7
Mar
A boy who slew his elderly grandmother and raped her corpse in a sordid act of incestuous necrophilia has had his application for clemency rejected. The boy, then a 14-year-old resident of Winnipeg, Canada, was in 2005 found guilty of murdering his 79-year-old grandmother by smothering her with a pillow as she slept. He then raped her corpse, spray-painted her genitalia and mutilated the cadaver with a knife. He also saw fit to poison her dog with anti-freeze.
Police were called to the scene, where they found the boy lying on her bed, her house in disarray and her corpse shoved in a closet. The boy received the maximum sentence possible for a minor after being convicted of first-degree murder – 6 years incarceration followed by 4 years of “open” custody in which he would be able to come and go from jail. Now 19, the young man begged the court to begin his open custody some 2 years early, a move supported by his mother and probation officer, but opposed by his father, the victim’s son. The judge was having none of it:
“I cannot ignore the seriousness of the offence he committed and his blatant, violently sexual behaviour during it. I truly commend (his) progress and his commitment to change … but (his) interests cannot and does not overshadow the interests of society.”
Doctors report that the boy shared fantasies of raping women who had “humiliated” him with them.
Picture by Yesenia1
Jan
Friedrich "Fritz" Haarmann (October 25, 1879 – April 15, 1925) was a German serial killer who is believed to have been responsible for the murder of 27 boys and young men between 1918 and 1924. He was tried, found guilty of 24 murders, and executed.
Haarmann, also known as Germany’s "Hanover Vampire", was actually institutionalized at one point during the late 1800s, but he managed to escape. Eventually he became a homeless vagrant. Then he learned to butcher meat, which allowed him to have a home and start a business. Having his own place protected his attack on boys.
He would seek wandering waifs in the train station and take them home. Soon he teamed up with a good-looking male prostitute named Graf who had much better luck. They’d take the boys to Haarman’s home, feed them, and then Haarman would force them to have sex. Often those victims would simply vanish. Once the police caught Haarman in the act and arrested him for molestation. They had no idea that he’d murdered another boy and had his head sitting there under some newspapers.
Graf and Haarman trapped and killed an estimated 50 young men over a five-year period. They were finally stopped when someone found a sack of skulls and bones in the Leine Canal and turned them into the police. Since Haarmann lived near the canal and had been arrested before, investigators searched his home, They found clothing from missing boys and saw bloodstains on the walls. Again, they arrested Haarmann and he confessed.
As he talked, he called his victims "game." He described how he would grab the boys, sleepy from a large meal, and while sodomizing them would chew through their throat until the head was practically severed from the body. As he tasted their blood, he achieved orgasm. He would then cut the flesh from their bodies, consume some of it, and sell the rest on the open market as butchered meat. The rest of the parts he dumped into the canal. Armed with grisly evidence for 27 of the murders, investigators ensured Haarmann’s conviction and he was sentenced to die by execution. Moments before the blade fell, Haarmann announced that this was his wedding.
List of some victims // Extensive article at the Crime Library (good read!)
The picture shows Haarmann (top) and the police searching his home.
30
Sep
On the afternoon of 6 May 1993, West Memphis was rocked by the news of the discovery of the mutilated bodies of three eight-year-old boys. They were naked; each had had both left and right hands tied to their corresponding feet with black and white shoe laces. One child, had multiple wounds apparently made by a serrated knife, and injuries of a type often seen as a result of forced oral sex. A second boy had multiple stab wounds and indications of forced oral sex. The police believe that these two boys died by drowning. The third child appeared also to have been forced into oral sex. The skin of his penis was removed and he had been castrated. He had many cuts from a knife with a serrated blade. He had bled to death. Christopher Byers had welts on his back from the buckle of a belt. These were initially interpreted by the police to have resulted from ritual abuse by Satanists. However, Christopher’s step-father John Byers testified at the trial that he had beaten his step-son with a belt at 5:30 PM on the day of the murder.
