True Crime

Soda Jack

Soda Jack

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Sep 12, 2013
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I find shows like Snapped and The First 48 very interesting. What causes someone to commit murder? I also find the psychology of serial killers and mass murderers intriguing. I started this thread for armchair detectives like me to share cases that have happened in their area or cases that have caught their interest. Ill start with a case that happened 10 years ago in my home town.

The Lillelid Murders

Six Kentucky teens involved in satan worship made their way to a rest stop in northern Greene County, Tennessee. While at the rest stop they were approached by a family of 2 adults and 2 children returning from a Jehovah witness seminar heading home to Knoxville. Testimony later revealed that the family of 4(the Lillelids) were trying to share their faith with what appeared to be a group of troubled teens. One of the teens produced a gun and forced the family back into their van. They then drove the Lillelids, being followed by the teens blue Chevy Citation, to Payne Hollow Rd in Greene County. There they proceed to shoot the family and take their van.

The teens were arrested in Douglas, Arizona trying to cross into Mexico in the Lillelids van.

10 Years Ago Today ... An Unforgettable Tragedy by The Greeneville Sun
http://www.greenevillesun.com/Local...Ago-Today--An-Unforgettable-Tragedy-id-276122
 
Pretty scare to hear that Pikeville (of Kentucky) is about couple of hours away from my home. Yikes. :meh: But again, murderers are everywhere. It's possible that some of them even live 10 minutes away from me. Never know. It's truly disgusting me about the fact that people are willing to "cross the line" and kill anyone for some silly/no apparently reasons. Can't we just get along? Can't we play video games or even cook together and have a good time? But no. People chose not to. Unbelievable. :txbrolleyes:
 
Smurfboy said:
Pretty scare to hear that Pikeville (of Kentucky) is about couple of hours away from my home. Yikes. :meh: But again, murderers are everywhere. It's possible that some of them even live 10 minutes away from me. Never know. It's truly disgusting me about the fact that people are willing to "cross the line" and kill anyone for some silly/no apparently reasons. Can't we just get along? Can't we play video games or even cook together and have a good time? But no. People chose not to. Unbelievable. :txbrolleyes:
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At least you don't have to worry about these 6. All 6 signed a plea agreement to avoid the death penalty, all 6 got 3 life sentences with no possibility of parole.
 
Soda Jack said:
At least you don't have to worry about these 6. All 6 signed a plea agreement to avoid the death penalty, all 6 got 3 life sentences with no possibility of parole.
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I am not worry about that. It's just that more and more murderers are "coming out" and kill anyone at anytime. It has been like this since the day of creation. Nothing's new. Even though there are plenty of "help" being available everywhere, people choice the hard way still. I was like "Seriously? Why bother harm other people just because you're having a problem? At least leave them alone!"
 
Notorious Crime Scene Photos

Caution- Some of these photos are very graphic.

Includes crime scene photos from infamous serial killers, Ted Bundy, the Manson Family, "The Nightstalker" Richard Ramirez, "The Hillside Stranglers", Jeffrey Dahmer, Jack The Ripper, and "B.T.K." Dennis Rader. It also includes crime scene and coroner photos of the Columbine Shooting, the O.J. Simpson murder, Tupac Shakur, the Branch Davidians, Lizzie Bordan murders, University of Texas sniper Charles Whitman, and more.

http://vanessawest.tripod.com/crimescenephotos.html
 
Wow Bradders a serial killer in your hometown that's scary! I wonder why he chose a crossbow as his murder weapon, that's unique. Ive never heard of a serial killer using a crossbow. I wonder if he got some kind of sexual thrill when he committed these crimes, as a lot of serial killers do, or if he just has a deep hatred for women. Ive also noticed that when cannibalism is involved in a case, it has more to do with the killer feeling some kind of bond with his victim than some kind of hunger for human flesh. Did you get to work on the case by any chance?
 
