gay – CrimeFeed

Investigation Discovery’s Dating Game Killer plunges viewers into the horrifying case of serial killer Rodney Alcala, who was convicted of seven murders and is suspected in as many as 130.

As both the show’s title and Alcala’s infamous nickname indicate, the diabolical slayer also competed on TV’s The Dating Game — and won — smack in the midst of a heinous spree.

Scarier still is that Alcala is not the only sicko to have had a go as a game-show contestant who’d later be revealed as a murderer. Read on.

1. RODNEY ALCALA: THE DATING GAME’S LITERAL LADY KILLER

On an otherwise typically bawdy 1978 episode of TV maven Chuck Barris’s The Dating Game, host Jim Lange introduced Bachelor Number One, Rodney Alcala as “a successful photographer who got his start when his father found him in the darkroom at the age of 13 — fully developed.”

On-air-talent screening 40 years ago was obviously not up to modern (or even sane) standards, as Alcala had already been convicted in 1969 for raping and beating up an eight-year-old girl.

After successfully hiding his record, the tall, longhaired, charismatic Alcala, 25, charmed Cheryl Bradshaw, the bachelorette picking from among the three competing suitors, and she named him the winner. Chillingly, Alacala smiled at the news and said, “We’re going to have a great time together, Cheryl.”

Fortunately, Alcala apparently alarmed Bradshaw enough off-camera that she refused to go out with him, declaring him to be “creepy.” That decision may well have saved Bradshaw’s life.

By the time Alcala sat in on The Dating Game, he had already slaughtered two female victims in Southern California and he would go on to kill at least five more — emphasis on the words “at least.”

A multitude of experts attest that between 1971 and when he got apprehended in 1979, Alcala actually killed dozens of women in numerous states. Some body count estimates reach as high as 130.

Rodney Alcala’s been on California’s Death Row since 1980. Evidence has continually piled up connecting him to other cases.

In 2016, Wyoming authorities charged him with the 1977 murder of Christine Thornton, but doctors deemed him “too ill” to travel for the indictment. Who knows what else time and technology will continue to reveal? [Criminal Minds Wiki]

2. EDWARD WAYNE EDWARDS: THE SERIAL KILLER WHO LIED ON TO TELL THE TRUTH

The fact that serial killer Edward Wayne Edwards appeared on To Tell the Truth in 1972 as himself — a “reformed” criminal — is just one astonishing aspect of his hair-raising life story.

Born in 1933 and having witnessed his mother commit suicide as toddler, Edwards suffered tragic abuse while growing up in orphanages. He acted out criminally as a teenager and took to drifting and theft as a young adult.

After getting arrested for burglary 1955, Edwards escaped from jail and lived on the lam for seven years until he got popped for multiple armed robberies. After serving five years at Leavenworth, Edwards received parole and became a writer and motivational speaker on the topic of offender rehabilitation. Under that guise, he landed as a subject on To Tell the Truth.

What Edwards didn’t tell was that he may have killed a number of people throughout the early 1960s. He also didn’t indicate that, in 1977, he’d embark on a murder run that took at least the five lives for which he was ultimately convicted — although most observers suspect Edwards’ death tally is frighteningly higher. In fact, numerous crime analysts have suggested that Edwards was the notorious Zodiac Killer who shot up California between 1968 and ’72.

Cold-case expert John Cameron further believes that not only did Edwards kill Teresa Halbach in 2005 — the case made famous by the documentary series Making a Murderer — but that he also attended the 1993 funerals of the three little Arkansas boys whose murders wrongly sent the “West Memphis Three” to prison.

In 2011, Edwards died behind bars in Columbus, Ohio. When it comes to the unsolved murders to which he remains connected, DNA evidence may still yet tell the truth [Murderpedia]

3. ANTHONY MORLEY: WHEN MR. GAY UK MET THE MAN HE CANNABILIZED ON GOD’S GIFT

In Leeds, England, on April 23, 2008, 36-year-old chef Anthony Morley — the first-ever holder of the “Mr. Gay UK” title — slaughtered, butchered, cooked, and ate pieces of Damian Oldfield, his 33-year-old lover. Afterward, Morley stumbled outside to a nearby business and said, “I have killed someone. Call the police.”

For all these various violations, Morley received a life sentence. He’ll be up for parole, though, in 2018.

Adding a particularly tasteless twist to this ultimate culinary offense, Morley and Oldfield had both previously competed in 1996 on God’s Gift, a “sexy man” game show in the UK.

In fact, they couple first met on the show’s set, as Morley sat cheering in the audience for the episode on which Oldfield played. One chilling camera shot even captured them both in a single frame. [CrimeFeed]

4. JOHN COOPER: THE BUTCHER OF BULLSEYE

In 1985, Wales native John Cooper murdered Richard Thomas, 58, and Helen Thomas, the victim’s 56-year-old sister, before torching their farmhouse and escaping. Had Cooper never killed again, he might have skated forever on the Thomas slayings.

On May 28, 1989, though, Cooper brazenly turned up on Bullseye, a decidedly British series that combines quizzes with throwing darts. That videotape would later prove crucial in bringing this psycho to justice.

Exactly one month to the day after the Bullseye shoot, Cooper ambushed Peter and Gwenda Dixon, a vacationing couple walking along a coastal path. Cooper tied up the Dixons, robbed them, and sexually assaulted Gwenda. He then executed the couple with a shotgun at point-blank range.

A witness enabled police to draw up a sketch of a suspect, but the trail went cold until 1998, when Cooper got sentenced to 14 years for a series of violent thefts. Investigators placed Cooper in the area of the Dixon murders, then compared his appearance on Bullseye with that of the sketch.

While that alone couldn’t convict him, in 2009, DNA evidence finally nailed Cooper for both the Thomas and Dixon murders. He also got convicted for two previous rapes of teenage girls. To date, Cooper has been implicated in five additional killings.

Understandably, John Cooper received the rare British sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. [Wales Online]

Watch Investigation Discovery’s Dating Game Killer on ID GO now!

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Main photo: Rodney Alcala [Huntington Beach Police Department]

The post Rodney Alcala: “The Dating Game Killer” & 3 Other Murderers Who Appeared On TV Game Shows appeared first on CrimeFeed.

This year, CrimeFeed is bringing you 12 Days of Christmas Crimes to acknowledge the holidays in our unique way. Here’s the fourth!

Watch Investigation Discovery’s curated playlist of Christmas Crimes That Will Make You Say Ho Ho No on ID GO now!

The rough-and-tumble, unmistakably deep south Cajun district of Houma, Louisiana, may seem — to outsiders — an unlikely place for a gay nightspot and unofficial LGBTQ community center such as the Drama Club to thrive.

Such had been the case, though, for more than five years leading up to Christmas Eve 2009, when a raucous, joyful holiday party and pre-birthday celebration for beloved Drama Club manager Robert LeCompte ended in murder.

At 3:22 A.M., Randy Chestnut, the owner of the Drama Club who shared a home with his best friend LeCompte, telephoned police to check on the bar. He had spoken to LeCompte earlier after the bar closed, and had expected him to come directly home.

Robert LeCompte [Terrebonne Sheriff’s Office]

Officers found the club unlocked and discovered LeCompte on the floor. Blood had poured forth from his neck and upper torso via 13 stab wounds shaped in a way to suggest the weapon had been a Phillips-head screwdriver.

