The state of Washington has agreed to pay $6.4 million to the families of four Washington women who were allegedly victimized by a man also suspected in the 1997 death of an Oregon woman.

The settlements, announced Monday, resolve civil suits against Washington’s Department of Corrections over its failure to supervise Michael “Cowboy” Braae, a transient who sang country music at bars and has been linked to the rape, deaths and disappearances of at least six women in Washington and Oregon.

“Braae had a history of extreme violence towards women,” said Blaine Tamaki, the attorney for the four families. “Once on parole, he was ignored.”

The settlements do not include relatives of Velina Marie Larson, a homeless woman from the Gladstone area, whose death in 1997 remains unsolved. Larson sometimes stayed with Braae, investigators said, and disappeared sometime in October or November 1997. Her body was found the following January in a marshy field in unincorporated Clackamas County close to a storage-locker facility that Braae used.

Investigators focused on Braae, who is now 50, but did not arrest him.

Braae had escaped from prison in Washington earlier that year where he was being held on a conviction for possessing cocaine. He was arrested in California on a domestic-violence accusation and extradited to Washington in 2000, Tamaki said. A judge then ordered a year of state-supervised parole, but the corrections department lost the court order and mistakenly designated Braae as a low-level offender, Tamaki said. The department failed to track him as required and did not discover the mistake until after attacks on four women in June and July 2001, he said.

The settlements, two of which were previously announced, include:

– $3 million for the family of Lori Jones. Jones, 44, of Lacey, was raped and murdered in July 2001 and was last seen leaving a bar with Braae. Braae was convicted in 2008 and sentenced to nearly 48 years in prison.

– $2.4 million for Marchelle Morgan and her son. Morgan, who was 50 at the time, was shot in the head and left for dead near Union Gap, Wash., in July 2001. She had dated Braae, who was charged with attempted murder in the case. The jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of conviction and the case was not retried.

– $750,000 for the family of Susan Ault. Ault, 39, vanished from her Rosburg, Wash., home in June 2001. She had dated Braae and was last seen arguing with him. He was not charged in her disappearance.

— $250,000 for a Yakima woman and her daughter. The woman who met Braae at a local bar, was sexually assaulted and choked in July 2001. Braae was not charged in the case.

“It took seven years for this ordeal to come to conclusion,” Tamaki said. “The families wish that DOC had just done their jobs years ago. No amount of money can erase the pain of tragedy.”

Another former girlfriend, Deb VanLuven, 45, of Lacey, also disappeared in 1997.

“It’s a miscarriage of justice that those women never had the peace of having the person who killed them prosecuted,” Tamaki said, referring to VanLuven and Larson.

Braae is in prison in Idaho serving a sentence in connection with his efforts to elude police in 2001. During that incident, he led police on a car chase, engaged in a shootout and then leapt into the Snake River to try to swim away. A police dog was sent in after him and he was caught.

The Washington Attorney General’s office did not comment.

Technorati Tags: Braae, fantasypi, Michael Braae, Washington State Setlement

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

A convicted serial killer and another prisoner have escaped from a high-security prison in Kerala, police said yesterday.

Jayanandan alias Ripper Jayan who was convicted for seven murders and several burglaries, and Riyas, sentenced in 35 cases of burglary, broke the windows of their cell and escaped on Sunday night.

Guys. Am I the only one that sees something wrong with that last statement?

The duo was last seen in their room in the Central Jail in Kannur around midnight. They left two dummies covered under their bed sheets. The recently installed surveillance cameras of the high security block were turned off due to thundershowers, the police said.

We have launched a search and hope to catch them soon, District Superintendent of Police K P Philip said. We dont see any possibility of them leaving the state.

Jayanandan, 41, a native of Mala in Thrissur district, was sentenced to death for a double murder by a court. The sentence was reduced to life imprisonment by the Kerala High Court. He was also convicted in five other murders and several burglaries.

Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan has asked Additional Director General of Police Alexander Jacob to launch an inquiry. A special police team has already launched a manhunt for the duo. Six officials at the prison have been placed under suspension.

The police do not rule out the two getting logistical support from outside while a former chief of jails said it was impossible for them to escape without help from within.

Technorati Tags: fantasypi, Jayan, Jayanandan, kannur, serial killer, serial killers

The most heanus of crimes is murder, especially from a repeat offender that has no control or remorse. Should they be allowed to live?

