Morbid Reality

Richard Ramirez’s siblings were frequent drug users, and he would soon follow in their footsteps, smoking pot steadily from the time he was ten. At the age of 13, after witnessing Mike shoot his wife, he began experimenting with hallucinogens such as LSD, magic mushrooms, and peyote. High, he’d go out to the desert at night and hunt, imagining that he was in touch with Satan. The first year he moved to L.A., Richard became addicted to cocaine, or as he liked to call it, ‘’the devil’s dandruff’’. When author Philip Carlo asked Richard what he would compare the sense of pleasure cocaine gave him to, he replied, ‘’There is nothing…to me, anyway, that comes near it.’’ Richard described the powdered drug as an intense euphoric heat, a rush, a light tingling that goes to the brain. 

‘’I lived a dangerous life. Stealing cars, I could have been shot. Robbing people, I could have been killed. Nothing in existence holds any terror for me. When I was sentenced to death, it didn’t hold anything for me.’’ 

–Richard Ramirez

Theresa Knorr was a California woman convicted of murdering two of her children and using the remaining four to help her cover up her crimes. In 1982, Theresa became convinced that one of her daughters, Suesan, was casting spells on her to cause her to gain weight. Suesan denied this, so she became livid and shot her in the back. Suesan survived the attack, her mother refusing to let her seek medical attention so the bullet remained lodged in her back. Two years later, fed up with the abuse of her mother, Suesan decided to move out. Theresa first wanted to remove the bullet from Suesan’s back just in case she ever decided to report the abuse. Suesan agreed to this, and Theresa had her son remove the bullet with a knife after giving her an anesthetic. However, Suesan awoke in immense agony, and the pain worsened by the day. Theresa got two of her sons to tie her up, toss her in the trunk, and drive her to Squaw Valley. There, they laid her out on the side of the road. Theresa then doused her still-alive daughter with gasoline and lit her on fire. Her smoldering body was found the following day. 

Following Suesan’s death, Theresa began directing her abuse at her other daughter, Sheila. She forced her into prostitution in order to help financially support the family. After a few weeks, Theresa accused Sheila of being pregnant and contracting an STD which she claims she caught from Sheila via the toilet seat. Sheila denied this, so Teresa beat her, hog tied her, and locked her in a closet, forbidding her other kids from feeding her or opening the closet. Shelia eventually died of dehydration and starvation. Theresa was eventually caught and given two life sentences, which she continues to serve out to this day. 

Henri Landru was a French serial killer in the 20th century who had a victim count of 11 under his belt. In 1915, Henri began placing ads in the lonely hearts section in Paris newspapers, usually something along the lines of  ‘’Widower with two children, aged 43, with comfortable income, serious and moving in good society, desires to meet widow with a view to matrimony. ’’ Many women eagerly responded to his ads and they would move in with him in his rented villas. After a short amount of time, Henri would kill his victims and burn their remains in his oven. Afterward, he sold their securities and possessions. Eventually, in 1919, the sister of one of his victims, who was on a mission to track down her missing sibling, pushed for police to arrest Henri. When they searched his house, they found many valuables that belonged to the missing women. Henri was found guilty at his trial and met the guillotine on February 23, 1922. His severed head is now showcased in the Museum of Death.

The Walker family murders refers to the infamous 1959 slayings of two parents and two children which took place in Florida. It is believed that the mother, 24-year-old Christine Walker arrived at the family barn at noon where she was raped and shot by an unknown killer. Her husband thereafter walked into the barn where he was killed by gunshot as well. The killer then shot their two children and drowned the youngest one, just shy of her second birthday, in a bathtub. The killer left several traces behind including a bloody cowboy boot, a cellophane strip from a Kools Cigarettewrapper, and a fingerprint on the bathtub faucet handle. 587 people were considered suspects at one time or another, but to this day, the case remains open. 

Between 1966 and 1967, serial killer Janie Lou Gibbs killed a total of five people–her three sons, her grandson, and her very own husband, by poisoning them with rat poison in Cordele, Georgia. Their deaths were initially attributed to liver disease, but after her oldest son died in the exact same fashion as his father and brothers, Janie was pinned as the murderer. She was arrested on Christmas Eve of 1967 and was given five life sentences. She died in prison in 2010 at the age of 77. 

On the morning of April 10, 2001, Robert William Fisher, a surgical catheter technician, shot his wife in the back of the head and slashed his children’s throats from ear-to-ear before pouring accelerant over the victim’s bodies, which caused their Arizona home to explode. It is unclear as to what Robert’s motive may have been or if he suffered from any mental illness, although witnesses claim to have heard arguing in their home hours prior to the killings. Robert is still on the loose and was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list in 2002.   

