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The Abequa Incident:
Jordanian man marries American woman so that he can stay in the U.S. Then he kills her because she is too "American," kidnaps the children and escapes back to Jordan where his uncle is a powerful general.
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The Real Amityville Horror:
The tragic murder of the Ronald DeFeo family
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Sue Basso:
Depraved woman traps mentally handicapped man so she can use him as slave and kill him for insurance.
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Celeste Beard:
Extravagant & manipulative woman persuades troubled lesbian lover to murder her wealthy husband.
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The Bizarre Murder of Robert Schwartz:
On Monday, December 10, 2001, 57-year-old Robert Schwartz, a nationally reknown scientist in biometics and DNA research, did not show up for work. His coworkers phoned a neighbor to check on him. He had lived alone since his wife had died and was usually quite punctual, so they were worried. They had good reason to be. His corpse was found face down in his log-and-slate farmhouse, some forty miles west of Washington, D.C. He had been stabbed repeatedly with a sharp knife-like implement two days earlier and left to die. Investigators who arrived at the scene could clearly see an 'X' carved into the skin on the back of Schwartz's neck, which seemed to indicate that the murder was ritualistic.
Police had seized several knives, swords, and documents about human sacrifice in the Wiccan tradition. The "X" was thus surmised to be an occult symbol. Also, they had seized a computer and two black cloaks from a home in Haymarket. Finally they pieced together a strange and deadly web of relationships. The actual killer had a fascination with medieval wizardry and weaponry and was deeply involved in roleplaying games that involved vampire imagery. His confession shocked the country.
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Robert Blake:
The full story behind the murder of Bonny Lee Bakley and the trial of her celebrity husband. New chapters track the highs and woes of the trial.
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Lizzie Borden:
This classic has to be one of the most enduring murder mysteries America has ever produced. Elderly Andrew Borden, still in his heavy morning coat, reclines on a mohair-covered sofa, his boots on the floor so as not to soil the upholstery. As he naps, his wife, Abby, is on the floor of the guestroom upstairs, dead for the past hour and a half, killed by the same hand, with the same axe, that is about to strike him, as he sleeps.
The bloodiness of the acts is startling. Along with the gruesome nature of the crimes is the unexpected character of the accused, not a hatchet-wielding maniac, but a church-going, Sunday-school-teaching, respectable, spinster-daughter, charged with parricide, the murder of parents, a crime worthy of Classical Greek tragedy. Many people believed she killed her father and stepmother, but recent forensic research suggests that she didn't.
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Christian Brando:
The success of a star parent may play some role in how his or her children turn out, but probably the most important factor is the care and nurturing the children receive from their parents as they grow. An unbalanced or eccentric star likely breeds unbalanced and eccentric children. One of the most capricious stars ever is Marlon Brando, and few families have experienced more pain and suffering than Brandos. Suicide, homicide, addiction and violence have all touched the Brandos, and the actor himself took some of the blame for how his children turned out.
Christian Brando, one of Brandos ten children, was born shortly before his parents divorced, and grew up shunting back and forth between his two parents, whose relationship was openly hostile and bilaterally abusive. Christian struggled with alcohol and drugs and had a nasty temper when under the influence.
Christian was often expected to be the parent for some of Brandos other children and he developed a special relationship with his half-sister Cheyenne, who was intelligent and beautiful. But no amount of Hollywood power or wealth could protect Cheyenne from her family history of alcoholism and mental illness. She became even more dependent on drugs after a serious automobile accident scarred her face and ended a promising modeling career.
She became pregnant by her longtime boyfriend, Dag Drollet, the son of a prominent Tahitian family. Drollet stood by her during her fights with depression, schizophrenia and chemical abuse, but eventually he separated from her. Angry with the man who dared break up with her, Cheyenne weaved a tale of domestic assault and mental cruelty and brother Christian believed her.
In the next bizarre turn of events, Christian fatally shoots Dag and provides Marlon Brando with a very big problem and an opportunity to try to save his children from themselves.
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Betty Broderick:
Her powerful attorney husband knew how to strip her of dignity and sanity in their hellish divorce, but she had the last word when she left him and the "other woman" dead on a blood-soaked mattress.
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Claus von Bulow:
Danish gentleman is convicted of trying to murder his beautiful heiress wife with an insulin injection. Sunny's children and maid firmly believed that he turned her into a living vegetable to get access to her money so he could carry on with his mistress.
