k0710 The jury’s verdict was delivered one line at a time, each one a sentence of death. Six times, the panel agreed that Cleopus Emanuel Cookie Jr. should be executed for the lives he took. Two more counts, the killings of his own mother and stepfather, were left undecided, the jury deadlocked on those charges. The … Read more
The execution chamber in Huntsville, Texas fell silent at 6:17 p. m. on March 6, 2007, as Robert Anthony Martinez Perez was pronounced dead, ending the life of a man federal prosecutors had identified as a general inside the Texas Mexican Mafia, one of the state’s most feared prison gangs. Perez, 48, became the seventh … Read more
A woman from a small Texas town vanished from her life without warning, and for nearly two decades, the truth behind her brutal murder remained buried beneath a web of false leads, mistaken suspects, and a killer who blended into the fabric of her closest circle. Susan Atkins, a quiet and deeply religious 30-year-old factory … Read more
RALEIGH, North Carolina — In the predawn darkness of November 2, 1984, Margie Velma Barfield, a 52-year-old grandmother who had confessed to poisoning four people including her own mother, became the first woman executed in the United States in 22 years, her death by lethal injection at Central Prison marking the end of a journey … Read more
The lush, sun-drenched paradise of Oahu, Hawaii, a haven of turquoise waters and swaying palm trees, harbored a darkness so profound that it would forever alter the identity of the island. For a harrowing stretch in the mid-1980s, a predator moved through the beaches and highways of Honolulu with terrifying precision, snatching women from their … Read more
In der Nacht auf den 14. Juli 2014 wurde Deutschland zum vierten Mal Fußballweltmeister, im Spiel gegen Argentinien, 1:0 in der 113. Minute. In derselben Nacht tötete Alexander Radke* (alle Namen mit * geändert) einen ihm fremden Mann, stach immer wieder auf eine ihm ebenso fremde junge Frau ein, und bis heute weiß niemand, warum. … Read more
Two years after finally being identified, the “Boy in the Box” case continues to haunt Philadelphia. The slain body of Joseph Augustus Zarelli, 4, was discovered in February 1957 in Philadelphia’s Fox Chase neighborhood. He was naked, severely beaten and stuffed into a cardboard box. The case received substantial publicity, but for 65 years the … Read more
A tragic event 45 years ago led to John Walsh hosting America’s Most Wanted. In July 1981, John’s 6-year-old son Adam Walsh vanished from a Sears department store in Hollywood, Fla. Devastated, John and his wife Revé Walsh desperately searched for answers in their son’s disappearance. Two weeks after Adam disappeared, the young boy’s severed … Read more
Three years after Dee Warner went missing, she was found dead in a fertilizer tank on the Michigan farm she shared with her husband, Dale Warner. After marrying in 2006, Dee and Dale welcomed a daughter and co-parented their eight other children from previous relationships. They lived on their farm in Michigan, running farming and … Read more
Twenty-nine years have passed since 21-year-old Richard “Ricky” Cowles Jr. was found beaten and shot inside his Lancaster, Calif., apartment in August 1997. The decades-old murder case was revisited in a 2023 Dateline investigation, which examined how authorities came to believe that Cowles’ pregnant 16-year-old girlfriend, Amy Preasmyer, had orchestrated his killing. Police initially arrested … Read more