Serial Killers, Shootings and Murders

High school sweethearts, Nicholas Kunselman and Stephanie Hart-Grizzell, were students at Columbine High School on the 20th April, 1999, when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold perpetrated the Columbine Massacre. While the duo survived the school shooting, they would be murdered less than a year later.

It was approximately 10PM on the 13th of February, 2000, when Stephanie left her home for the Subway shop just a mile away from Columbine High School. Nicholas was closing up the shop that night and Stephanie went to meet him. Nearly three hours later, an off-duty employee driving past the shop noticed that the lights were still on and went in to investigate. As she approached the shop, a young man walked out that she didn’t recognise. She found 16-year-old Stephanie and 15-year-old Nicholas shot to death.

An investigation uncovered that no money was missing from the till meaning it wasn’t a robbery gone wrong. The girl who discovered the bodies described the man she saw to a composite sketch artist. She described him as being white and around 16 to 20-years-old. She said he was 5 feet 7 inches to 5 feet 8 inches and weighed somewhere between 150 and 170 pounds. He was clean shaven with blondish hair and was wearing blue jeans, tennis shoes, a black baseball cap and a black coat with a red shirt.

The investigation also uncovered that a drug ring was operating from the shop and led to a number of arrests. There was no evidence, however, that either teenager took drugs. There were numerous tips over the forthcoming years and each was scrupulously investigated. Nevertheless, their murders remain unsolved.

Taking photos of your recently-deceased loved ones was a common practice known as post-mortem photography in European and American culture during the 19th and early 20th century. These photos served as keepsakes to help mourning families during their grieving process. In the Victorian era, child morality rates were extremely high, and a post-mortem photograph might have been the only photo of the child the family ever had. 

Wedding rings that were stolen from holocaust victims

The hand of Jonathan Walker. In 1844, he was sentenced as a “slave stealer” after attempting to help seven slaves escape from Florida to the British West Indies in his own boat. After being found guilty, he was branded with the marking “S.S.” which stood for “Slave Stealer.”

When serial killer Richard Ramirez was asked how a woman can avoid becoming a victim of a serial killer, he replied,

‘’There is no set rule, no proof positive, that once you come into contact with a serial killer that you will survive the encounter. There is no assurance of any of that because every individual is different and that same goes for every serial killer. Some serial killers will let you live if you talk to them, if you get to know them, if they get to know you; some serial killers will take pity while others won’t. This not only applies to serial killers but killers in general. Some killers are hellbent on just killing regardless of circumstances or situation. They have made their minds up even before they encounter you and there is no way out of it. The victim is at a disadvantage because she or he does not know the mind of the killer or what he is thinking.’’

Photographs displaying the living yet forever traumatized victims of the McDonald’s massacre that transpired on July 18, 1984 in San Ysidro, California. 21 people were shot dead and 19 others were injured that day, making it one of the deadliest mass shootings to occur in America.

“There’s an accident. There’s, like, little kids. The kid’s not moving. There’s a whole bunch of kids.. Honestly, the car’s smashed,” announced a distressed caller to the Briarcliff Manor, New York, 911 operator on the 26th of July, 2009.

Several hours earlier, 36-year-old Diane Schuler left the Hunter Lake Campground with her 5-year-old son, Bryan and 2-year-old daughter, Erin, as well as her brother’s three daughters, 8-year-old, Emma, 7-year-old, Alyson, and 5-year-old Kate. Diane drove a red minivan while her husband, Danny Schuler, left in a separate car. When Diane departed, both Danny and the campground owner said that she seemed perfectly sober. Two hours after departing, Diane called her brother, Wayne, and told him they were delayed by traffic. Shortly afterwards, a motorist saw Diane at the side of the road; she appeared to be vomiting.

Two hours later, Emma called Wayne from Diane’s phone. She said that “there’s something wrong with aunt Diane.” Her sister’s could be heard crying in the background. She said Diane was disorientated and that she couldn’t see. Wayne told Diane to pull over at the side of the road and said he would come and meet them. After hanging up, for reasons unknown, Diane left her phone at the side of the road, got back into the car, and drove towards the Taconic State Parkway ramps.

At around 1:30PM, the 911 phone calls started to arrive. The first couple relayed that they had seen a red minivan edging onto the northbound ramp. Moments later, a flood of 911 Falls reported a violent collision at milepost 4.2 on the Taconic State Parkway. Diane had driven southbound on the northbound highway for almost 2 miles before smashing head on into an SUV while driving at 85 miles per hour. Inside the SUV was father and son, 81-year-old Michael Bastardi, 49-year-old Guy Bastardi and their friend, 74-year-old Daniel Longo.

