# What True Crime Story Fascinates You Most? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 20, 2024, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511 "2024-11-20T15:28:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2025, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/221 "2025-04-09T13:46:31Z")
[The “Hicks babies.”](https://www.aetv.com/real-crime/hicks-clinic-stolen-babies) Dr. Thomas Hicks from McCaysville GA delivered babies, then sold them, possibly as many as 200. Many, if not all of the birth mothers were told that their baby didn’t survive. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2025, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/222 "2025-04-09T20:20:35Z")
> [@Moonrise](#): > > > [@RivkahChaya](#): > > > > They also found a message written on the wall in blood: “Omar m’a tuer,” which, if read aloud, sounds exactly like “Omar m’a tuée.” The phrase as written, sort of contains a double past tense (Omar _did_ kill_ed_ me, eg), > > Nitpicking but it’s not a double past. As written, it is meaningless, akin to “Omar did to kill me” but… > > > [@RivkahChaya](#): > > > > Those close to Marchal said “m’a tuer” was not a mistake she would have made, nor would any native speaker. Linguists counter that it is exactly _native_ speakers who would make that mistake. > > It _definitely_ is a mistake that many people make, and one that drives me batty. The -é / -er / -ez confusion is the French equivalent of there / their / they’re. A better equivalent in English would be “using the infinitive instead of the base form of the verb (i.e., the infinitive without ‘to’).” ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2025, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/223 "2025-04-09T21:23:59Z")
Two: > **[The Memorial Day Heist of 1980 — Facts-Chology](https://factschology.com/factschology-articles-podcast/memorial-day-heist-1980)** > > On the morning of Tuesday May 27th, 1980 in Medford, Massachusetts, bank employees opened the vault to find it completely empty. Unbeknownst to them over the Memorial Day weekend six men had found a way in and taken the bank for everything it had. That one was made into a TV movie called either “Good Cop, Bad Cop” or “The Cops are Robbers”. And the other was also made into a movie “The Falcon and the Snowman”. Lot of info about spy tradecraft in that one. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2025, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/224 "2025-04-09T21:37:54Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > > [@Smapti](#): > > > > The case of Dr. Harvey Crippen is an odd one. > > It was also featured in an excellent book. > > [Thunderstruck - Erik Larson](https://eriklarsonbooks.com/book/thunderstruck/) Erik Larson also wrote **[_The Devil in the White City_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_in_the_White_City)**, featuring two parallel stories, one about the design and construction of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, and the other about one H.H. Holmes, who was probably America’s first serial killer, and who had a “murder castle” to which he lured his victims. It was an entertaining read, especially the part about the challenges of building the world’s fair. Both events were set in Chicago. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2025, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/225 "2025-04-09T22:02:03Z")
I listened to a podcast last night about the Amagasaki incident, a series of murders which occurred in Japan. In 2011, an elderly woman named Miyoko Sumida in the city of Amagasaki reported to police that her neighbor had mysteriously disappeared. She was found a few weeks later living in Osaka under an assumed name and refused to explain anything to police, so the police brought her home. Around the same time, workers clearing abandoned things out of a shuttered factory discovered the body of another elderly woman, who had been beaten to death and partially encased in concrete, who dental records identified as the mother of the woman who’d gone missing. When the police investigated the family, they found that the formerly missing woman, her sister, her sister’s ex-husband, and their two adult children were all living together in a small condo and were strangely thin and emaciated, and all of them nonsensically claimed that the mother had killed herself, though witness reports soon revealed that the family had been seen beating the mother in a public park. It eventually turned out that Sumida, the elderly neighbor who had initially reported the woman missing was in fact a yakuza boss and sort of cult leader who would get families indebted to her and then take control of their entire lives, dictating when they could eat and sleep and bathe, and eventually start ordering them to kill each other and themselves, and that the murdered woman’s two daughters had beaten their own mother to death on her command. She ended up committing suicide in her cell before she could go to trial, but police wound up linking her to as many as 8 murders beginning in 1987. The Wikipedia article on the case is a little difficult to read because most of the names of the people involved are redacted, but it’s quite a tale. > **[Amagasaki Serial Murder Incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amagasaki_Serial_Murder_Incident)** > > The Amagasaki Serial Murder Incident (尼崎連続殺人事件) was a 2012 several serial murder and body dumping case, in which family households in Japan were tortured continuously for more than 25 years.\[clarification needed\] The crimes began with the disappearance of a woman in or around 1987. At least 8 victims were confirmed to have died, mainly as a result of assault, confinement and other forms of abuse. The crimes were committed mainly in Amagasaki, but also in six other prefectures, Hyogo, Kochi, Ka Th... ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2025, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/226 "2025-04-09T23:41:34Z")
Okay, I looked this up, and it made me vaguely remember a story about a crooked OB who operated a facility that straddled two state lines, one state had more lax laws regarding adoptions, and that was the side the women whose babies he sold delivered on. I didn’t read the whole story; was it this one? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/227 "2025-04-10T00:09:36Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Erik Larson also wrote **[_The Devil in the White City_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_in_the_White_City)**, featuring two parallel stories, one about the design and construction of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, and the other about one H.H. Holmes, who was probably America’s first serial killer, and who had a “murder castle” to which he lured his victims. It was an entertaining read, especially the part about the challenges of building the world’s fair. Both events were set in Chicago. Erik Larson is one of my fave authors. I recommend all of his books, except the one about the Hurricane, which i have not yet read. ---
