Wednesday Weird: The Gatton Murders

To continue on our Wednesday Weird trend as we ramp up towards ASSASSIN'S HEART'S release date (wooo!) today we have another strange murder. This one took pace in 1898 in Australia.

Which, I mean, it's Australia. Pretty much everything's trying to kill everyone there, but still. Spiders and snakes and even platypuses (yes, they're venomous too) got nothing on people.

On December 25th, Michael, Ellen and Nora Murphy went out to a country dance. They never came home.

The next day, their relative, William McNeil, went out to search for them. He followed the tracks from their cart to a rural area called Moran's Paddock. And that's where he found them.

They had been badly mutilated and he found them carefully arranged on rug with their hands bound behind their backs. The women had been sexually assaulted and Michael had been shot behind his right ear.

Let's not forget that this was in 1898 in a small, peaceful (not counting, y'know, the spiders) area of Australia. William McNeil didn't really know what to do, but he did run back and find people to return with him and act as witnesses. Unfortunately, they didn't do much to help with preserving the crime scene. In fact, the crime scene was so bad, with the public coming and going and wandering around, that someone actually looted Michael's corpse. Stay classy.

Michael, Ellen and Nora were well-liked people and had no criminal histories or trouble in the past.

The inspector put in charge did what most small town law enforcement did back in the day and accused an out of towner. But he had an alibi. So he accused another out of towner. Who also had an alibi.

And that was pretty much as far as the law enforcement ever got on the case. It didn't help that the inspector was so incompetent and so patronizing to Michael, Nora and Ellen's mother that the entire family refused to deal with the police any further.

Theories abound still today. One of the strongest ones, developed by a sleuthing grandmother (I'm not even joking here) is that Michael had earned an enemy when he had acted as a special constable at one time, to keep the peace in Gatton.

Thoughts or theories?

(see you next year!)

In Which Gifts Are Given

Well, Christmas (for those who celebrate it) is over. Which is sad and also a bit of a relief. It's a lot of work, and my family goes crazy with presents which is a lot of fun but also a lot of work so once it's over, it's nice to get back to normal.

I got books of course. As well as a buckwheat pillow and a butter crock, and some great earrings from Twin.

Of course New Years is this week, so normal is still a ways off.

But we finally have some snow here. I mean, we've had snow a few times this year, but so far it hasn't stayed. And we're supposed to get more snow tonight, which is great. If the temperature holds or gets colder, it should actually stick around for more than a day or two.

So yay! It's not really winter, in my book, unless there's snow.

And it's my birthday in a few weeks, too, which means  . . . you guessed it, maor books! But that's great. I've been reading a ton of 2016 arcs and I'm excited to be able to buy them now that they'll be out.

And once we're into 2016 it will be end of year and beginning of year blog posts, which are always fun to write.

Anyway, how was your holiday? Did you get any fun or neat or needed gifts?

In Which It's Christmas

Happy Holidays, all!

See you next week!

I hope you all remembered to deck your halls!

Wednesday Weird: Ricky McCormick Death

We're only a few days away from Christmas for those that celebrate so it seems like a good time for another Wednesday Weird!

As i said last week, since we're counting down the days until ASSASSIN'S HEART releases, the Wednesday Weirds are all going to be strange, creepy or unsolved deaths.

Today we're talking about Ricky McCormick.

Ricky McCormick was 41 years old when his body was found in a cornfield, June 30th, 1999 in Missouri. He hadn't been reported missing, but someone had seen him five days earlier so at the most he could have been missing for less than a week.

Despite that, his body was strangely decomposed already. And the cornfield was 15 miles from his home, and not only did he not have a car, there were no bus lines that lead out their either.

Ricky also supposedly suffered from either a heart or lung condition and was a high school dropout. His family would later say that Ricky was more or less illiterate. He could write his name but really nothing else.

And for twelve years, that was all anyone knew about Ricky McCormick's death.

Until the FBI released more information in a plea for the public's help.

Because Ricky had had notes in his pockets. But not just any notes. These notes were written in a cryptic code and had been written at least 3 days before his death.

The FBI had spent 12 years trying to break the code of the letters and were unsuccessful, and so they were reaching out for the public's help in the hopes that the notes will help lead to Ricky's killers.

And that's where the case stands today. The encrypted notes are listed as the FBI's Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit's (CRRU) top unsolved cases.

Thoughts or theories?

Ignore this post

Friday Fun

Woo! Yvie's here again, ape-friends, to launch us into the fun that is Friday!

fun involves napping, right?

Let's get this started!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday Weird: Lake Bodom Murders

All right. Since we're counting down the days until ASSASSIN'S HEART releases, from now until then, all the Wednesday Weirds will be in some way related to AH.

Which mean, time for some weird, creepy or unsolved murders!

Today we're starting with the Lake Bodom Murders.

Lake Bodom is in Espoo, Finland and on June 4th, 1960 a group of 4 teenagers decided to spend the night on its banks camping in a tent together.

That was the end of their fun.

While they slept, someone with a knife crept into their tent and violently stabbed the teens. Only one of them survived the attack, 18-year old Nils Gustafsson. Which, you think would be great (objectively) because at least there would be an eye witness to help the police catch the murderer.

Except Nils's face had been bludgeoned so bad that he couldn't really remember anything.

Unfortunately, the case went cold.

Until twelve years later, on the anniversary of the murders, when a man committed suicide. In his note, he confessed to the killings. In fact, the man used to work in a lakeside kiosk selling drinks, and had quarreled with the teens more than once. Hey, motive!

Case solved, right?

Nope.

The man had an alibi during the night of the murders. He'd been at home with his wife.

Around the same time, a doctor revealed that he had treated a man at his hospital shortly after the attack. The man, Hans Assman, was a German immigrant and lived near Lake Bodom. He arrived at the hospital wearing red stained clothes and discombobulated. But somehow, the police never thought to question him.

When the doctor did some research on his own, he discovered that Assman was former KGB and possibly a violent, ex-nazi.

But Assman also had an alibi for the night.

In 2004, another suspect entered the scene. Survivor Nils Gustafsson himself.

A new witness had come forward and said that Nils had been drunk and aggressive right before the murders, Also, with new forensics technology, including blood spatter analysis, there was some evidence that showed that perhaps Nils had murdered his friends in a drunken rage, and had received the facial injuries in the fight.

But, over a year later, Nils was cleared of all charges, too.

And that's where the case stands today. Two of the suspects dead and Nils cleared.

Thoughts or theories?