Sixty-five years before that severed head turned up in Bronson Canyon, and about eight miles south, the most famous dismembered corpse in L.A. history was found.

“Girl Victim of Sex Fiend Found Slain” was the L.A. Times headline, the first of scores of headlines.

The victim was a woman named Elizabeth Short, who survives in crime lore as the Black Dahlia.

A bunch of dogs on a walk found the severed head in Bronson Canyon; a woman walking to a nearby shoe repair shop found Elizabeth Shorts body.

That woman was named Betty Bersinger - “Mrs. John Bersinger” in the style that newspapers used then for married women - and not until I was talking to my colleague Andrew Blankstein about his accounts of the Bronson Canyon body parts case did I remember:

As a Times intern, I once interviewed Betty Bersinger for one of those occasional check-in stories that city editors love to assign on the still-unsolved Black Dahlia case. [My colleague Larry Harnisch has made a serious study of the case.]

Betty Bersinger told me she hadnt “thought of that for years,” and I cant blame her. Who would want to have that image taking up residence front and center in your cranium for the rest of your life - the body cut in half and lying unclothed in an empty lot, with a thatch of winter grass sprouting between the halves, the body gashed and hacked.

The Bersingers had lived in the Leimert Park house for four or five years, and Betty Bersinger was pushing her young daughter in a stroller to the shoe repair shop in a shopping center, walking through a place where “kids rode their bikes,” when she saw something.

“At the time I wasnt quite aware it was a real person - maybe somebody playing a trick.”

When she realized it was no trick, it was “so frightening,” a corpse lying “separated, like youd expect a mannequin to be.” She thought the sight of it would frighten her daughter, so she hustled her along, and from the second house she came across, she made the call that started the enduring notoriety of the Dahlia case.

At the time, any reasonably good-looking single young woman within a 20-mile radius of the studios could be tagged with the descriptor ”starlet,” which is how the FBI website still identifies her.

It became so infamous that even men who werent born at the time of the killing confessed to it; in the grotesque status hierarchy of the criminal world, the Dahlia murder was at the top of the homicidal heap.

One reader letter arrived from a man who had been in medical practice at the time of the 1947 murder, and who expressed his “astonishment” that the police had let one major suspect go. The doctor had treated the man and at the time had assured detectives that he was indeed the killer. He wrote to suggest that I try to get my hand on the patients hospital records from decades before.

Many unsolved murders - and a few solved ones - have cranked up their own cottage industry of experts and amateurs, but few as much as the Dahlia.

As we learned again from the Bronson Canyon body-parts story, which conflated the location and the gruesomeness to make for a ”grisly Hollywood murder” in worldwide news accounts, there’s something about a dismembered human body - even the word “dismembered” - that carries equal weights of the horrific and the irresistible in the imagination.

Technorati Tags: Black Dahlia, Bronson County Murder

The murders have not been solved to this day

Duration : 0:10:19

Technorati Tags: 10, murders, The, top, unsolved

James Bond, move over. Real cloak and dagger murders topped his.

* In January this year Hamas leader Mahmoud al Mabhouh was assassinated in a hotel room in Dubai, allegedly by agents from the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Police believe 25 agents were involved, all using fake British, Irish German and Australian passports. Israel has refused to confirm or deny Mossad’s involvement but has suffered severe diplomatic fallout in the affair.
* In 2006 former Russian security officer Alexander Litvinenko died in hospital after apparently being poisoned with polonium-210 at a London sushi bar. Litvinenko was a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the pair are said to have fallen out when Putin was head of the FSB intelligence agency in the 1990s. Litvinenko fled to London in 2000 and was granted asylum. It has been alleged that his murder was linked to a corruption investigation being researched by journalist Anna Politkovskaya who was murdered just a month earlier. Anglo-Russian relations have been strained ever since.
* In 2003, four months after the US invaded Iraq the identity of former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife was revealed. Valerie Plame was outed as a CIA operative, and the public disclosure of that secret information led to a federal investigation and the trial and conviction of Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff Scooter Libby. Plame is believed to have worked on projects such as monitoring Iran’s nuclear proliferation and Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction among others. She is said to have received training in the spying arts, including stenography (writing hidden messages), pursuit-driving, blowing up cars, and using an AK-47 rifle. It has been suggested she was unmasked in order to seek political revenge on her husband for telling the truth about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
* In 2009 a former US State Department official and his wife were charged with spying for Fidel Castro’s government – using shopping trolleys. Walter Kendall Myers and his wife Gwendolyn are alleged to have used shortwave radio to pass diplomatic information to their Cuban contacts. Court papers showed they spent years sending encrypted Morse code messages from their home, and later sent messages to Havana by email. But the FBI claims their favourite way to pass information to their contacts was to swap shopping trolleys in supermarkets, with Mrs Myers allegedly boasting that it was “easy enough to do”. Their alleged exploits were nicknamed “trolleygate”. The couple pleaded not guilty but could face 35 years in prison if convicted of conspiracy to act as agents of the Cuban government.

