Births

Joe Metheny

1908 – Roland H. Cochrane – was a criminal from Maricopa County, Arizona, USA. He was born on March 2, 1908, and was executed by asphyxiation gas in Arizona on October 2, 1935. Cochrane was a stenographer by trade and had served a prior sentence at San Quentin Prison in California under the alias of Charles A. Stevens.  On January 2, 1935, Cochrane committed a robbery and murder. The victim was Richard “Dick” Giles, a gambler. The crime took place in Phoenix, Arizona. Cochrane, along with his accomplices Otis Phillips and Horace Hunter, planned to hijack a poker game that Giles was playing, with the intention of stealing the money in the game. The plan was for Hunter to learn when the parties were playing, and Cochrane or another accomplice, Harold Burk, were to do the actual robbing.  On the night of the crime, Hunter and Phillips went to the Royal Apartments in Phoenix, where they called Cochrane and Burk and discussed their plan. Later that evening, Hunter informed Phillips that Giles was at the Avalon Club in Phoenix. Phillips was instructed to bring Cochrane or Burk to the club, where Hunter would point out Giles. Hunter then planned to take Giles to his house in Phoenix, where Cochrane or Burk would rob him.  An information was filed in the Superior Court of the State of Arizona, in and for the County of Maricopa, on January 26, 1935, charging Cochrane with the crime of Murder, a felony. Cochrane was arraigned on January 28, 1935, and entered a plea of Not Guilty. He was tried from February 12 to February 16, 1935, and the jury returned a verdict of Guilty of Murder in the First Degree and fixed the punishment at Death. On March 18, 1935, Cochrane was sentenced to Death. His execution took place on October 2, 1935.

1935 – Winston Moseley – was a 29-year-old Manhattan native who became infamous for the murder of Kitty Genovese. He was arrested during a house burglary six days after the murder. While in custody, he confessed to killing Genovese. At his trial, Moseley was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. Moseley died in prison on March 28, 2016, at the age of 81, having served 52 years. The murder of Kitty Genovese and the alleged inaction of numerous witnesses became a cause célèbre in the United States, prompting inquiries into what became known as the bystander effect, or “Genovese syndrome”. However, researchers have since uncovered major inaccuracies in the original reporting of the number of witnesses and their responses to the crime. Moseley’s crimes had a significant impact on American society, influencing both crime reporting and psychology.

1952 – Lenny Murphy – was a Northern Irish loyalist and an officer of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Born on March 2, 1952, on Shankill Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland, he was the youngest of three sons of Joyce and William Murphy.  Murphy was the leader of the infamous Shankill Butchers gang, which became notorious for its torture and murder of Roman Catholic men. He was responsible for the murders of mainly Catholic civilians, often first kidnapping and torturing his victims.  Despite the lack of evidence, Murphy was never brought to trial for these killings, for which some of his followers had already received long sentences in 1979. In the summer of 1982, Murphy was released just over halfway through a 12-year sentence for other offenses. He returned to the Shankill Road, where he embarked on a murder spree.  Details of his movements were apparently passed by rival loyalist paramilitaries to the Provisional IRA, who shot Murphy dead that autumn. He died on November 16, 1982, at the age of 30, from multiple gunshot wounds.  His character was marked by a hatred of Catholics, which he brought into all his conversations, often referring to them as “scum and animals”. He held a steady job as a shop assistant, although his increasing criminal activities enabled him to indulge in a flamboyant lifestyle that involved socializing with an array of young women and heavy drinking.  Physically, Murphy was below average height, of slim build and sallow complexion. He was blue-eyed and had curly dark brown hair. He sported several tattoos, most of them bearing Ulster loyalist images.  His crimes and the activities of the Shankill Butchers had a significant impact on Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

1955 – Joe Metheny – an American rapist and serial killer, left a chilling mark on criminal history. Despite claiming to have taken the lives of 13 individuals, he was only convicted of two murders.  Metheny’s sinister acts unfolded in the shadows of his troubled life. A predator with a gruesome appetite, he roamed the fringes of society, perpetrating heinous crimes that shocked the nation. His distorted desires and violent tendencies came to light, leading to his conviction.  Behind the façade of a seemingly ordinary existence, Metheny harbored a malevolent darkness. The details of his crimes, including abductions, rapes, and murders, paint a disturbing picture of a man driven by cruelty and devoid of remorse.  The legacy of Joe Metheny serves as a stark reminder of the capacity for evil within the human psyche. Delve into the twisted narrative of a killer whose actions sent shockwaves through the true crime annals, leaving a lasting imprint on the annals of infamy.

