August 31, 1999 - The Boston Strangler - Considered to be among the most dangerous men in modern-day Massachusetts, George Nassar, a ruthless killer with a stratospheric IQ, is thought by many to be the real Boston Strangler.
August 31, 1999 - Ravee Phum - A Thai gunman burst into a local council meeting of the Administration of Romtrai village, in Sakaew province, and shot four people dead after a row over 20 baht (52 U.S. cents). He had entered the meeting and asked a council member for the money to buy methamphetamine, police said. When he was turned down, he left but returned with an AK-47 rifle and sprayed the room with bullets and escaped.
The next day -- following a tip-off about 150 police and soldiers rushed to a deserted house where he was hiding -- and killed the suspect in agun battle. The suspect Ravee Phum, 41, appeared to be drunk when entered the tambon chief's house at 8.30pm and opened fire at members of the village's rice bank committee. The four killed included the gunman's uncle, Pradit Wongchamnian.
August 31, 1999 - Mark O. Barton - About five hours before embarking on the worst murder spree in Georgia history, Mark O. Barton conducted one last bit of business: He changed his will to provide a burial place for his children, whom he had killed the previous night. The account of Barton's final morning were among the details that emerged when Atlanta police reluctantly released a 208-page report of their investigation into the disgruntled day trader rampage. The file also reveals that police officers discovered several capsules of the anti-depressant drug Prozac in Barton's car after he committed suicide, that he carried a stun gun along with other weapons and that a handcuff key dangled from the key chain in his car's ignition when he committed suicide.
August 31, 1999 - Ashley Jones & Geramie Hart - A 14-year-old girl recently released from a mental hospital in birmingham, Alabama, and a friend were charged with killing two of her relatives and wounding two others in a shooting and stabbing attack. The violence came after Ashley Jones was grounded by her grandfather for staying out too late. Police said the two teens killed Miss Jones' grandfather and aunt and seriously wounded her grandmother and 10-year-old sister, who was stabbed more than a dozen times. Miss Jones and 16-year-old Geramie Hart were charged with two counts of capital murder and two counts of attempted murder. She was being held at a juvenile detention center and Hart was in the county jail without bond.
August 31, 1999 - Cary Stayner - According to a six-page affidavit to support a request for bodily fluid samples, motel handyman killer Cary Stayner aonfessed to sexually assaulting the two teen-age sightseers in threir motel room before they were killed. Stayner also led the FBI to the knives he says he used to decapitate Joie Armstrong and slash the throat of Juli Sund. The affidavit is the first public acknowledgment by investigators that the two teen-age victims were sexually assaulted before they and Ms. Sund's mother, Carole Sund, were killed. Stayner is the prime suspect but has not been charged in their deaths.
August 31, 1999 - PETA vs. McDonald's - The activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is launching a billboard, bumper sticker, print ad and T-shirt campaign that features such images as a slaughtered cow's head and the slogan "Do you want fries with that? McDonald's. Cruelty to go." Another billboard shows the company's clown mascot Ronald McDonald holding a bloodied butcher knife and reads "Son of Ron -- America's No. 1 Serial Killer."
August 30, 1999 - Two dead in Garden Grove - A gunman in Garden Grove, 35 miles south of Los Angeles, sprayed an auto parts store with bullet, killing two people and wounding four others. It was unclear whether the victims were employees, customers or bystanders. Witnesses said the young man fled from the store in a gray minivan and another man may have fled with him. Three people were in critical condition and undergoing surgery. An 18-year-old man was shot in the back, a 17-year-old person was hit in the neck and grazed in the left hand, and a 48-year-old person had several gunshots wounds to the neck, cheek, arm, thigh and buttocks. The gunman, who remains at large, is described as a male Asian in his 20's.
August 29, 1999 - Possible Serial Killer La Crosse - in Families and friends of the victims believe there is serial killer responsible for five drownings of young men over two years in the backwaters of the Mississippi River. Relatives of the deceased suspect someone might be pushing drunken, young men into the river. All the victims were white males of about the same age, all were extremely intoxicated when they died, and all had visited bars in downtown La Crosse before drwoning. However, none of the victims bore wounds consistent with being assaulted.
Lead police detective in the cases Lt. Mitch Brohmer said the evidence suggests the five deaths were nothing more than a string of drownings. "We're not saying that (a serial killer) is not a possibility," he said. "But we have not received any information to show these have been anything but natural deaths."
Mick Miyamoto, dean of student affairs at UW-La Crosse, said the drownings resulted from binge drinking, not foul play. "My sense is that these kids see themselves as invincible," he said. "Many of them are binge drinkers, and they just refuse to accept the seriousness of binge drinking. If we didn't have the river, (the students) would be falling off or jumping off the bluffs."
August 29, 1999 - Ronald Glenn West - While serving a eight-year sentence for robbery Ronald Glenn West, a former Toronto police officer, was charged with first-degree murder in the 1970 sex slayings of nurses Helen Ferguson and Doreen Moorby. He is also under investigation in a 1991 double murder at a picnic site just outside of Blind River, Ontario.
August 27, 1999 - Family Massacre in Wales - Detectives investigating the murders of four family members in South Wales have turned to the Internet to try to track down the killer. South Wales police have put two posters detailing the main points of the murder investigation on the force's web site.
August 27, 1999 - Dara Singh - Hindu fundamentalist leader Dara Singh, the key suspect in the murder of an Australian missionary and his two young sons in eastern India, is believed to be directly involved in the murder of a Muslim shopkeeper. Despite a massive manhunt launched for him, police have not been able to locate him. According to police, a 32-year-old Muslim shopkeeper was attacked by Singh and 20 of his supporters armed with axes, bows and arrows. The victims arms were chopped off before he was set on fire inside a shop in a remote village in eastern India. The killing has fuelled tension in the border areas of tribal-dominated Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar districts.
August 27, 1999 - Cary Stayner - Although the suspect died in a car wreck in 1981, Michigan authorities are trying to determine whether David Norberg was the feared "Babysitter", the killer of four youngsters in Oakland County in the mid 1970s. Police are going to his grave in Wyoming to take DNA from Norberg's body and try to match it to a hair found on the body of one of his alleged victims.
August 28, 1999 - Five Dead in Koreatown - Five people were found fatally shot in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Koreatown in what investigators suspect was a murder-suicide sparked by a domestic dispute. "We're pretty sure it's a murder-suicide," Lt. Sharyn Buck said. "There are witnesses saying that the wife and husband were having a dispute. She had come back today - apparently had moved out."
August 27, 1999 - Cary Stayner - Yosemite handyman confessed killer Cary Stayner refused to give blood, hair and saliva samples to federal prosecutors. In federal court Stayner's lawyers said prosecutors should not be allowed to obtain the samples without a search warrant and have not provided enough evidence that the warrant is justified.
Authorities close to the investigation said that Stayner, hours after his arrest in the beheading death of naturalist Joie Ruth Armstrong, re-enacted the crime for an FBI video camera. Stayner allegedly led investigators to Armstrong's home where he demonstratedhow he killed her and dumped her body near a creek.
August 26, 1999 - Danny Rolling - Friends and relatives of the five students killed in Gainesville, Florida, in 1990 by Danny Rolling remembered the ninth anniversary of their slayings.
August 26, 1999 - The National Summit on Violence - The summit, dedicated to the victims of the Columbine High School shootings, began in grand fashion in Downtown Denver with a lecture by Chicago forensic psychiatrist Helen Morrison, who showed clips from the 1971 Stanley Kubrick film, "A Clockwork Orange." Morrison, a world expert on the study of serial killers and mass murderers, said that the personality defect that drives these people to violence is traceable to childhood. "You can tell that the defect occurs in the first year of life," she noted prior to her presentation.