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Americas Woman Serial Killer

You think your girlfriend is a psycho, meet Aileen Wuornos
Overview- Aileen Carol Wuornos (February 29, 1956 – October 9, 2002) was an American serial killer who killed seven men in Florida in 1989 and 1990. Wuornos claimed that her victims had either raped or attempted to rape her while she was working as a prostitute, and that all of the homicides were committed in self-defense. She was convicted and sentenced to death for six of the murders and was executed by the State of Florida by lethal injection on October 9, 2002.

Full Story-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aileen_Wuornos
 
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Plainview said:
I found myself hooked on The First 48. How does this show compare?
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You mean Snapped? It comes on the Oxygen Network on Sundays. I personally think its better than The First 48. It has a backstory to the crimes, where TF48 usually only consists of the investigation, and interrogation. Snapped goes through the back story, the investigation, and court portion of the crime. Sometimes it will have interviews with the actual perpitraitors. If you like TF48, you would probably like Snapped as well.
 
I was talking about True Crime. I didn't read anything in the thread. I skimmed and thought there was a comparison to TF48. But I'm checking out Snapped ASAP.
 
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Soda Jack said:
Wow Bradders a serial killer in your hometown that's scary! I wonder why he chose a crossbow as his murder weapon, that's unique. Ive never heard of a serial killer using a crossbow. I wonder if he got some kind of sexual thrill when he committed these crimes, as a lot of serial killers do, or if he just has a deep hatred for women. Ive also noticed that when cannibalism is involved in a case, it has more to do with the killer feeling some kind of bond with his victim than some kind of hunger for human flesh. Did you get to work on the case by any chance?
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I didn't work on the case but I spoke to the guys that interviewed him. They said he idolised serial killers and that some of the footage that hasn't been released to the public is very disturbing. The guy filming himself with the victims etc.

He wasn't a wealthy man, so maybe his decision to eat the victims was a financial one.

:laugh:
 
Plainview said:
I was talking about True Crime. I didn't read anything in the thread. I skimmed and thought there was a comparison to TF48. But I'm checking out Snapped ASAP.
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Actually Plainview I think an episode of Snapped comes on tonight at 9pm EST, if you want to check it out.
 
Look up the HBO series Autopsy. Many interviews and commentaries by Dr. Michael Baden. Actually, I'm fascinated by the detectives who catch the killers. This to me looks like grueling work combing through so many tiny details and filing forensic evidence.

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I have also read his book Dead Reckoning. He talks a lot about his field, the jobs he's worked on, and the many crazy ways humans get themselves killed.


Dead-Reckoning-9780684867588.jpg
 
As for the people who go completely bats***, this one ranks near the top. Robert Cullen recalls the murder spree of Andrei Chikatillo also known as The Rostov Ripper. I believe he was charged with 52 murders before he was executed with a shot to the head.

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Videodrome said:
As for the people who go completely bats***, this one ranks near the top. Robert Cullen recalls the murder spree of Andrei Chikatillo also known as The Rostov Ripper. I believe he was charged with 52 murders before he was executed with a shot to the head.

518-BIREZXL._SL500_.jpg
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I think there are some crime scene photos linked to Andrei Chikatillo in the crime scene photo link I posted. I think I can remember seeing some of the court videos of Andrei Chikatillo. If I remember correctly they had to keep him in a cage at his trial. Dude was batsh*t crazy.
 
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Watched this case on Snapped yesterday in a 2 hour episode. This case received a lot of media coverage, but I don't remember hearing about it until yesterday. It has a little bit of everything(sex, lies, religion, etc). The murder was brutal and the murderer(Jodi Arias) is facing the death penalty. The first jury wasn't able to agree on a sentence(I think it was 8 in favor of the death penalty, and 4 for life without parole). So they have to redo the penalty phase of her trial. She has yet to receive a sentence. Imo she deserves the death penalty. The way she worked the media and told lie after lie, chic is a manipulator and a psycho, pure evil.

