Pregnant Prom ending up in Buried Baby? - The Case of Skylar Richardson
**TW**: eating disorder, murder
**Hello everyone** and welcome back to our *True Crime Series!* Today I bring you a new case - the case of **Brooke Skylar Richardson**. This case is pretty gruesome so I’ll try to tell it in a light way so it doesn’t get too dark, hope you enjoy!
**The Family Story**
Brooke Skylar Richardson, daughter of Scott and Kim Richardson and sister of Jackson Richardson, was born and raised in a small town called Carlisle, Ohio. This family seemed to have the perfect life: growing up the kids were super athletic and when they got to high school Jackson joined the football team and Skylar, name she would usually go by, was a cheerleader - a *flyer* to be exact. They were also great students and Skylar took cheer very seriously, while balancing it with being in the student council and being involved in as many extracurricular activities as possible.
However, being this *perfect* took a toll on her, as the pressure she, and her mother, put on herself got to her. She struggled with *Body Dysmorphia* and an eating disorder - *Bulimia*, and it was getting pretty severe, taking over her life. Her family would say it would go to the extent of her not even wanting to buy or eat gum, just because “*it had too many calories”*, and it started when she was about 12 years old.
Although her parents claim they always did everything they could to help her get better, when this case came to light, they were really criticized as people were questioning if they really tried and did enough, especially her mother, Kim, known in her town for being very vain and kind of obsessed with her body image.
Skylar, although known as a nice person, was very reserved and liked to keep things to herself. This means she didn’t usually share her life with other people, specially her parents - which is very important, as she didn’t feel comfortable talking and going to her parents for help.
In **July, 2016**, Skylar met a friend’s cousin, named Trey, and they started dating. The relationship, however, was not serious and it didn’t last long, as in the **beginning of 2017** she had a new boyfriend, Brandon, a junior on her High School, who she really cared about. According to her family, this was the most serious relationship she had ever been on, her parents thought he was a really good influence on her. During this relationship she seemed her most happiest self and she actually started putting on weight, which made her parents feel like her ED was getting under control.
**Spring, 2017**, Skylar and her family went on a beach vacation and her parents thought everything was going great as she was on the path of being a healthier and happier person.
**The Discovery**
As the relationship with Brandon was getting more serious, her mother talked to Skylar about her getting on birth control, which she agreed and so they went to the OB/GYN on April 26th, 2017. Her mom waited on the waiting room and she went in alone, but when she came out, it was clear that she had been crying.
Kim got worried seeing her daughter cry, but Skylar assured her it was just because it was her first gynecologist appointment, that she was very nervous and it could be intimidating (what was actually a fair point, for a young girl) - but this was not the real motive of her meltdown.
When she was in the room, she was told she would be **giving birth in about 10 weeks.** Although this is what she was told, they did not have certainty as they couldn’t figure out exactly when the baby was conceived - and later it was found they were actually pretty off with the estimate, since she was actually already **36 weeks** pregnant at the time of the appointment.
The doctor tried to help Skylar and give her some prenatal care and advice that she refused and instead asked for the birth control prescription. She told the doctor that the prescription was why she and her mom came to the appointment and that if she didn’t leave the room with it, it would bring some problems with her mother.
The doctor then made a decision - that later sparked some doubts and controversy - as this doctor decided to give her the prescription anyway, even though she was pregnant and if she took the pill, it couldn’t affect the baby. But as she was 18 at the time, they couldn’t tell her mom about the pregnancy if she didn’t want to (which she didn’t). So, they gave her the birth control as long as she agreed to go there again soon for some prenatal care.
**The Case**
Skylar continued her life and went to prom with Brandon in **May, 2017** in a red skin tight dress she actually picked out in February - none of the adults, her friends, her boyfriend, or even her parents noticed her being **8 months pregnant**. She would give birth just two days after prom:
A couple months after prom, on **July 14th, 2017**, Skylar’s family was surprised when police showed up at their door, saying Skylar wasn’t in trouble, but they needed to talk to her. Skylar and her parents went to the police department where she went in the room with the detectives to talk, while her parents waited outside.
In the room, police told Skylar that the OB/GYN called them saying that she was pregnant and there were rumors going around that she already had the baby and buried it in her backyard. So, when Skylar went to the interrogation room, it didn’t take long until she started telling everyone what went down.
**You can see the first interrogation** **HERE** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCW5oLxV-18
According to Skylar, two months after the first appointment, on **May 7th, 2017**, she went back to the doctor’s office and told them she gave birth to a baby girl, but it was born a stillborn. So that night she gave birth to a baby girl in her bathroom, but that when she came, she wasn’t breathing and had no heartbeat, that she tried everything that she could to save the baby but nothing worked so she went outside to her backyard, dug a small grave and buried her newborn stillborn baby, all by herself, without telling anyone what just happened. As the interrogation went on, she kept saying that she didn’t kill the baby, that it was a stillborn - which actually is a huge part of the case!
After the interrogation, the police told her parents that Skylar not only had been pregnant and had a baby, but she buried their grandchild in their backyard. As expected with this news, they were floored. They went in to see their daughter, gave her a hug and Skylar instantly started crying, calling her mom “*mommy*”, apologizing, and confessing to all of it.
She told them she named the baby **Annabelle**, and the dad was not Brandon, but the guy she was seeing before him, *Trey*. While they were talking to the detectives, the officers went to their house to look for the baby and it didn’t take them long to locate the grave, find the baby and bring him to a pathologist to take a look.
Skylar and her parents went back to their house and **6 days later**, police called Kim and Scott for Skylar to come back in for more questioning. When they got there, police said that the pathologist made a report that it looked like the baby had been burned, charred. At first she told them she had no idea what that was, that she didn’t burn the baby, she didn’t know what they were talking about. However, after being pushed in the interrogation, she changed her story, saying she “*may have burned the baby’s legs a little bit with a lighter”,* that she “*tried to cremate the baby just a little*” (her own words).
This went even further when she started changing her story the more time she spent in the room, saying that actually the baby was alive when she was born, that she heard some gurgling. This made detectives arrest her in the spot with charges of reckless homicide, after hearing her say that the baby was alive and that she tried to burn it.
**You can see the second interrogation** **HERE** **(for part 1) and** **HERE** **(for part 2)** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CB21EuL90Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv1Sdrpny0U
**The Problem with the Interrogation**
She was put on **bail of** **50 thousand dollars**, so she was able to go home before the trial started. Two weeks later, the case was presented to a grand jury and she was given new charges. Skylar was now charged with **Aggravated Murder** - that in Ohio carries life sentence -, **involuntary manslaughter**, **endangering children**, and **abuse of corpse**. Although her parents said that this was absurd and that there was no way she would harm the baby and that the baby was a stillborn, with the new charges she was arrested again and taken back to jail - although this didn’t do much, as she was once again bailed out.
The media didn’t take long to spread this case, which enraged a lot of people, to the point of protesting in front of the courthouse asking for the harshest penalty for Skylar, standing in front of their house and harassing her and her family,…
At this point there’s a huge turn of events as a new pathologist report comes out and says that the first one was actually incorrect and that there was no burning on the baby, which becomes a big part of Skylar’s defense - saying that Skylar was made to give a **false confession** since when she first came in, she promised she didn’t burn the baby - but after time in there she started doubting herself. Actually, it were the detectives that said “*maybe you tried to cremate it*” and she actually ended up saying “*yes I did, with a lighter*” - and the gurgle part was actually **suggested by the detectives** as well.
This brings up to question the **authenticity of the entire interrogation** since the part of the lighter were completely false, as the new report guaranteed, so how could anyone be certain if she was telling the truth or not? - regardless of these claims, the prosecution sticks to the initial story.
During this time, Skylar was placed on house arrest. In **July, 2019** the state contacted Skylar’s attorneys to make a deal, saying they would take off the aggravated murder if she pled guilty to the rest of the charges. However she did not take the plea saying in her own words “*I will not plead guilty to something I didn’t commit*”.
**The Trial**
The trial started on **September 3rd, 2019** and the biggest challenge for the prosecution was that they had no proofs that the baby was alive when it was born.
They used as proofs the fact that Skylar said the baby gurgled a little bit when it came and that the OB/GYN appointment was 11 days before she gave birth - and there, the baby’s heartbeat was strong and healthy, so it made no sense she went from a healthy baby to stillborn in just 11 days. Not only that, but it was confirmed that Skylar did end up taking those birth control pills just 10 days before the baby was born, so who knows what that did to her body and her baby. Besides all of this, she never told anyone - not her parents or even the father of the baby - about the pregnancy, hiding it from everyone and searching on google “*how to get rid of a baby*”, she tried to get an abortion, but she was too far gone with her pregnancy to do that, so prosecution argued that she did everything she could to sabotage the pregnancy.
