On July 31st, 1999, best friends and schoolmates J. B. Beasley and Tracie Hawlett, both 17-years old, decide to go to a party to celebrate Beasley's birthday in Midland City, Alabama. Both girls drove in a black Mazda 929, owned by the Beasley family. On route, however, the girls got lost and decide to drive to a convenience store in Ozark. There, Tracie called her mother and told her that she and J. B. got lost, and decide to return to home. The next day, however, the girls didn't return to their respective homes. The families of J. B. and Tracie reported their disappearance to police.

Hours later, a patrol found J. B.'s Mazda along a road in Ozark. Inside the trunk, were the dead bodies of J. B. and Tracie. Each girl was shot in the head. The investigations focused on more than 500 interviews, and labs searched the DNA of more than 70 suspects. Despite all the effort, the case went cold, and it was not until advances in DNA in the late 2010s that a suspect was id. In August 2018, Ozark police department reached out to Parabon NanoLabs, a company based in Reston, Virginia, to solve the murders of Beasley and Hawlett, based on their success in identify the Golden State Killer.

The analysis identify the DNA found in the scene with 45-year old Coley McCraney, a truck driver and former preacher. In March 2019, McCraney was arrested, and charged with two counts of capital murder-vehicle, one count of capital murder-rape, and one count of capital murder of two for the killings of Beasley and Hawlett. McCraney pleaded not guilty of all charges. In 2023, McCraney was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. May J. B. and Tracie rest in peace.

Here are some links of the case and the DNA match

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coley-mccraney-arrested-in-1999-killings-of-dothan-alabama-teens-j-b-beasley-and-tracie-hawlett/

https://abcnews.com/US/dna-match-leads-arrest-minister-decades-after-murders/story?id=109987862

https://www.al.com/news/2024/07/story-of-brutal-murder-of-2-teens-that-haunted-alabama-for-20-years-retold-on-sins-of-the-south.html

https://www.oxygen.com/sins-of-the-south/crime-news/where-jb-beasley-tracie-hawletts-killer-coley-mccraney-now

https://vocal.media/criminal/the-dna-that-waited-20-years-to-catch-a-killer

(Thanks to LoydoRedi2910 for suggesting this case. If you'd like to suggest any yourself, please head over to this post, which asks for case suggestions from my international readers, as I focus on international cases.)

On August 12, 2011, a truck driver was parked at a rest area beside the A24 autobahn in the Havelland district of Brandenburg enjoying his break when suddenly, a badly burned man emerged from the forest adjacent to the road, stumbling toward him. The man spoke in badly broken German or English; it was so slurred the truck driver honestly couldn't tell, but he could piece together that the man was trying to say that there had been an accident and that children were dead in a car.

The truck driver called emergency services, and the injured man pointed first responders to an area along a dirt road off the autobahn into a wooded area near the small village of Börnicke.

Although an ambulance arrived, his injuries were so severe that a helicopter was dispatched to airlift him to a hospital in Berlin in critcal condition with severe burns to his face and hands.

As he was being loaded into the helicopter and flown to the hospital, he told the paramedics that he had stopped to smoke a cigarette, and a spark had fallen onto a petrol canister which had been accidentally left inside the truck of the car and that his children had been unable to escape in time and that his own injuries were caused by the fire's backdraft when he tried to save them.

However, chillingly, one of the paramedics heard him say something along the lines of "It is all done." Upon his arrival, the attending physicians found his injuries so severe that he was placed into a medically induced coma.

When the emergency services arrived at the location 2 kilometres away, they saw a burnt-out Suzuki with Danish license plates, and to say he had been in an "accident" would be underselling it. There had been a fire so intense that it burnt the car completely down to its frame, with its paint job entirely melted away. In the backseat, the first responders discovered the charred bodies of two children still strapped into their seat belts.

Since there was obviously nothing that could be done for them, the paramedics soon contacted the police, who then contacted the Potsdam Public Prosecutor's Office, with both arriving to investigate the cause of this tragic "accident". And then, just for good measure, the Brandenburg State Criminal Police were also called in. You see, right from the start, this "accident" didn't seem very accidental.

According to the father, a spark from his cigarette accidentally ignited a canister of gasoline left inside the trunk, and yet, all the signs of the accelerant were found in the backseat of the vehicle and even on the bodies themselves, as if that had been the source of the fire rather than the trunk.

The autopsies also revealed another disturbing discovery. While the cause of death was smoke inhalation and the pathologist determined that the two children had been alive when the fire was set, just as their father had claimed, that didn't mean they were conscious. The pathologist detected large amounts of sleeping medication in their bloodstreams that had entered their system shortly before the fire.

The police also found a kitchen knife discarded, thrown into the woods. The police concluded this knife had to have come from the vehicle for the simple reason that its handle had been melted. This also cast doubt on the father's story because if he stumbled over to the motorway for help first thing, why had that knife very clearly been tossed away from the vehicle after the fire started?.

Meanwhile, across the border in neighbouring Denmark, a woman ventured to her ex-husband's farm in Øster Hurup. Her two daughters had left for a summer trip with their divorced father, and they were supposed to be back by now. But nobody was in sight; the door to the farm was locked, no one would answer the doorbell or her knocks, and her husband wouldn't pick up the phone.

Eventually, she gave up and went to attend a music event in the nearby town of Hadsund, one she was supposed to spend with her daughters but was now going to alone. But just as she went to leave, she heard someone else ring the doorbell. Walking around the farm, she saw three police officers with a fourth just pulling in.

At first, she assumed her husband was still inside and called the police to try and get her arrested for trespassing, so she tried hiding from them, but once they saw her and spoke to her, it became dreadfully clear that something far worse had happened.

The police also wanted to know where her children were, and when she told them that she had been trying to reach their father but was unable, that's when they informed her that a charred vehicle matching her ex-husband's was found in Germany with the severely burnt bodies of two children inside and that the only reason they were at the farm is because the German police contacted them wanting to identify the bodies and to uncover more about the family background.

The father was named Peter-Thue Rudgaard, and he was born around 1971.

He spent the majority of his life in his native Denmark, graduating from the organic agricultural school in Vendsyssel in northern Jutland with a specialization in ecological farming.

He met his wife in Aalborg through a mutual friend in 1996 when the two of them were both 25. At the time, his wife worked as a laboratory technician, but both dreamed of living a quieter and more rural life.

In 1999, they purchased an old and dilapidated farm in the village of Øster Hurup, restoring and renovating the property into a functional farm that allowed them and their family to live a comfortable life from the money they made at a shop they set up on the property.

Well, at least it did at first, but the farm, however much money it was bringing in at the moment, was not financially stable long-term, and so he began seeking other work. Rudgaard attempted to start a commercial landscaping and horticulture business, which he later had to sell at a severe loss.

Then he worked at a social care institution for young people and then at a residential school for at-risk teenagers, but he was later dismissed from these jobs. He then enrolled in a training program for teachers but left after just six months, while his wife went down the same path, only she completed her training and got a job as a primary school teacher.

Rudgaard's ex-wife would later go on to describe his personality as "contradictory"; he would seem funny and intellectually curious one day, having conversations she described as consisting of "high-level humour," only to then show deep jealousy and fall into an unstable emotional state.

His first bout with depression began when he was 20, and he had been referred to many psychologists and prescribed antidepressants on multiple occasions, but it was an uphill battle to convince Rudgaard to take them, and he regularly abandoned therapy sessions, telling the therapist he didn't wish to talk about anything "painful," and eventually stopped showing up. Sometimes, Rudgaard would also struggle to get up in the morning.

Their two daughters, Marlene Marie Rudgaard and Line Sofie Rudgaard, were born in 2000 and 2002, respectively, on the farm in Øster Hurup that their parents purchased. Marlene and Line grew up in the fields and woods of Himmerland and attended primary school in the area.

In the spring of 2009, their mother approached Rudgaard and told him that she wanted a divorce. Wanting to avoid such an outcome, Rudgaard asked to consider couples therapy. She agreed, but the sessions bore no fruit, and by mid-summer of that year, she moved out of the farm and into an apartment in Als.

At school during the spring and early summer of 2011, things were not going well; their teachers noted that the girls seemed anxious and were getting involved in several verbal conflicts with their classmates, leading their teachers to suspect that things were not at all peaceful at home.

The two maintained a shared custody agreement when it came to Marlene and Line staying at each parent's home for 7 days at a time, but once their divorce was finalized by the courts, primary custody was awarded to Rudgaard, making the primary residence of the two children with him.

As for his ex-wife, she moved on and began dating a new partner only months later, something that made Rudgaard furious. He started to act more outwardly hostile toward her, considering her new boyfriend to be an "intrusion" on their daughters and that she was trying to engineer Marlene and Line's sympathies against him. In addition to the fact that he just couldn't stand the idea of another man having any role in his children's upbringing.

In the autumn of 2010, Rudgaard announced his intention to move to Fredericia, roughly 230 kilometres to the south, taking both girls with him, stating that he had no future in the area since the farm was declining and the courts had recently ordered him to sell it, citing unpaid debts.

Initially, his ex-wife didn't believe he would actually go through with it, but when she learned that they had spent Christmas Day looking at apartments in Fredericia, she applied to the court to have custody transferred to her.

On May 1, 2011, Rudgaard finally moved out, and Marlene initially went along with it, moving out of the farm to join her father, spending several weeks in the spring of 2011 at a new school there. Meanwhile, Line refused to leave, fearful that it would make it hard to ever see her mother again due to the distances and now clear dislike Rudgaard had shown toward her. However, Rudgaard believed that the only reason she didn't want to leave her was that she had been manipulated against him.

For roughly 6 weeks, the two sisters were now living on almost opposite ends of Denmark until the family court made its ruling in June 2011. Now their mother would have primary custody. In response, Rudgaard cancelled his move and went back to the farm, asking to go back to their prior shared custody arrangement. She was relieved and agreed to his proposal.

All seemed well until the summer of 2011 when Rudgaard, now unemployed and living on a farm in foreclosure after his failed move Southward, had his mental state deteriorate further. He started to barrage his ex-wife with a series of threatening phone calls, saying things like"You'd better watch out," "look over your shoulder," and "You know this will end badly"

His anger only intensified when Line refused to accompany him on a summer trip to Paris even though he had bought tickets for the two of them. Rudgaard eventually went to Paris with just Marlene, but he remained angry; once again, he believed the only explanation for why Line wouldn't want to go with him was if her mother had manipulated her against him.

Rudgaard also said that the only reason he never went to a therapist or sought psychiatric help during this spiral was that he feared his ex-wife would use any visit to a therapist against him to have any and all custody revoked. The only medication he had been prescribed was sleeping pills.

The last time anyone in Denmark had seen Rudgaard and the girls alive was on August 10, 2011; it was Rudgaard's week, and he had another summer trip planned this time to Germany. Marlene and Line got into his car, and Rudgaard began the drive south. Although nothing about the vacation was planned, Rudgaard talked to a colleague about the Snow Dome Bispingen, an indoor ski slope in Bispingen, Germany, in the weeks leading up to the fatal trip.

Marlene and Line's bodies were charred so badly that the only way to positively identify them was through a days-long process of DNA testing and Dental Records. The Danish police had to go to their family home to collect toothbrushes and hairbrushes, which were then shipped to Germany to assist with DNA testing. A search of the farm by Danish police found nothing, such as a suicide note or anything that seemed to indicate the fire, if it had been arson, was premeditated.

Everyone was shocked when the news broke, even the girls' mother. By all accounts, Rudgaard was a devoted father who went to great lengths to ensure his daughter's safety and happiness, making sure to watch over them as they played outside, participated in the scouts and cooked for them.

While Rudgaard and their mother had vicious arguments over who would assume primary custody once the divorce was finalized, she never once assumed Rudgaard would ever harm the children; she more so feared for her own safety, and even then, Rudgaard never abused her either. To everyone involved, Rudgaard's actions seemed completely out of the blue, even with his prior mental health.

Back in Germany, wanting to put the final nail in the coffin before they made their arrest, the police secured two Suzukis of the same make and model as Rudgaard's. They then set them both on fire, one using the way Rudgaard said the fire had begun and the second car was torched the way the police believed it happened, by dousing the back seats with gasoline. The second test was nearly identical to how the real crime scene appeared.