According to Morrison serial killers can't be rehabilitated because their underlying condition "is probably genetic," and their problems stem from an interaction of genetics, brain chemistry and the endocrine system. Sadly, she claims that the only way to prove her theory is to implant electronic probes deep in the brains of criminals a la "Clockwork Orange." So far all prison wardens she has contacted have nixed her wish to recreate the prison-hospital scenes in the Kubrick classic.
August 26, 1999 - Anatoly Onoprienko - Ukraine's Supreme Court upheld the death sentence imposed on serial killer Anatoly Onoprienko. However President Leonid Kuchma may still commute the sentence to 20 years in prison as the country has imposed an informal moratorium on the death penalty. Serhiy Rogozin, his accomplice in nine killings, had his 13-year sentence lessened to 12 years.
August 25, 1999 - Four Dead Homeless in Sydney, Australia - Four homeless people have been murdered in Sydney in the past nine months. Detectives from three city commands, who met with officers from the Homicide and Violent Serial Offenders Agency, were reluctant to say a serial killer was preying on Sydney's homeless. They would only only say that all four unsolved murders involved one major blow to the head with a blunt object and that the victims were all probably asleep when they were killed.
August 25, 1999 - Angel Maturino Resendiz - Railroad killer Angel Maturino-Resendiz, who is charged with four killings in Texas, two in Illinois and one in Kentucky, sent a 12-page handwritten letter in English from the Harris County Jail to reporter at KPRC-TV in Houston in which he complains about jail food, talks about the presidential race, his belief that abortion is murder, and questions his sanity. It is the third letter he has sent to the media since his arrest.
August 24, 1999 - Green River Killer - Ed Schau, a clinical psychologist from Bellevue said at the American Psychological Association annual conference in Boston that he believes the Green River Killer was a religious fanatic. "I don't have a right to insist that law enforcement take it seriously, but the families of the victims have a right to know," said Schau after King County Sheriff's Detective Tom Jensen, the only active officer working on the Green River file, rejected his theory.
August 24, 1999 - Theodore Kaczynski - With his 368-page memoir only weeks from release, serial bomber and soon-to-be best-selling author Teddy K., released on the Internet a parable that he wrote for OFF!, a zine produced by students at the State University of New York in Binghamton. "Ship of Fools," the parable, tells of passengers and crew who spend their time griping about personal injustices instead of taking over the vessel from an insane crew. The boat eventually crashes into two icebergs and everyone dies. The 11-page tale was written from his Colorado prison cell at the request of Tim LaPietra, a 21-year-old senior. It is on the Web site of Context Books, the publisher of his upcoming memoir, "Truth Versus Lies."
August 23, 1999 - Murder Suicide in Sri Lanka - An enraged paramilitary policeman in northern Sri Lanka shot dead six people and then killed himself after a heated argument with his girlfriend's family. The policeman then shot himself with his automatic rifle. Strangely, none of the girl's family were among the victims.
August 21, 1999 - Ciudad Juarez - Canadian criminologist Candice Skrapec believes at least three, and perhaps four, serial killers are involved in the unsolved murders of 182 (though most accounts put the victim count at 187) women in Ciudad Juarez. Skrapec, a professor of criminology at California State University at Fresno who spent 10 weeks working with Juarez police, said she has identified 67 cases in which she believes serial killers were at work. Among the suspects being investigated is Angel Maturino-Resendez, the suspected "Railway Killer" who has been charged with six killings in Texas and Kentucky.
"Nothing jumped out at me in terms of Satanic rituals or specific torture, as in cutting off someone's fingers or breasts," she the famed criminologist, adding a number of the victims were first strangled and then stabbed repeatedly. Of the 182 total deaths, 40 to 75 had been sexually violated, she said. She also believes there may be even more murders that could be tied to the three suspected serial killers, and that the killings started in 1992, not 1993 as it has been reported.
August 21, 1999 - The Branch Davidians - Danny Coulson, a former FBI official said agents fired two pyrotechnic tear gas grenades at the Branch Davidian compound on the day it went up in flames, contradicting previous government statements that no incendiary devices were used in their attack. The issue of whether the FBI used pyrotechnic devices that day is a major focus of an ongoing inquiry by the Texas Rangers and a key allegation in a pending federal wrongful-death lawsuit filed against the government by surviving Davidians and families of those who died.
The federal government consistently has disputed accusations that the FBI started the fire that consumed the Branch Davidian compound with David Koresh and more than 80 followers inside. FBI bugs recorded Davidians discussing spreading fuel and planning a fire hours before the compound burned. Arson investigators also found evidence that gasoline, charcoal lighter fluid and camp stove fuel had been poured inside the compound.
August 21, 1999 - Jerry Heidler - Jury selection began in the trial of Jerry Heidler charged with killing four people in the Georgia town of Santa Claus shortly before Christmas in 1997. Heidler , 22, is charged with four counts of murder and three counts of kidnapping in the fatal shootings of Kim and Danny Daniels, their daughter Jessica, 16, and son Bryant, 8.
August 21, 1999 - Robert Zarinsky - The sister of a convicted killer Robert Zarinsky, said she has no information that could link her brother to four unsolved murders in 1969. Earlier, Judith Sapsa implicated her brother and her cousin, Theodore Schiffer, in the 1958 killing of Rahway Police Officer Charles Bernoskie. Schiffer, a carpet installer, was arrested last week, but no charges have yet been brought against Zarinsky. Sapsa came forth after Zarinsky accused her husband, Peter, of stealing more than 100-thousand dollars from an inheritance Zarinsky's mother had left him.
August 20, 1999 - Bishop Agustin Misado - A Roman Catholic Bishop was on charged with helping to organise the 1994 Rwandan genocide and murdering a dozen children. Bishop Augustin Misago, 56, was arrested in April on suspicion of playing a role in the slaughter of an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the 100-day killing orgy in 1994. He was charged on five counts, including genocide and other crimes against humanity, the massacre of a dozen children, and complicity in genocide. The Vatican sharply criticised the arrest of the bishop and called for his release. Human Rights organisations say a number of bishops, priests, nuns and monks played active roles in the genocide, either directly or by aiding and abetting the Hutu militia who carried out most of the killings.
August 20, 1999 - Cary Stayner - In a one-page, handwritten letter to The Fresno Bee, Yosemite decapitator Cary Stayner said he wanted to turn his life into a TV movie to "pay as much restitution to my victims' families as possible."
August 20, 1999 - Norman Johnston - Escaped killer Norman Johnston was captured not far from his hometown after a three-week long manhunt. Police focused on the area after spotting a car stolen in Newark, Del., where Johnston had been sighted and nearly captured. The driver fled after crashing the car, but he was tracked down by authorities using helicopters and dogs.
August 19, 1999 - Dieter Zurwehme - After months of nationwide manhunt, police arrested their Germany's most wanted, Dieter Zurwehme, in the eastern town of Greifswald. The 57-year-old serial killer of four was known as the "Murderer of Remagen". Arrested with a gas pistol, Zurwehme did not fight back against the policemen. The murderer was quoted as saying "I am the man whom you are seeking" when he saw the officers. Eager to get their man, German police shot to death an innocent man earlier this summer because he looked like Zurwehme.
August 19, 1999 - Richard Labatt - Alarmed that his wife was starting a relationship with their neighbor, Richard Labatt, a Sacramento suberbanite, freaked out, shot his wife, both his sons the neighbor,and then himself. Three of them died at the scene. A third child -- a little girl -- apparently was unharmed in the attack and alerted a trio of neighborhood girls who were riding their bicycles by the house. All victims were shot in the head. Stephen La Franco, the neighbor, survived until early the next morning. Cody Labatt the 5-year-old son of the murderous father, lingered until until mid afternoon, when he stopped breathing.
