Births
Leopold Dion
1898 – Dovie Blanche Dean – She is known for a notorious crime that led to her execution. Dean was a 55-year-old mother of six and a grandmother from Clermont County. She was married to Hawkins Dean, a 69-year-old farmer. The couple got married on April 13, 1952, just a day after she divorced her former husband who was in jail. However, their marriage was short-lived. On August 22, 1952, Hawkins Dean died. It was later discovered that Dovie Dean had poisoned him by putting arsenic-laced rat poison in his milk. She initially tried to frame her son from a previous marriage for the crime, but eventually confessed when the sheriff commented that “any woman who could accuse her son of such a crime could easily have done it herself.” She revealed that the murder took place after several violent arguments when she found out her new husband (her third) could not “perform his husbandly duties.” Dovie said: “He wanted a housekeeper and I wanted a home.” Dovie Dean was arrested on September 12, 1952, and was executed by electrocution on January 15, 1954. She was the second woman to be executed in Ohio’s penal history. Her last meal consisted of roast chicken, potatoes, asparagus, green salad with French dressing, coconut cream pie, angel food cake, and coffee. She met her fate placidly, according to those who had witnessed executions before. She was buried at Cunningham Memorial Park in Saint Albans, Kanawha County, West Virginia, USA.
1920 – Leopold Dion – Dion preyed on 21 boys, claiming four lives, while masquerading as a photographer. His initial victim, twelve-year-old Guy Luckenuck, fell prey to Dion’s ruse during a supposed photoshoot in Quebec City. Tragically, Dion strangled Luckenuck and buried him in a secluded area. Employing the same deceptive tactic, Dion later targeted eight-year-old Alain Carrier and ten-year-old Michel Morel, leading them to an abandoned building where he committed heinous acts. Another victim, thirteen-year-old Pierre Marquis, faced a similar fate near the same grave site as Luckenuck. Arrested the day after Marquis’s murder, Dion, previously on conditional release, confessed to the crimes after a month of denial. Despite legal defense, he was convicted of one murder due to insufficient evidence. Sentenced to hang, the punishment was later commuted to life imprisonment by Governor General Georges Vanier. Dion met his end on November 17, 1972, stabbed by fellow inmate Normand “Lawrence d’Arabie” Champagne, who was deemed not guilty by reason of insanity.
1929 – Clarence W. Walker – He was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to prison at the age of 14. After being paroled seven years later, he adopted a rootless lifestyle, clashing repeatedly with the law in his travels and serving two prison terms in Ohio, on conviction for armed robbery and grand larceny. Before his ultimate arrest in 1965, authorities believe he claimed a minimum of fourteen victims – three in Cleveland, four in rural Michigan, and another seven scattered over Illinois. The crimes in Michigan were typical of Walker’s style. On February 6, 1965, 37-year-old Mary Jones was reported missing in Benton Harbor, after a late night of bar-hopping. Nine days later, 19-year-old Delores Young was kidnapped off the street in Benton Harbor, her nude body found in the ruins of a burned-out house on February 16. Amelia Boyer, 60, was the next to go, abducted from a laundromat. On March 30, seven-year-old Diane Carter disappeared from the same neighborhood where Walker was residing, under the alias of “James Darnell.” On April 4, the mutilated remains of Jones, Boyer, and Carter were found together, in a secluded pine grove at Bainbridge Township. Body parts and articles of clothing taken from the corpses would be matched, in years to come, with other mutilation deaths in Cleveland. Mary Jones’s severed skull was found on April 23, near the home of a man listed by “James Darnell” as a relative, but Walker left town before he could be questioned. Arrested weeks later in Chicago, he drew a term of 320 years in prison on conviction of rape, armed robbery, and assault with intent to murder. In Michigan, authorities were hampered by the stubborn certainty that they were looking for a white man skilled in surgery. (Walker was black, with only minor public education.) As years went by, detectives tried to link their unsolved crimes with the activities of Albert DeSalvo, Richard Speck, and Antone Costa… all in vain.
