All in Fresh from MMN
Twenty three years ago today, 36 year old Girly Chew Hossencofft was murdered by her estranged husband, Diazien Hossencofft, and his girlfriend, Linda Henning. Girly Chew met Diazien during one of several trips to the United States from her home country of Malaysia in the early 1990s. After immigrating to marry and start a new life with Hossencofft, Girly's life in America wasn't what she had anticipated.
Harold Schester, an American true crime writer, examined serial killers, their victims, and their motives by separating them into four categories in his book The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers.
According to Schester, there is no clear-cut definition or recipe for a serial killer, but it is possible to divide them into four archetypes: power & control, visionary, missionary, and hedonistic. Here are the descriptions.
On June 4th, 2010, Kyron Horman’s stepmother Terri Moulton watched Kyron Horman walk to class after setting up his science fair project. This would be the last time Kyron was seen alive.
When the mummified remains of Reyna Angélica Marroquín were discovered inside of a 55-gallon drum stashed in the crawlspace of a Long Island home, Nassau County investigators had to work backwards to solve a mysterious murder case three decades in the making.
The bombing occurred on September 16th, 1920, and would kill 38 people and injure hundreds more. Though suspicions of anarchist or communist terrorism ran wild, nobody was ever convicted, and nobody ever confessed.
In 1997, authorities responded to an emergency call in the Rancho Santa Fe San Diego suburb, where they discovered thirty-nine bodies, all members of the new religious movement Heaven’s Gate. This would be the largest mass suicide in the United States.
On August 27, 1979, a sunny day off of Mullaghmore Peninsula in County Sligo in Ireland meant good fortune for those who wanted to enjoy the last few weeks of summer. What began as a normal boat ride turned deadly when a bomb detonated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army killed Lord Louis Mountbatten, one of his grandchildren, a boat worker, and Doreen Bradbourne.
Forty years ago today, 3-year-old beauty queen Rachael Runyan was abducted from a playground near her family's home in Sunset, Utah. After a nearly month-long manhunt, her body was found in a canyon about 15 miles away. Rachael's 5-year-old brother Justin and another older boy witnessed the abduction and saw the man who took her. However, some misunderstandings resulted in an inaccurate police sketch being released.
Femicide is a global tragedy, but we still don’t know enough about it in the United States. Here are the three facts about American femicide.
It was the biggest trial of the Cold War. On one end, most American media supported the death penalty that loomed for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. But sixty-nine years after the execution, the case may never be settled to absolute satisfaction, and scholars still debate whether Ethel died innocent.
On the afternoon of September 10, 1897, 19 unarmed miners were shot and killed and dozens more injured in the outskirts Lattimer, Pennsylvania while they peacefully protested for better working conditions and wages.
It was a day that changed American media forever. On August 20, 1989, the Menendez Brothers killed their parents, and in the years to come American culture was overtaken with the facts and questions surrounding the case. Even to this day, the public continues to be enraptured by this story of high class and family abuse.
In August of 1987, Donald Harvey pled guilty to 37 murders committed over a span of nearly two decades. Harvey mostly preyed upon patients at hospitals where he was working, and he proclaimed himself to be an 'Angel of Death,' killing to relieve sick people of their pain. As the manner of his sadistic crimes came to light, it became clear that nothing could be further from the truth.
In 2008, Jan Ruis, Ph.D., wrote a research paper on the statistical analysis of the astrological birth charts of serial killers and observed some repeated configurations that would make these people more susceptible to developing some disorders.
October 2002 heralded a three-week murder spree that would terrorize citizens across the Washington Metropolitan Area. However, the Beltway snipers had already claimed several victims earlier that year, and accumulated a body count that neared 20 before they were apprehended.
It was 44 years ago, on November 17th, 1978, when fellow employees at Burger Chef in Speedway, Indiana were abducted and murdered while closing and cleaning the restaurant.
From August 8-10 1969, the Manson Family brutally murdered six people in Los Angeles, California. The sheer depravity of the killings cemented the Manson Family in infamy, with actress Sharon Tate becoming a cultural icon.
Twenty-eight years ago, on July 11, 1994, a body floated to the surface off the coast of the Heligoland archipelago, a collection of islands off the coast of Germany. For the past two decades, the secret of the identity belonging to this body which would become known as “The Gentleman” has been lost, but recent research may have just found a clue to help figure out the truth.
Georgia Leah Moses disappeared from Santa Rosa California on August 13th 1997. Nine days later, the 12-year-old girl's dead body was found alongside Highway 101 near the Petaluma Boulevard onramp. Georgia's short life was marked by failures of the system, which sadly continued to fail her in death. The investigation was distracted by a series of errors -- from the handling of her missing person report to the identification of her body. Even Georgia's name was printed incorrectly by the media, creating further barriers to justice.
It’s not just a menacing movie tradition or a practice of the past — exorcisms of supposed demons are still actively performed by clergy across the world. When they go wrong, they can go violently, deadly wrong.
