Births

Donald Henry Gaskins

1871 – William Hooper Young – He was the son of John Willard Young, an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Hooper Young was a grandson of Brigham Young, the president of the LDS Church and founder of Salt Lake City. As a young adult, Hooper Young became an elder in the LDS Church, and in 1891 and 1892 he was a Mormon missionary in the eastern United States. In 1893, Young left Salt Lake City and began moving from city to city and from job to job. During his travels, he lived in Seattle; San Francisco; Portland, Oregon; Chicago; New York City; Washington, D.C.; and Hoboken, New Jersey. Young drifted away from the LDS Church and according to his relatives in Utah Territory, had become a morphine addict. There were also rumors that he had left Salt Lake City because he had killed someone.  In 1903, he was convicted of the “Pulitzer Murder” in New York City and was sentenced to life imprisonment. The body of Anna Pulitzer was found in the Morris Canal outside Jersey City, New Jersey. Her abdomen had been stabbed and there was bruising on her head. Pulitzer was married but had been arrested many times for solicitation of prostitution. In the apartment, police found empty beer bottles, a bottle with chloral hydrate crystals in it, a carving knife with blood on it, and blood on bedsheets, in a closet, under the kitchen sink, and on the floor and walls. The words “blood atonement” were scrawled in a notebook, and underneath were several references to verses in the Bible that discuss atonement for crime. It was determined that Pulitzer had died of a drug overdose from chloral poisoning and that the head bruising and abdomen stabbing occurred after her death. Hooper Young was arrested in Derby, Connecticut, where he was found drunk and dressed like a hobo. He lived until after 1938.

1927 – Peter Manuel – was an American-Scottish serial killer. He was convicted of murdering seven people across Lanarkshire and southern Scotland between 1956 and his arrest in January 1958, and is believed to have murdered two more. The media nicknamed the unidentified killer “the Beast of Birkenshaw”.  Manuel was born to Scottish parents in New York City. The family moved to Detroit, Michigan before migrating back to Scotland in 1932, this time to Birkenshaw, Lanarkshire. During his childhood, Manuel was bullied. By the age of ten, he was known to the local police as a petty thief. At the age of 16, he committed a string of sexual assaults that resulted in his serving nine years in Peterhead Prison. In 1955, he successfully conducted his defense on a rape charge at Airdrie Sheriff Court.  Manuel was convicted in 1958 of the murders of seven people. One case against him was thrown out of court; another, committed in England, was attributed to him. He was hanged at Glasgow’s Barlinnie Prison; he was the second to last prisoner to die on the Barlinnie gallows. His crimes and the subsequent efforts of Detective Muncie to prove his guilt were later dramatized in the ITV crime drama “In Plain Sight”.

1931 – John Bruce Vining – He was convicted for the murder of Georgia Caruso and sentenced to death on April 9, 1990. The murder took place on November 17, 1987, in Orange County, Florida, USA. The case was known as the “Caruso Case”.  In November of 1987, Caruso had advertised diamonds for sale. A man, identifying himself as “George Williams,” but who was John Vining, came to Caruso’s fingernail care business on several days in November of 1987 to discuss buying the diamonds. On November 17, 1987, Caruso and Vining went to have the jewelry appraised. The diamond jewelry was appraised at $60,000. Caruso told her employee that she and “Williams” were going to the bank because he had decided to buy the jewelry.  Caruso was later found dead. The cause of death was determined to be a drug overdose from chloral poisoning. The head bruising and abdomen stabbing occurred after her death. Vining was arrested in Derby, Connecticut, where he was found drunk and dressed like a hobo.  Before his arrest for the Caruso case, Vining was serving consecutive fifteen-year sentences for kidnapping and aggravated assault in Georgia. His arrest for the Caruso case happened on May 5, 1989, eighteen months after Caruso’s death.

