January, 2000 - The Lack of Updates - Dear readers, as many of you have noted there have been no updates to the Morgue since November. The reason has been that I have been completing a book on serial killers at large for Virgin Publishing. My deadline is the first week of February. Until then, I will not be able to do any work on Mayhem, but once the book is finished I will get back to regularly updating the site. Thanks to all of you who have shown concern and have offered to help. PS, happy 2K.

January 25, 2000 - Larete Patrocinio Orpinelli - A drifter in Brazil with a long history of violent behavior confessed to killing at least 10 children over a 20-year period. Larete Patrocinio Orpinelli, 47, confessed to three murders shortly after he was arrested on January 14 in Rio Claro, in the Sao Paolo state. Several days later he confessed to seven more killings and led police to their graves. Police said the victims, both boys and girls, ranged in age from 5 to 11. Orpinelli, who earned a modest living greasing the runners of the steel doors on bars and restaurants, had been committed to psychiatric hospitals five times between 1967 and 1993. He said he was driven to kill the children after he was unable to perform sexually.

Police said he generally smashed his victims teeth, sexually abused them and then either strangled or beat them to death. He would often cover the bodies with branches from eucalyptus trees apparently believing the smell of the tress would disguise the odor of the corpse. Authorities believe the actual number of victims could run much higher.

Some 99 children between the ages of 2 and 12 are reported to have disappeared from towns in Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul states, where Orpinelli is believed to have traveled. Papers found with Orpinelli detailing his whereabouts over several years are being studied to see if he can be linked with other crimes. Orpinelli was arrested in 1996 for attacking two children. At the time, police found him carrying gum, candy and toys. He was eventually released for lack of evidence.

December 5, 1999 - Five Dead in Baltimore - Five women were found dead of multiple gunshot wounds in a home in Baltimore, Maryland. Police announced they are searching for four suspects. The identities of the women were not released, but police said they believe the five may be related. A 1992 gold Nissan Maxima was seen by witnesses leaving the area. A car matching that description was later seen at a McDonald's restaurant, where the car's four occupants apparently attempted to carjack another vehicle. They were stopped by an off-duty school police officer, who fired a shot at them and recovered a weapon.

December 5, 1999 - Kao Xiong - A man in Sacramento shot and killed five of his children before blowing his head off. The two older children of the infanticidal dad escaped death by jumping out of their apartment's bathroom window. The man, identified by television station KTXL as Kao Xiong, allegedly got into an argument with his wife before the shootings. Police said the five children were aged between 2 and 8 years old. The youngsters who escaped were 9 and 14.

The maniac dad used a shot gun and a rifle to kill his children. The wife had apparently left following an argument with the man before the shootings occurred. She did not find out what happened until she arrived home, he said.

November 30, 1999 - German Decapitator - A 30-year-old married man from Botrop confessed to killing, decapitating and dismembering 3 women since 1994. Two of the killings took place in Germany, the third in Arnheim, Holland. The suspect bragged to a family member a year back, but no one believed him, that is, until now. There is a seeming rash of decapitation murders in Germany. In the past couple years, two separate murder-decapitations of a boy and a girl in the city of Piene remain unsolved. So does the near decapitation of a man in Frankfurt also two years ago. In somewhat related news, someone in Frankfurt and Peine dug up two graves and stole the buried skulls. (Courtesy John Arvidsson)

November 4, 1999 - Cambodian Cannibal Killer - A former Khmer Rouge guerrilla in Phom Penh, Cambodia, shot dead a witch doctor and ate his liver after blaming him for the death of his two children. "He killed the magic doctor and cut out and cooked his liver because he was very angry after his two children died and his sister got sick," senior military official in western Battambang province, General Bun Seng, said. Three other villagers involved in the attack on the traditional healer were charged with conspiracy to murder. As for the former guerilla, Cambodian authorities said: "The soldier had been on a human rights course but he still didn't understand the concept."

November 2, 1999 - Workplace Rampage in Honolulu - A technician on the verge of losing his job after 15 years at the Xerox Engineering Systems office near downtown Honolulu opened fire at his co-workers, killing seven people. "There are seven fatalities in the building, in various areas of the building," Richard Soo of the city fire department said. Witnesses said the suspect, Byron Uesugi, targeted members of his technical group, then fled in a green Xerox company van. The van later was found abandoned.

Five people died in a conference room, two others in a nearby work area. No one was injured. Uesugi, 40, was described by co-workers as a "nice, calm, cool guy." Police are concerned about his wife who did not show up to work. As a precaution authorities evacuated another Xerox building, in downtown Honolulu, as a precaution in case the gunman headed that way.

Several hours after the rampage, police surrounded the van and were trying to talk the suspect out peacefully. He was believed to be armed with several rifles and according to official records, he had 17 weapons registered in his name.

October 30, 1999 - Luis Alfredo Gavarito - A Colombian handyman confessed to raping, torturing and killing 140 children in a five-year killing spree. "Luis Alfredo Garavito has admitted the murder of about 140 children of which we have so far found 114 skeleton," chief prosecutor Alfonso Gomez told a news conference.

October 29, 1999 - Damien Echols - Death row inmate Damien Echols, convicted in the brutal murders of three eight-year-old West Memphis boys in 1994, requested permission to get married at the Tucker Maximum Security Unit of the Department of Corrections. The wedding, if approved by the warden, would take place in December in the prison chapel and would be paid for by the bride and groom. The happy couple, prison authorities say, could have as many as six guests present. "But that doesn't say we have to provide a Barbie and Ken night of glamour," Dina Tyler, spokesman for the Department of Correction, noted. "There isn't a fancy reception with hors d'oeuvres and there is not a honeymoon."    

October 28, 1999 - Possible Lousiana Serial Killer - Authorities in Lousiana announced that the deaths of eight black men found outside New Orleans could be the work of one or more serial killers. All the victims have been asphyxiated -- which is highly unusual considering the victims were young men -- dumped in remote areas and, strangley, left shoeless.

October 28, 1999 - Possible Denver Thrill Killer - Five transient men have been found beaten to death in Downtown Denver over the past two months. Although police have not officially linked the five deaths, they believe the killings may have been the work of a thrill killer.

October 25, 1999 - Possible Ghana Serial Killer - Someone in Ghana has been killing women in cold blood to the tune of 21 dead over the last year. Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr. Peter Nanfuri, assured the Ghanaian public that the police was working hard to arrest the apparently elusive serial killer or killers.

October 24, 1999 - The Valley Homes Residential Facility - A Dayton, Ohio, facility for the mentally ill has been closed following a series of mysterious deaths. The Valley Homes Residential Facility isn't accepting any more patients, and the Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board began moving out the remaining patients . The patients won't be returned until the cause of five recent deaths has been determined.

October 24, 1999 - Possible Flint Serial Killer - FBI, police have set up a task force in Flint, Michigan, to try to determine if a serial killer has been slaying black womem. All seven known victims have been involved in prostitution and drugs, and -- like in Chicago -- have been found in or near abandoned houses.