On February 2, 2009, a woman walking her dog came across what appeared to be a human bone in the desert on the West Mesa of Albuquerque, New Mexico. As soon as she reported it to police, investigators took immediate action. As a result, authorities unburied the remains of 11 women as well as an infant in the desert area. Most of these women were young, Hispanic, and connected to drugs and prostitution. The culprit behind the West Mesa murders has never been identified, and authorities believe that a serial killer may be responsible. 

The backpacker murders were a string of serial killings that took place in New South Wales, Australia, starting in the late 80s. The bodies of young hitchhikers, some male and some female, were discovered partly buried in the Belanglo State Forest. The mystery killer had murdered his victims by shooting or frenzy stabbing–one of the victims had even been decapitated with some kind of machete or sword. Police suspected they had a serial killer on their hands and launched search groups to comb through the forest and the area around it. In the end, they stumbled upon a total of seven killings. What struck them as peculiar was the fact that a small brick fireplace could be found at each murder site. Police accumulated a list of suspects and brought them to the station. A man named Paul Onions, who had managed to escape the notorious Backpack Murder in 1990, flew to Australia and was shown a video lineup. He identified Ivan Milat as the man who tried to kill him. Police investigated Ivan and eventually gathered enough evidence to tie him to the murders. Ivan plead not-guilty, but in the end received six life sentences. 

Between 1979 and 1981, in the city of Atlanta, over twenty African American children had mysteriously disappeared and their bodies would later pop up in various areas of the city. It appeared that most of these boys had been strangled to death. Police initially were in denial that a serial killer was on the loose, but as more bodies were showing up, they had no choice but to investigate it. The case became known as the Atlanta Child Murders. In 1981, the murders continued, but then the killer did something that is rare for a serial killer–he changed his MO and stopped killing kids, now moving on to African American adults. Police started surveillance on a bridge over the Chattahoochee River where many of the victims’ bodies were pulled from. After hearing a splash, police intercepted an African American named Wayne Williams in his car and took him in for questioning. Since they had no evidence that tied him to the murders, though, they set him free. However, he remained a suspect, and upon further investigation, carpet fibers and dog hairs from William’s home and car were found on victims. Police also found blood stains in his car. Wayne Williams was arrested, convicted of murder, and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. To this day, he maintains his innocence, insisting that the Ku Klux Klan had framed him. 

Different types of fingerprint patterns.

On March 26th, 2018, an SUV containing a family of eight veered off a cliff in Mendocino County, California, plunging 100 feet into the Pacific ocean and killing everybody inside. The victims of this horrific accident were identified as Jennifer Hart, the driver, along with her wife, Sarah, and their six adopted children: Ciera (aged 12), Abigail (aged 14), Jeremiah (aged 14), Devonte (aged 15), Hannah (aged 16), and Markis (19). To all those who knew the Hart family, whether directly or indirectly, this was a tragic accident. Jennifer and Sarah, who were very public with their children on social media, often sharing their views on politics and social injustice, were the poster women for a modern-day progressive family. After years of being in the closet, the two finally came out in 2004 and got married in 2009. Just before they got married, they adopted six African American children from Texas. In 2014, a photo went viral of Devonte tearfully embracing a police officer during a BLM protest being held in Portland, Oregon, following the police shooting of Michael Brown. The photo was nationally dubbed “the hug felt ‘round the world”.

After most of the Harts’ bodies were recovered, the coroner discovered that Jennifer was drunk at the wheel, and Sarah and three of the children had a toxic amounts of diphenhydramine in their systems. The police also found incriminating google searches made from Sarah’s phone just before the family began their trip, such as, How easily can I overdose on over the counter medications? and Can 500mg of Benadryl kill a 125lb woman?, and How long does it take to die from hypothermia while drowning in a car? It became very clear to police that this was not, in fact, an accident. Their deaths were ruled a murder–suicide. Police and the public began peering picking apart the façade of this supposedly perfect, happy, progressive family to find out what events led to the tragedy. It was soon discovered that the Harts had a history of child abuse and neglect documented by CPS, dating all the way back to 2008. The children were reportedly beaten with belts and starved on a regular basis. They were also not allowed to wish each other a happy birthday, laugh at the dinner table, or speak without raising their hand first. When school officials would catch on to the abuse, the Harts began homeschooling their children and relocating to new states to distance themselves from the abuse allegations. In 2017, Hannah escaped from her house and ran to her next-door neighbours, pleading for them to help. Around this time, Devonte began begging these same neighbours for food, revealing that their parents abuse them and withhold food. The neighbours reported the Harts to the authorities and CPS. CPS attempted to contact the Harts but nobody answered the door. The following morning, on what would be the last day of their lives, the Harts loaded all of their children into their SUV and drove off with them. They did not bring luggage, toothbrushes, or even lock their doors. Cruising down California State Route 1, they eventually parked at the top of a cliff overlooking the ocean and milled about for four hours before driving over the cliff, ending all their lives.

