February 28, 1998 - Unnamed Kobe Teen-Age Decapitator - The Japanese Bungei Shunju magazine printed the 46-page transcript of the police interrogation of the 14-year-old student in Kobe who decapitated another student last year. In the published confession the serial-killing-obsessed teen-ager recounts the murder in detail, describing how he decapitated his victim, played with and mutilated the severed head and drank the boy's blood.
"As a member of the media, we view very seriously freedom of speech and the public's right to know," the magazine said in a statement explaining its decision to publish the transcript. "Citizens have the right to know about every incident, every trial that impacts their lives." Tokyo prosecutors are irate with the publishing of the interrogation and have vowed to sniff out and prosecute whoever leaked the documents to the press.
February 28, 1998 - Vampire Cult - State Circuit Judge Jerry Lockett sentenced Rod Ferrell, the teen-age vampire cult leader, to Florida's temperamental electric chair. The 17-year-old cultist showed little emotion as Judge Lockett stayed with the jury recommendation of sentencing him to death. "I think you are a disturbed young man," Lockett told the blood-sucking teen-ager.
February 27, 1998 - Suicidal Japanese Businessmen -- Three men in their 50s committed suicide in a Tokyo hotel room, apparently because the current economic slump had left their businesses in trouble. The three business partners registered at a suburban hotel together for a short, so-called "rest", after an afternoon of drinking. When they were found in their rooms, they were all wearing identical white shirts and were hanging from identical white ropes from ceiling ventilation grates. Empty miniature bottles of whisky were found near their bodies.
February 27, 1998 - Tony Ray Amati - The FBI arrested suspected serial killer Tony Ray Amati in Atlanta just four days after he was listed as one of the most wanted fugitives in the United States. Amati, 21, of Carbondale, Illinois, was charged with three separate Las Vegas shooting homicides over a three-month period starting in May 1996. "Witnesses said the crimes committed in Las Vegas were especially brutal," said Dalton, special agent in charge of the FBI's Atlanta office. "He had been seen laughing and dancing after one of the murders." The FBI became involved in the case in December 1997 when a federal warrant was filed charging Amati with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
February 27, 1998 - AUM Shinrikyo - The Tokyo District Court sentenced Aum Shinrikyo follower Makoto Goto to 10 years in prison for his involvement in the 1994 lynching of an errant cultist and the 1994 abduction of an innkeeper in Miyazaki Prefecture. Goto, 37, was found guilty of conspiring in the January 1994 slaying of Kotaro Ochida, 29, at the cult's compound in Kamikuishiki, Yamanashi Prefecture. According to the court, Goto and other cultists held Ochida down as the victim was strangled by Hideaki Yasuda.
February 26, 1998 - Death Row in Swaziland - Looking for a job? The African nation of Swaziland is desperately looking for a new hangman. Though there have been no hangings since King Mswati III took over the throne in 1983, it is rumored the government is itching to start anew to alleviate overcrowded prison conditions.
The position is believed to have become available after the previous executioner quit out of boredom. Justice Minister, Maweni Simelane, said they had been flooded with applications since they advertised in local newspapers. Breaking with tradition he said women may also apply in keeping with the country's policy of gender equality.
February 24, 1998 - "The Monster of Florence" - Pietro Pacciani -- a 73-year-old farmhand who was tried and convicted as the "Monster of Florence" and later acquitted -- was found dead in his squalid cottage outside the Tuscan capital. He was discovered face-down on the floor with his trousers down at his ankles and his shirt up round his neck. The initial police report said he died of a cardiac arrest. However, an autopsy has been ordered. Many believe that he may have been killed by the real "Monster" in an effort to protect his own identity.
February 24, 1998 - Dr. Jack Kevorkian - Though not really a serial killer, Dr. Kevorkian, 69, has tallied between 80 to 100 deaths, which would make him one of the highest ranking killers of the Archives. With no intention of slowing his deadly pace, Jack -- along with his associate Georges Reding -- dropped off the body of a Connecticut woman at a hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan, after helping her commit suicide.
February 24, 1998 - Rampaging Uzbek Soldier - An Uzbek soldier shot dead eight fellow servicemen in a dispute over food at a post on the Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan border.
February 24, 1998 - Vampire Cult - A Florida court recommended the death penalty for Rod Ferrell, the teen-age vampire cult leader convicted of killing the parents of his old girlfriend. Ferrell, 17, showed little emotion as the jury announced its decision. His mother and other relatives wept. Defense attorneys tried to persuade jurors to recommend a life sentence without parole, saying Ferrell was forced to live in a fantasy world created by a sexually abusive family obsessed with the occult.
