December 31, 1998 - Pedro Pablo Ramirez - Colombian police arrested Pedro Pablo Ramirez, a pedophilic predator suspected of murdering 29 children found in two ditches in the city of Pereira. Happy New Year!

December 31, 1998 - Unnamed Danish Angel of Death - Danish authorities have dropped all charges against a nurse suspected of killing up to 20 patients and embezzeling their money.

December 30, 1998 - Daniel Blank - Attorneys for accused serial killer Daniel Blank argued that investigators manipulated and coerced their client into making a false confession. The defense also motioned for a change of venue. The arguments came in the now closely guarded Donaldsonville courtroom where earlier this month Blank tried to escape by jumping out a second-story window.

December 27, 1998 - Japanese Internet Poisonings - Japanese police reported that seven people apparently ordered cyanide on the Internet from a 27-year-old pharmacist with a history of mental illness who offered suicide consultations and later took his own life. Police are also investigating two other suicides that may be connected to the Internet offer.

A police spokesman in Tokyo said the seven people who ordered cyanide transferred money to the bank account of the man. Media reports said the man -- who was discovered dead at his home in the city of Sapporo -- offered suicide consultations on the Internet under the name "Dr. Kiriko," a character who carried out euthanasia in a popular series of comics titled "Black Jack."

December 26, 1998 - Aum Shinri Kyo - Japan's Public Security Investigation Agency released a report stating that the Aum Shinri Kyo religious cult is regrouping and recruiting new members. According to the agency's report, "Aum is actively attempting to bring back former members and recruiting new members on a nationwide basis, while initiating advertising campaigns and acquiring necessary capital."

December 25, 1998 - Unnamed Dutch Family Annihilator - A Dutch man celebrated Christmas morning by stabbing his wife and three young children to death, setting fire to their home, then commiting suicide by crashing his car.

Dutch television quoted neighbors as saying they heard the couple fighting Christmas morning before flames burst from the house in Wageningen, 50 miles southeast of Amsterdam. Firefighters responding to the blaze discovered the charred bodies of the children, ages 3, 7 and 11, and their mother, 34. The names of the victims and the man were not released under Dutch privacy laws. Merry Christmas!

December 23, 1998 - Aum Shinri Kyo - Investigators from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons oversaw the destruction by Japanese authorities of the factory used by the Aum Shinri Kyo cult to make the nerve gas used in the 1995 attack on Tokyo's subway system.

OPCW officials declined to give details of the nature of the machinery and chemicals removed or destroyed, and would not say how much sarin was stored at the plant. But the organization's inspectorate director, former Japanese Army officer Ichiro Akiyama, confirmed the cult's gas factory was a highly professional operation.

December 23, 1998 - Michael Barnhart - A suspect accused of beating four family members to death will be evaluated to see if he is fit to stand trial. Michael Barnhart was silent in court as he was charged with first-degree murder and his attorney entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf. Prosecutors say Barnhart broke into a family's home last month in order to rob it of cash for a drug debt. During the robbery, Barnhart allegedly killed four people in the home with a claw hammer. His attorney asked the judge to order psychiatric tests. A hearing on the tests is set for March 18th.

December 21, 1998 - Willis Mark Haynes & Dustin John Higgs - Federal prosecutors said that two men have been indicted in Maryland on murder and kidnapping charges. Willis Mark Haynes, 21, and Dustin John Higgs, 26, could face the death penalty if convicted in the case stemming from shooting deaths of three women in January 1996.

The indictments followed Victor Gloria's guilty plea to being an accessory after the fact in the killings. He faces 15 years in prison and a $15,000 fine. The charges stem from the shooting deaths of Tamika Black, 19, a teacher's aide at a parochial school; Tanji Jackson, 21, an employee at Eleanor Roosevelt High School; and Mishann Chinn, 23, who worked with a church choir. The bodies were found along Route 197.

Investigators told The Washington Post they believe that Higgs and Haynes were driving the three women home to Washington when the men suddenly stopped their car and shot the women. The motive has long puzzled investigators, who did not find any signs or robbery or sexual assault. Investigators now believe one of the women had an argument with Higgs at his apartment before the killings.

December 21, 1998 - Unnamed Danish Angel of Death - Danish prosecutors dropped murder charges against a nurse suspected of killing 22 patients in a nursing home in Copenhagen. deaths of 22 patients at a home for the elderly, but left open the possibility she could be tried on other charges.