1931 – Eric Edgar Cooke – also known as the Night Caller and later the Nedlands Monster, was an infamous Australian serial killer. Born on February 25, 1931, in Victoria Park, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, he was the eldest of three children. His parents were Vivian Thomas Cooke, a native-born shop assistant, and his wife Christian, née Edgar, from Scotland. He was educated at five different schools, including Perth Junior Technical and Forrest High. From the age of 14, Eric took a succession of semi-skilled jobs. Cooke had a troubled childhood, being born into an unhappy, violent family. His alcoholic father, Vivian Cooke, frequently beat him, especially when he tried to protect his mother. He was born with a cleft lip and palate, which left him with a slight facial deformity and a mumble after surgical operations. These disabilities made him the target of bullying at school. The constant mistreatment caused Cooke to feel ashamed and shy, and he subsequently became emotionally unstable. Despite his troubled past, Cooke sought out normalcy, and at the age of 22, he married Sarah (also known as Sally) Lavin, a 19-year-old waitress. The pair went on to have seven children. However, Cooke still harbored criminal urges. Cooke was responsible for a large number of criminal offenses, including serial murders in Perth, during the late 1950s and early 1960s. He terrorized the city of Perth, Western Australia, from September 1958 to August 1963. Cooke committed at least 20 violent crimes, eight of which resulted in deaths. He was a long-time petty criminal before he graduated to murder in 1958. Cooke was arrested in August 1963 and confessed to many of his murders. He was sentenced to death by hanging and was executed on 26 October 1964. He was the last man to be hanged in Western Australia.
1939 – James Efflo Tyrer – was an American professional football offensive tackle who played in the American Football League (AFL) for the Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs. He also played in the National Football League (NFL) for the Chiefs and the Washington Redskins. Tyrer signed with the AFL’s Dallas Texans in 1961 and played 13 years with that franchise, which became the Kansas City Chiefs in 1963. He helped set the standard for his position at left offensive tackle. His 14th and final season was with the Washington Redskins. Tyrer was named AFL Offensive Lineman of the Year in 1969. He and Ed Budde at guard made a powerful left side. In Super Bowl IV, Tyrer and Budde opened holes for Chiefs running backs against the Minnesota Vikings’ opposing defensive linemen Jim Marshall and Alan Page, respectively, gaining 151 yards on 42 carries (3.6 yards per attempt) and 122 net passing yards in the team’s upset 23–7 victory. Tyrer was an anchor of Texans/Chiefs’ line and was selected as The Sporting News’ AFL All-League tackle for eight consecutive years, from 1962 through 1969. He was an AFL Western Division All-Star seven times, in 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1968, and 1969 before also capturing a pair of All-AFC accolades in 1970–71. His efforts in the upstart league would result in his selection to the American Football League All-Time Team. However, Tyrer’s life took a tragic turn on September 15, 1980, when he murdered his wife and then committed suicide. This series of business misfortunes culminated when Tyrer, the father of four, shot his wife and then committed suicide by turning the gun on himself. One of Tyrer’s four children discovered the bodies.
1945 – Nicholas van Hoogstraten – Hoogstraten began his property business in the Bahamas with an initial investment of £1,000 realized from the sale of his stamp collection. On his return to the UK, he moved to Notting Hill Gate and bought houses very cheaply because of rent controls, but specialized in “persuading” tenants to move out, using threatening practices. Hoogstraten built up his capital through a loan sharking business based in towns along the south coast of England, where he would take property deeds as collateral. Many borrowers were unable to maintain his unreasonable payment terms and defaulted on their loans, losing their properties to him and enabling him to build up a substantial property portfolio along the south coast and in London. By the age of 22, he owned 350 properties in Sussex and was reputedly Britain’s youngest millionaire. In 1968, he was convicted and sent to prison for four years after paying a gang to attack a business associate. In 2002, he was sentenced to 10 years for the manslaughter of a business rival Mohammed Raja. Although the verdict was overturned on appeal, a civil case followed, and in 2005 Hoogstraten was ordered to pay Raja’s family £6 million. A huge mansion, Hamilton Palace, near Uckfield in East Sussex, which Van Hoogstraten began building in the mid-1980s, remains unfinished and uninhabited. Despite his criminal past, Hoogstraten continues to be a prominent figure in the UK property market.
