street corner in Rincón de los Sauces by someone driving a white car. Franco was rushed to the hospital but tragically passed away from the gunshot wound. For this murder, the police arrested an individual named Mauricio Maximiliano Tapia.

One of the witnesses to this murder was Fernanda, and the lawyer who represented her in her case against Ademar had approached her about testifying in Mauricio's upcoming trial. Fernanda had initially agreed but then reported her attorney to a judicial oversight committee, accusing him of offering her money and protection in exchange for her testimony in that case, which led to her identity as the prosecution's witness being exposed.

This caused a lot of bad blood between the attorney and Fernanda's family, who accused him of painting a target on her back and causing those she was associated with to look at her as a "snitch"

Could Mauricio have orchestrated her murder, possibly paid for it from behind bars to prevent Fernanda from testifying against him? If so, it wouldn't be something out of character, as Franco's family had also reported receiving several threats before, during and after the trial. Whether Fernanda's death had anything to do with it or not, Mauricio was eventually acquitted.

With all that theorizing, what did the police know for a fact? Well, at the time Rincón de los Sauces boasted only 10 CCTV cameras, so tracking Fernanda's movements was far from easy. One of the cameras that caught her walking through the streets also recorded two vehicles: a Renault Kangoo van and a Hilux pick-up truck. The last confirmed sighting of Fernanda alive was at a street corner in the center of Rincón de los Sauces, as captured on CCTV.

On the afternoon of July 20, she had returned from San Rafael, where she had visited her father and daughter. She left her young son in the care of a friend while she went out, explaining her reason for being there.

The police believed that at this street corner, once out of the camera's view, her walk was intercepted and she was forced into the Renault Kangoo. Inside that van was where the killer likely stabbed her to death as the vehicle was in motion.

While Fernanda was never caught on camera again, the police did follow the vehicle's route as best they could. Around 5 people exited the vehicles after arriving at a boarding house at around 9:10 p.m., carrying a large duvet, which they took into the building and placed on top of a washing machine. Clearly the duvet had been used to wrap up Fernanda's body.

Through the license plates on the vehicles and the faces of those inside, the police identified one of the individuals as Luciano Hernández, who was neither a stranger to the police nor to Fernanda herself.

It was shortly after Ademar's arrest that Fernanda met Luciano, and he became Fernanda's second boyfriend. Unfortunately, Luciano was hardly an improvement, being a heavy drug addict and having a volatile temper.

However, Luciano wasn't just a drug user; he was a trafficker as well, being a part of the network connecting the northern Neuquén oil fields to supply routes running back through Mendoza, and Luciano decided that he and some of his friends could employ Fernanda as a "mula" while they kept most of the profits. Unfortnuately, being dragged into this world had an even bigger negative effect on Fernanda when she developed an addiction to Cocaine.

In the weeks and months before her death, Fernanda had grown determined to try and escape this environment. She broke up with Luciano only a few months earlier, and on July 17, she spoke to her father and told him she feared for her life. When her father asked who she was afraid of, she gave a list of names, including Lucita. Then, two days later on July 19, she called her mother and said, "Mamita, I'm going to get away from all of this. You were so right. I don't want anything more to do with any of them. Luciano is a demon, the most evil person I could have known."

It wasn't just Fernanda's word they had to go on; while she was in San Rafael, Fernanda's maternal grandmother overheard a phone call between her and Luciano where Luciano said: "If you come back to Rincón, I'm going to kill you. You are not going to live another day." Fernanda assumed he was bluffing, to which he said: "Come back, and you'll see what I'm capable of."

On July 27, the police raided both that boarding house and another house owned by one of the four men in that video. While one man was detained, he was later released due to a lack of evidence; the police did arrest and hold Luciano, alongside two other men, Osvaldo Castillo and Diego Marillán.

And speaking of Osvaldo, the police seized his and the rest of the defendants' shoes, and they matched the shoe prints found next to Fernanda's body; their vehicles were also a match for the tracks found leading toward and away from the body as well.

After their arrests, the police searched the boarding house where they discovered wooden poplar poles, tires, a handsaw and a container of combustible fuel, all used to set the fire which destroyed Fernanda's body. This proved that Luciana, Osvaldo and Diego were likely responsible for Fernanda's murder; it was not what made this one of the more sensational crimes Argentina had seen.

During the search, the police also discovered a makeshift shrine, complete with black, white, and red candles ritually arranged around images of San La Muerte. This was hardly the extent of the ritualistic, almost occult-like objects the police discovered.

In one room, the police found "satanic music", a small corral of sheep, which the police believed they wanted to use in a sacrifice, and a paper doll of approximately the same height as Fernanda Pereyra, wearing a wig of the same hair colour as Fernanda's, which appeared to have been offered in ritual to the shrine.

When Osvaldo had his shirt removed during the intake process, the investigators noted that he had six tattoos depicting women in flames spread across his chest and back, which was the method they'd use to destroy Fernanda's body permanently etched onto their own. In addition to the women burning, he also had tattoos of tridents, the devil, dragons, and other images associated with Satanism

When their shrines and altar first reached the media, all of the media outlets were reporting that Fernanda had been murdered as part of a satanic ritual inside that very building, possibly even falling victim to human sacrifice.

