There’s no dearth of stories of the Internet being used for malintent. From scammers out to take your money to online harassment to those dark parts of the web we don’t speak of here, the worst of Internet somehow perfectly coincides with the worst of humanity.

SEE ALSO: 10 Ways The Internet Is Destroying You

On rare occasions, though, the Internet can be used for good, too, as many of these online crime solvers have proven. They succeeded where professional crime agencies and police departments couldn’t, either due to good old incompetence or simply not having the crowdsourced tools only the Internet can muster.

10 Hit And Run

Catching someone after a hit-and-run used to be a pretty difficult task in the pre-Internet days, as there’s usually little evidence to go on in those cases. If you’re lucky (and still alive), the driver may leave some conclusive evidence behind. That may still not be enough, though, unless they outright drop their driving license or a swab full of their saliva at the scene.

We’re not saying that the Internet has improved conviction rates in hit-and-run cases, though we know of at least one instance where the culprit was caught because of the online community. It happened in Washington, where a cyclist was hit and killed by a collision, though the cops didn’t have a clue as to the perpetrator. The photo of the scene was eventually uploaded to Reddit, asking other people for help identifying vehicle parts.

While the poster likely just did it out of curiosity, things got serious when an ex state car inspector was able to pinpoint the precise make and model of the vehicle in question. Unfortunately for the man responsible, not many people in the area owned a mid-1980s Chevrolet Silverado at the time, which led to his arrest and eventual conviction.^[1]

9 Shaky Footage

America is by no means new to extra-judicial killings by cops, except that now – thanks to modern technology like cameras – it’s way more difficult to get away with it. That doesn’t mean that it still doesn’t happen, though they just have to make sure there’s no one around to witness or record it.

That realization, however, was lost on Michael Slager; a police officer in South Carolina convicted of shooting and killing an unarmed black man called Walter Scott. He wasn’t immediately charged, though, as the footage shot by witnesses at the scene was too shaky and inconclusive to get a conviction. That was, of course, until a Canadian student online saw the video and decided to stabilize it.

Daniel Voshart was studying cinematography focused on image stabilization at the time, and wanted to do something about what he perceived to be a racially-motivated crime. He worked on the video and posted it as a GIF on Reddit, which – apart from later proving to be conclusive evidence – mobilized the online community in support of the victim.^[2]

8 Pushed To Suicide

When the 18-year-old Nadia Kajouji committed suicide off a bridge on the Rideau River in Ottawa, her friends and family were justifiably devastated. She was going through a lot, including a previous miscarriage along with pressure at school. (Needless to say, if you or anyone around you is feeling the same way, please reach out to someone around you.)

As the story unfolded, though, it was soon discovered that she didn’t take the decision on her own. She had spoken to someone called Cami D (real name Melchert-Dinkel) on an online forum a few weeks before the suicide, who had convinced her to take the final step. His identity was later discovered by Celia Bay, an online counselor, who also discovered that he had been doing this for a while. All in all, he had convinced five or six people to commit suicide in the past, and was charged with one count of attempted assisting suicide and one of assisted suicide, thanks to Celia.^[3]

7 Rape

Debate around sexual assault on campus and jock culture has been raging on for a while, though the Steubenville High School case was one of the first few cases to happen in the age of social media. We’d spare you the horrific details of the crime, though as a summary, a minor was raped by a bunch of her peers in August, 2012. It happened over the course of the night and across locations on and off campus.

While the main perpetrators accused in the crime were later convicted, we often forget the role of the Internet in those convictions. Because of the local influence of the accused, the authorities were, at first, reluctant to take the case seriously. That was until Anonymous – a global and controversial – group of online hacker vigilantes posted a bulk of evidence online. Apart from forcing the authorities to reopen the case, it also brought the conversation to the national stage. It included confessions by the accused, photos and videos from the night and other incriminating material.^[4]

6 Stolen Laptop

Having something like your laptop or phone stolen is devastating news. It’s not about the monetary value of the thing – even if gadgets these days are admittedly quite expensive – but rather your personal information on it, as there’s usually no way to recover that. That was probably what was going through Sean Power’ mind when his Macbook Pro was stolen, along with his phone and some documents.

It wasn’t all bad, though, as he had a software on his laptop that alerted him of its whereabouts whenever it was online. He hadn’t lodged a police complaint or was in the city at the time, and did the only thing he could think of; ask his 12,000 Twitter followers to help. To his surprise, one of his followers managed to successfully retrieve the laptop, along with all the other documents in the bag.^[5]

5 Online Vigilantes Help Speed Up Minor Rape Case Proceedings

The alleged gang rape and eventual suicide of 17-year-old Rehtaeh Parsons in Canada made news around the world. Accounts differ on exactly what drove her to suicide, though many believe that the circulation of her photographs online and cyberbullying were the primary factors. While similar crimes have definitely happened before, the involvement of social media and the relatively-new phenomenon (at the time) of online harassment gave this one a tragically unique angle.

The cops had initially closed the case, as they found little to no evidence linking the gang rape to the suicide (despite there being literal photographic evidence of it). They had to reopen it due to mounting pressure from people online, especially from hackers affiliated with Anonymous. We maintain that any kind of vigilantism is bad – as the line between vigilantes and mobs is a rather thin one – though in this case, the hackers definitely made sure that the case doesn’t go cold.^[6]

4 Omni-Potent

As anyone who has truly gone to the absolute depths of the Internet (for research purposes, of course) would tell you, there really is some horrifying stuff out there. We’re not just talking about illegal drugs and bizarre kinks here, but real snuff movies, child pornography and hired killers. It’s a difficult place to police, too, as most of those corners are hidden behind the dark web and other elaborate privacy measures.

That didn’t sit too well with a hacker called Brad William, who decided to do something about it. Originally operating anonymously under his alias Omni-Potent, he designed a virus to infect over 3,000 computers of suspected child predators. While a lot of the evidence he ended up gathering was incriminating, the authorities never acted upon most of it, as it’s not admissible in court because of being obtained illegally.

That doesn’t mean that he didn’t help at all. His evidence did end up securing a few convictions and outing suspected child predators.^[7]

3 Grateful Doe

Anyone who grew up in or around Greensville County in Virginia would have heard of Grateful Doe. It was an unofficial name given to an unidentified victim of a car crash that killed two, as no one knew who he was for 20 years due to the extent of his injuries. All they had to go on was a tattoo on his arm, two tickets to a Grateful Dead concert and a note addressed to a certain Jason.

All of that changed when Grateful Dead fans online decided to make a page dedicated to identifying him, which drew quite a bit of attention to the otherwise closed case. Fortunately, one of the photographs posted there prompted a woman to contact the admin. As it turned out, the unidentified body was that of her son Jason Callahan who had gone missing around that time (they just assumed that he ran away from home), which was later confirmed by DNA tests.^[8]

2 Hate Crime

Social media is more often in the news for causing hate crimes than preventing them, especially in today’s polarized society. In many of those cases, it’s not possible to ascertain the identities of the assailants, as most of them happen in secluded parts of the city at night (if they’re smart about it, anyway).

So, when a couple of men were beaten up by a group of assailants in Philadelphia for their perceived sexuality back in 2014, it looked like it’d go down the same way as all of those other cases. Fortunately, the authorities decided to release the pictures to the public, and someone on Twitter was able to correctly identify them.^[9]

1 Murder

No matter how much we try to get people to not murder each other, it has been a part of human society for as long as one can remember. Even with our best technology, it’s quite difficult to solve all murder cases out there, as incriminating evidence is still quite hard to obtain. On the other hand, some murder cases get solved by the most unexpected people, like amateur detectives on the Internet.

Case in point; the murder of a certain homeless man in Florida named Abraham Shakespeare. While the police originally had no leads on the suspect, frequent visitors of the online crime-solving forums called Websleuths suspected a woman Shakespeare had transferred all of his previous lottery winnings to. Things got even more bizarre when the woman herself joined the discussion, and eventually confessed to the murder. The moderators made sure that none of her words were edited, which was enough for the cops to get a conviction.^[10]

About The Author: You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked (www.cracked.com/members/RudeRidingRomeo/) and Screen Rant (https://screenrant.com/author/hshar/), or get in touch with him for writing gigs ([email protected]).

It’s generally agreed that ghosts, if they indeed exist, were once living, breathing human beings. And, unfortunately, human beings are more than capable of committing crime. So it may follow that ghosts also seek to transgress against their (former) fellow men. The following ten crimes were allegedly committed by paranormal entities. True ghostly perpetrators or just garden variety criminals trying to avoid punishment? You be the judge.

10 Celebrities Who Had A Terrifying Ghostly Experience

10 Ghost Indecent Exposure

Having sex in another person’s living room would definitely earn you a sentence for indecent exposure-and maybe for breaking and entering! Dianne Carlisle of Euclid Ohio claims that two ghosts are having sex in her home leaving her and her family members the unwilling voyeurs. She says that the ghosts are clearly copulating and she can even see “the lady’s high heeled shoes!”. Dianne is no stranger to ghostly apparitions. Her deceased sister contacted her via phone leaving her a message that simply said “I love you” and she has seen ghosts in mirrors and playing with her daughter, De’Onna. As for the phantom lovemakers, they were snapped in the act by Carlisle’s four year old granddaughter, Kimora, while the little girl was playing with a cell phone. Dianne is as astonished by the hanky panky going on in her living room as anyone saying: “I never seen anything like this…I mean, ghosts still have feelings? (They’re) having sex?” Carlisle says that the ghostly activity in her home has not lessened with time, but has actually increased.^[1]

9 Ghost Theft

You wouldn’t think a former police officer, charged with upholding the law, would be the one to commit massive theft but that’s what Joseph Hughes of Mount Gilead, Ohio was convicted of back in 2011. But did he do it or was it the work of something from the other side? Hughes claimed that the stolen goods found stockpiled in his basement, (including several air conditioners and a generator) were put there by a ghost. ‘It’s going to sound kind of ridiculous, but we believed that there was some kind of paranormal presence in the basement,’ Hughes said in court. ‘It sounds kind of ridiculous but there was evidence to support it.’ Though prosecutors were stunned by the creepy defense, they ultimately didn’t buy it and Hughes was found guilty of 18 of 20 charges.^[2]

8 Ghost Vandalization

Lisa and Phil Rigley of Clifton, Nottingham, were so angry about a serious of attacks on their vehicles that they set up some home cameras to catch the culprits in the act. But they got more than they bargained for: at about 1:30 a.m. on August 1st 2012, one of the cameras caught what looked like a child spirit in orb form, glowing white and wearing a hoodie, jumping over the roofs of their cars. The couple was shocked. Even skeptical Phil admitted: “I am cynical about ghosts because I don’t believe in them but this footage is strange.” Lisa added that she was “absolutely gobsmacked by this. I’ve got the footage here; it’s the image of a young child about four or five. It’s a ghost, it’s got to be.” Mrs. Rigley was especially convinced it was no ordinary child because their dog always barks if there are people around but did not wake the family that night. The Rigleys ultimately decided not to pursue the ghost for criminal damages after they could find no marks on the cars following the incident.^[3]

7 Ghost Harassment

Harassment of any kind is annoying enough, but to not even be able to see your bullies? One Saudi Arabian family though that was going too far-and actually took it all the way to court when they sued the “genie” irritating their household. The spectral harassment went on for some time with unruly spirits making life practically intolerable. Citing everything from threatening voicemails to the theft of their mobile phones, the family had had enough when the ghosts, in classic schoolyard fashion, began throwing stones at the children. The court gamely tried to verify the family’s claim of paranormal pestering “despite the difficulty” of bringing a harassment suit against the undead.^[4]

6 Ghost Disorderly Conduct

A teen nabbed in 2006 for swearing at officers and generally causing uproar had the unique defense that the foul-mouthed voice heard by the cops wasn’t his-but that of a disembodied pirate ghost. Thomas McGair, 18, of Glasgow Scotland blurted out “It wasn’t me, it was the pirate!” as he was being collared and charged. Sheriff Rajni Swanney was “intrigued” by the odd story and MGair’s lawyer, Andrew Kennedy, said in court that his client was “in a state of agitation because he claims he had just seen a ghost.” Though McGair admitted to a breach of the peace, he denies being under the influence of alcohol or drugs and maintains that a ghostly influence was to blame. When last heard from, his sentence had been deferred.^[5]

Top 10 Famous Real Ghosts

5 Ghost Assault

Sometimes a haunting is merely a pain in the emotional sense but sometimes it goes a bit further than that. A French family from Mentque-Nortbecourt said that ghosts in their home have escalated into full blown assault. One household member was injured so badly that he had to be hospitalized after being hit in the face by a flying chair and a soap tray to the back. A family friend visiting the house also had to seek medical attention after being hit by stones thrown by the petulant spirits. Local officials took the claims seriously enough to remove the family from their home, offering them temporary housing at a nearby campsite. The family says that they are currently working with an exorcist from a local church who has been visiting their house and attempting to cleanse it of the angry spooks.^[6]

4 Ghost Domestic Abuse

When an argument about family finances between Wisconsin man Michael West and his wife got out of control, she called the police and reported that West had beat, punched her in the face, and tried to strangle her. When police arrived at the couple’s home, they noticed that the woman was crying and that there appeared to be blood on the front of her shirt. When questioned, West initially claimed that his wife sustained injuries by repeatedly falling but later changed his story, claiming that “a ghost did it.” This explanation did not prove to be satisfactory to the arresting officers who charged West with strangulation, battery and disorderly conduct. After a struggle, West was transported to county lockup and his wife, one would hope, to therapy.^[7]

3 Ghost Kidnapping

This one is an example of crime happening to a criminal-and perhaps of cosmic karma. A burglar robbing a home in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, said that he was kidnapped and held against his will with no food or water for four days by a “supernatural figure”. Police official Abdul Marlik Hakim Johar confirmed that the homeowners arrived back from vacation and found the man, whose name was not released, in their home dehydrated and exhausted. He claimed that every time he tried to leave, the entity pushed him to the ground. An ambulance had to be called for the would-be pilferer who will surely think twice before attempting another breaking and entering.^[8]

2 Ghost Rape

This is an extremely sad and disturbing story. Apparently, between 2005 and 2009 over one hundred women in the Manitoba Mennonite colony of Bolivia have been reporting waking up to strange genital injuries, headaches, pain and pieces of rope tangled in their hair. They also found semen stains on their sheets. Sadly, the youngest of these victims was a three year old child. Local townspeople (largely isolated from wider communities and inexperienced with such crimes) first denied the women’s reports, dismissing them the products of overactive imaginations. But as the problems worsened, they turned to a supernatural explanation, claiming that demons were to blame for the sexual assaults. Even after the arrest of nine men in 2011 convicted of drugging and raping entire households, the community is still traumatized and seeking other answers. Some point to the fact that the violence continues to this day as proof that it is devils from another world, and not men of the community, to blame for these heinous crimes.^[9]

1 Ghost Murders

One can hardly imagine a bigger monster than a mother that kills her own children. Naiyana Patel of East Asheville North Carolina was arrested in late August 2011 for the murder of her two sweet and outgoing girls, 8- year-old Jiya and 4-year-old Piya. Worse, the murders were carried out in an extremely gruesome manner-with a hatchet. Patel’s husband, Lalo, made the grisly discovery when arrived home to find his wife hitting herself in the head with the hatchet and his children bloodied on the floor. He frantically called 911, but it was too late-Jiya was already dead and Piya would succumb to her injuries at a nearby hospital. According investigators, when asked about her motives for this senseless crime, Naiyana would only tell police that “the ghost killed her children”. She further added that she didn’t want to live and refused medical treatment for her self-inflicted injuries “It’s just a terrible, terrible incident that occurred, “said Lt. Wallace Welch, interim chief of police.^[10]

10 Murderers Haunted By Their Victim’s Ghost

About The Author: A.L. is a playwright and also the executive director of a historical museum in the United States. She has enjoyed the creepy, spooky and weird all her life.

