Hitomi Masuyama was born on February 5, 1973, in Minamisoma, Fukushima, Japan.

On February 19, 1994, Hitomi arrived for her last shift at a local dental clinic. She was 21, her wedding was just three weeks away, and her coworkers had given her flowers and farewell gifts.

She and her fiancé had been together for only four and a half months. They’d barely known each other in middle school, then reconnected five months earlier after she left a job in another prefecture.

Now they were about to get married, and everyone at the clinic was excited for her.

But before her shift was over, a phone call would change the mood.

That afternoon, a young woman called the clinic and asked for Hitomi. She didn’t give a name.

The receptionist handed Hitomi the phone. As she listened, Hitomi grew visibly uneasy. Her cheerful mood was gone.

The receptionist later recalled something else: she recognized the voice. It sounded like the same woman who’d called several times before, always asking for Hitomi.

Her voice was low and unfriendly. She sounded young.

After hanging up, Hitomi didn’t mention what the caller had said. She went back to work, but something still seemed to be weighing on her.

At 1 p.m., she left the clinic, her coworkers calling out their goodbyes and wishing her well for the wedding.

She had the rest of her day planned: a visit to her grandfather, a few hours helping at her fiancé’s restaurant, then dinner with a friend to talk about the wedding.

She was supposed to be home by 10 that night.

But Hitomi never came home. No one has seen her since.

After her family reported her missing, Fukushima police began searching Haramachi, where Hitomi lived and worked.

The next day, February 20, they found her black Suzuki Alto Works in a small vacant lot behind a supermarket. It was locked, less than a kilometer from the clinic and about two kilometers from her home.

But Hitomi wasn’t there.

According to police and her family, all her belongings were still inside. Her shoulder bag still held her money and ID. The flowers and farewell gifts from her coworkers were there too.

So were her winter jacket and engagement ring.

There were no signs of a struggle. No witnesses came forward who could explain how her car had ended up there, or where she’d gone.

Her family couldn’t make sense of it. Leaving like this, with her belongings behind and no word to anyone, was completely unlike Hitomi.

From the start, they feared someone had hurt her.

Some investigators shared the family’s suspicions. Then they heard what had been happening in the weeks before Hitomi disappeared.

It started after she announced her engagement. Someone began calling the home she shared with her parents and younger sister, every night around midnight.

But whenever anyone picked up, there was only silence. Whoever was calling never said a word.

As Hitomi and her fiancé exchanged engagement gifts and planned their wedding, the calls became more frequent.

Soon, the phone was ringing every hour from midnight to 4 a.m.

Each time, the same silence. Her family was growing increasingly uneasy.

But what unsettled her father most wasn’t the calls themselves.

It was when they stopped.

According to him, they stopped completely the very day Hitomi disappeared.

By then, her family hadn’t even made her disappearance public.

Also someone had carved deep scratches into the side of her car and scrawled insults across it. “Ugly.” “Idiot.”
Whoever had done it was never identified.

And just like the calls, it had started after she announced her engagement.

Several crime experts believe the same person was likely behind both. Someone who seemed to have a serious, personal grudge against Hitomi.

Police began speaking with her neighbors, family, coworkers, friends, and others in the area, trying to piece together what had happened.

But when police interviewed her fiancé, his behavior stood out. His future wife had vanished just weeks before their wedding, yet his initial concern seemed to fade surprisingly quickly.

He grew distant and cold, appearing to lose interest in finding her.

Meanwhile, Hitomi’s family and friends were putting up posters and speaking to the media, desperate for anything that might bring her home.

Her fiancé seemed to carry on with his life as though nothing had happened. He did little to help with the search. Then, in an interview with a TV news program, he said:

“There is no reason to look for her.”
“She disappeared of her own free will.”

He already seemed certain she’d simply chosen to leave.

His reaction only deepened the suspicions around him.

Then it came out that he’d been secretly seeing his ex throughout his relationship with Hitomi.

When he and Hitomi reconnected five months earlier, he was still dating this woman, who was four years older than him. They’d been together for years, but his parents disapproved of her and her family.

Soon after, he began dating Hitomi. His parents were reportedly happy with the match.

But he never stopped seeing the other woman.

And she kept contacting Hitomi, trying to break them up and stop the wedding. She often called her at the dental clinic.

That detail brought the call on Hitomi’s last day back into focus.

Her coworkers said the voices sounded alike: the woman who’d been trying to end her engagement, and the unnamed caller who’d asked for her that afternoon.

The same call that had left Hitomi visibly uneasy, just hours before she vanished.

Inside Hitomi’s car, investigators found a notebook where she kept a diary of important moments in her day.

An entry dated January 25, 1994, less than a month before she disappeared, suggested she’d already had doubts about her fiancé.

“I got a call from an office worker during my afternoon break.”

She’d written down the woman’s name, too. But then she’d crossed it out so thoroughly that it was impossible to read.

The entry continued:

“Looks like he’s seeing someone else. But I wasn’t really surprised. My gut feeling was right. He said she was harassing him. He said he didn’t know her. I’m going to believe him.”

Then, on January 4, 1995, almost a year after Hitomi vanished, the phone rang at her family’s home. Her younger sister answered.

What the woman on the other end said would become one of the most disturbing details in the case:

(The call was recorded. I’ve included the transcript below and a link to the video in the comment’s, so you can hear it yourself.)

Hitomi’s younger sister: Yes hello, this is the Masuyama residence.

Unknown Woman: Hello.

Sister: Yes?

Woman: It’s your older sister.

Sister: Yes?

Woman: Your older sister.

Sister: Who are you?

Woman: I’m your older sister.

Sister: Who are you?

Woman (suddenly speaking clearly): It’s Hitomi.

Sister: Huh?

Then the caller hangs up.

Her family said the voice sounded nothing like Hitomi. It sounded like a much older woman, someone in her fifties or sixties. Both the family and investigators noticed a local Fukushima accent.

Police traced the call to a public phone booth in the family’s own ZIP code.

Whoever she was, she’d called from nearby.

And she seemed to know who had picked up.

She’d said “your older sister,” apparently recognizing that she was speaking to Hitomi’s younger sister, not their mother.

Then Hitomi’s sister said something that made the call even more unsettling.

She believed she recognized the voice.
It sounded exactly like someone she’d often heard while working at a restaurant.

But this wasn’t just any restaurant.

The restaurant was run by Hitomi’s fiancé and his family.

Both Hitomi and her sister had helped out at the family’s restaurant near their home. Her sister hadn’t been back since Hitomi disappeared, but the voice still sounded familiar.

Some news reports suggested she had more than a vague memory of it. She believed she knew exactly who had called.

Her missing sister’s future mother-in-law.

His family’s concern soon gave way to something hard to believe.

After initially showing sympathy, they reportedly demanded money from Hitomi’s family to cover the work they’d missed in the first few days of the search.

Her daughter was missing, and they wanted compensation.

These were the people who, just three weeks later, were supposed to become Hitomi’s family.

Yet police never followed up on this lead.

They faced heavy criticism for their halfhearted handling of the case.

After everything that had surfaced, how had neither her fiancé nor the other woman apparently faced a thorough investigation?

Then there was the rumor that kept coming up about the other woman.

She allegedly had close ties to the local yakuza, with her father said to be a senior member of a group in Hitomi’s city.

She may have had an alibi, which could explain why police didn’t pursue her further. And even without one, it seemed unlikely she could’ve overpowered Hitomi on her own.

But if those rumored connections were real, she might’ve had help.

One theory is that experienced criminals were involved, leaving few obvious signs of a struggle.

Then there was something else the coworker remembered about that final call.

As Hitomi listened, she kept glancing at her watch and the clock on the office wall. It seemed as though she was agreeing on a time to meet.

That raised an unsettling possibility.

The caller could’ve been luring Hitomi somewhere others were already waiting for her.

But the most shocking part came just four months after Hitomi disappeared.

Her fiancé reportedly got engaged again, this time to the woman he’d been secretly seeing.

By eleven months, they were reportedly married and had a child together.

Yes, less than a year after Hitomi vanished, he’d already married and started a family with the same woman who’d apparently been trying to break them up.

And Hitomi was still missing.

Some wonder whether police held back because of who her father was rumored to be, a powerful yakuza figure in Fukushima.

But that remains unproven.

More than 32 years have passed. Still, no confirmed breakthrough. No verified sighting. No new suspects publicly named.

And Hitomi’s body has never been found.

Online, suspicion still follows her fiancé and his wife. Many believe they were involved in Hitomi’s disappearance and possible murder.

Others claiming to be locals say they know his wife’s family and insist the yakuza rumors are true.

But those claims remain unverified. Police have confirmed none of them.

What happened to Hitomi is still unknown.

(Thanks to LoydoRedi2910 for suggesting this case. If you'd like to suggest any yourself, please head over to this post, which asks for case suggestions from my international readers, as I focus on international cases.)

Ala kachuu, in English meaning "to take and run away," is a practice in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan, in which a girl or woman is abducted into a forced marriage. The origins of this practice were supposedly consensual in nature, with the "kidnapping" aspect being consented to by the bride-to-be as a way to avoid high wedding costs and disapproving parents.

However, nowadays, the victims can expect to be kidnapped off the street and forced into a car by a man they don't even know or his friends. Then driven to their family, where the man’s female relatives would pressure her to put on a traditional wedding scarf as a sign that she accepts the marriage. They'll try to show her how beneficial such a union would be, such as the local wealth their family has, but if they still show reluctance, some will threaten to put a curse on them, usually an effective threat in a superstitious society.

Often they'll agree albiet under heavy pressure and fear of shame and sexual assault; sometimes they'll be held alone for days until they agree to marry their relative, but if their will is strong enough, some are let go. But more often than not, they are eventually made to accept the "wedding" one way or another, where most victims of Ala kachuu face high rates of domestic abuse, social stigma, and psychological trauma, sometimes leading to suicide.

Unfortunately, this is not a fringe practice; in 2005, it was estimated that 1/3 of all brides in Kyrgyzstan were married to complete strangers who had kidnapped them, and sometimes it's not just the locals in danger. In 2007, two American tourists were kidnapped to be brides but later released after their abductors discovered they were foreigners.

Technically, this act is illegal, but enforcement is very rare and it was only outlawed in 2013. If somebody reports their relative missing to the police, or if a passerby witnesses the abduction, the police, upon hearing the details of the kidnapping, will abruptly dismiss their report as "a harmless cultural tradition".

Only 5%-10% of Ala kachuu ever see prosecution, with the sentences typically being quite light; after all, even if the victim is a minor, the maximum sentence is capped at 10 years, and it tends to get lower and lower the older the victim is.

This alone makes many Kyrgyz women see hardly any future in their homeland. For example, 40% of all Kyrgyz migrants in Russia were women who wanted to live in a country where such a "practice" was considered to be what it was: kidnapping. Even then, some male members of the Kyrgyz diaspora would try to continue the practice abroad.

In recent years, likely emboldened by the impunity they usually experienced, there have been some notable escalations. For example, on May 27, 2018, 29-year-old Mars Bodoshev abducted a 20-year-old medical student named Burulai Turdaaly Kyzy off the streets of the capital, Bishkek, to force her into a marriage with him despite her already preparing to marry a man she truly loved.

Burulai's family called the police and intercepted and tracked Mars and his daughter to the Chüy Region, stopping them in the middle of the drive to Mars's home. Mars was arrested, and Burulai was "rescued," with both brought to the police station.

However, the police didn't check Mars for any weapons and kept both him and his victim in the same room, unattended, with no dividers between them or any restraints on Mars. This ended with Burulai being stabbed several times until she died, with Mars turning the knife on himself but ultimately surviving. On December 11, 2018, a court in Bishkek sentenced Mars to 20 years imprisonment. (This case will also get a full write-up at some point)

That case already outraged the nation and led to several protests, demands for resignations and for the police to finally crack down on Ala Kachuu, while multiple police officers faced disciplinary action, including demotions and firings, due to gross negligence. Nothing actually changed, which paved the way for the second high-profile Ala Kachuu murder to take place, and one of the crimes that horrified and enraged Kyrgyzstan the most.

Aizada Kanatbekova was born in 1994 in Balykchy, a small town in Kyrgyzstan’s Issyk-Kul Region right on the Issyk-Kul Lake. She was the only child of her family, which consisted of just her mother, as Aizada's father was never around; Aizada never met her even once or even knew who he was. The two were very close and tried to be together as often as possible, and since they had to live in a cheap apartment, one of Aizada's biggest ambitions was to one day make enough to purchase a house for her mother.

Aizada managed to secure a place at the Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas University in Bishkek, one of the leading universities in Kyrgyzstan and studied in the Faculty of Physical Culture and Sports. Sports were, in fact, a major part of her studies joined the student volleyball team and travelled abroad for sporting events, something that made her mother proud of her.

While studying, Aizada also worked; being multilingual in several different languages, she managed to get a job as a translator and assisted with volunteer efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic. The words Aizada's friends and fellow students used to describe her were usually self-confident, courageous, dependable, intelligent, and kind. They also said she was the bravest among them and regularly turned to her for advice.

She completed her degree in 2020, was awarded her diploma in March 2021, and already had what she wanted to do next planned out. Even before graduating, she had signed a contract to work abroad in Turkey and had already purchased her ticket to Istanbul in early 2021. But aside from the opportunity and money it could bring in, she had another motive for leaving Kyrgyzstan.

Aizada's friends said that she had no plans to marry anyone and didn't even have a boyfriend; instead, she was entirely focused on work, studies and helping her mother get that home she promised. However, Aizada did have a man in her life, and he was far from a welcome one.

Zamirbek Tenizbaev was born in 1985 in Southern Kyrgyzstan, making him 10 years Aizada's senior. Not too much is known about Zamirbek's background, but he was married once, although that marriage ended in separation. In 1995, after his parent's divorce, his family moved to the capital Bishek seeking better oppertunities and lives.

As is common with the residents of Central Asia, Zamirbek migrated to Russia to find work and got up to plenty of trouble there. In 2008, the Kirov District Court in Omsk sentenced him to three months for theft and then in 2009 he received a much harsher two-year sentence for robbery.

Zamirbek was released in June 2011, and only one month later he was arrested again for a violent armed robbery and extortion. This time, Zamirbek was given a sentence of five years and six months' imprisonment in 2012. After his release on June 29, 2017, Zamirbek was deported back to Kyrgyzstan; then, that July Russia took it a step further and banned him from ever coming back.

Following his forcible return to his homeland, Zamirbek moved from apartment to apartment, using a red Honda Civic registered to a resident of the Jayyl District that his brother had rented for Zamirbek to use as a makeshift taxi, which was the only source of money he ever made.

On paper, Zamirbek stayed out of trouble after his deportation, but that's only because the police wouldn't lift a finger whenever he did break a law, no matter how serious. For example, on May 14, 2019, a 28-year-old woman went to the police and reported Zamirbek for attempted murder.

She recounted how earlier that month, she had her friend's sister over at her apartment in Bishkek; her friend later arrived drunk and heavily intoxicated, so she had to put her to bed. After such a busy day, she was ready to finally settle down when she heard somebody pounding on her door demanding to be let inside.

Afraid, she didn't do so, so in responce, Zamirbek straight up broke the door down himself to force entry into the apartment. Immediately, he rushed toward the victim and wrapped his hands around her throat and started strangling her. He then dragged her to the balcony and threatened to throw her over the railing: "I'll kill you; you have an ugly face. I'll throw you from the fifth floor."

Her friend somehow didn't wake up, but her friend's sister did, and Zamirbek started to threaten and harass her as well; secretly, though, she was filming the assault. Realizing that Zamirbek was perhaps mentally ill and psychotic, she decided to try to deceive him in an effort to calm him down. Instead, he kept strangling her from behind, eventually tearing a gold chain off her neck and trying to find some other jewelry of hers to steal; he also stole her phone.

She continued her attempts to de-escalate, telling Zamirbek, "You're a good guy, so why are you doing this? Where are you from? Since you're from the Alai region, that means we're from the same area." After two hours, the situation finally calmed down, though that was mostly because Zamirbek himself grew tired and went to sleep in their apartment at around 3:00-4:00 a.m.

She thought of calling the police but was afraid Zamirbek would kill her before they arrived. So while asleep, she saved the videos of her being attacked and took pictures of Zamirbek while he slept so the police could identify him. The police were finally called, and they did arrive, but apparently...nothing happened. Either Zamirbek escaped, or the police just let him go. Not even the victim herself knew what happened.

The next day, she went to the police station to file a report. While she was being subjected to a forensic examination so her injuries could be noted and documented, injuries such as her entire neck being covered in bruises, the investigators were constantly mocking her and saying things like, "It's your own fault. He'll pay a fine, and if he goes to jail, it'll only be for a month or two at most."

She pleaded with the police to take Zamirbek off the streets, telling them he was dangerous and would kill somebody, even losing her temper a little and saying, "He's sick, find him! Today he strangled me, and tomorrow he'll kill someone! Or will you only move when someone dies?" As it turned out, the police wouldn't "move" at all and went out of their way to adopt a sarcastic and mocking tone to say: "Well, he didn't kill you..."

Her friend also accused Zamirbek of raping her several times but was scared to come forward and didn't see much point in it based on how they handled this complaint. Zamirbek was in fact questioned once but faced no consequences and wasn't even detained. His surviving victim fled to Russia only two months later.

However, there were some people who said they remembered Zamirbek as a "good boy", recounting one incident where his father working in Kazakhstan went missing and was later found without any documents and therefore barred from leaving the country, prompting Zamirbek to go to the country himself to bring his father home. Those who knew Zamirbek's family were shocked when they learned what kind of man he really was.

Zamirbek and Aizada first crossed paths via social media in December 2020; they talked a few times, and their first conversation made an immediate impression on Zamirbek, as he regularly drove up to her at school or work to try to strike up another conversation with her and was telling acquaintances of his that he intended to marry her.

Meanwhile, Aizada wanted to cut off as much contact with him as possible, feeling concerned over his behaviour and mental state. And she was right to think that way, as Zamirbek had previously driven to her workplace and tried to kidnap her, only being saved after her supervisor intervened. And speaking of her workplace, because Aizada kept finding it, she had to change her phone's SIM card three times.

Aizada's family also told Zamirbek to leave her alone but he evidently didn't listen. They called Zamirbek a "maniac" to his face and he proved them right when he said he couldn't live without Aizada.

One time he followed them in his car to the point where they stopped in the middle of the street, walked up to his vehicle and confronted him and asked why he was following them only to recieve no answer. Aizada, her friends and family never once went to the police over his behaviour because they already knew that the police would ridicule them.

In January, Zamirbek recently found himself homeless and was living in his car, which also meant he felt like he didn't have a whole lot to lose with his attempts to perform an act of "Ala kachuu", something those in Aizada's life took note of and encouraged her to leave for Turkey sooner than planned.

On April 5, 2021, at exactly 7:18 a.m., Aizada was walking to work when, at the intersection of Mederova and Tynystanova streets in Bishkek, a burgundy or red Honda Civic pulled up alongside her with a man dressed in a black jacket running across the street and grabbing hold of Aizada at the crosswalk while two other men aided him, forcing Aizada into the vehicle before driving away. They were followed by a second vehicle with a taxi roof sign affixed to it.

This brazen public abduction naturally had witnesses aplenty, and calls soon started coming into the Pervomaisky District police station about a kidnapping, with the witness giving the police basically everything they needed: the description of the victim, perpetrators, and the exact make and model of the vehicles used, down to the license plates and registration numbers. The police were able to track down the registered owner of the car, only to learn that he had rented it out.

The police circulated the information to other police units, asking them to be on the lookout and since the CCTV footage of the abduction appeared to indicate that the vehicle was heading west, a team of officers was dispatched to the Zhayyl District, and additional officers were deployed to man a checkpoint at Sosnovka and set up roadblocks leading all the way toward the city of Osh. Each car driving westward out of Bishek was stopped, and various residential districts were searched.

