Centenaries - whole and half

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1914 August 25 - A Russian immigrant railroad worker named Ben Mikovitch is found dead in Ottumwa, Iowa. The victim had been beaten to death with a railroad chisel. Mr. Mikovitch's murder was never solved.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1964 August 27 - Fifteen-year-old Edmund Kemper III shoots and kills his grandparents, Edmund and Maude Kemper. He was sent to a California mental facility but was released in 1969. Kemper then proceeded to murder 8 more including his mother, his mother's female friend and six coeds. He is presently incarcerated, serving a term of life without parole.

[Mayerling]

50 years ago - 1964 August 27 - Fifteen-year-old Edmund Kemper III shoots and kills his grandparents, Edmund and Maude Kemper. He was sent to a California mental facility but was released in 1969. Kemper then proceeded to murder 8 more including his mother, his mother's female friend and six coeds. He is presently incarcerated, serving a term of life without parole.

As far as you know were the idiots who released this creep ever even censured for their actions?

[sdreid]

As far as you know were the idiots who released this creep ever even censured for their actions?

I don't believe they were Jeff. It was sort of the same deal with serial killer Graham Young.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1964 September 4 - In Alabama, James Coburn is executed in the electric for armed robbery. Although there is usually an implied threat of murder in an armed robbery, to date, Coburn is the last person executed in the United States for a crime that did not involve a killing.

[Ginger]

As far as you know were the idiots who released this creep ever even censured for their actions?

I doubt it. I'd personally blame the zeitgeist more than the individuals involved. People really did believe back then that the world was changing, and things that had never worked in the past suddenly would, if only we believed.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1914 September 8 - Nineteen-year-old Thomas Highgate is executed by firing squad in France. Private Highgate was the first British soldier executed for disertion in the Great War. He was found hiding in a barn wearing civilian clothing so there was little doubt of his guilt, however, this didn't stop him from being granted a posthumous pardon in 2006.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1964 September 12 - Alan Westerfield, 7, and his brother Terry, 11, disappear after being dropped off in front of a North Carolina theater. It is presumed that the boys were abducted and murdered but they are still missing and the case is unsolved.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1914 September 13 - Two Johannesburg police constables, Neil McLeod and Robert Mansfield, are gunned down by the Foster Gang. The band of criminals had been on a murderous spree for several months but now only have days to live.

[SirJohnFalstaff]

I don't believe they were Jeff. It was sort of the same deal with serial killer Graham Young.

I read somewhere that most of his doctors didn't want him to be released. So I'm not sure what exactly happened.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1914 September 15 - Koos de la Rey, a South African government official and former Boer general, is shot and killed as he reportedly speeds through a roadblock that has been set up to apprehend the Foster Gang. The victim had no connection to the gang and some of his followers claimed that the shooting was actually an assassination.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1914 September 16 - The Foster Gang is surrounded and trapped in a cave by South African police. William Foster, John Maxim and Carl Mezar refuse to surrender and are allowed to say goodbyes to family members. Maxim was then elected to shoot and kill the other two members of the gang. He then turned the gun on himself which effectively rendered the gang extinct.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1964 September 18 - While vacationing in Mexico, Sharon Kinne, an American, shoots an kills Francisco Ordonez while visiting his room. She had already been suspected of murdering her husband and her lover's wife in the United States. Mrs. Kinne went to prison in Mexico for the Ordonez killing but escaped in 1969 and remains a fugitive today if still living at age 75.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1964 September 29 - George Nassar guns down Irvin Hilton, 44, in the victim's service station. The killer was eventually sentenced to life in a Massachusetts prison for the crime and is still there today. Nassar later gained further notoriety when he involved himself in the Boston Strangler investigation.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1964 October 12 - While walking along a trail in Georgetown, DC, Mary Meyer, 43, is shot twice and killed. The murder victim was the former wife of a CIA official and reportedly a paramour of President Kennedy. A man named Raymond Crump went to trial for the crime but he was acquitted because there was no significant evidence against him. Due to her earlier affiliations, Ms. Meyer's name and murder sometimes surface in various Kennedy Assassination conspiracy theories. Her murder remains unsolved.