1933 – Donald Henry Gaskins – born Donald Henry Parrott Jr. was an American serial killer and rapist from South Carolina who stabbed, shot, drowned, and poisoned more than a dozen people. His diminutive height—he was barely five feet tall—and small body frame gained him the nickname “Pee Wee,” a moniker he retained to the end of his life.  Gaskins was in legal trouble from an early age. Arrested for viciously beating another youth, Gaskins was incarcerated in a Florence reform school for several years. He returned to the Prospect community when released to live with his grandmother. Gaskins also ran up an extensive police rap sheet, with charges ranging from petty larcenies and auto thefts to aggravated assaults and murders.  His last arrest was for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, 13-year-old Kim Ghelkins, who had gone missing in September 1975. During their search for the missing girl, police discovered eight bodies buried in shallow graves near Gaskins’s home in Prospect, South Carolina. In May 1976, a Florence County jury took only 47 minutes before finding Gaskins guilty of the murder of one of the eight victims, Dennis Bellamy, and sentenced him to death by the electric chair. That death sentence was overturned by the South Carolina Supreme Court in February 1978, and rather than face a new trial, Gaskins pled guilty to the murders of Bellamy and eight other friends and associates. He was given 10 concurrent life sentences, to be served at Central Correctional Institution prison in Columbia, South Carolina.  On September 12, 1982, while a prisoner working on death row, Gaskins was charged with murdering inmate Rudolph Tyner, who was awaiting execution for a Horry County murder. On March 24, 1983, Gaskins was convicted of Tyner’s murder and sentenced to death. Gaskins was executed in South Carolina’s electric chair on September 6, 1991. His remains were cremated and scattered in an undisclosed location.

1945 – Christopher Wilder – Known as the “Beauty Queen Killer” and the “Porsche Serial Killer,” Wilder gained notoriety for a series of heinous crimes in the 1980s.  Wilder’s criminal activities escalated rapidly, and he was implicated in numerous cases of sexual assault and murder. His modus operandi often involved luring young women with promises of modeling opportunities, only to subject them to abduction, torture, and ultimately, tragic endings. His crimes spanned across Australia and the United States.  Born into a seemingly ordinary family, Wilder’s criminal tendencies manifested early in his life. Despite a relatively privileged upbringing, he exhibited a dark side that later unfolded in a series of violent and disturbing acts. His charm and charisma were used to deceive his victims, making him a particularly elusive and dangerous criminal.  Wilder’s criminal spree reached its peak in 1984 when he embarked on a cross-country killing spree in the United States. Law enforcement agencies on both continents collaborated to capture him, and the pursuit culminated in a violent confrontation with police in New Hampshire on April 13, 1984, where Wilder met his demise.  The life of Christopher Wilder remains a chilling chapter in criminal history, serving as a stark reminder of the capacity for evil that can exist in seemingly ordinary individuals. The details of his crimes continue to haunt the memories of those affected, leaving a lasting impact on the communities touched by his dark legacy.

1953 – Robert William Latimer – is a Canadian canola and wheat farmer. He was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of his daughter, Tracy Lynn Latimer, who was born on November 23, 1980, and died on October 24, 1993. This case caused a national controversy concerning the definition and ethics of euthanasia as well as the rights of people with disabilities. It resulted in two Supreme Court decisions. Latimer was released on day parole in March 2008 and was granted full parole in December 2010.  Before his imprisonment, Latimer lived near Wilkie, Saskatchewan, on a 1,280-acre wheat and canola farm with his wife, Laura, and their four children. Tracy Lynn Latimer was born with severe cerebral palsy, resulting in severe intellectual and physical disabilities, including violent seizures. She had little or no voluntary control of her muscles, wore incontinence pants, and could not walk or talk. Despite her condition, her doctors described the care given by her family as excellent. The Supreme Court judgment of 1997 noted, “It is undisputed that Tracy was in constant pain”.