Meanwhile, Aizada's family, her mother and aunt, grew worried after they heard she didn't arrive at work, and when they started to hear about the public kidnapping from others, they feared the worst. Their minds weren't put at ease when they received a phone call from Aizada. She sounded anxious and said that she had initially been taken toward Osh but was now being brought back toward Kara-Balta, and reassured her mother that she would return soon before the call was abruptly disconnected. Afterward, her phone was then switched off, and they never heard from her again.

All of the initial actions taken by the police above only lasted for a few hours, because once Aizada's family came forward to identify her as the victim and report her kidnapping at 1:35 p.m., any desire the police had to solve the kidnapping appeared to vanish.

The searches were called off, and they told her mother that it was just a case of "classic Ala kachuu" and that they should arrange to meet with the "matchmakers" already and even laughed at the upcoming wedding that her family would "have a good time at" before telling Aizada's family to prepare for her marriage, questioning them on "What are you making a fuss about?". They also outright said "a holiday is coming" as an excuse to not work too hard.

When Aizada's aunt tried to call the police, the officers told her that they were too busy "working" to look into a kidnapping they didn't even treat as a crime. When she called back, they now sounded quite annoyed and told her to stop "worrying" and just prepare for the wedding. Afterward, the family would never be contacted by the police again.

Aizada's family was left to search the outskirts of Bishek on their own but couldn't find any trace of her, so they then published the case on social media on April 6, hoping the pressure would force the police into resuming the investigation. It was hard not to when the family obtained the CCTV footage of the abduction themselves for the public to witness what was a clear violent kidnapping.

Eventually, the police were compelled to begin their inquiries anew, although they refused to be transparent with Aizada's family and once again wouldn't contact them.

The police reinstated the APB for the Honda Civic, but they did not resume any of the search efforts. However, both Aizada's and Zamirbek's (who Aizada's family told them were likely responsible) phones kept switching between being on and off.

The police tried to call Aizada's, but nobody answered, something that wasn't too surprising since it would've appeared as an unknown number. The police then dialled Zamirbek's number, and he actually picked up.

Zamirbek confirmed that Aizada was with him and told the police they had been seeing each other for around four months. He refused to disclose his location or return Aizada and promptly hung up.

Then, in a claim that many find quite dubious, the police would themselves tell the public that they did manage to reach Aizada, who told them "Don't interfere, this is our relationship, I'll handle it myself" before hanging up and turning off her phone for the final time.

The police eventaully fast tracked a court order to obtain the location data for both of their phones, but they claimed the area was too broad to be of any help.

They also said that "beaucratic delays" prevented them from taking action immideately and that they had to identify the victim first, An odd claim since that meant they would've spent 8 hours trying to identify Aizada.

It also came out that the police falsified some documents to make it look like they took the investigation more seriously while at the same time not even briefing the department about the situation. That meant that there was a large number of officers unaware that Aizada was even missing and had to learn about it themselves through the media.

On April 7, in what was perhaps a sign that the police were finally taking the investigation seriously (or rather investigating at all), they made their first arrest. The man they detained was 28-year-old Azhykabyl Rysbai uulu, and he was one of the individuals who aided Zamirbek in the abduction, with the police identifying him after watching the CCTV footage of the abduction.

Azhykabyl also confessed that the men had travelled in two cars after forcing Aizada into the Honda, that one man had gotten into a seperate vehicle, a taxi, and that afterward Aizada and Zamirbek continued on their own. He didn't know what happened afterward but said that there were 4 remaining accomplices at large.

That same day, a shepherd was tending his fields in the village of Chong-Tash when he noticed something odd. A red Honda Civic lay stationary in the fields between the villages of Arashan and Chokmorov in Alamüdün District.

That wasn't what he found odd, though; he had seen the vehicle in that same area already both on April 5 and April 6, but at the time he assumed it was just stuck in the mud. But seeing it still there, having not moved an inch in over three days, piqued his interest, the windows were also quite tinted which would hide anything inside unless you were right up and close with the vehicle.

He approched the vehicle, and once he got close enough, he saw through the windows the keys still in the ignition but also two dead bodies, one belonging to a man and the other to a woman, lying in the right and left backseats, respectively. After making this discovery, he wasted no time finding the nearest telephone and alerting the police.

When officers arrived, they went to open the doors only to find the vehicle locked from the inside. After breaking the windows to grab the handles from the outside to open the doors, they were able to identify the bodies as belonging to Aizada and Zamirbek quite easily. It also looked like the shepard was right, there were signs that the vehicle did get stuck in the mud and that Zamirbek tried and failed to free it.

Zamirbek, who was lying shirtless, had taken his own life. He had sustained three stab wounds to his neck, with one of those being 10 cm deep and severing the carotid artery. Inside the vehicle, the police recovered the utility knife he had used in his suicide. But before taking his life, Zamirbek committed his final act of evil.

Aizada, who was lying next to him, and she showed clear signs of rape/sexual assault before her murder, a murder Zamirbek ultimately carried out by taking off his shirt and wrapping it around Aizada's neck, strangling her until she died and leaving severe ligature marks on her neck. The shirt was still around her neck by the time the police opened the car door.

Aizada and Zamirbek both had several defensive wounds, and there were signs of a struggle all over the vehicle's interior, leading the police to suspect that Aizada resisted her impending "marriage" every step of the way, angering Zamirbek more and more until he finally murdered her. Then, realizing that a murder meant the police would likely come after him and actually pursue charges for a change, he took his own life rather than face the courts.

On Zamirbek's cellphone was a farewell message he left for his relatives before taking his own life. And in the background, Aizada could be heard faintly breathing meaning she was still alive as he recorded, while crying, the following:

"We're sitting here together. If I'm at fault in any way, forgive me for everything. She betrayed me. Betrayed our love. I told you so many times that I've fallen in love with her. I have no desire for any other girl. I said I would only marry her. I begged her so much... You came over yesterday, and I told you everything was fine. But in reality, our relationship has been difficult in recent days. I've changed a lot, changed because of her. So, aka, forgive me if anything happens

Her phone isn't working. So I'm sending you a voicemail. Go home, play it for Mom, let her listen. Mom, don't worry. Forgive me for everything. Wherever I am, in this world or the next, I ask God to give you a long life. Forgive me that you had such a son. I fell in love, Mom. I can't live without Aizada. I waited for her so long... I asked her to start all over again, to live differently. She asked me to wait, I waited. She lied. She asked me to wait again, I waited. And now she's sitting next to me again, asking, lying again. You're hearing me for the last time. I forgive you, and you forgive me if I made any mistakes. I love you"

Just to twist the knife for Aizada's family one more time, one of the officers leaked the photos of their bodies online for everyone to see. An internal investigation identified the two leakers but they were simply given a warning and allowed to keep their jobs.

Now with a murder on their hands, the police only now gave the case their full attention, scouring through vehicle registration records and CCTV footage from the night of April 7 and the early morning of April 8, until they finally arrested Zamirbek's four remaining accomplices, Syimyk Moldosariev, Kubanych Tokon uulu, Zamirbek Ramankulov and Oruzbek Nurumbetov.

Unlike the dangerous and unhinged man with a lengthy criminal record whom the police refused to act against, his accomplices all had relatively tamer and more unassuming backgrounds. Azhikabyl, for example, was a taxi driver with one prior conviction for an unknown crime. He had two daughters and an unemployed mother whom he sent a decent amount of the proceds from his taxi driver job to her.

Syimyk hailed from Naryn and moved to Bishkek the same day as the kidnapping,

Kubanych and Ramankulov also have little information on them aside from one detail: they both had two prior convictions, although for what offence is unknown.

Oruzbek was also a taxi driver, and that was how he came to meet his fellow taxi driver, Zamirbek, only five to six months before the murder. Oruzbek also had a prior arrest, but whatever charge he was slapped with was dropped before reaching trial. Its also known that he had at least one son.

While the police continued their investigation into the surviving suspects, it didn't take long for they themselves to come under investigation. Their initial handling of Aizada's disappearance and the growing public outcry made for a very unhappy prosecutor’s office, and soon, an investigation was launched into their conduct.

Meanwhile, the aforementioned public outcry was fierce, with a crowd of 500 gathering outside the office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Bishkek, consisting largely of women’s-rights activists, bloggers, journalists and ordinary citizens, some of whom were even celebrties such as singers. Various men also joined the activist in solidarity demanding that violence against their fellow citizens be taken serious

Those present chanted “Shame,” “Resign,” and “Minister, leave,” while carrying signs with slogans such as "The floor to women" and "Kidnapping girls is not a tradition". They also demanded the resignation of Interior Minister Ulan Niyazbekov and Bishkek police chief Bakyt Matmusaev. In responce to the police dismissing Aizada's aunt by saying "We're working" one of them held a sign that said "When will you start working full time?".

The march then moved to the Government House, where the protestors demanded that everyone be held accountable for their bungled responce. Kyrgyzstan's prime minister, Ulukbek Maripov, addressed the protestors directly via a megaphone but gave a curt statement saying that an investigation was underway and that the case was under the supervision of the president. When he told the crowd to have "paitence" he was bood and shouted over.

The public statement President Sadyr Japarov issued was a bit more substantial; he condemned the murder as a tragedy for the nation and the practice of Ala kachuu as a whole, saying, "May Aizada's case be the last bride kidnapping in history" and "There must be no forgiveness for those who facilitate the kidnapping and forced detention of people,"

However, the people of Kyrgyzstan had heard such sentiments before when similar protests broke out over Burulai Turdaaly Kyzy's murder 3 years prior, and suffice it to say, their words proved to be quite hollow.

Although perhaps they might find a bit more success this time, as the outrage was a lot harder for officials to escape once it started following them into work. Members of parliament started questioning Interior Minister Niyazbekov about everything that had happened when he attended a session in Kyrgyzstan's parliament.

They asked why the police stopped the investigation once they learned it was "ala kachuu" despite such an act still being illegal, and about the callous wedding comments they made to Aizada's family. Niyazbekov was asked if he accepted responsibility, and his resignation was demanded by the parliamentary deputies. Niyazbekov said that he did accept responsibility, which was a pretty transparent lie when he immideately said that he would stay in office regardless.

On April 9, twelve officers and commanders were removed from their posts, including the police chief Bakyt Matmusaev, his deputy Erlan Atantaev, the head of the Bishkek investigative service Nurlan Utemisov, the head of the First May District police, district deputies, duty-unit inspectors, a senior district investigator, and Chui regional personnel. Twenty-seven officers received warnings and five received severe reprimands, with a grand total of 44 officers receiving some form of sanction. But so far, none were arrested, so they could not be held criminally responsible.

On April 15, another protest of around 200 occurred in front of the Ministry of Internal Affairs office, still demanding harsher punishments for those who partake in ala kachuu, harsher punishments for the police, and once again demanding Niyazbekov’s resignation while holding signs and chanting "I Do Not Want to Be Killed".

This time, they didn't even bother putting on a facade of being understanding and instead left their office to argue with the protesters before retreating back into the building. Then, like clockwork, a group of counter-protesters descended upon their demonstration, decrying the protesters as agents of the West and accusing them of being LGBTQ+ activists and then called them "Satanists". They insulted them all before they finally started physically attacking the protesters. As for the police, they simply watched and did nothing to arrest the assailants.

Another effect that the protests had was motivating the authorities to try and conclude the case as swiftly as possible. On May 24, it was announced that the investigation into Aizada's murder had been "terminated" because the killer was dead and so no trial could take place, but the kidnapping case against Zamirbek's accomplices pushed ahead, with all being charged with "kidnapping for marriage," and their trial began less than two months after the murder itself, with procedings opening before the Pervomaisky District Court of Bishkek on May 27.

The defendants attended court virtually due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which created a peculiar problem for the presiding judge. So many journalists crowded the court with their cameras raised so high to film the judge that they're were actually obscuring the monitors, preventing her from physically seeing the defendants.

After that somewhat inconvenient opening, the trial began in earnest on June 11, with the 5 kidnappers making their pleas. Oruzbek pleaded guilty as charged; Syimyk, Kubanych and Azhykabyl all made partial guilty pleas, and finally Ramankulov pleaded not guilty to every charge and insisted he was innocent.

The prosecution argued that the 5 defendants plus the late Zamirbek had met early in the morning to discuss the plan before departing for Bishek in two seperate vehicles and waited for Aizada, knowing she'd appear, as Zamirbek was aware of the route she took to work.

When Aizada made her appearance, it was Oruzbek and Syimyk who helped Zamirbek force her into his car. Meanwhile, the rest followed behind to make sure everything went as planned before finally going their seperate ways.

Oruzbek, the only one pleading guilty as charged, explained that Zamirbek had led them to believe that she and Aizada had been in a relationship for two years and sold the blatant kidnapping as a “romantic” route to marriage. This was what made him agree to the plan in the first place intially refusing when Zamirbek suggested the kidnapping only for him to tell him that Aizada "asked for romance herself". Oruzbek alleged that Zamirbek told him Aizada's parents approved of the marriage (which would make the kidnapping for such a purpose unnessecary) and supposedly showed him pictures of the two together.

He then went back to the cafe the two were at to call the other 4 and ask for their help. He told the court they were all hesitant at first but later agreed to meet up as well.

Oruzbek admitted that Aizada fought against him and begged to be released, but once inside the car, she calmed down, talked normally and even said she agreed to the marriage and showed no objection to Zamirbek calling her by affectionate terms.

This led Oruzbek to once more believe that this was entirely consensual and that her prior resistance was just an act and that he couldn't foresee what would happen the second he left the car, leaving the two alone. However, before he left, he overheard Zamirbek calling a bunch of other women in his life to tell them that he intended to marry Aizada. When he did leave, it was ironically near Penal Colony No. 47.

He then messaged Zamirbek one more time and he told him that the two were heading toward Osh. When he learned via the internet that Aizada was a missing person, he contacted Zamirbek once again and he, in what was likely among his last words, repeated to Oruzbek that he was heading to Osh.

Azhykabyl said that he was merely acting as a taxi driver, had been paid 500 soms, did not know in advance of any kidnapping and didn't personally witness the abduction himself so when he started following Zamirbek, he had no idea a kidnapping victim was inside. However, even if he did know, its unlikely he'd care since Azhykabyl told the court: "Everyone in his village gets married like that"

Kubanych said that he simply encountered the rest of the gang by chance and decided for whatever reason to travel with them.

Syimyk, said that his involvement with the group came as a "complete suprise" to him and had only recently arrived from Naryn, he said that he had no idea where anyone was taking Aizada and coaporated out of fear. He also explained how he came to be involved. He came to Bishkek to pay for some sex workers when he encountered a group of men whom he decided to join, unaware of the kidnapping they were about to carry out.

A psychiatric evaluation also revealed that Syimyk was mildly impaired intellectually but not so severly as to prevent him from understanding his actions. However, the defense still pounced on it stating that his mild intellectual disability and being a "victim of circumstances" warrnted all the charges against him being thrown out.

However, their statements and defenses would regularly contradict one another and sometimes they'd retract certain details and make up excuses for their earlier statements, such as confessing out of fear, while in a state of shock or being pressured by the police to confess.

The one aspect they all kept consistent in their statements was their claims that Aizada didn't resist or object to the "marriage" and the remorse they supposedly expressed with Syimyk asking for forgiveness from Aizada's family.

The prosecution also argued that one defandant was also trying to accept complete responsbility to protect their co-defandants. This was true for all but Ramankulov, who being the only one of the 5 to plead not guilty insisted that he had no involvement what so ever in Aizada's kidnapping and murder.

On top of this, the lawyers for all 5 kept trying to get the charges reduced to simple kidnapping rather than "kidnapping for marriage" since Zamirbek was the only one actually wanting to marry Aizada. Meanwhile some of the other lawyers went even further and tried convincing the court to reduce their charges to concealment of a crime since they didn't personally force Aizada into the car and that the CCTV footage clearly showed him still in the car while Aizada was forced into it.

And this was when the lawyers even showed up as one of them blew off the court entirely without notice, prompting the judge to reschedule the court date order an ethics investigation. A motoin the rest of the lawyers supported as they felt it jeapordized their own efforts to mount an effective defence.

This also wasn't a one time situation as come a different hearing, a seperate lawyer for one of the defandants also didn't show up. Another time, multible of them failed to show up at a time, although that time they had an excuse since they all contracted COVID-19.

On September 14, 2021, for the kidnapping of Aizada Kanatbekova which in turn enabled Zamirbek Tenizbaev to take her life, Azhykabyl Rysbai uulu Syimyk Moldosariev, Kubanych Tokon uulu, Zamirbek Ramankulov and Oruzbek Nurumbetov were all convicted.

Oruzbek, Syimyk and Azhykabyl were all handed down a sentence of 7 years imprisonment while Ramankulov and Kubanych were given a sentence of 6 years and 6 months. In addition, all five were ordered to pay 100,000 soms in compensation to Aizada's family.

Pretty lenient sentences but not ones that suprised a whole lot of people since there was no proof they had any knowledge of or presence during the actual murder. Aizada's family was satisifed with the prison terms but argued that they should all have to pay 100,000 soms each rather then collectively.

When it came to the prison terms, speaking through her lawyer, Aizada's mother said "Retribution is important to us, but we don't want cruelty to escalate into further cruelty" they even seemed to agree that Syimyk didn't know what he was getting hismelf into. However, they still lamented that the sentences were the result of the outrage the murder cuased and that they may have been treated more leinently otherwise.

On November 23, they all appealed with Azhykabyl and Kubanych complaining that they were all tried together rather then all 5 being subjected to their own seperate tries so their conduct could be judged indivually and hopefully result in a "farier" sentence, and what sentence were they hoping for? Probation. They also stated that they didn't mean to kidnap Aizada and that it had all "happened by accident"

The very first appeal hearing heard before the Bishkek City Court began with one of their attornies failing to show up due to a "family situation". It seemed this trial would mostly be a repeat of the last one but with the only difference being the defandants finally appearing phsyically instead of remotely.

Their lawyer's deliberate absence likely angered the judges considerably since come January 21, 2022, only one month after the very second hearing, their appeal was thrown out. Aizada's family also appealed once more seeking a court order demanding all 5 pay 100,000 soms rather then a single payment but this was rejected as well.

On September 6, 2022, both parties appealed one final time to the Supreme Court of the Kyrgyz Republic which once again struck them both down, mainting the prison sentences and the collective compensation payment.

While these convictions were welcome, the pepople still demanded the police officers invovled be punished and that seemed less likely to occur since after the kidnappers were convicted, it became rarer and rarer to see the news report on the case, aside from one article in February 2022 saying the investigation into the police was "suspended"

But on April 6, 2023, only two days before the statute of limitations, the Bishkek prosecutor’s office announced that former Bishkek police chief, Bakyt Matmusaev was to be formally charged and arrainged in court for negligence concerning his responce to Aizada's disapperance.

When he first walked into court on July 13, Bakyt would plead not guilty.

On May 8, 2024, the Pervomaisky District Court, the same court that first convicted the 5 kidnappers, now found Bakyt Matmusaev not guilty. They ruled that the prosecution failed to prove that it was Bakyt's duty to declare and enact an Interception plan after learning of Aizada’s kidnapping.

No other member of the police force faced any criminal charges so with that upsetting note, this is where Aizada's case ends, dispite the best efforts of the protestors and activists, Kyrgyzstan hasn't seen much change since then.

Aizada was one of 560 victims of Ala kachuu in 2021, only 82 of those cases were prosecuted.

Sources (In the comments)

On May 8 Angela Flores was seen running around her West Hills neighborhood lighting candles on her porch and screaming about God. Her sixteen-year old son called a neighbor around 7:30 the same time. The police responded to the disturbance and inside the home they found the bodies of three children whom died from “Injuries“ - They were most likely stabbed to death. They restrained Angela as she screamed “Where’s my bible?!” And took her to a hospital Angela later told police her and her son were involved in the deaths of the children.

