Births

The Rosenbergs, Ethel & Julius

1897 – Earle Nelson – also known as the “Gorilla Killer,” was an American serial killer who is believed to have murdered at least 22 women during the early 1920s. He was born in San Francisco, California, and raised in an abusive household where he suffered physical and mental abuse from his mother. Nelson’s criminal history began in his early twenties when he was convicted of burglary and spent several years in prison. After his release, he embarked on a killing spree that took him across the United States and Canada. Nelson’s victims were primarily landladies who rented out rooms to boarders. He would gain their trust and then strangle them with a handkerchief or scarf before fleeing the scene with their money and valuables. Nelson was known for his physical strength, and many of his victims were found with broken necks or other signs of severe trauma. Nelson was eventually caught in 1927 when he was apprehended in Winnipeg, Canada, after attempting to pawn jewelry that he had stolen from one of his victims. He was extradited back to the United States and put on trial for the murder of a landlady in San Francisco. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. Nelson was executed by hanging in 1928, and his crimes have since become the subject of numerous books and documentaries. He is considered one of the most prolific serial killers of the early 20th century and his case helped to popularize the use of the term “serial killer” in the media.

1918 – Julius Rosenberg – was an American communist who, along with his wife Ethel Rosenberg, was convicted of passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union during the early years of the Cold War. He was born and raised in New York City, where he became involved in left-wing political activities during the 1930s. Rosenberg’s involvement in espionage began during World War II when he was recruited by the Soviet Union to pass on information about atomic research being conducted in the United States. Rosenberg used his position as an engineer at the Army Signal Corps Laboratory in New Jersey to gain access to classified documents, which he then passed on to his Soviet handlers. Rosenberg’s activities were eventually discovered by the FBI, and he was arrested in 1950 along with his wife Ethel. They were tried and convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage, and both were sentenced to death. The case became highly controversial, with many activists and intellectuals arguing that the Rosenbergs were victims of political persecution. Despite protests and appeals for clemency, the Rosenbergs were executed by electrocution in 1953. The case remained a contentious issue for decades, with some claiming that the Rosenbergs were innocent and others arguing that they had betrayed their country during a time of war. In recent years, new evidence has emerged that suggests Julius Rosenberg was more deeply involved in espionage than was previously believed, including evidence that he provided the Soviets with crucial information about the design of the atomic bomb. However, the case remains a subject of debate among historians and political activists.

1942 – Eddie Lee Sexton – is an American convict and former cult leader who was convicted of multiple counts of murder and sexual abuse during the 1980s and 1990s. He was born and raised in rural Kentucky and grew up in a deeply religious family. Sexton’s criminal career began in the 1980s when he formed a cult known as the “Sexton Family.” The group, which was made up of Sexton’s relatives and other followers, engaged in a range of criminal activities, including murder, kidnapping, and sexual abuse. Sexton’s first known murder victim was his wife, whom he killed in 1984 after she threatened to leave him. Over the next decade, he and his followers would go on to kill several other people, including family members and former cult members who tried to leave the group. Sexton was eventually caught in 1992 when one of his victims managed to escape and went to the police. He was convicted of murder and sexual abuse and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Sexton’s case received widespread media attention, in part because of the shocking nature of his crimes but also because of the cult-like nature of his group. Many of Sexton’s relatives and followers were also convicted of crimes related to the cult, including murder and sexual abuse.

1948 – Arturo Daniel Aranda – is a man from Webb County, Texas, USA, born on May 12, 1948. He was sentenced to death on May 18, 1979. The crime for which he was convicted involved the murder of Laredo Police Officer Pablo Albidrez Jr. after a short chase in July 1976. Aranda was out on parole at the time of the crime. As of 2011, he had been awaiting execution for half his life, 31 years. His case has been appealed in the United States District Court For the Southern District of Texas.

1958 – Benny Joe Stevens – Stevens and his ex-wife Glenda had been divorced for 13 years, each had moved on with different partners, etc, Glenda for the entire time had been chasing Stevens for child support. Stevens had had an accident and was waiting for a compensation settlement for a back injury, the presumption was that Stevens would pay off his back child support with his settlement, Stevens had a different idea and on the 18th of October 1998 he went to Glenda and families trailer, when he got there he shot and killed Glenda, her husband Wesley, his son Dylan and Dylan’s friend Heath he then went back home and told his new wife that he had just “killed a family”.