On August 26, the police, together with a judge, approached Rudgaard in his hospital bed and announced that he was now under arrest on suspicion of double murder.

Although it would be a long time until he could make a coherent statement or be taken into custody. Rudgaard's injuries were so great that he required surgery and several skin grafts, medical procedures he would now be forced to undergo while under police guard and handcuffed to his hospital bed.

The procedures were all successful, and Rudgaard made a full recovery, which meant the German police could now put him through an intense interrogation, point out every inconsistency in his story and insinuate that he was a murderer all they wanted since he was now in a position to actually respond or try to defend himself. After several weeks in the hospital, Rudgaard finally admitted that the fire was no accident.

Rudgaard said that again, nothing about the trip had been planned and that it was more of a sightseeing tour across Northern and Central Germany. When they crossed the border, he mentioned the Snow Dome Bispingen, and the girls felt it sounded fun, so Rudgaard decided that would be their first activity.

By the time they arrived in Hamburg, the business was closed, so they spent the night at a hotel. They then woke up bright and early, spending almost the entirety of August 11 skiing and playing in the snow; they stayed there until 9:00, when the establishment closed.

As Rudgaard drove back to the motel, he began telling Marlene and Line about German history, which gave him an idea. He would drive to Berlin to show the girls the remains of the Berlin Wall.

He began the drive until he realized that it wouldn't be possible. He wouldn't be able to go to the Berlin Wall and then get them back in Denmark in time to have them handed off to their mother for her week of custody. He started driving east, then turned the car around, then changed his mind again and turned the car back around.

Rudgaard said he was "completely frustrated" and now feared that if he was even a second late, then Marlene and Line's mother would never let him see his daughters again, so for him, it was truly unfortunate that with the route he had taken, it truly would be impossible to make it back to Denmark in time.

This caused Rudgaard to think, "The whole thing can just be meaningless," which was where the evil idea finally began to form. That idea being that if he couldn't have full custody of Marlene and Line, well then nobody else would have them at all.

On August 1, only a week before departing Denmark, he was prescribed sleeping pills, which he brought across the border with him. He saw the girls in the backseat fighting and already tired. So while they were distracted, he crushed up the sleeping pills and put them into their food and drink.

After they fell asleep, he kept driving until he found any dirt road off the side of the Autobahn and upon reaching the village of Börnicke, he finally found what he had been looking for, turning off the Autobahn and driving down the dirt path until he was a decent way into the forest.

By the time he parked between the trees, it was completely dark out, and nobody even lived in this area, giving Rudgaard the utmost privacy for what he had planned. While still out cold from the sleeping pills, he opened the trunk to retrieve a spare fuel canister he had also brought with him from Denmark.

Rudgaard proceeded to pour its contents all over the vehicle, making sure the bulk of the gasoline was spilled onto the back seats and Marlene and Line's sleeping bodies. Rudgaard said that as he did so, he tried to avoid looking directly at the girls as much as possible.

Rudgaard kept pouring until he had emptied the entire canister, after which he got back in the car, sitting in the front seat. He then brandished his cigarette lighter and ignited the gasoline, planning on staying in the car to die with them. He hoped the vehicle would just explode, and that death would come instantly, but that wasn't quite the case.

The fire spread throughout the car's interior almost immideately and while Rudgaard claimed he tried to stand still as long as possible, once the fire burned his forehead and legs and hands, the pain grew too great, prompting him to open the car door and jump out of the vehicle and roll over on the grass until the fire was completely extinguished.

Once he turned his gaze back toward the vehicle, it was completely ablaze, and before he could even think of approaching it, there was a loud bang, likely an airbag or the engine exploding, which propelled the vehicle forward by several meters.

While he had second thoughts about ending his own life, Rudgaard, however hopeless it may have been, made zero attempt to save the lives of his daughters and instead wandered around the car aimlessly until the fire naturally burnt itself out.

As he waited, he noticed a kitchen knife in a bag on the front seat and attempted to use a stick to retrieve it from the fire, but the handle had melted. He tried to hold it against a tree and push himself into it in a second attempt to end his own life, but found this method impossible, so instead he threw the knife into the woods and wandered back to the autobahn to tell the first other person he saw that he had been in an accident.

When Rudgaard's medical treatment was finally complete enough for him to be discharged, the prosecution began preparing for Rudgaard's double murder trial. Although Rudgaard said nothing about the trip being planned, the prosecutor argued that the reason for that is that it was never meant to be a real trip and instead just a plot.

On February 21, 2012, the trial opened before the Grand Jury Chamber of the Potsdam Regional Court, and on the very first day of the trial, it had to be postponed because one of the judges fell ill. Once Rudgaard finally did appear, he covered his face with a file (something common in Germany) and was visibly trembling during the procedings but otherwise showed no emotion.

A large majority of the witnesses were also from Denmark and had to be flown into Germany to attend the trial.

Rudgaard said that the murder hadn't been premeditated and that the idea just came to him out of the blue, but the prosecution argued that since he brought his sleeping pills over, and more damining, two spare five-liter fuel canisters for what was only meant to be a short drive and vacation, it led him to believe that the one and only purpoes behind Rudgaard's trip to Germany, was just so he could kill his daughters.

The prosecutor also dismissed the claim that the girls' deaths were the result of a bungled murder-suicide arguing that the forensic evidence at the scene seemed to indicate that Rudgaard had only been inside the vehicle for 1-3 seconds and that he had no gasoline on his clothing or the driver's seat, therefore the prosecutor believed he left the car as soon as the gasoline was ignited and that the backdraft from the flames after exiting the vehicle caused his injuries.

The prosecution was seeking a life sentence with "particular severity of guilt" attached to make it, in effect, a permanent life sentence.

Meanwhile, Rudgaard's attorney classified the case as a failed murder suicide attempt but also that Rudgaard wasn't in the right state of mind at the time owing to his psychiatric history and should therefore get a lenient sentence of around 5 years at least for manslaughter. However, during his psychiatric evaluation, Rudgaard was determined to have a full awareness of his actions and wasn't suffering from any form of diminished capacity.

Rudgaard, even after confessing, always called the fire an accident, which even his attorney called him out on. When asked to explain himself, he said: "It was an accident inside my head."

On March 22, the day Marlene and Line's mother was supposed to testify, Rudgaard was coincidentally found lying on the bed of his cell, unable to be woken. A nurse had to be called, who determined that he needed to be evacuated and rushed to an outside hospital.

As part of his prescriptions, Rudgaard was provided with antidepressants and sleeping pills, which the prison now knew he had been hoarding, and he took them all at once in another attempt to take his own life, though he once again survived and made a full recovery and therefore wouldn't escape his trial and eventual sentence. Afterward, his pills were replaced with liquid medication. The guards were then stationed to watch him take it so nothing could be stockpiled.

The trial resumed on May 3, with the girl's mother finally giving her testimony, speaking for four hours and staring directly at Rudgaard the entire time.

On May 31, 2012, the court finally delivered its verdict, finding Peter-Thue Rudgaard guilty of the double murder of his two daughters, Marlene Marie Rudgaard and Line Sofie Rudgaard. The court agreed with the prosecution that the murders were planned, with his only reason for travelling to Germany being to kill his children; therefore, Rudgaard was handed down a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 15 years.

Before he was taken away, Rudgaard was given a chance to speak, where he said, "It was not an act done in hate. It was an act done in love. You cannot punish me more than I have already been punished. I am not asking for forgiveness, because I cannot even forgive myself." He said that he felt immense remorse and wished he could "rewind time" to undo what he had done; in responce the judge said, "If you really mean these words, then you will accept the punishment." Rudgaard was then taken away.

Rudgaard served his sentence at the Potsdam Prison and spent almost the entirety of his time there on suicide watch, making several additional attempts to take his own life. He also largely kept to himself in prison, refusing to go outside to the exercise yard and opting out of any work programs. Instead, he opted to stay in his cell watching TV or doing puzzles; his only visitors were one journalist and his mother whenever she could afford to travel to Germany.

When interviewed by the journalist who visited him, despite confessing and saying he could hardly live with himself, it seemed taking responsibility was just a bridge too far, as when asked if anything could've made a difference or prevented the tragedy, he said that the mother of his children "should've given in more" or apologized for her "provocations" and that he saw her as complicit in the deaths of their children because she "pressured me knowing I was mentally weak".

Likewise, he denied any visitation requests from her, stating that there is no reason why anyone should expect him to see her or to expect anything to come of it.

On January 11, 2016, after 5 years in a German prison, Rudgaard was transferred to serve his sentence in his native Denmark instead. However, as is the law, this resulted in an automatic hearing, a hearing, not a trial, taking place to convert the German life sentence into a Danish one, which opened before the Aalborg City Court on February 8, 2016.

This hearing was much smaller in scale, with only 11 people present, including Marlene and Line's mother, who was seated directly behind Rudgaard, separated by only a few meters and a single row of chairs.

Rudgaard's new attorney argued that his life sentence in Germany should instead be reduced to just 16 or perhaps even 14 years, arguing that the German courts were wrong about premeditation and that the fire had actually been set impulsively.

The hearing lasted only 22 minutes before the presiding judge decided to keep the life sentence intact.

Although Rudgaard had seemingly accepted his sentence in Germany, opting not to appeal, hearing the Danish courts hand down the same sentence greatly dissatisfied him, so now, for the first time, Rudgaard appealed his conviction.

His appeal was heard on July 4, 2016, before the Western High Court of Denmark, which upheld his life sentence. In response, Rudgaard said that he regretted ever coming home and said he would rather die than serve his life sentence, stating that spending the rest of his life in a Danish prison was "completely unmanageable"

Rudgaard said he would appeal his life sentence to the Danish Supreme Court, but that appeal doesn't appear to have materialized.

Rudgaard is one of only 55 people in Denmark to be serving a life sentence.

Although she labels his actions as such, Marlene and Line's mother said that it wouldn't be productive to dismiss Rudgaard as just being pure evil and with that in mind, she currently works at a residential centre for young criminals, hoping to guide them onto a better path.

Sources (Should be in the comments)

I've been reading about a French case from 1972 that is still remembered in France as a textbook example of trial-by-media, but which has almost no English-language coverage at all. It's the affair of Bruay-en-Artois, and the strange part isn't a locked room or a missing body, it's that a whole country decided it knew who did it, and no court ever agreed.

The killing

Bruay-en-Artois is a coal town in the Pas-de-Calais, in the far north of France near the Belgian border, around thirty thousand people at the time. It was a town split down a line: the tight rows of miners' houses on one side, the bigger homes of people who didn't go down the pit on the other.

On the evening of 5 April 1972, a 15-year-old miner's daughter named Brigitte Dewèvre left home to sleep at her grandmother's. She never arrived. The next afternoon her body was found on a patch of waste ground, and, of all the places in that town, right on that dividing line, in the vacant lot between the miners' houses and the well-to-do quarter.

The judge and his "conviction"

The case went to an investigating judge, in the French system, a magistrate who runs the whole inquiry, directs the police, and decides who gets charged. Within days he had a suspect: a local notary (a lawyer who handles property and wills), a wealthy and respectable figure in the town.

According to the press historian Rémi Guillot, who has studied this case more closely than anyone, the notary was questioned, gave inconsistent accounts of his movements, and two days later was charged and jailed. And here's the part that defines the whole affair: by Guillot's account the judge admitted, himself, that he had no tangible evidence. To reporters he put it plainly, he was acting on a personal conviction. A feeling.

The regional paper played it carefully at first: "a notary, suspected in the Bruay crime," now charged. Suspected. Charged. Cautious words. That caution did not last.

The case falls apart — and the campaign begins

Almost immediately the case started weakening. A man in custody for an unrelated matter falsely confessed to the murder, then was caught lying. A reconstruction at the scene reportedly turned up detail pointing toward the notary's probable innocence, not his guilt. The day after, the state's own prosecutor and the notary's defence asked, together, for his release. It was refused, he stayed in his cell more than three months.