But enter Alan Dershowitz, legendary appeals attorney, who in von Bulow's second trial reveals Sunny as "a self-destructive, deeply depressed, and addictive woman who experimented with drugs not prescribed for her, and who continued to engage in life-threatening behavior after experiencing life-threatening emergencies and after being warned by doctors to desist."
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Yvonne Chevallier:
Plain & socially awkward nurse kills her philandering socialite husband in France's most sensational crime of passion.
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The Clutter Family Killings:
The story behind Capote's classic book In Cold Blood
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Joyce Lemay Cohen:
The eyes that stare out from the Florida prison mug shot are unmistakably those of Joyce Lemay Cohen. Once as pretty as a fashion model, she has retained some of her attractive features umber-colored eyes, lush lips and noble cheekbones. But her hair is shorn, and she has gone gray. Something she would never have tolerated in the lavish life she once led. But after 15 years in prison, any remaining glimmer of glamour went dull long ago for Cohen.
At age 24 she married a rich older man, Stanley Cohen, who introduced Joyce, his fourth wife, to a jet-set way of life. They lived in an historic mansion overlooking Biscayne Bay in Miami's ritzy Coconut Grove section. They drove Jaguars and flew in their own jet. They vacationed in one adult sandbox after another the Bahamas, Ocho Rios, Jamaica, Las Vegas and Cancun, Mexico. Mrs. Cohen became accustomed to the fine things in life designer clothing, satin sheets, servants.
She enjoyed her husband's wealth. She enjoyed his "Miami Vice" lifestyle. She enjoyed his social status. But over time the marriage began to lose its sheen. He was playing around on her and she was doing too much cocaine.
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Spade Cooley:
Wildly successful country music band leader shocks Hollywood with brutal murder of his wife.
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Alice Crimmins:
In this classic murder mystery, Alice Crimmins' two children are murdered. As a very attractive and sexually adventuresome woman in the 1960s, she is railroaded into a conviction not based upon the evidence, but upon the scandal of her sex life. "A tramp like her is capable of anything," the prosecutor sneered.
The twists and turns, surprise witnesses and tabloid events of her two trials almost defy belief. Not surprisingly, this extraordinary case has been the subject of books, movies and plays.
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Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen:
Swirling midnight fog, flickering gas lamps, raucous music halls, a body buried in the cellar, a chase across the Atlantic and a murder committed in the name of Cupid: the classic English whodunit. It is a magnetic tale of death and love, sin and virtue — set apart from the ordinary by the motive of its crime, Freudian in nature and reminiscent of the Jekyll/Hyde syndrome.
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Theresa Cross:
Woman uses her children to murder her children. A study in fatal family dysfunction.
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T. Cullen Davis:
Preteen Andrea Wilborn died a cruel and violent death in the wine cellar of her family's mansion. The killer had her kneel on the floor of the cellar and shot her in the back of the head, execution-style.
A smeared, bloody handprint was found by police. Within hours, police had a description of the killer and a single suspect T. Cullen Davis, one of the richest men in America and the model for the villainous J.R. Ewing on the nighttime soap opera "Dallas." In a series of events that emulate soap opera fiction, the billionaire oil man was charged in the most expensive investigation and trial in Texas history for the murder of his daughter and wife's boyfriend, shooting a witness, assaulting his wife and paying to have a judge murdered.
Many called it the best "justice money can buy."
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Frederick Bailey Deeming:
Loud, boasting and oafish, he bored everyone in the pubs to tears as they tried not to listen to his clearly fictional adventures in every part of the globe. His lies were so obvious and his behavior so outrageous.
Using many aliases, Frederick Bailey Deeming, robbed, scammed and cold-bloodedly murdered his way across three continents. In his native England he left behind a wife and four children dead and buried under the floorboards, they were. Then, when he landed across the world in Melbourne, Australia, he wooed and wed the lovely Emily Mather. But, once again he left his wife a bride of only one year under the floorboards by the hearth.
This lying psychopath thought it best to vacate Melbourne for Western Australia, where he found yet another woman to marry. Fortunately for her, he was captured before she met the fate of his earlier wives. While Deeming hardly deserved it, the clever young lawyer Alfred Deakin, a future Australian prime minister, was his defense counsel.
But even a clever young future prime minister couldn't save him. Deeming's behavior had earned him the full engagement of the general public and when he was executed, some 12,000 citizens of Melbourne cheered his final journey to the gallows.