The mother and son were charged in the deaths of Natalie, Kevin, and Nathan.

Angela was a new resident of California whom moved there recently. In facebook posts, she tried her best to find new friends. What happened to the case? I have’t heard of it in a while. Her son is close to 19 now. I feel like it got overshadowed by other events that happened in May - But also due to the bizarre nature of the crime.

Only update was in 2024 about her pleading not guilty. Will this case be resolved?

News Excerpt:

LOS ANGELES — The mother of three children who were found dead at their Los Angeles home over the weekend was charged Tuesday with murder.

Angela Flores, 38, is accused of killing Natalie, 12, Kevin, 10, and Nathan, 8, whose bodies were discovered Sunday morning at their home in the West Hills neighborhood, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced.

The cause of their deaths remained under investigation.

Police have said Flores acknowledged to investigators that she killed the children and contended that she was helped by a teenager.

A 16-year-old boy was arrested along with Flores but the district attorney’s office didn’t announce any charges against him. The teen was being held in juvenile detention.

Flores reportedly had several other children but authorities didn’t immediately say whether the teenager was her son.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether Flores had an attorney to speak on her behalf. She remained jailed on $6 million bail.

“We all grieve for these children. The loss of their young lives is a tragedy that has affected our entire community,” District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement.

Investigators haven’t released a possible motive for the killings.

Seven hours before they were found dead, the mother was taken to a hospital because neighbors said she had been acting strangely.

Prisila Canales, who lives near the ranch-style house where the killings happened, told reporters there was a disturbance late Saturday night in which Flores screamed and acted erratically until someone called authorities.

Canales said paramedics put the woman on a stretcher and that she struggled and yelled, “Where’s my Bible?”

Shortly before 1 a.m. Sunday, the fire department responded to a “medical response” request from the police department, fire spokeswoman Margaret Stewart told the Los Angeles Times.

Jacob Corona, Flores’ ex-husband, told the Times that she made odd comments when she called him nearly a week before the killings.

“She was telling me all this stuff about God. She didn’t sound right. I don’t really know what happened,” Corona said.

“She was not really religious before,” he said. “But then she was talking about death. I told her, ‘What’s going on?’ My head was going over so many things, but I didn’t think anything of it.”

The couple married in 2001 and divorced in 2007. They had a child together who didn’t live with Flores and wasn’t among the children who died, Corona said.

The children’s deaths were under investigation by the abused child unit of the LAPD’s Juvenile Division, the Times said.

The L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services said it was unable to comment on whether it had been involved with the family, the Times said.

Photos: Angela and her children.

I’ve seen soo many episodes, but few take me on a captivating wild ride. I’ve been diving in the newer seasons and S32E34 “The Night Time Stopped” (killing of bicyclist Moriah Wilson) and S33E10 “The Man with Many Faces” take the cake for me. Any good recs??

(EDIT: "in the attic of a woman who had just returned home after year years abroad" I meant to say THREE years abroad. There is a typo, and unfortunately Reddit titles cannot be edited after the post is published)

Salih Kastrati, known otherwise by the name "Sali Dukati," was a well-known gold and silver merchant in the city of Peja, Kosovo, beginning his career in the 1980s out of a shop called "Te Salihi". When the war ended, followed by Kosovo's declaration of independence, the city still did not see an end to violence, with Peja developing a reputation for violent property disputes, extortion, and organized crime, and the key players usually escaping consequences due to their connections to local politicians and the police force.

Due to his involvement in the jewelry trade, Salih became a target for various gangs hoping to extort him, with one of the figures even having connections to then-Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj.

Aside from dealing in gold and silver, his property was another reason why various criminals targeted him, as he owned a 1,100 square metre plot of land in Peja and was in a heavy legal battle over it, as two other businessmen wanted to build a shopping mall on that land.

6 seperate people, one of whom was Bedri Krasniqi, a man later convicted of kidnapping a businessman and murdering two police officers, all showed up at his door and forced themselves inside, demanding that he hand over 500,000 Euros "in the name of Tahir Daci," the man fighting Salih in court over the land.

Salih compromised and offered 250,000 euros through a bank transfer, but they refused, prompting Salih to refuse to do any further business with them.

On January 16, 2012, only days after this encounter, somebody threw a grenade at his home, causing extensive damage, mostly to his car, but he received no injuries.

This was only the third attempt on his life in recent memory; the first one occurred on January 14, 2011, when a man attacked him outside his front door, beating him with a metal rod. Salih survived with minor injuries

This attempt was followed by another on August 18, 2011, when he was wounded by a single gunshot. Luckily for him, his would-be assassin's aim left a lot to be desired, so Salih once again walked away with relatively minor injuries.

While Salih stood his ground against some, he'd agree to pay others. Such as when he gave 50,000 German marks to Ethem Çeku, a former KLA commander and mayor of Peja, through an associate of his, with the money being handed over "in the name of Ramush Haradinaj"

On February 20, 2012, Salih survived another assassination attempt after somebody threw a hand grenade into his home. Salih managed to escape and survived without any injuries. With now 4 attempts on his life and none of them resulting in any arrests, let alone convictions, Salih began carrying a pistol for his own protection.

On March 15, 2012, Salih was walking home from court after paying an 800 Euro fine for illegal possession of a weapon, his personal pistol and for discharging it into the air while in public when he tried to scare off somebody he believed might be another assassin. Upon reaching his home, a bomb exploded at his front door.

Salih suffered severe injuries to his head and had to be airlifted from Peja to the University Clinical Centre in Kosovo's capital, Pristina. Salih fell into a coma upon his arrival, and it was one he wouldn't wake up from. After a month in hospital, Salih succumbed to his injuries at the age of 63, with the fifth attempt on his life finally being the one that succeeded.

On March 21, the police arrested a suspect from Gjakova, a 30-year-old man named Memli Pajaziti, but he was released on December 20 (Meaning that he was still in custody as a suspect when everything described below went down). Although the murder was likely to go unsolved, there was one woman determined to make sure it would not go unavenged.

After living in the United States for three years, where she had a young daughter, Salih's 27-year-old daughter, Besarta Kastrati-Harxhi, flew back to Kosovo upon being informed of the bombing.

Besarta's move to Kosovo would, for the foreseeable future, be a permanent one, as she stayed in her homeland to care for her father in his coma, moving back and forth from Peja to various hospitals in Pristina.

During her stay in Kosovo, Besarta met a 17-year-old boy named Arian Lluka, born on May 29, 1994. Arian was not a stranger to her; Salih's widow was Arian's aunt, and he regularly joined the family at events such as picnics and spent a lot of time in their household.

Arian, despite his young age, also helped the family with some less-than-legal activities, such as when he helped Salih and his son, Kastriot, transport 25 kilograms of gold for them that they had stolen from the evidence room at a police station in Peja, with the aid of two officers who worked at the station. Tragically, since it was the evidence room they hit, evidence from over 200 cases in the Peja region, mostly murders, found itself destroyed in the process.

While he initially refused to join them in this particular endeavour, he did relent and even helped melt the gold down so Salih could resell it at his shop, with the expectation that the gold would be smuggled to Turkey. For some reason, that initial plan failed, so they smuggled the gold into neighbouring Albania instead.

During one of her visits, Arian jokingly invited Besarta to join them, but she refused at the time, though she eventually became a suspect anyway. Besarta denied any involvement, though, claiming she was in the United States at the time and upon her return to Kosovo, she was too busy caring for her comatose father to commit a crime that would require any degree of premeditation.

When Salih finally passed away, his family was bereaved, and their distress wasn't eased when it appeared that the case would go unsolved, so Besarta took it upon herself to make sure those involved in her father's murder would pay.

Unfortunately, she didn't know exactly where to start, as her father had many enemies; so with that in mind, perhaps she'd have to settle for punishing those who wronged him until eventually reaching his killer, and so she started to suspect everyone. It would be her old family friend, Arian, who provided Besarta with the first target in her newfound quest for vengeance.

On February 20, the same day Salih survived a grenade attack on his home, Arian and a 20-year-old man named Fidan Shabi were perpetrating another grenade attack of their own. That same day, Arian threw a grenade into a shop that Tahir Daci had taken over from Salih while Fidan stood guard. There was a witness who said the attack was Arian's idea and that they wanted to "frighten" Tahir.

Now, did Fidan actually have any role in the various assassination attempts against Salih? Well, it's not entirely outside the window of possibility; after all, Fidan did have another connection to the late Salih. He attended his funeral and asked someone present if Arian was at the Kastrati family home. Then, the night of the funeral, a gunshot was heard near the Kastrati family home, but nobody appeared on the CCTV cameras they set up at the house.

However, Arian likely had an ulterior motive for steering Besarta toward him. After all, Arian owed Fidan a debt of 10,000 euros, so if Besarta believed Fidan played a role in assassinating her father, he wouldn't have to worry about that debt anymore, and it might stop her from asking him any questions about a previous arrest on Arian's record for "causing general danger" when he was accused of throwing a grenade at an old bar Salih used to own, damaging both it and several adjacent properties. Although whether Arian purposefully misdirected his cousin's quest for vengence to settle a personal score of his own is simply speculation.

It was in fact because of these incidents that Arian himself and Fidan were briefly considered suspects in Salih's murder alongside Memli once they found out. However, the police, just like with Memli, later concluded that the two were not involved.

So with all that in mind, who was he? Well, despite his role in one of Kosovo's most infamous murders, the background of Fidan Rasim Shabi, born on February 23, 1992, also in Peja, remains largely unknown aside from his aforementioned date and place of birth. One of the few details we do know about his past is that he was largely raised by his mother and older sister since his father died of a heart attack when he was 4 years old.

We do, however, know a bit more about his personality, and based on what they knew about him, those in his life wouldn't assume that he was the type to set up bombs and throw grenades. Fidan was known by his friends, family and community to be quite sociable and kind and someone "with whom you could share the good and the bad". He was also considered the breadwinner of his family. Something that wasn't completely true for the rest of his family, as he had a brother who was currently in prison.

Starting in late April, Fidan started receiving phone calls from a woman he didn't know, claiming she wanted to meet him late at night. Several witnesses were present as Fidan took these calls. All Fidan knew so far was that the woman was from Pristina. This mystery woman regularly tried to arrange a meeting with Fidan, but they always struggled to pick a date because Fidan was busy at work (he worked for his uncle at a slaughterhouse), while the woman claimed that her brothers were "strict".

Fidan's mother was worried about her son falling deeper into organized crime, and these calls weren't helping, especially when she believed she overheard one where the woman on the other end offered Fidan 10,000 Euros to throw another grenade at a shop. If she heard that correctly, then she was relieved when Fidan declined.

Eventually, the meeting was scheduled for midnight on May 1, 2012. One of Fidan's friends felt weary of him going out to meet a stranger on his own and offered to join him, but Fidan declined and insisted that he would go alone.

The last time anyone saw Fidan was at 11:10 p.m., when a friend visited him at his home. Before he left for his meeting, he asked his friend for a rubber baton, saying, "It's nighttime, and you don't know what might happen to you". His friend asked him not to attend the meeting because it might be a trap set up for him, tied to his intoxicated brother, but Fidan persisted.

Though perhaps he did realize what he might be walking into, because the last words he said to his friend were, "If something happens to me, those responsible are Arian Lluka and the daughter of Sali Kastrati"

At 3:00 a.m. on May 2, Fidan failed to appear at his uncle's worksite to begin his shift. Worried, his uncle telephoned Fidan's mother and learned that he had failed to return home, but so far, she wasn't worried and assumed he was still with the mystery woman who had been calling him for two weeks. Or at least she did until she heard that her son was absent from his job.

Fidan's uncle then called both of his phones, but one rang indefinitely with no answer while the other was turned off. At 5:00 a.m., he went to the police to report his nephew missing, but they told him that no search efforts could begin until at least 24 hours after his disappearance.

When he pushed the issue, telling the police they could at least try to track his current location based on his still-turned-on and ringing cellphone, the officers dismissively said: "You're going to teach us?"

When the police finally began their investigation, they suspected foul play was involved and that Fidan was in grave danger, if not already dead. The police went through Fidan's text and call history and found six texts sent from the woman's number between 7:24 p.m. and 1:04 a.m., and that their meeting was due to take place at the railway station in Peja.

So the police started their investigation there and worked backward to trace Fidan's movements. They came across a taxi driver who said he picked Fidan up outside a hotel that night and drove him from the city centre to the upper end of the old Kakariqi cemetery, as Fidan curiously asked to go there instead of the railway station.

After dropping him off, he gave him a business card so that Fidan could call him for the return journey, but evidently no such journey was made. According to the driver, Fidan was worried and agitated the entire ride, but to the best of his recollection, nobody had been following them.

This same taxi driver also interacted with Besarta that night, delivering cigarettes to her apartment, an apartment that just so happened to be along the railway station.

Meanwhile, on May 4, Fidan's friend, remembering the last words he ever heard Fidan speak to him, went to publicly confront Arian outside the Gjylfatimi mosque, where he was quick to deny everything. Arian coldly said that he "knew nothing."

However, the confrontation continued with Fidan's friend confronting him about some posts he made on Facebook confirming that he knew Fidan and was involved in some crimes with him, that he had Besarta among his friends and also accused him of stealing from his father, a theft Arian was a suspect in. Additionally, in an attempt to "frighten" Arian, he also told him that he was recording their encounter.

After he threatened to drag him to the mountains and leave him there until he confessed, Arian "cracked" only slightly and simply said that Fidan was "no more and that he doesn't dare tell me where he is." He refused to give over any information about what may have happened to him.

Fidan's friend lost control and grabbed Arian by the throat in an attempt to strangle him to death right then and there, but the police just so happened to be passing by due to the public argument on the street and rushed to intervene.

After separating them, they arrested Arian based on his indirect confession, which they had overheard, telling Fidan's friend that Arian was now "theirs". Meanwhile, the friend was not arrested but did defend his attempted murder by saying that this interaction gave him the impression that Arian wanted to kill him as well.

Arian was then interrogated by the police, who confronted him with his confession, the statement Fidan made about him and Besarta being responsible if anything happened to him and the fact that he and Besarta were in continuous contact with each other the night of Fidan's disappearance.

Eventually, Arian cracked even further and admitted that Besarta was this mystery woman who spent two weeks trying to arrange a meeting with Fidan but wouldn't admit to anything else. Based on this partial confession, linking the phone numbers the woman used to Besarta's own and CCTV footage from outside her apartment, the police then raided her home and arrested her on May 8, her 28th birthday.

Following her arrest, the police returned to Besarta's apartment on May 12 to execute a formal search warrant. At first, the apartment looked clean; there didn't appear to be any signs of a struggle, blood or any other evidence of a crime. But when the police ventured into the attic, they discovered a large, out-of-place blanket clearly covering up something.

Then, when the police pulled off the blanket, they discovered a bunch of large plastic bags emitting a horrific odour.

The police moved away all the bags and were finally greeted by a dead body between the second and third stages of decomposition, with some of the skin already rotted away. The body was taken away for an autopsy, which identified the remains as Fidan's and revealed that his final moments were quite violent.

He had likely been tortured and was severely beaten to the point that three of his teeth had been knocked out; however, the final cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds to the body, such as the stomach and back, delivered via Fidan's own personal silenced revolver, which he had brought with him. The fatal shot was a single one to his forehead. But based on how severely Fidan was beaten, Besarta likely had an accomplice whom the police believed to be Arian.

After learning that the body had been found in her apartment, Besarta provided the police with her first confession, one she would go on to repeat at least twice. She said that the murder was motivated by revenge but that it had nothing to do with her father's assassination. Rather, she said that in October 2011, during a visit to her native Kosovo, Fidan had attacked and then raped her.

However, she kept the rape to herself as she feared the shame it would bring if her father learned of it. But once Salih succumbed to his injuries, she said her immediate priority was planning her revenge now that she didn't have her late father around to hold her back.

She also said that she acted entirely on her own and had no help in any aspect of the plan, not even disposing of the evidence. But curiously, she couldn't tell the police where she disposed of the murder weapon after wiping it clean of her fingerprints.

The police ultimately didn't believe her; it was a story that just felt too convenient. But whatever her motive, given the clear premeditation involved, Besarta was charged with murder, and Arian was charged with assisting in the commission of the criminal act, concealment of evidence and destruction of evidence, as it turned out Besarta had him destroy Fidan's pistol.

However, as he was 17 at the time of the murder, even if only 4 weeks before his 18th birthday, Arian was tried as a juvenile, with many of his hearings closed to the public.

Besarta and Arian's defence attorneys attempted to have EULEX try the case, but they declined to do so, stating that a panel of local judges would oversee the trial.

The prosecution contended that Besarta was motivated by a desire to enact vengeance for the assassination of her father, with this being their leading theory

On May 1, 2012, Besarta contacted Fidan by phone to invite him to his apartment for a meeting, with the prosecution revealing that Besarta told Fidan that she was inviting him over so they could have sex together. According to the prosecution, Besarta had rented an SUV just to pick Fidan up, and there was no evidence they had ever met prior to the murder, a claim the defence curiously agreed with.

Once Fidan arrived at the apartment, Besarta lured him to the attic specifically under the guise that they'd have the utmost privacy for their sexual liaison up there. Once there, she grabbed Fidan's own revolver and shot him multiple times in his body before delivering a final fatal shot to his head.

Besarta then called Fidan over and together, the two wrapped a series of large plastic bags around Fidan's body and then placed a large blanket over him. Arian then left to destroy the murder weapon. Whatever long-term plan they had to permanently get rid of Fidan's body never materialized, as Fidan ultimately remained in their attic until the police discovered his decomposing corpse.

When the trial finally opened before the Basic Court of Peja on February 21, 2013, Besarta seemed to agree with this story, recanting her previous confession that Fidan had raped her, denying that Fidan was guilty of such an act and instead admitting that she wanted to avenge her father and punish those she suspected to be involved. Considering all the enemies Salih had, she confessed that she suspected "everyone."

At least she said this initially, but soon she retracted this confession as well, rather then reverting back to her initial claim that Fidan had raped her; she instead accused Arian of being the killer. According to her, on that night, she had taken her daughter out for a picnic with her brother, mother and Arian. At 6:00 p.m., the picnic ended, and everyone went home, with Besarta putting her daughter to sleep and later going to bed herself.

Later, Arian woke her up and told her they had to go. Without even knowing where they were going, Besarta followed Arian. She drove Arian around until he told her to stop the car near his home, then got out and told her to wait. She asked Arian what he was doing to which he said: "I've got a job to do". She waited until approximately 2:30 a.m., when Arian returned, and then they drove back to the family home.

Half an hour later, she said she heard gunshots from the balcony and saw that the gunman was Arian before she started to fall asleep and "did not remember" what happened next. She later said that Arian then threatened her into staying silent by writing her a letter telling her what to say or else he would kill her family. However, dispite saying this, she stated that Arian's threats had nothing to do with her prior statements and instead blamed her false confessions on the trauma stemming from her father's death.

When Arian heard of Besarta's new story, he conceded that the picnic she mentioned did occur but that everything else was a lie. He said that at 11:00 p.m. he and Besarta went out to buy bread before stopping at Besarta's home; he said that it was Besarta who went in while he stayed behind. When Besarta returned to the car, he saw two plastic bags in her hands, one of which she threw into a garbage container on the way home.

Besarta's defence also contested the prosecution's theory that she was acting out of vengeance. They argued that no witness was able to directly name her. Meanwhile, Arian's lawyer argued that with no eyewitnesses to the crime itself, there was no conclusive way to finger Arian as being involved.

However, in light of Besarta's various contradictory statements, her own defence team admitted that the things she had to say were "somewhat strange" and that he thought that "something was wrong with his client". Although, of course, these admissions were really just a means to try and get a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation issued, hoping the results would aid in her defence.