Professional wrestling is known for being staged with colorful characters and predetermined outcomes. On-screen, the wrestlers are often portrayed as larger-than-life valiant heroes or despicable villains.

However, the drama doesn’t always stop after they exit the ring. In fact, their real-life exploits can sometimes be even more fantastical than what they do in the ring.

10 Invader Stabbed Bruiser Brody And Got Away With It

Almost 30 years on and the death of Bruiser Brody at the hands of fellow wrestler Jose Gonzalez (aka Invader) still remains one of the most controversial moments in the history of pro wrestling. Although we may never know the complete truth, the story is fraught with allegations of corruption, cover-ups, and bias against American wrestlers.

In 1988, Bruiser Brody (real name Frank Goodish) traveled to Bayamon to do a show for World Wrestling Council (WWC), the biggest promotion in Puerto Rico. He was accompanied by fellow American wrestlers, such as Tony Atlas and Dutch Mantell. Before his match, Gonzalez approached Brody for a conversation. The two went into the shower for privacy, and Gonzalez stabbed Brody.

According to witnesses, it took paramedics 40 minutes to arrive. Brody later died on the operating table due to blood loss. Gonzalez was charged with murder but was acquitted in 1989. According to Gonzalez, Brody became violent during their talk and Gonzalez acted in self-defense.

Some of the guys in the locker room disagreed. They said they never heard arguing coming from the two men. Moreover, one wrestler named Chris Youngblood said he saw Invader carrying something wrapped in a towel into the showers.

Many have accused the investigators of bias toward Gonzalez, who was a big star in Puerto Rico. Both Dutch Mantell and Tony Atlas wanted to testify against Invader but received their subpoenas after the trial was over. Mantell claims to still have his subpoena which was issued on January 3, 1989, but wasn’t mailed until the January 13, 10 days later.^[1]

9 Billy Joe Travis Got Arrested On Live TV

In 1997, wrestler Gary Mize (aka Billy Joe Travis) was arrested in Memphis for unpaid child support. At first glance, this doesn’t sound like a particularly noteworthy crime, but Travis was arrested on live TV during a wrestling show.^[2]

Travis was working for Tennessee promotion United States Wrestling Alliance (USWA) under the leadership of Jerry “The King” Lawler, the wrestler best known for his rivalry with comedian Andy Kaufman. Not one to miss an opportunity, Lawler took advantage of his popularity in Memphis and convinced the officers to allow the filming of Travis being arrested.

The scene plays out with two announcers discussing the show when Travis’s manager, Luther Biggs, bursts in and starts screaming that “Billy Joe Travis is being arrested.” In the story line, his arrest was blamed on Brian Christopher, Lawler’s real-life son and the wrestler currently involved in a feud with Travis.

8 Hardbody Harrison Kept Sex Slaves

Harrison Norris Jr., known professionally as “Hardbody Harrison,” had a moderately successful career as a wrestler. He was employed by World Championship Wrestling (WCW) between 1995 and 2001, working mainly as a jobber (someone who regularly loses matches to make his opponents look good).

When the company went under, Harrison seemingly took the same route as many other wrestlers and opened a training school. However, his operation was actually a front which enabled Hardbody and his cohorts to kidnap and force women into prostitution.^[3]

Between 2001 and 2005, Harrison enticed eight women with false promises of training them and tricked them into peonage by charging large sums of money for various expenses. The women were then forced into prostitution to repay their debts. In some cases, Hardbody’s gang dropped the wrestling training ruse completely and simply kidnapped the women if they were easy targets, such as junkies or homeless people.

The women were isolated from their friends and families and monitored at all times by Harrison or his two accomplices. Besides sex labor, the victims had to do chores and were “fined” if they broke house rules, thus increasing their debts. Some of the women managed to alert authorities in 2005. In 2007, Harrison was found guilty on 24 charges and sentenced to life in prison.

7 Ric Flair Was Sold On The Black Market As A Baby

Richard Morgan Fliehr is better known to his fans as “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair. Widely considered one of the greatest performers in pro wrestling history, Flair was faced with adversity from the start. He had the misfortune of being born in Memphis in 1949, the same time and place that a woman named Georgia Tann was running one of the largest child trafficking operations in US history.

Tann operated the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, an orphanage/adoption agency which was really a front for Tann selling babies to wealthy, out-of-state couples. Sometimes, she bribed nurses and doctors to turn newborns over to her and tell the parents they were stillborn.

Other times, she played the role of the helpful social worker trying to remove children from a bad environment. She usually succeeded thanks to a corrupt judge named Camille Kelley. In its 26 years of existence, the Tennessee Children’s Home Society was estimated to steal over 5,000 babies. Even more disturbing, 500 of them died while in the organization’s custody due to poor care.^[4]

Ric Flair was adopted on March 18, 1949. This was shortly before the adoption agency was closed for good. His real name was most likely Fred Phillips. Seeing as how the agency destroyed or manufactured most documents, it’s unlikely that the Nature Boy will ever find out what happened to his biological parents. That isn’t a big deal to Flair, though. He admitted that he never even looked over his adoption papers until he started doing research for his autobiography.

6 Ken Patera Really Wanted McDonald’s

During the early 1980s, former Olympic weightlifter Ken Patera was enjoying a successful stint with the American Wrestling Association (AWA) as part of a popular group called The Heenan Family.

This went away in 1984 following a show in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Patera and Japanese wrestler Masa Saito wanted to grab a bite to eat and headed to McDonald’s. However, it was late and the restaurant was closed so an employee turned them away. Angered by the refusal, Patera had a flashback to his high school days of shot put and lobbed a 13-kilogram (30 lb) boulder through the McDonald’s window.^[5]

Later, the situation got violent when two police officers came looking for Patera at a motel. An impromptu “tag team match” broke out, with Patera and Saito easily overpowering the two cops. It wasn’t until other officers arrived that the situation got under control.

The two wrestlers were later convicted of criminal damage to property, obstructing an officer, and multiple counts of battery to an officer. They were each sentenced to two years in jail followed by six years of probation.

5 Nick Gage Became A Terrible Bank Robber

Pro wrestlers might not be the most famous people in the world, but it is still risky to assume that nobody will recognize them. Back in 2010, 30-year-old Nicholas Wilson walked into a PNC Bank in Collingswood, New Jersey, and passed a note to the teller. The note instructed her to give him money or he would shoot her. He walked off with $3,100.

However, Wilson didn’t bother to wear a mask so police were able to release his image to the public. Wrestling fans were quick to point out that the suspect looked an awful lot like Nick Gage, a mainstay attraction of Philadelphia-based promotion Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW).^[6]

Eventually, Gage recognized his folly and turned himself in. He got a five-year prison term for bank robbery and was released in 2015.

During a prison interview, Gage admitted that he was broke and addicted to OxyContin at the time of the robbery. When told that he was recognized immediately from his surveillance photo, Gage looked on the brighter side: “I guess I didn’t realize how popular I was.”

4 Disco Inferno Organized ‘High-Stakes’ Gambling

During the 1990s, Glenn Gilbertti worked for World Championship Wrestling (WCW), portraying a comedy wrestler spoofing John Travolta’s character from Saturday Night Fever. His name was Disco Inferno. Fast-forward to 2007 and Gilbertti was facing felony charges for organizing high-stakes poker games at his friend’s house in Roswell, Georgia.^[7]

At the time of the arrest, Roswell authorities called it the biggest local gambling bust in decades. The operation put together by Gilbertti and Dan Tyre worked on a large scale, featuring dozens of players, staff to wait on them, and minimum $10,000 buy-ins. Besides gambling, police also found drugs and one illegal handgun.

Some of the players caught in the raid were subsequently interviewed and claimed the scope of the bust was blown out of proportion. They said it was a small game featuring “friends of a friend” which evolved out of a group of guys getting together to watch football and playing a few hands. The “high stakes” were $5 and $10 games of Texas Hold’em, and most players only brought a few hundred dollars to the table.

The truth was probably somewhere in the middle as police turned up $46,000 in cash. Gilbertti and Tyre were charged with commercial gambling and drug possession while 25 other people faced various misdemeanor charges.

3 Vader Attacked A TV Show Host On Air

Back in 1997, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) was on tour in the Middle East with Kuwait being one of the stops. As was customary, some of the wrestlers did media appearances to promote the show. In this case, two performers known as The Undertaker and Big Van Vader did an interview show called Good Morning Kuwait.

During the meeting, presenter Bassam Al Othman asked the question all wrestlers hate: “Is it fake?” While The Undertaker answered diplomatically, Vader had a violent outburst. He grabbed Othman by his tie and started cursing and threatening him.

The presenter subsequently filed charges, and Vader (real name Leon White) found himself under house arrest in Kuwait. After 10 days, Vader was free to leave after paying fines amounting to roughly $150. The television station got in more trouble for the cursing on live TV, and wrestling was unofficially banned in Kuwait for 11 years.

The saga continued in an interview where Vader claimed the whole thing was staged. He was working under orders from the show’s producer who forgot to tell the host (or failed on purpose to get a better reaction). The drama took another turn in 1999 when Othman sued the WWF for $1 million, claiming the company used footage of Vader manhandling him for commercial purposes without his permission.^[8]

2 Johnny K-9 Was A More Prolific Criminal Than Wrestler

Canadian wrestlers seem to have a fondness for organized crime. World Wrestling Federation’s Dino Bravo was gunned down in his home in 1993, allegedly as mob retaliation for a shipment of smuggled cigarettes he lost to the police. However, he was still small-time compared to Johnny K-9, whose criminal career was far more fruitful than his wrestling career.

K-9 (real name Ion Croitoru) was born in Hamilton, Ontario. He had a 15-year wrestling career and made appearances with various promotions, including the WWF. He also had a few small acting roles and worked as a bodyguard for several celebrities. Over the course of his life, Croitoru was involved with three major Canadian criminal organizations: the Satan’s Choice motorcycle club, the Gravelle crime family, and the United Nations gang.

Croitoru started out as a biker with Satan’s Choice. During that time, he was involved with crimes such as trafficking, assault, extortion, and bombing a police station. Eventually, Croitoru was arrested. By the time he got out, Satan’s Choice was no more.

In 1998, Croitoru advanced to murder, executing lawyer Lynn Gilbank and her husband in their home, allegedly for working a case against the Gravelle crime family. He was charged in 2005, but the trial didn’t proceed due to lack of evidence.

Croitoru was arrested again in 2009 for conspiring to kill notorious Vancouver gangsters the Bacon Brothers and other members of their gang, the Red Scorpions.^[9] Two years later, he faced another set of murder and attempted murder charges. He struck a deal that got him released on parole in 2016 and died in a halfway house in 2017.

1 Chris Benoit Committed Double Murder And Suicide

Back in June 2007, the WWE embarked on an ambitious story line involving the (fake) death of company owner Vince McMahon, seemingly killed in a limousine explosion. According to some pundits, the goal was to create a mystery about the identity of the perpetrator that was similar to the iconic Dallas story line, “Who Shot JR?”

It never got that far, though, because Vince was standing in the ring alive and well the following week. He was giving a heartfelt tribute to one of his performers who had just died over the weekend.

His name was Chris Benoit. On June 25, Benoit, his wife, Nancy, and his son Daniel were found dead in their Atlanta home. At first, authorities believed that they were the victims of a home invasion. But it soon became clear that Benoit had strangled his wife and son and then committed suicide. Common motives suggested for his actions included brain trauma, depression, and alcohol and steroids abuse, all leading to mental instability.

The WWE ended up turning their fake tribute show planned for Vince McMahon into a real one for Benoit. Once they found out about the true circumstances surrounding his death, they had to open their next show with an apology for the previous one.

The strangest part of the event came courtesy of Chris Benoit’s Wikipedia page. After he missed that Sunday’s pay-per-view show, someone changed his Wiki entry to say he did it due to the death of his wife, Nancy. This happened 14 hours before police found the bodies.^[10] Eventually, authorities dismissed it as a “huge coincidence” after tracing the IP to a Connecticut teenager who made random edits to several Wikipedia pages.

We’ve already covered a few animal trials, but there are many more cases worth mentioning. Far from being an oddity, trying animals for crimes was a solemn and frequent affair, especially in medieval Europe. It was also legally important, persuading people that everything was under control—its control. And of course punishing “theft” whatever the species helped to prop up the notion of property.

Charges ranged from case to case but they all had one thing in common: they were batsh*t insane. In ascending order of lunacy, here are 10 of the worst offenders—listed by the species in the dock.

10. Monkeys

When, during the Napoleonic Wars, some English found a monkey on a beach, they were immediately suspicious. Its appearance followed the wreckage of a French ship nearby and this was the only survivor, washed to shore on debris, soaked through and miserable-looking. Having never seen a Frenchman (only propagandist caricatures with claws and tails), they took this monkey to be one. It also didn’t help that, as the French ship’s mascot, it was dressed as a human sailor. After a hasty trial right there on the beach, they found it guilty of espionage, sentenced it to death, and hanged it from the mast of a fishing boat. This was extrajudicial– mob law—unlike the others on this list. But unfortunately it wasn’t uncommon. Although frowned upon, people often took the law in their own hands when it came to punishing animals. 

Disturbingly in this case, there may be more to the tale. According to one theory, it wasn’t a monkey they hanged but a child employed as a “powder monkey” for priming the cannons with gunpowder. Whatever the case, the people of Hartlepool are still known as “monkey hangers” today—although they’ve come to embrace the name. In fact, their football team’s mascot is a monkey called H’Angus. And in 2002 a mayoral candidate dressed as the monkey promised free bananas for school children (and won).

9. Termites

When the Portuguese invaded Brazil they took their insanity with them, embarrassing themselves in front of the natives by charging some termites with vandalism. Ironically, the plaintiffs were Franciscan friars—that is, followers of a man who five centuries earlier preached sharing and kinship with animals. Still, they sought to excommunicate the termites for eating their food and furniture.

It was actually the defense lawyer that most resembled Saint Francis, arguing that the termites had, like all of God’s creatures, a clear right to sustenance. He even claimed their industriousness put the idle grey friars to shame. Besides, he said, the termites were on the land first.

