April 30, 2000 - Richard Scott Baumhammers - According to his attorney racist rampager Richard Scott Baumhammers had a history of mental illness and feared the he was being constantly watched. Police searching his home found a three-page manifesto for what he called the Free Market Party, a nonexistent party that was decidedly anti-immigrant and for which he called himself the "chairman."

A neurologist who had befriended Baumhammers in an Internet chat group about Latvia, said Baumhammers had extremist ideas about third world immigrants and believed he was being followed. "Some of the things he said were just so outlandish," Dr. George Naruns said. "The sad thing is that if he could have gotten some counseling or some help, he could have dealt with some of these minor issues before they turned into all of this." Attorney Lee Rothman told the Post-Gazette that Baumhammers had been treated since 1993 for an unspecified mental disorder and he had voluntarily admitted himself to a psychiatric ward at least once.

April 30, 2000 - Robert Lee Yates - The Spokane task force investigating serial killer suspect Robert lee Yates have uprooted a 12-foot blue spruce tree next to his home. Spokane County sheriff's Cpl. David Reagan said they also sifted soil from another site where neighbors said Yates removed a hedgerow and filled in the area with new soil. Yates said he replanted the tree after it was knocked over by a drunken driver. In related news, authorities in Alabama, California, New York and other parts of Washington state said they would meet with Spokane sheriff's deputies to see whether they can tie Yates to any of their unsolved homicides.

April 29, 2000 - Possible South African Suicide Cult - A South African religious cult in Umbata has authorities concerned with reports that they are readying themselves for the end of the world. Religious observers said a mass suicide like the one in Uganda could be in the making. Cult members have allegedly stopped working and have kept their children from going to school. One report claims that more than 100 men, women and children have barricaded themselves into a ramschackle building in the Mandela squatter camp outside Umtata.

The leader of the cult, Nokulunga Fiphaza, is a charismatic 30-year-old woman who is currently unemployed. According to Fiphaza, their church belongs to no single individual and has no need to be given a name. "Every individual is free to join the church as long as she or he will abide by the church's decisions," Fiphaza was reported as saying.

The church has its origin in a village called Corhana, several miles from Umtata. They relocated to Umtata after the village chief chased them away. Church members who have systematically sold all their assets were requested to donate their money so they could be cleansed of diseases and sin before reaching their final destination.

April 29, 2000 - Richard Scott Bauhammers - A racist immigration lawyer in Pittsburg went on a one-hour ethnically-motivated shooting rampage leaving five dead in four different locations. The victims were a Jewish woman, an Indian grocer, two Asian employees in a Chinese restaurant and an African-American man in a karate school. A second Indian man was critically wounded. Richard Scott Baumhammers, the 34-year-old rampager, reportedly was trying to form a political party to act against immigrants. Not surprisingly he had unspecified mental problems that led to a recent voluntary hospitalization. The killings took place within a 20-mile range through suburbs surrounding Pittsburgh. Baumhammers used a .357- caliber handgun for the rampage.

Police first responded to a small fire at the home of Anita Gordon in Mount Lebanon, next door to the home of Bauhammers' parents. Gordon, 63, was found dead inside the home. She had been shot several times. Baumhammers allegedly set a small fire at the house after killingGordon whom he had known since childhood. Next Baumhammers shot at the Beth El Congregation synagogue and painted the word "Jew" on the front and swastikas on the outside walls.

Then he stoppoed at an Indian grocery store in Carnegie where he killed Anil Thakur, 31, and critically wounded Sandip Patel, 25. The Pittsburg Post-Gazette said he was shot in the neck and was facing the possibility of permanent paralysis. Kent Kretzler, a witnes who owns a travel agency next to the Indian grocery, said Baumhammers appeared calm as he walked out of the store, tucked away a gun and got into his car. "He sat for maybe five or 10 seconds without doing anything, and just very calm and collectedly pulled out as if pulling out after buying a bag of groceries," Kretzler said.

Then he did another drive-by on a synagogue in Carnegie before stopping at the Ya Fei Chinese Cuisine restaurant and killing Thao Pham, 30, a deliveryman of Vietnamese descent, and Ji-Ye Sun, 34, the Chinese manager of the restaurant. About 15 minutes he stopped at a karate school in a shopping plaza where he shot to death 22-year-old Gary Lee.

April 28, 2000 - Peter Moore - British serial killer Peter Moore who is serving a life sentence for killing four men "for fun" won a £13,000 settlement against two friends who took several of his belonging from his home after his arrest. Moore, 60, nicknamed The Man in Black because of the clothes he wore at his trial, said his friends, Les Bradshaw and Pauline Prydderch, stole his property after he allowed them to live in his four bedroom home as caretakers. The missing items include his garden gnomes, 900 movie posters, a crystal ball and a rocking chair. Moore was jailed in Nov 1996 for the murders of Henry Roberts, 56, Edward Carthy, 28, Keith Randles, 49, and Anthony Davies, 40. All died within three months, following the death of Moore's mother in 1994.

April 27, 2000 - "Last Call Killer" - Police in New York and New Jersey have renewed their investigation into a series of mutilation murders of men who frequented gay bars in Manhattan known as the "Last Call Murders." Police are looking at three murders in particular that occurred in 1992 and 1993 using technological advances in DNA analysis, fingerprint retrieval and a developing computer crime database. Authorities announced a $45,000 reward offered by the Gay and Lesbian Task Force in New York City, the NYC Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, and the victims' families, for information leading to the conviction of the person or people responsible for the killings.

April 27, 2000 - Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God - Authorities in Uganda have exhumed the bodies of 55 more people from three mass graves under a garage in Ggaba that was rented by a cult leader. The victims bore no external signs of violence. This new discovery came nearly a month after the last of five mass graves was discovered in four different properties owned by the cxult's leaders. To date authorities blame the cult for 979 deaths. Kampala authorities were unawre of the new mass grave until heavy rains created a sinkhole near the garage. Neighbors said that the four women and two teen-agers that lived in the house vanished a couple days before the cult's March 17 fiery mass murder suicide. "We got complaints from people about the smell coming from the side of the garage two days after the occupants vanished," said Hamisi Kigozi, a local chief. "We did not suspect much."

April 27, 2000 - Barry Thomas Niedermier - The Calgary Police Service said they were looking into possible links between Barry Thomas Niedermier and the unsolved deaths of at least two local young women. The first victim was of 16-year-old street urchin named Jennifer Janz whose badly beaten body was discovered in the Valley Ridge area of northwest Calgary on August 13, 1991. The second was Rebecca Boutilier, 20-year-old prostitute who was found stabbed to death March 11, 1993.