Answers:
No, but with one exception, if the killer is targeting republicans, i say let him go until he gets them all… In my humble opnion, instead of having fancy court rooms they need to just replace it with a washable floor… when the guilty verdict comes back and he’s sentenced to death, the bailiff walks over and puts a bullet in the back of his head… then they hose down the area… Next!

No more appeals, no more spending 20 years on death row sucking up the taxpayer’s money… quick, fast, done. no Only for long enough for the cops to determine how MANY murders he/she committed, and briefly for some shrink to examine them for data-collection…

Then strap them down and rid the world of them.

We should do the SAME with serial rapists and child-molesters nope No, they and other violent criminals should be killed by their victims, in self-defense, preferably during or immediately prior to committing their crimes, or else executed as soon as they can be found and identified. No way. He didn’t let the people kill leave, therefor, they should live. All they are going to do is waste the tax payers money to provide him free food and shelter for killing people.

Good call on the republicans. I feel strongly that they should be put to death. I feel that they should be shot to death by a victims capable family member, if they should choose so. If the family does not want that death on their conscience, then a volunteer should be used as proxy. High powered rifle at 25 yards, in the head, 3 shots.

Technorati Tags: fantasypi, serial killers, serial murders

Technorati Tags: fantasypi, Rodney James Alcala, serial killers

A Kenyan blood-drinking serial killer revealed Friday five new locations for the bodies of some of the 19 women and children he has confessed to killing in 2009, police said.

Armed police held back an angry crowd trying to attack the 32-year-old Philippe Onyancha as he took investigators to a district in south Nairobi, where the bodies of two prostitutes he killed in April 2009 were located.

The ex-security guard who was arrested last week then took police to Nairobis Ngong forest, and a north suburb, where he had buried two other of his female victims.

Onyancha, who claimed he wanted to commit a total of one hundred murders, said he never raped his victims, who were exclusively women and children, but did drink their blood as part of a ritual. (AFP)

I can not say I knew any of my victims, because whenever I developed that urge of drinking blood, I went straight for my target, Onyancha told media. (AFP)

Technorati Tags: fantasypi, kenya, onyancha, serial killers

The Crossbow Cannibal is now linked to two more murders. Prostitutes Michaela Hague and Dawn Shields worked in Sheffield, 50 miles from Bradford where suspect Stephen Griffiths lived.

Hookers befriended by the 40-year-old student – accused of three murders – have told detectives he was a regular visitor to the red-light district in Sheffield and others in South Yorkshire.

One, aged 35, said she was stunned when Griffiths gave his name in court as “The Crossbow Cannibal”.

She said: “He was like a brother to me for years.

“He fed me, washed my clothes and took me in when I had nowhere to go.

“He even offered to protect me while I was out on the streets.

“He told me I’d do much better business if I went with him to Sheffield, Barnsley and Doncaster.

“He said he went regularly to red-light districts down there and there was more cash to be made than in Bradford.

“He offered to take me there and keep an eye on me while I was with punters.

“The girls he’s accused of killing were all friends.”

Dawn, 19, who had a son, now 17, was murdered in 1994.

She was stripped, strangled and dumped in a shallow grave in the Peak District.

Griffiths, who disowned his family at 18, was 24 at the time and had just graduated in psychology at Leeds University.

Last night Dawn’s mum Margaret, 58, said: “Since I heard about the arrest I have thought: ‘Could it have been him?’

“All this has brought it rushing back to me.

“It’s like being trapped on a long journey that you never know when it is going to end.”

Michaela, 25, was butchered in a car park used by prostitutes on Bonfire Night 2001 after being picked up by a punter in a blue Ford Sierra.

Another prostitute found her on the ground in Sheffield, where Bradford-based Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, now 64, was finally arrested. Michaela had been stabbed 19 times in the neck and back.

Griffiths was 32 at the time and had just come out of a volatile relationship with an ex-prison warder girlfriend.

Michaela’s mum Jackie, 53, a council worker, said that her daughter looked just like Shelley Armitage, one of Griffiths’ alleged victims.

She said: “When I heard about the arrest my heart started beating.

“You ask yourself, ‘Is this him, is this him?’

“When my husband and I saw the girl Shelley on TV I was so shocked. She is the spitting image of my Michaela and she was a stunning girl.”