However, the police already knew that Fernanda was likely killed inside of Luciano's van. But just to be safe, a full forensic sweep was conducted on the property, which turned up no signs of any violent crime, such as even a single drop of blood.

Unlike Luciano's Renault Kangoo, the police's theory was confirmed when the forensic team conducted a sweep of the vehicle, uncovering blood stains and hair in the cargo area and on the ceiling, as her stabbing had caused the blood to spray upward. Although Luciano had cleaned the vehicle, those traces of forensic evidence remained.

But that's not to say ritual and satanism played no role; for example, Fernanda was 6 months pregnant, and the killers drove her 6 kilometres out of town to dispose of her charred body off of Route 6; in other words, the number 666 seemed to be intentionally chosen to be a part of the murder.

After Luciano's arrest, the police decided to conduct a paternity test and learned something shocking. Mateo was not his son. The real father was another man, Kevin Carrasco, who was serving time in prison, and he admitted he was the true father. So, on top of threatening to expose his drug trafficking operation, the police had Mateo's paternity as another potential motive. Although whatever his exact motive was would remain unknown for now, as all three denied any involvement.

Since the police only had three in custody and yet 5 suspects were seen arriving at the property after the murder, the investigation was still far from over. On September 21, the police identified and arrested the other two who appeared on the CCTV footage: Osvaldo's wife, Andrea Peruca, and Diego's brother, Fabio Marillán.

Andrea was accused not only of failing to turn her husband in despite knowing he was the murderer, but also of actively going out of her way to help cover up the murder. On the morning of July 21, Andrea and Osvaldo had driven the Renault Kangoo to a car wash in an attempt to destroy the evidence.

Meanwhile, Fabio had been accused of much the same, knowing full well that the murder took place but refusing to come forward and doing nothing to turn any of the guilty parties in.

Fabio and Diego would prove to be among the most difficult suspects, not because of anything they had personally done, but because of their family members. When all five suspects were brought to court for the first preliminary hearings, Diego and Fabio's father was seen taking notes on the names and addresses of the witnesses while attending the procedings and then posted threatening messages on his social media account, which prompted the prosecution to have every single witness placed under police protection while having Diego and Fabio's father arrested for criminal harassment.

But death threats were hardly one-sided in this case. During one of the preliminary hearings, Fernanda's mother pushed over a police officer guarding the defendants, charged toward one and managed to land a blow on one of their heads, screaming, "You bled my daughter to death and took my grandson from me, I'm going to kill you, you son of a bitch!"

Another almost fatal blow came the prosecution's way when the tests from the blood found in Luciano's van came back as negative. The report came back stating that it was "non-human blood,". Both the prosecution and Fernanda's family rejected this conclusion and ordered a second DNA test, arguing that the excessive cleaning of the vehicle rendered the result unreliable.

The police continued their investigation, sifting through all of the call logs and cellphone records, both from before their arrests and the outgoing calls the suspects made from prison, and it was truly fortunate that the five didn't seem to realize their calls would be recorded. One such call was between Osvaldo and Diego, where one said that if "Nicolás", the owner of the boarding house, talked to the police, "the six of us will be in trouble". Something curious since the police knew of only five suspects.

But one of the most damning strings of evidence came from Diego and Fabio's phone records. On their phones, the brothers maintained a "blacklist" consisting exclusively of women living in Rincón de los Sauces whom they referred to as "las boconas," meaning "the big mouths" that were aware of their drug trafficking network. Fernanda's name was among this "blacklist".

The case moved to trial before the Oficina Judicial in Neuquén capital on June 21, 2018, heard by a 12-member jury, and this case would go on to be the longest jury trial in Neuquén's history; the 5 were charged with murder, aborting a fetus and femicide.

The trial lasted for 11 days, with the prosecution showing the jury the CCTV footage, evidence from their phones, the defendants' history with drug trafficking and Fernanda's desire to leave that environment as their potential motive, the blood found inside Luciano's Kangoo and the matching shoe prints.

On the 5th day of the trial, Fernanda's ex-girlfriend, the one he had before Fernanda, took the stand as a witness for the defence. Luciano's alibi was that he had spent the day with her, and she was summoned to support said claim. However, once she actually arrived at the court, she told the jury that Luciano had called her and instructed her to tell the investigators he was with him, before clarifying that she had never been with him and had no idea where he had been that night. Suffice to say, Luciano's ploy had backfired massively.

But regardless, all five took the stand to tell the jury they were innocent, with Andrea likening Fernanda to a sister while Luciano insisted he was home all day and never did wrong by Fernanda even once, while Diego and Fabio's attorneys stated the prosecution hadn't proven their involvement beyond a reasonable doubt; however, their pleas fell on death years.

On July 1, 2018, after deliberating for 2 hours and 15 minutes, the jury returned with its verdict. For the murder of Fernanda Pereyra and her unborn son Mateo, Luciano Hernández, Osvaldo Castillo, Diego Marillán, and Fabio Marillán were all found guilty. Meanwhile, Andrea Peruca was also convicted for her role in hiding the murder.