October 24, 1999 - Possible Pittsburg Serial Killer - Pittsburg police announced there could be a serial killer in their city who has claimed the life of more than a dozen prostitutes since the late 1980s. However, detectives can't establish a connection between the cases except the victims' hard lives as drug addicts who sold themselves for a fix and ended up dead in remote areas outside the city, some in suburban communities and others in outlying counties.

October 22, 1999 - Theodore Kaczynski -A federal appeals court agreed to hear convicted Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski's bid for a fresh trial, saying he may have been bullied into the 1998 plea agreement to avoid the death penalty. The San Francisco-based 9th Circuit said Kaczynski had shown considerable evidence that his guilty plea was coerced, that he was inappropriately denied the right to represent himself, and that he should have been allowed to block his lawyers from arguing that he was mentally ill.

October 22, 1999 - Columbine Massacre Aftermath - The mother of a girl partially paralyzed in the Columbine High School rampage walked into a pawn shop, asked to see a gun and then used it to shoot herself to death with her own ammunition. Carla Hochhalter, 48, shot herself in the head with a .38 caliber handgun while a store clerk was performing a background check to authorize her purchase, a spokeswoman for the Englewood Police Department said. Hochhalter's 17-year-old daughter Anne Marie was shot several times and left partially paralyzed in the April 20 massacre at the high school in Littleton, Colorado.

In related news, a 17-year-old Columbine student was arrested after allegedly threatening to "finish the job" started by Harris and Klebold.

October 22, 1999 - Julian Knight - Australian rampager Julian Knight got into an argument with another prisoner, Patrick Bolton, over use of a computer, and stuck a screwdriver repeatedly into the other inmate's face. A press release from the Barwon Prison said that both prisoners were fine, though Bolton was hospitalized and Knightwas moved to the Acacia High Protection unit.

October 21, 1999 - Cary Stayner - Handyman killer Cary Stayner, 38, was charged with three murder counts with special circumstances for the deaths of Carole Sund, 42, her daughter Juli, 15, and their Argentine friend Silvina Pelosso, 16, while they were visiting Yosemite Park in February. If found guilty he could face the death penalty

A lawyer for the family of of Silvina Pelosso adeed that he was preparing a wrongful-death lawsuit holding Cary Stayner and the Cedar Lodge in El Portal responsible for the Argentine teen-ager's death. "Hotel security is the basic issue," said Steven Fabbro of San Francisco. "Hotels and motels have an obligation to provide security for their guests from either their employees or strangers."

October 20, 1999 - Rory E. Conde - Building-supply salesman and alleged serial killer Rory E. Conde was convicted of killing one of six prostitutes in Miami. Conde, who was known as the Tamiami Strangler, was found guilty of strangling Rhonda Dunn, whose body was discovered in January 1995. His defense attorney did not deny Conde killed anyone, but argued Conde did not plot or premeditate the slayings. Conde could get the death penalty or life in prison without parole. The sentencing phase of the trial begins Dec. 6.

October 19, 1999 - Ian Brady - Moors murderer Ian Brady went on hunger strike in protest at "rough" treatment at the high-security Ashworth Hospital. According to hospital staff, the 61-year-old child killer has refused all food since the end of September. However, he has been drinking sweetened hot drinks.

October 18, 1999 - Michael Barnhart - The jury found Michael Barnhart guilty of three counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder in the deaths of an elderly couple, the woman's son and his wife. They were beaten in the head with a claw hammer while robbing their house. Barnhart faces mandatory life imprisonment with no chance of parole when he is sentenced Nov. 3.

Barnhart's attorney asked the jury to find Barnhart guilty of involuntary manslaughter, arguing he did not intend to kill anyone. Investigators said Barnhart entered the home intending to rob it, heard someone in the house and panicked.

October 18, 1999 - Ivan Milat - Australian serial killer Ivan Milat offered to help police investigations into three missing women. Milat, serving a life sentence for the murders of seven backpackers, sent letters to Detective Inspector Jeff Oliphant in Queensland, claiming he knows who killed the women. Oliphant told Brisbane's Courier Mail newspaper he had received a fax from an unknown source but he doubted if the information would be any use.

October 18, 1999 - Orville Lynn Majors - A jury in Brazil, Indiana found former nurse Orville Lynn Majors guilty of administering lethal injections to six elderly patientsat a western Indiana hospital. Majors, 38, faces a maximum of 65 years in prison on each of the six murder counts. The judge set sentencing for Nov. 15.

October 17, 1999 - Fred & Rosemary West - The British Channel 5 announced its intention of showing excerpts from the hundreds of hours of home video serial killer Fred West made of his wife Rosemary. The plans to air the tapes, described as "utterly obscene," has been challenged by Geoffrey Wansell, West's official biographer. "Some things are too pornographic, too shocking, too ugly to appear on television: no matter what hour of day or night," he wrote in The Daily Mail.

Channel 5 chief executive David Elstein said that in principle a programme about the serial killer is "well within the bounds of what can be broadcast." But he concedes that much of the footage features sexual torture and murder victims and is clearly unfit to be shown.

October 16, 1999 - Ted Kaczynski -   The University of Michigan library has acquired hundreds of letters written by people around the world to Unabomber Ted Kaczynski along with some of his responses. The university's Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library received a 5-foot stack of Kaczynski correspondence within the last month after two years of negotiations. The collection will be kept for people to study and for research by psychologists and others who may want to study Kaczynski's mind.

The letters join the library's Labadie Collection, a collection of anarchist and social-protest literature containing more than 36,000 books and 8,000 periodicals. The letters cover the period from Kaczynski's arrest in April 1996 through the present. The university will continue to collect Kaczynski's correspondence until he dies or stops making the letters available, Ms. Nesbit said.

October 15, 1999 - Dr. Harold Shipman - According to testimony in the Dr. Harold Shipman's murder trial, the last of his 15 alleged victims was "delighted" that he came to visit her the day he allegedly killed her with a lethal injection of the drug diamorphine. "She thought it was very good of him to go along to her house to avoid her having to go the surgery," May Clarke, 91, an intimate friend of Kathleen Grundy, told the jury.

October 14, 1999 - Thomas Huskey - The Associated Press Managing Editors Association gave its 29th annual Freedom of Information Award to the Knoxville News-Sentinel for for leading a two-year battle to open records detailing public costs to defend accused serial killer Thomas Huskey. The award -- which was presented at the APME conference -- honors journalists and newspapers whose work protects or advances the First Amendment or federal or state freedom of information statutes.

October 13, 1999 - The Spokane Serial Killer - A year after the killer's last known victim was discovered, the Spokane serial killer task force investigating renewed its call for tips from the public. Nearly 5,000 tips about the killer have flowed in to the task force in the past two years. Thirty percent of the leads have been followed up by more than a dozen city, county and state detectives.