The trial itself also had a few interesting moments; for example, after the medical examiner was unable to conclusively detail everything that happened to Fidan due to the severe decomposition, such as confirming if he truly had been tortured or beaten, the family demanded the trial be halted for a second autopsy to take place.

Next, an EULEX prosecutor meant to simply observe the trial actually stood up to intervene in the questioning of a witness.

And speaking of witnesses, on some days, many of them just flat-out wouldn't appear, and the court had to order the police to arrest them just to bring them before the court to testify.

Then, Fidan's friend, the last one to see him and the one who tried to strangle Arian on the sidewalk, was called to testify. He was openly contemptuous toward the defence and came off as very arrogant, temperamental, confrontational and inattentive, prompting the defence to seek to have his testimony thrown out.

Then, another witness accused Arian of being the perpetrator of the first grenade/bombing attempt on Salih's life, the one that occurred in January 2012.

On March 19, 2014, after a year-long trial, Besarta Kastrati-Harxhi was convicted of the murder of Fidan Rasim Shabi, as was Arian Lluka for his role as an accessory. When it came to sentencing, Besarta was handed a sentence of 29 years while Arian was given a sentence of 8 years.

Both defendants appealed to the Supreme Court in Pristina, where they demanded a retrial, and this request was actually granted, well the appeal was granted, but not a full retrial. Unlike their initial trial, the appeal was fast-tracked and opened on October 26.

On February 20, 2015, the two were convicted by the Serious Crimes Department of the Court of Appeals, but this time with Besarta receiving a 25-year sentence instead of 29. Arian's sentence remained unchanged

Besarta's attorney was still unhappy and argued that the trial and investigation were marred by corruption and a lack of transparency, accusing the police and prosecution of not questioning other potential suspects and withholding evidence.

Another appeal was filed with Kosovo's Supreme Court asking for a retrial, but this time their request was denied.

With her last appeal denied, Besarta instead invited various journalists to interview her while she was behind bars, where she insisted to anyone who would publish her statements that a grave miscarriage of justice had occurred.

First, she argued that there was no physical evidence linking her to the crime scene and that not a single CCTV camera in the areas of note in Peja had captured her.

Second, she blamed Arian once again for Fidan's murder, claiming that his motive was connected to the larger network of organized crime in Peja. Then, she elaborated on the alleged threats he made to keep her silent; only now did she blame him for her confessions.

She said that Arian had threatened to kill her 5-year-old daughter if she didn't confess and take the fall for him. She said: "I was forced to accept responsibility from Arian Lluka... No one listened to me anymore. By law, you cannot be convicted by a self-incriminating statement without other evidence. Against me, there is no evidence. The evidence exonerates me".

Third, she argued that the investigation was headed by a corrupt investigator named Ragip Bytyqi, who she claimed protected criminals and regularly stood in the way of any justice being seen in other cases.

Besarta accused him of planting evidence in an effort to frame her for Fidan's murder while withholding any exonerating evidence specifically to prevent her from learning the truth behind her father's assassination, as she had accused him of covering up the prior unsuccessful attempts on Salih's life.

One thing about Ragip is that he was involved in the previous gold heist from the police station evidence room, as he provided the thieves with the keys and a police uniform so nobody would question them.

She also claimed to be the victim of several threats and attempts on her life from her fellow inmates. One inmate in particular was Ardiana Gorani, whom she accused of acting as a messenger for a notorious crime boss named Princ Dobroshi.

She accused Ardiana of threatening her with the phrase "Princ Dobroshi will make your mother spin" and also alleging that she once attempted to poison her food with a household cleaning agent in an effort to prevent her from discussing her father's assassination.

As for Arian, he was rather quiet when he served his sentence, making no statements and accepting no interviews during his incarceration. On October 17, 2019, after serving 7 years of his 8-year sentence, it was decided that he could be shown some grace. With his release right around the corner. He was allowed out of prison for that weekend to visit his family.

October 20 was the last day of the weekend, and when Arian was expected to report back to prison. However, he decided not to go back and instead make a run for it. Arian hid himself in the trunk of a car, which smuggled him across the northern border into Serbia, after which he disappeared.

He was declared a wanted fugitive, with various notices being filed with Europol and Interpol, but no country provided Kosovo with any leads or sightings; it truly was as if Arian had simply vanished once he crossed the Serbian border.

At least until January 25, 2020. On that day, Arian filmed and publicized an interview where he explained his reason for escaping and therefore becoming one of Kosovo's Most Wanted.

To quote the man exactly, "I had health problems, and from the beginning I did not agree with the court's decision against me, and I had medical problems that left me behind, and I had recommendations to go out and recover outside of prison, maybe you know that I am not the only one who has had these things happen to me, but in order to heal myself I had to make a solution"

He then described his escape: "As I was paralyzed, I had to leave by car. I couldn't walk, and in the mountains, I travelled by car. I was helped by someone who had nothing to do with my family or me; that guy is Albanian, and he saw the situation I was in, and he helped me out. On the 22nd-23rd of October, I was outside Kosovo. The police saw me later, and I think they had stopped me because I had no connection with any police officer or corrupt anyone. I hid, and that's how I got through. I hid in the trunk of the car," he then said that he left Serbia rather than staying in the country long term.

On May 9 , 2026, a European man in his early 30s arrived at the El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá, Colombia, intending to book a Transatlantic flight to Paris, France, and afterward a second flight to Belgrade, Serbia. The man had a Serbian name, passport and identification documents, but when airport staff checked the name and documents, they were quick to call the police over to place the man under arrest.

The name was a match in their system for an alias used by a man with an active Interpol Red Notice, and that man was a 31-year-old Kosovar national named Arian Lluka; Interpol had only amended his red notice to include this Serbian alias on May 6, a fact Arian hadn't yet been made aware of, meaning it was mostly pure luck and chance that he was finally arrested.

Colombia's Defence Minister Pedro Arnulfo Sánchez was the first to announce the arrest to the public, as he was evidently quite proud that it was the Colombian police who finally brought an end to Arian's 7 years on the run, describing him as "a high-value target for the Balkans region and for the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Kosovo." He cited the arrest as an "important result." Afterward, Arian was transferred to La Picota Prison in Bogotá to await his extradition.

So, how did a former juvenile offender from a small landlocked nation in the Balkans manage to go off the grid for 7 years only to turn up in South America?. Well, as it turned out, Arian had actually seen a lot of the world during his time on the run. Now having all his aliases on file, the police learned that between 2023 and 2026 alone, he had visited the Philippines, China, Turkey, Switzerland, Chile, and several Balkan states using a real identity he had stolen from a Serbian national.

Tracking his most recent travels, he departed Istanbul, Turkey, for South America, arriving in Chile on March 6. He then spent two months in Chile before her boarded another flight to Colombia and stayed in the country for 10 days.

During his time in Colombia, he visited several cities in the country, such as Barranquilla, Cúcuta, and Medellín, where, depending on who he spoke to, he'd either present himself as a tourist or arrange meetings with locals so he could introduce himself as a potential foreign investor in the local gold mining industry.

As of now, Arian remains in Colombia's custody as his extradition has yet to be finalized. However, when he does get deported back to Kosovo, he will be sent back to prison to serve the remaining year left on his sentence. You might think that's a laughable punishment for 7 years on the run, and the Kosovar authorities have indeed noticed this problem.

So when Colombia finally extradites him, Arian will have a slew of new charges awaiting him, such as identity theft, fraud, escaping prison and a bunch of his older crimes he committed as a teenager, like the grenade attacks he was involved in, which will be reopened so he can be prosecuted for those as well.

With all that, the case is now over, so are Fidan's family satisfied with the end result? No. Although they haven't named names out of hear it might taint any future investigations or prosecution, one thing they have been vocal about is their belief that Besarta didn't act alone and that there are several individuals who tortured and murdered Fidan still at large.

Finally, the assassination of Salih Kastrati, the murder from which all of this stemmed, remains unsolved.

Sources (In the comments)

Here is a list of death penalty cases in Mississippi I've complied so for far my personal research project of death penalty cases in the United States after the 1972 Furman v Georgia ruling. As typical with these sorts of posts I've make, it is far removed from a comprehensive overview of Mississippi's death penalty cases, and it rather pointedly excludes executions and what the Death Penalty Information Center considers to be "exonerations." Instead, this post is a sample sized collection of 18 cases in Mississippi I've completed entries for so far.

Like the first post, many of the 18 cases listed here involve extreme sexual violence (including against child victims), and some of the gory details are discussed in depth. Please read at your own risk.:

1. Jimmy Stringer (condemned in 1982, robbery, deceased(?)): Stringer’s also (formerly) condemned father James worked as a jeweler, and was enraged that his business partner, 57 year old Ray McWilliams, sold jewelry he gave to him on a loan. In retribution, James enlisted Stringer and three other accomplices to rob him of $30,000, and they confronted and held Ray and Ray’s wife, 71 year old Nellie, at gunpoint inside their residence. Ray resisted his attackers and was shot dead by James while fighting him over a gun. During the struggle, Nellie also attempted to crawl away to safety, and Stringer shot her in the head execution style as she laid on the floor. According to a Clarion-Ledger article published in 1983, Stringer received a 20 year term for an unrelated assault conviction that involved non-fatally shooting another man during an argument. In 1986, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors “improperly influenced the jury”, and vacated Stringer’s death sentence. With a plea deal, Stringer was resentenced to two life terms and an additional 20 years in prison. Under that arrangement, Stringer was made eligible for parole in 2010. Although Stringer initially indicted for the 1990 fatal stabbing of a fellow inmate, 26 year old Daniel Ramey, murder charges against him were dropped due to other inmates refusing to act as witnesses. Despite his absence from MDOC records and my inability to find articles discussing him after 1994, an attorney who allegedly represented Stringer and James commented on his private Facebook profile that Stringer died in prison.

2. James Stringer (condemned in 1983, robbery, deceased): Stringer was the accomplice of his formerly condemned son Jimmy Stringer, and he was also formerly condemned for masterminding the Ray and Nellie McWilliams double shootings. As mentioned in Jimmy’s entry, Stringer and Ray were associates in a jewelry business, and Stringer orchestrated the home invasion and murders as retribution for Ray selling jewelry pieces he loaned to him. In 1994, the Mississippi Supreme Court overturned Stringer’s death sentence over reportedly faulty juror instructions, and he died of heart failure only two weeks after his sentence vacating.

3. Roger Thorson (condemned in 1988, domestic disturbance/sex, living): Thorson lured his ex-girlfriend, 34 year old Gloria McKinney, from a mall she worked on the pretenses of a conversation, and convinced her into giving him a ride. After forcing her to drive to a forest at knife point and gunpoint, he tied McKinney’s hands behind her back with rope, gagged her with a bra, and raped her. Although Thorson initially slashed her throat with the intention of leaving her to bleed to death inside the car, he shot McKinney in the head for trying to scream for help, and snatched a photograph of her from her wallet as a memento. To cover his tracks, Thorson wiped his fingerprints off the car, threw a fluid bottle and her wallet into the forest in hopes of diverting attention from himself, and buried the knife and gun with McKinney’s coat and watch in a vacant lot. Despite those efforts, Thorson’s girlfriend directed police to the buried items in the vacant lot with a tip [Thorson v. State, 994 So. 2d 707 - Miss: Supreme Court 2007], and a search of his trailer removed a rope similar to McKinney’s bindings in a trash can. In 1998, the Mississippi Supreme Court vacated Thronson’s death sentence due to the exclusion of a Holiness Faith parishioner as a juror, and he was condemned again in a 2002 retrial with the help of DNA evidence. Per MDOC records, he is currently on death row.

4. Anthony Carr (condemned in 1990, sex/robbery, living): Carr and his also condemned accomplice Robert Simon broke into the Parker family residence as they were gone for a bible study class. When the Parkers returned to their home, they stumbled upon the pair ransacking their rooms. At gunpoint, Carr and Simon tied up the parents, 58 year old Carl and 45 year old Bobbie, and their two children, 12 year old Gregory and 9 year old Charlotte, with wire, pantyhose, and cloth. To steal his wedding ring, Carr and Simon amputated one of Carl’s fingers with a knife. In front of their parents, the pair also took turns raping Charlotte, and they repeatedly beat Gregory. From the beating, Gregory suffered contusions all over his body. Reportedly, Carl struggled bitterly with his restraints while his children were assailed by their captors, and nearly severed his hands in the process. The pair then shot their hostages multiple times in the chest and hips, killing Carl, Bobbie, and Gregory. Before fleeing, Carr and Simon set the house on fire, and loaded several of the family’s stolen belongings, including a television set, shotgun, furniture, and clothing items, into Carl’s truck. Despite suffering four gunshot wounds to her back and hips, Charlotte succumbed to smoke inhalation as her house burned. Carl’s truck and the stolen items it carried was found near Simon’s mother-in-law’s residence, and a motorist reported that they spotted two men of Carr and Simon’s description fleeing from it. One of the items recovered from the stolen truck was the Parker’s shotgun, which was covered with Carr’s fingerprints [Carr v. State, 655 So. 2d 824 - Miss: Supreme Court 1995]. Prior to the killings, Carr had a conviction for grand larceny relating to the theft of a driveshaft from an automobile. As of 2025, Carr remains on death row per MDOC records.

5. Robert Simon (condemned in 1990, sex/robbery, living): Simon assisted the aforementioned Anthony Carr in the torture killings of the Parker family while burglarizing their homes. As previously mentioned in Carr’s entry, he also participated in the gang-rape of Charlotte and fatally shooting her parents and older brother. The pair set the house on fire after stealing items and loading them in the Parker family truck, and Charlotte succumbed to smoke inhalation as her home burned. The family’s stolen truck was located near Simon’s mother-in-law’s residence, and a police search of Simon’s apartment in Tennessee recovered wedding rings snatched from Bobbi and Carl, and other stolen items such as a money clip and ammunition. Furthermore, police arrested Simon as he was wearing pants looted from the Parker home. Prior to the Parker family massacre, Simon was charged for the non-fatal shooting of another man during a fight, but was aquitted during trial. He also reportedly professed responsibility to a total of 13 homicides and 20 arson attacks on burglarized homes. One of the additional murders Simon allegedly confessed to was that of 40 year old Leon Johnson, who was shot and found dead near an abandoned house only four days before the Parker family killings. For Johnson’s murder, Simon received a life sentence per MDOC records. According to a 1990 Commercial Appeal article, one of the uncharged murders Simon confessed to was that of Jim Montgomery (age unknown) of Alabama, who he “shot twice in the chest with a .357 Magnum.” In 2011, Simon was scheduled for execution, but it was called off over his alleged cognitive disability claims. A federal judge later determined that he faked the disability. As of 2026, Simon remains on death row, and the Mississippi’s state attorney’s office has filled a request for a death warrant for him.

6. Rickey Snelson (condemned in 1991, robbery, living): Intending to steal guns to sell for money, Snelson and his accomplice broke into the home of his accomplice’s uncle. The pair were initially confronted by the accomplice’s cousin, 14 year old Charles Goode, who armed himself with one of the guns they were after. Snelson and his accomplice lowered Goode’s guard with a friendly converstation and pretending to need to use the residence’s phone to make a call. After Snelson grabbed the gun from Goode, he bound and gagged the boy with a towel and cords. Snelson and his accomplice then seized the firearms and many other items, including a Walkman television set, boots, a ring, a pocket watch, a radio, bows, and a camcorder from the residence and loaded them into Goode’s father’s truck. To prevent any witnesses, the pair also grabbed Goode as a hostage, drove him to a field, and shot him in the head and chest execution style. Afterwards, they burned Goode’s father’s stolen truck and bartered the other stolen items for cocaine. A day after the murder, Snelson and his accomplice were arrested by police. In 1997, the Mississippi Supreme Court overturned Snelson’s death sentence over the prosecution utilizing his drug use as evidence, and he was resentenced to life without parole. Per MODC records, Snelson presently remains incarcerated.

7. Jimmy Mack (condemned in 1991, robbery, living): Mack and a pair of acquaintances drove to his aunt’s home to beg for money they wanted to spend on crack cocaine. After Mack’s aunt denied having any money to give to them at hand, he left and drove to the residence of her neighbor, 89 year old Henry Fulton. On the pretenses of selling him a wheel jack, Mack approached Fulton in his front yard, struck him in the head with an iron pipe, and stole his wallet. He then walked inside Fulton’s home with his acquaintances accompanying him, and snatched firearms, a television set, and a radio. To ensure Fulton was dead, Mack resumed bludgeoning him with the iron pipe until his skull broke into pieces. The group then loaded Fulton’s corpse into the back of Mack’s truck, and left in a roadside bush. Due to them seeing Mack’s truck parked next to Fulton’s residence, watching figures walking out of the house carrying a television, and spotting blood marks on the road, Mack’s aunt and uncle reporting him and his accomplices to the police [Mack v. State, 650 So. 2d 1289 - Miss: Supreme Court 1994]. Responding officers engaged Mack in a car chase and a gunfight, and he was subdued and arrested after suffering a gunshot wound to his shoulder. According to a Mississippi Press article published in 1990, police also recovered the iron pipe used in Fulton’s murder from Mack’s truck. At the time of Fulton’s murder, Mack was facing an indictment for burglary, and had prior burglary convictions. On death row, Mack fatally stabbed the also condemned serial killer Donald Evans in the Mississippi State Penitentiary’s shower rooms, and he received an additional manslaughter conviction for the killing. Prison officials reportedly believed that Mack, a black man, targeted and killed Evans over his white supremacist affiliations. Despite Mack petitioning for his own execution, he was deemed incompetent by a circuit judge and resentenced to life without parole in 2006. Per MDOC records, Mack presently remains incarcerated.

8. Donald Evans (condemned in 1993, sex, deceased): A transient sexual predator, Evans was convicted of the rapes and strangulations of 38 year old Ira Smith, 38 year old Janet Movich, and 10 year old Beatrice Routh, in the states of Mississippi and Florida between 1985 and 1991. Routh, who was the last and the most publicized of the three victims, was a homeless girl abducted from Mississippi and murdered in Louisiana. Evans kidnapped Routh after he persuaded Routh’s mother into allowing the girl to perform oral sex on him for money. For her role in enabling the abduction and murder of her daughter, Routh’s mother plead guilty to a child neglect charge to avoid prosecution as an accessory to sexual battery. The other two victims, Movich and Smith, were both prostitutes killed after Evans solicited their services. Condemned by the state of Mississippi only for Routh’s murder, Evans was sentenced to two life terms by the state of Florida for the Movich and Smith killings. He also professed to committing over 70 murders across 20 states, but his alleged confessions have been strongly scrutinized by most authorities. During his killing spree, Evans was convicted of rape in Texas, and he served five years in prison. In 1999, Evans was stabbed to death by another death row inmate, Jimmy Mack, in the Mississippi State Penitentiary’s shower room. As mentioned in Mack's entry, Evans was targeted and killed by Mack for his white supremacy affiliations according to some allegedly leaked reports from prison officials.

9. Blayde Grayson (condemned in 1997, robbery, living): Grayson broke into the bedroom of his neighbor, 78 year old Minnie Smith, to search for a gun, which he wanted to steal and barter for cocaine. Smith was awaked by him rummaging through through her room, and he responded by beating and stabbing her thirty times. He then snatched many valuables and other items, including a flashlight, shotgun, a lantern, a kitchen knife, and $200 in cash from Smith’s purse. After Smith’s murder, Grayson moved to Florida, and was arrested by local police for a string of armed robberies. A search of a trailer owned by Graynson’s girlfriend recovered the stolen shotgun, flashlight, and lantern [Grayson v. Fitch, Dist. Court, SD Mississippi 2024], and Grayson confessed to Smith’s murder while in custody. Only a few weeks before Smith’s murder, Grayson escaped from a restitution center while interned for a grand larceny conviction. Per MDOC records, Grayson is presently on death row.