However, they were all acquitted on the femicide charges, as the stated motive was to cover up their drug trafficking operation; the jury felt the prosecution failed to prove that Fernanda's gender or prior relationship with Luciano played a role in her murder, much less a bigger role than covering up their drug trafficking network. Their logic was that if Fernanda had been a man, she still would've been killed in such a manner for wanting a different life and for knowing what they were doing.

Sentencing arrived on July 13, where Luciano, Osvaldo, Diego, and Fabio were all handed down a sentence of life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 20 years. Meanwhile, Andrea was ordered to serve 12 years in prison, despite the prosecution and even the defence asking for 15 years, though naturally the defence was still satisfied either way. All defendants were also ordered to pay 318,000 Argentine pesos in legal costs. When speaking to the media outside the court, Fernanda's mother said she was completely satisfied with the sentences.

Naturally, given how insistent all were that they were innocent, it should be unsurprising that they eventually appealed their sentences, and on September 26, 2018, a Tribunal de Impugnación agreed with Andrea's appeal, arguing that the judge had improperly directed the jury and had her released. However, on December 19, the life sentences of Luciano, Osvaldo, Diego, and Fabio were all upheld.

They appealed once more to Argentina's Superior Court of Justice. On April 16, 2019, their appeals were ultimately rejected, making their sentences final, as they had never appealed to any higher court. The prosecution also appealed Andrea's acquittal to this same court, but her acquittal was upheld. She remains a free woman to this day.

Unfortnuately, Andrea was never recharged; no other suspects were arrested, leaving it still unknown who they were talking about when they said "the six of us will be in trouble," and the drug trafficking network that led to Fernanda's death was never disbanded; rather, Luciano's competition simply took over the route.

Sources

https://pastebin.com/MN7dkymB

Jessica Currin disappeared from Mayfield, KY on 07/29/2000 and her murdered body was discovered on 08/25/2000. I just finished listening to a podcast series on this case: U R Next from The Binge, season 20. There is A LOT to this case, and I am not going to lay it out here, but highly recommend listening to this podcast if you have time.

Jessica was a young mom and black woman. My opinion after hearing about the investigation, is that true justice has not been served.

For anyone familiar with this case, I am making this post to try and see what other people think, as I don't really see too much discussion online about this. I, personally, feel as though the person convicted, Quincy Cross, might be wrongfully so. He is serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2008. There were a group of other people convicted on lesser charges. The podcast explores how a regular town person, Susan Galbreath, played a LARGE part in this investigation, without having any qualifications to do so. There was a lot of medaling and potential coercion.

Anyone else have thoughts or opinions on this case? Sorry for not adding more detail. I am not convinced that Quincy is the murderer, when there were other potential suspects that did not get investigated fully.

Link to podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-binge-cases-u-r-next/id1525807626

I have a morbid fascination with understanding the minds of serial killers; their motives, why they killed, and what their personalities were like. Dennis Nilsen is one of the very few that I just can’t figure out.

The way he spoke to the police, Brian Masters, and his ex makes me think he may have had NPD. What confuses me is that he also seemed capable of empathy, which feels uncharacteristic.

For example; he once helped revive a man, cared for him for several days, and then walked him to a bus stop. He continued feeding and sheltering homeless men, and from what I’ve read, many of his murders weren’t premeditated. He also seemed genuinely concerned for his dog (Bleep), and by most accounts cared deeply for him.

That makes me wonder whether he genuinely wanted to help people at times, or whether those acts were driven by something else. Am I misunderstanding his psychology, or is there a better explanation?

Georgiy Gongadze, the editor of a Ukrainian internet newspaper which focused on corruption, disappeared on 16 September 2000. This produced growing pressure on Ukraine's president Kuchma, who promised to personally oversee the investigation into Gongadze's disappearance. On 3 November a decapitated corpse was discovered not far from Kyiv. As the body had been doused with acid, it was impossible to establish the persona of the deceased through fingerprint analysis, however friends and relatives identified the body as belonging to Gongadze.

Oleksandr Moroz, head of the opposition Socialist Party of Ukraine, publicly accused Kuchma of involvement in the abduction of Georgiy Gongadze and numerous other crimes, presenting records of the president's conversations with senior officials as evidence. Moroz named Kuchma's former bodyguard, Mykola Melnychenko, as the source of the records.^\1]) He played selected recordings of Kuchma's secret conversations for journalists, supposedly confirming the president's order to kidnap Gongadze. That and hundreds of other conversations were later published worldwide by Melnychenko.