February 23, 1998 - Maupa Cedrick Maake - Alleged Wemmer Pan serial killer Cedric Maake, who is facing 134 charges including rape, murder and robbery, said he will apply for bail by the end of the week. Maake's lawyer, Cliff Alexander, who must have been a comedian in a previous life, argued that his client -- though charged with at least 23 murders -- would be prejudiced if not granted bail because "everyone is innocent until proven guilty".
February 20, 1998 - Heaven's Gate - Charles Edward Humphrey, one of the remaining Heaven's Gaters on spaceship Earth, committed suicide in a tent in the Arizona desert. Humphrey -- who unsuccessfully tried to kill himself last May -- originally said he did not "exit his vehicle" with his fellow cultist because he had been chosen to propagate the cult's teachings by maintaining their web site and lecturing at meetings.
The cultist -- who somehow seemed to have been relieved of his duties -- was found with his head sealed in a plastic bag and tubes running to a car's exhaust pipe and a tank marked "carbon dioxide." He was dressed in black sweat pants and a black T-shirt with a patch on the sleeve that read "Heaven's Gate Away Team." Like those who went before him he wore a pair of brand new black sneakers, kept a purple shroud next to him, and carried a five dollar bill plus change in his pocket.
February 20, 1998 - Kentucky Occult Killers - Four teen-agers and two young adults from eastern Kentucky pleaded guilty to killing a couple and their 6-year-old daughter who were on their way back from a Jehovah's Witnesses conference. Prosecutor Berkeley Bell said the deal -- which spared them from the death penalty -- was supported by the relatives of Vidar and Delfina Lillelid, who were shot to death with their daughter Tabitha. Their 2-year-old son Peter survived a bullet through his eye and is living with relatives in Sweden.
February 20, 1998 - www.mayhem.net - Welcome back everyone! After being offline for nearly a week the Crime Archives and the rest of the Mayhem Network are back in business on a new server. Because of the big move things might be a little cock-eyed for the next couple of days. Let us know about any missing graphics, pages, flash files or inconsistent links so we can get it all back up in working order.
February 18, 1998 - Beast of the Bastille - DNA testing has led British police to believe they have arrested the feared Beast of the Bastille, a serial killer responsible for the torture, rape and murder of seven women in Paris.
February 18, 1998 - Marc Dutroux - Paul Marchal, the father of a 18-year-old victim of pedophile-killer Marc Dutroux, accused the Belgian authorities of a cover-up after a parliamentary report rejected claims that the Dutroux gang enjoyed official protection. The angry father said those who ran the country did not want to establish the truth: "The traditional parties in power have once again managed to protect themselves. They are laughing at the death of my daughter and the other ones."
February 17, 1998 - Lithuanian Rampager - A 58-year-old man armed with two hunting rifles went on a door-to-door shooting rampage leaving eight people dead before being beaten to death by surviving neighbors. "It seemed he wanted to kill everyone in the village," a police spokesman said. The rampage ocurred in Drauchiu, a small village 30 miles from the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.
February 17, 1998 - Maupa Cedrick Maake - South African police have revealed that the Johannesburg serial killer -- who was originally known as the Wemmer Pan killer and was later linked to the so-called Hammer serial killings -- may be linked to as many as 60 murders committed between September 1995 and December 1997.
February 16, 1998 - Unidentified Teenage Killer - A 16-year-old boy who liked music and poetry was accused Saturday of hammering to death a mother, her three small children and his teenage half-brother in their home in Noble, Illinois. Police would not comment on a motive for the killings. The suspect's grandmother, Dorothy Churchill, said the boy's 17-year-old half-brother, one of the victims, had been dating and living with the slain woman, who was in her 30s. Her children were in grade school.
The suspect -- who's name was withheld by authorities because of his age -- "was just like any other child," she said. "He was quiet; he stayed in his room most of the time. He played music." An uncle said he was an intellectual kid who liked to write poems. A schoolmate said the suspect, who was arrested in his mother's house a block away from the crime scene, was always getting into fights.