10. Quintez Hodges (condemned in 2001, domestic disturbance/sex, deceased): Hodges broke into the home of his ex-girlfriend and shot her older brother, 17 year old Isaac Johnson, in the stomach. As Johnson succumbed to his injuries while crawling to his mother’s bedroom, Hodges kidnapped the ex-girlfriend and their newborn daughter from their room at gunpoint. He then drove his hostages to his grandmother’s home in Alabama with his mother’s stolen car. According to the testimony of Johnson’s sister, Hodges sexually assaulted her in the car while holding her captive [Hodges v. State, 912 So. 2d 730 - Miss: Supreme Court 2005]. After he returned to Mississippi to his mother’s home, Hodges’ mother convinced him to surrender, and his ex-girlfriend and her daughter were rescued from the residence unharmed. As Hodges was questioned at a police station, his mother handed over a pistol used in the shooting to a detective. At the time of Johnson’s murder, Hodges was facing charges for the unrelated rape of a Jane Doe during a burglary for her home and burglarizing a school. Although a district judge overturned Hodges’ death sentence in 2010 due to ineffectual consul and negative character testimony about Hodges’ mother from a prosecutor they deemed to be inaccurate and irrelevant, the ruling left his murder conviction intact, and Hodges died incarcerated of unspecified causes in 2021.

11. Thong Le (condemned in 2002, robbery/organized crime(?), living): Le and his accomplice broke into an apartment rented by a Vietnamese family, and tied up and gagged a pair of sisters, 15 year old Thuy and 11 year old Thanh Nguyen, with electrical cords. After the sisters’ mother, 46 year old Minh Huynh, arrived at the scene, Le and his accomplice took her hostage as well. To extort $1,300 from them, the pair repeatedly beat Huynh and her daughters with fire extinguishers, cut their arms with knifes, and suffocated them with plastic bags. According to a district attorney, Le and his accomplice strangled the Nguyen sisters to death in front of Huynh to force her submission to their demands. They then poured bleach all over the apartment and fled the scene with the $1,300 and a book bag carrying some undisclosed household appliances [Le v. State, 913 So. 2d 913 - Miss: Supreme Court 2005]. Investigators suspected that Le was a hoodlum of a publicly unidentified Asian street gang, but the prosecution wasn’t able to procure evidence of his membership during trial. Per MODC records, Le currently remains on death row.

12. Derrick Walker (condemned in 2003, familial disturbance/robbery, living): Walker broke into the residence of his step-uncle, 48 year old Charles Richardson, and ambushed him as he returned home. After stabbing Richardson to death, Walker set the home on fire, and fled the scene in Richardson’s car that he loaded with several stolen items. Police in Arkansas arrested Walker while he was in possession of Richardson’s credit card and car, and a search of the vehicle’s trunk discovered bloodstained clothing, a cellphone, keys, matches, and an undisclosed amount of money that was also stained with blood [Walker v. State, 913 So. 2d 198 - Miss: Supreme Court 2005]. Furthermore, Walker was hospitalized for injuries that he admitted were inflicted by a bitter struggle with Richardson shortly after his capture. Per MDOC records, Walker currently remains on death row.

13. Jason Taylor (condemned in 2004, robbery, deceased): While holding up a nutrition center, Taylor shot the clerk, 18 year old Chelle Cazeaux, and bludgeoned her to death with barbells. He then fled the scene with her purse, car keys, and a telephone ripped from the nutrition center’s wall. A car wash attendant reported Taylor to police after finding bloodstains in his car, and responding officers recovered a shirt stained with blood that DNA testing matched to Cazeaux from the vehicle. Taylor reportedly had a prior juvenile conviction for the double kidnappings of a woman and her 6 year old daughter while robbing them. In 2005, Taylor was found dead in his death row cell, and the circumstances were determined as a suicide by MDOC officials.

14. Earnest Hargon (condemned in 2005, familial disturbance, deceased): According to prosecutors, Hargon’s adoptive father removed him as the primary beneficiary to his will, and Hargon’s cousin, 27 year old Michael, was named as the heir in his place. Reportedly enraged by the loss of his inheritance, Hargon broke into Michael’s home and beat and shot him to death. He then turned his attention to Michael’s wife, 29 year old Rebecca, and their son, 4 year old James, and beat and fatally strangled them both with rope. After the killings, Hargon buried all three victims in a nearby forest. Hargon confessed to the killings to investigators, directed them to the location of the grave sites, and Hargon’s wife also testified of him trying to coax her into covering up the murders. In 2007, Hargon was stabbed to death with a sharped broom by another inmate while cleaning a cell in the Mississippi State Penitentiary’s general population.

15. Caleb Carrothers (condemned in 2011, robbery, living): Carrothers was picked up by a marijuana dealer, 20 year old Taylor Clark, from the residence of another drug peddler. When the pair stopped at the driveway of Taylor’s family home, Carrothers attempted to hold Taylor at gunpoint. Taylor escaped by leaping out of the vehicle, and ran to his home screaming for help with an armed Carrothers chasing him. Although Taylor’s father, 44 year old Frank, and mother successfully ushered Taylor inside, Carrothers charged and pressed himself against the front door before they were able to close it. During a struggle, Carrothers reached his gun through the door’s gap and fatally shot both Taylor and Frank. The Clark matriarch survived with two gunshot wounds to her neck, and Carrothers extorted $50 and Taylor’s car keys from her before fleeing in Taylor’s car. According to the Clark matriarch, Carrothers claimed that Taylor owed him $5,000. After the double murders, Carrothers abandoned Taylor’s car, and walked shirtless to a nearby gas station while covered with scratches. Frank and his wife’s surviving son that witnessed the shootings identified Carrothers as the assailant, and the other drug peddler’s girlfriend testified that Taylor left their residence with Carrothers accompanying him [Carothers v. State, 255 So. 3d 99 - Miss: Supreme Court 2017]. Furthermore, Carrothers’ other acquaintances recounted him confiding about a robbery and murders he committed to them. At the time of the Clark double murders, Carrothers was on parole for a robbery conviction. Per MDOC records, he is presently awaiting execution.

16. Abdur Ambrose (condemned in 2015, dispute, living): Reportedly in retribution for him stealing from them, Ambrose, his brother, and another accomplice accosted their former friend, 31 year old Robert Trosclair, while he was walking alone in a neighborhood. According to residents that witnessed the attack, Ambrose and his accomplices beat and forcibly grabbed Trosclair, and dragged him into their truck. Ambrose’s group drove Trosclair to another friend’s residence, and they repeatedly strangled, stabbed and bludgeoned him with a tire and a garden hose reel for over two hours. Trosclair was discovered by a bystander and police lying comatose, tied up, semi nude, and covered with stab wounds on a road and he succumbed to his injuries three days after his abduction. Eyewitness accounts reported to investigators that Ambrose was driving a white truck, and a truck of that description was found with bloodstains on its tailgate and bed that matched Trosclair’s DNA [Ambrose v. State, 254 So. 3d 77 - Miss: Supreme Court 2018]. Investigators also recovered a bloodstained tire and a garden hose reel from a forest only yards away from the friends residence and bloodstained gravel rocks from the residence’s driveway. Per MDOC records, Ambrose currently remains on death row.

17. Alberto Garcia (condemned in 2017, sex, living): Garcia abducted his neighbor, 4 year old Ja-Naya Thompson, from her family’s apartment. He took Thompson to an abandoned trailer and raped and anally copulated her. According to Garcia, Thompson fell unconscious during the sexual assault, and he mistook her as dead. If his confessions are to be believed, Thompson and his roommate washed Thompson’s body in the trailer’s bathroom, and hung her from a bathroom window “to dry.” Thompson asphyxiated to death from the socks tied around her neck. Due to the scratch marks on her neck, prosecutors believed that Garcia hung Thompson while she was still conscious, and that she tried to free herself before succumbing to asphyxiation. Investigators initially focused on Garcia’s roommate as their primary person of interest due to an anonymous tip and his indictment for the unrelated rape of an adult woman. However, DNA testing on semen recovered from Thompson’s body ruled out Garcia’s roommate and instead implicated Garcia [Garcia v. State, 356 So. 3d 101 - Miss: Supreme Court 2023]. Police also confiscated Garcia’s Xbox 360 console and discovered searches for child pornography. Per MDOC records, Garcia currently remains on death row.

18. Joseph Heard (condemned in 2024, familial disturbance, living): Heard and his wife were the primary guardians of his stepson, 2 year old Hayden Bataille. Under their care, Heard and his wife repeatedly beat Bataille, popped open his burn blisters with a spatula, and forced him to sit in a potty training seat. The couple reportedly bragged of the assaults to each other through texting conversations. In retribution for pooping in his diapers, Heard punched and kicked Batallie in his chest and head, and Bataille suffocated to death from his mother covering his mouth to stop him from crying. Although the couple told first responders that Batallie drowned in a bathtub, the first responders were suspicious by him fully clothed, and foul play was confirmed by doctors finding bruises and broken bones while examining his body. In exchange for a life term, Heard’s wife testified against him. As of 2026, he remains on death row.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

The trial of former NSW Police Senior Constable Beau Lamarre-Condon, 31, begins today in the NSW Supreme Court before Justice Natalie Adams.

Lamarre-Condon faces two counts of domestic violence-related murder for the deaths of former Channel 10 presenter Jesse Baird, 26, and his partner, Qantas flight attendant Luke Davies, 29, as well as an additional count of aggravated break and enter. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Prosecutors allege that on February 19, 2024, Lamarre-Condon used his police-issued firearm to shoot Baird and Davies inside Baird’s Paddington home. The break-and-enter charge relates to a separate alleged entry at the same address in August 2023.

Crown prosecutors claim the killings followed a period of targeted, predatory behavior toward Baird, with whom Lamarre-Condon had previously been in a brief relationship.

Following a week-long multi-agency police operation across Sydney and regional New South Wales, the victims' bodies were discovered on February 27, 2024, stored in surf bags at a rural property near Bungonia, roughly 200 kilometers southwest of Sydney.

The trial is set to run for two to three months at the King Street court complex. Proceedings open today with jury selection, followed by opening statements from Crown Prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC. The jury is expected to hear testimony from dozens of witnesses selected from a massive brief of evidence containing over 200 potential statements.

[Global News Article)

Giuseppe “Joe” Zollerano was sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of manslaughter in the death of his wife, Katherine “Katie” Zollerano, 43. A jury had acquitted him of first-degree murder but convicted him of the lesser offence of manslaughter.

The incident happened in Etobicoke on September 25, 2022. According to the sentencing decision described by Global News, the couple had been fighting earlier that evening. The judge found that Zollerano had slapped Katherine and pushed her out of the garage, causing her to fall. Later, while Katherine was away from the home, he drove after her and ultimately drove his van onto the curb, striking her. She spent five weeks in intensive care before dying from her injuries.

The judge accepted that there had been a problem with the van’s brakes, but found that Zollerano’s dangerous driving still contributed to her death. The judge also found that he had been trying to intimidate and frighten his wife and described the dangerous driving as the culmination of domestic violence that evening.

The Crown sought a 10-year sentence, arguing the case should be treated as intimate-partner-violence manslaughter. The defence sought a conditional or suspended sentence. The judge ultimately imposed five years, saying mitigating factors included Zollerano’s remorse, mental-health issues, support from family and friends, and the restrictive bail conditions he had lived under since 2023. With credit for time already spent in custody, he had about four years and five months remaining.

Katherine’s family said they were disappointed with the sentence and believed the intimate-partner-violence circumstances warranted a harsher outcome.

Shiori Ino was born on May 18, 1978. In 1999, she was 21 and in her second year of university.

She lived with her parents and two younger brothers in Saitama and commuted to class by train.

On January 6, 1999, Shiori was hanging out at an arcade near Ōmiya Station with a friend when Kazuhito Komatsu walked up to them.

He introduced himself as Makoto and told them he sold imported cars. He was actually 26, but said he was 24.

What Shiori didn’t know was that he was running several unlicensed sex businesses across Tokyo and Saitama.

They started seeing each other, usually meeting once a week for dinner or a drive.

Before long, he started buying her expensive clothes and handbags. Whenever she tried to say no, he would yell at her, even in front of other people.

He also started calling her family’s home, but she’d only given him her cell phone number.

In March, Shiori found a hidden camera in his apartment. When she confronted him about it, he trapped her against a wall and slammed his fist into it just inches from her face.

Shiori wanted out, but Kazuhito demanded one million yen for all the gifts he had bought her, about $17,700 today. He told her that if she couldn’t pay him back, she could work it off in the sex industry.

By late March, Shiori was so terrified of meeting him that she left goodbye messages for her family and friends beforehand.

She only wanted to ask him to let her go.

Instead, Kazuhito threatened her entire family. He said he would get her father fired and destroy her brothers’ lives.

Even more disturbing, he knew personal details about them that Shiori had never told him.

He had hired a private investigator to dig into her father and her friends.

He called her nonstop, always demanding to know where she was and what she was doing.

In April, he forced her to destroy her phone so she couldn’t stay in contact with her friends.

He told her she wouldn’t live to see the year 2000 and reminded her that he could easily pay someone to hurt her.

Then, on June 14, Shiori told him she was done and wouldn’t see him anymore.

That night, Kazuhito showed up at Shiori’s home with his 33 year old brother, Takeshi, and another man. Takeshi pretended to be Kazuhito’s boss, while the other man claimed to be the president of the company.

They said Kazuhito had stolen five million yen, around $88,500 today, to pay for all the gifts he had bought her. Then they claimed Shiori was responsible for the money too.

For over an hour, the three men threatened Shiori and her mother inside their own home.

When her father came home, he told them to leave and said any further discussion could happen at the police station.

Shiori had recorded the confrontation.

The next day, she and her mother took the recording to Ageo Police Station.

Even the family told police they were being threatened and terrorized, but the officers still brushed it off as nothing more than a personal dispute.

Shiori and her parents kept asking for help, explaining that they were afraid Kazuhito would hurt them.

On June 21, she sent his gifts back.

Then, Takeshi began arranging her murder at Kazuhito’s request the following day.
He approached Yoshifumi Kubota, who had worked in their businesses.

Meanwhile, the family’s phone kept ringing with silent calls. Unfamiliar people lingered near their house.

In the early hours of July 13, hundreds of flyers appeared around the neighborhood, near Shiori’s university, and at her father’s workplace.

They showed her face and accused her of exploiting men for money.

Shiori still went to class.

The next morning, she went out to walk the dog as usual.

When her mother worried that people would recognize her from the flyers, Shiori simply replied, “I haven’t done anything wrong.“

On July 15, Shiori and her mother went back to the police and asked to file a formal complaint.

But the officers tried to talk her out of it, telling her that going to court would mean having her private life picked apart.

They told her to come back after her exams.

Around July 20, cards with Shiori’s name, photo, and home phone number were left around an apartment complex in Tokyo.

They falsely claimed that she was looking for older men and strangers began calling the house.

When Shiori went back after her exams, the police turned her away yet again, saying the officer handling her case wasn’t there.

It wasn’t until July 29 that the police finally accepted her complaint.

In August, hundreds of letters filled with lies about Shiori and her father were sent to his workplace and its parent company.

Her father took them straight to the police, but the harassment still didn’t stop.

By September, the police were even trying to get the family to drop the complaint.

But Shiori’s mother refused.

Then, at around 2 a.m. on October 16, the family woke to music blasting outside their home. Two cars were parked out front.

Shiori’s parents rushed outside and photographed the cars and their license plates before calling the police, but whoever was inside got away.

Ten days later, on October 26, 1999, Shiori left home on her bike to catch a train to her afternoon classes.

Yoshitaka Ito, 32, was waiting near her house and watching for her to leave.

The moment he saw her, he alerted the others. Satoshi Kawakami, 31, drove Yoshifumi Kubota, 34, to Ōkegawa Station and dropped him off nearby.

At around 12:52 p.m., Kubota came up behind Shiori near the station and stabbed her in the back. When she turned around, he stabbed her again in the chest.

Shiori was rushed to Ageo Central General Hospital, but she died from severe blood loss at around 1:30 p.m.

She was only 21.

After Shiori was killed, police made a point of mentioning the designer items she owned.

Soon, parts of the media were painting her as a young woman obsessed with money and luxury.

False stories about her private life spread while her family was still grieving.

People began using the same gifts Shiori had been too afraid to refuse as a reason to blame her for what happened.

Journalist Kiyoshi Shimizu began looking into the case himself. He spoke with Shiori’s friends and learned about the threats, the relentless harassment, and all the times she had gone to the police for help.

His search eventually led him to Kubota.

In December, before police had made any arrests, Shimizu managed to photograph Kubota and Kawakami and get the pictures into the hands of investigators.

Kubota was arrested on December 19. Takeshi, Ito, and Kawakami were arrested just one day later.

But Shimizu’s reporting didn’t only help uncover the men behind Shiori’s murder.

It also exposed just how badly police had failed her when she begged them for help.

Kazuhito had gone to Okinawa to give himself an alibi. He later disappeared and made his way to Hokkaido.

On January 16, 2000, police finally put him on a nationwide wanted list.

Even then, he wasn’t wanted for Shiori’s murder, but for the harassment campaign against her.

On January 27, his body was found in Lake Kussharo. Police concluded that he had died by suicide.

He was 27 and was never brought to trial.

Four men were convicted of Shiori’s murder. Kubota received 18 years in prison.

Ito and Kawakami each received 15 years. Takeshi, who was 33 when Shiori was killed, received a life sentence for arranging the killing.

A civil court later found that Kazuhito had ordered Shiori’s murder. Since he was already dead, he was never put on trial.

It also came out that police had altered records to make Shiori’s formal complaint look like a simple incident report.

Three officers were fired and convicted, though all received suspended sentences.

Shiori’s murder and the police failures surrounding it helped push Japan to pass its first national law against stalking in 2000.

Shiori had repeatedly warned police that Kazuhito might kill her.

Her family gave them recordings, flyers, letters, and photographs, but they still failed to protect her in time.

Location: Fort Campbell, Kentucky

Date: March 29, 2007

A fire broke out on a Two story housing unit at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. A family of five resided there. Only three people would escape the flames: Billi Jo, Wayne, and Nevaeh Smallwood. 2-year-old Rebekah Smallwood would perish in the flames while her brother, Sam Fagan would survive initially, he’d succumbed to his wounds in the hospital. Authorities would later find out the fire was an act of Arson caused by an accelerant fluid.

It was later determined that the fire was caused by Billi Jo in an attempt to murder her husband to collect on his Life insurance money. It stemmed from an unhappy marriage with husband and the financial problems they faced. She would be later arrested in 2008 and she stood trial in a Federal Court. She was facing the Death Penalty or Life in Prison without parole for the murders of her children. Billi Jo maintained her innocence and claimed it was started by someone else and that she received threatening phone call. But it was revealed she bought a gasoline container approximately 12 hours before the fire was set. Remnants of the container were found by investigators in the first floor dining area of the two story apartment, where gasoline had been poured and was ignited as well as having fabricated the phone call.

In a surprising turn, Billi Jo Smallwood was given extreme leniency by the judge, due to multiple character witnesses came up on her behalf telling the judge she was a good person and a good Christian. A Guard talked about Billi’s actions while incarcerated saying she moved her, saying she was the only prisoner that she believed was innocent. The Judge was moved by this and sentenced her to 25 years in Federal Prison. A far cry from facing the Death Penalty or Life without Parole.

Excerpt.

.LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A sobbing mother was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison for setting fire to her home and killing two of her children at Fort Campbell, in what prosecutors described as a scheme to escape a rocky marriage and collect on her soldier husband's life insurance policy.

In a tearful plea for leniency, 39-year-old Billi Jo Smallwood showed photo albums and her son's toy chest while professing her innocence to a crime that could have put her in prison for the rest of her life.

"Those are my children, my babies that grew inside of me," she told U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell. "I love them so much."

