True Crime Stuffs

Adrianne Reynolds, (first image), had moved from Kilgore, Texas, to East Moline, Illinois at the age of 16, to move in with her adoptive parents. She went to Black Hawk College to earn her GED, and it is there that she met Cory Gregory, (second image), and Sarah Kolb (last image). 

She at first did not have many friends, but then was invited by Sarah Kolb to join her group of friends. The two dated for a while, before some altercations let to the demise of this relationship. In that time, she began to have a “relationship” per se with Cory Gregory, who was actually Sarah’s ex-boyfriend and would do anything that she’d tell him to. When Sarah found out about this relationship, she became even more infuriated than before and completely disbanded any form of relationship with Adrianne. 

Adrianne was confused as to how their friendship, to relationship, had ended so horribly. She often wrote her letters and begged for her forgiveness which only annoyed Sarah even more, since this form of neediness really ticked her off. Since she knew she could get Cory to do anything, she got him to form part of her plan to kill Adrianne.

On January 21 2005, Sarah had invited Adrianne to join her and Cory for lunch at Taco Bell. One can only imagine how ecstatic Adrianne might have felt at this notion, since the two had a rocky relationship for all this time. While on their trip over there, the two, Adrianne and Sarah, began to argue in the car, and Cory mentioned that it had been with regards to the various problems within their friendship. 

In the parking lot, Sarah began to choke Adrianne with a belt, while Cory held her down. Adrianne also beat her with a wooden handle, until she eventually died. Much speculation is still present as to what else happened in the car, since many believe that Cory had a larger role in this murder and he just refuses to say so. 

They then took the body to Sarah’s grandparents’ farm where they tried to burn it by setting it on fire. After various hours of it not setting on fire, they contacted Nathan Gaudet, a 16 year old kid, to dismember the body. He removed Adrianne’s head and arms and placed them in a garbage bag. They then had a meal at McDonald’s and got rid of the garbage bag at the Black Hawk State Park. Police found her body a couple days later, on January 26, 2005. 

In 1993, 23 year old Omaima Nelson was convicted of murdering her 56 year old husband, William Nelson. When she committed the murder, she had tied him up, killed him, decapitated him, chopped his body up into pieces and disemboweled him, using a garbage disposal to chop up his parts into little bits. 

Police found his body parts hidden in trash bags that also contained leftover turkey. But of course, this isn’t the worst part of it all. She cooked some of William Nelson up, such as his ribs, and ate it along with BBQ sauce. 

She has bid for parole, October 2011 being her second time, yet the Parole Board said she’d have to stay behind bars for 15 more years. She was 43 at the time.

                  Her at the time of her first trial when she was 23. 

In 1971, Richard Caputo was found incompetent to stand trial after he stabbed his girlfriend, Natalie Brown, to death. He was committed to a psychiatric hospital and while there, he reportedly started a relationship with one of the psychologists who had treated him, Judith Becker. Caputo was transferred to a minimum security psychiatric hospital and was eventually given day release due to good behavior.

In October 1974, Caputo went to the home of Judith and strangled her. He fled to San Francisco and laid low and kept out of trouble until 1975, when he met Barbara Ann Taylor and the two began to date. They only dated for a brief period before he beat her to death and fled to Mexico. While in Mexico, Caputo killed his fourth victim, Laura Gomez, whom he was sharing an apartment with. Over the next 20 years, Caputo managed to avoid apprehension and kept travelling back and forth from Mexico to USA.

16-year-old Esmie Tseng was an honour student from Overland Park, Kansas. She kept a blog which mostly mirrored any other average teenager. She was sarcastic and she loved music. However, in these postings, she gave a darker insight into her home life. She revealed that her Chinese immigrant parents, Shu Yi Zhang and Tao Tseng, held her to impossibly high standards.

An avid and impressive piano player, they threatened to sell her piano if she didn’t win a competition. They grounded her for scoring only 96% in a test. They threatened to move state because she got a few B’s in a report card that was otherwise filled with A’s. They forced her to stand naked in the corner when she disappointed them. In fact, they often blamed Esmie for their own problems. On one occasion, Esmie’s mother was fired and blamed Esmie, saying it was her fault she couldn’t retire. Her mother even left notes on her computer in which she would say she was ashamed of Esmie and that she was lazy and a disappointment. If somebody ever complimented Esmie on the plethora of maths medals she has accumulated, Shi and Tao would correct them and say that it was nothing to be proud of and that she wasn’t intelligent.