**Author:** ![Sooner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sooner/32/7875_2.png) [@Sooner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sooner)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/228 "2025-04-10T00:33:32Z")
> **[Darlie Routier](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlie_Routier)** > > Darlie Lynn Peck Routier (born January 4, 1970) is an American woman from Rowlett, Texas, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of her five-year-old son Damon in 1996. She has also been charged with capital murder in the death of her six-year-old son, Devon, who was murdered at the same time as Damon. To date, Routier has not been tried for Devon's murder. > Damon and Devon were stabbed to death with a large kitchen knife in Routier's home, while Routier sustained knife wound... The Routier case, happened a couples blocks from us. So I have always kept an eye on it. I think it is likely she committed the murders, but I doubt I could have convicted her if I had been on the jury ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/229 "2025-04-10T01:26:46Z")
“Isaac’s Storm”, about the 1900 Galveston hurricane? I’ve read it. Excellent book. BTW, Erik Larson’s telling of the H. H. Holmes story has largely been debunked. Did he kill anyone? I think so. Did he do as many as this book says he did, and in those manners? Probably not. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/230 "2025-04-10T01:42:36Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Erik Larson is one of my fave authors. I recommend all of his books, except the one about the Hurricane, which i have not yet read. I agree about Larson. I’ve read most of his books, with the notable exception of _Lethal Passage_ because I thought I’d find the subject matter (about guns in America) too difficult to read about. The one about the hurricane is _Isaac’s Storm_, about the great hurricane that destroyed Galveston, and I can highly recommend it. . ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/231 "2025-04-10T02:07:11Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > BTW, Erik Larson’s telling of the H. H. Holmes story has largely been debunked. Did he kill anyone? I think so. Did he do as many as this book says he did, and in those manners? Probably not. Do you have a cite for the debunking? It’s always been my impression that Larson’s research was pretty meticulous. Though I imagine that sometimes, for events that happened more than one and a quarter centuries ago, there may be disagreement on some of the details.. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/232 "2025-04-10T02:38:05Z")
The Fager murders, Wichita, 1988. Mary Fager returned home from a business trip and found the body of her husband, who had been shot in the back. The bodies of her daughters, aged 9 and 16, were in the hot tub. One had been drowned in the tub, and the other had been strangled and then dumped into the tub. A few days later, Bill Butterworth, a handyman who had been building a sunroom to house the hot tub, was arrested in Florida, driving Mr. Fager’s car. He had emptied his bank account before leaving town. The DA, in a rush to judgement, proceeded with undue haste to bring the case to trial. But a young public defender showed the flaws in the state’s case, and the jury found him not guilty. The case cost the DA his job, and the public defender went on to become one of the best defense attorneys in the state. The case remains unsolved. Hopefully not paywalled: [Aftermath of 1988 Wichita murder trial still haunts jury foreman | Wichita Eagle](https://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article1121424.html) ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/233 "2025-04-10T13:32:03Z")
In _An Underground Education_, author Richard Zacks claims that Holmes did carry out a few murders in various insurance schemes and other crimes, but the tabloid press of the time inflated him into a monstrous serial murderer of 200 victims. [Cecil Adams weighed in on the matter way back in 1979.](https://www.straightdope.com/21341798/did-dr-henry-holmes-kill-200-people-at-a-bizarre-castle-in-1890s-chicago) ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/234 "2025-04-10T13:44:16Z")
But … the Cecil Adams article you cite seems quite consistent with Erik Larson’s account of a crazed serial killer. For example: > [In 1890] he also began to build a “hotel” across the street. It was a gaudy three-story building with shops on the first floor and a bizarre labyrinth of windowless rooms, false floors, secret passages, trapdoors, and chutes above. Holmes changed contractors several times and shuffled the workers around frequently so that no one ever got a clear idea of the floor plan or what the building was for. > > In fact it was a death house. Most of the rooms had gas vents that could only be controlled from a closet in Holmes’s bedroom. Many were soundproof and could not be unlocked from inside. A few rooms were lined with asbestos, presumably so the victim could be incinerated. Chutes and passages led to the basement, where Holmes had installed an oven for cremating the bodies as well as several lime pits for disposing of whatever evidence remained. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/235 "2025-04-10T13:54:20Z")
I haven’t read _The Devil in the White City_, but I have read _Depraved_ by Harold Schechter, which pretty much agrees with TDitWC. I guess the question is how much of the authors’ sources were based on media exaggerations. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/236 "2025-04-10T15:13:02Z")
It’s been a while, but IIRC Larson presents the sensational popular story with a very skeptical eye. Holmes’s behavior, especially while ‘on the run’ with the girls he definitely killed, indicates narcissistic sociopath type, but not a crazed killer who did it for the thrill. He probably offed some witnesses and/or accomplices to his scams. Send to have sold skeletons to a medical school, à la Burke & Hale. The “murder castle” is the dubious part. Letting vulnerable young women to the big city seems plausible, but a lot of work for little monetary reward. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/237 "2025-04-10T15:29:16Z")
I think calling Holmes a serial killer is like calling a Mafia hitman a serial killer. Killing was how Holmes made his living, not his hobby. ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/238 "2025-04-10T15:34:51Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > The DA, in a rush to judgement, proceeded with undue haste to bring the case to trial. But a young public defender showed the flaws in the state’s case, and the jury found him not guilty. > > The case cost the DA his job, and the public defender went on to become one of the best defense attorneys in the state. The case remains unsolved. Pretty sure the case is solved. Just botched by the DA. Kind of like the Nicole Simpson/Ron Goldman murders remain unsolved 🙄 ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/239 "2025-04-10T15:36:25Z")
Did the Skidmore townsfolk have much of an alternative? It sounds like it would have ended up either him, or one of them. Harsh frontier justice. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511/240 "2025-04-10T15:46:13Z")
> [@smithsb](#): > > Pretty sure the case is solved. Yes, I misspoke. The case remains _open_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-true-crime-story-fascinates-you-most/1010511.md?page=13)