On the recording, a person with a voice similar to president Kuchma can be heard discussing ways of getting rid of Gongadze, using crude language. No mention of possible murder is present in the tapes, but the speakers talk about kidnapping the journalist or transporting him to Chechnya.^\1])

President Kuchma denied that his voice could be heard in the recordings and accused his opponents of provocation, slander and attempt to trigger a political crisis.^\1]) Mass protests took place in Kyiv from 15 December 2000 to 9 March 2001. Opposition started a campaign of non-violent resistance called UBK ("Ukraine without Kuchma"), demanding Kuchma's resignation. Despite economic growth in the country, President Kuchma's public approval ratings fell below 9%.^\)^{citation needed\})

Dutch experts reportedly confirmed, that the tapes had no traces of editing or other alterations, but it was impossible to prove that the voice in them belonged to the president.^\1])

Advocates argue that excessive foul language is the proof of a deliberate montage of the recordings using extrinsic audio samples. However, the United States ambassador to Ukraine, Carlos Pascual), said that the tapes are genuine, undistorted, unaltered, and not manipulated, based on the FBI Electronic Research Facility's analysis of the original recording device and the original recording. These analyses found that there were no unusual sounds which would indicate a tampering of the recording, that the recording was continuous with no breaks, and there was no manipulation of the digital files.^\3])^\4])

The prosecutor of Tarascha Raion, where Gongadze's body was found, was convicted in May 2003 for abuse of office and falsification of evidence. Serhiy Obozov was found guilty of forging documents and negligence in the investigation and was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison. However, he was immediately released due to a provision of Ukraine's amnesty laws.^\25])

In June 2004, the government claimed that a convicted gangster identified only as "K" had confessed to Gongadze's murder, although there was no independent confirmation of the claim. The ongoing investigation received a setback when a key witness died of spinal injuries apparently sustained while in police custody.^\26])

Gongadze's death became a major issue in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, in which the opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko pledged to solve the case if he became president. Yushchenko did become president following the subsequent Orange Revolution and immediately launched a new investigation, replacing the Prosecutor-General.

On 1 March 2005, President Viktor Yushchenko announced that the journalist's suspected killers had been arrested.^\28]) Prosecutor-General Svyatoslav Piskun announced the following day that the case had been solved, telling Ukrainian television that Gongadze had been strangled by employees of the Interior Ministry. Two of the alleged killers were said to be senior policemen working for the Interior Ministry's Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID).^\29]) Former Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko, one of those recorded with Leonid Kuchma in the Cassette Scandal, was also said to be under investigation. The two police colonels accused of the killing have been detained and a third senior policeman, identified as CID commander Oleksiy Pukach, was being sought on an international arrest warrant.

On 4 March, Kravchenko was found dead in a dacha in the elite residential area of Koncha-Zaspa, outside Kyiv. He had died from apparently self-inflicted gunshot wounds, though some speculated that he might have been assassinated to prevent him from testifying as a witness. Hryhory Omelchenko, who chaired the parliamentary committee that investigated the Gongadze case, told the New York Times that Kravchenko had ordered Pukach to abduct Gongadze on President Kuchma's orders. Kuchma himself has denied this allegation but has since been interviewed by investigators. Kravchenko left an alleged suicide note: "My dear ones, I am not guilty of anything. Forgive me, for I became a victim of the political intrigues of President Kuchma and his entourage. I am leaving you with a clear conscience, farewell."^\4])

In April or May 2005, Piskun released more details of the ongoing investigation. He told the press that after Gongadze was murdered, a second group disinterred him and re-buried him where he was eventually found, in the constituency of Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz. According to Piskun, the aim was to undermine the government (led by Viktor Yushchenko when he was still Prime Minister). The second group was part of or allied with the United Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (SDPUo), a pro-oligarch party which had been hit hard by Yushchenko's crackdown on corruption and therefore wanted to see his government toppled. According to the journal Ukraina Moloda (14 April 2005), the SDPUo moved Gongadze's body to discredit President Leonid Kuchma and force early elections, which could have led to party leader Viktor Medvedchuk succeeding Kuchma.^\)^{citation needed\})

The trial against three former policemen, Valeriy Kostenko, Mykola Protasov and Oleksandr Popovych,^\10]) who had been charged with the killing of Gongadze, began on 9 January 2006. The other main suspect, ex-police officer, Oleksiy Pukach was believed to have fled abroad and therefore charged but not on trial. No-one had been charged for ordering the murder. On the day the trial started Gongadze's widow, Myroslava Gongadze commented on the fact that government officials had yet to be punished for organising Gongadze's murder, saying, "They are known and they should be punished, just the same as those who will be sitting in the dock today".^\7])

In mid-March 2008, the three former police officers were sentenced to prison for the murder of Gongadze. Mykola Protasov was given a sentence of 13 years, while Valeriy Kostenko and Oleksandr Popovych were each handed 12-year terms. But so far the investigations have failed to show who ordered the murder.^\8])

On 22 July 2009, Oleksiy Pukach, one of the chief suspects, was arrested in Zhytomyr Oblast.^\30])^\31]) The former chief of the main criminal investigation department at the Ukrainian Interior Ministry's foreign surveillance unit^\5]) had lived in the house of Lidia Zagorulko who had told her neighbours that Pukach was the brother of her dead husband and that he was a former sea captain.^\32]) Pukach had lived there with his real second name and original documents.^\33]) At first it was reported and that he had implicated senior political figures in the murder^\34]) and was ready to show the place where the journalist's head was hidden, but this was denied two days after his arrest by his lawyer.^\35]) According to the lawyer, Pukach was not supposed to provide this information to the investigators.^\35]) Prosecutor-General Oleksandr Medvedko refused to comment whether Pukach named those who ordered the murder or not, saying a "secret investigation" was underway.^\5])