February 16, 1998 - "Boetie Boer" Stewart Wilken - Charged with at least 10 murders, five counts of sodomy and possible acts of cannibalism and necrophilia, "Boetie Boer" Stewart Wilken, Port Elizabeth's first and worst suspected serial killer, went on trial for the strangling of his 10-year-old daughter. The burly fisherman is the prime suspect in a series of sexually motivated killings of at least six prostitutes and four young boys in Port Elizabeth between 1990 and 1997. The killing spree allegedly ended when Wilken was arrested in January last year in connection with the death of his daughter and 12-year-old Henry Baker.
February 12, 1998 - Suspected Spokane Serial Killer - An hour after the end of a candlelight vigil held for the victims of an apparent serial killer in Spokane, Washington, police announced that they had found a new body. Police suspect a serial killer to be responsible for the deaths of six dead drug-addicts and/or prostitutes since November. The women all died of gunshot wounds and their bodies were found in rural areas. Police are also looking into possible links with 11 other unsolved killings of area women since 1984 -- the year the Green River killings in the Seattle-Tacoma came to an end.
February 10, 1998 - Mark Anthony Christeson & Jesse Carter - Two teen-agers charged in the slaying of a Missouri woman and her two children were captured in California after a detective recognized them from wanted posters. Mark & Jesse were arrested without incident in Blythe, Calif., near the Arizona state line. The teen-agers had been in the Blythe area for a couple of days doing odd jobs such as yard work, Riverside County, Calif., sheriff's Sgt. George Miller said.
February 9, 1998 - Steven Renfro - Receiving none of the fanfare surrounding Karla Faye Tucker execution and with no messages from the pope, Steven Renfro was executed by lethal injection in Huntville's death row. Renfro, who fatally shot three people in a drug-induced rampage, voluntarily headed to the death chamber on a conviction less than 10 months old. He asked that no appeals be pursued and his execution be carried out as soon as possible. Rick Berry, a high school classmate and the prosecutor in the case, said the decision not to fight was Renfro's way of trying to get into heaven. "By voluntarily going ahead and being punished, it's like an atonement."
February 8, 1998 - Mark Anthony Christeson & Jesse Carter - The two teenagers charged with three counts of murder in the slaying of a woman and her two children in central Missouri were stopped by police in Texas and New Mexico for driving with temporary Missouri license plates, and on both ocassions they were let go. "We had them right here," Joe Daniels, police chief in the Texas panhandle town of Shamrock said, "It seems frustrating, but they'll catch them." Police say they believe the pair may be on their way to California, where Carter has a brother.
February 7, 1998 - www.mayhem.net - For those who are enjoying the flash animations littering the archives, go to the root level of www.mayhem.net to experience the latest flash freak-out.
February 7, 1998 - Joseph Franklin - In what's becoming a yearly event, Joseph Franklin admitted to killing an interracial couple east of Pittsburg as they walked down a street in 1980. "He gave us information that could only be supplied by the perpetrator that was never in the paper that corroborated the physical evidence," District Attorney David Tulowitzki said.
Franklin, 47, will not be tried for the killings because he already is serving several life sentences and moving him could pose a security risk. He has escaped briefly twice, once during one of his many extraditions and again during a recess in his murder trial in Utah. Presently he is in Chattanooga, Tenn., and is awaiting transfer to Missouri, where he is to be executed for shooting a man attending a Jewish function in St. Louis in 1977.
February 6, 1998 - Unidentified Hospital Rampager - The hospital offered a $50,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of the gunman. Tapes from the hospital's security cameras were sent to an FBI crime laboratory in an effort to get a clearer picture of the gunman.
February 5, 1998 - Mark Anthony Christeson & Jesse Carter - A woman and two children were found dead in a farm pond in Vichy, a tiny town in central Missouri. Later authorities charged two teen-agers -- Mark Anthony Christeson, 18, & Jesse Carter, 17 -- with their murder and have an APB out for them. Authorities would not reveal how the family was killed or say what led them to the suspects. It is uncertain why the two teens killed 36-year-old Susan Brouk along with her 12-year-old daughter, Adrian, and 9-year-old son. The suspects are considered armed and dangerous and are believed to be driving a 1984 Ford Bronco owned by the 36-year-old victim,.
February 5, 1998 - Vampire Clan - Showing more backbone than many other self-styled teen vampires, cult leader Rod Ferrell interrupted opening statements at his trial to plead guilty to killing the parents of one of his fellow cult members. "He accepts responsibility and he wants to live. He's a young man and he wants to live," said William Lackay, his public defender.