April 26, 2000 - Columbine Massacre - In an unprecedentedly strange action Jefferson County authorities released a training video showing an empty, bullet-riddled Columbine High School after the infamous massacre perpetrated by hate-mongers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold . County officials have ordered 500 copies of the tapes, which they will be selling to the public for $25 a pop. The tape was originally put together by a Littleton firefighter on his own time for use in seminars to help law enforcement officials prepare for rampage-type situations. It has been shown in 82 seminars in the United States and Canada. The videotapes, which include two to three hours of helicopter footage, footage from surveillance cameras in the school cafeteria showing one of the gunmen detonating a bomb and a fifteen-minute section of the library after the bodies of the the dead had been removed.

The Jefferson County sheriff's office was ordered to turn the tapes over to six families who wanted the footage to support their claims that officers mishandled the shootings. To avoid further legal hassles, they also released it to the general public. Ironically, the tape was released after several families of the victims sued the county over not being allowed to see the footage. Jefferson County Attorney Frank Hutfless said the tape was distributed to victims' families under a court order and offered to the public "to avoid additional lawsuits by the public or news media."

April 27, 2000 - Joseph D. Miller - A condemned serial killer who was convicted of murdering three women and who confessed to a fourth slaying says he is prepared to die May 4 at the Rockview State Prison in Bellefonte, Pensylvania. Joseph D. Miller, 35, of Steelton, Dauphin County, was sentenced to die by lethal injection for a string of murders in central Pennsylvania in the late 80's. "He doesn't want to die, but he's afraid to live," said Miller's half-sister, referring to the horrible conditions of his life in prison.

Miller received separate death sentences in 1994 for the murders of Selina Franklin, a high-school student who disappeared in 1987, and Stephanie McDuffey, who was eight months pregnant when she disappeared in 1989. Miller led police to the women's makeshift graves in a Swatara Township landfill after he was caught in the act of assaulting another woman in 1992. Miller also was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the 1990 murder of Kathi Novena Shenck, whose body was found in a Perry County dump.

April 26, 2000 - Robert Lee Yates - Spokane County Sheriff Mark Sterk asked county commissioners for more money to continue the investigation into suspected serial killer Robert Lee Yates. Sterk requested additional storage space for nine vehicles Yates owned or previously owned and funds to pay for the vehicles confiscated from new owners. He also asked the commissioners to add a specialized prosecutor to the case who would work exclusively with the task force.

April 26, 2000 - Barry Thomas Niedermier - A convicted pimp who has been described as a person of interest in connection with missing prostitutes in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside has been arrested in Lethbridge, Alberta. Barry Thomas Niedermier, 43, faces 15 assault charges in connection with the brutal sexual assaults from 1995 to 1997 against seven prostitutes working in downtown Vancouver.

The Vancouver Sun quoted unidentified sources saying that Niedermier is also being questioned by police in Edmonton and Calgary about their own missing prostitute cases. In Calgary, police have been investigating the disappearance of a number of prostitutes in the late 1970s and 1980s. Constable Anne Drennans of the Vancouver police said Niedermier, who was living in Vancouver in 1995-97, is well known to both Vancouver and Lethbridge police.

"It was as part of the investigation into the missing women that information about Niedermier was received," said Drennan. "There has been no link identified with the missing prostitutes, but we would call him a person of interest and we will be wanting to speak to him at length about the missing women's file." Niedermier was sentenced in 1990 to 14 months in prison for pimping a 14-year-old girl who he brought from Calgary to Vancouver.

April 25, 2000 - John Eric Armstrong - Authorities in Seattle believe alleged serial killer John Eric Armstrong may be lying about killing two prostitutes and a transvestite in their seaport city. "We're actually thinking now that he hasn't done anything here, because nothing he said remotely matches any (killing) we've got here," said Dick Steiner, head of the Homicide Investigation Tracking System, a division of the state Attorney General's Office that tracks serial killers and rapists.

Armstrong told Detroit police that he strangled five Detroit-area prostitutes as well as 11 others while he was a sailor aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Nimitz, which was homeported in Bremerton, 10 miles west of Seattle across Puget Sound. While investigators worldwide are trying to match Armstrong's accounts to unsolved murders in their areas his attorney, Robert Mitchell, said his client probably wasn't telling the truth about his globetrotting killing spree. "I think all of those are just make-believe," he said. "I have certain reasons that I wouldn't want to reveal right now."

April 25, 2000 - Robert Lee Yates - German police said they were investigating whether Yates was involved in any crimes while he was stationed in Germany. "It is possible the former U.S. soldier could be linked to unsolved murders in Germany, although we have nothing concrete as yet," a police spokesman said. Police in Watertown, New York, where Yates was stationed after returning from Germany, are looking for links between and unsolved prostitute murder there and the suspect.

April 24, 2000 - Andre Rand - The New York Post printed that convicted child killer Andre Rand is believed to be involved in four more child murders in the 70s and 80s. Rand, convicted in 1987 for killing 12-year-old Jennifer Schweiger of Westerleigh in the New York City burrow of Staten Island, is serving a life sentence in prison. Three of the other suspected victims were from Staten Island, the fourth was from Brooklyn. Except for Jennifer who was found after a massive search by police and civilian volunteers, none of the other girls' bodies were ever recovered. Rand, 56, was found guilty of murder and remains behind bars. The Ithaca-native first came to the attention of police in 1969 when officers spotted him in the Bronx pulling the clothes off a 9-year-old girl. He served 15 months for the sex crime then went on a killing spree after he was released.

April 21, 2000 - Wayne McGray - Serial confessor Wayne McGray has been ruled out as a suspect in any of Ottawa-Carleton's 27 unsolved homicides. In fact McGray, who confessed to a 15-year killing rampage throughout Canada and the United States, seems to have been making it up to obtain preferential treatment in prison. McGray is serving a life sentence for the brutal slaying of a Newfoundland housewife and was looking for preferential treatment in prison.

April 21, 2000 - Robert Lee Yates - Authorities announced the identities of nine women believed to have been shot to death by Robert L. Yates Jr. between 1997 to 1998. The victims are Darla Scott, Melinda Mercer, Shawn Johnson, Laurie Wason, Shawn McClenahan, Sunny Oster, Linda Mayrin, Michelyn Derning and the previously identified Jennifer Joseph. The suspect is linked to six of the cases by DNA evidence and to three others by physical evidence that has yet been disclosed.