1952 – Dennis Sochor – was a man who was convicted of a heinous crime in Broward County, Florida. On New Year’s Eve, 1981, Sochor met a woman in a bar. After they left together, Sochor tried to rape her, and when she resisted, he became angry and choked her to death. He was subsequently indicted for first-degree murder and kidnapping. After a jury trial, he was found guilty of each offense. During the penalty hearing, the jury was instructed on the possibility of finding four aggravating factors, including the State’s “heinousness” and “coldness” factors. The jury recommended a death sentence, which was adopted by the trial court. The court found all four aggravating circumstances defined in the jury instructions and no mitigating circumstances. Despite some legal disputes over the application of these factors, Sochor’s sentence was upheld. As of 2004, Sochor was an inmate under sentence of death and had appealed an order of the circuit court denying his motion for postconviction relief. His case has been through various appeals and legal processes, but his conviction and sentence have remained unchanged.
1952 – David Alan Westerfield – He was a self-employed engineer and held several patents for medical devices. He was married and had two children, including a son named Neal, who was 18 at the time of the murder. However, he later divorced. Westerfield is known for his involvement in the kidnapping and murder of Danielle van Dam, an American girl from the Sabre Springs neighborhood of San Diego, California. Danielle disappeared from her bedroom during the night of February 1–2, 2002, and her body was found by searchers on February 27 in a remote area. Police suspected Westerfield of the killing. He was arrested, tried, and convicted of kidnapping and first-degree murder. He was sentenced to death and is currently incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison.
1956 – Gary Thomas Allen – was a man who became known for his involvement in a tragic crime. He was convicted of the 1986 murder of his fiancée. The incident occurred when Allen confronted his fiancée outside a daycare center and shot her twice in the chest. When she attempted to flee with a center employee, Allen pushed the worker away, shoved his fiancée down some steps, and shot her twice more in the back. A police officer responding to a 911 call tussled with Allen before shooting him in the face, resulting in injuries to his face, left eye, and brain. Allen was hospitalized for about two months due to these injuries. Allen entered a blind guilty plea to first-degree murder, meaning he had not reached a plea deal with prosecutors and did not know what the sentence would be. A judge sentenced him to die. Allen’s attorneys argued he was not competent enough to enter the plea. They also contended he was mentally impaired when he killed his fiancée, that he had been self-medicating for a mental illness, and that his mental condition became worse on death row. Despite claims that he was insane and ineligible for the death penalty, Allen was executed on Tuesday evening. His last words were about the 2012 US presidential election.
1958 – Scott Phillip Roeder – He is known for his involvement in the assassination of George Tiller, a physician from Wichita, Kansas, who was nationally known for being one of the few doctors in the United States to perform late terminations of pregnancy. On May 31, 2009, Tiller was murdered by Roeder, an anti-abortion extremist. Tiller was killed during a Sunday morning service at his church, Reformation Lutheran Church, where he was serving as an usher. Roeder was arrested within three hours of the shooting and charged with first-degree murder and related crimes two days later. In November 2009, Roeder publicly confessed to the killing, stating that he had shot Tiller because “preborn children’s lives were in imminent danger.” Roeder was found guilty of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault on January 29, 2010, and sentenced on April 1, 2010, to life imprisonment without any chance of parole for 50 years. This sentence was later reduced to allow for the possibility of parole after serving 25 years.
