Births

Big Jim Colosimo

1863 – Marie “Mary” Clement – was a Luxembourgish-born American who became infamous as a serial killer. She poisoned her parents and two of her sisters at their home in Dubuque, Iowa. Although she was never charged for these deaths, she was later convicted of attempting to poison her sister’s family in Rose Hill, Illinois, and was sentenced to a year in the Joliet Prison.  Mary was the second of five daughters born to parents Michel and Margarite Clément. In 1871, the whole family immigrated to the United States, settling in Dubuque. Mary was frequently described as slender, rather pretty, and prepossessing in manner, but due to a defect in her spinal column, she had only partial control over her legs and feet.  Beginning in 1880, her younger sister Annie suddenly died from convulsions. Over the following years, her parents and another sister, Lena, died in similar circumstances, all passing away from convulsions or heart failure after suffering from an unidentifiable illness. Two months after her father’s burial, Mary moved in with her sister Catherine and her family in Rose Hill. On several occasions, the family experienced violent vomiting and spasms after meals prepared by Mary. Suspicion fell on Mary when a pack of grayish-colored powder containing arsenic was found in the backyard. Mary Clement was arrested shortly after.  While imprisoned, Mary initially protested her innocence, claiming that her sister had accused her for the sole reason of obtaining some $100, which Clement supposedly had. Despite her protests, she was convicted and served her sentence. Mary Clement passed away on July 9, 1944.

1878 – Big Jim Colosimo – Vincenzo Colosimo, known as James “Big Jim” Colosimo or as “Diamond Jim”, was an Italian-American Mafia crime boss who emigrated from Calabria, Italy, in 1895. He built a criminal empire in Chicago based on prostitution, gambling, and racketeering. He gained power through petty crime and heading a chain of brothels. From 1902 until his death in 1920, he led a gang known after his death as the Chicago Outfit.  He emigrated from Italy to Chicago at the age of 17, starting out as a petty criminal. Colosimo attracted the attention of First Ward aldermen Michael “Hinky Dink” Kenna and John Coughlin. They made him a precinct captain and later their bagman. This gave Colosimo the political connections that helped him rise to power as a mob boss.  Later, Colosimo acquired another nickname, “Diamond Jim,” because he frequently dressed in a white suit and wore diamond pins, rings, and other jewelry. This, combined with his charm and money, helped him establish relationships with women. He loved women and money, which fueled his enthusiasm for prostitution. In 1902, Colosimo married Victoria Moresco, an established Chicago madam, and together they opened a second brothel.  Among his first brothels were The Victoria, on Armour Avenue (named in honor of his wife), and The Saratoga, at Dearborn and 22nd Street. Within a few years, Colosimo had expanded this to nearly 200 brothels and had also made inroads into gambling and racketeering. Colosimo was reputedly making $50,000 per month from his various legal and illegal operations.  On May 11, 1920, Big Jim Colosimo was shot to death in his own restaurant, allegedly by notorious New York hitman Frankie Yale on orders from Johnny Torrio. No one was ever prosecuted for the murder. Colosimo’s demise also launched the legendary crime careers of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone.

1895 – John Knight Giles – was an inmate at Alcatraz prison, most well known for an escape attempt in 1945. He was originally sentenced to the United States Penitentiary on May 11, 1935, for attempted robbery of the Denver and Rio Grande Western mail train. Prior to this, he had been serving a life sentence in Oregon for murder before escaping.  Giles began serving his federal sentence for the attempted train robbery at McNeil Island on June 17, 1935, but due to his escape record and the length of his sentence, he was transferred to Alcatraz Island on August 28, 1935. His escape attempt from Alcatraz occurred on July 31, 1945, when he managed to board an Army ferry by disguising himself in a stolen Army Technical Sergeant’s uniform. However, his escape was foiled when the count of soldiers on board indicated one extra, and a count of the Alcatraz dock workers indicated one missing convict. He was detained shortly after disembarking the boat and returned to Alcatraz by 11 a.m. the same day. The story of Giles’ capture and his attempted escape were profiled on the radio program Gang Busters in 1945. He died in 1979 in California.