After 29-year-old Keith Dardeen failed to show up for his shift on November 18th, 1987, and repeated attempts to contact him via phone went unanswered, his supervisor took it upon himself to phone Keith’s parents. Keith’s father, Don Dardeen, phoned the police to do a wellness check at his his son’s mobile home in the small town of Ina, Illinois, where he lived with his pregnant wife, Elaine (aged 30), and their toddler, Peter. Don himself had a spare key and agreed to meet with the deputies there and grant them access into the home. Once they did enter the home, however, they walked into one of the most gruesome scenes that no father should ever have to witness. Tucked into bed was Elaine and her son, Peter. Both had been bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat. Elaine herself was gagged and bound. She had been battered so severely that she went into labor, giving birth to a baby girl that was also killed. There was no sign of Keith anywhere, nor his vehicle. It was reasonably presumed that he was responsible for these murders. A manhunt ensued, which ended the next day when Keith was found–but not alive. Discovered in a wheatfield not far from his home, he, too, had met a similar fate as his wife and two children, being shot three times and having his penis severed. Police eventually located his blood-splattered vehicle, which was parked right in front of the Benton Police Station. It was also concluded from the autopsy that the murders of Keith and his wife and children occurred within the same hour.

Investigators struggled to find a motive for these brutal slayings. They ruled out the possibility of an extramarital affair or involvement in any sort of drug crimes. There were no signs of forced entry or a robbery, as cash and jewelry were laid out in the open. The police do believe that whoever was culprit, they had purposely targeted the Dardeens. After tracking down over 1000 leads, the police turned up empty and the case went cold. That was until Tommy Lynn Sells was arrested in 1999 for killing a 13-year-old girl. He claimed to have a whopping 70 murders under his belt, including that of the Dardeens. Initially, the details he shared about the case were inconsistent, but then he began revealing information that was never revealed to the public, including a set of watermelon ceramics that was in their home. Eventually, Sells claimed that Keith was involved in a massive drug conspiracy trial. No further details were ever unveiled, and Tommy was never charged for the Dardeen murders. Some are skeptical as to whether he is the true killer, including relatives of the Dardeens. The perpetrator(s) of this horrific familicide is still at large.

12-year-old Lynne Harper came from a Canadian Air Force family and was used to frequently relocating all across the map in Canada. In the summer of 1957, the family settled into the Permanent Married Quarters–the PMQ, as many called them–in RCAF Station Clinton, which was once an air force base south of Clinton, Ontario, roughly 20 kilometres away from Lake Huron. All of the kids living on base attended the same school, swam in the same RCAF pool, and frolicked at the same playground. 

On June 9th, 1957, Lynne came home for dinner and asked her parents if either one of them could take her to the local RCAF pool. All children were required to be accompanied by an adult when attending the pool for a swim. However, both of them objected, causing much of a fuss on Lynne’s end. Lynne left to go to the pool by herself, but was turned away by the pool’s supervisor. She then returned home and begrudgingly helped with some chores before leaving  the house again without telling anyone where she was going. 

Lynne found herself at the local playground, where she approached 14-year-old Steven Truscott. The two were classmates but never really interacted. Steven was your average 8th grader who was physically active and never got himself into trouble. Lynne asked if he could give her a lift on his bike to Highway 8, and he agreed to do so. On the way there, Lynne mentioned her intention to visit Mr. Lawson’s barn on Highway 8 to see the ponies. 

As per her request, he dropped Lynne off at the intersection of a country road and Highway 8. On the way back to Clinton, Steven would later claim he looked over his shoulder to see Lynne getting into a mysterious vehicle. 

Lynne never came home that night. The next morning, she was still missing. Lynne’s parents notified police and an investigation ensued. On June 11, two days after Lynne’s disappearance, her body was found close to a bush on Lawson’s property. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled with her own blouse. 