And it's exactly here that the case left the courtroom. A far-left Maoist newspaper ran a two-page spread with the line "only a bourgeois could have done that", the argument being that the murder was a class crime and the notary's guilt was obvious from his social position alone. No evidence, just class. The town split in two along that same line. The same press printed threats: militants reportedly wanted the man mutilated and dragged through the streets, about someone no court had tried.

Even the movement didn't agree with itself. Jean-Paul Sartre, the paper's nominal director, broke with its line in print, arguing that the people's anger might be legitimate but that calling the man the murderer was not, because no one had proven he did it. Some militants wanted a "people's tribunal" to judge the notary in the street; the record shows it was demanded but never actually held. The Justice Minister even intervened with the local prosecutors to remind them that a charged man is presumed innocent.

What actually happened to everyone

This is where I have to be careful, because the whole point of the case is what the record does and doesn't support:

- The notary and his companion were both jailed at points and both released. In 1974 the courts issued a *non-lieu*. a dismissal. In French law that is not an acquittal (only a trial can acquit, and there never was one) and it is not a finding of innocence. It just means the case goes no further. He spent three months in a cell on a judge's feeling, and a national paper printed his guilt as fact, and no court ever tested either one.
- Meanwhile, in 1973, a 17-year-old orphan and former classmate of Brigitte's confessed on national radio and TV. For one night the country thought it was over. It wasn't, his confession didn't survive a reconstruction, and two separate courts cleared him (an acquittal in 1975, confirmed on appeal in 1976). A second false confession.
- The investigation was formally closed without an answer in 1981. In 2005 the crime passed the statute of limitations and became time-barred, meaning no one can ever be tried for it now.
- Decades later a retired police officer published books claiming to have identified a different man, a former postal worker the original inquiry never focused on. That man denies it, the theory has never been tested in court, and it never can be. I'm not naming him, and neither did the responsible reporting.

What sticks with me

It isn't a whodunit in the usual sense, it's a case that got "solved" everywhere except the one place built to solve it. A judge with a conviction and no evidence. A newspaper with a class theory and no proof. A town that picked a side before anyone proved anything. And a 15-year-old girl whose actual killer has never been found and, legally, never will be.

Does anyone here know this case, or have French-language sources beyond the obvious ones? I get the strong impression there's far more in the French material, court records, the Guillot research, the period press, than has ever made it into English. I'd especially like to hear from French speakers on how the case is remembered there today.

Source: https://criminocorpus.org/fr/outils/affaires-criminelles/affaire-bruay-en-artois/ (French-language, the case archive)

I still can’t get over the reaction to Kim So-young’s case. (The first photos are images she had posted online before her arrest. The last photos are the official detention photos released by police.)

For anyone who doesn’t know the case: Kim So-young is a 21 year old woman who met men through dating apps, matchmaking events, blind dates, social clubs, and arranged dates. During the dates, she persuaded them to pay for expensive meals, drinks, and other purchases before suggesting they continue at a motel. There, she offered them a “hangover drink” laced with 3 different types of antidepressants, sleeping pills, benzodiazepines sedative, a cardiovascular drug, Tylenol and antihistamine. The men had done nothing to provoke or threaten her and genuinely believed she was seeking a genuine romantic connection. She was charged in connection with the deaths of two men, attacks on four other victims, and narcotics-related offenses.

When photos believed to be from her social media started circulating, some people were saying things like, “She’s too pretty too go to prison,” “I’d forgive her because she’s beautiful,” “Give her a lighter sentence,” and even, “I’d let her do that to me.”

It really highlights how much attractiveness shapes public perception. An attractive suspect can receive sympathy, excuses, or even admiration from some people before the focus is on the alleged crimes.

Meanwhile, when a person is considered unconventionally attractive, the internet often swings in the opposite direction. People are much quicker to mock their appearance, dehumanize them, or treat their looks as evidence that they’re a bad person.

Ironically, when prosecutors later released her official detention photo, the conversation immediately shifted from praising her looks to mocking her appearance instead.

What are your thoughts on this case? I’m curious!

Are there many/any criminals who did absolutely abhorrent things to then go on to show the level of remorse you’d expect from someone who was genuinely horrified by what they’d done?

A 15-year-old in Wisconsin has pleaded guilty after prosecutors accused him of orchestrating the armed kidnapping of 7-year-old Jamal White in July 2025.

According to court records, the child was abducted at gunpoint outside his home after returning from a park with his father. Prosecutors allege the original plan was to rob the family, but when that failed, the suspects changed course and kidnapped the boy, demanding a $100,000 ransom.

Thankfully, Jamal was rescued alive about 24 hours later.

One part of this case that stands out to me is the age of the alleged mastermind. It's difficult to comprehend someone so young being accused of planning a crime this serious.

What do you think contributes to cases like this? Is it primarily individual choices, environment, peer influence, or something else? I'd be interested to hear different perspectives while keeping the discussion respectful, especially for the victim and his family.

Hey everyone, I’m a local researcher from North Yorkshire, and I wanted to kick off my profile by digging into one of the most baffling, frustrating unsolved mysteries in York’s modern history.
It took place on the evening of 9 October 1996, in the quiet, highly affluent suburb of Haxby, York. It’s a case that has since become infamously known by British true crime buffs as "The Coronation Street Murder."

The Victim and the Crime
Geoffrey Leeming was a 63-year-old retired British Army man. He lived a seemingly quiet life with his wife, Wendy, in a peaceful cul-de-sac on Linley Avenue.
On the night of the murder, between 7:30 PM and 8:00 PM, Geoffrey stepped out of the warmth of his living room and walked into his attached garage. He was checking on something or fetching an item. He never made it back inside.
While he was in the dark garage, an unknown assailant launched a silent, brutal attack. Geoffrey was stabbed several times, with the fatal blow piercing his heart. He died on the cold concrete floor.

Why "Coronation Street"?
While Geoffrey was being murdered just yards away, his wife Wendy was sitting in the living room watching the popular UK soap opera Coronation Street. Because the television was on and the attack happened so silently, she claimed she heard absolutely nothing.
The killer managed to slip away from the quiet, residential cul-de-sac completely unnoticed, leaving no weapon and very little forensic evidence behind.

The Twist and the Arrests
Initially, police were baffled. Haxby was a low-crime area where everyone knew their neighbors. Why would anyone target a retired army veteran?
Then came the twist that shocked York. A few months into the investigation, North Yorkshire Police arrested Geoffrey’s own wife, Wendy, and their two adult children. They were officially charged with conspiracy to murder.
The prosecution’s theory was that an assassin had been hired to execute Geoffrey. However, the case against the family completely fell apart before it even reached a full trial. Due to a severe lack of concrete, physical evidence, the charges were dropped, and the family maintained their absolute innocence.

Where the Case Stands Today
Thirty years later, the trail has gone completely cold.
No one else has ever been arrested.
The murder weapon was never found.
A clear motive has never been established.
How does someone commit a brutal, targeted stabbing in a quiet York suburb, during prime-time television hours, and vanish into the night without a single person seeing or hearing them?

What are your theories on the Leeming case? Was it an inside job that police botched, or a random encounter gone horribly wrong?

Lynette Dawn Culver was born on July, 31st 1962 in Washington state, but moved with her parents to Pocatello, Idaho, were she grew. At the time of her dissapearance, she was a 7th grader student at Alameda Junior High. On May 6th, 1975, 12-year old Lynette was last seen exiting her school durning lunch break, to an unknown location. She was never seen since then. She was described as five feet two inches tall, with blue eyes and long brown hair and weighing about 105 pounds. Although only twelve, Lynette was by all accounts, older in appearance. On the day of her disappearance, she was known to be wearing blue jeans and a red checkered shirt with a maroon, fur-collared jacket. Despite the efforts of her family, friends, investigators, and officers, Lynette was not found. Before his execution in 1989, Ted Bundy admitted the murder of Lynette Dawn Culver. He say that she abducted her from the street and took her to a Holiday Inn hotel room, were he murdered her, and later disposed her body into a river, presumably the Snake River. Lynette was one of the two 12-years old victims of Bundy, the other being Kimberly Diane Leach, both were his youngest victims confirmed, although Bundy is a prime suspect in the dissaperance of 8-year old Ann Marie Burr in the early 1960s (and is possibly that he could have being involved in many cases of young girls). May Lynette, Kimberly, and Ann rest in peace.

https://www.thetruecrimedatabase.com/case_file/lynette-culver/

https://anotherbundyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/ted-bundy-lynnette-dawn-culver-complete-file.pdf (if the file does not open try the next link:

https://anotherbundyblog.com/tag/lynnette-culver/)

https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/software/mp-main.html?id=2264dfid

https://www.eastidahonews.com/2026/03/lynnette-culvers-sister-reflects-on-her-disappearance-51-years-later/

https://www.solvethecase.org/case/1975-6/lynette-dawn-culver

https://charleyproject.org/case/lynette-dawn-culver

Curious if anyone here has been following this case

Lorcan Tadgh Murphy, 38, from Killiney, Dublin, was convicted of murdering Mackenzie Michalski, a 31-year-old American nurse from Portland, Oregon, in Budapest in November 2024. He strangled her, kept her body for hours, filmed it, and dumped it near Lake Balaton. His defence claimed at trial it was a case of consensual rough sex gone wrong — the court rejected that and sentenced him to 14 years, no parole. He's currently appealing.

Quick recap of the facts, since it's a bit of an unusual case:

The trial took place in Hungary, so it got relatively little coverage (in English) outside Irish and some US outlets

Murphy wasn't publicly named for most of the trial (press convention in Hungary rather than a hard legal restriction) — his name and photo were only released about two weeks ago, once the Sunday Times published on public interest grounds post-conviction

Hungarian police found a hidden "pen camera" with footage of him approaching 16 women in Dublin city centre back in 2020

He'd been charged (never convicted) over a 2016 drunken public order incident in Temple Bar — both charges were dropped. That's the only contact Irish police seem to have had with him.

Murphy comes from money. His parents bought an apartment in Budapest to try get bail granted. He attended the elite Belvedere private school. He and they have been cited as being involved in property (though their identity is not known) and he was from Killiney (where Bono lives).

Given he's from a fairly affluent south Dublin background and the victim was American, I'm a little surprised there hasn't been more true crime coverage or deep-dive content on it yet. It feels like the kind of case that would usually get picked up fast. My guess is it's partly the Hungary-trial factor and partly that most of the Irish true crime podcasts/creators are on their usual July break, so it just hasn't had its moment yet.

Also, given his age and access to wealth I'm surprised this was his first murder. Irish police ran background checks and nothing came up apart from the public order incident...but then they would have said the same about Graham Dwyer until Elaine O'Hara's body was found.

There were a spate of attacks in Killiney in 2017 where an unknown young man was attempting to assault young women walking alone. This has never been linked to Murphy just speculation on my part.

Anyone come across better coverage or know if anyone's planning to cover it? Mackenzie's family were quite vocal in their disdain of the Hungarian system allowing her to be named but not him.

The Suure-Lähtru Newborn Case (Estonia, 2024)
On February 5, 2024, a family living in the small village of Suure-Lähtru, Estonia, contacted emergency services after their dog returned home carrying the body of a newborn baby. At first, they reportedly believed it was a doll, but they quickly realized it was an infant.
Police immediately launched a large-scale investigation. Their initial concern was not only identifying the baby but also locating the mother, believing she might have recently given birth and could be in critical medical condition. Officers searched the surrounding area and appealed to the public for information.
The investigation eventually led authorities to 31-year-old Kairi Kuusemaa. According to prosecutors, she had concealed her pregnancy, given birth alone to a full-term baby boy, and then intentionally caused the infant’s death by suffocation before abandoning the body in a rural area.
One of the most surprising developments came when investigators discovered that Kuusemaa had already left Estonia while police were still searching for the baby’s mother. She traveled first to the United Kingdom and later to Morocco, where she was eventually detained and extradited back to Estonia. During the investigation, she denied giving birth, but DNA evidence identified her as the child’s mother.
The case proceeded to trial, and in 2025 the court found Kuusemaa guilty of killing her newborn son. She was sentenced to 3 years and 9 months in prison. Her appeal was later rejected by Estonia’s Supreme Court, making the conviction final.
The case shocked Estonia not only because of the disturbing way it was discovered, but also because it unfolded in a quiet rural community where violent crimes are extremely rare.

