The Mammoth Book of Bizarre Crimes (47 page)

Once again, she tried to patch things up between them and Robinson responded with a curt note saying, “Keep quiet until I come on Saturday night.” During the late evening of 11 April 1836, the proprietress of the establishment where Helen lodged, along with other
filles de joie
, admitted Robinson who said he was visiting Helen.

Around 11 p.m., the couple asked for a bottle of champagne to be sent up to their room. All was quiet until the small hours when the girl occupying a nearby room heard noises. Opening her door a fraction, she saw a cloaked figure disappearing down the stairs. As this was not an uncommon occurrence in a house where ladies and their consorts came and went during the night, she returned to her room.

At about 3 a.m. there was consternation at the discovery of thick black smoke coming from Helen’s room. An inspection quickly established that Helen lay dead by her bed, her head split open by an ugly wound. A fire had been started, apparently with the intention of burning her body.

Her assailant had clearly escaped through the back yard of the house, leaving behind his cloak as he scaled a fence and dropping a bloodstained axe. Robinson was immediately suspected and police went to his lodgings where they found him in a deep sleep. When told that Helen had been murdered, he replied, “This is a bad business.”

A coroner’s inquest concluded that Helen had been murdered “by the hand of Richard P. Robinson”. The editor of the
New York Herald
managed to sneak a visit to the murder scene and viewed Helen’s body before it was removed. He described “a beautiful female corpse – that surpassed the finest statue of antiquity”.

Robinson appeared on trial in June 1836. He denied murder and provided an alibi witness in the form of a late-night grocer who said he had been in his shop at the time of the murder. The bloodstained axe retrieved from the scene was shown to be a tool kept at Robinson’s place of work and the discarded cloak was identified as belonging to him.

The jury retired for less than thirty minutes and to everyone’s amazement returned a not guilty verdict. This seemed to meet with public approval and Robinson went to Texas where he ran a saloon and later moved to Louisville where he died in 1855.

Helen Jewett’s fate was to be exhumed from her grave so that her skeleton could be used for medical teaching. Her murderer was never officially identified and one of Robinson’s friends made the degrading remark that, “It is no crime to kill a whore.”

Cut-Out Fugitive

Twenty-two-year-old Lindsay Ann Hawker was a newly graduated teacher from Coventry in the UK who had been working in Japan for several months. She taught at the Nova English School in Ichikawa, a suburb of Tokyo.

On 28 March 2007 the young woman was reported missing by the friend with whom she shared a flat in Funabashi, about a mile from her work. Police activity centred on an apartment in Ichikawa where it was believed Lindsay Hawker had been giving private language lessons.

Police searched a fourth-floor apartment belonging to twenty-eight-year-old Tatsuya Ichihashi who was described as an acquaintance of the missing woman. They found her handbag and clothes in the apartment, while an examination of the balcony turned up the startling discovery of a body in a bath. Only one hand was evident, the bath having been filled with sand to conceal the naked body of a young woman.

Neighbours told investigators that they had heard scraping noises coming from the fourth-floor flat several days previously, presumably created by the bath being dragged out onto the balcony. While the police were talking to local residents, Ichihashi was preparing his getaway. He took his chance to disappear in a taxi and, in his haste, dropped a rucksack containing clothes and money. He was in such a rush that he had no time to put on either shoes or socks.

A nationwide search was mounted to locate Ichihashi. He was described as a loner, a university graduate who did not need to work as he was supported by well-off parents. He regularly attended a gym and was proficient in martial arts.

Investigators questioned the dead woman’s friends and family in their efforts to establish her movements. There were reports that she was romantically attached to Ichihashi, but these were denied. It appeared that he met her in a café on 24 March and asked her to give him private English lessons. Apparently he followed her for several days. This was borne out by an internet message she sent to a friend in England voicing concern about “a strange man” who had been following her. It
was assumed that Ichihashi either tricked or persuaded her to visit him at his apartment.