A police source said: “Our colleagues in South Yorkshire have been in contact regarding these unsolved crimes.

“We will obviously be liaising with them and other forces with unsolved similar crimes.”

Police who had recovered bones from a river said they were from an animal. They are still probing claims that part of alleged victim Suzanne Blamires, 36, were eaten.

Police are still searching for the remains of Shelley, 31, and Susan Rushworth, 45, another alleged victim of Griffiths.

Griffiiths was arrested last Monday after a caretaker at his block of flats looked back through CCTV and apparently saw footage of Suzanne being shot with a crossbow.

Her dismembered body was recovered from the River Aire four miles away along with a suitcase containing knives and hacksaws.

Forensic experts now plan to tear Griffiths’s flat apart.

Technorati Tags: crossbow cannibal, fantasypi, unsolved, unsolved murders

A mass murderer is a murderer who slays three or more victims over a short period of time. The duration is typically hours but can be days. If the act takes place in one location, it is usually continuous. Murder spree is a term that criminologists use if the victims are killed at more than one location. Michael Kelleher, in his 1997 book Flashpoint, also adds the phrase “mass murder by intention,” that provides the 1996 example of Larry Shoemake in Jackson, Mississippi, who killed only one victim even though he fired more than a hundred rounds of ammunition and torched a restaurant.

Mass killers differ from serial killers in that serial killers murder their victims separately and over a period of time, with a cooling-off period between murders.

One of the difficulties in gathering data on the mass murderer is that he or she often commits suicide. The terrorists involved in the World Trade Center and Pentagon tragedies died when the planes they hijacked hit their objectives. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris committed suicide after their mass murder at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999. Marc Lepine, an avid woman hater, slaughtered fifteen “feminists” studying engineering in a Montreal school in 1989. Then he committed suicide. Authorities could never figure out why Thomas Eugene Braun went on his killing spree in 1967. While several hypotheses exist, there is no definitive explanation of why Charlie Lawson, a North Carolina farmer, killed his wife, six children, and himself on Christmas Day, 1929. On December 5, 2007, 19-year-old gunman, Robert Hawkins opened fire with a rifle inside the Von Maur department store in Omaha, Nebraska. He was standing near the children’s clothing area while killing eight people and then himself. The gunman who killed four people in shooting rampages at two Colorado religious institutions on December 12, 2007,committed suicide after he was shot by a church security guard.

Truly the saddest incidents of mass murder are when families are murdered by other members of the families.

Jessie Dotson, 33, confessed to murdering six people who were found inside a home at 722 Lester Street in Memphis Tennessee on March 3, 2008. Dotson was also accused of trying to kill three other children. He killed his brother, his brother’s girlfriend, two other adults and two of his nephews. He stabbed the kids with a knife. His motive for killing all six of his victims was that after killing his brother, he didnt want the others to be witnesses at his trial.

Just prior to the killings, he had been just released from prison after serving time on another murder charge. He was released in August 2007 after serving 13 years of an 18-year sentence for second degree murder. The Department of Corrections reported that Dotson was disciplined 29 times from 1995 to 2006. The incidents included fighting, assault, and threatening a jail employee. In the report, it is noted that in April 1998, Dotson stabbed another prisoner in the back of the neck with a homemade knife. Obviously, the man was a dangerous man and should never have been released from prison. He was charged with six counts of first degree murder which made him eligible for the death penalty.

At approximately 11:30 p.m. on December 24, 2008, in Covina, a community in the suburbs of Los Angeles, California, 45-year-old Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, dressed in a Santa Claus suit, knocked on the door of his former in-laws’ house, occupied with about 25 people, with a gift-wrapped package (containing a homemade flamethrower) in one hand and a semi-automatic handgun in the other hand; he also had three additional semi-automatic handguns in his possession. When the door opened, Pardo fired the handgun at an eight-year-old girl as she ran to greet him, injuring her in the face. He then fired indiscriminately at fleeing partygoers. Police speculate that Pardo may have stood over and pointedly executed some of the victims, using the other handguns.

