Births
Patrice Algere
1911 – Henri Young – was an American criminal who lived a life on the wrong side of the law. Born in 1911 in Kansas City, Missouri, he fell into a pattern of crime, becoming a bank robber known for his aggressive tactics. His criminal record escalated in 1933 when he was convicted of murder in Washington state. Young’s path took him to various prisons, including those in Montana and Washington. Eventually, he landed at the notorious Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. In 1939, he participated in a daring escape attempt with four other inmates. The attempt failed tragically, resulting in the death of two participants. Young and another inmate were recaptured and faced a harsh punishment – years of solitary confinement within the prison walls. After his release from solitary, details about Young’s life become hazy. He remained incarcerated for some time, but records indicate he disappeared in 1972, leaving the final chapter of his story unknown.
1930 – Bobby Frank Cherry – was an American white supremacist and Klansman. He was convicted of murder in 2002 for his participation in the horrific 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The attack killed four young African-American girls and injured over 20 others. Born in 1930, Cherry served in the Marines where he gained knowledge of explosives. After his discharge, he held various jobs, including truck driving. Cherry was part of a Ku Klux Klan splinter group known for its violent opposition to the Civil Rights Movement. In 2002, nearly four decades after the bombing, he was finally brought to justice and sentenced to life in prison. He died behind bars in 2004.
1940 – Jack Wayne Reeves – was born in Wichita Falls, Texas in 1940. He is currently serving a lengthy prison sentence for the murders of two of his wives. Reeves has been married multiple times. In 1978, his second wife, Sharon, was found dead from a gunshot wound. The death was initially ruled a suicide, but suspicion eventually fell on Reeves. He was later convicted of her murder in 1996. Reeves’ fourth wife, Emelita, a mail-order bride from the Philippines, vanished in 1994. The investigation into her disappearance led to a re-examination of Sharon’s death. Emelita’s body was never found, but Reeves was convicted of her murder in 1996 as well. He is serving a combined sentence of 99 years and is not eligible for parole until 2026.
1957 – David Leonard Wood – also known as “The Desert Killer”, is an American serial killer and rapist. Born in 1957 in Texas, Wood’s criminal activity began early with a conviction for indecency with a child in the 1970s. In 1987, El Paso, Texas was gripped by terror as several young women disappeared. Wood was eventually linked to the disappearances and murders of at least six women whose bodies were found buried in the desert. Despite his denials, Wood was convicted of the murders and sentenced to death. His appeals have been unsuccessful, and he remains on death row. The case has been profiled in documentaries and news articles, exploring the psychology of a serial killer and the impact the crimes had on the El Paso community.
1968 – Patrice Alegre – He is known as a French serial killer who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2002 with a minimum term of 22 years for five murders, an attempted murder, and six rapes. He was subsequently acquitted of four additional murder charges on July 3, 2008. Alègre was the unwanted child of a violent police officer and a teenage hairdresser. He grew up in Saint-Geniès-Bellevue and was expelled from three secondary schools before he settled on the field of general mechanics. He lived with his grandmother for 14 years in the Izards district of Toulouse. While he lived with her, he dropped out of school after the fourth grade and turned to delinquency, theft, and drug trafficking. He eventually became homeless at the age of 13. He would later tell his psychiatrists that he had been sexually abused. Alègre committed his first sexual assault at age 16. In January 1988, Alègre met Cécile Chambert, with whom he had a daughter born on July 23, 1989. Despite the relative stability of his relationship, he gradually became more immersed in crime. Alègre found his victims in the station’s district while he was employed as a barman in the police station cafeteria and then at the Gare de Toulouse-Matabiau’s buffet restaurant. When women rejected his advances, he would rape and strangle them. He killed his first victim, Valérie Tariote, a co-worker, on February 21, 1989. On February 16, 1995, after a dispute where Alègre turned violent, Chambert left the apartment with their daughter and Alègre moved in with his mistress, the manager of a nightclub where he was hired as a bouncer. He was fired from the nightclub for starting fights that scared away customers. On June 14, 1997, Alègre met Mireille Normand, a 35-year-old woman living alone in a chalet in Verdun. Calling himself Franck, he offered her his services as a handyman in exchange for lodging.