1971 – Clinton Bankston Jr – He is known for his involvement in one of the most violent criminal cases in Athens, Georgia. At the age of 15 and 16, Bankston committed a series of murders. His first victims were retired University of Georgia professors Glenn and Rachel Sutton, who were fatally stabbed during a burglary of their Oglethorpe Avenue home in April 1987. Only four months later, in August 1987, Bankston killed three women: 63-year-old Ann Morris, her 59-year-old sister, Sally Nathanson, and Sally’s daughter Helen Nathanson, 22. These killings occurred at the Nathanson home on Carr’s Hill. Bankston pleaded guilty but mentally ill to the murders and was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences in May 1988. His case is considered one of Athens’ most notorious and heinous murder cases. As of 2020, Bankston, then 48, was serving his sentence at Dooly State Prison in Unadilla.

1973 – Bobby Kent – was a young man from Broward County, Florida who was murdered by a group of his friends in 1993. He was born in New York but grew up in Florida, where he attended high school and made a group of close friends. Kent was known to be a popular student who was involved in sports and had a reputation for being a ladies’ man. However, he also had a history of bullying and physically assaulting his friends, particularly his best friend, Martin Puccio. In the summer of 1993, Puccio and several other friends, including Lisa Connelly, Alice Willis, Donald Semenec, and Derek Kaufman, conspired to murder Kent in retaliation for years of abuse. They lured him to a remote area and beat him to death with a baseball bat and a knife. The group was eventually caught and convicted of murder. Puccio, Connelly, Willis, and Semenec were all sentenced to life in prison, while Kaufman received a reduced sentence in exchange for testifying against the others. The case received widespread media attention and inspired a book, “Bully: A True Story of High School Revenge,” by Jim Schutze, as well as a movie, “Bully,” which was released in 2001. Despite the brutal nature of his death, Kent’s legacy remains controversial, with some arguing that he was a victim of his own abusive behavior and others pointing to the tragic consequences of his friends’ actions.

1978 – Martin Robles – Robles had an extremely troubled childhood that would plague him for his whole life, he dropped out of school in 8th grade and served a six-year sentence for murder with a deadly weapon. He was using various drugs including marijuana, cocaine, and more whilst in a gang that involved themselves in numerous criminal activities such as drug running, and on the 12th November 2002 he shot and killed rival drug dealers John Commisky & Jesus Gonzalez.

1980 – Corinio Allen Pruitt – is known for his conviction of first-degree murder. He was found guilty of the death of 79-year-old Lawrence Guidroz. The incident occurred in August 2005, when Pruitt carjacked and beat Guidroz as he was leaving an Oakhaven grocery store. Pruitt was arrested two days after the crime. His trial lasted six days, and he was sentenced to death on March 1, 2008. His conviction and sentence were affirmed by the Tennessee Supreme Court on direct appeal. Despite filing a post-conviction petition, the post-conviction court denied relief.

2003 – Madeleine McCann – Madeleine McCann was a British girl who disappeared on the evening of May 3, 2007, while on holiday with her family in the Algarve region of Portugal. At the time of her disappearance, Madeleine was just shy of her fourth birthday. The McCann family was staying in a holiday resort in the town of Praia da Luz when Madeleine went missing from her bed while her parents were dining with friends at a nearby restaurant. Despite an extensive search by the Portuguese police and volunteers, as well as international attention, Madeleine was never found. The case received widespread media coverage and sparked a massive international search effort, with countless people coming forward with possible leads and sightings. The investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance remains one of the most high-profile missing persons cases in history. In the years since her disappearance, there have been numerous theories and speculations about what happened to Madeleine, including possible abductions, trafficking, and even involvement by her parents. However, no concrete evidence has ever been found, and the case remains unsolved. The McCann family has continued to advocate for their daughter’s safe return and has worked to raise awareness of missing children and the importance of child safety. The case has had a profound impact on child abduction prevention and how missing person cases are investigated and publicized.

Deaths

Buck Ruxton

1913 – Enriqueta Marti – also known as “La Vampira del Raval” (the vampire of Raval), was a Spanish child kidnapper and serial killer who operated in Barcelona in the early 20th century. Martí worked as a midwife and a children’s nurse and would lure poor children from the streets with the promise of food and shelter. She then took the children to her home, where she would torture and kill them. She was also known to sell the children’s bodies to wealthy clients who believed that consuming them would provide them with health benefits. Martí was eventually caught and arrested in 1912 after a young girl escaped from her home and reported her to the police. The authorities discovered the remains of several children in her home, as well as a variety of torture devices and potions. Martí was put on trial and eventually found guilty of multiple murders, kidnappings, and child trafficking. She was sentenced to death by garrote and executed in 1913. Despite her heinous crimes, Enriqueta Martí has become something of a legend in popular culture, inspiring books, films, and even songs. Her case is considered one of the most notorious in Spanish criminal history, and she remains a haunting figure in the public imagination.

