Births

Stanislav Rogolev

1845 – John Makin – He was the son of an assigned convict, William Makin, and his wife Ellen. John was the fourth of eleven children born between 1838 and 1860. He married Sarah Jane Sutcliffe, who was born on December 20, 1845, in Sussex Street, Sydney. Sarah’s father was a miller and former convict. John and Sarah Makin had at least ten children, five sons and five daughters.  John Makin worked as a drayman for a brewer around 1881. However, after being injured in an accident, he and his wife turned to ‘baby farming’ as a source of income. This practice involved taking on the care of illegitimate babies in exchange for payment.  The couple were convicted in New South Wales for the murder of infant Horace Murray. They had answered a series of advertisements from unmarried mothers seeking adoption of their babies, taking on the care of the infants on payment of a “premium”. The remains of fifteen infants were found by police buried in the yards of houses where the Makins had resided.  Both John and Sarah Makin were tried and found guilty in March 1893. John was sentenced to death and was executed by hanging on August 15, 1893. Sarah’s sentence was initially death as well, but it was later commuted to life imprisonment. After serving eighteen-and-a-half years, she was released in April 1911 when her daughters petitioned for her early release. Sarah Jane Makin passed away on September 13, 1918.

1913 – Jimmy Hoffa – His father, who was of German descent, died in 1920 from lung disease when Hoffa was seven years old. His mother was of Irish ancestry. The family moved to Detroit in 1924, where Hoffa was raised and lived for the rest of his life. He left school at the age of 14 and began working in full-time manual labor jobs to help support his family.  Hoffa married Josephine Poszywak, an 18-year-old Detroit laundry worker of Polish heritage, in Bowling Green, Ohio, on September 25, 1937. The couple had met six months earlier during a nonunionized laundry workers’ strike action. They had two children: a daughter, Barbara Ann Crancer, and a son, James P. Hoffa.  From an early age, Hoffa was a union activist, and he became an important regional figure with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) by his mid-twenties. By 1952, he was the national vice-president of the IBT and between 1957 and 1971 he was its general president. He secured the first national agreement for teamsters’ rates in 1964 with the National Master Freight Agreement. He played a major role in the growth and development of the union, which eventually became the largest by membership in the United States, with over 2.3 million members at its peak, during his term as its leader.  Hoffa became involved with organized crime from the early years of his Teamsters work, a connection that continued until his disappearance in 1975. He was convicted of jury tampering, attempted bribery, conspiracy, and mail and wire fraud in 1964 in two separate trials. He was imprisoned in 1967 and sentenced to 13 years. In mid-1971, he resigned as president of the union as part of a commutation agreement with U.S. President Richard Nixon and was released later that year, but Hoffa was barred from union activities until 1980. Hoping to regain support and to return to IBT leadership, he unsuccessfully tried to overturn the order.  Hoffa disappeared on July 30, 1975. It is generally accepted that he was murdered by the Mafia, and in 1982 he was declared legally dead. Hoffa’s legacy and the circumstances of his disappearance continue to stir debate.

1940 – Gary Lewingdon – He led a marginal lifestyle and was forced to engage in low-skilled labor. From 1962 to 1977, he was repeatedly prosecuted for offenses such as petty theft, obscene behavior in public places, and illegal possession of weapons. In 1958, after graduation, he enlisted in the army and was assigned to the Air Force. He served in Vietnam during the early period of the war, and after four years, he resigned in 1962 and returned home to his mother, where he lived with her until 1977 when he met a woman who would later become his wife.  Gary and his brother Thaddeus Charles Lewingdon were known as the “.22 Caliber Killers”. They committed a series of ten murders in different Ohio counties from December 1977 to December 1978 for the motive of robbery. As a murder weapon, the criminals used .22 caliber pistols. In 1979, both brothers were sentenced to several terms of life imprisonment. Gary James Lewingdon died on October 24, 2004, in Columbus, Ohio, U.S.

