Mass Murderers

My Friendship with Charles Manson Sticky

Oct. 28, 2010

Charles Manson

In 2004, Denise Noe wrote "The Manson Myth" for Crime Magazine, an article debunking the charismatic image of Charles Manson propagated by Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi in the best-selling true crime book of all time, Helter Skelter. Noe wrote that the real life Charles Manson was not some messianic leader gone bad, but a pathetic figure from the beginning. In 2008 she sent her article to Manson. When he responded by calling her collect, an unusual relationship began.

by Denise Noe

I first read Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry when I was in high school. I was fascinated by its portrait of Charles Manson: a mesmerizing and charismatic criminal able to thoroughly dominate a band of fanatical followers. According to that book, Manson was able to convince his followers that a worldwide Armageddon between the black and white races was imminent. He believed that this race war had been prophesied in the Bible and in the Beatles’ White Album. Indeed, Manson supposedly thought the very title of the record was a reference to the coming black-white conflict. The helter-skelter theory was that blacks would kill off the white race – all except for Manson and his followers who would take refuge in a “Bottomless Pit” located in the desert.

According to the helter-skelter theory of which Manson had supposedly completely convinced his followers, Manson and his people would hide out until the race war was finished and blacks were the only ones above ground. Manson was a racist who believed that blacks would be unable to govern themselves and so would turn the reins of power over to him and the other Caucasians who would emerge from the Bottomless Pit. Thus, Charles Manson would become ruler of the world and his followers a class of aristocrats.

The Ethnic Cleansing of Native Americans

April 5, 2013

From George Washington through Ulysses S. Grant, U.S. presidents followed a relentless policy of removing Native Americans from their lands. President Andrew Jackson codified ethnic cleansing into law when he signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830.

by David Robb

In 1830, it was called “The Indian Removal Act.” Today it’s called “ethnic cleansing,” which is considered a crime against humanity by the International Criminal Court. But for nearly 100 years it was the stated policy of every U.S. presidents from Washington to Grant – including Lincoln.

Ethnic cleansing was codified into U.S. law in 1830 when President Andrew Jackson asked Congress to pass the Indian Removal Act. This allowed him to legally relocate all Native Americans who were then living east of the Mississippi to the west side of the river. The result: The Trail of Tears, in which as many as 10,000 Indians died during the forced march westward.

To this day, many Native Americans will not carry $20 bills.

Mass Murder in Newtown and the Battle Over Assault Weapons

Jan. 21, 2013 Revised April 8, 2013

newtown shooting

Newtown students

A month after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, President Obama called for sweeping legislation to stem “the epidemic of violence” confronting the United States. The next day, the National Rifle Association called the President’s proposal to rein in gun violence “the fight of the century.”

by J. Patrick O’Connor

In 2012, the Newtown, Connecticut massacre capped the worst year in U.S. history for mass murderers using high-capacity ammunition clips in assault weapons. Fifty innocent people were gunned down in public places. In April, seven people at Oikos University in Oakland, California were shot to death; in July, 12 people, including a 6-year-old girl, were murdered at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado where another 58 people sustained gunshot wounds; in August, five men and one woman were shot to death at a Sikh Temple outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Three others, including a police officer, suffered gunshot wounds.

All the children murdered at the Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012, were first graders. Seventeen of them were 6 years old and three had recently turned 7. If police and other first responders had not arrived as swiftly as they had, dozens if not scores more of children would have been shot to death. The shooter, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, had several hundred unspent bullets in additional ammunition clips. Instead of committing the second deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history – second only to the 32 people shot to death at Virginia Tech in 2007 – he would have committed the worst. The Hartford Courant reported that Lanza had several news articles in his bedroom about Andres Behring Breivik murdering 77 people, most of whom were teenagers, in Norway in 2011. It is likely his intent was to top that body count.

The 1993 Bombing of the World Trade Center: Unanswered Questions

Jan. 3, 2013

Editor’s Note: The first Al Qaeda attack on the American homeland was the February 26, 1993 bombing at The World Trade Center, a complex owned and operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. This attack killed six people and injured more than a thousand. It also traumatized millions of people in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area.

Even though this was the most destructive bomb attack suffered by American civilians in a time of peace, it took more than 10 years for authorities at all levels of government to admit that America had been attacked by terrorists who were encouraged and protected by foreign nations. It took just as long to admit that the organization that was responsible for 9/11 was also responsible for the 1993 attack.