After the shootings, Pardo unwrapped the package containing the homemade flamethrower, and used it to spray racing fuel gasoline to set the home ablaze. Nine people died from either gunfire or flames, and three others were wounded: the eight-year-old girl who was shot in the face with severe but non-life-threatening injuries, a 16-year-old girl shot and wounded in the back, and a 20-year-old woman who suffered a broken ankle jumping out of the second-floor window. There was one survivor who called the authorities during the attack after escaping to a neighbor’s house. The resulting fire soared approximately 40 to 50 feet and took 80 firefighters an hour-and-a-half to extinguish. Due to the intensity of the fire, identification of the victims had been done by referencing dental and medical records.

Police speculate that the motive of the attack was related to marital problems. Pardo’s wife of one year had settled for divorce in the prior week. However, Pardo held no criminal record and had no history of violence. In June 2008, divorce court had ordered Bruce Pardo to pay $1,785 a month in spousal support. During the divorce proceeding, Bruce had confided to a friend his wife was “taking him to the cleaner.” In July, Mr. Pardo was fired for billing false hours. Pardo was also required to pay his ex-wife $10,000 as part of the divorce settlement. It was revealed that he had planned to kill his own mother after the massacre at Sylvia’s home due to her apparent sympathy for his ex-wife during the divorce proceedings.

Ronald (Butch) DeFeo, Jr. (born September 26 1951) was tried and convicted for the 1974 killings of his father, mother, two brothers and two sisters in Amityville, Long Island, New York, The victims were car dealer Ronald DeFeo, Sr. (43), Louise DeFeo (42), and four of their children: Dawn (18); Allison (13); Marc (12); and John Matthew (9). All of the victims had been shot with a .35 caliber lever action Marlin 336C rifle at around three o’clock in the morning of November 13, 1974. DeFeo’s parents had both been shot twice, while the children had all been killed with single shots. Louise DeFeo and her daughter Allison were reportedly the only victims who were awakened by the gunfire at the time of their deaths, but according to Suffolk County Police the victims were all found lying on their stomachs in bed. DeFeo was found guilty on six counts of second-degree murder. He told detectives: “Once I started, I just couldnt stop. It went so fast. On December 4, 1975, Judge Thomas Stark sentenced Ronald DeFeo, Jr. to six consecutive sentences of 25 years to life.

The 1982 film Amityville II: The Possession is based on the book Murder in Amityville by parapsychologist Hans Holzer. It is a prequel set at 112 Ocean Avenue, featuring the fictional Montelli family who are said to be based on the DeFeo family. The story introduces speculative and controversial themes, including an incestuous relationship between Sonny Montelli and his teenaged sister, who are based loosely on Ronald DeFeo, Jr. and his sister Dawn. I dont know if DeFeo and his sister really had an incestuous relationship.

Ronald DeFeo, Jr. had a stormy relationship with his father, but why the entire family was killed remains unclear. One can only assume that he killed the rest of his family so that there would be no witnesses.

What is really weird about this case is that the DeFeo family lived in the same address that a former family moved out of claiming that they had been terrorized by paranormal phenomena while living there. Jay Anson’s novel, The Amityville Horror was published in September 1977 and was based on the information given to him by the family that moved out. It was later made into a movie by the same name. NO! I am not going to speculate as to whether or not DeFeo was influenced by some paranormal phenomena.

Ronald Gene Simmons, Sr. (15 July 1940 25 June 1990) was a retired United States Air Force sergeant who killed sixteen people, fourteen of whom were members of his family, and wounded four others, shortly before Christmas of 1987, On the morning of 22 December, he first killed his son Gene and his wife Rebecca at his home in Dover, Arkansas, by shooting them with a .22 caliber pistol. He then killed his three-year-old granddaughter Barbara by strangulation. Simmons dumped the bodies in the cesspit he had made his children dig. Simmons then waited for his other children to return to the house. After their arrival, he told them he had presents for them but wanted to give them one at a time. First to receive her gift was his daughter, seventeen-year-old Loretta, whom Simmons strangled and held under the water in a rain barrel. The three other children, Eddy, Marianne, and Becky, were killed in the same way.