1941 – Stanislav Rogolev – He was a Soviet serial killer who, over a span of one and a half years, attacked 21 women, killing 10 of them. In 1980, Rogolev was convicted four times and charged once with rape.  Rogolev’s first sexual crime, for which he was judged separately, was committed before the 1980s. In October 1980, Rogolev committed another sexual assault, along with his accomplice Aldis Svāre. On 26 October 1980, near the Jumprava station, Rogolev threatened a 17-year-old girl with a knife, dragging her into a nearby forest. When she started screaming, he beat her with the knife handle and tried to rape her, but couldn’t. The girl escaped and reached her home, where her relatives lived.  On 8 November in Salaspils, near the Dole station at seven in the morning, Rogolev twice stabbed a 44-year-old woman in the stomach because she did not want to talk to him. She survived the attack. On 18 November, together with Aldis Svāre, Rogolev beat and raped a woman, who managed to escape. On 26 November, 200 meters away from the Lielupe station, Rogolev stabbed a 27-year-old woman in the stomach, but she continued to resist. After people started approaching the scene, he fled.  On 27 November, near the Jumprava station, Rogolev tried to attack a 24-year-old girl; she saved herself by blinding the attacker several times with a flashlight. She got off with a slight bodily injury. In December, he raped an 18-year-old girl 70 meters away from her house. On the night of the new year in Babīte, Rogolev and Svāre dragged a 34-year-old woman into the forest where they raped, robbed, and murdered her.  Stanislav Rogolev was executed by shooting on June 19, 1984, in Leningrad, RSFSR, Soviet Union.

1951 – Connie J. Williams – is a convicted murderer from Pennsylvania, USA. He was sentenced to death on March 2, 2002, for the murder and dismemberment of his wife, Frances Williams, 53. The crime occurred in August 1999 while he was cooking steak and home fries. After the murder, he sawed off her head, hands, and feet and stuffed them in a freezer before disposing of them elsewhere.  This was not Williams’ first conviction. He had previously served 7 years for second-degree murder for killing his landlord in the 1970s. Williams claimed that he killed his wife in a fit of passion after they had argued about money and her threats of divorce. He also claimed he never realized what he had done until he found his wife’s remains in the freezer. Williams then reported his wife missing. After police found traces of Frances’s blood in the home, Williams confessed.  Despite scoring as low as 59 on IQ tests, which could potentially classify him as mentally retarded, the jury decided that this did not overcome the aggravating factor of the prior murder conviction. As such, Williams was sentenced to death.

1953 – Ken Eldon Lott – is a convicted murderer from Orange County, Florida, USA. He was sentenced to death on June 23, 1995, for the brutal murder of Rose Connors. On the morning of March 28, 1994, Rose Connors was found unclothed and murdered in the master bedroom of her estate. She had been severely beaten, suffered a stab wound in the back, and a fractured larynx, and her throat had been slashed. The actual cause of death was the injury to Connors’ neck, which severed the jugular vein. There were also bruises on Connors’ thigh area, suggesting that her legs were being forced apart.  Prior to the murder, Lott provided lawn services for Connors at her home. On the day of the murder, which occurred sometime between March 26 and March 27, 1994, Lott and his accomplice, Raymond Fuller, intended to rob Connors when they ran out of money and were not able to buy drugs. They were under the influence of “crystal meth” and cocaine at the time.  The robbery did not go as planned once Connors escaped from Fuller and ran out of her house. She was instantly caught and dragged back into her home by Lott, who was hiding in some bushes outside her home. According to Lott, he beat Connors because she was retaliating like a “maniac” and had to kill her because she could identify him and would be sent to prison as a result. After murdering Connors, Lott, and Fuller left her home with a diamond tennis bracelet. Later in the evening, Lott returned to the scene of the crime to clean up.  Lott was discovered a few months after the incident when his friend, Robert Whitman, contacted the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. According to Whitman, he met with Lott sometime after the incident when Lott approached him and offered to sell him a gold ring and a diamond tennis bracelet.