February 5, 1998 - Washington Cancer Institute Rampage - One man was fatally shot and four others wounded in the lobby of the Washington Cancer Institute. The gunman -- who remains at large -- stood over his intended victim and fired multiple times. The victim, Reuben Bell, was a 24-year-old professional boxer with a promising career who recently was diagnosed with cancer. The unidentified gunman waited in the lobby of the hospital until Reuben, an outpatient at the institute, arrived. The four wounded included a hospital employee, a volunteer and two patients.
February 3, 1998 - Serial Killing in South Africa - A Pretoria serial killer expert says that there are between three and five unidentified serial killers hunting humans in South Africa today. To fight the serial killing epidemic sweeping their nation 100 detectives have been trained to identify and catch mass murderers using a program designed by famed serial killer expert Robert Ressler.
February 2, 1998 - Vampire Clan - As the trial of teen vampire killer Rod Ferrell began, the alleged cult leader drew crayon pictures of gargoyles as his lawyers asked prospective jurors whether they could sentence the 17-year-old to death.
February 2, 1998 - The Army of God - The FBI said it is investigating letters from a group -- The Army of God -- claiming responsibility for the bombing of a Birmingham abortion clinic. This was the same group that claimed responsibility for the bombings of an Atlanta abortion clinic and gay nightclub. It is also suspected of being involved in the Olympic bombing. The Army of God is a name that has been circulating since the 1980s as a force for radical anti-abortion actions, including circulating a manual that contains information on how to make bombs.
February 2, 1998 - Drug-Related Massacre in Georgia - Relatives and friends of the six people killed in Walthourville, a southeast Georgia hamlet, said the massacre was probably drug-related. Investigators, working with Miami area detectives said the killings were about small drug dealers battling over turf. Authorities said some of the victims made monthly trips to Miami to pick up cocaine, timing the shipments for payday at nearby Fort Stewart Army base.
February 1, 1998 - Theodore Kaczynski - Now that the anti-technology trial is a bust, authorities are considering their options on what to do with Teddy K's mountain hideaway. The L.A. Times reported authorities are considering selling the cabin to defray court costs, or provide funds for bomb victims and their survivors. "We still don't know," said Ted's on-and-off-again lawyer. "It may not be decided until after the sentencing."
February 1, 1998 - Vampire Clan - Jury selection is set to begin in the trial of Rod Ferrell, 17, the alleged leader of a vampire cult. Of the four Vampire Teens arrested, only Rod is charged with the actual killing of Heather Wendorf's parents for which he could get the death penalty. Another teen, Howard Scott Anderson, 17, is accused of being a principal accessory to murder and he two could also get executed. Charged with being accessories to murder are Kentucky teens Dana L. Cooper, 20, and Charity Keesee, 17.
February 1, 1998 - Darrell Turner - Washington D.C. police arrested a suspect in the deaths of two of six women whose bodies were found in the city's Petworth neighborhood over a 13-month period. Darrell Turner, 34, who lives next door to the building where one of the bodies was found, was arrested at his home without incident.
Police charged Turner with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths late last year of Jacqueline Teresa Birch, 39, and of Dana Hill, 34. Police said they had not ruled him out as a suspect in some of the other cases but indicated that other people also are being investigated.
February 1, 1998 - Serbian Killer Brandy - Nine people died in the Serbian town of Nis, 90 miles southeast of Belgrade, from a batch of bad brandy. The owner and an employee of a private distillery were arrested on suspicion of selling grape brandy apparently tainted with methanol. The deaths occurred over the past several days. Eleven other people were hospitalized in serious condition.
January 31, 1998 - Suspected Spokane Serial Killer - The killings of seven women since late summer -- four of them in the last weeks of '97 -- have resurrected the specter of Seattle's Green River killer. A task force investigating the suspected serial killings is also looking into possible links with 11 other unsolved killings of area women since 1984 -- the year the Green River killings halted at a three-year toll of 49 women. Based on FBI analysis of the crimes authorities announced: "At this time, we're very confident in saying that our individual, or individuals, is in no way connected to the Green River killer."
January 31, 1998 - Maoupa Cedric Maake - Investigators linked suspected serial killer Maoupa Cedric Maake to three more murder cases in the Booysens area of Johannesburg. Maake, who was arrested in connection with a series of attacks on couples at Wemmer Pan and was later linked to a series of hammer attacks on staff at tailor outlets around Johannesburg, is fast becoming South Africa's next star serial killer. Police believe Maake, 33, was responsible beating three victims to death at their homes in 1996, and is being investigated in more than 55 cases of murder, rape and robbery.