1897 – Della Sorenson – was a Nebraska woman who confessed to the killing by poison of eight persons, including two of her own children and her husband between 1918 and 1924. Her victims included her sister-in-law’s infant daughter, Viola Cooper, her mother-in-law, Wilhelmina Weldam, her daughter, Minnie, and her husband, Joe.  After her first husband’s death, she remarried and settled in Dannebrog, Nebraska. In August 1922, her former sister-in-law visited with another infant, four-month-old Clifford, whom Sorenson poisoned with a piece of candy. Early in 1923, Sorenson killed her own daughter, Delia, on her first birthday. When Sorenson’s friend brought her infant daughter for a visit only a week later, the tiny infant was also poisoned.  In 1925, Sorenson was arrested when she made an unsuccessful attempt at killing two children in the neighborhood with poisoned cookies. She confessed to the crimes, saying, “I like to attend funerals. I’m happy when someone is dying.” These sentiments convinced doctors that Sorenson was schizophrenic, and she was committed to the state mental asylum. She died in the asylum in 1941 at the age of 44.

1914 – Sokichi Furuya – was a Japanese serial killer who, between October 30 and December 12, 1965, murdered eight elderly men in a robbery-murder spree. He is also suspected of being responsible for the murders of four other men, two of them occurring in 1951. The crimes occurred in various parts of Western Japan, such as Osaka, Kyoto, Shiga, Hyōgo, and Fukuoka.  Furutani was born during the Taishō era, on February 16, 1914, in Tsushima, the eldest of five siblings. His parents were part-time farmers, who also operated as relatively wealthy fish traders. However, when Sokichi was four, his mother died, and his father went to Korea in search of new land, breaking up the family. Furutani was sent to live with his uncle in Osaka until he was eight, also staying with other relatives at times.  Since childhood, he was crude and unfriendly, stealing from friends at school, bullying junior high school students, and fighting. At the age of 10, his father returned and soon remarried. Sokichi returned to live with him, but his relationship with his stepmother was extremely brutal, from which he suffered beatings. Finally, Furutani, unable to stand his stepmother’s abuse, began earning a living by stealing, and engaged in a life of theft and violence, spending his nights under the eaves of a temple.  After graduating from elementary school, Furutani and his family relocated to Hiroshima Prefecture, but Sokichi was kicked out of his junior high school for beating up a teacher. His misfortune and misery in childhood led to the formation of a crude, self-centered, and bizarre personality, which would later be responsible for numerous violent events.  During the early years of the Shōwa period, the 17-year-old Furutani was imprisoned for larceny in Hiroshima Prefecture in 1933. He remained at the Iwakuni reformatory in Yamaguchi Prefecture until April 1933 but was rearrested in August for another theft that occurred on May 4, for which he received four years imprisonment to be served in the Fukuoka Prison. Immediately after his release, he was sentenced to three years in prison for theft and fraud in September 1937, and given another six for theft in April 1941. On May 12, 1951, he tried to extort the Hyōgo Prefectural Police, who arrested him, while he was using the alias of “Masao Shimizu”.  He was executed by hanging on May 31, 1985.

1946 – Herbert Lee Richardson – He was a Black Vietnam War veteran who fought for his country on the front lines until he was honorably discharged due to a psychiatric illness that he developed from his service. In one particularly horrendous mission, Mr. Richardson was the only one to survive an attack that killed the rest of his platoon. He began experiencing “crying outbursts” and would go into “uncommunicative withdrawal.” Despite these conditions and his commanding officers’ requests for psychiatric evaluations, Mr. Richardson spent seven more months in combat before he was honorably discharged and sent home to Brooklyn, New York, in December 1966.  Like hundreds of thousands of Vietnam War veterans, Mr. Richardson returned home traumatized and disabled. Thousands of his fellow veterans died by suicide after the war. Hundreds of thousands have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a mental condition that can cause intrusive memories, flashbacks, guilt, shame, and jumpiness. Many more veterans suffer from traumatic brain injuries that can cause headaches and other physical symptoms as well as psychological problems, such as changes in personality and increases in risk-taking behavior.  While in New York, Mr. Richardson recovered at a veterans hospital. He still experienced severe head pain from his traumatic injuries in Vietnam and was known to shout “Incoming!” at random times. At the hospital, he was treated by a nurse from Dothan, Alabama. When the nurse moved back to Dothan, Mr. Richardson moved as well, hoping to establish a relationship with her. They dated for a short period of time before she told Mr. Richardson not to contact her.  Mr. Richardson was convicted of the 1977 pipe-bomb murder of 11-year-old Rena Mae Callins, the niece of a Dothan, Ala., woman who stopped dating Richardson when she learned he was married. Richardson’s lawyer said he suffered from post-traumatic stress related to the Vietnam War. ‘Besides his stress disorder, he had Agent Orange exposure,’ lawyer Bryan Stevenson of the Alabama Capital Representation Resource Center in Montgomery said Thursday.  Richardson was executed in 1989 by the State of Alabama after being convicted of capital murder in 1978. He was pronounced dead at 12:14 a.m. after one jolt of electricity. The Vietnam veteran became an accomplished painter of religious art in his 11 years on death row. Richardson became the 116th person to be put to death in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976 – the sixth in Alabama – and the 12th American to be executed in 1989.