In January 1713, the trial finally ended with a “compromise”. The cloister of friars would set up a reservation where the termites could live undisturbed. The decision was announced to the termite mounds: “No sooner was the order of the prelatic judge promulgated by being read officially before the hills of the termites than they all came out and marched in columns to the place assigned.” Naturally, this was interpreted as proof of their submission to God.

8. Weevils

After ravaging some vineyards in a hamlet in France, weevils were personas non grata. But they had a good lawyer. The trial concluded, in the spring of 1546, with the judge ordering locals to beg for mercy from God, who, being the “supreme author of all that exists” had created the earth for all of his creatures. The hamlet also held three masses “in solemn procession with songs and supplications round the vineyards.” And it seems to have worked—for a time.

Forty years later, the weevils returned and were put on trial again. This second case, brought before “the prince-bishop of Maurienne, … the reverend lord his vicar-general and official”, and recorded on 29 folia with a very long title in Latin, lasted for several months. Again it was argued the people were guilty for incurring God’s wrath, since the weevils had the right to eat plants. The defense even pointed out it was “absurd and unreasonable” to apply human laws to insects. But the counsel for the plaintiffs, on the other hand, the local vine-growers, claimed the weevils were subject to man.

The case was adjourned repeatedly while each side considered the case. Eventually, the weevils’ legal team countered that even if they are subject to man, that doesn’t give us the right to punish them—especially with excommunication. That was God’s job. Two and a half months after the trial began, the people were ordered to set aside some land for the weevils, fenced off so they could live in peace. But it didn’t work. One month later, the case was back in court. The plaintiffs begged the judge to order the weevils to return to their enclosure under threat of excommunication. Meanwhile, the defense team said the enclosure was too barren with not enough food for the animals. Again, the case was adjourned numerous times and it wasn’t for another month and a half that a verdict was finally reached. What it was, however, we won’t ever know because the final page of the court records was eaten by weevils.

7. Cows

Because of their size, weight, and temper, cows were frequently charged with attacks. In 1314, for instance, a bull escaped from a farm in France and gored a man to death. Then it was captured by the Count of Valois’s men, imprisoned, and sentenced to hang. But since the Count had no jurisdiction in Moisy, the sentence was overturned (sadly after the bull had been killed).

There are numerous other examples of murderous cows being hanged. However, given the value of cows and bulls, they (like horses) were typically confiscated instead. In 12th-century Burgundy it was actually written into law that “if an ox or a horse commit one or several homicides, it shall not be condemned to death, but shall be taken by the Seignior [feudal lord] within whose jurisdiction the deed was perpetrated”, who would sell it and keep the profits. “But if other beasts or Jews do it,” the law continued, “they shall be hanged by the hind feet.”

As a rule, executed animals—even the organic grass-fed cows of the pre-industrial world—were never eaten as meat. Once an animal “had become the peer of man in blood-guiltiness and in judicial punishment,” it was felt that eating it “would savour of anthropophagy”, or cannibalism. So they’d usually get buried with human criminals. There were exceptions, though. One example is a cow killed in Ghent, Belgium, in 1578; its flesh was sold to a butcher in order to compensate the victim. But her head was impaled near the gallows.

6. Dogs

Dogs were different to livestock; they were already treated as people. Like women and serfs, they were even included in the weregild (insurance payable by their killers to their owners). In Old Germanic law, dogs (as well as cats and cocks) could even be witnesses in court if, for example, they were the only ones present when their owner’s house was burglarized. In this case, the homeowner would bring their dog to court, along with three straws from the roof thatch to symbolize the house.

Having sex with them, however, was—to Christian sensibilities—as bad as having sex with a Jew. In fact, when a Parisian man was burned alive for “coition with a Jewess,” or “sodomy,” the court said it was “precisely the same as if a man should copulate with a dog.” (Naturally, the woman was burned alive too.) Examples are many, but one stands out: In 1606 a Chartres man was sentenced to hang for sodomizing a dog, but he ran away before they could do it. So while authorities killed the victim with a knock on the head, they hanged a portrait of the rapist instead.

But dogs weren’t always sentenced to death. Sometimes they were simply imprisoned. This was the case in 1712 when a drummer’s dog bit a councilor in the leg; instead of execution, it was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment in the Narrenkötterlein, an iron cage over the marketplace.

5. Donkeys

Just like humans, animals were entitled to appeals. One donkey sentenced to hang, for example, was saved by appeal to a higher court and her sentence was commuted to a knock on the head.

Appeals could even lead to acquittal. In 1750 a donkey condemned for seducing her rapist was acquitted when the Vanvres parish priest delivered a certificate attesting to her good character. He and other parishioners of good standing, it read, were “willing to bear witness that she is in word and deed and in all her habits of life a most honest creature.”

Another donkey, or a mule rather, was not so popular. Raped by a man, it was sentenced to burn at Montpelier in 1565. Worse, because it was “vicious and inclined to kick” (vitiosus et calcitrosus, according to court records), the executioner took it upon himself to cut off its feet before burning—an extra-judicial mutilation for which he was presumably scolded. Courts didn’t like their hired thugs adding anything to the sentence.

4. Rats

Even as recently as the 19th century, rats were served a “writ of ejectment [or] … letter of advice … to induce them to quit any house.” And, because there was a good chance the rats wouldn’t read it, it was rubbed in grease to attract their attention. One such letter, from Maine, even expresses sympathy for the rats, advising them to leave 1 Seaview Street for 6 Incubator Street, where they could live in a cellar full of vegetables or a barn full of grain. It finished by advising the rats that if they didn’t leave, they’d be killed off with poison.

Centuries earlier, in the 1500s, rats were summoned to court for eating all the barley in Autun, a French province. The court knew they wouldn’t come and planned to punish the rodents accordingly. However, as their defense lawyer pointed out, there were too many rats in Autun for a single summons to suffice; it could never be seen by all the rats. The judge reluctantly agreed and ordered a second summons “to be published from the pulpits of all the parishes” in the province. Then, when they still failed to come, their defense lawyer argued that the cats on the route made the journey too dangerous for the rats. This meant they had “the right of appeal and [could] refuse to obey the writ”.

3. Caterpillars

In 1659, five Italian communes brought a complaint against caterpillars for devastating their crops. The summons were nailed to trees in the forests. And, while they didn’t show up for the trial, the caterpillars were conceded in court to have the same right “to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as man—as long as theirs didn’t infringe on the latter’s.

Talking of charismatic insects, even bees were put on trial. In 864, the Council of Worms (i.e. the Rhineland city, not the species) sentenced a hive to be suffocated for stinging a human to death. This was to be done as soon as possible, before it could produce any honey—which, on account of the “murder”, would be “demoniacally tainted” and unfit for Christian consumption.

2. Slugs

For devastating crops in 1487, the slugs of Autun were “generously forewarned” by three days of public processions—during which they were ordered to leave “under penalty of being accursed.” As crazy as it sounds, the same thing happened the following year at Beaujeu; slugs were warned three times that if they didn’t get out of the province, they would be excommunicated. Whether slugs even considered themselves members of the Church was irrelevant. Excommunication served an important legal purpose for ecclesiastical courts: it made an animal free game to kill.

Even snails were prosecuted, in 1487, 1500, 1543, and 1596—all in France. But it’s unknown how they were punished.

1. Pigs

Pigs were among the most commonly prosecuted animals. One reason for this was the way they roamed around the towns unattended, munching on whatever they found—including consecrated wafers and children. There are numerous examples of the latter, for which the pigs were usually hanged. In 1567, for example, “a sow with a black snout” was hanged from a tree for devouring a four-month-old child’s head, left hand, and upper chest. In another case, the plaintiff made a special point of the fact that a pig killed and ate a child “although it was Friday”, which, because it violated the Catholics’ proscription of meat, was a seriously aggravating factor.

Sometimes the punishment was “an eye for an eye”. In 1386, a pig that tore the face and arms off a child was sentenced to hang after being “mangled and maimed in the head and forelegs”. It was even dressed as a man for the occasion. Another particularly grisly punishment for pigs was getting buried alive. More popular, however, was burning them alive—although in this some judges were merciful, ordering they only be “slightly singed” before strangling them to death and throwing their corpses on the fire.

Like dogs, cows, and other animals, pigs were often jailed before they were executed, sometimes for weeks on end and in the same jails as humans.

It is an inherent fact that mankind has been committing criminal acts since before there were even words for the crimes themselves. Whether the behavior is a product of genetic disposition or environmental factors, humans are capable of horrendous feats that defy logical comprehension. It is often rather shocking to learn just how depraved humanity can be and how easily these misdeeds seem to be perpetrated towards children. It is disturbing to see photos of crime scenes where you can clearly see images of children’s toys or clothes, making you cringe at the thought of just how those objects got there in the first place. Here is a list of the most heinous crimes committed that involved a child’s toy in some way.

10 Sex Toys With Ridiculously Ancient Origins

10 Gonzalo Carreno Nieto

There is an old saying that if you really want something you should go out and get it. A 43-year-old man named Gonzalo Carreno Nieto put that axiom to the test when he used a toy hand grenade to commandeer a Boeing 727 during a Colombian flight from Medellín to Bogotá. Nieto claimed that he had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and needed $100,000 in order settle down in Cuba to live out his remaining days. Showing the passengers and pilot the hand grenade, Nieto claimed he would blow up the plane if they did not listen to his demands. The pilot, Luis Eduardo Gutierrez, who probably deals with grenade-toting madmen all the time, was extremely calm and even gave Nieto advice on what to do next.

After freeing the 130 passengers, Nieto commanded the pilot to fly to Panama and Aruba to collect the money. Gutierrez told Nieto that Cartagena would be more likely to have the money he sought and Nieto agreed to finally allow the plane to land after a 12-hour flight. Once the plane landed, Nieto jumped out a rear exit and disappeared into the night. In the early hours of the next morning, Colombian navy personnel found Nieto hiding in a swamp near the airport. It is uncertain how Nieto intended to get away with the act; however, officials have noted that he suffered from drug addiction and mental anguish after spending time in prison.^[1]

9 Andri Lynn Jeffers

It is one thing to convince people that a toy grenade is an actual weapon, it is quite another to convince them that a stuffed animal is one. That minor hurdle did not deter Andri Lynn Jeffers from attempting to rob a gas station with one in Yavapai County, Arizona. In recanting the story to the police, the clerk stated that Jeffers strolled into the station, claiming she had a bomb under her sweater and wanted money. The clerk, noticing the lumpy object under Jeffers garment, refused her request by stating the safe could not be opened just before closing time.

Jeffers grew angry and stated she would blow up the gas station if the clerk did not comply. Grabbing a bag from behind the counter, Jeffers commanded the clerk to fill the bag with money. The clerk, like a stone guardian, stood his ground and remained completely indifferent to the crazed woman’s demands. Accepting defeat, Jeffers evacuated the premise but was apprehended shortly after at her home thanks to the quick thinking of the clerk who saw Jeffer’s license plate as she fled. While in police custody, Jeffers admitted to the robbery-as if they needed a confession-and revealed that the bomb she carried was actually a stuffed toy penguin.^[2]

8 Brown-Haired Gunman

While in most cases of toy gun crimes, the suspect is attempting to fool others in to believing they have the real thing and intend on using it. In certain cases, it is not the toy itself that is the danger but rather how the individual has modified it. On Forth Road Bridge, a 35-year-old toll booth operator named Lynda McArthur was attacked by a brow-haired man wielding a water gun filled with an unknown solvent during a routine transaction. The suspect was in a blue van that was driven by an unidentified blond-haired man who was receiving change from McArthur at the time of the incident.

According to McArthur, the brown-haired man leaned over the driver and shot a blast of solvent from a water gun that hit her directly in the eyes. As the van rolled away, McArthur was left dazed as her eyes began burning from the unknown liquid. She hastily called for help from the bridge operator and was immediately taken to the hospital. The responding police officer believed that the incident was an isolated prank gone wrong; however, due to the incident the security on the bridge has been significantly tightened to prevent future attacks. Although the incident frightened Lynda McArthur to her core, she did not suffer any permanent damage to her eye sight.^[3]

7 Jose Vaszquez

In what appears to be rather disturbing trend, several costumed characters have been conducting inappropriate behavior in New York City’s Times Square. Not wanting to break the cycle, 44 year-old Jose Vaszquez, dressed as Woody from the movie “Toy Story”, decided his costume gave him special privileges than most. As the lone sheriff in his own perverted mind, Vaszquez began groping and assaulting multiple women during his numerous outings.

Police were tipped off by the victims and sent a pair of undercover detectives to apprehend Vaszquez. The detectives found Vaszquez parading around in his standard Woody attire and despite his status as “sheriff”, he was promptly arrested. He was charged with multiple counts of sexual misconduct and is most assuredly banned from participating in any further Woody public appearances.^[4]

6 Raquel & Martin Barreras

As discussed in the introduction, humanity is capable of deplorable behavior and it’s even more unacceptable when there are children involved. Despite how heinous child related crimes, people still commit severely disturbing acts against our most vulnerable societal members. Raquel and Martin Barreras could easily win the worst parents award for their deadly inconsistent method of raising children. While the couple treated their other four children in a seemingly appropriate manner, they did not care much for their fifth child, 3-year-old Roman Barreras. Raquel, who had a history of drug related crimes, had her children taken away at one point; however, the court deemed her husband, Martin Barreras, capable of raising them.

Now in their father’s custody, the couple resumed their abusive ways which eventually lead to the death of their youngest son. According to court records, Roman was forced to stay in a separate building behind the house and was not allowed to eat with the other children. Despite Martin claiming he stood up to his wife about the abuse, little Roman eventually died of starvation. Instead of alerting authorities and holding a funeral, the couple simply dumped their son’s body into a toy chest and left it in the backyard. After the family was evicted from the home, the landlord came across the toy chest with the boys remains and alerted police. Raquel was charged with first-degree murder and child abuse, while Martin was only charged with child abuse.^[5]

10 Toys That Did More For the US Than Most People

5 Amy Zielinski

While it may be idiotic to rob even a single store using a toy gun, some people take it to the next level of stupidity by going on a robbing spree with one. 34-year-old Amy Zielinski began her pointless endeavor at a BP Amoco station one particular Sunday. Police stated Zielinski walked in with what appeared to be a handgun and successfully robbed the station before fleeing in a red Pontiac. Feeling confident from her latest crime, Zielinski wanted to tempt fate a second time and fifteen minutes later she was at it again. The victim this time, a humble pecan vendor stationed outside a barber shop. Zielinski ran up to the vendor and postured that she had a gun in her pants by grabbing her waistband. Demanding money, Zielinski took the wallet of the vendor only to throw it back once she realized it was empty. Zielinski again fled the scene in the red Pontiac.