1959 – Francis Heaulme – He is a French serial killer who was dubbed the “Criminal Backpacker”. Heaulme’s father brutalized him until the age of 17, leading him to become an alcoholic and attempt suicide. However, he had a good relationship with his younger sister and held a boundless adoration for his mother, who died of cancer when he was 23 years old. At the age of 20, he suddenly picked up a passion for cycling. Eight years later, he left home to travel erratically around France on foot, by hitchhiking, cycling, and via train (often without a ticket), staying in Emmaüs shelters, psychiatric institutions, and detoxification centers. He occasionally found odd jobs as a mason or metal worker and spent his meager earnings on drinking, sometimes mixing alcohol and tranquilizers. As someone with untreated Klinefelter’s syndrome, Heaulme was at the time incapable of committing rape in the “standard” manner. Heaulme was arrested on January 7, 1992. The law enforcement agencies had great difficulty proving their cases because the acts were done without apparent reason or motive by a person who was highly mobile, and had alibis due to negligence. The shortcomings and poor coordination of the police organizations were also contributing factors. Despite the lack of support from his superiors, gendarme Jean-François Abgrall quickly understood the basic rule about who he is responsible for tracking down: “It’s when you ask him nothing that he says the most.” Francis Heaulme recounted murder scenes with incredible precision. For example, he showed officers how to kill a sentry by having a firm grip on the back of his head with one hand and stabbing him in the carotid artery with the other, drawing, and then retracting. According to Abgrall, “He doesn’t lie. He never makes anything up. But he deliberately covers his tracks by mixing the crimes, dates, and locations.” Heaulme was found guilty of multiple murders and was sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 22 years. His crimes spanned across many regions in France, including Lorraine, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Bretagne, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, and Champagne-Ardenne.
1959 – Ricky Lee Sanderson – He was involved in a tragic crime that led to his execution. Sanderson was convicted for the abduction and murder of Sue Ellen “Suzi” Holliman, a 16-year-old girl from Lexington. The crime occurred on March 14, 1985. A month later, a farmer found Holliman’s body in a shallow grave with her pants down around her knees and three stab wounds in her chest. Sanderson pleaded guilty to the crime. He was a former drug addict and the product of an abusive family. After arriving in Central Prison for two rapes and an attempted murder, he embraced evangelical Christianity. Despite his plea, Sanderson was sentenced to death. He was executed by asphyxiation gas in North Carolina on January 30, 1998. His execution was one of the few in the state carried out by gas chamber.
1962 – Junko Ogata – is a Japanese serial killer notorious for her involvement in a series of heinous crimes during the late 1980s. With at least seven confirmed murders to her name, Ogata gained infamy as an accomplice to another infamous serial killer, Futoshi Matsunaga. Ogata’s criminal activities unfolded in collaboration with Matsunaga, and together they committed acts of extreme violence, leaving a trail of tragedy. Her precise role in the crimes, along with the gruesome details, marked her as a key figure in one of Japan’s most chilling criminal partnerships. Despite the gravity of her crimes, specific details about Junko Ogata’s life, background, and subsequent legal proceedings may be limited. The impact of her actions, however, contributes to the darker chapters of Japan’s criminal history, where she stands as a symbol of the profound consequences of deviant behavior.
1963 – Joseph E. Duncan III – He was an American convicted serial killer and child molester who was on death row in federal prison. His criminal activities spanned from 1978 to July 2, 2005, across multiple states including Idaho, California, and Washington. Duncan’s most notorious crime involved the 2005 kidnappings and murders of members of the Groene family of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. He was also serving 11 consecutive sentences of life without parole for the 1997 murder of Anthony Martinez of Beaumont, California. Additionally, Duncan confessed to the 1996 murder of two girls, Sammiejo White and Carmen Cubias, in Seattle, Washington, but he was not charged with these crimes. At the time of the attack on the Groene family, Duncan was on the run from a child molestation charge in Minnesota. During his incarceration, authorities connected Duncan with the unsolved murders of Anthony Martinez in California and two girls in Seattle, which all occurred when Duncan was on parole from 1994 to 1997. In all, Duncan was convicted in Idaho for kidnapping and murdering three victims in Coeur d’Alene, for which he was given six life sentences. In federal court, he was convicted of kidnapping Shasta and Dylan Groene and murdering Dylan, for which he was given three death sentences and three life sentences. In the state of California, he was convicted of kidnapping and murdering Martinez, for which he was given two life sentences. Duncan died on March 28, 2021, at the age of 58, as a result of a terminal brain tumor.