About $4,000 cash was missing from the premises, so robbery may have seemed an obvious motive. But then, beneath LeCompte, investigators discovered a sopping napkin upon which was written in ballpoint pen: “You gave me AIDS.”

Robert LeCompte had been diagnosed HIV-positive in 1995. Focus shifted, then, to a possible hate crime or revenge killing.

Jorell Young [Terrebonne Parish Sheriff's Department]

Jorell Young [Terrebonne Sheriff’s Department]

Detective Lieutenant Terry Daigre of the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Department, who was well-liked and respected by Houma’s gay population, questioned the previous evening’s partiers. They all indicated that the last person seen alive with LeCompte was Jorell Young, 23, a former Drama Club employee.

While no security cameras existed at the Drama Club itself, Daigre managed to track down video footage of Young paying cash to fill up his car at a nearby gas station, not long after the murder.

Daigre asked Young why anyone might have wanted to attack LeCompte, to which the ex-bartender replied, “Somebody must have thought he gave them AIDS.”

The detective told Young to write that statement down. Young did, scrawling: “I believe Robert LeCompte was killed because he gave some1 AIDS.”

That Young’s language matched the note at the crime scene would prove to be more than a mere coincidence. Still, with no physical evidence, the investigation would prove to be an uphill battle.

Rumors abounded that LeCompte and Young, who were close buddies, had an occasionally sexual “friends with benefits” relationship. Young, who had girlfriends and had fathered a daughter, denied being anything but straight and said he just enjoyed the color and camaraderie he found at the Drama Club.

It also came to light, however, that Young collected and expressed fascination with military knives. In addition, he had been arrested in times past for domestic violence and illegal weapons possession.

After months of fighting and even violence with Young at home, Darkus Baker, a woman who was pregnant with his second child, called Detective Daigre in hysterics. She said that Young had abused her for the last time, and she was ready to supply evidence that would connect her lover to the murder of Robert LeCompte.

Jorell Young’s murder trial commenced on November 26, 2012. Baker testified that early Christmas morning, Young had come to her trailer, handed her a Walmart bag containing a bloody shirt, and said: “Something bad happened; I had to kill somebody.”

Baker also said Young showed her a bloody key chain with “Robert LeCompte” written on it, and was in possession of stacks of cash in small bills. All those items appeared before the court as evidence.

Nothing indicated that Young was HIV-positive, however, leading investigators to conclude that the “You gave me AIDS” note was an intentionally planted false clue. Instead, the prosecutors argued, Young had walked off his job days earlier and simply wanted money for Christmas expenses. His motive was simple robbery. Young, in turn, claimed that he merely witnessed the slaying.

The jury, however, found Jorell Young guilty of first-degree murder. In January 2013, a judge sentenced Young to life behind bars without the possibility of parole. Young presently resides at the Angola correctional facility.

The Drama Club remained open until February 2014. It closed with an all-night celebration, no small part of which was a tribute to the life of Robert LeCompte.

Learn more about this case in the “Murder at the Drama Club” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Vanity Fair Confidential on ID GO now!

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Main photo: Robert LeCompte [Terrebonne Sheriff’s Office]

The post Murder In The Gay South: The Christmas Day Killing At The Drama Club appeared first on CrimeFeed.

TROY, NY — New and horrifying details have emerged related to the murders of an upstate mother, her two children and her domestic partner whose bodies were found in a basement in upstate New York.

Multiple law enforcement sources said that the victims were all bound — with their throats slashed — when they were found on Tuesday, according to the Albany Times Union.

The victims of the quadruple homicide have been identified as an 11-year-old boy, a 5-year-old girl, a 22-year-old woman, and a 36-year-old woman. Police said that the two children belong to one of the women, and that the other adult female was her domestic partner.

Authorities are not releasing their identities pending notification of relatives.

The family lived in Troy’s Lansingburgh neighborhood, which runs along the Hudson River. In a televised news conference, Troy Police Chief James Tedesco said:

“After being in this business for nearly 42 years, I can say I have not seen savagery like this. Only a person of savagery would do something like this.”

Police have not revealed how the victims were killed – but autopsies are expected to provide more details.

A local pastor told the Times Union that an older son, who is related to the two children, was not home when the killings occurred.

The killings have terrified the local community, where many residents knew the family.

Albany’s Victory Christian Church is offering a $5,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer or killers.

Chief Tedesco pledged the department’s complete and unwavering commitment to this case, stating:

“This is not a random act. I can only ask that if you know anything, please call us. … [T]here’s not a resource we won’t tap. This will be a full-court press until somebody’s brought to justice.”

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Main photo: 158 2nd Ave. in Troy, New York [Google Maps]

The post Quadruple Homicide Shock: Mom, Partner, 2 Kids Found Bound With Throats Slit appeared first on CrimeFeed.

TORONTO, CANADA — As Canadian police continue to discover human remains from the gardens of homes where a suspected serial killer worked as a landscaper, authorities warn that there may be more victims out there.

Self-employed Toronto landscaper Bruce McArthur, 66, currently faces five counts of first-degree murder.

Toronto Detective Sergeant Hank Idsinga said at a news conference that the dismembered remains of at least three still unidentified victims were found hidden in the bottom of large planters in the backyard of a Toronto home that McArthur used as storage for his landscaping business, according to the Associated Press.

Andrew Kinsman; Selim Esen [Toronto Police Service]

For several months, rumors of a serial killer have circulated in Toronto’s LGBT community following a series of disappearances. McArthur was first arrested on January 18 in connection with the deaths of Andrew Kinsman, 44, and Selim Esen, 49. Both men were reported missing last year from the Gay Village area around Church and Wellesley Streets.

The Toronto Police Service stated in a press conference that they had conducted two separate investigations — named “Project Houston” and “Project Prism” — in an attempt to find out what happened to the multiple missing men.

In 2017, McArthur was identified by Project Prism investigators as someone who “could not be included or excluded” in an investigation.

On January 17, investigators found evidence that McArthur was responsible for the deaths of Kinsman and Esin, and also found evidence that linked him to other murders. All three men were on dating apps, and police said McArthur had a relationship with Kinsman for “some time.” The nature of his relationship with Esen is not known at this time.

McArthur has also been charged with the murder of Majeed Kayhan, a 58-year-old reported missing in 2012; Soroush Marmudi, a 50-year-old reported missing by his family in 2015; and 47-year-old Dean Lisowick.

Dean Lisowick; Majeed Kayhan; Soroush Marmudi [Toronto Police Service]

Idsinga said Lisowick, who had no fixed address and lived in the city’s shelter system, not been reported missing. Police believe that Lisowick was murdered sometime between May 2016 and July 2017.

Idsinga emphasized that the investigation “encompasses more than the gay community,” adding: “It encompasses the City of Toronto.”

Police say they believe there could be more victims but they have “no idea” how many. Investigators are in the process of searching 30 properties where McArthur worked.

McArthur used the company name “Artistic Design,” according to McLean’s. Investigators have appealed to past customers, and urged them to contact authorities.

Authorities also revealed that they have seized a dozen planters from several different addresses, and are continuing to search his home and storage facilities, as well as two other unidentified sites. “We believe there are more remains at some of these properties that we are working to recover,” Idsinga said. “We have seized quite a few planters from around the city and we will continue to do that. There are at least two sites that we do want to excavate where people might be buried.”