Investigators sealed off eight square blocks near Yates' home and took over everything inside the house. Authorities combed through every inch of his property using a "total station mapping" that utilizes lasers and the Global Positioning System (GPS) to create an accurate 3-D map of the crime scene that can later be shown to the jury. His family, for obvious reasons, was moved to an undisclosed location were police bought them new clothes. They have also impounded and searched seven of his vehicles -- three Hondas, a Ford pickup truck, two vans and the white 'Vette -- two of which he had already sold. Five of his alleged victims were dumped within mile and a half radius of the house. The task force set up two hot lines to obtain information on which hardware and grocery stores Yates patronized as well as clues about his lifestyle, hobbies and activities, and whether he had a storage locker or rented garage.

Sheriff Mark Sterk, who inherited the $2.2-million probe when he took office in 1999, said the task force's major complaint was the lack of resources. In January 2000 the task force was close to being disbanded because of severe departamental budget cuts. Sterk even asked Bill Gates to donate software to help analyze 10 years of homicide files but the billionare Microserf refused to give them anything.

April 20, 2000 - Robert Lee Yates - The three-year investigation into the serial murders of up to 18 Spokane, Tacoma and Kinsap County area prostitutes seems to have come to an end with the arrest of Robert Lee Yates. A balding 47-year-old husband of 24 years, father of five, aluminum worker and Desert Storm veteran, Yates was charged with the 1997 murder of Jennifer Joseph, a 16-year-old Spokane prostitute and is suspected of being responsible for up to 17 more deaths. Yates was a near-20-year veteran of the armed forces who was stationed in New York, Massachusetts and Alabama, as well as Germany and Somalia. In 1997, after retiring from the service and moving to Spokane, he joined the National Guard. As a guardsman he spent one weekend a month trained at Fort Lewis south of Tacoma. "He came to us very, very qualified. In the three years he was assigned to us, he was a good performer. He did an excellent job," said Lt. Col. Rick Patterson, a National Guard spokesman.

Like in many serial killer cases friends and neighbors were in shock with the suspect's newfound infamy. "Bob Yates, he was a great guy. He really was," said Gary Berner, an Oak Harbor dentist who's been his friend since high school. Neigbors said he frequently played catch on his front lawn with his 11-year-old son. He also enjoyed washing and tinkering with his cherished white 1977 Corvette, which ultimately led to his arrest.

The affadavit of Joseph's murder states that the youngster was last seen in Spokane's East Sprague neighborhood getting into a white Corvette driven by a white man between 30 and 40 years-old. Five weeks after her dissapearence Yates was stopped in his Corvette near East Sprague. A year later, after he had sold the Corvette, Yates was stopped in another car after picking up a prostitute. At the time he said he was just giving the woman a ride. In September 1999 that same woman told detectives Yates had agreed to pay her $20 for a sex act the night they were stopped. Acting on the evidence they had collected two task force officers interviewed him. At the time, according to sheriff's Captain John Simmons, "He was just one of many, many names that had apparent potential." After the interview both detectives remarked they thought he sweated a little too much.

In January 2000 police tracked down the new owners of the Corvette and obtained permission to search the car. In it they found a mother-of-pearl cuff button missing from Joseph's jacket as well as carpet fibers matching those found on her shoes and blood stain on the seat-belt buckle matching her parent's DNA. "The white 'Vette was really the link to Mr. Yates," sheriff Sterk said.

April 18, 2000 - Spokane Serial Killer - At 6:23 a.m. Spokane County sheriff's deputies arrested a man on his way to work in connection with the 1997 murder of a local woman. Detectives would not release the identity of the victim but said they will try to get a search warrant to draw blood from the suspect and compare it to DNA samples of the Spokane serial killer. Spokane Sheriff's spokesman Reagan said: "We are very optimistic. This is really our first big break in our investigation."

April 18, 2000 Aileen Wuornos - Convicted serial killer Aileen Wuornos said she wanted a new trial for her 1992 conviction in the death of Charles Carskaddon in Pasco County because her attorney at the time was ill-prepared to represent her. Joseph Hobson, an attorney for Florida¹s capital collateral office, presented the appeal to Circuit Court Judge Wayne Cobb. Hobson said Wuornos¹ attorney at the time, Steven Glazer, had virtually no experience in death penalty cases and took a cut from deals with media outlets that paid thousands of dollars for interviews with his client. Hobson also said Glazer was filmed for a British documentary smoking marijuana on the way to see Wuornos in prison. Earlier this month, Wuornos asked a judge in Daytona Beach to overturn her conviction in the 1992 slaying of Richard Mallory because of ineffective counsel in that trial too.

April 17, 2000 Possible Columbus Serial Killer - Police in Columbus, Missisippi said they are close to solving at least two of five unsolved slayings of local senior citizens. Though at the time of the killings police thought they had a serial killer in their midst, now they believe only two of the five deaths are related. Police in fact believe they have evidence linking an unnamed suspect linked to the two 1998 murders -- Betty Everett, 67, and Louise Randall, 80 -- that happened within days of each other.

April 17, 2000 John Eric Armstrong - Like always, relatives of John Eric Armstrong, who is now at the maximum security psychiatric ward at the Wayne County Jail, are shocked by how little Johnny went from being a good student who enjoyed Nintendo and fishing to a suspected serial killer. "The Eric we raised could not have done these things," his mother, Linda Pringle, said in Sunday's Detroit News. "This is just not the person we know. ... We just did the best we could."

The Detroit Press revealed that by mid-February authorities already suspected Armstrong in one slaying. Dearborn Heights police had found clothing fibers on Armstrong's car that were similar to those of a slaying victim, and said his alibi was suspicious. But prosecutors told police it was impossible to prove the fibers were an exact match, and couldn't issue a warrant, said Robert Agacinski, deputy chief of the prosecutor's office repeat-offenders bureau. Then on March 28, preliminary lab results confirmed that Armstrong's DNA matched evidence from one slaying scene, but inexplicably prosecutors still denied a warrant.

Agacinski said a final written DNA report would have been essential to persuading a judge to bind Armstrong over for trial. Agacinski also defended the prosecutor's office by saying: "There was no reason to suspect this guy was involved in multiple murders. He had no prior record. No one knew how goofy he was."

Prosecutors waited until April 12 - two days after investigators found the bodies of three strangled prostitutes in a railroad yard in southwest Detroit - the day that the state lab issued the written DNA report to issue the warrant. A transvestite prostitute who escaped an attack by Armstrong on Michigan Avenue ended his killing spree by helping police identify Armstrong as he cruised southwest Detroit.