By 12.00 p.m. the next day, police were questioning their first suspect, Damien Echols. Several weeks later Jessie Misskelley, an associate of Echols, confessed to the murders, implicating Damien Echols and another friend, Jason Baldwin. Soon after, following a confession by Misskelley, the three teenagers were arrested and charged with the murders of James M. Moore, Steven E. Branch and Christopher M. Byers.
The citizens of West Memphis were relieved that the monsters that had committed these heinous crimes had been apprehended and justice would be served. There was a great deal of anger in the community directed towards these three adolescents, supposedly involved in Satanic cults, who were accused of killing three innocent boys as part of a Satanic ritual. Rumors of Satanic groups had abounded in this dominantly Baptist community for decades. Details of their exploits were well known although there was never any proof of any murders actually having been performed in the past. From the time the arrests were made until they were tried, local papers fed the community’s blood-lust, with stories of Satanic abominations appearing on a regular basis.
On Wednesday 19 January 1994, Jessie Misskelley was sent to trial after an attempt to have his confession suppressed was denied. Two weeks later, he was found guilty on one count of first degree capital murder and two counts of second degree capital murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole. He was seventeen years old. The trial of Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols began on Tuesday 4 February 1994. On Monday 18 April 1994, they were both found guilty on three counts of capital murder. The next day Jason, just sixteen, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of forty years. Eighteen-year-old Damien Echols was sentenced to death by lethal injection.
DNA evidence presented in 2007 has conclusively proved that all three are innocent. However, the DNA of a step father of one of the boy’s was allegedly detected at the crime scene. The legal process is still ongoing. An extensive but partly outdated article can be found here.
Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills is a 1996 documentary film directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky about the trials of the three teenage boys in West Memphis, Arkansas for the murder and sexual mutilation of three prepubescent boys. The boys on trial for the crime are: Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin, also known as the West Memphis 3.
5
Sep
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
 |
Gilles de Rais is a fascinating historical figure. He is described as proud, rich, handsome, devoutly Christian, brave, skillful in battle, patron of the arts, and having a fine ear for music. As the Marshal of France, he was the celebrated wartime companion of Joan d’Arc. He was a scholar, soldier, courtier, and fashion plate. He was also accused of being a serial killer. On September 13, 1440, Jean Bishop of Nantes signed a legal citation which brought Gilles de Rais to trial. Baron de Rais was brought up on charges that he had: “killed, strangled and massacred many innocent children in inhuman fashion and committed with them the abominable and execrable sin against nature sodomy in various fashions and unheard of perversities which may not be enlarged upon here by reason of their horror but which will be declared in Latin in an appropriate place and time… He has frequently practiced the horrible evocation of demons and that he has sacrificed and made offerings to these demons and concluded pacts with them and wickedly perpetrated other crimes and sins.” |
Over a ten-year period, with the aid of his servants, de Rais purportedly lured as many as two hundred children to his bedroom which may be more precisely described as a torture chamber. These children ranged between six and eighteen years of age. De Rais was fascinated with the beauty of children and the pain they were capable of experiencing. Although de Rais did not hesitate in making girls his victims, he was partial to boys. If a boy was blessed with an excellent singing voice, he might be lucky enough to escape with his life.
Rather than be put to the Question, de Rais chose to confess everything. Only a full confession would spare him the torture he was so familiar with. His tearful confessions were so repugnant that one of the judges was moved to pull a curtain over a nearby painting of Jesus. In court, de Rais proved his obsession with the serial killing of children by describing their agonies in great detail. "He confessed to having wallowed in the elastic warmth of their intestines. He confessed that he had ripped out their hearts through wounds enlarged and opening like ripe fruit. And with the eyes of a somnambulist he looked down at his fingers and shook them as if blood were dripping from them." It was said that he had once dismembered a pregnant woman to make sport with the foetus.
An extensive article about the life, the crimes and the process of Gilles de Rais can be found here.