1969 – Jose Luis Calva – He was a Mexican writer and a serial killer. His life was marked by a series of traumatic events. His father died when he was two, and his mother used to bring men to his home whom the boy had to call “dad”. When he was seven, he was raped by a 16-year-old friend of his older brother. He met the woman who would become his wife and mother of two of his children, Aide, in 1996. They divorced and she moved to the United States with their daughters. He sank into a deep depression. In October 2007, forces of the Federal Preventive Police went to Calva’s home to arrest him under the suspicion that he was responsible for the disappearance of his girlfriend Alejandra Galeana, who was last seen on October 6. He was found eating a dish of human meat seasoned with lemon. He tried to escape by jumping through the window, severely injuring himself, but was captured. Inside his flat, the police found the mutilated body of his girlfriend, human meat in the refrigerator, a frying pan with cooked human flesh and human bones in a box of cereal. An unfinished book titled “Instintos Caníbales o 12 días” (Cannibal Instincts or 12 days) and a picture of Anthony Hopkins portraying Hannibal Lecter was also found. On the early morning of December 11, 2007, Calva, who apparently had committed suicide between 6:00am and 6:30am, was found hanging by his belt from the roof of his holding cell. No suicide note was found. He was charged with murdering and eating his girlfriend in 2007, to which he confessed before killing himself pre-trial, and was suspected in two to eight other murders.
1970 – Karl Eugene Chamberlain – He was a resident of Dallas County, Texas, where he committed a crime that led to his incarceration. On August 2, 1991, at the age of 21, Chamberlain fatally shot a 30-year-old woman. He had been a resident of the same apartment complex as the victim and had gone to her apartment under the pretense of borrowing sugar. He returned minutes later with duct tape and a rifle, forced the victim into a bedroom, taped her hands and feet, and sexually assaulted her. He then took the victim into the bathroom and shot her once in the head with a .30 caliber rifle, causing her death. Chamberlain left the apartment and returned to his own. Chamberlain was unemployed for 13 months prior to his arrest and had no prior prison record. He was received by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice on September 25, 1997, at the age of 27. He was executed on June 11, 2008, for the rape and slaying of the woman in Dallas 17 years ago. His execution was the first in Texas in nearly nine months. During his execution, he expressed remorse for his actions and apologized to the victim’s family.
1978 – Eugene Wayman McWatters Jr – also known as The Salerno Strangler, is an American serial killer convicted of the rape and murder of three homeless women in Port Salerno, Florida, during the spring of 2004.[1] Originally sentenced to death, a technicality led to the commutation of his sentence to life imprisonment in 2014. He is currently serving time at Taylor Correctional Institution in Perry, Florida. On December 15, 2003, McWatters assaulted a homeless woman at a campsite in Golden Gate. Despite the severity of the attack, the victim chose not to report it to the police.[3][4] On March 24, 2004, McWatters attacked and raped 43-year-old Jackie Bradley, ultimately strangling her to death. He then disposed of her body in a ditch filled with shallow water, attempting to conceal it under a pile of rocks.[3] The discovery of Bradley’s body on March 31 led to McWatters becoming a person of interest, as he was identified as the last person seen with her. However, the police did not actively pursue him at that time. On May 31, McWatters targeted 29-year-old Christal Wiggins, a prostitute, whom he also strangled to death before dumping her body in a pile of brush. Hours later, he struck again, this time killing 18-year-old Carrie Ann Caughey. McWatters attempted to conceal her body under a pile of branches but inadvertently broke his foot in the process. Caughey’s body was discovered four days later by passersby. As Caughey’s body was found, investigators linked her murder to the same perpetrator responsible for Bradley’s death. On June 7, Wiggins’ body was discovered, further connecting the dots in the series of murders. During the investigation, detectives uncovered that McWatters had sought treatment at a hospital after breaking his foot. Simultaneously, the woman assaulted by McWatters in 2003 came forward, identifying him in a photo lineup. He was arrested the following day and initially confessed to all the murders, only to later recant his statements.
