Raymond Clark III
On March 17, 2011, Raymond Clark, a former animal research assistant at Yale University, pleads guilty to the murder and attempted sexual assault of graduate student Annie Le. On September 13, 2009, Le’s partially decomposed body was found stuffed behind a wall in the university research building where she was last seen five days earlier.
On March 15, 44 B.C., Julius Caesar was stabbed to death at a meeting hall next to the Pompey’s theatre by 60 conspirators led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus. Caesar was scheduled to leave Rome on March 18 and had appointed loyal members of his army to rule the Empire in his absence. The Republican senators, already chafing at having to abide by Caesar's decrees, were particularly angry about the prospect of taking orders from Caesar's subordinates. Cassius Longinus initiated the plot against the dictator, quickly getting his brother-in-law Marcus Brutus to join.
On March 14, 1950, the Federal Bureau of Investigation introduces the "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" list in an effort to publicize particularly dangerous fugitives. The creation of the program arose out of a wire service news story in 1949 about the "toughest guys" the FBI wanted to capture. The story drew so much public attention that the "Ten Most Wanted" list was given the okay by J. Edgar Hoover the following year.
On March 1, 1692, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba, an Indian slave from Barbados, are charged with practicing witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. Later that same day, Tituba, possibly under coercion, confessed to the crime, encouraging the authorities to seek out more Salem witches. Trouble in the Puritan community began the month before, when nine-year-old Elizabeth Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams, the daughter and niece, respectively, of the Reverend Samuel Parris, began experiencing fits and other mysterious maladies.
David Koresh
On February 28, 1993, Federal agents raid the Branch Davidian cult compound in Waco, Texas, prompting a gun battle in which four agents and six cult members are killed. They were attempting to arrest the leader of the Branch Davidians, David Koresh, on information that the religious sect was stockpiling weapons. A nearly two-month standoff ensued after the unsuccessful raid.
On February 27, 1991, pornographer Artie Mitchell was shot to death by his brother Jim at his Marin County, California, home. When police responding to a 911 call by Artie's girlfriend arrived at the house they found Jim wandering aimlessly outside carrying a .22 rifle. Artie had been shot multiple times in the chest and head and was already dead.
On February 26, 1993, a bomb explodes in the parking garage beneath the World Trade Center in New York City. Six people died and 1,000 were injured by the powerful blast, which also caused the evacuation of thousands of people from the Twin Towers.
On the night of November 29, 1988, near the impoverished Marlborough neighborhood in south Kansas City, an explosion at a construction site killed six of the city’s firefighters. It was a clear case of arson, and five people from Marlborough were duly convicted of the crime. But for veteran crime writer and crusading editor J. Patrick O’Connor, the facts—or a lack of them—didn’t add up. Justice on Fire is OConnor’s detailed account of the terrible explosion that led to the firefighters’ deaths and the terrible injustice that followed. Also available from Amazon