On Christmas Eve of 1990, Thomas J. Grasso broke into the home of 87-year-old Hilda Johnson and strangled her to death with her own Christmas tree lights before stealing a measly $12 and her TV. Grasso then moved to New York with his wife, Lana, where he broke into the home of 81-year-old Leslie Holtz and strangled him to death and stole  his Social Security check. Grasso was sentenced to death. After making a number of bizarre statements on the day of his execution, he had a last meal of steamed mussels, steamed clams, a double cheeseburger from Burger King, a half-dozen barbecued spare ribs, two strawberry milkshakes, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, diced strawberries, and a 16-ounce can of spaghetti with meatballs which was served at room temperature. His last words before being executed by lethal injection were:

It was a brisk winter morning at Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego on the 29th of January, 1979. The children were waiting outside for Principal Burton Wragg to unlock the schoolyard gate so they could begin their day of learning. However, this day would change their lives forever. Inside her home just 100 feet away was 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer. She was setting up a vantage point with her Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic and her .22 caliber rifle, both of which were gifts from her father.

Then she pulled the trigger and then again and again until the schoolyard was filled with screams of children. She fired 30 rounds of ammunition. She injured 8 children, ranging in age from 6-years-old to 12-years-old, and killed Wragg and the school custodian, Mike Suchar, as they protected the children. She also shot a responding police officer in the neck. After the shooting, she barricaded herself in her home. When a reporter called to speak to her and ask her why she did what she did, she cooly responded: “I just did it for the fun of it. I just don’t like Mondays. I did this because it’s a way to cheer up the day. Nobody likes Mondays.”

Six hours after the shooting, Brenda finally surrendered and was detained at Juvenile Hall. Those who knew Brenda told authorities that she often spoke about guns and bragged that she was going to kill a police officer one day. The shooting became the inspiration for The Boomtown Rats song “I Don’t Like Mondays.” Brenda pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. In 1993, she became eligible for parole hearings but has been denied parole each time.

The letters started in 1976; the citizens of Circleville, Ohio, were living in fear. Numerous residents had received ominous anonymous letters from somebody who claimed to be watching them and watching them they certainly were… The letters detailed private and personal information and were always written in block letters, most likely in an attempt to obscure the true identity of the author. Over 1,000 letters were sent. While many of the citizens were targeted, the vindictive writer seemed to zone in on one person in particular.

Mary Gillespie was a local school bus driver and she was the brunt of the abuse. She received disturbing letters in which the writer disclosed where she lived and frequently threatened her children. In addition to the threats, the letters detailed an apparent affair Mary was having behind her husband, Ron’s, back. Mary denied these claims but they soon wended through the tight-knight community who judged Mary for her apparent wrongdoings. A letter soon arrived for Ron, threatening that his life was in danger if he ignored the affair. After ignoring the letter, in August of 1977, Ron received a phone call. It was presumed the phone call was from the “Circleville Writer.” After slamming down the phone, he grabbed his gun and told his family he was going to confront the letter writing before storming out of the house. He was never seen alive again. Shortly after leaving, his wrecked car was discovered, slammed into a tree on a road that Ron had driven on thousands of times before. Bizarrely, his gun had been shot once. Initially, police claimed foul play was involved but that suddenly changed: it was accidental, they claimed. If this were true then how does it explain the gun being fired?

As if Mary hadn’t been tormented enough, the letters continued but now, the mysterious writer was even more aggressive. He was now placing menacing signs up along her bus route for the whole town to see. On the 7th of February, 1978, Mary decided enough was enough. Previously she had ignored these signs but today, she saw one that infuriated her. She saw a sign along her bus route that threatened her daughter. Nobody was in the bus so she pulled up alongside the sign and went to tear it down. To her horror, when she ripped it down, she realised it had been booby-trapped. Behind the sign was a gun that was set up to shoot when the sign was moved. Thankfully, there was a flaw in the mechanism and it didn’t fire. An investigation uncovered that the gun was registered to Mary’s brother-in-law, Paul Freshour. He staunchly denied he was involved and reported that his gun had been stolen during a recent break in.