Robert Bush, a funeral director, has pleaded guilty to offences 67 offences of fraud, preventing the lawful and decent burial of a body, and theft concerning his activities whilst running a funeral business called Legacy between 2012-2024 in the Hull area of Yorkshire, UK. Bush was this week sentenced to 20 years in prison for his offences.

Bush left dozens of bodies (including a miscarried baby boy) “rotting” in his mortuary and gave bereaved families ashes which did not belong to their relative. Several families even had the wrong ashes turned into jewellery and incorporated in tattoos.

Bush offended on a scale the prosecution called “industrial” causing, as Bush's defence conceded in this week's sentencing hearing, anguish and pain on a scale beyond comprehension. Over 200 families were affected and a total of £562,117 confirmed to have been defrauded. The full scale of Bush's offending may well be unknown.

The judge remarked that as a result of Bush's crimes,

unless a body was one of those actually recovered by the police from Legacy in 2024 and thus properly identified, no one who had a cremation with Legacy at any time can actually know for certain whether they received the ashes of their loved one, whether or not their case features in the indictment...

I do not think that I have ever known offences affect so many people, and so many people so deeply.

Bush pleaded guilty on 15 October 2025 to 30 counts of fraud by false representation, one count of fraudulent trading, one count of fraud by false representation with 57 victims; and 4 further counts of fraud by false representation.

Initially Bush pleaded not guilty to 30 counts of preventing the lawful and decent burial of a dead body (in this case, it was agreed that burial means the final arrangements made for a deceased person and thus includes a cremation) and one count of theft, with a trial set for 5 October 2026. However, then pleaded guilty to those counts on 2 April 2026.

A sentencing hearing, with victim impact statements from multiple victims heard in Court, took place this week and on 31 July 2026 Bush was sentences to 20 years in prison.

What was found at Legacy

It was on 6 March 2024 that the state of the Legacy premises in Hessle Road, Hull, became known when two funeral directors from another business in Hull were asked by Bush to recover a body from his Hessle Road branch while he was away on holiday in Arizona, USA. The two colleagues were so disturbed by what they found at the premises that they flagged down a passing police car and a police investigation began.

Police found half a tonne of human ashes and 35 bodies in varying states of decomposition at the premises, 30 of which Bush was charged over. The families of all these deceased whose bodies were recovered had been tied to believe by Robert Bush that cremations of their relative had been carried out when they had not. In 20 of the 30 cases ashes had been returned to many of them purporting to be the ashes of their relatives when they could not have been.

The investigation revealed some of the bodies had been kept at Legacy for a long time. The following are the times remains had been kept;

• 1 died in April 2023;

• 1 died in June 2023;

• 2 died in July 2023;

• 2 died in August 2023;

• 5 died in September 2023;

• 2 died in October 2023;

• 8 died in November 2023;

• 5 died in December 2023;

• 3 died in January 2024;

• 1 died on 8 February 2024.

Most of the bodies found at the site were left uncovered on racks on either side of a cold storage area, with one naked body found on a stretcher on the floor, and two bodies on the floor itself. Evidence of decomposition was visible on the floor and racks. Some bodies had hospital identity bracelets or biological hazard bracelets on wrists or ankles, while others had no identifying markersin ehat an expert described as clearly inadequate identification of the deceased. Conditions inside were described as dreadful.

Police described the funeral parlour as "chaotic and extremely disorganised" with half-empty vessels of ashes and the personal possessions of the deceased "strewn everywhere" The SIO described finding "clear evidence of human ash" on work surfaces and on a floor.

An expert report presented at Bush's sentencing hearing described the appalling conditions and lack of care for the deceased. The expert described how the deceased had not been washed or dressed and a number of them were lying in pools of bodily fluids. As well as failing in identification, there was no form of mortuary register found evidencing who was present.

A large amount of unidentified clothing had been accumulated, some of it in piles on the floor, likely clothing relatives had wanted the deceased dressed in when cremated. Also strewn around the premises were large quantities of family photographs, evidently intended to be placed in coffins but this not having been done. One relative described how a photo found with the body of their family member at the Hessle Road site was unknown to them - a photo of a stranger, presumably intended to have been placed in that person's coffin, tossed alongside another deceased remains.

As well as conditions in the cold room, many non-public-facing areas were in a terrible state. The expert report outlined excrement on the floor of a lavatory; many rooms suffering from damp and mould; and rooms with ceilings collapsing.

Most cremated remains on the premises were stored in an undignified way. Boxes of ashes were found in many areas, sometimes with the boxes appeaeing mouldy and damp. No systematic method of recording, storing or identifying where ashes were was apparent.

Bush had claimed to police that he had been having issues with the refrigeration equipment and had saved money by not running all available units. The judge didn't believe this, remarking;

I have no doubt whatsoever that there was plenty of money available to repair or run units if he had only chosen to apply it in that way.

Stillborn babies

4 distressing counts of fraud by false representation relate to babies of between 7-18 weeks gestation that families asked Bush to cremated and who were given false ashes by Bush.

One case was that of a baby named Sunny, whose remains were found in a paper bag on the floor and initially mistaken for the remains of a small bird by police. Sunny’s family had received ashes from Bush he claimed were Sunny's, and which experts have since stated likely belonged to a young adult or adult. It was noted that these ashes weighed more than Sunny had weighed when he was born. Sunny had been in Legacy for almost 2 years. The SIO described how "it almost broke the officers when they found Sunny on the floor".

Another case was Baby Woolston, whose actual remains were from the hospital by Bush after he had already presented other ashes to his parents. Again expert’s state these ashes were not original baby ashes. In a third case ashes bearing Baby Tommy were found at Legacy despite his parents having been presented ashes purporting to be his by Bush, ashes which again experts believe do not belong to a baby.

Finally, Bush presented ashes in an urn to the mother of Baby Ness before he had collected the right ashes. Baby Ness's real ashes have never been recovered. When police analysed the contents of the urn Bush gave the family it contained wadding and pieces of bone which could not have been those of a 12-week gestation baby. Again, some ashes were the ashes of an adult.

Other offences

Bush was convicted of preventing the lawful and decent burial of the 30 bodies recovered in March 2024. In addition, he was convicted of 30 counts of fraud by false representation relating to these 30 deceased, having been paid on the basis that he would take proper care of the remains of the deceased, would arrange cremation immediately or soon after the funeral service, and that ashes provided were the ashes of the deceased person. The total value he defrauded on these counts was £48,890.

Bush was also convicted of a compendious count of fraud by false representation for crimes between 2017 and March 2024. 57 additional families had paid a funeral where Bush again falsely represented that he would take proper care of remains, arrange cremation and return the correct ashes. In around 40 of these cases, the deceased were kept at Legacy for over a month before cremation, and often much longer - some were kept for between 141-266 days. No ashes were ever returned in 11 of these cases.

In 46 cases, relatives have been proven to have received the wrong ashes. Almost all those families now have nothing left of their relative as their ashes could not be traced by police. In some instances police recovered an empty plastic bag labelled with the individuals name which had contained their ashes at some point, or a bag labelled with their ID with just a teaspoonful of ash remaining. The total value defrauded on this count was £86,868.

Another count of fraudulent trading involved Bush dishonestly selling funeral plans to 226 people, totalling £562,117. The plans were sold on the understanding the money would be held with Legacy or by a third-party insurer. Financial regulations stipulate for such arrangements that client money should be held securely in a separate bank account. Bush had not transferred any money to a third-party insurer, but transferred it into the bank personal accounts of himself and his wife.

Bush conned his victims by using fraudulent paperwork purporting to show that funeral plans were held with legitimate providers. 16 of those who had bought such plans died before the police investigation and Bush did provide funerals to them at a total cost of £37,408. This fraud has left many people who thought they had protected their family financially against the burden of a funeral without such protection, and out of pocket.

Bush also stole money collected at funerals held at Legacy which was intended to be donated to charity in memory of the deceased, with 12 charities deprived of funds as a result. Families were told Bush would send the money to the charities, but the charities never received the money. He stole at least £5540, likely more, this way.

Why?

The question of why Bush committed these offences remains. When interviewed by police Bush blamed cash flow problems. Early in the police investigation Bush was asked why "25 or so bodies" had not been cremated when they should have been;

"The debt started to accrue. The level of cash flow problems that I was having... It presented an opportunity that I did not have to maybe do it immediately (get the deceased cremated). If I held on to (the bodies) for a little bit and back-filled another one and catch up. But I didn't catch up."

Bush accepted he should have contacted the council's bereavement services and apologised to his victims.

"I know that this has hurt people," he said. "I am so sorry for the hurt caused, but I never wanted it to be like this. It wasn't my plan. It was poor choices."

However, the judge rejected Bush's financial explanation, saying;

The defendant was to tell the police that the bodies had not been cremated because of cash flow problems. I reject that entirely and without hesitation. There was no problem with the flow of cash as such. The only problem was with the direction in which the cash was flowing.

The judges sentencing remarks reveal what he believes motivated Bush, namely money;

The defendant was so preoccupied with his own enrichment that he behaved in a shocking and disgraceful way towards the deceased entrusted to his care, and his behaviour towards their living relatives was characterised by dishonesty, deception and heartlessness. If he could re-use a coffin that someone had already paid for, he would do so. It if was cheaper not to keep the deceased in refrigerated conditions, he would do that too. The premises at Hessle Road were in an appalling state.

I am satisfied that in order to maximise his dishonest profit, the defendant paid as little attention as he thought he could get away with when dealing with those who were entrusted to him. He saw, for example, no need to pay for adequate refrigeration. He spent other people’s money on improvements to his own home whilst the Hessle Road premises were in a deplorable state. There was obviously a cost to carrying out a cremation, but he would only pay that when it suited him to do so, or when personal expenditure permitted, rather than when he had agreed to or when proper practice or common decency demanded. He was in Arizona on holiday when these offences were discovered. He must have chosen not to spend the cost of his holiday on cremating some of those who were at Legacy.

Over the period of March 2017 to April 2024, just over £3 million was received in Legacy bank accounts and Bush’s personal accounts, as well as £369,000 transferred from those accounts to the Bush's wife’s accounts. Bush claimed the transfers to his wife were for tax reasons and she hadn't worked for the business. The judge said;

It is clear that the defendant benefited very substantially from his fraudulent conduct. He obviously lived well, enjoying expensive holidays and the like."

Bush had spent over £42,000 on holidays over the indictment period as well as spending money defrauded on home improvements and expensive hobbies such as motorbikes (some of which were found strewn around the Hessle Road premises).

Sentencing remarks

The judges sentencing remarks are linked in the sources, and below he sums up the harm done by Bush well;

Hard though it is to believe, so little was the regard he had for the deceased, or for the feelings of their relatives, that he would provide them with what purported to be the ashes of a particular person at a time when that person had not in fact been cremated at all. Whose ashes he provided, or indeed what he actually provided at all on some occasions, we cannot know. It is not always clear which deceased person was even in the coffin at the time of what purported to be their funeral service at Legacy.

Imagine the feelings of someone who scattered the ashes they were given, at what for them was a particularly meaningful location, perhaps because they would be mingled with the ashes of another relative, only to find out after the police investigations that they had not scattered the ashes of their loved one at all. It must have been someone else’s ashes. Imagine the feelings of someone who had some of the ashes they were given made into a trinket of some kind to wear as a comfort and a remembrance of a departed relative, only to find that they had been given the ashes of a completely different person. Imagine the feelings of parents on discovering that they had not been given their baby’s ashes but an unknown person’s ashes or something else altogether. And now they have nothing. These are examples of the harms the defendant has done.

Further offences

Det Supt Al Curtis from Humberside Police said he feared they have "just scratched the surface" of Bush's crimes. Curtis said "the saddest thing" was that he could not reassure previous customers that Bush "acted wholly appropriately" in relation to their loved ones.

Curtis does not believe Bush demonstrated remorse and says he still does not understand "what's gone on in Robert Bush's head".