Before the police could even finish interviewing the second victim, there was a report of a woman attempting to rob a Variety Store. According to reports, Zielinski walked into the store and asked for cigarettes. Just as the clerk reached for the packs, Zielinski lifted her shirt to reveal her waistband and demanded all the cash. The clerk, who did not see a gun, refused her requests until Zielinski fled the scene. An officer on patrol spotted the Pontiac later the very same day and pulled Zielinski over. In the car, officers found the toy gun that she had used and ushered her off to jail. Amy Zielinski was charged with armed robbery and two counts of attempted robbery.^[6]

4 Edwin Tobergta

Sexual crimes fall under a sickeningly number of varieties, from assault to molestation to rape, with each case more heinous than the last. While we have an ordered system for labeling these offenders, there is simply no class that can hold the sexual misconduct of Edwin Tobergta. The 35-year-old has been caught committing sexual acts with inflatable items not once, not twice but four separate times. The first incident recorded was in 2002 when Tobergta was caught performing what appeared to be intercourse with an inflatable pumpkin. In 2011, Tobergta began an odd relationship with a neighbors small pink pool raft and was later caught pleasuring himself with the raft in an alley.

In 2013, Tobergta was caught yet again with the same pink raft only this time he was charged with public indecency due to the presence of children during the offense. His latest sexual escapade occurred in 2014, when he was found in a moment of passion with a pool raft-possibly the same one-by the side of a public road. When Tobergta was arrested, the police went through normal procedure and took a standard mug shot. In the photo one can clearly see the print on Tobergta’s shirt which appropriately states, “I’m out of my mind. Please leave a message.”^[7]

3 William “Bill” Philippi

The owner of a toy shop, 85-year-old William “Bill” Philippi, may have used his status as a toy peddler to seduce a young girl while she was within his shop. The girl, an 11-year-old resident of Hermiston, held on to the devastating secret for more than a year before reporting the incident. According to reports, the event occurred late 2009 at Philippi’s store, Toys ‘N More, where he allegedly had intercourse with the victim. When news broke to the community, there were mixed emotions about the supposedly “nice” Bill Philippi.

A few residents claimed he was wrongly accused and that the incident was simply a misinterpretation of events. While others, who worked in the stores near the toy store, claim that Philippi had committed similar acts before this specific incident and were not at all surprised he had been arrested. Regardless of the truth, residents in the area state they will not be visiting the store anytime in the future. Philippi was charged with five counts of sexual abuse and two counts of penetration.^[8]

2 David Rennie

It takes a special type of person to want to prey on others, but it is an entirely different kind of horrible when the victims are children. 51-year old, David Rennie, was the executive director for a Salvation Army warehouse in Toronto where they housed a number of donated goods. Over the course of two years, Rennie was able to steal over 100,000 items from the warehouse. \During the investigation, the police located a warehouse north of Toronto that was filled with nearly 150 pallets that contained toys and baby furniture.

Immediately following the incident, the spokesman for the Salvation Army stated that Rennie was fired and the goods had been recovered just in time for the holidays. Rennie had stolen over $2 million in toys and used his status to keep the thefts hidden during the entire two-year robbery. It was later revealed that Rennie’s girlfriend, Xiao “Diane” Wang was also involved in the heinous act and was arrested. Pending a court hearing, Rennie was charged with possession of stolen merchandise, breach in confidence, and outright theft. While Wang was charged with conspiracy to commit a crime and possession of money used in a crime.^[9]

1 Jason Lee Vickery

Florida has become known as a place with rather bizarre news stories and cases of human beings behaving well beyond the realm of normality. For Jason Lee Vickery, it was just another day when he decided to break into a random house in St. Augustine to masturbate. While inside the home, Vickery became distracted from his quest when he found a remote control helicopter that he played with for a long period of time. Apparently all that playing made Vickery hungry as he proceeded to eat a salad that he had evidently brought with him.

With a full belly, Vickery decided it was time to do the deed and proceeded to the second floor bathroom. In the midst of self exploration, Vickery heard the sound of voices coming from outside of the house. Waiting in the backyard were deputies who had been called in on a disturbance in the area. Vickery had apparently brought more than just a salad, as the deputies found marijuana, chewing tobacco, a towel, and a wig within his possession. Jason Lee Vickery was charged with the crime of theft, as well as larceny.^[10]

10 Terrifying Toys From The Past

About The Author: Robert Butler is an aspiring writer with a penchant for toy related stories.

Solving crimes was a lot harder before DNA testing. Detectives today have a whole arsenal of crime scene investigation tools and gadgets to help them prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but it wasn’t always that easy.

Crime investigators have been around for thousands of years. All the way back in ancient Egypt, there were men hired to solve crimes. The Egyptians kept incredibly detailed records about it—and because of that, we have a pretty good idea what it was like to be a detective more than 3,000 years ago.

10 Trained Monkeys Would Attack Thieves

Ideally, a crime would be stopped before it was committed. Most of the police force in ancient Egypt were posted as guards around the cities, keeping an eye on the tombs and the markets to make sure nobody got out of line.

It was a pretty good deterrent. After all, if you got caught breaking the law in ancient Egypt, you might just end the day with an attack monkey on your face.

Guards in ancient Egypt would often have trained animals with them. Most of the time, they were dogs, but more than a few walked around with monkeys on leashes, poised to attack. There’s even a picture of them in action in one servant’s tomb. It shows a thief at a market trying to make his getaway, only to have an attack monkey on a leash tackle his leg, pulling him down to the ground and holding him in place until help arrived.^[1]

9 Snitching Was Mandatory By Law

When the detectives were called in, their jobs weren’t easy. Tracking down a criminal with ancient Egyptian technology can be tough to do without a good witness. So, the Egyptian courts made sure they had a witness by laying out serious penalties for failing to report a crime.^[2]

When Ramses III was assassinated, the police didn’t just round up the people responsible. They rounded up their butlers and servants, as well. They’d had plenty of chances to overhear the conspiracy, the courts ruled, and their failure to report it made them criminals. As punishment, their ears were cut off—since, as far as the courts were concerned, they weren’t making good use of them, anyway.

But you didn’t have to overlook a plot to overthrow the king to get in trouble. Any failure to report a crime carried heavy consequences, and that was a serious motivator.

One man, after hearing his boss for conspiring to rob a tomb, immediately sent a letter ratting him out. In his letter, he made it clear that it was fear of punishment that motivated him, writing: “I report them to my lord, for it were a crime for one like me to hear such words and conceal them.”

8 Ancient Egypt Had Crime Scene Investigators

Most investigations started with somebody ratting someone out. A citizen would get in line outside the court to complain about his neighbor, and if it was a serious enough crime, an investigator would be sent out on the job.

These investigations were surprisingly thorough. They didn’t just draw straws or go off a hunch—they would round up suspects, questions witnesses, investigate the crime scene, and even arrange reenactments to test theories about the crime. They even had detailed records of past accusations they could check to monitor peoples’ criminal histories.

When a tomb was robbed during the reign of Ramses IX, he sent out a team of investigators to check every single tomb in the area, just in case the thieves had broken in anywhere else.^[3] The team found the tunnel that the thieves had used to break in, measured its width and length, and even made educated guesses on the tools they’d used to get in.

Then they went to work rounding up suspects. They checked the city records for people with a knowledge of mining and a criminal history of robbery, brought them in, and started their investigation there.

7 Suspects And Witnesses Were Beaten Until They Talked

When it came time to get answers, though, the detectives didn’t exactly play nice. They just beat people senseless until they confessed.

They were very cavalier about torturing people. In the court records we have today, they very casually talked about it, with one quickly noting that the “examination was held by beating with a double rod.”

Typically, they’d tie the person to a stake and beat his hands and feet until he gave them the answers they wanted.^[4] If he denied all wrongdoing, they’d beat him again—or, as they worded it in one document, the witness would be “further examined with a rod.”

This wasn’t limited to suspects. Sometimes, witnesses who had done nothing wrong would be beaten until they gave their side of the story, especially if they had a reason to protect the accused. There are records of suspects’ sons, slaves, and wives being pulled out of their homes and beaten with a rod until they told the police exactly what they’d seen.

6 Confessions Were Compared To The Evidence

That all might sound barbaric today, but to the Egyptians’ credit, they did realize that beating prisoners could lead to false confessions. That’s why they spent so much time investigating crime scenes. They wanted to make sure these people weren’t just saying anything they wanted to hear.

Criminals’ testimonies would be compared to what they’d found at the crime scenes. Or, if a gang had worked together as a team, they would be separated before they were tortured to make sure their stories were the same.^[5] If all the details matched up, they knew they had the right people.

In one case, a man who had confessed to robbing a tomb was blindfolded and carried out to the valley where the robbery had taken place. Once he was there, the vizier who’d questioned him showed him rows upon rows of tombs. The suspect had to show him which one he had robbed so that they could see if he’d point at the right one.

5 Witnesses Had To Describe How They Would Be Mutilated If They Lied

It would have been easy to lie and feign ignorance, of course, but the consequences for lying were often worse than the consequences for the crime itself. In the case above, the coppersmith was warned that if the investigators were satisfied that he had lied, his nose and ears would be cut off, and his body would be stretched apart on the rack.

Threats like these were fairly common in ancient Egypt. When a witness gave a testimony in court, they wouldn’t swear an oath on the Bible like we do today. They’d outline in graphic detail exactly how the court could torture them if they found they’d lied.^[6]

The tortures varied. The judges would make them up on the spot, based on how serious they felt the crime was and whether the witness was rich or poor.

One woman was ordered to swear before the court: “Should witnesses be brought against me [ . . . ] I shall be liable to 100 blows.” Another was ordered to declare, “Should we speak falsely, the servants shall be taken away from us.” And a poor field laborer was ordered to tell the truth “on pain of mutilation.”

4 Corruption Was Rampant

All this investigation would be a lot of work—and there’s a lot of reason to believe that if you weren’t important, the courts didn’t bother doing much about it. There’s every indication that bribery and corruption were rampant in the ancient Egyptian courts, and a wealthy man could get the verdict he wanted by slipping the judge a few golden coins.

An Egyptian writer wrote a song begging the god Amun to help out the poor that gives a little insight into how people saw their legal system. In it, he complains that “the court extorts” the people in it, demanding “silver and gold for the clerks” in exchange for justice.

It was a major political problem. The head of Tutankhamun’s army put the judges in the country on trial for corruption, declaring: “They will not show mercy and be compassionate on the day they will judge the poor.” Those he convicted had their noses cut off and were sent off into exile.

But more than 200 years later, Rameses XI was still struggling with the same problem. When two policemen were accused of framing an innocent man, his general sent an order to “put them in two baskets and they shall be thrown into the water at night.”^[7]

He wanted to get rid of the problem before word got out that the police were unjust. The next words of the letter read: “Do not let anybody in the land find out!”

3 Infidelity Could Be Punished By Death

Divorce court was brutal. In ancient Egypt, anyone could take anyone else to court for having an affair. Unlike most of their neighbors, this wasn’t a right reserved for men. They let women sue their husbands for infidelity and divorce. They even let people sue random neighbors in their town who they thought were cheating on their wives.

The punishment was severe. If a woman was found guilty of cheating on her husband, she could have her nose cut off or, in some cases, could even be burned alive. Men, it seems, never got the death penalty for infidelity, but breaking the marriage bonds could still get him 1,000 blows and a writ of divorce.

In one case, an Egyptian official describes catching a mob prowling through the streets, yelling out that they’ve “come to beat up” a man in town who was caught sleeping with a woman who wasn’t his wife. After hearing them out, the official said in a letter, he decided to just let them do it.

“Indeed, [even] if I can repulse them this time, I shall not be able to repulse them again,” he wrote. Instead, he just admonished the girl for sleeping with a married man and ordered his men to let the beating happen and keep it quiet.

“When this letter reaches you,” the letter ends, “do not go to Neferti with this matter.”^[8]

2 Even If You Were Innocent, You Were Labeled A Criminal

The overwhelming majority of court cases in ancient Egypt ended with a guilty verdict. There only a handful of records of people leaving the courts as free men, and even then, they weren’t left off free.

One court record describes a man named Amenkhau who was repeatedly beaten by the police. No matter how hard they hit, he kept insisting: “I haven’t seen anything. Whatever I’ve seen you have heard from my mouth.”^[9] When no amount of torture would loosen his tongue, they decided he was probably telling the truth and let him go.

He wasn’t totally free, though. Even after he was found innocent, the accusation was permanently kept in the record books with the words “great criminal” next to his name.

That was just how it was done in ancient Egypt. If someone was accused of a crime, they believed, they’d probably done something wrong. And so, even if it was clear that you were innocent, you were labeled a “great criminal” for life.

1 Toward The End, They Just Let A Statue Decide

The above entries, at least, are how Egypt laid down the law during their prime. Sometime around 1000 BC, though, they gave up on this whole system of law and justice and settled in for one that was completely and totally insane.

In the last several hundred years of ancient Egypt’s power, the priests of Amun had taken over most of the country, including the legal system.^[10] Whenever a charge was filed against someone, they decided the verdict by asking a statue what to do.

The priests would ask a statue of Amun questions and watch how it moved to get their answers. If the statue moved forward, they told people it was saying “yes,” but if it moved backward, it was saying “no.”

Of course, the statue wasn’t really moving on its own. Secretly, they had a man inside or behind it pretending to be a god.

Sometimes, there wouldn’t even be an investigation. A court record from this time shows that in the trial of a man named Thutmose, they just put two tablets in front of the statue and asked Amun to move toward the verdict he wanted. They didn’t just say “guilty” or “not guilty”—the tablets were to decide whether they should bother investigating the case at all.

Thutmose, it seems, had some friends in the priesthood. In the new Egypt ruled by the corrupt priests, he was let go without a single witness being questioned.

Horror and thriller films “have legs,” as they say in the Hollywood film industry, meaning that they have long-lasting appeal. Not surprisingly, the true stories on which many such movies are based also have legs, intriguing generations of moviegoers long after the actual crimes that inspired them have been solved.

These 10 cinematic chillers and thrillers based on horrific crimes are no exceptions. Like the movies they are based on, the crimes—chillers and thrillers in their own right—continue to horrify us as much today as when they were first committed.

Related: 10 Gruesome Crimes Fit For Horror Movies

10 A Place in the Sun

Directed by George Stevens and starring Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, and Shelley Winters, A Place in the Sun (1951) is based on the same horrendous crime that inspired author Theodore Dreiser to write his 1925 novel An American Tragedy: Chester Gillette’s 1906 murder of his girlfriend, Grace Brown.

Brown had moved to Cortland, New York, seeking the excitement and glamour for which she had longed as a child growing up on a dairy farm in New York’s Otselic Valley. In Cortland, she took a job at the Gillette Skirt Factory. There, she met the owner’s son, Chester. They began a secret romance, and, despite Gillette’s concern that Brown was not “suitable” to become a member of his family, he fathered a child by her. After she told him the news, perhaps hoping he would marry her, she returned to her parents’ home to have the baby.

Gillette asked her to accompany him to Big Moose Lake, located about 200 miles northeast of Cortland, in the shadow of the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York, a beautiful, serene setting perfect for boating.

A sign near the lake commemorates the occasion: “On July 11, 1906, Chester Gillette and Grace Brown left here for a boat trip….” He planned to propose! Brown thought. However, as the rest of the sign’s text reads, the boat trip ended “in her death and his 1908 execution for murder.”

