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Vera Renczi

(1903-1960) Vera Renczi was married shortly before the age of 20, her first marriage was to a wealthy Austrian banker named Karl Schick, many years her senior. They had a son named Lorenzo. Left at home daily whilst her older husband worked, she began to suspect that her husband was being unfaithful.

One evening, in a jealous rage, Renczi poisoned his dinner wine with arsenic and began to tell family, friends, and neighbours that he simply left her and their son. After a year of "mourning", she then declared she had heard word of her supposedly estranged husband's death in a "car accident".

Shortly after "hearing the news of the car accident", Renczi remarried. This time to someone closer to her age, but the relationship was a tumultuous one and once again her suspicions got the better of her. After only months of marriage her second husband disappeared, and she again told family, friends, and neighbours that he had abandoned her. Another year passed, and a letter arrived from her supposedly estranged husband proclaiming his intentions of leaving her forever. This would be her last marriage.

Although Renczi didn't remarry, she spent the next several years carrying out a number of affairs, some clandestine with married med, and others openly. The men came from an array of backgrounds and social positions, all would vanish within months, weeks, and in some cases even days after becoming romantically involved with Vera Renczi. When connected to the men she was openly having affairs with, she would simply say they had been unfaithful or had left her.

Her final victim's wife reported his disappearance to the Police, who ignored her; so she continued investigations on her own and discovered Vera was her husband's mistress. She went back to the Police, who sent two inspectors to the chateau. Vera admitted the victim had been her lover, but that he too had left her. Impressed by her beauty, wealth, and excellent reputation, the Police abandoned their search. The wife went back to the Police and started asking questions that should have been asked a long time ago: Where were her husbands? Where was her son? What happened to the numerous other lovers of Vera's that had suddenly disappeared?

Finally the Police went back to see Renczi; at which point she denied she knew the victim contradicting her last statement, so the Police found proof by way of a love letter she had written to him. From this the Police got a search warrant and discovered a locked round cellar underground. In it were 35 spaces, each filled with a zinc-lined coffin. In the middle of the cellar was a red armchair, a big church candle and an empty bottle of champagne. Vera told the Police they were all her family members by they insisted on opening one; in which was the decomposed body of a man; they opened the others, which contained the same thing. Arrested, she confessed she had poisoned all of them with arsenic when she suspected they had been unfaithful to her, or when she believed their interest was waning. She also confessed to Police that on occasion, she liked to sit in the armchair surrounded by the coffins of her former lovers.

She was convicted of all 35 murders and sentenced to death, however, at the time Yugoslavia didn't execute women. She was instead condemned to life in prison.

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Lorena Bobbitt

[WARNING: Graphic Content] Lorena Bobbitt came home on the evening of June 23 1993, she claimed to the courts at her trial that her husband, John Bobbitt, had raped her. After he then went to sleep, she got out of bed, and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. She returned with an 8-inch carving knife, pulled back the bed sheets, and cut off her husband’s penis.

Lorena then left the apartment with the severed appendage, and drove away in her car. After a while of driving, and struggling to steer with one hand, she threw the appendage out of the window into a roadside field. She eventually stopped and called 9-1-1, telling them what had happened and where the severed penis could be found. Following an exhaustive search, and being washed with antiseptic, and packed in saline ice, it was re-attached at the hospital where he was treated.

After the shock of what Lorena had done had initially passed, now the question was why? When Lorena was arrested, she told the police “He always has orgasms, and he doesn’t wait for me ever to have an orgasm. He’s selfish.” During the trial, the couple’s volatile relationship was revealed. Lorena stated John sexually, physically, and emotionally abused her during their marriage. She said, he flaunted his infidelities and forced her to have an abortion.

John Bobbit was acquitted of rape. He had multiple versions of what had happened on the evening in question, relating at various times to police and to the court that “they hadn’t had sex; Lorena had tried to initiate this but he had been too tired; that they had had sex, but he’d slept through it; and that the sex was consensual.”

After seven hours of deliberation, the jury found Lorena not guilty due to insanity. As a result, she couldn’t be held liable for her actions. Under state law, the judge ordered her to undergo a 45-day evaluation period at Central State Hospital, Virginia, after which she would be resolved. In 1995, after six years of marriage, John and Lorena finalised their divorce.

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Scott Amedure

[WARNING: Graphic Content] (January 26 1963 - March 9 1995)

On March 6 1995, Scott Amedure videotaped an episode of The Jenny Jones Show, in which he admitted to being a secret admirer of Jonathan Schmitz, who lived near him. Until the taping, Schmitz didn’t know who his admirer was, but claims it was implied by the producers of the show that his admirer would be a woman. During the segment, Amedure was encouraged to describe his fantasies with Schmitz, after which Schmitz was brought onstage for an awkward embrace with his now not-so-secret admirer.