In addition to working on landscaping projects, McArthur also played the role of Santa Claus for the past few Christmas seasons at Agincourt Mall.

The investigation continues.

Police urge anyone who owns property that McArthur worked on as a landscaper to contact investigators at (416) 808-2021.

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Main photo: Bruce McArthur [The National / YouTube (screenshot)

The post Bruce McArthur, Toronto “Serial Killer” Landscaper Who Hid Body Parts In Planters, Charged With 5 Murders appeared first on CrimeFeed.

LAKE ARROWHEAD, CA — Actor and painter Thom Bierdz has quite the story to tell.

In November 1989, as the Wisconsin native rode a peak of popularity in his breakout role as Phillip Chancellor III on the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless, Thom’s sister Hope called to report the unthinkable.

Troy Bierdz, the younger brother of Thom who had long suffered from schizophrenia, had attacked their mother Phyllis with a baseball bat. She was dead.

The horror occurred after years of Phyllis taking Troy to doctors who assured her that her troubled, misbehaving son — who kept journals about torturing animals, worshipping Satan, and longing to commit murder — was just “faking it.”

Suddenly, on that awful day in the kitchen of the Bierdz family’s home, Troy’s issues became all too undeniable — and permanently tragic.

Troy fled after killing Phyllis, but police picked him up shortly thereafter. He’s been incarcerated and heavily medicated ever since.

Forgiving Troy cover art [Amazon]

For the rest of the Bierdz family — as well as for Troy — life had to somehow go on. And it has.

Following an eruption of understandable anger and terror, the impact of what happened set Thom on a journey toward compassion and understanding that he chronicles in a powerfully moving memoir that took him 20 years to complete, Forgiving Troy.

Thom also elaborates about the case in “The Soap Star’s Secret,” an especially compelling episode of the Investigation Discovery series Evil Lives Here.

When CrimeFeed reached out to Thom for an interview regarding his appearance on Evil Lives Here, he not only agreed, he responded by creating an original video of his own, exclusively for our site. In the video, Thom combines his answers to our questions with a self-styled mini-documentary.

He speaks openly and engagingly about his brother, their mom, living as a gay man in both Wisconsin and Hollywood, and his career transition from soap star to popular painter.

The video is a one-of-a-kind experience that brings extra insight into “The Soap Star’s Secret.” Watch it now and be amazed.

For more of Thom Beirdz’s story, watch “The Soap Star’s Secret” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Evil Lives Here on ID GO now!

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Main photo: Thom Bierdz [courtesy of Thom Bierdz]

The post Exclusive Video: Soap Star Thom Bierdz On When His Brother Killed Their Mom appeared first on CrimeFeed.

LEIPZIG, GERMANY — After a retrial, the German Constitutional Court has ruled that a prison term given to a former police officer who killed, butchered, and ate a willing partner was too “lenient.” Now, cannibal cop Detlev Guenzel, 59, will serve a life sentence.

On November 4, 2013, Guenzel met up with Polish-born Wojciech Stempniewicz, 59, after the pair initially hooked up on a cannibal-fetish website billed as “the #1 site for exotic meat.”

Detlev Guenzel in photograph that went viral and became a news story (INN)

Reportedly, Guenzel had fantasized since his youth about dismembering and devouring a human body, while Stempniewicz long dreamed of being dismembered and devoured. Upon meeting, the perversely perfect pair went down to Guenzel’s basement BDSM dungeon and made each other’s kinkiest cravings come true.

According to conviction papers, Guenzel tortured Stempniewicz and slit his throat. The 30-year police force veteran then made a video of himself clad just in underpants while chopping up his pal’s corpse as pop music blares in the background. At one point on the tape, which prosecutors played in court, the blood-soaked Guenzel states:

“I never thought I would sink so low.”

After burying Stempniewicz in his backyard, investigators believe Guenzel made a meal of several very specific body parts. Upon digging up Guenzel’s flower garden, searchers found the dead man’s remains — minus his penis and one testicle.

In 2015, a jury convicted Guenzel of “murder and disturbing the peace of the dead.” He received eight years, seven months — a term less than the 15-year maximum, in consideration of Stempniewicz’s acknowledged “death wish” and apparently happy participation in his own demise.

The following year, a shocking photo emerged online of Guenzel standing naked (except for socks and sandals) and holding an ax while standing next to a skeleton in the very chamber where he slaughtered and sliced up Stempniewicz. The subsequent scandal added another month to Guenzel’s sentence.

Embed from Getty Images

More recently, Guenzel’s attorneys convinced the court that new evidence might prove that Stempniewicz had killed himself by hanging in the dungeon.

Following the judge-ordered retrial, Guenzel actually got the originally rejected stint of life in prison. He can apply for parole in 15 years.

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Main photo: Detlev Guenzel, a 56-year-old German police officer, waits for the opening of his trial on August 22, 2014, at the court in Dresden [ROBERT MICHAEL/AFP/Getty Images]

The post Penis-Eating Consensual Cannibal Cop Gets Life In Prison After Retrial appeared first on CrimeFeed.

Nathan Leopold, who died on August 29, 1971, is rarely referenced as an individual, apart from his companion, lover, and partner in crime, Richard Loeb. Leopold and Loeb were two superlatively intellectual college students who believed themselves to be superior to others. To prove they were better and smarter, they concocted an elaborate kidnapping hoax, in which they demanded a ransom even though they’d already murdered the 14-year-old Bobby Franks, who happened to be Loeb’s cousin.

They executed their plan, and their victim, just to prove they could, and admittedly for the thrill of the experience. They had confidence they would get away with it, as they were convinced they were better than everyone else — living specimens of Friedrich Nietzsche’s theory of the “übermensch,” to which morality didn’t apply. They were going to commit the perfect crime and make headlines. Of course, it didn’t go as planned. You can read an account of the full case and trial here.

Nathan Leopold’s and Richard Loeb’s mug shots

Leopold and Loeb were both sentenced to life in prison in 1924. Loeb was murdered by another inmate in the shower on January 28, 1936. Leopold was with him until the end, by his bedside as he died from his wounds in the prison hospital at age 30.

Nathan Leopold behind bars Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Nathan Leopold behind bars [Wikimedia Commons]

While Leopold mourned the loss of his companion heartily, he went on to live a full and rich life, both in prison and out.

Leopold had shown signs of brilliance at an early age, and had finished college at just 15. While still a teenager, he became a respected ornithologist and was attending law school. He didn’t let a little thing like committing what was called, at the time, “The Crime of the Century,” hold back his academic obsession.

While incarcerated, he studied languages. The number he was able to master is debated, but seems to be in the double digits. He claimed to be remorseful of his crime and spent his time educating other prisoners. He also reformed and reorganized the prison library and educational system, and worked in the prison hospital. He even volunteered to be a subject in a malaria study.

He had become such an exemplary model prisoner that the prosecuting attorney in the case actually wrote a letter in favor of parole for Leopold.

Despite having been sentenced to life in prison for murder, with an additional 99 years for kidnapping, Leopold was granted parole in 1958 after having served 34 years. Upon his release, in contradiction to his teenage folly as a “superman,” he told the press, “All I want, if I am so lucky as to ever see freedom again, is to try to become a humble little person.”

Once free, he moved to Puerto Rico, at least partly to escape the publicity created by the 1959 release of the movie Compulsion, based on the crimes of Leopold and Loeb.