Authorities confiremd a $10,000 reward for information leading to the killer's arrest and conviction is still being offered, and a 13-member law enforcement task force tracking the cases hopes to add a new member

October 13, 1999 - Christopher Wayne Lippard - Charged with massacring a family of five, Christopher Wayne Lippard, 20, of Statesville, was extradited from New Orleans, were he was arrested, to North Carolina. The other suspect, Charles Wesley Roache, 25, of Hiddenite was caught in Haywood County on Oct. 1. Besides facing five murder charges for the slaying of the Haywood County family, Lippard and Roache also are charged in a sixth murder in Alexander County that occurred a day earlier. Lippard had told a New Orleans TV station this week that he was returning to North Carolina "to clear my name." Investigators believe Lippard and Roache shot and killed Earl and Cora Phillips, their son Eddie, daughter-in-law Mitzi, and their grandaughter, 14-year-old Katie while ditching a truck they had stolen earlier.

October 13, 1999 - Todd Alan Reed - Police say the ex-wife of the so-called "Forest Park Serial Killer" Todd Alan Reed may know something about the deaths of two girls in 1987. Police arrested Reed for three murders, but say they also suspect him of killing two teenage girls back in 1987.

October 13, 1999 - David Kaczynski - In a pattently bazaar coupling that could only have in show biz, Unabrother David Kaczynski has inked a deal with Disney to make a movie based on his life.

October 12, 1999 - Dr. Harold Shipman - Prosecutors in Britain's trial of the millennium said Dr. Harold Shipman had joked with police about a patient shortly after he had killed her. Prosecution lawyer Richard Henriques said Shipman, 53, had killed his victims by giving them "vast" or "potentially fatal" doses of the painkillers morphine or diamorphine. Exhumation of Lomas' body showed, in fact, that she had died from a lethal morphine overdose, not a heart attack as Shipman had declared. The prosecution has also accused the doctor of faking death certificates and medical records.

October 12, 1999 - Dr. Wouter Basson - The man accused of running apartheid South Africa's chemical and biological weapons program won a legal victory when a judge dismissed charges that involve more than 200 deaths in Namibia, Swaziland, Mozambique and Britain. Dr. Wouter Basson still face 61 remaining charges, which range from drug dealing to murder. Judge Willie Hartzenberg ruled that South African courts cannot judge offenses committed abroad, and that Basson qualified for a 1989 amnesty for crimes during the war for independence in the former South West Africa, renamed Namibia after liberation from South Africa.

October 11, 1999 - Darrell Bell & Shawn Collins - Investigators believe Darrell Bell and Shawn Collins, who are charged with killing one of 13 murders thought to be related, may have been hired to carry out the shooting. Police have not said what the 13 murders have in common, but East Side residents have speculated that competition for the drug trade was involved. Most of the 13 killed had criminal records, and seven had been charged with drug crimes. Bell and Collins have been convicted of drug and weapons crimes. The two men are the only people charged in any of the deaths.

October 11, 1999 - Ronald Macon - In what detectives hailed as a major break in their investigation of four separate strings of killings of South Side women since 1993, Ronald Macon was charged in the deaths of Angelnetta Peeples, Linda Soloman and Rosezina Williams. Nine murders and three sexual assaults remain unsolved. Macon strangled the three women on the South Side after buying crack cocaine for them and having sex with them.

Assistant State's Attorney Pat McGuire said witnesses told police the last person seen with Peeples was a man named "Ron." Police developed information leading to Macon, 35, who has been in Cook County Jail since August 9 on unrelated sexual assault charges. Chicago police are puzzled at why a DNA sample from Macon was not contained in a computerized DNA databank designed to help detectives sex crimes, though the alleged serial killer was sitting in jail on charges he raped his former baby-sitter.

October 11, 1999 - Possible Flint Serial Killer - Police in Flint, Michigan, and the FBI suspect a serial killer is behind the deaths of at least four women involved in drugs or prostitution whose bodies were left in or near abandoned houses. The two agencies have formed a task force to investigate the deaths, which began in February. "The victims have been female, African-American, late 20s to late 30s years of age, and all have a history of drug use and/or prostitution," police said in a news release.

October 11, 1999 - Lorenzo "Sol" Silva - An airport security guard who was being treated for a mental disorder shot to death three of his upstairs neighbors before killing himself. During the rampage, the gunman Lorenzo "Sol" Silva, 63, also wounded the 2-year-old daughter of two of his victims. Silva, they said, had returned yesterday morning to the two-story house at 33 de Montfort Street from his graveyard shift at San Francisco International Airport, where he had worked as a guard for about 20 years.

Buen Lirios, the brother-in-law of the gunman, said he heard at least five gunshots. He said he was reluctant to go upstairs. It was Silva's mother, Maria Silva, who went up first and found her son and the others dead. Lirios said he followed her upstairs. "I saw the four bodies and the baby crying" in her high chair, he said. "There was blood all over. They were all bloody. I didn't want to go near them."

Silva's relatives identified the slain couple as Noel Ridual and his 28-year-old wife, Josephine. The other slain woman, who shared the upstairs flat with the Riduals, was Ola Marquisia, 30. Noel Ridual and Marquisia were both highly respected teachers.

October 10, 1999 - Uganda's Doctrine of Brotherhood - Police in Uganda found at least 24 decomposed bodies in shallow graves in a camp of religious leader Wilson Bushara, leader of the controversial Doctrine of Brotherhood cult. Bushara, 40, fled the camp last month when police raided his compound in Bokoto, 28 miles north of Kampala, and arrested 1,000 members. Bushara developed his following by offering them space in heaven upon death in return for cash payment. Men were supposed to surrender their wives and the wives declare themselves unmarried before joining the sect.

October 9, 1999 - Cluster Killings in Pittsburg - Allegheny County and Pittsburg homicide detectives announced they were investigating whether the unsolved murders and suspicious deaths of at least seven area women may be related. The deaths date back to at least 1992. One investigator said the probe might also include one county case dating back to the late 1980s and a more recent case from Westmoreland County. While detectives said they cannot eliminate the possibility of a serial killer or killers targeting the women, they added there was nothing to support that supposition.

"Some of the women were prostitutes, but not all of them. Several were killed and then dumped in remote areas. One or two were strangled; one was dismembered. That's something to look at. Some or none of them may be related. We don't even know the cause of death on some of the cases," said Inspector Ken Fulton, head of the Allegheny County homicide department.

October 9, 1999 - Daniel Ray Troyer -   While serving life in prison for killing two elderly Utah women, Daniel Ray Troyer confessed to murdering three other women after prosecutors promised he would not face additional charges. If true, Troyer would rival child-killer Arthur Gary Bishop -- who murdered five boys -- as Utah's most prolific serial killer.

October 8, 1999 - Possible Brooklyn Serial Killer - Police in New York City believe the murders of four women with histories of prostitution and drug arrest in northern Brooklyn are related. Two women -- Vivian Caraballo, 26, and JoAnn Feliciano, 35 -- were found strangled on roof tops in Williamsburg. Both were partially clothed, with the strangling wire around their necks and had several fingernails removed. The other two women were found in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area.

October 7, 1999 - David Parker Ray - Due to the high publicity, attorneys for rape and torture suspects David Parker Ray and his daughter Jesse Ray want a change of venue. Ray is accused of sexual assault, kidnapping and the sexual torture of several women. Jesse Ray is accused of helping her father.