The rented boat was not returned, and a search for the missing couple was launched. Finally, Brown’s body was found, along with the capsized boat. The victim’s killer had struck her with a tennis racket, and she’d fallen into the lake, where Gillette had drowned her. The news of her pregnancy had been unwelcome; he had not wanted to be a father, and he had not wanted to marry her.

After killing her, Gillette fled the scene, but he was arrested in a nearby hotel, where he was found hiding in a room. He insisted he did not know Brown, but the love letters he had exchanged with her, which prosecutors shared with the jury during Gillette’s 1908 trial, told a different story. Convicted, he was executed the same year at Auburn Prison.^[1]

9 Anatomy of a Murder

It is 1952. Allegedly, a rape has occurred, and the husband has murdered the suspected rapist. He is tried for murder in the first degree. The defense attorney attempts to get his client off, even though a “crowd” of witnesses observed the murder—a shooting—as it occurred in the Lumberjack Tavern in the unincorporated community of Big Bay, Michigan.

The 1958 novel Anatomy of a Murder by attorney John Voelker (writing as Robert Traver) recounts this thrilling crime and is the basis for the 1959 movie of the same title. It was directed by Otto Preminger and starred James Stewart and Lee Remick. Both the book and the film are based on an actual case: Voelker’s successful defense of Coleman Peterson.

Could Voelker’s defense have swayed juries today? That’s the question that former Army Judge Advocate Eugene Milhizer, author of Dissecting Anatomy of a Murder, investigates. How Coleman committed the dastardly deed left Voelker with little room to maneuver in his defense, Milhizer suggests, since it amounted to “a public execution.” However, Voelker was able to persuade the jury that Coleman should be acquitted based on his client’s having been seized by an “irresistible impulse” that had rendered the killer himself a victim of temporary insanity.

Such a defense might well fail today, Milhizer suspects. Times were different in the 1950s, he points out, when the public tended to look more favorably on the possibilities of rehabilitation and on criminals’ rights. The Model Penal Code, he says, was intended for states’ use when such attitudes were the norm. It also allowed the possibility of an acquittal on the grounds of “cognitive disability,” the inability to know right from wrong, or “volitional disability,” the inability to exercise self-control, despite knowing right from wrong.

After John Hinckley, Jr., was acquitted of attempting to assassinate President Ronald Reagan on the basis of insanity, Congress and the American public were incensed. Many states adopted the federal insanity statute that Milhizer says “not only [places] the burden on the defendant to prove he’s insane…but [also] removes… ‘irresistible impulse’ as a defense.” Nevertheless, Milhizer admires Voelker’s story, which he finds “compelling for all sorts of reasons.” ^[2]

8 The Honeymoon Killers

Janus Films calls The Honeymoon Killers (1969), directed by Leonard Kastle, “a stark portrayal of the desperate lengths to which a lonely heart will go to find true love,” not that the victims of Martha Beck, played by Shirley Stoler, and Raymond Fernandez, portrayed by Tony Lo Bianco, ever found true love in their encounters with these serial killers.

As Dirk C. Gibson points out in Serial Killing for Profit: Multiple Murder for Money, Beck and Fernandez are rare, if not unique, in one respect. Most serial killers use the same modus operandi every time they strike. Yet, Beck and Fernandez employed “a different MO for each crime,” which indicates that the couple’s murders were more or less unplanned, spontaneous events, the motive for which was always the same: financial gain. The murderers were not above killing even “a baby and two elderly women.”

Beck and Fernandez were an odd couple. “Despite baldness and questionable looks,” Fernandez was a ladies’ man, Gibson writes, and Beck was “larger than life literally and figuratively,” her weight having been estimated as between 200 and 300 pounds.

A “puny” boy, Fernandez had an unhappy childhood and tended to daydream. As an adult, in a 1945 accident aboard a ship, he suffered a head injury, which “changed his personality completely”; thereafter, he embarked on a career of crime. During a period of incarceration, he embraced voodoo, attributing his sway with women to his practice of the religion. Between crimes, his vocation was that of a gigolo.

Beck was born in Milton, Florida, and may have been “raped by her brother” when she was 13 years old, Gibson says. Large even as a child, due to a “glandular condition,” she was teased mercilessly by her peers to the extent that she “became a recluse.” Sexually mature at age 10, she was also sexually “obsessed” and enjoyed “bizarre sex.” She wed three men, having two children by Alfred Beck, before moving to California, where she met Fernandez through a lonely-hearts ad she placed. They became partners not only in romance but in murder as well.

Although there is no definitive tally of their murders, they are suspected of having killed between three and twenty victims.^[3]

7 Murder on the Orient Express

The 1974 movie Murder on the Orient Express, directed by Sidney Lumet, has an all-star cast, with Albert Finney as detective Hercule Poirot. It is based on the Agatha Christie bestselling 1934 detective novel by the same title. As The Home of Agatha Christie website points out, the novel, and, therefore, the movie, is based on “a real life crime,” that of Bruno Hauptmann, the kidnapper of Charles Lindberg, Jr., the famous aviator’s infant son who “was taken from his crib in the middle of the night.”

Christie, her official website explains, “rewrote this case for [her novel] Murder on the Orient Express when she crafted the subplot of the Armstrong kidnapping case.” Charles Jr. is replaced by Daisy Armstrong, whose mother succumbs to complications of her pregnancy after the girl’s remains are discovered, and “the devastated father kills himself.” As a result, “an innocent servant” who becomes a suspect in the father’s apparent murder commits suicide.

A close approximation of this subplot appears in the movie’s plot, with gangster Lanfranco Cassetti substituting for Hauptmann and Daisy again replacing Charles Jr. The Armstrongs are represented by Sonia, who dies in childbirth, and her husband Hamish, who afterward commits suicide. The couple’s French maid, Paulette, is the suspected servant.^[4]

6 Eaten Alive

Eaten Alive (1976), directed by Tobe Hooper and starring Neville Brand and Carolyn Jones, concerns Judd, a mad hotel owner in eastern Texas, who feeds his victims to his giant pet alligator, which inhabits a nearby swamp. The plot sounds unlikely, to say the least, which makes the fact that the movie is based on a true story even more astounding.

The movie’s story is inspired by tavern owner Joe Ball of Elmendorf, Texas, who, during the 1930s, kept five alligators in his backyard. Although he is known to have killed two women, Ball may have murdered more. According to reporter Rebecca Hawkes, his known victims include his waitress Minnie Gotthardt and “another of Ball’s women,” 22-year-old Hazel Brown, whose bodies he disposed of as pet food for his hungry reptiles, thereby earning himself the sobriquet “Alligator Man.” Between the meals of Ball’s human victims, Hawkes reports, his alligators enjoyed snacks, it is said, courtesy of his bar’s patrons, who tossed live dogs, cats, and other stray animals to the reptiles.

Then, someone reported an odd-smelling barrel behind a neighbor’s barn. Had Ball, for some reason, stored human remains inside the barrel instead of feeding them to his alligators? Perhaps he was storing them there temporarily until he could feed the hungry reptiles. In any case, local police took an interest in him. The tavern owner persuaded the lawmen to allow him one last drink before escorting him to jail. When they accommodated him, he seized the opportunity to retrieve a gun stashed near his cash register and shot himself in the heart. Ball’s handyman, Clifford Wheeler, then confessed to having aided and abetted Ball in committing the murders and admitted to helping him dispose of the women’s bodies.

These were the only two murders that could be proven against Ball, and it may well be that at least some of the others attributed to him resulted from the legendary status he acquired among the locals. As Hawkes suggests, “In a strange way, it’s almost as if people…want the rumours to be true. There’s something inherently horrific about the prospect of ‘being eaten’: it’s a deep-set, psychological fear, that taps into childhood tales of Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood.”^[5]

5 Looking for Mr. Goodbar

Intentionally or not, Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a cautionary tale of sorts. Its plot is an implicit warning to young women who go looking for love in all the wrong places. In the 1977 movie, directed by Richard Brooks, Diane Keaton, playing Theresa Dunn, a young teacher in New York City, meets Richard Gere’s Tony in a bar. She takes him to her apartment, where he drugs her after taking cocaine with him. She then seeks other lovers, during and after Tony’s return, until, finally, she encounters Gary (Tom Berenger), a bisexual man who kills her in a fit of rage when, unable to have sex with her, he mistakenly assumes that she is questioning his masculinity.

The movie is based on the 1973 murder of an actual teacher, 28-year-old Roseanne Quinn, who was stabbed to death after making the fatal mistake of picking up prison escapee John Wayne Wilson in a bar and taking him home with her for a one-night stand. In her article about the crime, writer Cheryl Eddy spells out a possible theme for both the actual story and its fictional accounts, as presented in Judith Rossner’s best-selling 1975 novel and the movie based on it: “It seemed like hip, sexy fun, until the Quinn case gave a stark reminder of the dangers of letting strangers into your bedroom.”

When Quinn didn’t answer her telephone or show up for work for two days in a row, the school principal at which she taught dispatched a male teacher to her studio apartment, but Quinn did not answer his knock. The building’s superintendent unlocked her door. Inside, they found Quinn lying on her fold-out bed, dead from 18 stab wounds. According to an account of the crime, “a red candle had been thrust into her vagina, and a statue lay across her face.” Her killer had covered her corpse with a blue bathrobe.

Police canvassed the neighborhood, discovering that, at night, Quinn had frequented such local bars as the Copper Hatch and W. M. Tweed’s. While she was at Tweed’s, she had drunk with and talked to Charlie Smith, who was with another man, Geary Guest. Becoming bored, Guest left soon after the men had arrived at the bar. Smith stayed. He was visiting New York from Chicago, seeking work, he said. A regular customer who drew caricatures sketched two for Smith: a Mickey Mouse drawing and a picture of Donald Duck. Police found both caricatures at Quinn’s apartment.

Smith, who was actually Wilson, told Guest that he had stabbed Quinn to death after she insulted him when he had been too intoxicated to perform, and, after showering, dressing, and cleaning up the crime scene, he had left. Guest gave him some money, and Wilson went to Miami to see his pregnant wife before visiting his brother in Springfield, Illinois.

Police, meanwhile, released a sketch of a suspect, and Guest, seeing a resemblance to himself, called a lawyer, who advised him to notify the authorities. The Manhattan assistant district attorney agreed to give Guest immunity in exchange for his testimony against Wilson, who was subsequently arrested at his brother’s residence. Extradited to New York City, Wilson used sheets to hang himself while awaiting charges.^[6]

4 Badlands

Described by a Filmsite reviewer as a “remarkable and impressive,” if “alienating and disturbing,” independent film about “two estranged young fugitives who are mad lovers,” Badlands (1973), directed by Terrence Malick, stars Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek as Kit Carruthers and Holly Sargis.

After Kit murders Holly’s father, the lovers fake their own deaths before setting up housekeeping in a treehouse that they construct in a remote location. Bounty hunters, would-be informants, and a couple who let the duo hide out at their house occasion additional murders until, tired of running, Holly surrenders to the police and is sentenced to probation. Captured, Kit is executed.

Malick’s plot is based on the 1958 killing spree committed by Charles Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate, whose 11 victims included Fugate’s mother, stepfather, and two-year-old sister. Fugate received a life sentence, but she was paroled after 18 years; Starkweather was electrocuted.^[7]

3 Double Indemnity & The Postman Always Rings Twice

Double Indemnity (1944), directed by Billy Wilder, stars Fred McMurray as insurance salesman Walter Neff, Barbara Stanwyck as Phyllis Dietrichson, and Tom Powers as their victim, Phyllis’s husband, Mr. Dietrichson.

By seducing Neff, Phyllis gets him to write her an insurance policy on her husband. The policy includes a double indemnity clause, paying double in the event that the insured’s death is accidental. Phyllis drives her husband to a train, and Neff, hidden in the back seat, murders him before boarding the train himself, jumping off, and dragging the dead man’s body onto the tracks.

However, the insurance company suspects either suicide or murder rather than accidental death and refuses to pay. Later, Phyllis, eavesdropping, overhears insurance adjuster Barton Keyes telling Neff that Phyllis and an accomplice are suspected of killing her husband for his insurance money. A double-cross ends with one of the partners in crime murdered by the other. The surviving partner, wounded, waits for the arrival of an ambulance—and the police.

In The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), directed by Tay Garnett, Cora Smith (Lana Turner) and Frank Chambers (John Garfield), the drifter who falls for her after they meet at the diner owned by her husband Nick (Cecil Kellaway), conspire to murder Nick and start over together as the new owners of Nick’s diner.

Several attempts to murder Nick fail before the killers are finally successful. However, they turn on one another when the district attorney investigates Nick’s death as suspicious, and Cora receives probation. Although they marry and have a child, their relationship remains problematic, and Frank kills Cora and their child in a car accident, for which, ironically, he is convicted of their murders and is executed.

Both Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice are based on 1943 novels by the same titles, both written by author James M. Cain. The novels, in turn, are based on the 1927 crime that Ruth Snyder and her lover, Judd Gray, committed: the murder of Snyder’s husband Albert for his life insurance.

After her murder conviction, Snyder predicted that she would never be executed: “This is just a formality,” she insisted. “I have just as good a chance now of going free as I had before the trial started.” Instead, as New York Times writer Janet Maslin declares, Snyder “actually wound up with her hair on fire when she was electrocuted at Sing Sing in 1928.”^[8]

2 Scream

Directed by Wes Craven, Scream (1996) stars Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott, an intended victim who turns out to be her would-be killer’s killer. Skeet Ulrich, as Billy Loomis, and Matthew Lillard, as Stu Macher, play the murderers, who blame Sidney’s mother, Maureen (Lynn McRee), for having driven away Billy’s mother after she had had an affair with Billy’s father (C. W. Morgan).

Having already killed Maureen, the boys are now murdering their fellow high school students, planning to pin the killings on their hostage, Sidney’s father (Lawrence Hecht). More or less a device to causally link the slasher film’s series of murders together, the plot seems unlikely, to say the least. Still, the movie won four Saturn Awards and other accolades, earned $173 million at the box office, and launched a series of sequels.

A 1990 crime in Gainesville, Florida, inspired Scream. Danny Rolling bungled his attempt to kill his father, who routinely abused his mother, “succeeding only in taking the man’s eye and ear,” reports D. DeGroot, but his next attempt at murder succeeded entirely. This second crime inspired Scream and led to Rolling’s becoming known by the nickname “The Gainesville Ripper.”

During a four-day crime spree in Gainesville, DeGroot writes, Rolling “would stalk, stab and kill” four coeds and a male college student after invading their apartments while they slept and “stabbing them in their beds.” First, though, he would rape the female students; then, he would kill them. Next, he would mutilate them, staging his victims’ “severed heads and corpses…in lewd sexual positions for authorities to find.” When his DNA was matched to the crime scene, he was arrested and charged with multiple counts of murder.