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The Black Donnellys:
Canada's tragic roustabouts
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Scott Douglas:
Handsome gold-digger marries newspaper heiress Anne Scripps, a model wife and mother, but begins to abuse her almost immediately. His alcohol-fueled escalating violence culminates in her brutal murder.
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Diane Downs:
"Somebody just shot my kids!" The blond woman yelled to the emergency room nurses.
The two nurses teetered when they looked through the windows of the Nissan. Side panels were soaked in blood and amidst the blood lay three small children, one in the front passenger seat, two in the back. First glance told the nurses the children had been shot at very close range. Two of the children still breathed, although strenuously; the boy gasped for air. The child found slumped in the front seat appeared beyond help; despite frantic efforts by the doctors at the operating table, the damage had been lethal. She was pronounced dead moments after being wheeled to emergency.
Someone without a heart had deliberately attempted to murder three kids in cold blood, and, despite the odds, despite a fate that looked gloomy, the caretakers hastened to keep that fate at bay and beat it at its own game: with deliberate intention.
Who in the name of God could have aimed a pistol at three small children and pulled the trigger?"
The facts came to light in a most suspicious manner and unlike those explained by the mother, Diane Downs.
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Robert Durst:
Rich and powerful, eccentric and very arrogant, he shoplifted a chicken sandwich and was apprehended for the mutilation murder of an old man. This millionaire cross-dressing killer may have murdered his best friend and others as well.
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Neil Entwistle:
Alleged killer of his wife and baby daughter, he returns from England to face the charges. Dr. Katherine Ramsland looks at the psychology of men who kill their families and the pressures that lead to such homicides.
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The Family:
Winnfred Wright, a black Charles Manson, preached a blend of New Age mysticism and black radicalism. He convinced a harem of white women that they had to pay for the racist sins of their white ancestors by serving him financially, physically and sexually. They obliged and bore him 19 children, who were tortured, starved and murdered.
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Fathers Who Kill:
What kinds of pressures drive fathers to murder their children? Dr. Katherine Ramsland provides some answers and looks at some high-profile cases.
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Michael Fletcher:
Mick Fletcher took a deep breath, trying to control his ire. He was tired of telling the story to the police. He had told it three times, to three different people and had told it the same way, with little variation each time. The veins in his neck pulsed with tension. He got the distinct impression they didnt believe him. He fiddled nervously with a pen.
"I was having trouble putting the bullets in the clip," he started again. "I had to go to the bathroom, so I gave the clip to Leann and asked her to finish loading it. I was at the sink and I heard the shot. I ran into the bedroom and she was lying there. I couldn't feel any pulse or see her breathing, and I called 911."
Detective Thomas Cleyman, a 13-year veteran and experienced investigator of many homicides, listened to Mick tell the story. There was something troubling him about Fletcher, a 29-year-old lawyer with a pregnant wife and lady judge as a girlfriend, but he couldn't place it.
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Kathleen Folbigg:
Tragic crib deaths appear to be the reason that Kathleen Folbigg's babies died, but then her husband finds her terrifying diaries.
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Bryan and David Freeman:
The scene at the chocolate-colored house on Ehrets Lane, outside Allentown, Pennsylvania, in Salisbury Township, was unthinkable for that quiet community. No one who knew the family would have believed that their growing troubles would have escalated to this kind of cold-blooded frenzy. True, the two older boys had been a handful, but everyone who saw the carnage on Monday, February 27, 1995, wondered what could have triggered such outright rage.
As their sons had grown into adolescents, and especially as Bryan developed an interest in a military career, Dennis and Brenda had noticed trouble. They had tried different programs to deal with his anger, but they weren't able to stop its momentum. He'd warned them before that he was going to kill them, and it appeared that he'd made good on his threat.
The two Neo-Nazis had bludgeoned and stabbed their parents and their 11-year-old brother Eric.
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Marvin Gaye:
Marketed as Motown's lover man, he beat the women he loved. He sang soulful romance, yet forced his wives into degrading sex. All this ended after he attacked his father who then shot and killed him.
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Edward D. Gingerich:
The only Amish man to be convicted of murder after he brutally beat his wife to death in front of his children. Found to be criminally insane he is now a free man but is he cured?
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Rita Gluzman:
Rampant materialism destroys brilliant and beautiful Russian immigrant.
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Mark Hacking:
The former mental-hospital orderly faces life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder of his pregnant wife Lori.
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Hall-Mills Murders:
Fascinating classic unsolved mystery of minister and his choir singer lover
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Christopher Hightower:
Psychopathic commodities broker cheats his friend and client, then murders him and his wife and teenage daughter and blames it on the Rhode Island Mafia.