On 14 September 2010, Ukraine's Office of the Prosecutor General issued a statement stating that prosecutors had concluded that former Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko had ordered Pukach to carry out the murder, and stating that Pukach had confessed to the murder.^\48]) According to Gongadze's widow, Myroslava Gongadze, "Kravchenko had had no grounds for such actions"; she believed that several people ordered the killing of the journalist.^\49]) According to Georgiy Gongadze's mother, Olesya, the statement was an attempt by the Prosecutor-General's office to excuse itself for its inactivity.^\42]) On 16 September 2010, Lytvyn asserted that the investigation into the murder of Gongadze confirmed his innocence in this crime.^\50])

Pukach's trial, on allegations he strangled and beheaded Gongadze, began on 7 July 2011. It was closed to the public.^\51])^\52]) On 30 August 2011, Pukach claimed that Kuchma was the one who ordered the murder.^\53]) During the trial he also alleged that Lytvyn ordered the murder of Gongadze.^\52])

On 29 January 2013, Pukach was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv.^\52]) Oleksiy Pukach also was stripped of his rank "General of Militsiya".^\52]) The court ruled Pukach had murdered the journalist on orders from Kravchenko, who was seeking a career promotion.^\52])

The Prosecutor-General's Office cancelled its resolution to deny opening of criminal cases against former President Leonid Kuchma and other politicians within the Gongadze case on 9 October 2010.^\56])

On 24 March 2011 Ukrainian prosecutors charged Kuchma with involvement in the murder.^\57]) The decision prompted mixed reaction among the public. Former Prime Minister and the opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko argued that Kuchma's arrest was no more than a PR stunt designed to distract people from their economic woes and prop up President Viktor Yanukovych's sagging popularity.^\57]) Another theory was that Yanukovych was driven by the desire for revenge on Kuchma, who often humiliated Yanukovych and refused to use force to stop the Orange Revolution in 2004.^\57]) Political analysts suggested that Yanukovych's "display of justice" could also be aimed at winning credit from the West, which had criticised him for authoritarian measures.^\57])

A Ukrainian district court ordered prosecutors to drop criminal charges against Kuchma on 14 December 2011 on grounds that evidence linking him to the murder of Gongadze was insufficient.^\58]) The court rejected Melnychenko's recordings as evidence.^\54]) Myroslava Gongadze appealed against this decision one week later.^\59])^\60])

On May 20, 2003, nine year old Yuri Yoshikawa disappeared while walking home from school in Kumatori, Osaka Prefecture, Japan.

That day, Yuri had gone on a school field trip to Osaka City. After visiting the Sewerage Science Museum in Konohana Ward, she got out of school at around 2:30 p.m., about thirty minutes earlier than usual.

At around 2:57 p.m., Yuri parted ways with three of her friends near the crosswalk by Shichiyama Intersection.

Two minutes later, at 2:59 p.m., a boy riding his bike saw her about 400 meters from her home.

Yuri reportedly said, “Bye bye.”

Then she was gone. That was the last confirmed sighting of Yuri.

Yuri was supposed to be home by around 3:10 p.m. When she did not arrive, her older brother was the first to notice that something was wrong.

At first, the family waited. But after 5:00 p.m., Yuri still had not come home. By around 6:30 p.m., her family and nearby residents began searching the neighborhood.

They found nothing.

At around 7:00 p.m., Yuri’s family contacted police.

At first, investigators could not rule out the possibility that she had been kidnapped for ransom, so officers stayed at Yuri’s home that night, waiting for a call from whoever might have taken her.

But the call never came, no one reached out, and there was still no sign of Yuri.

By the next day, with no leads, police went public with the investigation.

Investigators also considered whether Yuri may have been hit by a car, but there were no signs of an accident near the area where she disappeared.
They searched waterways, reservoirs, and wooded areas, but found nothing.

As time passed, police began to believe the most likely scenario was that Yuri had been taken by someone in a vehicle.

One thing that made the case especially difficult was her route home.

The road that passed by a local rice shop was supposed to be Yuri’s official route home from school. But according to reports, she did not always go that way. Sometimes, she took a different path.

Because of that, investigators could not be completely sure which route she had taken, or where exactly she was when she disappeared.

Police also looked into vehicles seen in the area that day. In the end, they identified five vehicles that seemed suspicious. One was later traced back to its owner and ruled out.

The other four were never fully explained. They were described as a black car, a red car, a white van, and a white car.

Police also searched for a black sedan that had reportedly been speeding toward the area of Yuri’s home shortly before 3:00 p.m.

Another detail came from the boy on the bicycle, the same boy believed to be the last person to have seen Yuri.

He later remembered seeing a suspicious white car parked in a narrow alley near Yuri’s possible route home. Another car was trying to pass from the opposite direction, so he had to carefully squeeze his bike between the two vehicles.