According to Fidel Castro’s former protection agent Fabian Escalante there have been no fewer than 638 attempts on the Cuban leader’s life. The most famous involved exploding cigars constructed by the CIA in the early 1960s.

* Also in 2009 Estonia’s former head of security was convicted of selling Nato secrets to Russia and sentenced to 12 and a half years in jail. The court did not reveal which country Herman Simm was working for, but said he had passes nearly 3,000 documents to Russia. Investigators said Mr Simm (who used to be the country’s police chief) had been working for the Russian intelligence service since 1995, when he joined the Estonian defence ministry. He became head of security at the ministry in 2000, handling classified information regarding Nato’s communications and surveillance systems. It is not the first time spying is alleged to have taken place within the corridors of powerful international bodies. In 2004 former British MP Clare Short alleged that Britain has bugged the offices of then UN Secretary Kofi Annan.
* In one of the more bizarre stories, in 2006 Russia’s FSB intelligence agency accused Britain of spying on Russia using- a rock. The “fake rock” was found in a Moscow park. Russian television broadcast footage allegedly showing British agents downloading information from a computer stowed inside it. The FSB claimed it had decided to blow their cover after an unofficial complaint to MI6 was rebuffed. The rock saga led to allegations that NGOs were somehow involved and led to tighter restrictions on charitable organisations.
* Possibly the most famous and James Bond-esque tale is the as-yet unsolved case of the murder of Cold War dissident Georgi Markov in 1978. Markov, 49, had worked for the BBC and had lived in London since defecting to the West in 1969. He was waiting for a bus on Waterloo Bridge in September 1978 when he felt a pain and turned to see a man pick up an umbrella and walk off. He died in hospital four days later and a post mortem found a tiny metal pellet laced with ricin in his leg. The prime suspect has always been Francesco Gullino, a Dane of Italian origin codenamed Agent Piccadilly. He left Denmark in 1993 but is thought to be still alive.
* One of the earliest and most popular stories in British spying history was the trial and hanging of a monkey.
During the Napoleonic wars in 1805 when the British were in fear of invasions by the French, a ship was wrecked off the coast of Hartlepool. The sole survivor was a monkey, dressed in military uniform for the crew’s amusement. After questioning the animal, fishermen concluded that having never seen a Frenchman, this creature must be a French spy. He was sentenced to death by hanging. Of course the truth of this tale remains a source of much debate.

Technorati Tags: cloak and dagger murders, fantasypi, most famous cloak and dagger murders, most famous spy murders, spy murders

A silent, simmering killer terrorized New England in1911. As a terrible heat wave killed more than 2,000 people, another silent killer began her own murderous spree. That year a reporter for the Hartford Courant noticed a sharp rise in the number of obituaries for residents of a rooming house in Windsor, Connecticut, and began to suspect who was responsible: Amy Archer-Gilligan, whod opened the Archer Home for Elderly People and Chronic Invalids four years earlier. “Sister Amy would be accused of murdering both of her husbands and up to sixty-six of her patients with cocktails of lemonade and arsenic; her story inspired the Broadway hit Arsenic and Old Lace.

The Devils Rooming House is the first book about the life, times, and crimes of Americas most prolific female serial killer. In telling this fascinating story, M. William Phelps also paints a vivid portrait of early-twentieth-century New England.

Technorati Tags: Amy Archer-Gilligan, fantasypi, serial killers

OUR quiet streets were terrorised by one of Australias worst serial killers, who viciously murdered elderly women with a hammer.

John Wayne Glover – The Granny Killer – was convicted of murdering six elderly women on the North Shore in 1989 and 1990.

Dennis OToole, the chief investigator of the North Shore murders task force, said few police would go through an investigation like this. There wasnt a better example of a serial killer than Glover, he said.

Glover attacked elderly women as they walked residential streets. He bashed them over the head with a hammer, removed their pantyhose and strangled them with their undergarments.

The communitys anxiety was palpable as each murder made it apparent there was a serial killer on the loose.

All our resources were channelled into finding this person because he was killing while we were investigating and we knew he would keep killing until we did, Mr OToole said.

There were 72 detectives on the task force, army personnel escorting elderly women home and police combing the streets in the bewitching hour of late afternoon, Mr OToole said.

The horrific effect on families of the victims and on the North Shore was unbelievable, he said.

The Times reported that the frequency of the attacks has generated fear right through the community, especially in the elderly.

Paul B. Kidd, a journalist and 2UE broadcaster, has written several books on Australian true crime including Australias Serial Killers in which Glovers case features.

In all my research, Glover is the only serial killer in the world that targets elderly women, said Mr Kidd. By the time sirens were blaring he was playing the pokies with his victims money at Mosman RSL.

Describing Glover as an ordinary monster Mr Kidd said that he was so ordinary he could blend into a crowd.

His rampage baffled police. Even after four murders hallmarked by the hammer and pantyhose, police believed their suspect was a blond man, 22-25 years-old and 180cm tall.

Dozens of police were searching the streets but police werent looking for an old, grey haired, well dressed man, Mr OToole said.

Unfortunately an image of a younger man was in the minds of many including some police.