1966 – Robert Clive Napper – is an English serial killer and rapist. He has been convicted of two murders, one manslaughter, two rapes, and two attempted rapes. Napper’s early life was troubled and dysfunctional. His parents’ marriage was violent, and he witnessed his father abusing his mother. After their divorce when he was nine, Napper and his siblings were placed in foster care and underwent psychiatric treatment for six years. At age 13, Napper underwent a personality change after a family friend sexually assaulted him on a camping holiday. In 1986, Napper first came to police attention after being convicted of an offense with an airgun. In October 1989, police had rejected information conveyed in a phone call from Napper’s mother that her son had admitted to committing a rape on Plumstead Common. On 15 July 1992 on Wimbledon Common, Napper stabbed the young mother Rachel Nickell 49 times in front of her son Alex, then aged two, who clung on to his mother’s body begging her to wake up. Napper was questioned about unsolved attacks on other women during the year but was eliminated from inquiries. In November 1993, in the Bisset home in Plumstead, Napper stabbed 27-year-old Samantha Bisset in her neck and chest, killing her, and then sexually assaulted and smothered her four-year-old daughter, Jazmine Bisset. Napper was sentenced to indefinite detention at Broadmoor Hospital on 18 December 2008 for the manslaughter of Rachel Nickell. He was previously convicted of the 1993 double murder of Samantha Bisset and her daughter Jazmine Bisset. Napper has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia as well as Asperger syndrome.
1967 – Nick Leeson – is a former derivatives trader known for his role in the collapse of Barings Bank, the United Kingdom’s oldest merchant bank, in 1995. His unauthorized, fraudulent, and speculative trades resulted in a loss of over $1.3 billion of the bank’s capital. Leeson’s early career began as a clerk with the Lombard Street branch of the Coutts private bank in 1985, where he settled paper cheques, crediting and debiting client accounts. In 1987, he moved to Morgan Stanley’s Futures and Options back office, clearing and settling listed derivatives transactions. With few prospects for a front office role, he joined Barings Bank two years later. In April 1992, Barings decided to open a Futures and Options office in Singapore, executing and clearing transactions on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX). Leeson was appointed general manager and was sent to head both front office and back office operations. Leeson’s downfall began when he started making risky trades and hiding his losses in an error account. As the losses grew, Leeson requested extra funds to continue trading, hoping to extricate himself from the mess with more deals. Over three months he bought more than 20,000 futures contracts worth about $180,000 each in a vain attempt to move the market. Some three-quarters of the $1.3 billion he lost Barings resulted from these trades. When Barings executives discovered what had happened, they informed the Bank of England that Barings was effectively bust. In his wake, Nick Leeson had wiped out the 233-year-old Baring Investment Bank. The $1.3 billion dollars of liabilities he had run up was more than the entire capital and reserves of the bank. Eventually arrested in Frankfurt, Germany, Leeson spent a few fraught months trying to escape extradition to Singapore. He failed and in December 1995 a court in Singapore sentenced him to six and a half years in prison. Within months, Leeson was diagnosed as suffering from cancer of the colon. His weight plummeted and most of his hair fell out from chemotherapy. He was finally released in 1999. After his release, Leeson has proved his resilience and has been able to capitalize on his experiences. He was paid a substantial fee for the newspaper serialization of his book. The story was then turned into a film, Rogue Trader, starring Ewan McGregor. He has since become an author, public speaker, and consultant on various business topics. As of 2023, he resides in Galway.