April 17, 2000 Chung Doo-Young - A Korean man arrested on suspicion of murdering five people confessed to the killings of four others. Chung Doo-Young, 31, admitted to murdering a total of nine people in five robberies since June last year, police in Pusan said.

Chung was arrested in Chonan, South Chungchong Province, while holding a woman hostage for ransom. In custody he confessed to murdering a 59-year-old maid in Pusan last June, a 54-year-old maid in Pusan in September, and fatally stabbing a 54-year-old housewife and her 24-year-old son in Ulsan in October. He stole 3 million won from the Ulsan house. Chung also confessed to murdering two women and seriously injuring another last month while robbing a house in Pusan of about 60 million won in cash and valuables. He is also a suspect in the March murder of a steel company owner, his wife and another unidentified person. "Maybe I have a devil inside me," Chung was quoted as saying during his confession.

Police said Chung had confessed to committing a total of 13 robberies since his release in March last year from a prison where he served six months for theft. In the 13 robberies, he killed 9 people, injured eight and stole about 100 million won, police said. Chung also served 12 years in prison for killing a security guard in 1985 when he was 18. He was quoted as saying that he committed the crimes for money, adding that he often felt a sudden impulse to break into houses that were equipped with security cameras.

April 16, 2000 - "Last Call Killer" - New Jersey State Police announced the reactivation of the "Last Call Killer" investigation. Originally a Rockland County case, the new task force is a New Jersey State Police effort. With the exception of a sole New York detective, all other jurisdictions declined to participate. The Killer is suspected of at least five murder-dismemberment of gay middle-aged gay men in the New York New Jersey area.

April 15, 2000 - Jack Barron - Family killer Jack Barron was sentenced to three consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole for the murders of his wife, mother and son, who were found dead in their beds over a 32-month period. Barron said in a statement that he was not guilty and would appeal the verdict. Barron was found guilty in March of murdering his wife, Irene, 34, in 1992; their son, Jeremy, 4, in 1993; and his mother, Roberta Butler, 52, in 1995. The first two slayings occurred at the Barrons' south Sacramento home; Butler's body was found in her Benicia residence. Surprisingly he was acquitted of murdering his 4-year-old daughter, Ashley, whose 1994 death remains controversial.

April 14, 2000 - John Eric Armstrong - Detroit police charged ex-sailor John Eric Armstrong with the murder of five local prostitutes and three attempted murders. Investigators are confident he killed the Detroit-area women, but beyond that they wonder whether Armstrong -- a man who has the vanity plate "Baby Doll" on the front of his Jeep Wrangler -- is pulling a Henry Lee Lucas. "There are gaps in his time line that we are concerned about," said Detroit Police Cmdr. Dennis Richardson, head of the major crimes division. "However, nothing outside of Michigan has been confirmed yet. Our investigation is continuing very aggressively and very meticulously."

He told police his wife is pregnant with their second child and that they were having marital problems. After he listened to Armstrong confess to various murders, Hines said he called Armstrong's wife to let her know he was in police custody and was facing criminal charges. The detective said he hung up on Katie Armstrong after a minute-long conversation. He said he had warned her that he wouldn't continue the conversation if she kept yelling at him. Katie Armstrong accused police of harassing her husband, Hines said. "She's in extreme denial," said Hines. "Apparently she didn't want to hear what I had to say. She was a very loud and rambunctious woman."

April 14, 2000 - Spokane Serial Killer - A Detroit radio station said Armstrong confessed to killing a woman in Spokane, which might be the clue Spokane police have been looking for in the search for their own serial killer. Though the Detroit killings bare more than a passing resemblance to the Spokane murders (similar victim profiles and dump sites), they differ drastically in the way the victims were killed: Armstrong allegedly strangled his victims while the Spokane killer shoots them in the head. Spokane's investigators said they have not yet contacted Detroit Police. They say, every time a serial killer or multiple murderer is arrested, the arresting agency is flooded with calls from every agency with outstanding murder cases. To avoid the rush Spokane investigators plan to wait a couple of days to make the call to find out if their two cases could be connected.

April 13, 2000 - John Eric Armstrong - The serial killing former Navy fueler arrested in Detroit has been identified as John Eric Armstrong. He is now considered a suspect in the murder of five Detroit prostitutes. Detroit police believe Armstrong's alleged killing spree may have begun eight years ago in North Carolina, when he joined the Navy in Raleigh. Detroit police and the FBI are trying to match a list of Nimitz port visits between 1992 and April 1999, when Armstrong was discharged from the military, with a list of unsolved killings in cities across the world. "There may be as many as 18 to 20" deaths worldwide, Detroit Assistant Police Chief Marvin Winkler told the Associated Press. "As the investigation keeps going on, bodies keep popping up. The numbers keep increasing," Officer Octaveious Miles told the AP. "There is a similar pattern that ties them all together that creates a trail."

Police said Armstrong was questioned following the January death of a prostitute in Dearborn Heights after he told police he found her body in a stream. But investigators said they did not have enough evidence to arrest him at the time. "This is not going to be solved, this won't be completed, in the next week. Literally we will be months dealing with other governments and police officers around the world," said FBI Special Agent John Bell.

Navy officials said that Armstrong was not the model sailor, but he was not a discipline problem either. During his eight years in the service, Armstrong received the Navy/Marine Corps Achievement Medal; two good conduct medals; the Navy Unit Commendation Ribbon; the Meritorious Unit Commendation ribbon; the National Defense Service Medal; Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal; and two Sea Service Deployment ribbons.

April 13, 2000 - Aum Shinri Kyo - Media reports revealed that the Aum Shinri Kyo may have known top government secrets as members were involved in developing key software for the navy. According to the report a member of the doomsday cult took part in developing software to keep track of all of the forces of the Maritime Self Defence Forces. The Aum, whose computer business has been a major source of its income, was also involved in developing software used by a number of government ministries and major companies.

April 12, 2000 - Suspected Detroit Serial Killer - A former U.S.S. Nimitz fueler was arrested in Detroit for the slayings of three prostitutes. According to Police Chief Benny Napoleon the 26-year-old suspect could also be linked to killings in three other states and several foreign ports where the Nimitz docked. "He's a serial killer. He's a sick person," the chief said. "We have the killer. There's no doubt."