Post-mortem examination established that the dead woman had been bound and gagged before being strangled. She had also been badly beaten and her hair had been cut off possibly as some kind of trophy.

A warrant was issued for Ichihashi’s arrest for abandoning a body. Despite numerous alleged sightings, he avoided capture. In October 2008, there was speculation, denied by the police, that the man they suspected of murdering Lindsay Hawker had committed suicide.

The murder of a young English woman in Japan inevitably drew comparison with the death of Lucie Blackman in 2000. Her body was found buried in a shallow grave on a beach. In December 2008, Joji Obara was convicted of abduction, mutilation and abandoning a body.

In March 2009, Japanese police, in their efforts to find Ichihashi, used a novel method to stimulate public information. They placed life-size photographic cut-outs of the wanted man at strategic intervals around the crime location. This paid off a few months later in November, when an alert member of the public spotted Ichihashi in Osaka. He was arrested and taken into police custody to be questioned as the prime murder suspect.

“Hysteria Solves Nothing”

“The Boston Strangler” set off an unprecedented reign of terror, raping and murdering thirteen women in a little under two years. He claimed his first victim on 14 June 1962. She was fifty-five-year-old Anna Slesers, a divorcee who lived alone in an apartment in the Back Bay area of the city. She was found lying partly unclothed on the floor near the bathroom. She had been strangled with the cord of her housecoat, which was tied in a neat bow under her chin. She had also been left with her legs spread apart following sexual assault.

This first killing established a pattern that was to be repeated twelve times. Boston became a city of fear with women afraid
to walk the streets and the police under pressure to find the murderer. Their cause was not helped by having to deal with a string of false confessions. Investigators called on forensic psychiatrists to help them compile a profile of the killer and files of known sex offenders were searched for possible suspects.

But still the killing went on. Using an established technique, the strangler talked his way into the homes of women living on their own. Once he had gained admission, rape and strangulation followed, with the ligature tied in a characteristic bow, and the victim’s legs spread. Part of the psychological profile was that the strangler was consumed with hatred for his mother.

The Boston Herald
reminded its readers that “Hysteria solves nothing” but this was of little help to a city paralysed by fear. Investigators explored every avenue, calling on the help of Dr James Brussel, the distinguished psychologist, and Peter Hurkos, a Dutch psychic detective.

In January 1964, there was a break in the sequence of murders and hopes rose that, perhaps, the killer had given up. But, on 27 October, the strangler struck again but in a manner that would lead to his identification. He attacked a young woman in her home and, departing from his modus operandi, left her unharmed. He threatened her with a knife and tied her up but, then, inexplicably, apologised and left her.

This survivor of the Boston Strangler’s attack was able to give the police a full description of her assailant and he was quickly identified as Albert De Salvo. He was a man with a police record and questioning soon established that he needed psychiatric help. He was admitted to the Bridgewater Mental Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts and, it was there in 1965 that he confessed to thirteen murders. As soon as his photograph was published in the press, a number of women came forward with their accounts of being sexually assaulted by him.

De Salvo had a troubled family background and was an early offender. He served with US forces in Germany in the 1950s where he married a local girl. They returned to live in Boston but the marriage was soon under strain due to his insatiable
sexual appetite. He found satisfaction by committing sexual assaults and rape.

Despite his confession, there was no corroborating evidence of murder. In consequence, De Salvo was never tried for the crimes of the Boston Strangler. He was convicted only of earlier robberies and sexual offences for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1966. He was confined at Walpole State Prison, Massachusetts where on 26 November 1973, he was found dead in his cell, having been stabbed through the heart by a fellow prisoner.

In 2001, De Salvo’s body was exhumed for the purpose of taking DNA samples to compare with DNA found on the last of the Boston Strangler’s victims killed in January 1964. This followed doubts voiced about De Salvo’s confession. The findings were that the DNA found on the victim belonged neither to her nor De Salvo. His family pointed out inconsistencies in his taped confession to the 1964 murder compared to the autopsy report.