October 6, 1999 - Robert Burns Springsteen Jr. - A fugitive wanted in the murders of four teen-age girls at a yogurt shop in Texas on December 6, 1991, was arrested in Charleston, North Carolina. Robert Burns Springsteen Jr., 24, had been charged in Texas with four capital murder charges. The four teen-agers were shot in the head and some of them had been sexually assaulted. The store was set on fire. Three other arrests in the case were made today in Texas, two in the Austin area and another in Lewisville, near Dallas. Neighbors in Charleston told police Springsteen's had been bragging about the murders. Springsteen was believed to have been in West Virginia since leaving Austin in 1992.

October 6, 1999 - Kip Kinkel - A teen-ager who survived a Kip Kinkel's shooting spree last year at Thurston High School died in a hunting accident after being shot in the head by his 17-year-old brother. Richard Peek Jr., who was wounded during the May 1998 shootings that left two classmates dead, was killed when Robert Peek's gun accidentally discharged while they were deer hunting.

October 6, 1999 - Dr. Harold Shipman - The media-swamped trial of Harold Shipman, a UK doctor accused of 15 murders, began in Preston, northwest England. Shipman, 53, has denies the murders and a charge of forging a will of one of his alleged victims to try to inherit her 300,000 pound estate. The trial is expected to last at least three months.

October 5, 1999 - Wayne Adam Ford - Serial killing trucker Wayne Adam Ford -- accused of murdering four women in California -- said in a jail hoiuse interview that he was "not guilty of murder" and might deserve to spend the rest of his life in a psychiatric hospital. Ford also said his behavior might be due to a brain injury suffered 15 years ago while in the Marines.

The then good samaritarian suffered a severe head injury when hit by a car while stopping to aid a disabled motorist in Irvine. Ford said he was in a coma for nine days. Follwing the accident the Marine Corps found him "dangerous to equipment and personnel," and discharged him from the service.

Ford's military records show he was demoted to corporal at one point, though the cause of the demotion was not specified. Records also indicate he was admitted to the Naval Hospital in San Diego in September 1984 and honorably discharged by the Marines in January 1985. San Bernardino County Deputy District Attorney David Whitney expressed skepticism about brain injury claims, saying they have become common in death penalty cases.

October 5, 1999 - Sasha Spesivtsev - Siberian cannibal child killer Alexander Spesivtsev was declared insane and committed to a mental hospital by a court for raping and killing four little girls. His mother, Lyudmila Spesivtseva, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for helping lure his victims to their home in the Siberian coal mining town of Novosibirsk.

October 5, 1999 - Familicide in Birmingham - Calls from concerned relatives led British police to discover the murder suicide of a family of five in a suburb of Birmingham. The father, Peter Stafford, 30, was found hanging from a beam on an upstairs landing after slaughtering his family. His wife, Helen, 26, was found stabbed repeatedly in the bedroom. The three children - Joel, two, Kelly, eight, and Daniel, seven -- were found stabbed throughout the family home.

October 3, 1999 - Dr. Wouter Basson - The trial for South Africa's "Dr. Death" started in Johannesburg with prosecutors delving into the killings, drug dealing and fraud charges surrounding the apartheid era's chemical and biological warfare program. Dr. Wouter Basson -- a heart surgeon who continues in private practice -- is charged with killing 16 people, supplying poison to kill 200 more and defrauding the white minority government of more than $13 million.

Details of Basson's secret program emerged in 1992. The 274-page indictment said Basson supplied muscle relaxants -- which caused victims to suffocate by paralyzing their lungs -- to clandestine forces set up to eliminate the enemies of the state. Curiously Basson was also charged with possessing 1,000 tablets of Ecstasy which he was selling on the side.

In testimony last year before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, one scientist described how Basson set up a military front company to produce cigarettes laced with anthrax, poison-laced chocolate and whiskey, and sugar containing salmonella. The intended victims included former President Nelson Mandela.

October 1, 1999 - Guy Georges - After determing the suspect was legally sane, French examining magistrate Gilbert Thiel said the trial of suspected serial killer Guy Georges, 37, would probably start late next year. Georges, known as the Beast of the Bastille by the French media, was arrrested in February, 1998. He is acussed of murdering seven young Parisian women between 1991 and 1997.

October 1, 1999 - 20 Dead Children in South Africa - South African police investigating the disappearance of more than 20 children in the northern KwaZulu-Natal region have exhumed the remains of a young girl who was buried in a pauper's grave 13 years ago. The investigation is a result of several complaints by Johannesburg parents who suspect a local isangoma is responsible for the dissapearences that date as far back as 1985.

The isangoma led police to several graves when she was arrested in September after police found two children in her house. Both children had disappeared from their homes in Johannesburg in 1996. They were both alive and well. The 51-year-old isangoma told police she took the children because their parents were "irresponsible drunkards".

October 1, 1999 - 5 Dead in North Carolina - Five people were found dead in a home in western North Carolina after police responded to reports of gunfire. Authorities are seeking two suspects, and had detained one other person for questioning.

October 1, 1999 - John Martorano - Mob hit man John Martorano pleaded guilty to 10 murders and to racketeering and extortion charges. Martorano, 58, agreed to the plea worked out with federal prosecutors that calls for a 12 1/2-year sentence in exchange for testifying against his fellow mobsters.

October 1, 1999 - Orville Lynn Majors - In an attempt to disprove the evidence against suspected angel of death Orville Lynn Majors, an expert on death row lethal injections said the killer nurse had to use 7-inch syringe to administer fatal doses of potassium chloride. According to lethal injection expert Christopher Long, a lesser-sized needle would have to be repeatedly reload to effectively inject the potassium. With such an argument Major's defense tried to question how the nurse could have committed the alleged murders without arousing immediate suspicion.

On cross-examination, deputy prosecutor Lynn Fledderman had Long concede that the amount of potassium chloride needed to kill depends on the patient's size, weight and general health. All of Majors' alleged victims had suffered from serious illnesses at the time of their deaths.

September 30, 1999 - Masato Yokoyama Former doomsday cult leader Masato Yokoyama was sentenced to death by hanging for his role in the 1995 Tokyo subway poison gas attack. Yokoyama, 35, was the first cultist to be sentenced to death in the subway gassing case. Yokoyama was one of a squad of five Aum members who released the sarin gas in the subway.

September 30, 1999 - Possible Denver Serial Killer - Denver Police identified 51-year-old Milo Harris as the fourth transient found beaten to death with a blunt object since September. Detectives say all evidence points to a serial killer.

September 29, 1999 - Aum Shinri Kyo - Bowing to fierce public pressure, the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinri Kyo said it would close its offices, stop recruiting and cease using its current name. But the Aum did not offer an anticipated public apology for the subway attack, saying only it was considering its future in light of recent comments by cult leader Shoko Asahara. On trial for a total of 17 charges, Asahara told the court that plans for the subway gassing had been discussed by cult members, although he added he had been "asleep" during those discussions.