The suspect, whose name has not yet been released, was arrested in an area frequented by prostitutes. He is also suspected of three murders in Seattle, two in Hong Kong, two in Hawaii, and one each in Virginia, North Carolina, Thailand and Signapore. Investigators are looking at possible links with similar prostitute strangulations in Japan, Korea and Israel, ports where the Nimitz docked. The suspect recently moved to the Dearborn Heights area of Detroit with his wife and infant child. For the last month he had been working as a refueler at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

The suspect first came to the attention of authorities after a prostitute called Detroit police to report she had been assaulted and gave a description of the suspect and his vehicle. Two days later a Conrail worker spotted a body near the tracks. Investigators then found two other women's bodies nearby. All three women were prostitutes killed at different times, then dumped in same area. Police theorize they were strangled in the suspect's car. One of the women was identified as Kelly Hood, 33, of Detroit. The names of the other two weren't immediately released. The first body had been dumped four weeks ago, the second three weeks ago, and the third two days before the suspect's arrest.

April 12, 2000 - Donato Bilancia - Italian serial killer Donato Bilancia, 49, was sentenced by a Genoa court to 13 tlife sentences. Bilancia, a compulsive gambler, confessed to slaying 17 people in a six-month killing spree on the Italian Riviera. The victims, killed between October 1997 and April 1998, included four immigrant prostitutes and two women shot to death on trains running between Genoa and the French border. Other victims included a husband and wife, a security guard and a gas station attendant. Bilancia said he committed some of the crimes in fits of rage over gambling losses.

April 11, 2000 - Possible Serial Killer in Detroit - Three unidentified women were found dead on Detroit's southwest side near train tracks. At least two appeared to be strangled. About 15 Detroit Police Department investigators spent the day canvassing the area. The bodies were discovered around 8:30 a.m. by a Conrail employee. The worker spotted one body near the tracks and called police. When officers arrived, they discovered two more bodies in a nearby wooded area. The women, two white and one black, were reportedly in various states of undress. One was nude from the waist down; another was nude from the waist up.

April 11, 2000 - Daniel Blank - A Lousiana District Court convicted Daniel Blank of first-degree murder for the second time and proscribed him a second death penalty. Authorities have charged Blank of killing six River Parishes residents during break-ins. Blank, 37, was convicted September of last year of killing Gonzales resident Lillian Philippe, 71, and sentenced to death by lethal injection. He has yet to stand trial for the murders of Victor Rossi, 41, of St. Amant; Barbara Bourgeois, 58, of Paulina; and Sam and Louella Arcuri, 76 and 69, of LaPlace.

April 11, 2000 - Hadden Clark - Maryland serial killer Hadden Clark led investigators through a property once owned by his grandfather in Cape Cod in search of the bodies of four alleged victims. Clark wore a woman's wig as he walked handcuffed through the woods looking for the graves. Cape and Islands First Assistant District Attorney Michael O'Keefe said the victims, all believed to be female, were probably tourist. In January Clark, wearing a dress, made a three-day visit to the Cape to search 7.4 acres his grandfather's formerly owned in Wellfleet, but frigid temperatures and frozen ground made the search impossible.

Clark also met with authorities in Connecticut where he claimed to have disposed of a body in Meriden during the late 1970s or early '80s. However, Connecticut authorities said they are more interested in looking at unsolved cases with Harold Meade, another serial killer who is serving a life sentence for bludgeoning to death three mentally retarded people in New Haven in 1970.

April 9, 2000 - Oleg Dovshenko - Police arrested a 19-year-old Russian conscript suspected of killing eight soldiers on a military train in southern Russia. The Interfax agency reported Oleg Dovshenko was arrested at a train station in the Penza region. Dovshenko and the dead soldiers had been assigned to guard the train, which carried military hardware. Seven of the victims were shot at close range. The other, a captain, had been strangled and thrown from the train as it traveled from southern Russia to the Ural Mountains.

April 8, 2000 - Hadden Clark - According to Maryland prison authorities cross-dressing, cannibal killer Hadden Clark told a fellow inmate whom he believes is Jesus Christ that he killed as many as a dozen women and children along the Eastern Seaboard. Clark is currently serving 60 years in prison for the Montgomery County for the slayings of 6-year-old Michele Dorr and 23-year-old Laura Houghteling. Investigators in Massachussets, Pensylvannia and Connecticut are trying to determine if his serial killing claims are in fact true or just another figment of his psychologically unstable imagination.

Clark first came to Connecticut in January and led state police on a tour of family properties around West Mountain, but no bodies were found. He did produce a bucket of women's jewelry. One of the pieces found was the high school ring of Laura Houghteling, one of his Maryland victims.

April 7, 2000 - Robert Arguelles - Convicted serial killer and death penalty advocate Robert Arguelles was asked to go through a third and final competency evaluation to make sure he is fit to die. "I'm tired of waiting," Arguelles told Judge David Young. "I'm having a lot of problems at the prison. A lot of people are trying to tell me I don't want the death penalty." The killer, who was sentenced to death June 20, 1997, for the brutal murders of four Salt Lake County women, was ordered to undergo a competency evaluation after he tried to hang himself with a laundry bag in his cell at the Utah State Prison on August 12, 1998. Arguelles has repeatedly stated he wishes to die for his crimes and will fight any effort to appeal his death sentences.

April 7, 2000 - Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God - New information on cult leader Dominic Kataribabo revealed that in 1987, as a theology graduate student, he attended Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. The ordained Ugandan priest was granted "sacramental ministry" by the clergy in Los Angeles who helped sponsor his full scholarship to Loyola Marymount. Los Angeles Archdiocese records show Kataribabo was awarded the scholarship under a still-operating university program benefiting Third World priests.

April 6, 2000 - Michael Ross - A Connecticut court recommended once again the death penalty for serial killer Michael Ross. The killer's 1987 death sentence was voided by the state Supreme Court in 1994 because the trial judge had excluded part of a psychiatric report that might have helped him escape death. In the new sentencing hearings jurors rejected the report's conclusion that a psychological disorder, sexual sadism, should be a mitigating factor against the death penalty. Ross' defense attorneys argued the disorder led him to kill the four girls in eastern Connecticut. Ironically Ross wanted to be executed when the Supreme Court voided his sentence. Now that he was sentenced again he has changed his mind and wants his life spared.

April 5, 2000 - Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God - Ugandan police, unable to cope with the magnitude of the murders, said they expected the number of victims of the "Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments" massacre to rise well into the thousands. Police also reported that they are overwhelmed by the numerous grave sites they still have to inspect since they only have one forensic expert and a limited number of police investigators and they have run out of body bags. In related cult backlash, police arrested Reverend Amooti Mutazindwa, an assistant district commissioner in southwest Uganda, for allegedly suppressing an intelligence report that suggested the cult posed a security threat.