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Jeffrey Howorth:
Captivated by the notoriety of the Freedman's Allentown Massacre, troubled teenager shoots his own mother and father.
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Fred Keller:
Aging sick Palm Beach millionaire allegedly murdered his beautiful wife Rose, his fifth ex-wife. He is seeking to be released on bond pending a retrial.
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Nancy Kissel:
It was almost midnight on Nov. 6, 2003, when Hong Kong police investigators entered a storage room at the exclusive Parkview high-rise apartment complex. They found what they were looking for behind the doora rolled oriental rug tied with rope and bound with clear adhesive tape. The rug seemed suspiciously bulky, and when the investigators unrolled it, they found what they expecteda body.
Robert Kissel, a high-flying investment banker, was a prominent member of the American expatriate community in Hong Kong. Police arrested his wife, Nancy, who stated that her husband had assaulted her over the previous weekend after she refused to have sex with him.
Does poisoning one's husband with a pink arsenic-laced milkshake constitute premeditated murder?
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Jaidyn Leskie:
Sweet little boy vanishes and turns up dead. He becomes the poster child for chaos and social disintegration in this played-out coal town in
Australia and tugs at the hearts of people around the world.
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The Lindbergh Kidnapping:
Son of an American hero kidnapped and murdered
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John List:
He abandoned his car at the airport and left town intending never to return. Back in his mansion in Westfield, N.J., a phonograph played church music over and over for those he'd left behind. John List had just murdered his entire family.
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Christian Longo:
Over his head in debt, he dreamed up get-rich-quick schemes and when they failed, he murdered his wife and three children. Then he escaped to the Caribbean where he took on the persona of a NY Times journalist.
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Lord Lucan:
Where art thou, Lord? Richard John Bingham, the Seventh Earl of Lucan, mysteriously disappeared after he killed his nanny, mistaking her for his wife.
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Richard and Nancy Lyon:
Nancy Dillard Lyon, daughter of a Dallas real estate tycoon, reached the heartrending conclusion that her marriage to husband Richard, whom she met when they were both grad students at Harvard, was over.
During an 8-year marriage, the ambitious Nancy had juggled a successful career with motherhood after giving birth to the couple's two daughters. Meanwhile Richard spent far more money than he earned, and the family was in constant financial peril. Once, he charged an Alfa Romeo sports car to the couple's American Express card when they were too broke to make their mortgage payments.
When Nancy died from arsenic poisoning, her parents and her brother Bill were sure that Richard killed her. The high-profile case exposed incest between Nancy and her brother and the adultery of her husband. But did Richard really kill his wife? The evidence is controversial.
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Dr. Jeffrey Macdonald:
After decades of prison for allegedly murdering his wife and daughters, he may finally get a fair shake in the courts as retired U.S. marshall comes forward to reveal the confession of major suspect Helena Stoeckley of having been at MacDonalds house to get drugs.
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Col. George Marecek:
Few had honed their military demeanor as thoroughly as George Marecek had. In 36 years in the Special Forces, Marecek had survived two wars, and in the process became one of the most highly decorated soldiers in Special Forces history. By dint of his brains, his courage, and his skills he worked his way up in a hard bitten, hard driving Green Berets, rising from a private to the level of colonel. In short, Marecek was a man who no one ever would expect to see crumble.
But on that day, according to witnesses, he did.
His beautiful Thai-born wife Viparet was murdered.
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Robert Marshall:
Cold blooded execution destroys the most ostentatiously attractive couple in N.J.'s Pine Barrens.
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McGlincy Massacre:
Peaceful Santa Clara community is shocked by the murder of a prominent family.
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The Menendez Brothers:
In 1989, Lyle and Erik Menendez were the two spoiled children of a very successful Cuban-American businessman, Jose, and his wife Kitty. The boys were annoyed that their father was domineering and had threatened to disinherit them, so they decided to murder him so that they could spend the money he had earned right away. Since their mother was so emotionally tied to their father, they rationalized that she had to be murdered too because she couldnt survive without Jose and, of course, she would be the one to inherit his money if he died.
So one night in family room of their 23-room mansion where Kitty and Jose had dozed off entwined together on the couch in front of the TV, the two boys executed them with a 12-gauge shotgun and tried to make it look like a robbery. After using their murdered parents money to live in luxury, they were finally arrested. It took two trials to get them the justice they deserved.