In response to Amedure’s displays of affection, Schmitz simply laughed and then stated he was “completely heterosexual”. According to the footing of the murder trial, it was later stated by a friend of Amedure that Amedure and Schmitz went out drinking together the night after the taping, and an alleged sexual encounter occurred. According to the testimony, three days after the taping, Amedure left a “suggestive” note at Schmitz’s house. After finding the note, Schmitz withdrew money from a bank, purchased a shotgun, and then went to Amedure’s mobile home. He then shot Amedure twice in the chest, killing him. After the shooting, Schmitz left Amedure’s home, called 9-1-1, and confessed to the killing.

At trial, Schmitz attorneys argued that he committed the murder by way of the “gay panic defense”. This is a legal defense used by attorneys to claim that their client attacked in a state of violent and temporary insanity, because of unwanted same-sex sexual advances. A defendant may allege to have found the advances so offensive or frightening that they were provoked into reacting or were acting in self-defence. Schmitz was found guilt of second-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to 25-50 years in prison, but his conviction was overturned on appeal. Upon retrial, he was found guilty of the same charge once again, and his sentence was reinstated. He was released from prison on August 22 2017.

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Judith Barsi

[WARNING: Graphic Content] (June 6 1978 – July 25 1988)

Judith Barsi was an American child actress. She made appearances in commercials to begin with and then moved onto voice characters in All Dogs go to Heaven and The Land Before Time.

As her career’s success increased, Jozsef (her alcoholic father) became increasingly angry and would routinely threaten to kill himself, his wife, and his daughter. Maria Barsi (Judith’s mother) reported his threats and physical violence towards her to the police. After police were unable to find signs of physical abuse, she decided not to press charges against him and remained in the family home with Judith.

After the incident with police, Jozsef reportedly stopped drinking, but continued to abuse Maria and Judith. He reportedly hid a telegram, informing Maria that a relative in Hungary had died, to prevent her from leaving the U.S. with Judith. Judith told a friend that her father threw pots and pans at her resulting in a nosebleed. She began gaining weight and exhibited disturbing behaviour, such as plucking out her eyelashes and pulling out her cat’s whiskers.

May 1988, after breaking down in front of her agent, Judith was taken by Maria to a child psychologist, who identified severe physical and emotional abuse and reported her findings to Child Protective Services. The investigation was dropped after Maria assured the case worker that she intended to begin divorce proceedings and that she and Judith would be moving into a Panorama City apartment that she had recently rented as a daylight haven from Jozsef. Maria’s friends urged her to follow through with the plans, but she hesitated for fear of losing the family home and their belongings. That hesitation would cost them their lives.

Jul 25, Jozsef fatally shot Judith in the head with a .32-caliber pistol whilst she was in her bed. He fatally shot Maria in the head in the hallway, then doused both their bodies in gasoline and set their family home on fire. He then went out the garage and fatally shot himself in the head. A neighbour heard the shots and called the police knowing Jozsef had finally done what he’d always threatened to.

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The Black Dahlia

[WARNING: Graphic Content]  (July 25 1924 - January 15 1947)

Elizabeth Short was an American woman found murdered in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, California. Her case became highly published due to the graphic nature of the crime, and the mystery of her death.

Short was last seen Jan 9 1947, when she returned to her home from a brief trip with Robert Manley, a 25-yo married salesman she’d been dating. Manley said he dropped her off at the Biltmore Hotel and that she was to meet her sister, who was visiting from Boston, that afternoon.

Jan 15, Short’s naked body was found severed in two on a vacant lot in Leimert Park. At the time, the neighbourhood was largely undeveloped. A local resident discovered the body whilst walking with her 3-yo daughter, she initially thought she had found a discarded store mannequin. When she realised it was a corpse, she rushed to a nearby house and called the police. Short’s severely mutilated body was bisected at the waist and drained of blood, leaving her skin white. M.E.’s determined that she had been dead for around 10 hours prior to discovery, meaning her time of death was estimated as either during the evening of Jan 14, or the early hours of Jan 15. Her face had been cut from the corners of her mouth to her ears, creating an effect known as the “Glasgow smile”. She had several cuts on her thighs and breasts. The lower half of her body was positioned a foot away from the upper, and her intestines had been tucked neatly beneath her bottom. She had been posed with her hands over her head, her elbows bent at right angles, and her legs spread apart. Near the body, detectives found a heel print on the ground amid tire tracks and a cement sack containing watery blood. There were ligature marks on her ankles, wrists, and neck, as well as cuts covering her body varying in severity. Upon discovery, a crowd of both passers-by and reporters gathered. Cause of death was determined as haemorrhaging (massive blood loss) from her cuts to her face and shock from blows to her head. There was also evidence of sexual assault, but no semen was found. Her body had also seemingly been washed by the killer.

