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Serial Killers

I wanted to nick the little kid that is really a woman idea from Orphan.
The older lady from Red, although mine would be more recognizably a granny rather than the luscious Helen Mirren.
And a mahoosive celeb. National treasure sort.
They make an unconventional and absolutely effective hit team.
 
SAN ANTONIO — A former Texas nurse who prosecutors say may be responsible for the deaths of up to 60 young children was indicted Wednesday on a murder charge for the second time in recent weeks.

The Bexar County district attorney's office said in a statement that Genene Jones was charged in the September 1981 death of 2-year-old Rosemary Vega.

She was charged with a separate count of murder last month in the death of an 11-month-old boy.

Jones, 66, is serving concurrent 99-year and 60-year sentences in state prison for the 1982 killing of another toddler and the sickening of a 4-week-old boy who survived. But she was scheduled to be released in March under a mandatory release law in place when she was convicted.

During Jones' time working at a San Antonio hospital and elsewhere in Texas, children died of unexplained seizures and other complications.

District Attorney Nico LaHood previously said investigators believe Jones may have killed some or all of those children because they died under unusual circumstances during or shortly after her shifts.

The 11-month-old boy died of a fatal overdose of an anti-seizure drug, Dilantin, and prosecutors at Jones' 1984 murder trial said the nurse lethally injected children at a clinic in Kerrville, northwest of San Antonio, to demonstrate the need for a pediatric intensive care unit at a nearby hospital. ...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime...killing-dozens-charged-with-murder/ar-BBD0buk
 
Hoping that the video will help jog people’s memories, a child welfare group and police on Tuesday released chilling excerpts of California police interviewing a man believed to be a serial killer who left victims in New Hampshire and California — and might have killed even more people.

The man traveled the country, working as a handyman using a string of aliases. He first surfaced in New Hampshire in the late 1970s using the name “Robert T. Evans.” (He was using the name “Larry Vanner” during the video interview.)

Here’s what we know — and don’t know — about Evans, who died in prison in 2010 but left a dark mystery behind.

What we know

1981 — A man using the name “Robert T. Evans” is working as an electrician at the Waumbec Mills and renting a house on Hayward Street in Manchester, N.H. He vanishes after Thanksgiving 1981 with his 23-year-old girlfriend, Denise Beaudin, and her 6-month-old daughter. Her family doesn’t report her missing because they think the couple left because of financial difficulties.

May 1985 — Evans is charged with a hit-and-run and driving drunk with Beaudin’s daughter in the car in Cypress, Calif. He claims to be “Curtis Mayo Kimball,” an identity he stole in La Porte, Texas, so his fingerprints are entered into a California state database under that name. He flees the area. ...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime...leged-serial-killer-‘robert-evans’/ar-BBD0etq
 
Does anyone here remember the film This Is Personal: the Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper? I've had it on American DVD for a while but just watched it for the first time on Youtube. Excellent film, detailing the hunt for the Ripper, showing the in-fighting within the Yorkshire police. Alun Armstrong gives a fine performance as George Oldfield.
 
I've just found this vintage Manson family documentary .. tons of rare footage I've never seen before ..

 
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ramonmercado said:
Now footage can be shown. Vid at link.

Kala Brown: Freed from storage container
Kala Brown had been chained up in a metal storage container in South Carolina by Todd Kohlhepp.

Authorities have now released footage showing the moment she was released.

Kohlhepp has been jailed for the kidnap and rape of Kala Brown, and for a string of murders.

http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-40241012/kala-brown-freed-from-storage-container
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More on Kohlhepp. It looks as if he had help to amass his armoury. Wonder if he had help with the killings. I'll keep an eye out for more developments.

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — Federal agents want to know how a convicted felon who became a serial killer in South Carolina managed to collect an arsenal of weapons.

Todd Kohlhepp was arrested last fall after deputies rescued a missing woman chained up inside a shipping container on his rural property. In exchange for a life sentence, he ultimately pleaded guilty to killing seven people as well as kidnapping and raping the woman.

Agents with the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are investigating a trove of weapons on his properties, including dozens of guns and pallets full of ammunition, The Herald-Journal of Spartanburg has reported, based on documents and video released by prosecutors after Kohlhepp's sentencing last month.

It's a "staggering" amount of weaponry, and investigators think he illegally acquired most of it through straw purchases, Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright said.

Investigators have met with a person suspected of buying the guns for Kohlhepp, according to the documents released through public records requests. Wright told the newspaper he expects federal authorities to arrest someone, but no one's been charged so far. ...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/feds-investigate-how-serial-killer-amassed-weapons/ar-BBDmaxF
 
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Police are still unsure about the number of corpses at the site so it looks as if this may be the work of a serial killer rather than spree killings.

The remains of one of four young men who went missing last week have been found on a Pennsylvania farm.

The grim discovery was unearthed in a "grave" along with other bodies on a 90-acre tract of land in suburban Philadelphia, said officials.

The remains belong to Dean Finocchiaro, 19 who disappeared last Friday, according to investigators.