1955 – Darrell Keith Rich – gained infamy as the “Hilltop Racist” in American criminal history. Convicted as a serial killer, Rich was responsible for a string of murders that terrorized communities. His criminal spree unfolded with a disturbing pattern, leaving a trail of fear and tragedy. The details of his life, motivations, and the impact of his actions continue to be subjects of interest and study in the realm of true crime. Rich’s story is a chilling reminder of the darker aspects of human nature, explored in the context of the criminal landscape of the time.

1962 – Michael Francis Beuke – was a convicted murderer who was sentenced to death for his crimes. Known as the “Homicidal Hitchhiker,” Beuke was convicted of killing one motorist and attempting to kill two others.  In 1983, Beuke, then 21, was brought into Judge Nadel’s courtroom and was sentenced to death by Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Norbert Nadel. Beuke lured his victims into stopping on the road by pretending to be hitchhiking. His crimes led to his nickname, “The Mad Hitchhiker.”  Beuke was executed at the age of 48 by lethal injection at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility on Thursday, May 13, 2010. His life and crimes left a lasting impact on the families of his victims and the community at large.

1962 – Jay Kelly Pinkerton – carved a dark legacy as an American criminal involved in rape, robbery, and murder. Infamously known for his heinous actions, Pinkerton’s life unfolded as a disturbing narrative of violent crime. His criminal activities cast a shadow over communities, leaving a trail of tragedy and suffering. The details of Pinkerton’s life, his motives, and the consequences of his actions serve as a stark reminder of the harsh realities within the realm of true crime. As part of the criminal landscape of his time, Pinkerton’s story remains a chilling chapter in the annals of notorious individuals who left an indelible mark on the darker side of human history.

1962 – Charlie Livingston – As per court records, Charlie Livingston would observe Janet Caldwell entering a grocery store, lurking beneath her vehicle. Upon Caldwell’s return, Livingston, armed with a gun, would emerge, demanding her purse. When Caldwell resisted, Livingston tragically shot her. Subsequently, Livingston faced arrest, conviction, and a death sentence. On November 21, 1997, Charlie Livingston met his end through lethal injection.

1964 – John Francis Wille – is known for his criminal activities spanning from 1980 to 1985. He is classified as a serial killer, with six victims to his name. His victims included four men and two females, one of whom was an elderly woman burned in her home and an eight-year-old girl who was raped and strangled. His methods of murder varied.  Wille’s crimes spanned across multiple states in the USA, including Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Alabama. He was arrested on August 6, 1985. Later that year, on December 13, he was sentenced to life in prison in Florida. In 1987, he was sentenced to death in Louisiana.  One of his most notorious crimes was the kidnapping, rape, and murder of an 8-year-old girl named Nichole Lopatta in June 1985. This crime led to his conviction and subsequent death sentence in Louisiana. He was also linked to the murder of Billy Phillips, 25, from Tickfaw, who was found stabbed at least 84 times, with his hands severed and his genitals mutilated.  In addition to these crimes, Wille was also convicted for the murder of Frank Powe near a Florida interstate rest area in 1985. For this crime, he was given a life sentence during his trial in Florida. His criminal activities also included arson, as he set fire to a landlord’s mobile home in Milton, Florida, killing several pet dogs in the fire.  Despite the severity of his crimes, Wille’s defense attorney presented several witnesses during his trial, including a priest and Wille’s mother, who testified about his love for his two younger sisters and pleaded for his life. However, the jury chose death by electrocution over a life sentence without the benefit of probation, pardon, or parole. The death sentence is subject to automatic review by the Louisiana Supreme Court.  Wille’s criminal activities have left a lasting impact, and his case is often referenced in discussions about crime and punishment in the United States. His story serves as a stark reminder of the devastating consequences of violent crime.