Everybody except for 5-year-old Brian died at the scene. The children were not in car seats and were not wearing seat belts.

According to her husband and family, she was a devoted mother who was extremely responsible. People began to question what could have gone wrong? They speculated that Diane could have had a stroke or a heart attack behind a wheel. However, when searching the wreckage, an empty 1.75-litre vodka bottle was discovered. An autopsy concluded that Diane’s blood alcohol level was .19% - the equivalent of 10 shots of 80% liquor. A large quantity of marijuana was also discovered in her system.

Following this revelation, Diane’s husband completely rejected the scientific evidence, claiming Diane was only a social drinker. She would never have drove drunk he contented. Even to this day, he denies Diane was at fault for the fatal crash. This, of course, has disgusted the family members of those who died in the crash. His denial has only caused more heartache. At some point that day, Diane chose to guzzle a bottle of vodka with five children in her car and ultimately, that killed seven innocent people.

The documentary, There’s Something Wrong with Aunt Diane, details the case.

Officers in Rusk County, Texas, were called to the home of 18-year-old Jessica Carson on the 2nd of December, 2008. Carson lived with her 13-month-old daughter, Amora Bain Carson, and her 18-year-old boyfriend, Blaine Milam. They said that they had gone out to look at land to buy and when they returned, Amora was dead.

When police arrived at the scene, they could tell right away that this was no accident. The little girl was covered in human bite marks all over her body - 24, to be exact. She had numerous bruises across her head, some were old and some were new. Furthermore, she suffered from broken ribs and had scratches all over her face. Her liver had been lacerated and she had a broken arm and leg. An autopsy concluded that Amora had been bludgeoned to death; all of the injuries had been inflicted on her whilst still alive. She had extensive bleeding under the scalp along with multiple fractures to her head. Before death, Amora had also been sexually assaulted. Her genitalia and rectum were bruised.

While they initially claimed somebody must have broken in and attacked the toddler, they then tried to claim that she had inflicted the injuries on herself. They went through multiple ludicrous stories before Carson confessed that Milam had murdered her daughter because she was possessed. She said they had been trying to rid her of demons with an exorcism. Milam had earlier been convicted of sexually assaulting a child younger than 10 and was serving a five year probated sentence.

Carson was sentenced to life in prison and Milam was sentenced to death.

On the evening of the 22nd of December, 1981, Bobby and Judy Hinson of Valdese, North Carolina, kissed their 19-year-old daughter, Rhonda Annette Hinson, goodbye as she left their home to attend an office party at the American Legion Hall. “She looked the most beautiful I had ever seen her on that night,” recalled her mother, Judy. Unbeknownst to them, this was the last time they would ever see their daughter alive.

Several hours later, Rhonda’s lifeless body would be discovered less than a mile from her family home. Her body was found in a ditch beside her beige Datsun 210. A high-powered bullet had passed through the rear of her car and struck in her the back, killing her. Rhonda’s last steps were retraced in an attempt to turn up some clues as to who could have committed such an act on Rhonda, who was said to have absolutely no enemies.

After leaving her family home, she drove to a female friend’s house. Leaving her car there, the two friends then drove together in another car to the party at the American Legion Hall. “She was torn about whether to go to the party, but never told us why,” Judy recalled. “Her boyfriend, who was in college at home at the time, didn’t want her to go.” Rhonda had intended on staying overnight at her friend’s home that night but changed her mind for reasons that still remain unknown today. At around midnight, she left her friend’s home and headed towards her own house.

Rhonda was extremely close to her own home when she was shot through her car. The bullet pierced her heart and lung. Her body was found in a ditch beside her car. The pathologist determined that due to her injury, it would have been impossible for her to open the door and exit the car herself. So how did she end up in the ditch and who fired the shot that killed her? The focus has always been on two theories: Was she targeted by somebody she knew or was she the victim of a random - or accidental - shooting? Judy thinks she was targeted while her father believes she was shot accidentally by people messing around with a gun.

As of today, Rhonda’s murder still remains unsolved.

14-year-old Greg Ousley quite often felt an uncontrollable rage build up inside of him and it was something he warned his parents about. Nevertheless, they shrugged it off, telling him he was “watching too many movies.” This nonchalant attitude to their son’s obvious cry for help would soon prove to be deadly - within days, he would kill them both.