1982 – Samuel A. Manzie – is a convicted murderer from Jackson Township, New Jersey. His case drew significant attention due to the brutal nature of his crime and his age at the time. Manzie’s life took a tragic turn when he met Stephen P. Simmons, a twice-convicted child molester, in August 1996. Unbeknownst to his parents, Manzie began a sexual relationship with Simmons, which had a profound impact on his mental health. His parents noticed that he became increasingly isolated and aggressive, describing it as living a nightmare in their house. They sought help for their son, who they say knew he needed help and wanted to be committed to a psychiatric facility. In 1997, at the age of 15, Manzie was charged with the sexual assault and murder of 11-year-old Eddie Werner. The crime shocked the community and led to a high-profile trial. Manzie was tried as an adult, and in 1999, he was sentenced to 70 years in prison by Superior Court Judge Peter Giovine. He will have to serve at least 59 years of his sentence before being eligible for parole. Manzie’s case has been a subject of debate regarding the treatment of juvenile offenders, the impact of sexual abuse on young people, and the failures of the mental health system to adequately support and treat those in need.
Deaths
Charles Peace
1878 – Sergeant Francois Bertrand – also known as the Vampire of Montparnasse, was born on October 29, 1823, in Voisey, Haute-Marne. He served in the French Army and was known for his disturbing actions that led to his arrest in 1849 for necrophilia. He was subsequently jailed for one year. Bertrand’s unsettling behavior began early in life when he started dissecting dead cats and dogs. He confessed that his necrophilic impulses began in 1846, accompanied by headaches and heart palpitations. His actions escalated to exhuming corpses of both women and men from graveyards, where he would eviscerate and dismember them before engaging in sexual acts. Between the summer of 1848 and March 1849, a series of bodies were exhumed and found severely mutilated in Parisian cemeteries. Bertrand admitted himself to the Val-de-Grâce with gunshot wounds on March 15, 1849. A gravedigger at Montparnasse Cemetery overheard the news about Bertrand’s injury and realized that he must be the same person hit by his colleague’s booby trap. One of Bertrand’s surgeons obtained a full confession, leading to his arrest and subsequent jail sentence. After serving his sentence, Bertrand moved to Le Havre in 1856. In his later life, he worked various jobs, including a clerk, mailman, and lighthouse keeper. He passed away on February 25, 1878. Bertrand’s case had a significant impact on the field of psychiatry. It prompted Joseph Guislain to coin the term “necrophilia,” and his case was extensively discussed by other early theorists of necrophilia, including Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis.
1879 – Charles Peace – was an English burglar and murderer who embarked on a life of crime after being maimed in an industrial accident as a boy. He was the youngest son of shoemaker John Peace and his wife Jane, a naval surgeon’s daughter. At age fourteen, Charles was permanently crippled in an accident at a steel rolling mill. In 1854, he was found guilty of multiple burglaries and sentenced to four years of penal servitude. In 1859 he married a widow named Hannah Ward. Soon afterward he committed a major burglary in Manchester, nearly killing a police officer who came to arrest him and was sentenced to six years’ penal servitude. After killing a policeman in Manchester, he fled to his native Sheffield, where he became obsessed with his neighbor’s wife, eventually fatally shooting her husband. Settling in London, he carried out multiple burglaries before being caught in the prosperous suburb of Blackheath, wounding the policeman who arrested him. He was linked to the Sheffield murder and tried at Leeds Assizes. Found guilty, he was hanged at Armley Prison on February 25, 1879. His story has inspired many authors and filmmakers. His life and crimes were even depicted in a 1949 British crime film titled “The Case of Charles Peace”.
1919 – Pedro Rosa da Conceicao – was a Brazilian multiple murderer. He killed three people and wounded thirteen others in Rio das Pedras, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on April 22, 1904, before his arrest. He was an epileptic who worked at the Estrada de Ferro Central. On the day of the mass murder, he armed himself with a bayonet and embarked on a locomotive at the Belém station. He pushed his partner out of the train when it was moving at high speed. When the train stopped at the Rio das Pedras station, he began his violent spree. He first attacked his father, Ambrosio Gomes, and stepmother, Maria da Conceição, at the Dona Clara station. He then proceeded to Rio das Pedras, attacking anyone who crossed his path. He stabbed João Teixeira de Oliveira to death near the Dona Clara station and killed farmer Fructuoso Goulart do Amaral. One of his victims, Felicidade Ignacia de Salles, 15, died on April 27. Rosa was arrested the following day and sent to the Hospicio dos Alienados. While in the Hospicio dos Alienados, Rosa killed his cellmate Joaquim Alves Junior and an unnamed guard who attempted to calm him down in 1911. It was also reported that Rosa had murdered a family of twelve people in Rio das Pedras, although the date and year of this event were unspecified. Rosa died in the Hospicio Nacional dos Alienados, the hospital where he was sent on August 10, 1904, on February 25, 1919.