1971 – Mark Newton Spotz – is a convicted murderer who is currently on death row in Pennsylvania. He was sentenced to death for the carjacking and murder of a woman from New Salem in 1995. Spotz is under three death sentences for a four-day murder spree that included the shooting deaths of women in three counties.  On the evening of January 31, 1995, Spotz and his brother, Dustin, became involved in a heated family argument. The argument escalated into a physical altercation, during which Spotz shot and killed his brother. Spotz then fled his parents’ house with his then-girlfriend, Christina Noland.  In the early hours of February 1, 1995, Spotz and Noland approached a mini-mart in Pine Grove, Schuylkill County. They carjacked June Ohlinger, who had arrived to open the store. Spotz drove them to a secluded area, where he robbed Ohlinger of her jewelry and money. He then shot Ohlinger in the back of the head and kicked her body into a creek.  Spotz has spent over two decades in solitary confinement, which he has described as “psychological torture”. He has joined other condemned Pennsylvania inmates in a federal complaint about their prison conditions, arguing that lengthy solitary confinement is inhumane.  Despite the severity of his crimes, Spotz’s case has sparked discussions about the conditions of death row inmates and the use of solitary confinement in the US prison system.

1975 – Kristi Anne Koslow – is known for her involvement in a plot to kill her millionaire father and stepmother to obtain her inheritance. The crime took place on March 12, 1992, in the Rivercrest area of Fort Worth, Texas. Intruders attacked Jack Koslow and Caren Courtney Koslow, Kristi’s father and stepmother, in their house. Caren Koslow’s throat was slashed, killing her, while Jack managed to escape the house and survived.  Authorities found that two people, Jeffrey Dillingham and Brian Dennis Salter, had attacked the Koslows, with Dillingham beating them and Salter slashing their throats. After the attack, they stole a wristwatch worth $1,600 and $200 in cash from a wallet. Kristi Anne Koslow had conspired with Dillingham and Salter in order to get inheritance money. Kristi had provided them with the alarm codes so they could sneak into the Koslow residence. Kristi Koslow had promised them $1 million if they carried out the attack.  At the time of the murder, Jack Koslow, a helicopter pilot, was 48. Caren Koslow, a member of a family of petroleum businesspeople, was 40, and Kristi Koslow was 17. Dillingham and Salter were both 19. Salter was the boyfriend of Kristi Koslow.  Salter received a life sentence as part of a plea agreement. In 1994, Kristi Koslow was convicted of murder and also received a life sentence. Dillingham refused a plea agreement, was convicted, and received the death penalty. He was executed at age 27, by lethal injection, on November 1, 2000. As of 2016, Kristi Koslow is serving her sentence at the Hobby Unit, while Salter is located at the Alfred Hughes Unit.

Deaths

Vito Genovese

1969 – Vito Genovese – an Italian-born American mobster who mainly operated in the United States. He was born on November 21, 1897, in Risigliano, a frazione in the comune of Tufino, in the Province of Naples, Italy. His father was Frances Felice Genovese and his mother Nunziata Aluotto. Vito had a sister Giovanna Jennie (m. Richard Prisco) along with two brothers, Michael and Carmine, who also belonged to Genovese’s crime family. His cousin, Michael, became the boss of the Pittsburgh crime family.  As a child in Italy, Genovese completed school only to the American equivalent of the fifth grade. In 1913, when Genovese was 15, his family immigrated to the United States onboard the SS Taormina and took up residence in Little Italy, Manhattan. Genovese was 5 ft 7 in (170 cm). He and his family lived a quiet life in a house in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey.  Genovese started his criminal career stealing merchandise from pushcart vendors and running errands for mobsters. He rose to power during Prohibition as an enforcer in the American Mafia. A long-time associate and childhood friend of Lucky Luciano, Genovese took part in the Castellammarese War and helped shape the rise of the Mafia and organized crime in the United States. He would later lead Luciano’s crime family, which was renamed the Genovese crime family in his honor. Along with Luciano, Genovese helped the expansion of the heroin trade to an international level.  In 1937, he fled to Italy, and for a brief period during World War II, he supported Benito Mussolini’s regime in Italy for fear of being deported back to the United States to face murder charges. He returned to the United States in 1945. Genovese served as a mentor to Vincent “Chin” Gigante, the future boss of the Genovese crime family.  In 1957, Genovese vied for the boss of bosses title by ordering the murder of Albert Anastasia and the botched murder attempt of Frank Costello. Immediately following this, he called a mafia summit to consolidate his power, but the meeting was raided by the police. In 1959, his reign was cut short as he was convicted on narcotics conspiracy charges and sentenced to 15 years in prison. While he and his underling Joe Valachi were in prison together, Valachi killed an inmate he thought to be a hitman sent by Genovese. Valachi then became a government witness. Genovese died in prison on February 14, 1969.