Mark Sturgis, 22, and Tom Meo, 21, also vanished on Friday. Jimi Tar Patrick, 19, went missing two days earlier.

On Wednesday this week, authorities arrested the son of the owners of the Bucks County farm, 20-year-old Cosmo DiNardo.

He is accused of trying to sell Mr Meo's 1996 Nissan Maxima for $500 (£390), a day after its owner was last seen.

Prosecutors said homicide charges could follow for Mr DiNardo, whose bail was set at the unusually high amount of $5m in cash. ...


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40596609?ocid=socialflow_twitter
 
Mythopoeika said:
I do too.
It's amazing just how many members of a jury will go on 'feelings' rather than facts.
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Never done jury service myself, but I know a few people who have done so, and all were actually very impressed with the process despite initial scepticism. With very few exceptions all jurors took the case seriously and treated evidence from both sides with appropriate scepticism.
 
ramonmercado said:
Ta. Glad you survived last nights unpleasantness in Cromer.
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Thanks mate, we stayed away apart from lunchtime but decided it was safer to go home. I've spent most of the last day and a half warning people I know in advance, lots of shops are still on lock down today and there was a report of an alleged rape at the bus station last night .. there being moved on tomorrow so I've been told, one of my best mates nutted one of them last night though then legged it :thrash::):cool: .. the local so called ex bouncer hard man (who'd tried to threaten me) pussy'd out though which doesn't surprise me . I knew he was just a fat gobshite.

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/crime/p...manage-low-level-disorder-incidents-1-5155838
 
A serial killer who used multiple identities is finally unmasked.

For years the serial killer rambled across the country, working as an electrician and handyman and leaving a trail of victims while masking his true identity. He was Bob Evans in the late 1970s when he arrived in New Hampshire, where he killed a woman and three girls -- including his own daughter -- and dumped them in steel barrels in the woods of Allenstown.

In the 1980s, he claimed to be Gordon Jenson, a widowed father, when he abandoned a 5-year-old girl at a California trailer park after presumably killing her mother. And he was someone else in 2002 when he murdered his new wife and buried her body in the basement.

Now, seven years after the killer died in prison, still using an identity he stole in Texas, New Hampshire authorities announced Friday that they have positively identified the mystery man.

He’s Terry Peder Rasmussen who was born in Denver in 1943, grew up in Phoenix and served in the US Navy in the early 1960s until being discharged in 1967. During his time in the Navy, Rasmussen was assigned to bases in the western part of the country and in Okinawa, Japan. ...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/nh-authorities-identify-mysterious-serial-killer/ar-AAqhSqU
 
ramonmercado said:
A serial killer who used multiple identities is finally unmasked.

For years the serial killer rambled across the country, working as an electrician and handyman and leaving a trail of victims while masking his true identity. He was Bob Evans in the late 1970s when he arrived in New Hampshire, where he killed a woman and three girls -- including his own daughter -- and dumped them in steel barrels in the woods of Allenstown.

In the 1980s, he claimed to be Gordon Jenson, a widowed father, when he abandoned a 5-year-old girl at a California trailer park after presumably killing her mother. And he was someone else in 2002 when he murdered his new wife and buried her body in the basement.

Now, seven years after the killer died in prison, still using an identity he stole in Texas, New Hampshire authorities announced Friday that they have positively identified the mystery man.

He’s Terry Peder Rasmussen who was born in Denver in 1943, grew up in Phoenix and served in the US Navy in the early 1960s until being discharged in 1967. During his time in the Navy, Rasmussen was assigned to bases in the western part of the country and in Okinawa, Japan. ...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/nh-authorities-identify-mysterious-serial-killer/ar-AAqhSqU
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Blimey that's a hell of a story.
 
Now a suspect in 84 other cases. A real "Angel of Death".

A nurse serving a life sentence for murdering two patients in northern Germany is now a suspect in at least 84 other murder cases, police say.

The 40-year-old, named only as Niels H under German reporting rules, was convicted of attempted murder in 2006 and murder in 2015.

His victims received lethal drug doses at units where he worked.

Relatives of patients who died in clinics where he worked had urged police to investigate further.

A commission was set up in 2014 to investigate the scale of his crimes, which could make him Germany's worst post-war killer.

The medication caused heart failure or the collapse of patients' circulatory systems.

Judges said he was motivated by a desire to win approval by resuscitating the patients he had drugged.

During his 2015 trial, he admitted applying the drug to about 90 people at an intensive care clinic in the town of Delmenhorst. ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41072185
 
T'BBC news has it that he was drugging the patients so he could be on hand to resuscitate them and be a hero.
 
Have seen a few articles recently, though some going back to the mid noughties, that criminal profiling, particularly for violent crime, is not worth the paper it's written on.

Any one come across similar?
 
escargot1 said:
T'BBC news has it that he was drugging the patients so he could be on hand to resuscitate them and be a hero.
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Munchausen bi proxy (if I've spelled that correctly) ... the same as the killer nurse Beverly Allitt ..
 