Deaths
Bugsy Siegel
1872 – Phoebe Campbell – was a Canadian woman who was hanged for the murder of her husband, George Campbell. The crime took place on the morning of July 15, 1871, in Thorndale, Middlesex County, Ontario. Campbell alleged that two men with blackened faces broke into their log cabin home and brutally hacked George to death with an axe because he refused to hand over some money. However, suspicion quickly fell on Campbell due to her behavior following the murder and her interactions with Thomas Coyle, George’s farmhand. During the investigation, six local men were arrested, including Coyle. Doubt about Campbell’s innocence arose rapidly as she was seen talking with Coyle, she also seemed to have done nothing to help save her husband as he was being murdered, and she seemed very unemotional following the funeral for George. A coroner’s autopsy showed that indeed George was murdered by Campbell and Coyle. Campbell’s murder trial began on April 1, 1872, with much public interest. During the trial, she accused George of having an affair with her cousin’s wife. However, she later confessed that she and Coyle murdered George so they could marry. Coyle did go to trial for his crime but was acquitted and later moved to England. Campbell was hanged on June 20, 1872, at the age of 25. She was said to be emotionless as she was about to be hanged, holding a lace handkerchief in her hand until after she died. The crime attracted so much public attention that postcards depicting the crime were made and bought by many.
1947 – Bugsy Siegel – was born on February 28, 1906, in New York City, U.S., and died on June 20, 1947, in Beverly Hills, California, U.S. He was an American mobster who played a significant role in the development of the Las Vegas Strip. Siegel was influential within the Jewish Mob, along with his childhood friend and fellow gangster Meyer Lansky. He also held significant influence within the Italian-American Mafia and the largely Italian-Jewish National Crime Syndicate. Siegel was one of the founders and leaders of Murder, Inc. and became a bootlegger during American Prohibition. After the Twenty-first Amendment was passed in 1933 repealing Prohibition, he turned to gambling. In 1936, he left New York and moved to California. His time as a mobster during this period was mainly as a hitman and muscle, as he was noted for his prowess with guns and violence. In 1941, Siegel was tried for the murder of friend and fellow mobster Harry Greenberg, who had turned informant. He was acquitted in 1942. Siegel traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he handled and financed some of the original casinos. He assisted developer William R. Wilkerson’s Flamingo Hotel after Wilkerson ran out of funds. Siegel assumed control of the project and managed the final stages of construction. The Flamingo opened on December 26, 1946, but it soon closed due to poor reception and technical difficulties. It reopened in March 1947 with a finished hotel. However, by then his mob partners were convinced that an estimated US$1 million of the construction budget overrun had been skimmed by Siegel’s girlfriend Virginia Hill or by both of them. On June 20, 1947, Siegel was shot dead by a sniper through the window of Hill’s Linden Drive mansion in Beverly Hills, California.
1963 – Joseph Self – was a criminal notorious for his life of crime and his ultimate execution. Born in Tacoma, he was the youngest of four children. His mother, Mable, died when he was 7 years old and his father, Joseph, when he was 12. Left to fend for himself, young Joseph dropped out of school by age 15, got into trouble, and spent time at a camp for juvenile delinquents near Tacoma. He was given the option of enlisting in the military while in custody, and he joined the U.S. Army. After basic training, Self was assigned to a cavalry division and sent to occupied Japan. While serving there, he was disciplined several times for insolence, disobeying orders, and being AWOL (absent without leave). Self was convicted of black marketeering in Japan and sentenced to serve two and one-half years in a military prison. After serving 15 months, he was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army and released. Thereafter, Self served three months on a prison farm near San Francisco for burglary, two years in the Oregon State Penitentiary at Salem for auto theft, and two years in the California State Penitentiary at San Quentin for burglary. He was paroled on June 20, 1959, and for several months worked on a cattle ranch in Simms, Montana. On March 16, 1960, Joseph Chester Self, age 29, shot and killed Seattle taxicab driver Ralph A. Gemmill Jr., age 39, during a $15 heist. After hiding in the Eatonville area for four days, Self surrendered to the Pierce County Sheriff, claiming the murder was unintentional. A trial jury, however, found Self guilty of first-degree murder and imposed the death penalty. On June 20, 1963, at 12:05 a.m., Self was hanged at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. He was the 73rd prisoner to be executed in Washington state since 1904 and was the last for 30 years, the longest period in state history without an execution.
1984 – Carl Elson Shriner – was a man who spent most of his life behind bars. He was one of 10 children and began his life of crime when he was just 8 years old. His criminal activities escalated over time, leading to his involvement in serious crimes such as armed robbery. Shriner’s most notorious crime was the murder of Judith Ann Carter, a 32-year-old convenience store clerk in Gainesville, Florida. The murder occurred on October 22, 1976, while Shriner was on parole for armed robbery. Carter was shot five times during the incident, which appeared to be a robbery. Shriner was sentenced to death for this crime. He spent his time on death row claiming to have found ‘the light’ and accepted Christ. He was executed in the electric chair on June 20, 1984, at Florida State Prison. His execution marked the 20th in the United States since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.