September 29, 1999 - Gian Luigi Ferri - In a decision that gun control advocates called a major breakthrough, a California appeals court in Sacramento said that victims of a 1993 shooting massacre should be allowed to sue the manufacturer of the guns used in the rampage. The First District Court of Appeals gave the go ahead because it saw no legitimate civilian use for the kind of weapons used by Gian Luigi Ferri on July 1, 1993, when he stormed into a law firm, killed eight people and wounded six others before killing himself.

The guns used, two TEC-DC9 weapons manufactured by Navegar Inc. of Miami, Florida, appeared to be made and marketed expressly to appeal to criminals. The TEC-DC9 gun was most recently in the news when it was revealed that they were among the weapons used by teenage killers Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris in the April 20 massacre at Columbine High.

September 29, 1999 - Driving Rampager in Shimonoseki - A man rammed a car into the station in Shimonoseki, 520 miles southwest of Tokyo, hitting seven passers-by in the process. He then got out of the car and began stabbing people indiscriminately with an 8-inch kitchen knife before he was arrested by police. "I stabbed them because everything is going wrong for me," the suspect was later quoted saying.

September 29, 1999 - Serial Killings in Chicago - Chicago police said DNA results did not link three men arrested for killing one woman in the city's South Side with 11 -other unsolved homicides. Still the three men -- Eugene Rivers Jr., 27 Robert Jarrett, 25,and Michael Mallett, 21 -- were charged with the 1998 killing a 27-year-old LaCreesha Avery in the Washington Park neighborhood. Avery, like the other 11 victims, had high-risk lifestyles of prostitution or drug abuse.

The FBI, which is working with Chicago police on the South Side slayings, has received scores of tips from the public since announcing a reward of up to $20,000 two months ago. "We've received about 100 bona fide calls that have generated information worthy of follow-ups," Ross Rice of the Chicago FBI office said. "No one has been charged, so there's been nothing great, but at least we're getting input from the public."

September 27, 1999 - David William Shearing - Campground killer David William Shearing, who in 1983 killed four adult campers in British Columbia and held two children as sex slaves before killing them as well, is up for early parole eligibility after serving only 15 years of his life sentence. In August 1982, Shearing shot dead George, 66, and Edith Bentley, 59, of Port Coquitlam B.C., their daughter Jackie Johnson, 40, son-in-law Bob, 44, and grandchildren Janet, 13, and Karen, 11, of Kelowna, as the family camped in Wells Gray Provincial Park. Shearing pleaded guilty to six counts of murder and on April 17, 1984 was given six concurrent life sentences with no chance of parole for 25 years.

Under the Criminal Code's so-called "faint hope" clause, lifers can apply to have that eligibility reduced after serving 15 years -- a benchmark Shearing, now 40, passed in April. Shearing hasn't applied yet.

September 25, 1999 - Paul Bernardo - Lawyer Tim Dawson said the banned videotapes showing Paul Bernardo raping teenagers Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy were copyrighted by the families of the two victims. "We have a partial ownership interest in those tapes and therefore the state or anyone else cannot do as it pleases with these tapes without hearing from the families," Danson told reporters. The surprise revelation came during an Ontario Court of Justice hearing into charges that author Stephen Williams viewed the restricted tapes and used the material in his book Invisible Darkness.

September 25, 1999 - Klebold & Harris - Investigators finalizing the official report on Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold now say they "were never part of the Trench Coat Mafia" and "didn't target jocks, minorities or Christians." In the irrational ravings the boys left behind, they railed "against minorities and whites, praising Hitler's 'final solution' -- and then ranting against racism."

September 25, 1999 - Dr. Robert Allan Weitzel - A Utah doctor already charged with five counts of murder is now facing 22 counts of fraudulently obtaining prescription pain killers. A federal indictment alleges that Dr. Robert Allan Weitzel wrote numerous prescriptions for morphine and Demerol to a handful of people but kept the drugs.

September 24, 1999 - Orville Lynn Majors - Suspected angel of death Orville Lynn Majors was hurried from court to a hospital suffering from what the judge later called a "nervous stomach." Majors became ill about five minutes after his attorneys began presenting their case and had to be taken from the courthouse in an ambulance. He was released about two hours later and returned to jail.

September 24, 1999 - Meggan Hogg - According San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Mark Forcum, infanticidal mom Megan Hogg, 27, was suffering from depression on March 23, 1998, when she suffocated her three daughters while they slept. Hogg, who tried to commit suicide after the killings by drinking a mixture of cocoa, pain killers and antidepressants, apologized to her relatives for murdering her children.

September 24, 1999 - Kip Kinkel - School rampager Kip Kinkel abandoned a planned insanity defense and pleaded guilty to four of murder charges and 26 attempted murder charges stemming from his May 1998 attacks at his home and at Thurston High School. Appearing pale and weak and showing little emotion, Kinkel entered the plea at a packed hearing before Lane County Circuit Judge Jack Mattison, who said he would schedule a sentencing hearing later. Kinkel faces from 25 to more than 200 years in prison under terms of a plea agreement with prosecutors.

September 22, 1999 - Paul Dennis Reid - A jury in Clarksville, Tennessee, sentenced fast food killer Paul Reid to death for the murder of two ice cream shop employees. Reid, who is already facing execution for killing two fast-food workers in Nashville, showed no emotion when the decision was read. Reid's attorneys, claiming his client suffered brain damage as a child, argued he should be spared execution because of his "broken brain." Prosecutors said he should die because of the cruelty of the murders and his past crimes.

September 1, 1999 - Possible Colombus, Ohio, Serial Killer - Police in Columbus, Ohio, are asking the public for help solving a series of 13 homicides and 16 shootings that authorities believe may be connected. The string of unsolved crimes becan in October 1999. They occurred mostly in the city's high-crime east-side neighborhood Sgt. Earl Smith said that a possible connection between the 13 slayings and the 16 shootings has been developed in recent months by the department's unsolved case review team.

The Columbus Dispatch reported today that information provided by homicide detectives after the shootings indicated that robbery and drug activity were involved in most of the cases. In some instances, there were several gunmen, possibly indicating the work of a gang. However, authorities haven't ruled out the possibility of a serial killer.

September 21, 1999 - Lt. Sibusiso Madubel - South Africa's Defense Minister Patrick Lekota announced a wide-ranging probe into problems in South Africa's defense force following the recent shooting rampage at an infantry base that left eight people dead. Perhaps in reaction to the killings suspected members of the AWB,the neo-Nazi African Resistance Movement, broke into the army base, stole a minibus and painted the words "We shall be back," on a wall.

September 20, 1999 - Serial Killings in Chicago - In a much needed break Chicago police arrested three alleged gangsters in connection with the slaying of an Englewood woman. Police are now investigating whether the men were also involved in 11 other unsolved murders that have occurred in the South Side neighborhood.

Robert Jarrette, 24, of Glen Ellyn; Michael Mallet, 21, of Galesburg; and Eugene Rivers, 28, of Chicago, appeared in court for a preliminary hearing. Each is being held on a $1 million bond. They are charged with the 1998 rape, robbery and slaying of 27-year-old LaCreesha Avery. DNA evidence found on Avery has been linked to at least one other Englewood victim.