The nurse -- whose name cannot be released under court order -- was charged in October 1997 with 22 counts of murder and was also suspected of embezzling $60,000 from the victims. The victims, aged 65 to 97, died after being given doses of a morphine-based drug. The deaths occurred between August 1994 and January 1997 when the nurse was fired from the Plejebo nursing home. Prosecutors said the nurse could still face other charges such as theft and embezzlement.

December 18, 1998 - Possible Pittsburg Serial Killer - After finding two dead prostitutes in the same area and a third one badly beaten, Pittsburg police have announced that there could be a serial killer loose in their fair city.

December 18, 1998 - David Cunningham - The city employee who shot his supervisor and another person to death was identified as David Cunningham. Though at first three victims were reportedly dead, only two perished with the gunman surviving a self-inflicted gunshot to his head. The 48-year-old union shop steward was hospitalized in good condition after the rampage. Police gave no motive for the attack.

Tito Torres, a sign fabricator, described Cunningham as a good worker who had never caused trouble, but he and other employees said they heard that Cunningham had been under stress because of illness in the family.

December 18, 1998 - Paul Reid - Suspected serial killer Paul Reid may have to undergo a mental evaluation sooner rather than later. A judge criticized Montgomery County prosecutors for wasting time in hiring a psychiatrist to evaluate Reid. The judge extended the deadline from January to February. Reid is set to stand trial in February for the murders of two Clarksville Baskin Robbins workers.

December 18, 1998 - Disgruntled in Northern Philly - A worker opened fire in a streets department morning staff meeting, killing three people and injuring two others. The suspect was taken into custody and police seized two weapons. No other details were available.

The victims were a 44-year-old man who was dead on arrival, and a 53-year-old man who died while being treated. There were no details on the third victim. The two wounded were being treated at Parkview Hospital.

December 18, 1998 - Possible Serial Killer in Mississippi - Columbus senior citizens have been arming themselves at an alarming rate following Police Chief Donald Freshour warning that a killer was targeting elderly citizens in their community. There have been five unsolved murders of senior citizens since 1996 in this peaceful community of 24,000 people. Police believe at least three of the killings may be the work of the same person. All of the victims lived in the northern part of the city and died in a similar way, but Freshour was reluctant to use the term "serial killer."

December 17, 1998 - Michael Carneal - Judge Jeff Hines sentenced teen-rampager Michael Carneal to life in prison without possibility of parole for 25 years. Carneal, 15, pleaded guilty but mentally ill on Oct. 5 to three counts of murder and six other charges related to the shooting spree at Heath High School on Dec. 1, 1997.

Carneal spent most of the hearing quietly sitting in the same position at the defense table -- hunched over, hands clasped in his lap, looking straight down. His parents, John and Ann Carneal, sat at the front of the courtroom. The boy's sullen expression didn't change after Hines gave him the maximum penalty a juvenile can receive in Kentucky after a conviction in an adult court.

December 17, 1998 - Anatoly Onoprienko - Russian serial killer Anatoly Onoprienko, 39, said he planned some of the 52 murders he is accused of committing to form a cross on the map. After killing a couple near Malin in November 1995, his ninth murder in a seven-year series, "The Terminator" planned his next kill in the Black Sea port of Odessa.

The conceptually-minded killer wanted "to draw the first line of the cross" that would have stretched from Ukraine's northern border with Belarus to the sea in the south. No suitable victim could be found in Odessa, however, and the plan to draw a cross with the crime scenes collapsed.

Onoprienko has already confessed to 52 killings. But police believe that he may have committed more on his travels around Europe.

December 16, 1998 - Vickie Hines - a clerk in Milwaukee County Circuit Court who worked during the trial of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was denied a claim for $77,000 for the "vicarious trauma" she allegedly suffered from listening to graphic testimony. Ms. Hines, sought $77,000 from the state to recover lost wages and medical costs for various psychological problems. But the presiding judge ruled that her troubles predated the cannibal killer's trial.

December 10, 1998 - Daniel Blank - Accused serial killer Daniel Blank was re-captured after he tried to escape from custody by jumping out a second-story bathroom window in the Ascension Parish courthouse in Donaldsonville, Lousiana. Blank, who is accused of killing six people during housebreaks, was in court trying to get a video-taped confession thrown out. The defenestrated serial killer was caught seconds after he hit the ground.