Patrick Campbell was in the lobby of the North Tower when the bomb exploded in the basement 20 feet below him. A marketing manager for the Port Authority, Campbell describes the chaos that enveloped the Trade Center in the aftermath of the explosion and the many questions that still haunt him about this terrible day.

by Patrick Campbell

At approximately 11:30 a.m., a Ryder van rolled at a leisurely pace northwards on West Street in Lower Manhattan towards the underground parking garage at the World Trade Center, located on West and Vesey streets. Eyad Ismoil was at the wheel and Ramzi Yousef, the terrorist leader, sat beside him. Following the van in a red getaway car was Mohammed Salameh and Mahmud Abouhalima, with Abouhalima at the wheel.

The four men were part of an Al Qaeda terrorist cell based in Jersey City, New Jersey, and they were now completing a mission that they had been working on for the previous five months. Yousef is a nephew of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the Al Qaeda leader who planned the 9/11 attack.

The van entered the World Trade Center parking garage and Abouhalima continued to drive the red getaway car for half a block and then turned right into Vesey Street, which is the northern boundary of the World Trade Center site. Vesey Street is a very wide street and Abouhalima had no problem double parking while he waited for Yousef and Ismoil to emerge from the garage.

The garage seemed empty as the van arrived on the second level below the street [the Basement 2 level], but for a moment Yousef thought they had a problem when he saw a Port Authority van, the same size and color as the Ryder van, parked in the spot previously selected by Yousef to park the Ryder van. However, the Port Authority van suddenly started up and headed off towards the exit, and Ismoil swung the Ryder van in and took its place.

While Ismoil kept an eye out, Yousef lit four fuses, three of which were back-ups in case the first one failed, and then he closed and locked the back of the van, while Ismoil locked the front doors, and both then strolled across the garage to the elevators servicing the North Tower lobby. When they arrived in the lobby they exited through the West Street entrance and within four minute of lighting the fuse they were in Abouhalima’s getaway car and were speeding away from the World Trade Center. The fuse would burn for another seven minutes and then the bomb would explode. By this time, the terrorists were in the Holland Tunnel on their way to Jersey City.

The Beverly Hills Supper Club: The Untold Story Behind Kentucky’s Worst Tragedy

Dec. 31, 2012

An excerpt from The Beverly Hills Supper Club: The Untold Story Behind Kentucky’s Worst Tragedy by Robert D. Webster. This is the true untold story of what led to Kentucky’s worst tragedy – a story of greed, corruption, deceit, mafia rule, government cover-ups, kidnapping, and even murder. In fact, this book details what should now be considered as the worst case of mass murder in United States history.

by Robert D. Webster

Introduction

It seems to me it was a Wednesday night. I may be wrong, but I think that’s when I received a telephone call that persuaded me to begin a project that would completely consume the next five years of my life. The man introduced himself as David Brock, but I certainly didn’t know who he was. In search of an author, he had been given my name and telephone number by the staff at the Kenton County Public Library in Covington. I had written two other books and dozens of smaller articles on local history, and he was told that I might be the person to talk to. Before 30 seconds had elapsed in the call, he posed his simple question: “Would you be interested in writing another book?”

Thoughts quickly went through my mind, “Oh my gosh. If I start yet another book and spend more countless hours locked in my office, my wife’s going to leave me.” I had just finished a book detailing the history of the many movie theaters that had once graced the streets of our Northern Kentucky neighborhoods. In fact, my office was still filled with clutter left behind after months of necessary research for the publication. I had to admit, however, I was more than a little curious as to the topic. I had always been interested in local history and maybe this gentleman had a good idea. I asked, “What about?” His reply: “The Beverly Hills Supper Club fire.”

At first, I thought I had dodged a bullet. While I didn’t know everything there was to know about the fire, I certainly knew there had already been quite a lot written on the subject. The story was more than 30 years old, yet it was a topic that remained extremely familiar to residents throughout the region. Also, there had been very little written about the club’s early history and that greatly intrigued me. The place was a speakeasy in the 1920s, serving illegal alcohol during the Prohibition era. From the late 1930s to the early 1960s, it was one of the largest illegal gambling casinos in the entire Midwest – owned and operated by members of the Cleveland syndicate. A concise account of the club’s entire history might prove to be a great seller. However, the Beverly Hills Supper Club is best known for one particular event.