Jan 21, someone claiming to be Short’s killer called James Richardson, the editor of the Examiner, congratulating him on the newspaper’s coverage of the case, and stated he planned on eventually turning himself in, but not before allowing the police to chase him further. He also told Richardson to expect “some souvenirs of Beth Short in the mail”.

Jan 24, a suspicious manila envelope was discovered by a U.S. Postal worker. The package had been addressed to “The Los Angeles Examiner and other Los Angeles papers” with individual words cut and pasted from newspaper clippings; a large message on the face of the envelope read “Here is Dahlia’s belongings, letter to follow”. The envelope contained Short’s birth certificate, business cards, photographs, names written on pieces of paper, and an address book with the name ‘Mark Hansen’ embossed on the cover. The package had been carefully cleaned with gasoline, similarly to Short’s body, which led police to suspect it had been sent directly from her killer. A handbag and black suede shoe was also found a short distance from where the body was discovered, both were also wiped clean with gasoline, destroying any fingerprints.

Mar 14, an apparent suicide note was found tucked into a shoe in a pile of men’s clothing by the ocean’s edge in Venice, U.S.A.; The note read: “To whom it may concern: I have waited for the police to capture me for the Black Dahlia killing but have not. I am too much of a coward to turn myself in, so this is the best way out for me. I couldn’t help myself for that, or this. Sorry, Mary.” The clothes gave no clues about the identity of their owner.

Police interviewed Manley and Mark Hansen in the days after Short’s death (the owner of the address book in the package sent to the Examiner) as they believed them to be suspects. Short’s roommate told investigators that Short had recently rejected Hansen’s sexual advances, and that this might be cause for him to have killed her, but both he and Manley were quickly cleared of suspicion. A total of 750 investigators, including L.A.P.D. officers, sheriff’s deputies, and State Patrol officers worked on the case. 150 men were interviewed as possibly suspects but to date, no arrests have been made.  

Bittersweet Lining: Feb 2 1947, Republican state assemblyman C. Don Field was prompted by the case to introduce a bill calling for the formation of a sex offender registry; the state of California would become the first U.S. state to make the registration of sex offenders mandatory.

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Amadou Diallo

[WARNING: Graphic Content] (September 2 1975 - February 4 1999)

In the early hours of February 4 1999, a 23-year-old Guinean immigrant named Amadou Diallo was fatally shot by four New York City Police Department plainclothes officers: Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon, and Kenneth Boss.

The officers claimed that Diallo ran up the outside steps towards his apartment doorway at their approach, ignoring their orders to stop and ‘show his hands’. The porch lightbulb was out and Diallo was backlit by the inside vestibule light, showing only a silhouette. Diallo then reached into his jacket and withdrew something. Seeing his man holding a small square object, Carroll yelled “Gun!” to alert his colleagues. The officers opened fire on Diallo, claiming that they believed he was holding a gun. During the shooting, lead officer McMellon tripped backwards off the front stairs, causing the other officers to believe he had been shot. 

A witness testified that they shot with no warning. The four officers fired 41 shots with semi-automatic pistols, striking Diallo 9 times. 

The investigation found no weapons on or near him; the object he’d pulled out of his jacket was his wallet. The internal NYPD investigation ruled that the officers had acted within policy, based on what a “reasonable police officer” would have done in the same circumstances. They later reviewed policed training policies and the use of full metal jacket bullets. 

Mar 25 1999, a Bronx grand jury indicted the four officers on charges of second-degree murder and reckless endangerment.

Dec 16 1999, a court order a change of venue to Albany, New York because of pretrial publicity that “painted the officers in a bad light and therefore the trial couldn’t be a fair one”.

Feb 25 2000, after two days of deliberation, a jury in Albany acquitted all four officers of all charges.

Kenneth Boss had shot another unarmed black man in 1997. After the trial, he was reassigned to desk duty.

March 2004, Amadou’s parents accepted a $3 million settlement in a wrongful death suit against New York City and the NYPD.

October 2012, Commissioner Raymond Kelly restored Boss’ ability to carry a firearm. As of 2012, he was the only one of the four officers working for the NYPD. In 2015, he was promoted to sergeant. 

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JonBénet Ramsey

[WARNING: Graphic Content] (August 6 1990 - December 25 1996) 

Patricia “Patsy” Ramsey found a note on her kitchen staircase December 26 1996, it was two and a half pages long and handwritten. The note demanded $118,000 for the safe return of her kidnapped six year old child, JonBénet.