1958 – Leon Taylor – Willie Owens, Tina Owens, and Leon Taylor made a plan to rob a petrol station. The 53-year-old attendant, Robert Leroy Newton, was present at the station along with his 8-year-old stepdaughter. Taylor walked into the store, brandished a firearm, and demanded Newton to place $400 in a bag. Newton did as instructed and Willie Owens took the bag of money to their vehicle. Subsequently, Taylor directed Newton and the young girl to a back room. Despite Newton’s pleas to not be shot in front of the child, Taylor fired at him, hitting him in the head. He attempted to shoot the girl as well, but the gun malfunctioned. Consequently, he locked her in the room and the three culprits fled the scene. Later, Taylor expressed to his accomplices that he “should have choked the girl.”

1972 – John C. Salvi III – He was an anti-abortion extremist who carried out fatal shootings at two abortion facilities in Brookline, Massachusetts on December 30, 1994. The shootings killed two and wounded five. An insanity defense at his trial was not successful and he was convicted of two counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He died in 1996 in what was officially ruled a suicide in his jail cell.  In the mid-morning of December 30, 1994, John Salvi walked into the Planned Parenthood clinic on Beacon Street in Brookline, Massachusetts, carrying a black duffle bag. In the waiting room, he took a modified .22-caliber Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic rifle from the bag and wordlessly opened fire. A medical assistant, Arjana Agrawal, was hit in the abdomen. Salvi then shot receptionist Shannon Lowney in the neck, killing her instantly. Approximately forty people were in the room during the assault; of these, five were wounded, including several men who were accompanying women seeking abortions. Salvi shot indiscriminately, including at those protesting outside.  Salvi left Planned Parenthood and drove west on Beacon Street to the Preterm Health Services office. Preterm was approximately two miles away and Salvi drove past another abortion facility to get there but did not stop. He asked receptionist Lee Ann Nichols, “Is this Preterm?” When she said yes, Salvi pulled out a hunting rifle and shot Nichols point blank. As he had at Planned Parenthood, Salvi continued to fire. Among those injured were part-time security guard Richard J. Seron and another employee, Jane Sauer. Seron returned fire. Seron himself was shot four times in the arms, and once in the left hand. Salvi then dropped the black duffle bag, which contained a gun, receipts from a gun dealer in Hampton, New Hampshire, and 700 rounds of ammunition. He then fled in his Audi. Police were able to identify him from the gun shop receipt in the abandoned bag. The day before the shootings, Salvi practiced shooting at a firing range. He cut his hair immediately after the shootings to alter his appearance. Salvi was captured in Norfolk, Virginia the day after the shootings, after firing over a dozen bullets into the Hillcrest Clinic. The clinic was open at the time, however, Salvi was captured before making his way up to the second floor where Hillcrest was located.

1976 – Bobby Wayne Swisher – was a convicted murderer who was executed by lethal injection in Virginia on July 23, 2003. He was born on March 2, 1976, and died at the age of 27.  Swisher was convicted for the abduction, rape, and murder of 22-year-old Dawn McNees Snyder. On the evening of February 5, 1997, Swisher, high on cocaine, walked into an Augusta County florist shop where Snyder was working late to prepare for the Valentine’s Day rush. He forced Snyder to walk to a field near the South River where he raped her and cut her face and throat. He then threw her into the river. Snyder managed to crawl back onto land before dying in a riverside field. Her body was found 16 days later.  According to a confession Swisher later gave to police, he decided to kill Snyder because she had “seen his face.” He “pulled out the butcher knife” and “slit her across the left side of the face and was holding her; then slit her throat and then gouged her and then tossed her into a river.” He walked along the riverbank, watching her in the river, asking her, “are – are you dead yet?” After Snyder floated in the river for a while, Swisher saw her “crawl up the bank.” Then, “he got scared and took off running straight to his house from that field.” Swisher threw his knife in the river.  In a recent telephone interview from a Virginia prison, Swisher said that he had become a born-again Christian and that he had been spending his days reading the Bible. When asked whether he thought his life should be spared, he said: “Some days I do. Some days I don’t.” Swisher refused to talk about the rape and murder. “I remember enough to know I don’t want to remember no more,” he said.  His final words before his execution were, “I hope you can all find the same peace in Jesus Christ as I have.”