1994 – Dean A. Melberg – was born on January 23, 1974. He is known for a tragic event that took place on June 20, 1994, at the Fairchild Air Force Base hospital. Mellberg, who had been discharged from the Air Force one month prior due to mental health issues, entered the hospital with a MAK-90 assault rifle. He shot and killed Major Thomas E. Brigham, a psychiatrist, and Captain Alan W. London, a psychologist, who both recommended his discharge from the Air Force. Mellberg continued his rampage, killing two more people and wounding 22 others. The incident ended when Mellberg was shot and killed by a military police officer. This event is considered the worst mass murder in Spokane County history. Mellberg passed away at the age of 20.
2001 – Mohammed Adam Omar – also known as The Sana’a Ripper, was born in 1952 in Sudan. He is known as a Sudanese murderer and alleged serial killer. Omar worked as a morgue assistant and was convicted of killing two medical students at Sana’a University in Yemen. He was later executed for their murders on June 20, 2001. Omar claimed to have killed another 49 victims across several countries in the Arab world, but he later retracted these statements, leading to various theories about whether he was truly responsible for the crimes he confessed to. In his early life, Omar witnessed his father murder his mother’s lover at the age of seven, an event he later claimed led him to never trust women. He was married twice, first to a Sudanese woman with whom he had two children, and later to a Yemeni woman after his divorce. His employment history is somewhat unclear. It was initially claimed that he had been a mortuary assistant across many countries around Africa and the Middle East. However, a letter from the Sudanese Ministry of Interior revealed that Omar had instead been employed as a watchman, cleaner, and gravedigger at a cemetery in Khartoum. Omar himself also claimed to have been a former boxing champion, but this was never proven. In May 1999, the bodies of 21 female students were found buried either on campus or in the sewage system of Sana’a University. Omar was arrested in May 2000, on suspicion of killing 16 of them. After his arrest, he confessed to raping, killing, and mutilating five women, citing his inability to “resist their beauty” and desire to send them to Heaven as his motive. He went on to confess the murders of 51 women, with additional victims in his native Sudan, Kuwait, Chad, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Central African Republic, starting in 1975. He explained that he lured the women, who were mostly medical students, to the morgue, under the guise of helping with their studies. In there, he killed them with a blow to the head. After that, he cut off the hands and feet, dissolved the bodies in chemicals, and kept the bones as mementos. He denied having sold any lasting body parts. Stealing gold from the victims was also given as a side motive.
2006 – Lamont D. Reese – was born on October 16, 1977. He was an American convicted murderer who was executed by lethal injection in his home state of Texas on June 20, 2006. On March 1, 1999, Reese, then 21, went to a convenience store in Fort Worth with his girlfriend, Kareema Kimbrough, and several of his friends. An argument ensued with some young men outside the store, reportedly gang members. Reese’s group left, gathered firearms, and returned to the store. Reese shot and killed Anthony Roney, 26, Alonzo Stewart, 25, and Riki Jackson, 17. Two other unidentified people, ages 24 and 13, were also injured. Reese was convicted of capital murder in November 2000 and sentenced to death. All of his subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied. When the time came for his execution, Reese refused to walk into the death chamber, and was carried in by guards. Kareema S.S. Kimbrough was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison. Jason Leadley, Brian Johnson, and Steven Kindred pleaded guilty to murder and received sentences ranging from 35 to 50 years in prison.
2007 – Lionell Gonzalez Rodriguez – was a man with a troubled past. Born and raised in Texas, he had prior convictions for burglary and cocaine possession. He served 3½ months of a 4-year sentence before receiving parole. On September 5, 1990, Rodriguez, then 19, and his cousin, James Gonzales, were driving in Houston with a shotgun and .30-caliber rifle in their car. They pulled up next to another car that was stopped for a red light at an intersection. Rodriguez fired at the driver of the other car, Tracy Gee, 22, hitting her in the right temple and killing her. Rodriguez then got out of his car, pushed Gee’s body out onto the pavement, and drove away in her car. Rodriguez was arrested four hours later in Fort Bend County while driving Gee’s car. His pants and the interior of the car were soaked with blood, and he had bone and brain matter clotted in his hair. Rodriguez gave a full confession. Rodriguez was executed by lethal injection on June 20, 2007, in Huntsville, Texas for the murder and robbery of Tracy Gee.