Murder of Travis Alexander

Overview- On June 4, 2008, salesman Travis Alexander was murdered in his house in Mesa, Arizona. He sustained multiple stab wounds, a slit throat, and a gunshot to the head. Jodi Arias, Alexander's ex-girlfriend, was charged with first-degree murder for his death. At trial, she testified that she killed Alexander in self-defense. She was convicted of first-degree murder on May 8, 2013.[1] The murder and trial received widespread media attention.

The story-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodi_Arias

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There was this serial killer, I forget his name, but he actually only killed other serial killers. He kind of had a "code" that he lived by and tried to follow as closely as possible. I heard that ultimately he ended up not sticking closely enough to his code and it ended up hurting the ones he held closest. Not sure how the case turned out exactly, but I think I heard that he was never caught and that he may even have become a lumberjack.


Oh also, interesting thread :)
 
Z A C K said:
There was this serial killer, I forget his name, but he actually only killed other serial killers. He kind of had a "code" that he lived by and tried to follow as closely as possible. I heard that ultimately he ended up not sticking closely enough to his code and it ended up hurting the ones he held closest. Not sure how the case turned out exactly, but I think I heard that he was never caught and that he may even have become a lumberjack.


Oh also, interesting thread :)
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Dexter?
 
The "Green River Killer" Gary Ridgeway

This guy was responsible for at least 48 murders, though he claimed he had committed at least 71 murders throughout the 80s and 90s. He preyed on women, mostly prostitutes and runaways. The guy was very disturbed. DNA evidence was ultimately what led police to him, though DNA research hadn't matured enough to be useful until the late 90s. He ended up taking a plea deal that let him avoid the death penalty. He was sentenced to 48 life sentences plus 480 years.

Overview-
Gary Leon Ridgway (born February 18, 1949) is an American serial killer known as the Green River Killer. He was initially convicted of 48 separate murders and later confessed to nearly twice that number. As part of his plea bargain, an additional conviction was added, bringing the total number of convictions to 49. He murdered numerous women and girls in Washington State and California during the 1980s and 1990s.[1] Most of his victims were alleged to be prostitutes. The press gave him his nickname after the first five victims were found in the Green River; his identity was not known.[2] He strangled the women, usually with his arm but sometimes using ligatures. After strangling them, he would dump their bodies throughout forested and overgrown areas in King County, often returning to the dead bodies to have sexual intercourse with them.[3]
On November 30, 2001, as he was leaving the Renton, Washington, Kenworth truck factory where he worked, he was arrested for the murders of four women whose cases were linked to him through DNA evidence.[3] As part of a plea bargain wherein he agreed to disclose the whereabouts of still-missing women, he was spared the death penalty and received a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.

Full Details-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_river_killer
 
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Z A C K said:
lolwut?
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Dexter is a show aired on Showtime. It is about a serial killer named Dexter that kills other serial killers and other criminals. lol I didn't know from your post if you could have been thinking about the show. Your post sounded eerily similar to Dexter.
 
Soda Jack said:
Dexter is a show aired on Showtime. It is about a serial killer named Dexter that kills other serial killers and other criminals. lol I didn't know from your post if you could have been thinking about the show. Your post sounded eerily similar to Dexter.
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Hm, you know what, you might be right. I may have just made a post about Dexter. And you know what else, I may have even done it on purpose :p
 
The Zodiac Killer

This case is especially interesting because it has never been solved. The Zodiac Killer would contact the local media about his murders with written letters. Some letters were written in a cipher of which police were only able to decipher one letter . He claimed in his letters that he had killed 37 people, although law enforcement were only able to link 17 victims to the Zodiac Killer. His m.o. was mainly to shoot his victims, but he had also stabbed some of his victims, and he even threatened to use bombs to kill. Several people have come forward claiming to know the identity of the Zodiac, but law enforcement has been unable to prove any of these claims are true.