The prosecution went even further to say that Skylar’s mom was very obsessed with vanity, putting her two kids in great amounts of pressure and actually knew about the pregnancy - which is actually possible as the doctor’s office accidentally emailed the pregnancy results to Skylar’s mom instead of Skylar and when she found out she texted her daughter asking what was up with the email. Skylar tried to convince her it wasn’t true, to which her mother started to respond her with texts like “*this better not be true, or your life will be over*”. Actually, going back to the interrogation videos, we can actually spot a moment when her mother says “*Yeah, we had a perfect life*” which helped the narrative of her knowing and not wanting anyone else to know, or for her daughter to give birth to her baby, as it would ruin their reputation.
**The Suspicious Text Messages with the “*****Karen”*** **mom**
There were also some text messages being brought up around the time of prom, where Skylar texted her mom saying: “*I’m just in freakout mode, I wanna look amazing again more than anything, I have being like this more than anything!*” (Keep in mind prom happened and 2 days later she gave birth).
Being “*like this*”? If her mother didn’t know, wouldn’t she be **concerned** or, at least, question what she meant by that? There was also another text message right after she gave birth saying “*I’m so excited, can’t wait for dinner tonight to wear something cute. Yaay my belly is back.*”, so why didn’t her mom question anything? Especially since Skylar had an history with body dysmorphia and bulimia, if she didn’t know anything was wrong, she would at least try to comfort her? There was also another text where Skylar told her she dropped 20 pounds (around 9kgs) to which her mother just responded with “*I could cry. You’re my hero*”. - there was also a rumor going around that her mother was helping her drop weight with laxatives (there goes their narrative of helping their daughter with the ED).
Another text popped up from the day after she gave birth, but to her boyfriend, where Skylar said “*Last night felt like the worst ever, but I feel so much better. I’m happy*.” So, although the boyfriend claimed he didn’t know - did he though?
The aftermath
Although the prosecution made some good points, the defense argued that the baby was a stillborn, using Skylar’s description of it being white, small and very pale was just like the description on a stillborn and the fact that, because her ED was on its peak, she only put 15 pounds (around 7kg) during her pregnancy, which is unhealthy that she put so few weight - which can compromise the nutrients going into the baby and resulting in its death. Plus, they argued that Skylar never got to cut the umbilical cord, which meant it could be detached, forming a stillbirth (the baby didn’t get the nutrients in order to survive).
On **September 12th, 2019** the jury found Skylar Richardson **not guilty** of **aggravated murder, involuntary manslaughter and endangering children**. However, because she buried the baby, she was **convicted of gross abuse of a corpse**, which usually carries about one year in prison, but she was sentenced, in the next day, with 3 **years of probation**.
She later went to Community College where she studied Law and, actually, her defense firm gave her an internship there, where they claim everyone loves her. To this day, the backyard at the Richardson’s house has a **little angel** in memory of Annabelle.
Her probation was ended in 2020, nearly 2 years early and the only comment Skylar made as she got free was that she only wants to "*be a normal person again*".
What did you think about the case? Do you think she actually told the truth in the interrogation? Or did the detectives mess up? Do you think her mother knew? And if yes, did she help her with all this mess? Do you think 3 years of probation was fair? **Let me know in the comments what you think and what you would like to see next!! Hope you have a lovely day!**
**Best Regards,**
Savanna Greywind Case: Caught by a Womb Raider?
**TW**: mentions of murder
**Hello and welcome back to our** ***True Crime Series*****!** Today I bring you the case of **Savanna Greywind** - a awful case that brought the US a new bill - so you can see how meaningful this is. As you know, feel free to leave your opinions and requests for the series in the comments - *I'll get to them all*!
**Savanna Greywind** was born in Belcourt, North Dakota, on August 9th, 1995. Her mother was a member of the Turtle Mountain Tribe and her father was a member of the Spirit Lake Tribe, making her a member too - she was, therefore, an indigenous woman.
When she was just a kid, her family moved to Fargo, but it didn’t take long until they returned to the Spirit Lake Reservation near Devil’s Lake - she was 9 at the time. She went to school in the reservation, graduating from Warwick Public School and then attending Lake Region State College in Devil’s Lake, where she got a certificate as a certified nursing assistant.
**The beginning**
She met **Ashton Matheny**, also a Spirit Lake member, in middle school and they hit it off right away, they started to date, and were together for 7 years. In 2016, Savanna got a job at the Eventide Fargo Senior Living Communities as a certifies nursing assistant, so she moved to Fargo. At this time, Ashton was working in Minneapolis, but later that same year they found out they were having a baby with September 2017 being the due date, so he was pretty quick to move in near Savanna to be with her and, a few months after, her parents and younger brother followed - as they were a really tight family that wanted to help each other.
**About Savanna:**
So lived with her parents in an apartment in North Fargo and she decided to enroll college again, more specifically North Dakota State University. Her family and friends say she was also very into horses and an equestrian, she was very friendly and social, and for her, family was all that mattered, the most important thing for her. She also had decided to move in with her boyfriend to a different apartment in September 1st , so they could get ready for the baby that was coming.
**The case**
In **August 19th, 2017** Savanna, a 8 month pregnant 22 year-old girl, texted her mother, around **01:24pm**, saying their upstairs neighbor asked for help do sew a dress, and she would be giving her 20$ to go try it on for her to adjust it, so she was going there for a bit.
Around **02:30pm** Savanna wasn’t home yet, and she had promised to take her younger brother to work and it was getting late, so her mother sent him there to see if it would take long - he knocked on the neighbor door but no one answered, he said he heard what seemed like a sewing machine running inside, so he shrugged it off and went back home.
As he got home and told their parents, they got pretty concerned, and the dad decided to go there instead. When he knocked on the door, the woman answered and apologized, **saying they would take a little bit longer than anticipated**. With this answer, the dad went back home, and the mother ended up driving her son to work.
It was now **04:30pm** when her mother got home and Savanna wasn’t there yet, so she decided to go to the neighbor’s house and knock to see what was going on. This time when the woman answered, **she said that Savanna already left**. Her mother went back at home, but very suspicious, as Savanna had ordered a pizza before she left to help, and the pizza arrived and she never ate it. She got in touch with Ashton that also said that they were texting, and **she suddenly stopped**.
So, she didn’t eat the pizza, she stopped texting her boyfriend and besides being known as a very cautious person, she was 8 months pregnant, and her feet were really swollen so she couldn’t get far - and her car remained parked in the usual spot. This made the parents call the police, and law enforcement got involved in the search for her.
**The Search**
The first place the police searched was, obviously, the neighbor’s house, the last place she was seen at. This time, both **a** **woman AND a man** answered the door and let them into the house in order to search it, but nothing was found. In that weekend, police searched it two more times, but didn’t find anything at all.
On **Wednesday, August 23rd**, the family decided to have a prayer event for her at the Sanford Medical Center in downtown Fargo, as she wasn’t yet found, and there they requested publicly the **help of the FBI on the search, as well as a 7000$ reward** - the next few weeks were filled with searches with dogs and a lot of people, but there was still no trace of her.
On **August 24th**, at **10:05am** the police searched the neighbor’s house one more time after going to the neighbor’s work and his coworkers saying he lately c**omplained about his new baby** at home. So when they conducted the search, they found a ***newborn baby***. Realizing this baby was probably Savanna’s, the couple William Hoehn, 32, and Brooke Crews, 38, were detained and questioned by detectives, and the baby was brought to the hospital do get checked and, later, reunited with the real family - Savanna’s.
**The Kidnappers' Background**
Brooke, before being with William, had another boyfriend - Aaron - with whom she had a daughter that she was never involved with, including **not paying child support.** Not only that, but she had other 3 kids from previous relationships she similarly **neglected.** It’s known that Brooke had as many as **seven children**.
William had **2 kids** of his own, and he actually physically abused one of them as a baby, being charged with that in 2011 when the baby was admitted to the hospital with a huge skull fracture.
In terms of their relationship - Brooke was a very bad-tempered foster kid that, as a kid, always jumped from shelter to shelter. She would be **really violent** towards William, to the extent of threatening him with a hammer over some unpaid bills. The relationship started in 2014 and was very violent from both - in 2016, during a fight, William pushed Brooke in the bathtub, and she had to get stitches, she complained, and he pled guilty to assault.
Actually, Brooke told the police that William threatened to leave her once, so in the moment she told him she was pregnant. When he found out that this was a lie, he got really enraged and told her she needed to “*produce a baby*” or he would lose it, and leave her.
**So… What actually happened?**
On **Sunday, August 27th , 2017** at **5:45pm**, some people were kayaking in the Red River when they saw a body wrapped in plastic and taped to a log, so they called authorities. Around **08:20pm** authorities managed to pull the body out of the river, and, within an hour, it was identified as being *Savanna*.