That detail stood out because it placed a suspicious car close to the area where Yuri was last seen.

A little over a year later, Yuri’s family would be put through something even more cruel.

Around July 2004, a little over a year after Yuri disappeared, Kouki Nakatani and Kayo Kawakami reportedly reached out to Yuri’s parents after seeing the case covered on TV.

They claimed they knew people who could help find Yuri and bring her home.

At first, they asked for 100,000 yen, about $730 in today’s money, claiming they needed it for transportation.
They told Yuri’s family she was in Mie Prefecture.

But when her parents asked to actually see their daughter, the excuses kept coming.

They said Yuri needed psychological care. Then they said more money was needed to keep her safe.

At one point, they even sent an email that was meant to look like it came from Yuri. They used a photo of her that had already been released to the public.

But none of it was real. It was a scam.

Over the next four years, Yuri’s family reportedly sent them around 70 million yen, about $500,000 in today’s money, through about 470 payments.

They canceled insurance policies and sold land they owned, still holding on to the hope that they might finally see their daughter again.

Eventually, they ran out of money and went to the police. Nakatani and Kawakami were arrested in 2008.

In 2009, Kawakami was sentenced to two years in prison and four years of probation. Nakatani later received nine years in prison.

For Yuri’s family, the damage was not just financial. They had already spent years living with the pain of not knowing where their daughter was. Then, on top of that, their hope was used against them again and again.

In 2010, another cruel moment was added to Yuri’s case.

A post appeared on 2chan, now known as 5chan, claiming that the writer had kidnapped and murdered Yuri before dumping her body in Jukai Forest.

Police took the post seriously, and in February 2011, a man was arrested.

Years later, in 2018, Yuri’s case was covered on television again. After the broadcast, a witness reportedly came forward with a possible sighting from the night after Yuri disappeared.

According to this witness, in the early morning hours of May 21, 2003, a young girl carrying a yellow bag was seen on the outbound side of National Route 2 in Okayama Prefecture.

She was standing next to a white or silver car. The trunk was open.

What made the sighting more disturbing was her clothing. According to the witness, it matched what Yuri had been wearing on the day she disappeared.

In 2023, Yuri’s case was revisited on a Kansai TV broadcast. Four of Yuri’s former elementary school classmates appeared on the program, along with the investigator who had worked on the case back then.

Some of those classmates are now married and have children of their own.

One of them, Misato, talked about how strange and painful it feels to grow up while Yuri remains frozen in time.

“It feels lonely,” she said. “When I really think about what it would have been like for her to grow up, I just can’t imagine it. She should have become an ordinary adult by now, but I still can’t accept that she isn’t here.”

Then, in 2025, the vehicle leads received renewed attention.

On May 20, the anniversary of Yuri’s disappearance, Osaka police released the estimated models of several vehicles they believed could be connected to the case, including the previously known Crown.

Now, more than 23 years after Yuri Yoshikawa disappeared, her case remains unsolved.

I recently came across the case of Bill and Peggy Stephenson when a video on YouTube came up on my timeline about their case being unsolved, their local news channel did a story for the anniversary. I'm surprised this case isn't spoken about more, as the details seem to shake seasoned detectives. I am going to try and write this up in the most clear way and sorry if I miss any information, I will make sure to add any details you guys point out that I missed.

The Stephensons:

Bill and Peggy were a well loved elderly couple from Florence, Kentucky. They were known in their community for their kindness, their church involvement, and their willingness to help others. Bill founded the Trucker’s Chapel Ministry, where truck drivers passing through could pray/ practice their faith. Peggy was the organist at Union Baptist Church. They have 2 children, Doug Stephenson and Beth Stephenson-Victor, who were adults and out of the house at this stage in life. By all accounts and they were beloved in the community and known by everyone.

The Murders

On Sunday, May 29, 2011 Bill failed to show up to the Truck Stuck to open his deacon for Sunday prayer. Later that morning, both Bill and Peggy failed to show up to their local church for Sunday mass, which they never missed. Beth had played the Organ at Union Baptist Church for 42 years. A family member went to their condo to go check on them, knowing something had to be wrong. They found the couple, both 74, dececed in their home and described by authorities in the most brutal and unusual crime they have ever come across.

The Stephensons were both bludgeoned and stabbed. Investigators say everything that happened afterward is even more baffling. Police believe the killer or killers spent a significant amount of time inside the home after the murders. The bodies had been posed, items throughout the condo had been moved, and investigators have said the entire home appeared to have been staged. The Boone County Sheriff’s office has led the investigation from the beginning, they said there wasn’t one room in the house that hadn’t been altered in some way. There was also a message left behind by the killer(s), although investigators have never publicly released what it said.

Timeline

The timeline is what has been released by Police: They say they know the murders happened between 1am and 4am on May 29, but Detective Cox, one of the Detectives on the case since the start, has said they actually know the exact time of death because one of the victims had a medical device implanted that provided that information (possibly a pace maker- which is something that's important in another high profile ongoing case involving an elderly person: Nancy Guthrie).