August 19, 1999 - Susan Eubanks - Infanticidal mom Susan Eubanks, who blamed her shooting of her four sons on drugs, alcohol and bad relationships with men, was convicted of murder by a California court. Ms. Eubanks shot her sons, ages 4 to 14, after an argument with her boyfriend in October 1997. She stopped once to reload the .38-caliber revolver and then shot herself in the stomach.
August 19, 1999 - Robert Zarinsky - Investigators with drills and saws tore apart a "haunted house" in Linden, Pensylvannia, looking for evidence that might link its owner -- already in prison for murdering a teenager in 1969 -- to the unsolved slayings of at least four more teenage girls. Officials from eight law enforcement agencies, including the State Police and FBI, were hoping to find personal belongings that Robert Zarinsky, 59, might have taken from his victims and stashed in the house he inherited from his mother.
August 18, 1999 - Daniel Conahan - Suspected torture killer Daniel Owen Conahan Jr. was found guilty in the death of transient Richard Montgomery, 21, of Port Charlotte. The victim was found in the woods near a hog trail tied to a tree, mutilated to cover DNA evidence, raped and strangled. The penalty phase was scheduled for September 13.
August 17, 1999 - Michael Swango - Federal agents investigating former doctor Michael Swango said they have found traces of potentially poisonous chemicals in tissue samples from two of his patients who died at a Long Island veterans hospital in 1993. The bodies of three patients who were under the doctor's care have been exhumed, and tests are being conducted on two others, based on tissue samples taken at autopsy. Swango, 44, is now serving a 3 1/2-year sentence in Federal prison for fraudulently obtaining a medical position at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Northport, New York.
August 17, 1999 - Russell Ellwood - Former New Orleans taxi driver Russell Ellwood -- who was suspected of killing as many as 15 women -- was sentenced to life in prison for the only murder authorities could pin on him. Ellwood was convicted of murdering Cheryl Lewis, 30, who was one of 26 women, most of them prostitutes, found dead in swampy areas around New Orleans from 1991 through 1996.
August 16, 1999 - Suspected Chicago Sexual Predator - A 41-year-old Chicago woman told police she was abducted at gunpoint and raped in a vacant lot in the South Side. Authorities are awaiting DNA results before trying to tie the case to one of four serial predators stalking the Englewood and New City communities.
August 15, 1999 - Angel Maturino Resendiz - Clearly enjoying his status as celebrity killer Angel Maturino Resendiz sent a rambling, 11-page letter to the television station KTRK-TV. The letter, which was written in English with numerous grammatical and spelling errors, talks about his "dark side," his love for his dogs, and that he turned himself in because he thought U.S. authorites would put his wife in jail. Previously described as religious, Maturino Resendiz described himself in the letter as a "Christian Jew." His attorney, Allen Tanner, said his client sent the letter without his knowledge. He also sent a letter to one of his sisters.
August 14, 1999 - Alan Eugene Miller - Defense attorneys for Alan Eugene Miller -- accused of fatally shooting three people at two offices he worked -- say that Alan is, "at best, very slow" and should be in a mental health facility rather than in prison. Shelby County District Attorney Robby Owens disagrees and said he would "absolutely" seek the death penalty for the lethal driver killer.
August 14, 1999 - Darrell Rich - A panel of three circuit judges rejected defense arguments that a federal trial judge in Sacramento should have let them investigate the way Shasta County killer Darrell Rich, an American Indian, was prosecuted. The defense lawyers claimed the prosecution violated Rich's rights by systematically excluding American Indians from the grand jury that indicted him. The federal appeals court refused to review the death sentence. His only remaining hope to stay alive is a Supreme Court appeal.
August 14, 1999 - Daniel Conahan Jr. - Suspected serial killer Daniel Conahan denied in court killing Richard Montgomery -- he also denied ever meeting him. But Robert Whittaker, Montgomery's former roommate in Punta Gorda, testified that Conahan came looking for Montgomery about two months before the 21-year-old's body was discovered in the woods.
August 13, 1999 - Veronica Compton - According to John Austin, chairman of the state Indeterminate Sentencing Review Board, Veronica Compton, the former girlfriend of "Hillside Strangler" Kenneth Bianchi, may get another shot at parole. Compton is serving a life sentence for attempting to murder a Bellingham cocktail waitress in a copycat attack in 1980 to give the incarcerated Bianchi an alibi.
August 13, 1999 - Larry Keith Robison - Texas panel refused to commute the death penalty of Larry Keith Robison, a mentally ill man who is scheduled to die next week for decapitating his roommate and killing four other people in 1982. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted unanimously to reject Larry Keith Robison's request for a commutation of his death penalty to life imprisonment. If other appeals fail, Robison will be given a lethal injection August 17 of August for the 1982 slaying of Bruce Gardner.
August 13, 1999 - Megan Hogg - Familicidial mother Megan Hogg, 27, of Daly City, pleaded no contest to three murder counts in the smothering deaths of her three young daughters. Hogg killed 7-year-old Antoinette Michelle Marden, 3-year-old Angelique Jennifer Roberts and 2-year-old Alexandra LeeAnn Roberts on March 23, 1998. Prosecutors said Hogg smothered the girls by covering their noses and mouths with duct tape and laying them on her bed. She then took a powerful mixture of pain killers and antidepressants in an apparent suicide attempt. Before she passed out, Hogg wrote two notes in which she admitted that she had killed the children.
Hogg survived and was arrested the following morning. George Walker, Hogg's attorney, said that at the time of the killings the young mother was seeing a psychiatrist and taking anti-depression medication. She was also taking pain killers for a head injury she received in an auto accident in January, Walker said. Her sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 24.
August 13, 1999 - Norman Johnston - Escaped murderer Norman Johnston was spotted on the porch of a relative's home but he managed to elude authorities yet again. Police dogs repeatedly picked up Johnston's scent after two officers spotted him outside a home in a rural area in northeast Maryland, more than a week after he broke out of a Pennsylvania prison. Police said the man fled into the woods after the two officers turned their car around to get a better look at him.
August 13, 1999 - Familicide in Porterville, California - A man shot and killed his wife and three children before their exploding his house in Porterville in this small town in the Central Valley of California. The bodies of all five were found in the wreckage and were burned beyond recognition, Porterville Fire Chief Frank Guyton said. The cause of the explosion has not been determined. The girls were 11, 7 and 2 years old. The father allegedly spread a flammable liquid around the house, then lit it. The house exploded after the fumes ignited.
August 11, 1999 - Floyd Tapson - Former group home manager and suspected serial killer Floyd Tapson was sentenced to life in prison for trying to murder a mentally disabled woman in Billings last year. Calling Tapson "a cold-blooded, would-be killer" and "a grave risk" to women with disabilities, District Judge G. Todd Baugh ordered the maximum sentence sought by Yellowstone County prosecutors. Under Montana law, Tapson, 38, will have to serve at least 30 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.
August 11, 1999 - Cary Stayner - Suspected Yosemite serial killer Cary Stayner was carrying a copy of a novel about a crazed serial killer in his backpack when questioned about the slaying of naturalist Joie Ruth Armstrong. The book, "Black Lightning" by horror novelist John Saul, was among a number of seemingly innocuous items FBI agents found in Stayner's dark green pack on July 23, a day after Armstrong's beheaded body was found near her home in the park. Other items include a camera, a Corona beer bottle, sunflower seeds, a harmonica and tanning lotion.