Blank was arrested last year in Texas, where he ran a car repair shop. He knew all of the victims and worked for some as a repairman. Police say he robbed to support his gambling in casinos and video poker parlors in Louisiana. His trial is scheduled to start in March.

December 10, 1998 - Russell Ellwood - New Orleans sheriff's Lt. Sue Rushing, the leader of the serial killer task force targeting Russell Ellwood, failed a lie detector test asking if she destroyed or lost receipts that could place Ellwood in Ohio with relatives when the 1993 murders happened. The test also indicated Rushing was "not telling the truth" when she denied coaching a witness who claimed Ellwood showed her the two bodies in a canal 20 miles west of New Orleans. The allegations were made by other task force members, prompting the FBI to investigate Rushing and the task force. Ellwood has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against task force investigators, asserting that police lied when they said he confessed under relentless interrogation.

December 10, 1998 - Tuan Anh Nguyen - A Vietnamese immigrant convicted in Oklahoma of killing his estranged wife and two young children was executed by lethal injection on the morning of his 39th birthday. In 1982 Tuan Anh Nguyen fatally stabbing his 20-year-old wife, Donna Nguyen, and her young relatives, 3-year-old Amanda White and 6-year-old Joseph White.

December 7, 1998 - Jerrold Johnson - A man who police officers said raged at them during a domestic dispute last month, killed his wife and two young sons and then fatally shot himself in a desperate act of familicide. The bodies of Jerrold Johnson's boys were found dead in a lake near their home, and his 35-year-old wife, Lois, was found beaten in the home. Investigators believe she was beaten with a broomstick, then dismembered.

"The scene inside was bloody," Public Safety Director Rick Rabenort said. "It was one of the most gruesome scenes we have seen." On Nov. 17 police were called to the Johnson residence were Jerrold -- who had a mental breakdown 10 years ago -- told officers he was the "god of the universe" and was going to "have the wind cut out my heart and feed it to me."

December 7, 1998 - Leigh Cousins - In Caribou, Maine, authorities said Leigh Cousins killed his two young children and his wife, set fire to his home and then fatally shot himself. Police discovered two identical suicide notes in the vehicles parked outside the burning cabin. Inside, they found the bodies of Cousins, 34, his wife, Tina Cousins, 30, 4-year-old Cortina and 2-year-old Cote.

December 7, 1998 - George Roden - Former Branch Davidian leader George Roden, who had been in state care since he was declared insane in 1989, was found dead outside the Big Spring State Hospital, from which he escaped two nights before.

Roden was driven from the religious group in 1987 after a gunbattle with David Koresh. Two years later, he was institutionalized after being found innocent by reason of insanity in the killing of his roommate. Roden's mother owned the 77-acre site of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco known as Mount Carmel. She named Koresh as the trustee of her will.

Roden fought Koresh for control of the group, then moved to Odessa after a gunbattle that led to attempted murder charges against Koresh and seven others. Koresh's case was declared a mistrial; his followers were acquitted.

December 7, 1998 - Daniel Lee Corwin - Serial killer Daniel Lee Corwin -- who blamed his crimes on uncontrollable "pressures in my head" -- was executed by lethal injection in the world's bussiest death chamber. Corwin, 40, was condemned for murdering three women during a nine-month killing spree in 1987. Not Mr. Nice Guy Corwin raped, strangled and stabbed two of his victims, and fatally stabbing a third as her 3-year-old daughter watched. Corwin spent much of a lengthy final statement apologizing to the six family members of his victims who came to Huntsville to watch the execution.

Corwin's parents testified during his trial that he suffered two severe cuts to his head when he was a child. Psychologists who interviewed him suggested he could have suffered brain damage that was not easily detectable. Corwin told detectives the pressure in his head created what he called "tunnel vision" that led him to commit violence.

December 7, 1998 - Wayne Adam Ford - Authorities say accused serial killer Wayne Ford could not have murdered a woman whose body washed up on a secluded Mendocino County beach. The sheriff's department says the woman was killed after Ford was arrested.

December 4, 1998 - Hector Flores Esquivias & Cruz Medina Perez - Tijuana police arrested an alleged member of the gang blamed in the September 17 massacre of 19 people in the Baja California city of Ensenada. Arrested with Hector Flores Esquivias was Cruz Medina Perez, believed to be the wife of the gang's alleged leader, Arturo Martinez Gonzalez. Police found one-fifth of an ounce of metamphetamine in their truck.