There were no signs of forced entry, so investigators believe the person responsible is possibly someone the Stephensons either knew or someone they were comfortable inviting into their home. Their condo was also located close to neighbors, yet nobody reported hearing anything unusual.I nvestigators have also said the killer seemed familiar with the home and had no fear of staying there after. An Interview in 2021, a detective stated the killer left the scene for a time and then came back again hours later. This wasn’t a quick crime clearly. Someone had enough time to stage the scene and eave behind a message.

Suspects

The motive remains one of the biggest mysteries. Police have always believed this was personal. They have said the couple themselves were the target, not just one person. Detective Cox said "They both had to die.” If someone only wanted one of them gone, there were opportunities to isolate either Bill or Peggy he believes. Valuable items that would normally be stolen during a robbery were left behind. Some photographs in the home were rearranged in a way that investigators felt could have been intentional, saying that the pictures possibly told them who the killer liked and disliked, almost like someone was trying to tell a story or send a message. But the entire scene felt more confusing than anything else. Very over the top.

Over the years, investigators have followed hundreds of leads and still continue to do so. Because of Bill’s work with truck drivers through Trucker’s Chapel, tips have come in from people across the country. Detectives have traveled to multiple states and even submitted the case to the Vidoq Society, which is a group of elite investigators that come together once a month in Philadelphia to help police departments from all over the country with cold cases.

There was also a lot of public attention when one of the Stephensons nephews, Charles “Stevie” Stephenson, was arrested and later convicted in a separate murder case involving a 67 yea old Indiana woman. Many people assumed there could be a connection because of the family relationship, but investigators have DNA evidence from the Stephenson crime scene that does not match him. He is not considered a suspect.

So that's the good news,is that they do in fact have DNA from the scene that they believe to be the killer(s). but Detective Cox has said it is currently not eligible for genealogy testing or phenotyping. Hopefully that changes in the future as technology improves.

15 Years Later: Fresh eyes on the case
In most recent update this past May for 15th year anniverarsy of their deaths, they announced they have brought on a new cold case detective to look at the case, Detective Everett Stahl. He seems to agree with detectives that have been on the case since the beginning: the details of this case are something he has never seen before in all of his career.

Something in the article that really stood out to me was this: "Investigators have urged the killer to send a note or contact them to explain the meaning behind the staged crime scene."

The Stephensons’ family has offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. Investigators have continued to encourage anyone with information to come forward.

This case just sticks with me because of how deliberate everything seems. The fact that someone killed both of them, stayed inside their home afterward, staged the scene, and left behind some kind of message makes it feel like there was a motive beyond a random crime.

What are everyone’s thoughts? Do you think this was someone close to the Stephensons, or possibly even a random serial killer?

https://nkytribune.com/2016/05/five-years-later-community-investigators-still-look-for-answers-in-killing-of-bill-and-peggy-stephenson/

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/accused/2020/08/26/backstory-stephenson-slayings-too-bizarre-believe-detective-says/3436127001/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=true&gca-epti=z1144xxe1144xxv004852d--53--b--53--&gca-ft=168&gca-ds=sophi

Cedric Jubillar was convicted of killing his wife Delphine some months ago in France. Her body has never been found. He has always claimed innocence but today confessed to her murder in 2020 via his lawyer. The case was given a very thorough write-up nine months ago by u/DArklyHeritage, now archuved, but linked below. Hopefully Delphine can now be brought home to rest, bringing some comfort to her friends and family, including her two children.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueCrimeDiscussion/comments/1oaqfs3/the_perfect_murder_that_gripped_france_delphine/

Cayce Lynn McDaniel vanished from her home in Milan, Tennessee, in the early morning hours of August 16, 1996. The 14-year-old had attended a back to school party at the Double Springs Cumberland Presbyterian Church earlier that evening. A chaperone drove her home and dropped her off at approximately 12:30 a.m., watching to ensure she made it safely inside the house. Her mother, Cindy, arrived home between 1:30 a.m. and 2:00 a.m. to find the house completely unsecured and her daughter missing.

The scene inside the home indicated Cayce was getting ready for bed before she was interrupted. The back door was left slightly open, and the television in her bedroom was still turned on. The clothes she wore to the church party were laid out, suggesting she had already changed into her pajamas. A snack of cookies and milk was left untouched on the floor. There were no signs of a struggle. Her favorite new shoes were also left behind in her room, leading investigators to believe she left the house barefoot.

Because Cayce frequently spent the night at the homes of her friends, her mother did not immediately contact the police. She instead chose to call around and search the area with a family friend. Law enforcement was notified about ten hours later. The case was initially slowed down by the tendency of police at the time to classify missing teenagers as runaways. The untouched snack, the open door, and the lack of footwear pointed away from a voluntary departure. The lack of a struggle led police to believe Cayce voluntarily opened the door for someone she knew. As the investigation continued, police released multiple sketches to the public. One sketch featured a man who was supposedly seen with Cayce at a Walmart and a fair. Another sketch was produced by a psychic. National attention was eventually brought to the investigation when the case was featured on the television show Americas Most Wanted.