The Worst School Massacre

Dec. 18, 2012

Bath School Massacre

The worst school massacre in U.S. history took place in 1927 in the little town of Bath, Michigan where 38 students, two teachers and two rescuers were murdered and 53 others seriously injured.

by David Robb

The worst school massacre in U.S. history was not Virginia Tech, where in 2007 a gunman killed 32 people and wounded 18 others; it was not Columbine High School, where in 1999 two teenagers shot and killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 21 others; and sadly, it was not Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012, where another mass murderer killed 20 children and six adults.

The worst school massacre in U.S. history took place in 1927 in the little town of Bath, Michigan, when Andrew Kehoe blew up part of a school and his own car, killing 37 students, two teachers and two rescuers – and seriously injuring 58 others, including two students who would die later from their injuries. If the 400 pounds of dynamite Kehoe had placed at the other end of the school’s basement had detonated as planned, the bombing could have killed far more of the 275 students and 12 teachers in the school that day.

Today, Kehoe’s heinous crime is all but forgotten.

Mass Murder the American Way

July 25, 2012 Updated January 26, 2013 and March 13, 2013

The Century 16 theater in Aurora CO

The mass murder in Aurora, Colorado was as senseless and as inevitable as any of the mass murders that preceded it. In the United States it is only a matter of time and place when the next gunman with a semi-automatic weapon murders innocent people in cold blood.

by J. Patrick O’Connor

Update: Judge William Slyvester declined to grant James Holmes a delay in arraigning him on March 12, 2013 in state court in Centennial, Colorado. Holmes’s public defender, Daniel King, had requested a delay to allow the defense more time to weigh the consequences of his client entering a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Instead, the judge went forward with the arraignment and entered a plea of not guilty for the 25-year-old Holmes.

Holmes faces numerous felony counts for his alleged assault with semi-automatic weapons at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado on July 20, 2012 that left 12 people dead and 58 others wounded.

Judge Sylvester said the defense would have the opportunity to change the plea before the trial begins. The judge set the trial date at August 5, 2013. Prosecutors estimate that the trial will last about a month.

In the event Holmes does enter an insanity plea, he would be sent to a state hospital for mental evaluation. In court documents, the judge wrote that if Holmes cooperated with state examiners he would be allowed to be examined by doctors of his own choosing, at government expense.

The midnight premiere of the Batman sequel, The Dark Knight Rises, had been playing for about 18 minutes to a sold-out house in Theater 9 at the Century 16 movie complex in Aurora, Colo., on July 20, 2012. At 12:38 a.m. a commado figure casually entered through an emergency exit door to the audience’s right and took up his position at the front of the theater. Dressed head-to-toe in combat gear that included a gas mask, helmet, a throat protector, a bullet-proof vest and leggings, a groin protector, black gloves, and a long black coat, the man said, “I am the Joker.” Some in the audience thought the figure in black was part of the premier’s promotion – that it was all just some sort of stunt.

The Dark Knight Rises was the final film in director Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy that launched with Batman Begins in 2005 and was followed by The Dark Knight in 2008. As USA Today reported on July 23, “Some fans already considered the trilogy cursed because of Heath Ledger’s death by accidental overdose. Ledger, who played The Joker in The Dark Knight, died months before its premiere.”

The erstwhile Joker then hurled a smoke canister into the middle of the 11th row of the theater, striking a woman there. He then fired a single blast from a .12-guage, pump-action Remington shotgun into the ceiling. As the smoke canister fell to the ground, it began spinning and then exploded, spewing gas into the air and causing panic to grip the stunned audience. Another smoke canister was soon released. As people stood in the middle rows to get away from the noxious gases, the man began rapidly spraying the front rows of the theater with bullets fired from an AR-15 assault rifle equipped with a 100-round barrel magazine capable of firing 50 rounds a minute. This caused most of the audience to huddle on the floor, some using their bodies as human shields to protect loved ones. The gunman then walked up the stairs and began firing into the audience in the middle portion of the theater. As the shooter climbed higher into the theater, some of the people in the front rows attempted to exit the theater up the opposite corridor. The gunman responded by unleashing a hail of bullets that prevented them from getting to the exit and that forced them to retreat back down toward the front of the theater. When the semi-automatic rifle jammed after discharging over 70 shells, the gunman began firing a .40 caliber Glock handgun. Finally, silence engulfed the theater.