December 4, 1998 - Suicidal Teenagers in Thailand - Five teen-age girls in Thailand drank pesticide during their school lunch break as part of a joint-suicide pact. A teacher found the five, all 13- to 14-years-old, in a school bathroom moments after they ingested the poison and they were rushed to a hospital in serious condition. The teacher, Nantha Rangseepanya, said the girls were upset at their parents for trying to prevent their friendship.

December 3, 1998 - Joshua Rudiger - A San Francisco man who claimed he was a 2,000-year-old vampire pleaded innocent to charges of murdering a homeless woman and slashing three others. Joshua Rudiger, 21, entered his plea in San Francisco's Municipal Court.

December 2, 1998 - Michael Carneal - The parents of the high school girls shot to death by Michael Carneal during a prayer group meeting rampage filed suit seeking unspecified monetary damages from 45 defendants, including Carneal, his parents, and several administrators, teachers and students at the school. The lawsuit alleges that some people had noticed Carneal acting strangely before shooting his classmates but did nothing about it.

November 30, 1998 - Possible Jewish Serial Killer in Jerusalem - A masked man stabbed a Palestinian to death in Jerusalem in an attack that Israeli police said may have been the work of a Jewish serial killer.

November 30, 1998 - Evan Ramsey - State Superior Court Judge Mark Wood sentenced Evan Ramsey to a 210-year jail term for killing his high school principal and a fellow student in a 1997 school shooting rampage in Alaska. Due to the large amount of residents who wanted to testify, the hearing was moved from the courthouse to the a cultural center in Bethel, a mostly Yupik Eskimo community in the southwerstern part of the state.

Ramsey, who was 16 at the time of the attack, was convicted earlier this year of killing Bethel High School principal Ron Edwards and student Josh Palacios. He was also convicted of one count of attempted murder and 16 counts of assault.

November 30, 1998 - Seth Stephen Privacky - An 18-year-old was arrested and accused along with a friend of methodically shooting to death five people -- his father, mother, grandfather, brother and his brother's girlfriend.

November 30, 1998 - Ferdinando Carretta - An Italian man confessed on-camera to killing his entire family in 1989. Ferdinando Carretta, 36, said he shot his father, mother and brother in "an act of complete madness" at the family's apartment in the northern city of Parma.

The family -- including Ferdinando -- vanished, apparently while on a camping trip. Their fate was one of Italy's most enduring mysteries until now. Ferdinando surfaced by accident in London last week when police stopped him on a routine traffic violation. A computer check showed he was listed as a missing person, and Italian authorities were notified.

He returned to Italy voluntarely and was arrested at the airport on a warrant for triple homicide. Shortly afterward, he confessed to police. "He couldn't wait to confess," an investigating magistrate, Vittorio Zanichelli, told the Italian news agency ANSA.

November 30, 1998 - Khoua Her - A sobbing St.Paul, Minnesota, mother pleaded guilty to murdering her six children, ages 5 to 11, in what her attorney said was a fit of suicidal distress. "I strangled their necks," said Khoua Her, a Laotian-born Hmong woman who spoke through an interpreter as Ramsey County prosecutor Chris Wilton asked her to describe the Sept. 3 killings.

The 24-year-old pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, agreeing to a 50-year sentence that would make her eligible for parole in a little more than 33 years.

The weeping mom told prosecutors details about the six killings. Each she was asked whether she intended to kill her victim, she replied: "Yes." She said the children were outside playing on the evening of the murders. She called them in one by one and tied a piece of black cloth around their necks. Under questioning she said she was suicidal the day of the killings and murdered the children because she was worried about what would happen to her children after she died.

November 30, 1998 - Siavosh Rahmani-Aqdam - An Iranian army deserter stole a gun, hijacked a van and shot to death at least 14 people in what the official Islamic Republic News Agency called an "act of mania.". The soldier, identified as Siavosh Rahmani-Aqdam, was described as a "deserter and a known hooligan." After the killings the gunman fled. No further details about the incident is available and we ignore the outcome of the situation.

November 27, 1998 - United Pentecostal Church of Brazil - Brazilian police said that six members of the United Pentecostal Church of Brazil, a tiny religious cult deep in the Amazon, beat and kicked to death six people, including three children, purportedly to be taken to heaven "after wiping out the enemies of God."