So, because the couple had the baby and were already arrested for suspicion of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, they were the prime suspects - so they were questioned.
Brooke acted like she didn’t do anything - she said she invited Savanna to her apartment and taught her how to induce birth, breaking her own water. She said she then left and came back two days later and handed her a newborn baby.
However, William told another whole version, saying he came home to find Brooke wiping up blood in their bathroom. He admitted to the police he helped her clean up, got rid of the bloody towels, shoes and clothes - so, overall, assisted in a crime scene. He then said Brooke presented her a baby and said “*This is our family. This is ours*”.
**The Aftermath**
When authorities found out they were planning to flee the country before being arrested, the judge set the **bail to 2 million dollars cash**.
Savanna’s funeral was held on Thursday, **September 7th** and on **September 8th**, Savanna’s boyfriend, Ashton, got full custody of their baby, named **Haisley Jo** - she was then raised by both Ashton and Savanna’s family.
On **December 11th, 2017**, **Brooke** pleaded guilty to **conspiracy to commit murder and kidnapping**, and **providing false information to the police**. On **February 2nd, 2018** she was sentenced to **life in prison without parole**.
**She later admitted to** ***luring her into her apartment and performing a C-section on her with a*** *****carpenter knife*******.**
**William** pleaded guilty on **September 4th, 2017** to charges of **kidnapping** and **providing false information to the authorities** and, on **September 28th, 2018** a 12-person jury declared him ***not guilty*** **of conspiring to kill Savanna**, since he wasn’t actually involved in the murder per se. However, in **October 29th, 2018**, a judge sentenced him to **life in prison, with the possibility of parole**.
This case was so massive, that brought the **proposition of a bill** with the intent to improve resources and make sure there was enough work being put into finding missing indigenous women and children. **The bill** “*aims to improve tribal access to federal crime information databases and create standardized protocols for responding to cases of missing and murdered Native American women*”. A petition was started and the bill, called *****Savanna’s Act*****, was actually passed in 2020, signed into law by the US president at the time - Donald Trump.
So, what did you think about this case? Do you think this just happened because of William’s threat? **Feel free to leave your thoughts and opinions in a comment** - I’ll be sure to read them all and respond! *If you have any particular case or any type of crime you would like to see covered in this series*, you can also leave it in the comments and I’ll get to that for sure! **Thank you for reading and have a lovely day!**
**Best Regards,**
I would like to personally thank my top sponsors @MicroReylatos and @FrieLincs for believing in my work, it truly means a lot! Go check their accounts, and give them some love! **Thank you again!**
My 1 Month Journey Here: Personal Feedback
**Hello everyone, and May the 4th be with you!** Today marks exactly 1 month since I created my account (although my first article - my introduction - was posted on April 5th, 2021, I created the account one day prior) so I bring you something very different that our usual *True Crime Series*.
I saw a lot of people celebrating and writing about this milestone, so I took inspiration from them and decided to do the same. But I’ve noticed a big difference: **GOALS**.
A lot of articles I’ve read about their journey here on Read.Cash had previous established goals they wanted to achieve by 1 month, whether it was in $, subscribers, upvotes, comments or sponsors. I am all for setting goals, since I believe setting them helps us work harder to achieve them and helps motivate us and raise our productivity. However, I didn’t set a single goal going into this… Allow me to explain:
As I joined this community, **I had no goals set, no plan thought,** firstly because I’m very new to this type of platforms and secondly because I arrived here in a parachute, seeing all these articles about crypto, BTC and BCH and I wouldn’t write about that, because I knew little to nothing about this topic (although now I can safely say I’m learning, **thanks to all the articles I’ve been reading here, that truly help**).
So, when a friend told me about this platform, I decided to give it a try. I really like to write and wanted to share my passion about crime with everyone else. But because it is a pretty specific theme, I didn’t know if I would have the public here to read and appreciate it, so I didn’t set goals - I didn’t expect it to blow up, make numbers, having a lot of views or subscribers, since it’s such an unexplored topic in this site.
***I decided to come here and have fun, and if the numbers came, great.***
So, I thought I would never achieve big things here, but I think I can say *I was wrong*!
Although what I’m about to disclose might seem small to some, since there are so many accounts who did better and got more in the same amount of time (*and the merit is all theirs!*) to me it means a lot.
**These achievements mean that someone is out there, on the other side, reading what I write and, most importantly, liking it!**
I put a lot of work into my articles and although they aren’t perfect (*as English isn’t my first language*) I can get the message across and I know I’ll keep growing my account, at my own pace!
Without further ado, here’s what I accomplished (please keep in mind **this is not my job,** just a hobby):
In this month I’ve managed to write a total of **6 articles** (if you count this one, 7) with an **average of 8,33min of reading** per article. I take this first month like what people say about the first semester of college: ***it was a period of adaptation, figuring out our pace and all that***. I can for sure say I had a lot more planned but I didn’t come through, whether it was by not having the time between work to write, of just because *I got lazy* - I’m gonna keep it real here, everyone gets lazy sometimes, and it’s ok, don’t feel guilty about it.
In this month I rounded up a total of **14 subscribers** which, being honest with you, I didn’t think I would get them all in 1 month as this is, as I say, an unexplored topic and *I wasn’t active everyday…* **So I’m very happy with my 14 supporters** ❤
I managed to get, in the total of my articles this far, **35 upvotes**, **198 total views,** **1 saved post** and **9** (without my responses of course) **comments** - which meant a lot to me, really - your feedback is always important and it's always nice to know what you have to say.
In the monetary field, I can say I was very lucky to be **noticed by rusty pretty early** on, so I got his tips in almost every article I wrote. So, in this month I got a total of **$41.13 in all my articles**, and my most tipped article was my last, “Walls have bullets”, with a total of **$15.78** and my highest tip made by someone was **$2.00 by** @CryptoMax . I spent an average of **$14.65 in boosts.**
I have *no* sponsors ,yet.
Also, I try to read a lot of other people’s articles and take the time to leave a comment, upvote, and even tip, but **I did not keep track** of it at all, so I’ll try to keep that more in mind for my next update and also will try to give more back to the community, now that I’m starting to get the hang of it.
**Future Goals**
Well, since I haven’t made goals for the first month, I thought about making them for the next update (*3 months* maybe?) but I’m not sure what to make them about.
I would love to reach **1000 views**, since it’s such a round number, and maybe reach **$100 as well**, but I’m not adamant about it. I do want however to s*et some goals not for the outcome but yes to me and my work*:
**I want to write more, make and post more articles.**
**I want to be more active in the community** - *read more, comment more, tip more, even sponsor* some creators, they really deserve it!
Lastly, **I would like to thank each and everyone of you** who read, who upvote, who comment, who tip. It gives a lot more motivation and makes me a lot happier to be writing knowing that there is someone on the other side that is actually reading it!
I **hope you have a very wonderful day!** Stay tuned for more content and feel free to leave a comment if you want to see something in particular ❤❤ **Thank you again.**
**Best Regards,**
Walls have bullets: Emma Walker killed through a wall in her sleep?
**TW:** mentions of murder and suicide
**Hello everyone!** After the game we played, we’re back to our *True Crime Series* with another case! This is the awful case of **Emma Walker**, who was just a teen when she was killed. Don’t forget to place your thoughts and opinions in the comments and feel free to request any case (or a type of crime you would like to see covered on the series!) **Thank you for your support!**
**Background**
**Emma Jane Walker**, daughter of Mark and Jill Walker, was born in march 20th, 2000 in a small town in Knoxville, Tennessee. She also had a brother named Evan.
Described as a super sweet and down to earth girl, she would do a lot of volunteer work, especially at the animal shelter. She was into competitive dance and cheerleading, but for being the pretty cheerleader, she was nothing like the stereotype, being very kind and friendly. She ambitioned to be a neonatal nurse and people only had nice things to say about her.
At 2014 she joined Central High School as a freshman, being the only freshman accepted at the cheer team, so she was very good, besides being an honor student and having quite a lot of friends. This year was also the year she met a boy named **Riley Gaul.** He was 2 years older than Emma and a star wide receiver at the school’s football team, being also very active in his church and a great student, just like Emma. Although Emma developed a big crush on him, he was dating someone else at the time - but it didn’t take long for him to break up with his current girlfriend to be with Emma, beginning their journey as the cliché romance story couple of the cheerleader and the football star.
Although this seems like a movie love story, Emma’s parents got a **red flag** pretty early on, when Riley broke up with his ex to be with Emma, but still promised her he would take her to prom, so although he was already dating Emma, he took the other girl to his junior prom, and only took Emma to the senior prom. This might seem not like a big deal, but to the parents it was, since they didn’t want her daughter getting hurt.
