(Source: heartmindawakening, via bonsticka)

•  26 June 2011  •  3,254 notes

that way we can all follow each other

•  26 June 2011  •  12 notes

(via tragedy-in-their-blood)

•  26 June 2011  •  196 notes

takeyouhometokillyou:

The King Brothers

Alex King was only 12 years old and his brother Derek 13 when the two Florida boys were arrested for murdering their father as he slept in November 2001.

The boys’ father, Terry King, was sitting in a living room chair with his feet propped up on a sofa, asleep, when he was bludgeoned to death with an aluminum baseball bat.  Firefighters working feverishly to extinguish the blaze that had been deliberately set, discovered his body.  Closer examination revealed that the left side of his head had been bashed in, making it easy to determine that he hadn’t died from smoke inhalation.  His two sons, Alex and Derek, were nowhere to be found.  At first authorities considered the possibility that they might have been abducted, but the following day they showed up at the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office after being driven there by a family friend, 40-year-old Rick Chavis.

The two boys soon confessed that they had killed their father.  Alex claimed that he had thought up the bizarre plan, and Derek said that he had been the one who had swung the bat.  They were worried, they said, that their father was going to punish them for having ran away from home 10 days earlier.  It turned out that they had been staying at the home of their dad’s friend, Chavis, a convicted sex-offender, for many of those ten days.  It was later shown that Chavis had allowed them to hide in a back room of his trailer home when their father had come looking for them.  Chavis had been convicted in 1984 of molesting three boys of varying ages.  According to Alex’s testimony before a grand jury and to letters that he had written, he and Chavis had entered into a sexual relationship.

Alex and Derek were swiftly indicted by a grand jury on first-degree murder charges, and Chavis was charged with being an accessory after the fact, tampering with evidence, and molesting Alex.  Surprisingly, Chavis was later acquitted of the sex-offenses involving Alex.

Although their confession had contained details of Terry King’s murder that could have only been known by the perpetrators, the boys recanted and instead blamed Chavis, insisting that he had killed their father while they waited outside, hiding in the trunk of Chavis’s car.  Chavis was subsequently charged with first-degree murder and arson.

In August 2002, Chavis was the first to go on trial for Terry King’s murder.  After hearing four days of testimony, the jury deliberated for five hours before announcing that they had reached a verdict.  The judge, however, ordered that the verdict be sealed until after Alex and Derek’s trial, scheduled for the following week.

Although the boys had been charged with first-degree murder, the jury was allowed by law to find them guilty of a lesser charge—which they did.  Alex and Derek were convicted of second-degree murder, for which they could have been sentenced to 22 years to life in prison.  Following the boys’ verdict, the judge unsealed Chavis’s verdict—he had been found not guilty on the murder and arson charges.  In another legal proceeding later, Chavis was found guilty of being an accessory after the fact to third-degree murder, tampering with evidence, and false imprisonment involving Alex.  He received the maximum sentence of 35 years, and is not scheduled for release until 2037.

The boys are now free.

(Source: criminalprofiler)

•  24 June 2011  •  13 notes

beasts

(Source: imgfavepopular, via chemical-x)

•  24 June 2011  •  133 notes

the-night-stalker:

A university graduate and loyal member of the communist party from his days of military service, Andrei Chikatilo went on to teach at an all-male mining school in Rostov-on-Don. From the beginning of his tenure, he was heckled by the boys, who called him Goose in mockery of his long neck and slouching posture. Later, after he began molesting students in the dormitories, they would call him faggot to his face, sometimes assaulting Chikatilo when he entered the dorm to enforce lights-out. Despite his age and size, Chikatilo was so frightened of the boys in his charge that he began to carry a knife on the job. 

Andrei Chikatilo was a late bloomer in terms of the norm for serial murder. Most repeat killers begin claiming victims by their early twenties, but Chikatilo was forty-two when he killed for the first time. His chosen victim, nine- year-old Lenochka Zakotnova, was lured to a vacant house in Shakhty, where Chikatilo failed in his attempt to rape her, afterwards stabbing the child three times and dropping her body into the Grushovka River. She was found beneath a nearby bridge on Christmas Eve. 