Despite the fact that Paul’s fingerprints were not found on the gun or any of the letters or booby trap, he was found guilty of attempted murder. A handwriting expert concluded that the handwriting in the letters matched Paul’s handwriting. However, they came to this conclusion after asking him to replicate the letters in the same style of writing - block capitals. This is unheard of when it comes to handwriting analysis. If you’re attempting to replicate a particular writing style, then you’re going to be obscuring your own. Furthermore, a search of his home uncovered nothing that indicated he was guilty in regards to the letters or the booby trap. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to 7 to 25 years for attempted murder. Investigators and citizens alike assumed that now Paul was behind bars, the letters would cease. How wrong they were.

“Shame how things work out. But better you than me. The sheriff says: you did it. But we know better don’t we,” said a letter received by Paul while in prison. In fact, Paul had been in solitary confinement and was unable to send mail. Nevertheless, the sinister letters continued to arrive; both to Paul and to the concerned citizens on Circleville. Prison guards quickly changed their opinion on Paul’s guilt. They knew he wasn’t sending the letters because it was impossible for him to do so yet the letters with the same handwriting style continued. Paul was finally released after 10 years and staunchly denied any involvement until his death in 2012.

The cult classic film, The Crow, follows the story of Eric Draven, a man who comes back from the dead to execute the gang who murdered him and his fiance. Director Alex Proyas gave the film a distinctive gothic look similar to the empire of the original “Batman” movies. Unfortunately, however, during filming there was a tragedy which cost a member of the main cast his life. Brandon Lee - son of Bruce Lee - played the character of Eric Draven. During shooting, Lee was shot and killed while filming a scene in which his character was shot and killed. This scene was removed and instead, Draven is thrown to his death from a window.

In the scene, Michael Massee fires a .44 Magnum revolver at Lee as he enters the room to find his girlfriend being beaten and raped by the gang. The gun had been loaded with blank rounds which feature a live powder charge and primer but no bullet. However, earlier in the day the crew had created their own dummy cartridges by dumping the powder charge from live rounds and then reinserting the bullets. Somebody then left the live primer at the rear of the cartridge. This caused the bullet to be fired with the same force as a live round. Lee was shot in the abdomen. He was rushed to the New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, North Carolina, where he died from his injuries.

The death of 14-year-old Karen Caughlin has been at the centre of a 44-year-old cold case in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada.

Karen was last seen alive at approximately midnight on the 16th of March, 1974. She had spent the evening roller skating with her friends at Rose Gardens in Point Edward. In the mid-morning hours of that morning, a farmer discovered the lifeless body of Karen near the side of Plowing Match Road between Churchill Line and Lasalle Line in Lambton County. Her body was riddled with bruises and contusions.

It was initially believed that Karen had been brutally beaten to death. However, it was later released that her injuries were consistent with being hit by a vehicle. It had been particularly foggy in the early morning hours and its presumed that somebody had accidentally ran into Karen as she walked home. What was clear, however, was that whoever knocked Karen down, decided that instead of seeking medical help, they decided to transport her body 23 kilometres into the ditch where she was left to die from her injuries.

It was the 23rd of July, 1995, and Janet Downing had just pulled into the drive of her Somerville, Massachusetts, home when her son, Ryan, and his best friend and neighbour, 15-year-old Edward O'Brien Jr. rushed to the vehicle to carry the grocery bags inside. Standing at 6 feet 4 inches and weighing 260 pounds, Edward was known as a gentle giant. He was a former altar boy that loved sports. It started out as a typical Sunday. Janet had done the grocery shopping and stopped to chat to her neighbour. They spoke of the shock of the recent unsolved murder of 17-year-old Deanna Cremin. Little did they know that in just several hours, another murder would take place in their city.