April 3, 2000 - Possible North Carolina Serial Killer - Investigators in North Carolina are looking into the unsolved murders of seven Fayetteville-area prostitutes to see if there are any connections. "It would be a disservice not to compare them and say there is no connection," said police Captain Brad Chandler. The latest victim Amanda Bagley, 21, was found March 7 in an advanced state of decomposition in the woods off Bragg Boulevard. The first unsolved murder dates back to August 1987, when 25-year-old Brenda Melvin was found strangled in a motel bathtub. Shelby J. Williams, 32, was found strangled under a bridge in June 1990, and the body of Theresa Blackwell, 27, was found beaten and possibly strangled near a freeway exit ramp in October 1995. Rachel L. McArthur, 29, died of a blow to the head. Her body was found near an abandoned apartment building in June 1997. Deborah Minshew Jones, 37, was found shot in the head four months later near the DuPont plant south of Fayetteville.

April 2, 2000 - Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments - According to her estranged husband, Ugandan suicide cult leader and former prostitute Gredonia Mwerinda became a religious fanatic after she said she had a vision of the Virgin Mary. Gredonia was described by ex-members as a forceful and sometimes violent woman who said to have regular conversations with the Virgin Mary and Archangel Michael. Eric Mazima, her husband, said she was a dutiful and loving wife with little interest in religion until 1988 when she had her vision of the Virgin. "In the whole time I was with her she never went to church once," he said. "But because I could not see the same vision she left me."

April 2, 2000 - Clifford Olson - Claiming he can locate the bodies of two victims, Canadian serial killer Clifford Olson is negotiating with Hawaiian officials for a little island vacation. "We are taking it seriously because our records show he visited the island in 1980," said Dean Yamashiro, the deputy public defender in Honolulu. Last year Olson told Irish police he killed two women while he was visiting in the 1980s. He also said he has a friend there that killed five women and is the deaded South Dublin Killer. Operation Trace, an Irish police unit set up to probe the disappearances of at least five women, dismissed Olson's claims as a deranged killer wanting a free trip overseas. "All I am doing is trying to help authorities around the world to find the bodies of the dead men and women," he told to the Irish Mirror during a 30-minute phone interview. "I can find the bodies in Ireland without any problem. I know exactly where they are."

April 1, 2000 - Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God - Ugandan authorities have found five mass graves since the church indicating cult leaders were systematically eliminating anyone who crossed their path. Authorities had to temporary halt the search for bodies in one location after uncovering yet another grave.

March 27, 2000 - Javed Iqbal - Pakistan's top religious said the planned execution of serial killer Javed Iqbal went against Islamic tenets. Though the sentence of the killer called for his body to be cut into 100 pieces and dissolved in a vat of acid, the Council of Islamic Ideology said that would desecrate the killer's body, which would go against the Islamic teaching of respet for the body of the deceased.

March 27, 2000 - Crime Archives - Dear readers, Newsflash is back after a four-month hiatus. While away I wrote a book on serial killers at large "KILLERS ON THE LOOSE" that will be published by Virgin Publishing this summer. In a few days we should be caught up with all breaking stories and back reporting mayhem on a regular basis.

March 26, 2000 - Michael Wayne McGray - Like his fellow Canadian killer Clifford Olson, Michael Wayne McGray said he'll prove he committed sixteen murders if he is granted certain demands. Though, swearing that they would not be played like in the Olson fiasco, Halifax authorities said "No deal" to the request. McGray, serving a life sentence in Renous, N.B., for the 1998 first-degree murder of a Newfoundland woman, said he wants three things before he tells police how he killed at least 16 people. McGray said he doesn't want any of his accomplices charged, he doesn't want to be charged for the alleged crimes, and he wants psychiatric treatment for "demons" he says sent him on a 15-year coast-to-coast killing spree. Given the chance, the suspected serial killer added, he would murder a guard, a prisoner or anyone else who could quench what he describes as a searing hunger to kill.

McGray's claims of killings in Halifax, Saint John, N.B., Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and Seattle have caused police to sift through their unsolved homicide files looking for links. So far, there have not uncovered any evidence that confirms his deadly allegations. McGray claims to have killed a prostitute and a gay man in Seattle sometime in 1995-96 and three gay men in Montreal. The homicidal drifter added that he could lead Toronto police to the body of a 50-year-old alcoholic he buried in a west-end park.

Like many other serial killers his alcoholic father beat him regularly. Within years he was being shunted from one group home and reform school to the next, eventually landing at a school for boys in Shelburne, N.S., where he says he was sexually and physically abused. "I used to kill animals and get in fights all the time at school," McGray said, "It was like a hunger."

March 25, 2000 - Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God - The hacked, poisoned and strangled bodies of 153 people were found buried in three mass graves under the floor of an abandoned house belonging to the lethal cultist. Of the dead 59 were children. Witht this new set of bodies the official death toll attributed to the cult now stands at 483 people. With the latest discovery, authorities were treating all the deaths as homicides. And they say some of the cult's leaders may have escaped.

March 22, 2000 - Anatoly Onoprienko - Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, abiding to the pledged to end capital punishment when it joined the Council of Europe in 1995, signed a law abolishing the death and replacing it with life in prison. Over 400 people were sentenced to death in Ukraine, including serial killer Anatoly Onoprienko. Many Ukrainians favoured retaining the death penalty enough to execute Onoprienko, then abolish it.

March 21, 2000 - Michael Wayne McGray - A convicted killer in Canada confessed to 11 slayings while he was being transported from one prison to another. The prisoner, Michael Wayne McGray, (shown as background image) mentioned the other killings after he was charged in the death of a woman who he allegedly killed in her Moncton apartment two years ago. "I believe it happened in conversations with a police officer transporting him from the federal penitentiary in Renous to Moncton," said McGray's Moncton lawyer, Wendell Maxwell.

The new 11 cases he has claimed responsability for don't include the Moncton killing, or four other deaths he has been charged with. McGray, who is 35, is also charged with the 1991 deaths of two gay men in Montreal and the 1987 fatal stabbing of Mark Daniel Gibbons, a cab driver. In court McGray pleaded guilty to slicing the throat of Joan Hicks in Moncton and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

March 21, 2000 - Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God - Prisoners in Uganda have been digging a trench for a mass grave to bury the charred bodies of cult members who died in what's now being called a murder-suicide. Authorites believe that up to 600 cultist may have perished, though officially only 330 -- 78 0f them being children -- have been counted. Most of the victims are believed to be women. Neighbors who lived near the torched compound in Kanungu told police and reporters that sect members had told them about a sighting of the Virgin Mary and that something big was going to happen March 17. At first one of the cult leaders, Joseph Kibweteere, known as "The Prophet", predicted the end of the world for December 31, 1999. When that didn't materialize, he moved the date up to Dec. 31, 2000. Then, for some reason, changed it to March 17.

