Currently, I seem to have a fixation on the story of Diane Schuler and her Taconic State Parkway Crash. I’m not sure why.
Diane Schuler was a New York woman who drove the wrong way down the above mentioned parkway and crashed head on into another car killing herself, the three guys in the other car, and four young children who were in the minivan she was driving who were her daughter and three nieces. Only her eight-year-old son survived.
Every time I see a video about this incident on Youtube, I tune in. I suppose I’m just floored by the carnage, and also that even though two autopsies proved that Diane was way drunk and stoned, even though there was an open broken bottle of vodka in the wreckage, her widowed husband still insists that Diane couldn’t have crashed because of alcohol. I mean, talk about denial.
I’ve had other crimes that have captivated my attention over the years. How about you?
I’ve long been fascinated by the Lyle and Erik Menendez murders. It’s been in the news lately, but back in 1989 it was shocking. Did the father really physically and sexually abuse his sons for years, or was that a concocted story they and their lawyers thought might get them off? Why didn’t they run away, or report the abuses to the appropriate authorities? And why did they kill their mother? How did they think that killing both their parents was going to solve anything?
The Kris Kremers & Lisanne Froon deaths.
A photo off their camera was erased in such a way that it could not be recovered so in a way that was not erasing it via the camera itself.
Much is made of the path going the wrong way of the summit they were on gets you quickly and easily lost, but people have made videos of that path and no, you can’t get lost.
There is a photo of Kris crossing a stream where she looks scared, but is she really?
A series of flash photos taken every second taken at night at random directions to end the series of photos on the camera.
Personal items found organized indicating theirs were not accidental deaths.
In my case, it’s a tie involving mishandled investigations.
On the one hand: the botched investigation of three dead eight-year-old boys.
On the other: five dead babies initially believed to be SIDS victims and the doctor responsible for the diagnosis (Alfred Steinschneider) refused to believe otherwise.
IIRC, Dr. Steinschneider was also involved in a similar case of misidentification.
Ed Gein. Inspiration for Psycho, Buffalo Bill, and he Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Lived about a half an hour from where I grew up. The real story is more fascinating than the characters in the movies.
And he looked a lot like my dad.
Also, Jodi Arias. I’m fascinated by how simultaneously clever and stupid she was, at the same time. And she’s arguably Arizona’s most (in)famous killer. Her trial was one of many “trial of the century”. It’s the anti-Law and Order episode. Both sides, prosecution and defense, were incompetent, or at best just not very good. But she made such an impression that, when I took a tour of the jail facilities, they pointed out where she was arraigned. I call it the Jodi Arias Memorial Bench.
I agree it’s a very interesting (and sad) case. But I am not convinced a crime occurred. A number of people have taken a “deep dive” into the case, and many believe they died due to injuries or the elements.
I know it’s probably become almost ‘too famous’ now, if that’s a thing, but it has to be the Zodiac killer. I think I knew of it prior to the brilliant 2007 David Fincher film, but that really did increase my somewhat morbid interest in the case a lot. Since then I’ve seen numerous documentaries, including one where one of the infamous coded messages was cracked, and the recent one on Netflix which points the finger squarely at one of the long-time major suspects (although reading the reviews on IMDB, a lot of viewers are rather sceptical about that).
Who blew up the Georgia Guidestones? I used to live about 35 miles away from them. I visited a few times, and thought they served as council for the remaining people on Earth after worldwide destruction.
Nobody’s been caught, but the man who allegedly commissioned the Guidestones advocated for the world population to be reduced to 500 million, so it’s probably just as well.
I doubt anyone who didn’t experience it themselves can really imagine what it is like to be raised from infancy with sexually abusive parents. How the heck are such children to develop resilience, bravery, and belief in a better future - the psychological resources they would need to even have hope of breaking free? If abuse is all you’ve ever known, and you are still emotionally immature (as even children raised in wonderful homes are by their teen years) the situation may seem so hopeless that there is simply no other means of escape.
Years ago I read a book about the phenomenon of parricide; the author looked at numerous cases and in every single one, the abuse was simply horrific. Psychologists agreed that it is understandable how hopeless children in such situations would feel.
It rang completely true to me. My parents never sexually abused me, and compared to what an unfortunately large number of kids endure, the physical and emotional abuse I went through was mild. But even so, I can remember feeling incredibly bleak and hopeless as a child. Magnify that a gazillion times to account for the horror and shame a boy would feel when his own father anally raped him, and yes, I understand and sympathize. Just about anything - including facing the consequences of murder - would seem like a better alternative. Especially to a kid who doesn’t have the upbringing or brain development to think maturely about the future.
Dean Corll fascinates me partly because of how little-known he is these days. He was a pedophile serial killer in Houston, TX who tortured and killed at least 28 (and possibly dozens more) teen boys between 1970 and 1973. He was sort of a forebear of John Wayne Gacy, and Gacy would admit to having copied some of his techniques after reading about him in the paper. Unlike Gacy, though, he had two teenage accomplices who he paid to lure their friends and acquaintances to his house for him to kill, and who often participated in the torture with him. I’m honestly surprised that that story has never been turned into a horror movie.
Corll never faced a judge, though - he was shot and killed by one of his accomplices after a sudden change of heart while they had two of his friends tied up. There were several loose ends that never got thoroughly investigated - photos and super 8 films of some of his victims turned up when police busted a child porn ring in California several years later, and he may have been linked to a child sex trafficking ring with ties to the Mafia. It’s just such a strange and unsettling tale.
I’m a sucker for these stories. Even ones that are probably solved, I relish the possibility that there is an unknown element to them. Some that fall under this heading are:
D. B. Cooper - I’m about 90% sure he died in the fall but…
There is a podcast called The Cooper Vortex. Most of the people they interview are kooks but some of the guests make very compelling cases.
Alcatraz escape. Yeah, they probably drowned but out of three bodies, none were never found? Then there’s this.
Lindbergh Kidnapping - some of this story is straightforward but I read a book once that convinced me there was much more to the story than came out.
That case is such a mess. Nothing makes sense, nothing fits. But it has to be simple, I’m sure he didn’t intend to leave an unsolvable mystery, where some money was recovered.
After all this time, I’m beginning to think he never jumped. At least that doesn’t make him look like a complete idiot, jumping into the woods in the dark in street shoes. What do I know? Maybe he WAS a compete idiot.
Dennis Rader, the BTK killer. Scout leader, church elder, security guard, and all out insane guy. One of the first uses in DNA familial matching. I used his case in my computer class, about how you should remove your personal information when publishing Microsoft Word documents, since that’s how they found him.
The Chris Watts murders in Colorado. Her murdered his pregnant wife and two young daughters. Buried his wife in a shallow grave and stuffed the two little girls in crude oil well tanks.
It certainly wasn’t from the FBI BSU profile, which was about as wrong as wrong could be. I keep waiting for that episode of Mindhunter.
And it certainly wasn’t from the subliminal message they broadcast. Sheesh. maybe they should have hired a psychic. “I see the killer near a tree, and water, and a church…and there’s a barking dog.”
Right? The strongest DNA they had was all of the cigarette butts but the FBI destroyed them apparently.
And yeah, jumping in slippers? 2 things that nag at me are 1) Given the woods, one would think the canopy would have hung up and been found eventually and 2) it seems strange that given the pervasive coverage that was going on at the time, no one ever said, hey Dan never showed back up for work. (or wife or dad or friend or whatever)