Rolling made it easy for the authorities by confessing to the crimes. He wanted to be “famous like Ted Bundy,” DeGroot explains. He was convicted and sentenced to death, and, on October 25, 2006, he was executed by lethal injection in the Florida State Prison. There is a clear difference between Rolling’s brutal murders and those depicted in Scream, as DeGroot points out: “In the movie, the killers are out for revenge. In real life, Rolling’s crimes were random and a matter of accessibility.”^[9]

1 Alpha Dog

Alpha Dog (2006), directed by Nick Cassavetes, stars Emile Hirsch as drug dealer Johnny Truelove; Justin Timberlake as Johnny’s lieutenant, Frankie Ballenbacher; Anton Yelchin as Zack Mazursky; and Ben Foster as Jake Mazursky, Zack’s older brother. Johnny kidnaps Zack, whom he spots on the road after Zack has run away from home, planning to hold him until Jake pays an outstanding debt.

After a couple of Johnny’s associates dig a grave in a remote area in the mountains, one of them kills Zack, and they bury him. The remote grave is discovered, and the gang members involved in Zack’s kidnapping and murder are convicted of their crimes, receiving various sentences. Zack’s murderer, Elvis Schmidt (Shawn Hatosy), is sentenced to death.

According to NBC News, the true story behind Alpha Dog began in the West Hills section of Hollywood, California, among “million-dollar homes…swimming pools and tidy lawns.” After giving him repeated chances to reform, the parents of troubled Ben Markowitz finally told him to leave home. Not long after he did so, Markowitz became friends with Jesse James Hollywood, who resided nearby.

Dropping out of high school, Hollywood became a drug dealer, taking in enough money by age 19 to make “a big cash down payment” on a house of his own. His criminal associates were friends, and Hollywood made room for Markowitz. Despite their friendships, however, business always came first for Hollywood, and his crew were afraid of him—all of them, that is, except Markowitz, whom Hollywood himself feared. Markowitz had incurred a $1,200 debt with Hollywood, though, and the debt—and Markowitz’s refusal to pay up—made Hollywood angry enough in August 2000 to kidnap Markowitz’s younger half-brother Nick, with whom Markowitz was close.

When Hollywood learned that kidnapping could result in a sentence of life in prison, he decided to kill Nick or order him killed. That way, Nick could never testify against any of his abductors. Hollywood ordered Ryan Hoyt to commit the murder. A grave was dug in the mountains, and, bound with duct tape, Nick was taken to the site by his captors.

According to Los Angeles Magazine senior writer Jesse Katz, Ryan Hoyt “whacks Nick in the back of the head—cold cocks him [and] pulls out this Tech 9,” shooting his victim nine times. Nick “falls into this grave that had been dug for him, [and] they tuck the gun under Nick’s knees, [as they] now try to bury him,” but, as NBC News adds, “the grave [is] too shallow.” Located alongside a popular hiking trail, the burial site was spotted later, and leads poured in.^[10]

Theft, robbery, rootlessness, swindling, political corruption and vice, twisted desire, physical and sexual abuse, recklessness, and manipulation are associated with the horrific crimes on this list.

The criminal offenses, which include body-snatching, train robbery, kidnapping, and fraud, involve the use of picks and shovels, dynamite, “burking,” pistols, ropes, knives, water, machine guns, and, yes, even cameras. In addition, each has inspired a cinematic chiller or thriller nearly as terrifying and electrifying as the crime itself.

Related: 10 Things You Never Knew About Famous Movie Plot Twists

10 The Body Snatcher & The Flesh and the Fiends

William Burke (1792–1829) and William Hare (d. 1859?) most likely met while working as laborers on the Union Canal in Scotland. The work was hard labor, and they decided to quit. Instead of helping build the canal, they began to supply bodies to Edinburgh’s medical schools, which were always in need of cadavers for dissection during anatomy classes.

At first, they dug up graves and stole corpses, but they found that this enterprise was not much easier than the manual labor they had done while working on the canal. They soon hit upon a simpler, easier way of acquiring their stock in trade. Instead of snatching bodies from cemeteries under cover of darkness, they would simply murder people and sell their remains to the medical schools. In doing so, the partners in crime developed an undetectable technique for suffocating their victims. It was called “burking,” after Burke.

All went well—until their sixteenth murder—when a witness informed police that a dead body was being stored under Burke’s bed. Burke, his mistress Helen McDougall, Hare, and Hare’s “wife” Margaret were arrested (they were not actually married but lived as man and wife). Fearing there was insufficient evidence to convict the defendants, Lord Advocate Sir William Rae offered Hare immunity from prosecution in return for his testimony against his partner and their accomplices. His wife also received immunity.

As a result, Burke was hanged on January 28, 1829. McDougall was released after being acquitted on the grounds of insufficient evidence. Ironically, Burke’s body was donated to a medical school for dissection, and his skeleton remains on display at the University Medical School in Edinburgh. Although Hare’s ultimate fate is uncertain, one source states that he may have died in London, in 1859, as a blind beggar.

The Burke and Hare crimes are memorialized in a gruesome snatch of 19th-century verse, which includes a mention of one of their best customers, Dr. Robert Knox: “Up the close and doon the stair,/ But and ben’ wi’ Burke and Hare./Burke’s the butcher, Hare’s the thief,/ Knox the boy that buys the beef.”

Their body-snatching and murders also inspired the 1884 short story “The Body Snatcher” by Robert Louis Stevenson, which, in turn, loosely inspired the 1945 movie of the same title, directed by Robert Wise. The movie focuses on an unscrupulous doctor, Toddy MacFarlane (Henry Daniell), and his protege, medical student Donald Fettes (Russell Wade). They are blackmailed by John Gray (Boris Karloff), the body snatcher who supplies their cadavers, into remaining silent after Fettes discovers that Gray has committed murder in order to supply a corpse to them.

In the movie, Dr. Knox is not the murderous body-snatcher’s customer, but MacFarlane’s mentor, and, in one of the movie’s scenes, MacFarlane tells the story of Burke and Hare to Joseph (Bela Lugosi), an assistant (and another blackmailer). A number of complications develop, which include additional murders.

A later British film, The Flesh and the Fiends (1960)—released in the U.S. as Mania—is also based on the Burke and Hare murders. Directed by John Gilling, it stars Peter Cushing as Robert Knox, Donald Pleasance as William Hare, and George Rose as William Hare.^[1]

9 Special Agent

The DeAutremont brothers—twins Roy (1900–1983) and Ray (1900–1984) and Hugh (1904–1959), committed the American West’s last train robbery, the Meriden, Connecticut, Record-Journal notes in a December 22, 1984, article. The brothers, the newspaper explains, “jumped aboard…the Southern Pacific’ Gold Special’ bound for San Francisco as it passed through a remote mountain tunnel near Ashland,” hoping to relieve the U. S. Post Office Department of the articles in the mail car.

Things did not go exactly as planned. The dynamite they used to blow open the car scattered its contents. Worse yet, four of the train’s crew were shot by the heavily armed brothers. The attempted robbery failed for the very good reason that, as the robbers later discovered, the money they attempted to steal was never even on the train.

Fleeing the scene of the crime, the brothers assumed aliases, with Hugh joining the army. He was stationed in the Philippines, where a buddy, having seen his likeness on a wanted poster, notified police of his whereabouts. After growing mustaches as a disguise, the other brothers took jobs at a steel mill, but they were followed to Steubenville, Ohio, by authorities who were not fooled by their mustaches.

Charged with murdering three of the train’s crew members, Hugh pleaded not guilty, while the twins confessed. Nevertheless, all three brothers were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Hugh died there at age 55, but the twins were paroled, Ray in 1961 and Roy in 1983, after receiving a lobotomy in 1949. Asked what had possessed him and his brothers to attempt to rob the train and kill three people in the process, Ray said, “I suppose at the time I was carrying my share of adolescent neurosis.”

The attempted robbery and the murders committed by the DeAutremont brothers inspired the 1949 film Special Agent. Directed by William C. Thomas and starring William Eythe, the movie features two, rather than three, brothers, farmers Edmond and Paul Devereaux, played by Paul Valentine and George Reeves, respectively.

Hoping to avert the financial disaster threatening their farm, the brothers take it upon themselves to rob a train, which puts investigating Detective Johnny Douglas hot on their trail. To lend authenticity to the production, the opening credits point out, “This picture is based on material in the official files of the American Railroads,” but cites the fictitious “Devereaux Case,” rather than the crimes of the DeAutremont brothers.^[2]

8 The Hitch-Hiker

When he left prison at age 21, Billy “Cockeyed” Cook told his father that he had but one ambition in life: to live by the gun and roam. Hitchhiking in Texas in December 1950, he began living his dream as he kidnapped a driver who’d stopped to give him a ride. His victim, whom Cook had forced into the trunk of his car, escaped.

The next man Cook kidnapped, 33-year-old Illinois farmer Carl Mosser, who was on his way to New Mexico, was not as fortunate, nor was his family, who was traveling with him. They made the same mistake as Cook’s first victim: they stopped to offer the hitchhiking killer a ride.

After they drove to Cook’s hometown of Joplin, Missouri, Cook shot Mosser, his wife Thelma, 29; their sons Ronald, 7, and Gary, 5; and their daughter Pamela Sue, 2—and the family’s dog—before dumping their bodies down a well. Near Blythe, California, Cook kidnapped a deputy. The lawman was lucky; Cook had once worked with the deputy’s wife, who had treated him well, so Cook was generous: he spared his victim’s life.

A Seattle salesman named Robert Dewey was not as fortunate. Cook shot him, dumping his corpse into a ditch. The outlaw’s murder spree ended a few days later when the killer forced two hunters to drive him to Mexico. There, Santa Rosalie Police Chief Luis Parra recognized Cook, arrested him, and turned him over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In Oklahoma, Cook was tried and convicted of killing Mosser and his family and received a sentence of 300 years in prison. The justice system was not finished with Cook, however. In California, found guilty of having murdered Dewey, he was sentenced to death. He was executed in San Quentin’s gas chamber on December 12, 1952, at age 23, having accomplished his life’s goal “to live by the gun and roam.”

As reporter Ben Cosgrove points out, in a Life magazine article concerning the killer, Cook became the subject of a movie “less than a year after he was put to death.” Written and directed by actress/director Ida Lupino and starring William Talman as Emmett Myers, The Hitch-Hiker is “one of [Hollywood’s] first films…clearly based on a killer whose crimes were still fresh in the minds of filmgoers.” ^[3]

7 The Night of the Hunter

Supposedly, Harry Powers was a self-described lonely heart. According to his 1939 American Friendship Society advertisement, he was a wealthy widower who earned between $400 and $2,000 a month and was worth more than $100,000. He also had a lovely “10-room brick home” in which his future wife could be more than comfortable; he promised to buy her a car and give her plenty of spending money, so she could “enjoy herself.”

Chicago widow Asta Eicher, 50, thought she had found Mr. Right. A man like Powers, who called himself “Mr. Pierson” in his ad, could support both her and her children—Greta, 14; Harry, 12; and Annabel, 9—very nicely, indeed! Oddly, it seemed that the couple would live in Eicher’s house rather than his 10-room brick home. To make room for the new love of her life, who visited her frequently at home, she asked her boarder, William O’Boyle, to move out.

When the former boarder returned to Eicher’s residence to retrieve some tools he had forgotten, he saw “Mr. Pierson,” but there was no sign of either his former landlady or her children. Oddly, Eicher’s boyfriend was busy carrying the family’s belongings from the house. Pierson could explain, though. Handing O’Boyle a letter, allegedly from Eicher, which supported his claims, he told O’Boyle that she and her children had moved to Colorado, asking him to take care of her outstanding personal business. Further details were unavailable, it seemed, which made O’Boyle suspicious, as it did the police, who decided an investigation was in order.

Love letters led investigators to a place near Quiet Dell, West Virginia, which would acquire the nickname “murder farm.” In a garage, police found Eicher’s personal property and the bodies of Eicher, her children, and another victim, Northboro (also spelled Northborough), Massachusetts, divorcee Dorothy Lemke, age 50.

Police discovered that Powers had preyed upon women for decades. A trunk on the premises contained over 100 letters to and from “loved-starved widows and spinsters from all over the country,” reports Mara Bovsun, in a New York Daily News article. His modus operandi had been to date the women, drain their bank accounts, and leave them—or, in the cases of Lemke, Eicher, and the latter’s family, kill them.

Less than two hours after the jury began its deliberation, members reached a verdict. Found guilty, Powers was sentenced to hang. Before his execution on March 18, 1932, he was asked if he had any final words to offer. The man who had confessed to police that he had hanged his victims one at a time, allowing 12-year-old Harry “to watch the killing of his mother and the others,” until the boy began to scream and Powers, fearing someone hearing the boy, “picked up a hammer and let him have it,” proved strangely reticent, saying simply, “No.” ^[4]

The Night of the Hunter (1955), directed by Charles Laughton and starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, and Billy Chapin, is loosely based on Powers’s crimes. However, the film departs significantly in some ways from its inspiration. Mitchum, as Harry Powell, a self-proclaimed minister who says he does God’s work by fleecing women out of their money before killing them, marries widow Willa Harper but encounters a problem when her children refuse to divulge the place in which their father hid the $10,000 he stole during a robbery. After killing Willa, he is arrested, and police rescue him from a lynch mob. As he is led away, however, the state’s executioner promises to see Powell again before long.

6 The Phenix City Story

Phenix City, Alabama, was a hotbed of lawlessness, both during the Great Depression when it was a refuge for bootleggers and following World War II, when nearby Fort Benning, Georgia, soldiers frequented its seedy bars, brothels, and gambling establishments. A Washington Times article points out that Albert Patterson, the Democratic candidate for state attorney general, attempted to clean the city up, but his assassination ended those efforts. It also made national headlines—and became the basis for a 1955 movie.” Patterson’s son, John, explained how corruption and vice mushroomed in Phenix City in the 1930s. The city “opted to permit illegal gambling to get the funds to run their town and pay off their bonded debt [and] folks…at the state Capitol looked the other way [and the feds] did not get involved.”

Once the criminals gained control of juries and ballots, Patterson was the last hope of the good citizens of the town. Unfortunately, he was murdered on June 18, 1954. Although Circuit Solicitor Arch Ferrell was tried and acquitted, Albert Fuller, Russell County’s chief sheriff’s deputy, was convicted of murdering Patterson and spent 10 years in prison before being paroled.

As a result of Patterson’s assassination, Governor Gordon Persons declared martial law and ordered the National Guard to act as local law enforcement. In addition, the local judiciary was replaced. Special agents of the state’s Investigative and Identification Division (now the Alabama Bureau of Investigation) launched an investigation, and “the organized crime syndicate running Phenix City was completely dismantled within six months.” Ultimately, it exposed the magnitude of the corruption and criminality that Patterson had opposed in Phenix City. Once the investigation was complete, the grand jury brought 734 indictments, including charges against many law enforcement officers, local business owners connected to organized crime, and elected officials.