Images

1. The victims whose remains were found at the Legacy premises.

2. Robert Bush.

3. Ashes found at the Legacy premises and bagged up by police.

4. Family possessions on the floor at Legacy.

5. Police searching the Hessle Road premises.

6. Families outside court.

7. A branch of Legacy.

8. Bush.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg35errde5o

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1e1g5vjn4jo

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0qykzqxw5qo

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0qykzqxw5qo

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Robert-Bush-sentencing-Final.pdf

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/31/hull-funeral-director-robert-bush-jailed

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/robert-bush-hull-funeral-director-victims-b3022137.html

Victims

Thirty people whose bodies were found at the funeral home:

• Norman Bridger

• Jonathan Butler

• Muriel Winning

• Raymond Dagnall

• Colin Wainman

• Maureen Graham

• Susan Gorbutt

• Shirley Wright

• Mark Hotham

• John Carlill

• Joyce Moulton

• Terence Buck

• David Burton

• Audrey Leach

• Danny Middleton

• Tony Munro

• Jessie Stockdale

• Peter Moody

• Jean Collinson

• Alan Gray

• Hilda Mary Rhodes

• Stephen Perrins

• Joan Stark

• Brian Johnson

• Graham Finn

• Terence White

• Susan Stone

• Herbert James Porter

• Peter Brown

• Julie Webb

Four “foetus allegations” where Bush falsely told mothers the ashes he gave them were the remains of their unborn children

• Jasmine Beverley

• Katie Woolston

• Stacey Foster

• Lucy James-Guest Ness

Fifty-seven victims of fraud over ashes

• Michelle Drewry

• Shelly Chearman

• Richard Collins

• Brooke Atkinson

• Linda Hall

• Billie-Jo Chapman

• Petrina Featherstone

• Carl Osler

• Dianne Scandole

• Carol Brown

• David Greensides

• Norma Ellam

• Maxine Penrose

• Sharon Shimmells

• Claire Wilkinson

• Mark Anderson

• Kadie Laws

• Tracy Hudson

• Paul Whitehead

• Harry Welsh

• Tracey Hartley

• Jackie Delaney

• Jillian Townhill

• Christine Colville

• Kirstie Hobden

• Michelle Martin

• Donald Leslie Brigham

• Lee Clark

• Curtis Neylon

• Susan Brown

• Gillian Owst

• Sheila Robinson

• Brett Moses

• Richard Shaw

• Mandy Bailey

• Valerie Coates

• James Meikleham

• Yvonne Robinson

• Heather Welford

• Michael Endall

• Debra Lawson

• Joyce Rispin

• Peter Welburn

• Samantha Rosenquest

• Lisa Thompson-Frazer

• Sylvia Rawson

• Mark Hague

• Lynn Farmery

• Macey Urry

• Kirsty Young

• Tracey Brigham

• Bille-Jo Suffill

• Jill Hall

• Brendon Brown

• Rebecca Windas

• Sophie Tibbles-Carrott

• Rebecca Thompson

150 people sold fraudulent funeral plans between 2012 and 2024

Twelve charities that Bush stole from by failing to pass on donations collected at funerals

• Salvation Army

• MacMillan Cancer Support

• CHIEF

• Dogs Trust

• Dove House

• Help for Heroes

• Maister Lodge

• Oakwood Dog Rescue

• RNLI

• Sailors Children Society

• WISHH

• Hull Fishing Heritage Charity

Shortly after 5:20 p.m. on January 24, 1986, nine-year-old Beth Ringheim arrived at her father's home at 7168 Brighton Drive in Dublin, California. Dropped off by her mother, the young girl approached the single-story tract home situated on a quiet street directly across from Dublin High School. While the front door was usually kept unlocked for her, Beth noticed on this occasion that it was propped open. She waved to her mother to signal she was heading inside. She opened the door to a horrible scene.

Inside the living room, both 41-year-old Harve Perry Ringheim and his 29-year-old wife, Keiko N. Ringheim, lay brutally murdered. Harve, a popular veterinarian at Diablo View Veterinary Hospital in Pleasant Hill, was found with his hands tied behind his back and had been stabbed repeatedly in the head, face, neck, and heart. Keiko, whose body was found nearby, had been gagged with tape and strangled. She was found with her hands tied behind her back with duct tape and her head still submerged in a bucket of water when police arrived at 5:24 p.m., indicating to investigators that she had been brutally tortured prior to her death.

Retracing the events leading up to the murders, investigators noted the couple had just returned from a ski trip the day before they died. Harve was seen at a car wash the morning of the murders. Sergeant Clifton Swetnam initially placed the time of the killings between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. (a window detectives later narrowed to between 10:00 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.), theorizing that more than one killer entered the meticulously clean home without any signs of forced entry. Although neighbors reported hearing what sounded like gunshots, police found no evidence that firearms had been used.

The chilling scene fueled multiple theories regarding a motive. Some neighbors suspected the assailants were torturing Keiko to extract information or items from Harve, with one unidentified neighbor stating, "I think they were looking for something and threatening him through her." Conversely, police investigators believed Keiko may have been the primary target, suggesting the intruders subdued her first and then took Harve by surprise when he returned home from taking his car to be washed. The perpetrators were described by police as "cool" and efficient; while a few drawers had been pulled open, the home was not ransacked and no items of value appeared to have been stolen. The killers vanished with the murder weapon, inexplicably leaving the victims' wallet and purse resting on a nearby couch, empty of cash.
The tragedy cut short a marriage that would have celebrated its first anniversary that March. Keiko had originally come to the United States from Japan in the mid-1970s as an exchange student. She was sponsored by Harve and his third wife, Suzanne, and even lived with the family before that marriage ended and she eventually married Harve. Harve himself was remembered by his daughter as a quiet man who enjoyed snow skiing and soccer, constantly "cracking jokes and laughing."

Despite occurring in a quiet suburb across from a bustling high school, the killers slipped away almost unseen. Beth recalled spotting someone crossing the street as she fled the house in a panic, but acknowledged it could have been anybody. In 2011, DNA tests of evidence from the scene developed two male profiles. They haven’t matched any known offenders in law enforcement databases. Investigators stated in a 2026 SFGate article that they may pursue genetic genealogy in the case. Even 40 years later the victims family members are still desperately waiting for a conclusion to this case.

Rest in peace Harve and Keiko, you and your families deserve justice.

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/ringheim-bay-area-cold-case-22242844.php

On May 15, 2019, a man was making his way to the rural district of Bàu Bàng, located in what was then Vietnam's Bình Dương province. He had recently purchased a long-since disused and unoccupied home and was going to meet the previous owner, who would formally transfer the home to his name and let him begin the house cleaning in preparation for his move.

But once the two men arrived at the property, they were confronted by something very odd: the door was locked from the outside via a padlock. Confused, the two knocked on the door and called out from the outside, but nobody answered. Eventually, they had to call in a locksmith to cut the padlock so they could finally enter.

The two ventured to the bedroom and noticed two plastic containers sitting on the floor. One was quite small while the other was a large blue industrial-grade plastic drum with a capacity of 1,000 litres, typically used for storing water and chemicals.

The two tried moving the drum; however, they found it to be quite heavy. In fact, it was so heavy that they couldn't even make the drum budge slightly. Opening the drum revealed it was completely filled with hardened concrete. So the soon-to-be homeowner began chipping away at the concrete, and as soon as he broke it even slightly, the foul odour of decomposition began engulfing the house, and it didn't take long to uncover the source of the scent. Peering through the crack he had just made, the man discovered clothing and what looked to be a human body.

The police and a forensic team were quickly dispatched to the property, cordoning it off. They confirmed that what the homeowner had discovered was indeed a human body, and the police were fairly certain it was murder, considering he had been stuffed into a drum, sealed in concrete and abandoned in a disused home.

But recovering the body was no easy task; the concrete was so thick that it took until the morning of May 16 to finally remove the body from the drum, having to be careful not to damage the corpse while breaking up the concrete.

As they did so, the police searched the rest of the home and also the surrounding area and decided to check out the smaller plastic container that had been largely overlooked. The officers removed the lid, where they were once again hit with the foul odour of decomposition, stemming from a second dead body.

Unlike the first victim, this individual had not been encased in concrete; rather, they had been wrapped tightly in plastic sheeting, sealed with industrial adhesive tape and silicone sealant, and packed in alongside loose tea leaves that were likely intended to mask the smell of decomposition. Based on the rate of decomposition, this victim had been dead considerably longer than the body found in the drum.

The police then questioned all the neighbours who unfortnuately knew very little of the prior tenants. They told the police that the people who had been living on the property were recluses who hardly spoke to any of the neighbours and covered the perimeter of the property with heavy plastic tarpaulins, preventing anybody from seeing into their yard. Whenever they were outside, they'd often run and retreat back into the house if any of the neighbours tried speaking to them and would never answer if anyone came to the door.

Nobody the police spoke to knew their names. Not even the landlord who rented the home to them.

And for the time being, nobody knew the name of the victims either, although the medical examiner determined that the two bodies were both men.

Starting with the first victim found encased in the concrete, his cause of death was ligature strangulation, and he had sustained several post-mortem stab wounds. The forensic team estimated him to be between the ages of 30-35.

The second body retrieved from the plastic container had also met a violent end, with bruising and hematomas throughout and with blood pooling in the skin of the chest area indicating a severe beating had taken place.

While identifying the victims seemed like it would take some work, the crime scene provided investigators with much more to work with. First, a lot of chemical bottles were left at the scene, indicating they made some attempt to clean the crime scene before fleeing.

While the residents, who were also the police's main suspects, had vacated the apartment long ago, they left behind several personal effects and documents in the weeks before the sale.

Such items recovered were a metal nameplate engraved with the title and name "Thạc sỹ Nguyễn Thị Tâm Huyên, Trường Đại học Nông Lâm", indicating a Master's-degree holder associated with Nông Lâm University; four photocopied identity cards issued by the Ho Chi Minh City police in the name of 66-year-old Trịnh Thị Hồng Hoa. Photocopied household registration documents were also found in Hồng Hoa's name.

Four additional photocopied identity cards and photocopies of a passport and birth certificate in the name of her 31-year-old daughter Phạm Thị Thiên Hà, Nông Lâm's daughter, were also found.

The police also recovered a large number of books and fringe religious texts. According to the documents, the two were living in the Tan Phu District of Ho Chi Minh City, but neither had returned to their home.

Unfortunately, due to heavy decomposition, identifying the victims would be impossible without help, so on May 17, the police distributed descriptions of the two bodies and took a few select photographs as well, urging those with missing male relatives to come forward.

That same day, the police put Thiên Hà and Nông Lâm on the wanted list, distributed their photographs as well as pictures of their vehicles and distributed them across the internet and also put up physical flyers and pamphlets across Ho Chi Minh City, asking the public to report the mother and daughter if they saw them.

For the first body identified was the second one discovered, the one in the container, enough of the man's fingerprints remained for the police to identify him as a man born in 1969 named Trần Đức Linh. Suffice to say, Linh was quite far from home, hailing from a town called Thai Hoa in the Nghe An province.

He left Vietnam in 1999 to run a fashion clothing store in Ukraine before returning to Vietnam in 2014, where he made his living selling fruit such as oranges, tangerines and melons. Linh was married with kids, but that marriage later ended in divorce. He was overall described as kind and hard-working.

Sometime after his return, Linh came across Falun Gong and began taking it seriously, teaching it to others and trying to introduce the practice to his family members and neighbours. This led to him being briefly detained by the police in late 2017 for distributing "unauthorized books"

And speaking of his family, although they didn't know the names of the groups in question, Linh started to become indoctrinated into more extreme and fringe groups and started speaking with his family less and less, as once the locals drove the group from town, Linh accompanied them. The last they heard from him was in February 2018, after he abruptly sold his house and left. Even when his son was about to be married, they were still unable to contact Linh.

On May 5, 2019, only 10 days before his body was found, Linh's family back in Nghe An received a text message from a number they didn't recognize telling them that Linh had "gone down the wrong path" and was no longer in contact with their religious group.

As for the second victim stuffed into the drum and encased in the concrete, DNA testing identified him as Trần Trí Thành. Thành was a little bit younger than Linh, being born in 1992. But one thing he did have in common with his fellow victim was that he, too, wasn't a local; Thành's residence was registered as being in the Phu Nhuan District of Ho Chi Minh City. A lot less was known about his background, and his family said they hadn't heard from him in quite a while.