1958 – Robert Eugene Brashers – was an American serial killer and rapist. He committed at least three murders between 1990 and 1998 in the states of South Carolina and Missouri. He lived a double life, with his family unaware of his criminal activities.  Brashers spent his childhood and youth in Huntsville, Alabama, after his family moved there when he was young. He reportedly had no problems with the law during his teenage years, did not use drugs or alcohol, and after graduation, he enlisted in the Army and served in the Navy for several years. In the early 1980s, Brashers resigned from the Army and moved to Louisiana, settling in a house in New Orleans. By the mid-1980s, he moved again to Fort Myers, Florida. He married in the early 1990s, had a daughter with his wife in 1992, and at some point adopted two little girls.  In the fall of 1985, Brashers was arrested in Port St. Lucie on charges of assaulting a 24-year-old woman named Michelle Wilkerson. According to investigators, Brashers shot her twice in the neck and head during a fight. Despite the severity of her injuries, Wilkerson remained conscious, managed to leave the car, and hid in a culvert under the road.  Brashers committed suicide on January 19, 1999, to avoid arrest for an unrelated crime. His true identity as the serial killer was not revealed until 2018, with the help of improved DNA technology.

1962 – Joey Merlino – is an American mobster and reputed boss of the Philadelphia crime family. He rose to power in the mid-nineties after he allegedly fought a war for control of the criminal organization. He has led the crime family in gambling, loan sharking, drug trafficking, and extortion.  Merlino was born to Italian-American parents Salvatore “Chuckie” Merlino and Rita Giordano. He was raised in South Philadelphia and Ventnor City, New Jersey. He is also the nephew of deceased Philadelphia crime family mobster-turned-government witness Lawrence “Yogi” Merlino. Joey’s sister, Maria, was briefly engaged to Salvatore Testa. He had been friends with future made man in the Philadelphia crime family Michael “Mikey Chang” Ciancaglini and his brother Joseph “Joey Chang” Ciancaglini Jr. since attending St. Thomas Aquinas grade school in Philadelphia’s Point Breeze neighborhood.  In comparison to other traditional mob bosses who shunned the limelight, Merlino has interacted regularly with the media and the public, often openly providing charity and hosting events to benefit indigent people in Philadelphia, drawing comparisons to the similarly outgoing, conspicuous, and ostensibly charitable late New York crime boss John Gotti.  With the help of boss-turned-informant Ralph Natale, Merlino was convicted of several RICO charges including racketeering, illegal gambling, and extortion, in 2001, and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Since his release from prison in 2011, the FBI and organized crime reporters believe he continues to run the Philadelphia–South Jersey Mafia. Merlino disputes this, saying he has retired from a life of crime. As of 2015, Merlino divides his time between South Florida and Philadelphia and if you have an Instagram account you can give him a follow!!

1963 – Norberto Pietri – He is known for the murder of Brian Chappell, a West Palm Beach police officer, on August 22, 1988. Pietri had walked away from the Lantana Community Correctional Work Release Center four days before the incident. During those four days, he committed burglaries to support his drug use.  On the day of the murder, Pietri was driving a stolen silver pickup truck. Officer Chappell, who was on his motorcycle patrolling for speeding motorists, followed Pietri for approximately one mile before Pietri stopped the truck. As Officer Chappell approached the truck with his gun in his holster, Pietri shot him once in the chest within two to four feet of the truck. The shot resulted in Officer Chappell’s death. Pietri left the scene and disposed of the truck by dumping it into a canal off the Florida Turnpike. Pietri was caught two days later, the day before Brian Chappell was buried. He was sentenced to death on March 15, 1990. Despite numerous appeals and moratoriums on executions, Pietri remains on Death Row.