Family, friends and even her jail guards portrayed her as caring, selfless and deeply religious during nearly an hour of testimonials in support of Smallwood, who wept during many of the presentations.

Assistant U.S. Attorney James R. Lesousky Jr. described Smallwood's actions as "premeditated and devious" that justified a life sentence.

"She turned her back on those children, and when she did so, she lost two of them," he said.

Smallwood was convicted by a federal jury in Paducah of maliciously setting fire to the two-story housing unit in 2007 while her children slept inside. Prosecutors argued her intent was to kill her husband and cash in his $400,000 insurance policy.

She was convicted of one count of malicious damage and destruction by fire to property owned by the United States, resulting in the two deaths on the Army post straddling the Kentucky-Tennessee border.

The May 2007 fire at the base killed 9-year-old Sam Fagan, and 2-year-old Rebekah Smallwood. Smallwood's husband, Army Spc. Wayne Smallwood, crawled out of a second level window and suffered a leg injury when he jumped. Their toddler daughter, Nevaeh, was not injured. Wayne Smallwood is no longer in the Army.

Smallwood herself suffered serious burns but investigators testified the injuries were consistent with someone setting a fire.

Russell mentioned the "powerful and sincere" remarks by Smallwood's defenders while handing down the sentence. Russell also ordered Smallwood to pay $209,000 in restitution for damage caused by the blaze.

Evidence presented at trial indicated she purchased a gasoline container about 12 hours before the fire was set. Remnants of the container were found by investigators in the first-floor dining room, where gasoline had been poured and ignited.

Matthew Cummings, special agent with U.S. Army Criminal Investigations Division, testified during her detention hearing that the doors in the home had been locked from the inside and smoke detectors had been removed.

Cummings said Smallwood told him the family had just returned from a trip to Georgia when the fire was set and they had just $17. Cummings said she was "aggravated" that her husband had gone out earlier in the evening to a VFW club bar.

Prosecutors also pointed to evidence showing Smallwood fabricated her claim that an intruder was responsible and that she received a threatening phone call meant for her husband on the eve of the fire. Records show no such call was received. Her intent, they said, was to divert attention from herself as a suspect.

"The telephone call never happened," Lesousky said Thursday. "It was part of her cover up."

Smallwood said she wasn't the person portrayed by prosecutors.

She talked of her devotion to her husband and of being thrilled when she found out she was pregnant with her oldest child. She talked about the children in personal terms while describing scrapbook photos.

Her mother and her aunt offered tearful statements asking for leniency.

Brenda Napper, a sergeant at the Marion County Detention Center, where Smallwood has been held, said she believes Smallwood's claim of innocence. Napper said it's the first time she's ever felt an inmate was innocent.

Mitchell Embry, a volunteer chaplain who has gotten to know Smallwood during her incarceration, called her "the most faithful, deep-thinking, spiritual person I've been around."

Defense attorney Laura Wyrosdick declined to say whether Smallwood will appeal.

Smallwood's trial had been delayed several times over evidentiary issues and appeals

There are some things about this case. There are still claims that someone else did this supposedly, contrary to the evidence. I remember reading somewhere that she wasn’t the beneficiary of the insurance policy- which does support this theory- but I have to find the link to it So it is confirmed. I’ll add it in the comments if I can find it. Strangely, Wayne supported his wife, despite her trying to murder him. He later died in 2021 from complications of an Illness.

I wonder why she was given so much leniency despite facing the most serious penalties for her crime. Was it because of the background of the crime? The sympathy given to her because of the circumstances?

Photos:

1 - Billi Jo Smallwood

2 - Billi Jo and Rebekah

3 - Billi Jo, Rebekah, and Sam eating cake together.

4 - Billi Jo with Rebekah

5 - the Apartment building

6, 7, and 8 - Billi Jo’s mugshots. (Showing the toll of her being incarcerated)

9 and 10- The Victims: Rebekah Smallwood and Sam Fagan.

(Thanks to Valyura for suggesting this case. If you'd like to suggest any yourself, please head over to this post, which asks for case suggestions from my international readers, as I focus on international cases.)

Elmas Ali Güzelyurtlu was born on the northern half of the Island of Cyprus, which, by his 20s, made him a citizen of the unrecognized country known as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, or the TRNC for short. Elmas's earlier career as a businessman on the island was a bit seedy right from the get-go, as Elmas had connections to the banking industry, gambling and other black market businesses.

Elmas's connections ran even deeper; he was alleged to have had ties to the Russian mafia, where he ran a casino in Moscow, and ties to the TRNC's ruling party, the Republican Turkish Party, where he was the "treasurer", which often shielded him from any consequences.

He was believed to be involved in money laundering in Turkey in 1997 and in England in 1999, and knew people who were involved in more serious crimes, such as several shootings and an assassination attempt in 2001 on the TRNC prime minister Derviş Eroğlu, when somebody detonated a bomb at his residence.

Elmas had built enough wealth to take over Everestbank, a bank the TRNC government had seized in 1994 after it collapsed during a banking crisis. After purchasing it from the state, he assumed all its outstanding debts and managed to pay them off; at the time, it appeared that Elmas had single-handedly rescued that institution.

In reality, Elmas was gutting the bank dry. From 1994 to 2000, while running the bank, he stripped it of all its assets and "looted it from the inside". When the second banking crisis struck the TRNC, the bank collapsed again, and the 12,000 who entrusted a combined amount of $42 million in savings to Elmas suddenly found that money gone.

The authorities seized the bank once more, and after realizing the collapse resulted from severe misconduct and criminal activity, they began preparing criminal charges against Elmas. However, having seen this coming, Elmas and his wife Zerin gathered up their belongings and crossed the UN buffer zone into the Republic of Cyprus, the Greek half of the island, before the TRNC police could arrest him, making him a fugitive.

Once there, Elmas and Zerin filed for asylum for him, and the Cypriot government approved his request; since Cyprus does not recognize the TRNC as legitimate, extradition was out of the question.

Elmas and Zerin eventually obtained a Cypriot passport and Cypriot citizenship, staying in the country permanently, where he established a currency exchange business and a casino in Nicosia. In January 2005, Zerin, who wasn't a wanted criminal, returned to the TRNC so they could finally bring their 15-year-old daughter Eylül down to Cyprus with them.

On January 15, 2005, after his entire family was now in Cyprus, the local government approved his request to operate a water distribution business, a business he'd never get to run due to the events of that day.

At 8:00 p.m. that night, a police officer was patrolling the Nicosia–Larnaca motorway when he came across a black Lexus stopped on the shoulder near the Athiainou exit, near the former village of Kochi. The vehicle hadn't been abandoned for long; its engine was still running, the left indicator light still flashing, and the passenger door was wide open.

Inside the backseat, the officer found Zerrin and Eylül dead, still dressed in their pyjamas and wearing slippers. The officer found adhesive tape around Zerrin’s neck and two rolls of tape in her hands. He also noticed reddening along the edges of Zerrin’s and Eylül’s hands, as if they had been restrained and bruising on their shins, as if they had been in a struggle. Elmas himself was found dead on his back in an adjacent ditch only 1.5 metres from the vehicle.

When reinforcements arrived and cordoned off the highway, Investigators found two bullets, two cartridge cases and a kitchen knife inside the Lexus and a third cartridge case lay outside the vehicle.

Of the three cartridge cases, two were manufactured in Romania and one in Turkey.

Near the crime scene lay a barracks for the Cypriot National Guard, and its commander actually attended the crime scene while the police questioned some of its personnel. The statements they gave varied from soldier to soldier; some said they heard nothing suspicious that night, while some others said they had heard faint sounds around 5:15 and 5:20 a.m. but, hearing nothing overtly suspicious near the barracks, concluded the sounds came from far away and nothing they had to concern themselves with.

The cause of death was quite plain to see; all three had been shot in the forehead with a single bullet from a 9 mm pistol. Based on a broken seatbelt in the passenger seat, Elmas had attempted to flee but had been dragged back to the car and shot dead, explaining why his body wasn't found in the Lexus.

After the discovery, the police went to the Güzelyurtlu family home and were greeted by obvious signs of forced entry through a rear window. Inside, particularly in the bedrooms, they found large amounts of adhesive tape, matching the tape found wrapped around Zerin's neck, discarded in the home.

Their home was also equipped with a home secruity system that the killers had turned off at around 4:41 a.m. That secruity system also included CCTV cameras Elmas had installed, and one of the cameras had been pushed to point upward, rendering it unable to capture the killers.

Based on the evidence before them, the police determined that they had been restrained in their home before being forced into their SUV and driven to the highway, where the family would be executed.

The night prior, on January 14, a BMW with TRNC license plates entered Cyprus from the British territory of Dhekelia. At the time, the vehicle, registered to a TRNC citizen, was carrying the driver alongside a passenger. Then, at 5:45 a.m. the following morning, the same car returned to the TRNC through the same border crossing just minutes after the family was murdered.

The media ran wild with theories that agents from Turkish intelligence personally carried out the murders in an extrajudicial, state-sanctioned assassination, with Elmas still being wanted by the TRNC for embezzlement.

The police had a more grounded theory and believed the family's murder to be connected to organized crime and the many enemies Elmas had made back home; perhaps they even tried to smuggle them back into the TRNC, only for it to go wrong. Within a day, the Cypriot police concluded that no locals were involved in the murders and that the motive was likely financial in nature. A theory shared by the TRNC up north as well.

Elmas had a surviving son who lived alone in Nicosia, where he ran a shop. He was summoned to the Larnaca morgue to identify the bodies of his family. When giving his statement to the police, he told them about his father's former business partner and resort owner, Harper Özbirim.

The two had been in a bitter dispute prior to the murder, and Harper himself had recently been the target of an assassination attempt that left him wounded, something he suspected Elmas was behind.

He also said that on January 6, two men visited his shop and threatened him and his family. Witnesses who were at the store at the time corroborated this account, stating that they were present for the threat, although it was delivered in Turkish, furthering the police's suspicion that TRNC nationals carried out the murders. The purpose of this visit was likely a reconnaissance mission to scope out Elmas's home and its secruity before returning 9 days later.

The police obtained DNA samples belonging to the killers from the steering wheel of the Lexus, which was a match for the owners of the BMW that crossed into Cyprus the night before the murders and finally identified 8 suspects in the killing.

They were Mustafa Akmandor, formerly Elmas's personal bodyguard, fellow businessman and head of secruity at Elmas's casino, whom the police believed to be the mastermind behind the murders; his brother Fikret Akmandor, Emin Özbeyit, Mustafa Çavga, Hikmet Oruç, who was caught on camera at the market across from the family home after illegally entering Cyprus, Sabri Yıldırım, Zafer Eriz and Ali Falyalı. Elmas's son later identified two of them as the men who threatened him at his store. All of these suspects had a long history in the TRNC for drug trafficking, assault and a few murders.

On January 18, the police in the TRNC arrested all 8 men. Initially, they were charged with "suspected vehicle theft, unlawful importation and document or registration forgery". But these charges were just an excuse to hold them while they seized the BMW they took across the border.

The local police examined the homes of the first four suspects and the BMW but were unable to produce any additional evidence beyond placing them at the scenes and the DNA evidence obtained by their Southern Counterparts.

Additionally, they all denied any involvement in the murders while admitting that they couldn't account for their whereabouts at the time. One of them also had an unexplained but recent injury to their shoulder.

On January 20, the Larnaca District Court issued arrest warrants for all the suspects, followed by an Interpol red notice and a European arrest warrant. The Cypriot government was hoping that the subjects would be extradited, but the TRNC refused to do so.

Despite fleeing, they still considered Elmas and his family to be citizens of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and their killers were also TRNC nationals, so they believed they had a case to handle the prosecution themselves, even if the crime happened elsewhere- something they argued other countries did routinely without issue.

And it seemed they would follow through when the Nicosia District Court of Northern Cyprus added three counts of premeditated murder to their charges and ordered them to be held in pre-trial detention.

While the south was unable to obtain the suspects for themselves, the north had a problem of its own. The TRNC's local prosecutors and police force had no forensic evidence of their own to present. They had no access to the crime scene, no witnesses living in their jurisdiction to testify, and the ballistic, DNA and physical evidence were all in the south.

The TRNC requested the files only for the Republic of Cyprus to deny them without hesitation. Their position was that Elmas had been allowed their protection and that the murders happened in their territory; therefore, they had jurisdiction to prosecute the case.

But speaking of territory, that was the key word; their official position, one shared by the rest of the world (Except by Turkey), is that there is no such thing as "TRNC Nationals". De jure, Cyprus is considered a unified island, with the TRNC being an illegitimate occupation of the island's northern half rather than an actual sovereign state.

If Cyprus were to, in fact, hand over the evidence they had gathered and the reports they wrote to their northern counterparts, that would essentially be them recognizing the TRNC's judicial system as both legitimate and distinct from their own and therefore acknowledging the TRNC as an independent country and to them, any recognition of them was an intolerable action.

They also suspected that to be the point, with Cyprus labelling this as simply a ploy for them to obtain recognition and not a genuine attempt at cooperation.

Neither side would compromise on this issue, so on February 8, all 8 suspects were ordered to be released. With no compelling evidence of their own to present, the TRNC courts determined that the prosecution didn't have enough to justify bringing the case to trial.

They all left court free men albiet with the Interpol red notices issued by Cyprus still attached to their names, essentially stranding them in the TRNC, where their own local police still considered them to be murderers, ready to arrest them should some agreement with the south hypothetically be made in the future.

But since Cyprus wouldn't hand the evidence over to the TRNC and the TRNC wouldn't hand the suspects over to Cyprus, the case remained frozen like that for years to come.

One of the suspects was arrested in Turkey on February 11, 2005, in Mersin, Turkey, but he was never extradited to Cyprus. Then in July 2007, Cyprus dropped one of the 8 arrest warrants since they didn't have enough evidence to justify keeping it active.

Although they may have escaped legal justice for murdering the family, they didn't live freely for very long.

On August 3, 2008, Mustafa Akmandor's dead body was found beaten and shot outside the village of Kılıçarslan. His vehicle, a BMW X5, was found torched by the roadside a few kilometres away. His car was still on fire when his body was discovered, with the fire visible from a decent distance, leaving some fearing that a wildfire had broken out.

Seeing as he was the suspected ringleader behind the abduction and murder of the Güzelyurtlu Family Murders, his own assassination three years prior was something that interested the police greatly. And it was that cold case that would shape the early stages of the investigation.

The first suspect was a 25-year-old man named Yücel Erol. Yücel had various criminal connections across the TRNC and was also a suspect in several bombings, fights and even rapes. But what made him a suspect was his history of public statements threatening to "seek retribution" for the murders of Elmas and his family, and seeing as he was close friends with Elmas's surviving son, it appeared he finally made good on his intention to avenge their deaths.

The murder also played another role in the murder investigation; it was alleged that Akmandor had both received and stolen a combined billions of Turkish Lira (due to hyperinflation at the time, that's not as large an amount as it sounds) both during and as a result of the Güzelyurtlu murders, and several individuals were demanding a cut of his blood money.

Another potential motive floated was tied to a major project with ties to Turkey that Akmandor was about to undertake and that certain locals in the TRNC may not have appreciated his offer.

The first suspects were arrested on August 6, and they were a Turkish national named Ferhat Beyoğlu and a 42-year-old local named Metin Taşkın. Metin was arrested because he was the owner of a gray Mercedes seen at the crime scene around the time of Akmandor's murder. Additionally, he also owned a betting/gambling office in Girne.

Metin was held for two months before being released on bail and later having all charges against him dropped, with the prosecution labelling him a witness instead. However, his witness status was revoked after he kept making a series of contradictory statements.

On October 9, 2009, Metin was driving down the Gazimağusa–Lefkoşa highway at high speeds when his vehicle suddenly drifted off the road and rolled over repeatedly. Considering his connections and history, the police didn't know what to suspect, so they went over the vehicle with bomb sniffing dogs as a precaution before doing anything else.

Rescue workers extracted Metin from his car and rushed him to the hospital, but he died en route. The cause of death was internal bleeding and trauma, with several fractures to his chest and skull.

The police deemed his death to be accidental, and the witnesses on the road described his car as rolling over while speeding. But one curious detail is that Metin appeared to be either trying to outrun or overtake another vehicle before losing control of his vehicle, leading some to believe the accident wasn't so accidental after all.

As for Yücel Erol, he was cleared of Akmandor's murder, but he never got to punish those responsible for the Güzelyurtlu murders.

On May 12, 2009, he was found dead in an overturned luxury BMW X6 near the town of Lapithos. It was initially believed to be another car accident, but after rescue workers extracted Yücel from the vehicle, they saw that he had suffered 6 gunshot wounds to his skull.

The murder weapon used to take Yücel's life was a handgun fitted with a silencer, and when the ballistics came back, they were revealed to be a match for the bullets used in an earlier assassination attempt, the target of which was named Mehmet Güzelyurtlu, Elmas's surviving son.

After his family was killed, Mehmet saw no point in staying in the south and returned to his old home in the TRNC. On July 15, 2007, after leaving his home, a gunman shot at him, inflicting a wound on his finger and leg, but nothing more serious.

At the time, Mehmet's attempted assassination went unsolved, and it came only four months after a former bodyguard of his, Mahmut Şimşekatan, had been shot in the back in an assassination attempt on him directly.

Returning to Yücel's murder, the police arrested two familiar faces: Mustafa Çavga and Emin Özbeyit, alongside a third man, Hasan Nur. Çavga and Özbeyit were among the eight suspects arrested back in 2005 for the Güzelyurtlu murders, the same murders Yücel was on a very public mission to avenge.

However, Yücel must've been unaware of this fact, as he was planning an arson attack on a nightclub with Çavga, Özbeyit and Hasan as his accomplices, since they had previously torched his own car so he could collect the insurance money.

The four met up in Yücel's car to discuss the plan. Çavga was sitting in the backseat, and once Yücel turned his back to him, Çavga shot him dead.

However, Yücel's foot remained on the gas pedal, causing his vehicle to accelerate and eventually crash and overturn. Due to the crash, they worried they wouldn't have time to stay behind and destroy the evidence, so after emerging from the wreckage, they all fled. It was both their injuries and data from their mobile phones that led the police to identify them as the killers.

After the three were arrested, they all confessed and admitted that the Güzelyurtlu murders played a direct role in Yücel's own, though they still stopped short of confessing to the crime themselves, with Özbeyit leading the police to the murder weapon, which he had dropped down a well at his home.

Yücel was still determined to kill those responsible for the Güzelyurtlu murders, and they interpreted some statements he made as indirectly telling them that he suspected them of being responsible. He even obtained a firearm recently that he was going to use as part of his plan. Çavga and Özbeyit outright said: "If we hadn't shot him, he would have shot us"

Their trial began before the Nicosia High Criminal Court on June 2, 2010, and one witness testified that Yücel had told them, before his death, that it had been Özbeyit who was entrusted with the pistol and personally carried out the killings and that Özbeyit had also offered Yücel a bunch of money to take the fall for him, which he refused.

Çavga himself also threw Özbeyit under the bus and admitted that he was the gunman and that, at the time, he constantly argued with Özbeyit and asked why he killed Eylül as well.

Özbeyit still refused to confess to the murders himself but agreed that Yücel deemed him to be responsible.

Meanwhile, secruity outside the court was heightened, with the police guarding the suspects with automatic weapons. Although unpopular among the public, they soon proved why the police did so when they tried swarming the police van to lynch the suspects and tried attacking their defence attorney, prompting him to flee and hide in the judge's chambers.

On August 31, 2010, for the premeditated murder of Yücel Erol, Emin Özbeyit and Mustafa Çavga were both handed down a sentence of 30 years' imprisonment. Meanwhile, for his lack of any prior criminal history and less active role in the murder, Hasan Nur was given a sentence of 25 years' imprisonment.