January 31, 1998 - Robert Silveria - Accused "Boxcar Killer" Robert Silveria, 39, pleaded guilty in two Oregon slayings. Bob, whose trial was scheduled to start in March, spared his life by pleading guilty and will receive two life sentences for the killings of two hobos in Oregon. Authorities say Silveria has admitted killing people in Montana, Utah, Washington and California, and is suspected in a death in Arizona. Kansas and Florida are seeking his extradition on suspicion of murder.
January 30, 1998 - Drug-Related Massacre in Georgia - Six people were found dead in a house in a small Georgia town, and another body was discovered in a burning car in what appears to be a drug-related massacre. The bodies of four men and two women were found in a single-level duplex in Walthourville, a town of only 800 people, Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead said. Police found what appeared to be crack cocaine cooking on the kitchen stove, 9 mm shell casings on the floor and a bag of what appeared to be cocaine in the living room. A seventh body found about 30 miles away in a burning car appeared to be linked to killings.
January 30, 1998 - Silvia Martinez - A La Fuente, California, mother -- apparently depressed over financial troubles -- fatally shot her two children and husband before turning the gun on herself. "Apparently there were financial problems with the family... and the lady had been very depressed," a police spokesperson said.
January 30, 1998 - Pvt. Oleg Naumov - In a week in which eight Russian soldiers were killed by their comrades in two separate incidents, retired Col. Gen. Eduard Vorobyovwent to High School No. 11 in Khimki, just northwest of Moscow, to discuss problems plaguing the army as well as plans for military reform. The two fatal shootings this week highlighted the crisis in the military, which suffers from a lack of money, low morale and vicious hazing of young conscripts by older soldiers. Last year, 50 soldiers were killed by fellow servicemen, and about 500 committed suicide, the daily Noviye Izvestia reported.
January 28, 1998 - Andrew Cunanan - The houseboat where Andy Cunanan committed suicide was demolished by Miami Beach City officials. The world-famous vessel was condemned after it had settled on the shallow bottom of Indian Creek and its German owner and now-serial-killer-busting caretaker failed to refloat it.
January 28, 1998 - Pvt. Oleg Naumov - A glue-sniffing Russian soldier on guard duty in the far eastern island of Sakhalin went on a rampage killing seven soldiers. Zonked on acetone fumes, Pvt. Oleg Naumov pick-axed one comrade -- who escaped alive -- before picking up his army-issued AK and killing his commander and a six others.
January 28, 1998 - Crocodile Men in Congo - Kinshasa Soldiers arrested six men accused of turning into crocodiles to carry out a wave of attacks northeast of Kinshasa, capital of Congo, killing 33 people. The Voice of the People radio reported the men -- who are suspected sorceres -- were arrested after one was about to turn into a crocodile and snap his next victim.
January 28, 1998 - Peter Sutcliffe - Ian Kay, "Woolworths Killer," admitted to stabbing the "Yorkshire Ripper" in both eyes with a pen in a prison hospital for the criminally insane. In no uncertain terms, Kay told the court he had meant to attack Pete with a razor embedded in a toothbrush handle. "I was going to ... walk into the room and cut his jugular vein on both sides and wait there until he was dead... He said God told him to kill 13 women, and I say the devil told me to kill him because of that."
January 28, 1998 - Suspected Serial Killer in Rome - The killing of Enrico Sini Luzi -- elderly Italian aristocrat and gentleman-in-waiting to the Pope -- has raised suspicions that a homosexual serial murderer may be stalking Italian society. The victim was found in his socks and underwear with no signs of forced entry in his home. Tightened around his neck was a red cashmere scarf, while on his wrists there was adhesive left by sticky tape. Although he was not openly homosexual, Mr Sini Luzi's murder is being treated as such, bringing to 19 the number of unsolved homosexual killings in seven years in and around the Italian capital.
January 27, 1998 - Quadruple Murder in Compton - Four men were shot to death in a drug-related holdup at a car wash in Compton, in South-Central LA. Police said the owner of Wheels N Stuff and three of his employees were shot repeatedly. "During the course of the robbery, the suspects became upset at not having their demands met and then killed the four victims." This was the second cuadruble murder in Compton in the last month. Three weeks ago and two miles away, the owner of an auto shop and three employees were shot to death.