1964 – Roosevelt Pollard – On a winter morning of December 12, 1985, Roosevelt Pollard set out to visit his relatives in Arkansas. He was accompanied by Maurice Alexander, Michael Hammon, and Robert Sands. They were driving south from St. Louis on Interstate 55 in Pollard’s car.  During their journey, the car’s battery died. Pollard, armed with a .22 caliber automatic rifle, and Hammon went in search of a replacement battery. They found one in a car at a nearby farm and brought it back to their vehicle.  After replacing the battery, they resumed their journey. However, they had to stop again when one of the tires went flat. They were near a rest area in Steele, Missouri. Alexander and Hammon went with Howard Henry, the rest area maintenance person, to a nearby service station to buy a new tire.  While they were away, Richard Alford drove into the rest area in his new 1984 Pontiac Bonneville and parked a spot away from Pollard’s car. Seeing the car, Pollard decided he wanted it. He took out his loaded rifle and waited for Alford to return to his car. As Alford returned, Pollard shot him through the window, turned to Sands, then turned back and shot Alford two more times.  Pollard moved Alford’s body from the driver’s seat, got into the car, and drove off with the body. About twelve to thirteen minutes later, Pollard returned to the rest area to check if his friends had returned with the new tire. They hadn’t, so Pollard left again in Alford’s car and abandoned it at the rest area on the northbound side of Interstate 55.  Later, Pollard and his friends stopped in Blytheville, Arkansas to spend the night. Pollard had stolen a ring from Alford’s finger and was seen wiping the blood from it. He later sold it in a pawn shop. Alford’s body was found near the rest area in a drainage ditch under an Interstate 55 overpass.  Roosevelt Pollard was declared mentally incompetent and his execution was stayed. He remains on the capital punishment list because his mental condition can be re-evaluated by the court. If his mental condition improves, the court can reconsider his death sentence.

1966 – Michael Dale Rimmer – is a man with a complex and troubling history. He was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Ricci Lynn Ellsworth, in 1997. The crime scene was at the Memphis Inn in Shelby County, where Ellsworth worked as an overnight desk clerk. She disappeared that night, leaving behind her purse, her wedding band, her car, and a chaotic and bloody crime scene. Her body was never found.  Rimmer and Ellsworth had a tumultuous romantic relationship that ended in 1989, after which he pled guilty to raping her. While in prison for the rape, Rimmer told a fellow inmate he would kill Ellsworth once he was released. After her disappearance, witnesses at the Memphis Inn described a man there who fit Rimmer’s description, with blood on his hands. He was seen putting something heavy and wrapped in a blanket into the trunk of a maroon Honda. Rimmer was arrested about a month later in Indiana, driving a maroon Honda. Tests indicated that blood found inside the Honda matched blood found at the hotel crime scene and that both were the blood of Ellsworth.  Rimmer was first convicted for Ellsworth’s murder in 1998 and sentenced to death. However, this conviction was overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct and ineffective counsel, and a new trial was ordered. In 2016, Rimmer was tried again, and a second jury convicted him of first-degree murder and felony murder, sentencing him to death. His appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals was unsuccessful, and the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld his death sentence in 2021.  Throughout his time in prison, Rimmer made several attempts to escape and was reported to have described the murder and the bloody crime scene to another inmate. However, he never offered authorities any assistance in finding Ellsworth’s body.

1967 – Juri Sulimov – is a Soviet serial killer who killed three people, two of them prisoners, between 1983 and 1994. His family moved to Kohtla-Järve when he was 7 years old. Described as an irritable, violent criminal child by his mother, Sulimov’s first recorded offense occurred on May 19, 1983, when the 16-year-old was arrested for theft. His first violent crime occurred four months later, on August 13, when Sulimov was out drinking with a friend. The pair attacked an elderly man waiting at a bus stop. After the victim stopped showing signs of life, both of them calmly returned home. However, the elderly man survived his injuries after several complex surgeries and managed to identify his assailants. Sulimov was taken into custody and jailed at a remand center until he could stand trial. While in prison, Sulimov got into a quarrel with his cellmate and ended up killing him. For this, and the attempted murder he was originally jailed for, Sulimov received a 10-year sentence on April 4, 1984, by the Tallinn District Court. After spending two years in the Rummu Prison, he was transferred to a mental asylum in 1986. There, Sulimov and two other inmates attacked another prisoner, with Juri using a sharpened object to inflict fatal wounds. Sulimov was found guilty of this killing as well and was given an additional 15 years imprisonment.  Sentenced to death for his crimes, but his sentence would later be automatically commuted to life imprisonment when the death penalty was abolished in the country.