2008 – James Earl Reed – was an American convicted murderer who met his fate in the state of South Carolina. He faced execution by electrocution in the infamous “Old Sparky,” the state’s electric chair. Reed holds the somber distinction of being the last person executed in South Carolina via electrocution. Reed’s tragic story began with a brief relationship with 28-year-old Laurie Rego while they both served in the United States Army. After Rego attempted to end their connection, Reed pleaded guilty to assault and received a 37-month prison sentence. During his incarceration, he penned numerous threatening letters to Rego. In May 1994, Reed was released from prison. Shortly thereafter, he acquired a firearm and hitchhiked to the home of Rego’s parents, Joseph and Barbara Ann Lafayette, in Adams Run, South Carolina. He intended to find her. Tragically, Reed shot the couple five times before fleeing the scene. Although no physical evidence directly linked him to the murder, he was arrested and questioned by the police. Despite cooperating with law enforcement in their search for the murder weapon and spent casings, these crucial pieces of evidence were never recovered. During his trial at Charleston County Circuit Court, Reed, who had an IQ of 77 and a “neurological impairment,” chose to represent himself. He waived his right to testify and sought to alter his relationship with his standby counsel. However, District Court Judge William L. Howard refused to reappoint counsel, citing Reed’s previous waiver of that right. The jury swiftly found Reed guilty of murder, recommending the death penalty. Judge Howard concurred, sentencing Reed to death for the double killings. In 2003, Reed voluntarily ended his right to appeal in multiple courts. He opted for electrocution over lethal injection, declining clemency, a last meal, or a final statement. On June 20, 2008, after a series of appeals, the curtains were finally opened at 11:20 p.m., allowing witnesses to view Reed’s execution. Strapped into the electric chair, electrodes connected to his head and calf, he met his tragic end.
2012 – Gary Carl Simmons Jr – was a former grocery store butcher who gained notoriety for his heinous crimes. Born in 1974, he met his end on June 20, 2012, when he was executed in Mississippi for the brutal murder of 21-year-old Jeffery Wolfe. Simmons’ gruesome actions unfolded in August 1996. He shot and killed Wolfe, dismembered his body, and scattered the remains in a south Mississippi bayou. The victim’s girlfriend was also subjected to a horrifying ordeal—she was raped during the crime. Simmons, who spent the last 14 years of his life on Mississippi’s death row, was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. CDT after receiving a lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. His execution marked the end of a dark chapter in which he used knives from his grocery store butcher shop to carry out the gruesome dismemberment. Wolfe’s father, Paskiel Lee Wolfe, stared directly at Simmons during the execution. Afterward, he called Simmons a “piece of trash” and vowed that the killer would “burn in hell.” Simmons’ sister was also present but remained silent. The crime involved drug-related motives, as Wolfe had driven to Mississippi from Houston with his girlfriend to collect a drug debt. Simmons orchestrated the killing, dismemberment, and rape, while his former brother-in-law, Timothy Milano, was also convicted for his role in the murder. Simmons’ execution was the sixth in Mississippi that year, marking the highest number of executions in the state since 1956. His name will forever be associated with brutality and the darkest aspects of human behavior.
Events
Ku Klux Klan
1871 – Ku Klux Klan trials begin in federal court, Oxford, Mississippi
1890 – Elizabeth Potts is executed in Elko, Nevada – becoming the only woman legally executed in Nevada
1893 – Lizzie Borden is acquitted of the murders of her father and stepmother
1967 – Mohammed Ali (Cassius Clay) is sentenced to 5 years by a jury after 21 minutes of deliberation for refusing to be inducted into the armed forces during the Vietnam War
1976 – Carol Fugate, Charles Starkweather’s accomplice is paroled
1979 – ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart is shot dead by a Nicaraguan soldier under the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The murder is caught on tape and sparks an international outcry
1994 – Former NFL running back, broadcaster, and actor OJ Simpson is arraigned on the murder of Nicole Simpson & Ronald Goldman
1994 – US Fairchild Hospital Air Force Base massacre, former gunman kills 5 and injures 22
2020 – Three men are stabbed to death with 3 others injured in a terrorist attack in a park in Reading, England