(via criminalprofiler)

•  24 June 2011  •  6 notes

takeyouhometokillyou:

On February 21, 1974, Ted Bundy attacked Lynda Healy while she was sleeping, bludgeoning her in her bed, and abducted her. Only her skull and mandible were found at Taylor Mountain site (one of Bundy’s favorite spots).

(Source: criminalprofiler)

•  24 June 2011  •  24 notes

alantansey:

Calvary Cemetery, Queens, NY. March, 2011

Alan Tansey

(via fuckyeahcemeteries)

•  24 June 2011  •  47 notes

“Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behaviour. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them—if you want to. Just as some day, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.”

— J.D Salinger

(Source: tristezza, via suisjeegoiste)

•  24 June 2011  •  225 notes

An arraignment was scheduled for March 21, but was then postponed.  At this time, there was still no charge for the murder of Norma Davis, although the investigation continued with the hope of getting a DNA match from the knives.  They did have a match from one of Gray’s Nike shoes to the footprint found in Davis’s house, and Gray had said she’d not been in the house in two years.  This kind of evidence was general at best, since nothing about the shoe or the print was clearly individuated.

Gray’s public defender, Stuart Sachs, claimed he needed time to prepare the case and his request was granted.  Gray, wearing a sky-blue prison jumpsuit, quietly agreed to the delay, although she later complained about him as an attorney.  She seemed intimidated that day by the number of reporters gathered to see her in the courtroom.

As local journalists waited for the arraignment, they looked for other stories to pen, and one of these involved the disposition of one victim’s cat.  Dora Beebe had a seven-year-old gray tiger cat named Weezie, and now Dora’s daughter faced the need to place the animal with someone.  She was hoping for a shut-in who needed a companion. (There was no follow-up story.)

An acquaintance of Gray’s, Dave Dressecker, spoke with reporters.  He had known Gray as an RN, recalling how dedicated she had been, and had done some real estate transactions with her.  He could not imagine her as the person who had allegedly assaulted one woman and murdered three.  “She was,” he said, “a very nice girl.”  Still, he said that when he’d first heard the description of the murderer, he had joked with friends about how it had fit Dana.  He also offered her letters to reporters, which showed how much she whined about her situation.  She did not like prison at all and seemed to believe that she would soon be free.  Apparently she harangued her father to sell Norma’s condo and use the funds for a better attorney.

Other acquaintances said Gray had often had a hard look about her, but they had attributed it to the stressful life of a surgical nurse.  A few said that she’d been a good neighbor, but when her life had started to erode, she’d become cranky and withdrawn.

When asked about the case, Gray’s boyfriend, a machinist, said he had no words: “People ask me to explain it and I can’t.”  He only knew that Gray was good to his five-year-old son.  Still, he declined to visit Gray in jail and had been angry over being pulled into the investigation.  He eventually broke up with her.

There was also an estranged half-brother who told reporters his own theory about Gray’s motive.  His name was Cedric Ward, according to the newspapers, and on March 22, he’ held an impromptu press conference outside the courtroom.  It was his belief that Gray suffered from exposure to a dysfunctional wealthy family from Newport Beach.  There was a lot of depression in the home, he said, and a lot of fighting.  “It was not happy growing up.”  Ward, thirteen years older than the defendant, said he had raised her after her mother died from cancer, and had noticed her issues with money from an early age.  She had a habit of asking others to give her money, as well as of stealing it when it suited her.  Nevertheless, Ward claimed to be stunned over the reports that she had attacked and murdered elderly women.

Another story traced the path that Gray had taken once she had June Roberts’ credit cards.  On the same day as the murder, she had gone out for lunch, had her hair permed at Ethetiques Salon, and purchased clothing and jewelry to the tune of $695.  Those who encountered her or provided a service described her as cheerful and happy.  That behavior supported the idea that she was a cold-hearted killer.  She had her boyfriend’s son with her and said to several people that she expected to go on a shopping spree that day.  By the end of the day she had charged $1,700 on two cards.  She would later admit to the shocking revelation that she had the boy with her, leaving him in the car, when she murdered June Roberts.

(Source: trutv.com)

•  24 June 2011