crime

Kevin Spacey must have the luck of the Irish on his side. In August 2018, plaintiff’s lawyers presented two alleged victims of Spacey who wished to remain anonymous after expressing “concern for their safety”. In early 2019, he slipped the noose on one case when charges of felony indecent assault and battery were dropped in Nantucket, Massachusetts after the witness, a teenage busboy, suddenly stopped cooperating with investigators. A few months later, the parties “came to a plan” for proceeding with a second anonymous case and envisioned a one-week trial. Spacey objected to the plaintiff’s identity being shielded but a California judge allowed the case to move forward. This week, it looks like the trial will never occur after plaintiff’s attorney informed Spacey that the

  Who was Colton Harris Moore? He first appeared on the Pacific Northwest's crime blotters at age 8 - for stealing a bicycle. As he grew older his criminal escapades progressed and soon he was arrested and jailed. He escaped from jail in April 2008, resuming his criminal activities. He has stolen four airplanes (while never having taken flying lessons), three boats, several cars, and has broken into over 100 homes and businesses. He has used stolen credit cards to purchase hi tech equipment (including night vision goggles) to aid in his crimes. He's cracked safes and pilfered their contents and has broken into and raided bank ATM machines. He's located on a 94 square mile island, isolated from the mainland, and has a penchant for pizza. 

The horror – held captive in basement dungeon for 24 years When the public found that Josef Fritzl had held a woman, his daughter, and three of her children captive in a rat-infested basement dungeon for 24 years, the act seemed unspeakable, as if a real-life boogey man had stepped from the pages of a horror novel into their reality. The four-day trail of Josef exposed a web of horror, a series of events that surpassed the worst snuff film or penny dreadful, events that would cause permanent physical and emotional damage to the captives and send one person to prison for life. Elisabeth flees from Josef Fritzl’s abuse Josef Fritzl was born on April 9, 1934 in Amstetten, Austria, a small town of 14,000 located halfway between Vienna

TMZ broke the news this week that a new twist in the O.J. Simpson case presented itself after a knife was found buried on Simpson’s former estate in Brentwood, California. Recall that the weapon used to kill Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman was proposed to be a “long, serrated knife”. The knife has never been found and was theorized to have been dropped in Chicago during O.J.’s trip to the windy city the day of the murders. Now we find it may have been at Simpson’s home all along. Los Angeles police say they are examining the knife that was reportedly found years ago on Simpson’s estate. Los Angeles police Captain Andy Neiman told reporters: “The actual item is described as a knife. I'm

The Salem Witch Trials (1692-1693) The Salem witch Trials were a series of hearings, and executions, of people accused of witchcraft in the towns of Salem Village (now Danvers), Salem Town, Ipswich, and Andover, Massachusetts. The trials began in February 1692 and ran for 15 months before concluding in May 1693. In the end, twenty-five people died, most of them women. Today the trials are considered to be one of America's most embarrassing moments and serve as a vivid, cautionary tale about the dangers of isolationism, religious extremism, false accusations, and lapses in due process of the law. The bizarre events that occurred can best be described as "mass hysteria".  In 17th-century colonial North America, the supernatural was considered part of everyday life.  Many people believed that Satan

Human Trafficking It's been over 140 years since the United States abolished slavery.  Prior to that, human beings were captured, often from foreign countries, and forcibly brought to the Sates where they would be used as a cheap source of labor.  Often the slaves were abused – both physically, sexually, and emotionally.  As civilization matured, the people began to recognize the atrocity of the practice and slowly, over time, slavery was deemed illegal in country after country.  Modern readers recognize enslaving someone against their will as shocking, appalling, and nearly beyond belief.  What many fail to recognize however, is that the practice of slavery never truly ended. "Mary" “Mary” was a newly married woman with a handsome husband and beautiful baby boy. Shortly after their marriage, her entire

At only 14 years of age, George Junius Stinney, Jr. was the youngest person ever executed in the United States. Weighing barely 90 lbs., Stinney was so small, he required a booster seat to reach the headpiece of the electric chair. Stinney had been convicted of first-degree murder in the deaths of two young white girls, 11-year-old Betty June Binnicker and 8-year-old Mary Emma Thames. With no physical evidence in the case and only the testimony of three southern police officers claiming Stinney had given a confession, the all-white jury convicted Stinney in less than ten minutes. The deaths of Betty Binnicker and Mary Thames The deaths of Betty and Mary occurred on March 23, 1944 in Alcolu, South Carolina, deep in the Jim Crow South. The girls were last seen

The abduction of Denise Huskins On March 23, 2015, at 1:53 PM, a Kaiser Permanente physical therapist, Aaron Quinn, called police in Vallejo, California to report a kidnapping and ransom demand for $8,500 dollars. According to Quinn, he and his live-in girlfriend, Denise Huskins, awoke at 3:00 AM to blinding, bright lights shining in their faces. The kidnapper[s] (Aaron and Denise later told police that they could not see how many men there were) ordered Huskins to bind Quinn’s legs with zipties. Swim goggles with covered lenses were placed over Quinn and Huskins’ eyes. The kidnappers placed headphones on Quinn’s head and soon, Quinn heard a pre-recorded message listing the abductors’ demands for the return of his girlfriend. 29-year-old Denise Huskins was a beautiful So-Cal girl, 5’