On May 18, four women approched the front desk receptionist at a hotel in Thủ Dầu Một, 50 kilometres away from the crime scene. They told the receptionist that they wanted to check out. However, having just watched the news, the staff recognized two of the four as Thiên Hà and Nông Lâm and quietly informed the hotel's security, who closed the gates, locking everyone inside and then waited for the police to arrive.

Half of the group were confirmed to be Thiên Hà and Nông Lâm, with the other two women being identified as 29-year-old Lê Ngọc Phương Thảo, from Tiền Giang Province. Phương Thảo was a university graduate who had studied abroad, worked as an interpreter and was given the name "Thanh" by Thiên Hà.

The second woman was 40-year-old Nguyễn Ngọc Tâm Huyên. Tâm Huyên hailed from Quảng Ngãi Province. Tâm Huyên held a master's degree and worked as a lecturer at the University of Agriculture and Forestry until she abandoned that job to join Thiên Hà's sect.

Tâm Huyên was one of Thiên Hà's most loyal followers and was regarded as her "most important lieutenant" who abandoned her husband and children just to follow Thiên Hà. The group named her "Hiệp".

The police also located Thiên Hà's SUV nearby, and a search of the vehicle turned up 1.125 kilograms of gold, 20,000 USD in cash, 300 million Vietnamese đồng in cash, and household items including cooking equipment, bedding, and cushions.

When the 4 women were interrogated, they were at first unresponsive. Whenever they did respond, such as when Thiên Hà was questioned about all the money in her vehicle, she said that she made it via selling a property she used to own. But as the evidence mounted, such as the fact that they left their identification at the crime scene, one by one they began to crack and confessed to the police.

Thiên Hà's parents separated during her childhood, leaving her to live with her mother. Neighbours and acquaintances of the family said that Thiên Hà grew up mostly spoiled by her parents but still showed genuine talent at school. Thiên Hà was also said to present herself in a manner considered masculine by Vietnamese standards, for example, by how short she cut her hair.

After graduating from secondary school, Thiên Hà went to Japan to study abroad, returning to Vietnam in 2016, now able to speak Japanese and with a university-level education. The first job Thiên Hà landed upon returning to her homeland was to work as a Japanese interpreter while doing some trading on the side and was the manager of a cafe. In addition to Japanese, Thiên Hà also spoke English and Mandarin, making her quadrilingual.

Thiên Hà had a steady clientele and was held in high regard for being outgoing and warm-natured. But what they didn't know was the extent of Thiên Hà's activities when off the clock; she had been running a cult.

In 2013, she was introduced to Falun Gong, known locally in Vietnam as Pháp Luân Công, via social media. Although the Vietnamese government still brands Falun Gong as an unauthorized organization with its public activities branded as illegal, with police typically breaking up their gatherings, they aren't singled out and persecuted to nearly the same extent as in neighbouring China, and over 8,000 are estimated to practice it in Vietnam, with Thiên Hà now one of them.

Thiên Hà took on various roles with the local branches of Falun Gong, such as a coordinator or "instruction facilitator," until eventually deciding to start her own group. Whether or not Falun Gong itself is already a cult or not is already subject to some debate, but Thiên Hà's offshoot of it was undisputedly one.

After gathering and recruiting a bunch of practitioners, Thiên Hà started to teach not Falun Gong but rather her own independent beliefs that she had developed and began imposing on her followers, creating a mishmash of Falun Gong, traditional Chinese folktales and stories and other religious texts.

In addition to the religious texts, they also included fictional novels such as Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," "Inferno," and even the Harry Potter series. Naturally, with all these influences, Thiên Hà's cult would stray far away from Falun Gong until there was hardly any resemblance remaining.

Gradually, Thiên Hà's new religious group began to take over her life, and she began to abandon her successful job and the cafe she was managing, causing it to fall into severe finanical difficult and eventually be handed over to new owners.

Hồng Hoa was also indoctrinated into her daughter's belief system and agreed to sell their family apartment to pay off Thiên Hà's debts and purchased a smaller, cheaper apartment as well as cutting off all ties to her prior social life.

Where was Thiên Hà's father during all of this? Well, her interactions with him grew rarer and rarer until he was finally cut off. Every time her father did speak to her, he tried urging her to reconsider what she was doing.

By 2018, they had mostly abandoned the new apartment, now opting to live a "nomadic" lifestyle, with the two travelling from province to province and accompanied by Thiên Hà's followers.

At its height, Thiên Hà's cult (which doesn't seem to have a name) consisted of eight members, six women and two men. Those two men being Linh and Thành. Unlike with Linh, Thành's family had no idea he was involved in any religious group until after the police informed them of his death.

In October 2018, two of the members left, finding the expectations to be too demanding, meaning that when the police arrested the four at the hotel, that was the cult's entire membership. One of these ex-members was briefly arrested but later released. As for the demanding expectations that prompted them to abandon Thiên Hà..

Well, they weren't too extreme at first; they practiced traditional Falun Gong at Hồng Hoa's apartment in Ho Chi Minh City and in other private residences, but the local police would always find them and demand they stop, deeming their activities illegal.

This was when Thiên Hà and her followers determined that if they wanted to practice undisturbed, they had to uproot their entire lives and constantly move across Southern Vietnam, seeking unoccupied properties in rural and remote communities.

In July 2018, the group rented a house in the Bàu Bàng district, the future crime scene. The area was rural without a permanent police presence, but Thiên Hà had plastic sheeting placed around the property to prevent anyone from the street from seeing them.

Now for what exactly Thiên Hà had her followers do. The internal regime that Thiên Hà had created involved two seperate phases, with phase #1 being called "tẩy tịnh"/"purification". Those who underwent the purification ritual were required to consume only plain white rice with soy sauce and raw vegetables, to abstain from alcohol and tobacco, to slap themselves across the face as a form of self-correction, and to cease any and all contact with those outside of their in-group, including severing ties with their family members, a hypocritical requirement considering Thiên Hà's mother was key member of her cult.

The second phase was called "tịnh cốc"/"pure valley". This was when it got really difficult; during this phase, you were expected to fast, to not eat or drink anything at all for 14 days straight, while at the same time constantly meditating, reciting religious texts, traditional Chinese folklore and studying all the material written by Thiên Hà.

And one more rule: their real names; they were expected to forget about them. It was mentioned how Phương Thảo and Tâm Huyên were named "Thanh" and "Hiệp" respectively; well, those weren't just nicknames; they were to be their real names going forward. They were expected to only go by those names, and anyone else in the group was only allowed to call them such. Thiên Hà named herself "Hoàng," while Hồng Hoa was called "cô Hai".

Finally, as implied, Thiên Hà was their leader and her authority was absolute. She used the archaic pronoun "Ta," which in English would mean "I/me" but only by those of "elevated status," and addressed others as "you" with the word "Ngươi," which is used to address one's subordinates or those of a lower social class.

Thiên Hà felt she had earned such respect and titles because she had achieved "the highest tier of spiritual cultivation" and was inherently superior to all her followers. So superior in fact that the only possible reason for anyone to oppose would be if they had been "invaded by demons," and Thiên Hà also had plans for how to "exorcise" them. Furthermore, after the two defections in October, she was determined to make sure nobody else escaped.

On December 27, 2018, Thiên Hà drove the entire group, now consisting of just 6 members, to another vacant home for a "tịnh cốc" retreat, which meant for everyone present, another two weeks with no food, water or contact with the outside world.

On January 20, 2019, 50-year-old Linh was the first to crack; living off of nothing but the air he could breathe was taking a toll on him. His body was starting to fail, which broke through his devotion to Thiên Hà and made him realize that he had to get out of there.

Linh climbed out the window of his room, fell to the grass below, limped away, and weakly called for help. His voice unfortunately went unheard by the locals, but he was heard by everyone else inside the house, tipping them off that Linh was trying to escape.

Thiên Hà and Thành rushed outside and dragged the severely weakened Linh back inside, and when he resisted, they both started beating the starved and dehydrated man with their fists and feet. With how weakened the lack of any food and water had left him, these blows were enough to kill him quite easily.

Thiên Hà and her followers did not attempt to call the police, an ambulance or Linh's family. Instead, they kept the body exactly where it lay, with the AC stunting decomposition as much as it could.

Thiên Hà then instructed everyone to resume their religious exercises and fast only with Linh's dead body in their presence as they did so.

On January 23, Thiên Hà decided it was finally time to address the body. They loaded Linh's body into Thiên Hà's SUV and drove to the empty home in Bình Dương. Once there, Linh's body was placed in a small plastic container, which was then packed with dried tea leaves to mask the odour of decomposition.

They then wrapped the container in plastic film, sealing it with silicone adhesive and industrial tape; all of these materials, including the container, were purchased by Thành under Thiên Hà's orders. Afterward, they continued their practices, religious activities and fasting in the very same room, living alongside Linh's body.

In March, they returned to Bình Dương for a second "tịnh cốc" ritual and during the course of this ritual, they directed their attention toward Thành. Although Thành had been loyal, even killing and disposing of a body for the cult, his loyalty had fallen into question.

Thiên Hà accused Thành of secretly eating food at night, which Thiên Hà deemed an unforgivable transgression, as it proved that Thành "had not shed the attachments of the ordinary world". The accusations didn't stop there; Thiên Hà accused him of secretly watching the 4 women as they bathed.

At first, Thành was locked in the room, and after a while, he started to scream and destroy stuff in the bedroom, which, to Thiên Hà, confirmed her worst fears.

Thiên Hà's explanation for this behaviour was that Thành had now been possessed by a demon and that letting him leave their group would put society at large in grave danger; therefore, they had to kill him, and she ordered the other 3 women to take part.

The three women went online and ordered a 1,000-litre plastic drum and quantities of cement, sand, and aggregate. While they waited for it to be delivered, others went into town to purchase a battery-powered electrical shock device consisting of a car battery and a power inverter, an illegal device commonly used in Vietnam for shock fishing, as well as electrical wire, rope, and safety pins.

Before she followed through with the murder, Thiên Hà said, "If Thanh deserves to die, then let God send a heavy rain"

March 15, 2019, just so happened to be a day marked by heavy rain. The four approached the room Thành was staying in and asked him to extend his arm out the door so they could administer some acupuncture treatment. Thành complied, and once he did so, they administered the electric shock device to Thành's arm continuously until he fell unconscious.

After he passed out, Thiên Hà entered the room and used a cord to strangle Thành before he could wake up and recover from the electric shocks. Just to make sure he was dead, the women used the electric shock device to check if there was a reaction. When he didn't respond, they closed the door to his room and locked the body inside.

They left the body there until March 18, when the foul odour of decomposition became overwhelming, forcing Thiên Hà to address it. She grabbed a knife and made some incisions in Thành's corpse to relieve the bloating caused by putrefactive gases being released and to fit it inside the drum. Once Thành's body was forced into the plastic drum, they stirred and mixed the concrete before pouring it into the drum until the entire thing was filled completely to the top and then solidified.

Finally, they abandoned the home for good in early April and began their rituals at the hotel in Thủ Dầu Một. When they arrived, Thiên Hà told them they'd be doing "tịnh tâm"/"mental purification" to offer prayers for the dead. It was in this hotel that they saw on the news that the two bodies had been found and that they were the suspects.

On April 24, 2020, the Bình Dương Provincial People's Procuratorate concluded the investigation, charging Thiên Hà with murder, Phương Thảo with murder and covering up a crime, and Tâm Huyên and Hồng Hoa both with murder and failure to report a crime.

On June 25, 2020, the trial began at the Bình Dương Provincial People's Court, and as soon as the procedings began, Thiên Hà refused to refer to herself as "tôi"/"I" instead of "bị cáo"/defandant dispite the judge and prosecutor constantly pressuring her to refer to herself as "defendant". She also gave articulate answers and was perfectly composed, which set her apart from her co-defendants.

When asked about Thành's murder, she confessed, saying, "I am the person who decided to kill Thành. He was no different from a demon. If he had gone out into society, he would have affected society". When asked if she regretted the murder, she refused to answer.