Once there, he was able to continue his ornithological studies and he even published a book in the field.

A photo posted by Little Joe (@littlejoemagazine) on Mar 9, 2016 at 11:02am PST

He became a math teacher at the University of Puerto Rico. He also continued his academic studies, and earned a Master’s Degree. He got a job as an X-ray technician in a hospital and worked in church missions. He worked for the Island Health Department, and did research on leprosy. He married a woman (despite having stated, in a 1960 interview, that he was still in love with Loeb) and traveled. In opposition to his youthful thrill kill, during this time of his life he allegedly said, “Helping others has become my chief hobby — it’s how I get my kicks.”

He eventually passed away at age 66 from a heart attack, a natural death that neither Bobby Franks nor Richard Loeb had been afforded. But despite the heartless murder he helped commit as a teenager, he continued to attempt to make amends and help people even after his death, donating his body to the University of Puerto Rico for medical study.

After his death, the Chicago Sun-Times had this to say about Nathan Leopold:

Here, certainly, is a classic case of rehabilitation. And clearly it argues against the death penalty, even for heinous crimes, for no one can reasonably say that society would have benefitted more by Leopold’s execution.

For more on Leopold & Loeb, watch the “Hearts of Darkness” episode of Investigation Discovery’s A Crime To Remember on ID GO now!

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Leopold and Loeb: The Crime of the Century

Main photo: Nathan Leopold in 1924 [Bundesarchiv, Bild via Wikimedia Commons]

The post The Post-Crime Life Of Thrill-Killing “Superman,” Nathan Leopold appeared first on CrimeFeed.

Ottis Elwood Toole was one of the most loathsome criminals of the second half of the 20th century. Along with his partner and fellow serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, Toole roamed the United States aimlessly and, depending on who you believe, the deadly duo either murdered hundreds of people, or possibly fewer than a dozen. Whatever the accurate body count, there is no doubt that Toole, with and without his partner Lucas, committed acts of savagery throughout his entire life. In addition to the crimes that put him in prison forever, 12 years after his death Toole was named the killer in one of the most high-profile cold-case murders of the 20th century.

Ottis Toole’s life story was the stuff that nightmares are made of. Toole was born on March 5, 1947, and grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, in the Springfield neighborhood. Springfield was full of grand, historic houses, but the area had been in decline for many years and was filled with seedy rooming houses during Toole’s upbringing.

Toole’s father was a violent man who sexually abused him. His mother belittled him and forced him to wear girl’s clothes. In addition to his chaotic upbringing, Toole only had an IQ of 75. By his teens, Toole was working as a prostitute and setting fires to abandoned houses and structures in the Springfield area. Toole discovered that fires sexually aroused him, and he became a serial arsonist.

Toole claimed that he murdered a human being for the first time at the young age of 14. He said a traveling salesman propositioned him for sex, and he ran the man over with his car and killed him. His first arrest, the first of many, came at the age of 17 for loitering. Over the years, Toole built up an extensive rap sheet for committing petty crimes.

Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole [Wikipedia]

From the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, Toole roamed around the country, but always drifted back to Jacksonville, supporting himself through prostitution and panhandling. He was the prime suspect in murders in Nebraska and Colorado, but was never charged with any of them.

In 1976, Ottis Toole met the man who would change his life forever. Henry Lee Lucas was an ex-con and a drifter who had done time for killing his own mother in 1960. Toole and Lucas met at a soup kitchen in Jacksonville, and a despicable partnership was born. The two men became lovers and, for the next several years, roamed around the country committing crimes and murders from coast to coast.

On January 4, 1982, Toole committed a murder that would eventually put him away for life. Still a firebug, Toole set a rooming house in Jacksonville ablaze, killing a 64-year-old occupant.

In April 1983, Toole was arrested and charged with another arson in Jacksonville. While in custody, he admitted to the deadly arson he had committed the previous year. Henry Lee Lucas was arrested a few months later in June 1983 in Texas on a firearms violation. After their arrests, Toole and Lucas both began doing something they became famous for: confessing to hundreds of murders all over the United States. Authorities in different parts of the country were eager to close murder cases that had been open for years, and many of Toole’s and Lucas’ confessions were readily accepted despite little or no evidence.

The two also claimed to be members of a deadly Satanic cult called the Hand of Death. Their outrageous stories of cannibalism, cult murders, and sacrifices have never been corroborated. The likely truth is that Ottis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas were merely deadbeat criminals who committed murders alone or with each other because they enjoyed it.

One of the many unsolved killings Toole confessed to was the notorious murder of six-year-old Adam Walsh, who disappeared from a shopping mall in Hollywood, Florida, in July 1981. The young boy’s severed head was found two weeks later in a canal — his body was never recovered. Walsh’s murder captured the nation’s attention, and the boy’s father, John Walsh, became an advocate and the public face for missing and murdered children in America. Despite compelling evidence, Toole was never officially charged with Adam Walsh’s murder. As a side note, there are some who believe it wasn’t Toole, but Jeffrey Dahmer who murdered Adam Walsh.

In May 1984, Toole was found guilty and sentenced to death for the arson murder at the Jacksonville rooming house. The death sentence was later commuted to life in prison. Toole was eventually found guilty of five additional murders in Florida and was given five more life sentences. Henry Lee Lucas was ultimately convicted of 11 murders and also initially received the death penalty in Texas. Lucas’ sentence was commuted to life in prison by Governor George W. Bush in 1998.

On September 15, 1996, Ottis Elwood Toole died in prison in Florida at the age of 49 while serving his life sentence. The cause of death was cirrhosis of the liver. Toole’s partner and lover, Henry Lee Lucas, died in a Texas prison in 2001 at the age of 64.

In December 2008, authorities in Florida, along with John Walsh, announced that the murder of Adam Walsh was officially closed after 27 years. Police announced that Ottis Toole, the man who had long been a suspect and had confessed to the crime but recanted several times, had indeed abducted and murdered Adam Walsh in July 1981.

This announcement finally put the Adam Walsh case to rest, and added a grisly bookend to the tumultuous life of Ottis Toole.

For more on Ottis Toole and Adam Walsh, watch “The Lost Boy” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Cold Blood on ID GO now!

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Main photo: Ottis Toole [Jacksonville Police Department]

The post Who Was Ottis Toole? Henry Lee Lucas’ Degenerate Sidekick & Adam Walsh’s Killer appeared first on CrimeFeed.

In 2013, football star Aaron Hernandez had it all: He was one of the NFL’s most promising tight ends, had a beautiful fiancé and a young daughter, and had just signed a $40 million contract extension to play for the New England Patriots.

But on June 26, 2013, Hernandez’s life as he knew it came to an end when he was charged with first-degree murder in the death of semi-pro player Odin Lloyd. Soon, a flood of media reports emerged referring to his “shocking double life.”

Aaron Hernandez of the New England Patriots, 2011 [Jack Newton/Wikimedia Commons]

But the reality is, given Hernandez’s long history of rages, criminal behavior, and violence, perhaps the most shocking part is that he was not behind bars sooner.

Between 2007 and 2013, Hernandez was implicated, investigated, or prosecuted for various violent incidents — including multiple gunshot victims.

So what made Hernandez so angry?