1953 – Kenneth Eugene Turrentine – He was sentenced to death for the quadruple murders of Avon Stevenson, a 48-year-old black female, Anita Louise Richardson, a 39-year-old black female, Tina L. Pennington, a 22-year-old black female, and Martise D. Richardson, a 13-year-old black female. The incident led him to Death Row in Oklahoma.  Turrentine passed away on August 11, 2005, at the age of 52 in McAlester, Pittsburg County, Oklahoma. His death marked the end of a life that had been marred by violence and tragedy. Despite the heinous crimes he committed, his life and death serve as a stark reminder of the consequences of violence and the irreversible nature of capital punishment. His burial details remain unknown.

1954 – Hastings Arthur Wise – He was an ex-convict who had served prison time for bank robbery and receipt of stolen goods before obtaining a technical degree and eventually finding employment at R.E. Phelon, a lawn mower parts manufacturing factory.  Wise had no criminal convictions for approximately fifteen years between his release from prison and the murders he committed in 1997. Despite his criminal past, he was known to be regular at Sunday services, hardly ever missing a week for eleven years.  However, his life took a tragic turn when he was fired from his job at R.E. Phelon following a confrontation with a supervisor. Wise felt discriminated against due to his race, believing that the jobs he wanted were given to white employees by a white personnel director.  On September 15, 1997, Wise returned to his former workplace and committed a mass murder, killing four of his former co-workers: Charles Griffeth, David Moore, Leonard Filyaw, and Sheryl Wood. The motive for the murders was believed to be revenge for his termination of employment.  Wise was convicted of these murders and was sentenced to death. He was executed by lethal injection on November 4, 2005, at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina. He was 51 years old at the time of his death.

1961 – Robert Dale Conklin – He was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of his live-in boyfriend, George Crooks, who was an attorney. The incident occurred on March 28, 1984, when Conklin and Crooks were involved in an altercation in Conklin’s apartment. According to a confession Conklin gave to the police after his arrest, he stabbed Crooks to death with a screwdriver during the altercation. He then dismembered Crooks’ body in a bathroom, wrapped the remains in garbage bags, and discarded them in a dumpster outside his apartment. A book on how to gut an animal was found in Conklin’s bedroom by the police.  Conklin was executed by the State of Georgia by lethal injection on July 12, 2005, at the age of 44. He was the third murderer executed in Georgia in 2005 and the 29th murderer executed nationwide that year. His execution took place at a state prison in Jackson, 50 miles south of Atlanta. He died at 7:44 p.m. EDT. Conklin declined to make a final statement before his execution. His final meal consisted of filet mignon, shrimp, asparagus, ice cream, apple pie, and iced tea. His execution occurred just hours after the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected Conklin’s last-minute plea for clemency.

1962 – John Steven Huggins – He was convicted of first-degree murder, carjacking, kidnapping, and robbery. The victim of his crimes was Carla Larson, an engineer working in Orlando for Centex Rooney. On June 10, 1997, Larson left work in her white Ford Explorer to buy refreshments at a nearby Publix and never returned. Her coworkers instituted a search and were told by eyewitnesses that on the afternoon of Larson’s disappearance, they observed a white Ford Explorer speeding dangerously on a dirt road near where the body was eventually found two days later. The driver was described as a white male with dark hair and a dark tan.  On the day of Larson’s disappearance, John Huggins and his wife, Angel, were visiting Orlando with their children. Angel testified that although she and Huggins drove to Orlando together, she left Orlando without him. Later that same day, Huggins arrived at Angel’s mother’s house in Melbourne driving a white truck that matched the general description of the victim. Neighbors corroborated the fact that a white sports utility vehicle was seen at Angel’s mother’s residence. Although Huggins and Angel were in the process of a divorce, Angel stayed with Huggins in various hotels in and around Melbourne until Angel’s sister, Tammy, arrived in Melbourne to visit. During Tammy’s stay, Huggins and Tammy began a relationship.  On the evening of June 26, 1997, the police received a call that a truck was burning on a vacant lot near Kevin’s house. When they arrived at the scene, the truck was engulfed in flames. An investigation revealed that the burned-out truck was the victim’s Ford Explorer and the fire had been intentionally set. Tammy returned home to Maryland on June 27, 1997, with Huggins accompanying her. Shortly after Huggins and Tammy left Florida together, Angel saw a television program, America’s Most Wanted, which featured Carla Larson’s murder. Angel called and reported that she suspected her husband of the murder.  As a result of Angel’s call, police conducted two extensive searches of Angel’s mother’s house and a shed on the property, but were unable to find incriminating evidence. Angel and her mother, Fay, also searched the home on their own. While retrieving bug spray from her shed, Fay noticed a screwdriver on top of a box.  John Steven Huggins was sentenced to death on February 26, 1999, and was resentenced to death on September 19, 2002.