1980 – Marie Besnard – also known as ‘The Good Lady of Loudun’, was born on August 15, 1896, and passed away on February 14, 1980. She was an accused serial poisoner in the mid-20th century. Besnard was first charged with multiple murders on July 21, 1949, under her maiden name, Marie Joséphine Philippine Davaillaud. After three trials lasting over ten years, Besnard was finally freed in 1954, then acquitted on December 12, 1961. The case attracted widespread attention throughout the country and remains one of the most enigmatic in modern French legal history.  Born in Loudun, France, Marie married her cousin, Auguste Antigny, in 1920. The marriage lasted until his death from pleurisy on July 21, 1927. In 1928, Marie married Léon Besnard. When Léon Besnard’s parents inherited family wealth, the couple invited them to move in with them. Soon thereafter, his father died, apparently from eating poisoned mushrooms. His mother followed three months later, apparently a victim of pneumonia. The parents’ estate was left to Besnard’s husband and his sister, Lucie, who supposedly committed suicide a few months later. Around this time, on May 14, 1940, Marie Besnard’s father Pierre Davaillaud also died, officially due to cerebral hemorrhage.  Shortly afterward, the Besnards sublet rooms to a wealthy childless couple, the Rivets, who were friends of Marie’s husband. Monsieur Toussaint Rivet died of pneumonia on July 14, 1939, and Madame Blanche Rivet died on December 27, 1941, from aortitis. The Rivets’ will had named Marie Besnard as their only heir. Pauline Bodineau and Virginie Lalleron, cousins of Marie, had also named Marie as their only beneficiary. Pauline died aged 88 on July 1, 1945, after mistaking a bowl of lye for her dessert one night. Virginie apparently made the same mistake a week later and died aged 83 on July 9, 1945. After Marie discovered Léon was having an affair, Léon remarked to a close friend, Madame Pintou, that he believed he was being poisoned. He died shortly afterward on October 25, 1947, apparently of uremia. A few days after Léon’s burial, details of his testimony reached the gendarmerie and were passed to an investigating magistrate. Marie’s mother, Marie-Louise Davaillaud, died on January 16, 1949. As Marie had by now also accumulated most of the wealth of both families, suspicions were aroused of foul play and the magistrate ordered the exhumation of Léon’s body on May 11, 1949.

1994 – Andrei Chikatilo – also known as The Butcher of Rostov, The Rostov Ripper, and The Red Ripper, was a notorious Soviet serial killer. He was born on October 16, 1936, in the village of Yabluchne in the Sumy Oblast of the Ukrainian SSR. During his childhood, Ukraine was experiencing a famine caused by Joseph Stalin’s forced collectivization of agriculture. Chikatilo’s parents were both collective farm laborers who lived in a one-room hut. They received no wages for their work, but instead received the right to cultivate a plot of land behind the family hut. The family often had to eat grass and leaves to stave off hunger.  Chikatilo sexually assaulted, murdered, and mutilated at least fifty-two women and children between 1978 and 1990 in the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, and the Uzbek SSR. He confessed to fifty-six murders and was tried for fifty-three murders in April 1992. He was convicted and sentenced to death for fifty-two of these murders in October 1992. However, the Supreme Court of Russia ruled in 1993 that insufficient evidence existed to prove his guilt in nine of those killings. Chikatilo was executed by gunshot in February 1994.  Chikatilo was known as the “Rostov Ripper” and the “Butcher of Rostov” because he committed most of his murders in the Rostov Oblast of the Russian SFSR. His case is noteworthy not only because of the large number of his victims but also because efforts by Soviet police to issue warnings to the public during their investigation were hampered by the country’s policies.