**The Relationship**
After this, the relationship just went downhill, since they would just break up and make up constantly, going on and off the relationship, having a lot of fights. Emma’s friends expressed their concerns with not only the fact that Riley didn’t want to meet them and get to know them, but he also didn’t want Emma to spend time with them, quickly becoming very possessive and controlling of her, to the point where he would want to control what she would wear, going to her work and waiting there hours until she got off and obsessively call and text when she did something without him.
This started escalating when he started to send aggressive messages via Snapchat, like *“you’re dead to me, I’ll check the Obituary, f*** you”*. He would also play mind games saying he would kill himself if she didn’t stay with him, which, of course, led to a very toxic relationship.
As this was getting more troubling, Emma’s parents banned Riley from their home and took Emma’s phone, in an effort to control the situation and break the vicious cycle of on and off that was created, but Riley quickly turned the situation around by giving her his iPod Touch so they could communicate.
After 2 years of this on and off relationship, Riley graduated and attended Maryville College, that stayed 30min away from Emma, so they were not quite apart yet, like her parents hoped to, so they took bigger measures by forbidding Emma to leave the house unless it was for school or practice. This actually worked as she was back at her happy self - that is until Thanksgiving break, where she saw a picture on Snapchat of Riley with another girl on campus, so she decided to end things for good. As predicted, Riley did not handle this well, drinking a bunch of alcohol and taking a lot of Vicodin pills in an attempt to **kill himself** - luckily unsuccessfully.
**The Present Case**
**Friday, November 18th**, Emma’s high school team won a football game so, that night, there was a celebration party going on, which Emma’s parents allowed her to attend, since she was doing so much better. Around 11:30pm, Emma started receiving very weird and sketchy texts threatening her, like: *“I’ve got someone you love. If you don’t comply, I will hurt them… Come outside”.* Emma got immediately worried but brushed it off being one of Riley’s friends cracking a joke - that is until the following text “*He’s in the ditch beside the house. It’s a shame you can all of a sudden not value someone else’s life”*, so she asked her friend to join her outside and see if everything was ok.
Once outside, they saw Riley face down near the end of the driveway, he stood up acting confused, saying he was kidnapped and someone drove him there, he didn’t remember a thing. Emma asked him to leave her alone, and so he did, calling his friend to pick him up and telling the same story - which he also didn’t buy.
The **next day, at 10:15am**, Emma was at home getting ready to meet her mom when someone started banging really hard on her front door. As she was home alone, she got frightened and ended up texting Riley saying she hated him, but she needed him, so he quickly got to her house. When her mother noticed she wasn’t showing up, she went home and saw Riley and Emma sitting on the driveway talking. She approached them and asked him to leave, and the complied.
****Sunday, November 20th**** arrives and even though Emma was still pretty creeped out about what happened, she was starting to get more calm, her parents took her to work and back, to make sure she was ok and later in the evening she went to eat some ice cream with her dad. It was an uneventful day that culminated in a calm night, when she went to sleep.
Suddenly, in the middle of the night, her dad heard a **loud banging noise**, he said later in an interview it was like someone was inside the house and slammed the door really hard, so he got startled. Then he heard a **second loud noise**, so he quickly got up to go check on Emma and Evan, checking both their rooms. When he opened Emma’s door, she was calmly laying on her bed, what appeared to be sleeping. He scouted the whole house and saw nothing weird so he ended up convincing himself he dreamt it or imagined it, so he went back to bed.
The next day, **Monday the 21st of November**, both Mark and Jill were getting ready in their morning routines at 6am, when Jill decided to go wake up her daughter, as she usually did. She was normally easy to wake up so when her mom called her name several times, and bumped her legs with no response, she knew something was wrong, and that was when she looked at Emma’s face and checked her pulse, and she knew. She quickly called 911 and paramedics arrived pretty quickly.
**You can see the 911 call** **HERE** https://youtu.be/9M2Q_TLhwvk?t=77
**The Investigation**
When paramedics arrived, they first thought it was **suicide**, **overdose,** or a **natural cause** that made her die overnight and, when she didn’t come to school, the rumors were quick to spread, specially the first two causes of death.
Because she was so well known, vigil were being made, and there was a lot of public mourning and people really wanted to get to the bottom of what happened to her, so the investigation began.
Detectives when arriving at the crime scene, thought, as I said previously, that this was some accident or natural cause, but after further inspection they noticed a **hole in the wall, the size of a pen** - this showed that there were ****2 bullets that were shot to the corner of the house, where her bed was**** - so this told investigators that the person who did this had to know exactly that this was Emma’s bedroom, and where her bed was.
Detectives started then making the typical questions of *“do you know anyone that might have wanted to harm Emma?”* and Riley’s name kept popping up, so police went to his dorm, but had nothing to connect him to the murder. That is until one of his friends, Alex, told the police that the Saturday before Emma’s death, Riley told him he had stole his grandfather’s gun *“for protection”*. This made Riley become a person of interest in Emma’s murder, so he was interviewed.
When Riley was asked where he was at the time of death, he said he was at his friend Noah’s house and he was *“pretty sure he slept over”*. Detectives found very weird that during the whole 2 hours of interview, Riley never said Emma’s name, only referring to her as *“the girl”* and *“the girl who passed away”*. When asked about the gun, he always denied it, no matter what they asked. His friend Noah later came forward and also said that Riley asking him if he knew how to take finger prints off a gun *“for a friend”*.
**You can see the FULL interview** **HERE** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvor8V9_0ZA
So after Riley left the interview, he immediately texted his two friends asking why they snitched about the gun and asked them not to speak to the police any further since he needed time until he got rid of it so he didn’t got blamed by something *“he didn’t do”*.
At this point, Alex and Noah were pretty confident that he was the one who killed Emma, so they agreed to help him get rid of the gun, while secretly working with the police. So the next day, Alex and Noah went to Riley’s house to play videogames, while wearing mics and cameras from the police.
As their conversation reaches Emma, Riley started by denying any involvement and saying that he wanted his friend to take back their statements to the police by claiming they were on drugs, or something, and that the 3 should go d**ump the gun in the Tennessee river**, to get rid of it.
So at this point, they got in the car and stopped at Riley’s stepdad house where he had hidden the gun in a trash bag, retrieved it and proceeded to stop to get fast food, before heading to a parking lot near the river. During all this time, the two friends were in contact with the police and, when Riley decided they should get out of the car and take the gun to the river, the police showed up and apprehended everyone there.
**The aftermath**
Riley was arrested and convicted of **first-degree murder** as well as **6 other felonies**. When police got ahold of the trash bag and were looking for the gun, they also found Riley’s black clothing he wore that night.
In **May 2018**, in his trial, Riley’s defense team said this was not a murder but a reckless homicide, which caught the court by surprise since they just admitted he was the one who fired. However, the defense team claimed the shots being fired did not have the intent to kill her but yes to scare her, so she would ask him to come over and *“save her”*. Nevertheless, the prosecution was quick to call BS on this, since the way the shots were fired, it was very specifically in a place that had the intent to kill.
The were 30 witnesses at the trail and it took over one week, but in **May 8th, 2018,** Riley was charged with **first-degree murder** and sentenced to **over 50 years** in prison before he gets a chance for parole.
**You can see the FULL trial** **HERE** https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoW1SIeAWaWYrtyXai7KA5SbhHaH8GiKU
So, what did you think about this case? Leave your opinions down below on the comments! Feel free to leave any suggestions as well, as I will always read everything with love! **Hope you have a lovely day!**
**Best Regards,**
Crime Game Answer: Which one of these serial killers is a psychopath?
**Hello and welcome back!** As promised, today being Monday, I bring you the final answer to who out of these 10 serial killers is considered a psychopath in the eyes of science.
**Firstly, let’s remember the contestants!**
1. John Wayne Gacy, *aka The Killer Clown*
2. Jeffrey Dahmer, *aka The Milwaukee Cannibal*
3. Gary Ridgway, *aka The Green River Killer*
4. Edmund Kemper, *aka The Co-Ed Killer*
5. Theodore Bundy, *aka Ted Bundy*
6. Richard Ramirez, *aka The Night Stalker*
7. Dennis Rader, *aka The BTK Killer*
8. Countess Erzebet Bathory, *aka The Blood Countess/Countess Dracula*
9. Jane Toppan, *aka Jolly Jane*
10. Aileen Wuornos, *aka The Florida Highway Killer*
If you didn’t see the post before this one and still want to participate before seeing the answer, go to the article below, where I give a brief introduction of each contestant and leave a comment with your bet!