It was a scorching hot summer’s afternoon and Janet decided to take a nap. Ryan and Edward had planned on going to the local pool. “Why is your mother sleeping?” Edward enquired as he stood staring at Janet. Ryan shrugged and said “let’s go swimming.” Edward declined and the duo went their separate ways. It wouldn’t be until 22:00 that Ryan came home and he would be met by a horrific scene. At some point between him leaving the house and returning, somebody had brutally murdered his mother. She had been slashed and stabbed over 90 times. Blood was spattered all across the room and across the family photographs.

Ryan ran across the road to Edward’s home which was just across the street and told his parents to call the police. Edward O'Brien Sr. ran to the Downing family home after calling the police, assuming some kind of accident had unfolded. He realised straight away that he was in the middle of a gruesome crime scene and that this certainly was no accident. Who could do such a thing, he wondered?

Within days, however, his own son and Ryan’s best friend would be charged with the murder.

As police were rushing to the scene, Edward walked to the store where he worked part-time. He told the manager that he had been mugged and slashed with a knife by the muggers. He was reluctant to call the police but the manager persuaded him; his hand was sliced up pretty severely and he had fresh scratches and blood on his legs. When police arrived to take his statement in regards to the so-called mugging, they became immediately suspicious, even more so when he recited his address.

Three friends of Edward and Ryan came forward to testify that they had gone to Ryan’s house that night but received no answer at the door. They stated they heard loud noises coming from the backyard. When they went to investigate, they found Edward crouching in the bushes. They said he glanced and smiled at them before walking away. An investigation uncovered Edward’s fingerprints in blood on the front door as well as on a wooden post in the cellar. In addition, a knife hilt found in Janet’s home matched a knife owned by Edward that they later found in the trash. During his trial, it was theorised that Edward killed Janet because he had developed a preoccupation with her.

On December 27th, 2013, Synthia Varela-Casaus called 911 and frantically told the operator that her 9-year-old son, Omaree Varela, had fallen off a rocking chair and hit his head, inducing a seizure. She claimed he was still alive and breathing. However, when authorities rushed to the Albuquerque, New Mexico, home, they found Omaree’s cold and lifeless body. Some shocking revelations came to light once the autopsy was conducted—this boy’s death was no accident. Omaree had numerous injuries all over his body, from burns, to bruises, to a bike mark. The autopsy report also revealed he had suffered violent blows to his head, chest, abdomen, and back, and he lost 25% of his blood volume due to internal bleeding. His cause of death was ruled blunt force trauma. Later, Omaree’s mother came clean about what really happened on that fateful day. She told police she shoved the 9-year-old into a dresser and continued to stomp on him and kick him in the abdomen when he fell to the floor. While all this was taking place, Omaree’s stepfather, Steve Casaus, was in the other room using heroin. 

This wasn’t the first time police were called to their home. Just six months prior to Omaree’s tragic death, an accidental phone call from Synthia’s phone was placed to 911. The 911 operator listened in horror as Omaree’s parents verbally abused the young boy in the background and dispatched two officers to the family home. The officers dismissed the 911 operator’s insistence that they first listen to the call. Immediately upon arrival, Synthia and Steve’s demeanor changed. They politely explained to the two officers that this was all a misunderstanding all while Omaree stood behind his parents, eyes wide in terror. The officers took their word for it, and without any further questioning, left the scene, not even writing a report about the incident. More outrageously, Omaree already had a startling nine referrals to the Children, Youth and Families Department, two of which confirmed abuse was taking place. Omaree’s mother was sentenced to 40 years in prison for second-degree murder. Omaree’s stepfather was sentenced to 30 years for his role in Omaree’s death and failing to seek medical aid for the boy.