The note contained specific instructions against contacting the police but Patsy called them at 5.52am. She also called family and friends. Two officers responded to the 9-1-1 call and arrived within three minutes. They conducted a cursory search of the house but didn’t find any signs of forced entry. 

Patsy’s husband and JonBénet’s father, John began making arrangements to meet the ransom. A forensics team was dispatched to the house. The team initially believed that she had been kidnapped, so her bedroom was cordoned off to prevent contamination of evidence. No other precautions were taken to prevent contamination of evidence however, in the rest of the house. Friends and the family’s minister arrived at the home to support the Ramsey's. Victim advocates also arrived at the scene. A detective arrived around 8am with the goal of awaiting kidnapper(s) instructions, but there was never an attempt by anyone to claim the money. 

At 1pm, Det. Arndt asked John and a family friend to search the house and see if “anything is amiss.” They started their search in the basement, John opened a latched door previously overlooked and found his daughter’s body in one of the rooms. 

John picked up his daughter and carried her body upstairs. In his apparent grief, he contaminated the crime scene by moving the body. Critical evidence was lost. Meanwhile, visitors had been picking up and cleaning surfaces in the kitchen, potentially destroying further evidence.

The family were then immediately suspects. Each of the Ramsey’s (including their son Burke [9]) provided DNA and handwriting samples to the police. All three also participated in interviews following JonBénet’s death, but no concrete evidence could be found to charge anyone and the trail went cold.

DNA evidence extracted in December 2003 was found belonging to an unknown male person and excluded the Ramsey family; the DNA was searched through C.O.D.I.S. but no match was found. John Karr, a 41-yo elementary school teacher, was arrested in Thailand on Aug 15 2006 when he falsely confessed to murdering JonBénet. He claimed that he had drugged, sexually assaulted, and accidentally killed her, however he was not a DNA match to the sample either, nor did the evidence he gave go any further than basic facts that were publicly known about the case. No charges have ever been filed for the murder of JonBénet Ramsey and her killer has sadly never been found. 

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1984 NYC Subway Shooting

[WARNING: Graphic Content] December 22 1984, four men (Barry Allen, Troy Canty, Darrell Cabey, and James Ramseur) were shot and wounded by Bernhard Goetz after they surrounded him on a New York City Subway train in Manhattan.

Goetz surrendered to police nine days after the incident and he was charged with attempted murder, assault, reckless endangerment and several firearms offences. Similarly to the story arc in 2019′s Joker, the media took the story by storm and Goetz initially became a hero of the people defending himself in a harsh city. He was seen as a vigilante and he received widespread public recognition and support. 

However, public opinion soon turned against Goetz due to statements and damaging details of the incident that later surfaced. He confessed on video tape to intentionally wanting to hurt his victims, even shooting Cabey a second time which gave him permanent brain damage and left him paralysed. 

A quote from Goetz’s website later discussing the shooting stated: “I immediately looked at the first two to make sure they were "taken care of," and then attempted to shoot Cabey again in the stomach, but the gun was empty. I thought Cabey was shot twice after reading a media account no shots missed; I had lost count of the shots and while under adrenaline I didn't even hear the shots or feel the kick of the gun. 'You don't look too bad, here's another', is a phrase I came up with later when trying to explain the shooting while I was under the impression that Cabey was shot twice. Cabey, who was briefly standing prior to the shooting, was sitting on the subway bench during all attempted shots. The others were standing. Shortly after the shooting my vision and hearing returned to normal.” 

Despite all this, a jury found him not guilty of all charges except for one count of carrying an unlicensed firearm, for which he served eight moths of a one-year sentence. 

Bittersweet Linings: 1996, Darrell Cabey obtained a civil judgement of $43 million against Goetz- to date Cabey is yet to receive this money from Goetz.

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Stephen Paddock

[WARNING: Graphic Content] (April 9 1953 - October 1 2017) 

Oct 1 2017, Stephen Paddock opened fire on a crowd of concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas strip in Nevada. The incident is currently the deadliest mass shooting committed by an individual in the history of the United States.

Paddock was 64, a former auditor and real estate businessman who had been living 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas in a retirement community. He was twice divorced, had a long term girlfriend, and had no known children. Interestingly, he was the son of Benjamin Paddock, who was a bank robber on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list from 1969 to 1977. Stephen’s previous interactions with the law were only ever traffic citations. 

He was a high stakes gambler who made bets large enough to earn valuable comps and familiar enough to casino hosts but, wasn’t well known amongst other high-stakes gamblers because he mostly played video poker. He had lost a significant amount of money in the two years prior but had paid off the debts before the shooting. 

