Centenaries - whole and half

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1964 October 21 - George Sykes and John Stoneley beat and rob cab driver George Newbury. The two criminals then left the victim to die. Sykes was given a life term and Stoneley was condemned to hang for the killing. Since capital punishment for murder was in the ending process in England, Stoneley's death sentence was later reduced to life in prison.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1964 October 26 - Eric Edgar Cooke, an Australian serial killer, is hanged for his crimes. He was suspected of committing a minimum of eight murders.

[Rosella]

Yes, a hot Perth summer and a killer who liked a bit of variety in his work, as in shootings, stabbings, an axe and hit and runs. Victims were both male and female. Bizarre!

[GUT]

50 years ago - 1964 October 26 - Eric Edgar Cooke, an Australian serial killer, is hanged for his crimes. He was suspected of committing a minimum of eight murders.

Yes, a hot Perth summer and a killer who liked a bit of variety in his work, as in shootings, stabbings, an axe and hit and runs. Victims were both male and female. Bizarre!

And some would have you believe serial killers don't change their MO.

[Cogidubnus]

Quite...

All the best

Dave

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1964 October 27 - A man walking along the shore of South Africa's Boksburg Lake finds a woman's torso. In following weeks, the victim's legs were found in a second lake and her head in a third. She had been beaten and one source stated that the cause of death was decapitation but the official finding was undetermined. The remains were not identified until 1968 and they were those of Catherine Burch. Around the time she vanished, her husband, Ronald Burch had notified her employer that she would not be returning to her job. Police eventually cornered Mr. Burch at his mother's residence but he escaped justice by committing suicide with electrocution.

[Ginger]

Police eventually cornered Mr. Burch at his mother's residence but he escaped justice by committing suicide with electrocution.

Wow. I'd never heard of this case before. A bit of googling turned up:

http://boksburghistorical.com/index_files/Page393.htm

When the police unlocked the door, they found Ronald Burch standing in the middle of the room wearing home-made bracelets made from tins to which he had soldered electrical wires that were plugged into a wall socket. As the door opened, Burch flicked the switch, electrocuting himself.

That image is gonna stick with me for a bit.

[Mayerling]

Wow. I'd never heard of this case before. A bit of googling turned up:

http://boksburghistorical.com/index_files/Page393.htm

That image is gonna stick with me for a bit.

Talk about questionable ingenuity. The image is now with me too.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1964 November 2 - In Oregon, Dwain Lee Little rapes and stabs Orla Fipps, 16. He was incarcerated for the killing but was paroled in 1974. Little then murdered a man, his wife and their two little children while the family was out camping. He is now serving life in prison.

[sdreid]

150 years ago - 1864 November 6 - On a Paris morning, pedestrians walking down a street are sprayed with blood coming from an upstairs tenement window and they hear the screams of a woman. In a rush to investigate, Julie Mage and her little son are found sliced to pieces in their flat. They are the sixth and seventh murders of serial killer Joseph Philippe who began his carnage in 1861 and for the first time he is seen by witnesses. The criminal knew he was seen and this scared him straight for about a year and a half. At this stage, he committed his eighth and final murder and then quickly captured. In 1866, he was executed on the guillotine.

[Penhalion]

One of the things I like most about these boards is all the lesser known but fascinating murders which are discussed.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1964 November 13 - In California, David Russell is murdered by Vaughn Greenwood, the Skid Row Slasher. The next day, he kills a second transient named Benjamin Hornberg. Greenwood then took a ten year hiatus due in part to a period of incarceration. In late 1974 and early1975, he killed nine more men, was caught and then sentenced to life in prison where he still resides at age 70.

[sdreid]

150 years ago - 1864 November 14 - Franz Muller is hanged for committing England's first railway murder. He'd killed Thomas Briggs during a robbery earlier in this year then fled to the United States. After some delicate negotiations, the Americans returned Muller to his fate.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1964 November 25 - Under some debris, adjacent to a parking lot, the body of Margaret McGowan is discovered. She had been missing more than a month and a police sketch was created regarding the last man she was seen with but it led nowhere. Margaret was a prostitute who'd, under the alias Frances Brown, gained some notoriety during the Profumo Affair. Indications were that she had been suffocated during oral sex and had been kept by her murderer for several weeks after her death. Margaret was another victim of London's Jack the Stripper; a serial killer who was never captured or identified.

[Mayerling]

150 years ago - 1864 November 14 - Franz Muller is hanged for committing England's first railway murder. He'd killed Thomas Briggs during a robbery earlier in this year then fled to the United States. After some delicate negotiations, the Americans returned Muller to his fate.

The argument presented by Muller's defense at the deportaion hearing was that Great Britain had been waging an unofficial war against the North by giving aid (in the form of commerce raiders, like the "C.S.S. Alabama") to the South. Therefore why aid the British in demanding the return of anyone? Fortunately this idiotic argument did not stock up against returning a man to face a murder charge, so Muller was sent back to Britain.

Oddly enough, after one narrow escape from an international incident Muller created a second by being of Prussian ancestry. The King of Prussia (the future Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany) tried to stop the execution of Muller because he felt Muller's trial was prejudiced (in 1864 British - Prussian relations were strained due to the Schleswig-Holstein Matter which led to Denmark being attacked by Prussia and Austria; the current Princess of Wales was Alexandra of Denmark, and there was extreme anger at Prussia for it's bullying, as well as Bismarck - then foreign minister of Prussia - dismissing Britain as a "once-great" power). This too did not work for Muller in the long run.

Jeff