Hernandez grew up in Bristol, Connecticut. When he was in sixth grade, his mother, Terri, began taking bets for an illegal gambling organization. But Hernandez’s father, Dennis, who friends and family described as his “anchor,” was a positive influence in his life who pushed Hernandez to practice and train hard.

But at age 16, the teen lost the grounding influence in his life when his father died from complications after routine hernia surgery in 2006. After his father’s death, Hernandez’s life appeared to head into a downward spiral from which he never recovered. “Everyone was close to my father, but I was the closest,’’ he told USA Today in 2009. “When that happened, who do I talk to? Who do I hang with? It was tough.’’

Hernandez left high school halfway through his senior year in January 2007 to join the University of Florida Gators. Soon, he was making headlines for the wrong reasons.

On April 28, 2007, Hernandez was with Tim Tebow at The Swamp, a restaurant near campus. According to a police report, Hernandez got into a fight with the manager of the restaurant after Hernandez refused to pay his bar tab. The manager’s eardrum was ruptured, but the battery charge against Hernandez was later dropped after a settlement was reached. Hernandez appeared to suffer no consequences for his violent act.

Later in 2007, Hernandez was among three Florida football players and another NFL player who were questioned by Gainesville police after a double shooting that happened after a Florida loss. According to the police, the players provided them with information and — once again — no charges were filed.

Hernandez also tested positive for marijuana and was suspended for one game.

Though he won the John Mackey Award as the nation’s top tight end as a junior, reports of his legal troubles made it to the NFL, and he was only a fourth-round draft pick for the New England Patriots. Despite this setback, Hernandez soon became a star. After his second season, he signed a five-year contract extension worth $40 million.

Also in 2007, he reconnected with his former high school sweetheart Shayanna Jenkins, and the couple later became engaged and, in 2012, had a daughter.

Odin Lloyd [Wikimedia Commons]

In the early hours of June 17, 2013, Hernandez’s friend Odin Lloyd, a semi-pro football player who was dating Shayanna’s sister, Shaneah Jenkins, was shot seven times. Lloyd’s body was dumped in an industrial park in North Attleboro, Massachusetts.

Prosecutors say Lloyd was partying with Hernandez just before his death, and last seen with Hernandez and Hernandez’s two associates, Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace, around 2:30 A.M. in a rented silver Nissan Altima.

Investigators in the case found an overwhelming amount of evidence, including a shell case and a wad of gum connected to him in the industrial park pit where Lloyd’s body was found. Additionally, surveillance video from security cameras at the industrial park showed the Altima heading toward a secluded area at 3:22 A.M.

At the same time, chilling text messages from Lloyd’s phone were sent to his sister telling her he was with “Nfl,” adding, “just so u know.”

Hernandez was arrested in June 2013 and charged with the murder. His motive for killing Lloyd, according to Newsweek, could have been the fact that Lloyd allegedly knew that Hernandez was bisexual. Hernandez’s fiancé, however, has vehemently denied the rumors that Hernandez may have had relationships with men.

A few days later, the Patriots dropped him from the team.

The investigation into Lloyd’s death led investigators to suspect Hernandez in another double homicide. On July 16, 2012, Hernandez was partying at a Boston club on the same night that two other men were found dead. Investigators would later allege that Hernandez shot and killed Daniel Abreu and Safiro Furtado because one of them bumped into him, spilling his drink, and then refused to apologize.

Reports of Hernandez’s dark side continued to multiply. “He went on debauches to strip clubs, dropping $10,000 at a time. In addition to the mansion he shared with his fiancée and stocked with criminal parasites, he kept a secret apartment or flop house,” Sally Jenkins wrote in The Washington Post.

Also in 2013, a friend of Hernandez’s named Alexander Bradley filed a civil lawsuit against him in a Florida federal court. Bradley claimed that on February 13, 2013, Hernandez had shot him while the two were riding in a car following an altercation at a Miami strip club. Bradley alleged that he lost his right eye as a result.

On April 15, 2015, Hernandez was found guilty of first-degree murder for killing Lloyd. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He was also tried for the 2012 double homicide of Abreu and Furtado, but was acquitted of these charges on April 14, 2017.

On April 19, 2017, Hernandez hanged himself naked in his cell in the Souza Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Massachusetts.

He scrawled the Bible verse from John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life,” on his forehead with red ink. Hernandez also made red marks on his hands and feet with the pen that seemed to mimic stigmata.

While behind bars, Hernandez allegedly had a relationship with Kyle Kennedy, who was incarcerated in 2015 for robbing a gas station with a “long butcher-style knife.” The former player’s family have denied that Hernandez and Kennedy had a homosexual relationship.

At the request of his family, Hernandez’s brain was released to Boston University to be studied for signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive degenerative disease found in people who have had a severe blow or repeated blows to the head. In September 2017, researchers at the Boston University CTE Center released a statement diagnosing Hernandez as having brain injuries consistent with CTE, stage 3 out of 4, at the time of his death.

The statement noted that “CTE is associated with aggressiveness, explosiveness, impulsivity, depression, memory loss, and other cognitive changes,” and, shockingly, said that Hernandez had “the most severe case of [CTE] medically seen” in a person of his age.

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Main photo: Aaron Hernandez [Wikimedia Commons]

The post Aaron Hernandez: A Look At A Life & Death Full Of Violence & Secrets appeared first on CrimeFeed.

Serial killer Andrew Cunanan made global headlines in 1997 when he murdered at least five people, including fashion designer Gianni Versace and Chicago tycoon Lee Miglin.

On July 23, 1997, Cunanan — holed up in a houseboat and surrounded by police and the media after his killing spree — fatally shot himself. He was 27 years old.

The (sometimes heavily redacted) files released by the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act provide a fascinating window into the investigation — and into Andrew Cunanan, a.k.a. Andrew DeSilva.

Cunanan changed his name — and life story — as frequently as his appearance. According to the FBI file, Cunanan was known as Andrew DeSilva, Kurt Matthew Demars, and Drew Cunningham. The file also quotes an unidentified friend who speculates on how Cunanan chose at least one of his identities. According to the friend, the DeSilva family was one of the richest families in the world who “lived in the Rancho Santa Fe area of California and are quite prominent in charity and social work in the community.”

Friends of Cunanan appeared to be surprised by his crimes, but several consistently described him as vain and obsessed with wealth. One friend, whose name was redacted in the FBI files, said that Andrew “glamorized violence, and while watching movies would comment if someone did that to me ‘I’d go on a five state killing spree.’ He thought he was just kidding at the time. [The friend] also characterized Cunanan as ‘a delicate butterfly’ who constantly fantasized about being rich. He lived the ‘lifestyles of the rich and famous’ by hanging on and pretending.”

Andrew was described in the FBI files as highly intelligent, and his IQ was listed as between 147 and 160. His report cards from the prestigious Bishop’s School show that he was a solid student in subjects including AP English and Latin — and earned A’s in “Philosophical Ethics.”

Andrew Cunanan’s report card [FBI]

The FBI investigated rumors that Andrew may have known, or allegedly been sexually involved with, Lee Miglin. “Cunanan was into the ‘S&M’ scene, and was possibly taking heroin. Murder victim Lee Miglin was also possibly into S&M [redacted]. [Redacted name] had third or fourth-hand information from reliable [redacted] that Miglin was into the S&M scene.” However the FBI would later state that they had not found evidence of a relationship between Miglin and Cunanan.
He was incredibly generous, but not with his own money. Despite the fact that friends said he was generous, constantly carried a roll of cash, and often referenced traveling to Europe and New York, Cunanan’s only regular job was as a Thrifty Drug Store clerk in Rancho Bernardo, California.