1974 – Juan A. Luna Jr – also known as the “Brown’s Chicken Murderer”, is a convicted mass murderer in the United States. He was found guilty of killing seven people in the Brown’s Chicken massacre in Palatine, Illinois on January 8, 1993. Luna, along with his accomplice James Degorski, killed the two owners and five employees of the restaurant and left their bodies in the store’s freezer.  Luna was born on February 16, 1974, and was 18 years old at the time of the crime. He was a former employee of the restaurant. The case remained unsolved for nearly nine years until Luna and Degorski were implicated by Degorski’s former girlfriend in 2002.  The evidence against Luna included DNA found on partially eaten pieces of chicken at the crime scene and a videotaped confession. Luna went to trial in Cook County Criminal Court in late April 2007. On May 10, 2007, Luna was found guilty on all seven counts of first-degree murder. On May 18, 2007, a jury decided against the death penalty for Luna, resulting in a life sentence without parole. This decision was due to a lone holdout in the jury, as 11 of the 12 jurors had voted for the death penalty.

1977 – Shawnfatee Michael Bridges – is a convicted murderer from the United States. He was born on February 16, 1977, and was involved in a retaliation crime in 1996 in Berks County, Pennsylvania. The victims were two individuals who had allegedly stolen his girlfriend.  Bridges was originally sentenced to death on February 23, 1998, for the murders of Damon L. Banks, 22, and Gregory A. Banks, 19, which occurred on December 8, 1996. The bodies of the cousins were discovered on a gravel road off West Neversink Street in Exeter Township. Damon Banks was shot 13 times, and Gregory Banks was shot five times.  Bridges spent nearly two decades on death row for these crimes. However, he won a case-altering appeal in 2013, which was affirmed in September 2017, that overturned the conviction and granted him a new trial. The appeal hinged on the prior prosecution failing to provide the defense with police records that could have been used to impeach a key trial witness.  Instead of pursuing a second trial, Bridges pleaded guilty to two counts of third-degree murder. After listening to arguments and testimony from both sides, the judge sentenced Bridges to a total of 23 to 80 years. The sentence includes a time-served penalty on the first count, with Bridges receiving credit for more than 21 years, followed by three to 40 years on the second count.  Bridges expressed remorse for his actions and regretted the rash decisions he made back in 1996. He admitted that he initiated a revenge attack against the Banks cousins because he believed they had robbed his home the day before and held his girlfriend at gunpoint. He admitted he met with codefendants Roderick A. Johnson and Richard T. Morales and they agreed to help him.

1977 – Maxine Carr – is known for her involvement in the infamous Soham murders case in England. She later changed her surname to Carr to distance herself from her absent father.  Carr was a teaching assistant at St. Andrew’s Primary School in Soham, Cambridgeshire. She became infamous for her role in the murder of two 10-year-old schoolgirls, Holly Marie Wells and Jessica Aimee Chapman, which occurred on August 4, 2002. The girls were lured into the home of Ian Huntley, a school caretaker, who subsequently murdered them. Carr, who was Huntley’s girlfriend at the time, knowingly provided him with a false alibi.  Carr was found guilty of conspiring with Huntley to pervert the course of justice and received a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence. During Huntley’s trial, Carr turned against him, referring to him as “that thing in the box”. After her release from prison, Carr has lived under a protected identity due to the high-profile nature of the case.