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Candace Mossler:
Multimillionaire Jacques Mossler was as ruthless in business as any pirate that ever sailed the seas of commerce. When he turned up brutally murdered, investigators found lots of enemies. He was a corporate repo man. His firms had repossessed thousands of automobiles and appliances over the years and foreclosed on untold numbers of mortgages.
His wife Candace had taken up with her nephew Mel Powers and Mossler knew about it. When tangible and circumstantial evidence implicated the lovers, Candace hired famed hired gun defense attorney Percy Foreman. The trial was an incredible celebrity circus and Percy Foreman was the ringmaster.
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Murder in Massachusetts:
Gentle Neil Olsen is brutally bludgeoned by his psychopathic stepson, but was his wife really the instigator of this crime or another victim railroaded by her son and daughter?
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Kevin Neal:
Fascinating forensic investigation involving various kinds of flies finally nails a sexual predator who kills his two stepchildren and leaves their bodies in a cemetery.
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Andras Pandy:
The Marc Dutroux case left the Belgian government reeling, so judges went back over old cases to see if serious errors had been made. They re-interviewed Agnes Pandy, the mousy then 38-year-old daughter of a protestant minister.
Her whole demeanor made her easy to ignore. A lackluster young woman, blank unblinking eyes behind nondescript spectacles, she seemed to be the kind of person who wandered around the fringes of life, always overlooked. Perhaps she had issues with her father. She certainly had seemed a little odd when she first walked into police headquarters claiming that her father had turned her into his sex slave.
Her tale was one of imaginable depravity. She talked of how her father, a bookish churchman, had raped her when she was just 13. Her will had been totally subjected to his. By the time she was finished talking, Agnes had implicated herself and her father in the murders of five family members.
The body parts that would later be pulled from the mud in Pandy's murky basement, the slabs of unidentified "meat" pulled from his freezer, would offer an even more chilling glimpse into the horror.
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Pauline Parker & Juliet Hulme:
Teenagers' bond of friendship was so strong, they committed murder when they were threatened with separation. After 50 years, this classic case is still an obsession.
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Christopher Porco:
Chronic underachiever creates affluent fantasy life to impress his college friends by taking out loans in his father's name. When his father finds out, he kills him and attempts to murder his mother, too, expecting to inherit enough to pay off his debts and live comfortably.
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Kristen Rossum:
The suicide was so perfectly orchestrated, so operatic in its sweep and tone. Young Greg de Villers lay dead. Rose petals covered his chest. Beside him lay a copy of his wedding picture and a crumpled letter from a dashing Australian doctor who was his wife's lover.
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Piper Rountree:
Lawyer with many emotional problems and history of instability takes revenge on her ex-husband after nasty divorce and custody battle. While the murder was premeditated, many stupid mistakes on her part doomed her defense.
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Darlie Routier:
In 1997, a Texas court found Darlie Lynn Routier guilty of probably the worst of human crimes: killing two of her natural children in cold-blood. Motive is still a mystery, but the prosecution painted her as a shrewish, materialistic young woman who, sensing her lavish lifestyle crumbling, slew her two sons Damon and Devon in a mad attempt to resuscitate her and her husband's personal economy.
In all fairness, Darlie Lynn Routier, despite some extremely damaging evidence, may be innocent, say many. Fingerprint evidence and trial errors create some doubts about her guilt.
Is she one of the most heartless criminals in the state's history or a victim of an overly-aggressive prosecution?
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Sabotage:
United Flight 629 explodes in the air outside Denver, killing 44 people. Intensive FBI investigation yields the murderer who sabotaged the plane.
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Dr. Sam Sheppard:
The murder of Marilyn Sheppard is one of the great murder mystery classics, like the Lizzie Borden case and the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. It has inspired three separate trials, many books, the movie and television series The Fugitive.
It seemed like the perfect marriage, Dr. Sam Sheppard, a handsome, affluent and socially prominent doctor married to his pretty high school sweetheart. But when Marilyn, 4 months pregnant, was brutally bludgeoned to death in their home while Dr. Sam allegedly slept, cracks in the perfect marriage became obvious. He had a 3-year affair going with another woman and his account of the night of the murder caused the Cleveland Press to crusade for his arrest.
Arrested he was and indicted for Marilyn's murder. But once the case was taken by celebrity attorney F. Lee Bailey, "Dr. Sam," after a landmark Supreme Court decision, was acquitted in his second trial. So Dr. Sam was free, but hardly any one in Cleveland believed in his innocence except for his son, who 35 years later began a crusade to clear his father's name.