1922 – Henri Desire Landru – was a notorious French serial killer, often referred to as the Bluebeard of Gambais. He murdered at least seven women in the village of Gambais between December 1915 and January 1919. However, the true number of Landru’s victims is suspected to be higher. Landru was the son of a furnace stoker and a laundress, both of whom were devout Catholics. He was educated by monks at a Catholic school on the Île Saint-Louis, where he served as an altar boy. Despite his parents’ hopes of him entering the seminary, Landru pursued a variety of jobs, including working as an accountant, a commercial employee, a cartographer, and an entrepreneur. In 1889, he married Marie-Catherine Remy, with whom he had four children. Landru was known to have a mistress and lived under various assumed names in different locations in Paris. He was convicted of swindling in July 1914 and sentenced to four years of hard labor with exile for life in the French prison facility on New Caledonia in the Pacific. However, he managed to escape justice. Landru was arrested on April 12, 1919, at an apartment near Paris’s Gare du Nord, which he shared with his 24-year-old mistress Fernande Segret. The police eventually concluded that Landru had met or been in romantic correspondence with 283 women during the First World War. 72 of these women were never traced. Landru’s trial in November 1921 at Versailles was a high-profile event, attended by leading French celebrities. On November 30, Landru was found guilty of all eleven murders and sentenced to death. He was executed by guillotine on February 25, 1922.
1957 – George “Bugs” Moran – born as Adelard Leo Cunin on August 21, 1893, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, was a notorious gangster active during the Prohibition era in Chicago. He was the son of French immigrants Jules and Marie Diana Gobeil Cunin. He attended Cretin High School, a private Catholic school in Saint Paul, but left at the age of 18 after joining a local juvenile gang. He was incarcerated three times before his 21st birthday. Moran moved to Chicago, where he rose through the ranks of the city’s criminal underworld. During the Prohibition era, which began in 1920 with the enactment of the 18th Amendment banning the distribution of alcoholic beverages, Moran ran a bootlegging operation. This made him a rival of Al Capone, who led the Italian mob in the city. The rivalry between Moran’s North Side Gang and Capone’s South Side Gang led to violent confrontations, culminating in the infamous Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre on February 14, 1929. In this event, seven members of Moran’s gang were gunned down in a warehouse, supposedly on the orders of Capone. Despite his criminal activities, Moran was known to have a moral code of sorts. He was reportedly disgusted by Capone’s involvement in prostitution and refused to engage in such activities himself due to his Catholic faith. Moran’s criminal career declined after the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre. He was arrested on various charges, including robbery and conspiracy to counterfeit checks and cash in $62,000 worth of American Express checks. He served sentences at Ohio Penitentiary and Leavenworth Prison. Moran passed away on February 25, 1957, at Leavenworth Prison in Kansas, after a battle with lung cancer. He was 63 years old at the time of his death.