1981 – Michael A. Tisius – is a convicted murderer from the United States. He was sentenced to death for two murders committed on June 22, 2000, when he was just 19 years old.  Tisius was being housed in Randolph County Jail in Huntsville, Missouri, along with Roy Vance after being jailed on a misdemeanor charge for pawning a rented stereo system. Before Tisius was released, he devised a plan to help Vance escape prison. In one of their escape plans discussed, Tisius would return to the jail with a gun, order the guards into a cell, and then give the weapon to Vance, who would release all of the jail’s inmates.  Just after midnight on June 22, 2000, Tisius went to a county jail in Moberly, Missouri, alongside Vance’s girlfriend, Tracie Bulington, in an attempt to free Vance. Armed with a pistol, Tisius shot and killed two unarmed officers, then fled. He was 19 at the time of the killings.  Tisius and Bulington were arrested roughly 135 miles west of Vance’s escape attempt after their car broke down. Tisius confessed to the crimes when taken into custody. Both Bulington and Vance are serving life sentences, and Tisius was sentenced to the death penalty in July 2010.  Tisius was executed by lethal injection in Missouri on June 6, 2023. He was 42 years old at the time of his execution. In his final statement, Tisius repeatedly apologized and said that he had hoped to “have made things right.” He expressed remorse for his actions and regretted the decisions he made back in 2000.

Deaths

Tommy Gagliano

1912 – Thomas Jennings – was an African-American man who became a significant figure in the history of forensic science in the United States. He was involved in a murder case in Chicago, Illinois, in 1910 that marked a turning point in the use of fingerprint evidence in criminal trials.  Jennings was accused of murdering a man named Clarence Hiller during a burglary attempt. The key piece of evidence in his trial was a fingerprint left on a freshly painted railing at the crime scene. This was the first time that fingerprint evidence was used to secure a conviction in a murder case in the United States.  Despite the controversial nature of the evidence at the time, the fingerprint was matched to Jennings, leading to his conviction. This case set a precedent for the use of fingerprint evidence in criminal investigations and trials, establishing it as a reliable method for identifying suspects.  It’s important to note that while this case was a milestone in forensic science, it also raises questions about the fairness of the trial, as fingerprinting was a relatively new method at the time. Nevertheless, the case of Thomas Jennings played a crucial role in shaping modern forensic science.

1951 – Tommy Gagliano – born Tommaso Gagliano on May 29, 1883, in Corleone, Sicily, was an Italian-born American mobster. He immigrated to the United States in 1905 and settled in New York City, where he married Giuseppina “Josephine” Pomilla, who was also from Corleone. Gagliano and his brother-in-law Nunzio Pomilla were partners in lathing and hoisting companies in the Bronx.  Gagliano was a low-profile boss of what U.S. federal authorities would later designate as the Lucchese crime family, one of the “Five Families” of New York City, for over two decades. He was underboss to Gaetano “Tom” Reina until he became the boss of the family in 1930. The Reina family controlled a monopoly on ice distribution in the Bronx. Gagliano, along with Gaetano “Tommy” Lucchese and Stefano “Steve” Rondelli, were viewed as the most powerful members of the Reina family.  During the late 1920s, a bitter gang rivalry arose in New York between Joseph “the Boss” Masseria, the most powerful mobster in New York, and Salvatore Maranzano, head of the Castellammarese Sicilian clan. Masseria had demanded more money from Reina, prompting Reina to consider switching allegiance to Maranzano. When Masseria heard about Reina’s plans, Masseria murdered him in February 1930. To head Reina’s gang, Masseria appointed one of his loyalists, Joseph Pinzolo. Both Gagliano and Lucchese hated Pinzolo and resented Masseria appointing an outsider as gang leader. In September 1930, Pinzolo was shot and killed by unknown assailants. To replace Pinzolo, Masseria appointed Gagliano as head of the Reina gang. It is speculated that Gagliano and Lucchese formed a secret alliance with Maranzano at this time while still professing loyalty to Masseria. As the war continued, Masseria began suffering more defeats and key defections.  Gagliano passed away on February 16, 1951. His successor was his longtime loyalist and underboss, Tommy Lucchese.