Deaths

James Q. Wilson

1918 – Louis Marie Joseph Voisin – was a French butcher who worked in London. He was born in 1875 and was executed on March 2, 1918, at the age of 50. Voisin was convicted of the murder of his Belgian mistress, Emilienne Gerard, 31, whom he was said to have battered to death at 101 Charlotte Street, London on October 31, 1917.  On the night of October 31, 1917, during a German air raid over London, it was thought that Emilienne Gerard had gone to visit Voisin and found him with another woman. The two women met for the first time and it was suspected that Voisin’s lover had beaten Emilienne Gerard over the head. However, at the trial, the prosecution charged Voisin with the murder and he was convicted.  Voisin had been seeing two women at the same time, but neither of the women knew of the other. They had lived a few streets apart, Voisin at 101 Charlotte Street and Emilienne Gerard at 50 Munster Square. It was said that Voisin had kept in touch with Emilienne Gerard after her return, but continued to live with his new lover.  On November 2, 1917, the body of a woman was found wrapped in butcher’s meat cloth over the railings in Regent’s Square. The head and hands were missing and the legs, which were severed at the knees, were in a separate parcel close by. The body was quickly identified as that of Emilienne Gerard. She had been last seen alive on the night of October 31, 1917. Voisin was executed by hanging in Pentonville prison on March 2, 1918.

1987 – Richard Otto Macek – An American rapist and murderer who was nicknamed “the mad biter” after he killed a 24-year-old hotel maid and gnawed on her before mutilating her body

2010 – Michael Adam Sigala – was born on December 11, 1977, in Plano, Collin County, Texas, USA. He is known for a notorious crime that took place on August 22, 2000, when he was 22 years old. Sigala unlawfully entered the Plano apartment of Kleber and Lilian Dos Santos. He killed Kleber, 27, with a single gunshot to the head. He then committed further atrocities against Lilian, 25, before also killing her.  After the murders, Sigala lingered at the apartment, attempting to wipe his fingerprints off of everything he touched, and cleaning the carpet where he had left evidence. He also helped himself to a drink and watching television. He went through the apartment, collecting the couple’s wedding rings and some other items, before finally leaving. The bodies were found by a neighbor after Kleber failed to report to work.  Sigala was arrested two months later after several of the stolen items were recovered from various pawn shops and traced back to him. At the time of his arrest, he confessed to killing Kleber and stealing the couple’s rings. He blamed Lilian’s torture and killing on another perpetrator. However, testing of the evidence on the floor next to the bed showed an exact match to Sigala. A firearms expert testified that all of the bullets recovered from the scene were fired from the same weapon. No evidence was found connecting another perpetrator to the scene.  Sigala was executed by lethal injection on March 2, 2010, in Huntsville, Walker County, Texas, USA, at the age of 32. His case is remembered as one of the most shocking in the history of the Plano Police Department.

2012 – James Wilson – was a renowned public intellectual and prolific author, widely recognized as one of the most influential criminal justice scholars of the 20th century. His writings on styles of policing in the 1960s and on bureaucracies in the 1970s established him as a preeminent scholar on law enforcement.  Wilson’s work was not always universally accepted among scholars, but it appealed to a wide audience of practitioners and the general public. His controversial and game-changing 1974 essay, “Crime and the Criminologists,” on how criminologists think about crime, may have contributed to the blossoming of more academically eclectic criminal justice programs in colleges and universities throughout the United States.  His writings on the biological aspects of crime and on the moral sense and development of character were more controversial still, receiving widespread acclaim from some sources and ridicule from others. He served on several major commissions and panels on crime and justice, encouraged field experimentation in criminal justice research, and was acknowledged as an enthusiastic mentor and friend to many criminologists.  Wilson wrote extensively about crime: its nature, sources, effects on society, and what to do about it. He criticized the way criminologists had thought about crime, arguing that it was unscientific, unsupported by systematic evidence, and of little or no value to criminal justice practitioners. He argued that economists were using more theoretically coherent, empirically supported, and policy-relevant models for dealing with crime, mostly following theories of rational incentives and deterrence, as well as community protection through incapacitation.  In recognition of his contributions to the field, Wilson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003. His legacy continues to influence the field of criminology and criminal justice.

Events

Kate Webster & Julia Thomas

1867 – Jesse James and his gang rob a bank in Savannah, Missouri with 1 person being killed

1879 – The Barnes Mystery: Julia Martha Thomas is murdered by her maid, Kate Webster

1981 – Occultist & pimp Carl Drew who sacrificed young women who displeased him, went on trial for murder

1993 – Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh promises to surrender if a statement that he had taped is played, the authorities agree to play the tape but Koresh does not surrender

1995 – British trader Nick Leeson is arrested for the collapse of Barings Bank