After reviewing CCTV security footage showing 47-year-old Nickcole Ellen Fray Dykema cutting a neighbor’s screen, police went to the woman’s home to make the arrest. Inside they found Dykema brandishing a large sword with which she took a swipe at an arresting officer “missing his head by inches”. Dykema was subdued five hours later after being shot twice with a nonlethal beanbag round from a shotgun and tasered. “The Taser had the desired effect, and Dykema fell to the ground.” Neighbors described Dykema’s Brooksville, Florida home as a house of horrors.  Hernando County Sheriff's Office say inside the home, they found 3,714 weapons including knives, swords, machetes, and other bladed weapons. Police say each room of the trailer house contained at least 500 bladed weapons arranged so

  Southeast Portland Oregon residents are breathing a bit easier now – they now have a picture they hope will tie a man to the “evidence” left behind at various businesses in the area. Known as the Portland Pooper, for over a month now, a mysterious assailant has been defecating on business properties throughout the area and area business owners say they’ve had enough of his crap. “I think it’s really gross and shocking. I just don’t know what to say about it.” One business owner, who wishes to remain anonymous, finally decided to take matters into his own hands and make the unknown assailants #2 business his own business. The business owner placed a hidden surveillance camera in a window and aimed it at a nearby parking lot

The death of Sandra Bland Sandra Bland was pulled over for a minor traffic violation on July 10, 2015 in Prairie View, Texas, just northwest of Houston, Texas. She had failed to give a turn signal when changing lanes.  As Bland and Texas state trooper Brian Encinia discussed the reason for her stop, the situation escalated and Bland was arrested and charged with assault (the office claims that she kicked him). Dashboard video of the event showed Bland was argumentative but non-violent during the incident. She was taken to Waller County jail. Three days later, she was found dead, hanging in her jail cell, a plastic bag wrapped around her neck and tied to a nearby bunk bed. When Bland was arrested and booked on July 10,

A 26-year-old pregnant woman, Michelle Wilkins, from Longmont, Colorado has survived a horrifying encounter with Craigslister Dynel Lane, a 34-year-old woman who takes what she wants – no matter what the cost. Wilkins responded to Lane’s newborn baby clothes listing on Craigslist on Wednesday, March 18, 2015. She sent Lane a text message and then drove to her home to purchase the clothing. Shortly after arriving at the home, she was attacked by Lane, beaten and stabbed. Then the attacker did something unimaginable – she “removed” the fetus from her victim’s body. Wilkins was left on the floor, wounded and bleeding profusely, while Lane took the fetus upstairs and placed it in a bathtub. At this time, Lane’s husband, 35-year-old David Ridley, returned home early from

Dmitry Nikolaev must feel like he has seen it all. At 30-years-old, he’s been a soap opera star, a cartoon animator, and now it seems, a eunuch. Russia Life News reported that Nikolaev had just finished a performance at a small theater in Moscow when he was approached by a beautiful woman after the show. The young lady, whom Nikolaev described as a “young, attractive blonde”, flirted with Nikolaev and then invited him to a nearby sauna where they drank beer, made out, and soaked in the hot tub. The next thing Nikolaev remembers, he awoke at a bus stop in excruciating pain, clutching his groin. Nikolaev noticed his trousers had a lot of blood on them and quickly called an ambulance. He was rushed to a

Irving, Texas police are trying to determine how a half-naked woman found in a cardboard box at a city dump found herself in such a strange predicament. Municipal landfill workers stumbled upon the woman about 9:00 AM on Saturday morning. The woman was wearing only a T-shirt and told police she had no memory of how she ended up in the box or at the dump. In fact, a missing persons report was filed with the police mere hours before she was discovered. According to the woman, the last thing she remembered was being out on the town, partying with a girlfriend in Dallas. The victim’s friend went to get their car, leaving the woman with a man who agreed to stay with her. When she returned, the

On June 10, 1912, the Villisca Axe Murder House claimed the lives of eight innocent people who were bludgeoned to death by an unknown assailant. Last week, the Villisca House nearly claimed yet another victim when an out-of-town paranormal investigator began inexplicably attacking himself with a knife while investigating inside the reputedly-haunted home. Police are unsure what prompted the horrific attack but told reporters that they believed “it was no accident”. The Villisca axe murders, Iowa’s worse homicide in the state’s history, spawned nearly ten years of investigations, multiple grand jury hearings, a spectacular slander suit, a murder trial, and numerous litigations and trials. The horrendous crime made and broke political careers throughout the state and was responsible for the introduction of new statewide criminal laws