Overview-
The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated in northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The killer's identity remains unknown. The Zodiac murdered victims in Benicia, Vallejo, Lake Berryessa, and San Francisco between December 1968 and October 1969. Four men and three women between the ages of 16 and 29 were targeted. The killer originated the name "Zodiac" in a series of taunting letters sent to the local Bay Area press. These letters included four cryptograms (or ciphers). Of the four cryptograms sent, only one has been definitively solved.[1]
Suspects have been named by law enforcement and amateur investigators, but no conclusive evidence has surfaced. In April 2004, the San Francisco Police Department marked the case "inactive," yet re-opened the case at some point prior to March 2007.[2][3] The case also remains open in the city of Vallejo, as well as in Napa County and Solano County.[4] The California Department of Justice has maintained an open case file on the Zodiac murders since 1969.[5]

Full Details-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zodiac_Killer
 
John Wayne Gacy, the "Killer Clown"

Overview-
John Wayne Gacy, Jr. (March 17, 1942 – May 10, 1994) was an American serial killer and rapist, also known as the Killer Clown, who was convicted of the sexual assault and murder of a minimum of 33 teenage boys and young men in a series of killings committed between 1972 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois.
All of Gacy's known murders were committed inside his Norwood Park Township home; his victims would typically be lured to this address by force or deception and all but one victim were murdered by either asphyxiation or strangulation with a tourniquet (his first victim was stabbed to death). Gacy buried 26 of his victims in the crawl space of his home; three further victims were buried elsewhere on his property, while the bodies of his last four known victims were discarded in the Des Plaines River.
Convicted of 33 murders, Gacy was sentenced to death for 12 of these killings on March 13, 1980. He spent 14 years on death row before he was executed by lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Center on May 10, 1994.
Gacy became known as the "Killer Clown" due to his charitable services at fundraising events, parades and children's parties where he would dress as "Pogo the Clown", a character he devised himself.

Full Details-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne_Gacy
 
"The Son of Sam" David Berkowitz

Overview-
David Richard Berkowitz (born Richard David Falco; June 1, 1953), also known as the Son of Sam and the .44 Caliber Killer, is an American serial killer convicted of a series of shooting attacks that began in the summer of 1976. Perpetrated with a .44 caliber Bulldog revolver, the shootings continued for over a year, leaving six victims dead and seven others wounded. As the toll mounted, Berkowitz eluded a massive police manhunt while leaving brazen letters which promised further murders. Highly publicized in the press, the killings terrorized New York City and achieved worldwide notoriety.
After his arrest by New York City police in August 1977, Berkowitz was indicted for eight shooting incidents. Berkowitz confessed to all of them and claimed that he was commanded to kill by a demon that possessed his neighbor's dog. In the course of the police investigation, Berkowitz was also implicated in a vast number of acts of arson in the city, all previously unidentified with him.
Intense coverage of the case by the media led to a kind of celebrity status to Berkowitz, and observers noted indignantly that he appeared to enjoy it. In response, the New York State legislature enacted new legal statutes, known popularly as "Son of Sam laws", designed to keep criminals from profiting financially from the publicity surrounding their crimes. Despite various amendments and legal challenges, the statutes have remained law in New York, and similar laws have been enacted in several other states.
Berkowitz has been imprisoned since his arrest and is serving six life sentences consecutively. In the mid-1990s, he amended his confession to claim that he had been a member of a murderous Satanic cult that orchestrated the incidents as ritual murder. Though he remains the only person ever charged with the shootings, some law enforcement authorities have argued that Berkowitz's claims are credible. A new investigation into the murders was launched in 1996 but suspended indefinitely after inconclusive findings.