The following day, Steven was arrested for her murder, as he was the last person to be seen with her. During the trial, the defense and Crown brought on many witnesses, plenty of which were children. One female classmate claimed that Steven had repeatedly invited her to meet him at Lawson’s barn. When she finally went there, he never showed up. The following day at school, she confronted him about it, and he responded by shrugging his shoulders. 

The defense and Crown argued endlessly about the timeline of the murder. But ultimately, Steven was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging, making him the youngest person in Canada to face execution. 

Steven has maintained his innocence for years and believed he was given an unfair trial. Many people advocated on his behalf and fought for his conviction to be overturned. In 1960, Steven’s death sentence was commuted to a life sentence. In 2007, his conviction was overturned and he was exonerated as it was argued that the forensic evidence presented at his trial was weak and circumstantial. 

To this day, Lynne Harper’s death remains unsolved, with Canadians divided on their beliefs about whether Steven was truly the culprit. 

On July 14th, 2019, the murder of a teenage girl would become viral all over the internet due to the sheer brutality of her death. Bianca Devins was a 17-year-old from Utica, NY. She struggled with her mental health for several years and was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. She sought comfort in the online world of 4chan and discord, which ended up becoming even more toxic for her mental health as she was being groomed by much older men on these platforms.

In 2019, Bianca hit a huge milestone in her life when she graduated from high school and was preparing to go to college to study psychology. But that next milestone in her life would be taken from her on July 14th, 2019. On July 13th, Bianca Devins attended a concert in NYC with 21-year-old Brandon Clark, an older boy she had met four months back on Instagram and had developed a sexual relationship with him. During the concert, Brandon inadvertently witnessed Bianca kissing another boy. During the car ride home early next morning, Brandon suddenly pulled over and confronted Bianca about the kiss. Unbeknownst to her, he was filming the entire interaction. Bianca apologized for the kiss and reminded him that they are not exclusive and that she only saw him as a friend.

This only angered Brandon more, after which he struck her across the face. Bianca threatened to leave the car if he did not bring her home. Brandon responded by brutally stabbing her with a knife he had hidden in the car and slitting her throat–all of which was captured on video. After killing her, he took a couple of photos of her dead body and began posted them on Discord.

He then got out of the car and called 911 and told them, ‘’My name is Brandon, the victim is Bianca Michelle Devins, I’m not going to stay on the phone for long, because I still need to do the suicide part of the murder-suicide.’’

When they arrived at the scene, they spotted Bianca’s body covered by tarp on the road. Brandon then tried to slit his throat in front of the responding officers but was subdued and brought to the hospital, where he survived his injuries.

On the day of the concert, Brandon changed his Instagram bio to display his date of death and had googled how to find the carotid artery and how to incapacitate someone, suggesting the murder was premeditated all along. Brandon was said to have an obsession with murder-suicide cases, and seemed to want to be apart of one with Bianca. When the news of Bianca’s death was broadcast, online trolls began plastering images of her mangled corpse all over social media and even tauntingly shared them with Bianca’s family, stating that she deserved what happened to her. On March 16, 2021, Clark was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

Chandler Halderson, 23, seemed to have a bright future ahead of him. At such a young age, he had already accomplished tremendous milestones. A recent college graduate in IT, he worked remotely from home for a local insurance company. He was also on the police suba diving team and, even more impressively, recently landed a job at Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX. Suffice to say–Chandler’s parents, Bart and Krista Halderson, were exceptionally proud of their son.

As of June 2021, Chandler was still living at his parents’ home in Windsor, Wisconsin. He planned to move to Florida with his girlfriend soon in order to accept the job at SpaceX, but something hindered that monumental move–a nasty fall down the stairs, in which he sustained a concussion and neck injury which required him to wear a neckbrace. The doctors warned Chandler that he may need brain surgery if his symptoms worsened and discouraged him from long-distance travel until he fully recovered. Due to this, he had to cancel his move to Florida, and tragically lost his position at SpaceX as a result.

But Chandler’s parents began having suspicions. Their son worked long, hard hours at his online insurance company job, yet he never seemed to have money. Chandler always had an excuse as to why he wasn’t being paid–once claiming there was a glitch with the payroll software. He showed his father email exchanges with his employer as proof. Chandler was also exchanging emails with his school’s administrators,  Alyssa Brandt and Daniel Speith, regarding his diploma and transcripts he was trying to obtain. 

Bart’s suspicions only began growing from these emails. He took it upon himself to call Madison College, where his son graduated. Speaking directly with the enrollment coordinator, he identified himself as Chandler Halderson and explained he was trying to request his diploma and transcripts. He told the coordinator he previously exchanged emails with Alyssa Brandt and Daniel Speith regarding the issue. The coordinator did not recognize either of those names. To add to the confusion, he was told that he never graduated and had flunked out of college in the fall of 2020, still owing $2000 in tuition. 

