An Almanac of Infamy

Lieth Von Stein On this day in 1988, Bonnie and Lieth Von Stein, of Washington, North Carolina, were stabbed and bludgeoned while sleeping in their bed. While Lieth died during the attack, Bonnie survived even though she was badly wounded and maimed. Bonnie's daughter Angela, whose bedroom was in another part of the house, slept through the attack. Angela's older brother, Chris Pritchard, told police that he had been playing cards all night in his North Carolina State University dorm room. After the police learned that Lieth Von Stein's estate was worth over just $2 Million, Angela and Chris soon became suspects, along with Bonnie even though she was beaten and stabbed to the point of almost dying. Bonnie and Angela were cleared after passing lie detector tests. Chris refused to take the test, and it was that refusal along with the fact that he had never gotten along with his stepfather, Lieth, that made him the main suspect. Detectives also uncovered Chris Pritchard'

On this day in 1984, the body of nine-year-old Dawn Hamilton was found in a wooded area of Rosedale, Maryland, not far from her home. She had been raped and beaten to death with a rock. Police received witness reports of a suspicious man in the area of the crime scene and soon after released a sketch on the local news and in the local newspapers. Two weeks later, an anonymous caller identified the man in the sketches as 23-year-old ex-marine Kirk Bloodsworth. Police discovered that Bloodsworth had been in Baltimore (not too far from Rosedale) and also learned that he had told his friends that he had done something that would destroy his marriage. With very little evidence but the phone call and his friends' anecdote, Bloodsworth was convicted of Dawn Hamilton's murder. During his 1985 trial, the prosecution presented five witnesses who claimed to have seen Bloodsworth with Hamilton. Two of these witnesses, however, could not identify Bloodsworth in a lineup and had only iden

On this day in 1918, Nebraska native Della Sorenson murdered her first victim by poisoning her infant niece, Viola Cooper. It would take seven years and six more deaths for anyone to realize that Sorenson was a serial poisoner. Two years after the murder of Viola Cooper, Sorenson poisoned her mother-in-law. Over a two-week period in September of 1920, she poisoned her husband Joe and her daughter Minnie. Within four months of their deaths, she remarried and moved to the village of Dannebrog, Nebraska. During an August 1922 visit from her former sister-in-law, she poisoned the woman's 4-month-old son with a piece of candy, the same as she had done with Viola. Her sister-in-law, failing to realize what had caused her son's death, visited Sorenson again a few months later with another of her children. Luckily, Sorenson's poisoned candy did not work this time around. In 1923 Della Sorenson poisoned her daughter Delia on the child's first birthday. A week later Sorenso

Alton Coleman and Debra Brown after their arrest On this day in 1984, Alton Coleman and Debra Brown were apprehended in Evanston, Illinois, after a two-month crime spree that left eight people dead and several more wounded. The couple had met in 1983 after Coleman had already established a lengthy criminal record, which included serving time for the abduction and rape of a woman in Waukegan, Illinois. Although it was well known by psychiatrists and prison officials that he was obsessed with violent sex, he was released from prison and later acquitted of subsequent rape charges in 1976 and 1980. On May 28, 1984, Coleman and Brown abducted two Gary, Indiana, girls, ages seven and nine, and proceeded to rape and beat them. One girl managed to escape, while the other was choked to death. The next day, with the FBI already in pursuit, the couple abducted and murdered 9-year-old Vernita Wheat in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Their next stop was Detroit, Michigan, where they started stealing cars an

Rebecca Schaeffer On July 18, 1989, 21-year-old actress Rebecca Schaeffer was shot and killed at her Los Angeles home by Robert John Bardo, a man who had been stalking her for three years. Schaeffer, who had worked as a teen model and had a short stint on the soap opera One Life To Live , became famous after starring in the sitcom My Sister Sam . When the show was canceled in 1988, Schaeffer decided that it was time to break into films and she earned a supporting role in the dark comedy Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills . Bardo, who had been sending letters to Schaeffer and had once tried to enter the set of My Sister Sam with a knife, saw the movie and was angered by a scene showing Schaeffer in bed with a man. After learning that actress Theresa Saldana had been murdered by her stalker after he had hired private investigators to track her down, Bardo decided to hire his own investigator who obtained Schaeffer's home address from the California Department of Motor