September 20, 1999 - Ted Bundy - Ted Bundy's mom said her son didn't commit his first murder at age 14; but the mother 8-year-old Ann Marie Burr of Tacoma believes he did. She believes young Bundy stole Ann Burr from her bed on Aug. 31, 1961, and killed her. His mother, Louise Bundy disagrees: "I resent the fact that everybody in Tacoma thinks just because he lived in Tacoma he did that one too, way back when he was 14."

September 19, 1999 - Familicide in Bangladesh - A Bangladeshi woman in the village of Khodabakshpu, -- reportedly upset by her husband declaring they were getting divorced -- slaughtered their four sleeping daughters with a meat cleaver and set their house on fire. The killer, Rashida, was arrested on murder charges and her farmer husband, Abdul Khaleq, was detained for questioning. Rashida allegedly killed the girls after her husband uttered the word divorce three times and left the house.

September 19, 1999 - Arthur Shawcross - Serial killer Arthur Shawcross was punished with two years in solitary confinement and lost his art privileges for five years for having agents sell his paintings on the Internet auction site eBay. Shawcross, 54, will be confined to a cell for 23 hours a day at Fallsburg's Sullivan Correctional Facility were he is serving 250 years to life for killing 11 Rochester-area women.

September 18, 1999 - Larry Gene Ashbrook - Days before the shooting rampage at a Baptist church, Ashbrook wrote two letters to the editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram complaining about the CIA, psychological warfare, assaults by co-workers, being drugged by police and being suspected of being a serial killer. He even came by the newspaper's offices and visited city editor Stephen Kaye, who described the killer as "the opposite of someone you'd be concerned about... He couldn't have been any nicer."

September 17, 1999 - Lt. Sibusiso Madubela - Highlighting racial tensions in the post-apartheid military, South African police launched an inquiry into the killing of seven whites by Lt. Sibusiso Madubela. One soldier at the base, who said he was a close associate of Madubela, said the killings were a result of racial tensions. Allegedly the lieutenant had been angered by news that his pay for the month had been cancelled after he left the base to attend his father's funeral.

September 17, 1999 - Larry Gene Ashbrook - According to his neighbors Larry Gene Ashbrook was a jobless loner who exposed himself, screamed obscenities and kicked doors during fits of rage. Investigators were picking through his modest, wood-frame house, which he had ransacked by breaking holes in the walls, pouring concrete in the toilets, overturning furniture and slicing up family photos, said Bob Garrity, FBI special agent in charge.

September 16, 1999 - Larry Gene Ashbrook - Police identified the Wedgwood Baptist Church rampager as 47-year-old Larry Gene Ashbrook. Authorities still had no idea what motivated the shooting. Ashbrook carried no note, and none was found during a search of his ransacked home about 10 minutes from the church.

September 16, 1999 - 8 Dead in Fort Worth - A man dressed in a black "Rambo" outfit walked into a baptist church holding a christian rock concerte for teen-agers in Fort Worth, Texas, pulled a gun and opened fire, fatally shooting seven people before turning the gun on himself. The man, who is still unidentified, fatally shot himself, three adults and three teen-agers inside the church, and wounded at least eight more people. An eighth person died in the hospital.

The man appeared to be in his 20s or 30s. Conflicting reports have him shouting obscenities and mocking the baptist religion, calmly smoking a cigarrette, and saying nothing before the shooting. He is also believed to have detonated a pipe bomb inside the Wedgwood Baptist Church.The man used a 9mm semiautomatic handgun and a .380-caliber handgun, and reloaded several times during the rampage. Three empty gun clips were found at the crime scene. After the gunfire was over he sat in a pew and blew his brains out.

Police, fearing the rampager may have wired himself with explosives, sent in a robot to search his body. About 150 youngster were in the church at the time of the shooting.

September 16, 1999 - Eight Dead in South Africa - A black army officer in South Africa went on a shooting spree at the Tempe military base in Bloemfontein, killing six white soldiers and a female South African National Defence Force employee. Lt. Sibusiso Madubela, 28, of the 1st South African Infantry Battalion, moved from building to building at the base with an R4 semiautomatic rifle randomly shooting at white people.

September 16, 1999 - Charles Whitman - The infamous observation deck of the University of Texas Tower from where Charles Whitman killed 16 people 25 years ago was reopened to the public. However, the deck is now covered with a stainless steel lattice to thwart suicides. Previously up to seven people commited suicide from there. Visitors must go through a metal detector and cannot bring packages onto the observation deck. Security guards will be posted at the check-in point and on the deck.

September 15, 1999 - Alan Eugene Miller - Killer truck driver Alan Eugene Miller, charged with shooting three people to death, reportedly had a history of fighting with fellow employees and once was fired for fighting on the job. The Birmingham News, citing interviews with Miller's former co-workers and employers, also reported that he had repeated shouting matches with one of the three men he is charged with killing on Aug. 5. But the newspaper said Miller's former colleagues also described him as a hard worker who kept to himself.

September 16, 1999 - Dung Trinh - Overwhelmed by his mother's death, Dung Trinh went on a shooting rampage at West Anaheim Medical Center that left three hospital workers dead. Though Mot Trinh -- the mother -- died from diabetes complications in a different hospital, Trinh held the Anaheim Medical Center responsible for her death. The mother had been treated there several months ago for diabetes and a broken hip.

Hours after her death, police say Trinh drove a few blocks to the medical center, then headed for the critical care unit on the second floor. "We do know that he believed that something they had done caused his mother's death," said Anaheim Police Sgt. Joe Vargas.

September 16, 1999 - Barry Loukaitis - Original classroom killer Barry Loukaitis, now 18, filed to get his 1997 conviction overturned because an accumulation of court room errors. Lawyers for Loukaitis argued in his 1997 trial that he was not guilty by reason of insanity and diminished mental capacity when he busted into his junior high school and killed two students and a teacher. Among other things the Loukaitis team tried to blame Pearl Jam and their song "Jeremy" for the killings.

September 14, 1999 - Myra Hindley - British child killer, Myra Hindley, now 57, has been diagnosed with angina and doctors have warned her that she could die if she continues smoking. Hindley last mention in the press was November, 1998, whe she lost an appeal against a government decision that she must spend the rest of her life in jail. Still a headline grabber, Britain's top-selling Sun tabloid splashed a front page report on her claiming that she was dying.

September 13, 1999 - Gerald Gallego - Jury selection began in the court-ordered rehearing of the penalty phase of alleged serial killer Gerald Gallego, who faces the death penalty for the murders of two teenagers in Nevada. The teens, Karen Twiggs and Stacey Redican, were abducted in 1980 from a Sacramento-area shopping mall, driven to a remote area of Pershing County, raped and then killed with a hammer. Gallego was sentenced to death for the murders in June 1984, but the penalty was overturned by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in September 1997. The appeals court ruled his death sentence was invalid because the judge wrongly suggested to the jury that Gallego might eventually be paroled if he was spared execution.