His postcards to David Madsen provide a window into his pathological lying habits. At the time, Cunanan was dating a much older man whom he was traveling with — and to Madsen, he referred to his lover as his “business partner.” He wrote to Madsen that he was going to Paris — “the world’s most romantic city with the world’s least romantic guy.”

Postcard written by Andrew Cunanan addressed to David Madsen [FBI]

Cunanan did not have the HIV virus, but he did not know that. Cunanan had reportedly never been tested for the virus during his lifetime, but had gone as far as seeing a counselor for information. He is reported to have said to friends, “If I had AIDS or if someone did that to me, I would go on a five-state killing spree and take everyone with me I could.” After his death, his body was tested during his autopsy, and the Dade County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that he was HIV negative. In the FBI files, an HIV diagnosis is speculated about as a possible motive for Cunanan’s murder spree: “Subject is believed to be a killer who may or may not be targeting former lovers or clients who may have given him AIDS.”

To learn more about the case, watch the “The Body in the Rug” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Six Degrees of Murder on ID GO!

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Main photo: Andrew Cunanan Wanted Poster [Federal Bureau of Investigation]

The post Who Was Andrew Cunanan? A Look Inside A Serial Killer’s FBI Files appeared first on CrimeFeed.

AUSTIN, TX — Attorneys for a Texas musician on trial for fatally stabbing his neighbor reportedly cited “gay panic” to successfully get their client a reduced sentence.

On Tuesday, Austin resident James Miller, 69, was found not guilty of murder in the 2015 death of Daniel Spencer, 32. The jury did, however, convict Miller of criminally negligent homicide and recommended he get 10 years of probation.

Judge Brad Urrutia, forced to go by the jury’s decision, added the maximum allowable six-month jail sentence and ordered Miller to pay nearly $11,000 in restitution to Spencer’s family.

Miller, who is also a former Austin Police employee, has always admitted to stabbing Spencer to death. He says he acted after the younger man made a sexual pass at him while they were drinking and playing music. According to Miller:

“We were doing the good music. We were playing back and forth and everything and I just let him know — Hey, I’m not gay. We’re musicians and all that kind of stuff, but I’m not a gay guy. Then it seemed like everything was all right and everything was fine. When I got ready to go — it seemed like s—t just started happening … I felt he was going to hurt me.”

Based on that account, Miller’s attorneys apparently persuaded the jury that their client took Spencer’s life in self-defense.

The “gay panic” defense strategy rarely comes up these days, but it remains legal in most U.S. states and has been used to win cases in nearly half of them. Following the Miller verdict, D’Arcy Kemnitz, the Executive Director of the LGBT Bar Association, told the press:

“It’s hard to believe that something like this exists. This is something from the very darkest of ages, based on the idea that if a gay guy hits on a straight guy, then the straight guy gets to do whatever he wants to do to him, including a homicide.”

In 2014, the American Bar Association called for banning the “gay panic” defense. California outlawed it that same year; Illinois followed suit in 2017. An active movement is presently afoot to legally eliminate the strategy in Texas.

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Main photo: James Miller [Austin Police Department]

The post Texas Musician Who Killed Neighbor Beats Murder Rap With “Gay Panic” Defense appeared first on CrimeFeed.

PALMDALE, CA — A California man who tortured and murdered an 8-year-old boy because he believed the child was gay was sentenced to death on Thursday.

Isauro Aguirre, 37, was convicted last year of first-degree murder in connection with the death of 8-year-old Gabriel Fernandez in Palmdale.

Gabriel’s mother, Pearl Sinthia Fernandez, 34, was also sentenced on Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

At the time of Gabriel’s death in May of 2013, Fernandez and Aguirre were in a romantic relationship.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George Lomeli called the couple’s behavior “beyond animalistic” and said that he hopes they wake up in the middle of the night and think of what they did to Gabriel.

According to prosecutors, Gabriel was subjected to inhumane treatment including being starved and forced to eat cat feces. He was also allegedly kept bound and gagged in a cabinet. Investigators discovered that the boy’s skull had been fractured and he had 12 broken ribs.

Lomeli called Aguirre’s behavior “nothing short of evil” when imposing the sentence. He stated that the case involved the most horrific abuse he had seen in all his years on the bench.

“It is unimaginable, the pain that this child probably endured. And from what I heard, Gabriel was a kind, loving individual who just wanted to be loved,” the judge added.

Gabriel Fernandez [CBS Los Angeles / YouTube (screenshot)]

Fernandez called 911 on May 22, 2013, to report that her son wasn’t breathing. She told responding deputies that he had fallen and hit his head on a dresser. He died two days later of blunt-force trauma and neglect, according to the coroner’s office.

Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Jon Hatami explained that Aguirre abused Gabriel because he believed that the boy was gay. Gabriel’s siblings testified that Fernandez and Aguirre would call the boy gay, punish him if he played with dolls, and force him to wear girls’ clothes to school.

Under the terms of the Fernandez’ plea deal, a sentence of life in prison without parole was expected — but in November, a jury found that the special circumstance allegation of intentional murder by torture was valid. This paved the way for the death sentence.

During the court hearing, Fernandez said she was sorry and that she wished Gabriel was still alive.

Several agencies investigated abuse allegations leading up to Gabriel’s death, according to the Associated Press. But none of them found evidence of abuse.

Prosecutors have since filed charges of child abuse and falsifying records against four county social workers.

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Main photo: chart indicating the extent of Gabriel’s wounds [screenshot/ABC7]

The post Man Sentenced To Death For “Animalistic” Torture, Murder Of 8-Year-Old Boy He Thought Was Gay appeared first on CrimeFeed.

Police in San Francisco have identified a suspect whom they believe could be the serial killer who stalked the city’s gay community in the 1970s.

He was nicknamed “The Doodler” because his modus operandi involved chatting to strangers in gay bars and nightclubs and sketching their caricatures, and cartoons, on cocktail napkins.

After gaining his victims’ trust, he would leave with them – then later stab them to death.

Authorities believe that The Doodler is responsible for 14 murders and three assaults of men between January 1974 and September 1975.

A few months after his last known victim was found in 1975 on a golf course, the San Francisco Police Department released an artist’s sketch of a suspect.

The sketch was based on descriptions given by the three surviving victims.

The suspect was described as a slim African-American male, between 19 and 22 years old, and under six feet tall. It was also stated that he frequently wore “a Navy-type watch cap.”

The witnesses refused to testify, most likely, according to law enforcement sources, because they did not want their homosexuality exposed.

One of the stabbing survivors was reportedly a “well-known entertainer” and another was rumored to be a diplomat.

According to CNN, Inspector Dan Cunningham, who recently took control of the SFPD’s cold case unit, said that he is taking another look at the suspect who inspired the sketches.

Cunningham is reportedly looking at five murders, but believes that the killer may have been responsible for many more.

The first of The Doodler’s alleged victims to be found was Gerald Cavanagh, a 50-year-old who had worked in a mattress factory.

His body was found early one January morning in 1974 on Ocean Beach. He had been stabbed 16 times.