While police investigated, Glover visited nursing homes and hospitals as a pie sales representative.

Reports surfaced of a middle-aged, well-dressed man molesting elderly women in their nursing home beds. Police began following Glover but in March 1990 he committed his final murder right under their noses. He killed Joan Sinclair, 60, in her Beauty Point home while police waited outside.

At his trial Glover was found guilty by the jury after only two hours and sentenced to six life terms of imprisonment.

Mr OToole interviewed Glover many times even after hed retired. He believes Glover committed up to five other murders.

I have no doubt he was responsible for the other murders, he said. It was frustrating because I know he was close to confessing.

Glover committed suicide in Lithgow prison in 2005.

Technorati Tags: fantasypi, granny killer, modern crimes, serial murders

Neighbor sentenced in decades-old Ridgefield Park murder.

One of the coldest cases in Bergen County came to a close Thursday when a judge sentenced Angelo Speziale to 25 years in prison for the rape and murder of his neighbor in Ridgefield Park 28 years ago.

I am very sorry for what I did, Speziale said in Superior Court in Hackensack, sobbing as he admitted to taking the life of 19-year-old Michele Mika in 1982.

Minutes later, Mikas father, Thomas Mika, tearfully talked about his familys ordeal since his daughters bloodied body was found at her home.

He got married. Hes got a daughter, he said of Speziale. Just imagine if that were your daughter.

Defense attorney Ian Silvera said Speziale was much younger when Mika was killed and has changed a lot since.

I dont think the person who committed that act is the person sitting in court today, he said.

Silvera also said Speziale had led a life of drug addiction and crime, and was probably using drugs the day Michele Mika was killed.

He didnt enjoy living this way, Silvera said. But he kept relapsing.

Mika, an aspiring beautician, was found on Jan. 31, 1982, bleeding from five stab wounds, an 8-inch knife stuck in her back. Investigators questioned her neighbor, Speziale, at the time but did not make any arrests.

Unsolved murder cases are never closed in Bergen County, and detectives pursued several leads over the years, interviewing more than 700 people.

It was Speziales shoplifting conviction in 2005 that ultimately offered a breakthrough. Under a 2003 state law that requires convicted felons to submit DNA for a national database, Speziale submitted a swab that later matched a sample obtained from the crime scene.

He was arrested in 2007 and charged with the murder. He pleaded guilty in January to felony murder, in a complicated guilty plea in which he said he did not remember raping or stabbing Mika, but remembered washing his bloodied clothes and throwing them away.

The most tragic part of this case is that Michele was always kind to Angelo Speziale, Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Catherine Fantuzzi said. How and why her neighbor, her friendwould commit such an act is beyond comprehension.

She said Speziale still did not take full responsibility for his actions.

He still wants to hide behind that veil of drugs and alcohol, she said.

Speziale, 49, must serve at least half of his sentence before being considered for parole. He would have been required under current law to serve up to 85 percent of his term, but the sentencing law that applies to his case is the one from 1982, which had less stringent requirements for parole eligibility.

From NorthJersey.com

Technorati Tags: fantasypi, Ridgefield Park Murder, unsolved murders

Jack the Ripper, Branch Dividians, Oswald, President JFK, Bob Crane, Ted Bundy, Ronald DeFeo, Hillside Strangler, Elizabeth Short, Manson Family killings, Nicole Simpson, and others.

Famous Crime Scene and Coroner photos.

Technorati Tags: bob crane, branch dividians, famous crimes, jack the ripper, manson family, nicole simpson

Please list the names of people killed/attacked as a hate crime towards the gay community.

Scott Amedure
Gwen Araujo
Kevin Aviance
Paul Broussard
Michael Causer
Bertrand Delano
Jody Dobrowski
Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill
Steen Fenrich
Jason Gage
Sakia Gunn
Aaron C. Hall
Charlie Howard
Nireah Johnson
Peter Karlsson
Sean W. Kennedy
Lawrence Fobes King
Glenn Kopitske
Fred Martinez
Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder
Harvey Milk
Nizah Morris
Ronnie Paris
Guin Richie Phillips
Michael Sandy
Allen R. Schindler, Jr.
Matthew Shepard
Ryan Skipper
Emonie Spaulding
Sanesha Stewart
Brandon Teena
Arthur Warren
Scotty Joe Weaver
Aaron Webster
Jeff Whittington
Rebecca Wight
Barry Winchell
James Zappalorti
Scott Amedure
Gwen Araujo
Kevin Aviance
Paul Broussard
Kenneth Zeller

a quick look back at 4 terrible murderers that shocked the world, SONG = exorcist theme please comment,rate, and and maybe subscribe!

Duration : 0:3:9

Technorati Tags: albert fish, charles manson, Crimes, ed gein, famous serial killers, famous serial murderers, killers, mass murderers, murderers, seung hui cho, ted bundy, virginia tech, zodiac killer

What are some famous crimes commited by men,

for example,
Josef Fitzl raped his daughter and kept her in a dungeon for 24years.

The BKT killer. He went on a killing spree for decades and then turned himself in.