November 26, 1998 - Rogelio Andrade & Allan Lobos - Two men were arrested and charged with murder for a 1993 apartment fire that killed 10 tenants and injured 40 others. Rogelio Andrade and Allan Lobos, both 22, were charged with 12 counts of murder -- one for each victim and two unborn children -- and one count each of arson.

November 25, 1998 - Timothy Dawson - Emerging serial killer Timothy Dawson pleaded not guilty to the downtown Atlanta Hilton murders and a murder at the College Park Days Inn after a grand jury returned a 32-count indictment against him. Dawson allegedly killed three men at the Hilton, then attended the Falcons' game using their tickets.

November 25, 1998 - Anatoly Onoprienko - In his second day in court, self-confessed serial killer Anatoly Onuprienko sat impassively as the judge read out a litany of charges against him. Dressed in the same wool hat and grey duffel coat that he wore at the opening of the trial, Onuprienko stared fixedly at the floor in his courtroom cage with his head in his hands.

The sullen serial killer turned into chatty Cathy once he was led out of court. He told the waiting TV cameras, "I knew what I was doing. I didn't just set off blindly for the sake of a piece of sausage. I can't say I did it with some mercenary goal in mind. It was a game." Later, the balding sociopath added, "It was foretold that I would kill, let's say 360 people in Germany, give or take 10, after I'd killed 40 in Ukraine. I would be ready to do it even right this minute." Paradoxically, he also said rage at God and Satan had driven him to start killing.

November 25, 1998 - Dr. Jack Kevorkian - Upping the ante in his quest for legalized assisted suicide, Dr. Jack Kevorkian arrived smiling at the police station after being charged with first-degree murder for his nationally televised euthanizing of a terminally ill man. Kevorkian was released on $750,000 personal bond following his arraigned.

November 25, 1998 - Kristen Gilbert - A former nurse at a Northampton hospital stands accused of killing three patients and attempting to kill two others. Prosecutors said Kristen Gilbert, 31, used epinephrine on all five victims. Gilbert,of Setauket, N.Y., was accused in federal indictments. The former nurse, who is serving a prison sentence for making a bomb threat to the hospital, was also charged with retaliating against a witness and obstructing justice.

Gilbert worked at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital as a part-time registered nurse from March 1989 to February 1996. She was present for about half of all medical emergencies in her acute care ward and for 37 deaths in her last 14 months on the job. Both are unusually high numbers, prosecutors said.

Investigators said they found books on assisted suicide in Gilbert's home during a search, though U.S. Attorney Donald Stern said the injected patients, however ill, had not asked to die. Three hospital nurses who worked on the ward first identified the suspicious pattern of patient deaths in February 1996. They also reported that 85 doses of epinephrine, also known as adrenaline, were missing. Some empty, discarded vials of the drug were found in the hospital after some patients suffered sudden heart problems.

Gilbert, who is divorced and wasn't granted custody of her two children, was sentenced in April to 15 months in prison for phoning in a bomb threat to the hospital in September 1996, while she was under investigation for the deaths.

Her lawyer argued at the time that Gilbert was driven to disturbed behavior by the breakup of her marriage, the death of a grandparent, a disabling shoulder injury and the stress of the investigation. Court testimony indicated that Gilbert had been hospitalized several times for intentional drug overdoses.

November 24, 1998 - John Wayne Gacy - The dig for more victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy revealed no human remains. Instead investigators found a flattened sauce pan, a glass marble, a chunk of concrete and a 2 1/2 foot length of wire. No further digging will take place, police said. "We took as comprehensive and responsible a look as we were required to do," police Cmdr. John Thomas told reporters. "We'd like to return the neighborhood to a state of normalcy."

November 23, 1998 - Possible Columbus, Mississippi Serial Killer - Columbus residents, worried that the city is being targeted by a serial killer, were invited to a town meeting to air their concerns. Three elderly victims have been strangled in their Columbus homes over a five-week period, and police say the crimes are similar to another unsolved murder last year, and another the year before. Investigators say they have questioned several suspects, but had to release them due to lack of evidence. The city is offering a 20-thousand-dollar reward for help in solving the crimes.

November 23, 1998 - John Wayne Gacy - Police in Chicago cordoned off a street where they believe more victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy might be buried. Like vultures smelling death, member of the press converged on the scene by daybreak, with helicopters sweeping from above, and television cameras were perched on nearby rooftops. Police said they would place a tarpaulin over the site if they begin digging.