**Crime Game: Which one of these serial killers is a psychopath?** https://read.cash/@NewrA/crime-game-which-one-of-these-serial-killers-is-a-psychopath-2d81d0aa
So, let’s first see what does being a psychopath in the eyes of science mean: For this particular case, we’ll be seeing studies using PCL-R, a scale from Hare (2003). For anyone that doesn’t know, PCL-R is the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, this is a psychological assessment tool very much used to see the presence of psychopathy in individuals - especially the ones that are jailed, and to differentiate the individual with psychopathy from the one with antisocial personality disorder, since they are very similar illnesses, but not the same.
This checklist has 20 items about personality traits and behaviors, all to be completed based on an interview (semi-structured) and some side information, for example their records. Because of the importance of this test and potential harm it is necessary to be extremely trained to apply it, so you need to be an experienced clinician with a license in order to administer this tool. In psychometric terms, the current version of the checklist has two factors! The first factor (Factor 1) has 2 major facets being “Interpersonal” and “Affective”; the second factor (Factor 2) has the facets “Lifestyle” and “Antisocial”.
However, as you can guess, it’s not possible to interview a lot of these criminals, either because they are incarcerated or dead, so the studies we’ll be seeing use content analysis, which was determined to be the best available technique for this particular research. So the information on this content analysis and other scholar articles were used to get to the PCL-R score for each factor, that was later discussed in order to come up with good results, so all there criminals were considered individually and got assigned a specific score on each item based on the evidence gathered. When the scoring was complete, there was a sum to reach the total of each individual and then researchers proceeded to the comparison of the scores according to gender.
So let’s see what we got!
**Starting with the girlies**: Countess Elizabeth, Jane and Aileen, we can say that all of them scored lower than the men, especially in Factor 1. What does this mean? It means that male serial killers are more callous, selfish and have less remorse than the women, even though they both are equal in terms of socially deviant lifestyles and being unstable.
The **Countess** had an almost equal score in Factor 1 and 2, with 8/16 and 9/18 respectively which means this woman was callous, unremorseful, manipulative, and antisocial.
**Jane Toppan** score 14/16 in Factor 1 traits so like the countess, she was callous and remorseless, using others for her sadistic needs. However, she scored only 3/18 in Factor 2, which tells us that she was not very irresponsible or impulsive and did not lack behavioral control.
The last woman is **Aileen Wuornos**, that actually placed higher than 2 of the men and above the other women. Aileen’s Factor 1 total was 9 out of 16 and her Factor 2 was 14 out of 18). Aileen was surprisingly very irresponsible and impulsive, having little to no achievable goals.
Let’s now take a look at the **male serial killers** 1 by 1. **Keep in mind that to be labeled psychopathic we need a score of, at least, 30 in this scale**.
Starting with **Richard Ramirez**, he scored slightly higher in Factor 1 characteristics than Factor 2 although both areas were pretty equal, with Factor 1 having 10 out of 16 and Factor 2 with 8 out of 18. It’s pretty impressive that he scored perfectly on the affective and lifestyle facets with 4 out of 4 and 6 out of 6. However, on his interpersonal and antisocial facets he scored a lot lower, with only 1 out of 6 and 0 out of 6, respectively. This means that his lack of empathy, sense of responsibility and impulsive nature outweigh the superficial, grandiose and antisocial characteristics by a lot.
**Dennis Rader** scored higher than Ramirez, with a perfect score on Factor 1 (16/16), but only 6/18 in Factor 2, which means he was deceitful, grandiose and remorseless but had poor behavior control, although not being impulsive or irresponsible at all.
**John Gacy** got a total on Factor 1 of 16/16, so another perfect score like Rader, and 6/18 in Factor 2. Gacy was lacking more in the impulsiveness and the behavioral control.
**Jeffreey Dahmer** only scored 9 out of 16 in Factor 1 which means he isn’t as cold and callous as the previous, although he got 12/18 in Factor 2, scoring almost the max in impulsiveness.
**Gary Ridgway** scores 11/16 in Factor 1 and only 4/18 in Factor 2, bringing us the lack of impulsiveness and irresponsibility we were looking for.
Being almost over, we got **Edmund Kemper**, with a Factor 1 score of 13 out of 16 and a score of 11 out of 18 in Factor 2.
Lastly, we have **Ted Bundy**. He scored 16 out of 16 in Factor 1, so a perfect score like Gacy and Rader and a score of 16 out of 18 in Factor 2. This tells us Bundy was cold, calculated and an unremorseful predator.
So, keeping in mind that we consider scientifically psychopathic individuals that score higher than 30, here’s the final results:
1. John Wayne Gacy, *aka The Killer Clown* ***27/40***
2. Jeffrey Dahmer, *aka The Milwaukee Cannibal* ***23/40***
3. Gary Ridgway, *aka The Green River Killer* ***19/40***
4. Edmund Kemper, *aka The Co-Ed Killer* ***26/40***
5. Theodore Bundy, *aka Ted Bundy* ***34/40***
6. Richard Ramirez, *aka The Night Stalker* ***18/40***
7. Dennis Rader, *aka The BTK Killer* ***22/40***
8. Countess Erzebet Bathory, *aka The Blood Countess/Countess Dracula* ***17/40***
9. Jane Toppan, *aka Jolly Jane* ***17/40***
10. Aileen Wuornos, *aka The Florida Highway Killer* ***23/40***
And the winner is……………….
**TED BUNDY**
Charming, eloquent, intelligent and easy to talk to, he had a very antisocial lifestyle, also being quite a parasite. He was pretentious, arrogant, manipulative and had no long term goals, making him like the mind games with police a lot. Feeling grandiose and with huge levels of self-esteem, would constantly change between truth and lies, rarely taking accountability for his actions and never showing any concern or remorse for what he did and his victims. And he was the type of people that would have never stopped his killings if he hadn’t been caught and executed.
However, Aileen was considered the quintessential “secondary” psychopath since she was dominated by her antisocial tendencies and had extremely poor behavioral control and was both very impulsive and irresponsible, also with no achievable goals, just like Bundy.
But only Bundy scored high enough to be considered a psychopath so… Congratulations @CryptoMax , you got it right!! Thank you to everyone that participated and read my article! Leave in the comments below what you thought of this game, if you want more games like this one and what you would like to see next in our True Crime Series!
**Hope all of you have a great day!!! <3**
**Best Regards,**
**Sources:** Norris, Chasity Shalon, "Psychopathy and Gender of Serial Killers: A Comparison Using the PCL-R." (2011). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 1340. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/1340
Hickey, E. W., Walters, B. K., Drislane, L. E., Palumbo, I. M., & Patrick, C. J. (2018). *Deviance at its darkest: Serial murder and psychopathy.* In C. J. Patrick (Ed.), *Handbook of psychopathy* (p. 570–584). The Guilford Press.
Crime Game: Which one of these serial killers is a psychopath?
**TW**: mentions of murder and r*pe
**Hello again**! Today I decided to bring you something different, so we will be playing a game!
Over the years I’ve noticed that most people don’t have a very correct view of what being a psychopath means scientifically, so let’s put it to the test!
I’ll give you some famous serial killers, very known specially in the US, for you to tell me **which one(s) you think are in fact psychopaths** - at the eyes of science, because to the media, cops and professionals of justice, they were all labeled as high-level psychopaths (**but is this true?**).
The contestants for this game are:
1. John Wayne Gacy, *aka The Killer Clown*
2. Jeffrey Dahmer, *aka The Milwaukee Cannibal*
3. Gary Ridgway, *aka The Green River Killer*
4. Edmund Kemper, *aka The Co-Ed Killer*
5. Theodore Bundy, *aka Ted Bundy*
6. Richard Ramirez, *aka The Night Stalker*
7. Dennis Rader, *aka The BTK Killer*
8. Countess Erzebet Bathory, *aka The Blood Countess/Countess Dracula*
9. Jane Toppan, *aka Jolly Jane*
10. Aileen Wuornos, *aka The Florida Highway Killer*
Feel free to place your bets in the comments and **stay tuned for Monday, where I will reveal the right answer**! I will now tell you a bit about each person and what crimes they committed so **if you don’t know some of them, don’t worry, I’ll give you ad brief explanation!** (You can also leave in the comments below if you want me to talk about any of them in a more specific way on our ***True Crime Series***!)
****John Wayne Gacy, aka The Killer Clown****
John Wayne Gacy got his nickname because he would do charitable events or go to children’s hospitals dressed as a clown, his persona. But he was a darker individual than anticipated as he **assaulted and murdered 33 young men and boys** (or more), making him one of the most known serial killers and sex offenders.
He would usually lure his victims to his ranch house in Norridge, a village in Illinois and handcuff them to “**show them a magic trick**”. He would then r*pe and torture them, before killing them, typically by strangulation or asphyxiation. Most of his victims would then be buried in his property.
The killings happened between 1972 and 1978, year where he was apprehended. He was later sentenced to death, in March 1980.