Cunningham is also looking into the cases of 27-year-old drag queen Joseph Stephens, and Claus Christmann, a 31-year-old German.

Like many of The Doodler’s victims Christmann was found with multiple stab wounds – and with his pants unzipped and open.

In the summer of 1975 two more bodies were found: Frederick Capin, a registered nurse in his early 30s, and Harald Gullberg, a 67-year-old Swedish sailor.

The news that five men had been found dead within 18 months struck fear into the gay community.

Gay sex was illegal in California until 1976.

Cunningham will also work with the SFPD crime lab to see if it could be possible to get a DNA sample from evidence gathered at two of The Doodler crime scenes more than four decades ago.

A number of cold cases are being re-investigated with renewed energy ever since The Golden State Killer suspect Joseph DeAngelo was arrested in April after breakthroughs were made through the use of DNA.

Investigators plan to release an updated sketch of the suspect.

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Main photo: A police sketch of “The Doodler” suspect that was released in 1975 [San Francisco Police Department]

The post Police Have A Suspect In “The Doodler” Serial Killer Cold Case appeared first on CrimeFeed.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Blighting an otherwise peaceful and joyous celebration — but, fittingly, doing it in high style — a dozen bikini-clad women erupted into a daylight donnybrook at San Francisco’s Gay Pride festival. Video of the violent swimsuit squabble has since gone viral.

Reportedly, at around 1 P.M., a dispute over what time singer Kehlani was scheduled to perform ignited the tempers of several equipped-to-take-a-dip revelers who exploded on the spot into full-blown fisticuffs.

Eyewitness videographer Navdeep Thind, a local college student, said he was vlogging near the Civic Center when he noticed a crowd of onlookers gathered around a group of all-female, all-beach-attired brawlers.

Thind said the pool-ready rumblers were screaming, punching, kicking, and even slamming one another’s heads into the pavement, noting:

“It got kind of brutal. People were saying it was like some WWE stuff, and it really was. You saw some heads hitting the cement.”

Later that evening, Thind uploaded his video of the melee online, and it has subsequently gone viral.

As for what ignited the bikini battle royale, Thind said he only knew what he heard in the crowd, explaining:

“I guess one girl asked the other girl if Kehlani was performing. And I guess the other girl said, ‘Yeah, she is,’ but I guess she said it very rudely or angrily, and called her a b–ch. That triggered the other girl to say something like, ‘Did you just call me a b–ch?’ And that started their argument.”

Thind said the French-cut fracas went on for about seven minutes before he saw security officers successfully separate the seaside-clad scrappers.

The San Francisco Police Department said no arrests were made and had no comment on the incident.

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Main photo: Bikini brawl at SF gay pride/YouTube [screenshot]

The post Massive Bikini Brawl Busts Out At San Francisco Gay Pride, Chaotic Clip Goes Viral appeared first on CrimeFeed.

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — On April 27, 1997, 27-year-old Andrew Cunanan bludgeoned his “old friend” Jeffrey Trail to death with a claw hammer in the apartment of a mutual pal, Minneapolis architect David Madson.

Two days later, Cunanan fatally blasted a bullet through Madson’s skull. And, with that, a murder spree kicked off that would ultimately stump the FBI and terrify and mesmerize the entire planet.

Before it ended, Cunanan would kill five victims total — including world-renowned fashion designer Gianni Versace — and ultimately blow his own head off onboard a houseboat with the entire world tuned in from afar.

Andrew Phillip Cunanan was born in California to a Filipino-American father and Italian-American mother. They raised their boy strictly Catholic in a conservative area of San Diego, two factors that presumably stirred conflict within young, ardently homosexual Andrew.

To learn more about the case, watch the “The Body in the Rug” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Six Degrees of Murder on ID GO now!

After dropping out of college, Cunanan spent the 1990s cruising chic gay bars, peddling pleasure to high rollers who maintained him as a “kept man,” and eagerly getting mixed up in drugs and two-bit criminal activity.

Andrew Cunanan Wanted poster [FBI]

Related: Crime History: When “Mr. Gay UK” Killed, Cooked & Ate His Game Show Lover

Cunanan made the 1997 trip to Minnesota after telling friends he was relocating to San Francisco. The exact reasons as to why he murdered Trail and Madson remain a mystery, as do his motives for the next three killings.

From Minnesota, Cunanan drove Madson’s Jeep to Chicago. Once there, he captured 72-year-old real estate mogul Lee Miglin, bound him with duct tape, and stabbed him 20 times with gardening shears and a screwdriver before finally slicing through the millionaire’s neck with a hacksaw.

After that, Cunanan swiped Miglin’s Lexus and hit the road for New Jersey, where he shot William Reese, a 45-year-old Civil War–cemetery caretaker.

The FBI placed Cunanan on its famous Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List and searched frantically for him over the next two months. Remarkably, Cunanan “hid in plain sight” among Miami’s bustling gay scene.

With startling effectiveness, Cunanan frequently changed his appearance. One witness speculated that he had several wigs. The FBI even issued a Wanted posted featuring variations on the fugitive’s different “looks.”

At one point, though, either out of desperation or cockiness, he pawned some items for cash using his real name. As a result, law-enforcement agencies knew generally where Cunanan was as he continued to elude them. They just couldn’t catch him.

On July 15, Cunanan shocked the entire planet when he brazenly walked up to Gianni Versace, then 50, and shot the beloved international fashion icon dead outside the designer’s own home. It happened in broad daylight, as Versace returned from a morning walk. A witness gave chase, but Cunanan escaped.

As the public reeled in shock, investigators found Reese’s truck in a nearby parking garage, containing Cunanan’s clothes and newspaper clippings about his other murders. Authorities tightened the dragnet around Miami.

Eight days later, the caretaker of a locally docked houseboat reported an intruder. Officers deduced it was Cunanan and prepared for a standoff and possibly even a gunfight.

As if knowing his time was up, Andrew Cunanan pointed the same semi-automatic pistol he’d used to kill his three shooting victims against his own temple and squeezed the trigger. Police, not knowing that their suspect lay dead inside, surrounded the boat for five hours before going onboard and discovering Cunanan’s body.

Immediate speculation cropped up as to what Cunanan’s motives may have been. The most popular theory early on was that he had been diagnosed as HIV-positive, and the spree was some kind of “revenge run” against other gay men or former partners. An autopsy, however, proved that Cunanan did not carry the virus.

A 1997 New York Times article discussing what might have set Cunanan off brings up that he had recently lost his place as the “kept man” of an older millionaire he’d been living with for a year. Cunanan had been forced to move into a modest apartment that he shared with a roommate. Tim Barthel, the owner of a gay bar Cunanan frequented, stated, ”He complained to friends that he was broke. He had gotten rid of his car. He was living in a dumpy apartment. All the pretenses were gone. He couldn’t be the top dog anymore. He couldn’t be the center of attention.” Barthel then added, “Well, I guess I shouldn’t say that, because he is now.”

Still, the most direct answer to the question of why Andrew Cunanan did what he did remains, simply, that no one knows. As such, more than just a serial killer died onboard that vessel on July 24, 1997. He took with him a tragic secret that can only keep the world guessing.

To learn more about the case, watch the “The Body in the Rug” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Six Degrees of Murder on ID GO.