The Phenix City Story (1955) is based on Patterson’s assassination. Directed by Phil Karlson, the movie makes Rhett Tanner (Edward Andrews) the city’s crime lord, who runs the town’s bars, brothels, and gambling establishments, while paying off the police. When political candidate Albert “Pat” Patterson (John McIntire) promises to clean up the corruption and vice, he is murdered, and his son John (Richard Kiley), having returned home after serving in the military, vows to avenge his father’s death.^[5]

5 While the City Sleeps

William Heirens, 17, the notorious “Lipstick Killer,” spent 65 years and 181 days of his three consecutive life sentences in prison, the last at the Dixon Correctional Center in Dixon, Illinois. That is where he died in 2012, at the age of 83, his confession to three murders having landed him in prison on November 15, 1928. The novel The Bloody Spur, by Charles Einstein, is based on Heirens’s heinous crimes. The book became the basis of the 1956 movie While the City Sleeps.

The killer’s victims included two women, Josephine Ross and Frances Brown, and 6- or 7-year-old Suzanne Degnan (accounts differ regarding her age). Brown had been stabbed through the neck and shot in the head. Ross had been stabbed repeatedly in the neck. Regarding all three victims, the killer’s motive, he confessed to police, was the same: sexual pleasure.

A contemporary account of the police’s investigation of the kidnapped child’s murder, which appeared in The Daily Banner, a Greencastle, Indiana, newspaper, describes the results of the horrific crime: “The child’s blonde, curly head, her legs and torso were found…in separate cesspools within a one-block radius of her parents’ home.” An ax had been used to dismember and decapitate her, police said.

While the City Sleeps (1956), directed by Fritz Lang, departs quite a bit from the actual crimes, focusing on a contest among a news company’s journalists to identify the serial murderer known as the “Lipstick Killer” (John Drew Barrymore). The winner received a promotion, becoming the organization’s new executive producer. The film also stars Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, Ida Lupino, and George Sanders.^[6]

4 Butterfield 8

Starr Faithfull was a beautiful young flapper who, according to her diary, lived what police characterized as a promiscuous lifestyle that involved sexual escapades with 19 men. Her parents were poor, but her wealthy cousins paid her tuition at Rogers Hall Academy in Lowell, Massachusetts, an exclusive boarding school.

Unfortunately, an adult cousin, Andrew J. Peters, “doused her with ether…and seduced her,” often taking her on overnight road trips with him. As a teen, she behaved oddly at times, hiding her femininity by wearing boy’s attire. After her parents divorced and her mother, Helen, married Stanley Faithfull, Starr took his name as her surname. She began attending parties, abused alcohol, barbiturates, and inhalers. She behaved erratically and, on one occasion, overdosed on “sleeping drugs.”

When she reported Peters’s abuse to her mother, Peters bought Helen’s and Stanley’s silence. On June 8, 1931, Faithfull’s body was found on a deserted beach amid some seaweed. Perhaps intending to stow away aboard a ship bound for the Bahamas, she had drowned, her autopsy revealed, but “bruises suggested she had had help.”

Neither an investigation nor an inquest determined whether Faithfull’s death had resulted from murder or suicide. Still, her diary mentioned “AJP” as one of the men with whom she had had a sexual liaison. The public wondered whether the initials stood for her cousin, Andrew J. Peters, especially after Faithfull’s stepfather, believing her to have been murdered, confronted the district attorney about the case, accusing him of poorly investigating and prosecuting the case. He even gave the D.A. the agreement Peters had him sign in 1927 with a copy of the check he received—for $20,000—to “hold Peters harmless.”

After Faithfull’s death, it was reported that peters had a nervous breakdown. On the other hand, Dr. George Jameson Carr revealed that Faithfull had sent him letters, one of which referred to her dull and worthless life, declaring her desire for “oblivion.” Whether murder or suicide claimed Faithfull’s life, it seems clear that her cousin’s sexual abuse may well have contributed to her demise.

The story of Faithfull’s fateful life is the basis of Butterfield 8 (1960), directed by Daniel Mann, in which Elizabeth Taylor reluctantly plays Starr Faithfull. A later biography revealed that she did not want to play the part but was under contract with MGM Studios, who forced her to star in the film. Despite her reluctance to portray Faithfull, Taylor won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Butterfield 8.^[7]

3 Mad Dog Coll

Critics were not kind to Mad Dog Coll (1961). The New York Times’s reviewer Harold Thompson thought the film “belongs back in the pound.” Directed by Burt Balaban, the movie stars John Davis Chandler as Mad Dog Coll and Vincent Gardenia as Dutch Schultz; Telly Savalas appears as Lt. Darro. The film opens with a memorable scene: Coll machine-gunning his abusive father’s headstone.

As the leader of a street gang, he keeps his Tommy gun handy and never hesitates to use it to spray his enemies with bullets. In general, the movie’s plot plays fast and loose with the life and crimes of Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll. The sensationalized nature of the film is made clear to prospective audiences by its poster’s description of the hitman as a “maniac with a machine gun” and his terrifying effect on crime lords who “tremble when Killer Coll calls.”

That’s not to say that Coll was anything but a vicious, ruthless killer, the worst of his acts being the killing of a child, albeit accidentally. Active during Prohibition, Coll was wild and unpredictable, and he was reckless. After Dutch Schultz killed his brother Peter in May 1931, Coll sought revenge by hunting down and killing four of Schultz’s men in the next three weeks. In addition, his gang and Schultz’s continued to face off—often amid gunfire—in the streets of New York, where many men fell dead.

In June, as he attempted to kidnap rival bootlegger Joseph Rao, a spray of his bullets struck five children, killing a five-year-old boy. The horrendous deed resulted in New York’s Mayor Jimmy Walker calling Coll a “Mad Dog.” Later brought to trial, Coll was acquitted, only to be shot on February 8, 1932. At age 23, Mad Dog was dead.^[8]

2 10 to Midnight

10 to Midnight, the 1983 movie directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Charles Bronson as Detective Leo Kessler, is based on the murders committed by Richard Speck. The criminal’s cinematic counterpart, Warren Stacey (Gene Davis), is an amoral, nearly psychotic serial killer who delights in the murder of naked women—with himself also in the nude. Willing to do whatever needs to be done to take the ruthless killer off the street, Kessler plants evidence, despite his partner’s objections, and, when the suspect is released on a technicality, goes after him: a cop turned vigilante.

The particulars of Richard Speck’s crimes are fairly well known. On July 14, 1966, he killed eight women, all student nurses, in a Chicago townhouse. The horror of the killings came back to John Schmale when he discovered a cardboard box in his basement after inspecting the cellar after it had flooded. The box contained four carousels of slides, heavily damaged and water-logged. They were part of the legacy left to him by his father. The slides included images of his sister Nina, one of Speck’s victims.

Ironically, Speck’s deeds made him infamous, while his victims have been largely forgotten. Schmale believed they should be remembered: Nina Jo Schmale, Patricia Ann Matusek, Pamela Lee Wilkening, Mary Ann Jordan, Suzanne Bridget Farris, Valentina Pasion, Merlita Gargullo, and Gloria Jean Davy.

The 2007 horror movie Chicago Massacre is also based on the Richard Speck murders. It was directed by Michael Feifer and stars Corin Nemec as Speck. The film begins with the father’s abuse of the main character as a child, which causes the boy to run away from home. Subsequently, he marries, is divorced, and begins his torture-and-murder spree. Afterward, he drifts until an attempt at suicide lands him in a hospital, where a doctor spots a tattoo that alerts him to the fact that his patient is wanted by the authorities. Speck is arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison, where he dies.^[9]

1 To Die For

Although accounts of high school educators, both male and female, having sex with students have increased dramatically in recent years, such trysts were far less common—or perhaps only far less commonly reported—in the past. In 1990, one such case involved 22-year-old Pamela Smart, a New Hampshire high school media coordinator found guilty of conspiring with a student, William Flynn, then 15, with whom she was having an affair, to kill her husband. To this day, Smart, now 54, says she never asked Flynn to kill anyone, but she has been twice denied a reduction of her life sentence.

The murder of Smart’s husband, Greggory, inspired the 1995 movie To Die For, directed by Gus Van Sant. It stars Nicole Kidman as Suzanne Stone-Maretto, a Smart-like woman seeking independence from her husband Larry Maretto (Matt Dillon), and Joaquin Phoenix as Jimmy Emmett, the teen she seduces into murdering Larry.

As might be expected, details of the film’s plot differ somewhat from those of the true crime on which the movie is based. Stone-Maretto, an aspiring television journalist, wants her husband dead for reasons that differ from Smart’s motive. Likewise, in the actual crime, the Mafia played no role in avenging the husband’s death, as the mob does in the film. Art may imitate life, but the two are seldom the same.

Although the movie was generally well-received, one person did not care for Kidman’s portrayal of the murderous seducer—Smart herself. Smart found the Academy Award-winning actress’s representation of her both embarrassing and inaccurate as well as simplistic. Although Smart considers Kidman an acclaimed actress, the convicted killer finds Kidman to have played her as though Smart is a complete airhead and points out that Kidman never consulted her about how to play the part. Instead, the actress “played a one dimensional character.” Smart insisted, “I’m not that person.” ^[10]

Not all heroes wear capes, as the saying goes.

Advances in animal DNA technology now stand at the forefront of forensic science. Enhanced testing techniques and ever-expanding databases are helping law enforcement agencies to catch criminals. In recent years, the hair, fur, feathers, blood, and other bodily fluids from cats, dogs, birds, and other animals have helped solve countless violent crimes around the globe.

Here are ten crimes where critters have played a significant role in bringing the guilty to justice—using DNA technology, as well as some other weird and wonderful crime-fighting abilities.

Related: Top 10 Mysteries And Crimes Solved By The Internet

10 Duck for Cover

A pet duck recently led police in North Carolina to the decomposed body of missing 92-year-old grandmother Nellie Sullivan. Sgt. Mark Walker of the Buncombe County Sheriff’s office explained how “the duck ran underneath the trailer at 11 Beady Eyed Lane, and as they were chasing after their pet duck, they ran across the container that Nellie Sullivan was located in.”

Beady Eyed Lane? You just can’t make these things up!

Even before the grim discovery of the remains, Nellie’s own granddaughter Angela Wamsley and her boyfriend Mark Barnes had been charged with concealing her death, along with charges of animal cruelty and drug possession.

Sgt. Walker described the initial search for Nellie as being “a wild goose chase.” Nothing turned up after numerous local searches, and Nellie’s neighbors had insisted she had, in fact, gone missing several years prior. Wamsley and Barnes had been collecting Nellie’s social security and retirement benefit check, as well as refilling her prescriptions in her absence.

“If I could give that duck a medal, I would,” Walker added.^[1]

9 Bird the…umm…Bird

Texan Kevin Butler was apparently such a fan of NBA great Larry Bird that he named his white-crested cockatoo after him. Friends described Bird as being very devoted to Butler. This was even more evident after two men broke into Butler’s Pleasant Grove home on Christmas Eve 2001. Bird loyally tried to defend his home and his owner. Unfortunately, Butler was bound, brutally beaten, and ultimately stabbed multiple times, causing his death. Sadly, Bird, too, was mortally wounded during the altercation—stabbed with a fork. Afterward, the men escaped into the night.

But Bird ultimately saved the day, providing investigators with the evidence they needed to solve the crime and secure a conviction. Following the attack, DNA recovered from Bird’s beak and claws was matched to a man named Daniel Torres, a disgruntled former employee at Butler’s pool company. Torres also wiped the blood off his head after being badly pecked by Bird and then touched a light switch, leaving trace evidence and putting him at the crime scene.

Faced with the evidence, Torres confessed to killing both Butler and Bird. He was eventually convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. They were also able to track down Torres’s accomplice, his half-brother Johnny Serna.

During the trial, the prosecutor submitted to the court that “Bird died valiantly. There were feathers scattered through the house, and he put up a fight, no doubt about that. Kevin’s family and co-workers have told me that you just didn’t mess with Kevin while that bird was around.”^[2]

8 A Snowball’s Chance in Hell

In 1994, on Canada’s Prince Edward Island, a 32-year-old mother of five, Shirley Duguay, vanished without a trace. Many people suspected that her sometimes boyfriend, ex-con Douglas Beamish, was somehow involved in her disappearance.

Three days after she went missing, a blood-stained men’s jacket was found in a bag in the woods near Duguay’s home. The jacket also contained several white cat hairs. A detective on the case, Constable Roger Savoie, recalled seeing a white cat in Beamish’s home while investigating Shirley’s disappearance. Savoie sent the hairs to be DNA tested, and it was confirmed that they belonged to Beamish’s family pet, a white tomcat named Snowball.

It was the very early days of animal DNA testing, and Constable Savoie even went cat-catching and collected blood samples from a bunch of neighborhood strays. Much to his relief, their DNA profiles were all quite different. Statistically, the chance of another cat having DNA similar to Snowball’s was revealed to be one in some forty-five million.

Around this time, Shirley’s body was discovered by a local fisherman, and Beamish was arrested. While his defense attorney argued that “without the cat, the case falls flat,” Beamish was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life with no eligibility for parole for 18 years. This is believed to be the first time animal DNA was used to successfully convict a criminal.^[3]

Go, Snowball, go!

7 Dodgy Doggy DNA

In 1998, a Seattle, Washington, couple, Raquel Rivera and Jay Johnson, were found slain along with their pitbull-lab mix pup, Chief. All three were victims of a home invasion gone horribly wrong. While standing trial, suspects Ken Leuluaialii and George Tuilefano were surprised to learn that prosecutors planned to introduce an unlikely piece of evidence, Chief’s DNA. Dog blood had been found on the defendants’ clothing during the investigation, and forensic testing was able to match it to Chief.

In his opening argument, prosecutor Tim Bradshaw stated that “the irony will be that the witness who could never speak, even when he was alive, will present the most eloquent of evidence.” Prosecutors said that Tuilefano and Leuluaialii kicked down the door of the house after Johnson refused to sell them marijuana, then opened fire, shooting the dog first, before killing the couple. DNA evidence indicated that bloodstains on the two jackets and pants linked to Leuluaialii and Tuilefano were from Chief.

While the science of animal DNA was not yet as reliable as that of human DNA at the time, the state Court of Appeals later upheld the murder convictions of the two men. It even ruled that one should be re-sentenced to a longer prison term.

Joy Halverson, a senior scientist at PE AgGen, the company that tested the bloodstains, said that cat DNA was used in a criminal case in Canada (see above) but that this may be the first time DNA from a dog had been used in the United States. The tests showed there was only one chance in 350 million that the blood was not Chief’s.^[4]

6 Layla Van Dam

On the night of Feb 1, 2001, in the Sabre Springs neighborhood of San Diego, 7-year-old Danielle Van Dam vanished from her own bed without a trace. Police had little to no evidence to go on. Eventually, neighbor David Westerfield came to the attention of investigators. Westerfield was acting suspiciously, often leaving his house during searches for missing Danielle. He was also seen at a dry cleaner just days after Danielle’s abduction, dressed only in his underwear on a cold morning. He gave the dry cleaners two comforters, two pillowcases, and a jacket.