1967 – Lawrence Russell Brewer – was an American convicted felon who gained notoriety for his involvement in the racially motivated murder of James Byrd Jr. Born on June 26, 1967, in Lamar County, Texas, Brewer’s criminal history began early in his life, with various arrests and convictions for offenses such as drug possession, burglary, and auto theft.  Brewer’s most infamous and heinous crime occurred on June 7, 1998, when he, along with two accomplices, John William King and Shawn Allen Berry, brutally murdered James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas. Byrd, an African-American man, was targeted because of his race. The three men, who were affiliated with white supremacist groups, kidnapped Byrd, beat him severely, and then chained him to the back of a pickup truck before dragging him for approximately three miles along an asphalt road. The heinous crime shocked the nation and brought attention to the persistent issue of racial violence in the United States.  Lawrence Russell Brewer, John William King, and Shawn Allen Berry were arrested and charged with capital murder. During the trial, evidence revealed the extreme brutality of the crime, and all three were found guilty. In September 1999, Brewer was sentenced to death by lethal injection.  Brewer’s case went through a series of appeals and legal proceedings. On September 21, 2011, Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed at the Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, Texas. His execution marked one of the few instances where the death penalty was carried out for a crime involving a racially motivated hate crime.  The gruesome murder of James Byrd Jr. led to increased awareness of hate crimes and sparked discussions about the need for stricter legislation against such offenses. The case also highlighted the ongoing challenges of racial prejudice and discrimination in society.

1968 – Leopoldo Norvaiz Jr – He was convicted in the April 1988 stabbing deaths of his ex-girlfriend and her two sisters and brother inside their San Antonio home. The victims were Narvaiz’s ex-girlfriend Shannon Manm, 17, her two sisters, Jennifer Man, 19, and Martha Mann, 15, and her brother, 11-year-old Ernest Mann, Jr. The victims were stabbed repeatedly with butcher knives.  Narvaiz Jr. was executed by injection on June 26, 1998, just hours after Gov. George W. Bush spared the life of death row inmate Henry Lee Lucas, commuting his sentence to life in prison after doubts about his guilt were raised. It was the first time the Republican governor had commuted a death sentence. Narvaiz Jr. was 30 years old at the time of his death.

1979 – Andrew Hampton Mickel – He graduated from Springfield’s North High School in 1998 and served three years with the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division. After his service, he attended Evergreen State College and became a journalist with Indymedia.org.  On November 19, 2002, Mickel shot and killed Officer David Mobilio of the Red Bluff, California Police Department. The crime would have gone unsolved had there not been Internet postings about it six days later. The postings were signed “Andy McCrae”, an alias of Mickel’s. In these posts, Mickel claimed that the killing was an action against corporate irresponsibility and police-state tactics.  Before his actions in Red Bluff, Mickel formed a corporation under the name ‘Proud and Insolent Youth Incorporated’, a name taken from the novel Peter Pan written by Scottish author J. M. Barrie. Mickel insisted on representing himself during his trial. His parents have been quoted as referring to their son as Theodore Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber. They believe that their son, like Kaczynski, is wrong but mentally ill and should be treated as such.  In April 2005, Mickel was convicted of one count of first-degree murder. He was subsequently sentenced to death and is being held on Death Row at San Quentin State Prison while awaiting his automatic appeal to the California Supreme Court. In December 2016, the California Supreme Court upheld Mickel’s conviction and sentence.