****Jeffrey Dahmer aka The Milwaukee Cannibal****
Like the one before, Jeffrey was a known **killer and sex offender who murdered and dismembered 17 men and boys** from 1978 to 1991. He got known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or Monster, since his crimes involved **cannibalism, necrophilia and even the permanent preservation of body parts,** as he would try to keep their skeleton as a trophy.
He would look for his victims in bars, libraries, or malls, lure them to his house to drink and watch pornography or even lure them with money to “just take pictures of them”.
He was caught and sentenced to 16 terms of life imprisonment, but ended up dying in November 1994, when another inmate beat him to death.
****Gary Ridgway aka The Green River Killer****
This man is one of the serial killers in the US history with more confirmed **murders, adding a total of 49 teenage girls and women,** all in Washington, between the 80s and 90s.
His victims would typically be sex workers or vulnerable women (for example teenagers that would run away from home). He got his nickname early from the press, since his first five victims were found in the Green River. He would usually strangle them and dispose the bodies but would end up returning to a lot of them to have sex with them.
He was arrested in November 2001 and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, since he confessed to another murder of a missing woman and told them her location - freeing him from the death penalty.
****Edmund Kemper aka The Co-Ed Killer****
Edmund got known very fast for the **murder of 10 people**, 3 of them being his grandparents and mother. He so became not only a serial killer, but also a **serial r*pist and a necrophile**. His nickname “Co-Ed Killer” was given due to the fact that most of his victims were female college students.
As he was schizophrenic, by the time he was 15 years old and killed his grandparents, he was considered paranoid and sentenced as an insane juvenile to a hospital. However after being released, he went on to a killing spree of female hitchhikers, luring them to his car and murdering them, later taking them home to r*pe, decapitate and dismember them.
After this spree, Edmund decided to kill his mother and her friend and turn himself to authorities asking for the death penalty, in 1973. However, because this sentence was suspended at the time, he received eight life sentences.
****Theodore Bundy aka Ted Bundy****
As you may know, Ted Bundy was a very famous **serial killer who kidnapped, r*ped and murdered a lot of women and girls during the 70s**.
Due to being handsome and very charismatic, he would approach the victims in public either pretending to be injured or an authority figure. He would then knock them unconscious and take them to secluded locations where he proceeded to r*pe and strangle them. Like a lot of other killers mentioned prior, he would sometimes revisit the bodies he disposed, grooming and performing sexual acts with the corpses. He would also decapitate some victims, saving their heads as trophies.
Ted was arrested in 1975, but manage to escape and commit more crimes, until he was recaptured in 1978, where he received 3 death penalties and was executed. Although he confessed 30 murders, all in a span of 4 years (1974 to 1978), investigators estimate a lot more total victims.
****Richard Ramirez aka The Night Stalker****
Ricardo Ramírez, a known **serial killer, serial r*pist, kidnapper, pedophile, and burglar**. He terrorized Los Angeles for a long time with his home invasions and murder sprees, from 1984 to 1985. He was first nicknamed “Valley Intruder” and the news media ended up giving him his final and most known nickname as “The Night Stalker”.
He would dress in all black and enter people’s homes with a variety of weapons raging from handguns to knifes, machetes, hammer and even a tire iron. He would then attack the victims, burglarize the home, kill the husbands and r*pe the female wives. He left a satanic pentagrams as his signature.
Ramirez found his fate in 1989 being convicted of 13 murders, 5 attempted murders, 11 sexual assaults and 14 burglaries and got 19 death sentences but died while waiting his execution. Of all his crimes, Richard never expressed any remorse.
****Dennis Rader aka The BTK Killer****
Known as BTK Killer as BTK stood for “***bind, torture and kill***” - an abbreviation he gave himself, **he killed 10 people from 1974 to 1991 in Wichita and Kansas, taunting the police all this time with letters describing his crimes**.
He would find a victim, stalk them and invade their homes and cut the phone lines, so they couldn’t ask for help, wait for them to get there where he would bind them ad torture them, before executing the kill. He would then leave with souvenirs. He was caught in 2005 and sentenced to ten consecutive life sentences.
****Countess Elizabeth Bathory aka The Blood Countess/Countess Dracula****
This woman received the Guinness World Record for the most prolific female murderer as she was accused of **torturing and killing, at the time of the trial, 650 women and girls from 1590 to 1610**.
Elizabeth’s sadistic murders would usually have a lot of witnesses and survivors, as well as the evidence of the mutilated dead and imprisoned girls found when she got caught. She got her nicknames due to the stories of her bathing in the blood of her virgin victims to keep being young, but it’s hard to be exact on how it all happened.
Although there were a LOT of evidence against Elizabeth, due to her family’s importance, she didn’t receive the death penalty, but was imprisoned in December 1610.
****Jane Toppan aka Jolly Jane****
Jane Toppan was a nurse that killed her patients and their family members between 1885 and 1902. This American serial killer **confessed to 31 murders, even thought only 12 were confirmed.**
She would do a lot of experiments with morphine and atropine in her patients and would spend a lot of time alone with them, making them go in and out of conscience multiple times, giving them various medicating to see the reaction and even getting in bed with them.
Known by her saying that her ambition was to “have killed more people, helpless people, than any other man or woman who ever live”, she was found not guilty due to insanity with 12 confirmed kills, 31 confessed, and more than 100 suspected.
****Aileen Wuornos aka The Florida Highway Killer****
Aileen was a **serial killer and sex worker know for her 7 murdered men** in Florida, from 1989 to 1990.
She killed all her victims by shooting them at a point-blank range and claimed that all these kills were in self-defense, since they were man that either r*ped or tried to do so while soliciting sex from her. She would carry a “kill bag” with her .22 caliber revolver and a bottle of windex, she would hitchhike to find her victims and rob them after killing them.
She got caught and sentenced to death in October 2002.
Now that you saw a bit about every single one of them, I leave you to think: **which ones do you think are scientifically considered psychopaths**? Leave in the comments below your guess, I’ll get to you all and don’t forget to *****stay tuned for Monday, for the final answer!!*****
If you want to see any of these criminals be on the ***True Crime Series*** where we extensively go through their life and crimes, also feel free to say it, as I will, for sure, get to your requests! **Thank you for supporting me and have a great day**!
**Best Regards,**
Is Angelika Graswald aka Kayak Killer guilty or was she coerced?
**TW:** This article contains mentions of murder
**Hihi!** Today I give you a case that may bring different opinions or perspectives. Some people find that Angelika was truly guilty, but there’s people that think that she’s innocent. Leave me a comment at the end with your opinion!! I will read them all, as I always do!
****People Involved****
Angelika Graswald was a 37-year-old woman originally from Latvia, Europe. She first arrived to the U.S. in 2000 to work for a family as a nanny. Although she only planned to stay in the country while working for this family, she ended up staying and found love.
Her newly found love was named Vincent Viafore, also known as “Vince”, a 46-year-old from Poughkeepsie, New York. He was known as the life of the party, he loved adventures and dancing, according to Angelika and his mother.
They met and started dating in September 2013 and she moved in with him a couple of weeks into them dating. The relationship was moving pretty quickly, because 5 months in they got engaged. As Angelika said in an interview, they loved water and their relationship was very free-spirited, they took risks and lived in the moment, and they were planning to go back to her country to get married by the Baltic Sea.
****The Incident****
On April 19th, 2015 the couple decided to go kayaking in the **Hudson River**. The plan was to kayak from Plum Point to Bannerman’s Island, where they would stop and take some pictures, since it’s a beautiful island with an abandoned castle. But, according to local news, there would be a storm at the end of the day.
They decided to go on the trip anyway and, by **4:15pm** they made it successfully to the castle, where they proceeded to take some pictures of the sunset. They stayed until around **7:15**pm and when they left, as the sun was already set, the weather got really bad. So as the storm was forming and getting worse, the water was getting harder and harder to paddle.
As they were trying to get back, **Vince’s kayak flipped over an he fell out**, falling into the **48º F (8ºC)** water. Experts say that with these water temperatures, it would only take around 5 minutes before he would start to **lose gross motor control**, which means he would lose the ability to grab onto the side of the kayak or hold onto it.
According to Angelika, Vince insisted on her wearing a lifejacket, even though she usually didn’t, and he did not have one. But not only did he not have a lifejacket, he also wasn’t wearing a wetsuit to keep him safer from the waves. After he fell, Angelika said Vince called out to her, asking her to call 911, and that was the last thing she heard him say before he slipped off of his kayak and drowned.
**If you’re interested, you can see the 911 call** **HERE** https://www.cbsnews.com/video/angelika-graswalds-911-call-from-the-hudson/
After talking to 911, Angelika also fell into the water, but luckily rescuers got there in time to save her, even though they couldn’t find Vince’s body or kayak.