In the investigation, police found that he may have been considering attacking other events. He had researched large-scale venues in cities such as Boston since May 2017, and had reserved a room overlooking the Aug 2017 Lollapalooza festival in Chicago, but didn’t use it. According to his girlfriend, she and Stephen were at the Mandalay Bay during an earlier stay a month before the attack when he repeatedly cased out Las Vegas Village from different windows in their room. His internet search terms from mid-Sept included “swat weapons”, “ballistics chart 308″, “SWAT Las Vegas”, and “Do police use explosives?”. 

The shooting occurred between 22:00 and 22:15 PDT, on the final night of the festival from the 32nd floor of Mandalay Bay. When the shooting started, country music singer Jason Aldean was giving the closing performance. Many people mistook the gunfire for fireworks. By 23:20 PDT, police finally located the room Paddock was in and breached it with explosives, he was found dead by a self-inflicted gun wound to the head.

Paddock killed 58 people at the festival and then himself. The fatalities included 36 women and 22 men. The oldest victim was 67 and the youngest was 20. 31 were pronounced dead at the scene and 27 were pronounced dead at the hospital. Approx. 869 people were injured, 413 of them with gunshot wounds or shrapnel injuries. No motive has ever been discovered for the attack.

Bittersweet Linings: The morning after the attack, lines to donate blood stretched for blocks. Wait times were as much as six hours plus. In Las Vegas alone, 800 units of blood were donated to the local blood bank and the American Red Cross reported a 53% increase in blood donation in the two days following the attack. Millions of dollars have also been raised to help victims and their families. 

Oct 3 2019, MGM Resorts reached a settlement of between $735 and $800 million with victims of the shooting for showing negligence by allowing Paddock to bring a large amount of weaponry into the building. 

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The Ariel Castro Kidnappings

[WARNING: Graphic Content] Michelle Knight [left], Georgina DeJesus [centre] and Amanda Berry [right] were all kidnapped by Ariel Castro between 2002 and 2004. They were held in his home until May 6 2013, when Amanda escaped with her six-year-old daughter, to whom she had given birth while imprisoned, and contacted the police.

Castro kidnapped each of his victims by offering them a ride; he drove each to his home, lured them inside, took them to the basement, and restrained them in his house. 

Michelle [21 at the time], disappeared after leaving her cousin’s house on August 23 2002. She was due to appear in court for a child custody case involving her son on the day she disappeared. As she was an adult, police admitted afterwards that limited resources had been spent on investigating her disappearance. Authorities believed that she had run away voluntarily due to anger over losing custody of her son.

Amanda disappeared on April 21 2003, the day before her 17th birthday. The FBI initially considered her a runaway until a week after her disappearance, when an unidentified male used her cell phone to call her mother. He said: “I have Amanda. She’s fine and will be coming home in a couple of days.” 

Georgina went missing at age 14. She was last seen at a payphone around 3pm on April 2 2004, on the way home from her middle school. Georgina was under the impression that Castro was picking her up to drop her off at her home, and she trusted him because she was friends with his teenage daughter. No-one witnessed her abduction, and an Amber alert wasn’t issued. 

They were kept in locked upstairs bedrooms, where they were forced to use plastic toilets, fed one meal a day and allowed to shower once a week. They endured rape and torture at Castro’s hands. Amanda gave birth to his child.

May 6 2013: Castro left the house and Amanda realised that he’d failed to lock the “big inside door”, although the exterior storm door was bolted. She didn’t break through the door as Castro has previously tested the girls by leaving certain doors unlocked and if they attempted to escape he would beat them severely. Amanda instead, screamed for help which the neighbours heard. 

The neighbours kicked the bottom of the storm door through to allow Amanda and her daughter to crawl to safety. They went to another neighbour’s house and called the police. The police stormed the residence and rescued Michelle and Georgina. 

Castro was arrested, charged and found guilty. On August 1 2004, he was sentenced to consecutive life terms in prisons plus 1000 years, all without the possibility of parole. He was found hanged in his cell a month later. 

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Bianca Devins

[WARNING: Graphic Content] (October 2 2001 - July 14 2019)

Bianca Devins was a 17-year-old from New York who was stabbed to death after attending a concert. The crime gained international notoriety as images of Devins’ mutilated corpse were shared on the internet by her alleged killer. 

After the murder, the killer took pictures of Bianca’s bloodied body and posted it to Discord and his own Instagram page. Images of her corpse were widely shared on social media, with the hashtag #RIPBianca. The alleged murderer and his victim had become acquainted via Discord, a chat app, and had apparently become friends before the stabbing. 