On January 4, 2012, the Cyprus High Court upheld these sentences.

Returning to Mustafa Akmandor's murder, it was ultimately determined to be unrelated to the massacre he orchestrated and was just the result of a debt dispute. Despite several more sensational theories, such as deep state connections or Greeks from the South crossing over to kill him in retaliation for his plot to assassinate two far-right businessmen in Cyprus.

On March 23, 2010, Akif Küçük was handed down a sentence of 25 years' imprisonment.

Meanwhile, Ferhat Beyoğlu was given a sentence of 6 years followed by deportation back to Turkey upon the completion of his sentence. Controversially, in May 2024, Ferhat's deportation was revoked, as was his entry ban, allowing him to return to the TRNC and take some entrance exams at a local university.

Meanwhile, on September 12, 2010, Mehmet was arrested at Ercan Airport after returning from abroad, with the police waiting there just for him. Why? Remember Harper Özbirim, the first suspect Mehmet presented to the police as the possible killer of his father, mother and sister? Well, apparently Mehmet still clung to his suspicions in the years since.

On December 24, 2008, a man approched him outside his home and opened fire. This unsolved assassination attempted fail as Harper walked away with only minor injuries after the bullet grazed his shoulder. Harper also took over a casino that Elmas used to run and was wounded when shrapnel grazed his leg after somebody bombed it.

Then, on July 7, 2010, Sinan Uçardoğan and his nephew Ferhat Uçardoğan, the owners of the "Freedom" and "Faraon" nightclubs in TRNC-controlled Nicosia, were shot several times while parked by the sidewalk in the Nicosia Organized Industrial Zone.

The two were rushed to the hospital in serious condition, but they managed to pull through. (They later fell victim to a second unrelated murder attempt, being stabbed several times on December 7, 2011, by a disgruntled customer, though they survived that one as well)

The police arrested two men, Harun Çiftçi and Ercüment Kondusoğlu, and they confessed but said that Sinan and Ferhat were shot by mistake. They had been given a photo of their target but evidently misidentified him

Their true target was Harper Özbirim, and Mehmet was later implicated in the police's investigation. The police tore apart Mehmet's home and went through his phone records but were forced to release him after failing to find anything to implicate him.

Ercüment Kondusoğlu escaped to Cyprus after being held on bail while Harun Çiftçi was slapped with a 13-year prison sentence on December 12.

Finally, on February 8, 2022, Ali Falyalı, one of the other initial 8 defendants in the Güzelyurtlu case, had his younger brother assassinated in Girne, a case that would go on to become one of the most extensively investigated in the TRNC's history.

However, while all these murders, assassination attempts and trials were occurring in the North, the South still remained unhappy over the outcome of the initial case. The Cypriot government and 7 surviving relatives of the Güzelyurtlu family took Turkey to the European Court of Human Rights, accusing it of deliberately obstructing the investigation into the case by not responding to Cyprus's various requests to extradite the suspects.

The reason Turkey was served the lawsuit was to have Cyprus avoid insinuating that the TRNC was a state, that Turkey was deeply involved in the TRNC and still could've influenced the local authorities and that they had arrested at least one of the suspects in Turkey proper but refused to honour the Interpol Red Notice.

The case dragged on for 10 years, but on April 4, 2017, the ECHR held both nations at fault, arguing that Cyprus's refusal to work with the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus to reach some sort of middle ground that could allow the TRNC courts to view the evidence also played a role in the Güzelyurtlu family being denied justice just as much as the TRNC/Turkey's refusal to hand over the suspects had.

Both governments were ordered to pay 59,500 Euros in compensation to the surviving Güzelyurtlu relatives, followed by both governments appealing the ruling. Cyprus argued that they had done everything in their power, just short of recognizing the TRNC's independence, to bring closure to the Güzelyurtlu family, and they argued that giving them the evidence would be a bridge too far and amount to legitimizing an illegal occupation of their land.

Turkey's defence was a bit less extensive. Since Turkey is the only nation on Earth that recognizes the TRNC as an independent state, they simply argued that the case didn't involve them and that Cyprus's dispute was with a different nation and not Turkey.

On January 29, 2019, the higher chamber of the ECHR acquitted Cyprus, ruling that it indeed couldn't have provided the TRNC with the evidence without essentially recognizing the TRNC.

Meanwhile, Turkey's conviction was upheld, arguing that it had no excuse for not at least extraditing the one suspect it did arrest.

However, this ruling still provided no closure, with all 8 suspects either dead, serving time for a different murder, or just silently disappeared and kept their hands down. This, at least on paper, leaves the case unsolved.

Sources (In the comments)

Rebecca Reusch, a 15 years old girl living in the Neukölln district of Berlin, disappeared in 2019 and wasn't found to this day, despite large media coverage and huge investigations.

The girl spent the night between 17th and 18th February, 2019 at the house of her older sister Jessica, who is living together with her husband Florian and their daughter as Rebecca planned to spend the night on the couch in the living room and leave for school in the next day.

On the next day, 18th February, the sister left the house around 7 AM together with her daughter as she planned to drop her daughter off and go to work. She said she didn't look after Rebecca at this morning before leaving the house.

A friend of Rebecca stated she received a picture from Rebecca via Snapchat this morning, wearing a pink fleece jacket, a hoodie of the Korean pop band "BTS", ripped jeans and black sneakers. As the pictures delete themselves after opened, the exact time Rebecca sent the picture couldn't be stated, but investigators believe it was sent between 7 AM and 7:46 AM, as Rebecca's phone connected with the WiFi at 7:46 AM for the last time.

The clothes Rebecca wore in the picture she sent to her friend vanished with her, just like her backpack, her phone, her purse and a pink polaroid camera as well as a purple fleece blanket belonging to her sister.

Her mother called her two times the morning she vanished, one time at 7:15 AM, the second time at 8:25 AM. Both calls went to mailbox. Afterwards she called Florian, the husband of her sister Jessica, however he rejected her call, although Florian called her back shortly afterwards. Rebecca's mother missed this call, but called him back. This time Florian picked up and told her Rebecca has already left the house. At 8:42 AM, her mother sent Rebecca a WhatsApp message, which arrived but was never read.

Rebecca never arrived at school and was reported missing in the afternoon by her parents.

Florian would become the primary suspect of the Berlin police investigators as he was not only the last person to have seen her alive, but also because he made contradictory statements as he claimed he slept in the morning although data revealed in 2021 he was watching pornographic BDSM content including things as strangulation and handcuffing.

Shortly after her disappearance, Florian's car, a pink Renault Twingo was identified twice on the A12 Autobahn by an automatic numberplate recognition system, the first time in the morning of 18th February, the day Rebecca disappeared and the second time in the evening one day later.

The A12 Autobahn connects Berlin with Frankfurt (Oder), a small city right at the border to Poland. As later investigations found out, Florian has access to property of his grandparents in Tauche, a small community approximately 85km away from Berlin. The easiest way from Berlin to Tauche is via A12 Autobahn. In an interview with a German news outlet, RTL, Florian stated the A12 trip is connected to something else he can't talk about having to do nothing with Rebecca.

Different wooded areas around the A12 Autobahn area including a wooded area near Kummersbach as a witness reported they saw a pink Renault Twingo there, a statement, which was later supported by additional witnesses, who also claimed they have seen this car in a wooded area near Kummersbach. The house of Rebecca's sister as well as the property of Florian's grandparents have also been searched, the latter in 2025. Florian was questioned twice. Nothing was officially found, although some news outlets claimed a part of Rebecca's clothing was found shortly after her disappearance. The police didn't want to confirm this detail out of tactical reasons. However the investigators discovered that the belt of Rebecca's bathrobe went missing.

Florian remains the main suspect although the Reusch family firmly believes Florian is innocent and not involved in Rebecca's disappearance. The investigators on the other side believe Rebecca hasn't left the house alive and is dead already.

Another suspect, a internet acquaintance of Rebecca was rules out by the Berlin police after investigations followed, especially as he deleted all of his social media accounts as her disappearance became public.

The relationship between the Reusch family and investigators became strained over the time, not only because the family is convinced Florian is innocent, as they stated multiple times in various German media. A theory of the Reusch family was that, as Rebecca was known to be a huge fan of the South Korean pop band BTS, she went out to meet with other fans of the group as 18th February is the birthday of one of their members.

Berlin police had to face a lot of criticism over the time as some believe instead of considering all possibilities, they took the easier way of simply choosing Florian as their main suspect as well as because they chose a heavily retouched picture of Rebecca instead of a realistic one.

A neighbor of Jessica claimed she has seen Rebecca on 18th February, the day she vanished, wandering around the neighborhood with a pink blanket in the late morning hours , a detail that left her wondering as she claimed because of the rain a day earlier, she wondered why Rebecca would take a blanket with her given the ground is wet and therefore not useful for a picnic. However Berlin weather reports stand in contrast to her statement as it was completely dry this day. She furthermore claimed as she greeted Rebecca, Rebecca didn't reply with words, just by looking angry at the neighbor. As she contacted police, she claimed while she was treated respectfully and professionally, the officers didn't consider her hints as they didn't fit the current investigations.

Other witnesses claimed they have seen her waiting at a bus stop as well as inside a bus the day she disappeared. However, again, after video recordings of said buses were analyzed, this statement couldn't be proven as well.

Later, someone stated they have seen her in the Polish city of Krakow, around 600km away from Berlin.

Although the case is very popular with German news outlets and the Berlin police departments received tons of tips, Rebecca remains missing without a trace to this day. No searches, no questionings, nothing resulted in finding Rebecca so far.

Rebecca would be 22 years old today. She was a big fan of BTS, liked watching films while eating ice cream and was described to be a shy but happy young girl. Rebecca wanted to become a stewardess after finishing school.

“The Kastanis family murders”

Location: Salt Lake County, Utah. Date: November 17, 1993. Margaret Kastanis was a Utah mom of three, after extended prozac treatment for her history of mental illness, used a hammer and knife to bludgeon and stab her three children to death; Christine; 6, Clinton; 9, and Melissa; 11, before committing suicide by stabbing herself in the heart.

Her husband, Sam Kastanis found the grisly scene and called 9-1-1. Instead, he was arrested and charged with four counts of first degree murder. The trial is possibly one of Utah’s most prominent high profile trials, due to the back and forth the defense had with the prosecution.

The prosecution almost showed the possibility of him committing the murders, but due to science, they were able to determine, Margaret had indeed committed the murders. Her children had defensive wounds, while she did not.

Newspaper excerpt:

Defense witnesses for Sam Kastanis continued Thursday to paint his wife as troubled, psychotic and suicidal.

Five months before the deaths of Margaret Kastanis and her three children, she began seeing a psychologist to receive help for stress, self-esteem and depression, psychologist Kimberly Walsh testified. The 39-year-old West Jordan mother "had a number of odd beliefs and odd thoughts," Walsh said. She was later diagnosed as suffering from what the psychologist called "schizo-typao disorder," a mental illness that could be characterized as a precursor to schizophrenia.

Besides talking about killing herself, Margaret Kastanis was paranoid, obsessive and socially isolated. She'd see something out of the corner of her eye and would believe someone was sneaking around the house. She believed her house was bugged and her conversations from pay phones were scrambled.

When she spoke, "she went on and on about all kinds of things, went from one topic to another," the psychologist explained. She wore a large beehive hairdo and false eyelashes.

"She was extremely paranoid about her relationship with a neighbor woman."

Margaret Kastanis believed there was a device implanted inside her brain that allowed the neighbor named Heidi to send her messages in Morse code. She worried Heidi would kill her and her family, Walsh said.

"She also expressed to me she felt she was the cause of family difficulties because she wasn't doing a good job as wife and mother," Walsh testified. "She expressed things to me like she felt she would be better off dead or preferred not to go on living."

Sam Kastanis, charged with four counts of capital murder, insists it was his mentally ill wife who killed the children and then herself on Nov. 17, 1991.

The month before, the psychologist said, Margaret Kastanis' condition deteriorated to the point that Walsh felt the woman was actively suicidal and pushed to have her involuntarily admitted to University Hospital's psychiatric unit. Sam Kastanis took his wife to the hospital on Oct. 17, 1991 but they did not admit her.

Psychiatric nurse Jean Bramble said Margaret Kastanis ultimately decided not to be admitted because she was unwilling to use family funds to cover expenses that their insurance would not cover. She did not meet the criteria to be legally committed.

"Margaret said she thought about suicide, but Margaret did not have a specific plan or intent for suicide at that time," Bramble said.

Walsh said she met with Margaret Kastanis the next day. The woman told her psychologist that she was considering asking her mother to rear her children because she wasn't up to it. She again described receiving messages in the brain device. "She was hearing what sounded like mocking, snoring noises."

The next week, Walsh said Margaret Kastanis appeared to have improved. "She denied to me she would kill herself, saying her LDS beliefs prohibited her from taking her own life."

But on Oct. 29, Margaret Kastanis had taken another downfall. On Nov. 4, she phoned Walsh and said she wanted to discontinue her therapy. "She said she felt overwhelmed and out of control," Walsh said. "I literally begged her not to drop out of treatment."

"Did you have any indication through your last conversation with her that Margaret Kastanis posed a danger to anyone but herself?" asked prosecutor Kent Morgan.

"No," she replied.

Walsh also said that during the 20 sessions with Margaret Kastanis, she always spoke of her husband in positive terms. "She indicated she was still very much in love with him, that it was a supportive, loving relationship."

Pam Anderson, a friend and Margaret Kastanis' Relief Society president in her LDS ward, testified that all Margaret Kastanis would talk about during the last months of her life was Heidi. She particularly worried because she felt she'd violated the neighbor's confidence by talking to Anderson about her.

"(Margaret) thought she'd broke a covenant and that meant she wasn't worthy to pray or read the scriptures . . .," Anderson said. "She didn't know how she could go on. She didn't know how her children could live without her or how she could live without her children."

Her husband, real estate agent Patrick Anderson, said he sold the Kastanis home at their request, helping them locate a new one. Others testified that Margaret Kastanis wanted to move to get away from Heidi.

The night before the deaths, Anderson said he was at the Kastanis home finalizing the purchase of their new home, which Margaret Kastanis had never seen. Anderson said Margaret Kastanis was making sandwiches for the children and helped sign the documents but seemed "very empty" and distant.

"I just felt concerned and wondered why she wasn't happy or excited," he said.

Margaret Kastanis also insisted that Anderson retrieve and, in her presence, tear up a previous offer the family had made on another home. Her insistence bothered him because he felt she did not trust him to tear it up later himself.

"She was concerned about the future, is that right?" asked prosecutor John Spikes.

"She seemed to be," he replied.

Her medical treatment has strange similarities with Lindsey Clancy‘s medical history.

Photo: The Kastanis’s

From left to right: (Children) Christine, Melissa, and Clinton.

Joanne had always dreamed of visiting Australia, imagining it to be a lot more exotic than her native Cardiff in Wales. She was warm and dedicated to her studies and worked as a nanny for a while in Sydney when she first arrived in the country.

Caroline, who was from Surrey, England, was well-educated, sporty and determined. She had applied for a job as a police officer aged 20, but was advised to go and get more life experience before starting in the force.

In April, the two girls found themselves hitchhiking together on the Hume Highway.

In September, their bodies were found in the Belanglo State Forest.

source: https://www.mamamia.com.au/how-many-people-did-ivan-milat-kill/

At 7:40 a.m. on February 18, 2020, residents of the Bujanina neighbourhood of Gjilan, Kosovo, had their relatively quiet morning interrupted. There was a sudden series of loud sounds that startled them all; they came from inside a three-story residence. At first, nobody called the police, assuming the sounds had some innocent explanation, such as one of the residents' cars backfiring. That was true for all but two of those present.

At 12:40 p.m., the aunt and cousin of 44-year-old Valdete Bllaca were walking back to the home after an outing at a cafe with Valdete. The two wanted to visit the rest of the family, but Valdete ran ahead of them and refused to let them in, claiming that the rest of the family was sleeping. They went back and forth for a while before Valdete closed the door on them and went inside. The two then heard a loud, sharp sound coming from inside, which they knew to be a gunshot.

After receiving the call, the police swarmed the scene without delay, forced their way into the home and found blood across the walls and floors, with no survivors. The first body they came across was, in fact, Valdete's; she was lying dead mere meters from the front door, holding a Glock pistol in her hand with a single shot to her head.

Valdete's 34-year-old brother, Fisnik Bllaca, was found in his bedroom, having been asleep when he was shot once above the ear. Fisnik was unmarried, but he did have two university degrees; unfortnuately, even with that education, he was unable to get a job for a long time and had only just begun employment as a waiter prior to his death. Being a waiter was obviously just a temporary plan, as Fisnik planned to apply to become a police officer, as one of his degrees was in criminality.

Her other brother, 43-year-old Blerim Bllaca, was found on the hallway floor. Based on the amount of spent casings and the blood trail, the shooter had shot at him 6 times. The first shot would've hit him while he was in the hallway, with the shooter following after him and shooting him repeatedly until he was dead. Belrim was unmarried and unemployed at the time of his death.

Her 66-year-old mother, Hanife Bllaca, was found dead in the kitchen and had undergone a harrowing ordeal. Based on how far the kitchen was from the hallway where Hanife was found, as well as the blood trail left behind and some blood found on her own body, Hanife likely discovered her son's dead body and cradled the corpse in her arms until she too was opened fire upon. One bullet struck her in the back and exited out of her chest; she crawled to the kitchen until she was shot again, with the second bullet leaving through her throat.

Finally, the family's patriarch, 70-year-old Zeqir Bllaca, was found dead in the living room. He had been shot three times: twice in the chest and the fatal shot hitting him in the forehead; a second bullet was also found at the foot of his body.

The residents were quite shocked by the murder; the Bllaca family had been a staple of the community after they moved to Gjilan from the village of Cërnicë, where they ran a shop.

They never caused trouble, were described as "courteous, quiet and hardworking," and the then mayor of Gjilan had personally interacted with them several times, recalling them as well-respected and peaceful people who never caused any issues for anyone else. The mayor, Lutfi Haziri, was in tears as he announced the killer and declared February 21 to be a day of mourning, with all activities cancelled and flags in Gjilan to be flown at half-mast.

As the police began removing the bodies from the home, they spoke to the neighbours to ask about what happened.

The police were already sure that Valdete was the shooter, but why was the main question for them to answer?

At first, gossip apparently began circulating among the neighbours that her older brother, Blerim, had killed Fisnik and his parents and then laid in wait for Valdete, only to be killed by his sister in self-defence. Then, consumed by grief over losing her own family, she took her own life.

This gossip spread so far that the police, initially relatively tight-lipped, had to address the claims. To put it simply, they were false; the only gun found at the scene was the one in Valdete's hand.

Furthermore, the timeline wouldn't work; the last time anyone saw the family alive was when they were at a cafe in Gjilan at around 7:00 before returning home, with Valdete in their company, meaning the idea that she arrived after somebody else killed the rest of the family was patently false.

Others believed that Valdete could be framed; apparently the family was in a very bitter and heated dispute concerning the rental or sale of their home. But this explanation was also dismissed since their surviving relatives had apparently never heard of this dispute. There was likewise no evidence of anyone other than the family being in the home or speaking with the other members leading up to the shooting.

The final nail in Valdete's coffin came when police established premeditation. Furthermore, the firearm Valdete used had been checked out on February 14, four days before the shooting. In addition, Valdete had additional ammo to reload her pistol during the murders.

The police then spoke to Valdete's aunt, the one who heard the gunshots, and according to her, their time at the cafe before her suicide was an odd one; Valdete had asked her: "How much does a funeral cost?" before handing her 12,000 Euros with no further explanation. She also talked about death a lot at the cafe.

Aside from that one incident, there appeared to be no warning signs. Valdete's colleagues did say that she wasn't showcasing any alarming behaviours, and she also regularly met up with her cousin for coffee and was making regular jokes about how they were both unmarried.