Deaths

Arthur Thompson

1945 – Arthur Heys – was a Leading Aircraftsman in the Royal Air Force (RAF) during 1944. He was a 37-year-old married man stationed at Beccles, in Suffolk, England.  On November 9, 1944, the body of Winifred Mary Evans, a 27-year-old radio operator in the RAF, was found in a ditch near her camp at Beccles. She had been raped and strangled. The investigators learned that she had gone to a dance the previous night with Corporal Margaret Johns, who said they had returned just before midnight, parting shortly afterward when Winifred set out for duty at the camp’s signal office. Margaret had then gone to the WAAFs’ toilets, where she had been shocked to find a drunken airman. She asked what he was doing there, and he said he was lost and asked if he was in Number One Camp. She told him he wasn’t, took him outside, and pointed him in the direction Winifred had taken a few minutes earlier.  The police learned that an airman had entered Number One Camp shortly after 1 a.m. and had later been seen cleaning his uniform. He was Arthur Heys, and he confirmed that he had encountered Corporal Johns early that morning. But he denied any involvement in Winifred Evans’s murder. Wondering why it had taken him an hour to get from the WAAF camp to his billet, the police took his uniform away for examination. This revealed the presence of brick dust, and there was brick rubble in the ditch where Winifred’s body had been discovered. Moreover, the hair on Heys’s tunic matched samples taken from Winifred. But when his wife was visited at her home in Colne, Lancashire, her hair was also found to match the samples found on her husband’s tunic.  Heys was nevertheless charged with Winifred Evans’s murder, and before his trial, his commanding officer received an anonymous letter. It purported to be from Winifred’s killer, and it said that an innocent man was being held in jail. It also described Heys as having been drunk and lost at the time in question, facts known only by Heys, Corporal Johns, and the police. This convinced the investigators that the letter was indeed from Winifred’s killer: Arthur Heys himself.  Tried and convicted, he went to the gallows at Norwich Prison on March 13th, 1945.

1985 – Stephen Morin – was born on February 19, 1951, in Providence, Rhode Island. He left school early, quickly developing a drug habit and a penchant for getting into trouble with the law. At 15 years old, Morin was arrested in Florida for stealing a car, for which he served a two-year sentence.  In the mid-1960s, Morin was arrested in Florida for car theft. He was convicted and spent some time in an institution for juvenile delinquents. Freed in 1968, Morin left Florida and wandered around the country. For the majority of the 1970s, he resided in Northern California, specifically in the San Francisco Bay Area, constantly changing his places of residence and using various pseudonyms while committing crimes.  Morin was suspected of being responsible for at least forty murders of young girls and women and 7 men in the period from 1969 to 1981. Since Morin led a transient lifestyle and constantly moved around the country, the exact number of his victims is uncertain, but he is suspected of a total of 48 violent crimes across the United States.  In the early 1980s, he was pursued by the federal authorities. Morin had created multiple aliases. These names included Rich Clark, Robert Fred Generoso, Thomas David Hones, Ray Constantino, and Constantine. The court found Morin sane and sentenced him to death by lethal injection. In 1985, he was executed by Texas after waiving his appeals.

1992 – Olan Randie Robison – is a notable figure who has been involved in several legal cases. He was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder and was sentenced to death in Stephens County, Oklahoma. His case was appealed multiple times, with Robison seeking relief from his conviction through federal habeas corpus petitions. Despite these efforts, his petitions were dismissed and his requests for a stay of execution were denied. He was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on March 13, 1992.

1993 – Arthur Thompson – born in September 1931 in the industrial area of Springburn, Glasgow, was a Scottish gangster who was active in Glasgow from the 1950s and took charge of organized crime in the city for over thirty years. He began his career as a money lender and was known to be ruthless with those who did not repay their debts. Protection rackets soon followed, and he was also involved in bank robberies and heists for a time.  Thompson then went on to invest his money into legitimate businesses, which grew more and more over the years, making him a very wealthy man. By the 1980s, the Thompson family had entered the drug trade, led by Thompson’s son Arthur Jr. It was rumored that, by the 1990s, Thompson was earning some £100,000 a week as a loan shark.  Thompson was one of the most feared criminals in Scotland. In 1966, he narrowly escaped death when a bomb exploded under his car; his mother-in-law, in the passenger seat, was killed. Shortly afterward, he spotted two men he suspected of the attack, Patrick Welsh and James Goldie, members of the rival Welsh family Blackhill gang. He forced their van off the road by driving his car directly at it – the van hit a lamp post and both men were killed. Thompson was charged with murder but not prosecuted as the police could find no witnesses who would testify.  In 1969, Thompson’s wife Rita forced her way into the Welsh home and stabbed Patrick Welsh’s widow in the chest; she was jailed for three years. His grandchildren and great-grandchildren have to remain anonymous for the safety of the family. Thompson also survived two further attempts on his life; he was shot in the groin outside his home – “The Ponderosa” in Provanmill, named after a ranch in the Western television series Bonanza – in 1985. In 1988, Thompson suffered a broken leg after he was run over by a car and shot at, again outside his home.  On 18 August 1991, Thompson’s son Arthur Jr (nicknamed “Fatboy”) died after being shot three times outside the family home, “The Ponderosa”. A former enforcer for the Thompson family, Paul Ferris, was arrested, charged with the murder, and remanded to HM Prison Barlinnie. On the day of Thompson Jr’s funeral, a car was found containing the bodies of two friends of Ferris, Robert Glover, and Joe Hanlon, who were also suspected of involvement in his death and had been killed by gunshots to the back of the head and the anus. Their bodies had been dumped on the route of Fatboy’s funeral procession so that his hearse passed their dead bodies. There was to be further drama that day as there was also a bomb scare at the cemetery where Thompson Jr was due to be buried.