March 20, 2000 - Marc Dutroux - Convicted pedophile Marc Dutroux made his first court appearence on charges linked to his brief escape from custody in 1998. The willy criminal faces a maximum 10 year jail sentence if found guilty of assaulting a police officer and stealing a revolver during a routine visit to a court in Neufchateau, southern Belgium. Dutroux is still awaiting for a trial date on his child murder charges.

March 19, 2000 - "Jack the Butcher" - Belizean authorities released new information on the suspected serial killer stalking their small Carribean nation after the dissapearence and mutilation murder of yet another young girl from Belize City. The psychopathic killer, dubbed "Jack the Butcher" by the local press, claimed his last known victim February 15, 2000. The victim, Naomi Hernandez, age 15, dissapeared after her grandmother sent her to collect rent money from a tenant. Nine days later her mutilated remains were fished out of the water by a BDF Maritime Wing patrol boat. She was found headless and her entire left arm was missing. With the grim discovery of her remains Naomi became the fifth and oldest victim of this tropical Jack the Butcher. Like the others she was sexually assaulted, stabbed repeatedly and had one of her limbs severed.

March 19, 2000 - Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God- New information on the cult suicide reveals that one of the sect leader's, Bishop Joseph Kibwetere, a 68-year old failed Ugandan politician, believed the world was about to be destroyed for not obeying the Ten Commandments. Kibwetere had been a prominent member of the Roman Catholic-based Democratic Party in the 1960s and 70s. But his political career ended abruptly when the rival Ugandan People's Congress led by Milton Obote won the election in 1980.

March 19, 2000 - Joseph Palczynski - Gunshots rang out in a Baltimore working-class suburb as police and Joseph Palczynski exchanged fire. Palczynski allegedly forced his way into his girlfriend's mother's house where he is holding hostage the mother, her son and her husband. Palczynski has been the focus of a two-state manhunt since March 7 after he kidnapped his girlfriend and killed three people who tried to stop him. Police said he killed another woman the next day while trying to steal a car. His girlfriend, Tracy Whitehead, somehow managed to escape unharmed. The fugitive was later seen in Virginia, where he allegedly stole several guns and forced a man to drive him back to Baltimore County. Curiously, he left the man unharmed. Palczynski was spotted two days ago when he shot his way into the home of Whitehead's mom. Since then he has been surrounded by agents pleading for his surrender.

March 18, 2000 - Ugandan Suicide Cult - Authorities in Uganda believe that up to 470 members of an obscure Catholic cult commited mass suicide by setting their church on fire. "The scene is horror," police spokesman Asuman Mugenyi told The Associated Press. "It is only about two or three bodies which you can say that these are men or women. The rest of the bodies are beyond human shape."

The cultist gathered at the church 200 miles southwest of the capital Kampala where they chanted and sang for hourse before lighting the place on fire. Authorities found that the windows and doors of the church had been nailed shut and the prayer mats were doused with gasoline. It is believed the congregation went up on flames when all the cultist lit their candles. "Prior to this incident their leader told believers to sell off their possessions and prepare to go to Heaven," a spokesman for Ugandan authorities said.

March 17, 2000 - Spokane Serial Killer - More reward money is being offered in the search for the Spokane serial killer. The FBI is contributing up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest of a suspect. That's in addition to the $10,000 already being offered by the Secret Witness program. Federal agents say the FBI is also stepping up its involvement in the case. "We've followed up investigations in Tennessee, Indiana, Montana, South Dakota and a couple of other states at their request," says FBI Special Agent Norm Brown.

March 17, 2000 - Multiple Killers in Houston - Houston investigators believe there are a least a dozen serial killers living in or around the city, or passing through it on a regular basis. One killer is believed to be responsible for the deaths of at least two girls ages 9 and 12 whose nude bodies were found dumped in waterways. Another cluster of killings involves at least four women in their late teens and early twenties who dissapeared around the southern Houston and Galvenston area.

March 15, 2000 - Johnny Jooste - A man who allegedly shot dead seven people on a farm on the Koue Bokkeveld, South Africa, on February 20, briefly appeared in the Ceres Magistrates' Court. The suspect, Johnny Jooste, allegedly killed his wife, Elmien, his two children, Sanjay, 3, and Blake, 6, his wife's three sisters, Sophia Swarts, Janetta Jacobs and Cornelia Visagie, and Barend Swarts, one of the sister's husband. The suspect's 13-year-old daughter somehow managed to escape the carnage and is the only surviving member of the family.

March 17, 2000 - Malawi Serial Killer - A suspected serial killer accused of murdering and dismembering at least eight women has been arrested in the East African nation of Malawi. The suspect, whose name was not released, was sent for psychiatric tests after several rotting corpses were found in his hut in rural Chiradzulu district. Police spokesman Oliver Soko said the man allegedly attacked his first victim in January. The victim's eyes were removed and her body was mutilated. At the time authorities feared that the killer was trafficking in human organs for tribal rituals. In the seven other murders the suspect allegedly severed limbs from the corpses. Some of the limbs were found rotting in the suspect's hut.

March 16, 2000 - Javed Iqbal - A Pakistani court in Lahore sentenced serial child killer Javed Iqbal to death, saying he would be strangled in front of the parents whose children he was convicted of murdering. Judge Allah Baksh Ranja added that Iqbal's body "will then be cut into a 100 pieces and put in acid the same way you killed the children." His three accomplices, including a 13-year-old boy identified only as Sabir, also were found guilty. Sabir was sentenced to 42 years in jail; the other two accomplices were sentenced to death.

March 15, 2000 - Ian Brady - Britain's own convicted child child killer Ian Brady vowed to continue his seven-month hunger strike despite a High Court ruling that would prevent him from starving himself to death. In a letter to the press Brady said he would defy the court ruling: "I continue the death strike doubly resolved and justified." Up to now Brady's efforts to starve himself have been frustrated by powers granted to Ashworth hospital to force-feed him through a tube. According to the former serial killer he rather be dead: "I have had enough. I want nothing. My objective is to die and release myself from this once and for all."