August 11, 1999 - Todd Allen Reed - The lead detectives of the Forest Park Task Force will continue to prepare for the trial of Todd Allen Reed, a 32-year-old North Portland man facing seven counts of aggravated murder in the strangulation deaths of three women found between May 7 and June 2 in Forest Park.
Detective Robert Peterson of the Gresham Police Department will serve as a liaison to Portland police, as Gresham police and the East Multnomah County Major Crimes Team re-examine a possible connection between Reed and the unsolved deaths of two Gresham girls who disappeared the summer of 1987. Reed had been a suspect in the killings of Jennifer Tchir, 15, and Mindi C. Thomas, 12, but Gresham police said they never had enough physical evidence to arrest him.
ow, police are retrieving the girls' clothing to see whether they can obtain DNA samples they might compare with Reed's. Tchir and Thomas were found in remote wooded areas on the eastern side of Gresham, about three miles apart. Each had been strangled. Reed's girlfriend knew both girls and was the last person to see the victims alive. Police are still investigating the disappearance of Amatha Saenz, an 18-year-old Portland woman who was reported missing July 1 and was friendly with Alexandria Ison, 17, one of the Forest Park victims.
August 10, 1999 - Familicide in Azerbaijan - The director of a college in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, allegedly shot and killed his wife, her brother and two other family members. The man allegedly used a Kalashnikov assault rifle to kill the people after a family argument. Another relative was also wounded before he fled with the weapon.
August 10, 1999 - Faye Copeland - A federal judge overturned the death sentence given to a 78-year-old Faye Copeland for the rest of her life, since Smith let stand her convictions for the murders of five transients. The men were killed in an ongoing livestock swindle that involved her husband, Ray. Authorities said in the late 1980s the couple would hire transients as farmhands, get them involved in buying cattle with hot checks, then kill them. Ray Copeland was also convicted and sentenced to death. He died in 1993 at age 78 while awaiting execution. The ruling came on Faye's 78th birthday.
August 10, 1999 - Angel Maturino Resendiz - Suspected railroad killer Angel Maturino Resendiz was indicted in the 1997 killing of University of Kentucky student Christopher Maier, 21, on railroad tracks near the campus. Fayette County prosecutors said they will seek the death penalty for Resendiz. He also was charged with the rape and beating of Maier's girlfriend. The couple were walking back to campus from a party. Authorities have linked the rail-riding Mexican drifter to a total of nine slayings. He is now charged with seven, including two in Illinois and four in Texas.
August 10, 1999 - Marilyn Lemak - A suburban Chicago nurse accused of drugging her three young children and suffocating them in their sleep was found fit for trial, allowing prosecutors to proceed with first-degree murder charges. DuPage County Judge George J. Bakalis issued his ruling after defense mental health experts agreed that Marilyn Lemak is capable of understanding the charges and assisting in her own defense.
August 10, 1999 - Evelio Rivera Zacarias - A Rosemead, California, woman was found alive today after being kidnapped by her ex-boyfriend from a house where four people were killed and two others were wounded. Evelio Rivera Zacarias, 42, the ex-boyfriend, was upset at the failure of their relationship, authorities said. Officials did not immediately say how or where the woman was released. The shooting happened about 8:30 p.m. in a home in Rosemead, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. None of the victims' names were released, but the woman's current boyfriend was among
August 10, 1999 - Daniel Conahan Jr. - Punta Gorda Chief Judge William Blackwell will act as judge and jury for Conahan, 45, who is charged in the 1996 death of Richard Montgomery, 21. Investigators have said Conahan, an unemployed nurse at the time of his arrest, had a penchant for picking up drifters to take nude photographs and a proclivity for sexual violence. He allegedly offered transients money to take nude pictures in the woods near Fort Myers, then tied them to trees and killed them. All of the victims were male; most were found naked, with strangulation marks around their necks.
August 9, 1999 - Joel Rifkin - New York State's most prolific serial killer, Joel Rifkin, wants to build a shelter for prostitutes with counseling, drug treatment, medical help, and job training. The proposal for "Oholah House" -- named for a biblical prostitute killed by her clients -- has kept Rifkin busy in his windowless cell at Attica Correctional Facility for the past four years. It is his way of making amends for the 17 murders he admits he commited.
August 9, 1999 - Daniel Ray Troyer - Investigators believe former house burglar Daniel Ray Troyer may have been responsible for the deaths of as many as 13 older women. Troyer, 39, pleaded guilty to killing Drucilla Ovard, 83, and Ethel Luckau, 88, both in 1985. He received two consecutive life sentences. Troyer will spend the rest of his life in prison, but investigators aren't done with him yet. They want to know just how many rapes and homicides he might have committed.
August 9, 1999 - Charles Manson - Today marks the 30th anniversary of the attack by the Manson family on Sharon Tate and her guests, signaling the begining of the end of the peace and love 60s. The next night, August 10, the Family butchered Rosemary and Leno LaBianca, in the neighborhood of Los Feliz.
August 7, 1999 - Andrew Cunanan - The Mediterranean-style Miami Beach palazzo where Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace was gunned down by Andrew Cunanan is now on the market for a cool $23 million. "It's a spectacular house. It's really unique," Versace family spokesman Lou Colasuonno said. "But the family focus has shifted. The South Beach home is unfortunately now underutilized." Since the killing of the fashion legend, the stairs of the mansion have become one of Miami's leading tourist attraction.
August 6, 1999 - Stanley Pietrzak - Detectives in Spokane are seeking a murder warrant against the former manager of an apartment building where human bones were found incinerated in a basement furnace this spring. Investigators believe Stanley Pietrzak, 45, killed Kelly Conway -- who was identified by DNA scraped from her charred bones -- then stuffed her body into the furnace and burned it. Tenants of the Helen Apartments discovered the bones in April after they said Pietrzak bragged of killing the woman and torching her remains.
Pietrzak managed the low-income building at 123 S. Adams from November 1997 to October 1998 and lived there until April, when he was sentenced to jail on an unrelated sex crime. Conway, 24, lived at the Helen off and on and was seen with Pietrzak in January, tenants said. Police listed her as missing in November.
Pietrzak also had boasted of converting a walk-in freezer in the Helen basement into a torture room, residents said. Police said Pietrzak also is a "person of interest in a couple of other things we're looking at," but he declined to elaborate. Authorities do not think he is the serial killer responsible for 10 deaths in Spokane and Tacoma over the past few years.
August 6, 1999 - Todd Alan Reed - Authorities claim they have linked Forest Park suspect Todd Alan Reed, 32, to the unsolved murders of two young girls. Gresham police have confirmed they have DNA evidence linking Reed to the 1987 murders of Mindi Thomas, 12, and Jennifer Tchir. Both girls disappeared the summer of 1987. Each girl's remains were found in remote wooded areas on the eastern side of Gresham, about three miles apart. Each had been strangled.
August 6, 1999 - Alan Eugene Miller - Disgruntled worker Alan Eugene Miller -- accused of shooting three people to death at two companies where he had worked -- told one of his victims, "I'm tired of your rumors about me." The prosecutor gave a brief description of the killings as a judge ordered Miller held without bond. Miller, 34, is charged in the shooting deaths of two of his co-workers at Ferguson Enterprises and then later killing of Jarvis, 39, at Post Airgas, a company where he previously worked.
The heavyset and unmarried Miller lived with his mother, Barbara Miller, in Billingsley. She said her son "went off to work just as he always does this morning. He left here like he always does, with a 7-Up and a couple of things of biscuits and sausage."
August 5, 1999 - Alfred Gaynor - The lawyer for accused handyman serial killer said he will ask that the trial be moved out of Springfield. Defense lawyer Linda Thompson said that she will file a change of venue motion later this month in the case of Alfred Gaynor, 32, of Springfield who is charged with raping and killing four Springfield women.