The murder sparked news attention to violence by young, Internet-obsessed men, and the concepts of “orbiters”, a term referring to young men with unrequited crushes, and “e-girls”, a general team applied to young women with a considerable online presence.

On his arrest, the murder suspect, Brandon Clark tried to take his own life by attempting to slit his own throat whilst taking a selfie in front of officers. 

Jul 29 2019, Clark plead not guilty to second-degree murder. 

Feb 10 2020, the accused changed his plea to guilty and faces 25 years in prison.

Apr 2020, Clark filed a motion to change his guilty plea to include extreme emotional disturbance (EED) as the cause of his crime, stating that his defense attorney didn’t accurately represent him previously This could allow for his charge to be lessened from second-degree murder to manslaughter if accepted by the courts.

Jun 2020, a hearing to discuss the change of plea took place. Judge Michael Dwyer is yet to release a decision on whether or not Clark will be able to change his plea.

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The Happiest Place on Earth

[WARNING: Graphic Content] Disneyland is known as “the Happiest Place on Earth” but there are some dark incidents at the sites too.

Disney California Adventure

Hyperion Theater April 22 2003: A stage technician fell 60ft (18m) from a catwalk, prompting an investigation by the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Cal/OSHA). He died May 18 2003. In October 2003 the resort was fined $18,350 for safety violations related to the technician’s death.

Disneyland Park

America Sings July 8 1974: A newly hired employee (18yo) was crushed to death after slipping between a revolving wall and a stationary platform inside the attraction. She was in the wrong place during a ride intermission; it was unclear whether this was due to inadequate training or a misstep as the ride had been open for only two weeks at the time. The ride was closed for two days for cleanup and was subsequently refitted with breakaway walls and warning lights to prevent this again in the future.

Big Thunder Moutain Railroad September 5 2003: The ride derailed killing a man, aged 22, and injuring ten others. The cause of the incident was determined as improper maintenance. Reports and discovery by the victim’s attorney confirmed the fatal injuries occurred when the first passenger car collided with the underside of the train. The derailment was a result of a mechanical failure which occurred due to omissions during a maintenance procedure. As the train entered a tunnel, the axle came loose and jammed against a brake section, causing the train to become airborne and hit the ceiling of the tunnel. The train then fell on top of the first passenger car, crushing the victim. 

Columbia December 24 1998: a heavy metal cleat fastened to the gull of the ride tore loose, striking an employee (30) and two park guests. One of the guests (33) died of a head injury at UCI Medical Center 2 days later. The normal tie line, an inelastic hemp rope designed to break easily, was improperly replaced for financial reasons by an elastic nylon rope which stretched and tore the cleat from the ship’s wooden hull. Disney was fined $12,500 by Cal/OSHA and settled a lawsuit brought by the victim’s survivors for an estimated $25mil.

Matterhorn Bobsleds May 1964: a 15yo boy was injured after he stood up in the bobsled and fell out. It was reported that his restraint was undone by his ride companion. He died three days later. This was Disneyland’s first fatality. 

January 3 1984: a 48yo woman was killed and decapitated when she was thrown from a bobsled car and struck by the next oncoming bobsled. An investigation found her seat belt wasn’t buckled. It is unclear whether the victim deliberately unfastened her belt or if the seat belt malfunctioned. 

Monorail June 8 1966: 19yo Thomas Cleveland was killed whilst attempting to sneak into the park by climbing onto the monorail track. Ignoring the shouted warnings of the security officer, he was struck by the train and dragged 30ft down the track.

PeopleMover August 1967: a 16yo boy was killed while jumping between two moving PeopleMover cars as the ride was passing through a tunnel. He stumbled and fell onto the track, where an oncoming train of cars crushed him beneath its wheels, dragging him a few hundred feet before it was stopped by a ride operator.

1972: four teenage girls were riding when one lost her mouse ears cap. She and her cousin jumped onto the track to retrieve them. Realising they had to get on a different car, the first girl successfully got into a car, whilst the second ran through a tunnel and out the exit, and then fell into a guard rail and onto the concrete 30ft (9m) below. She broke an arm, hip, and pelvis; she had to be placed in a body brace and have a pin inserted in her leg. She sued for not having any warnings about the exits. 

June 7 1980: an 18yo guest was crushed and killed while jumping between moving cars. It was very similar to the 1967 incident.

Rivers of America June 20 1973: an 18yo and his 10yo brother stayed on Tom Sawyer’s Island past closing time by hiding in an area that is off-limits to guests. When they wanted to leave the island, they decided to swim across the river, despite the younger brother not knowing how to swim. The 18yo attempted to carry him halfway across and drowned. He was found the next morning. The younger brother was able to stay afloat by “dog paddling” until a ride operator rescued him.