After the phone call, Bart told Chandler he set up an appointment with school officials on July 1st to get to the bottom of everything, not telling him what he had just discovered over the phone.

Chandler knew his web of lies were about to be unraveled. Because it was true–he never completed his degree. Nor did he have a job lined up for him at SpaceX. Nor was he a volunteer for the police scuba diving team–such a thing didn’t even exist! Nor did he have an online job with an insurance company–that was just an excuse for him to stay at home playing video games all day. Those email exchanges with school officials and his employers were all fake. And his head injury? Also a sham.

When July 1st rolled around, Bart sent Chandler a text right before the appointment reading, I’m ready when you are. But this would be the last anyone’s ever heard from Bart. Chandler ended up shooting his father. When his mother returned home from work a few hours later, she met the same fate (it is not exactly known how she was killed). He then dismembered his parents’ bodies and attempted to burn their remains in the home fireplace. He then scattered his father’s remains around the property of a farm owned by his girlfriend’s family. He disposed of his mother’s remains in the forest by the Wisconsin River. 

Chandler reported his parents missing on July 7th, telling police they went up north to their cabin for the Fourth of July and never returned. Chandler was eventually caught in his lies and arrested for the murder of his parents and was sentenced to life in prison.

It was New Year’s Eve of 2018 and Tyrone Hassel III, aged 23, who was an army sergeant, was spending it with his family in Benton Harbour, MI, where he grew up. He and his wife, Kemia Hassel, 22, had just completed an 8 month deployment in South Korea. Together, they shared a 1-year-old son. The family was stationed at Fort Stewart in Georgia, but made the drive over to Benton Harbour to spend the holidays with Tyrone’s family, crashing at his father’s house. 

Sergeant Hassel went to spend the evening with some relatives where they cooked dinner for New Year’s Eve while his wife stayed behind at Tyrone’s father’s house with their son. Shortly before 11 PM, Tyrone’s father, Hassel Jr., prepared a plate for Tyrone to bring to wife back at the house. Hassel Jr. implored his son to make it back to the family gathering before midnight. Within minutes of leaving the house, Hassel Jr. received a phone call from a very distraught Kemia, who claimed Tyrone had just been shot in their driveway. 

Police quickly arrived at the scene, where they found Kemia sobbing and grasping her husband who had been shot multiple times and was barely clinging onto life. She explained to police that Tyrone had just arrived to deliver some food and he had barely made it back to his parked truck when she heard gunshots. It was clear Tyrone was brutally executed by somebody who intended to target him, only nobody could think of even one suspect. Tyrone didn’t have bad blood with anybody. He was well-respected by all who knew him. 

Police received a tip from an elderly couple that lived just one block over from the Hassel home. They claimed they witnessed a strange vehicle parked across the street at a vacant home with a for-sale sign. They saw a man dressed in all black exit the vehicle and head toward the street where the Hassels lived. Minutes later, they heard 6 gunshots. When they peeped outside their window once again, the suspicious vehicle was gone. 

Police received an additional tip about a week into the investigation. The woman claimed she overheard rumors that Kemia had a secret affair with a fellow soldier who was in the same unit as Kemia and Tyrone, although she didn’t know this soldier’s name. Police later learned the man was 24-year-old Jeremy Cuellar. Immediately, they brought Kemia in for questioning, where they got her to confess her role in her husband’s death. She admitted that her affair with Jeremy began while the three of them were deployed in South Korea. They began plotting Tyrone’s death so that they could be together, communicating mostly via Snapchat to ensure the messages would be erased. Part of why she wanted him dead was so she could receive Tyrone’s $400,000 life insurance. 

The suspicous vehicle that was parked in the neighbourhood was confirmed to belong to Jeremy. He drove to Michigan several times to assassinate Tyrone but kept getting cold feet. Eventually, he seized the perfect opportunity to get the job done when Kemia alerted him that Tyrone was going to be arriving at the house alone to bring her dinner. That’s when Jeremy ambushed Tyrone in the driveway. 

Both were arrested in their involvement in Sergeant Tyrone’s murder. Tyrone’s father visited Jeremy in jail where Jeremy confessed to murdering Tyrone. Even more surprising, he revealed that his affair with Kemia began even before their deployment in South Korea. 

Jeremy pleaded guilty to first-degree murder; Kemia pleaded not guilty, but was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.