Superior Court Judge Daniel Ford told lawyers that he wants a jury to be selected in an area with a similar racial makeup as Springfield. Gaynor and the victims are black. Gaynor has been jailed since his arrest in April last year. He is charged with strangling the women between November 1997 and February 1998.
August 4, 1999 The Los Angeles Times - Here at the Archives we're proud of appearing in an article -- Killer Obsession -- by Laurie Pike, in the Los Angeles Times. There's even a picture of me next to a collage. Thanks to Laurie for writing a great piece, and to Paul Morse for the picture.
August 2, 1999 - Norman Johnston - A man serving a life sentence for killing four teenagers escaped from a maximum-security state prison in Huntintung, Pensylvannia. Norman Johnston, 48, was convicted in 1980 of committing the killings to cover up a multimillion-dollar burglary ring he ran with his two brothers. The film "At Close Range," starring Sean Penn, was based on the case. The prison, which holds more than 1,800 inmates, is next to a residential neighborhood in Huntingdon, about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh. A car was stolen from a house across from the prison, but police didn't find any fingerprints at the scene. Johnston's brothers, Bruce and David, were also convicted of killing the teenagers and were also sentenced to life. Bruce was also convicted of killing two potential witnesses.
July 31, 1999 - Suspected Chicago Sexual Predator - Investigators in Chicago have a sketch of one of the four suspected killers blamed for 12 unsolved killings on the city's South Side. The victim of a sexual assault last October helped investigators prepare a sketch of the man who attacked her. DNA taken from the woman following her sexual assault matched genetic evidence found on one slain victim and on another sexual-assault victim. The assailant in the police sketch is described as a black man between 40 and 50 years old, about 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing 175 pounds, with salt-and-pepper hair and light-brown eyes, Camden said.
July 31, 1999 - Angel Maturino Resendiz - The suspected Railway Killer, Angel Maturino Resendiz, was indicted on two more capital murder charges for the bludgeoning deaths of the Rev. Norman "Skip" Sirnic and his wife Karen, both 47. The Sirnics were killed as they slept inside their parsonage in Weimar about 80 miles west of Houston. Their bodies were discovered May 2. Maturino Resendiz already faced five charges that carry possible death sentences: two in Texas, two in Illinois and one in Kentucky.
July 31, 1999 - Branch Davidians - Attorney General Janet Reno rejected the suggestion by a top Texas official that FBI agents may have ignited the Waco fire that killed 86 Branch Davidians in 1993. "I have found no basis for concluding that the FBI was in any way responsible," Reno told reporters. "We have reviewed it, and reviewed it," she said. Reno's response followed statements by James Francis, chairman of the Texas Public Safety Commission, that the FBI may have fired incendiary devices into the compound on April 19, 1993. Investigators concluded that sect members set the fatal fire, which swept through the compound. A Justice Department official, who asked not to be identified, said there was some evidence that so-called "flash-bang" devices were placed into the compound "during an earlier event" in the Waco standoff.
July 30, 1999 - Mark O. Barton Authorities released the content of the computer printed note below that was found in Mark Barton's suburban apartment following his Internet-stock-driven rampage.
To Whom It May Concern:
Leigh Ann is in the master bedroom closet under a blanket. I killed her on Tuesday night. I killed Matthew and Mychelle Wednesday night.
There may be similarities between these deaths and the death of my first wife, Debra Spivey. However, I deny killing her and her mother. There's no reason for me to lie now. It just seemed like a quiet way to kill and a relatively painless way to die.
There was little pain. All of them were dead in less than five minutes. I hit them with a hammer in their sleep and then put them face down in a bathtub to make sure they did not wake up in pain. To make sure they were dead. I am so sorry. I wish I didn't. Words cannot tell the agony. Why did I?
I have been dying since October. I wake up at night so afraid, so terrified that I couldn't be that afraid while awake. It has taken its toll. I have come to hate this life and this system of things. I have come to have no hope.
I killed the children to exchange them for five minutes of pain for a lifetime of pain. I forced myself to do it to keep them from suffering so much later. No mother, no father, no relatives. The fears of the father are transferred to the son. It was from my father to me and from me to my son. He already had it and now to be left alone. I had to take him with me.
I killed Leigh Ann because she was one of the main reasons for my demise as I planned to kill the others. I really wish I hadn't killed her now. She really couldn't help it and I love her so much anyway.
I know that Jehovah will take care of all of them in the next life. I'm sure the details don't matter. There is no excuse, no good reason. I am sure no one would understand. If they could, I wouldn't want them to. I just write these things to say why.
Please know that I love Leigh Ann, Matthew and Mychelle with all of my heart. If Jehovah is willing, I would like to see all of them again in the resurrection, to have a second chance. I don't plan to live very much longer, just long enough to kill as many of the people that greedily sought my destruction.
You should kill me if you can.
Mark O. Barton
July 29, 1999 - Mark O. Barton Triggered perhaps by a sharp drop of the Dow Industrial Average, Atlanta "day trader" Mark O. Barton pummeled his family to death, then headed to two brokerage offices were he opened fire, killing nine people and wounding 12. Barton, 44, escaped and shot himself to death five hours later when police stopped his van at a gas station.
July 28, 1999 - Todd Alan Reed - A Multnomah County grand jury indicted Todd Alan Reed on seven counts of aggravated murder in the strangulation deaths of three women found in Forest Park. If convicted of aggravated murder, he faces a possible death penalty or life in prison.
July 28, 1999 - Possible Chicago Serial Killer - The FBI is offering a $20,000 reward for information that leads to the identification and arrests of one of the four killers active in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood. "We know there are citizens out there who have information about these cases, and whether it's specific information, or it's a suspicion or it's a hunch, we want to capture that information," said Kathleen McChesney, special agent in charge of the Chicago office of the FBI. "We are hoping to motivate some people who might otherwise be hesitant to tell law enforcement (what they know)."
July 27, 1999 - Ira Einhorn - Philadelphia jurors began deliberations on a lawsuit demanding that fugitive guru Ira Einhorn pay at least $4.28 million in damages to counter whatever profits he could make from selling his story.
July 27, 1999 - Possible Vancouver Serial Killer - Authorities in Vancouver posted a $100,000 reward for information concerning the dissapearences of 31 prostitutes. Also, "America's Most Wanted" will feature their investigation in an upcoming episode. Police hope that publicizing the case on "America's Most Wanted," will convince any of the women who have left Canada to contact their families.
July 27, 1999 - Possible Belize Serial Killer - A string of six rape-murders of girls throughout Belize has residents concerned that a serial killer might be on the loose in their usually quiet Central American nation. A thousand people turned out in Belize City for a candlelight vigil in memory of the victims.
July 27, 1999 - Cary Stayner - Motel handyman Cary Stayner told San Francisco's KBWB-TV in an off-camera jailhouse interview how he killed a naturalist and three Yosemite sightseers, saying he had dreamed of killing women for 30 years.He added that, "none of the women were sexually abused in any way."
July 26, 1999 - Falun Gong - The Chinese government has arrested more than 1,200 members of a quasi-religious group called Falun Gong. Though leaders of the sect claim that they are merely a meditation group that has adapted ancient qigong breathing practices and has no political aspirations, goverment officials accuse them of being a dangerous cult and called it's leader an "evil figure." The founder of the sect, Li Hongzhi, a former Red Army trumpet player, now lives in exile in Queens, New York.
Falun Gong was started less than seven years ago and now counts with more than ten million followers. It came to the government's attention about three months ago when it organized a silent protest with 10,000 followers who seemed to come out of nowhere and sorround the central government compound.