1994 – Baruch Goldstein – was an Israeli-American mass murderer, religious extremist, and physician. He was born on December 9, 1956, in Brooklyn, New York, and was a charter member of the Jewish Defense League in the 1970s. He emigrated to Israel in 1983 and served as a physician in the Israeli Defense Force. Goldstein is known for perpetrating the 1994 terrorist attack, known as the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in Hebron. He entered a room in the Cave of the Patriarchs that was serving as a mosque and opened fire on the 800 Palestinian Muslim worshippers praying during the month of Ramadan, killing 29 and wounding 125 worshippers. He was then beaten to death by survivors. Goldstein was a supporter of the Kach, a religious Zionist party that the United States, the European Union, and other countries designated as a terrorist organization. The international community and the Israeli government condemned the massacre. Israel arrested followers of Meir Kahane, and criminalized the Kach movement and affiliated movements as terrorist movements. At the same time, Israel forbade certain Israeli settlers from entering Palestinian towns and demanded that those settlers turn in their army-issued rifles. The aftermath of the horrific attack on worshippers by Baruch Goldstein raised questions that caused Israelis and Jews around the world to do some deep soul-searching. It caused real “cheshbon nefesh”, or accounting of the soul. Goldstein’s gravesite became a pilgrimage site for Jewish extremists. The following words are inscribed on the tomb: “He gave his life for the people of Israel, its Torah and land.” In 1999, after the passing of Israeli legislation outlawing monuments to terrorists, the Israeli Army dismantled the shrine that had been built for Goldstein at the site of his interment. The tombstone and its epitaph, calling Goldstein a martyr with clean hands and a pure heart, was left untouched.
1998 – Reginald Love Powell – was a convicted murderer born on July 23, 1968. His criminal activities culminated in a tragic event on November 14, 1986, in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. On that day, Powell and three of his companions encountered Freddie L. Miller, 39, and Lee Arthur Miller, 29, who were brothers. After a series of altercations, Powell and his group brutally attacked the Miller brothers, beating them with bricks, boards, and tree branches. After the group left, Powell remained and stabbed both brothers three times each in the chest and abdomen with a martial arts butterfly knife. Both brothers died from internal bleeding caused by the stab wounds. Powell was arrested the next day. He was found guilty of murder and was executed by lethal injection in Missouri on February 25, 1998. It’s worth noting that Powell had a history of drug and alcohol abuse, and he had been found to have an IQ of 65 and had been previously placed in a public school special education program.
2003 – Richard Head Williams – Jeanette Williams, aged 47 and confined to a wheelchair for 22 years, faced a tragic fate intertwined with the dark motives of Bruce and Michelle Gillmore. Known to the Gillmores through various periods of cohabitation, Jeanette’s vulnerable circumstances became a target for a sinister plan. Motivated by financial gain, Bruce Gillmore took out a $25,000 life insurance policy on Jeanette, designating himself as the beneficiary. Seeking to execute their plan, the Gillmores enlisted the services of Richard Williams, unrelated, offering him $12,000 to carry out the chilling act. On March 24, 1997, the trio—Williams, Jeanette, and the Gillmores—traveled to Houston’s Third Ward ostensibly to purchase cocaine. As Bruce Gillmore remained in the car, Williams and Michelle Gillmore escorted Jeanette in her wheelchair, purportedly for a drug transaction. However, the rendezvous took a gruesome turn when Williams, seizing Jeanette from behind, used a nine-inch steak knife to slash her throat. Subsequently, as Jeanette collapsed, Williams inflicted multiple stab wounds to her chest. The investigation unveiled the chilling details, leading to the Gillmores’ implication of Williams. Confessing to the murder on videotape, Williams, recently discharged after a prior criminal history, had committed a heinous act spurred by greed. Both Gillmores received life sentences for their roles in orchestrating Jeanette Williams’ tragic demise.
Events
William Poole aka Bill the Butcher
1836 – Samuel Colt patents the first multi-shot revolving cylinder revolver, enabling the firearm to be fired multiple times without reloading
1855 – The Bowery Boys gang leader William Poole, also known as “Bill the Butcher” is shot in the legs & chest by the gang of his archrival John Morrissey in New York
1973 – Mexican serial killer Juan Corona is sentenced to 25 life sentences in California for 25 murders he committed
1998 – Pamela Anderson Lee has husband Tommy Lee arrested on battery charges
2005 – Dennis Rader is apprehended and arrested for the BTK murders
2021 – More than 200 prisoners escape & 25 people are killed at Croix-des-Bouquets prison near Port Au Prince, Haiti