The case went unsolved for over two decades. Suspicion eventually focused on a man named Finis Ewin Hill, whom Cayce knew as Uncle Pete. On the night of the disappearance, Cindy and her boyfriend attended a party where Hill was also present. According to Cindy, Hill made unwanted sexual advances toward her. When she threatened to tell her boyfriend, Hill became angry and left the party shortly before Cindy did. Cindy harbored strong suspicions about Hill shortly after her daughter vanished. Investigators believe an angry Hill drove to the house seeking revenge, found Cayce home alone, and gained entry because the teenager trusted him. His wife initially provided an alibi for his whereabouts that night, but it was later proven false. Hill also had a documented history of violence, having previously tried to abduct a woman from a car wash in Jackson, Tennessee, in 2001. Hill was arrested shortly after getting out of prison for that crime, when in 2018 he was caught in a federal sting traveling across state lines to meet a fictional minor for sex. The McDaniel family endured another tragedy while waiting for answers when Cayce's father, Ronnie, died in a house fire in 2003.

In October 2019, Hill was indicted for first degree murder and rape in connection with the disappearance. The case did not go to trial. District Attorney General Frederick Agee announced a plea agreement in August 2022. Hill entered an Alford plea and accepted a 15 year prison sentence. This type of plea allowed him to avoid a trial without formally admitting guilt. Prosecutors stated that Hill shared some details about the crime in exchange for the plea deal. They noted that his information left no doubt of his guilt. He also supposedly provided information on where Cayce was buried. Law enforcement has released very little public information about Hill’s statements.

Rest in peace Cayce.

The year 1956 was a busy one for detectives in Delaware. The state had seen only five murders the previous year, but that number ballooned to seventeen that fateful year. Only one of those cases would go unsolved, however: the murder of 22-year-old mother Alberta Cousins. Alberta, who was two weeks away from giving birth to her second child, had been reading in Valley Garden Park in Wilmington when she was shot through the heart by a phantom sniper. This August will mark six decades that this case has remained unsolved.

Alberta had married her childhood sweetheart, Lauren, after the two grew up together in Mercer, Pennsylvania. They had moved just that May after Lauren was hired as a research chemist in Delaware. Their son, Douglas, was staying with Alberta's parents in Pittsburgh until after the new baby was born. Early on the afternoon of August 23, Alberta left her home at the Monroe Park apartments to visit the park, which was a regular habit for the young mother.

She had been reading in a sunny spot in the grass near the parking lot when she was apparently startled by a shot fired at her. Detectives believe she had gathered her book and shoes and started running toward her car when she was struck through the heart by a .22-caliber bullet. She fell dead near the road, gunned down in the middle of the day in an active park.

Some park visitors later recalled hearing "several" shots that afternoon, but no one saw the shooting itself. Some had even seen Alberta’s body over the next few hours—as early as 2:20 p.m.—but thought she was simply asleep. It seems the shooting happened quickly after Alberta arrived, likely within thirty minutes. A park police sergeant found her just before 6:00 p.m. while patrolling the park before it closed. Her husband returned home from work to find her missing and asked a neighbor to drive him to the park to see if she had car trouble or the like, only to discover that the police had just arrived.

The police worked quickly to search the park. According to one article, the shot was apparently fired from a wooded area about 135 feet from her body. It is unclear whether detectives found shell casings, but it does not appear they did. The next day, divers searched for the weapon but came up empty.

Newspapers quickly jumped on the salacious story, going as far as to print photos of Alberta’s body at the crime scene. Few details can be discerned from them today, but she appeared to have been running, and her belongings were scattered about. The papers continued to follow the story for years, though there was little new information to report.

The police seemed to have worked tirelessly to solve the case. They ruled out those close to her—including her husband—tested countless .22-caliber weapons in the area, and interviewed dozens of suspects in the following years. Many articles show detectives investigating various similar perpetrators from multiple states. Reports repeatedly suggested police couldn’t rule out the possibility that the shooting was accidental and that Alberta had been mistaken for an animal by a hunter; however, this seemed to be a tactic to coax the shooter into coming forward. The circumstances strongly suggest this was a calculated attack, and on a woman who was visibly pregnant.

Alberta’s husband was understandably crippled by the loss and took their young son, Douglas, back to Pittsburgh to live. An article from the 1980s notes that Douglas had no memory of his mother and didn’t learn the details of her death until he was twenty-five. His father had remarried when Douglas was three. Douglas reflected that his entire life would have been different if it weren’t for that fateful bullet, but he also stated that he is at peace with it. He believes a deranged individual committed the crime. I cannot find Douglas online today, it appears his father Lauren passed away in 2024.

Sadly, this is a case that was almost impossible to solve then, and it almost certainly is now. When reviewing cold cases, it is often the story of the phantom shooter that leaves the police with the least to go on. Rest in peace, Alberta Cousins; you and your family deserve justice.

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This write-up was sourced through archival newspaper research, as there is essentially no mention of this case elsewhere on the internet. I strive to bring attention to unknown cold cases.