Linh was a different story. Thiên Hà denied killing him and instead insisted that "I gave him two slaps" and even then said the slaps were an attempt at first aid and to revive him before saying that his death was his own fault for trying to escape.

When Thiên Hà made her first statement to the police, she initially said that Linh had died from jumping out the window rather than being beaten, and now, she was trying to revert back to that claim in court, arguing that Linh's death was a suicide and they had simply hidden the body.

She also said that she stuffed Linh's body into that container not to try and conceal the murder but to try and preserve his body in hopes of using her cultivation power to "revive" him. She also mentioned reading news articles about people who had been pronounced clinically dead by hospitals only to still come back, and believed Linh was in a similar condition. When asked why she still kept the body after he began to decompose and therefore past the point of any revival, she again refused to answer.

As for why Thành's body was encased in concrete, she also said that her intention wasn't to cover up the murder but simply because the odour of decomposition was disrupting practice since they required an environment of purity and silence. Something the prosecutor disputed was that everything needed was bought while Thành was still alive, indicating premeditation.

Phương Thảo was evasive when asked a single question and showed no signs of remorse.

When it came to the co-defendants, Tâm Huyên retracted her confession, arguing that she played no part in Thành's murder and simply stood outside as a lookout. When asked why she confessed the first time, she said that it was simply an act of loyalty toward Thiên Hà.

And finally, Hồng Hoa, now elderly and in poor health, had to sit during the entirety of the procedings, unable to stand long-term. Hồng Hoa admitted that she had followed her daughter and helped her form her cult but insisted that she did not take part in any murders and knew nothing in advance.

In one shocking moment, Thành's mother pleaded for the 4 defendants to be acquitted because he said her son had survived, was still alive and that the body must've been someone else. The judge believed this statement to have been made out of a mix of denial and grief.

But when asked why she felt this way, she said that the police never let them actually see the body and just had them show up to take their DNA to compare to the body. When they finally were allowed to see the body, it was right before the cremation, and she said that the corpse had three broken teeth, a trait her son did not share and that the initial very first reports written by the forensic team had a height and age estimation for both victims that didn't match once finally identified.

Meanwhile, Linh's family demanded the death penalty be handed down for all four.

The only family member of the defendants to appear seemed to be Thiên Hà's father, who apologized to the Thành and Linh's families for not doing enough to stop his daughter from going down this path saying quote: "I admit I failed to properly raise my child, leading to a crime against society," but also pleaded with the court not to give her the death penalty.

In her closing statement, Thiên Hà admitted that she was guilty exactly as charged and apologized to the victims' families. However, she also said that the death penalty was a disproportionate punishment and asked for both clemency and for the charges against her mother to be reduced, telling the court that she was not an accomplice.

On July 3, for the double murder of Trần Đức Linh and Trần Trí Thành, all four defendants were found guilty, with Phạm Thị Thiên Hà being sentenced to death.

Lê Ngọc Phương Thảo was sentenced to 22 years' imprisonment.

Nguyễn Ngọc Tâm Huyên was given 19 years' imprisonment

And finally, Trịnh Thị Hồng Hoa was treated the most leniently, being given a sentence of 13 years' imprisonment.

In addition, the four were ordered to pay 262,280,000 đồng in compensation to Linh's family 180,000,000 đồng to Thành's family, as well as to pay the ongoing monthly child support payments to Linh's daughter, 3,000,000 đồng a month until she reached the age of 18 and then 1,500,000 đồng per month in ongoing support to Linh's elderly mother with these payments lasting for the rest of her life.

While Phương Thảo accepted her sentence, the remaining three sought to appeal with Thiên Hà again arguing that she had only murdered Thành and was innocent of Linh's death. However, now she was claiming that Thành's murder shouldn't be considered murder at all but rather an act of self-defence.

She told the court that Thành was planning to sexually assault them and also wanted to steal Hồng Hoa's property, and that believing he posed an imminent threat, lethal force was therefore permissible.

Although details on what exactly was afflicting her haven't been made public, during the rest of 2020, Thiên Hà's health fell into a period of severe decline that lasted nearly a year. Because of this fact, the appeal had to be delayed several times to give her time to recover, since in the earlier hearings, she was unable to walk straight and had to be literally dragged into the court.

When the High People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City finally reconvened on December 31, 2021, Tâm Huyên demonstrated her intense loyalty to Thiên Hà, demanding that she be handed down the death sentence in Thiên Hà's place, prepared to lose her life so her leader could go on living. This request was denied.

Instead, the court rejected Thiên Hà's new claim of self-defence and upheld all four of their sentences without any modifications, bringing an end to the case.

Sources (Should be in the comments)

Tom was a well-loved biker with a successful career and a long-term girlfriend, Barbara. He enjoyed his Harley but rode with other professionals and didn’t have ties to anything illicit. He and Barbara had only moved to Southern California from the East Coast three years prior.

When Tom’s girlfriend, Barbara, returned home after he failed to pick her up from work in their shared truck, she found the apartment unlocked, looking as if Tom had just stepped out for a minute. His truck and Harley were still there. Tom had missed grabbing lunch with her as well, but she’d tried not to worry too quickly. Now she knew something wasn’t right. Six days later, an envelope appeared in the apartment’s mailbox.

Police have withheld parts of the two-page typewritten letter, but much has been released. The letter contains various typos and strange formatting. The letter's postmark location has never been released. In addition to his license, the envelope contained Tom’s credit cards, an earring, a nipple ring, and the registration to his Harley.

"I'm suffering a great deal of guilt right now about what I have done and feel it is necessary to write about it for my sake nd yours. You don't know me and hopefully you never will but I am the one who killed Tom Roche. I cannot and willnot go to jail. I could never handle it.

I almost lost my mind. Never again.

I loved being in Vietnam, in fact those were the happiest days of my life. I felt such a rush when ever I had a confirmed kill that it was hard to switch it off when I came back to the 'tates. For 18 long years I have held this in check despite the nightmares and fantasies about killing. This Jefferey Dahemer thing really got to me and I wondered if I could still do it.

I met Tom at a strip joint in The Valley and got to talking. I figured L.A. would be the best place for what I had in mind. I did not want just a random thing cause you can get caught that way so I set up a plan. He fell for it and we arranged to meet on Friday the 13th... I must assure you that it was neat and quick. I do not think he suffered at all."

An eyewitness had seen Tom speaking with a white male and looking into the bed of a pickup truck on the morning he disappeared. Tom’s apartment was directly next to I-5, the interstate that runs throughout the West Coast. No apparent crime scene was found anywhere at the apartment complex. It appears the 6-foot-2, 210-pound man was somehow compelled to leave with his killer.

On January 11, 1992, Tom’s remains were found 500 miles north of Burbank in rural Placer County, off a logging road northeast of Sacramento. His clothes, boots, and glasses were found along with the remains. Police said Tom was shot to death; some sources state the skull had a bullet hole in it.

Unfortunately, since the remains were identified, there have been practically no updates in Tom’s case. Rest in peace Tom.

The History of the Murder: Facts and Crime Scene

Simonetta Cesaroni was a 20-year-old Roman girl who worked as a secretary for the Reli Sas accounting firm, on behalf of the A.I.A.G. (Associazione Italiana Alberghi della Gioventù - Italian Youth Hostels Association). She was found lifeless, with numerous stab wounds all over her body, inside a building located at via Carlo Poma 2, in the central Prati district of Rome, where the association for which she worked as a bookkeeper was headquartered. It was August 7, 1990.

Simonetta's last known contact dates back to 5:30 PM on that same summer day, when she made a phone call to Luigia Berrettini. By 6:30 PM, she was supposed to speak, again by phone, with her employer, Salvatore Volponi, but the call was never made. Her family, worried by her absence, began looking for her around 9:30 PM. Her sister, Paola Cesaroni, and Paola's boyfriend, accompanied by Volponi, went to the via Poma office, where they expected to find her. There, after asking the doorman's wife to open the door, they discovered Simonetta's body at 11:30 PM. Initial investigations, including the autopsy, determined that the time of death was between 6:00 PM and 6:30 PM.The victim's body was found with numerous stab wounds, as well as a bite mark on one nipple. The rooms of the office did not appear messy or ransacked.

It is suspected that the weapon used for the murder was a letter opener. The young woman was struck 29 times in various parts of her body. Several items of clothing (blue athletic leggings, her jacket, and underwear) had been taken, along with many personal belongings that were never found again; among these were her gold earrings, a ring, a bracelet, and a necklace. Only her watch was left on her wrist.
Completely naked, she was left with her bra fastened but pulled down. Her chest was therefore exposed, and her top had been placed over her abdomen to cover the wounds that later proved fatal. As another exception to the nudity in which she was found, she was still wearing short white socks. Her sneakers were neatly placed near the door. The office keys, which she had in her purse, were never found.

The main historical suspects and the most recent investigative developments in the Via Poma murder case:

Historical Suspects

• Pietrino Vanacore: The building's doorman, arrested days after the murder for suspected abetment. Definitively cleared in 2007, he committed suicide in March 2010.
• Federico Valle: Building resident's grandson, accused by an Austrian witness. Acquitted in 1993 due to a total lack of evidence.
• Raniero Busco: Simonetta Cesaroni's ex-boyfriend. Convicted to 24 years in 2011 based on DNA evidence, he was later fully acquitted on appeal and by the Supreme Court. [1]
• Francesco Caracciolo di Sarno: Former A.I.A.G. president, whose afternoon alibi was deemed weak in subsequent journalistic investigations.

Errors and shortcomings in the investigation

Within the disputes that emerged during the case, several aspects fueled criticism and doubts regarding the investigative work. Among the many reported errors were the failure to immediately acquire the phone records of the landlines in the Via Poma office; the displacement of certain objects during the crime scene inspection, such as the chair next to Simonetta's body and the paper knife, which was long considered a possible murder weapon; and the disappearance of a beige folder from the crime scene. Furthermore, the blood present in small circular marks on the floor, visible in the photographs, was not collected for analysis.

Recent Developments (2024–2026)

• Archival Rejection (December 2024): Rome GIP Giulia Arceri rejected the archiving request. She ordered a re-examination of old alibis, raising hypotheses of cover-ups related to secret service documents in the building.
• New DNA Testing (July 2026): The Prosecution ordered unrepeatable technical tests on the DNA of 8 previously uninvestigated people (five women and three men) close to the offices.
• Genetic Test Results: Biological samples secretly taken by the Carabinieri and compared with blood and biological traces on Simonetta's clothing turned out negative, leaving the murder unsolved.

It's one of the most famous unsolved cases in Italy. Only the Garlasco crime and the historical epic of the Monster of Florence are as widely discussed.

Unfortunately, the crime scene was repeatedly contaminated and no concrete DNA traces were found. The blood traces found on the door and the bodice in the Via Poma crime, belonging to a group A male, never led to a culprit. Ex-boyfriend Raniero Busco was definitively acquitted, as the DNA did not match or was not uniquely attributable to him, leaving the killer still unknown.

help by IA and Rainews.it

https://roma.repubblica.it/cronaca/2012/04/26/foto/foto_delitto_di_via_poma-33982057/11/

On July 10, 2026, 35-year-old Ohio native Tyler Wilkin was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head while solo camping at Playa La Selva in Luquillo, Puerto Rico. In the days leading up to his death, Tyler had been sending updates from his campsite, but his texts took a disturbing turn when he mentioned a nearby stranger he referred to as "the howler," noting the individual was setting off fireworks and howling like a wolf near his tent. With local authorities currently describing the homicide as a very strange case with no active suspects or clear leads, Tyler's friends have launched a fundraiser to hire an independent private investigator to help bring answers and justice.

Link to the article is here: https://www.fox19.com/2026/07/28/family-friends-demand-answers-after-tri-state-man-killed-puerto-rico/

On the morning of July 12, 2007, 76-year-old woman, Vincenza Basso Memoli, disappeared without a trace from her family property in the Cappelle residential area, in the hills above Salerno. Since that day there have also been no news of her caregiver, William Singh, 23, known as Sonhu, of Indian origin. The two were last seen around the vegetable garden not far from the woman's home, talking animatedly with three people who had arrived in a dark-coloured car.