Full Details-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_sam
 
"The Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski

Overview-
Theodore John "Ted" Kaczynski (/kəˈzɪnski/ ka-ZIN-skee, or ka-CHIN-skee; Polish: Kaczyński, pronounced [kaˈt͡ʂɨȷ̃skʲi]; born May 22, 1942), also known as the "Unabomber," is an American mathematician and serial murderer. He is known for his wide-ranging social critiques, which opposed industrialism and modern technology.[2][3] [4][5] Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski engaged in a nationwide bombing campaign against people involved with modern technology, planting or mailing numerous home-made bombs, ultimately killing a total of three people and injuring 23 others.
Kaczynski was born and raised in Evergreen Park, Illinois. While growing up in Evergreen Park he was a child prodigy, excelling academically from an early age. Kaczynski was accepted into Harvard University at the age of 16, where he earned an undergraduate degree. He subsequently earned a PhD in mathematics from the University of Michigan. He became an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley in 1967 at age 25. He resigned two years later.
While at Harvard, Kaczynski was among the twenty-two Harvard undergraduates used as guinea pigs in ethically questionable experiments conducted by Henry Murray.[6] In the experiment each student received a code name. Kaczynski was given the code name "Lawful". Among other purposes, Murray's experiments were focused on measuring people's reactions under extreme stress. The unwitting undergraduates were submitted to what Murray himself called "vehement, sweeping and personally abusive" attacks. Assaults to their egos, cherished ideas and beliefs were the tools used to cause high levels of stress and distress. These experiments were conducted at Harvard University from the fall of 1959 through the spring of 1962[7] and were part of the CIA-sponsored Project MKUltra experiments.[8]
In 1971, he moved to a remote cabin without electricity or running water, in Lincoln, Montana, where he lived as a recluse while learning survival skills in an attempt to become self-sufficient.[9] From 1978 to 1995, Kaczynski sent 16 bombs to targets including universities and airlines, killing three people and injuring 23. Kaczynski sent a letter to The New York Times on April 24, 1995 and promised "to desist from terrorism" if the Times or the Washington Post published his manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future (also called the "Unabomber Manifesto"), in which he argued that his bombings were extreme but necessary to attract attention to the erosion of human freedom necessitated by modern technologies requiring large-scale organization.
The Unabomber was the target of one of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's costliest investigations. Before Kaczynski's identity was known, the FBI used the title "UNABOM" (UNiversity & Airline BOMber) to refer to his case, which resulted in the media calling him the Unabomber. The FBI (as well as Attorney General Janet Reno) pushed for the publication of Kaczynski's "Manifesto," which led to his sister-in-law, and then his brother, recognizing Kaczynski's style of writing and beliefs from the manifesto, and tipping off the FBI.[10] Kaczynski tried unsuccessfully to dismiss his court appointed lawyers because they wanted to plead insanity in order to avoid the death penalty, as Kaczynski did not believe he was insane.[11] When it became clear that his pending trial would entail national television exposure for Kaczynski, the court entered a plea agreement, under which he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. He has been designated a "domestic terrorist" by the FBI.[12] Some anarcho-primitivist authors, such as John Zerzan and John Moore, have come to his defense, while holding some reservations about his actions and ideas.[13][14][15]

Full Details-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unabomber
 
Videodrome said:
Something to ponder when we hear about attacks on schools.

Bath, MI School Bombing of 1927

http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/20...he_deadliest_school_massacre_in_american.html


Crazy mofo gained access to wire up a school with dynamite and killed 45 people.
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Damn go too far much? I guess he thought since they were going to take his farm, it gave him the right to kill 45 people. It sounds like it could have been even worse had the rest of the explosives gone off. Ill never understand how someone can rationalize killing an innocent child, a person is on a whole other level of being a pos to do that imo. He planned it for months,I believe that is a similarity this case shares with most mass murderers. He took time to gain the trust of school officials is especially disturbing also. From the information in the story, it doesn't sound like he was delusional or anything like that. It just sounds like he was pissed about his situation, and blamed his troubles on the tax increase the school brought, then wanted revenge. Just a pure evil, stone cold killer.
 
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