June 4 1983: an 18yo man drowned while trying to pilot a rubber emergency boat from Tom Sawyer’s Island that he and a friend had stolen from a restricted area of the island during Disneyland’s annual Grad Nite. Both individuals were intoxicated at the time. 

Storybook Land Canal Boats March 16 2005: a 4yo boy broke a finger and severed the tip of his thumb when the child’s fingers were crushed between the boat and the dock while passengers were unloading. 

Roger Rabbit’s Car Toom Spin September 22 2000: 4yo Brandon Zucker fell out of the ride and was dragged underneath the car. The investigation concluded that a lap bar had malfunctioned and the victim was placed in the wrong seat in the ride vehicle, too close to the opening. Disney settled with the victim’s family, based on the cost of the victim’s continuing medical care but wasn’t required to accept blame. Brandon never fully recovered and died January 26 2009.

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Steven Avery

[WARNING: Graphic Content] Steven Avery is a convicted murderer, who has previously been wrongfully convicted of sexual assault and attempted murder. After serving 18 years of a 32-year sentence, he was exonerated by DNA and released, only to be charged with murder two years later.

Wrongful Conviction: July 1985, Penny Beerntsen was brutally beaten and sexually assaulted whilst jogging on a beach. Avery was arrested after the victim picked him from a photo lineup and a live lineup. Despite the fact that Avery was 40 miles away shortly after the attack -an alibi supported by a time-stamped store receipt and 16 witnesses- he was charged and ultimately convicted. He was sentenced to 32 years in prison.

1995, a Brown County Police Officer called the Manitowoc County Jail (where Avery was being held), saying an inmate had admitted to committing an assault that someone else was in jail for. This information was ignored. 

2002, the Wisconsin Innocence Project used DNA testing -not available at the time of the original crime- to exonerate Avery and prove that Gregory Allen attacked Beerntsen.

Avery was released Sep 11, 2003. By that time, his wife had divorced him, and he was estranged from his family. A court order had been issued limiting his contact with his children while he was incarcerated, citing physical and emotional abuse towards them and his wife. He filed a lawsuit against Manitowoc County, its former sheriff and its former district attorney seeking to recover $36 million in damages. 

Oct 31 2005; Teresa Halbach, a photographer for Autotrader.com disappeared, her last alleged appointment was with Avery at his home on the grounds of Avery’s Auto Salvage. The appointment was to photograph his sister’s minivan that he was selling on the website.

Volunteers began searching for Teresa and her vehicle which also disappeared along with her- the vehicle was found partially concealed in Avery’s salvage yard, and bloodstains recovered from its interior matched Avery’s DNA. Investigators later identified charred bone fragments found in a burn pit near Avery’s home as Teresa’s. 

Avery was arrested and charged with her murder Nov 11 2005. He maintained that the murder charge was a frameup invented to discredit his pending wrongful conviction civil case. Manitowoc County conceded control of the crime scene to a neighbouring bureau to avoid a conflict of interest but Manitowoc deputies participated in repeated searches of Avery’s trailer, garage, and property. Avery’s attorneys’ suggested evidence tampering. A Manitowoc deputy found the key to Halbach’s car in Avery’s bedroom. 

Avery’s attorneys also discovered that an evidence box containing a vial of Avery’s blood, collected in 1996 during appeals for the Beerntsen case, had been unsealed, and a puncture hole was visible in the stopper. They speculated that the blood found in Teresa’s car could have been drawn from the stored vial and planted in the car to incriminate Avery.

Avery’s case is tied with that of his nephew Brendan Dassey as Brendan confessed to police whilst unaccompanied and a minor (16). This confession has been the centre of a lot of controversy concerning police coercion and false confessions.

Avery remains in prison as of Sep 13 2021, still serving life for the first-degree murder of Teresa Halbach. His lawyers continue to work on appeals for his release. Brendan Dassey will be eligible for parole in 2048. 

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The Co-Ed Killer

[WARNING: Graphic Content] Edmund Kemper murdered 10 people including his paternal grandparents and his mother. He is 6ft 9in (2.06m) and possesses an IQ of 145 (Einstein’s is 160). Kemper was nicknamed the “Co-ed Killer” as most of his victims were students at co-educational institutions. 

Born in California, Kemper had a disturbing upbringing; his parents divorced when he was young and his father abandoned the family. Edmund moved in with his mother, who was mentally ill; he later reported being psychologically abused by her. He moved to Montana to live with his grandparents, whom he murdered at age 15.

He and his grandmother had an argument; enraged, he stormed off and retrieved a rifle that his grandfather had given him for hunting. He returned to the kitchen and shot his grandmother in the head before firing twice more into her back. His grandfather came from grocery shopping and Edmund shot him dead in the driveway. He called his mother, who told him to call the police. He then sat and waited to be taken into custody. 