January 22, 1998 - Theodore Kaczynski - It's over! Teddy K. changed his plea to guilty moments before opening statements were once again set to begin. Putting an end to the trial that never happened, the now confessed anti-techno terrorist genius saved himself from death by lethal injection by pleading guilty to being the Unabomber.
As the proceeding wore on, new details emerged from his 20 years of techno-mayhem. In a journal entry discussing his first fatal attack in 1985, Ted wrote: "Excellent. A humane way of eliminating somebody. He probably didn't feel a thing." He thought the $25,000 reward offered after the the attack was "flattering," and admitted to some Unabomber attacks in which he had not been charged.
January 22, 1998 - Theodore Kaczynski - In what's turning out to be the stormiest non-trial of the century, federal officials reported that Teddy K.agreed to plead guilty in return for a sentence of life in prison without parole. The 55-year-old luddite bomber turned hermit agreed to drop conditions he had set on a previous plea offer that was rejected in December by the Justice Department. The agreement is expected to be presented in court later today.
January 22, 1998 - Man-Eating Crocodiles in Congo - Crocodiles -- a delicacy in Kinshasa restaurants -- have been preying on a village on a tributary of the River Congo, 125 miles north-east of the capital, killing at least 20 people.
January 22, 1998 - Orville Lynn Majors - Judge Ernest Yelton moved the trial of suspected killer nurse Orville Lynn Majors. Attorneys on both sides agreed that the highly publicized trial should be held outside Vermillion County, where the alleged killings occured, and agreed to move it to Clay County, about 25 miles away.
January 22, 1998 - Oklahoma City Bombing - Cheyne Kehoe -- who is serving a sentence for a videotaped shootout with police -- said he believes his brother, Chevie, was involved in the Oklahoma City bombing. He refused to elaborate, saying he feared his brother. Chevie Kehoe, described as a white supremacist, faces both a trial in the shootout and federal charges in Arkansas, where he and two other men are accused of planning a revolt against the U.S. government. FBI spokesman Ray Lauer said the agency was investigating claims by a former Spokane, Wash., motel manager who said Chevie Kehoe may have known in advance of Timothy McVeigh's plans to bomb the Oklahoma City federal building.
January 21, 1998 - Theodore Kaczynski - Back in court and with his sanity a now a non-issue, Teddy K. got both prosecution and defense to agree that he had legal right to defend himself. However, Judge B. -- who claimed that Ted waited too long to ask to represent -- has yet to rule on the issue.
January 21, 1998 - Possible Johannesburg Serial Killer - South African police believe a serial killer is responsible for the murders of two children and the disappearances of 11 others over the last five months in a Johannesburg shanty town. In the last few days, the remains of two children, missing limbs and organs, have been found in the Orange Farm township, 30 miles from the city. Authorities believe the children were dismembered so their body parts can be used in traditional medicinal rituals.
January 21, 1998 - Theodore Kaczynski - Although Dr. Sally Johnson found that Ted was paranoid schizophrenic, she concluded that he was competent to stand trial, so we're back on -- for the time being. Prosecutors announced they have resumed plea negotiations with Teddy K.'s defence team.
January 20, 1998 - Unnamed Day Care Rampager - An Indianapolis man walked into an in-home day care center and fatally shot his wife and another woman. None of the nine children in their care, ranging from infants to toddlers, were injured.
January 20, 1998 - Theodore Kaczynski - Defense attorneys today demanded to know whether the government had discovered "secret shacks" built by Teddy K. in remote areas of the Montana wilderness. Ted's journals refer to such shacks, stating he needed them because he hoped to have "one place at least where I can still feel sure of privacy."
January 18, 1998 - Vivian Miranda - Long Island resident, Vivian Miranda, 39, and her oldest daughter, 20-year-old Serena Martin, suffocated her youngest daughter, Charity, in an apparent Santeria ritual gone wrong. According to Vivian her daughter was possessed by demons and believed that wrapping her head in a plastic bag was the appropiate form of exorcism.
January 18, 1998 - Multimedia from Hell - Three new killer flash movies to drive you insane. Imagine the Titanic with less water and more killers. Allow looping for greater sonic-sation. If you're seeing the killers on top scrolling, click here to feel the pain. If not, get the Flash Plug-In at www.Macromedia.com and see-hear-feel the Flash Plug-in.
January 17, 1998 - Theodore Kaczynski - After spending about 20 hours with Teddy K., prison psychiatrist Dr. Sally Johnson received a one-day extension to recommend whether the alledged unabomber-professor was competent to stand trial.