March 15, 2000 - Possible Serial Killer in Pretoria - Police in Pretoria, South Africa, are investigating the possibility that a new serial killer is operating in the west side of the city. The bodies of four women have been found in the same area since late last year. The victims, who were mostly prostitutes, were found in advanced stages of decomposition after they had been raped, strangled and had their private parts burned.

March 15, 2000 - Cedrik Maake - South African serial killer Cedric Maake was convicted of 27 murders, 26 attempted murders, 14 rapes and 41 armed robberies and sentenced to 1,340 years and three months in prison. Maake, a married father of four, started his killing spree in April 1996 and was arrested in December 1997. During closing arguments even his lawyer, Modise Khoza, told the court his client was extremely dangerous.

March 9, 2000 - Joseph C. Palczynski - Baltimore police have asked residents to lock their homes while they flushed out quatruple murderer Joseph C. Palczynski. Apparently the suspect was arrested the weekend before his murderous rampage for assaulting his girlfriend, Tracy Whitehead. He was then released on bail the next day when he bought a rifle and shotgun.

The 31-year-old rampager is believed to have gone on a two-day blood binge in which he abducted Tracy Whitehead from the home of her friends, George and Gloria Shenk. "Tracy, get up, you're going," Palczynski allegedly told her before he shot and killed the Shenks in front of their 3-year-old granddaughter and 12-year-old son. The Shenks were sheltering Tracy after she moved from Palczynski's home. As he dragged Whitehead to his mother's van he killed David Meyers, a 42-year-old neighbor who went out when he heard a woman screaming for help. The next day he killed a woman and wounded another and a 2-year-old boy during an attempted carjacking. The boy, shot in the cheek, is in stable condition. Later he forced his way into an elderly woman's house, handcuffed her to the bed post and stole her car. That night Palczynski took Whitehead to a motel in Rosedale from where she managed to escaped. Police later stormed the motel and confiscated an AR-15 assault rife and a pistol-grip shotgun he left behind.

Not a stranger to the law Palczynski has an extensive criminal record dating to 1988 including several assault convictions and time in both prison and a psychiatric facility. In 1997 he wrote to a Baltimore County circuit judge, saying he had a history of depression, was sexually abused as a child and had attempted suicide. Police said he escaped from a mental institution in 1993 and ran to Idaho where police needed to use tear gas to end a 13-hour stand-off. Presently he is at large, armed and dangerous.

March 9, 2000 - AUM Shinrikyo - The Tokyo District Court ordered seven former senior members of the AUM Shinrikyo cult to pay compensation to 41 plaintiffs, including some injured in the 1995 Tokyo subway trains gas attack. The plaintiffs had sought a total of 668 million yen from 15 members of the cult. Six of the 15 defendants have already been ordered by the court to pay compensation and two others have agreed to accept the plaintiffs' demand. This new ruling orders the seven remaining members to pay up.

March 9, 2000 - Darrell Rich - Convicted serial killer Darrell Rich said he doesn't want to be buried in the cemetery where one of his victims lies after he is executed in San Quentin Prison next week. Rich made the decision after he learned that 11-year-old Annette Selix is buried about 100 feet from the grave he was planning to share with his mother, said lawyer James Thomson. "Out of respect for the victims and the victims' families, Young Elk will not be buried at that grave site," Thomson said Tuesday. Rich, who says he's a Cherokee Indian and has taken the name Young Elk.

The 45-year-old Cottonwood native was convicted in 1980 of raping Annette, then throwing her off a 100-foot bridge to her death. He was also convicted of three other murders and five sexual assaults.

March 7, 2000 - Rory Conde - Suspected Tamiami Strangler Rory Conde was sentenced to die for one of the the six 1994 prostitute slayings on Miami's Tamiami Trail. Conde, 34, said nothing and appeared drowsy during the 45-minute sentencing. He was convicted in October, and in December a jury recommended the the death penalty. This is the first of five trials.

March 5, 2000 - Cedrik Maake - South African serial killer Cedric Maake was asleep in court when Judge Geraldine Borchers pronounced him guilty of 27 of the 34 murders he had been charged with; 26 of 28 attempted murder charges; 14 of 15 rape charges and 41 of 46 charges of robbery with aggravating circumstances. Unlike other serial killers Maake did not fixate on one type of victim or method. In fact his different m.o.'s were so varied that Johannesburg police suspected they were looking for three different killers instead of one. Maake was the "Wemmer Pan Killer" who attacked and robbed couples in lonely parks and streets, killing the men with a firearm and raping and killing the women. He was also the "Claremont Killer" who attacked women on their own, raping and bludgeoning them to death with rocks. He was also the "Hammer Murderer" who targeted mostly tailors in South Johannesburg, robbing and assaulting them with a hammer. On the side he also attacked solitary people in their homes, killing them with knives and blunt objects.

March 4, 2000 - Andre Crawford - Chicago's Alderwoman Shirley Coleman of the 16th Ward said the mother of suspected serial killer Andre Crawford should be entitled to the $1,250 reward offered for his capture. The mother, after all, provided the DNA evidence that resulted in her son's arrest. Apparently several other people have also called her office claiming they were entitled to the reward money because they provided police with information about Crawford. The FBI is also deciding whether to give rewards of up to $25,000 to three tipsters who fingered Crawford.

March 3, 2000 - Malawi Serial Killer - Police in the Eastern African nation of Malawi said they launched an intensive manhunt for a serial killer who has murdered and mutilated five women and young girls in the southern Chiradzulu district. The latest victim, a primary school girl, was found in a maize field near her school with the eyes gouged out and teeth and sexual organs removed. The killer has also removed breasts from the murdered women, leading villagers to think the body parts were being sold and used for witchcraft.

March 2, 2000 - Theodore Kaczynski - Federal prosecutors urged an appeals court to reject convicted Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski's bid for a new trial. Kaczynski told the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that he felt pressured to plead guilty to avoid being portrayed as mentally ill by his defense attorneys. In his request for a new trial, Kaczynski claimed that the shock over the planned defense and the court's refusal to allow him to change lawyers or defend himself prompted his unsuccessful suicide attempt at the Sacramento County Jail.

March 2, 2000 - Spokane Serial Killer - Investigators tracking the Spokane serial killer said they had a genetic identifier of the killer found at crime scenes. The revelation came at an unprecedented public meeting in which task force members, trying to generate new tips, asked for the public's help.

Sept-October 1999 - Morgue Archives - Previous entries to the Morgue Archives.