**The Investigation**
Shortly after this ‘accident’, Angelika posted a video on *facebook* of her happily doing cartwheels and singing karaoke at a party. Only 10 days later, on April 29th, Angelika decided to bring flowers to the area where Vince drowned. A detective decided to join her to the island where he claims that **she confessed** to him that **she killed Vince**, that she wanted him to go down so she pulled the drain plug on his kayak and removed the ring that holds the paddles together. However, she claims she did not say this, but she was arrested that day.
Angelika was then taken into custody at the Orange County New York Jail where she was **interrogated for the next 11 hours**. This is one of the first things that make people think it might not be a crime, since it is known that extensive interrogations can lead to abuse of power by the interrogators and manipulation, which can lead to ****false confessions****.
Even though she said from the beginning she never told anyone she purposedly killed him/watched him drown and did everything to save him, the odd behaviors she presented during the interrogation made media portray her as bizarre, since she would do yoga, jump and skip through the room (**you can see parts of the interrogation** **HERE**) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noZGjPklLaQ
Although odd behavior doesn’t mean someone committed a crime, investigators found it weird that she told them that Vince had added her to his life-insurance policy just 6 months earlier, which gave her a motive.
As the interrogation went on, she started saying that their relationship wasn’t healthy. She mentioned that Vince was very demanding and expected her to perform many s*xual behaviors and favors that she wasn’t comfortable with. However he would threaten her that he would call off the wedding if she didn’t comply.
After many hours of interrogation, she claims she told them what she thought they wanted to hear, talking about when Vince drowned she felt a sense of freedom and euphoria. At this time, the detectives would constantly ask “why did you kill Vince? Why did you kill Vince?” - this is a technique many interrogations use since when this is repeated long enough, people might start to confess, but that also means that people that might be innocent can start to doubt themselves and think that maybe an accident was somehow their fault, and say stupid and confused things. This is one of the reasons that makes this technique unethical, especially when used in extensive interrogations.
At this point, even though she kept saying she didn’t DO it, she started to say that maybe she let it happen and couldn’t save him, but she got kind of relieved she was out of the relationship - a sentiment that can be felt in the moment when someone is in an abusive relationship. Eventually, this was what went down between Angelika and the Investigator during the interrogation **(you can see it** **HERE****)**: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noZGjPklLaQ
*"Investigator: You killed him, right?*
*Angelika: You’re the one telling me.*
*I: No, I’m asking. I want you to tell me the truth*
*A: I am telling you the truth.*
*I: What is the answer to the question?*
*A: I… I didn’t want him…-*
*I: Angelika, what is the true answer to the question?*
*A: Alright… I’ll give you the f****** statement.*
*I: What is it*
*A: I wanted him dead and now he’s gone and I’m OK with it."*
So we can see she never actually admitted to *KILLING* him, but rather that she was happy he was gone and that he wanted him gone, which left investigators with an interesting situation in their hands.
**Evidences from the Crime**
Since the investigators didn’t found his body, there was a theory that maybe she killed him in a different way, and just made it seem like he drowned, for a **cover up**. This theory was particularly interesting because when detectives were investigating, they found that one of Vince’s guns was missing from his house, which made them think that maybe Angelika had shot him off the kayak.
However, in May, while the police were securing the Hudson River for a graduation ceremony, there was a report of a body in it. The body was Vince’s, and it didn’t go far from where it drowned since it only traveled for about one mile (1,61km) south. Also, **his body had no bullet holes or any signs of any other type of death besides drowing**.
Soon after this, a grand jury officially indicter Angelika for this crime and accused her of **second degree manslaughter and second degree murder**, the theory was that she purposely removed his drain plug on the kayak, which stays at the top of the kayak.
**Testing the Main Theory**
The main theory that was the base for this case was that Angelika had removed the drain plug off Vince’s kayak. They tested this theory by pouring water, as in wave water, into the side of the boat, what made sense since there was a storm, and the kayak was filled quickly, but pouring the water in the drain plug, barely any got in. This proved that removing the plug would not sink the kayak, so this was not a good option to kill someone (**see the test** **HERE** ). Plus, the fact that these types of kayak were used on lakes and ponds and not rivers, would also be a good reason for it being and accident. https://youtu.be/1c3ZJHMmnMY?t=129
**Aftermath**
While waiting for her trial, Angelika spent **2 years in prison** and the trial ended up not happening because they found evidence that **Vince knew that the drain plug was open**: investigators found images of his car on the day that they were driving to the river and the had secured the kayak to the car by using his car on the day that was unscrewed so chances are he knew it was taken off. There were also other pictures of Vince and his kayak, where it didn’t have the drain plug.
**Angelika was then left with two choices**: she could plead guilty and be out of jail in six weeks for good or go to trial and possibly face life in prison. With these odds, she decided to plead guilty - not to murdering him, but yes agreeing that she could have contributed to it and/or didn’t do enough to help.
Angelika spent a total of **2 years and 7 months in prison** and after she left, she had to **report to a parole officer for 16 months**. Since she pled involuntary homicide, there’s a chance that she could claim half of Vince’s life insurance money - his parents are fighting her on this case.
So… Do you think there is enough evidence, besides **reasonable doubt**, to charge Angelika with murder? Do you think she is guilty? Or do you think this was only an accident and the media made this worse by painting her in such an awful way? Feel free to leave your comments down below! This was not such a gore case, but very interesting nonetheless!
****Tell me what you would like to see!**** Disappearances? Cases where they found the criminal, or they are still on the loose? Open or closed cases? ***Thank you for reading, have a great day!!***
**Best Regards,**
The Golden State Killer, aka The Original Night Stalker
****TW****: This article contains mentions of murder and r*pe
**Hello everyone!**
First of all I would like to apologize for taking so long to give you the first True Crime article, I just had a very busy week with work, and it got quite overwhelming. But I am now here to bring you the first case.
This case has cases that go back to the 70’s, but it was only recently closed.
The “**Golden State Killer**”, before being known by this pseudonym, was thought to be two different criminals, since he had crimes in two different areas: “**Visalia Ransacker**” and “**East Side R*pist**”. **It’s estimated that he committed 50+ r*pes in California and 120+ burglaries.**
****Visalia Ransacker****
From April 1974 until December 1975, there were over 120 burglaries in homes, in Visalia, California. The suspect was known to enter people’s houses and rifle through their belongings, ransacking their stuff, vandalizing, do things like go to the women’s underwear drawer and scatter underwear around the house,…
What was so particular about this burglar, is that he would not always take the most valuable items. Sometimes he would leave the high-priced things like jewelry, but **take low value things** instead (e.g.: he would take cheap earrings and leave the gold, and sometimes just take one of the earrings). With this information investigators figured he was not on it for the money, but for the *adrenaline*.
However, even though there were so many break-ins, this individual didn’t do anything violent at the time, but he sure did get a lot of experience entering people’s homes. **Something he did use later**.
****East Side R*pist****
During 1976 a lot of r*pes started happening in Sacramento. The suspect would stay outside and look for women that he found interesting and start to *stalk* them. He would learn their routines and enter their homes. He would do this when they weren’t home to stash some supplies, and to linger around. But the worst part is when he would break into their homes and r*pe them.
***Modus Operandi*** **(MO)**
Women reported that they would wake up in the middle of the night due to a loud sound and would see a man at the end of the bed just staring at them, watching them sleep. Sometimes he wouldn’t even be wearing clothes, and was usually **holding a weapon** to scare them. He would usually do this when women were alone, either living alone or the husband was gone, but he started to go a step further and show up when the **couple** is sleeping, which is riskier. When this happened, he would scare them with the weapon, telling them to do whatever he told them to, the woman would have to tie up her husband and have him lay down on the floor. Then, he would **stack plates on top of him** and tell him “*Don’t move. If I head these plates jiggle at all, I’m gonna kill you and your wife*”. He would take the woman to the next room, even though the man could still hear everything, and proceed to r*pe her.
This man would always be wearing a ski mask and would flash a really bright light at them when they first woke up, to stun them and even though his face was covered, he would constantly yell at them to not look at him.
However, there was something weird about his way of committing these crimes. He would enter people’s homes to commit these crimes AND leave witnesses, so it would be best if he didn’t touch anything and get out as quick as possible, so that he didn’t leave any DNA. **Yet, he was known for lingering in their houses**. Sometimes he would be with the woman several times, and take breaks in which he would hang out at their homes, make a sandwich, sit in the back patio enjoying the view and, of course, rummage all their stuff, which left a lot of DNA behind. We can say, however, that at that time leaving DNA was not a big deal for criminals, since the technology was not very advanced and there was little to be done with it.