Ascalon said:
Have seen a few articles recently, though some going back to the mid noughties, that criminal profiling, particularly for violent crime, is not worth the paper it's written on.

Any one come across similar?
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Depends whether you're taken in by Hollywood or not. What the FBI call 'criminal profiling' is a bit different from the British versions. This was flagged up as early as 1990.
(For example, The Jigsaw Man)

For example, Prof David Canter was an architectural/environmental psychologist before he began looking at how to use his knowledge to catch criminals. He wasn't trying to 'get inside the murderer's mind', as some would claim they could do. Instead he developed geographical profiling, which could indicate where an offender was based as they went out on their forays. It worked well.

Canter warned repeatedly that every detail that could be learned from the scene of the crime was open to interpretation and should not be taken at face value. An investigator's intuition was not acceptable.
A famous instance of this was when women were being attacked by a man who had long nails on one hand. The inference was drawn that he must be a guitarist because he needed the long nails to pick the strings. He was actually a tyre fitter whose nails on one hand had been worn down when he worked the tyre-removing machine.

On the other hand you get Paul Britton, a self-styled profiler, who wrecked the investigation into the murder of Rachel Nickell with his grandiose fantasies.
 
Ascalon said:
Have seen a few articles recently, though some going back to the mid noughties, that criminal profiling, particularly for violent crime, is not worth the paper it's written on.

Any one come across similar?
Click to expand...

Profiling has always been controversial, and (as far as I know) there are no substantive studies that clearly support the idea it's effective. To make matters worse, there are multiple studies indicating profilers are no better at identifying likely culprits than non-profiler subjects (e.g., college students).

The Wikipedia article on the subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling

... provides a good overview of the range and types of problems that have been noted.
 
Apologies for commenting not having read the previous 22 pages!

I am wondering if anyone else has read or heard of the theory that head injuries (or brain tumours) can trigger or abet serial killers' pathologies?

I remember reading a book mentioning the correlation of higher instances of serious head injuries (ie causing unconciousness for more than a few seconds) with later serial offending (including murder). Bearing in mind that correlation doesnt = causation, but it does seem a risk factor, along with child abuse and/or neglect in the first few years of life.

There is work being done - eg http://usir.salford.ac.uk/32901/
"Neurodevelopmental and psychosocial risk factors in serial killers and mass murderers"

I also read an account of the Charles Whitman shootings a while ago where he left a note complaining of irrational thoughts and he wanted an autopsy done after he was dead to find a reason for his impulses and plans that day - after he was shot dead after his murder spree this was done and he was found to have a brain tumour. More on good old Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman
 
AnonyJoolz said:
...There is work being done - eg

http://usir.salford.ac.uk/32901/
"Neurodevelopmental and psychosocial risk factors in serial killers and mass murderers"
Click to expand...

The salford.ac.uk site requires login to access the article. An apparently complete version of the article can be accessed (online only; no downloadable PDF, etc.) at:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178914000305

Of the 239 killers surveyed, 28.03% were evaluated as possibly up to definitely subject to ASD (autism spectrum disorder).

21.34% were evaluated as having suspected up to definite head injuries.

... And 55% of the ones included in these two subsets (ASC / head injury) had experienced psychosocial stressors.
 
AnonyJoolz said:
Apologies for commenting not having read the previous 22 pages!

I am wondering if anyone else has read or heard of the theory that head injuries (or brain tumours) can trigger or abet serial killers' pathologies?

I remember reading a book mentioning the correlation of higher instances of serious head injuries (ie causing unconciousness for more than a few seconds) with later serial offending (including murder). Bearing in mind that correlation doesnt = causation, but it does seem a risk factor, along with child abuse and/or neglect in the first few years of life.

There is work being done - eg http://usir.salford.ac.uk/32901/
"Neurodevelopmental and psychosocial risk factors in serial killers and mass murderers"

I also read an account of the Charles Whitman shootings a while ago where he left a note complaining of irrational thoughts and he wanted an autopsy done after he was dead to find a reason for his impulses and plans that day - after he was shot dead after his murder spree this was done and he was found to have a brain tumour. More on good old Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman
Click to expand...


I'm pretty sure I read the same thing on head injuries in "The Serial Killers: A Study in the Psychology of Violence" by Colin Wilson and Donald Seaman, Ted Bundy being a case in point.

I thought though, that even though the subjects of the interviews were known to be unreliable, that the physical and historical details they gave were verifiable and so could contribute reliably to their profiling and thus to extrapolation from same.

In the same way that anyone with a mental illness can't necessarily be taken as a reliable source, what they do say can be taken in context and provide insights.

TBH, I'm a bit disappointed to discover that profiling is so unscientific.
 
The killer Albert Fish certainly suffered a head trauma which is often blamed for his murderous behaviour.
 
Also, Fred West's behaviour was supposed to have taken a turn for the worse after a serious head injury. To be fair though he was already a persistent criminal.
 
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