1994 – James Cecil “Humpy” Parker – was born on April 26, 1935, in San Jacinto County, Texas, USA. He was the son of Wade Unum Parker and Nellie Goree Oliver. He grew up in San Jacinto County, Texas, where he served as sheriff. On January 1, 1954, he married Mary Louis Hoot and they had a son named Gary Cecil Parker.  Parker held the office of the sheriff in San Jacinto County since 1969. However, his tenure was marked by controversy and criminal activities. In 1983, at the age of 47, Parker pleaded guilty to two felony civil rights charges and one extortion charge. He admitted to torturing his prisoners, subjecting blacks, women, and rock music fans to strip searches on a local highway, and demanding kickbacks from a bail bondsman over six years. The water torture was reserved for major felonies where they could not solve the crime, but they had a suspect. They’d bring them in and torture them until they got a confession and then take that evidence to the prosecutor.  Parker and his deputies would stop ‘hippies,’ blacks, or motorists who drove vehicles with a Shreveport, La., license plate or bumper stickers from a Houston rock radio station on U.S. Highway 59. Sometimes both male and female drivers were strip-searched on the highway. Parker and his unnamed cohorts sometimes damaged taillights or other equipment on vehicles to make it appear after the fact that the original traffic stop was legitimate. The prosecutors accused Parker and his cohorts of selling or keeping things they seized from motorists and pocketing illegal fines, bonds, or ‘prepayments’ they collected. Parker also forced a bail bondsman to give him a one-third kickback on fees illegally collected from suspects.  After pleading guilty, Parker immediately resigned from the office and agreed to help federal officials in a continuing investigation of alleged corruption in San Jacinto County. Prosecutors recommended a three-year prison sentence and a $15,000 fine for the sheriff. Parker had faced a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison and a $30,000 fine.  Parker passed away on March 13, 1994, at the age of 58 in Shepherd, San Jacinto County, Texas, USA.

2003 – Michael Eugene Thompson – Maisie Carlene Gray, aged 57, had been employed at the Attalla convenience store for approximately three weeks. On December 10, 1984, she found herself working alone when Thompson, armed with a .22 caliber pistol, compelled her to empty the cash register. Subsequently, Thompson forced Gray at gunpoint into the trunk of his car.  After a period of driving around, Thompson took her to a well, where he coerced her into it and fired multiple shots, exhausting his ammunition. He then proceeded to his girlfriend’s residence, where he replenished his bullets and returned to the well with her. Thompson fired an additional seven or eight shots into the well to ensure Gray’s demise, while his girlfriend, Shirley Franklin, held a makeshift torch.  Following these horrific events, Franklin’s husband contacted the police, and her admissions led authorities to the well and ultimately resulted in Thompson’s arrest. During the trial, Thompson asserted that the police had coerced his confession and placed blame on Franklin for the clerk’s murder. However, the jury did not find his account credible.