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Dr. Sam Sheppard case crime scene analysis by former FBI profiler Gregg McCrary:
Five decades after the murder of Marilyn Sheppard and numerous trials, it looks as though the Energizer Bunny of murder cases has finally wound its way through the Ohio courts, but though the trials may be over, new murder suspects continue to emerge. Most Clevelanders from that era still believe Sam was guilty.
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The Pam Smart case:
When her "picture perfect" marriage lost its appeal, Pam Smart decided that divorce just wouldn't do, instead she seduced a young teenage boy and convinced him that if he wanted them to be together he would have to murder her husband.
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Madeleine Smith:
Did Madeleine Smith poison her lover? A Victorian mystery.
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Susan Smith:
South Carolina woman drowns her children in her car so that she will be more "marriageable" to the boyfriend who rejected her.
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Ruth Snyder & Judd Gray:
The real story of lust, greed and murder that inspired the great film noir classics Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice and Body Heat.
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Robert Spangler:
In this unusual "black widower" case spanning 23 years, the attractive and outgoing man kills his wife and children and his father. He then remarries three more times, killing two of the wives before police caught him.
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Joel Steinberg:
New York City criminal lawyer, described by many as "nice enough, but a little eccentric," partnered with an attractive, gentle editor and writer of children's books. Without benefit of legal adoption he took custody of baby girl Lisa and later baby boy Mitchell.
When Lisa died from a fractured skull, authorities suddenly became aware of the monstrous abuse the brutal, drug-obsessed control freak Steinberg committed on his family and the nightmarish destruction of a promising woman executive.
Steinberg was released from prison in 2004.
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Colin and JoAnn Thatcher:
Handsome and distinguished-looking, Colin Thatcher successfully pursued a political career like his father Ross, the premier of Saskatchewan from 1964 to his mysterious death in 1971. But as Colin's career blossomed, his overt philandering and physical abuse destroyed his marriage to his dutiful wife, JoAnn.
During the court battles that followed, Colin made sure JoAnn remained in a state of fear, hoping that it would dissuade her from continuing with the suit against him. He continuously harassed her by stealing her car, making threatening phone calls and at one point even slashing her tires. JoAnn feared for her life and for the wellbeing of her children, yet remained determined to see the divorce and custody fights through.
This is a story about obsession. Colin was so obsessed with destroying JoAnn that he lost sight of what he was doing to himself, his family, and his once promising career.
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The Tower:
Two boys, 12 and 10, are locked away in a tower by their ruthless uncle. Did he take their lives as well as their freedom, wealth and birthright?
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Marcus Wesson:
Says he is Jesus Christ, marries and then sires children with his own daughters and his wife's nieces. He rules his children with an iron first abusing them physically and sexually. He teaches them to worship him, support him, bear his children and when the time comes, to kill their children and themselves rather than be separated from him.
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Garrett Wilson:
Could a father take out insurance policies on his two babies and murder them for the money or were the tragic deaths a result of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome? This hard-bodied ladies man with a criminal history appeared to be getting away with murder until his first wife came forward after he left her for another woman with a charge of murder.
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Mary Winkler:
Quiet, preacher's wife and mother of two murders her charismatic husband in cold blood and flees with their children. She pleads not guilty.
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Woodchipper Murder:
On December 1, 1986, the Newtown Police Department in central Connecticut received a phone call from Keith Mayo, a local private investigator. He said that his client, Pan Am stewardess Helle Crafts, had recently disappeared and he feared that she may have been murdered by her airline pilot husband, Richard Crafts. Mayo was adamant and insisted that the Newtown Police investigate the crime immediately. Helle left her home on November 19 to drive to Richard's sister's house in nearby Westport. But Helle never showed up at the sister's home and hadn't been heard from since that day. Her car was later found in an employee parking lot of Pan Am airlines at Kennedy airport.
And so began one of the most ingenious murder cases in forensic history. Enter Dr. Henry C. Lee, possibly the world's best-known forensic scientist who was then in charge of Connecticut's state police lab. Investigators were convinced that Crafts had killed his wife, but they needed a body in order to arrest him. Following up on reports that a man had been seen late one night in a blinding snow storm with a truck and a woodchipper in tow, an incredible scavenger hunt brought the amazing case to a close.
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Andrea Yates:
Woman drowns her five children -- one at a time after her husband goes to work. Is she psychotic or a monster? Incorrect expert testimony causes murder convictions to be overturned.
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