2004 – Yang Xinhai – also known as Yang Zhiya and Yang Liu, was a Chinese serial killer who confessed to committing 67 murders and 23 rapes between 1999 and 2003. He was born on July 17, 1968, in Zhengyang County, Zhumadian, Henan, China. His family was one of the poorest in their village. The youngest of four children, Yang was clever and introverted. He dropped out of school in 1985, at age 17, and refused to return home, instead traveling around China and working as a laborer.  In 1988 and 1991, Yang was sentenced to labor camps for theft in Xi’an, Shaanxi, and Shijiazhuang, Hebei. In 1996, he was sentenced to five years in prison for attempted rape in Zhumadian, Henan, and released in 1999. Yang’s killings took place between 1999 and 2003 in the provinces of Anhui, Hebei, Henan, and Shandong. At night, he would enter his victims’ homes, and kill all of the occupants—mainly farmers—with axes, hammers, and shovels, sometimes killing entire families. Each time he wore new clothes and large shoes.  In October 2002, Yang killed a father and a six-year-old girl with a shovel and raped a pregnant woman, who survived the attack with serious head injuries. Yang was detained on November 3, 2003, after acting suspiciously during a routine police inspection of entertainment venues in Cangzhou, Hebei. Police took him in for questioning and discovered that he was wanted for murder in four provinces. Yang was sentenced to death by the Luohe City Intermediate People’s Court, Henan, on February 1, 2004. At the time of his sentencing, official Chinese media believed he had carried out China’s longest and grisliest killing spree. Yang was executed on 14 February 2004 by firing squad.  According to some media reports at the time of his arrest, Yang’s motive for the killings was revenge against society as a result of a break-up. Allegedly his girlfriend had left him because of his previous sentences for theft and rape. Later media reports claimed that his enjoyment of robbery, rape, and murder was the motive. While Yang never formally provided a motive, he was quoted as saying: “When I killed people I had a desire. This inspired me to kill more. I don’t care whether they deserve to live or not. It is none of my concern…I have no desire to be part of society. Society is not my concern.”

2008 – Stephen Phillip Kazmierczak – was born on August 26, 1980, in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. He is known for the tragic event that took place on February 14, 2008, at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. On that day, Kazmierczak opened fire with a shotgun and three pistols in a crowd of students on campus, killing five students and injuring 17 more people, before fatally shooting himself. The shooting happened at the campus’s Cole Hall at approximately 3:05 p.m. Central Standard Time.  Kazmierczak was a student at the University of Illinois at the time of the shooting and was a former student at Northern Illinois University. During his time at NIU, he wrote a paper called “No Crazies With Guns,” in which he used the April 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech to analyze whether mentally ill people should have access to guns.  Before the shooting, Kazmierczak had a short-lived stint as a prison guard that ended abruptly when he didn’t show up for work. He was 27 years old at the time of his death. The motive behind his actions remains a subject of speculation and study.

Events

The actual wall from the St. Valentine’s Day massacre

1929 – The St. Valentine’s Day massacre takes place in Chicago with the death of 7 gangsters, allegedly on the orders of Al Capone

1998 – Authorities in the United States announce that Eric Robert Rudolph is a suspect in an Alabama abortion clinic bombing

2005 – Paul Dyson murders his fiancee Joanne Nelson after a row about laundry

2008 – The Northern Illinois University shooting takes place with the deaths of 6 people and a further 21 injured

2013 – Oscar Pistorius, a South African paralympic champion sprinter is charged with the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp

2018 – Nikolas Cruz carries out the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting

2019 – Colombian Juan Carlos Sanchez Latorre also known as “The Big Bad Wolf” is jailed for the sexual abuse of 276 children in Barranquilla