July 26, 1999 - Drug War in Rio de Janeiro - Twelve bodies were found in various locations around Rio de Janeiro victims of a turf war between the drug gangs Red Command and Third Command. The bodies, some of which were found handcuffed and showed signs of torture, were found in three different spots on the city's poor north side, state security secretary Josias Quintal told reporters. Several were shot at close range and five were found in a stolen taxi.
July 26, 1999 - Cary Stayner - Motel handyman and recreational nudist, Cary Stayner, confessed to killing the three Yosemite sightseers Carole Sund, her daughter Juli and family friend Silvina Pelosso, whose bodies were found earlier this year. Stayner, who already confessed to last week's beheading of naturalist Joie Ruth Armstrong, provided details about the killing that only police knew about. Stayner had been questioned months ago in the death of the sightseers but was ruled out as a suspect. He is also suspected of killing his uncle Jesse who died of a gunshot wound that authorities believed was the victim of robbery.
July 26, 1999 - Angel Maturino Resendez - Detectives in Marion County, Florida, are trying to determine if a local man was killed two years ago by Angel Maturino Resendez. Detectives with the Marion County Sheriff's Office returned Friday from Houston where they unsuccessfully tried to interview Maturino Resendez. They were prevented from doing so by a court order requested by his defense attorney.
During their trip, the detectives were able to confirm that Maturino Resendez was in Baldwin, Florida, the day before Howell's body was discovered and that someone used Maturino Resendez's social security number for part-time employment in Fort Pierce two days after Howell's body was found. Howell was traveling with 16-year-old Wendy Von Huben, who has not been seen or heard from since Howell was killed. Tests of Resendiz's blood will be compared with evidence recovered from the Marion County murder scene, Bovaird said. There was blood recovered on Howell's body that was not his blood.
July 25, 1999 - Heaven's Gate San Diego County officials said they reached an agreement with Mark and Sarah King, two former Heaven's Gate cultist, who want to auction many of the group's belongings. Under the agreement the most notable objects of the group -- the writings, the artwork and more than 20 patches embossed with the group's logo -- will go to the couple for safekeeping. The county wants to auction computers, furniture and the vehicles belonging to the group so to pay the $100, 000 dollars in claims filed against the cult by relatives of the deceased to pay for burial expenses.
July 25, 1999 - Amnon Cohen - A 43-year-old taxi driver burned his wife and two children, ages 4 and 2, to death in their Tel Aviv apartment. The suspect, Amnon Cohen who is in police custody, was lightly injured in the fire. In a letter he sent to newspaper offices which arrived a half hour after the incident, Cohen wrote he intended to kill his family and commit suicide. Neighbors said that Cohen and his wife argued frequently, and that he suspected his wife was having a "virtual affair" with someone over the Internet. Cohen stabbed and strangled his family as they were sleeping and then doused their bodies with turpentine and set them on fire.
July 25, 1999 - Mark Andrew Heath - Police in Australia are trying to figure out why 31-year-old Mark Andrew Heath drove his family to a forest and killed himself and his four children. The children, Sarah, 8, Holly, 6, Jak, 4, and Kaleb, 2, the family dog and Heath were found dead inside by three pig shooters. There was a tube leading from the car's exhaust pipe to a rear vent inside the vehicle. Police had been searching for Mr Heath for four days after he failed to return his children to their mother's home at Golden Bay, 60 kilometres south of Perth.
This latest murder-suicide may have been a copycat to the recent Barbara Wyrzykowski tragedy, where on July 3 she gassed herself and her five young children in their van in forest east of Karragullen, near Perth. Wyrzykowski had shown no signs of depression or suicidal tendencies and was in a stable de facto relationship. She left behind a suicide note and a heart-broken father.
July 25, 1999 - Cary Stayner - A motel maintenance man was detained at a nudist colony for questioning in the decapitation of a naturalist in Yosemite National Park. FBI agents also hinted at a possible link with the slaying of three park sightseers earlier this year. Cary Stayner, 38, was taken into custody by federal authorities in Wilton, Calif., near Sacramento. The naturalist, 26-year-old Joie Ruth Armstrong, was last seen by friends and coworkers at the Cedar Lodge in El Portal, a community at the western edge of the park where Stayner works as a handyman. The decapitated body of Armstrong was discovered a few hundred yards from the park housing she shared with a man and woman, who were away at the time.
Stayner is the brother of Steven Stayner, a kidnap victim who made national headlines in 1980 after he escaped from Kenneth Parnell, a convicted child molester. Steven Stayner, who was held and sexually abused for seven years, died in a 1989 motorcycle crash.
July 23, 1999 - Felicia Marie Chapman - Three teen-agers were in critical condition after a wheelchair-bound woman allegedly forced them to swallow her prescription drugs at knifepoint. The woman was charged with attempted murder. The teens were found unconscious after taking drugs including muscle relaxants and morphine near the woman's home in Joppatowne, Maryland, about 25 miles northeast of Baltimore in Harford County. Sheriff's deputies found more than 200 prescription drugs at the residence. Felicia Marie Chapman, 25, was later charged with three counts of attempted murder, reckless endangerment and possession of controlled dangerous substances with intent to distribute. She was being held without bail at the local county jail.
One teen-ager told investigators that Chapman gave him a handful of pills for the three teen-agers and told him to "put these pills in their hands and put their hands up to their mouths so that these pills go down their throats." The kid said he initially refused but did so after the woman allegedly threatened him with a knife.
July 22, 1999 - Angel Maturino Resendiz - A February 14 trial date was set for suspected serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz, who was formally charged with the slaying of Dr. Claudia Benton. Judge Bill Harmon also granted prosecutor Devon Anderson's request for a psychological evaluation of the suspect, which is expected to be conducted within the next four weeks.
His court-appointed defense attorney Allen Tanner entered an innocent plea on his client's behalf. Resendiz nodded when Judge Bill Harmon asked if he understood he could face the death penalty. Tannerdeclined to elaborate on the not-guilty plea or discuss his defense strategy. He said he was hoping that Mexican diplomats would persuade prosecutors not to seek the death penalty. The trial is tentatively scheduled for February 14.
July 22, 1999 - Four Sexual Predators in Chicago - Issuing a citywide warning, authorities in Chicago confirmed that the killings of as many as a dozen black prostitutes around the city's South Side over the past four years are the work of four killers. Though the victims all shared a common "high-risk" lifestyle in which they sold sex to earn money to buy smokable crack cocaine.
In the last eight years police have arrested two other men in connection with multiple slayings of women in Englewood and the adjacent New City neighborhood. Hubert Geralds Jr. was sentenced to death two years ago for killing six women in Englewood in 1994 and 1995. Gregory Clepper is awaiting trial on charges he killed 14 women in the area from 1991 to 1996.
July 21, 1999 - Ex-Police Chief Alan Chertok - Former Spokane Police Chief Alan Chertok, who resigned under pressure for suggesting his predecessor was a suspect in their serial killer investigation, has taken a job as interim chief of police at a community college in Southern California.
July 21, 1999 - Todd Alan Reed - Portland Police filed court documents saying they have DNA evidence linking their suspect, Todd Reed, to the three homeless women found strangled in Forest Park. Reed was arraigned on three counts of aggravated murder. According to court documents, bodily fluids found in a used condom nearby one of victims and on the thighs of another match Reed's DNA.