Court psychiatrists diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia before sending him to Atascadero State Hospital, a maximum-security facility that houses mentally ill convicts. He was released at the age of 21 after convincing the psychiatrists he was rehabilitated. He then began targeting young female hitchhikers, luring them into his vehicle and then driving them to a secluded spot where he would murder them before taking his corpses back to his home to be decapitated, dismembered, and violated. He then murdered his mother and one of her friends before turning himself in to authorities.

Strange Silver Linings: Kemper began helping the FBI create a new behavioural analysis team from prison by agreeing to talk to them about his crimes, motives, experiences, and reasoning. He became a model prisoner.

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Maddie Clifton

[WARNING: Graphic Content] November 3 1998, at around 5.00pm, Maddie Clifton (right) disappeared. The first suspect was a neighbour who was arrested twice around 20 years previously for sexual assault, in both cases, the charges were dropped and he provided an alibi for Maddie’s disappearance. 

The police called off the search for Maddie after a few days, but over 400 volunteers in the community persisted. A reward was offered, initially worth $50,000 but later doubled. The FBI later became involved in the case. Flyers were distributed around town, including at a local Jaguars-Bengals game. The TV series America’s Most Wanted also offered to broadcast the story.

The search ended a week after the disappearance when Joshua Philips’ (left) mother Melissa went to clean his room and found that his waterbed seemed to be leaking. Upon further inspection, she found Maddie’s body hidden inside the base of the waterbed. She immediately ran outside and across the street to get the police. Philips was arrested later that day at his school and was held in maximum security as he made his first court appearance. It was determined that Maddie’s cause of death was due to stabbing and clubbing with a baseball bat. 

Phillip said he was home alone when Maddie came to ask him to play baseball outside with her. He agreed, even though he wasn’t allowed to have friends over while his parents weren’t home. As the two were playing baseball, Maddie threw the ball at him and he hit it, which caused the ball to hit Maddie’s eye. Her eye started to bleed and she started to cry and scream. Knowing his father would be home soon, he panicked, fearing his father’s reaction, so he dragged Maddie into the house and took her to his room where he proceeded to strangle her with a phone cord. Soon after, he hit her again with the baseball bat and stuffed her under the base of the bed. When his father came home, he went to hang out with him for a bit and then returned to his room. He discovered Maddie was still alive, moaning under his bed, he then removed the mattress and stabbed her 11 times, killing her. 

Phillips was sentenced to life without parole, which was later re-sentenced to life with eligibility for parole in 2023. A US Supreme Court ruling that sentencing a minor (which Phillips was at the time) to life without the opportunity of parole is unconstitutional. 

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Hannah Ocuish

[WARNING: Graphic Content] (March 1774 - December 20 1786)

Hannah Ocuish was the youngest person to be legally executed by America. She was a Pequot Native American girl with an intellectual disability who was accused of killing six-year-old Eunice Bolles, the daughter of a wealthy farmer. 

July 21 1786, at about 10am, the body of Bolles was found in the public road leading from New-London to Norwich, lying on her face near a wall. The neighbourhood turned out to hunt for the murderer; Hannah was questioned and claimed that she had seen four boys near the scene of the crime. When a search failed to turn them up, Hannah was spoken to again and then taken to the Bolles home to be charged with homicide in the presence of the dead child. She burst into tears and confessed.

Five weeks earlier, Eunice had reported Hannah for stealing fruit during the strawberry harvest, and Hannah had plotted revenge. Catching sight of her young enemy headed for school one morning, Hannah had lured Eunice from her path with a gift and then beat and choked her to death. 

At her execution, she thanked the sheriff for his kindness as she stepped forward to be hanged. 

 More Info: Hannah: The Book (George Stinney)

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Mary Bell

[WARNING: Graphic Content] May 25 1968, Mary Bell strangled 4-year-old Martin Brown in a derelict house. Between then and a second killing, she and a friend, Norma Bell (no relation) broke into and vandalised a nursery, leaving notes that claimed responsibility for the killing. The police dismissed the incident as a prank. 

July 31 1968, the two girls took part in the strangulation death of 3-year-old Brian Howe on wasteland in the same area. Police reports concluded that Mary later returned to his body to carve an “M” into the boy’s stomach and used scissors to cut off some of his hair, scratch his legs, and mutilate his genitals. 

December 17 1968, Norma was acquitted but Mary was convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. She was described as displaying “classic symptoms of psychopathy”. She was released in 1980 at the age of 23 after serving 12 years. She was granted anonymity including a new name, allowing her to start a new life.