It was approximately 23:30 on 23 February, 1993, when Greg calmly walked into his parents’ bedroom, armed with a 12-gauge shotgun. He shot his father once in the head before turning the gun on his mother, who had rushed to the dining room to call for help. She wasn’t quick enough; he fired two shots, killing her. Greg then took the family pickup truck and drove to a friend’s house, where he confessed to what he had just done. He told his friend to keep it quiet and drove back home to plan his next move. At approximately 4:00AM the following morning, he ran to a neighbour’s house, exclaiming that he had just made a ghastly discovery.

He told police that he had been driving around aimlessly and when he returned, he found his murdered parents. It wasn’t long before his story began to crumble, even more so when his trusted friend alerted the police as to what Greg had confessed to him. By the next afternoon, Greg broke down and confessed. He was tried as an adult and pled guilty but mentally ill. He was sentenced to 60 years.

In the twenty years before Albert Einstein died, he very rarely accepted invitations to speak at universities. In 1946, however, he accepted an invitation to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania which was the first school in America to grant college degrees to African American students. 

During his speech, he spoke about his disgust at racism in America. He said that racism is “a disease of white people” adding that he does “not intent to be quiet about it.” And quiet he was not; throughout his life, he open spoke about racial injustice as well as antisemitism. 

36-year-old Johann George Elser, a carpenter, was hugely against Nazi regime and refused to give the Nazi salute once Hitler was in power. He knew that the only way to prevent the onset of a bloody war would be to assassinate Hitler himself. So he spent the next year preparing. Every year on November 8, Hitler would deliver a two-hour speech at the beer hall. Elser managed to secure a job as a carpenter at that same beer hall. Just a few days before Hitler would arrive, he installed a time bomb he had built himself near the speaking podium, set off to detonate halfway through Hitler’s speech. However, things did not go as planned. War had broken out two months before and Hitler had more urgent matters to attend to. Therefore, Hitler began his speech earlier than expected and this one only lasted an hour, as opposed to the usual two hour-long speech. Thirteen minutes after departing, the bomb exploded, killing eight Nazis and injuring more than sixty—and Hitler was not one of them. Johann was apprehended as he tried to escape to Switzerland and was shot to death on April 9th, 1945, in a concentration camp.

A lock of Richard Ramirez’s hair in 1989 signed by Doreen Ramirez. 

The Long Island serial killer is an unidentified murderer who is suspected to have killed up to 17 people over a span of twenty years, dumping their bodies along several remote beach towns. Initially, his MO was dismembering his victims and scattering their remains in different locations. However, as time went on, the killer’s methods have evolved. His most recent victims’ bodies have been found intact and hidden underneath thick brush very close to the roadways, unburied. Police believe the killer has ties to law enforcement, as he has demonstrated an advanced understanding of police procedure. 

The severed head of Henri Landru on display at the Museum of Death, a French serial killer who was executed by the guillotine after being convicted of murdering 11 women between 1915 and 1919. 

‘’I’ve killed so many that I’m unable to remember them all.’’

The most prolific medical serial killer in Norway’s history is a man by the name of Arnfinn Nesset, who was a former nurse and nursing home manager. The home had an alarmingly high number of deaths among its residents since it opened in 1977. Someone had noticed that Arnfinn had been ordering a large amount of Curacit, a poison that South American Indians put on the tip of their arrows. When administered a large dose, it suffocates the person, the poison breaks down their system, making it virtually impossible to detect. It was then speculated that the poison and death rate were somehow correlated. When police questioned Arnfinn about the poison, he claimed he ordered it to put down a dog. However, he was still arrested and charged with 22 counts of murder between 1977 and 1980. Arfinn denied culpability at first, but then confessed he was indeed responsible for all those deaths. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison, but only served 12 years. He has since changed his identity and moved away. 

Karl Denke was perhaps one of the most horrific serial killers in Poland’s history. A cannibal behind closed doors, he owned and operated a rooming house and was well-liked by many of his tenants, who referred to him as ‘’Papa’’. Like many other serial killers such as the BTK Killer, Papa Denke was active in the church. On December 21, 1924, a coachman heard screaming coming from Papa Denke’s rooming. When he ran upstairs to investigate, a young man came staggering down the hall toward him, with blood streaming down his head. Before he blacked out, he blurted that Papa Denke had struck him with an ax. Police were called and Papa Denke was lead out of his house in handcuffs. Upon inspecting his rooming, police found two gigantic tubs in the kitchen filled with meat, a pot containing fat, and human bones. Police determined that about 31 people had been killed between 1921 and 1924 and were in the process of being eaten. Karl seemed to prey on salespeople, beggars, and trumps. Not much else is known about Papa Denke and his killings, because he hanged himself in his prison cell using the suspenders he was known for wearing all the time.