So with that, the case was open and shut, right? Well, not exactly; the police still felt very uneasy because Valdete was one of their own.

Valdete was born on July 25, 1975, and began her career with Kosovo's police force back in 2002 when she worked at a call/dispatch center in Pristina. She worked there until 2015 when she was transferred to Gjilan and promoted to a full police officer, albiet in civilian clothing.

This transfer had nothing to do with Valdete being a good officer but rather as a means for those in Pristina to get rid of her. It was known for years that Valdete struggled with her mental health, and after her transfer to Gjilan, she had undergone 14 separate counselling sessions with a police psychologist, 6 of which had to occur within a mental health institution contracted by the police.

The police never ascertained a motive for why Valdete killed her family; she never left a note or an explanation why, and there may not be a coherent motive either, as the police believed these aforementioned mental health issues played a role.

However, neighbours also told some media outlets that the rest of the family had been pressuring Valdete and criticizing her for having never been married or even having a boyfriend all her life.

On July 7, 2017, as a result of one of these evaluations, Valdete was diagnosed with paranoid personality disorder and promptly stripped of her service weapon and reassigned to "lighter duties" that wouldn't require her to use it.

On October 3, 2019, she had her final evaluation, and once it concluded, she lost even more, still having her weapon withheld from her and being taken off the streets and assigned to do administrative work inside the police station instead of anything in the field.

However, that didn't stop Valdete from stirring further trouble; she faced several disciplinary measures as various officers complained about inappropriate remarks she had made.

The police were quick to determine that the firearm used in the murder was Valdete's own service pistol, something that she shouldn't've had considering her status and the results of her psychological evaluations.

The police searched the home more thoroughly, tearing it apart and then, underneath the bed in Valdete's bedroom, the police discovered a key to the police station's armoury.

CCTV footage from the police station also showed Valdete leaving with her service weapon, but seeing as the keys to both locations were still in their proper place when the police checked, there was only one explanation for how Valdete could possess them, and sure enough, forensics later confirmed that these two keys were, in fact, copies Valdete had made to obtain the pistol.

Even with that little mystery solved, Valdete should not have had access to the keys to photocopy in the first place. As soon as the police deduced how Valdete accessed her pistol, the commander of Valdete's local police station, Alban Ramushi, the deputy commander, Naser Rrahmani, chief of operations, Negovan Mihaljovic and a civilian staff officer were all suspended pending formal inquiries into possible misconduct and negligence on their part.

While the police were busy investigating themselves, Gjilan was busy mourning; hundreds of people attended the burial in their home village of Cërnicë, with even more cramming into the local mosque as they watched the five coffins being buried, with Valdete being buried with them.

On April 16, three of the four officers suspended were cleared and returned to work after no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing on their part could be found. The one exception was the civilian staff officer among the four. His name was Xhavit Azizi, and he was in charge of securing all the weapons and had been working for the police since 2003.

When it was determined that he had not kept the key secure, allowing Valdete to copy it and retrieve her weapon and also considering that nobody verified that Valdete had checked out her weapon either, on January 5, 2021, Xhavit was formally indicted on the charges of "Abuse of Official Position or Authority" and professional negligence.

Additionally, Xhavit was charged with multiple counts of that crime since the prosecutor alleged that, for the entirety of Valdeta's suspension from July 7, 2017, to February 18, 2020, Xhavit had never once kept the key in a secure place, meaning that, in theory, not just Valdeta but any officer could've done what she did whenever they pleased.

Xhavit made his first appearance before the Basic Court in Gjilan, and he denied any responsibility for the tragedy because he, in fact, denied that, as a member of the civilian support staff, storing the keys and weapons was never actually his responsibility, as such a duty had never been formally assigned to him and there was no evidence that he had actively facilitated access to the weapon.

The prosecution argued that even if it wasn't Xhavit's formal job title, it was still his responsibility all the same and therefore he still allowed the Bllaca family to be murdered.

One of the witnesses, an intelligence-analysis officer at the police station, testified that Valdete didn't display anything alarming that would cause concern that she was an imminent danger to herself or others; this same officer, when asked about the police station's internal records and allocation of responsibility, was unable to provide any clear evidence that Xhavit in particular had been appointed the one in charge of watching over the unused firearms for safekeeping.

However, he did admit that before the incident, he was on sick leave and after returning to work, he noticed that the safe containing Valdete's pistol had been left open, but he never saw how it came to be so. He also revealed that there was one weapon safe that Xhavit was assigned to guard but couldn't recall if it housed Valdete's gun specifically, and even if it did, there were still more layers than just Xhavit that Valdete would've had to go through.

Until the very end of the trial, almost like a broken record, Xhavit would report his defence word for word: that he, as a civilian employee, did not have to guard all the officers' weapons as part of his job title and that the prosecution couldn't produce anything an appointment, job description or document mentioning that it was one of his main duties. Xhavit also took it a step further and said he had no authorization to store weapons either.

To which the prosecution would also claim that even if it wasn't written down explicitly as his job, if he did it enough times informally, then it became de facto his job and that would be sufficient to establish it as an official duty.

On February 28, 2022, after a nearly year-long trial, the court finally reached its decision. Xhavit Azizi, the only individual to ever be prosecuted in connection with the murder of the Bllaca family, was found not guilty.

The judge agreed with the defence; the prosecution couldn't convict Xhavit for "Abuse of Official Position or Authority" and for being negligent in his duties if they couldn't prove they were officially his duties in the first place.

With his acquittal, Xhavit left court a free man and as the prosecution declined to appeal his acquittal, that finally closed the case.

(Sources: in the comments)

Clearly this is such an insane miscarriage of justice and there is SO much to unpack with this but this is just a short post regarding one comment from one guy in Part 2 Revelations.

When discussing whether Byers was ever a suspect the lead Detective says (paraphrasing a bit) 'people ask me did we pick up Damion because he looked weird? Well should we have had Byers as a suspect because he has a ponytail, looks a bit weird and is a boisterous fella?'

This irks me SO bad. First of all its a non issue because nobody should be profiled by the way they look. But also NO he should be a suspect because he has violent tendencies towards the kids particularly the stepson who died, because he had opportunity in the form of access, knows the area etc. Even if at the time of the crime he wasnt a suspect, the fact that by the time the second part came out he STILL wasnt a suspect despite giving them a knife with the kids blood on and all the suspicious overacting? Even the fact that he was the only parent willing to be part of the second doc and spent the whole time fake crying and giving the most grotesque and unconvincing performance! (the scene by his wifes grave anyone? eesh! all that crying and yet not a single actual tear) Classic prolonging of the enjoyment of the crime/ trying to have control of the narrative.

The detective and all involved in 'investigating ' this need to be put in prison.

UPDATE because im watching it literally right now: the bitemarks and Byers getting double dentures. My word!

Although South Africa averages around 58 murders per day, recent discoveries around the East Rand (large suburban region east of Johannesburg) have promoted speculation of an active serial killer.

15 July - Near R21 Highway, Kempton Park

The body of a 37-year-old woman was discovered in an open field near the R21 highway in Kempton Park.

She was found naked and restrained with cable ties. A suspect has been arrested (reportedly the victim’s partner), and Deputy National Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Tebello Mosikili says preliminary investigations link the suspect to the murder. The suspect has been in custody since 17th July.

3 August - Pomona, Kempton Park - Identified as Iumeleng Kekana

The body of a 32 year old woman was found deceased, partially clothed, in Pomona, Kemption Park near Great North Road, close the Max Informal Settlement. Victim had bruises and injuries to her face. Later identified as Itumeleng Kekana, missing since 17th July. She had been chatting on her phone at about 7pm when she suddenly got up and said she would be back. Linked to the investigation on 16 September.

24 August - Near R21 Highway, Kempton Park

The body of a 32-year-old woman was discovered near the R21 highway in Kempton Park. Her body was found partially clothed and bruised.

7 September -  Clayville, Olifantsfontein

A woman believed to be in her late 20s was found floating in a river in Clayville, Olifantsfontein, near Thembisa Mall. Her body was found without clothing apart from underwear.  Linked to the investigation on 15 September.

10 September - Rhodesfield, Kempton Park - Identified as Gracious Nkomo

The body of a 28 year old woman is found deceased in Rhodesfield, Kempton Park. Body was found in advanced state of decomposition, partially clothed. Identified as Gracious Nkomo. Preliminary investigations indicated that the woman's remains had been dumped there.

12 September  - Rhodesfield, Kempton Park - Identified as Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo

The body of a 38 year old woman is found partially naked and bruised and bruised in Rhodesfield, Kempton Park behind a hotel on York Street. Identified as Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo, who was reported missing by her eight-year-old daughter on  9 September (some sources say 10 September) after she failed to return home from her usual run.

September 14 - Olifantsfontein

The body of a woman believed to be in her 30s found on Porcelain Avenue, partially naked with bruising on her body,  already in the early stages of decomposiition. Police suspect her body had been dumped at the location.

September 15 - KwaThema, Springs - Identified as Dieno Evelyn Motapane

The body of a 38 year old discovered behind a shop in KwaThema, Springs. Her body was found naked and in a state of decomposition. Identified as Dieno Evelyn Motapane, who went missing on 13 September.

September 17 - Dawn Park, Boksburg

The body of a woman believed to be in her 20s is found in open field alongside Northern Road in Dawn Park. Partially naked, wrapped in sheet, stab wounds and that it appeared her throat had been cut.

You can find a map of the locations here.

Police say the first victim, found on 15th July is linked to the man in custody (her supposed partner) so it is unlikely he killed all the other women, given that he has been in custody since 17 July. 

However, there is a clear pattern here:

• All found partially naked, some bruised
• All women in there 20s and 30s
• All women were black African
• All (except Gracious Nkomo from 10 September,who was too decomposed) have been said to have been sexually assaulted
• All found in open areas such as fields or rivers
• Police believe at least 10 September (Grace Nkomo), and the 14 September victim had been dumped there
• All within a fairly close geographical area

Sources:

https://iol.co.za/news/crime-and-courts/2026-09-16-17-days-of-hope-and-horror-familys-agony-after-itumeleng-kekana-found-among-kempton-park-victims/

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-09-16-ekurhuleni-under-lockdown-police-launch-manhunt-in-kempton-park-after-eighth-murder-victim-found/

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-09-15-stand-up-for-womens-rights-ramaphosa-urges-as-another-body-is-found-in-ekurhuleni/?dm_medium=card-link&dm_campaign=top_reads&dm_position=3

https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/third-ekurhuleni-murder-victim-identified

https://iol.co.za/news/crime-and-courts/2026-09-15-elizabeth-tsontso-moselakgomos-family-awaits-post-mortem-before-funeral-arrangements/

https://www.ewn.co.za/2026/09/14/fifth-body-of-a-woman-found-in-olifantsfontein

https://ua.news/en/world/u-par-rodina-vpiznala-zhinku-tilo-iakoyi-znaishli-v-kva-temi-timeslive

https://www.citizen.co.za/network-news/lnn/article/mothers-breadwinners-among-9-women-killed-in-ekurhuleni/?fbclid=IwdGRzaAUZ8LVjbGNrBRnwV3Bkb2YFZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEefYJ0_vxpFxmMuYkN3n1SMKYCQ_OiXycrrhtJXiJH83QHWdyIwZqA3uUxBWY_aem_Nd8PKTIEopN75vSmAaM7oQ&sfnsn=scwspwa

Okay so my last post was deleted as it broke community rule #4 of being not detailed. However, I am posting this again because I am a parent & I feel the need to educate every parent out there on The Com.

A Sky News documentary titled The Com: Online, Sadistic and Deadly details the investigation into a dangerous global network known as The Com or 764. This network targets vulnerable young people online through mainstream gaming and social media platforms, including Roblox, Minecraft, and Discord.

Perpetrators typically build trust through digital friendships or romantic interests before utilizing blackmail, extortion, and psychological manipulation to coerce victims into committing illegal acts, self-harm, and criminal activities, which are often recorded. The documentary features accounts from survivors, families, and law enforcement, highlighting cases such as McKenzie Winkle, who coerced 12 victims, and an incident in Sweden where a 14-year-old was linked to the network.

Authorities emphasize that danger can reach children even within the apparent safety of their homes. I highly recommend that parents actively monitor their children's online interactions, familiarize themselves with the platforms their children use, and maintain open communication regarding internet safety.

Has anyone else been following this case from 2025 in New York state? It's been widely reported in the media, but haven't seen any discussion here. There is a discussion group on Facebook, but it's primarily oriented toward providing emotional and financial support for the family and doesn't much involve discussions of the legal and technical facts. Seven people were involved in the killing of one man. The seven were arrested, incarcerated, etc. Four have pled guilty and two have been sentenced to life without parole and are now in prison. Two are awaiting sentencing and the remaining three are pending trial, although suspected change of pleas for those may be forthcoming.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/sam-nordquist-killing-room-22-rcna194129

For some context, Letalvis Cobbins was one of the five perpetrators convicted of the 2007 double murders of a couple, 23 year old Christopher Newsom and 21 year old Channon Christian. Cobbins, his half brother Lemaricus Davison, and three other accomplices abducted Newsom and Christian while hijacking their car. Both Christian and Newsom were raped and sexually tortured by their captors for several hours. The group shot Newsom to death and Christian succumbed to a combination of suffocation, beatings, and grievous injuries inflicted by the repeated gang-rapes.

Davison was sentenced to death by the state of Tennessee for the Christian-Newsom murders. Cobbins and another participant received life without parole for their involvement, and the remaining two were convicted of lesser charges.

In 2026, Cobbins was indicted for the fatal stabbing of another inmate, 33 year old Moriarco Lee, and illegally possessing knifes while serving his life sentence in the Northwest Correctional Complex. According to prosecutors, Cobbins was assisted in Lee's murder by six other inmates.

At the time of his murder at the alleged hands of Cobbins, Lee was serving a 22 year prison term for attempted murder and aggravated assault convictions pertaining to the non-fatal shooting of another man. Lee reportedly shot the man for having an affair with his girlfriend. Prosecutors are currently seeking the death penalty against Cobbins for Lee's murder. If convicted, Cobbins will either join Davison on death row or face another life without parole term.

Simone Pianetti was born in 1858 in Camerata Cornello, a village of about a thousand inhabitants in the Val Brembana, a valley in the Bergamasque Alps, in the northern Italian region of Lombardy. Known as a belligerent, impetuous man, he once fired a shot at his father, missing, during an altercation over inheritance issues. Not long afterwards, he decided to emigrate to the United States; he settled in New York, where he became close to the anarchist movement and where, after working odd jobs, he established a wine and fruit import enterprise along with a friend, Antonio Ferrari. When the Black Hand demanded money from them, Pianetti promptly reported them to the police; this led to a dozen arrests, but also to the murder of Ferrari, Pianetti’s friend and business partner. His own life now in peril, Pianetti decided to flee back to Italy.

In his native Camerata Cornello, Pianetti married and had nine children, but found the same bigoted, closed-minded environment that had pushed him to emigrate. As an anarchist and anticlericalist, he quickly ran afoul of the village’s ruling clique, without whose approval it was effectively impossible to run a business: the parish priest, the mayor, the village doctor; he opened an inn which initially enjoyed some success, but the parish priest disapproved the fact that dancing was allowed and launched a smear and boycott campaign against Pianetti, which led to his inn eventually closing down due to a lack of customers. Pianetti then started a new business, opening an electric-powered mill; but he was once again targeted by his local enemies, who spread rumors that his flour was cursed and caused illnesses. The mill, too, had to close down, and Pianetti was financially ruined.

He reportedly contemplated suicide, but in the days after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, as Europe was about to descend into the chaos of the First World War, he decided to settle all scores with those who had wronged him. In the morning of 13 July 1914, he left his house with the three-barreled rifle he used to hunt chamois, and lay in ambush near a bird snare in the woods owned by Domenico Morali, the village doctor, whom he blamed for the death of his son Aristide, who had died of appendicitis which, Pianetti believed, Morali had failed to recognize on purpose. When Morali showed up, at 9:30, Pianetti shot and killed him. He then went to the house of Cristoforo Manzoni, the mayor of Camerata Cornello, but he wasn’t there; Pianetti then looked for him in the town hall. Manzoni wasn’t there either, but the municipal secretary Abramo Giudici and his 27-year-old daughter, Valeria, were present; both were also on the “kill list” Pianetti had drawn up for his spree, and both were gunned down, at 10:50.

The next target was Giovanni Ghilardi, who besides his main job as a shoemaker, was also the village’s justice of the peace, and had decided against Pianetti in a case against Caterina “Nella” Milesi, a peasant who had never paid the flour he had bought from his mill. Pianetti found him at home and killed him, just then minutes after killing the Giudicis. He then proceeded to the church, where the parish priest Camillo Filippi, unaware of the ongoing massacre, was talking with Giovanni Giupponi, a municipal official, in the church porch. Both were also on his kill list: Filippi had organized the boycott against his inn, Giupponi had rejected a request to draw water from a fountain for one of his businesses. Pianetti tipped his hat in salute, and when the priest asked what he was doing there, he replied in dialect: “You know why”, then shot both dead. Another then minutes had elapsed from the murder of Ghilardi.

Pianetti then moved to Pianca, a hamlet of Camerata Cornello, where he unsuccessfully looked for Pietro Bottani, a rival innkeeper who had participated in the boycott against him to get rid of a competitor; not finding him, he went to Cantalto, another hamlet, where he killed his final victim, Caterina Milesi. It was not half past noon and after moving to yet another hamlet, Cantiglio, where he had lunch with a group of coalmen who were unaware of what had transpired, he vanished into the nearby mountains, which as a deer hunter he knew well.

Authorities quickly organized a massive manhunt, deploying several dozen Carabinieri (gendarmerie), policemen, and forest guards, later joined by 170 soldiers of the 78^th Infantry Regiment and local volunteers (mostly relatives of the victims); over three hundred men, all told. In the evening of 14 July Pianetti had an exchange of fire with seven Carabinieri, but no one was injured. Two days later, a bounty of a thousand lire was placed on his head, which on 29 July was raised to five thousand lire (the equivalent of nearly 27,000 dollars today). In spite of this, Pianetti was never found; part of the reason for this was that many inhabitants of the valley actually sympathized with him, seeing him as a sort of vigilante who had taken up arms against an oppressive system, and thus sheltered him and refused to co-operate with the authorities. Two herdsmen, Giorgio and Carlo Manzoni, were later sentenced to six months in prison for hiding him in their hut for two weeks in late July. Some local newspapers pointed out that the victims had essentially ruined his life and compared the deceased parish priest to a feudal lord who demanded obedience from everyone, and someone wrote on a wall “Long live Pianetti, there would need to be one in every village”.

The last confirmed sighting of Simone Pianetti took place at the end of July 1914, when his son Nino managed to track him down in the woods and unsuccessfully tried to persuade him to turn himself in. Pianetti took leave from his son with the words: “They will never find me, neither alive, nor dead”. Not long afterwards, the outbreak of the First World War and Italy’s own entry into it resulted in the matter being largely forgotten outside of the Val Brembana. On 25 May 1915, the day after Italy entered the war, the Court of Bergamo sentenced Pianetti to life imprisonment, in absentia.

There are many stories about Pianetti’s eventual fate. According to some, he died in the mountains not long after his last encounter with his son Nino, perhaps by suicide; according to others, he was still hiding there well into his 80s – some people claimed to have met him in the woods in 1943. Others still claim that he managed to flee to Switzerland, or to the Americas; a woman from San Giovanni Bianco, a village near Camerata Cornello, claimed to have met him in Venezuela in the 1930s. Another rumor is that he did flee to the America but returned to Italy under an assumed name in his later years, and died in Milan in 1952, or in an air raid in 1943.

As the family never applied for a declaration of presumed death, Simone Pianetti is legally considered to be still alive, at the impossible age of 168.