November 23, 1998 - Antoli Onoprienko - The trial of former forestry student Antoli Onoprienko -- Ukraine's deadliest serial killer -- began in the city of Zhytomyr, 90 miles west of Kiev. The accused claimed he felt like a robot driven for years by a dark force, and argued he should not be tried until authorities determine the source of this force. Dressed in running shoes, an oversized jacket, a knitted hat, and hadcuffs, Onoprienko sat calmly inside an iron cage surrounded by police exuding arrogance and boredom.

Asked if he would like to make a statement he shrugged his shoulders, slowly sauntered to the microphone and said: "No, nothing." Informed of his legal right to object to the court's proceedings, he growled: "This is your law, I consider myself a hostage." Asked to state his nationality, he said: "None." When Judge Dmitry Lipsky said this was impossible, Onoprienko rolled his eyes and replied: "Well, according to law enforcement officers, I'm Ukrainian."

November 22, 1998 - Concerned Christians - Ten members of the missing Concerned Christian doomsday cult from Colorado have appeared in Israel. The cult's leader, Monte Kim Miller, predicted before dissapearing he will die in Jerusalem and become God at the end of the millenium.

As many as 72 of Miller's followers sold their belongings and left their homes in the United States before October 10, the day their leader predicted Denver would be wiped out by an earthquake marking the beginning of the apocalypse.

Israeli foreign ministry officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel was concerned about the Denver group and has been trying to keep tabs on them and other doomsday groups who may be drawn to the Holy Land for the millennium.

November 22, 1998 - David Kaczynski - Unabombrother David K. told The Daily Gazette of Schenectady that he plans to sell the book and movie rights of his struggle to turn his brother over to authorities, and use the money to pay the family's legal bills.

November 20, 1998 - Dr. Harold Shipman - London Family practitioner Harold Shipman became the focus of Europe's biggest murder investigation. Now he is suspected of killing more than 116 patients over 14 years. Dr. Death -- as he is known by British media -- was originally linked to 77 killings after police charged him with six murders and started investigating other suspicious deaths surrounding his medical practice. As of now nine bodies have been exhumed. To avoid publicity and crowds, police have been performing the exhumations at night, witnessed by a priest.

November 18, 1998 - Charles Ng - Prosecutors wrapped their case against Charles Ng ahead of schedule. The last piece of evidence presented was a series of cartoons of his alleged murder victims drawn by the suspect while in a Canadian prison. The defense is expected to begin presenting its case at the beginning of December.

November 18, 1998 - John Wayne Gacy - An agreement has been reached between police, prosecutors and the owners of an apartment building on Chicago's Northwest Side to excavate an area where up to four more victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy are believed to be buried. The deal allows limited excavation after further radar testing. The parking lot is in the back of an apartment building where Gacy's mother once lived. The dig, planned for Monday, will be barricaded from the public.

November 18, 1998 - William Darrell Lindsey - A judge in Northeast Florida said prosecutors can take a blood sample from suspected serial killer William Darrell Lindsey so it can be compared to crime scene evidence. Lindsey, who is charged with first- degree murder in the deaths of six North Florida women, talked to detectives last year and showed them locations where he said bodies could be found. However, his public defender says those statements should be thrown out because Lindsey was not properly read his rights during those trips.

November 18, 1998 - Jim Jones & The People's Temple - This day twenty years ago Jim Jones ordered more than 900 followers to drink cyanide-laced punch in a shocking mass suicide-murder at Jonestown, Guyana, after cult members killed Congressman Leo Ryan and four other members of his fact-finding party in a nearby airstrip.

Like every year, a memorial was held at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California, where 260 People's Temple children are buried. Due to the lack of dental records, the children were never able to be identified and thus were buried together there. This year, being the 20th anniversary of the mass suicide, Liz Aguirre, president of Ultraseal International, hand-delivered a $5,000 check to finance a Vietnam memorial-type 20-foot wall to be erected in the cemetary. The black, granite panels of the memorial will have the names and ages of the victims inscribed aswell as a dedication written by poet Maya Angelou.