1936 – Buck Ruxton – was a physician who committed one of the most notorious murders in British history. He was born in India and served as a surgeon in the Indian Army before moving to the UK in the early 1920s to pursue a medical career. In 1935, Ruxton murdered his wife, Isabella, and their maid, Mary Rogerson, in a fit of jealousy. He dismembered their bodies and scattered the remains in the hills near his home in Lancaster, England. The case became a media sensation, with newspapers across the country covering the gruesome details of the murders and the subsequent investigation. Despite Ruxton’s attempts to conceal his crime, the police were eventually able to piece together the evidence and arrest him. At his trial, Ruxton claimed that he had killed his wife in a fit of rage after discovering that she had been unfaithful and that he had killed the maid accidentally when she stumbled upon the scene. However, the jury did not believe his story and he was found guilty of both murders. Ruxton was sentenced to death by hanging and executed in 1936. His case is notable not only for the brutality of the murders but also for the forensic investigation techniques used to solve the crime. The case is often cited as an early example of the use of forensic evidence in a criminal investigation.

1974 – Tony Costa – was an American serial killer who murdered four women in the Cape Cod area of Massachusetts in the late 1960s. He was born in a small town in Massachusetts and grew up in a dysfunctional family environment. Costa was known to be a drug user and had a history of mental illness. He was also known for his artistic talents and often sold his paintings to support his drug habit. In 1969, Costa began a killing spree that would terrorize the Cape Cod area for several months. He lured his victims to his home, where he would strangle them and then dismember their bodies. He buried their remains in various locations in the woods. The police were able to connect Costa to the murders through several pieces of evidence, including a bloody fingerprint found on one of the victim’s cars. He was arrested and charged with the murders in 1970. Costa was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He died in prison in 1974, reportedly of suicide. The case shocked the Cape Cod community and garnered national attention. It also inspired several books and movies, including the novel “The Cross and the Switchblade” and the movie “The Strangler.”

1987 – Michel Van Wijnendale – was a Belgian mass murderer who killed seven people in Bogaarden, Belgium on May 12, 1987. He also wounded three others, before committing suicide. Van Wijnendale was born in 1959 in the town of Pepingen, Belgium. He was the son of a farmer and a housewife. He had two siblings, a brother and a sister. Van Wijnendale was a bright and athletic child. He excelled in school and was a talented cyclist. He dreamed of becoming a professional cyclist, but he was not able to achieve his goal. After graduating from high school, Van Wijnendale worked as a bank clerk. He married in 1982 and had a son the following year. In the years leading up to the murders, Van Wijnendale became increasingly frustrated and angry. He was unhappy with his job and his marriage. He also felt that he had been treated unfairly by society. On May 12, 1987, Van Wijnendale went on a shooting spree in Bogaarden. He first killed five members of a family, including a 90-year-old man, his wife, their daughter, son-in-law, and grandson. He then killed a neighbor and her 3-year-old son. Van Wijnendale was eventually cornered by police in Sirault, Belgium. He committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. The murders shocked Belgium and the rest of the world. They were the worst mass shooting in Belgian history at the time.

1992 – Nollie Lee Martin – was a man known for his criminal activities. He was convicted for the abduction, rape, and murder of Patricia Greenfield, a 19-year-old George Washington University student who was working a summer job at a convenience store in June 1977. The crime was committed during a robbery where Martin and an accomplice, Gary Forbes, abducted Greenfield at knifepoint while robbing the store of $90 and two cases of beer. Martin was also convicted of two counts of second-degree murder in North Carolina, where he set an apartment fire that killed a High Point woman and her two daughters in 1972. After being on death row for 15 years, Martin was executed in Florida’s electric chair on May 12, 1992. His execution was carried out after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a round of last-minute appeals questioning Martin’s sanity. He was the 28th inmate executed since Florida resumed use of the death penalty in 1979.

1995 – Varnell Weeks – was born on May 10, 1952. He was diagnosed as being severely mentally ill and suffering from a “longstanding paranoid schizophrenia” with symptoms including hallucinations and delusions. Despite his mental condition, he was involved in a homicide in 1981. The victim of this crime was Mark Batts. The method of murder is not specified. Weeks was tried in the state of Alabama. Despite the diagnosis of his mental condition by psychiatrists testifying for both the defense and prosecution, no evidence of his mental condition was introduced at the trial. He was executed by electrocution in Alabama on May 12, 1995. His case has been cited in discussions about the execution of mentally ill individuals.