****Reports on the Suspect****
Based in what victims said, police believed that this was a white man, about six feet tall (183cm), blondish brown hair, slender and in good physical shape. The victims reported that **he had a small... weenie**, which sparked theories that maybe that had something to do with his crimes and hate towards woman.
He was very tactical and knew what he was doing and how to not get caught. He was enjoying it so much that he would go to the extent of harassing his victims, like **calling** them and talk in a creepy way (you can see call recording **here**). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jHAA8bndRE
Sacramento community started to be really scared, so the police started hosting town hall meetings to everyone that was concerned, so they could talk about it. After these meetings started, police actually got a call from a man saying he would **strike that night** in Watt Avenue. Police went to that area since there were many calls before of just “*I’m East Side R*pist*” and “*I’m gonna r*pe again tonight and you can’t stop me*” and saw a man with a ski mask crossing the bridge, but couldn’t reach him before he disappeared.
One thing this man did a lot is that he would change the areas where he would commit crimes so, in 1979, while still known as the East Side R*pist, he started moving to the southern areas of California, gaining the nickname of “**Original Night Stalker**”.
****Escalating to Murders****
In 1978 he escalated to murders. His first victims were a couple named Brian and Kate that were walking their dog at night, in their neighborhood when someone came up behind them. It was a man in a ski mask holding a gun that proceeded to chase the couple into a neighbor’s backyard. The suspect was used to men cooperating when he attacked couples in their homes because they were scared. But because they were outdoors, **Brian decided to fight back**, which, in turn, made the East Side R*pist freak out and shoot them both.
His third and fourth victims were on December 1979, when he entered Robert Offerman and Debra Manning’s home through a sliding glass door. He tied them up, r*ped the woman, and killed them both.
In March 13th, 1980, the 5th and 6th murders happened, Charlene and Lyman Smith, in Ventura. He did the same thing as the previous crime, but instead, killed them with a log from the fireplace, beating them up.
In August 19th, 1980 he killed Keith and Patrice Harrington, in Orange County. February 6th, 1981 the victim was Manuela Witthuhn and in May 4th it was Janelle Lisa Cruz, **the last know murder of the “Original Night Stalker”**.
****Evolution of the Case****
After the last murder, **the case goes cold**. Police hadn’t connected that the “Original Night Stalker”, the “East Side R*pist” and the “Vilasia Ransacker” were all the same person. But they did made an interesting discovery.
Police noticed that the knots used to tie the victims were very advanced, so they figured he had to have some involvement with the military and/or police, which earned him the name “**Diamond Knot Killer**” for a while, since his knots would resemble diamonds.
It wasn’t until 2001, with some advances in DNA technology that police was able to connect the dots that there name were all for the same person.
**The Book that Helped it All**
Michelle McNamara was extremely obsessed with the case and, wanting to figure out who it was and help the victims, she wrote an article to LA Magazine, in 2013. She was the one that gave him the final name “**Golden State Killer**” and she later published a book named “**I'll Be Gone In The Dark**”, in 2018 that helped propel the investigation, giving it more resources.
The FBI decides, in June 15th, 2016 to release a **new composite sketch and a 50,000$ reward**
With the **new DNA technology**, detectives uploaded the Golden State Killer’s DNA from a rape kit back from Ventura County to a DNA database (*ged match*), in the beginning of 2018. The website became very useful since it found 10 to 20 people that were possible matches for being the suspect’s descendants. They then kept narrowing it down until they got only one suspect left: ****Joseph James DeAngelo****.
Detectives tracked him down and watched him for days waiting for him to throw something out, so they could get his DNA, which they eventually got from his door handle and a freshly blown tissue he had just thrown away. **The DNA from these was proved to be an exact match to the one found in the crime scenes.**
****The Aftermath****
In April 24th, 2018, Joseph DeAngelo was caught and charged with 8 counts of first degree murders. In May 10th, Santa Barbara District Attorney charged him with 4 more.
Unfortunately there was no DNA to tie him to the Visalia Ransacker case (all the burglaries), even though the police is pretty confident he’s the man. This meant the **couldn’t be charged with the burglaries OR the r*pes**, since at the time, the statute of limitations had expired.
April 10th, 2019 prosecutors said they were asking for the death penalty, but at July 29th of the same year, they made a deal that if he pled guilty and confessed, they would drop the death penalty charge. Joseph confessed and got sentenced to life without parole. He also said in court “I’ve listened to all your statements. Each one of them [the victim’s] and I’m truly sorry for everyone I have hurt. Thank you, your honor” (see **here**). https://abcnews.go.com/US/living-witness-teen-dads-murder-confronts-golden-state/story?id=72473195
****The Culprit****
Joseph was born in New York and moved to California when he was young. In 1964 he **joined the US navy** and served for 2 years during Vietnam. He attended Sierra’s College and graduated with honors with an associate’s degree in **Police Science** and, in 1971, he attended Sacramento State University and earned his Bachelor’s degree in **Criminal Justice**.
From May, 1973 to August, 1976, he was a **burglary unit police officer**. From that time and until July 1979, he was also a **police officer** in Auburn County California, where his career ended when he got caught stealing a hammer and dog repellent - he didn’t explain, just admitted it and quit.
In 1980 he married a woman named Sharon Hudler and they bought a house at Citrus Heights - where he was later arrested, they had 3 kids and separated by 1991. He worked most of his life since leaving the police at Save Mart supermarkets, as a truck mechanic.
****Curiosities****
In 2018, HBO bought the rights to Michelle’s book to make a docuseries “**I'll Be Gone in the Dark**” you can check out!
I’ll leave you a website with a lot of informations about this particular case, such as more detailed mentions of calls to victims/police made by the killer, victims statements, timeline, etc - **HERE** http://www.goldenstatekiller.com/
Thank you for reading this and hope you liked it, feel free to tell me what you think about it and discuss in the comments! Is this too long? **Would you like me to make shorter versions, or is this the right length?** Is there anything else about the case you would like to see me touch more on? **Feel free to send me your feedback, I will greatly appreciate it!**
**Best Regards,**
Bringing True Crime to Read.Cash
**Hi everyone**! I’m NewrA (my nickname, as you probably already guessed) and this is my time trying Read.cash. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and I’m currently finishing my Master’s Degree in Criminology, so, as you can see for the title and my academics, I am fascinated by crime. Since even before I started university I would always find myself watching those “CSI” and “Criminal Minds” series, but I noticed that I didn’t see it for the plot of “good guys catching the bad guys” but rather for the full story of what happened, I would try to get ahead of the episode and think from the start what would have been the crime, the criminal and all that, so, as I grew, I started shifting to true crime documentaries and docuseries about true stories and that would ditch what the series don’t show you: it’s not that easy pinpointing facts, and it’s usually way harder to find the culprit, but although it’s still fascinating, you don’t get to understand the “why”, the “who”, and sometimes, how to help.
**The Beginning and The Plan**
So, as I am beginning this journey, I thought it would be a good idea to **bring True Crime into this platform** - firstly, because I believe there might be people, like me, that love those documentaries and docuseries about true crime, disappearances and are interested to know their timelines, the videos that may exist, the photos, the audios and all that. And that’s exactly what I’m thinking of bringing to you. I’m planning to make a **series of articles** writing about crimes that I have found fascinating and the ones that left me baffled as well.
When I first thought of this series a few crimes came to my mind, that I won’t say yet, so I don’t spoil and keep the element of surprise, but with talking about such sensitive topics I feel the need to disclose some things I plan on doing: because it’s a true crime series, you can guess most of them do not end well for the victims but, a lot of the time, there’s so much happening in between that we don’t know before reading, so I feel compelled to place a **trigger warning (TW)** at the beginning of every article, so you know what we’ll be talking about, and you can judge if you can and want to go forward with the reading. Please always remember your mental health comes first, and in no way, shape, or form do I want to disturb you, so please keep in mind that most stories do not end well.
Although we’re used to see these stories only about “killers”and “serial killers”, it’s not always about that. I will bring you stories like that, of course, but I will also bring you mystery disappearances, deaths that might have happened with or without intent - **was it a crime or was it just an accident**?.
So, as you might already have figured, this first series of articles I’ve envisioned will only be about telling the story and the timing of events in chronological order, so you get to know everything there is to know, based on the research I make. We can discuss theories, or anything related to each case in the comment section so feel free to reach out! I will also try to link every source and piece of information I find about the case at the end of each article so that, if you want, you come join me and discuss it, or give more information that I may have not gotten - both are very welcome! You can also recommend me a crime to talk about, or to just go research. You can also suggest me something, anytime - I’m someone that really likes to learn new things, so I’ll gladly take up your advice!
**Thank you for having me, and I hope we have a blast!**
**Best Regards,**
***Notes****: Image used is Royalty Free from* *Pixabay* https://pixabay.com/
@NewrA