November 17, 1998 - Spokane Serial Killer - Mark Sterk, Spokane's sheriff-elect, says the search for a serial killer is the community's top public safety priority. Sterk said he wants to add four detectives to a task force pursuing the murderer. Two of the new investigators would come from the Spokane County Sheriff's Department, which already has four detectives working full- time on the case. Sterk also hopes to convince the Washington State Patrol to assign two of its major crimes detectives to the task force, which is currently comprised of Spokane city and county investigators.

November 17, 1998 - Kenneth Allen McDuff Having cheated death row once, serial killer Kenneth Allen McDuff was finally put to death by lethal injection for the 1992 abduction, rape and murder of 22-year-old Melissa Ann Northrup, a pregnant mother of two from Waco. Before dying, the 52-year-old McDuff said, "I'm ready to be released; release me." For his last meal, he requested two T-bone steaks, five fried eggs, vegetables, french fries, coconut pie and a Coca-Cola.

November 13, 1998 - Unnamed Possible Trucker Serial Killer - San Diego police have joined the FBI in an investigation into a truck driver suspected of killing more than 20 women along I-10 from California to Florida during the 1980's. The suspect's name has not been made public. A San Diego police sergeant says investigators are trying to determine if genetic material taken from the suspect can be linked to evidence found on the victims. He said there was information that the suspect targeted prostitutes and hitchhikers. After killing them, he would bury their bodies in shallow graves along the trucker's route or along back roads near Interstate 10. The suspect may also be responsible for slayings in Colorado, Texas and Oregon.

November 12, 1998 - Kenneth Allen McDuff Though refusing to speak with reporters, the soon-to-be executed Kenneth Allen McDuff is said to be passing his time making jewelry. In the past, he has denied involvement in the crimes for which he will ne executed and blamed the news media for his convictions. In a nonprofit prisoners advocacy group Web site the restless killer wrote the following succinct cry for help: "If there is anyone left out there, drop me a letter."

November 12, 1998 - Michael Ross - An New London attorney for convicted serial killer Michael Ross -- who until recently was desperately trying to get executed -- says his client is incompetent to stand trial in the death penalty phase.

November 11, 1998 - Joshua Rudiger - A man who allegedly slashed the throats of at least four homeless people in San Francisco, told police he is a 2,000-year-old vampire who thrives on drinking blood. Rudiger, 21, claimed to be a vampire and in at least three cases had apparently used his victims' blood to scrawl the Chinese character for "death" on the pavement near the scenes of the attacks. "He talked for a long time and said a lot of weird things," one police source told the San Francisco Examiner, noting that none of the slashing victims had reported that their attacker attempted to drink their blood.

November 11, 1998 - Charles Whitman - The University of Texas board of regents voted unanimously to reopen the school's landmark, 231-foot clocktower, from where Charles Whitman killed 14 people August 1, 1966. The tower, closed 23 years ago because suicidal people used its observation deck to jump to their deaths, will be refurbished and a safety barrier added to prevent future suicides.

November 11, 1998 - Fedell Caffey - Fedell is the third person to be convicted in the brutal killing of two children and their pregnant mother, whose nearly full-term son was cut from her womb. Fedell, 25, participated in the gruesome crime because his girlfriend, Jacqueline Williams, wanted the unborn child of the pregnant victim, Debra Evans, who was an ex-girlfriend of Williams' cousin, Levern Ward.

November 11, 1998 - John Wayne Gacy - Chicago police are considering digging behind a house in search of what could be the remains of more victims of John Wayne Gacy, who was executed in 1994 for the killings of 33 boys and young men.

The Chicago Tribune reported that police are acting on a tip from a former detective and a ground radar survey that indicated human remains may be buried behind the house on the city's Northwest Side. The radar indicates, but does not prove, the presence of as many as four bodies buried almost 3 1/2 feet deep.

November 10, 1998 - Wayne Adam Ford - Although the recently imposed gag order new information from the sheriff's office has surfaced in the press. It is now possible that Waynre had many more victims than the four women he has confessed to killing

The 36-year-old long-haul trucker said he often had rough sex with women and then tied them up and abandoned them along roadsides across California. Investigators are reviewing records of sex assaults across the state and have already found two women who said Ford raped, tied up and abandoned them alongside highways.

While having rough sex with numerous prostitutes and hitchhikers, some of whom passed out during bondage. He said he had revived a number of the women with resuscitation techniques he learned in the Army before dumping them from his truck.