Around midday on 26 December, the remaining members of the family arrived for their Christmas visit. The first to be killed was Simmonss son Billy and his wife Renata; both were shot dead. Then their son Trae was strangled and drowned, followed by their daughter. His oldest daughter Sheila who Simmons had an incestuous relationship with and her husband, Dennis McNulty, were also both shot dead. Ronald Simmons child by his own daughter Sheila, Sylvia Gail, was strangled, and finally he killed his grandson. Michael. Simmons laid the bodies of his whole family in neat rows in the lounge. All the corpses were covered with coats except that of Sheila, who was laid in state covered by Rebecca Simmons’ best tablecloth. The bodies of the two grandsons were wrapped in plastic sheeting and left in abandoned cars at the end of the lane. After the murders, Simmons went for a drink in a local bar, then returned to the house and, apparently oblivious to the corpses lined up around him, spent the rest of the evening and the following day drinking beer and watching television.

On the morning of Monday, 28 December, Simmons drove into Russellville, and at a law office shot dead the receptionist, a young woman named Kathy Kendrick, with whom he had been infatuated and who had rejected him. He next went to an oil company office where he shot dead a man named J.D. Chaffin and wounded the owner, Rusty Taylor, and then drove on to a convenience store where he had previously worked, shooting and wounding two more people. Afterwards he went to the office of the Woodline Motor Freight Company, where he shot and wounded a woman, ending his killing spree. Simmons simply sat in the office and chatted to one of the secretaries while waiting for the police. When they arrived, he handed over his gun and surrendered without any resistance.

Simmons was charged with sixteen counts of murder, found guilty, and sentenced to death. He refused to appeal his death sentence, stating, “To those who oppose the death penalty in my particular case, anything short of death would be cruel and unusual punishment.”

On 25 June 1990 he died, by the method he had chosen, lethal injection. None of his existing relatives would claim the body, and he was buried in a pauper’s grave.

What is really heinous is the killing ones own parents or ones own children. These mass murders who killed their families (and there are many more who did) have forfeited their right to life. As I see it; none of these mass murderers should not have been permitted to continue living after they were found guilty. They all should have been executed.

By Dahn Batchelor

Technorati Tags: famous crimes, fantasypi, serial murders

Like the plot of a horror movie, three alleged serial killers will be tried in the Durban High Court next week for murdering eight homeless people in order to defraud insurance companies.

In the dock will be the alleged mastermind Maryanne Dimba, 39, of Joburg, along with those who the State says did her bidding – Linda Mdluli, 42, of Durban, and Sibusiso Buthelezi, 24, a shack dweller from Pinetown.

They are facing 49 charges including murder, racketeering and fraud.

According to the indictment, the crimes were committed between November 2005 and March 2008 – and as yet none of their victims has been identified.

The State alleges that they fraudulently used other people’s identity documents to open bank accounts and take out insurance policies, with themselves as the beneficiaries.

They would then kill a homeless person, identify him or her as being the policy holder and make the claim.

In two instances when they could not find a suitable person to kill, they simply went to the mortuary and found unidentified people – both road accident victims – who they claimed were their relatives.

The State alleges the total of insurance policies taken out was more than R2 million. However, they only actually received R1 million.

Many of the policies were small – between R20 000 and R40 000 – but one paid out R500 000.

The indictment alleges that Dimba ran the enterprise and made decisions regarding who would be insured, with which insurance company, and ensuring that a few monthly premiums were paid before the claims were made.

She instructed Mdluli and Buthelezi to commit the murders and she decided who got what from the pay-out, taking the lion’s share for herself.

It is alleged that Mdluli, who also used the alias Busisiwe Lucy Zuma and Thandiwe Radebe, and Buthelezi assisted in making the applications for the fraudulent policies.

They also assisted in controlling the bank accounts and participated in the “hunt” for people matching the description of people who had been fraudulently insured.

They participated in the murders and falsely identified certain of the deceased to the police as being their own next of kin.

Most of those murdered – whom police believe were either homeless people or prostitutes – were stabbed repeatedly.

One was shot in the head.

The ultimate goal, it is alleged, was enrichment.

All three have been in custody since their arrest by members of Durban’s organised crime unit in 2008.

Overview: Her genitals were excised with a knife, but the injury did not prevent police from finding unspecified evidence of sexual intercourse. Five more slayings followed. And this “out there” serial murderer is still on the loose.

GUANGZHOU Ripper Serial Murders

Servant Girl Annihilator

Check out other famous unsolved serial murders in the “serial murders” category.

Technorati Tags: famous serial killers, famous serial murderers, fantasypi, GUANGZHOU Ripper, GUANGZHOU Ripper Serial Murders, serial murders, unsolved murders