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Main photos: Andrew Cunanan [FBI]

The post Crime History: Versace-Killer Andrew Cunanan’s 1997 Murder Spree appeared first on CrimeFeed.

ATTICA, NY — Born in 1955, identical twin brothers Robert and Stephen Spahalski embarked on a life of crime together early on, attempting to “out-steal” one another during their adolescent robbery sprees around upstate New York.

The Spahalskis parted ways only after 16-year-old Stephen fatally stabbed a shopkeeper “who deserved it” in 1971.

Decades later, the brothers would be reunited by surprise when Robert landed alongside his twin at the notorious Attica Correctional Facility after he too, was convicted for murder.

In keeping with the larcenous games of their youth, though, Robert managed to “out-kill” Stephen, getting convicted for four homicides and being sentenced to 100 years behind bars.

Reportedly, when Stephen spotted a newspaper article about his brother coming to prison, he quipped to a guard, “I thought I was the only murderer in the family!”

Stephen Spahalski initially served eight years for the stabbing of a 48-year-old storeowner in Elmira, New York. Upon getting out, Stephen promptly got busted for robbery and kidnapping, returning to prison in 1999.

Following that release, Stephen violated parole and went back to lock-up. He has spent the vast majority of his life behind bars, where he lives as an out-and-proud gay man whose nickname is “Christmas,” inspired by his love of the holiday season.

In the meantime, Robert Spahalski went to jail sporadically as his life devolved into mental illness, drug addiction, and street hustling.

The Spahalski brothers even served time together on occasion. During one such period in 1978, one of the twins attempted to escape from a state penitentiary — but officials couldn’t figure out which one.

Even with his criminal record and dangerous lifestyle as a male prostitute, Robert Spahalski only got arrested for murder in November 2005 after he suddenly walked into a police station and confessed.

Robert told detectives that, a few days earlier, he had beaten and fatally strangled Vivian Irizarry, 54, a neighbor he described as his “best friend,” and then dumped her body in a basement.

Robert also told the cops he’d strangled his neighbor Morraine Armstrong, 24, in 1990 and his girlfriend, Adrian Berger, in July 1991. Those cases had gone cold; in fact, Berger’s demise had not even been officially deemed a homicide because her cause of death could not be determined.

Investigators quickly also linked Robert to the October 1991 hammer-bludgeoning of 40-year-old landscaper Charles Grande.

At first, police said, Robert didn’t want to own up to that murder, as he had it “fixed in his mind” that four slayings might result in his being “labeled a serial killer.”

After a 12-hour interrogation though Robert came clean and said he murdered Grande after the victim supposedly shortchanged him on a sex-for-cash deal. Spahalski also said he stole $1,000 in cash from the dead man.

Robert ended his confession statement by writing:

“I knew that coming forward is the best thing to do. I settled all of my past business today and want to put it all behind me.”

He then signed the document, surrendered himself, and went to trial in 2006, whereupon defense attorneys entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Robert’s lawyers claimed their client suffered from untreated mental illness and that he had committed the crimes while out of his mind on cocaine. The defense even said that Robert hallucinated and believed one of his victims had transformed into a demon when he choked her in what he thought was self-defense. The jury didn’t buy that pitch, though, and after two-and-half hours of deliberation, they convicted Robert on four counts of second-degree murder.

A judge subsequently sentenced Robert to 100 years — the 25-year maximum for each killing.

Under any circumstances, that’s effectively a life sentence. In Robert’s case, it seemed even more so, as, by then, he was suffering from AIDS.

Nevertheless, both Robert and Stephen Spahalski remain alive today and locked up, killer twins who took two separate but horribly twisted roads to the same doomed fate.

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Main photos: Stephen Spahalski; Robert Spahalski [New York Dept. of Corrections]

The post Killer Twins: Robert & Stephen Spahalski, Identical Brothers Who Murdered Apart appeared first on CrimeFeed.

Serial killer Andrew Cunanan made global headlines in 1997 when he murdered at least five people, including fashion designer Gianni Versace and Chicago tycoon Lee Miglin.

On July 23, 1997, Cunanan — holed up in a houseboat and surrounded by police and the media after his killing spree — fatally shot himself. He was 27 years old.

The (sometimes heavily redacted) files released by the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act provide a fascinating window into the investigation — and into Andrew Cunanan, a.k.a. Andrew DeSilva.

Cunanan changed his name — and life story — as frequently as his appearance. According to the FBI file, Cunanan was known as Andrew DeSilva, Kurt Matthew Demars, and Drew Cunningham. The file also quotes an unidentified friend who speculates on how Cunanan chose at least one of his identities. According to the friend, the DeSilva family was one of the richest families in the world who “lived in the Rancho Santa Fe area of California and are quite prominent in charity and social work in the community.”

Friends of Cunanan appeared to be surprised by his crimes, but several consistently described him as vain and obsessed with wealth. One friend, whose name was redacted in the FBI files, said that Andrew “glamorized violence, and while watching movies would comment if someone did that to me ‘I’d go on a five state killing spree.’ He thought he was just kidding at the time. [The friend] also characterized Cunanan as ‘a delicate butterfly’ who constantly fantasized about being rich. He lived the ‘lifestyles of the rich and famous’ by hanging on and pretending.”

Andrew was described in the FBI files as highly intelligent, and his IQ was listed as between 147 and 160. His report cards from the prestigious Bishop’s School show that he was a solid student in subjects including AP English and Latin — and earned A’s in “Philosophical Ethics.”

Andrew Cunanan’s report card [FBI]

The FBI investigated rumors that Andrew may have known, or allegedly been sexually involved with, Lee Miglin. “Cunanan was into the ‘S&M’ scene, and was possibly taking heroin. Murder victim Lee Miglin was also possibly into S&M [redacted]. [Redacted name] had third or fourth-hand information from reliable [redacted] that Miglin was into the S&M scene.” However the FBI would later state that they had not found evidence of a relationship between Miglin and Cunanan.
He was incredibly generous, but not with his own money. Despite the fact that friends said he was generous, constantly carried a roll of cash, and often referenced traveling to Europe and New York, Cunanan’s only regular job was as a Thrifty Drug Store clerk in Rancho Bernardo, California.

His postcards to David Madsen provide a window into his pathological lying habits. At the time, Cunanan was dating a much older man whom he was traveling with — and to Madsen, he referred to his lover as his “business partner.” He wrote to Madsen that he was going to Paris — “the world’s most romantic city with the world’s least romantic guy.”

Postcard written by Andrew Cunanan addressed to David Madsen [FBI]

Cunanan did not have the HIV virus, but he did not know that. Cunanan had reportedly never been tested for the virus during his lifetime, but had gone as far as seeing a counselor for information. He is reported to have said to friends, “If I had AIDS or if someone did that to me, I would go on a five-state killing spree and take everyone with me I could.” After his death, his body was tested during his autopsy, and the Dade County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that he was HIV negative. In the FBI files, an HIV diagnosis is speculated about as a possible motive for Cunanan’s murder spree: “Subject is believed to be a killer who may or may not be targeting former lovers or clients who may have given him AIDS.”

To learn more about the case, watch the “The Body in the Rug” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Six Degrees of Murder on ID GO!

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Main photo: Andrew Cunanan Wanted Poster [Federal Bureau of Investigation]

The post Who Was Andrew Cunanan? A Look Inside A Serial Killer’s FBI Files appeared first on CrimeFeed.