On this day in 1914, Joe Hill was sentenced to death in Salt Lake City Utah for the January 10, 1914, murders of John G. Morrison and his son Arling in their grocery store. Hill had immigrated to the United States from Sweden in 1879. In 1910, he joined the International Workers of the World (IWW), popularly known as the Wobblies. The group was successful in organizing mistreated and exploited workers in the mining, logging, and shipping industries and rejected the capitalist system. They encouraged their members to express themselves in song and Joe Hill soon became one of their leading singers and songwriters. He coined the phrase "pie in the sky" for his song "The Preacher and the Slave" and also wrote the union anthems "The Tramp", "There is Power in a Union", "The Rebel Girl", and "Casey Jones—the Union Scab". By 1914, Hill was one of the most famous Wobblies in the United States and this notoriety may have led to his

As Craig LaBell and his wife were out for a drive on August 28, 2013, in Brown County, Ohio, they took a wrong turn down a backroad and noticed a pair of headlights shining in the woods. LaBell knew he had to see for himself why there was a Jeep parked in the woods with the wipers running and the radio blaring. As he approached the vehicle he found the body of Brittany Stykes, who had been shot and killed, in the driver seat. Her 14-month-old daughter Aubree, who had been shot in the head but was still alive, was next to her in the passenger seat. The murder of Brittany Stykes remains unsolved and on June 5, a judge ruled that the Jeep is to be returned to her husband Shane, who had sued for the vehicle to be released along with Aubree's baby seat and Brittany's laptop, which were found in the Jeep. The court declined to return those two items. The Brown County prosecutor's office has appealed the decision to return the Jeep. They have until October 1 to complete any 3D im

Colette, Kimberley, and Kristen Updated on July 16, 2019 On this day in 1979, the trial of former Army doctor Jeffrey MacDonald for the murders of his wife Colette and their daughters, five-year-old Kimberley and two-year-old Kristen, began. On February 16, 1970, MacDonald had claimed that four hippies had broken into the MacDonald home in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and attacked him and his family. While Jeffrey MacDonald walked away from ordeal with a few minor stab wounds, the other members of the MacDonald family had each been stabbed at least 20 times. Investigators doubted MacDonald's story, due to very little evidence of the struggle that he claimed to have had with his attackers. They believed that he had read a story about the Manson murders in Esquire magazine and had attempted to make the murders look like a copycat killing. Despite there being lots of blood and fiber evidence, the forensic investigation was severely bungled and a three-month military hearing ended w

Even if you're not a gamer, I think you true crime fans will enjoy Body of Evidence . The new game, which comes out this winter, makes players race against the clock to clean up crime scenes and hide dead bodies. Kotaku writer and fellow murderino, Keoni Nguyen, has played a preview build of the game and says she's already hooked. If you're in search of something new to watch, check out the documentary Killing For Love . In the crowded genre of true crime docs, this one stands out. Released in 2016, it explores the double murder of Derek and Nancy Haysom and the doomed romance between their daughter Elizabeth and her fellow student Jen Söring. Decider calls it the best true crime doc you've never seen. Another must-watch for true crime fans is the "Buzzfeed Unsolved" series, which just started its new season on July 13. The series covers a variety of unsolved cases ranging from true crime to the supernatural, and whether you're a skeptic or a believ