30-year-old Iana Kasian, a stunning model from Ukraine, seemed to have her life all made. She lived with her fiancé, Blake Leibel, a graphic novelist, in a luxurious apartment in a nice part of West Hollywood. On May 3rd, 2016, Iana gave birth to a baby girl. Three weeks after the birth of her daughter, everything seemed to be going well until Iana’s mother, Olga Kasian, was having trouble getting in contact with Iana, so she called the police and asked them to perform a wellness check on her daughter. The authorities stopped by the couple’s apartment, but Blake refused to open the door and assured them that everything was fine, prompting them to leave. Olga pleaded for them to try again, so the officers returned to their apartment the following day and were once again met with Blake’s denial of access. This time, they busted the door down and discovered large amounts of blood throughout the apartment. The police made their way to the master bedroom, where Blake had barricaded himself with furniture. Once they managed to gain entry, they walked into one of the most macabre scenes throughout the history of LA.  In the couple’s bed was none other than the mutilated corpse of Iana, covered with her daughter’s baby blanket. Blake was immediately arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

Perhaps even more appalling than the police’s discovery were the disturbing details from the autopsy report. Iana’s entire scalp was ‘’tragically absent’’ and her skull had been stripped to the bone. She suffered numerous bruises and abrasions to the face, including a bite mark. Even more scarily, at the time of her autopsy, Iana only had about a teaspoon of blood remaining in her body, whereas the average human has about 1.5 gallons of blood in their body. She was still alive for another 8 hours after the scalp injury. Her death was caused by exsanguination and head trauma. 

On the 6th of September, 2006, Susan Kuhnhausen returned home from work and was met by a brutal attack from an intruder wielding a claw hammer. He smacked Susan across the face and head before she managed to bite him and get him face down on the ground. Susan sat on the man, our her arms around his throat in a chokehold. She demanded: “Tell me who sent you and I will call an ambulance!” Susan never got an answer; she strangled the man to death. It was later uncovered that the man, Edward Dalton Haffey, a local drug addict, had been hired by Susan’s estranged husband, Michael Kuhnhausen, to murder her. When she faced her husband in court, she told him: “You were willing for me to share your small, miserable life until death we did part - the sooner the better, as it turned out.”

On the 14th of October, 1959, Ruth Mae Urdanivia left work at the admitting department of the Sacred Heart Hospital and went back to her tidy apartment at 217 N 7th St, Allentown. Her husband, Jose Urdanivia,  had died several years earlier, leaving Urdanivia a widow and the mother of five children aged between 4 and 12-years-old.

At home, Urdanivia gathered her children around her and handed them a drink that had been mixed with several pills. She told the children the pill was medicine to help them with the nasty cold they had all had that week. The pill, however, was strong painkillers; fed up with life, Urdanivia had decided to end her life as well as her childrens. The children drank up and Urdanivia tucked them into their beds. Afterwards, she wrote a note to her father and drank a glass of the concoction herself.

While the sleeping pills were enough to kill all five children, Urdanivia woke up several days later. Upon realising what had happened, she frantically ran into the kitchen and broke a glass and attempted to slit her wrists but the glass was too dull. Thinking of another way to commit suicide, she opened the valves of the apartment’s illuminating gas and allowed the apartment . Fearing that the gas could lead to an explosion or harm her neighbours, she stopped. Finally, she stuck her head in the oven and turned on the cooking gas. As Urdanivia fell in and out of consciousness, police burst through the door after being alerted by a caretaker. In the bedroom, they found the lifeless bodies of Urdanivia’s children: Christina, 12; Ruth Lucille, 10; Luis, 9; Anna Marie, 7, and Carol Miriam, 4.

Following the death of her husband, Urdanivia had suffered tremendously - both financially and emotionally. They had been together for over a decade and those who knew them said their life was filled with much love and happiness. Moreover, Jose had a good job and could easily provide a comfortable life for his wife and children. At the time, welfare agencies were few and far between and government support programs were highly stigmatised. In a statement she gave to police, she said she was “tired of seeing my children living in a pigsty and eating inferior food.” The police officer who took the statement would later say: “I’ll never forget it. She bared her soul to me. It turned me gray overnight.”

Alan Turing was known to be highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science. He is best known for his accomplishments during World War Two. He devised a number of techniques that could successfully decode German ciphers, including the Enigma machine. It was estimated that Turing shortened the war for approximately two to four years.

Tragically, living at a time when homophobia was rife and being gay was illegal, he was arrested in 1952 for gross indecency after confessing to being gay. He was forced to take castration pills and as a result, developed breasts. His conviction also led to the removal of his security clearance and he was not allowed to come back to his career at the Government Communications Headquarters, something that made him distraught.