1997 – Dimitris Vakrinos – was a Greek taxi driver and serial killer. He was born in Pirris, Gortynia, Arcadia, Greece. He confessed to the murder of five people for minor quarrels and the attempted murders of seven others between 1987 and 1996. He was arrested in April 1997 and was jailed in the Korydallos Prison. On May 12, 1997, Vakrinos was found hanging by the neck from shoelaces tied to a shower head in the showers of the prison ward. Vakrinos grew up in a small village, the second son of the poor five-member family of Panagiotis and Georgia Vakrinou. His parents were farmers, while he was a moderate student. According to testimonies from fellow villagers, Vakrinos was not very social. His father often abused him, especially while under the influence of alcohol. In 1975, at the age of 13, Vakrinos found himself in Athens, where he worked in a tavern in Hassia. He then trained as a welder at a technical school and was hired at the Elefsis Shipyard, where he worked until 1992. Then he began work as a taxi driver. Vakrinos married in 1990 and got divorced only 14 months later. In August 1996 he remarried and moved to Moschato. He did not have any children. His relationship with his mother and his three sisters was considered normal, as opposed to his relationship with his alcoholic father, which was later characterized as abusive. On August 6, 1987, when he was 25 years old, the first criminal activity committed by Vakrinos was recorded. The vast majority of his crimes took place from 1993 to 1996. His victims included Panayiotis Gaglias, Anastasia Simitzi, Theodoros Andreadis, and the brothers Costas and Antonis Spyropoulos.

2010 – Kevin Scott Varga – An American thief who had a previous rap sheet for burglary and grand theft for which he was sentenced to 13 years in prison. In September 1998, Varga, his girlfriend, and two friends decided to go on a road trip with their final destination being Mexico, en route they stopped in Wichita, Kansas where Varga robbed David McCoy and then beat him to death with a pole before the group continued their travels, they next went to Texas where they came across David Logie who they intended to rob and once again ending up murdering by beating him with tree limbs and a hammer.

2011 – Matej Curko – A Slovak murderer and cannibal who the authorities surmised was also a serial killer with up to 30 victims. We know that two of his victims, who were mentally ill had contacted Curko asking him to kill and eat them, and a Swiss man who had suicidal thoughts had also asked the same of Curko but the police arrested him before he could carry out this man’s wish.

2015 – William MacDonald – MacDonald was an English serial killer born in Liverpool who carried out five brutal murders in Queensland and New South Wales, Australia in the 1960s. Due to the brutality and ferociousness of his crimes, MacDonald was dubbed “The Mutilator” by the media. He was put on trial in August 1963 and when found guilty he was sentenced to five life sentences with a recommendation that he never be released.

2018 – Denis Nilsen – was a British serial killer who was convicted of murdering 12 young men in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He was born in Fraserburgh, Scotland, and raised in a working-class family. Nilsen’s childhood was marked by his parent’s divorce, and he was frequently left alone while his mother worked long hours to support the family. Nilsen joined the army in 1961 and served for 11 years, rising to the rank of corporal. After leaving the army, he worked a series of odd jobs, including as a police officer, before settling into a job as a civil servant at the Jobcentre in London. Nilsen’s first known murder took place in 1978 when he invited a young man named Stephen Holmes to his flat for a drink. After Holmes passed out, Nilsen strangled him and hid his body in a cupboard. Over the next three years, Nilsen would go on to kill 11 more young men in a similar fashion, often inviting them to his flat for the company before killing them and disposing of their bodies. Nilsen was eventually caught in 1983 after the remains of his victims were discovered in the drains outside his flat. He was convicted of six counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder and sentenced to life in prison. Nilsen spent the rest of his life behind bars, eventually dying of natural causes in 2018 at the age of 72. Nilsen’s crimes have been the subject of several books and documentaries, and his case is often cited as one of the most notorious serial killer cases in British history.

Events

Charles A. Lindbergh Jr

1593 – London playwright Thomas Kyd is arrested and tortured by the Privy Council for libel.

1932 – The body of Charles Lindbergh’s kidnapped son is found in Hopewell, New Jersey

2008 – US Immigration & Customs Enforcement conducts the largest-ever raid of a workplace in Postville, Iowa arresting nearly 400 immigrants for ID theft and document fraud.

2019 – A gunman kills five people and a priest in a Catholic church in Dablo, Burkina Faso.