Taylor said he was surprised by Ford's demeanor during questioning. "He's not what we expected," Taylor said. "He was a pretty decent guy when we talked to him. He was apologetic as to what he had done. "I don't want to say he was personable, but he was more than willing to answer our questions."

Humboldt County Coroner Frank Jager said the trucker had trouble with women in the past. "He would form attachments to women and they would dump him. That seemed to bother him a lot," Jager said.

November 10, 1998 - Joshua Rudiger - A 21-year-old Oakland man was arrested Tuesday morning by police investigating a series of throat-slashing attacks on homeless people, including a man stabbed just minutes earlier as he slept in a Chinatown alley.

Rudiger was booked on suspicion of attempted murder. Police said he was the prime suspect four unprovoked attacks on homeless that left one man dead.

November 10, 1998 - Wayne Adam Ford - A gag order has been imposed in the case of a California truck driver who confessed to killing four women during rough sex. Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Bruce Watson issued the gag order, preventing both sides from discussing the case in public.

Ford also is a suspect in a sexual assault of a 22-year-old San Pablo prostitute who was raped, beaten and robbed in August and left alongside a road near Healdsburg. The woman picked Ford out of a photo lineup Sunday, Sonoma County sheriff's Lt. Mike Brown said. He said deputies were seeking kidnapping and rape charges against Ford.

Sonoma County Sheriff's Department is seeking charges against suspected murderer Wayne Adam Ford in an August kidnapping and rape case, following a talk with him and identification from the victim.

Lt. Mike Brown said a 22-year-old prostitute who was picked up in Santa Rosa around 11 p.m. Aug. 23, bound, gagged, raped and dumped in ditch beside U.S. Highway 101 north of Healdsburg picked Ford's picture out of a photo lineup yesterday.

In the Sonoma County case, Ford faces charges of kidnapping, rape, sodomy, oral copulation and robbery. Lt. Brown said Ford allegedly stole $400 from the woman. Four Sonoma County sheriff's detectives interviewed Ford on Friday evening, Brown said.

November 7, 1998 - Wayne Adam Ford - Strangely, after confessing to four murders and bringing a female breast in a baggie to a Sheriff's station, Wayne Adam Ford's court-appointed attorney pleaded innocent

Investigators from all over the West have been contacting the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department to see if Wayne could shed any light on their unsolved cases. Among the curious is a task force investigating a string of killings in Spokane and Tacoma.

November 7, 1998 - Indonesian Witch Killers - Mobs of vigilantes lynched eight more people suspected of involvement in the wave of killings sweeping the sorcerer community of East Java. In other revenge attacks, vigilantes killed five people in three separate locations in Central Java.

November 5, 1998 - Wayne Adam Ford - A trucker walked into the sheriff's department in Eureka, California, pulled out if his pocket a Ziploc bag with a severed breast and admitted killing four women. News reports added that Wayne Adam Ford could be linked to as many as six slayings throughout California.

November 4, 1998 - David Wayne McCall - A Dallas judge ruled yesterday that there is probable cause for McCall to stand trial in the Aug. 13, 1995, slaying of 39- year-old Catherine Casler of Coppell, a suburban housewife who was stabbed multiple times while on an early- morning jog.

Evidence in that crime prompted police in Irving, Carrollton, Coppell and Dallas to home in on McCall as a suspect in the unsolved slayings of six women between 1991 and 1996. Authorities have uncovered physical evidence linking the slayings to a serial killer active in the Metroplex area, and believe that DNA evidence will point to McCall as their man.

November 4, 1998 - Michael Ross - Convicted serial killer Michael Ross returned to his Connecticut Northern Correctional Institution jail cell after undergoing treatment for a drug overdose. Corrections officials said Ross tried to commit suicide by taking an unspecified number of prescription pills. Ross was found guilty of killing six young women during the 1980's and made headlines by cooperating with prosecutors to guarantee a speedy execution. But a judge threw out his death sentence earlier this year and now is awaiting re-sentencing.

November 2, 1998 - Michael Ross - Serial killer Michael Ross, 39, was hospitalized for an apparent drug overdose. The perpetually horny Ross was found on the floor of his cell at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers, Connecticut. Hospital spokesman Patrick Keefe said Ross, who was previously treated with drugs to reduce his sex drive, appeared to have suffered from an overdose, but could not say what type of drug.

Sept-Oct, 1998 - Morgue Archives - For previous entries to the Morgue check in the casualties filling the archives.