July 21, 1999 - Zhao Lianrong - The Beijing Evening News reported the execution in Beijing of Chinese rampage killer Zhao Lianrong, who stabbed eight women migrant workers to death in the pre-dawn hours of May 30. Four other people were executed in Yinchuan, capital of the impoverished Ningxia region 560 miles west of Beijing, after a court found them guilty of bombing a police car in April and killing four policemen
July 20, 1999 - Possible Murder-Suicide in Redwood City - A condominium fire in Redwood City that killed four adults is being investigated by the Redwood City police as a possible murder-suicide. Although a cause for the blaze has not been determined, Capt. Scott Warner said Monday in a news release that one of the male victims in the early-morning fire had what appeared to be a gunshot wound to the head. Two adult males and an adult female were found in the charred remains of the unit at 50 Horgan Ave., while an 85-year-old woman, identified as Rose Spencer, died in an upstairs unit. San Mateo County coroner's officials were not releasing the names of the three downstairs victims Monday, but neighbors said a mother lived there with her two adult sons.
July 20, 1999 - Shawn Adam Miller & Gerald Davis - A 16-year-old boy and a 13-year-old friend were found shot to death after authorities sought to question them in the deaths of the older boy's parents. Travis County Sheriff Margo Frasier said it appeared that Shawn Adam Miller, 16, and Gerald Davis, 13, committed suicide or that one boy killed the other before shooting himself. A note was found in one boy's pocket, but Frasier did not reveal its contents. Officers had been searching for the boys after Miller's parents, Mark and Linda Miller, were found shot to death in their rural Travis County home.
July 19, 1999 - Angel Maturino Resendez - Prosecutors took 45 minutes to obtain a capital murder indictment against alleged serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz. This indictment for the December 1998 beating and stabbing death of Houston-area Dr. Claudia Benton could land the the rail-riding drifter in Benton county's death row, which is the most active death row in the world. Authorities say they found one of Maturino Resendiz's fingerprints in the doctor's stolen Jeep. Also, jewelry associated with Benton was among dozens of pieces recovered from the suspect's Mexican home.
July 19, 1999 - Todd Alan Reed - Portland police announced the arrest of produce worker Todd Alan Reed, 32, who is suspected of the murders of three women found in Forest Park. Authorities partly credited Detective Sgt. Dave Schlegel for the arrest who remembered previously arresting the suspect in a sexual assault case seven years ago. Reed served three years in prison and was kicked out of a sex-offender treatment program two weeks ago because he failed to attend.
July 18, 1999 - Florida's New Electric Chair - Florida's spanking new electric chair may be retired after its blood-soaked debut. Blood flowed from the nose of Allen "Tiny" Davis, the only man that was executed in the chair, which substituted the temperamental Ol' Sparky. State medical examiners blamed it on blood-thinning medications the 344-pound Davis was taking.
July 17, 1999 - David Allen Cassel - A man who shot a Portland police officer and then shot himself during a standoff at his apartment had been one of the first paramedics to arrive at the scene of a massacre that left 21 people dead in 1984 at a McDonald's restaurant in California. David Allen Cassel had been on the job as an emergency medical technician for only a few months when he was called to the scene of the shootings in San Ysidro, 15 years ago. His former supervisor, Jeff Fehlberg, said Cassel never got over the horror of James Oliver Huberty's rampage, and worked only a few more shifts as a paramedic before he quit. Cassel was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after police ended a 12-hour standoff by rushing into his apartment. The standoff and suicide came just three days from the 15th anniversary of the McDonald's massacre.
July 17, 1999 - Angel Maturino Resendez - According to Houston police detectives, suspected serial killer Angel Maturino Resendez was downright talkative after he surrendered. He gabbed endlessly with detectives about U.S. foreign policy, economics and mathematics. Maturino Resendez allegedly talked extensively about his displeasure with capitalism, the treatment of migrant workers and many U.S. government policies, including the recent air raids in Yugoslavia. The suspect also discussed a mathematical theory concerning the numeral zero, going so far as to sketch a formula. However, he neither admitted nor denied guilt in any crime.
July 16, 1999 - Family Massacre in Wales - Police believe the murderer or murderers responsible for a family massacre in Wales knew the victims, and is probably one of the villagers of Clydach. As detectives released new information about the killings, the small community was rife with rumour and counter-rumour. Most locals believe South Wales Police already know who the killer is and are merely taking their time to make sure they get all the evidence.
July 16, 1999 - Dr. Frank Fisher - Murder charges against Dr. Frank Fisher, a physician accused of giving patients large doses of painkillers that resulted in five overdose deaths, were reduced to involuntary manslaughter. Murder charges also were reduced to involuntary manslaughter against pharmacist Stephen Miller who filled 's the good doctor's prescriptions. Charges against Miller's wife and pharmacy co-owner, Madeline, were dismissed. Fisher, a Harvard Medical School graduate, is an advocate of the aggressive use of narcotics to control pain, and reportedly had treated as many as 3,000 patients from Redding and surrounding Northern California communities. Most of his patients had prescriptions filled by the Millers because other pharmacists refused to fill such large orders.
July 15, 1999 - Dr. Frank Fisher - A 34-year-old woman apparently shot to death her two young children in their car seats, then turned the gun on herself while parked at a scenic overlook. Rosemarie Kirkwood was found slumped in the driver's seat of her Jeep Cherokee with a .40 caliber Glock pistol in her hand, and her children, Kelly, 4, and Kyle, 3, were found in the back seat, each shot twice in the chest. One of the children had a leg wound, apparently caused by the bullet that passed through the mother's body. Kirkwood had been taking anti-depressants and had recently started drinking. The day of the murder-suicide she took the pistol from her husband's locked cabinet and drove off with the children. Motorists spotted the car parked on the overlook near this eastern Tennessee city and notified police.
July 14, 1999 - Angel Maturino Resendez - Suspected "Railway Killer" Angel Maturino Resendez, aka Rafael Resendez-Ramirez aka Angel Reyes Resendiz aka 30 other aliases, admitted he was guilty of a burglary in one of the slayings and indicated he is willing to cooperate with authorities. In giving his name to State District Judge William Harmon, Maturino Resendez explained that the name Resendez-Ramirez was an alias based on his uncle's name. No explanation was given about the other alias, Angel Reyes Resendis, nor why all print and electronic media has chosen to use the Resendez-Ramirez alias.
July 13, 1999 - Michael Hensley - Fugitive Satanist rampager Michael Hensley, 30, surrendered to police after a two-hour standoff at a gas station. Hensley gave up around 5 a.m. ending the standoff in which a clerk and two customers were held hostage at the station.
July 13, 1999 - Angel Reyes Resendiz - The elusive "Railroad Killer," Angel Reyes Resendiz aka Rafael Resendez-Ramirez, turned himself in at a U.S. border-crossing station in El Paso, Texas. FBI director Louis Freeh told a congressional hearing that the 39-year-old drifter, one of the FBI's 10 most-wanted fugitives since June 21, surrendered at an Immigration and Naturalization Service checkpoint in Ysleta del Sur Pueblo. The fugitive walked across the Mexican border at 9 a.m. CDT accompanied by his two brothers and a priest and surrendered to a Texas Ranger.
July 12, 1999 - Michael Hensley - Authorities say the suspected killer of three teen-aged girls and his Bible study teacher may have been involved in devil worship before joining the First Church of God. Reverend Ben Davis said that Lawrence Michael Hensley, who had been a church member for about a year, had previously delved into devil worship but was receiving counseling.
July 12, 1999 - Angel Reyes Resendiz - Investigators say suspected serial killer Rafael Resendez-Ramirez is believed to no longer have a snake tattoo on his left forearm. Lexington Detective Craig Sorrell says the serpent was covered by a two-inch-wide, four-inch-long rectangle. The suspect had the work done in 1994. Authorities made the discovery by talking to relatives of the fugitive in Texas. A 125-thousand dollar reward is being offered for information leading to his apprehension. The FBI announced that a green card will be given to any illegal alien who turns Resendez-Ramirez in to authorities. Thesuspect's real name is Angel Leoncio Reyes Recendis but law enforcement officials are continuing to use the Resendez-Ramirez alias, which is printed on thousands of wanted posters.