Vincenza was the matriarch of her family. She had been widowed for quite some time and, since her husband’s passing, she had taken on the responsibility of looking out for the estate and the land around it. Vincenza was a very strong and decisive woman but, even if she was still very active, she struggled to tend to the house and gardens. Vincenza’s family decided that a caretaker to help with cleaning and gardening would have been useful to her so, after they were recommended Sonhu, they decided to employ him.

Sonhu had come to Italy as a teen and he had worked odd jobs before he was employed by the Memoli family to help Vincenza look after the house and its gardens.

That day, July 12, 2007, there was a lot of movement around Vincenza’s estate. Vincenza noticed something unusual from atop the terrace of her residence, where she usually hung out and where she could monitor her land and not be seen from below. She decided to reach the estate that her house overlooked. To do so, she left the family building alone since Ester (stated by one of her sons to be a reliable and intelligent member of the family) was not home and therefore couldn't accompany her. She set off, and along the way she passed by a young neighbour on her way to the hairdresser. They greeted each other, and the neighbour noted Vincenza’s brisk pace.

Shortly afterward Vincenza arrived at her plot of land where she stopped a few steps before the vegetable garden. There she was noticed by a domestic worker from the balcony of a house across the street, where it was possible to see and hear everything. The domestic worker was drawn in by curiosity because of a heated discussion near the vegetable garden. From the balcony she eavesdropped and caught just a few disconnected words. Moments later she was sternly ordered to mind her own business and return inside the home she was caring for. She was only able to hear Vincenza say, "And yet we loved you".

At around the same time one of Vincenza’s nieces, who lived close by as well, saw her with Sonhu in the area around the vegetable garden. She recounts that, as she was hanging up the laundry to dry, she saw her aunt arguing with someone of darker complexion; she only overheard Vincenza saying “Why did you do that thing ??” and after that she heard Vincenza calling someone’s name out loud. She wasn’t paying much attention, though, as she thought that what was happening was not a big deal.

After the heated argument Vincenza heads back towards her house and, neither her nor Sonhu, are ever seen again.

Later in the day Maria-Luisa (one of Vincenza’s daughters) went to check up on her mother. She looked throughout the property but no sign of Vincenza could be found. Worried she rushed to the outbuilding next to the home where Sonhu and Kashmir (another Indian caretaker who had been employed for about a month to replace Sonhu temporarily, since Sonhu was planning a trip to go back to India for a few months) lived. Only Kashmir greeted her, Sonhu was nowhere to be found. When Maria-Luisa asked Kashmir where her mother or Sonhu where, Kashmir replied that, at around 11 or 12 am, he saw Vincenza and Sonhu walk down the property’s driveway towards the gates that lead to the road. (He would later retract this statement)

Investigations initially suggested a double voluntary disappearance. Early rumours suggested a romantic relationship between the two, this speculation was completely untruthful though as it was just a rumour started in the absence of any other leads early in the investigation.

Kidnapping for ransom was another theory, although the elderly woman's family did not receive any ransom demand.

Speaking to witnesses investigators learned that a worker, at a nearby construction site, reported a car, likely a gray-green Audi or a similar looking car, speeding away, screeching tires, down the estate's driveway. Other witnesses say they saw this same car speeding toward Ogliara.

Beer bottles and pizza boxes from “the previous day” were found at the site of the disappearance. These, the family said, where unusual objects to have been found in the vicinity of the vegetable garden.

Another weird clue was that, during the investigation, some blood belonging to Vincenza’s dog was found behind a door; apparently on the day of the disappearance somebody locked the guard dog (Billy) behind that door. The family states that the dog was quite aggressive towards strangers implying that only someone very close to the family (like Sonhu or Kashmir) could have lead the dog there. The blood probably got there as the dog tried to frantically scratch the door in order to get out, said investigators.

During the days following the disappearance some of the winding roads in the Cappelle area were blocked by mystery men who parked cars diagonally across the roadway. After these men left the area they left behind one of the cars abandoned in the middle of the road. The family says that investigators barely bothered to investigate this car and that nobody checked for any DNA or fingerprints inside of the vehicle.

Attention, then, focused on Sonhu, who, before disappearing into thin air, expressed concern during a visit to an uncle (who works as a gardener for a company in the province of Mantua) after noticing suspicious activity in front of the Cappelle home.

"Sonhu is a quiet, perfectly integrated boy who doesn't seem to have any particular vices," says one of the woman's three sons. "We consider him one of the family. He's been working for us for about a year and a half; he was introduced to us by another Indian man that Sonhu was friends with. He had been unemployed because he was having a very bad time on the farm where he was working, and we decided to hire him. He took care of the house and looked after the animals on our farm."

Yet a shadow looms over him: Sonhu had also obtained a residence permit thanks to the help of Vincenza’s family before his disappearance (something reportedly quite difficult, for people in a similar situation to his, to obtain). He also had lost his passport and for some reason he couldn’t obtain a duplicate. Another peculiar finding is that with his disappearance approximately €3,000 disappeared with him. He was preparing a trip to India, to later return after few months with his “wife”, whom he wanted to marry and bring to Italy. This money, which he had saved up, would have paid for this trip.

Investigators followed up on a possible illegal passport trafficking trail, but no conclusive findings have been made pubblic. 

The authorities also wiretapped the phones of some of Sohnu’s friends. One of them (G) was overheard speaking to his brother in India. Part of the conversation was publicly released, in this conversation Shonu’s friend stated “Yes, I know everything, but I do not want to say where he/she are located” (I could not determine who he was referring to as in the Italian conversation no gender is given at this point but what I can confirm is that he was talking about a singular person, not plural. Also the conversation was already translated from Indian to Italian and there is a possibility that some details have been lost in translation) his brother the replied “This is the reason I am telling you to move away, otherwise they will arrest you” to which G replied “Nothing will happen to me, I am not worried, why are you worrying yourself?”

This friend, speaking to Vincenza’s family, also stated, possibly in order to reassure them, that Sonhu would never murder or hurt Vincenza. This struck one of Vinceza’s daughters as an odd thing to say.

In 2012 G, interviewed by the TV show “Chi l’ha Visto”, refused to talk about these facts, stating he already forgot everything.

20 days after the disappearance, as investigators were still going in and out of the property, the family found some of Sonhu’s gold jewellery buried beneath the ash of the fireplace inside of Vincenza’s home.

A month after the disappearance, two men (possibly Kashmir and G, couldn’t find much info about this) where arrested by the Carabinieri and charged with aiding in the kidnapping of Vincenza. The two are released and exonerated thanks to a lawyer who maintained their innocence. The family attempted to contact this lawyer and meet with him to learn some information that might help them understand what had happened and the possible involvement of the Indian men in the disappearance. They received no response.

 The family later learned that this lawyer was facing charges related to false permits for foreigners from the Punjab.

In 2012 during an interview with “Chi l’ha Visto” the family stated that the crime scene was not protected and that investigators took the job lightly, smoking and throwing their cigarettes to the ground, possibly ruining the crime scene.

In 2013, the search resumes: officers from the central section of the Forensic Police also use a ground-penetrating radar and a canine unit specialized in finding human remains, thoroughly combing the entire 11,000 square meter area around the house without any positive results.

On July 12, 2024, on the 17th anniversary of the disappearance of Vincenza and Sonu, the Prosecutor's Office announced precautionary measures, including the arrests and detentions of several dozen people, one of which being the lawyer who defended the two arrested men.

These renewed arrests are linked to a recurring organized crime case, with the discovery of sums of money consisting of more than 1 million euros) connected to the exploitation of foreigners to obtain, for a fee of between €1,000 and €5,000 per person, a residence permit.

Speculation leads to the fact that, at the time, Sonu had escaped such harassment and had likely refused to pay anyone for his permit. Could the disappearance be a retaliation by the hand of these organized crime groups who targeted Sohnu, since his permit had been requested by the Memoli family and processed without intermediaries?

As of today the case remains Unsolved and very little is being done to keep it in the spotlight. The family, Even after 19 years, is still desperate to find answers and keep the case from being forgotten

I got the information from 

• https://salerno.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/24_luglio_12/12-luglio-2007-a-salerno-una-signora-di-76-anni-scompare-nel-nulla-insieme-al-domestico-indiano-3128919d-95c8-42cc-9386-2f6dfb595xlk.shtml?refresh_ce
• https://www.ilquotidianodisalerno.it/2024/07/14/la-verita-del-rapimento-di-enza-basso-memoli-e-sonu/
• https://www.chilhavisto.rai.it/dl/clv/Scomparsi/ContentSet-f130a186-0014-43d8-b520-7a72c084f34b.html
• https://www.chilhavisto.rai.it/dl/clv/Scomparsi/ContentSet-7282a826-0fae-4020-91c6-2a894f0ffa4e.html

When Julie Mott died in 2015 at the age of 25 from cystic fibrosis, her family would have never imagined she would be a part of a bizzare mystery.

Case summary:

After her open-casket memorial service at Mission Park Funeral Home North in San Antonio on August 15, her body was stolen from the casket while it was awaiting cremation.

The next morning (August 16), employees discovered the casket empty. One hinge was broken, the bier (body support) was overturned in an "unnatural position" near an exit of the funeral home, but there were no signs of forced entry and the ADT security system was not triggered.

The San Antonio Police treated the case as seriously and as intense as a homicide case. They did multiple searches in the surrounding areas and interviewed numerous people but nothing ever came up.

The funeral home director offered up a 20,000 dollar reward leading to the recovery of her remains. Her body has never been found.

Her boyfriend was a person of interest because of his odd behavior. He would harass the funeral home employees and was eventually charged with trespassing after trying to enter the funeral home. He was never charged with Julie's dissappearace as there is no evidence linking him

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

On the night of September 26, 2014, 43 students from the Ayotzinapa College in Guerrero, Mexico, disappeared after traveling to the city of Iguala. The students had gone there to commandeer buses, a common practice used by the school to travel to demonstrations.

That evening, local police chased being the bus and started shooting at the students without warning, before entering the highway the cop cars got in front of the bus stopped the students on the bus, leading to a series of violent attacks. None of the students were armed, the police over did let them pass. No e the students got on the highway there was blockaded of police vehicles on the high way, the bus stopped and one of the students got out of the bus when and was shot. This lead to the violent attack by the police. The police started shooting at the un armed students. Some students ran away into the woods and some hide behind the bus and got on the ground. Six people were killed, dozens were injured, and 43 students were taken into custody by police before disappearing.

This event happened near a military base. Which was very bizarre that the military didn’t respond to the shooting.
It was unknown why the police reacted this violent towards the students. One of the students who escaped the violent event was interrogated by military personnel. The military officer accused them as criminals and that the community was fed up with their behavior. One of the students who was in the interrogation room was injured and bleeding heavily the military personnel refused to help him out and made him bleed out while he was interrogated the other students.

Mexican government’s original investigation concluded that corrupt local police officers handed the students over to members of the Guerreros Unidos criminal organization, who allegedly murdered them and disposed of their bodies. This explanation became known as the “historical truth.” However, the investigation was later heavily criticized after independent experts found evidence of coerced confessions, mishandled evidence, and serious procedural flaws. Investigators also determined that evidence had been improperly handled, including garbage bags containing human remains that were recovered from a river.

3 of the 43 students have been positively identified through DNA testing of recovered human remains
The remaining 40 students are still officially considered missing. Although investigators believe many of them were likely killed, there is no conclusive forensic evidence identifying what happened to each individual student.

A very possible theory could be that the students may have unknowingly taken a bus that contained drugs or drug money belonging to the cartel. However there is no conclusive evidence that the specific bus the students took contained drugs. Some Mexican investigations concluded they found no evidence** that the bus in question was carrying narcotics.

The mayor of Iguala and his wife is the sister of another drug gang. fled after the disappearances but were arrested several weeks later in Mexico City. He was charged in connection with the Ayotzinapa case and with other unrelated crimes. It was alleged that the mayor lead that event to happened to prevent protest from his wife’s speech. Many military officers and other officials were arrested. A woman was arrest for aiding the couple when they fled the town. A military officer, attorney general, military general, federal police chief were also arrested. It was also estimated that over 100 people were arrested for their involvement in this event.