1954 – John Donald Merrett – was a British murderer and convicted fraudster also known under the name of Ronald John Chesney in later life. Despite being immensely rich, his crimes were mainly driven by greed. In his second guise, he was also known as the Amazing Mr Chesney. A highly flamboyant character, his later friends and lovers knew him as “Ches”.  Merrett was born on August 17, 1908, in Levin on the North Island of New Zealand. His parents were John Alfred Merrett, a consulting engineer, and his wife Bertha née Milner. Donald was an only child. The family moved to St Petersburg in Russia where the father worked installing an electricity supply in the city, but the cold climate did not suit Bertha. Linked to a growing estrangement with Donald’s father, Bertha, and Donald moved to Switzerland around 1913 and Merrett never saw his father again.  From 1920 to 1923, Merrett lived with his mother in Oamaru, New Zealand, and attended Waitaki Boys’ High School. In 1924, Bertha returned to England and rented a cottage near Reading. Donald was then educated privately at Malvern College as a boarder. He had a reputation for being clever but badly behaved. He was expelled for being found in bed with a girl. In 1925, they moved to rental accommodation in Edinburgh. Merrett began studying for a BA degree at Edinburgh University. There is no evidence that he ever attended any lectures. He and his wife lived together in a large Victorian townhouse purchased by Bertha at 31 Buckingham Terrace in the fashionable and expensive Learmonth district. The aim was that Merrett would eventually join the Diplomatic Service.  In February 1926, he began forging cheques in his mother’s name to fund his lifestyle. His mother had an income of £700 per year but by mid-March, he had forged cheques to the value of £450. The bank informed Bertha that her account was in debit. She was puzzled and queried how Donald had afforded his new motorcycle. She had also queried his need for a Spanish automatic pistol.  Merrett was accused of the murder by shooting of Bertha Milner or Merrett in 1926. In January 1927, Merrett was tried at the High Court in Edinburgh and found guilty on a charge of forgery and sentenced to 12 months imprisonment. A verdict of ‘Not Proven’ was returned on the murder charge.

1968 – Aristidis Pagratidis – was a Greek man born in May 1940 in the village of Langadikia. He was the youngest of three children born to poor farmers. His father, Charalambos Pagratidis, a captain in the Greek army during World War II, was assassinated by ELAS guerillas during the Civil War period in 1945. The family, having lost their basic support, left Langadikia and settled in Toumba. Aristidis, also known as Aristos, attended only the first two grades of primary school and had problems with writing and reading. He worked various menial jobs, from a lemon seller to a glazier, from a shredder to a waiter, and from a hammock at the Thessaloniki harbor to an assistant in amusement parks.  In 1955, he stole 120 drachmas from the canteen of the P.A.O.K. gymnasium, was arrested, and put under a child welfare program. He was falsely accused of committing a series of murders and predatory attacks on couples in the forest area of Seikh Sou in 1959. He was arrested in December 1963 after he attacked a 12-year-old in the “Alexander the Great” orphanage. He was tried in October 1964 and sentenced to nine years in prison. During interrogations, he confessed to being the notorious “Ogre of Seikh Sou”. He was retried in February 1966 and sentenced to death as a “dangerous person for public safety”, and was executed on February 16, 1968. Pagratidis quickly recanted his confession, claiming he was psychologically pressured and beaten, and until the moment of his execution, he remained firm in his innocence. Since then, whether he was innocent or not remains debatable, with most claiming he was innocent.

1996 – Edward Dean Horsley – also known as Ed Dean, was born around 1958. He had a troubled past and was convicted of armed robbery, a felony during which a police officer was shot. In March 1977, at the age of 19, he escaped from a juvenile facility along with Brian Keith Baldwin.  The pair became infamous for their involvement in the murder of Naomi Rolon, a 16-year-old girl. They robbed and stabbed her, raped her, and confined her to the car. They drove 40 hours with her in the trunk, traveling across state lines to Monroe County, Alabama. Horsley was the one who killed Rolon on March 14, 1977.  Horsley was executed for first-degree murder in the case on February 16, 1996. A letter surfaced later in 1996, written by Horsley in 1985, in which he stated that he had acted alone in the rape and murder of Naomi Rolon, and that Baldwin had not known of her death. Edward Dean Horsley Jr. died at about the age of 38 in Alabama, United States.

Events

Pope Francis

1929 – In a mysterious murder-suicide, Ned Doheny Jr, son of oil magnate Edward L. Doheny dies along with his friend and assistant Hugh Plunkett at Greystone Mansion, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles

1968 – The United States’ first 911 phone system goes into service in Haleyville, Alabama

1988 – Richard Wade Farley – An American convicted mass murderer who killed 7 people at ESL Incorporated in Sunnyvale, California

2019 – Pope Francis defrocks ex-cardinal & archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick for sexually abusing minors & adults.  He was the first cardinal to be removed for sexual abuse.