January 16, 1998 - Rachel Gonzalez - Distraught over family finances, Rachel Gonzalez shot her two daughters in the head called 911, and told the operators she didn't know why she killed the girls. "I don't know why I did it. I don't know why I did it... I just shot my two little girls." Four-year-old Diana died about four hours after the shooting. Elena, 2, died two hours after her older sister. Their mother was charged with two counts of murder and was being held by police in Kissimmee, about 25 miles south of Orlando.
January 15, 1998 - Michael Carneal - MacCracken County Circuit Judge Ron Daniels entered an innocent plea for 14-year-old Michael and question the young rampager's mental status. In this his first court appereance, . high school freshman Michael Carneal seemed nervous and tense. Carneal's mother and father attended the hearing and sat alone with a friend at the side of the courtroom. They left quickly after it was over.
January 12, 1998 - Suicidal German Cult - Spanish police detained 19 followers -- including three children -- of German psychiatrist Heide Fittkau-Garthe in Santa Cruz de Tenerife after they tried to commit mass suicide for a second time. The cult -- which came to international prominence after their first suicide attempt four days ago involving 32 people -- is not linked, as first suspected, to the Swiss-French-Canadian Order of the Solar Temple.
January 12, 1998 - Robert Renninger - A Tremont, Pensylvannia, man shot his two children and his estranged wife after a weekend visit. Then 31-year-old Robert Renninger killed himself. Bob killed his estranged wife Tammy L. Renninger, 27, in front of the diner they used as a drop-off point the children. Renninger, a coal company mechanic, then drove the little ones, David, 9, and Jessica 7, toward a rural road less than a mile away and killed them and himself.
January 11, 1998 - Theodore Kaczynski - Realizing they would probably embarrass themselves by losing the case, the Justice Department secretly re-opened plea bargain talks with Teddy K.'s lawyers. The latest issue of Newsweek reported that Attorney General Janet Reno did not want to risk a circus trial with Ted acting as his own lawyer that could lead to numerous appeals. Sensing the government in retreat, Ted may want to reject the plea bargain and possibly O.J. his way out of jail.
January 9, 1998 - Theodore Kaczynski - Judge Garland Burrell Jr. scheduled a competency hearing for Teddy K. on January 22 and appointed a prison psychiatrist to examine his mental state. If Ted is deemed competent, Judge B. will call the jury for opening statements. The judge told the porcupine-eating-ex-professor that if he acts up he will put him in "a plane and I will fly him to a psychiatric institution" for two weeks observation. Defense attorney Judy Clarke assured him their anti-techno client would cooperate. Ted nodded vigurously in agreement.
January 8, 1998 - Theodore Kaczynski - In another bizarre turn of events Teddy K. threw his trial into disarray for a second time when he said through his attorneys he would rather defend himself than submit to a mental defect defense. Then, in a surprise concession, he agreed to undergo psychological testing -- which he had vehemently resisted -- to prove he is competent to stand trial and represent himself.
Sheriff deputies later disclosed that Ted apparently tried to hang himself with his undershorts in his cell. Marshals noticed he was not wearing underpants when he changed in the courthouse from his prison jumpsuit and had red marks on his neck. The techno-hating-ex-math-professor was then hooked to a heart monitor and placed in a special cell on a 24-hour suicide watch with a camera recording his every move.
January 8, 1998 - Order of the Solar Temple - Police in the Spanish Canary Islands arrested Heide Fittkau-Garthe, 57, a German psychologist, hours before she allegedly was to lead followers of her religious cult -- an offshoot of the Order of the Solar Temple -- in mass suicide. Authorities said 30 members of the cult, including five children, planned to kill themselves because they believed the world was coming to an end and a space ship would then pick up their bodies from a nearby volcano. Heaven's Gate anyone?
January 8, 1998 - Jeffrey Dahmer - Thomas Ponchik, a Wisconsin prison inmate and close personal friend of Jeffrey Dahmer, filed suit against prison authorities who confiscated pictures of Jeff in his cell. According to Ponchik he and Dahmer were once neighbors and he considered Jeff a friend. Warden Jeffrey Endicott said prison officials felt it was inappropriate for an inmate to have the pictures of the former cannibal.