September 13, 1999 - Family Massacre in South Wales - South Wales Police have put up a reward of 30,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the murderer of four in a house in Clydach. Detectives are anxious to trace a man who took a taxi from the Compass public house on the night of the murders. The investigation team also wants to talk to a heavily bloodstained man who visited a newsagents the following morning some seven miles away. But most of all, they want to talk to a woman who took a taxi to Kelvin Road on the night of the murders.

September 13, 1999 - Tokyo Hammer Rampager - A former newspaper delivery man who killed two people and injured six others in a broad-daylight knife and hammer rampage in Tokyo apologized to his victims and their families. "I am sorry for what I did," Hiroshi Zota, 23, was quoted as saying.

September 13, 1999 - Cluster Killings in Boca Raton & Palm Beach - In October 1998, detectives from Palm Beach and Broward counties gathered in Boca Raton to pore over a string of brutal assaults against young women during the last four years that seemed to be related. The women had been randomly beaten, stabbed, strangled and sexually assaulted by a knife-wielding maniac stalking them from the darkness. The victims were accosted while either walking their dogs, doing laundry or returning home in the Boca Raton-Deerfield Beach area.

Since the first documented attack in 1994, none of the cases has been solved and only one arrest has been made. In the two Boca Raton cases, the victims identified one David Michael Miller as their assailant. Miller, 45, a once-wealthy ex-con with a history of violence against women, has been charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder.

Miller was the subject of extensive surveillance, according to court records. Boca Raton police watched him between April and July of 1998. "We have had no random, vicious attacks on women since David Miller's arrest," said Debra Shannon, Boca Raton police spokeswoman. Since his arrest in January, police in both counties have been trying to link him to the numerous other unsolved assaults and murders.

September 13, 1999 - Ian Stephen - To the joy of sexual predators in the UK and worldwide, Britain's star profiler Ian Stephen retired. In the last three decades,Stephen was at the forefront of pioneering the development of profiling in Scotland and the rest of Britain.

September 13, 1999 - Nawaz Ahmed - A man suspected in the deaths of his estranged wife and three of her family members in Ohio was being held in custody in New York City. Nawaz Ahmed, 44, is a suspect in the death of his estranged wife, Lubaina Bhatti Ahmed; her father, Abdul Majid Bhatti of Canada; her sister-in-law, Rubie Ahmad of California; and a niece, Nasira Ahmad of California. The bodies were found two days ago by a deputy at Ahmed's home in Ohio. Nawaz became a suspect based on evidence found at the scene.

September 11, 1999 - Gary Ray Bowles - Circuit Judge Jack Schemer followed a jury's recommendation and sentenced Gary Ray Bowles to die in Florida's electric chair. Bowles, 37, first received the death penalty in 1996 for the 1994 murder of Walter Jammell Hinton, but he was given a new sentencing hearing by the Florida Supreme Court. The high court said prosecutors shouldn't have been allowed to use Bowles' admitted hatred of gays against him because it did not prove it led him to murder.

September 11, 1999 - John Martorano - Confessed mob hit man John Martorano was sentenced to 12 to 15 years, with credit for the 4 years he's already spent behind bars, for killing 20 people. During hundreds of hours of testimony, Martorano admitted to committing 20 murders in order to incriminate his former cronies in a string of felonies stretching from New England to Florida and Oklahoma.

September 10, 1999 - Andrew Wurst - A 15-year-old boy accused of killing a teacher and wounding two others at a school dance in Edinboro, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty third-degree murder. Andrew Wurst pleaded guilty in the shooting death of 48-year-old teacher John Gillette, who died when Wurst opened fire at a dance for his eighth-grade class at a banquet hall in Edinboro. He was also accused of wounding two students and holding a gun to the principal's head. Erie County Judge Michael Palmisano sentenced Wurst to 30 to 60 years in prison. A month before the killing, Wurst told classmates at James W. Parker Middle School that he wanted to kill people and commit suicide.

September 10, 1999 - Buford Furrow - A defense lawyer who last represented the Unabomber has been recruited to join JCC rampager Buford Furrow's legal team. According to the Los Angeles Times, Judy Clarke, the head of the federal public defender's office in Washington and Idaho, will join two Los Angeles federal public defenders assigned to the case. Furrow is accused of shooting to death a postal worker and wounding five people at the Jewish Community Ccenter in Granada Hills.

September 9, 1999 - Dominique Keys- Opening statements began in the case of Dominique Keys who told police she shot her husband to death after he confessed to being a serial killer. Keys told police her husband confessed to killing five young women in England and that he wanted to sell his story to the tabloids.

September 9, 1999 - Susan Eubanks - Infanticidal mom Susan Eubanks who killed her four sons after a day of serious drinking and arguing with her boyfriend was sentenced to death by a San Diego County jury. During closing statements at the week-long sentencing hearing, a few jurors fought back tears and averted their eyes as prosecutors showed enlarged photos of each boy and their gunshot wounds.

Defense attorneys argued that Ms. Eubanks killed the children in a moment of weakness, culminating several years of addiction to prescription drugs for work injuries and her failed relationships with men. They asked jurors to consider she had overcame a dysfunctional childhood marked with alcoholism and abuse by completing vocational college, getting a job and raising a family.

September 9, 1999 - John Martorano - Authorities say mob hit man John Martorano who claims to have killed 20 people has cut a deal with prosecutors that would get him out of jail after serving eight years. Martorano, 58, agreed to plead guilty to 12 of the slayings. His victims included a millionaire executive in Tulsa, Okla., and two teen-agers in Boston who happened to be with one of his targets. U.S. Attorney Donald K. Stern said all of the killings probably would have gone unsolved without the deal. Authorities also expect Martorano to testify against his former associates.

Martorano, who is so nondescript he didn't even have a nickname, is among the mob's deadliest confessed killers. The list includes Sammy "the Bull" Gravano, the Gambino family underboss who admitted to 19 killings and served five years after testifying against the New York mob. In 1968 in Boston, Joseph "The Animal" Barboza admitted killing 26 people but served less than a year in prison after agreeing to testify against the New England mob. He was slain in San Francisco in 1976.

September 8, 1999 - Suspected Colombian Serial Killer - Authorities in Colombia, fearing they might have a serial child killer on the loose, have created a special task force to hunt down the suspected maniac. In the past five years fifty-five bodies have been discovered, many of them in mass graves, some showing signs of torture and mutilation. "We fear that there could be a serial killer, or a group of murderers on the loose," said General Rosso Jose Serrano, Colombia's police chief. "The bodies of the children are all similarly mutilated, they were buried with hands tied and have organs missing."

September 8, 1999 - Serge Fortin - A jobless man killed four neighbours in a village feud in western France and surrendered after anti-terrorist police surrounded his home for several hours. Serge Fortin, a 45-year-old unemployed locksmith, shot two retired farmers in one house and a pensioner and her daughter in another house in the hamlet of Le Verger, near the Brittany town of Rennes. A fifth person was wounded.