Police obtained a search warrant for Westerfield’s home and found hairs that matched the Van Dam’s dog, a Weimaraner named Layla. According to prosecutors, the dog hair was attached to Danielle’s pajamas and was left behind in Westerfield’s home. In addition, Danielle’s blood was found on Westerfield’s jacket retrieved from the dry cleaner, and hair from her dog was also discovered on the comforter. Danielle’s blood was also found in Westerfield’s RV, the one in which he’d left town to stay in the desert just minutes after Danielle’s parents had discovered that she was missing and frantically dialed 911.

Hundreds of volunteers had been involved in searching the desert, highways, and remote areas for weeks. Finally, on Feb 27, searchers found her nude, partially decomposed body near a remote trail. Some searchers had decided to search this particular area as it was a possible route that Westerfield could have taken to get to the desert the night that Danielle disappeared.

It was enough evidence to charge and convict Westerfield of abduction and murder. As a result, he was sentenced to death on August 21, 2002, and he is still currently awaiting execution. (Because of the continuing 2006 moratorium on executions in California, and the July 2014 ruling on the unconstitutionality of the death penalty in California, it is not known when or if Westerfield will face execution.)^[5]

5 Two Cats, One Murder

When Pennsylvania pet shop worker Lori Auker disappeared on her way to work in May 1989, her family imagined the worst. Unfortunately, their fears were confirmed when after three weeks of searching, Lori’s decomposed body was discovered in a remote wooded area. Her identity was confirmed through dental records, and Deputy Coroner Matthew determined that Lori had died after being stabbed numerous times.

Police immediately focused their attention on her estranged husband, Robert Auker, who had been stalking her in the weeks leading up to her death. The couple was involved in a bitter child custody battle and financial support dispute. However, it was also later revealed that Robert had recently taken out a substantial life insurance policy on her, despite the couple being in the middle of a messy separation when she disappeared.

Robert’s own mother and stepfather reported to police that he had been ferociously scrubbing his vehicle clean before selling it shortly after Lori’s disappearance. Despite his best efforts, forensic examiners found several cat hairs in the car that later proved to be an exact match with Lori’s two cats. The same fur was also stuck to a Velcro splint Auker had been wearing on his hand the day Lori disappeared.

In March 1992, Robert Donald Auker was convicted of kidnapping and murder and sentenced to death.^[6]

4 “Don’t f—ing shoot!”

Eye witness testimony is often crucial when it comes to solving a crime. In this instance, the eyewitness in question was a 20-year-old African Grey parrot named Bud. Several weeks after the 2015 murder of Sand Lake, Michigan, resident Martin Duram, Bud began repeating an argument between two people. It ended in what is believed to be Duram’s last words, as the parrot repeated the phrase, “Don’t f—ing shoot!” mimicking the late owner’s voice.

It turned out that Martin’s wife, Glenna Duram, shot her husband five times in front of Bud before turning the gun on herself in a failed suicide attempt. She suffered a head wound in the incident but survived. She was ultimately convicted of first-degree murder in the killing of her husband after an eight-hour jury deliberation.

While Bud’s eyewitness account was ultimately not used in the court proceeding, for many people involved in the case, it just proved that the jury had come to the right decision. Duram’s parents were sure that the salty-mouthed bird had overheard the couple arguing and was repeating their final words. His mother asserted, “that bird picks up everything and anything, and it’s got the filthiest mouth around.”^[7]

3 Yet Another Mouthy Parrot

In 2014, when Neelam Sharma was killed in her home in Agra, India, along with her pet dog, the local police had few leads to go on. That was until a parrot named Heera provided them with a vital clue.

Heera was the only witness to Sharma’s murder, as the attacker had killed the family dog, who had been barking throughout the struggle. Neelam’s grieving husband, Vijay Sharma, was also at a loss as to who could have perpetrated the violent crime. That is until a family member pointed out to him how Heera would become highly agitated whenever his nephew, Ashutosh, visited or even when his name was mentioned in passing.

Vijay informed the police of his suspicions, and Ashutosh eventually confessed to the robbery-turned-murder of his aunt. Ashutosh and an accomplice had entered the house intending to steal cash and other valuables items. He stabbed his aunt to death when they were caught in the act, afraid she would recognize him.

Police later downplayed the bird’s participation in solving the crime, saying it was an unexplained bite mark on Ashutosh that made him the primary focus of their investigation. However, a local newspaper reported that when investigators spoke with Heera and read through a list of suspects, the bird supposedly squawked, “Usne maara, usne maara,” which translates as “he’s the killer, he’s the killer,” when Ashutosh’s name was read.^[8]

2 A Random Grasshopper

According to forensic entomologist M. Lee Goff, the 1985 murder of a woman in Texas was ultimately solved by a dead, mangled grasshopper that had been found on the victim’s clothing. The insect was missing a limb, and a close investigation of one of the main suspects revealed that he just so happened to have the severed hind leg of a grasshopper attached to the cuff of his pants. When Goff re-assembled the insect, he found it to be a perfect match, and the fracture lines lined up absolutely perfectly.

Although the defense argued in court that ”grasshoppers always break their legs like that,” the evidence was conclusive. It was impossible to deny that the stray grasshopper leg on the suspect matched what was missing from the grasshopper recovered from the victim’s body. The suspect was convicted of the woman’s murder, and many consider this case to signify the birth of forensic etymology.^[9]

1 Scooby-Doo Saves the Day

A real-life Scooby-Doo created legal history in Paris, France, when he actually took to the witness stand to “testify” at his owner’s murder trial. When Scooby’s owner was found hanging from the ceiling in her apartment, her death was initially presumed to be a suicide. However, the woman’s family had some suspicions and persuaded the police to open a murder investigation. They identified a suspect, and the man was brought to court for a preliminary hearing to decide if there was sufficient evidence to launch a full murder inquiry.

As Scooby was in the apartment at the time of the alleged murder, he went to the witness box. When faced with the potential killer, he immediately reacted and “barked furiously.” A court clerk actually recorded Scooby’s barks and noted his “general behavior throughout the cross-examination.” After Scooby gave his “evidence,” Judge Thomas Cassuto praised him for his “exemplary behavior and invaluable assistance.”

While prosecution lawyers welcomed the dog’s appearance in court, others doubted that the animal’s behavior could be interpreted as actual legal binding, legitimate evidence. Some critics of the move pointed out that the two-and-a-half years since the death of Scooby’s owner is the equivalent of approximately 17 dog years. “That’s a long time for a dog to remember what went on,” explained a legal source close to the case.

A spokesman for the Palais de Justice in Paris confirmed that the case was the first time a dog had appeared as a witness in criminal proceedings in France. He said he was almost certain it was also a world first in legal history.^[10]

Famous people, just like everyone else, make dumb mistakes. The only difference between those in the spotlight and your drunken, idiot uncle is the deluge of media coverage that accompanies these ill-advised blunders. Such is the price of fame. 

Here’s our top 10 list of celebs who made headlines for all the wrong reasons. 

10. Justin Bieber

In the early morning hours of January 23, 2014, Miami Beach police allegedly spotted two exotic sports cars drag racing down a residential street. One of the vehicles, a yellow Lamborghini Spyder, was driven by 19-year-old Justin Bieber accompanied by model Chantal Jeffries. After failing a field sobriety test, the Canadian pop star was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, resisting arrest without violence, and driving with an expired license.

According to the police report, Bieber’s entourage (which included his father) used several SUVs to block traffic, creating a drag strip for the singer to race his friend Khalil Amir Sharieff in a red Ferrari. The arresting officers estimated the cars were speeding at approximately 60 miles-per-hour in a 30 MPH zone. A toxicology test later revealed marijuana and Xanax in Bieber’s system.

The teen idol spent just under 10 hours in custody before being released on a $2,500 bond. He later recalled his harrowing ordeal in an interview, stating, “It was really cold. That was the worst part about it.” Bieber eventually reached a plea agreement in which the state agreed to drop the DUI charge in exchange for him pleading guilty to careless driving and resisting arrest. He also paid a $500 fine and was ordered to attend a 12-hour anger management course.  

9. Nicole Richie

Next up in our lineup involves another pint-sized offender who ran afoul of the law behind the wheel. In 2006, Nicole Richie, the waifish daughter of legendary singer Lionel Richie, drove her Mercedes-Benz SUV the wrong way on the Ventura Freeway just north of Los Angeles. Like her gal pal, Paris Hilton, she was arrested and charged with driving under the influence. Richie later admitted to smoking weed and popping Vicodin before hitting the road. 

The Simple Life co-star was sentenced to four days in jail at the Century Regional Detention Center in Lynwood, California, and fined $2,048. It was her second DUI conviction in three years. Due to overcrowding, she only served a little over an hour of actual hard time before being released. She then enrolled in a mandatory 18-month anti-drinking driver education program. 

8. Jim Morrison

As the lead singer of The Doors, Jim Morrison compiled an extensive arrest record before his death in 1971, thus earning permanent membership into the infamous “27 Club.” However, his first run-in with the law pales in comparison to the wild drug and alcohol fuelled shenanigans that marked his brief but colorful career.

While attending a football game at Florida State, Morrison stole an umbrella and a police officer’s helmet from a squad car. The Tallahassee Police Department charged him with “disturbing the peace by being drunk,” resisting arrest, and petty larceny. 

7. Eugene Robinson

Most athletes try to get a good night’s sleep to ensure peak performance — especially before playing in the Super Bowl. The Atlanta Falcons’ Eugene Robinson took a different approach, spending the night in jail after being arrested for solicitation of a prostitute from an undercover cop.

Despite his arrest, Robinson still suited up against the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXXIII. He probably should have stayed home and watched it on TV instead. The two-time All-Pro safety played dismally as the AFC champs romped to a 34-19 victory.

Robinson, a devout Christian, had recently received the Athletes in Action/Bart Starr Award, given annually to a player “who best exemplifies outstanding character and leadership in the home, on the field and in the community.” He later returned the award.

6. Robert Downey Jr.

Coming home late at night and passing out is usually not a crime. Unless it happens to be in your neighbor’s house, which is where Robert Downey Jr. found himself on the night of July 16, 1996, in Malibu, California. The incident led to criminal charges of trespassing and more jail time, but the troubled actor soon faced much bigger problems while in the grips of severe drug and alcohol addiction.

Few movie stars have endured such a lengthy stretch of substance abuse, arrests, rehab, and relapse — only to end up as the world’s highest-paid actor. But Downey, who began acting at the age of five, is no mere mortal. His perseverance and talents ultimately won out, resulting in a string of box office hits in roles, including the blockbuster Iron Man franchise. 

5. Plaxico Burress 

Possessing an unlicensed gun in New York carries some of the stiffest penalties in the country. NFL receiver Plaxico Burress learned this the hard way — and made the situation even worse when he accidentally shot himself in the leg at a nightclub in Manhattan.

Although the former Giants’ star would recover from the self-inflicted wound, Burress spent 20 months locked up at Rikers Island for his felonious fumble. He eventually returned to the gridiron in 2011 (this time in a Jets uniform) and went on to win the Comeback Player of the Year award.

As for that now-infamous nightclub shooting, Burress had this to say: “The stairway was narrow and dark and everything was black…I could barely see, and I guess I missed a step and my foot slipped. My gun came unhooked from my belt and went sliding down my right pant leg. My instant reaction was to catch it before it hit the floor, and I reached down with my right hand to grab it. And I guess my finger hit right on the trigger because it went off.”

4. Tim McGraw & Kenny Chesney

The old adage “You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy” can be applied to not one but two Nashville crooners in 2000. Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney were arrested in Buffalo after Chesney rode away with an Erie County deputy’s horse. McGraw and his manager Mark Russo then allegedly attacked other Sheriff’s Deputies who tried to stop Chesney from his galloping joy ride.

Both singers had performed earlier in the day at the George Strait Country Music Festival at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, NY. Chesney, McGraw, and Russo were arrested, arraigned, and released on bail.Local authorities charged Chesney with disorderly conduct, but McGraw was ultimately charged with a felony for assaulting a police officer who suffered minor injuries. 

A year later, all three men involved were found not guilty. According to Chesney, the ‘horsing around’ had been a misunderstanding that began when the daughter of a Sheriff’s Department Captain gave Chesney permission to sit on her father’s horse. “Unfortunately, what was meant to be a totally innocent and fun gesture, was blown way out of proportion,” Chesney said. “Tim McGraw and I have been friends for a very long time. When he saw me in danger of being harmed, he simply came over to help out his friend.”

3. Conor McGregor

The trend of celebrity-branded booze continues to flood the marketplace with a wide range of products, including Trump Wine, Absinthe Mansinthe, and Dennis Rodman’s Bad Ass Vodka. In 2018, former UFC champion Conor McGregor tossed his hat into the ring with “Proper No. 12 Whiskey” — a name that has nothing to do with the spirit’s vintage but rather the postal code in Crumlin, Dublin 12 where the fighter was born and raised. The launch would result in a flurry of brutal reviews and a well-publicized bar room punch.

On April 6, 2019, the Irishman insisted on pouring free shots of his whiskey to patrons inside Dublin’s Marble Arch pub. But when a 50-year-old customer refused, McGregor slugged him. The MMA headliner was charged with assaulting Desmond Keogh and slapped with a €1,000 fine. McGregor later bought the pub and promptly barred Keogh from the premises.

2. Paul Reubens

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0avQQ1T8ASY

Best known for his wildly popular character “Pee-wee Herman,” Paul Reubens enjoyed tremendous success at both the box office and on TV throughout the 1980s. However, his career took a sudden nosedive in 1991 after being arrested for indecent exposure at an adult theater in Sarasota, Florida. In addition to providing grist for the tabloid mill, his five knuckle shuffle also yielded a slew of jokes, such as: What’s Pee-wee Herman’s favorite meal? Stroganoff. 

Reubens pleaded no contest to the charge and agreed to 75 hours of community service. He would later earn critical praise in various projects, including roles on Murphy Brown, Reno 911, and The Blacklist. In 2009, Reubens resurrected his bow-tied, man-child alter ego with a successful stage show and five years later starred in the Netflix original film, Pee-wee’s Big Holiday.

1. Dennis Hopper

The sleepy town of Taos, New Mexico, is renowned for its picturesque Sangre de Cristo Mountains and thriving arts community. The rural setting also served as the longtime home of Dennis Hopper, who once shot a tree with a .357 Magnum, having mistaken it for a grizzly bear. 

According to biographer Tom Folsom, Hopper had been hallucinating after taking some LSD he’d won in a late-night poker game. Local authorities charged the actor/director with reckless driving, failure to report an accident, and leaving the scene. Coincidentally, the 1975 bust landed Hopper in the same jail used during the filming of his seminal counter-culture movie, Easy Rider. He later pleaded guilty and paid a fine.

The notorious Hollywood rebel somehow managed to survive decades of drug and alcohol abuse, and several troubled marriages, before finding sobriety in the late 1980s. In addition to his role as “Billy” in Easy Rider, in which he directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Terry Southern, Hopper portrayed several other iconic characters in films such as Apocalypse Now, Blue Velvet, Hoosiers, and True Romance. He also kept busy as a prolific photographer, painter, and sculptor. 

Shortly before his death from prostate cancer in 2010, Hopper was honored with a well-earned star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.