July 10, 1999 - Angel Reyes Resendiz - According to convicted serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, Rensendez-Ramirez is "really playing cat and mouse with the FBI." Interviewed at the Ellis I Unit prison Lucas added: "I follow his case on the TV. ... I'd like to meet him." Referring to his habit of serially confessing Lucas joked, "If this was 1983, I'd claim these murders, too. ... I made the police look stupid. I was out to wreck Texas law enforcement."
"He'll be out there a long time if he wants... If he gets caught, it won't be by the FBI. It'll be by the police of some city. It'll be some accidental thing. He's seen the stories on TV. He knows that they've been to his house (in Mexico). He knows there's a reward out for him. He's wise to every move they make. He's going right under their nose. He wants to just show the FBI he can get away."
July 10, 1999 - Gerald Gallego - A Nevada court granted a new sentencing hearing for convicted sex slave killer Gerald Gallego. The judge also ruled against allowing further medical testing of Gallego requested by his defense, and delayed until August a ruling on whether Gallego can represent himself during his new penalty hearing.
July 9, 1999 - Lawrence Michael Hensley - A factory worker and amateur body builder killed three teenage girls at his home, then gunned down his Bible study teacher five miles away. The suspect, Lawrence Michael Hensley, 30, is still at large and is believed to be armed with at least four rifles and a range of home-made explosives. Dozens of FBI officers and United States marshals were deployed in a 500-mile ring around his home town of Sidney, Ohio.
July 9, 1999 - Albert DeSalvo - Police are revisiting the case of the Boston Strangler, suspected of killing more than a dozen women in the early 1960s. The Cold Case Squad, as the investigation is known, will use DNA technology to analyze evidence from the crimes in order to prove once and for all whether Albert DeSalvo was responsible for the killings. Police are looking for DNA from sperm samples swabbed from some of the Strangler's victims, which were logged as evidence in the 1960s but have been unable to locate. Also the knife used to kill DeSalvo could contain DNA samples, but they haven't been able to find it, either.
July 9, 1999 - Wayne Williams - The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that a state judge wrongly dismissed two claims for a new trial raised by Wayne Williams, a photographer who killed two men but is suspected in as many as 24 murders. The 4-3 ruling will sendthe case back to Superior Court, where Judge Hal Craig must rule on Williams' claims that prosecutors were guilty of misconduct and that his own attorneys did not effectively represent him during his trial.
July 9, 1999 - Theodore Kaczynski - It turns out that Teddy K. was a volunteer in mind-control experiments sponsored by the CIA at Harvard in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Michael Mello, author of the recently published book, "The United States of America vs. Theodore John Kaczynski," notes that at some point in his Harvard years -- 1958 to 1962 -- Kaczynski agreed to be the subject of "a psychological experiment." Mello identifies the chief researcher as a lieutenant colonel in World War II, working for the CIA's predecessor organization, the Office of Strategic Services.
July 9, 1999 - Gnostic Church Stella Maris - At least 40 members of a religious cult, which calls itself the Gnostic Church Stella Maris, have gone missing in the mountains of Colombia where they went thinking they could board a spacecraft that was going to save them from the catastrophes they believe will occur on earth at the turn of the Millennium. The alarm was raised after the cult, from Cartagena on the Caribbean coast, did not returnfrom a spiritual retreat. The sect believes that extra-terrestrials, according to their interpretation of the Bible, will take 140,000 people from the earth before the end of the world.
July 7, 1999 - Gary Heidnik - Torture killer Gary Heidnik was put to death by lethal injection by the Commonwealth of Pensylvannia. Media witnesses said one witness associated with the victims exclaimed, "Thank you Jesus" and mumbled obscenities just before Heidnik was pronounced dead by Centre County Coroner Scott Sayers. The killer's final meal consisted of black coffee and two slices of cheese pizza. Heidnik spent the hours before his death either resting or pacing in his cell. He was visited by his daughter who later did not witness the execution. His only request on the last day of his life was for a radio to be played outside his cell and that it be tuned to country music.
July 6, 1999 - Forest Park Killer - The parents of a missing 18-year-old Portland woman think she may have fallen victim to the killer who is believed to have strangled three other women and dumped their bodies in Forest Park. Amatha Saens knew the strangler's latest victim, 17-year-old Alexandria Ison. Like Ison, Saens is reported to have lived on the street and has a history as a runaway. She was last seen on June 30. Her parents reported her missing the next day.
July 6, 1999 - Angel Reyes Recendis - According to Chihuahua Special Investigator Suly Ponce and Canadian criminologist Candace Skrapec, alleged "Railway Killer" Angel Reyes Recendis (aka Rafael Resendiz-Ramirez) is now suspected in the slaying of 187 women in Juarez, Mexico. "We've been working on that theory since last week," said Ponce, who heads the state police task force into the murders. "The case is advancing. There are some good leads."
"We are especially concerned because he has lived in two barrios here over recent years, and his mother lives in (the) Colonia Patria (section)." Resendez-Ramirez lived with his mother in Juarez as well as on his own or with women. He is believed to have worked at a meat packing plant.
July 6, 1999 - Jerry Scott Heidler - A prisoner awaiting trial for the December 1997 slayings of four members of a Georgia family escaped -- along with nine other prisoners -- from a Toombs County, Georgia, jail cell. Jerry Scott Heidler, if found, is due to stand trial in late August on charges he killed Danny and Kim Daniels and two of their children.
July 4, 1999 - Familicide in Adelaide - A young mother gassed herself and her five young children with car exhaust in an apparent murder-suicide in Western Australia state. Investigators saidthey were baffled as to why the woman had killed herself and her children, a 2-year-old girl, a 4-year-old girl, 5-year-old twins -- a boy and girl -- and an 8-year-old boy.
The 25-year-old woman drove the children to a forest at Karragullen, 30 miles southeast of the state capital, Perth, Sergeant Tony Potts said. She parked the family van, leaving the engine running, and hooked up a hose to the exhaust pipe that pumped fumes into the vehicle. The bodies were discovered Saturday afternoon. Her horrified common law husband learned of the deaths when he saw the van on television.
July 2, 1999 - Zhao Lianrong - A Chinese court sentenced a man to death for brutally stabbing to death eight young women in one night. Zhao Lianrong, 36, who lived next door to the victims in Beijing, was drunk and slipped through a dormitory window in the pre-dawn hours of May 30 to rob them. When one woke up, saw Zhao and screamed, he stabbed the her about 100 times. The women, aged between 17 to 24, were migrant workers from the southeastern province of Fujian and the eastern province of Zhejiang.
Zhao, a married worker with a five-year-old child, had no history of violent behaviour and was an introvert and good citizen. Zhao apologised to the victims' families in court. The killings in Beijing's western Shijingshan district rocked the capital and sparked a manhunt that netted Zhao on June 6.
July 2, 1999 - Branch Davidians - A federal judge has cleared the way for a lawsuit that blames the government for the fiery end of the 1993 Branch Davidian standoff. U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. pared the number of defendants and plaintiffs, but ruledthat the case can reach trial, said Mike Caddell, lead attorney for the Davidians.
"I think what the judge did is a great victory for the Davidians and for the country," Caddell said. "Our folks can't be happier and look forward to having their day in court." The lawsuit -- filed by surviving Davidians and the relatives of the dead -- challenges the government's conclusion that the Davidians started the fire and that they also shot first during the federal raid on their compound.
May-June 1999 - Morgue Archives - Previous entries to the Morgue Archives. May-June, 1999.
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