2019 – Francesco Paolo Augusto Cali –  also known as “Franky Boy”, was born on March 26, 1965, in New York City. His parents, Augusto Cesare Calì and Agata Scimeca, were both natives of Palermo, Sicily. His father ran a household goods store in Palermo and a video store in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Frank Cali was the nephew-in-law of Sicilian mobster John Gambino and had close ties to the once-powerful Sicilian Mafia family led by Salvatore Inzerillo. Cali was also a great-nephew of Bonanno crime family mobsters Giovanni Bonventre and Vito Bonventre.   As a young man, Cali bonded with Gambino mobster Jackie D’Amico, a lieutenant of Gambino boss John Gotti who operated a crew on 18th Avenue in Brooklyn. In January 1997, the FBI reported to Italian authorities that Cali had been “combined” into the Gambino family. Cali was promoted to acting capo when D’Amico became acting boss. Cali ran several import-export companies in Brooklyn, including Circus Fruits Wholesale in Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn.  Cali also maintained ties with the Sicilian Mafia. He married Rosaria Inzerillo, a sister of Pietro Inzerillo and a relative of Gambino associate Frank Inzerillo, a member of the Palermitan Inzerillo family. In the early 1980s, after losing the Second Mafia War against the Corleonesi of Totò Riina, the Inzerillo family was forced to flee Sicily. Cali and old Palermo boss Filippo Casamento supported the return of the Inzerillos to Palermo, according to Italian authorities.  Cali was an American mobster and the eventual acting boss of the Gambino crime family in New York City. Law enforcement considered Cali to have been the Gambinos’ “ambassador to Sicilian mobsters” and had linked him to the Inzerillo Mafia family from Palermo. According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Lipton, he was “seen as a man of influence and power by organized crime members in Italy”. Cali was shot and killed outside his home in Staten Island on March 13, 2019. At the time of his death, many media organizations described him as the “reputed” acting boss of the Gambino crime family.

2020 – Breonna Taylor – was born on June 5, 1993, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was raised by her mother, Tamika Palmer, and her boyfriend, Trory Herrod, in Louisville, Kentucky. Taylor attended local schools and graduated from Western High School in Louisville in 2011. She briefly attended the University of Kentucky and then became an Emergency Medical Technician for the city of Louisville. She worked for Jewish East Medical Center as a full-time Emergency Room Technician (ERT) and a Practicing Registered Nurse (PRN) for Norton Healthcare. Taylor desired to become a nurse, but her dreams were cut short when she was tragically killed in her own home by police officers.  On the night of March 13, 2020, Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were asleep in their apartment when they were awakened by a loud banging at the front door. Walker, a licensed and registered gun owner, armed himself and headed towards the front door, when it suddenly came off its hinges. Under a “no-knock” search warrant, Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, Detective Brett Hankison, and Officer Myles Cosgrove, all in plainclothes, stormed into the apartment. Kenneth Walker, thinking this was a home invasion robbery, fired one shot in self-defense. Sgt. Mattingly was hit in the leg, and in response the other officers opened fire, releasing more than twenty rounds into the apartment. Taylor was shot eight times and collapsed in the hallway of her apartment. She was pronounced dead at the scene.  The incident sparked outrage and led to widespread protests against police violence, particularly against Black individuals. Taylor’s death, along with the murder of George Floyd and others, ignited a renewed push for racial justice and police reform in the United States and around the world.

Events

Israel Keyes arrested

1925 – The State of Tennessee makes it unlawful to teach evolution

1980 – Serial killer John Wayne Gacy receives the death penalty in Illinois for the murder of 12 people

1987 – John Gotti, boss of the Gambino crime family is acquitted of racketeering

1996 – Dunblane Massacre takes place when Thomas Hamilton walked into Dunblane Primary School near Stirling, Scotland, and murdered 16 pupils and 1 teacher whilst also injuring a further 15 before he took his own life. It is the deadliest mass shooting in British history

2012 – Serial killer Israel Keyes is apprehended

2019 – California Governor Gavin Newsom announces an indefinite moratorium on the death penalty in the state, saying it discriminates against marginalized communities

2019 – A shooting at a school in Suzano, near Sao Paulo, Brazil kills seven including five children before the former student gunmen turn the gun on themselves

2019 – Member of the New York Gambino mob family Frank Cali is shot dead outside his home, it is the first killing of a high-ranking mobster since 1985

2020 – African American Breonna Taylor is shot and killed by police officers executing a no-knock warrant on her flat with a battering ram in Louisville, Kentucky (See above)