#multiple murders

Above are images of the marks left on the building of the New Mexico State Penitentiary after a brutal 2 day riot that gutted the prison in 1980. The first image shows marks left by an axe after an inmate was decapitated, and the second image shows burns left on the floor where an inmate was allegedly burnt alive.

The riot was a result of the conditions the prisoners were living in at the time and would have easily been predicted, the tension building over time. The prison was designed to house 900 prisoners but there were 1,136 inmates. Many inmates were living in communal dormitories with unsanitary conditions. There were significant issues with staff as well, with policies being implemented inconsistently, poor communication and chronic staffing shortages. The riot was sparked when two prisoners took an officer hostage and used the officer’s keys to release the prisoners in the adjacent dormitory. Eventually, they broke into the central controls and opened the majority of the prison - with some cells in the northern block remaining locked due to an error in the central controls.

Violence erupted almost immediately within the cell blocks as inmates attacked each other, rival gangs targeting each other. The prisoners who had been housed in solitary confinement decided to break into the protective custody block. Here people were branded as ‘snitches’ or people with sexual offences against children were being housed for their own safety. A self appointed ‘execution squad’ managed to break in, they hauled the prisoners from the cells and murdered them - dismembering, decapitating and burning some prisoners alive. One prisoner was held up to the window, in full view of police, and was tortured by another prisoner who was applying a blow torch to their face. After the police gained access to the prison after the riot they discovered one inmate - who was a shop lifter who had been placed in protective custody after being gang raped - had been hanged from the ceiling, his throat cut, castrated and his genitals inserted into his mouth.

“He personally never called himself Jesus, he just represented a Jesus Christ-like person to me.” - Susan Atkins, one of the Manson girls, talking about Charles Manson.

Japan mass killing: Six bodies found at house in mountain town

Authorities have discovered the bodies of six people, including a 7-year-old girl, at a house in the Japanese town of Takachiho, a popular destination for tourists visiting the Takachiho Gorge in southwestern Miyazaki province.

Police found the remains at a house owned by 72-year-old Yasuo Iihoshi after a family member had reported that his calls had gone unanswered, according to Miyazaki prefectural police. One of the bodies, a female, was discovered outside the property, while three males and two more females were found inside the house.

Japan, which ranks as one of the safest countries in the world to live, has a very low murder rate and mass killings are rare. Given Japan's strict gun laws, in the infrequent attacks that do occur, knives are more commonly used.

In the Takachiho killings, at least some of the victims had been stabbed, local media reported. The murder weapon has not been recovered. Authorities have released the names of the victims, including Yasuo Iihoshi, his 66-year-old wife Mihoko, their 7-year-old granddaughter Yui, 41-year-old daughter-in-law Mikiko, and 21-year-old grandson Takumi. They are all members of the immediate family of Iihoshi's second son, Masahiro. The sixth victim was named as 44-year-old Fumiaki Matsuoka, who is unrelated to the family but a friend of Masahiro's. Masahiro Iihoshi has been missing since the discovery of the bodies. The police also discovered a seventh body under a bridge crossing the Gokase River.

Japan's deadliest mass killing since World War II was recorded in 2016, when at least 19 people were killed and 26 injured in a stabbing spree at a facility for disabled people west of Tokyo.

In 1928, with a failed political career trailing behind him in Australia, 48-year-old Englishman Thomas John Ley returned to England with his mistress looking to start again. In the late 1920s, London had almost recovered from the First World War which had ended ten years earlier, and with money in his pocket, Ley was in a good position to buy property and present himself as a successful and…