January 6, 1998 - Theodore Kaczynski - U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell Jr. rejected Teddy K's bid for a new lawyer. In his quest to find someone who would not paint him as a paranoid squizophrenic, Teddy wanted to fire his court-appointed legal team, and wanted to hire Tony Serra. "Based on the fact that Mr. Serra is willing not to present a mental health defense, I would like to be represented by him," said Kaczynski. Serra -- a prominent San Francisco lawyer portrayed by James Woods in the 1989 movie "True Believers" -- proposed a defense that would allow Ted to voice his views on technology and the dehumanization of modern society.
January 6, 1998 - Terry Nichols - Terry Nichols escaped the death penalty when a jury deadlocked over his punishment for his participation in the worst bomb act of terrorism on U.S. soil. U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch dismissed the jury and will instead impose a sentence himself. Under federal law, the judge could give him life, but not the death penalty.
January 4, 1998 - Theodore Kaczynski - Moments before his trial got under way Teddy K. asked for a private meeting with Judge Garland Burrell Jr. and his defense team. Though in court he said he wanted to make a "philosophical statement," in chambers he complained about his lawyers and protested his brother's presence in the courtroom. Four hours later, the jury was home and court was recessed for three days.
Still miffed at his brother's betrayal, Ted refused to acknowledge David who sat weeping next to his mother in the front row of the courtroom. According to a spokeman, Wanda K. -- his 80-year-old mother -- had not seen her older son for 15 years. With the insanity defense ruled out, Ted's conviction was being seen as inevitable, until today. Now, the whole trial in jeopardy, and the judge may find enough evidence to find the Teddy actually insane. Though Ted wants desperately to fire his attorneys, Judge Burrell might force him to get along with them rather than find new ones or allow him to defend himself.
January 3, 1998 - Theodore Kaczynski - As everything is set for opening arguments in the much-anticipated Unabomber trial, prosecutors struck again from their bully pulpit in their quest for Teddy K's head. Feeling that they do not have enough of an unfair advantage over the defense, they asked defense attorneys not to use any pictures of Teddy K. after his arrest, claiming that such pictures might lead the jury to believe in Ted's mental defect. What else, should they roll over and play dead while Reno and her thugs char our favorite ex-math professor to death? meanwhile Ted is furiously writing in jail what seems to be a new manifesto.
January 3, 1998 - Andrew Cunanan - In what will probably be the final news item on Andrew Cunanan, authorities in Minneapolis announced -- as if anyone still cared -- that a gym bag serial killing Andy left behind on the first stop of his alleged killing spree contained five vials of injectable steroids.
January 2, 1998 - Danny Rolling - A judge in Gainsville, Florida, ruled that the state is owed any money author Sondra London made by selling convicted killer Danny Rolling's art, autographs and a book the two wrote together. Circuit Judge Martha Ann Lott's said the money Sondra earned from accounts of Danny's rampage, including the book "The Making of a Serial Killer," belongs to the state and the state wants to collect. The distric attorney estimated the state was owed more than $20,000. London mantains the government is not entitled to the money because she was acting as a journalist when the books and stories were written.
January 2, 1998 - Orville Lynn Majors - Though he was normally calm and caring, in mid-1994 Orville Lynn Majors became irritable and would fly into unprovoked rages. His patients, whom he had begun to call "whiners" and "white trash," began dying. In court papers, prosecutors suggested that Orville Lynn Majors started using and selling drugs -- stolen from the hospital pharmacy -- around the same time he started killing patients. Central to the prosecution's case against the alleged "Angel of Death" is a computer analysis of deaths at the hospital from 1991 to 1996. The $300,000 analysis concluded there was an epidemic of deaths -- 67 in all -- in the last six months of 1994. Sixty-three of those deaths occurred when Majors was working.
January 1, 1998 - South African Witchess - Two elderly women were burned alive by an angry crowd that accused them of witchcraft in South Africa. The crowd's efforts to burn a third elderly woman, failed as police rescued her. Eleven men were arrested in connection with the incident, with more to follow. Witnesses said the crowd formed and attacked the women after a nine-year-old girl accused them of trying to bewitch her.
In related news, the Traditional Medical Practitioners of South Africa announced that local witch doctors -- or sangomas as they prefer to be called -- noted a 90% decrease in ritual murders and killings related to the medicinal quest for body parts. A comforting thought coming from a group representing an estimated 200,000 traditional healers. Happy new year everyone!
November-December, 1997 - Morgue Archives - For previous entries to the Morgue check in the casualties filling the archives.
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