This led to the conclusion that De Salvo certainly did not commit the January 1964 murder and it was possible he confessed to the Strangler’s crimes in order to gain public attention. If that was his purpose, he achieved his ambition, while the real Boston Strangler remained unidentified and at liberty.

‘‘Bible John’’

Police investigators of a twenty-five-year-old murder mystery hoped to use DNA evidence to unveil the identity of “Bible John”.

Between February 1968 and October 1969, three young women were murdered in Glasgow, UK. What they had in common was that they loved dancing and fell victim to a Bible-quoting killer.

Bible John’s first victim was twenty-five-year-old Patricia Docker who was found dead in a doorway near Carmichael Street on 22 February 1968. She had been strangled. The second victim was Jemima MacDonald whose body was found
in a derelict building in Mackeith Street on 16 August 1969. She too had been strangled.

Witnesses who had seen Jemima at the Barrowlands Ballroom on the night she was murdered in the company of a man aged about thirty-five came forward. An artist’s impression of the man based on their description was widely circulated.

It was the third murder that provided the clue that defined the murderer as “Bible John”. On 30 October 1969, Helen Puttock and her sister enjoyed the dancing at Barrowlands. They had made a pact to stay together throughout the evening. During the dancing, they met two men, both of whom were called John. It became clear as conversation progressed that one of them was attracted to Helen and wished to be alone with her.

When the dancehall closed at around midnight, the two women climbed into a taxi with John who said he would take them home. The other John waited for a bus. Breaking their pre-arranged pact, Helen’s sister was dropped off, leaving Helen and John to travel together. They left the taxi at Earl Road. Helen Puttock’s body was found the following day in a nearby tenement. She had been strangled.

Helen’s sister was able to provide a detailed account of their encounter with “Bible John”, including his biblical references to the immorality of married women visiting dance halls and the evils of adultery. An artist’s impression of “Bible John” was published in Scottish newspapers, and information was sought from the public.

Despite huge publicity and a far-ranging manhunt, “Bible John” remained uncaught. Other murders occurred which led to the possibility that he had resumed killing, and in 1980, there were suggestions that he and the Yorkshire Ripper were the same person. While there were some common elements in these comparisons, there was no firm connection.

In 1995 a possible breakthrough in the investigation came when the author of a book called
The Power of Blood
, put forward a possible identity for “Bible John”. The suspect was John Irvine McInnes who had been interviewed at the time of the murders but no action was taken against him. He had committed suicide in 1980.

With a possible new lead to pursue, Strathclyde Police were given authority to exhume the body of McInnes. The intention was to take a sample of his DNA and compare it with stains found on the clothing of the third murder victim. There was local public concern at the turn of events but Strathclyde Police said that the murder enquiry was not closed and they were bound to follow up new evidence.

After laboratory investigations lasting five months, a report submitted to the Lord Advocate made it clear that the forensic evidence did not identify John McInnes as “Bible John”.

“Evil Incarnate”

The tortured and mutilated body of Elizabeth Short was found on waste ground in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles on 15 January 1947. The body had been cut in two at the waist and drained of blood. Multiple stab wounds and cigarette burns were evidence of the torture that the killer had inflicted.

Twenty-two-year-old Elizabeth Short, known as the “Black Dahlia” on account of her liking for tight-fitting black dresses, dreamed of being a Hollywood star. The reality was that when her love affairs brought no happiness, she took to drinking and slid into a promiscuous lifestyle. The “Black Dahlia” became something of an icon. James Ellroy wrote a novel based on her murder, while Goth rocker, Marilyn Manson, painted pictures of her and Robert de Niro starred in the film,
True Confessions
.

Ten days after the murder, a cardboard box was found with a note attached bearing a message made from letters cut from a newspaper. The note read, “Here are Dahlia’s belongings. Letter to follow.” The box contained Elizabeth Short’s birth certificate, address book and social security card. There were pages missing from the address book and all the items in the box reeked of gasoline. The inference was that this was an attempt to destroy any fingerprints. The logical assumption was that the sender of these personal possessions was involved with the murder.