Pauline Reade On this day in 1963, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley abducted and murdered 16-year-old Pauline Reade, who was on her way to a dance in Gorton, England. This would mark the beginning of a two-year crime spree that has come to be known as "The Moors Murders". In addition to Reade, Brady and Hindley took the lives of 12-year-old John Kilbride, 12-year-old Keith Bennett, 10-year-old Leslie Ann Downey, and 17-year-old Edward Evans. Evans was murdered in front of Hindley's 17-year-old brother-in-law, David Smith. Many believe that the couple was trying to recruit Smith to help them with future murders but Smith ended up calling the police, leading them to search Brady's apartment where the found photographs audiotapes documenting the torture of Leslie Ann Downey. They also found photos of Brady and Hindley in Saddleworth Moor which led to the discovery of John Kilbride's remains. Myra Hindley had first met Ian Brady, a self-proclaimed Nazi who had an obsessi

Big true crime news from Netflix! The streaming service recently announced that Ava DuVernay is set to write and direct a new narrative series about the Central Park Five case. The series's opening episode will take place in the spring of 1989 when five teenagers of color were coerced into confessing to the rape of a Central Park jogger and will cover the events that led to their conviction and eventual exoneration in 2014. Michael K. Williams (from The Wire ), Vera Farmiga (star of Bates Motel and The Conjuring ) and John Leguizamo are lined up to star in the series, which unfortunately we'll have to wait until next year to watch. Something we don't have to wait that long for is Investigation Discovery's new summer lineup. New shows include Dark Waters: Murder In The Deep , which will explore maritime crimes and Someone You Thought You Knew , which will explore murders committed by the people you'd least suspect. Fan favorites like Fatal Vows and Homicide Hun

On this day in 1889, "Buckskin" Frank Leslie shot and killed his lover, Tombstone sex worker Blonde Mollie Williams. Leslie had taken up with Williams two years earlier but the relationship soured and he murdered her in a drunken rage. A ranch hand who had witnessed the shooting testified against him in court and he was convicted of murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Seven years into his sentence he was given parole after a young divorcee named Belle Stowe assisted him with his case. He married Stowe and it's reported that the two made a small fortune during the Klondike gold rush. After moving to San Francisco in 1904, he disappeared from the historical record. Some believe he committed suicide, although an official cause of and date of his death have never been confirmed. Blonde Mollie Williams was not Leslie's first victim. Shortly after opening the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Tombstone, Arizona, he shot and killed Mike Killeen during a dispute over Killeen&#

Lin, Megan, and Josie Russell Updated on July 9, 2019 On this day in 1996, Dr. Lin Russell, her two daughters, Josie and Megan, and their dog, Lucy, were attacked by a man wielding a hammer while walking home from a swimming gala in Chillenden, Kent, England. The man blindfolded and tied them up and then proceeded to bludgeon them to death one by one. Nine-year-old Josie survived the attack but some of her brain tissue was so damaged that it had to be removed. She had to relearn how to talk after surgeons inserted a metal plate into her head to cover the area where her skull had been smashed. On July 17, a man named Michael Stone was arrested for the attack. Stone had a record of burglary and a history of drug abuse and mental illness. He had been recognized by a BBC viewer after the network had broadcast his picture and description during a special about the case. When asked where he was on the day of the murder he told police he couldn't remember because he was on drugs and

Hello, readers! It's been quite some time since my last True Crime Tidbits column, but now that I'm finally getting over an awful summer cold, it's time to dive back in. This week's biggest news, of course, involves the Netflix docuseries Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G . The series creator has called for the arrest of a former gangster who confessed on camera to his involvement in the murder of Tupac Shakur. Kyle Long says it's outrageous that Keffe D, who also spoke about his role in the Shakur murder in the Death Row Chronicles , is not sitting in prison. Many believe that Keffe D's nephew, Orlando Anderson, was the main shooter in the murder along with Keffe D and several other accomplices. KTNV , a Las Vegas news outlet, is reporting that an arrest in the case is imminent. Fans of Chris Pine will be pleased to know that he is teaming up again with Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins, this time for a project with true crime roots. T