September 8, 1999 - Hiroshi Zoda - An unemployed Japanese man randomly stabbed eight people in the downtown Tokyo district of Ikebukuro, killing two and injuring six others. Police identified the assailant as Hiroshi Zoda, a 23-year-old man without a job or a fixed address. Zoda, who was seized by passers-by and handed to authorities, said he committed the act because he lost his job and was irritated.

September 7, 1999 - Angel Maturino-Resendiz - Accused Railway Killer Angel Maturino-Resendiz made an unscheduled court appearance and asked the judge to allow him to act as his own defense attorney. The hastily-called hearing followed two conflicting letters sent by Resendiz to District Judge Bill Harmon's court.

In the first letter Resendiz asked to represent himself. In the second he said his defense attorneys could represent him in his criminal case but that he would act as his own counsel in a civil action which he wished to bring against state and federal law enforcement officials. The letter complained about alleged abusive and threatening treatment by a Texas Ranger and a broken "deal" with authorities which lead to his surrender and would have exempted him from the death penalty.

A third letter arrived after the hearing in which Resendiz said "I will allow (defense attorney) Tanner to be my lawyer until all the research is done, then I will decide." He also asked for permission to go to the library to prepare for his civil case.

September 7, 1999 - Orville Lynn Majors Jr. - Former nurse Orville Lynn Majors Jr., went on trial in Ohio on charges of killing seven elderly patients. Majors, 38, faces life in prison if convicted. In an unusual move to circumvent the effects of pretrial publicity, the trial was moved from Vermillion County to nearby Clay County, and the jurors were being selected in Miami County, more than 100 miles to the northeast.

Prosecutors suspect Majors in dozens of patients' deaths, but they whittled the charges to seven cases they believe exhibit the strongest evidence that Majors gave his patients unauthorized and lethal injections. In Vermillion County Hospital's four-bed intensive care unit, 120 people died in 1994. But in each of the previous four years, no more than 31 ICU patients died. A consultant who studied patient charts and nurses' time cards found patients were 43 times more likely to die when Majors was on duty.

September 7, 1999 - Cary Stayner - Motel handyman killer Cary Stayner called the television talk show "Leeza" from jail, telling a producer he doesn't want to die. Stayner's call bewildered the host and producers of the show Leeza Gibbons, even though the show had previously contacted Stayner and sent him list of questions for an upcoming program. The also sent him the show's toll-free number in case he wanted to call.

September 6, 1999 - Possible Serial Killer in Rapid City - Eight homeless men have appeared drowned over the last 16 months in a stream that runs through a park in Rapid City, South Dakota. When the first few bodies turned up in the stream on the edge of the Black Hills, police thought nothing of it. As more men died, however, law officers became suspicious. "There's just too many of them to say it's coincidence. But it could be," Police Chief Tom Hennies says.

September 6, 1999 - Atlanta Child Murders - A memorial service was held and a granite monument was unveiled for the 29 children murdered in Atlanta between 1979 and 1981. None of the family members of those killed attended the service.

September 6, 1999 - Howard Unruh - On this date fifty years ago Howard Unruh took his infamous "Walk of Death" down a street in Camden, New Jersey, killing 13 people on a 12-minute shooting spree. Unruh, the father of modern mass-murder, was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic. He has spent the past 50 years in Trenton Psychiatric Hospital, a state hospital for the criminally insane were he has aknowledged the killings. Once a year, a judge determines whether any changes should be made in his confinement conditions. The only changes have been small.

September 4, 1999 - Jerry Scott Heidler - A Georgia court sentenced Jerry Scott Heidler to death for the murders of four member of the Daniels family in the Christmas-themed town of Santa Claus. The execution date was set for between Oct. 1 and Oct. 8, although the sentence will be automatically appealed to the Supreme Court of Georgia within 30 days.

September 2, 1999 - Michael Ross - According to Dr. James Merikangas serial killer Michael Ross has an abnormal brain that could affect his ability to control sadistic sexual urges. Dr. Merikangas, who studied Ross at the request of defense lawyers who are trying to find a mitigating factor that would spare him the death penalty, sdiscovered that Ross' cerebellum is smaller than a normal person's.

September 1, 1999 - Robert Zarinsky - Corrections Department officials say that convicted killer Robert Zarinsky requested to be transferedr to protective custody at New Jersey State Prison in Trenton after he became a suspect in a string of killings 30 years ago. Zarinsky is serving a life sentence for the murder of a young woman. His sister recently linked him to the killing of a Rahway police officer in 1968, and authorities in Union County and neighboring counties have reopened investigations in to several killings of women. The suspected serial killer told authorities he felt threatened by other inmates who read recent newspaper articles about renewed investigation into long-held suspicions that he killed four other young women, corrections spokesman Chris Carden said.

September 1, 1999 - Daniel Blank - Jurors in the first degree murder trial of acussed serial killer Daniel Blank saw him confess on videotape to attacking victim Lillian Phillipe with a trophy or a lamp she had tried to use to defend herself after he broke into her home. The jury watched Blank describe how Phillipe, 71, hit him with the object in the back.

"I grabbed it and then I pushed her and she came back up, and that's when I hit her with it and I just went out of it," Blank said on the tape recorded by St. Martin Parish sheriff's detectives. Blank, a 37-year-old Paulina mechanic, is charged with six slayings across the River Parishes. Prosecutors say he killed during robberies to fuel a gambling habit. Blank is set to stand trial at later dates in the murders of Joan Brock, 58, of LaPlace; Barbara Bourgeois, 58, of Paulina; Victor Rossi, 41, of St. Amant; and Sam Arcuri 76, and his wife, Louella, 69, of LaPlace.

September 1, 1999 - Snowtown Bank Vault Murders - South Australian police have formally identified through DNA testing and other forensic procedures the last of 11 alleged victim in the bank vault murders at Snowtown. Four men have been charged in relation to the killings.

September 1, 1999 - Kendall Francois - A year after the decomposing bodies of eight women were pulled from a Kendall Francois' Poughkeepsie home, the house has been remodeled and put up for sale. Violet Curry, the realtor, purchased the house four months ago for $15,000 and put it on the market two weeks ago for $139,900. "I'd love to live here," Curry told Middletown's Times Herald-Record Tuesday. "I can just see it all furnished with traditional furniture." Curry told the newspaper that she already has a buyer for the house and the contract is in the mail. She would not name the prospective owner, but said it is an area family that was aware of the house's history.

September 1, 1999 - Faye Copeland - Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon asked an appeals court to reinstate the death penalty against 78-year-old, believed to be the nation's oldest woman awaiting execution. Mrs. Copeland was convicted for the murders of five transients . The men were killed in the late 1980s in what was an ongoing livestock swindle with her husband, Ray, who was also convicted and sentenced to death and died in 1993 at age 78 at the Potosi Correctional Center while awaiting execution. Prosecutors alleged Mrs. Copeland and her husband schemed to hire transients to work on their farm north of Kansas City. The transients were instructed to buy cattle with bad checks and then the men were killed.

July-August 1999 - Morgue Archives - Previous entries to the Morgue Archives. July-August, 1999.